Jami` at-Tirmidhi 718

Unreviewed translation. All hadiths in this collection are available in five languages. Titles and introductions may remain in Arabic.

Qutaibah narrated to us: 'Abthar bin Al-Qasim narrated to us, from Ash'ath, from Muhammad, from Nafi', from Ibn 'Umar, from the Prophet, who said: ‘Whoever dies owing a month's fasts, a needy person should be fed on his behalf for each day.’ Abu 'Isa said: We know this hadith as attributed to the Prophet only through this route; the sounder report from Ibn 'Umar is a statement of his own. Scholars differed on this topic. Some said that another person may fast on behalf of the deceased. This was the view of Ahmad and Ishaq, who said that if the deceased owed a vowed fast, someone should fast on his behalf, and if he owed make-up fasts for Ramadan, food should be given on his behalf. Malik, Sufyan, and Ash-Shafi'i said that no one fasts on behalf of another. Ash'ath is Ibn Sawwar, and Muhammad is, in my view, Ibn 'Abdur-Rahman bin Abi Laila.