Message #16279

[Heba E. Husseyn]

You're welcomed Sis Zeynab.

Regarding Verse 2:187 Pickthall wrote an interesting comment which I read in my copy of his English translation at the notes section.  In early days of Islam during the era of the Prophet (pbuh), quoting Pickthall: 

Quote --
"Muslims used to fast from evening meal of one day to evening meal of the next.  If they fell asleep before taking their meal, they would consider it their duty to abstain from it, with the result many of them fainted and came near to death"
Unquote --

Apparently what this means is that if they overslept and woke up to realize that it was too late for their evening meal (Iftar) and very little time left to finish Sahoor, they continued their next fast on empty stomach.  Understandably this practice made many folks unwell and many collapsed in serious condition.  Today our jurists are pushing on similar lines albeit to a lesser extent of course.  Summer gap between Iftar and Sahoor in America and Europe is between 5 to 6 hours, depending on where you are located.  If you hurry Sahoor by almost 2 hours, you bring it so close to the Iftar of the previous evening that it nearly amounts to fasting from one Iftar to the next.