Is it permissible to perform the fasting of Shawwal and the fasting of Qada together?

I missed fasting on some days in Ramadan. Do they prevent me from fasting 6 days in the month of Shawwal?

Dear Brother / Sister,

There is no religious drawback to performing in Shawwal the fasts that you missed in Ramadan.

The month of Shawwal is a special month that reminds us some religious events. Firstly, it reminds us the preparation for hajj. The months after Ramadan are regarded as months of hajj. Candidates of hajj start to make preparations in excitement. They ask questions about hajj until they start their journey; they try to obtain information in order to perform hajj perfectly.

They also do not forget that there is a fasting peculiar to Shawwal. It is such a fasting that a person who fasts six days in this month gets reward as if he fasted during the whole year; they can obtain the reward of one-year supererogatory fasting. Some scholars state the following when they explain how a person can get the reward as if he fasted the whole year for fasting six days:

- It is stated in a verse that ten rewards will be given for each good deed. A person who fasts thirty days in the month of Ramadan receives three hundred rewards. If a person who fasted thirty days in Ramadan fasts six more days in Shawwal, he will get sixty (six by ten) more rewards, which makes three hundred and sixty. That is, one year of supererogatory fasting.

Can so many rewards be given for fasting a few days? The following answer can be given to this question:

- Nobody should compare his own stinginess with the generosity of our Lord, who has endless generosity and kindness. If people have sincere intentions, our Lord, Whose mercy prevails His wrath, always wants to forgive His slaves. Therefore, he grants a lot of rewards for few deeds of His slaves.

It is not necessary for the fasting of Shawwal to be performed six days on end. It can be performed intermittently. However, it will not be wrong for those who could not perform fasting in Ramadan due to their excuses perform their missed (qada) fasting first. They had better perform their fard fasting as soon as possible. After that, they can perform six-day Shawwal fasting if possible. If they cannot perform supererogatory Shawwal fasting due to their fard fasting, they will still have performed fasting in the month of Shawwal.

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