If a Muslim is eating his pre-dawn meal and the Fajr adhan is called, what is his obligation?

The questioner : If a Muslim is eating and the Fajr adhan is called, what is the ruling on his fast, and does he have to make it up?

The Shaykh : The Qur'anic text is explicit on this, namely the saying of Allah the Exalted: The verse is explicit that the one eating the pre-dawn meal continues in his food and drink until the dawn becomes clear, meaning until he is certain of the rising of the true dawn. And for a wisdom, our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, mentioned in this verse by His saying: because becoming clear about a thing is being certain of it. The reality is that there are many questions regarding the fact that the mu'adhdhins in this country call the adhan with the rising of the true dawn. We were in 'Umrah this Ramadan in Makkah and Madinah, and we saw them delay the adhan of the true dawn by about half an hour. And we do not know of a difference there in terms of longitude that leads to this difference between our dawn and their dawn. Our recent observation here reminded us of what we hear from our cultured, knowledgeable brothers in Jordan, who assert that the adhan in Jordan generally, and not only in Ramadan, is called about a third of an hour before the true dawn. Then some of these Jordanian brothers came here and contacted some of our brothers, and they also observed the rising of the dawn here in Damascus specifically. It became clear to them, and I do not say "became clear" because after I became clear of what became clear to them, it became clear to them that the matter there is like the matter here. Therefore, it was in my mind that we hold a special session with some of our brothers and discuss this issue for us here in Damascus: do they correct the second adhan, and not the first adhan? Do they correct the second adhan, by which food is prohibited and prayer becomes permissible, at the exact time, or do they advance it before the time, as they do in the innovation of the first adhan, where they call it the adhan of imsak, which is actually, from the Shari'ah perspective, the adhan of food and drink, and not the adhan of imsak. They call it the adhan of imsak until it is recorded in what they call the imsakiyyah, so it became obligatory for every fasting person to abstain from his food and drink as soon as he heard the first adhan, which is Shari'ah-wise the adhan of food and drink, as evidenced by a hadith in al-Bukhari and Muslim from a group of the Companions that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So he (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded regarding the adhan of food and drink that a person should continue in it, even after the adhan of Bilal, because Bilal says he calls the adhan so that the sleeper may rise and the one eating the pre-dawn meal may eat. The first adhan is for the purpose of alerting; it is the adhan for the time of food and drink. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And it came in this hadith that the time between their two adhans was the amount of reciting fifty verses, meaning that the time for two adhans is a very short time, and it is not the distance that takes about a quarter of an hour today between the so-called adhan of imsak and the adhan of Fajr. Therefore, it is possible that some of the timekeepers who set the astronomical timing also noticed a second precaution, other than the precaution of the adhan of imsak; they noticed a second precaution in timing the second adhan and advanced it so that the true dawn does not enter, in their claim. And some people are still eating and breaking their fast, and if this is the case, it indicates that there are two matters, each of which is an act of worship and obedience. Just as it is not permissible for the one eating the pre-dawn meal to continue in food and drink until the entry of the true dawn, so it is not permissible for a person to pray before the true dawn. Each of them is an act of worship. In summary, the second adhan must, in reality, be verified to be called at the time, and we have many doubts about the matters we mentioned. And with that, there is a leeway and an explicit dispensation in the authentic hadith. If we assume that this second adhan is called by the mu'adhdhins at the correct time in the true dawn, this noble dispensation applies, where he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: If one of you hears the call, meaning the second one, as for the first, eat and drink until Ibn Umm Maktum calls the adhan. As for the second adhan, until you take your need. In this is a dispensation that the fasting person continues in food until he takes his need. And what he returns to, for example, to snack or crack seeds, for example, on the pretext that he is fulfilling his need from it, this is not something he has a need for; this is from the category of amusement. The hadith is explicit: