Fath al-Rabbani

Benefits: … “When night comes, the day departs, and the sun sets”—all these expressions have the same meaning, and the first two depend on the setting of the sun. When the sun sets, the arrival of night from the east begins, and the day, in any case, has already ended. From the ahadith of this chapter, it is understood that when the disk of the sun sets, one should break the fast (iftar) at that very moment and should not delay further; otherwise, resemblance to the Jews and Christians will result. We have observed that Hanafi people, after the sun has set, wait even longer; in fact, we have heard a Hanafi scholar say that waiting further is piety (taqwa). But this is a strange kind of piety, which becomes a cause for negligence in acting upon the ahadith of the Messenger (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). Everyone accepts this principle that the time for iftar is precisely this, but it is unclear what the actual reason is for delaying it in practice.