He was in the habit of fasting three days every month when he received this Revelation: "_As to the month Ramadhan, in which the Qur'an was sent down to be man's guidance ... as soon as anyone of you observeth the moon, let him set about the fast..... You are allowed on the night of the fast to approach your wives: they are your garment and ye are their garment ... Eat and drink until ye can discern a white thread from a black thread by the daybreak: afterwards fast strictly till night, and go not in unto them, but pass the time in the Mosques._" (THE QUR'AN, II, 181, 183). By these verses was the fast of the month of Ramadhan established, and numerous were the advantages accruing therefrom: man, full of self-love, runs after everything bringing material gratification, and flees from all that falls to the lot of the poor and the weak. To rid him of this fatal propensity, nothing is more salutary than the pangs of hunger and thirst. The Faithful, their bodies no longer burdened by their aliments, foregathered all day long, and the nourishment that prayer provided for their souls, was more impatiently expected than the nourishment of their stomachs. In the torrid climate of Al-Madinah, nevertheless, their thirst, unquenched during never-ending summer days, became real torture. With dry throats, gasping, many among them were on the point of breaking down when they looked upon the limpid water of the "saqiya" and heard its tempting trickling. The example of their brethren, more resigned, soon made them pluck up fresh courage. The bonds of religious fraternity were tightened still more by this ordeal, and, having assisted each other to vanquish such terrible adversaries as hunger and thirst, Believers were ready to stand firm against the fiercest enemies among mortals. During thirty days, without murmuring and with ever-increasing exaltation, the Ansars and the Mohadjirun went through the first fast of Ramadhan. At last the crescent of the new month was about to appear; every terrace-roof and all the hills were crowded with the Faithful, all trying to get the first glimpse. The sun's golden disc was scarcely submerged in the blue waves of the desert's horizon when every eye scrutinised anxiously the depths of the sky of emerald-like limpidity. Suddenly, in the lower part of the shaded canopy of heaven, the thin silver bow appeared. A long-drawn sigh escaped from every breast, as if each had been pierced by invisible arrows, shot from this bow.