If a woman wants to fast the six days of Shawwal and she has days of Ramadan to make up, is it permissible for her to delay her debt and first fast the six days of Shawwal?

The Shaykh : The second question: If a woman wants to fast the six days of Shawwal and she has days of Ramadan to make up, is it permissible for her to delay her debt and first fast the six days of Shawwal? The answer: It is necessary to distinguish: If she only has days of Ramadan to make up, not the entire month of Ramadan, then in that case she fasts the six days of Shawwal and fasts the days she owes from Ramadan, then she fasts the six days of Ramadan. Because Shawwal is a month that is entirely a venue for the six days of Shawwal; it is not required that the six days of Shawwal be at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end. So if she has, for example, ten days of Ramadan, or seven days of Ramadan, as soon as the second day of 'Id al-Fitr enters, she must hasten to make up the days she owes from Ramadan, because making up is more obligatory for her than the six days of Shawwal. If she finishes making up the days she owes from Ramadan, then she fasts the six days of Shawwal. As for if she has the entire month of Ramadan to make up, whether due to illness, post-natal bleeding, or something similar, if she fasts the six days of Shawwal, that means she will delay fasting Ramadan after the six days and take days from the month of Dhul-Qa'dah. In this case, she has prioritized the voluntary over the obligatory, so in this situation it is not permissible, because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: , so hastening to obedience is an obligatory matter in the obligatory acts and a recommended matter in the voluntary acts. So a woman who has the entire month of Ramadan to make up, after the 'Id, she must immediately start making up the entire month of Ramadan. If she has five, six, or sixteen days, she hastens to make up the days she owes, then she fasts the six days of Shawwal. Fasting the six days of Shawwal is a recommended matter, and if the one fasting fasts them at the beginning of Shawwal, in the middle, or at the end, the six days of Shawwal are fulfilled. But fasting Ramadan is obligatory, so prioritizing the obligatory is more obligatory than prioritizing the voluntary. And I have something that clarifies, but the topic is: If this woman has six days of Ramadan to make up and she wants to fast the six days of Shawwal, she fasts the six days of Shawwal on the pretext that she will then fast the six days following Ramadan. What has she done? She has prioritized the important and delayed the more important. This is a reversal of the topic that clarifies what came before. And this woman, after she fasted the six days of Shawwal, died. What do we say about her, is she obedient or disobedient? She is disobedient, because if she were obedient, she would have fasted the six days of Shawwal, but she did not fulfill the obligatory that was upon her. Yes, she fasted the six days of Shawwal, which is voluntary, but the state of fasting the six days as voluntary, between that and fulfilling and making up what is obligatory upon her. This is like one of our intelligent common brothers who makes jokes sometimes. He brings me a friend of his whom he knows, jokingly saying: "I am introducing you to So-and-so. So-and-so is obedient to his parents and angry with the Lord of the Worlds." He means that So-and-so is obedient to his father and mother but does not pray his five prayers. So he is dutiful to his parents but is in the anger of the Lord of the Worlds... Similarly, this woman has six days of Ramadan to make up and she wants to fast the six days of Shawwal. Let her prioritize the more important over the important: she fasts the six days of Ramadan, then she fasts the six days of Shawwal.