(RNS and NPR) — During the holy month of Ramadan, many Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. This year, due to the alignment of lunar and solar calendars, Ramadan coincides with Lent, when Catholics and Orthodox Christians give up certain foods, and the 19-day Baha’i fast that leads up to spring.

Why do so many faith traditions call for giving up food? Here’s a rundown. 

‘One of the only universal religious practices’

One reason for the spread of fasting is the cross-pollination of Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam. However, other traditions sprung up independently, said Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, who teaches anthropology and religion at Northeastern University in Boston.

“Creating taboos or creating restrictions or celebrations around food makes sense because it’s the one thing, besides like sleep and sex, that we have as sort of universals,” she said. “Either we abstain from them, or we indulge in them.”

Fasting traditions are also part of religious practices for Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, often having overlapping purposes across those faiths.

For ancient Mesopotamian Babylonian cultures, fasting acted as a kind of repentance, and in Jewish tradition, fasting is a form of teshuva, or atonement, said Daniel Azim Pschaida, who teaches comparative religion at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. 

“You see that sort of tone overlap with the Lenten season for both Eastern Orthodox Christians as well as Catholics,” Pschaida said, also pointing to fasting in Native American Lakota tradition and within his own Baha’i faith. 

Catherine Newell, a professor of science and religion at the University of Miami in Florida who has written about fasting as a spiritual technology, said fasting is one of the only universal religious practices. “It is a very ancient, very compelling, very effective way to kind of disrupt everyday life,” she said. 

The universal act of abstaining from something so essential to life can remind you of who and what you are, Newell said. 

“A lot of religions have struggled with this notion of the divine,” she said. “The luminous interior core that is something that’s part of the eternal — and also just this meat sack that we’re walking around in.”

Emptiness and empathy

During the month of Ramadan, the Muslim Educational Trust in Tigard, Oregon, hosts a nightly iftar meal, where people join for prayers and then break their fast together. The weekends have large gatherings, but even a weeknight brings a few dozen people, filling their plates with dates, salad, rice and lamb.

Zikria Haqiqi, operations and communications manager at the Trust, said the first week of fasting is the hardest.

“As a coffee drinker, I sit there with just like this weird pulsating headache in the back,” he said, laughing. “You get cranky, you get hangry. You get all these things. And then it passes. It passes, and it’s just you.”

Haqiqi’s co-worker Amber Malik said that discomfort can create a sense of empathy for those whose hunger is not a choice. “We can have the utmost compassion for them,” said Malik, director of community athletics and wellness programs at the Trust. “But it brings us to a different level of empathy when we actually experience that hunger for ourselves.” 

In the Islamic tradition, fasting is paired with charitable giving. And people don’t just give up food and coffee, but all sorts of daily pleasures. For example, Haqiqi has given up his weekly game night to spend more time in study and prayer, and reflecting on the life of the Prophet Muhammad. “When you remove everything else, like you do in Ramadan … it’s so freeing,” he said.

Fasting in the modern era

These days, many of us don’t have to think of the needs of our human bodies. You can tap your phone and have any food appear on your doorstep. “The modern era, it’s almost like we exist in an eternal now,” said Jay W. Richards, the author of “Eat, Fast, Feast: Heal Your Body While Feeding Your Soul: A Christian Guide to Fasting.”

Richards, who is a vice president at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and a Catholic, said the abundance many people enjoy today is a gift. But the practice of fasting, which wasn’t always optional, can be a chance to reset both the body and the soul.

“Fasting gives us both an opportunity, I think, to sort of channel our spiritual practices, but also to remind us of our mortality in a way that we simply don’t have in the 21st century,” Richards said. 

And after the existential discomfort or enlightened emptiness — or whatever a fast may bring — come the chocolates and Easter eggs, or the samosas and dates. Because the final gift of the fast is a deep appreciation for the feast — the here and now of this delicious world.