| Answer: Women, once their menstrual cycle is over, are
required to make up for the fasts but they are not required to cover their
missed prayers. This seems to be based on the fact that Allah wants to create
facility and ease for mankind, as mentioned in the Qur’ān:
Allah wants to create ease for you; He does not want to
be hard on you. (2:185)
Since saying forty to fifty missed out prayers would have
been a difficult exercise, it was waived off. However, keeping eight or ten
fasts is not that difficult a task. Therefore, it is required to be compensated
with by observing them later on.
The other obvious reason is that since the prayer is an
everyday ritual of worship and the obligatory fasts are confined to the month of
Ramadān only, making up for missed fasts seems essential otherwise women might
loose the opportunity to fully benefit from the ritual of fasting. |