I got my first menses when I was twelve years old, and now I’m 20. I did not know that fasting during menses is not permissible, and I was shy to ask my family, what should I do regarding these days? Also my mother missed some days due to illness and headaches, what should she do in this case?

We know that when a woman is in her menses, she’s not allowed to fast and she’s not allowed to pray. Once she is clean and pure from her menses, she has to calculate how many days she fasted out of shyness, and she has to make them up because Allah did not accept them.

If she says: “I don’t know”, she has to estimate and we would tell her: can it be like three days a month? She says: “No! Much more!”, so, if we say: is it 15 days a month? She says: “No! Much less!”, so, is it 7 or 8? She says: “Probably”, then, she gives the average of 8 days per month, per Ramadan, 8 by 8, this is 64 days that she has to make up.

Does she have to make them up in sequence? No, she can make them every Monday and Thursday, whenever it is convenient for her she has to make up for these missed days, and she says that her mother has the same problem and she did not make up for these days. Again, with her mother’s illness and headaches, if there are times that she can, Insha’Allah, be well to the extent that she would not have these headaches attacks, and she would be able to make up, then, she has to make up for these days. But if she is chronically ill and she’s unable to fast at all she has to give expiation as was mentioned earlier for her aunties.