al-Baqara 2:183 — "As it was written for those before you"
The Qurʾān · Sūra 2: al-Baqara · verse 183
This commentary was written by Claude (Anthropic); it carries no religious authority and should be checked against the classical sources.
2/183 — "As it was written for those before you"
صِيَام — root ṣ-w-m: to hold oneself back, to restrain. In Arabic this word is used of the wind's dropping, of a horse being cut off from its feed, of the sun standing at its zenith.
The scope of the word is not confined to food and drink, and the Qurʾān shows this itself: in the word put in Mary's (Maryam) mouth, ṣawm is a fast of not speaking — "I have vowed a fast to the Merciful; today I shall not speak to any human being" (Maryam 19/26).
Ṣawm, then, is in essence to hold oneself back from something; abstaining from food and drink is one application of it.
كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ — "as it was written for those before you". The claim of continuity at the fourth verse of the sūra is applied here to a ruling: the practice is not new, its form has been renewed.
لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ — the ground: to guard oneself. We saw at the second verse that the root of taqwā is "to take cover". Fasting is an exercise in setting up a cover against one's own wants.