Does Using Essential Oils Break One’s Fast?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Will using essential oils break our fast? Is it the same for diffusing in a diffuser?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

The fast is broken when a tangible substance enters the body. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar] 

If you use essential oils topically in does not break the fast. However, if you diffuse the essential oil and directly breath in the mist from the diffuser the fast breaks. 

Note that if this was does unintentionally or in a state that one didn’t remember that they were fasting the fast remains valid.

Thus there is a clear difference between smelling the scent of something and a tangible essence (in this case mist) of something entering the body by one’s own doing. 

[Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar citing al-Imdad]

Hope this helps

Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.