Note 167 — Chapter XXXVII · RESTRICTIONS IN DIET

We can hardly regard as such the passage in the Koran (ii. 179) where it is said, “O ye who believe! There is prescribed for you the fast as it was prescribed for those before you; haply ye may fear.” The traditionists say that Muhammed was in the habit of spending the month of Ramaḍân every year in the cave at Hirâ, meditating and feeding all the poor who resorted to him, and that he did so in accordance with a religious practice which the Koreish used to perform in the days of their heathenism. Others add that ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib commenced the practice, saying “that it was the worship of God which that patriarch used to begin with the new moon of Ramaḍân, and continue during the whole of the month” (Muir, Life of Mahomet, ii. 56, n.* Sell, Faith of Islám, p. 316). But, as Muir remarks (op. cit. ii. 56, n.*), it is the tendency of the traditionists to foreshadow the customs and precepts of Islam as if some of them had existed prior to Muhammed, and constituted part of “the religion of Abraham.” See Jacob, ‘Der muslimische Fastenmonat Ramaḍân,’ in VI. Jahresbericht der Geographischen Gesellsch. zu Greifswald, pt. i. 1893-96, p. 2, sqq.