If a Person Starts Fasting in One Country and in Ramadhaan Travels to Another Country, How many Days

If a Person Starts Fasting in One Country and in Ramadhaan Travels to Another Country, How many Days should he Fast? - Dr Zakir Naik

RDDZ-4-14

Yusuf Chambers: Okay next question is from a person who usually works and or he stays usually stays in Saudi Arabia and the last Ramadhaan he started his fasting in Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia has a difference of two days or it did last year anyways aammm…from India which is his hometown so he came to his hometown and by the time he reached he’d already fasted two days in Saudi Arabia. He wants to know does he have to finish thirty days and then be left with two days in his hometown which the other people around him are still fasting. Should he consider this to be the point of reference? Or Saudi Arabia to be the point of reference I think is the question.

Dr. Zakir: According to the hadith of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (saws) it’s mentioned in Sahih Hadith of

Tirmidhi in the book of Fasting hadith no. 697 the Prophet (saws) said: “Start your fast with the people who are starting the fast”

Means if you live in a country or live in a place if those people are fasting you should fast and break your fast when the people around you, when they break the fast”

So if he lives in Saudi Arabia, he should start his fast with the people of Saudi Arabia, if in between in Ramadhaan if he goes back to his original home in India then he should fast till the time his people are fasting and I’m aware that many a times there’s a difference of a couple of days so if he starts his fast two days earlier and he goes to India by the time he finishes his thirty fasts the people of India may yet have a one or two fasts left. But yet he has to continue fasting till the people of India even though it exceeds more than thirty days it may be thirty one sometimes thirty two days because the hadith says that fast with the people who are fasting around you and break the fast with the people who are breaking the fast around you but if it’s the vice-verca if he starts the fast earlier two days late and then comes to Saudi Arabia then maybe he’ll fast 28 days in this case he has to start with the people of India end with the people of Saudi Arabia and he cannot fast on the Eid day because it is Haraam but after that he has to atleast fast one more day because in any lunar month is 29 days. He should atleast fast additional one or two days to make up for 29 or 30 days so that it doesn’t mean that he has fasted less than the minimum requirement.