The purpose of this month of fasting is that one has to abstain from food and drink in order to feel in one’s body what the poor and the hungry feel: Thus social responsibility is being hammered into human consciousness as a religious postulate.
The other purpose of fasting during Ramadan is self-discipline, an aspect of individual morality strongly accentuated in all Islamic teachings (as, for instance, in the total prohibition of all intoxicants, which Islam regards as too easy an avenue of escape from consciousness and responsibility) .