Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
- A new Muslim has to strongly maintain his/her family and kinship ties while practicing his/her religious duties as much as possible.
- Hence, the questioner is urged to wisely deal with the matter. He/she may fast some days according to his/her best capacity and then make up for the missed fast-days later.
Answering your question, Dr. Wael Shehab, PhD in Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University and currently the Imam of the Downtown Toronto Masjid in Canada, states:
A new Muslim should practice Islam as much as he/she can. If it is extremely difficult for him/her to fast for the whole month of Ramadan, he/she may fast some days according to his/her best capacity and then make up for the missed fast-days later when he/she becomes able to.
If a new Muslim faces some problems with parents, he/she should wisely do his/her best to solve these problems. It is not a must for him/her to tell them he/she is fasting; he/she may tell them that he/she couldn’t eat for “some” reasons.
He/she should look for workable solutions that enable him/her to fast and avoid clashes with his/her parents at the same time.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.