Hasan Ali – Why do we Fast in Ramadan

			My brothers and sisters Ramadan is is here literally and a lot of people don't understand why we
have this Ramadan coming coming every year. And we have it coming again another year and another
year. And people literally think that we're supposed to just just show that we're not eating, not
drinking. In fact, some people say that we fast in Ramadan, because we suppose to show we're
supposed to feel how the poor people are feeling. That is a very lame thing. Very lame, because if
that was the case, then why the poor people fasting.
		

			Okay, the reason why we fasting Ramadan, is because we're trying to bring in self control. There are
many, many reasons why we're doing it. But I'm gonna tell you one big reason I remember, I was
traveling with one of my friends and there was a non Muslim with us. And the non Muslim asked, he
said, Why do you Muslims fast.
		

			And most people don't know this, even my friend was surprised with the reason why we actually fast
and most Muslims don't even notice. The reasons why we fast is because we have two places in our
bodies that are the other drive behind a person's attachment to this world. Two main drives. So you
have your drive, one drive, which is your stomach, most of the things we're doing in this world is
because of the stomach, we want to feed the stomach, we want to keep ourselves healthy, and so on,
so forth. And the second drive is that between the face
		

			so the urge that a man has the urge that a woman has for the opposite gender, that's another reason
why we have a lot of attachment to this world, or to the people of this world. Okay, these two
drives, the drive of the stomach and the drive of that between the thighs. They are the major two
parts that makes a person want to attach themselves to this dunya So what Allah azza wa jal has done
for 30 days is he said to us to control these two drives, and said, don't eat, don't drink, that's
the that's going straight down to the first drive of the stomach. And then Allah azza wa jal says,
don't have any sort of mutual relationship with your you know, with your with your wife, with your
		

			husband, during the whole Ramadan. Why do you think that is? That is because we've now cut off the
two parts that really give us a big drive towards as well. And then after that, Allah says, now
you're going to attach yourself to after to the after that attach yourself to Allah azza wa jal
through a lot of
		

			through contemplation through rich recitation, through doing Zikr. By doing Doha, by reading the
Quran extra, all of these things are going to make us come closer to Allah azza wa jal by extra
Salah in the night by standing in front of Allah. So what we're doing here is we're doing two parts.
One is you shut down the drive that puts you towards the dunya. And that's the, that's the stomach
and that and between the thighs, the edge between the thighs, so we've shut those down. But the
second part is that you're supposed to then ignite and start the process inside that that puts us
towards the drives towards the Acura. So those are the two process those of us every Ramadan that
		

			have only just stopped eating and only stops or drinking you're only working on the first part of
the whole point of Ramadan
		

			out of the Muslims
		

			about 70% of Muslims fast during Ramadan out of those 70% of Muslims that fast less than 5% get the
real essence of what Ramadan is about because Ramadan is not just about okay when other people think
okay, I'm not gonna eat I'm not going to drink I'm not going to sleep with my you know with my
spouse and that's it for 30 days and you get from beginning of Ramadan till the end of Ramadan and
you pretty much the same
		

			and most Muslims like 95% or 90 something percent of Muslims are fast they literally go from
beginning of Ramadan to the end of Ramadan and and they and they come to the to the end what are the
achieved nothing the back to normal again when it comes. And the reason why that is is because
they're not doing the second part which is to put the drive in towards the Accra doing those extra,
you know, putting their minds towards Allah doing your liquor doing a tilava with the part that
you've done in terms of you know, closing the other drive