Fasting the Six Days of Shawwal: When to Fast Them and What the Schools Say

The six days of Shawwal are six voluntary fasts kept during the month that follows Ramadan. They can be fasted on any six days of Shawwal except the day of Eid al-Fitr itself, on which fasting is not permitted, and the Prophet ﷺ described whoever keeps them after Ramadan as having fasted the whole year. Whether the six must be consecutive, and whether you may keep them while you still owe make-up fasts, are questions the four schools answer differently. This article sets out each position rather than choosing between them.

What Are the Six Days of Shawwal?

Shawwal is the tenth month of the Hijri calendar and begins the day after Ramadan ends. Its first day is Eid al-Fitr. The remaining days are open, and the practice known as the six days of Shawwal — sitt min Shawwal — means keeping six voluntary fasts somewhere within that window. They are not obligatory. There is no sin in missing them, and nothing to make up afterwards. They belong to the category of recommended acts that carry a large reward relative to the effort involved, which is much of why they are so widely kept.

In practice most people find them easier than they expect: the body has just spent a month adapted to fasting, and six scattered days ask far less of a routine than a continuous month does.

The Hadith Behind the Practice

The basis is a narration recorded by Muslim in his Sahih, on the authority of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, in which the Prophet ﷺ said that whoever fasts Ramadan and then follows it with six days of Shawwal, it is as though he fasted for a lifetime.

Scholars have explained the arithmetic through the Quranic principle that a good deed is multiplied tenfold, stated in Surah al-An’am (6:160): thirty days multiplied by ten gives three hundred, and six days multiplied by ten gives sixty, which together make a lunar year. That explanation appears in some wordings of the narration itself and is the standard classical reading. It is worth knowing that the whole practice rests on this one text, which is why the questions that follow are answered by reasoning around it rather than by further explicit instruction.

Do They Have to Be Consecutive?

This is the most common question and it does not have a single answer. Some scholars, including within the Shafi’i school, hold that fasting the six consecutively and immediately after Eid is best, on the grounds that it hastens a good deed and reduces the risk of never getting to it.

Others, including positions transmitted in the Hanafi and Hanbali schools, hold that spreading them across the month is equally valid, since the wording of the narration specifies the month and not the sequence. There is broad agreement that either approach fulfils the practice; the disagreement is about which is more virtuous, not about whether the fast counts. Anyone who fasts six days at any point in Shawwal, consecutive or scattered, has done what the narration describes on every recognised view.

What If You Still Owe Qada Fasts?

Many people finish Ramadan owing days — through illness, travel, pregnancy, nursing or menstruation — and want to know which comes first. The schools diverge here. The Hanbali position, and the position associated with many Shafi’i scholars, is that the make-up (qada) fasts should be completed first: the obligation takes precedence over the voluntary, and the narration says whoever fasts Ramadan and then follows it, which they read as requiring Ramadan to be complete before the six begin.

The Hanafi and Maliki schools generally permit voluntary fasting while qada is still outstanding, since qada is not tied to a deadline earlier than the following Ramadan. Someone with a large number of days to make up may find one view considerably more workable than the other, which is precisely why it is worth asking rather than assuming.

Can One Fast Count for Two Intentions?

A related question is whether a single day can be intended as both a make-up fast and one of the six. Some scholars permit combining intentions where one act serves as a means to another, and would allow a person making up Ramadan during Shawwal to gain the reward of the six as well. Others hold that each is a distinct act of worship requiring its own intention and its own day, and that combining them yields the obligation only.

A comparable disagreement exists over combining the six with Mondays and Thursdays, or with the white days. Because the reasoning turns on technical questions of intention (niyyah), it is not something to settle from a summary. What is agreed is that six separate voluntary days, kept once the obligation is clear, satisfy the practice on every view.

What If Shawwal Ends Before You Finish?

The window is the month, and once Shawwal ends the specific reward described in the narration is generally understood to have passed with it. Scholars differ on whether someone prevented by a genuine excuse — an illness spanning the month, or an unavoidable obligation — may keep the six days later and still receive that reward. Some allow it by analogy with other time-bound recommended acts; others hold that a recommended act tied to a time simply lapses when the time does, without sin and without a debt.

Nobody suggests that a missed set of voluntary fasts creates an obligation. Fasting outside Shawwal remains a good act in its own right, and the voluntary fasts recommended across the rest of the year — Mondays and Thursdays, the white days, Ashura, Arafah — are unaffected.

Making the Six Days Realistic

The practical difficulty is rarely the fasting itself. It is that Shawwal arrives with Eid visits, travel and a return to normal work after a month of altered routine, and the six days quietly slip. People who keep them consistently tend to do two things: they choose the dates before Eid rather than after, and they pair each fast with something already in the diary so the day has a shape.

Many also treat Shawwal as the month in which the habits built during Ramadan are tested — whether the reading, the night prayer and the giving survive the month after. Charity is the easiest of the three to carry forward, because unlike fasting or prayer it can be arranged once and left to run, which is why a small regular amount set up in Shawwal tends to outlast a larger one given in a single moment.

The questions on which scholars have given different answers are long-standing disagreements, each held in good faith by qualified scholars across the recognised schools. We do not take a side on any of them. If you want a ruling for your own situation, ask your local imam or a scholar you trust.

Sources

This article draws on the following. Hadith reference numbers are given as they are commonly cited and are worth confirming against the collections directly.

• Sahih Muslim, Book of Fasting — the narration of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari on fasting Ramadan and following it with six days of Shawwal (commonly cited as Sahih Muslim 1164).
• Qur’an, Surah al-An’am 6:160 — the tenfold multiplication of a good deed, which is the basis of the “whole year” explanation.
• Shafi’i position favouring six consecutive days immediately after Eid — as set out in Shafi’i commentary on Sahih Muslim.
• Hanafi and Hanbali positions permitting the six days to be spread across the month — as set out in the standard manuals of those schools.
• Hanbali position requiring outstanding qada fasts to be completed before voluntary fasting — as set out in Hanbali fiqh manuals.
• Hanafi and Maliki positions permitting voluntary fasting while qada remains outstanding — as set out in the standard manuals of those schools.
• Combining intentions (tashrik al-niyyah) between an obligatory and a voluntary fast — discussed across all four schools, with differing conclusions.

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