Ramadaan is the nineth month of the Islamic calendar. It is the Islamic month of fasting in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse from dawn to dusk for the duration of Ramadan. For some, fasting may appear as a form of deprivation and of bodily exertion. On one level, abstaining from sensual needs and pleasures is indeed a physical experience. But those who stop at the physical aspects of fasting miss the essence of Ramadan and its purpose. . Fasting is meant to teach the Muslim patience, modesty and spirituality.

Fasting in the month of Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam which are the foundation upon which the entire structure of Islam is built. These consist of the declaration of faith, observing daily prayer, fasting during the month of Ramadan, paying of Zakah the annual charity payment, and performing the pilgrimage to Makkah, known as hajj. It must be noted that three of the five pillars of Islam are rituals, that is, prescribed religious acts whose rationale is not immediately available for understanding. These are prayer, fasting, and hajj. Muslims are required to do them because they are part of their religious duties, that is, they are part of their covenant with God.
 A Muslim must complete one full month of Ramadan every year after the age of puberty if they are able to do so. If they are not able to do so, they must feed the poor for everyday that they couldn't.

After a long day of fasting and abstaining from eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse, Muslims break their fasts by eating a meal called the iftar. Many Muslims go to the masjid to break their fast with other Muslims and to all pray together. The Muslims are allowed to continue eating until sun up, which is when the fast will then resume.

According to the Qu'ran: One may eat and drink at any time during the night, until you can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread by the daylight; then keep the fast until night.

The morning meal is called the suhurr. This meal is somewhat like a breakfast, however, eating a simple bowl of cereal or a piece of toast can be enough but many Muslims cook a full meal and eat this before the sun rises. It is recommended to drink plenty of water at this time to keep the body hydrated during the day.

As a ritual, fasting is a symbolic act whose meaning becomes gradually apparent through experience. The meaning embodied in a ritual is always unveiled when one immerses himself or herself in the act itself. This does not mean that fasting is not open to intellectual delineation, but rather any intellectual delineation either presupposes or predicts a meaning that can best become apparent through performing the symbolic act itself.

The essence of fasting Ramadan and its goal is summed in the Qur’an in one word: taqwa. “O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you may attain taqwa.” 
(2:183)

But what is taqwa? And how does it relate to the physical act of fasting?

Taqwa is a recurring theme in the Qur’an and a paramount Qur’anic value. Taqwa is both an attitude and a process. It is the proper attitude of the human toward the divine that denotes love, devotion, and fear. Love to the source of good and beauty that make life worth living; devotion to God’s boundless wisdom and majesty; and fear of misunderstanding the divine intent or failing in maintaining the appropriate posture and relationship. 

The attitude of taqwa cannot and does not stay in the confines of the human spirit, but is ultimately revealed in expression and action. The attitude of taqwa is ultimately revealed in, and in turn reveals, the true character it nurtures: the commitment to the sublime values stressed by divine revelations of courage, generosity, compassion, honesty, steadfastness, and cooperation in pursuing what is right and true.


Like other Islamic injunctions, the benefits of Ramadan are not limited to either "spiritual" or "temporal" elements of life. In Islam, the spiritual, social, economic, political and psychological intermingle in a consistent and cohesive whole.

Ramadan is the time when we must rededicate ourselves to one of the basic principles of Islam — “Render unto each his due”: To the One God His due — worship to Him alone, and to his creations their due — their rights.

The test is: Have we been becoming, with every passing Ramadan, more conscious of our obligations to render these dues? Living in a society we acquire obligations — as parents or children, wives or husbands, neighbors or colleagues, employers or employees, rulers or ruled, compatriots or aliens, superiors or subordinates. Beginning a verse with “It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces toward east or west,” the Qur’an defines righteousness as, among others, “... to spend your sustenance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask and for the freedom of slaves” and closes it with “(and) fulfill the contracts which ye have made.... Such are the people of truth, the God-fearing.”

An honest look at the Ramadans behind us will tell most of us that, the worst of our failures in Ramadan, in every Ramadan, is our failure to “fulfill the contracts we have made” — specifically or by assumption — as citizens, public officials, employers, employed, or ordinary men and women. For us, Ramadan is a month of tomorrows — “bukras” and “ba’da bukras” — that never come. “Can’t you see I am fasting?” is our response to those who seek their rights from us. From dawn to dusk we sleep and from dusk to dawn we eat, and have time for nothing else — even to make the salary we receive lawful (halal), by “earning” it. This lethargy was not the Ramadan that the Prophet (peace be upon him) knew. For him and his companions, it was a month of action, of fulfilling obligations — to their Lord and to their fellow creations. It cannot be anything less for us, if we hope to be “the people of truth, the God-fearing.”

May Allah help us make it so.