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when do you stop eating during ramadan

You stop eating during Ramadan at true dawn (Fajr time), not sunrise.

Simple answer

  • You may eat and drink all night from sunset (Maghrib, when you break fast) until Fajr time begins.
  • Once Fajr starts , you must stop eating and drinking immediately for that day’s fast to be valid.
  • Many scholars recommend stopping about 10–15 minutes before Fajr as a precaution, but the actual deadline is the start of Fajr , not the adhan recording or sunrise.

Key mini-sections

1. What’s the exact cutoff?

In Islamic law, the fasting day runs from true dawn (Fajr) to sunset (Maghrib).

So for suhoor (pre-dawn meal):

  • Permitted time :
    You can eat until Fajr time begins (when true dawn appears – “the white thread of dawn becomes distinct from the black thread of night”).
  • Recommended practice :
    Many scholars advise stopping around 10 minutes before the listed Fajr time to avoid accidentally eating after dawn, especially when relying on printed timetables or phone apps.

Example:

  • If Fajr is at 6:12 a.m. , a cautious schedule is:
    • Aim to finish suhoor by about 6:00 a.m.
    • Absolutely no eating or drinking from 6:12 a.m. onwards.

If you are still chewing when Fajr starts, you should swallow only what is already in your mouth and stop ; you should not keep taking more food or drink.

2. Night-time eating window

During Ramadan your eating window each day is:

  • From : Maghrib (sunset) – when you break your fast with iftar.
  • Until : Fajr (true dawn) – the start of the next day’s fast.

Between those two times, you are allowed to:

  • Eat your iftar meal after Maghrib.
  • Drink water and rehydrate through the night.
  • Eat suhoor close to Fajr, which is considered blessed and recommended to delay (but still finish before Fajr begins).

Muslims are encouraged not to delay breaking fast after sunset and not to delay suhoor too early in the night, as eating suhoor closer to Fajr helps with energy for the day.

3. Common confusions: adhan, apps, sunrise

People online often ask whether they follow the adhan , their phone app , or the sky :

  • The real reference is true dawn , not sunrise or just the clock.
  • In practice, most people follow trusted timetables or apps issued by local mosques or Islamic bodies; those times are calculated for your city’s dawn and sunset.
  • Some scholars advise leaving a small safety gap (10–15 minutes) before Fajr if you’re worried that printed times might be slightly off, but they still affirm that eating is allowed until Fajr, not sunrise.

Forum discussions often stress: do not confuse sunrise with Fajr – sunrise is later ; by sunrise you have already been fasting for a while.

4. Different viewpoints & minor details

Across Sunni and Shia scholars, there is agreement that eating is allowed until Fajr , with a recommended few-minute buffer as a precaution.

Minor differences you may see in community discussions:

  • How many minutes of buffer (some say about 10, some 10–15).
  • Whether it is better to be very strict with the timetable or to rely on direct visual observation of dawn in rural areas.

But in all cases, the core rule remains:
You stop eating when Fajr begins; you fast until Maghrib; you can eat again from Maghrib until the next Fajr.

5. Forum-style recap

If this were a short forum reply to “when do you stop eating during Ramadan?” it would look like:

You can eat from Maghrib (sunset) all the way up to Fajr , not sunrise. Check your local prayer timetable or app for the exact Fajr time and try to wrap up suhoor a few minutes before that as a precaution. Once Fajr starts, you stop eating and drinking until Maghrib that evening.

Meta description (SEO-style):
Wondering when do you stop eating during Ramadan? Learn the exact cutoff (Fajr, not sunrise), why many Muslims stop a bit early, and how forums and scholars explain the suhoor and iftar times in today’s app-driven world.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.