During the month of Ramaẓān twenty additional rakʿahs, or forms of prayer, are repeated after the night-prayer. These are called Tarāwīḥ.
Devout Muslims seclude themselves for some time in the Mosque during this month, and abstain from all worldly conversation, engaging themselves in the reading of the Qurʾān. This seclusion is called Iʿtikāf. Muḥammad is said to have usually observed this custom in the last ten days of Ramaẓān. The Lailatu ʾl-Qadr, or the “night of power,” is said by Muḥammad to be either on the twenty-first, twenty-third, or twenty-fifth, or twenty-seventh, or twenty-ninth of the month of Ramaẓān. The exact date of this solemn night has not been discovered by any but the Prophet himself, and some of the Companions, although the learned doctors believe it to be on the twenty-seventh of this night. Muḥammad says in the Qurʾān (Sūratu ʾl-Qadr):—
“Verily we have caused it (the Qurʾān) to descend on the night of power.
And who shall teach thee what the night of power is?
The night of power excelleth a thousand months;
Therein descend the angels and the spirit by permission
Of their Lord in every matter;
And all is peace till the breaking of the morn.”
By these verses the commentator Ḥusain understands that on this night the Qurʾān came down entire in one volume to the lowest heaven, from whence it was revealed by Gabriel in portions, as the occasion required. The excellences of this night are said to be innumerable, and it is believed that during it the whole animal and vegetable kingdom bow in humble adoration to the Almighty, and the waters of the sea become sweet in a moment of time! This night is frequently confounded with the Shab-i-Barāt, but even the Qurʾān itself is not quite clear on the subject, for in [Sūrah xliv. 1] it reads, “By this clear book. See on a blessed night have we sent it down, for we would warn mankind, on the night wherein all things are disposed in wisdom.” From which it appears that “the blessed night,” or the Lailatu ʾl-mubārakah, is both the night of record and the night upon which the Qurʾān came down from heaven, although the one is the twenty-seventh day of Ramaẓān and the other the fifteenth of Shaʿbān.
M. Geiger identifies the Ramaẓān with the fast of the tenth ([Leviticus xxiii. 27]); but it is probable that the fast of the Tenth is identical with the ʿĀshurāʾ, not only because the Hebrew Asūr, “ten,” is retained in the title of that Muḥammadan fast, but also because there is a Jewish tradition that creation began upon the Jewish fast of the Tenth, which coincides with the Muḥammadan day, ʿĀshurāʾ being regarded as the day of creation. Moreover, the Jewish Asūr and the Muslim ʿĀshurāʾ are both fasts and days of affliction. It is more probable that Muḥammad got his idea of a thirty days’ fast from the Christian Lent. The observance of Lent in the Eastern Church was exceedingly strict, both with regard to the nights as well as the days of that season of abstinence; but Muḥammad entirely relaxed the rules with regard to the night, and from sunset till the dawn of day the Muslim is permitted to indulge in any lawful pleasures, and to feast with his friends; consequently large evening dinner-parties are usual in the nights of the Ramaẓān amongst the better classes. This would be what Muḥammad meant when he said, “God would make the fast an ease and not a difficulty,” for, notwithstanding its rigour in the day-time, it must be an easier observance than the strict fast observed during Lent by the Eastern Christians of Muḥammad’s day.