Ramadan: History, Customs, the Night of Power and Eid al-Fitr

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, during which adult Muslims fast from dawn to sunset as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Muslims honour it as the month in which the Qur'an was first revealed; it combines the daytime fast with night prayers, recitation of the scripture, charity and family gatherings, and it closes with the festival of Eid al-Fitr.

Ramadan in the Qur'an and Early Islam§

The name Ramadan comes from an Arabic root associated with scorching heat, and the month belonged to the Arabian calendar before Islam. Its religious meaning derives from a passage in the second sura: fasting is prescribed for believers "as it was prescribed for those before you", for a fixed number of days, and Ramadan is named as the month "in which the Qur'an was sent down" as guidance for people (al-Baqara 2:183–187). The same passage sets the limits of the day as the moment at dawn when the white thread can be told from the black, and permits eating, drinking and marital relations during the night.

According to the biographical and hadith literature, the Ramadan fast was made obligatory in the second year after the Hijra, around 624. Before this the Prophet and his companions had fasted on the tenth of Muharram, the day of 'Ashura, a practice that afterwards became voluntary. Early Muslim memory associates the month with decisive events: the battle of Badr, the first major victory of the Muslims, was fought in Ramadan of 624, and the bloodless entry into Mecca took place in Ramadan of 630. The Qur'an's reference to those "before you" has long invited comparison with Jewish and Christian fasts, a question scholars of the Qur'an and hadith still discuss.

The Rules of the Fast and Its Exemptions§

The fast (ṣawm) requires an intention (niyya), traditionally made each night or once for the whole month, depending on the school of law. From the first light of dawn until sunset the fasting person abstains from food, drink, smoking and sexual relations. Families rise for a pre-dawn meal (suḥūr), and at sunset the fast is broken (ifṭār), following the Prophet's custom, with dates and water before the evening prayer.

The law is attentive to hardship. Travellers and the sick may postpone the fast and make up the days later; the elderly and the chronically ill who cannot fast at all instead feed a poor person for each day missed (fidya). Pregnant and nursing women may be exempt, and menstruating women do not fast but make up the days afterwards. Children are not obliged to fast before puberty, though many families let them try half-days. Deliberately breaking the fast without excuse is a serious matter: most jurists require the day to be made up, and for intentional intercourse during the fast they require an expiation (kaffāra), classically the freeing of a slave or, failing that, sixty consecutive days of fasting or feeding sixty poor people. The details are the work of the schools of law described in Islamic Law and Theology.

Laylat al-Qadr: The Night of Power§

The holiest night of the month is Laylat al-Qadr, usually rendered the Night of Power, of Destiny or of Decree. A short sura is devoted to it: the revelation was sent down on that night, which is "better than a thousand months"; the angels and the Spirit descend in it by their Lord's permission, and it is peace until the rising of the dawn (al-Qadr 97). Another passage speaks of a "blessed night" in which every wise matter is decided (ad-Dukhan 44:3–4), which many commentators identify with the same night and connect with the annual decree of God's dispositions for the coming year.

The exact date was not fixed. Hadith reports encourage believers to seek it among the odd-numbered nights of the last ten, and Sunni popular practice commonly observes the eve of the 27th with special vigils, recitation and sermons. Twelver Shi'is give particular attention to the nights of the 19th, 21st and 23rd, the first two of which coincide with the anniversary of the fatal wounding and death of the Imam 'Ali in 661, so that the Nights of Qadr combine vigil with mourning (see The Twelve Imams of Shi'a Islam). Many devout men and some women spend the last ten days in seclusion in the mosque (iʿtikāf), following the Prophet's example, devoting themselves to prayer and recitation.

Devotions of the Month: Tarawih, Recitation and Charity§

After the night prayer Sunni Muslims gather in mosques for the tarāwīḥ, extra prayers of eight or twenty cycles depending on local custom, during which a portion of the Qur'an is recited each night so that the whole text may be completed by the end of the month. Hadith reports state that the Prophet led such prayers on a few nights and then stopped lest they be thought obligatory, and that the caliph 'Umar later gathered the people behind a single reciter. Twelver Shi'is do not pray tarawih in congregation, regarding that arrangement as a later innovation, but perform their own recommended night prayers and supplications, such as the long Duʿāʾ Abī Ḥamza al-Thumālī recited before dawn.

Recitation pervades the month. Ramadan is believed to be the month in which the angel Gabriel reviewed the revelation with the Prophet each year, and many Muslims aim to read the entire Qur'an, divided into thirty parts (juzʾ), one for each day. Charity grows as well. Before the Eid prayer every household pays zakāt al-fiṭr, a small fixed amount of staple food or its value on behalf of each member, so that the poor can share in the feast, and many people choose Ramadan to pay their annual zakat and to fund communal iftars for neighbours, students and strangers.

The Inner Fast in Sufi and Ethical Thought§

Muslim teachers have always insisted that the fast is more than hunger. A widely cited hadith has the Prophet say that whoever does not give up false speech and acting on it, God has no need of his giving up food and drink. In a divine saying (ḥadīth qudsī) transmitted in the canonical collections, God declares that fasting belongs to Him and that He Himself will reward it, a saying commentators explain by the hidden, unseen nature of a fast that only God can witness.

Al-Ghazali gave these ideas their classic form in the book on the mysteries of fasting in his Revival of the Religious Sciences. He distinguishes three degrees: the fast of ordinary believers, who keep the stomach and the body from their desires; the fast of the elect, who also restrain the eyes, tongue, ears, hands and feet from wrongdoing; and the fast of the elect of the elect, who keep the heart from every concern except God. Breaking a fast with lawful food, he adds, should not become an occasion for overeating, which defeats its purpose of weakening the appetites. Sufi manuals took up this hierarchy, and hunger became a recognised discipline of the mystical path described in Sufism in Islam, alongside silence, vigil and seclusion.

Ramadan Customs Around the World and Eid al-Fitr§

Because the Islamic year is lunar, the start and end of Ramadan depend on the new crescent, and the month moves backwards through the seasons over a cycle of about thirty-three years. Communities differ over whether the crescent must be sighted locally or whether astronomical calculation and announcements from other countries are acceptable, so Ramadan sometimes begins on different days in neighbouring countries or mosques; the question is treated more fully in The Islamic Calendar.

Each region has developed its own rhythms. In Egypt the coloured lantern (fānūs) became a symbol of the month, with popular stories tracing it to the Fatimid period, and a cannon fired at sunset to announce iftar became a custom in Cairo and spread across the Ottoman world. In many towns a drummer, the musaḥḥarātī in Arabic-speaking lands or the davulcu in Turkey, walks the streets before dawn to wake people for the pre-dawn meal. Istanbul's great mosques are hung with mahya, messages written in lights strung between their minarets. In South and South-East Asia the nights are filled with markets and family visits, and in Indonesia the end of the month brings mudik, one of the largest annual homecoming migrations in the world.

The month ends with Eid al-Fitr, the Festival of Breaking the Fast, on the first day of Shawwal. Muslims gather in the morning for a special congregational prayer, often in open grounds, wear new or best clothes, visit relatives and the graves of the dead, and give gifts to children. In Turkish it is called the Şeker Bayramı, the "sugar festival", and in Indonesia and Malaysia Lebaran or Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Many Muslims then fast six further days in Shawwal, which a hadith describes as completing the reward of a whole year.

Frequently asked questions§

Why does Ramadan start on a different date each year?§

The Islamic calendar follows the moon, and twelve lunar months are about eleven days shorter than a solar year. Ramadan therefore begins roughly eleven days earlier each year in the Gregorian calendar and passes through every season in about thirty-three years.

What is Laylat al-Qadr?§

It is the Night of Power, on which Muslims believe the revelation of the Qur'an began. The Qur'an calls it better than a thousand months; it is sought in the odd nights of the last ten days of Ramadan, especially the 27th in Sunni practice.

Who is excused from fasting in Ramadan?§

Children before puberty, the sick, travellers, the elderly who cannot fast, menstruating women and, in many rulings, pregnant or nursing women are excused. Most of them make up missed days later or feed a poor person instead.

What is the difference between Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha?§

Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the Ramadan fast on the first of Shawwal. Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, falls on the tenth of Dhu al-Hijja during the season of the hajj.

Sources and further reading§

• Muhammadan Festivals — Gustave E. von Grunebaum, 1951
• Ramadan in Java: The Joy and Jihad of Ritual Fasting — André Möller, 2005
• Muslim Devotions: A Study of Prayer-Manuals in Common Use — Constance E. Padwick, 1961
• The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary — Seyyed Hossein Nasr (ed.), 2015
• Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, 1988