Abdul Nasir Jangda – 30 Days 30 Questions about Ramadan – EP08

			Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Who want to welcome everyone back to the Hangout, where
we're trying to answer your questions about the month of Ramadan. 30 days, 30 questions. So we had a
very interesting question submitted to us. And that was, how old does a person have to be before
they start fasting? When should someone start fasting? Or when should a child be motivated to start
fasting? So, again, I'm going to split the answer up into a couple of different parts. The first
thing is, when is someone required? followed, when they when are they required to start fasting? So
the answer to that question is, when somebody reaches the age of maturity, somebody hits, you know,
		

			puberty, then at that point in time, it becomes obligatory mandatory for them to start fasting,
that, and how do you exactly distinguish that, then that can be distinguished through the physical
signs, if a young you know a woman starts to experience, mentors, or young brother experiences
certain physical signs, or even the growth of facial hair and things like that, then that basically
the onset of the age of maturity in Islam, at the same time, the fuqaha, the scholars of Islam, have
said that 15 is the cutoff age. So even if somebody has not experienced any of the physical signs of
reaching the age of maturity, by the age of 15, after 15, it will be mandatory without question on a
		

			person to start fasting. But usually the cases that people, you know, young brothers and sisters are
experiencing maturity a lot sooner, a lot, a lot before, you know much before that, as early as
10 1112 years of age, they're experiencing maturity, and it is mandatory on them to start fasting.
And that's something we have to take into consideration and we have to take into account. So we have
to stop, you know, we have to of course, motivate them and encourage them and support them. But at
the same time, we have to make sure that we're not babying them in an unhealthy way, where we're
giving them excuses and outperformed their foot in their obligations, because that could become a
		

			spiritual crutch for them later on in life. So that's the answer about when it's mandatory. When is
it recommended, then that, again, will be up to the better judgment of the parents, we do, we can do
chaos from we can basically, you know, extrapolate and also draw a parallel to the Hadith of the
Prophet Salafi son, where he talked about prayer. Again, prayer becomes mandatory on a person at the
same age, fasting becomes mandatory, but the prophets, a lot of them said, start encouraging. Start,
you know, praying with your kids as early as seven years of age, and at the age of 10, then start
having consequences for them not praying, you're not praying, all right, the video games are being
		

			taken away, you're not praying, all right, you're not going out to play, no pray, no play, right,
and start to create some level of consequences, some responsibility about daily prayers, my
recommendation, from my own experience, experience with my younger siblings, kids in my community,
and on my own children as well, I would give the same recommendation that while let's just say
fasting will become mandatory on the child, when they reach the age of 12, I would recommend that
maybe as early as seven or eight, I know it's a summertime right now. So it's a little difficult. So
that's why I'm saying the parents have to practice some good judgment there. They have to, they know
		

			what's good for their child and what their child is capable of. At the same time, you don't want to
torture the child and force them too fast. And, you know, beating them and hitting them and stuff,
realize already something that's very, very bad and reprehensible. So you don't want to abuse not
even emotionally abused a child into fasting, but start encouraging them maybe have like a special
gift for them, there'll be a little get together at a thought. And maybe as early as 810 years old,
encourage them to start experiencing some fasting, you know, a couple of times during the month of
Ramadan, so that they start to develop a good habit. So when 12 comes around, 13 comes around 15
		

			comes around, they don't all of a sudden have to start fasting the entire 30 days. And they're like,
Whoa, where's this coming from? What's going on.
		

			And at the same time, they're older and more mature. And sometimes parents get pushback from the
kids at that time. And then they're they don't really know what to do with the situation. So if you
create a good environment for fasting, you know, create some excitement for them about fasting
whenever they fast, have a little get together for a thought. Give them a gift, reward them
incentivize fasting for them. These are all good methods of encouraging and teaching good habits to
our children. So that's a little bit about when is it mandatory to fast and then when is it
recommended to have a child start fasting? May Allah subhanaw taala make the month of Ramadan Amanda
		

			blessing for us and May Allah subhanaw taala accept all our fasts and all our worship during this
blessing month does not come along here on this was the alum hangout from Columbia Institute. And I
want to remind y'all inshallah, if you got any questions you'd like answered then
		

			Feel free to send them in to us Don't hesitate. You can tweet them to us with the hashtag lm
Hangout. You can leave the questions on our Facebook page. You can also email the questions to us.
Just remember to put in a subject line column hang up, and we'll try to get to as many of your
questions as we can. Until next time, does happen located on with salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa
barakato.