Does the Left-Over Food in the Mouth from the Dawn Meal Break the Fast?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

I ate some Oreos during suhoor, but fell asleep before being able to rinse my mouth or brush my teeth. When I woke up, I spit in the sink and my spit was black from the Oreos. I spit a few times but it was still black. So, I decided to move along with my day. If I swallowed that saliva, is my fast be broken? Or is that considered negligible?

Answer 

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Your fast remains valid for the following reason:

The residual food in the mouth from the pre-dawn meal does not break the fast, if swallowed, if the amount of the residual food is little. Little is defined as less than the size of a chick pea. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]

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 then 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 a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.