When does ramadan start

when does ramadan start

The Islamic calendar is lunar. A month is 29 or 30 days. Twelve such months are about eleven days shorter than a solar year, so Ramadan walks backward through the Gregorian seasons: winter, then autumn, then summer, then spring, over a span of years. There is no fixed March date and no fixed September date.

Communities differ on the start signal. Some wait for a local crescent sighting after the new moon. Some follow a sighting announced elsewhere. Some follow a calculated astronomical calendar. That is why two cities can begin the fast on adjacent civil dates in the same year. The month is still Ramadan. The Thursday-or-Friday question is a sighting or calculation question, not a change of season rule.

This page does not print a single worldwide opening date for the current year. That date is an announcement, not a conversion you can finish from UTC+0 alone. Use the mosque, the national moon committee, or the calendar your community named, then convert that civil date to your local clock.

A month that visits every season

Because the start slides about eleven days earlier each Gregorian year, the fasting day is not always a winter day or always a summer day. In a northern-summer Ramadan, sunrise is early and sunset is late, so the fast between them is long. In a northern-winter Ramadan, the daylight fast is shorter. The season does not cancel the month. It changes how many waking hours sit between suhoor and iftar.

South of the equator the seasons are reversed. A long fast for someone in the north can be a shorter daylight fast for someone in the south in the same Gregorian month. Near the poles, civil sunrise and sunset can be awkward in high summer or high winter; communities there follow the guidance they use for prayer times. Do not copy a tropical timetable onto a polar one without that guidance.

Start: first night and first daylight of the ninth lunar month, per sighting or calculation. Length: 29 or 30 days, not a fixed 30. End: Eid al-Fitr at the start of Shawwal, again by sighting or calculation.

Season: whichever Gregorian season the slide has reached that year. Ramadan does not rent a permanent month on the wall calendar. It borrows a different Gregorian week every year.

What “start” means on a civil clock

The month begins at sunset of the night the crescent is accepted, in the local civil time of that place. People often date Ramadan by the first fasting day, which is the daylight that follows that night. If you write only “Ramadan starts Tuesday” without saying whether you mean the night or the first fajr, two readers will fast on two different Tuesdays.

Work and school calendars outside Muslim-majority countries usually do not close for the first day. Some will adjust hours. That is a workplace notice, not a lunar rule. Inside countries that treat the month as a public rhythm, hours for offices, meals, and television often shift after sunset. Check the local civil list. Do not import one country’s office hours into another.

If you need a planning date months ahead, use a calculated preview and keep a one-day buffer for sighting. A preview is a forecast of the moon, not a substitute for the announcement your community will actually follow. When the announcement comes, replace the preview. The season will already be whatever the sky and the solar year have made it.