in the month, he shall fast therein” (2:185). It will be seen from the words of the injunction that the choice of this particular month for fasting is not without a reason. It has been chosen because it is the month in which the Holy Qur’ān was revealed. It is well-known that the Holy Qur’ān was revealed piecemeal during a period of twenty-three years; therefore by its revelation in the month of Ramadzān is meant that its revelation first began in that month. And this is historically true. The first revelation came to the Holy Prophet on the twenty-fourth night of the month of Ramadzān when he was in the cave of Ḥira (IJ-C. 2:185). It was therefore in Ramadzān that the first ray of Divine light fell on the Holy Prophet’s mind, and the angel Gabriel made his appearance with the great Divine message. The month which witnessed the greatest spiritual experience of the Holy Prophet was thus considered to be the most suitable month for the spiritual discipline of the Muslim community, which was to be effected through fasting.

There are evident reasons for choosing a lunar month. The advantages and disadvantages of the particular season in which it falls are shared by the whole world. A solar month would have given the advantages of shorter days and cooler weather to one part of the world, and burdened the other with the disadvantages of longer days and hotter weather. The lunar month is more in consonance with the universal nature of the teachings of Islām, and all people have the advantages and disadvantages equally distributed. On the other hand, if a particular time had not been specified the discipline would have lost all its value. It is due to the choice of a particular month, that with its advent the whole Muslim world is, as it were, moved by one current from one end to the other. The movement effected by the advent of Ramadzān in the Muslim world is the greatest mass movement on the face of the earth. The rich and the poor, the high and the low, the master and the servant, the ruler and the ruled, the black and the white, the Eastern and the Western, from one end of the earth to the other, suddenly change the course of their lives when they witness the tiny crescent of Ramadzān making its appearance on the western horizon. There is no other example of a mass movement on this scale on the face of the earth, and this is due to the specification of a particular month.