Training Children to Fast in Ramadan
Edited by Adil Salahi

Fasting becomes required as a duty when a boy or a girl
attains puberty. Prior to that, it is not obligatory. This
applies to all Islamic duties of worship. This is
considered the age when a person can fulfill regular
duties, such as prayers and fasting, because his or her
sense of responsibility is deemed to have reached a
sufficient stage of maturity.

It is well known that we are recommended to train our
children to pray when they become seven years old. A Hadith
of the Prophet directs us to tell our children to pray when
they are seven and to use light corporal punishment for not
praying when they are 10. The question arises whether the
same applies in the case of fasting. The question, then,
is: Are children to be encouraged, or indeed ordered to
fast before they attain the age of puberty when it becomes
obligatory to them?

Generally speaking, the best answer to a question like this
is that which is provided by an authentic Hadith. In this
respect, we have a Hadith related by Al-Bukhari on the
authority of one of the youngest lady companions of the
Prophet (peace be upon him), Al-Rubayie bint Muawwith. She
reports: “The Prophet sent messengers to the villages of
the Ansar on the morning of Ashoura (i.e. 10th of Muharram)
with the message: He who has started the day not fasting,
let him finish his day, and he who has started the day
fasting, let him continue his fast. We used to fast that
day afterward, and make our children fast as well. We would
make them woollen toys. If a child cries of hunger, we gave
it a toy to play with until it was time for ending the
fast.”

Before we begin commenting on the fasting of children, it
is important to note that prior to making fasting
obligatory during the month of Ramadan, it was a duty for
Muslims to fast on the tenth of Muharram. We have mentioned
in the past the reason for choosing that day. We repeat
here in brief that when the Prophet emigrated to Madinah,
he found out that the Jews fasted on that day.

When he questioned them, they told him that they celebrated
the anniversary of the event when Moses was saved by God
from his enemies. The Prophet said that he and the Muslims
have more in common with Moses and they were better
entitled to celebrate that occasion. He ordered his
companions to fast on that day. Although fasting on the
tenth of Muharram is no longer obligatory since the
obligation was transferred to fasting during the month of
Ramadan, it is still recommended as a Sunnah of the
Prophet.

It is perfectly clear from this Hadith that the Prophet’s
companions used to make their children fast. It is
important to understand that fasting is not obligatory to
children until they have attained the age of puberty. Most
scholars agree, however, that children may be encouraged to
fast, if they can bear the hardship of fasting. However,
there are differences among scholars with regard to when to
start the training of children to fast. Some of them
suggest the age of seven or ten, as in the case of prayers.
Others, like Ahmad ibn Hanbal, suggest beginning at ten,
while other scholars mention the age of 12 as the starting
point.

The Maliki scholars generally have a different view which
suggests that children need not be encouraged to fast.
However, that is a view which cannot be supported by valid
evidence. I have already mentioned in the past that the
Maliki school of thought considers “the practice of the
people of Madinah” as a valid indicator of what is
acceptable in Islam. The fact that Madinah was the cradle
of Islamic society and that most of the Prophet’s
companions lived there and continued to be there for a long
time after the Prophet has molded life in Madinah in the
proper Islamic fashion makes its way of life an example of
Islamic life. Hence, when something is a common practice
among the people of Madinah, it must be based on sound
Islamic teachings.

Al-Bukhari points out that the practice of the people of
Madinah in this particular respect was to encourage
children to fast. He relates that Umar, the second caliph,
saw a man who was drunk during one day in Ramadan. He
rebuked him saying: “Confound you, how do you do this when
our children are fasting?” He ordered him to be flogged.

This report suggests that it was common practice among the
people of Madinah at the time of Umar, when Islamic
practice was still perhaps at its purest, to encourage
children to fast as a means of training. Umar’s words to
the drunken person suggest that it was common for young
children to fast. He was certainly infuriated by seeing a
drunken man during the day of Ramadan. To drink on any day
is, from the Islamic point of view, to commit a grave sin
which is punishable by flogging and exile. To do so during
the day, in the month of Ramadan, is to be doubly sinful,
since the negligence of the duty of fasting is a grave sin
as well. However, we note that Umar did not allow his
outrage to get the better of him by increasing the
punishment of that man. He only punished him for drinking,
the punishment of which consists of flogging (80 lashes)
and a year in exile. Umar sent the man to Syria.

We have thus established that encouragement of young
children to fast is the weightier opinion to which most
scholars subscribe. According to the Hadith which we have
quoted, the children who were encouraged to fast at the
time of the Prophet must have been very young, probably
less than ten years of age.

This we can understand from the statement given by the
Prophet’s companion who reports this Hadith, when she says
that mothers used to make soft toys in order to use them as
a distraction to their children who might cry from hunger.
Such a toy does not provide much distraction for an 11 or
12 year old. Those children who cried must have been
younger than that.

Needless to say that encouraging a child to fast does not
mean forcing him or her to fast throughout the month. That
is neither wise nor necessary. Parents should approach the
training of their children to fast in an easy, relaxed way
which makes fasting desirable to the child. Perhaps the
encouragement to fast should be coupled with a reward which
may be given at the end of the day and encouraging words by
other members of the family which give the child a sense of
joining the adults in the family. That is bound to make the
hardship of fasting much easier to bear.

Moreover, a child may be encouraged to fast one or two days
the first time around, perhaps when he is nine or 10.

The number of days which he fasts may then be increased
gradually so that when he attains the age of puberty, he
finds fasting the whole month, from dawn to dusk,
presenting no great difficulty.

It is such an easy way which is characteristic of the
Islamic approach to religious duties.

Courtesy of Arabsnews.


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