I have a thirty-three-year-old friend who has a brother and a sister. He supports his very sick mother. During the month of Ramadhaan, his mother's sickness increased. He was with her and he felt great psychological pressure. He, therefore, deliberately abandoned fasting for five days. What is the Sharee‘ah ruling on this? What should he do? Is he required to make up for these missed days, feed poor people or give charity? Would you please advise? May Allaah reward you.

All perfect praise be to Allaah, the Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.

Your friend's attitude is very strange. We ask Allaah to guide him. When his crises worsened and he was greatly distressed, he ought to have intensified his supplications and sought refuge in Allaah, in the hope that He would relieve Him. However, jumping out of the frying pan into the fire and attempting to treat a worldly trial with a greater and more severe disaster, because it is a disaster in religion, could only be done by someone who is tempted by the devil and thus turns away from the remembrance of Allaah.  Consequently, your friend is required to sincerely repent to Allaah from that great sin and grave guilt. Abandoning fasting in Ramadan deliberately is one of the greatest destructive grave major sins. 

Shaykhul-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said, "The person who deliberately abandons fasting without a valid excuse commits one of the grave major sins."

Al-Haafith Ath-Thahabi said, "Muslims have unanimously agreed that the person who abandons fasting during Ramadan without a valid excuse, sickness or the like, is worse than an adulterer, an oppressive tax collector or an alcoholic. They even doubt whether he is a Muslim at all, and they regard him as a heretic and profligate."

The scholars have unanimously agreed that such a person is required to make up for these five days. Contrary to the Hanafi and Maaliki scholars, the majority of scholars are of the view that he is obliged to do nothing except making up for the days of fasting that he missed. According to them, expiation is due only when one breaks fasting by having sexual intercourse. This is based on evidence from the Sharee‘ah texts, and other nullifiers of fasting are not of the same meaning.

Nevertheless, it would be better for your friend to increase his voluntary fasting and charity on top of making up for the missed fasts. Allaah The Exalted Says (what means): {Indeed, good deeds do away with misdeeds.}[Quran 11: 114]

Allaah Knows best.