Roza: Fasting in Ramadan

Roza — known in Arabic as Sawm — is the third pillar of Islam. It is the obligation to fast during Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Every adult Muslim must abstain from food, drink, and other specified things from before the Fajr prayer until Maghrib — from the first light of dawn until the sun sets — for every day of the month.

Ramadan is thirty days. There are no days off within it for a person who is healthy and present. It is an entire month given to a specific form of worship that shapes the body, the mind, and the character of the believer.

Unlike most acts of worship, fasting is invisible. Only Allah and the fasting person know whether the fast is being kept. No one can verify it. No one can enforce it from the outside. A person alone in a room with food and water, with no one watching, keeps the fast — or doesn't. This invisibility is not incidental. It is the entire point. Roza is an act of worship performed purely for Allah, in full sincerity, with no audience but Him.

Before going further, one thing must be clear. Roza is not simply about abstaining from food and drink. A person who refrains from eating from dawn to sunset but spends the day lying, backbiting, watching what is forbidden, and behaving badly has missed the point of the fast entirely.

The Prophet ﷺ said: whoever does not give up false speech and acting upon it, Allah has no need of their giving up food and drink.

This hadith is not saying such a person's fast is invalid. It is saying that fasting was prescribed for a purpose — and a person who only stops eating while continuing every other sin has not achieved that purpose. Their stomach fasted. They did not.

The real Roza is a fast of the whole person. The eyes fast from what is forbidden. The tongue fasts from lies, gossip, and harmful speech. The hands fast from what they should not reach for. The stomach fasts from food and drink. All of it together, for the sake of Allah alone.

Allah does not leave us guessing about why He prescribed the fast. He states it directly in the Quran:

The purpose is Taqwa. Not nutrition, not discipline as a general concept, not a cultural tradition. Taqwa. Everything else about Ramadan — the timing, the duration, the specific restrictions — is in service of this one goal.

So what is Taqwa?

Taqwa is the ability to restrain yourself from sins and things Allah has forbidden — even when you are fully capable of committing them, even when no one around you would know, even when the desire is strong — purely out of love for Allah and fear of His displeasure. It is a shield between a person and sin. Not the inability to sin, but the conscious choice not to, for Allah's sake alone.

A person with Taqwa does not avoid sin because they fear the police, or because they are worried about their reputation, or because they happen not to be tempted. They avoid it because Allah sees, and displeasing Allah is something they cannot bear. That awareness — that Allah is always watching, that His pleasure matters above everything else — is Taqwa.

Ramadan is a training programme. And it works through a very precise mechanism.

For thirty days, Allah asks Muslims to leave things that are completely halal on every other day of the year. Eating is halal. Drinking is halal. Yet during the daylight hours of Ramadan, a Muslim leaves them. Not because they became sinful. Not because the food is harmful. But because Allah said so.

This is the training. The logic is clear: if a person can restrain themselves from halal things purely because Allah commanded it, then what excuse do they have for committing haram things the rest of the year? The same Allah who said leave your food at Fajr is the same Allah who forbade lying, backbiting, looking at what is forbidden, corruption, and every other sin. If the command of Allah is strong enough to keep you away from your meal, it should be strong enough to keep you away from haram.

The same Muslim who would not dare break their fast in secret — who would be horrified at the thought — sometimes does not apply that same standard to other sins. They commit adultery in a corner thinking no one can see. They engage in corruption behind closed doors. They watch what is forbidden on their phone at night. But Allah, who watched them keep their fast, is watching those moments too. Ramadan is meant to make that reality permanent — not just a Ramadan awareness, but a year-round consciousness of Allah.

This is the training. Thirty days of developing the muscle of restraint. Thirty days of practising the habit of leaving something because Allah said so. If that training takes hold, it changes the character of the Muslim for the rest of the year.

Why does all of this matter? Why is Taqwa described as the entire goal of Ramadan? Because of what Allah says about those who attain it.

Allah says in the Quran that the Muttaqeen — the people of Taqwa — are His Awliya, His close friends. There is no greater honour a person can carry in this world or the next. Not wealth, not power, not fame, not even scholarship alone. A Muttaqi — someone who restrains themselves from what Allah forbids out of love for Him — is called by Allah His friend.

Think about what this means in practice. Ramadan is not just thirty days of hunger. It is thirty days of building the quality that makes a person a friend of Allah. The training, if completed with sincerity and if its lessons carry through into the rest of the year, produces the highest rank a human being can hold before their Creator.

This is why the scholars of Islam describe Ramadan not as a punishment or a hardship, but as a gift. It is a gift of the mechanism — a whole month designed specifically to develop in a Muslim the quality that Allah Himself most loves in His servants.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. It moves through the solar year, arriving approximately eleven days earlier each year. In some years it falls in winter with short days. In others it falls in summer with long, hot days. The obligation does not change with the season.

Ramadan holds a status above every other month in the Islamic calendar for several reasons.

Fasting in Ramadan is obligatory on every adult Muslim of sound mind. This means every person who has reached puberty and is mentally capable. Male and female equally. There are no exceptions based on occupation, wealth, or convenience.

There are, however, valid concessions for those who genuinely cannot fast:

Children are not obligated to fast until they reach puberty. However, just as with Namaz, it is recommended to introduce them to fasting gradually before puberty so that when the obligation arrives, it is already familiar.

The fast runs from before Fajr — when the white thread of dawn can be distinguished from the black thread of night — until the sun sets at Maghrib. During this period, the following break the fast and require it to be made up:

Things that do not break the fast include: rinsing the mouth without swallowing, using miswak or toothbrush, applying kohl or eye drops according to the majority position, injections that do not provide nourishment, and involuntary vomiting. For detailed rulings on specific situations, a qualified scholar should be consulted.