Ali Ataie – Fasting is a Shield

At the end of the last session, I

said that the rationale behind fasting is given

in the Quran.

Verse 183.

Allah

tells us to

fast

in order for you to attain taqwa.

In pre Islamic times, the word taqwa was

used by the Arabs as a fencing term.

It meant to, you know, parry the attack

of an incoming sword.

When we practice taqwa in Islam, we are

protecting ourselves

from anything that might harm the state of

our spiritual hearts

and thus might harm our relationship

with Allah

And our relationship with Allah

is everything.

No other relationship is as important. I guarantee

you.

The prophet, he

said on the difficult day of Ta'if,

right, after he was insulted and abused by

the Bani Fatif,

he said, if this is happening to me

and you are not angry with me, right,

so this is his supplication,

his words to Allah

If this is happening to me and you're

not angry with me,

then I am fine with it.

You see, his only concern

was the state of his relationship with Allah.

Therefore, the Muqtakhi,

okay, is the one who guards his spiritual

heart

by practicing self discipline. He has control over

his impulses

with the goal of mastering the self. He's

not a slave to his impulses and desires,

which is a very common form

of idolatry. It's called egolatry,

worship of the ego. Right? From ego, meaning

the self and the latveo.

These are both Greek words meaning to offer

cultic worship.

Right? That the true Muqtati

is only a slave to Allah

It is not permissible to be enslaved

to anything or to anyone other than Allah

Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And everyone is enslaved to

something.

Right? The Quran says,

have you seen the one who

The one who has taken as his god

his own Hawa, his own desires,

his own caprice.

The Quran doesn't buy atheism.

Everybody is enslaved to something and worship something.

When the Hawa of the atheist or the

anti theist

says to him,

oh my slave, let's eat this or drink

that. Let's commit this act or that act.

He responds, labayk at your service, yarab, oh

my lord.

Most modern satanists

don't actually believe in Satan, by the way,

as an actual person.

For them to worship Satan to worship Satan

is to worship your desires.

This is what they say.

Just yesterday, unfortunately, I saw a commercial

for a hair removal product

whose tagline was quote, worship

yourself

and the rest will follow.

You know? So the you know, these ad

agencies, they're smart. They know what appeals to

people

in 2021.

It's not smart to alien alienate yourself

from people when you're trying to sell them

a product. They know this will sell.

People have this people are locked in this

type of egolatry, this worship of the nafs,

of the ego.

In Islam, we are taught to discipline the

nafs and to worship God. In this culture,

young people are taught to worship the nafs

and make themselves God.

The prophet

he said,

fasting is a shield.

So the words

and

all come from a root word meaning something

hidden

or concealed.

Okay? The fast acts like a hidden shield.

So when we fast, we pay special attention,

special vigilance

to the state of our hearts

and there are 7 inroads to the heart

that must be guarded according to the scholars.

The hands, the feet,

the eyes, the ears, the tongue, the *,

and the stomach.

So when we fast, we train ourselves not

to abuse creation

with our hands.

We do not we do not allow our

feet to take us to places

that are displeasing to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.

We do not allow our ears to gaze

at the impermissible. We do not allow our

ears to listen to the impermissible.

We do not we do not allow our

our tongues to speak the impermissible, and we

learn to have control

over our sexual organs and appetite for food.

The prophet

said, guard

Allah,

and Allah will guard you.

Meaning guard his injunctions,

his his

and he will protect you and preserve you.

Imam Al Jafar as Sadhak, he said taqwa

is that Allah never misses you where he's

commanded you to be and he never finds

you where he has prohibited you to be.

So when we practice this heightened state of

self vigilance,

this heightened state of muraqabah during Ramadan,

we are metaphorically setting up these security checkpoints

upon the inroads to the heart, thus protecting

the heart

from potential attackers.

And this this leads to a heart that

is a state of being that is spiritually

healthy and pleasing to our lord. And again,

that's everything. It's all about relationship with Allah

Right? Ibrahim alaihi salam is is praised in

the Quran because he was the quintessential

monotheist

and because he brought to his Lord a

sound, healthy,

spiritual heart.

In other words, he was a person of

taqwa in the most perfect sense.

But there's a certain methodology we have to

follow,

right, in order to be in this healthy

relationship. We can't just make up a method.

We can't just place our hopes in somebody

else to do the work for us.

Those are different religions. We have to do

the work. The word Muslim is an active

participle.

It's not passive. We have to get busy

doing this work.

Now when we abstain from food and drinks

during the daylight hours,

we're going to feel these twinges of hunger

and thirst throughout the day. I'm sure all

of you have experienced this. We're coming down

to the end of the month now. This

is unavoidable,

but what we tend to do when this

happens is that we tend to look at

our watches and phones

and begin asking ourselves, how many more hours

until Maghrib? How many more hours do I

have to do this? How many more days

do I have to do this? If this

happens to you, catch yourself

then ask yourself why am I fasting?

Of course, there's,

of course, there's going to be hunger and

thirst for long hours. You already knew that.

So why are you doing this? So remind

yourself that the purpose of fasting is not

to simply feel,

you know, the discomfort of hunger and thirst

and then to try to get this over

with as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

There's gonna be pain. There's gonna be discomfort.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

The prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said,

How many people are there that fast, that

get nothing from their fast except hunger and

thirst?

The purpose of fasting is to grow in

taqwa.

You see, the 30 days of Ramadan, they'll

come and go. They come and go. They

come quickly. They go quickly.

They are

as the Quran says. Just a few days

when you really consider it.

Take advantage of it. It's going to be

here. Take advantage. One of my teachers said

that when you feel those uncomfortable pangs

of hunger and thirst while fasting, feed yourself,

he said.

Feed yourself the spiritual sustenance

of the dhikr of Allah.

Spend the time that you would normally spend

eating breakfast or lunch

and read some Quran or better yet memorize

the Quran

or just say

The prophet

said said

Just say this over and over. He said

Right? He said that

fills the scales. He says

fill what is between the heaven and the

earth. These are weighty.

We don't see the weight in this world.

They don't weigh what does what does speech

weigh? It doesn't weigh anything. But in the

speech has weight.

Has weight on the

The scales are calibrated differently.

On

the meditate upon the names of Allah. Satiate

yourself

with spiritual sustenance. The of Allah is

according to Abu Talib Al Makki.

Literally, the food of the hearts.

With this type of food, you can be

gluttonous,

eat as much as you want, and eat

copious

copious amounts of,

during Ramadan.

We will continue with our reflections, our final

reflection

in the next session

inshallah. Until then,