The Month in Which the Qurʾān Was Sent Down

The reason Ramadan is the month of fasting is generally given in the verse which says that this Qurʾān was revealed in a blessed time: the month of Ramadan is the month in which the Qurʾān was revealed.

The Muslim belief is that the Qurʾān came to the first heaven, which is called samāʾ al-dunyā, to a place called Bayt al-ʿIzzah, the abode of dignity or exaltation; and that happened in Ramadan. The beginning of the revelation began on the twenty-seventh of Ramadan, and then over a twenty-three-year period it was being revealed to the Prophet (peace be upon him). And in Ramadan specifically, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that Jibrīl used to go through the Qurʾān with him every month; but in Ramadan he used to go through the entire Qurʾān with him, every year, in Ramadan. And in the last Ramadan of his life he went through it two times, and he knew that that was his last year. So Ramadan is considered a very blessed time for Muslims, and traditionally it is encouraged for people to go out and see the new moon. The Muslims traditionally went out and sighted the new moon, and one would hear a lot of shouts of joy — Allāhu akbar — go up in the Muslim cities, people going up on the rooftops and things like that.

The crescent moon, interestingly enough, is a much later thing. It was the Mamluks who actually introduced the crescent moon, and it was in fact a symbol of some of the ancient moon cults. It has come to be adopted as a symbol, but it is in no way an authoritative symbol of Islam. For Muslims it is like what they call ʿurf, custom; and the Prophet (peace be upon him) said^**** that whatever the Muslims see as good is good with Allah. So there is an idea that the crescent moon has been accepted by the Muslims, but it is not from the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). An interesting thing about Islam is the absence of symbols, like icons and things. One goes into a mosque and there is pretty much calligraphy, and then a lot of geometric work, which is later; but there is a real absence of a type of iconography or anything like that. Traditionally the Prophet (peace be upon him) did put a symbol on his flag, and so it has traditionally been like that; but symbol here means something more like an abstract sign — not so much language, languages being symbols obviously, but something like a cross, or the Star of David, or the Om symbol, or statues. In other traditions there are a lot of symbols: the Hindu tradition has many, many symbols, and the Christians have the stations of the cross in a lot of Catholic churches, where one will see those types of things.

One more thing about the fasting. Traditionally the Muslims viewed fasting as a time of discipline: one should control one's talk, one's speech, not talk a lot; learn to control the sexual appetite; learn to control the tongue. This was very important. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said in a tradition: whoever guarantees for me what is between his two jaws and his two thighs, I guarantee him Paradise. In other words, if one could discipline oneself — if one could break those two desires and really discipline oneself in those two things — then… And it is interesting, the symbolic relationship between the mouth and the genitals. It is fascinating. A lot of traditions have examined the idea of createdness there: that the mouth is like a womb, and the tongue is like a male organ; that language is a type of creation, an aspect of creativity; that there is an impregnation that takes place from the mind, of thought, and that emerges in the child of speech, and things like that. So there are some fascinating relationships there.