The ruling on collective iftar and collective fasting
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, some of the young men gather for iftar on Thursdays and Mondays. What is the ruling on their doing this?
Answer:
It has no basis. Collective iftar and collective fasting have no basis, and they are among the matters of religious innovation (bid'ah). If they believe that this is a virtue and that it is prescribed, then it is an innovation. However, if they do it by way of a new practice, so that some of them feel at ease with others and see one another, and they do it without arrangement and without intention, then there is nothing wrong with it; this is permissible. But if they do it by way of worship and they consider it prescribed—collective iftar, collective fasting—then this is among the newly invented innovations, and it must be abandoned. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, some of the young men gather for iftar on Thursdays and Mondays. What is the ruling on their doing this?
Answer:
It has no basis. Collective iftar and collective fasting have no basis, and they are among the matters of religious innovation (bid'ah). If they believe that this is a virtue and that it is prescribed, then it is an innovation. However, if they do it by way of a new practice, so that some of them feel at ease with others and see one another, and they do it without arrangement and without intention, then there is nothing wrong with it; this is permissible. But if they do it by way of worship and they consider it prescribed—collective iftar, collective fasting—then this is among the newly invented innovations, and it must be abandoned. Yes.
Source
شرح بلوغ المرام من أدلة الأحكام [ صالح الفوزان ]، باب العدة والإحداد — islamhouse.com (52:32)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.