I have years of fasts owed from pregnancies and nursing. What is due from me?
It depends on why you did not fast and on your health since. Days lost to menstruation are made up without dispute. For pregnancy and nursing scholars differ: some require only making them up, some making them up and feeding a poor person per day, and some only the latter. This is among the questions most worth taking to a scholar with the details.
The honest answer turns on your circumstances. What it hinges on is below.
This situation is extremely common and is almost never resolved by a general answer, because several distinct causes are mixed together.
Menstruation. You do not fast, and those days are made up afterwards. Without dispute, and with nothing added. (The prayers of those days, by contrast, are not made up.)
Post-natal bleeding. The same: you do not fast, and you make it up.
Pregnancy and nursing. Here is the real disagreement:
- One position: the days are made up, like the ill person or the traveller.
- Another: they are made up and a poor person is fed for each day.
- Another: if she stopped out of fear for the baby rather than for herself, feeding alone suffices.
If there is also a health condition that makes making up so many days unfeasible, the case changes again, and fidya may take the place of the make-up.
The verses that frame all of this: “Fasting for a limited number of days. So whoever among you is ill or on a journey during them - then an equal number of other days are to be made up. And upon those who are able to fast, but with hardship - a ransom as substitute of feeding a poor person each day. And whoever volunteers good i.e., excess - it is better for him. But to fast is best for you, if you only knew.” (Qur’an 2:184) and “The month of Ramaḍān is that in which was revealed the Qur’ān, a guidance for the people and clear proofs of guidance and criterion. So whoever sights the crescent of the month, let him fast it; and whoever is ill or on a journey - then an equal number of other days. Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship and wants for you to complete the period and to glorify Allah for that to which He has guided you; and perhaps you will be grateful.” (Qur’an 2:185)
What your answer depends on: how many days from each cause, your health now, your real capacity to fast single days at present, and which school you follow.
What can be said generally: this is an anticipated case, not a failing. Many women accumulate years of owed days through the ordinary arithmetic of having children, and no school treats it as negligence. Take the actual numbers to someone qualified and come away with a plan; it is nearly always more manageable than it looked.
- Qur’anQur’an 2:184
- Qur’anQur’an 2:185