Dawn in the context of "Heliacal rising"

In Islam, fasting (called ṣawm in Arabic: صَوم [sˤɑwm], or ṣiyām صيام [sˤɪˈjæːm]) is the practice of abstaining from food, drink, sexual activity, and anything that substitutes food and drink. During the holy month of Ramadan, fasting is observed between dawn and sunset when the prayer call of the dawn prayer and the sunset prayer is called. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar and fasting is a requirement for able Muslims as it is the fourth of the five pillars of Islam.

*H₂éwsōs or *H_aéusōs (lit. 'the dawn') is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European name of the dawn goddess in the Proto-Indo-European mythology.

*H₂éwsōs is believed to have been one of the most important deities worshipped by Proto-Indo-European speakers due to the consistency of her characterization in subsequent traditions as well as the importance of the goddess Uṣas in the Rigveda.

A dawn god or goddess is a deity in a polytheistic religious tradition who is in some sense associated with the dawn. These deities show some relation with the morning, the beginning of the day, and, in some cases, become syncretized with similar solar deities.

The heliacal rising (/hɪˈlaɪ.əkəl/ hih-LY-ə-kəl) of a star or a planet occurs annually, when it becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn in the brief moment just before sunrise (thus becoming "the morning star"). A heliacal rising marks the time when a star or planet becomes visible for the first time again in the night sky after having set with the Sun at the western horizon in a previous sunset (its heliacal setting), having since been in the sky only during daytime, obscured by sunlight.

Historically, the most important such rising is that of Sirius, which was an important feature of the Egyptian calendar and astronomical development. The rising of the Pleiades heralded the start of the Ancient Greek sailing season, using celestial navigation, as well as the farming season (attested by Hesiod in his Works and Days). Heliacal rising is only one of several types of alignment for stars' risings and settings; mostly the risings and settings of celestial objects are organized into lists of morning and evening risings and settings. Culmination in the evening and the culmination in the morning are separated by half a year, while on the other hand risings and settings in the evenings and the mornings are only separated by a half-year at the equator, and at other latitudes set apart by different fractions of the year.

Morning is either the period from sunrise to noon, or the period from midnight to noon. In the first definition it is preceded by the twilight period of dawn, and there are no exact times for when morning begins (also true of evening and night) because it can vary according to one's latitude, and the hours of daylight at each time of year. However, morning strictly ends at noon, when afternoon starts.

Morning precedes afternoon, evening, and night in the sequence of a day. Originally, the term referred to sunrise.

In Greek mythology, Theia (/ˈθiːə/; Ancient Greek: Θεία, romanized: Theía, lit. 'divine') also called Thea, Thia, Euryphaessa, Aethra or Basileia, was one of the Titans, the children of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). She is the goddess of minerals and gemstones.

Her brother-husband is Hyperion, a god of the light, and together they are the parents of Helios (the Sun), Selene (the Moon), and Eos (the Dawn). She seems to be the same figure as Aethra, who is the wife of Hyperion and mother of his children in some accounts. Like her husband, Theia features scarcely in myth, being mostly important for the children she bore, though she appears in some texts and rare traditions.

In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Eos (/ˈiːɒs/; Ionic and Homeric Greek Ἠώς Ēṓs, Attic Ἕως Héōs, "dawn", pronounced [ɛːɔ̌ːs] or [héɔːs]; Aeolic Αὔως Aúōs, Doric Ἀώς Āṓs) is the goddess and personification of the dawn, who rose each morning from her home at the edge of the river Oceanus to deliver light and disperse the night. In Greek tradition and poetry, she is characterized as a goddess with a great sexual appetite, who took numerous human lovers for her own satisfaction and bore them several children. Like her Roman counterpart Aurora and Rigvedic Ushas, Eos continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, Hausos. Eos, or her earlier Proto-Indo-European (PIE) ancestor, also shares several elements with the love goddess Aphrodite, perhaps signifying Eos's influence on her or otherwise a common origin for the two goddesses. In surviving tradition, Aphrodite is the culprit behind Eos's numerous love affairs, having cursed the goddess with insatiable lust for mortal men.

In Greek literature, Eos is presented as a daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, the sister of the sun god Helios and the moon goddess Selene. In rarer traditions, she is the daughter of the Titan Pallas. Each day she drives her two-horse chariot, heralding the breaking of the new day and her brother's arrival. Thus, her most common epithet of the goddess in the Homeric epics is Rhododactylos, or "rosy-fingered", a reference to the sky's colours at dawn, and Erigeneia, "early-born". Although primarily associated with the dawn and early morning, sometimes Eos would accompany Helios for the entire duration of his journey, and thus she is even seen during dusk.

Twilight is daylight illumination produced by diffuse sky radiation when the Sun is below the horizon as sunlight from the upper atmosphere is scattered in a way that illuminates both the Earth's lower atmosphere and also the Earth's surface. Twilight also may be any period when this illumination occurs, including dawn and dusk.

The lower the Sun is beneath the horizon, the dimmer the sky (other factors such as atmospheric conditions being equal). When the Sun reaches 18° below the horizon, the illumination emanating from the sky is nearly zero, and evening twilight becomes nighttime. When the Sun approaches re-emergence, reaching 18° below the horizon, nighttime becomes morning twilight. Owing to its distinctive quality, primarily the absence of shadows and the appearance of objects silhouetted against the lit sky, twilight has long been popular with photographers and painters, who often refer to it as the blue hour, after the French expression l'heure bleue.

The fajr prayer, alternatively transliterated as fadjr prayer, and also known as the subh prayer, is one of the five daily mandatory Islamic prayers (salah). Consisting of two rak'a ("bows"), it is performed between the break of dawn and sunrise. It is one of two prayers mentioned by name in the Qur'an. Due to its timing, Islamic belief holds the fajr prayer to be of great importance. During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Muslims begin fasting with the fajr prayer.