The time of fasting is from the rising of the bright dawn that spreads across the horizon until sunset; as Allah Almighty says: (And eat and drink until the white thread of dawn becomes distinct to you from the black thread [of night]. Then complete the fast until the evening), Al-Baqarah: 187. The meaning of the white and black thread was explained by the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, in the hadith of Adi ibn Hatim, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: ((When the verse was revealed: (Until the white thread of dawn becomes distinct to you from the black thread [of night]), Adi ibn Hatim said: O Messenger of Allah, I place two strings under my pillow: a white string and a black string to distinguish night from day. The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: Your pillow is wide - your night is long - it is only the darkness of night and the light of day)), in Sahih al-Bukhari 2: 676, and Sahih Muslim 2: 766. There are two dawns: the false dawn - which the Arabs call the tail of the deer - and it is the whiteness that appears in the sky lengthwise and is followed by darkness, and the true dawn: which is the whiteness that spreads across the horizon. Therefore, with the rising of the false dawn, it is not forbidden for the fasting person to eat until the true dawn rises; as he, peace be upon him, said: ((Do not let the call to prayer of Bilal deceive you regarding your pre-dawn meal, nor the whiteness of the horizon that spreads like this until it spreads like this, and Hamad illustrated with his hands saying: meaning horizontally)), in Sahih Muslim 2: 770. In another narration: ((Let not the call to prayer of Bilal prevent any of you from having his pre-dawn meal, for he calls to awaken your sleeping ones and to return your standing ones. He said: And it is not that he says - meaning the dawn -: like this, or he said: like this, but until he says: like this and like this, meaning lengthwise, but like this means widthwise)), in Sahih Ibn Khuzaymah 3: 210, and others. See: Al-Mabsut 1: 141, and the Indian Fatwas 1: 194.