Ramadan, the month of the Quran

What Ramadan is

Someone at work asks when Ramadan starts this year, and you realise you aren't completely sure either. That's normal. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which follows the moon, so it arrives about eleven days earlier every year and slowly travels through all the seasons.

It begins with the new crescent and lasts twenty-nine or thirty days. Fasting it is one of the five pillars of Islam: from the first light of dawn until sunset you leave food, drink and intimacy, and you try to leave harsh words and arguments too. At sunset you break the fast, and the night is yours for prayer and the Quran.

The Quran gives the purpose of the fast in a single line, below. Two verses later it names this as the month in which the Quran itself was revealed (Al-Baqarah 2:185).

How to spend the month

The Prophet ﷺ said that whoever fasts Ramadan out of faith and hoping for its reward will have their past sins forgiven (Bukhari 38), and he said the same of whoever stands its nights in prayer (Bukhari 37). Those are the two halves of the month: the days and the nights.

He was the most generous of people, and most generous of all in Ramadan, when Jibril met him every night to go over the Quran with him (Bukhari 6). That gives your month a simple shape:

• Eat suhur before dawn, even if it's a few dates and some water. “Take suhur, for there is blessing in it” (Bukhari 1923).
• Break your fast as soon as the sun has set. People remain upon good as long as they hurry to break the fast (Bukhari 1957).
• Read some Quran every day. A juz a day finishes it in the month, but one page read slowly with its meaning is also a real Ramadan.
• Pray taraweeh, at the mosque or at home. Scholars differ on how many rak'ahs it should be; follow your mosque.
• Give something every day, even if it's small, and pay zakat al-fitr before the Eid prayer.
• Keep the fast clean of backbiting and arguments. The hunger is the easy part.
• Save your strongest effort for the last ten nights, where Laylat al-Qadr is hidden.

Who fasts, and who is excused

Fasting is required of every Muslim who has reached puberty, is of sound mind, healthy, and not travelling. The Quran itself makes room: whoever is ill or on a journey makes up the same number of days later (Al-Baqarah 2:184).

Women don't fast during their period or the bleeding after childbirth, and make the days up afterwards. Pregnant and nursing mothers who fear for themselves or their baby may also leave the fast; scholars differ on whether they later make up the days, feed a poor person for each day (fidya), or both. People with a lasting illness that makes fasting impossible, and the very elderly, give fidya instead.

If you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor and a scholar you trust before the month begins. Ease is part of the command: “Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship” (Al-Baqarah 2:185).

Why the start date can differ

Most years, some families start fasting a day before their neighbours. It's an old difference and an honest one. Some communities begin only when the crescent is seen with the eye, locally or in their region. Others follow a sighting anywhere in the Muslim world. Others, including Turkey's Diyanet, rely on astronomical calculation and publish the calendar in advance. Each approach has serious scholars behind it.

The usual advice is to begin and end with your local community. The dates on this page follow Diyanet's calendar, the same one the Sereni app uses.