Ramadan.. Why was the ninth month in the Hijri calendar given this name?

Ramadan is the only month mentioned by name in the Qur’an (Getty)

Muslims fast the ninth month of Ramadan in the Hijri calendar, and distinguish it from the rest of the months of the Hijri year by worship, which is one of the five pillars of Islam. The holy month also has a special place in the heritage and history of Muslims, as it contains the Night of Destiny, which - as God Almighty described it - is better than a thousand. Month.

But what is the origin of the naming of the holy month that was mentioned in the Qur’an, knowing that this month bore the name Ramadan before Islam and was also called “Natiq”, just as fasting was known in previous religions, but without being linked to the month of Ramadan.

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Sand and extreme heat

Ammar Yahya, the linguistic editor on Al Jazeera’s website, says that the root “r m d” indicates the meaning of sharpness in something like hot and other things.

He explains, "Ramdha is the intensity of the heat, and from here the intense heat caused by the sun in stones or sand was called 'ramdha'." The ancients used this intense heat to hunt antelope. That is: “wintering.” As for wintering sheep, it means grazing in extreme heat.

He continues in his blog on the Learn Arabic website, “This is about antelopes and sheep. As for al-Fisal (and its singular form is al-Fasil, which is the offspring of a she-camel), her Ramadan is to be blessed when the heat is intense during the day and the earth burns its soles, which is the time of the forenoon, and about the virtue of voluntary prayers at this time, the Messenger of God said: May God’s prayers and peace be upon him: “The prayer of the one who repents when the rain begins.”

But what does Ramadan have to do with heat, and where did it get its name?

The linguistic editor, who is interested in issues of thought, language and education, answers his question: “It is true that the fasting person blinks his eyes during this month and the heat afflicts his stomach due to extreme thirst, but it was said that the name Ramadan came from the fact that when the Arabs created the names of the months in ancient times, they named them by the times and weather conditions that accompanied them at the time,” so he agreed. Some of them coincide with the season of dew and rain, so they called it spring, and it coincided with the last days of Ramadan and the intense heat, so they called it Ramadan.

The linguist continues, “Arabs are good at expressing feelings with sensual meanings, so they call the burning of anger “burning,” as if it were real heat that burns the stomach, and they say: The matter made him sick, that is, it made him angry and hurt him.”

He added, "This chapter is not specific to intense heat only, but rather indicates the meaning of sharpness in general, as we mentioned. Therefore, everything that is sharp is a 'rammed stone', so it is said: This is a sharpened knife, a sharpened blade, and a sharpened blade."

He continues, "If you want to make a knife out of iron, you grind it between two smooth stones until it softens, and it is said: I burned for so-and-so, meaning I felt sad for him. As for the one whose liver is burned, it has become spoiled, as if it had been burned."

He concludes, "This is the origin of the name Ramadan, but this blessed month - despite the heat in its name and the hardship in its fasting - is a season of forgiveness, a station for righteousness and benevolence, and a path to contentment."

Arab nomenclature in ancient times

Abu Bakr bin Duraid al-Dawsi (223 AH/837 AD - 321 AH/933 AD), a poet and writer from the descendants of the Arab king Malik bin Fahm al-Dawsi al-Azdi, reported that “When the names of the months were transferred from the ancient language, they named them by the times in which they occurred, so this month coincided with extreme heat, and it was said Rather, because the obligation of fasting coincides with intense heat, and it is said that fasting is an ancient act of worship, as if they called it that, because they were basking in it from the heat of hunger and suffering from its severity.

It is said that the first person to give it these names was “Kalab bin Murrah” from the Quraish. It was also said that the Arabs used to sharpen their weapons during Ramadan, meaning they would hammer them and sharpen them between the stones in preparation for war in Shawwal, before the arrival of the sacred months.

The Arabs also previously called the holy month “severe” - this was mentioned by Al-Mawardi, Al-Zamakhshari, and others - because it disturbs them, that is, it disturbs them by being harsh on them, and the saying that Ramadan is derived from the word “rammah”, meaning free, was also narrated by Al-Asma’i on the authority of Abu Amr.

And from this is what they say about the reason for its name: Because hearts take from it the heat of the sermon and the thought of the afterlife, just as sand and stones take from the heat of the sun, and sand takes from hot stones.

In his book, “Ramadan Dictionary,” the Egyptian academic Fouad Morsi (1925-1990) conveys multiple opinions about the reason for naming the holy month after him. He says, “It is possible that the name Ramadan is derived from ramād, which is rain that comes before autumn and finds the earth hot and burning.”

He continues, "But the prevailing opinion is that it is derived from Al-Ramdha and that it came with Al-Ramdha every year, because the Arabs of pre-Islamic times calculated their date with a lunar-solar year (mixing), so they added 9 months every 24 years...”

Morsi continues, "This calculation is most likely followed in Mecca, not the desert, and the Bedouins who live there who are not good at accounting, but they follow the people of Mecca next to the Kaaba, because the law of the Kaaba was the one that prohibited fighting during months of the year and permitted it during the rest of the months."

the odds

The scholar Mahmoud Hamdi Al-Falaki (1230 AH / 1815 AD - 1302 AH / 1885), an Egyptian scientist and one of the most prominent astronomers of the modern era, discussed this issue in his treatise, which he called “Nata’iq al-Afham fi Calendar of the Arabs Before Islam” (1858 AD), and he suggested that the people of Mecca were “ They use the lunar date in the period of fifty years before the Hijra,” while the people of calculation used to act in advance and delay if they wanted to wage war during the sacred months or wanted to prevent it in other than these months according to their desires and benefits, and from here came Islam’s prohibition of nasi’, because they permitted or forbade it as they wished. The matter is not correct on this account after imposing fasting and Hajj on specific days.

Morsi concludes in his book that there are three possibilities for the meanings of the name Ramadan and its derivations, the first of which is that “Ramadan is one of the names of God Almighty.”

But this is from the hadith of Abu Muasher Najih, and it is weak, and the hadith is “fabricated” according to most Islamic websites, and thus it is not one of the beautiful names of God stipulated in the Qur’an, Sunnah, and Islamic traditions.

The second possibility, according to Morsi, is that the name Ramadan “was derived from al-mardi, meaning clouds or rain at the end of summer and the beginning of fall,” and the third is that it was a name “derived from al-ramadhan, which is intense heat from the impact of the sun’s rays on the ground,” and the latter is common and likely.

Source: Al Jazeera