Question: “If a woman owes days of fasting from Ramadān, is it permissible for her to fast the six days (of Shawwāl) before the days of Ramadān or does she prioritise the days of Ramadān before the six?”

Answer: “If a woman has to make up fasts from Ramadān, she should not fast the six days from Shawwāl except after making up the fasts of Ramadān. That is because Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: “Whoever fasts the month of Ramadān, then follows it with six days from Shawwāl…), so whichever woman has to make up days from Ramadān, hasn’t fasted Ramadān and so does not acquire the reward of the six days except after she finishes making up the fasts she owes.

Supposing the fasts required to be made up by a woman takes up the whole of Shawwāl, such as the woman who went through post-natal bleeding and didn’t fast a single day of Ramadān. Then she begins making up the fasts in Shawwāl and doesn’t finish until after Dhil-Qi’dah enters, here she fasts the six days of Shawwāl (although ouside of Shawwāl), and for her is the reward of the one who fasted them in Shawwāl, because her delaying of those days were due to necessity and so her fasting of those six days (outside of Shawwāl) is excused and so she acquires the reward.”

Majmū’ Al-Fatāwā Wa Rasāil of Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymīn, volume 20, page 19, Kitāb Aṣ-Ṣiyām, Question 386.
Translated By Abu Humayd Sālim