The Ruling on the Dispensation to Break the Fast for the Sick and the Traveler

Question:
Praise be to Allah. Is the dispensation here absolute regarding the breaking of the fast for the sick and the traveler, Honorable Shaykh?

Answer:
For the traveler, yes. Every traveler to whom the rulings of travel apply—meaning his travel is a travel of obedience, a permissible travel that is not obligatory obedience, and is not a forbidden travel—and who covers the distance, which is a journey of two days or more for a mount. The distance of two days is estimated at approximately eighty kilometers per day. If these conditions are met, and it is not a travel of disobedience, and he covers the distance, then he breaks his fast, even if he does not feel hardship. It is permissible for him to break his fast because of the travel, for travel is not free from hardship, no matter what is said about comfort, and no matter what the means of comfort are, the traveler finds hardship in the travel. Yes, so the traveler breaks his fast if the conditions of the dispensation are met. As for the sick person, it is not every illness, but the illness that makes fasting difficult.
As for a minor illness, such as a toothache, for example, or a headache, these minor things do not permit breaking the fast, because fasting does not become difficult. But the illness that makes fasting difficult is the illness that involves pain and where the sick person has a need, for example, to take medicine, or to undergo an operation, or to need food or drink that he cannot endure without for the whole day, needing what strengthens his body. This is the one for whom breaking the fast is permissible. As for a minor and customary illness, it does not permit him to break his fast. Yes.