Twitter Introduces Ramadan 'Hashflags'

Twitter has introduced a set of "hashflags" for users observing the month-long religious festival of Ramadan or celebrating Eid.

Anyone tweeting #Ramadan or #Eid, in Arabic or English, will see a crescent moon or Arabic calligraphy icon respectively, next to the hashtags.

State-specific flags currently appear on Twitter when people tweet the names of countries as a hashtag.

Twitter users can also use the social network to find out when they can break their fast each day.

From Friday, anyone can tweet Arabic news channel al Arabiya to find out what time iftar - the evening meal when Muslims break their fast at sunset - occurs at.

Users just need to tweet the hashtag #iftar along with their location to be provided with a time.

The system also works to find the time of imsak, which is the breakfast meal before the beginning of each day’s fast.

Twitter said: "This week, more than 1.5 billion Muslims around the world will observe the ninth month of the Islamic Calendar as Ramadan, the month of fasting.

"And they will also gather on Twitter to share their celebration. In fact, based on our research, people sent more than 74.2m tweets about Ramadan from around the world last year."