Ṣawm — Fasting in Ramaḍān

Abstaining from food, drink and other appetites from dawn to sunset through the month of Ramaḍān is the fourth pillar of Islam.

At a glance

During Ramaḍān — the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, in which the Qur'an is traditionally held to have begun to be revealed — Muslims who are able abstain each day, from dawn until sunset, from eating, drinking and marital relations. The fast is broken each evening, often communally, and the month is marked by night prayers and heightened devotion.

Fasting is presented in the Qur'an as a discipline given to cultivate God-consciousness (taqwā). Its intended fruits are self-restraint, gratitude, and solidarity with the hungry; the exempt — the sick, travellers, the pregnant and others — make up missed days or feed the poor instead. The month closes with the festival of ʿĪd al-Fiṭr.

Because the Islamic year is lunar and about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian, Ramaḍān moves steadily backwards through the seasons, completing the cycle in roughly thirty-three years — so a Muslim's lifetime of fasting includes both short winter days and long summer ones. The month begins and ends with the sighting of the new crescent, and because that sighting is determined locally, neighbouring countries and even neighbouring mosques may start a day apart; some authorities, Türkiye among them, settle the calendar by astronomical calculation instead. Jurists have also had to rule on the extreme latitudes, where the sun in summer scarcely sets, and the usual solutions follow the timings of Mecca or of the nearest moderate latitude.

The month has a devotional shape beyond the daytime abstention. The fast is opened at sunset with ifṭār and prepared for with the pre-dawn meal of suḥūr; the nights carry the long tarāwīḥ prayers, in which many congregations recite the whole Qur'an across the month; and the last ten nights hold Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Power commemorating the beginning of revelation, which the more devout may spend in the mosque in retreat (iʿtikāf). Sunni and Shiʿi practice differ over which night is most likely to be it. Before the ʿĪd prayer every household able to do so pays zakāt al-fiṭr, a small measure of food or its value, so that the poor share in the festival.

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Curated reference on Islamic belief and thought. On matters where traditions differ, positions are attributed rather than adjudicated; verify points of doctrine with qualified scholars.