Is the distance of travel fixed?

The Shaykh : We should understand the illness for which Allah the Mighty and Majestic has permitted one who is afflicted with it to break his fast and make up another day. What is this illness? It is not possible to define illness by material measures, just as one defines terrestrial distances by kilometers.
For example, you might say, as we know, fifty kilometers between here and Al-Aqabah. But how many illnesses afflict a single person, let alone all people? It is not possible to draw up a new map for them, classifying illnesses as number one, two, three, five, ten, and so on. These are illnesses that justify breaking the fast for one who is afflicted with any of them, because he would be considered sick.
As for the other illnesses, even if they are illnesses, one who is afflicted with any of them is not justified and it is not permissible for him to break his fast in Ramadan. There is absolutely nothing of this. As you know, in the same context, , in the end, our Lord the Mighty and Majestic says: Allah wants ease for you. If Allah the Mighty and Majestic had fixed the distance of travel, people would have fallen into difficulty, especially in the early times, when the lands were not mapped from such a city to such a city at such a number of kilometers. There was nothing at all. If Allah the Mighty and Majestic had fixed the distance of travel, people would have fallen into difficulty and been subjected to hardship. But Allah the Mighty and Majestic has been gracious to His servants, where He could have realized one of His wills, as Allah the Mighty and Majestic said: But did Allah will to make things difficult for us? No, He said: If He had burdened us, specifically the first Arabs, and more specifically the Bedouins living in the deserts, where the land of Allah is vast and one wants to move from camp to camp, from tribe to tribe, how would they know how far this place is from that place? Therefore, it reverts to the custom of the peoples living in the desert, the custom of these peoples living in cities and villages. The ruling of custom is that if this distance is considered travel, then it is travel; and if not, then it is not. Likewise, illness is exactly the same. For this reason, I linked the issue of travel to illness, because Allah the Mighty and Majestic combined them in the previous verse. And as I said earlier, illness cannot be limited to fifty types or a hundred types. This is from one aspect. From another aspect, it is not possible to limit the intensity of a single type of illness. For example, one person has a fever, a rise in temperature. These are degrees. Who judges? And whenever a person is afflicted with an illness, must he bring a doctor to weigh this illness to allow him to break his fast in Ramadan? This is a burden of hardship from which our religion and our Islam disavow itself. So, travel that is known as travel is travel, and otherwise it is not travel. Now, as they say: The people of Makkah know its valleys best, and the owner of the house knows what is in it best. When one of you comes from Al-Aqabah to here, do you say he is a traveler? I do not know. But if your custom says that one who is in Al-Aqabah says, "I am traveling to Al-Qurayrah," then it is travel, whether the distance is long or not. And if he says, "No, I am going to Al-Qurayrah" and does not use the word "travel," then it is not travel. This is the criterion in the matter. Otherwise, you would fall into problems that, without offense, you cannot answer. The greatest scholar in the world cannot give you an answer if we do not link travel to kilometer distances. Because some lands, like deserts, as we gave an example earlier, although the public roads are mapped and there are stones or signs or something similar, for example from such a village or town to such a town, there are so many kilometers. But when a person goes out into the desert and goes out into the steppe, there are absolutely no such measurements. So what do these Muslims who live in such deserts do? And what do the Muslims who live in the unknowns of Africa do? If they know, Allah will make it easy in the religion of Allah, and the wisdom of Allah in His saying will become apparent to them: meaning any absolute travel, any absolute thing known as travel is travel, any absolute thing known as illness is illness. I am pleased in this regard that Imam al-Qurtubi, the author of the tafsir al-Jami' li Ahkam al-Qur'an, mentioned in his tafsir of this verse that he mentioned here regarding the word "illness" that it is in its absolute sense. And he mentioned a narration from Muhammad ibn Sirin (may Allah have mercy on him) that he was seen one day in Ramadan while breaking his fast, and it did not appear that he was a traveler or that he was ill. When one of them asked, "Why are you breaking your fast?" he showed him his finger, which was cut and bound. So he was ill. Therefore, he was utilizing the dispensation of Allah the Mighty and Majestic which is specified in this noble verse. So Muhammad ibn Sirin, who is one of the great Tabi'un, as is well known, and one of their scholars and virtuous ones, and one of those who narrated a lot from the hadith scholar of the Companions, Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), he narrated a lot from him. This Tabi'i scholar, narrator, and great hadith scholar understood the verse in its absolute sense. So everyone who is ill is permitted to utilize the dispensation and break his fast in Ramadan. And the same is said regarding travel. I have no answer to this question. Is there anything else?

The questioner : May Allah not bless you.

The Shaykh : And may He bless you.