Compensating Rituals Missed during Menses

 
 

Question: It is said that women do not have to say their prayer or observe fasts during their monthly menstrual periods. Do they have to say the missed prayers or observe the missed fasts after their periods are over?     Answer: Women, once their menstrual cycle is over, are required to make up for the fasts but they are not required to cover their missed prayers. This seems to be based on the fact that Allah wants to create facility and ease for mankind, as mentioned in the Qur’an: Allah wants to create ease for you; He does not want to be hard on you. (2:185)     Since saying forty to fifty missed out prayers would have been a difficult exercise, it was waived off. However, keeping eight or ten fasts is not that difficult a task. Therefore, it is required to be compensated with by observing them later on.      The other obvious reason is that since the prayer is an everyday ritual of worship and the obligatory fasts are confined to the month of Ramadan only, making up for missed fasts seems essential otherwise women might loose the opportunity to fully benefit from the ritual of fasting.

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