ABSTRACT
Public fasting and supplication in times of drought were so common a feature in Palestine that a whole book of the Talmud is devoted to this practice—paralleled by the extensive treatment given by Muslim scholars to the same subject (istisqa'). The gnostic and astral religions of the Manichaeans and the Harranians had a fast in honor of the moon lasting thirty days, but beginning on the eighth, not the first, of a certain month. It is natural that because of its duration this fast has been likened to the Muslim month of Ramadan. As to fasting in pre-Islamic Arabia, the most plausible traditions are those which report that this was done during Raj ab, the holy month of the spring. The Koran provides a full and authentic commentary on the claim of Muhammad to be in a particularly close relationship with Moses and the specific connection of Moses with the Day of Atonement.
