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# Ramadan and Fasting in Australia
- URL: https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/ramadan/
- Published: 2026-09-30T21:37:28.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T00:15:51.000Z
- Description: The same rules as my parents' Ramadan, in very different circumstances: what the Qur'an says, what breaks a fast in each school, why Sydney mosques start on different days, and the likely 2027 dates.
- Author: Mohammad Siddiqui
- Tags: Deen

New to the Qur'an? Start with [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/), then read [Muhammad ﷺ: A Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/prophet-muhammad/). All articles: [Deen: Start Here](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/deen/).

Deen · Worship رمضان

Ramadan in Sydney is not the Ramadan of my parents' stories. Theirs came with the heat of a north Indian summer and a whole town keeping the same hours. Ours usually arrives in late summer, after the school year has started, with fifteen-hour days, cricket on the television and a boss who may or may not know what suhoor is. The rules are the same. The circumstances keep moving, because the month itself moves, about eleven days earlier every year.

This page tries to put the whole month in one place: what the Qur'an actually says, what breaks a fast and what doesn't (and where the schools disagree), who is excused and how missed days are made up, the nights of the last ten, Zakat al-Fiṭr and Eid, and the question that starts an argument in almost every Australian Muslim family sooner or later: why did our mosque start on a different day from theirs? It finishes with the likely dates for Ramadan 1448, which falls in February and March 2027, with an honest caveat about why nobody can promise them yet.

This is a research article, not a fatwa. It reports what the texts say and what the schools and modern scholarly bodies have ruled, with sources. For your own fast, and especially for anything medical, please ask a qualified scholar you trust and talk to your doctor.

### The short version

1. The fast of Ramadan is commanded in five consecutive verses of Sūrat al-Baqara (2:183–187). They set its boundaries (the white thread of dawn to nightfall), excuse the sick and the traveller, and describe a ransom (*fidya*) of feeding a poor person.
2. Deliberate eating, drinking and intercourse in daylight break the fast in every school. Beyond those three the schools differ: cupping, eye make-up, head immersion, waking up in a state of major impurity and lying about God are all treated differently by the four Sunni schools and the Jaʿfarī (Twelver Shia) school. The checker below sets them side by side.
3. Modern medicine has produced new questions. Ordinary injections, eye drops and patches do not break the fast in the main modern rulings; nutritive drips and asthma inhalers are genuinely disputed.
4. Missed days are made up (*qaḍāʾ*). Those who can never fast feed a poor person for each day. Deliberately breaking a fast with intercourse (and, for some schools, with food) brings a heavier expiation (*kaffāra*) of sixty days' fasting or feeding sixty people.
5. Australian Muslims begin and end the month on different days because they follow different methods: the Australian Fatwa Council (ANIC) uses astronomical calculation of whether the moon could be seen in Australia, while Moonsighting Australia, which with online platforms was the main source for about half the respondents to one survey, waits for a naked-eye sighting.
6. For 1448 AH the calculated start is Monday 8 February 2027 and the likely Eid is Wednesday 10 March 2027, with groups that wait for a local sighting possibly a day later at each end (Thursday 11 March for Eid). Saudi Arabia's Umm al-Qurā calendar has Eid a day earlier, on Tuesday 9 March. Treat these as forecasts, not announcements.

### Contents

1. [What the Qur'an says](#texts)
2. [The shape of a fasting day](#fast)
3. [What breaks the fast: one question, five answers](#breaks)
4. [Does this break my fast? A checker](#checker)
5. [Medicine, health and the fast](#medicine)
6. [Who is excused, and how days are made up](#excused)
7. [Tarāwīḥ, Laylat al-Qadr and iʿtikāf](#nights)
8. [Zakat al-Fiṭr and Eid](#eid)
9. [Seeing the moon, or calculating it](#moon)
10. [Fasting in Australia](#australia)
11. [Ramadan 1448 (2027): the likely dates](#dates)
12. [Glossary](#glossary)
13. [Sources](#sources)

## What the Qur'an says

Almost everything about the obligation of Ramadan sits in a single passage of the second chapter, and it is worth reading slowly because each verse settles something that later jurists argued over.

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الصِّيَامُ كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ

"O believers! Fasting is prescribed for you, as it was for those before you, so perhaps you will become mindful ˹of Allah˺."

Qur'an 2:183[1](#src-1)

The first thing the verse does is place the fast in a longer history. Fasting (*ṣiyām* or *ṣawm*, literally "holding back") is not presented as something new but as a practice the earlier communities were also given. The second thing it does is give a reason, *laʿallakum tattaqūn*, "so perhaps you will become mindful". The goal is *taqwā*, a watchful awareness of God, not hunger for its own sake.

The next verse calls it "a prescribed number of days" and immediately makes allowances. Whoever is ill or travelling makes up the same number of days later. Then comes a sentence that has been read in two ways ever since: for "those who can only fast with extreme difficulty" \[*alladhīna yuṭīqūnahu*\] there is a ransom, feeding a needy person, and then: "And to fast is better for you, if only you knew."[2](#src-2) (The English is Khattab's, and his "extreme difficulty" follows one of the two readings that come next.) The Companions themselves read it in two ways. Salama ibn al-Akwaʿ said that when the verse came down anyone could choose to pay the ransom instead of fasting, until the next verse abrogated that choice.[3](#src-3) Ibn ʿAbbās said it was not abrogated at all: it stands for the old man and old woman who cannot fast, who feed a poor person for each day.[4](#src-4) Both reports are in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, and the fidya of the elderly today rests on the second.

Verse 185 names the month. "Ramaḍân is the month in which the Quran was revealed," and "whoever is present this month, let them fast." The allowances for illness and travel are repeated, followed by one of the most quoted sentences in the whole of Islamic law: "Allah intends ease for you, not hardship."[5](#src-5) Jurists came back to that line whenever they had to decide how far a concession should stretch.

Verse 186, in the middle of the fasting passage, is not about fasting at all. "When My servants ask you ˹O Prophet˺ about Me: I am truly near. I respond to one’s prayer when they call upon Me."[6](#src-6) Its position is usually taken as a hint that the month is meant for prayer and asking as much as for abstaining.

Verse 187 draws the boundaries. Intimacy with one's spouse is permitted during the nights; "˹You may˺ eat and drink until you see the light of dawn breaking the darkness of night, then complete the fast until nightfall" (the Arabic image is of a white thread becoming distinct from a black one); and there is to be no intimacy while in retreat (*ʿākifūn*) in the mosques.[7](#src-7) The last clause is the Qur'anic root of iʿtikāf, the retreat in the last ten days.

Two other passages matter. Sūrat al-Qadr (97) says the revelation was sent down on *Laylat al-Qadr* (often translated "the Night of Decree"; Khattab renders it "the Night of Glory"), which "is better than a thousand months", when "the angels and the ˹holy˺ spirit descend".[8](#src-8) Sūrat al-Dukhān speaks of "a blessed night" on which the Book was sent down and "every matter of wisdom is ordained".[9](#src-9) Read together with 2:185, which puts the sending down in Ramaḍān, most exegetes place that night inside the month.

### What the Prophet ﷺ added

The hadith fill in what it feels like. In a report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, God says of the fasting person, "fasting is for Me and I shall reward it"; fasting is "a shield", the fasting person should not quarrel and, if insulted, should simply say "I am fasting"; and the one fasting has two joys, one when he breaks his fast and one when he meets his Lord.[10](#src-10) Another report, also in al-Bukhārī, removes any idea that the fast is only about the stomach: "Whoever does not give up false speech and acting on it, God has no need of his giving up his food and drink."[11](#src-11) And the promise that keeps people going in the third week: whoever fasts Ramadan "out of faith and seeking reward" has his past sins forgiven.[12](#src-12)

## The shape of a fasting day

The fast runs from true dawn (*al-fajr al-ṣādiq*, when light spreads along the horizon) to sunset. In between, the fasting person refrains from food, drink and sexual intercourse, with an intention (*niyya*) to fast. The schools differ on whether that intention is renewed every night or made once for the month. Ibn Abī Zayd's *Risāla*, the standard Mālikī primer, says a single intention at the start of the month is enough and a new one each night is not needed,[13](#src-13) and some Ḥanbalīs agree; the Shāfiʿīs, the Ḥanafīs and other Ḥanbalīs want an intention for each day,[90](#src-90) though the Ḥanafīs allow it to be made as late as the midpoint between dawn and sunset.[91](#src-91) Al-Sīstānī's rulings let the intention be made on any night of the month, with dawn as the latest time for someone who is awake and aware of it.[92](#src-92) In practice, waking up for suḥūr with tomorrow's fast in mind is already an intention, and most people never need to think about it further.

Two meals frame the day. The pre-dawn meal is *suḥūr*: "Take suḥūr, for there is blessing in it," in a report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[14](#src-14) The meal at sunset is *ifṭār*, and the Prophet ﷺ encouraged hurrying to it rather than delaying: "People will remain in good as long as they hasten to break the fast."[15](#src-15) He broke his fast with fresh dates, or dry ones if there were none, or else a few sips of water, in a report al-Albānī graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.[95](#src-95) The supplication at ifṭār with a sound grading is the one Ibn ʿUmar reports: "Thirst has gone, the arteries are moist, and the reward is sure, if Allah wills", graded ḥasan by al-Albānī.[96](#src-96) The more familiar *Allāhumma laka ṣumtu wa ʿalā rizqika afṭartu* ("O Allah, for Thee I have fasted, and with Thy provision I have broken my fast") comes from Muʿādh ibn Zuhra, who was not a Companion, so the chain stops short of the Prophet ﷺ; al-Albānī graded it ḍaʿīf.[97](#src-97) Ibn Bāz, asked about it, said the hadith is weak but its meaning sound, so there is no harm in saying it, as long as it is not called a sunna: what is sunna is to make supplication when breaking the fast.[106](#src-106) Jaʿfarī practice waits a little longer: al-Sīstānī's rulings place maghrib, as an obligatory precaution, after the redness that appears in the eastern sky at sunset has passed overhead,[16](#src-16) which is why a Sunni and a Shia neighbour in the same street often break their fasts a few minutes apart.

Two small days on the calendar should be noted before the month begins. Fasting the day or two immediately before Ramadan is discouraged unless it is a fast you already keep (a Monday you always fast, say), in a report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[17](#src-17) And the day of ʿĪd al-Fiṭr itself may not be fasted at all.[18](#src-18) The [page on the 15th of Shaʿbān](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-15th-of-shaban/) covers the other fasting questions that come up in the weeks before Ramadan.

## What breaks the fast: one question, five answers

Three things break the fast in every school: deliberately eating, deliberately drinking and sexual intercourse during the daylight hours. Menstruation and post-natal bleeding end the day's fast too; a woman does not fast during them and makes the days up later. ʿĀʾisha was asked why a menstruating woman makes up fasts but not prayers and answered, "We were ordered to make up the fasts and not the prayers," in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.[19](#src-19)[20](#src-20)

Just as universal is the forgiveness of a genuine mistake. "If someone eats or drinks forgetfully, let him complete his fast, for it was God who fed him and gave him drink," in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[21](#src-21) The Ḥanafīs, Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs follow this literally, and so do the Jaʿfarīs: the fast is unaffected.[22](#src-22) The Mālikīs, unusually, read it as removing the sin but not the day: Ibn Abī Zayd writes that someone who breaks the fast in Ramadan out of forgetfulness "only" has to make up that day.[13](#src-13)

Beyond that, the lines move. The best single comparison I have found is Muḥammad Jawād Mughniyya's survey of fasting across the five schools, translated in *al-Tawḥīd*.[23](#src-23) For the Jaʿfarī position I have used the current edition of Āyatullāh al-Sīstānī's *Islamic Laws* on his official website, because he is followed by a large share of Twelver Shia and his rulings have changed on at least one point over the years.[24](#src-24)

- **Cupping** (*ḥijāma*, drawing blood through small cuts). The Ḥanbalīs alone hold that it breaks the fast of both the person cupped and the cupper,[23](#src-23) following a hadith in Abū Dāwūd that al-Albānī graded ṣaḥīḥ.[25](#src-25) The others rely on a report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ that the Prophet ﷺ was cupped while fasting.[26](#src-26) Al-Sīstānī lists giving blood and anything that weakens the body as merely disliked (*makrūh*).[27](#src-27)
- **Vomiting.** Vomiting that overtakes you does not break the fast; making yourself vomit does, following a hadith in Abū Dāwūd graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.[28](#src-28) The Ḥanafīs add the condition that it be a mouthful,[23](#src-23) and the Mālikīs and Jaʿfarīs require a make-up day.[13](#src-13)[24](#src-24)
- **Kohl and eye make-up.** Only the Mālikīs hold that kohl applied during the day breaks the fast (when its taste reaches the throat).[23](#src-23) Al-Sīstānī lists eye medication whose taste or smell reaches the throat as disliked.[27](#src-27)
- **Waking up in a state of major ritual impurity** (*janāba*) after dawn. For the four Sunni schools the fast is fine; Ibn Abī Zayd says plainly that it "does not matter".[13](#src-13) For the Jaʿfarīs, deliberately remaining in janāba until dawn in Ramadan invalidates the fast, so the ritual bath (*ghusl*) must be taken before the dawn prayer.[24](#src-24)
- **Deliberately lying about God, the Prophet ﷺ or the Imams.** A grave sin in every school, but only the Jaʿfarīs count it among the things that break the fast.[23](#src-23)[24](#src-24)
- **Immersing the whole head in water.** Mughniyya records it as invalidating in Jaʿfarī law, and older printings of al-Sīstānī's rulings list it.[23](#src-23)[29](#src-29) The current edition on his website does not include it among the invalidators and lists it instead among the disliked acts.[24](#src-24)[27](#src-27) If you follow another marjaʿ, check his current rulings.
- **Liquid enema.** Breaks the fast for al-Sīstānī even when taken for treatment.[30](#src-30) The classical Sunni schools also counted it (under the Arabic *ḥuqna*, which Mughniyya's translator renders "injection"); the modern Fiqh Academy deferred the question.[23](#src-23)[31](#src-31)

### When breaking the fast needs more than a make-up day

The heavier penalty, *kaffāra*, goes back to a single scene in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ. A man came to the Prophet ﷺ saying he was ruined: he had slept with his wife while fasting in Ramadan. He was asked whether he could free a slave, then whether he could fast two consecutive months, then whether he could feed sixty poor people. He could do none of them. A basket of dates arrived, the Prophet ﷺ told him to give it in charity, the man protested that no family in Medina was poorer than his, and the Prophet ﷺ smiled and told him to feed it to his family.[32](#src-32)

Every school applies the kaffāra to deliberate intercourse. They split on deliberate eating and drinking: the Ḥanafīs and Jaʿfarīs require kaffāra for it, the Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs require only a make-up day,[23](#src-23) and the Mālikīs, in the *Risāla*, apply kaffāra to anyone who breaks the fast deliberately by eating, drinking or intercourse.[13](#src-13) The schools also split on the order. The Ḥanafīs, Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs follow the sequence in the hadith: freeing a slave, and only if that is impossible fasting, and only if that is impossible feeding. The Mālikīs and Jaʿfarīs allow a free choice among the three,[23](#src-23) and the *Risāla* says feeding sixty people is the preferred option.[13](#src-13) Al-Sīstānī adds that when the fast is broken with something itself forbidden, such as alcohol, the recommended precaution is to do all three.[33](#src-33) Freeing a slave no longer applies, so in practice the choice is between sixty days of fasting and feeding sixty people; Islamic Relief Australia, for instance, prices feeding one person at $20, following ANIC's 2026 rate, which puts a kaffāra at $1,200.[34](#src-34)

## Does this break my fast? A checker

Pick something from the list, or type a word, to see how each school answers. The first table covers the questions the classical schools discussed; the second covers modern medical questions, where the answers come from modern bodies and scholars rather than the old manuals, so the columns are different. A blank means the ruling I cite does not address it, not that the answer is unknown. The small numbers lead to the sources.

### Classical questions: the five schools

| Question                                                 | Ḥanafī                                                                   | Mālikī                                                                   | Shāfiʿī                                                                  | Ḥanbalī                                                                  | Jaʿfarī (al-Sīstānī)                                                                                | Sources                                                           |
| -------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Eating or drinking on purpose                            | **Breaks.** Make-up and kaffāra.                                         | **Breaks.** Make-up and kaffāra.                                         | **Breaks.** Make-up only.                                                | **Breaks.** Make-up only.                                                | **Breaks.** Make-up and kaffāra.                                                                    | [23](#src-23)[13](#src-13)[24](#src-24)                           |
| Eating or drinking because you forgot you were fasting   | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Depends.** The day is lost and made up, without sin or kaffāra.        | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                                                 | [21](#src-21)[13](#src-13)[22](#src-22)                           |
| Sexual intercourse during the day                        | **Breaks.** Make-up and kaffāra.                                         | **Breaks.** Make-up and kaffāra.                                         | **Breaks.** Make-up and kaffāra.                                         | **Breaks.** Make-up and kaffāra.                                         | **Breaks.** Make-up and kaffāra.                                                                    | [32](#src-32)[23](#src-23)                                        |
| Making yourself vomit                                    | **Depends.** Only if it is a mouthful.                                   | **Breaks.** Make up the day.                                             | **Breaks.** Make up the day.                                             | **Breaks.** Make up the day.                                             | **Breaks.**                                                                                         | [28](#src-28)[23](#src-23)[13](#src-13)[24](#src-24)              |
| Vomiting that you could not help                         | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                                                 | [28](#src-28)[31](#src-31)[24](#src-24)                           |
| Your period starts during the day                        | **Breaks.** The day's fast ends. Make it up later.                       | **Breaks.** The day's fast ends. Make it up later.                       | **Breaks.** The day's fast ends. Make it up later.                       | **Breaks.** The day's fast ends. Make it up later.                       | **Breaks.** The day's fast ends. Make it up later.                                                  | [20](#src-20)[19](#src-19)                                        |
| Cupping (ḥijāma)                                         | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.** ; disliked only if it exhausts you.                  | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Breaks.** For the person cupped and the one cupping.                   | **Depends.** ; disliked if it weakens you.                                                          | [26](#src-26)[25](#src-25)[23](#src-23)[13](#src-13)[27](#src-27) |
| Kohl or eye make-up                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Breaks.** If applied during the day.                                   | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Depends.** ; disliked if its taste reaches the throat.                                            | [23](#src-23)[27](#src-27)                                        |
| Waking up after dawn in a state of janāba (no ghusl yet) | **Does not break.** Fast is valid.                                       | **Does not break.** Fast is valid.                                       | **Does not break.** Fast is valid.                                       | **Does not break.** Fast is valid.                                       | **Breaks.** Deliberately staying in janāba until dawn breaks the fast.                              | [13](#src-13)[23](#src-23)[24](#src-24)                           |
| Deliberately lying about God or the Prophet ﷺ            | **Does not break.** A grave sin, but the fast is not technically broken. | **Does not break.** A grave sin, but the fast is not technically broken. | **Does not break.** A grave sin, but the fast is not technically broken. | **Does not break.** A grave sin, but the fast is not technically broken. | **Breaks.** The fast.                                                                               | [11](#src-11)[23](#src-23)[24](#src-24)                           |
| Putting your whole head under water                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Does not break.**                                                      | **Depends.** Older rulings: breaks. Al-Sīstānī's current rulings: disliked only. Check your marjaʿ. | [23](#src-23)[29](#src-29)[27](#src-27)                           |
| Deciding to break the fast, then not doing it            | **Does not break.** Fast remains valid.                                  | **Does not break.** Fast remains valid.                                  | **Does not break.** Fast remains valid.                                  | **Breaks.** The fast is broken.                                          | **Breaks.** The fast is broken.                                                                     | [23](#src-23)                                                     |

### Modern medical questions

| Question                                                     | Fiqh Academy (OIC), 1997                                        | Dār al-Iftāʾ, Egypt                             | Saudi scholars (Ibn Bāz, Ibn ʿUthaymīn)                    | A Ḥanafī fatwa (Leicester)                       | Al-Sīstānī                                                                                            | Sources                                 |
| ------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| Injections (vaccines, antibiotics, insulin, pain relief)     | **Does not break.** (skin, muscle or vein).                     | **Does not break.**                             | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | **Does not break.**                                                                                   | [31](#src-31)[35](#src-35)[22](#src-22) |
| A nutritive drip (glucose, feeding)                          | **Breaks.** Nutritive fluids are the exception.                 | **Does not break.** It enters through the skin. | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | **Does not break.** Not even a glucose-saline drip breaks it.                                         | [31](#src-31)[35](#src-35)[22](#src-22) |
| Eye drops                                                    | **Does not break.** If nothing reaches the throat.              | **Does not break.** Even if tasted.             | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | **Depends.** ; disliked if its taste reaches the throat.                                              | [31](#src-31)[35](#src-35)[27](#src-27) |
| Nasal spray or nose drops                                    | **Does not break.** If nothing is swallowed.                    | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | **Depends.** Disliked if you do not know it will reach the throat; not permitted if you know it will. | [31](#src-31)[27](#src-27)              |
| Ear drops or ear washing                                     | **Does not break.**                                             | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | Not addressed in the ruling cited                                                                     | [31](#src-31)                           |
| Asthma inhaler (puffer)                                      | **Depends.** Decision deferred for further study.               | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | **Does not break.** It goes to the lungs, not the stomach. | **Breaks.** Inhaling a spray or gas with a body. | Not addressed in the ruling cited                                                                     | [31](#src-31)[36](#src-36)[37](#src-37) |
| Mouthwash, brushing teeth, dental work                       | **Does not break.** If nothing is swallowed.                    | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | **Depends.** Swallowing the brush's liquid breaks the fast; moisture mixed into saliva does not.      | [31](#src-31)[29](#src-29)              |
| Tablets under the tongue for angina                          | **Does not break.** If nothing is swallowed.                    | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | Not addressed in the ruling cited                                                                     | [31](#src-31)                           |
| Creams, ointments and medicated patches                      | **Does not break.**                                             | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | Not addressed in the ruling cited                                                                     | [31](#src-31)                           |
| Oxygen or anaesthetic gas                                    | **Does not break.** (gas anaesthesia without nutritive fluids). | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | Not addressed in the ruling cited                                                                     | [31](#src-31)                           |
| Endoscopy or biopsy without added fluids; cardiac catheter   | **Does not break.**                                             | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | Not addressed in the ruling cited                                                                     | [31](#src-31)                           |
| Vaginal pessaries, washes or examinations; urinary catheters | **Does not break.**                                             | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | Not addressed in the ruling cited                                                                     | [31](#src-31)                           |
| Liquid enema                                                 | **Depends.** Decision deferred (rectal procedures).             | Not addressed in the ruling cited               | Not addressed in the ruling cited                          | Not addressed in the ruling cited                | **Breaks.** Even when needed for treatment.                                                           | [31](#src-31)[30](#src-30)[23](#src-23) |

Where an item is disputed, all the positions shown are held by serious scholars. If you follow a school or a marjaʿ, follow its answer; if you are unwell, the question of whether something breaks the fast usually matters less than whether you should be fasting at all.

## Medicine, health and the fast

The classical jurists worked with a simple test: does something reach the body's interior (*al-jawf*) through an open passage? Modern medicine keeps producing things that do not fit neatly, which is why the answers below come from modern bodies rather than from the old manuals.

The most widely cited is Resolution 93 of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, passed at its tenth session in Jeddah in June and July 1997.[31](#src-31) It lists, as things that do *not* break the fast: eye drops, ear drops, ear washes, nasal drops and sprays (as long as nothing is swallowed); tablets placed under the tongue for angina; vaginal pessaries, washes and examinations; anything inserted into the urinary tract; dental work, mouthwash and mouth sprays if nothing is swallowed; injections under the skin, into the muscle or into a vein, *except* nutritive fluids; oxygen; anaesthetic gases; creams, ointments and medicated patches; cardiac catheterisation; biopsies and endoscopies without added fluids; and vomiting that is not deliberate. It deferred a decision on several others, among them asthma inhalers, bloodletting, blood transfusion, dialysis and rectal procedures.

Not every body agrees with the one exception it made. Egypt's Dār al-Iftāʾ has ruled that injections, saline solutions and glucose do not break the fast because they enter through the skin rather than an open orifice, and that eye drops do not break it even if they are tasted in the throat.[35](#src-35) Al-Sīstānī's current rulings say the same about injections and drips, "even if the former is an energy injection and the latter a glucose-saline drip".[22](#src-22) So on the question of a nutritive drip, the Fiqh Academy says it breaks the fast and Dār al-Iftāʾ and al-Sīstānī say it does not. Someone on a drip is almost always ill enough to be excused anyway, which takes some of the sting out of the disagreement.

The asthma inhaler is the sharpest live dispute, and it matters because so many people use one. The Saudi Standing Committee, Ibn Bāz and Ibn ʿUthaymīn held that the puffer does not break the fast, reasoning that the medicine goes to the lungs and not the stomach and is not food or drink.[36](#src-36) Many Ḥanafī muftis disagree: Mufti Muhammad ibn Adam of the Darul Iftaa in Leicester, for example, holds that inhaling anything with a perceptible body, such as a gas or spray, breaks the fast, so a person who needs the inhaler through the day should not fast and should make up the days or, if the condition is permanent, pay fidya.[37](#src-37) Both sides are serious. If you use a preventer that can be taken at suḥūr and ifṭār only, talk to your doctor about that before choosing between them.

### When the fast itself is the risk

For people with diabetes the Qur'anic principle of ease is not an abstraction. The International Diabetes Federation and the Diabetes and Ramadan Alliance publish practical guidelines, most recently in 2021, that sort people into risk tiers and recommend a medical review six to eight weeks before Ramadan.[38](#src-38) An Australian article for diabetes educators by the nurse practitioner Michelle Robins makes the same points for the local setting: people who receive education before Ramadan have less hypoglycaemia, insulin and sulfonylurea doses usually need adjusting, and in her example algorithm a glucose reading below 3.9 mmol/L or above 16.6 mmol/L means breaking the fast.[39](#src-39) She also notes something specific to us: as Ramadan moves into the Australian summer, the fasting day gets longer each year, which makes planning more important, not less.

The religious side of this is simple. Illness is a named excuse in 2:184 and 2:185, and breaking a fast because a doctor or a glucose meter says so is not a failure of faith. The scholars who differ on inhalers agree on that.

## Who is excused, and how days are made up

The Qur'an names two excuses, illness and travel, and the hadith and the schools add the rest. Children below puberty are not obliged to fast, nor is someone who has lost their reason: the Prophet ﷺ said that the actions of a boy are not recorded "till he reaches puberty", nor those of the insane "till he comes to reason", in a report al-Albānī graded ṣaḥīḥ.[107](#src-107) Many families still train children with half-days. Women do not fast during menstruation or post-natal bleeding. The rest of this section is about what happens afterwards.

### Making up: qaḍāʾ

A missed day is made up with a day, at any time before the next Ramadan. ʿĀʾisha said she sometimes owed days from Ramadan and could only make them up in Shaʿbān, in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, and one of the narrators explained that she was occupied with the Prophet ﷺ.[40](#src-40) If the next Ramadan arrives with days still owed and no good excuse, most schools add a fidya of one *mudd* of food for each day on top of the make-up; the Ḥanafīs require only the make-up.[23](#src-23) Al-Sīstānī's rulings agree with the majority here.[33](#src-33)

### Travel

Ḥamza ibn ʿAmr al-Aslamī asked whether he should fast on a journey and was told, "Fast if you wish, and do not fast if you wish," in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[41](#src-41) The four Sunni schools treat the concession as a choice for a traveller who meets the conditions for shortening prayer, and they generally expect the journey to have begun before dawn for that day's fast to be dropped.[23](#src-23) The Jaʿfarī school is stricter in the other direction: a traveller who meets the conditions for shortening prayer does not fast at all. For al-Sīstānī, leaving before midday means not fasting that day, while someone who sets out after midday should, as a precaution, complete the fast.[33](#src-33)

### The elderly and the permanently ill: fidya

Someone who will never be able to fast, because of age or a lasting illness, feeds a poor person for each day instead, the ransom of 2:184 as Ibn ʿAbbās explained it.[4](#src-4) The amount was measured in food. The Mālikīs and Shāfiʿīs use one mudd (a double handful, roughly three-quarters of a kilogram of grain); the Ḥanafīs use the Zakat al-Fiṭr measure, half a ṣāʿ of wheat or a full ṣāʿ of dates or barley; the Ḥanbalīs use a mudd of wheat or half a ṣāʿ of other staples.[42](#src-42) Al-Sīstānī gives one mudd, which his rulings put at about 750 grams.[43](#src-43) The Ḥanafī manuals allow the cash value to be given instead,[44](#src-44) and most Australian charities now collect fidya in dollars: $20 a day in 2026 at Islamic Relief Australia, which says it follows ANIC's rate.[34](#src-34)

There is one wrinkle: not every school makes the fidya of the elderly a duty. Ibn Abī Zayd says that for the Mālikīs "it is recommended for him to feed people,"[13](#src-13) and Ibn Qudāma's *al-Mughnī*, the great Ḥanbalī reference, records Mālik's reasoning that nothing is owed by someone who leaves the fast out of sheer inability. Ibn Qudāma himself, with Abū Ḥanīfa and the Companions he cites, makes feeding a poor person for each day obligatory, and al-Shāfiʿī is reported with both views.[93](#src-93) Mughniyya's survey attributes the recommended view to the Ḥanbalīs instead,[23](#src-23) which does not match *al-Mughnī*; I have followed Ibn Qudāma.

### Pregnancy and breastfeeding

This is where the five answers really differ, and where women are most often given one school's view as if it were the only one.[23](#src-23)

| School               | If she does not fast                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| -------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Ḥanafī               | Makes up the days. No fidya at all.                                                                                                                                                                  |
| Mālikī               | Makes up the days. A pregnant woman gives no fidya; a nursing mother who breaks the fast for her child's sake also feeds a poor person for each day.[13](#src-13)                                    |
| Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī  | Makes up the days. If she broke the fast only out of fear for the child, she also gives fidya; if she feared for herself (or for herself and the child), make-up only.                               |
| Jaʿfarī (al-Sīstānī) | A pregnant woman near delivery, or a nursing mother with little milk, for whom fasting is harmful to her or the child, does not fast, gives one mudd a day and makes up the days later.[43](#src-43) |

## Tarāwīḥ, Laylat al-Qadr and iʿtikāf

### Tarāwīḥ: one practice, two histories

The long night prayer of Ramadan is where the Sunni and Shia stories part most visibly, and both start from the same hadith. ʿĀʾisha reports that the Prophet ﷺ prayed at night in the mosque in Ramadan, people joined him, the crowds grew over three nights, and on the fourth he did not come out. In the morning he told them he had seen them but "feared that the night prayer would be made obligatory for you and you would not be able to carry it out", in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[45](#src-45)

Years later, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb found people praying in scattered groups in the mosque and gathered them behind one reciter, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, remarking, "What an excellent innovation this is," also in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[46](#src-46) For Sunni Muslims that was a Companion restoring a practice the Prophet ﷺ had shown them and stopped only for fear of burdening them, and congregational tarāwīḥ has been prayed ever since. How many units (*rakʿas*) is a separate argument. ʿĀʾisha said the Prophet ﷺ "never exceeded eleven" at night, in Ramadan or out of it.[47](#src-47) Mālik's *Muwaṭṭaʾ* preserves two reports from ʿUmar's time, one of eleven rakʿas and one of twenty-three (twenty plus the three of witr).[48](#src-48) Their chains are not equal. The eleven comes from al-Sāʾib ibn Yazīd, who prayed in those congregations; the twenty-three comes from Yazīd ibn Rūmān, who did not live in ʿUmar's time, so his report is mursal. Twenty also reaches us through al-Sāʾib in a chain recorded by al-Bayhaqī, which al-Nawawī judged sound and al-Albānī rejected as defective, and specialists still argue over which of al-Sāʾib's two numbers is better preserved.[98](#src-98) The standard Ḥanafī position is twenty, though even within that school some jurists regarded eight as the sunna and the rest as recommended.[49](#src-49) Salafi scholars are divided too: al-Albānī argued for eleven and no more, while Ibn ʿUthaymīn, in an answer IslamQA reproduces, treated the number as open, saying that whoever prays eleven "is doing well and is following the Sunnah" and so is whoever prays more with shorter recitation.[94](#src-94) In Australia you will find both in the same suburb.

Shia Muslims do not pray tarāwīḥ in congregation. Their scholars read the same two reports differently: the Prophet ﷺ chose not to lead the night prayer in congregation, and ʿUmar called his arrangement an innovation. Reports from Imams al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq describe congregational supererogatory prayer on Ramadan nights as an innovation,[50](#src-50) and al-Sīstānī rules that recommended prayers cannot be prayed in congregation, with exceptions for the rain prayer and the Eid prayers.[51](#src-51) Shia Ramadan nights are spent instead in individual prayer, supplication and Qur'an recitation at home and in the ḥusayniyya.

### Laylat al-Qadr

Laylat al-Qadr is not dated in the Qur'an, and the hadith deliberately keep it hidden. "Seek it in the odd nights of the last ten of Ramadan," ʿĀʾisha reports, in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[52](#src-52) Another report narrows it to the last seven, after several Companions dreamt it was there.[53](#src-53) Standing in prayer on that night "out of faith and seeking reward" brings forgiveness of past sins.[54](#src-54) Many Sunni communities give special weight to the 27th night, following the Companion Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, who was sure of it (in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ),[55](#src-55) but the Prophet's ﷺ own words leave the whole of the last ten open, and most scholars encourage treating each odd night as if it might be the one. ʿĀʾisha asked what to say if she knew which night it was and was taught a short prayer: *Allāhumma innaka ʿafuwwun tuḥibbu al-ʿafwa fa-ʿfu ʿannī*, "O God, You are forgiving and love forgiveness, so forgive me." Al-Tirmidhī called it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ and Darussalam grades it ṣaḥīḥ.[56](#src-56)

Shia tradition focuses on three nights, the 19th, 21st and 23rd, with the 23rd held most likely. The same nights carry the memory of Imam ʿAlī, who was struck in the mosque of Kufa and died two days later on the 21st, so they are kept as nights both of worship and of mourning, with vigil, the recitation of Sūras 44 and 97 and communal supplication.[57](#src-57)

### Iʿtikāf

The retreat in the mosque is rooted in 2:187, and the Prophet ﷺ kept it in the last ten days of Ramadan every year until he died, his wives keeping it after him, in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[58](#src-58) He told people to look for Laylat al-Qadr in those same ten nights.[59](#src-59) The schools differ on the minimum. For the Ḥanafīs and Ḥanbalīs a voluntary iʿtikāf can be as short as an hour, for the Shāfiʿīs anything that counts as staying, and for the Mālikīs a day and a night.[60](#src-60) The Jaʿfarī conditions are stricter: at least three days, fasting throughout, and in the four great mosques or the main congregational (*jāmiʿ*) mosque of a town.[61](#src-61) If you are hoping to do it, ask your mosque well before the last ten: not every mosque can host people overnight.

## Zakat al-Fiṭr and Eid

Before the Eid prayer every Muslim who can afford it pays a small charity for themselves and their dependants. Ibn ʿUmar reports that the Prophet ﷺ made it one ṣāʿ of dates or one ṣāʿ of barley, due for "every Muslim, slave or free, male or female, young or old", and ordered it paid before people went out to the prayer, in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[62](#src-62) People used to give it a day or two before Eid.[63](#src-63) Ibn ʿAbbās explains the purpose: it purifies the fasting person from idle and obscene talk and feeds the poor; al-Albānī graded that report ḥasan.[64](#src-64)

The reports themselves name only foodstuffs: Abū Saʿīd lists a ṣāʿ of food, barley, dates, dried cheese or raisins, in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[99](#src-99) Paying in money therefore rests on juristic reasoning about the purpose of the charity rather than on a report. Most scholars of the Mālikī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools held it should be given as food, while the Ḥanafīs allowed its value in money, and in Australia almost everyone now pays in cash through a mosque or charity.[42](#src-42)[44](#src-44) ANIC put Zakat al-Fiṭr for 1447 (2026) at "around $20 per person".[65](#src-65) Shia communities pay it too, as *zakāt al-fiṭra*, for each person in the household, usually through the local centre; ask your centre for the figure it uses.

The two festivals of Islam are ʿĪd al-Fiṭr, which ends Ramadan on the first of Shawwāl, and ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā during the Hajj. Anas reports that when the Prophet ﷺ came to Medina its people had two days of pre-Islamic games, and he told them God had replaced them with two better days; al-Albānī graded the report ṣaḥīḥ.[66](#src-66) Eid al-Fiṭr begins with a prayer in congregation in the morning and continues with visits, new clothes and gifts, and in many families a visit to the graves of relatives.[67](#src-67) That last is a custom rather than a Sunna of the day. Visiting graves is encouraged at any time, in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ,[100](#src-100) but no report ties it to the ʿĪd, and scholars differ over making the ʿĪd its set occasion: some call that an innovation, while the Ḥanafī manual *al-Fatāwā al-Hindiyya* counts the ʿĪd among the preferred days for it.[101](#src-101) What the Prophet ﷺ did on the morning itself is better attested: he ate an odd number of dates before going out to the prayer of ʿĪd al-Fiṭr,[102](#src-102) and came back by a different road from the one he went by.[103](#src-103) Many people then fast six days of Shawwāl, following the report in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ that fasting Ramadan and following it with six days of Shawwāl is like fasting for a lifetime.[68](#src-68) The one notable dissent is Mālik's. Yaḥyā heard him say, in the *Muwaṭṭaʾ*, that he had never seen any of the people of knowledge and fiqh fasting these days, had not heard of any of the early generations doing so, and that the scholars disliked it, afraid it would become an innovation and that ignorant people would attach to Ramadan what does not belong to it.[104](#src-104) Later Mālikīs explained this in different ways. Some said the hadith had not reached him; al-Qarāfī wrote that Mālik preferred the six days to be fasted outside Shawwāl, so that the reward is kept without their being taken for part of Ramadan, the Sharīʿa having named Shawwāl only because it is easier straight after the fast.[105](#src-105) The Shāfiʿīs, the Ḥanbalīs and the later Ḥanafīs recommend them in Shawwāl on the strength of the hadith.[105](#src-105)

## Seeing the moon, or calculating it

Every Islamic month starts with a new crescent, and Ramadan is the month where getting that start right feels most urgent. The texts are short. "When you see it, fast, and when you see it, stop fasting; and if it is hidden from you, then estimate for it (*fa-qdurū lahu*)," the Prophet ﷺ said, in Ibn ʿUmar's report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.[69](#src-69) In the same collection Abū Hurayra's version replaces "estimate for it" with "complete thirty days of Shaʿbān".[70](#src-70) Another version of Ibn ʿUmar's report is translated as "regard the month as thirty days".[71](#src-71) The Qur'an itself calls the phases of the moon "a means for people to determine time and pilgrimage".[72](#src-72)

Almost all the later disagreement grows out of those few lines, and it runs along two separate questions.

### Whose sighting counts?

In the lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ a single trustworthy witness could be enough to begin the fast. Ibn ʿUmar says he told the Prophet ﷺ he had seen the crescent, and the Prophet ﷺ fasted and told people to fast; al-Albānī graded the report ṣaḥīḥ.[73](#src-73) The schools later disagreed on the number of witnesses needed for Ramadan and for Shawwāl: the Shāfiʿīs accept one upright witness for both; the Ḥanafīs and Ḥanbalīs accept one for Ramadan but want two for the end of the month; the Mālikīs want two upright men for both; the Jaʿfarīs accept two upright men or a report so widespread it cannot be doubted.[23](#src-23)

The bigger question is geography. Kurayb, a client of Ibn ʿAbbās, was in Syria when Ramadan began and saw the crescent there on the Friday night, as did Muʿāwiya and the people of Damascus. Back in Medina he found that Ibn ʿAbbās had seen it on the Saturday night and was counting from then. Asked why Muʿāwiya's sighting was not enough, Ibn ʿAbbās answered, "No, this is how the Messenger of God ﷺ commanded us." The report is in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ, and Muslim's chapter heading draws the conclusion: each land has its own sighting.[74](#src-74)

The schools did not all agree with that conclusion. In Mughniyya's summary, the Ḥanafīs, Mālikīs and Ḥanbalīs held that once the crescent is established in one place, people everywhere are bound by it and differences of horizon (*ikhtilāf al-maṭāliʿ*) do not count; the Shāfiʿīs and Jaʿfarīs held that a sighting binds places that share a horizon but not places whose horizons differ.[23](#src-23) The Fiqh Council of North America, which argues for a global approach, cites Ḥanafī and Mālikī authorities to the same effect, while noting that only "some" Shāfiʿīs agreed.[75](#src-75) Al-Sīstānī's answers on his website accept a sighting in another country only where, but for natural obstacles such as cloud, the crescent would have been seen in one's own place too.[76](#src-76)

### Can calculation replace the eye?

The second question is whether astronomy can decide the month. The majority of classical jurists read "estimate for it" as "complete thirty days", which leaves no room for calculation. A minority, with names going back to the Successor Muṭarrif ibn ʿAbd Allāh and including Ibn Surayj, Ibn Qutayba and al-Subkī, allowed calculation in some form, and several twentieth-century scholars, among them Aḥmad Shākir, Muṣṭafā al-Zarqāʾ and Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, argued that astronomy is now precise enough to rely on. Others, including Wahba al-Zuḥaylī and Hamza Yusuf, hold that the Prophetic wording ties the month to seeing.[77](#src-77) Al-Sīstānī accepts astronomical predictions only where they produce real certainty, which in practice means they can rule a claimed sighting out but do not replace it.[33](#src-33)

There is a middle position, and it is the one most calculation-based bodies actually use: calculation decides whether a sighting was *possible*, rather than whether the moon has been born. Saudi Arabia's civil Umm al-Qurā calendar has used such a rule since 1423 AH (2002): a month begins if, on the 29th, the conjunction happens before sunset and the moon sets after the sun at Mecca. On that rule the crescent is actually invisible on about three-quarters of first evenings.[78](#src-78) Saudi religious dates are still announced after a sighting committee meets; in March 2026, for example, the Shawwāl crescent was reported not seen, Ramadan ran to thirty days and Eid fell on Friday 20 March.[79](#src-79)

### Why Australian Eid dates differ

Australian practice has passed through three phases. In the 1970s and 1980s most communities followed their countries of origin. From the 1990s the move was towards local sighting, within Australia or within a shared time zone; at the first national conference of imams in Melbourne in 1998 the imams accepted sightings within a "five-hour zone" that included Indonesia, Malaysia and India, and agreed that astronomical data could be used as an aid. Since the 2010s the argument has been less about method than about who has the authority to decide.[77](#src-77)

Today there are three main voices, and the difference between them is method, not piety.

- **The Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) and its Australian Fatwa Council** announce dates in advance by calculation. For Ramadan 1446 (2025) the Grand Mufti, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamad, explained the decision by the calculated birth of the moon before sunset, how long the moon stayed up after sunset (twelve minutes in Sydney, sixteen in Perth) and "the possibility of sighting the moon" in Australia.[80](#src-80) The same reasoning set Ramadan 1447 to begin on Thursday 19 February 2026 and Eid on Friday 20 March 2026.[81](#src-81)[82](#src-82)
- **The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC)**, through its own Shariah and Fatwa councils under Sheikh Riad El Rifai, also uses calculation: the conjunction must fall before sunset and the moon must set after the sun. In 2026 it reached the same date for Ramadan as ANIC.[83](#src-83) In 2023 the two bodies announced different days for Eid, AFIC Friday 21 April and ANIC Saturday 22 April, which the researchers who studied it called unusual because they had historically agreed.[84](#src-84)
- **Moonsighting Australia** waits for the crescent to be seen with the naked eye, within Australia, on the evening of the 29th; if it is not seen, the month runs to thirty days. It does not accept sightings from neighbouring countries or optical aids.[85](#src-85) It says it is backed by more than a hundred imams, mosques and centres.[86](#src-86)

Alongside these, many Turkish mosques follow Turkey's religious directorate (the Diyanet), some communities follow Saudi Arabia or their country of origin, and Shia centres generally follow the rulings of their marjaʿ.

How the community divides was measured in 2023, after an Eid that fell on different days. The Islamic Sciences and Research Academy (ISRA), with ethics approval through Charles Sturt University, surveyed 5,584 Australian Muslims. Just over half (52.1 per cent) named Moonsighting Australia or online platforms as their main source, 21.6 per cent their local mosque and 15.3 per cent ANIC. Nearly 60 per cent preferred local Australian sighting in principle, and fewer than 7 per cent preferred pure calculation. Thirty-one per cent said members of their own family had celebrated Eid on different days at least once in the previous three years.[84](#src-84)

The mechanics of a split are simple once you see them. A calculation-based body can declare a month on an evening when the crescent is above the horizon for only a few minutes after sunset, which the eye cannot catch. A sighting-based group will go out that evening, see nothing, and complete thirty days, starting a day later. The reverse can also happen when a calculation criterion is strict and a sighting is reported. Both groups are following a hadith. The families who end up with two Eids are usually the ones who feel it most.

## Fasting in Australia

### How long the days are

Because the Islamic year is about eleven days shorter than the solar year, Ramadan slides backwards through the seasons. For Australians that has meant a long run of lengthening fasts. In 2025 Ramadan began on 1 March; in 2026 on 19 February; in 2027 it will begin around 8 February, in the height of late summer. The table below shows my own calculation of the length of the fast in each capital on the first and last days of Ramadan 1448, from dawn to sunset. I have taken dawn as the moment the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, a common convention; timetables that use a different angle will differ by a quarter of an hour or so.

| City      | Mon 8 Feb 2027                        | Tue 9 Mar 2027 |
| --------- | ------------------------------------- | -------------- |
| Darwin    | 13 h 50 m (dawn 5:29, sunset 7:19 pm) | 13 h 27 m      |
| Brisbane  | 14 h 38 m (4:01, 6:39 pm)             | 13 h 47 m      |
| Perth     | 14 h 56 m (4:18, 7:14 pm)             | 13 h 55 m      |
| Sydney    | 15 h 06 m (4:50, 7:56 pm)             | 13 h 59 m      |
| Adelaide  | 15 h 11 m (5:07, 8:18 pm)             | 14 h 01 m      |
| Canberra  | 15 h 13 m (4:54, 8:07 pm)             | 14 h 02 m      |
| Melbourne | 15 h 26 m (5:02, 8:28 pm)             | 14 h 08 m      |
| Hobart    | 15 h 59 m (4:30, 8:28 pm)             | 14 h 23 m      |

The trend continues for several years. On the same assumptions, the fast in the middle of Ramadan in Sydney is about 14½ hours in 2027, about 15¾ hours in 2030 and a little over 16 hours in the Ramadans that begin in December 2031, 2032 and 2033, around the solstice; in Hobart it reaches about 17 hours 40 minutes. After that the days shorten again, and by the late 2030s Ramadan will be in the Australian spring and the fasts back near fourteen hours. Darwin, close to the tropics, barely changes, staying between about 13½ and 14¼ hours throughout. Nobody in Australia faces the near-endless summer days of northern Europe, so the special rulings for very high latitudes do not arise here.

### At work

Most Australian Muslims fast while working, and most workplaces cope without anyone making a fuss. The legal backstop is the Fair Work Act 2009, which forbids an employer to take adverse action against an employee or a prospective employee because of their religion (section 351), alongside state anti-discrimination laws.[87](#src-87) That is a protection against being penalised, not an automatic right to change your hours, so the practical route is a conversation early: a shorter lunch in exchange for leaving earlier, avoiding scheduling the hardest physical work in the late afternoon, or booking leave for Eid well ahead. There are about 813,000 Muslims in Australia, 3.2 per cent of the population at the 2021 census,[88](#src-88) so there is a fair chance your manager has done this before.

### At school

Children are not obliged to fast before puberty, and many families introduce it gradually, a few hours at first and then a full day on weekends. For teenagers who do fast, it helps to tell the school, particularly the sport and PE teachers, before the month starts, and to plan around swimming carnivals and exams in late summer heat. The principle that matters most is the Qur'anic one: a young person who becomes unwell should break the fast and make the day up later, and nobody should make them feel they have failed. For Eid, most families simply let the school know in advance that their child will be away that day.

## Ramadan 1448 (2027): the likely dates

### Read this first

Nobody can announce Ramadan 1448 yet, and I am not announcing it. What follows is a forecast from astronomical data and from the published methods of the bodies above. Your mosque, ANIC, AFIC and Moonsighting Australia will make the actual announcements, usually a few days before (for calculation) or on the evening itself (for sighting). If they differ from what is below, they are right and this page is wrong.

The new moon (the astronomical conjunction) falls at 2:56 am Sydney time on Sunday 7 February 2027\. On the evening of Sunday 7 February the moon will be up for about 17 minutes after sunset in Sydney and 20 in Perth, 7 to 8 degrees from the sun. That satisfies the kind of rule ANIC has published (moon born before sunset, setting after the sun), so the first day of Ramadan on that method is likely to be **Monday 8 February 2027**, with the first tarāwīḥ on the Sunday night. Saudi Arabia's Umm al-Qurā calendar also has 1 Ramaḍān 1448 on Monday 8 February.[89](#src-89) A crescent that young and that low is essentially impossible to see with the naked eye, so groups that wait for a local sighting may begin on **Tuesday 9 February**, depending on which day their 29th of Shaʿbān falls.

The next conjunction is at 8:29 pm Sydney time on Monday 8 March 2027, after sunset in eastern Australia; in Perth it comes shortly before sunset, but the moon sets before the sun everywhere in Australia that evening, so no Australian body should declare Eid for Tuesday 9 March. On the evening of Tuesday 9 March the moon sets about 11 minutes after the sun in Sydney, 16 in Perth and 28 in Darwin. A calculation-based body would therefore have Ramadan end with thirty days and **Eid al-Fiṭr on Wednesday 10 March 2027**. A naked-eye sighting on 9 March is very unlikely, so a group that began on 9 February would complete thirty days and hold Eid on **Thursday 11 March**. The Umm al-Qurā calendar, on which Ramadan 1448 has 29 days, gives Tuesday 9 March, a day ahead of the calculation-based Australian forecast and two days ahead of a sighting group that starts late; Saudi Arabia's own religious announcement will follow its sighting committee.[89](#src-89)[79](#src-79)

If Ramadan begins on Monday 8 February, the odd nights of the last ten fall on the evenings of Saturday 27 February (the 21st night), Monday 1 March (23rd), Wednesday 3 March (25th), Friday 5 March (27th) and Sunday 7 March (29th). The 19th night, the first of the three Shia nights, would be the evening of Thursday 25 February. The [page on the Islamic calendar](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/islamic-calendar/) has a converter for other dates, with the same warning attached.

## Glossary

Ṣawm, ṣiyām

Fasting; literally "holding back".

Suḥūr

The meal before dawn.

Ifṭār

The meal that breaks the fast at sunset (for Jaʿfarīs, at maghrib).

Niyya

Intention.

Qaḍāʾ

Making up a missed obligatory act, here a day of fasting.

Fidya

A ransom of feeding a poor person for each day, for those who cannot fast or who delay a make-up past the next Ramadan.

Kaffāra

Expiation for deliberately breaking a Ramadan fast: two consecutive months of fasting or feeding sixty people (freeing a slave in the classical texts).

Mudd, ṣāʿ

Measures of volume: a mudd is roughly a double handful; a ṣāʿ is four mudds.

Janāba

The state of major ritual impurity after sexual intercourse or emission, removed by a full ritual bath (ghusl).

Tarāwīḥ

The congregational night prayer of Ramadan in Sunni practice.

Laylat al-Qadr

Often translated "the Night of Decree" (Khattab: "the Night of Glory"; others "of Power"), "better than a thousand months".

Iʿtikāf

Spiritual retreat in a mosque, especially in the last ten days of Ramadan.

Zakat al-Fiṭr

The charity of the end of Ramadan, paid for each person before the Eid prayer.

Hilāl

The new crescent moon.

Ikhtilāf al-maṭāliʿ

Difference of horizons: whether a sighting in one place binds another.

Marjaʿ

In Twelver Shia practice, the senior jurist whose rulings a believer follows.

Madhhab

A school of law: Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī (Sunni) or Jaʿfarī (Twelver Shia).

This is a research article, not a fatwa, and not medical advice. It reports what the texts say and what scholars and scholarly bodies have ruled, with sources. For your own fast, please ask a qualified scholar you trust, and if you have a medical condition, speak to your doctor before Ramadan.

**Spotted a mistake, or know a better source?** I check and correct these pages when readers point things out. Please email [mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com](mailto:mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com?subject=Correction%3A%20Ramadan%20and%20Fasting%20in%20Australia) with the passage, what you think is wrong, and your source (Qur'an reference, hadith with collection and number, or a book with page).

## Sources

These are the sources behind the numbered notes, in the order they are first cited. Qur'an references link to quran.com, and quotations follow Mustafa Khattab's translation, *The Clear Quran*, as shown there, with his added words in his half brackets ˹ ˺ and his dashes given as commas; square brackets mark my own additions, such as the Arabic given where his English takes one side of a reading the post discusses (2:184). Hadith link to sunnah.com: reports in the Ṣaḥīḥ collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim are accepted as authentic by Sunni scholars, and for other collections the grading shown on sunnah.com is given with the name of the grader. Al-Sīstānī's rulings are cited from his official website where the current edition covers the point, and from the older Al-Islam.org edition otherwise.

1. Qur'an 2:183 (fasting prescribed as for those before you): [quran.com/2/183](https://quran.com/2/183?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com.
2. Qur'an 2:184 (a set number of days; the sick and the traveller; the ransom of feeding a poor person): [quran.com/2/184](https://quran.com/2/184?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com.
3. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4507: Salama ibn al-Akwaʿ: the choice to pay a ransom was later abrogated. [sunnah.com/bukhari:4507](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4507?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
4. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4505: Ibn ʿAbbās: the verse stands for the old man and old woman who cannot fast. [sunnah.com/bukhari:4505](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4505?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
5. Qur'an 2:185 (the month in which the Qur'an was sent down; "Allah intends ease for you"): [quran.com/2/185](https://quran.com/2/185?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com.
6. Qur'an 2:186 ("I am near"): [quran.com/2/186](https://quran.com/2/186?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com.
7. Qur'an 2:187 (the white thread and the black thread; retreat in the mosques): [quran.com/2/187](https://quran.com/2/187?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com.
8. Qur'an 97:1–5 (the Night of Glory, *laylat al-qadr*): [quran.com/97](https://quran.com/97?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com.
9. Qur'an 44:3–4 ("a blessed night"): [quran.com/44/3-4](https://quran.com/44/3-4?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com.
10. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1904: "Fasting is for Me"; "I am fasting"; the two joys of the fasting person. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1904](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1904?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
11. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1903: whoever does not give up false speech. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1903](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1903?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
12. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1901: fasting Ramadan and standing on Laylat al-Qadr "out of faith and seeking reward". [sunnah.com/bukhari:1901](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1901?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
13. Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī (d. 386/996), *al-Risāla*, chapter on fasting, tr. Alhaj Bello Mohammad Daura (intention once for the month; forgetful eating to be made up; waking in janāba; making oneself vomit; blood-letting; kaffāra for deliberate eating, drinking or intercourse, feeding preferred; the pregnant and nursing woman; the old man "recommended" to feed): [Madani Timbukti Traditions](https://madanitimbukti.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/the-chapter-on-fasting-from-the-risalah-of-%CA%BFabdullah-ibn-abi-zayd-al-qayrawani-310922-386996/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
14. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1923: "Take suḥūr, for there is blessing in it". [sunnah.com/bukhari:1923](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1923?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
15. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1957: hastening to break the fast. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1957](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1957?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
16. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, Rules of Ṣalāt, issue 743 (obligatory precaution: maghrib not before the eastern redness has passed overhead), Al-Islam.org: [al-islam.org](https://al-islam.org/islamic-laws-sayyid-ali-hussaini-sistani/rules-salat-part-i-iii?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
17. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1914: not fasting a day or two before Ramadan. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1914](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1914?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
18. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1991–1992: the prohibition of fasting the two ʿĪds. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1991](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1991?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
19. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 335c: ʿĀʾisha: "we were ordered to make up the fasts, but not the prayers". [sunnah.com/muslim:335c](https://sunnah.com/muslim:335c?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
20. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1951: a menstruating woman does not pray or fast. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1951](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1951?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
21. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1933: eating or drinking forgetfully. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1933](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1933?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
22. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, official English edition, "1\. Eating and drinking" (inadvertent eating does not invalidate; injections and intravenous drips do not invalidate "even if the former is an energy injection and the latter a glucose-saline drip"): [sistani.org](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2280/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
23. Muḥammad Jawād Mughniyya, "Fasting according to the Five Schools of Islamic Law", tr. Mujahid Husayn, *al-Tawḥīd* 9:4 (1412/1992), from his *al-Fiqh ʿalā al-madhāhib al-khamsa*: [al-islam.org](https://al-islam.org/al-tawhid/vol-9-no-4/fasting-according-five-schools-islamic-law-sheikh-muhammad-jawad-mughniyya/fasting?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
24. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, official English edition, ruling 1551, "Things that invalidate (mubṭilāt) a fast" (eight: eating and drinking; intercourse; masturbation; ascribing falsehood to God, the Prophet or the successors; thick dust reaching the throat, as obligatory precaution; remaining in janāba, ḥayḍ or nifās until ṣubḥ; liquid enema; intentional vomiting): [sistani.org](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2279/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
25. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2367: Thawbān: "the one who cups and the one cupped have broken their fast". [sunnah.com/abudawud:2367](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2367?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī (as shown on sunnah.com).
26. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1938: Ibn ʿAbbās: the Prophet was cupped while fasting. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1938](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1938?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
27. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, official English edition, ruling 1627, "Things that are disapproved (makrūh) for a fasting person" (eye medication whose taste reaches the throat; giving blood or anything that weakens; nasal medication; immersing the entire head in water): [sistani.org](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2290/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
28. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2380: involuntary vomiting needs no make-up; deliberate vomiting does. [sunnah.com/abudawud:2380](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2380?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī (as shown on sunnah.com).
29. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, older English edition, "Fasting (Part I of II)", issues 1581 (nine invalidators, including immersing the head), 1582, 1585, 1589, 1591, 1618, Al-Islam.org: [al-islam.org](https://al-islam.org/islamic-laws-sayyid-ali-hussaini-sistani/fasting-part-i-ii?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
30. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, official English edition, ruling 1615 ("Applying liquid enema, even if one is obliged to or for the purposes of treatment, invalidates a fast"): [sistani.org](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2287/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
31. International Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), Resolution 93 (1/10), "Invalidators of Fasting in Medical Treatments", tenth session, Jeddah, 28 June – 3 July 1997: [iifa-aifi.org](https://iifa-aifi.org/en/32535.html?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
32. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1936: the man who had intercourse in Ramadan and the expiation. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1936](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1936?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
33. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, older English edition, "Fasting (Part II of II)", issues 1667–1675 (kaffāra), 1712–1718 (delayed make-up), 1723–1732 (the traveller), 1739–1744 (establishing the first of the month; astronomical predictions only where they yield certainty; shared horizons), Al-Islam.org: [al-islam.org](https://al-islam.org/islamic-laws-sayyid-ali-hussaini-sistani/fasting-part-ii-ii?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
34. Islamic Relief Australia, "Fidya" (fidya and kaffāra at $20 per person fed; ANIC's 2026 rate), accessed 29 September 2026: [islamicrelief.org.au](https://islamicrelief.org.au/our-work/islamic-giving/fidya/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
35. Dār al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyya, "Things which vitiate fasting", fatwa 6223, 1 August 2013: [dar-alifta.org](https://www.dar-alifta.org/en/fatwa/details/6223/things-which-vitiate-fasting?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
36. IslamQA, answer 37650, "Using a puffer for asthma does not invalidate the fast" (quoting Ibn Bāz, Ibn ʿUthaymīn and the Standing Committee): [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/37650/using-a-puffer-for-asthma-does-not-invalidate-the-fast?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
37. Mufti Muhammad ibn Adam, Darul Iftaa (Leicester), "If one has asthma and must use an inhaler, do they have to fast?" (Ḥanafī): [islamqa.org](https://islamqa.org/hanafi/daruliftaa/8466/if-one-has-asthma-and-must-use-an-inhaler-do-they-have-to-fast/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
38. M. Hassanein et al., "Diabetes and Ramadan: Practical guidelines 2021", *Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice* 185 (2022) 109185, doi:10.1016/j.diabres.2021.109185: [sciencedirect.com](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168822721005453?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); the full guidelines: [daralliance.org](https://www.daralliance.org/daralliance/idf-dar-practical-guidelines-2021/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
39. Michelle Robins, "Ramadan: a practical approach for diabetes educators", *Australian Diabetes Educator* 24:1 (March 2021): [ade.adea.com.au](https://ade.adea.com.au/ramadan-a-practical-approach-for-diabetes-educators/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
40. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1950: ʿĀʾisha made up her missed days in Shaʿbān. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1950](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1950?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
41. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1943: Ḥamza al-Aslamī: "fast if you wish, and do not fast if you wish". [sunnah.com/bukhari:1943](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1943?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
42. Umer Khan and Yasir Qadhi, "Amount of Fidyah and Zakāt al-Fiṭr", Fiqh Council of North America, 7 February 2026 (the schools' measures for fidya; the ṣāʿ for Zakat al-Fiṭr): [fiqhcouncil.org](https://fiqhcouncil.org/fidyah-and-zakat-al-fitr/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
43. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, official English edition, rulings 1694–1698, "Those on whom fasting is not obligatory" (the elderly; excessive thirst; the pregnant woman near delivery; the nursing mother; one mudd, about 750 g): [sistani.org](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2296/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
44. Bassem Itani, "What Is the Fidya (Expiatory Payment) for Someone Unable to Fast?", SeekersGuidance (Ḥanafī; the Zakat al-Fiṭr measure, citing al-Kāsānī's *Badāʾiʿ al-ṣanāʾiʿ*; payment of the value in money): [seekersguidance.org](https://seekersguidance.org/answers/fast/what-is-the-fidya-expiatory-payment-for-someone-unable-to-fast/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
45. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2012: the Prophet stopped leading the night prayer "fearing that it would be made obligatory". [sunnah.com/bukhari:2012](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2012?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
46. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2010: ʿUmar gathers the people behind Ubayy ibn Kaʿb: "what an excellent innovation". [sunnah.com/bukhari:2010](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2010?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
47. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1147: ʿĀʾisha: he never exceeded eleven rakʿas, in Ramadan or out of it. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1147](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1147?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
48. Mālik ibn Anas, *al-Muwaṭṭaʾ*, book 6 (Prayer in Ramadan), reports 4 (al-Sāʾib ibn Yazīd: ʿUmar ordered Ubayy and Tamīm al-Dārī to lead eleven rakʿas) and 5 (Yazīd ibn Rūmān: twenty-three rakʿas in ʿUmar's time): [sunnah.com/malik/6](https://sunnah.com/malik/6?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Not graded on sunnah.com.
49. IslamWeb, fatwa 309061, "Number of rakʿahs in Taraweeh in Hanafi school" (twenty; Ibn Nujaym quoting Ibn al-Humām that eight is sunna and the rest recommended): [islamweb.net](https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/309061/number-of-rakahs-in-taraweeh-in-hanafi-school?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
50. "Laws and Practices: Why do the Shiʿah avoid Tarawih congregations", Al-Islam.org: [al-islam.org](https://al-islam.org/articles/laws-and-practices-why-do-shiah-avoid-tarawih-congregations?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
51. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, official English edition, ruling 1387, "Congregational prayers" (recommended prayers cannot be prayed in congregation, except the rain prayer and the Eid prayers): [sistani.org](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2268/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
52. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2017: "Seek Laylat al-Qadr in the odd nights of the last ten". [sunnah.com/bukhari:2017](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2017?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
53. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2015: the dreams that placed it in the last seven nights. [sunnah.com/bukhari:2015](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2015?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
54. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2014: standing on Laylat al-Qadr "out of faith and seeking reward". [sunnah.com/bukhari:2014](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2014?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
55. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 762a: Ubayy ibn Kaʿb: it is the night before the morning of the twenty-seventh. [sunnah.com/muslim:762a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:762a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
56. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3513: "O God, You are forgiving and love forgiveness, so forgive me". [sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3513](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3513?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Al-Tirmidhī: ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam (as shown on sunnah.com).
57. WikiShia, "Laylat al-Qadr" (the 19th, 21st and 23rd nights; the 23rd held most likely; the anniversary of Imam ʿAlī's martyrdom on the 21st; the common acts of the three nights): [en.wikishia.net](https://en.wikishia.net/view/Laylat%5Fal-Qadr?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
58. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2026: iʿtikāf in the last ten days of Ramadan until he died. [sunnah.com/bukhari:2026](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2026?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
59. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2020: iʿtikāf in the last ten nights; "look for Laylat al-Qadr in the last ten". [sunnah.com/bukhari:2020](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2020?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
60. IslamWeb, fatwa 16390, "The minimum period of a valid iʿtikāf" (the four schools): [islamweb.net](https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/16390/the-minimum-period-of-a-valid-itikaaf-ie-seclusion-in-the-mosque?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
61. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, official English edition, rulings 1725–1728, "Conditions for the validity of iʿtikāf" (three days minimum; fasting; the four mosques or the jāmiʿ mosque of a town): [sistani.org](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2302/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
62. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1503: Zakat al-Fiṭr: one ṣāʿ of dates or barley, paid before the Eid prayer. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1503](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1503?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
63. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1511: people gave it a day or two before the Eid. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1511](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1511?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
64. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 1609: Ibn ʿAbbās: a purification for the fasting person and food for the poor. [sunnah.com/abudawud:1609](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:1609?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḥasan by al-Albānī (as shown on sunnah.com).
65. Australian National Imams Council, "Zakat Al-Maal and Zakat Al-Fitr 1447H | 2026", 22 February 2026: [anic.org.au](https://anic.org.au/zakat-al-maal-and-zakat-al-fitr-1447h-i-2026/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
66. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 1134: Anas: two pre-Islamic festival days replaced by the two ʿĪds. [sunnah.com/abudawud:1134](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:1134?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī (as shown on sunnah.com).
67. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Eid al-Fitr": [britannica.com](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eid-al-Fitr?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
68. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1164a: Abū Ayyūb: six days of Shawwāl. [sunnah.com/muslim:1164a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1164a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
69. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1906: Ibn ʿUmar: "if it is hidden from you, estimate for it" (*fa-qdurū lahu*). [sunnah.com/bukhari:1906](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1906?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
70. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1909: Abū Hurayra: "complete thirty days of Shaʿbān". [sunnah.com/bukhari:1909](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1909?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
71. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1900: Ibn ʿUmar: start and stop on seeing the crescent. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1900](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1900?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
72. Qur'an 2:189 (the new moons as markers of time): [quran.com/2/189](https://quran.com/2/189?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, as shown on quran.com.
73. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2342: Ibn ʿUmar's sighting and the command to fast. [sunnah.com/abudawud:2342](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2342?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī (as shown on sunnah.com).
74. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1087: Kurayb, Muʿāwiya's sighting in Syria and Ibn ʿAbbās in Medina; chapter: "each land has its own sighting". [sunnah.com/muslim:1087](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1087?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
75. Fiqh Council of North America, "Four Imams and Global Moon Sighting", 3 December 2021: [fiqhcouncil.org](https://fiqhcouncil.org/four-imams-and-global-moon-sighting/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
76. Office of al-Sīstānī, Question and Answer, "Moon Sighting": [sistani.org/english/qa/01266](https://www.sistani.org/english/qa/01266/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
77. Ikramullah Ahmed, "Sighting the Moon for Ramadan and Eid: An Exploration of Diverse Islamic Legal Views and Practices of Muslims in Australia", PhD thesis, Charles Sturt University, 2024 (classical and modern views on calculation; the 1998 Melbourne conference; three phases of Australian practice): [researchoutput.csu.edu.au](https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/603543910/Sighting%5Fthe%5FMoon%5Ffor%5FRamadan%5Fand%5FEid%5FAn%5FExploration%5Fof%5FDiverse%5FIslamic%5FLegal%5FViews%5Fand%5FPractices%5Fof%5FMuslims%5Fin%5FAustralia.pdf?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
78. R. H. van Gent, "The Umm al-Qura Calendar of Saudi Arabia: astronomical rules", Utrecht University: [webspace.science.uu.nl](https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/islam/ummalqura%5Frules.htm?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
79. "Saudi Arabia announces first day of Eid Al Fitr 2026", *Gulf News*, 18 March 2026: [gulfnews.com](https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/saudi-arabia-announces-first-day-of-eid-al-fitr-2026-1.500478696?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
80. Australian National Imams Council, "The Commencement of the Holy Month of Ramadan 1446H – 2025", 24 February 2025: [anic.org.au](https://anic.org.au/the-commencement-of-the-holy-month-of-ramadan-1446h-2025/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
81. Australian National Imams Council, "Commencement of the Holy Month of Ramadan 1447H – 2026", 13 February 2026: [anic.org.au](https://anic.org.au/commencement-of-the-holy-month-of-ramadan-1447h-2026/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
82. Australian National Imams Council, "Eid Al-Fitr Statement for the Year 1447AH | 2026", 12 March 2026: [anic.org.au](https://anic.org.au/eid-al-fitr-statement-for-the-year-1447ah-i-2026/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
83. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, "Official Statement on the Announcement of the Blessed Month of Ramadan 1447 AH – 2026 CE", 13 February 2026: [afic.com.au](https://afic.com.au/2026/02/official-statement-on-the-announcement-of-the-blessed-month-of-ramadan-1447-ah-2026-ce/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
84. Ikramullah Ahmed, Mehmet Ozalp and Suleyman Sertkaya, *The Practice of Australian Muslims on Moonsighting* (Islamic Sciences and Research Academy, June 2023), survey of 5,584 respondents: [isra.org.au](https://www.isra.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Moon-Sighting-Report-v6.pdf?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
85. Fatmawati et al., "Determination of Islamic Month Start by Moonsighting Australia (Case Study: 1 Dzulhijah 1441)", *Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization* (2022): [researchgate.net](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366423052%5FDetermination%5Fof%5FIslamic%5FMonth%5FStart%5Fby%5FMoonsighting%5FAustralia%5FCase%5FStudy%5F1%5FDzulhijah%5F1441?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
86. Moonsighting Australia, home page and announcements, accessed 29 September 2026: [moonsightingaustralia.info](https://moonsightingaustralia.info/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
87. *Fair Work Act 2009* (Cth), section 351, "Discrimination": [austlii.edu.au](http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol%5Fact/fwa2009114/s351.html?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
88. Australian Bureau of Statistics, [2021 Census QuickStats: Australia](https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/AUS?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Islam 813,392, 3.2%).
89. Umm al-Qurā dates for 1448 AH as tabulated in the *hijridate* library (which reproduces the official Umm al-Qurā tables): [pypi.org/project/hijridate](https://pypi.org/project/hijridate/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Conjunction times and moonset lags are my own calculations with the PyEphem library.
90. Ahmad Taha Rayyan, "Making the Intention to Fast in Ramadan", IslamOnline, 20 February 2023 (Shāfiʿīs, Ḥanafīs and some Ḥanbalīs: an intention each night; Mālikīs and other Ḥanbalīs: once for the month suffices): [fiqh.islamonline.net](https://fiqh.islamonline.net/en/making-the-intention-to-fast-in-ramadan/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
91. Jamiatul Ulama South Africa, "The Fiqh of Fasting in the Hanafi Madhhab (detailed)" (an intention for each day; for Ramadan it may be made until before the "Islamic midday", halfway between the start of Fajr and Maghrib): [jamiat.org.za](https://jamiat.org.za/the-fiqh-of-fasting-in-the-hanafi-madhhab-detailed/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
92. Al-Sīstānī, *Islamic Laws*, official English edition, rulings 1530–1533, "Intention (niyyah)" (the intention may be made on every night of Ramadan; the latest time for a conscious person is ṣubḥ): [sistani.org](https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2278/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
93. Ḥusām ʿAfāna, "al-Kabīr aw al-marīḍ alladhī lā yuṭīq al-ṣiyām" (the elderly or ill person who cannot fast), IslamOnline (Arabic), 23 May 2024, quoting Ibn Qudāma, *al-Mughnī* 3:151 (feeding a poor person for each day, the view of ʿAlī, Ibn ʿAbbās, Abū Hurayra, Anas, Abū Ḥanīfa and others; Mālik: nothing owed; two views from al-Shāfiʿī): [fiqh.islamonline.net](https://fiqh.islamonline.net/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%A3%D9%88-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B6-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D9%8A-%D9%84%D8%A7-%D9%8A%D8%B7%D9%8A%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%85/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
94. IslamQA, answer 9036, "Number of rakʿahs in Tarawih prayer" (the question cites al-Albānī's book arguing for eleven; the answer quotes Ibn ʿUthaymīn that the matter is broad): [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/9036?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
95. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2356: Anas: he broke his fast with fresh dates, else dry dates, else a few sips of water. [sunnah.com/abudawud:2356](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2356?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
96. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2357: Ibn ʿUmar: "Thirst has gone, the arteries are moist, and the reward is sure, if Allah wills". [sunnah.com/abudawud:2357](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2357?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḥasan by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
97. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2358: Muʿādh ibn Zuhra: "O Allah, for Thee I have fasted, and with Thy provision I have broken my fast". [sunnah.com/abudawud:2358](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2358?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ḍaʿīf by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
98. Aḥmad al-Zūmān, "al-Āthār al-wārida fī ʿadad rakaʿāt al-qiyām fī khilāfat ʿUmar" (the reports on the number of rakʿas in ʿUmar's caliphate), Alukah, 16 April 2016 (al-Sāʾib's eleven; Yazīd ibn Rūmān's report mursal; al-Bayhaqī's twenty through Yazīd ibn Khuṣayfa, its chain judged sound by al-Nawawī and others and rejected by al-Albānī) (Arabic): [alukah.net](https://www.alukah.net/personal%5Fpages/0/101763/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
99. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1506: Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī: a ṣāʿ of food, barley, dates, dried cheese or raisins as Zakat al-Fiṭr. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1506](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1506?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
100. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 976b: Abū Hurayra: "visit the graves, for that makes you mindful of death". [sunnah.com/muslim:976b](https://sunnah.com/muslim:976b?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
101. Mufti of the Federal Territories (Malaysia), "Irsyad Fatwa Series 42: The ruling of visiting graves during Eid", 16 July 2015 (no hadith fixes days for visiting graves; one view calls the ʿĪd visit an innovation, the other permits it, citing al-Fatāwā al-Hindiyya 6/350): [muftiwp.gov.my](https://www.muftiwp.gov.my/en/artikel/irsyad-fatwa/irsyad-fatwa-umum-cat/1944-irsyad-fatwa-series-42-the-ruling-of-visiting-graves-during-eid?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
102. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 953: Anas: he ate an odd number of dates before going out on the day of ʿĪd al-Fiṭr. [sunnah.com/bukhari:953](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:953?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
103. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 986: Jābir: on the day of ʿĪd he returned by a different way. [sunnah.com/bukhari:986](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:986?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
104. Muwaṭṭaʾ Mālik, Kitāb al-ṣiyām (Book 18), Yaḥyā's report of Mālik on fasting six days after the end of Ramadan (USC-MSA reference: Book 18, Hadith 60): [sunnah.com/malik/18](https://sunnah.com/malik/18?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). A statement of Mālik's own, not a hadith, so sunnah.com gives no grade.
105. Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Yūlū al-Jazūlī, "Masʾalat ṣiyām al-sitt min Shawwāl ʿinda al-Imām Abī Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī al-Mālikī", al-Rābiṭa al-Muḥammadiyya li-l-ʿUlamāʾ (Ibn al-Qaṭṭān Centre), 10 April 2026, quoting the *Muwaṭṭaʾ*, al-Qarāfī, *al-Dhakhīra* 2/530–531, and the Mālikī explanations of Mālik's dislike, and noting the Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī and later Ḥanafī recommendation: [arrabita.ma](https://www.arrabita.ma/%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%A3%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%B5%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%AA-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%B9%D9%86%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A3%D8%A8%D9%8A-%D8%A8/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Arabic).
106. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Bāz, "Mā ṣiḥḥat qawl: 'Allāhumma laka ṣumtu' ʿinda fiṭr al-ṣāʾim?", Fatāwā al-durūs, fatwa 25431 (audio with transcript), official website: [binbaz.org.sa/fatwas/25431](https://binbaz.org.sa/fatwas/25431/%D9%85%D8%A7-%D8%B5%D8%AD%D8%A9-%D9%82%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87%D9%85-%D9%84%D9%83-%D8%B5%D9%85%D8%AA-%D8%B9%D9%86%D8%AF-%D9%81%D8%B7%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D8%A7%D9%89%D9%85?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Arabic).
107. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 4403: ʿAlī: the pen is lifted from three, the sleeper, the child until puberty and the insane until he recovers. [sunnah.com/abudawud:4403](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:4403?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.

Related reading

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