Islamic Fiqh > Fasting > The intention to fast: when and where to make it > The types of fasting
Contents
Updated on 27 September 2026 at 3:52 AM
Before fasting, one needs to know when Ramadan begins: is the crescent established by one witness or by two? If one country sees the crescent, do the other countries have to fast? And what does the Muslim do in regions where the day or the night lasts for months? This page answers these three questions through the schools of the four imams and their evidence.
'Ali, Abu Hurayra and 'Aisha said: "fasting one day of Sha'ban is dearer to me than breaking the fast on one day of Ramadan." Fasting is treated with particular precaution: it is imposed by the report of a single informant, while breaking the fast takes place only with the testimony of two persons (al-Mughni 4/122-124, Fath al-Qadir 2/313, al-Majmu' 7/445).
The jurists diverged on how the crescent of Ramadan is established: does a single attestation suffice, or are two witnesses required as for the other months?
The Hanafis, the Shafi'is within the school and the Hanbalis within the school hold that it is established by the testimony of a single upright man, on the basis of the hadith of Ibn 'Umar: the people scanned the horizon for the crescent, and when Ibn 'Umar informed the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) that he had seen it, he fasted and ordered the people to fast (reported by Abu Dawud 2340, sahih hadith).
A Bedouin came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said: "I have seen the crescent of Ramadan." He asked him: "do you testify that there is no god but Allah?" He answered: yes. He asked: "do you testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah?" He answered: yes. He said: "O Bilal, call the people: let them fast tomorrow."
reported by Abu Dawud 1993, judged weak by al-Albani (Dha'if Abi Dawud 507) and authenticated by an-Nawawi (al-Majmu' 7/471)
For them, information about the sighting of the crescent falls under transmission (riwaya) and not testimony: the informer must himself fast, whereas the warrantor of testimony is not bound by what he attests; number is not a condition of transmission. The report of a single man is therefore accepted as soon as he meets the conditions required of the transmitter of religious information: Islam, reason, puberty and probity (al-Bada'i' 2/593).
The transmission of Fatima bint al-Husayn confirms this: a man testified before 'Ali to the sighting of the crescent of Ramadan; he fasted and ordered the people to fast, and he said: "fasting one day of Sha'ban is dearer to me than breaking the fast on one day of Ramadan" (reported by ash-Shafi'i in al-Musnad 721 and in al-Umm 2/94, then by al-Bayhaqi 4/213; authenticated by an-Nawawi, al-Majmu' 7/472).
The Malikis, the Shafi'is according to another view and Ahmad according to one transmission require two upright witnesses for the crescent of Ramadan, on the basis of the following hadith:
'Abd ar-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn al-Khattab addressed the people on the day of doubt and said: I sat with the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and questioned them; they told me that the Messenger of Allah said: "Fast at its sighting and break the fast at its sighting, and perform the rites in its honor; if the crescent is veiled from you, complete thirty days; if two witnesses testify, fast and break the fast."
reported by an-Nasa'i 2116, sahih hadith
And this, by analogy with Shawwal and the other months (adh-Dhakhira 2/488-489, Mawahib al-Jalil 2/386, al-Mudawwana 1/174, Bidayat al-Mujtahid 1/347, Kashshaf al-Qina' 2/305, al-Mughni 4/124).
Distant lands, like the sunrises, do not see the crescent at the same moment: the question is whether this difference is taken into account for the beginning of the Muslims' fast, the dates of the two Eids and the rest of the months, or whether the Muslims remain united in their fast and their festival. The jurists split into two camps.
On one side, the Hanafis within the school, the Malikis within the school, some Shafi'is and the Hanbalis within the school give no weight to the difference of sighting locations: when one country sees the crescent, the fast becomes obligatory for all the lands. They cite the word of Allah:
So whoever among you witnesses the month, let him fast it.
Surah al-Baqara, 185
and the hadith:
Fast at its sighting and break the fast at its sighting.
sahih hadith, reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim
This hadith makes the fast obligatory by any sighting, for all Muslims, without restricting it to a place. Ibn Qudama writes: this day of Ramadan established by the testimony of upright men makes its fast obligatory upon all the Muslims; the month of Ramadan lies between the two crescents, and this day has been established for the rest of the rulings: the coming due of a debt, the divorce, the freeing of a slave, the obligation of vows; the fast is therefore due by the text and by consensus, and because the upright testimony has attested the sighting of the crescent: the fast is owed as if the lands were close (al-Mughni 4/122; see also Hashiyat Ibn Abidin 2/393, al-Bada'i' 2/598, al-Ikhtiyar 1/129-130, Sharh Fath al-Qadir 2/313, adh-Dhakhira 2/296, Ahkam al-Qur'an of Ibn al-'Arabi 1/121, al-Insa'f 3/273, Majmu' al-Fatawa 25/104, al-Majmu' 7/456-458, Nihayat al-Muhtaj 4/267).
On the other side, the Shafi'is according to the more correct view with them, some Hanafis, some Malikis, as well as a Hanbali opinion chosen by Ibn Taymiyya, hold that when the sighting locations differ and the lands are distant, the fast is not imposed on the inhabitants of the other land; and if the lands are close, they are judged as a single land: the fast then binds the other land without disagreement.
They rely on the fact that Ibn 'Abbas did not act upon the sighting of the people of Syria, in the hadith of Kurayb:
Umm al-Fadl bint al-Harith sent him to Mu'awiya in Syria. Kurayb said: I traveled to Syria, I carried out her errand and the crescent of Ramadan was announced to me while I was in Syria; I saw the crescent on the night of Friday. Then I arrived in Medina at the end of the month, and Ibn 'Abbas questioned me; he mentioned the crescent and asked: "when did you see it?" I answered: we saw it on the night of Friday. He asked: "did you yourself see it?" I answered: yes, and the people saw it, they fasted, and Mu'awiya fasted. He said: "but we saw it on the night of Saturday; we shall therefore not stop fasting until we complete thirty days or see it."
reported by Muslim 1087
an-Nawawi sums up: if people see the crescent of Ramadan in one country and not in another, and the countries are close, they are judged as a single country and the fast binds the other without disagreement; if they are distant, two famous views circulate in both schools. The more correct: the fast does not bind the inhabitants of the other land; this is what the author of the book, ash-Shaykh Abu Hamid, al-Bandaniji and others chose, and what al-'Abdari, ar-Rafi'i and the majority authenticated. The second: the fast is binding; this is the view of as-Saymari, authenticated by the qadi Abu at-Tayyib, ad-Darimi and Abu 'Ali as-Sinji. The latter answer the hadith of Kurayb by saying that the sighting of the crescent in another land was not established before Ibn 'Abbas with the testimony of two upright men; the more correct view is the first (al-Majmu' 7/456-458).
Three criteria of distance are discussed. The most correct, chosen by the majority of the Iraqis and by as-Saydalani: distance varies with the sighting locations, like the Hijaz, Iraq and Khurasan; closeness is the sharing of the same sighting location, like Baghdad, Kufa, Rayy and Qazwin, whose crescents rise together: if these see it, the absence of sighting for the others comes from their lack of attention or from an impediment, unlike those whose sighting location differs. The second criterion: the unity or the difference of the climatic zone (iqlim); as-Saymari and others chose it. The third: distance is the travel distance (qasr) and closeness what lies below it; al-Furani, Imam al-Haramayn, al-Ghazali, al-Baghawi and other Khurasanians chose it, and Imam al-Haramayn claimed unanimity: taking the sighting locations into account requires calculation and recourse to astrologers, which the Law forbids, hence the travel distance to which the Sharia already suspends many rulings. This argument is weak: the crescent is suspended to no travel distance; the more correct view remains taking the sighting locations into account.
In case of doubt about the agreement of the sighting locations, the fast does not bind those who did not see it: the origin is non-obligation, and the fast is only imposed by sighting according to the hadith, whereas the sighting was not established for them, since their closeness to the land of sighting was not established. Such is the famous view among the companions of both schools.
al-Mawardi stood out with three views: if one country sees and not the other, either the fast binds those who did not see, because the obligation of Ramadan does not vary with the lands once the month is established; or it does not bind them, for the risings and settings vary with the lands and each people is addressed by its own rising and setting, as dawn rises early in one land and late in another, just as the sun sets early here and late there; or the fast binds if the two lands belong to the same climatic zone, and not otherwise.
as-Sarakhsi said: if the people of a region see the crescent and not those of another, and the distance is short, the fast binds them all; the criterion of closeness is that they would have seen it without impediment. If the distance is great, three views: the fast binds all (the choice of Abu 'Ali as-Sinji); it binds none; or it binds if the distance makes it inconceivable that the crescent be hidden from them without impediment, and does not bind if that is conceivable.
The question thus yields six positions: the fast binds every place; or the people of the climatic zone of the land of sighting alone; or every land sharing the sighting location of the land of sighting, which is the most correct view; or every land where the crescent cannot conceivably be hidden without impediment, the position reported by as-Sarakhsi; or only the inhabitants within the travel distance; or finally only the inhabitants of the land of sighting, the position reported by al-Mawardi. Allah knows best.
Ibn al-Mundhir transmitted from 'Ikrima, al-Qasim, Salim and Ishaq ibn Rahawayh that only the people of the land of sighting are bound to fast; and he transmitted from al-Layth, ash-Shafi'i and Ahmad that the fast binds all; he said: I know it only as the view of the Medinan and the Kufan, meaning Malik and Abu Hanifa (al-Majmu' 7/456-458).
Allah ordered abstention from the nullifiers of the fast from dawn to nightfall. But in certain lands, like the Scandinavian states of northern Europe, the night lasts for months and the day lasts for months; and sometimes the day is so long and the night so short that the faster cannot even break his fast. This question was unknown to the early jurists, for it did not exist in the conquered lands of their time. The first jurist to discuss it, as far as could be traced, is Imam as-Suyuti among the Shafi'is, and Imam Ibn Abidin followed him among the Hanafis.
The question reached them concerning lands where dawn rises immediately after sunset, so that the faster cannot break his fast, or where dawn rises after the maghrib prayer.
as-Suyuti answered questions in a hundred verses of poetry. He reports that al-Burhan al-Fazari decreed the obligation of the isha prayer in this state, and that his contemporaries decreed that it is not obligatory for them, for lack of the cause of obligation, namely the time. The first view is supported by the hadith of the days of the Dajjal: "estimate for him his measure." az-Zarkashi writes in al-Khadim: on this basis it is ruled for them, in Ramadan, to eat at night until the dawn time of the lands nearest to them, then to fast the day; likewise, before sunset where it has set for others, just as the Muslims eat and fast in the days of the Dajjal (al-Hawi lil-Fatawa 2/284, 304).
Ibn Abidin writes: I have seen no one among us treat the ruling of their fast when dawn rises at the moment the sun disappears or some time later, while the faster cannot eat enough to sustain his intention; and one cannot require of them the continuity of fasting, for it leads to perdition. If we say the fast is obligatory, estimation must be resorted to: their night is estimated by the lands nearest to them, as the Shafi'is also said here, or estimated by what suffices for eating and drinking, or only the makeup fast is due them without the performance: every possibility is conceivable, let it be examined. One cannot say here that the fast is not obligatory at all, as for isha according to those who hold that: the cause of non-obligation there is the absence of the cause, whereas for the fast the cause exists: the passing of part of the month and the rising of dawn each day (Hashiyat Ibn Abidin 1/366).
Three estimations thus circulate among the Hanafis for the lands where dawn accompanies sunset: the night estimated by the lands nearest to them, as the Shafi'is also said; the night estimated by the time an adequate meal takes; or only the makeup fast being due without the performance. Ibn Abidin concludes: every possibility is conceivable, let it be examined.
As for the lands where the night, even of one or two hours, always exists, like Norway where the fast reaches twenty-one hours for three hours of night, the case falls outside what the Hanafi and Shafi'i jurists answered: according to their principles, the fast is obligatory and is not estimated by the nearest lands. An editorial note specifies that this is the meaning of the resolution of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy: the fast runs from dawn to sunset as long as the day contains a genuine rising of dawn and a genuine setting of the sun; the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta, for its part, decrees estimation by the fast of the people of Mecca or Medina, and some contemporary scholars decree estimation by the nearest Islamic lands.
As for the lands where the day lasts half a year and the night half a year, estimation applies there, as in the hadith of the Dajjal reported by Muslim 2251 from an-Nawwas ibn Sam'an:
It was said: "Messenger of Allah, how long does he remain on earth?" He said: "forty days: a day like a year, a day like a month, a day like a week, and the rest of his days like your days." It was said: "Messenger of Allah, for the day that is like a year, does the prayer of a single day suffice us?" He said: "no, estimate for him his measure."
reported by Muslim 2251
an-Nawawi explains (Sharh Sahih Muslim 18/66): the qadi and others said that this ruling is specific to that day, statuted for us by the Lawgiver; without this hadith, had we been left to our own reasoning, we would have restricted ourselves to the five prayers at their known times. Estimating the day at its measure means: when there elapses after dawn what usually separates dawn from dhuhr, they pray dhuhr; then what separates it from asr, they pray asr; then what separates it from maghrib, they pray maghrib, then isha, then fajr, and so on until the end of the day like a year, in which all the obligatory prayers of a year are performed at their times; the day like a month and the one like a week follow the same rule by analogy.
an-Nawawi also mentions a similar question for the prisoner who no longer distinguishes night from day (al-Majmu' 6/291): if permanent darkness has settled upon him, three views are reported from Abu Bakr al-Marwazi among the Shafi'is: he fasts and makes up, for it is a rare excuse; he does not fast, for the firm resolve of intention is not realized with the ignorance of the time; or he watches for the time and fasts without makeup, like the cloudy day in prayer. an-Nawawi rules: he must watch and fast, without makeup, so long as no error manifests later; if his fast turns out to have coincided with the night, the makeup fast is due without disagreement.
In practice, most contemporary scholars follow the more correct view: each country fasts by its own crescent, except for geographic closeness; and in lands where both day and night exist, however unequal, the fast runs from true dawn to true sunset; estimation applies only to regions where the day or the night disappears for weeks or months.