Ramadan In Islam

Ramadan is the (month) In which was sent down the Qur'an as a guide to making. Also clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (Between right and wrong) so every one of you Who is present (at his home) during that month should spend it in fasting.
But if any one is ill, or on a journey.
The prescribed period (Should be made up) by days later.

When Ramadan begins, the gates of Paradise are opened, the gates of Hell closed and the devils are chained. The period of Ramadan does not occur at fixed time of year, but is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Since the Islamic calendar is a lunar one, months are determined according to various positions of the moon. This means that over a period of a limited number of years, Islamic fasting covers the four major seasons of the year and circulates back and forth between summer and winter through autumn and spring in a rotating manner. Hence the Muslim enjoys the moral experience of Fasting on several levels and variant climates, sometimes in the winter of short and cold days, sometimes in the summer of long and hot days, sometimes in between.

Fasting is one of the five obligatory pillars of Islam. It teaches the Muslim self-restraint and is compulsory for every Muslim, male or female who is mentally and physically fit. It is obligatory for children when they reach the age of puberty and discretion, at about 14. However, children under this age are often encouraged to start fasting little by little so by the time they reach property, they will be both mentally and physically able to fast. Those who are exempt form fasting are children under age, the insane, the aged who can not physically fast, the sick and travelers who are 50 miles or more from home, also expectant mothers and mothers who suckle their children if fasting endangers their health or the health of their infants.

In other religions and dogmas, philosophies and doctrines, the observer of fasts abstains from certain kinds of food or drinks or material substances, but he is free to substitute for that and fill his stomach with the substitution which is also of a material nature. In Islam, one abstains from things of material nature, food, drink, smoking, etc, in order to have spiritual joys and moral nourishment. While the Muslim empties his stomach, he fills his heart with love and sympathy, his spirit with piety and faith, and his mind with wisdom resolution. The purpose of fasting in other religions and philosophies is invariably partial. It is either for spiritual aims or physical needs or intellectual cultivations, but never for all combined. In Islam it is for all these gains and many other purposes, social and economic, moral and humanitarian, inner and outer, local and national all combined together.

Fasting in Islam is not a divorce from life, but a happy marriage with it, not a retreat but a penetration with spiritual armaments, not a negligence but a moral enrichment. it does not break but Harmonizes, does not dissolve but transfuses, does not disintegrate but bridges and redeems. It is a shield from committing sins. A fasting person learns patients