Kitab al-Sawm: Interrupted Voluntary Worship, Puberty and Conversion

1. Lesson scope and legal map

Two consecutive passages develop different legal ideas. The first concerns the binding consequence of commencing a voluntary act of worship. The second concerns a person becoming legally obligated to fast during a Ramadan day.

The first passage requires make-up after interruption; the second distinguishes abstention for the remainder of the current day, future fasting, and the absence of retroactive make-up for time preceding the new legal status.

2. Primary text: interrupted voluntary worship

وَمَنْ دَخَلَ فِي صَوْمِ التَّطَوُّعِ، أَوْ فِي صَلَاةِ التَّطَوُّعِ، ثُمَّ أَفْسَدَهُمَا: قَضَاهُمَا.
Translation: Whoever commences a voluntary fast or a voluntary prayer and then invalidates them must make up the corresponding act.

Quduri groups voluntary fasting and voluntary prayer under a single ruling. Though each is initially optional, the Hanafi school regards a commenced act as requiring completion, with make-up if it is invalidated.

The ruling is expressed in “qaḍāhumā”: make up both. It presumes an act actually begun and then invalidated; forming an unacted-upon intention is not itself the same event.

3. The legal force of “commences”

“Dakhala fī” here indicates entering an act of worship in the legally effective sense. A voluntary fast is begun through a valid fasting intention under its rules; a voluntary prayer is entered by its opening takbīr.

Merely planning an act and then reconsidering before commencement is not identical to invalidating one already undertaken. The legal consequence is tied to actual initiation.

4. What counts as a voluntary fast?

A voluntary fast is not already owed as Ramadan, a missed obligatory fast, an expiation, or a vow. It is selected for extra devotion.

For example, a Monday fast undertaken as a voluntary fast was not originally due as a debt. Once commenced, however, the Hanafi rule requires make-up if it is invalidated.

5. The principle of binding commencement

In Hanafi legal reasoning, commencement of certain voluntary acts makes completion binding. Jurists discuss this as the binding effect of initiation.

This does not turn all voluntary worship into universal obligations. Rather, the person had a choice before commencement; after undertaking the particular act, completion—and make-up upon invalidation—acquires legal force.

6. If the voluntary fast is invalidated

If a validly begun voluntary fast is invalidated during the day, Quduri’s rule requires making up that one fast on another day.

This is qaḍāʾ rather than the special kaffārah attached to certain deliberate Ramadan violations. One should not transfer the Ramadan expiation automatically to a voluntary fast.

7. If the voluntary prayer is invalidated

A person starts a voluntary prayer, but the prayer is invalidated before completion. The phrase “ṣalāt al-taṭawwuʿ” expressly brings such prayer within the make-up rule.

“Qaḍāhumā” refers to both named forms of worship, not only fasting. Detailed Hanafi questions about rakʿahs and different types of interrupted prayer belong to the prayer chapters, beyond this sentence.

8. Excuse and make-up are distinct questions

An excused interruption and a deliberate interruption without justification can differ in moral and legal evaluation; an excused person should not be treated as a deliberate violator.

Within the Hanafi position, make-up may still be owed even where interruption was excused. Thus ask separately whether there was a valid excuse and whether make-up remains required.

9. Make-up does not mean kaffārah

Qaḍāʾ supplies a make-up performance, whereas kaffārah is a distinct expiation for specifically defined violations. They must not be merged.

The selected wording prescribes “qaḍāhumā” and does not state a kaffārah. One must not apply the Ramadan-specific expiation indiscriminately to invalidated voluntary worship.

10. Commencement versus making a vow

Beginning a voluntary act and undertaking a vow are not the same legal trigger. This passage addresses the binding effect of commencement; a vow is governed by its own conditions.

If the fast was already obligatory or was itself a make-up fast, it should not be relabeled as voluntary to apply an inapplicable rule. Classify the act before deciding the consequence.

11. Grammar of the first passage

“Man” functions as a conditional noun. “Dakhala” is a past verb in a conditional construction; “fī ṣawm al-taṭawwuʿ” is a prepositional expression containing an iḍāfah.

“Af-sadahumā” is form IV past tense with the dual object pronoun referring to fasting and prayer. “Qaḍāhumā” expresses the legal consequence of the condition; its dual pronoun again refers to the two acts.

12. A brief comparison across schools

This is a Hanafi text. The Hanafi school requires make-up after a voluntarily commenced fast is invalidated. The Maliki school also requires make-up when it is broken without excuse but differs over excuse-based interruption.

Shafiʿi and Hanbali schools generally do not require making up a terminated voluntary fast, though doing so may be recommended. Quduri’s ruling must therefore be identified as the Hanafi position, not presented as unanimous across every school.

13. Primary text: puberty or conversion during Ramadan

وَإِذَا بَلَغَ الصَّبِيُّ، أَوْ أَسْلَمَ الْكَافِرُ فِي بَعْضِ نَهَارِ رَمَضَانَ: أَمْسَكَا بَقِيَّةَ يَوْمِهِمَا، وَصَامَا مَا بَعْدَهُ، وَلَمْ يَقْضِيَا مَا مَضَى.
Translation: If a child reaches puberty, or a non-Muslim embraces Islam, during a Ramadan day, both abstain for the rest of that day, fast on subsequent days, and do not make up what preceded it.

The text describes two circumstances: a child reaches puberty during a Ramadan day, or a non-Muslim embraces Islam during a Ramadan day. Both must abstain for the rest of that day and fast on following days, while not making up the preceding period.

Abstention during the remaining hours is not the same as having performed a complete valid obligatory fast from dawn; the legal duty was not present at the start of that day.

14. Reaching puberty during the day

“Balagha al-ṣabī” refers to reaching legal puberty. Before puberty, training and encouragement to fast are distinct from the adult’s obligatory duty; puberty changes legal responsibility.

Quduri is addressing puberty occurring after dawn during a Ramadan day. Puberty already attained before dawn places the upcoming day under the ordinary rules for obligatory fasting.

15. Embracing Islam during the day

“Aslama al-kāfir” refers to someone who was not Muslim and embraces Islam during a Ramadan day. From that point the person becomes responsible for Islamic worship, but earlier days are not assigned as retrospective missed Ramadan fasts.

The original Arabic term is preserved as text; the explanatory wording uses “new Muslim.” The practical focus is worship after conversion rather than inventing a debt for pre-conversion Ramadan days.

16. What “imsāk” means

“Amsakā baqiyyata yawmihimā” requires each to refrain from food and drink for the remaining part of the day, in recognition of Ramadan’s sanctity.

Someone may have eaten earlier before puberty or before conversion. This does not erase the obligation to abstain after the new legal status begins; the rest of the day is treated under the new duty.

17. Abstention is not a completed fast

Imsāk is abstention for the remaining hours; an obligatory fast is a legally valid act spanning its prescribed time with its conditions. Abstaining only after midday does not retroactively create a full fast beginning at dawn.

Quduri therefore requires abstention but does not require this particular day to be made up. These are separate legal conclusions, not contradictory statements.

18. The obligation for remaining Ramadan days

“Wa ṣāmā mā baʿdahu” requires fasting the following Ramadan days after legal responsibility is established.

For example, a person embracing Islam at noon on the 12th of Ramadan abstains for the remainder of the 12th, then fasts properly from dawn on the 13th and later days. The special treatment of the conversion day does not extend to every remaining day.

19. No retroactive make-up

“Wa lam yaqḍiyā mā maḍā” negates retroactive make-up for days before legal responsibility: pre-puberty Ramadan days and pre-conversion days.

Hanafi commentaries also explain that the day during which puberty or conversion occurs is not owed as make-up under this principal ruling, though abstaining for its remainder is required.

20. The current day versus earlier days

Distinguish three periods: earlier Ramadan days before the new duty existed; the current day during which the status changed; and the following days.

Earlier days are not made up. The current day requires abstention for its remainder but not make-up under Quduri’s principal Hanafi ruling. Future days must be observed as ordinary obligatory Ramadan fasts.

21. A reported alternative from Abu Yusuf

Quduri’s principal Hanafi formulation does not require make-up for a day during which puberty or conversion occurs. Fath al-Qadīr, however, records a view from Abu Yusuf requiring make-up where the change occurred before zawāl.

This report is commentarial context, not part of Quduri’s quoted wording. It is presented separately to preserve the distinction between the primary text and a reported intra-school difference.

22. Example: a child reaches puberty

Imagine a child reaches legal puberty at noon on the 15th of Ramadan. At dawn the child was not yet legally obligated. The text requires abstention for the rest of the 15th.

The first 14 days are not owed as make-up, nor is the 15th under the principal Hanafi rule. Starting on the 16th, the person observes the remaining obligatory fasts as an adult Muslim.

23. Example: conversion on a Ramadan afternoon

A person embraces Islam during the afternoon of the 20th of Ramadan. The remainder of the 20th is spent in abstention; beginning on the 21st, full Ramadan fasting is observed from dawn.

Days 1–19 are not retroactively owed, and the 20th is not owed under the main rule. Separate legal excuses such as illness or travel require assessment under their own conditions.

24. Grammar of the second passage

“Idhā” introduces a temporal condition. “Balagha al-ṣabī” and “aslama al-kāfir” are past-tense verbal clauses with explicit subjects. “Fī baʿḍi nahāri Ramaḍān” includes a prepositional phrase and nested genitive constructions.

“Amsakā,” “ṣāmā,” and “lam yaqḍiyā” use dual morphology referring to both people. The particle “lam” makes the imperfect jussive; in the five-verb conjugations this is marked by dropping the final nūn.

25. Compare the two rulings

First clause: a voluntary act was actually begun and subsequently invalidated, so the corresponding make-up is required in Hanafi law.

Second clause: the duty to fast did not exist when the Ramadan day began, but legal responsibility arose during it. Abstention is required for the remainder, followed by fasting on subsequent days, without a retrospective make-up duty.

The legal causes are different: commitment by initiation versus commencement of legal responsibility.

26. How to extract a ruling from the text

First locate the condition in the voluntary-worship clause: commencement followed by invalidation. Then identify the consequence: “qaḍāhumā.”

In the second clause identify the triggering event—puberty or conversion during daylight—and read the three outcomes in order: “amsakā,” “ṣāmā,” and “lam yaqḍiyā.” Omitting the time qualification changes the legal meaning.

27. Comprehensive recap and transition

The two passages establish six key points: make-up for an invalidated commenced voluntary fast; make-up for an invalidated commenced voluntary prayer; distinct assessment of excuse and obligation; abstention after puberty or conversion during the day; obligatory fasting on later Ramadan days; and no make-up for the earlier time or the current day under the principal Hanafi rule.

The next passage begins “wa-man ughmiya ʿalayhi fī Ramaḍān” and discusses unconsciousness, recovery and subsequent circumstances. It belongs to the next level.