Can he say “Ana faatir (I am not fasting)” if he is not fasting?
Question I read in some article that it is not permissible to say faatir (to mean not fasting) because the word faatir means khaaliq (creator), and it says in the Qur’aan (interpretation of the meaning): “the Creator [faatir] of the heavens and the earth” [al-An‘aam 6:14]. Saying I am faatir is like saying I am…
Question
Praise be to Allah.
If a person
tells someone that he is not fasting, he should say Ana muftir,
because muftir is the active particle of the verb aftara (to
break the fast); the verbal known is al-fitr, which means breaking
the fast.
Al-Jawhari
said: Aftara al-saa’im (the fasting person broke his fast); the
verbal noun is fitr. [And he gave further examples of how the words
fitr and muftir are used].
End quote.
Al-Sihaah fi’l-Lughah, 2/47
The word
faatir is the active participle of the verb fatara, and the
verbal noun is al-fatr, which means initiating or creating.
Al-Zubaydi
said: fatara al-shay’ means he began the thing. Ibn ‘Abbaas said: I
did not understand what faatir al-samawaati wa’l-ard (Creator of the
heavens and the earth) meant until two Bedouins came to me with a dispute
about a well, and one of them said Ana fatartuha (I started it),
meaning that he was the one who dug it first.
Abu’l-‘Abbaas
said that he heard Ibn al-A‘raabi say: Ana awwal man fatara hadha (I
am the first one who started this), meaning the first one to begin it. End
quote. Taaj al-‘Aroos, 1/3347
This indicates
that the verb fatara, and its active participle faatir, are
not among the words that are used exclusively in reference to Allah or in
conjunction with He name, may He be exalted. Rather these words may be used
to refer to others, even though they are rarely used in the manner even with
regard to one who starts something new; such a person is rarely described as
faatir.
The mistake
here is merely a linguistic error. If the dialect of the speaker usually
uses the word faatir to refer to one who is not fasting, it does not seem
that there is anything wrong with using it in this manner.
And Allah knows best.
