Ahkam al-Siyam wal-Qiyam wa Zakat al-Fitr
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Ahkam al-Siyam wal-Qiyam wa Zakat al-Fitr (The Rulings of Fasting, Night Prayer, and Zakat al-Fitr) is a concise legal treatise formatted as a Friday sermon by the Egyptian preacher Abu Dharr al-Qalamuni, outlining the essential Islamic rulings governing the fast of Ramadan, voluntary night prayers, and the alms of breaking the fast.
Sources and Composition
The author compiled the treatise as a summarized and simplified manual drawn primarily from three contemporary reference works: Fiqh al-Sunnah (The Jurisprudence of the Sunnah) by Sayyid Sabiq, Tamam al-Minnah fi al-Ta'liq 'ala Fiqh al-Sunnah (The Complete Favor) by Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, and Minhaj al-Muslim (The Way of the Muslim) by Abu Bakr al-Jaza'iri. Throughout the text, al-Qalamuni also integrates legal determinations from classical and later scholars, notably Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Kathir, Muhammad al-Shawkani, and Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-San'ani.
Structure and Contents
The treatise is organized into seventeen numbered thematic sections followed by a concluding series of practical notices:
- Definition of Fasting: Refraining from invalidating acts from dawn until sunset accompanied by intention.
- Establishing the Month: Sighting the crescent moon by at least one upright witness, or completing thirty days of Sha'ban.
- Difference of Moon-Sighting Horizons (ikhtilaf al-matali'): Reviewing the opinion of the majority of scholars against considering differing horizons, alongside the view that restricts the obligation to the local sighting of each country.
- Individual Sighting and the Day of Doubt: The ruling for an individual who sights the crescent alone, and the prohibition of deliberately fasting the Day of Doubt (yawm al-shakk).
- Pillars of Fasting: The two essential elements—abstaining from invalidators and forming the intention prior to dawn for obligatory fasts.
- Those Obligated to Fast: Sane, adult, healthy, resident Muslims free of menstruation and postpartum bleeding.
- Fasting of Children: Encouraging guardians to accustom capable children to fasting.
- Categories of Fasting Persons: Distinguishing those permitted to break the fast who owe compensation (fidyah)—such as the elderly, chronically ill, and pregnant or nursing mothers who fear harm—from those permitted to break it who must make up missed days (qada'), such as travelers and the temporarily ill, as well as those forbidden from fasting who must make up the days, such as menstruating and postpartum women.
- Etiquettes of Fasting: Eating the pre-dawn meal (suhur), hastening the breaking of the fast (iftar), making supplications upon breaking the fast, refraining from foul and false speech, using the tooth-stick (siwak), generosity, studying the Quran, and striving in worship during the last ten nights.
- Permissible Acts During Fasting: Bathing, applying kohl or eye drops, non-arousing kissing or embracing, medical injections, cupping (hijamah), rinsing the mouth and nose without exaggeration, swallowing saliva, tasting food without ingesting it, and delaying the ritual bath after major ritual impurity until dawn.
- Invalidators of Fasting: Actions requiring only making up missed days (deliberate eating, drinking, intentional vomiting, menstruation, ingesting non-nutritive substances, forming the intention to break the fast, and masturbation according to the majority) versus actions requiring both making up days and severe expiation (kaffarah), which is restricted to deliberate sexual intercourse during the daytime of Ramadan.
- Making Up Missed Days (qada'): The time allowances for making up missed fasts and whether it must be done immediately or may be delayed.
- Fasting on Behalf of the Deceased: Scholarly views on whether relatives should fast on behalf of a deceased person or feed the poor instead.
- Estimation in Extreme Latitudes: Estimating fasting hours in countries with extremely long days and short nights according to moderate legal zones.
- The Night of Decree (Laylat al-Qadr): Virtues of seeking it on the odd nights of the last ten days, particularly the twenty-seventh night, and its recommended supplication.
- Night Prayer of Ramadan (Tarawih): Its communal performance, the practice of the Prophet of praying eleven rak'ahs, and the recitation practices of the early generations.
- Zakat al-Fitr: Its individual obligation, wisdom, volume (one sa' of local staple food), the impermissibility of paying monetary value in place of food except out of necessity, its permissible and optimal times of disbursement, eligible recipients, and specific rules regarding transferring it between cities or paying it on behalf of household members.
Distribution
The author placed an open declaration at the end of the text granting unconditional permission for anyone to print and distribute the treatise without prior authorization. The work was registered under Egyptian legal deposit number 19786/2007, with references directing readers to audio lectures on the author's website for extended discussions.
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