behave like kāna; it must be preceded by a negation or a prohibition. Its intended sense is that the predicate remains constantly attached to the subject. Thus, when you say, “mā zāla Khalīl un wāqifan,” the meaning is that he continues to stand.
– mā ʿajjalu: here the particle mā is a temporal infinitive; it refers to the period during which they hasten to break the fast.
- Points derived from the two hadiths:
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It is recommended to break the fast promptly. The jurists have unanimously agreed on this recommendation once sunset is confirmed—either by sighting it, by the trustworthy report of another, or by a strong presumption that the sun has set.
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Hastening to break the fast is evidence that goodness endures in the person who does so, while delaying it indicates that goodness has departed from the one who puts it off.
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The “goodness” referred to here is adherence to the sunnah, which is undeniably a cause of well-being in this world and the next. Abū Dāwūd records: “The religion will remain manifest so long as the people hasten to break the fast, for the Jews and Christians delay it until the stars mingle in the sky,” and similar wording appears in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections. The Lawgiver therefore wishes Muslims not to imitate the People of the Book in their acts of worship. Promptly breaking the fast is a distinguishing mark that sets the fasting of the people of Islam apart from that of the People of the Book, separating the ugliness of contravention from the beauty of conformity and emulation.
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This hadith is one of the Prophet’s miracles, for delaying the fast-breaking is in fact the practice of certain deviant sects.
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Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr and others have said that the reports urging the prompt breaking of the fast and the postponed pre-dawn meal (saḥūr) are sound and mass-transmitted. The scholars concur that hastening the ifṭār and delaying the saḥūr is an established sunnah; this was related by the vizier Ibn Hubayrah and affirmed categorically by Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn.
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The Almighty says: “Then complete the fast until nightfall” (Quran 2:187). This indicates that one should break the fast at sunset. The scholars unanimously hold that the fast ends and is completed with the setting of the sun, that the sunnah is to break it once sunset is certain, and that it is permissible to do so on the basis of a strong presumption by agreement—treating probable evidence in the place of certainty.