A brother's journey back to faith after years of neglect
As-salamu alaykum, dear brothers and sisters. I'm a young Muslim man who's been distant from my deen for a while – I stopped praying regularly a few years back, and during past Ramadans, I intentionally broke my fast on several days due to struggling with an addiction to inappropriate content. I know the kaffarah for breaking a fast in Ramadan is either feeding 60 needy people or fasting 60 days straight for each broken day. Plus, there are years of missed prayers. Honestly, making up for all of it feels overwhelming. I can't afford to feed hundreds, and catching up on years of prayers seems impossible. So my question is: for someone like me, where the usual answer of 'make it all up' isn't realistic, what's the Islamic way forward? What do I do about the kaffarah if I truly can't manage it? And with the missed prayers, is there a scholarly view that doesn't require tackling an unmanageable backlog? I know it might sound like I'm looking for an easy way out, but I genuinely feel stuck – if the only option is to fulfill all kaffarah and pray every missed salah, the guilt might keep me from returning, especially since I find it hard to keep up with the five daily prayers as it is. For context, I grew up in a Muslim family where my parents made me pray, but I started hiding that I wasn't from them, which I know was wrong; they're aware now. JazakAllahu khairan for any advice.