Types of Fasting in the Sunnah

Fasting in Islam is not a single act repeated in a single way. It is a whole landscape of worship that Allah and His Messenger ﷺ spread across the year: one month that is prescribed as an obligation, and around it a circle of voluntary fasts — a single day whose reward covers two years, two days in every week, three bright days in every month, and a pattern of alternate days that Allah loves most of all.

Everything begins with the command itself:

“O you who believe, the fasts have been enjoined upon you as they were enjoined upon those before you, so that you may be God-fearing,” (Quran 2:183)

Notice what the verse gives us. Fasting is ancient — it was enjoined on the nations before us, so the believer who fasts walks a path that worshippers of Allah walked long before him. And it has a purpose that is stated in the verse itself: so that you may be God-fearing. Every type of fasting in this article grows out of that one aim. Ramadan alone is the prescribed obligation; every other fast below is voluntary — never treat them as duties, but as open doors of reward that the Prophet ﷺ himself pointed to, one by one, in his own words.

That variety is itself a mercy. Not every believer can fast the same amount: one is strong, another is weak; one has free days, another carries heavy responsibilities. So the Sunnah does not offer a single voluntary pattern and leave everyone else outside it. It offers a fast for the year, fasts for the month, fasts for the week and a fast for the single day — and lets each person take from them according to the strength Allah has given him, while the goal stays the same for all: to become God-fearing.

1. The Fast of Ramadan — the One Allah Prescribed

The fast of Ramadan is the foundation on which all the others stand. It is the fasting that Quran 2:183 enjoins — a full month of abstaining from food, drink and desire from dawn to sunset, undertaken so that God-consciousness may grow in the heart. When a believer understands that Allah tied this fast to taqwa — to becoming God-fearing — Ramadan stops being a mere ritual of hunger and becomes a month-long training of the soul.

Think about the purpose once more: a person who can leave what he loves — his food, his drink, his comfort — purely because Allah has commanded it, is learning to leave what Allah has forbidden even when no one is watching. That is the God-fearing heart the verse aims at, and it is why the fast was prescribed not as an end in itself, but as a means. Every voluntary fast in the rest of this article is a way of keeping that training alive after Ramadan has ended, so that the taqwa built in one month is not left to fade in the other eleven.

Its nights are as precious as its days: in them stands the Night of Decree, which we have explored in our guide to Laylatul Qadr, and the long night prayers of the month, gathered in our article on the Taraweeh prayer. But Ramadan’s place in this list is simple: it is the one fast that is prescribed. Everything that follows is the Messenger of Allah ﷺ adding voluntary fasts around it, for those who want more.

2. Fasting in Allah’s Month, al-Muharram — and the Day of Ashura

Once Ramadan has passed, which fasting comes next in excellence? The Prophet ﷺ answered that question directly, and he honoured a whole month in his reply:

“The most excellent fast after Ramadan is God’s month. al-Muharram, and the most excellent prayer after what is prescribed is prayer during the night.” (Sahih Muslim 1163a — Sahih)

He called al-Muharram “God’s month” — a name of honour no other month carries in this wording. So a believer who wants to fast after Ramadan begins here, in the first month of the Islamic year. The same narration pairs the best voluntary fast with the best voluntary prayer — prayer during the night — which we have gathered in our article on the virtues of Salah.

Within al-Muharram sits a single famous day: the day of Ashura, the tenth of the month. The Prophet ﷺ attached a remarkable hope to it:

“I seek from Allah that fasting on the day of Ashura may atone for the sins of the preceding year.” (Sahih Muslim 1162a — Sahih)

One day of fasting, and Allah — out of His bounty — is hoped to wipe away the sins of an entire year that has passed. Notice the Prophet’s own way of saying it: “I seek from Allah.” He taught his ummah to fast this day with hope in Allah’s generosity, and the promise is stated exactly as he stated it.

3. The Fast of Arafah

If Ashura covers one year, the fast of Arafah covers two. In the same narration in which ‘Umar (Allah be pleased with him) asked the Prophet ﷺ about the different patterns of fasting, the Prophet ﷺ said:

“I seek from Allah that fasting on the day of ‘Arafa may atone for the sins of the preceding and the coming years” (Sahih Muslim 1162a — Sahih)

The day of Arafah is the great day at the heart of the Hajj days. For the one who is not standing at Arafat, fasting that single day carries this astonishing stated reward: atonement for the sins of the year that has gone and the year that is to come. No other single voluntary day in the texts quoted in this article is described with a reward reaching in both directions like this.

Again, hold the wording exactly as it stands: the Prophet ﷺ said “I seek from Allah” — he hoped for this from Allah’s bounty and taught his followers to hope for it too. A believer fasts the day of Arafah in that spirit: one day of hunger and thirst, borne patiently, with a heart turned towards the mercy the Prophet ﷺ described.

4. Fasting on Mondays and Thursdays

Not every fast in the Sunnah belongs to a month or a season. Two days of every single week carry their own distinction. Abu Hurairah narrated that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Deeds are presented on Monday and Thursday, and I love that my deeds be presented while I am fasting.” (Jami` at-Tirmidhi 747 — Hasan)

This is the reason the Prophet ﷺ fasted on Mondays and Thursdays, in his own words: our deeds are presented to Allah on these two days, and he loved that his deeds be presented while he was in a state of fasting. A deed presented while its doer has left food and drink for Allah’s sake — that was his choice, and he made it week after week.

For the believer, this turns an ordinary week into an opportunity. Monday and Thursday arrive more than a hundred times a year between them, and each arrival is a chance to have one’s record of deeds presented while fasting, following the very reason the Prophet ﷺ gave for his own practice.

There is something humbling in his reason. He did not fast these days for display, and he did not separate the fast from the rest of his deeds — he joined them together, wanting the deeds that were rising to Allah to rise on a day when he was hungry and thirsty for Allah’s sake. A weekly faster learns the same habit: two fixed days give the week a shape, and fasting stops being something that happens only once a year in Ramadan and becomes a rhythm the soul can rely on, week after week.

5. Three Days Every Month — the White Days

The Sunnah also sets a rhythm inside every month. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to command his companions to fast three specific days — the white days, the days of the month whose nights are white with the light of the full moon. Qatadah Ibn Malhan al-Qaysi narrated:

“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) used to command us to fast the days of the white (nights): thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth of the month. He said: This is like keeping perpetual fast.” (Sunan Abu Dawud 2449 — Sahih)

Three days only — the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth of each lunar month — yet the Prophet ﷺ described them as being like a perpetual fast, a fast of the whole stretch of time. He said the same about the pattern of three days a month kept alongside Ramadan:

“Fasting three days every month and that of Ramadan every year is a perpetual fasting.” (Sahih Muslim 1162a — Sahih)

And when ‘Abdullah b. ‘Amr, who was fasting without break, was brought to the Prophet ﷺ, three days a month was the first measure the Prophet ﷺ set for him:

“It suffices for you that you should observe fast for three days during every month.” (Sahih Muslim 1159b — Sahih)

“It suffices for you” — this is the Sunnah’s gentle entry point into regular voluntary fasting. A believer who can keep nothing else can keep three days a month, and the texts above describe what those three days carry.

Look at how the two descriptions meet. The white days are “like keeping perpetual fast”; three days a month kept with Ramadan every year are called “a perpetual fasting”. In both, the Prophet ﷺ measures a small, steady act by the reward of an unbroken one. Three days out of every thirty is something almost every healthy believer can manage — in the bright middle of the month, when the dates are easy to remember and the nights themselves are lit by the moon. The Sunnah’s door into regular fasting is deliberately wide, and deliberately easy to walk through every single month of the year.

6. The Fast of Dawud — Alternate Days

At the top of the scale stands the fast of the Prophet Dawud (peace be upon him): fasting one day and breaking the fast the next, all year round. The Prophet ﷺ gave it the highest ranking any fast receives:

“The most beloved prayer to Allah is that of David and the most beloved fasts to Allah are those of David.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1131 — Sahih)

“He used to sleep for half of the night and then pray for one third of the night and again sleep for its sixth part and used to fast on alternate days.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1131 — Sahih)

The same description — Dawud’s balance of sleep, prayer and fasting — shows a worshipper who gave every part of life its due. When ‘Umar asked the Prophet ﷺ about the one who fasts a day and does not fast the next, he confirmed the pattern by name:

“That is the fast of David (peace be upon him).” (Sahih Muslim 1162a — Sahih)

And when ‘Abdullah b. ‘Amr insisted that he could do more than three days a month, it was to this fast that the Prophet ﷺ directed him — but wrapped in a condition that protects the rest of life:

“Your wife has a right upon you, your visitor has a right upon you, your body has a right upon you; so observe the fast of David, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), for he was the best worshipper of Allah.” (Sahih Muslim 1159b — Sahih)

“He used to fast one day and did not fast the other day.” (Sahih Muslim 1159b — Sahih)

Alternate days means fasting half the days of the year — the most that the Sunnah holds up as beloved to Allah, balanced by days of eating, rest and family rights in between. Dawud’s whole pattern, as the narration describes it, is a pattern of thirds: part of the night for sleep, part for prayer, part for sleep again — and then the days divided evenly between fasting and eating. Nothing in his worship swallowed the rest of his life. That balance is part of why his fast is the most beloved: it is the heaviest fast a person can carry for a lifetime without breaking under it, and the Prophet ﷺ pointed to it precisely when a companion wanted to go beyond it.

7. The Fast That Is Not Better: Fasting Every Single Day

It would be natural to assume that if fasting alternate days is the most beloved fast, then fasting every day must be better still. The Sunnah says otherwise. ‘Umar (Allah be pleased with him) put the question of perpetual fasting to the Prophet ﷺ directly, and Abu Qatada narrated his answer:

“He neither fasted nor broke it, or he said: He did not fast and he did not break it.” (Sahih Muslim 1162a — Sahih)

Of the man who fasts two days and breaks one, the Prophet ﷺ asked whether anyone was even capable of it; the pattern he praised, named and directed people to was Dawud’s — one day on, one day off. The story of ‘Abdullah b. ‘Amr carries the same lesson across a lifetime. He himself described what his younger self had taken on:

“I used to observe fast uninterruptedly and recited the (whole of the) Qur’an every night.” (Sahih Muslim 1159b — Sahih)

When it was reported to the Prophet ﷺ, he called him and measured him down step by step: three days a month would suffice; then Dawud’s fast as the utmost; and for the Quran, a completion in a month, then in twenty days, then in ten, then in seven — “and do not exceed beyond this”, with the rights of wife, visitor and body repeated as the reason. ‘Abdullah refused the easier measures, holding himself to the hardest course. In old age he looked back and said:

“When I grew old I wished I had availed myself of the concession (granted by) the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ).” (Sahih Muslim 1159b — Sahih)

The types of fasting in the Sunnah are therefore not a ladder of extremes. They are measures set by the Prophet ﷺ himself: a prescribed month, honoured months and days, a weekly rhythm, three days a month for everyone, and alternate days for the strong — each one sustainable, each one leaving the rights of the body, the family and the guest intact.

This is not the whole map, either. The Sunnah also knows other occasions of fasting — among them the six days of Shawwal — which we have gathered for you on our page about voluntary fasts in Islam, so that you can plan a year of fasting the way the Prophet ﷺ taught it: steadily, and for the sake of becoming God-fearing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What is the best fast after Ramadan? A: The Prophet ﷺ said: “The most excellent fast after Ramadan is God’s month. al-Muharram” (Sahih Muslim 1163a — Sahih). Fasting in al-Muharram is the most excellent voluntary fasting after Ramadan itself.

Q2: What is the reward of fasting on the day of Arafah? A: The Prophet ﷺ said: “I seek from Allah that fasting on the day of ‘Arafa may atone for the sins of the preceding and the coming years” (Sahih Muslim 1162a — Sahih) — the sins of the year before it and the year after it.

Q3: Which days are the white days, and when are they fasted? A: They are the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth of each lunar month. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ “used to command us to fast the days of the white (nights): thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth of the month. He said: This is like keeping perpetual fast.” (Sunan Abu Dawud 2449 — Sahih)

Q4: Why did the Prophet ﷺ fast on Mondays and Thursdays? A: He gave the reason himself: “Deeds are presented on Monday and Thursday, and I love that my deeds be presented while I am fasting.” (Jami` at-Tirmidhi 747 — Hasan)

Q5: Is fasting every day of the year better than fasting on alternate days? A: No. About the one who fasts perpetually, the Prophet ﷺ said: “He neither fasted nor broke it” (Sahih Muslim 1162a — Sahih). The fast he called the most beloved to Allah is Dawud’s fast — “the most beloved fasts to Allah are those of David” — fasting one day and not fasting the next (Sahih al-Bukhari 1131 — Sahih).