When is the supplication made at the breaking of the fast?
Just before breaking it, in the minutes before sunset, and also at the moment of breaking it. That moment is held to be among the most favourable of the day: you arrive at it hungry, tired and humbled, which is precisely the state in which supplication is genuinely made. There is no obligatory formula: you may ask in your own language and your own words.
The four schools concur on this.
The verse about supplication is placed, in the Qur’an itself, in the middle of the verses about fasting, and that placement is what orients the practice:
“And when My servants ask you, O Muḥammad, concerning Me - indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me. So let them respond to Me by obedience and believe in Me that they may be rightly guided.” (Qur’an 2:186)
Hence scholars point to the minutes before Maghrib as one of the best times of the day to ask.
In practice:
- Before breaking the fast, in the last minutes, while you are still fasting. That is when hunger, tiredness and need come together, and that state is part of why the moment is held to be special.
- At the breaking of it too, with the transmitted supplications or with your own.
Two things that take the pressure off a beginner:
1. Arabic is not required. Supplication — unlike the prayer — never has required it. Ask in your language, in your words, for what you actually want. That is its natural form. 2. No formula is required. There are transmitted supplications for the iftar and they are good, but they are not a condition of validity, and nothing is “invalidated” by not saying them.
A practical note: many people reach Maghrib with the food in front of them and forget entirely to ask. If that happens to you, decide in advance what you are going to ask for and hold it in mind for the five minutes before. The moment passes very quickly and is the most wasted of the day.
- Qur’anQur’an 2:186