Muslims around the world are preparing themselves for another Ramazan, a fasting month in Islam, which will mark the 1,398th anniversary of the first holy month this year.

Dating back to 624 CE, the first ever Ramazan was observed in the city of Madinah in today's Saudi Arabia, according to the Gregorian calendar.

The date also marked the second year of the Hijrat, or migration in English, which played a crucial role in Islamic history. Under paganist pressure, this small community of Muslims were forced to leave the city of Makkah and move to Madinah for refuge in 622.

Following Prophet Muhammad’s instructions to go for Hijrat, his companions, the first Muslims, chose to start their own calendar with the starting date of Hijrat, a profound transformative event, marking its beginning. 

The first Ramazan for Muslims happened to be in March, a spring month, in which temperatures in the Arabian Peninsula including Madinah were milder compared to summertime, when intense hot weather hits both desert and urban areas.

“O believers! Fasting is prescribed for you — as it was for those before you — so perhaps you will become mindful [of Allah],” said the Quran, instructing Muslims to fast as other believers of God who preceded them did in previous times.

The verses were revealed to Prophet Muhammad in February 624 AD, or in the month of Shawwal in the second year of Hijrat.

While Prophet Muhammad and some Muslims fasted some days in particular months in Makkah prior to the Quran’s Ramazan verses, fasting 30 or sometimes 29 days straight without any interruption was an extraordinary experience for the first Muslims.

A short time prior to the revelation of Ramazan verses, Muslims also changed their prayer direction (Kiblah) from Jerusalem (Quds in the Quran) to Makkah’s Kaaba. All these changes happened after the Prophet’s followers established a strong base in Madinah.

By changing prayer direction and fasting in an uninterrupted way for a month, the first Muslims deeply felt that they were a different religious community from other monotheistic groups, Christians and Jews, members of whom were living alongside them in Madinah, developing a strong self-consciousness about their own identity.

Also the first Ramazan remarkably coincided with the first crucial military engagement, the Battle of Badr, between Madinah-based Muslims and Makkah-led paganists. While the total participants of the battle for both sides did not exceed 1,200 fighters, its end result favouring Muslims ensured the new monotheistic religion’s historical survival, allowing it to flourish across the world over centuries.

But fasting is not imposed on everyone without exceptions. The Quran, which has always promised to maintain a middle path for believers to make their life straightforward and fair, brought exceptions to people like the very old, sick, pregnant women and children to exempt themselves from fasting, the professor says.

If a Muslim adult has legitimate reasons not to fast, he or she should feed a poor person for one day for each day he or she could not fast, according to the Quran.

Despite the difficulties of fasting, which tests a Muslim’s physical endurance as well as his/her psychological strength, Ramazan brings a lot of blessings and forgiveness from God, Prophet Muhammad pledged.

In Islam, fasting is not just banning yourself from food and drinks but attempting to purify yourself from your wrongdoings. The Prophet and his companions would increase other worship in Ramazan.

Abu Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Messenger (S.A.W.W) as saying: "Every (good) deed of the son of Adam would be multiplied, a good deed receiving a tenfold to seven hundredfold reward. Allah, the Exalted and Majestic, has said: With the exception of fasting, for it is done for Me and I will give a reward for it, for one abandons his passion and food for My sake. There are two occasions of joy for one who fasts, joy when he breaks it, and joy when he meets his Lord, and the breath (of an observer of fast) is sweeter to Allah than the fragrance of musk. But worshipping and fasting do not mean giving up all work and other practices of daily life. The Messenger of Allah (SAW) would try not to interrupt his daily life in Ramazan, and if he had to do something while fasting, he would do it. He would not delay any work that had to be done on the pretext of fasting."

Interestingly, even during the march for the Battle of Badr, which coincided with Ramazan, the Prophet, who was also the military commander of the Muslims, fasted. In Islam, fighting for a just cause is also considered a religious duty like fasting during Ramazan.

The Muslim March towards Makkah, which ended up conquering the native city of the Prophet from the paganist rule, also happened during Ramazan showing the Prophet’s hard-working attitude even during the fasting month.

What was their food?

There is some serious distance between today’s Muslims and the first Muslims in terms of not only morality but also their fast-breaking attitudes.

The first Muslims had no opportunity to have food like we do now in terms of its diversity and quantity.

Muslims call their fast-breaking iftar and their pre-dawn meal suhur. During their suhur, they were probably eating a couple of dates alongside some water.

Our Prophet's fast-breaking meal was extremely simple, far from luxury and waste. If they found one type of food, they would be happy to have it in their iftar.

During today’s iftars, there are various types of food from soup to rice and other dishes added such as fruits and desserts.

However, the iftars and suhurs during the first-ever were so simple. They were crushing a date mixing with either some flour or water to make their own food. Or they were mixing roasted flour with some olive oils to make another food.

But there were also people who did not even have such food in Madinah back in 624. As a result, Prophet Muhammad urged financially better conditioned Muslims to invite other Muslims with no food on their iftar table paving the way for developing the strong Muslim tradition of inviting friends, relatives and poor to share their food on common iftar tables.

Particularly people like Suffah, who were homeless and unmarried companions of the Prophet, migrated from Makkah to Madinah and dedicated their lives to gaining religious knowledge from the Prophet, were too poor to afford such meals. The Prophet incentivised other Muslims to host people of Suffah and not to leave them behind on their iftar tables.

The Prophet, who was more generous than other times in Ramazan, would also invite believers in need to his table at iftar as well as at suhur and offer them treats.

But at the end of the day, despite its simplicity, their iftars and suhurs were both healthier and more humble than ours today.