Ramadan rules

How it works

The month is lunar. A lunar month is 29 or 30 days, so the set of rules is attached to dawns, not to a fixed Gregorian block named “March.” Each fasting day begins at dawn (fajr) and ends at sunset (maghrib). The meal before dawn is suhoor. The meal that opens the evening is iftar. Night is not a fast. Eating after sunset does not break tomorrow’s fast, because tomorrow’s fast has not started.

Ramadan 2026 sat in February and March on the civil calendar. On 3 September 2026 that month has already closed. The next Ramadan is in 2027. Neighbouring towns can differ by a day, because some communities begin on a crescent sighting and some follow a published civil-religious calendar. A mosque announcement outranks a projection on a phone. The rules of the fast do not change when the civil date does. The clock of the fast is the sun at your location.

Fasting in Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam for adult Muslims who are able. It is worship. It is not a diet contest, and it is not, by itself, a reason a bank in a non-Muslim country must shut. Some states shorten public hours in the month. Others do not. The religious rule is the empty stretch from light to light. The civic timetable is local law and local custom.

What the daytime rules actually forbid

Between dawn and sunset, eating, drinking (including water), smoking, and sexual activity break an ordinary fast. Intention matters: the fast is an act of worship, not an accidental skipped breakfast. Suhoor should finish before dawn. Iftar should not start before the sun has set where you are. Dates and water are a common first bite at maghrib; a larger meal can follow. The night prayers many people add, taraweeh, are a companion to the month. They do not replace the fast.

Stop food and drink before dawn on each fasting day. Keep the fast until sunset at your actual location, not at a city you left this morning. Break the fast at maghrib, then eat and drink at night as you need.

Take suhoor before the next dawn. On the last day, the fast still ends at sunset. Eid al-Fitr is the morning after the month, not another Ramadan fast. Long summer days at high latitudes make a long fast. Short winter days make a short one. The rule is the same; the hours are not. Polar daylight needs a local scholarly timetable, not a copy of Mecca’s clock and not a guess from a temperate city. Crossing a time zone moves “your sunset” to the place you actually stand that evening. A rule that needs a horizon is not improved by rounding it to the nearest office hour.

Who the rules excuse, and what they do not decide

Children before puberty are not obliged. People who are ill, elderly in hardship, travelling, menstruating, pregnant, or breastfeeding are among those traditionally excused or given alternatives such as making up days later or feeding a person in need, depending on the case and the school of law. Those details belong with a trusted scholar or imam, not with a holiday page. A fast that harms a person is not the point of the month.

Charity in the month, including zakat al-fitr before Eid, is a separate duty from the empty stomach. If you are not Muslim and you only wanted restaurant hours, this page is the worship rule. Shop shutters follow the town you are in. The rules of Ramadan do not, by themselves, close a café in a city that does not treat the month as a civic holiday.