In a fatwa that may make fasting in Ramadan more tolerable for millions of Muslim smokers, a professor of Fiqh Fundamentals at King Khaled University in Abha has ruled that the use of the nicotine patch does not break the fast. According to a report in Al-Watan newspaper, the view of Abdul Rahman Al-Jaree, who is specialized in Fiqh medical issues, comes in flat contradiction to that offered by the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta, a body headed by the Kingdom's Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Aal Al-Sheikh, which said that nicotine patches break the Ramadan fast as they deliver nicotine to the bloodstream in the same way as smoking a normal cigarette would. “For me it doesn't seem to be corrupting the fast,” said Al-Jaree, who is supported in his stance by other fatwas, such as that of Muhammad Bin Saleh Al-Othaimeen. “There's a difference between nicotine taken in through the mouth and nose with pleasure and administered through the skin as a form of treatment.” Al-Jaree told Al-Watan that nicotine patches were similar to injections, which are permitted for persons fasting, while the International Fiqh Academy in its ruling number 93 said that patches did not annul the fast but were instead more akin to ointments or other forms of skin-applied treatments. Nicotine patches are promoted as way of helping people give up smoking by delivering nicotine, the chemical responsible for inducing the “craving” a smoker experiences when levels are low, through the skin into the bloodstream. According to Ministry of Health figures 2,000 Saudis die each year from smoking-related illnesses. Smokers in Saudi Arabia number six million, 600,000 of them women, and spend SR8 billion every year on the habit
