50. Can I Take The Covid Vaccine Shot While I’m Fasting?

By Asma bint Shameem 

The covid vaccine does not invalidate the fast. 

Any type of injection whether intravenous or intramuscular, is ALLOWED during fasting EXCEPT those injections that will provide *“nourishment”* to the body and act indirectly as “food” and give energy. 

And the covid vaccine is NOT one of those. 

The scholars of the AMJA Fatwa Committee said:

“Contemporary Muslim scholars have ruled that non-nutritious therapeutic injections (for example, vaccinations) have no effect on the fast and would not invalidate it. 

This is the fatwa of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy and various fatwa agencies in several Muslim countries. 

The basis of this fatwa is that such injections are not like eating or drinking, either in form (entry into the gastrointestinal tract, also called the digestive tract or alimentary canal) or 

purpose (nutrition and hydration). 

Based on this, there is no harm in getting a Covid-19 vaccination while fasting in Ramadan, and it does not break one’s fast.” 

(AMJA Resident Fatwa Committee, Fatwa #87769)

Shaikh Ibn Uthaymeen said:

“No doubt all injections and solutions are for the purpose of medical treatment, but some injections are for the purpose of nourishment which takes the place of food and drink, and others are not. 

As for solutions – whether sugar or saline – that are administered intravenously, they provide nourishment and invalidate the fast, unlike solutions that are used to wash the bladder, which do not invalidate the fast.

And he said, discussing the  things that invalidate the fast:

“The fourth of the things that invalidate the fast is anything that is regarded as coming under the same heading as eating and drinking.

This includes two things: 

i. Transfusion of blood to one who is fasting – such as if he bleeds heavily and is given a blood transfusion. This invalidates the fast because blood is the ultimate destination of nourishment through food and drink.

ii. Receiving via a needle (as in the case of a drip) nourishing substances which take the place of food and drink, because this is the same as food and drink.”

(Majaalis Shahr Ramadhaan, p. 70)

And Allaah knows best