The practice of fasting was prevalent in the pre-Islamic tribes of Arabia. It has also been considered as a holy act in many other religions. As a matter of fact, fasting is ordained in all the major divine religions, where amongst the others only the Zoroastrian dogmas prohibit the practice of fasting.

The bodily and mental experiences of early man during times of drought and parching may account for the custom of fasting as a religious technique in those days. Prolonged hunger gives rise to visions and the fast was used for this purpose by the ancient man. Buddha’s achievement of nirvana (enlightenment) is one particular example. Fasting was a fundamental method of acquiring totem of shamans in making contact with spirits by those who consulted the Greek oracles. The Greek abstained in order to consult their deities for advice and prophecies. The suffering involved in fasting made it a befitting means of expressing penitence, seeking forgiveness or making atonement. In pre-Islamic days, fast was almost universal as an expression of mourning and lamentation. It was also used as a means of acquiring supernatural powers. Fasting gave an added efficacy to a rite, and sometimes was combined with other austerities to command or control gods and goddesses.

Fasting was required of individuals, of groups and of the whole communities, for the avoidance of various hostile influences and natural calamities. Among the religions of the intermediate development, now extinct, that of the Celts laid some stress on the practice of fasting. The ancient Mexicans and Peruvians resembled the Babylonians and Assyrians and fasting was largely used by them in connection with penance and the offering of sacrifice. There are clear indications that the ancient Egyptians also observed fasting to please their gods. The Romans appear to have used the practice but little until they came under the influence of the later Greek religion in witch fasting was required as one of the basic tenets of their belief. Fasting has been very strongly recommended to individuals by philosopher and meta-physicians of various schools: Cynics (an ancient group of Greek philosophers), Stoics (members of a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens), Pythagoreans (Pythagoras was a great Greek mathematician and philosopher and founded the theory of how things are related to each other in nature) and Platonists (the theory developed by Plato regarding the shape and philosophy of forms).

Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. A fast may be total or partial concerning that from which one fasts, and may be prolonged or intermittent as to the period of fasting. Fasting practices may preclude sexual activity as well as food, in addition to refraining from eating certain types or groups of foods; for example, one might refrain from eating meat. A complete fast in its traditional definition is abstinence of all food and liquids except for water.

Fasting for religious and spiritual reasons has been a part of human custom since pre-history. It is mentioned in the Bible, the Qur’an, in texts of Mahabharata, and the Upanishads. Fasting is also practiced in many other religious traditions and spiritual practices.

Hindu and Jain ascetics are committed by their faiths to very severe fasting in conjunction with numerous other austerities, and abstinence in lesser degree is imposed on Hindus generally by the requirement of caste law and the performance of due accompaniments of various pilgrimages . Fasts are also kept while Hindus prepare for their various festivals. Buddhism recommends fasting of moderation, not going to the extremes of self-deprivation and self-torture. The Taoism of China imposes periods of strict fasting upon its professors. Confucianism has followed the practice of its great expounder in approving the customary observation of fasting as a prefatory to the worship of patrimonial and hereditary spirits.

Jews are required to fast on the Day of Atonement. The stricter Christians observed fast on Mondays and Thursdays of each month of the Christian calendar. All these practices of fasting were, however, not strictly disciplined. There were no proper definitions of the time of fasting. The time of beginning the fast and breaking it was usually the choice of an individual or a group. There were no confirmed principles and no formal methodology of their observance.

The institution of fasting (sawm or saum) was systematized and made rational by Islam. In the Qur’an in Sura ii (al-Baqarah), verse 183, it is enjoined, “O ye who believe. Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that ye may learn self-restraint.” The abstention from feed, drink and sex, temporarily, enables the attention to be directed to higher things. This is necessary through prayers (salat), contemplation and acts of charity, but strictly not of the showy nature. In the same Sura in verse 185, “Ramadan is the month in which was sent down the Qur’an, as a guide to mankind. So every one of you who is present at home should spend it in fasting. He (Allah) wants you to complete and glorify Him.” The regulations are again and again compelled with an insistence on two things: (i) the facilities and concessions given, and (ii) the spiritual significance of the fast. This is the aspect of fasting which realizes for us the blessings of Ramadan. We therefore, do not look at it as a source of excruciations, but as a fount of purification.