Ramadan drifts through every season because its calendar ignores the sun
The Islamic year is 10 to 11 days shorter than the solar one and never adds a catch-up month, so Ramadan slides steadily backwards through summer, autumn, winter and spring. Its name comes from an Arabic root meaning scorching heat, yet a fast can fall in midwinter.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and lasts 29 or 30 days, from one crescent moon sighting to the next. Keeping it is one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, pray together, study the Quran, give to charity and strengthen community bonds, eating a predawn meal called suhur and breaking the fast each evening at iftar. During fasting hours they avoid not only food and drink but anything considered sinful, since rewards for good conduct are believed to multiply during the month.
The obligation applies to Muslims past puberty, with exemptions for those who are ill, travelling, elderly, pregnant, breastfeeding or menstruating. Geography raises odd questions. Some rulings tell Muslims living under the midnight sun or polar night to follow Mecca's timetable, but a more common practice is to use the nearest country where day and night can still be told apart. Start dates can differ between countries by about a day, because some communities insist on seeing the moon locally while others rely on calculation or Saudi Arabia's announcement.
The month is tied to revelation. Muslims hold that the Quran was first revealed to Muhammad on Laylat al-Qadr, one of the odd-numbered nights among Ramadan's last ten, and that earlier scriptures, including the Torah, Psalms and Gospel, also came down in this month. The command to fast came in the second year after the Hijra, 624 CE.
Where did the practice come from? Muslims see fasting as an ancient duty of all believers and note that pre-Islamic Meccans fasted on the tenth of Muharram to atone and ward off drought. The historian Philip Jenkins argues it grew from the strict Lenten discipline of Syrian churches, a view the theologian Paul-Gordon Chandler supports and some Muslim academics reject. In Persian-influenced regions such as Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, the name is pronounced Ramazan or Ramzan.
Source: Ramadan
