Whoever reaches fifteen lunar years has reached the age of obligation according to the majority of scholars from the Shafi’is and Hanbalis, and it is a view according to the Malikis, and a view according to some Hanafi scholars.
Praise be to God, and may blessings and peace be upon the Messenger of God, his family and companions, as for what follows:
Whoever reaches fifteen lunar years has reached the age of obligation according to the majority of scholars from the Shafi’is and Hanbalis, and it is a view according to the Malikis, and a view according to some Hanafi scholars.
According to this doctrine; Anyone who has reached the age of fifteen and is required to make up for Ramadan must make it up before the next Ramadan begins. If he neglects to make up for it until Ramadan begins, he must, in addition to making up for it, make up minor expiation, which is: feeding a poor person for each day, according to the majority of scholars, including the Malikis. It was stated in the Encyclopedia of Jurisprudence: “…they differed regarding someone who delayed making up for Ramadan until another Ramadan began without an excuse. Is he obligated to pay a ransom along with making up for it or not? So the majority of jurists – namely the Malikis, Shafi’is, and Hanbalis… – held that the ransom is obligatory along with making up for it, which is a mudd of food for each day.”
As for the well-known saying of the Malikis, it is: that puberty occurs at eighteen years of age, and many of them limited themselves to that; Mayara said in Al-Durr Al-Thameen on Al-Murshid Al-Mu’een: “And the third: – one of the signs of puberty – is age. The definition differed, and the well-known – and the grammarian restricted it to this – is eighteen years, and it was said: seventeen. And it was said: fifteen.”
