Ramadan calendar
A Ramadan calendar is the 29- or 30-day map of the ninth Islamic month, with dawn-to-sunset fast times for one place. The Gregorian dates walk each year with the moon.
How it works
The object is a table, not a feast. Down one side sit the days of Ramadan, numbered 1 to 29 or 30. Across the row sit prayer marks, especially fajr, which ends suhoor, and maghrib, which opens iftar. Those clock times belong to a city. A timetable printed for Cairo will not serve Anchorage. Copying a friend’s screenshot from another longitude is how a fast starts late or breaks early.
The month is lunar. It does not sit on a fixed March weekend. In 2026, under the Umm al-Qura calendar, Ramadan opened on Wednesday 18 February. That opening is past. On 3 September 2026 you are between months. The next table, on the same civil conversion, is expected to open Monday 8 February 2027, with Eid al-Fitr expected around 9 or 10 March 2027 depending on whether the month runs 29 or 30 days. A mosque announcement can still shift a community by a day. The calendar you hang should be the one your household actually follows.
Each row is one fast. You eat and drink in the night. You stop before dawn. You wait for sunset. Tarawih is extra night prayer in many mosques; it is not a column you must fill to make the table valid. Laylat al-Qadr is sought in the last ten nights. A grid that only prints “Ramadan 1–30” with no times is a month label. A grid with times and no city is a decoration.
What to put on the page you will actually use
Name the city or the mosque whose horizon you are using. Write 1 Ramadan only after that community has begun the month. List fajr and maghrib for each civil date; add the other prayers if you pray by the same sheet.
Leave the last square open until Shawwal’s crescent, or the calculated end your community uses, is known. Take the sheet down when Eid starts. A Ramadan calendar in April is clutter. Children’s countdown versions with windows or stickers are still this object if each window is a real date. They are toys if the windows are a generic “30 days” with no link to fajr. A toy can help a child wait for maghrib. It cannot replace the horizon.
If the city at the top of the sheet is not your city, the times are someone else’s sunset.
Why last year’s printout lies
The Islamic year is shorter than the Gregorian year, so Ramadan walks earlier by about eleven days each civil year. A sheet headed 2026 will not serve 2027 even if you only change the weekday labels. Dawn in February is not dawn in August. Polar summer and polar winter need a local scholarly timetable; a temperate city’s app will not invent a night that is not there.
Workplaces and schools that publish “Ramadan hours” are publishing labour rules, not the fast. Some countries shorten the public day. The United States does not make Ramadan a federal holiday. Your employer may allow a flexible break for iftar or for Friday prayer. That permission is a workplace note. It does not rewrite maghrib.
If you only needed the next opening from this Thursday, the honest civil forecast is early February 2027, pending the moon. If you needed today’s fast times, this page cannot give them: it does not know your longitude. Use a local table. Then the calendar is doing its job, which is to keep 29 or 30 dawns in order, not to sell a poster.
Questions and answers
- How long is a Ramadan calendar?
- Twenty-nine or thirty days, matching the lunar month. The last square is confirmed when the next crescent, or the calculated end, is known.
- Does one sheet work for every city?
- No. Fajr and maghrib are local. Print or follow the timetable for the place where you will fast.
- When is the next Ramadan calendar from 3 September 2026?
- The next month is expected to open around 8 February 2027. Confirm with the calendar your community uses.
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