Swimming when fasting? (3)

In the previous blogs, we saw two sets of narrations - both of which advised against immersing your head in water, one of which implying directly that it breaks the fast.

Now we come to the third narration that explicitly seems to suggest it does not break the fast: the Muwaththaq narration of Ishaq ibn Ammar: “I said to Abu Abdullah (AS): ‘Does someone fasting who immerses [their head] into water intentionally have to do a qadha fast for that day?’ He said: ‘He does not have to do a qadha fast, nor does he have to repeat it.’” (Wasa`il, volume 8, page 27; chapters on what someone who is fasting should abstain from, chapter 6, hadith 1)

The chain of narration is Muhammad ibn al-hasan [Shaykh Tusi] with his chain from ibn Sa’d, from Imran ibn Musa, from Muhammad ibn al-Husayn from Abdullah ibn Jabla from Is-haq ibn Ammar.

However, some might claim there is a problem with the chain due to Imran ibn Musa (see http://www.al-khoei.us/books/index.php?id=7682 and http://www.alkhoei.net/arabic/pages/book.php?bcc=718&itg=36&bi=70&s=ct for details of this discussion) but Ayatullah Khui dismisses these as misunderstanding which Imran ibn Musa it is – not al-Khashshab as some erroneously think but al-Zaytuni, who is trustworthy.

 

Therefore, this narration is in contradiction to the previous narrations – as this is absolutely clear in saying that it does not break the fast. 

When there is a contradiction, the first thing to do, is to try and reconcile the narrations i.e. find a ruling that allows all the narrations to be valid. 

Consider the following options to try and re-interpret the first and second sets of narrations:

• Consider the first group of narrations as haram taklifi given that the fact that qada of the fast / repeating the fast is not required implies it is haram only [and does not invalidate the fast] but Ayatullah Khui notes that this does not deal with the sahih narration of ibn Muslim (group 2)

• Consider the first group of narrations as makruh wad’iyya (i.e. it is makruh whilst in the state of fasting) considering that the “idrar” is of different levels with eating and drinking affecting the fast strongly and breaking it; whilst immersing one’s head only affects it to the level of makruh. However, Ayatullah Khui says this does not work as it is one sentence and it is unlikely that the audience would differentiate between “eating and drinking” and “immersing one’s head in water”. 

Therefore, there is a real contradiction between this Muwath-thaq narration and the previous narrations. In the next blog, we will look at methods of actually reconciling this apparent contradiction.