Taste (dhawq) in the rulings: fasting, injury to it, and oaths

الذوق (في الفقه)

Dhawq is perceiving the taste of a thing through the moisture spread on the nerve over the tongue; it is one of the five senses. ¹ Tasting food does not break the fast unless it reaches the body inside, though it is better avoided. ¹ For injury that takes away taste a full diya is due by agreement; the schools differ on retaliation for it. ¹ In oaths, one who swears not to taste and then eats or drinks breaks the oath, while one who swears not to eat or drink and then tastes does not, because all eating is tasting but not every tasting is eating. ¹

Depth

At a glance

Era: The Prophetic Era
Region: Global / Diaspora
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Worship and the pillars Law and courts

Summary

Dhawq is perceiving the taste of a thing through the moisture spread on the nerve over the tongue; it is one of the five senses. ¹

Fasting

Tasting food does not break the fast unless it reaches the body inside, though it is better avoided. ¹

Injury to the taste

A full diya is due for injury that takes away taste, by agreement; the schools differ on retaliation. ¹

Oaths about tasting

One who swears not to taste food or drink and then eats or drinks breaks the oath; one who swears not to eat or drink and then tastes does not, because all eating is tasting but not every tasting is eating. ¹

People and things also explored

God's debt (dayn Allah): obligations owed to God that remain in the liability· Slaughter (dhaba'ih): the lawful killing of animals for food in fiqh· Gold (dhahab) in the rulings· Halak (destruction of property and its legal effect)· Hay'a (the recommended forms of prayer, and the dignified offenders)· The no-harm maxim· The Prophet's written charge to Amr ibn Hazm on sending him to Yemen· The ruling on one who abandons prayer

Sources

al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.8501

Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Taste (dhawq) in the rulings: fasting, injury to it, and oaths”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/dhawq-fiqh/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.

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Ideas

Beliefs, concepts, sciences and schools, explained in plain words. Related

God's debt (dayn Allah): obligations owed to God that remain in the liability

God's debt is a right of God that stays in the liability of the obligated person, with no human claimant: vows, expiations, the zakat of fast-breaking, pilgrimage, fasting, and a prayer whose time has passed, all of which must be made up. A right of God becomes a debt in the liability when its time passes before performance, when the due property is destroyed, or when the person was unable to perform it when it fell due. Financial debts to God may be paid by a proxy by agreement; bodily worship may not be done for the living, and the schools differ on proxies for the dead. The schools also differ on whether it binds the estate of the dead, whether it blocks zakat, and whether it lapses through hardship, apostasy or death.