Should I fast while flying?
Abdul Nasir Jangda – 30 Days 30 Questions about Ramadan – EP05
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Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu this happiness agenda from Calum Institute coming to you at once again, with the column hangout 30 days 30 questions where we're trying to answer your questions about the month of Ramadan. A question that I got was I'm going to be traveling during the month of Ramadan on a long flight and international flight, one that's going overseas. How do I go about in fasting during such a flight? When do I start when do I end? How do I know my past is over, etc. So one thing that we have to understand is that, of course, travel is something that is as old as time itself, people have always traveled. So the Quran addresses that in the passage of sort of
tobacco, where it talks about fasting yet you're letting amaru quotevalet camassia mocha makuti Valley letting him in public una Allah talks about the obligation of fasting Am I do that, for man Ganymede Kumari done our last effort inside that woman, a woman Oh, her, say somebody is traveling. If any one of you is upon a journey, then you are allowed to not fast during those days of your travel and journey, if it proves to be difficult, you'll just have to make up that same number of days after the month of Ramadan is over. So that being said, at the same time, when we talk about fasting while traveling, a lot of times, we also let people know in the prophets, a lot of them did,
you know set the precedent to where if the journey is not too difficult, and someone is confident, they'll be able to fast properly, without causing any type of physical, you know, health wise causing any harm to themselves, then it's okay for them to fast. And I would even go as far as saying a lot of times when we travel domestically here, and it's a short flight, a 30 minute flight or a two hour drive or whatever it may be, I would even go as far as saying it's even advisable to go ahead and fast, so that you're still experiencing the month of Ramadan. And then that way, you don't have to worry about making that up afterwards. However, when we talk about a long flight, you
do have to understand one thing that the mode of travel, this means of travel that we have is a little unprecedented. I mean, we're traveling 500 miles an hour, you know, in three hours, you've traveled all the way across, you know, the United States. So these types of flights are kind of tricky to figure out, especially if you're traveling overseas, you know, your flight takes off from New York, you're going to be landing in London, or vice versa, you take off from London, you're going to be landing in New York, or in Chicago, or in Dallas, or whatever the case may be. So you're you're traveling through, you're tearing through all these time zones. And it can prove to be a
little tricky, a little difficult, because here's the deal. So there are some folks. And so this is basically an issue of, you know, where scholars are trying to figure out the issue, it's an area which he had. So some scholars have given the fatwa that, you know, you'll just basically until and unless you land in a place, you'll just estimate your iftaar time based on your departure location. But at the same time, if you are traveling and the sun is visible to you, the preferable position and opinion is that the ruling is based on where you are at, at that particular time where you're at, at that particular time. So even though let's just say you left from London, and now the sun has
already set in London, but you're somewhere over the us right now, or vice versa, and you can still see the sun up, then that's going to be a little problematic, because generally speaking, the more preferable ruling in position with the scholars is that you estimate your time based on your current location. So with all these different variables, my honest recommendation in this situation will be to just avoid fasting in that situation. I understand it's a month of Ramadan, I'm not telling you to take the easy way out or to skip out on the spirituality of Ramadan. A lot of that is still up to you. You can choose to not watch the inflight movie, and recite some for on and make some thinking
to do some disappear. And catching up on some reading of CLR tafsir. That's definitely up to usually so you can still maintain your spirituality throughout that day. But just you know, trying to figure out the times of the fast and the iftaar time and everything will be so tricky and difficult in that type of a situation. You know, it's not a one two hour flight where you're leaving where you're flying from Dallas to Phoenix, or from Chicago to New York. But we're talking about a long flight a seven 810 hour flight, international flight. So it's just better to go ahead and not fast that day. And make up that day afterwards after the month of Ramadan. That's just my own very humble
suggestion that situation. So again, if you're going on a very long flight where it's going to be difficult to figure out the timings of so who wouldn't have thought and all that. All that stuff then
It's basically better to just maybe not fast that day. Take the concession that our last panel Aton has provided that the profits a lot he said him has shown us and he has himself taken during his lifetime. Take that concession and just make up that day afterwards, you can still maintain your spirituality in sha Allah by reciting Quran and making the good and doing to speak and just engaging in worship in remembrance of Allah subhana wa tada I hope and pray this is a very blessed month of Ramadan. For those of you who travel for work, you know, it can be very difficult I have some students and some friends who were traveling a lot for work during the month of Ramadan a couple of
years back and they shared their experiences with me and from what they told me was very difficult. It really took a toll on their spirituality during the month of Ramadan. So, you know, my heart definitely goes out to you but try the best that you can to maintain a routine and have regular time for worship and remembrance and they could and you know, spirituality and inshallah your Ramadan will be productive and you'll inshallah spiritually benefit during the month of Ramadan. May Allah subhanho wa Taala accept our deeds from all of us does not come along later on. This was another session of the LM Hangout. Remember to send in your questions, you can tweet them, Facebook them,
you can leave them in the comments of this video, or you can even email them to us. Just always remember to tag your questions with hashtag alum Hangout, and we'll try our best to get to all of them and answer your questions. Until next time, just below head on with Salaam Alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh