The Complete Guide to Fasting and Zakat — Shafi`i

Ustadh Farid Dingle

Learn the essential everyday practicalities of fasting: What breaks your fast? What exempts you from fasting and what does not? How can you be sure your fast is valid? How can you benefit spiritually from your fast? All according to the Shafi`i school.

At-A-Glance

• Know the practical ins and outs of fasting
• Learn to determine the start of Ramadan
• Is it essential to sight the moon? Can calculations take its place?
• What breaks your fast? What does not?
• What excuses you from fasting?
• Cover the commonly met-with everyday scenarios and case-studies related to fasting
• Learn how to benefit spiritually from your fasts
• Secure the essential knowledge to put your fasting on solid ground
• What is zakatable wealth?
• How much has to be paid?
• Who is an eligible recipient?

About the Course

This short course focuses on ensuring your fasting is firmly grounded through knowing the essential, practical fiqh related to fasting.

Students will learn how to use moon sighting and calculations to determine the start of Ramadan; they will learn the extremely useful practical scenarios that constitute ‘genuine need’ and excuse one from fasting, and in which scenarios one is obliged to continue fasting; they will learn the crucial everyday practicalities of what breaks the fast and what does not; and they will cover how to reliably determine the validity of their fasts – all according to the Shafi`i school of fiqh. The course will also introduce the student to the ultimate goal of fasting: benefitting from the fast spiritually and harnessing the inward change.

Course Syllabus

Lesson One – (Obligation of Fasting, and Validity)

• Who has to fast Ramadan?
• Moon sighting versus calculations

Lesson Two

• Conditions of Obligation of Fasting
• Sickness
• Pregnancy and Nursing
• Menstruation
• Situations when you abstain from eating without fasting

Lesson Three

• Invalidators of the Fast

Lesson Four – (Benefiting from the Fast)

• Benefiting from fasting
• Zakat on savings, property, merchandise and investments
• Distributing Zakat