Chapter on One Incapable of Fasting

The Shaykh (Al-Mufid), may Allah سبحانه وتعالى have mercy upon him, said: “The elderly man and the elderly woman, when they are unable to fast and are incapable of it, the obligation of it has fallen from them, and breaking the fast is allowed for them, and there is no expiation upon them. And when they (elderly) are able to do it with great hardship, and it would make them ill if they fasted it, or it would harm them with clear harm, breaking the fast is allowed for them, and upon them is that they expiate for every day with a mudd of food.” This distinction which he made between one who is able to fast with hardship and one who is not able to do it at all, I do not find for it a detailed hadith, and all the hadiths indicate that whenever the two of them are incapable, they must give expiation for it. What led him to this distinction is that he held that expiation is a branch of the obligation of fasting, and whoever is weakened from fasting with a weakness by which he is altogether unable to do it, then its obligation falls from him altogether, because it is not proper to obligate him to fast while his condition is this, and Allah سبحانه وتعالى, the Exalted, has said: “Allah سبحانه وتعالى does not burden a soul except according to its capacity.” (Surah al-Baqarah 2:286) But this is not correct, because the obligation of expiation is not built upon the obligation of fasting, since it would not have been impossible for Allah سبحانه وتعالى, the Exalted, to say: ‘Whenever you are unable to fast, then your welfare becomes in expiation, and the obligation of fasting falls from you.’ And neither of the two has any connection to the other. And what has been transmitted of the hadiths concerning that is what he narrated (in the following hadith):