Complimentary Story
March 2025A new trend in America began to grow within so-called Christian liberal churches, where lately we see the signs put in the front of their buildings celebrating and wishing the Muslims who live in the community a blessed, or a happy Ramadan. At the same time, Muslims in the West are pushing hard to add to the U.S. calendar two festivals to be legal holidays. One is the Festival of Sacrifice and the other is Ramadan. If Muslims are successful, then they will have effectively elevated the legitimacy of Islam in the West. But, how much do the people in these churches know or even the Muslims know about Ramadan? That is a question that we will do our best to answer in this article.
What is Ramadan? It is the fourth of the seven pillars of Islam for Muslim believers. According to Muslims it is one of the twelve lunar months in the Muslim calendar when they fast in it for twenty-eight, twenty-nine, or so days.
How do Muslims know when to begin the fasting for the month of Ramadan? The answer can be found in the Qur’an 2:185, where Mohammed stated: “The months of Ramadan in which the Qur’an was sent down a guidance to the people and proof of the guidance and of the distinguisher, so whoever among witness the month, so let him fast it…” So, how can people witness the months? Actually, it is simple: when someone sees the crescent, the beginning of the moon, with his naked eye not using a telescope or any other device. This, in itself, causes division among Muslims in the Muslim world. In some conditions, when the air is not clear; sometimes Muslims cannot see the crescent. Muslims may not be able to see the crescent because of the clouds. Therefore, you do not see unity about the start of fasting.
How about the hours of fasting? That leads Muslims to another problem; in the Qur’an 2:187, it says: “… eat and drink until you can discern a white thread from a black thread at the daybreak. Then fulfill the fast till night…” We all know that the day hours in the summer are longer than the night hours; also, the hours of daylight are so long at the northern hemisphere to the point that, in a place like Greenland, it does not get dark for many weeks. Now, the Muslims who live in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and Egypt do not see a great difference of the hours of fasting when the month of Ramadan starts in the summer or the winter. For, as we know, the lunar year is 354 days and the solar year has 365 days. Therefore, the months of Ramadan always come eleven days earlier every year.
So, if the month of Ramadan comes in the middle of the summer, the Muslims will fast, maybe, a couple of hours more than if Ramadan comes in the middle of the winter. But, what about the people living in Greenland, if the month of Ramadan comes in the middle of the summer? Muslims who live there must fast the entire month without eating any food and the opposite is true when the month of Ramadan comes in the winter. Then, they will not fast at all. After all, Allah determined the number of hours of fasting by the ability of the Muslim believers to see with their naked eyes the differences between a white thread and a black thread. For, if they cannot see the differences because of the darkness, they can continue to eat until the morning comes.
Who is exempt from fasting? In Qur’an 2:185, Allah declared: “And whoever was sick or travelling, so a like number of days. Allah desires the ease for you and does not desire the difficulty for you and that you complete the number.” So, obviously, sick people and those who travel are exempt, but they must fast the days they missed at a later time. Even though the Qur’an did not give a judgment about pregnant, breastfeeding, and menstruating women, scholars of Islam made up some statements in which they free women of fasting during these times, which coincidentally is used by Allah as the reason why he will not allow women to be in paradise, for they practice fewer of the religious duties like fasting, prayer, or reading the Qur’an.
Amazingly, in the beginning of Islam, fasting was similar to that of Christianity, which is the fasting of a full day, during which Christian men also abstained from sexual activities. Notice, in Islam, it was also the law of fasting if a man broke his fast and went to sleep, now he cannot eat again or have a sexual relationship until the following day. One day, however, Successor Omar came to Mohammed and confessed that he had had sexual relations with his wife during the night, and immediately after that, many of the men in the mosque confessed they had done the same thing. So Mohammed received the new verses that abrogate the old laws as stated in Qur’an 2:187: “It is lawful for you (which means before that it was not lawful and that is why these laws were abrogated, meaning, replaced) to have sex with your women the night of the fasting for they are your garment and you are their garment. Allah knows that you were defrauding yourselves in this, so he relents on you and forgives you. So now (here is the changes), have a sexual relationship with them and seek that which Allah has decreed to you…”
Why do Muslims fast? The first reason we discover in the Qur’an is written in 2:183 where Allah stated: “O you who have believed, syiam (fasting, non-Arabic word of Syriac origin) is decreed to you as it was decreed to those before you. Perhaps you may fear.” Obviously, from that verse, we see that Mohammed was simply copying the Christians and the Jews who were fasting before the invention of Islam. He actually used the word syiam, which was Syriac without realizing it was a non-Arabic word.
Another reason why Muslims fast is found in Qur’an 2:196: “And complete the pilgrimage and the visit to Allah. So, if you are prevented, so do whatever offering will be easiest, and do not shave your heads until the offering reaches the place of sacrifice. So, whoever among you was sick or has an injury of his head, so its atonement is fasting or alms or an offering. So when you are secure, so whoever profits himself with a visit to the pilgrimage, so (give) whatever offering will be the easiest. So whoever who does not find (something to offer) so fasting three days in the pilgrimage and seven (days) when you return. These are ten complete (days). And fear Allah and know that Allah is severe in the punishment.” So, obviously, from this verse, we find that the verse was an atonement if the Muslim believer could not find a gift or an offering to give during the pilgrimage or the visit to Mecca.
In our next article, we’ll continue with the reasons for fasting in the month of Ramadan. We will answer the question, do Muslims fast or feast in the month of Ramadan? We will also answer the question what is the relationship between Jihad and fasting in the month of Ramadan?
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