A TRAINING COURSE IN THANKSGIVING AND PIETY

A Life of Fasting

THE commands of fasting are given in Chapter 2 of the Quran. These verses are as follows:

“Believers, fasting has been prescribed for you, just as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard yourselves against evil. Fast for a specified number of days, but if any one among you is ill or on a journey, let him fast the same number of days later. For those who can fast only with extreme difficulty, there is a way to compensate—the feeding of a needy person. But he who does good of his own accord shall be well rewarded; but to fast is better for you, if you only knew”.

“The month of Ramadan is the month when the Quran was sent down as guidance for mankind with clear proofs of guidance and the criterion by which to distinguish right from wrong. Therefore, whoever of you is present in that month, let him fast; but he who is ill or on a journey shall fast a similar number of days later on. God desires ease for you , not hardship. He desires you to fast the whole month, so that you may glorify Him for His having guided you and so that you may be grateful to Him”. (THE QURAN 2: 183 – 185)

Fasting is training with a dual purpose. One is thanksgiving, the other Taqwa (righteousness or piety).

Food and drink are two great blessings of God that are not well appreciated under normal conditions. Fasting the whole day, a person experiences great hunger and thirst. After sunset, as he eats and drinks, he truly appreciates how great these blessings of God are. Overwhelmed with this experience, he expresses his gratitude to God from the innermost recesses of his heart.

Fasting is also a training in taqwa or righteousness; that is, man should abstain from all things forbidden by God in this life. During Ramazan eating only at night and abstaining during the day is an exercise in making God one’s supervisor. This temporary abstinence trains him to withdraw for the rest of his life from things God disapproves. The whole life of the believer is a life of fasting.