Etymologically Fasting in terms of language means restraining (imsak) and preventing (kalf) from something, in other words the nature of holding and preventing in any form including in it not eating and not drinking deliberately (especially those with religious belief). The meaning of fasting in Arabic is called Shiyam or Shaum by language means "restraint" (abstinence) from an act. While the terminology of fasting means to hold and prevent themselves from things that mubah is in the form of eating and associated with husband and wife, in order Taqarub ilallahi (closer to Allah swt,). In Islamic law, fasting means to restrain, abstain, or control oneself from eating, drinking, sex, and other things that break from dawn (dawn) to sunset (maghrib time). So, the notion of fasting to health in syar "i is to hold and prevent the will of eating, drinking. Fucked with a wife, and for a full day, from the dawn of siddiq (dawn) to the setting of the sun (maghrib time), with submission and closer to God.
The historical facts encountered in earlier peoples and nations indicate that they perform fasting as a fitrah instinct without clear standards and standards. The actions of the Jewish and Christian priests, for example, the obligatory fasting of thirty days in the month of Ramadan that coincides with the summer, they change the time of the spring season because they are burdensome. Fasting the day before they changed into a day and night, ie from sunset until sunset the next day.