Message #21526

[Heba E. Husseyn]

According to another traditional invention unsupported by the Noble Quran, fidya is paid when someone cannot fast or breaks a fast for a valid reason such as illness, age, travel, extreme thirst or hunger, coercion.  Kaffarah is charity paid for deliberately breaking a fast for no valid reason.  However, this difference between fidya and kaffarah is not in the Quran. 

In both cases the penalty is to provide food to a poor person for a single day.  This is generally taken as providing Iftar to a fasting person or paying enough money to that person to buy his / her Iftar for one day.  So, if you miss all 30 days of Ramadan for a valid reason, you provide food or money to a poor person for 30 days.   This is in accordance with the Noble Quran. 

Another concoction of traditionalists NOT stated in the Noble Quran is, if you are paying fidya or kaffarah for the needy, you must give enough food or money to feed 60 persons each day!  The Quran never gives any  numbers such as "60" days nor anything similar.  If you have to feed 60 persons each day for 30 days, then even if you calculate on the basis of $10/person (which is usually taken as the minimal amount), it would come to $600/day.  That would be $18,000 for 30 days (for those who cannot fast at all for a valid reason).    I don't think I even need to say that this calculation is absurd and impractical.  Not to forget, this misinterpretation is being peddled by organizations that are donation centers, mentioning fidya & kaffarah as "donations" to be given to outlets such as zakat.org, IDRF, Islamic Relief etc.   In regard to our Masjids, several of our scholars are saying that since inflation has spiked, so the rate of fidya (or kaffarah) must also increase.  From $10/person they have raised it to $50/person.  This means, instead of paying $300 for 30 days, they now demand 50 x 30 =  $1,500 for 30 days.   Despite the price hike of food, let me be honest.  No one eats $50 worth of Iftar for a single day.   Ridiculous and self-centered mindset.  Taking everyone's financial resources for granted, not even leaving a margin for many of those who cannot even afford one-quarter of this amount. 

As compared to all of this traditional guesswork and money gouging by our organizations and the so-called scholars, Verse 2:184 of the Noble Quran is straight-forward and simple, that is you have missed some or all of your fasts then make up by fasting on other days or if you can afford then feed someone for each missed fast .. taken for granted that you feed them with as much food or give them as much money for food as you can afford.