Purpose of Fasting

So let me do this now. hamdu lillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah. But

fasting.

As I mentioned, my sermon the purpose of fasting is to make one God conscious, which we call in Islamic Allah taqwa, which is God consciousness. Now, why does fasting make you God conscious? Why not something else? The reason is that fasting is something which is a secret between you and God.

Whether I'm fasting now or not, you do not know. Unless, of course, you offer me something to eat. I say, I'm sorry, I'm fasting. But other than that, you cannot know whether I'm fasting or not, number one, number two, there is no control on me and no external control on me. If I want to go eat, I get it. I mean, if I'm fasting, I may be fasting, but I see, you know, a fantastic cheesecake or something, and I decide I'm not fasting.

So I can do that. Right? Nobody can stop me. So why am I starving myself, because I'm fasting for the pleasure of God for the pleasure of Allah. And I say, Well,

I can hide from the whole world, but I cannot hide from him because he sees and I'm doing it for His pleasure, so I will not eat. So this is a direct connection between the individual the person the man or woman and God Himself. And that is why Allah subhanaw taala said, a solo li what Anna GB he said the fastest for me, and I will reward it. Now in in our context, there are rewards individual rewards for different kinds of good deeds. But for the vast, there is no quantum of reward that is mentioned. It just says God says, I will reward it, how much in keeping with his majesty and grace. So fasting is a very important

a bar that means important act of worship. Second point I want to make is, the purpose of worship of any worship is not the worship itself. We don't pray for the sake of prayer, we don't fast for the sake of fasting, we don't give charity for the sake of giving charity, the purpose of all worship, all acts of worship is only one and that is to connect with God. closeness to Allah, closeness to God, the more we worship, we get close to God. Therefore, the issue of worship is that if I'm worshiping for example, and I am, for example, if I'm reciting Quran, and in my heart is you know what, all these people should love that recitation. And I hope all of them are going to clap at the

end of that. And I hope all of them, all of them are going to say, Oh, how wonderful that was, then as far as I am concerned that worship is completely and totally worthless. It is not accepted because I was doing it for the pleasure of the audience, to get praise from the audience, not for the pleasure of God. Not that that is the reason why the worship is not for what the worship is to get close to God. That's why the most important thing in worship is sincerity, which again, is a matter of the heart, how sincere somebody is, nobody else can know. Right? Nobody else can know a person who is insincere is not going to say, You know what, everybody, I'm going to be very

insincere. Now know, if I'm insincere, it's my heart, I'm doing it to show other people. And the in Islam, this is considered idolatry of a kind because you're joining the pleasure of somebody else with the pleasure of God. And this is like idolatry, we call it shake, joining with, with God in His attribute of mercy and forgiveness. So therefore, the first thing is to get close to Allah to get close to God. And it is a secret between you and your Lord, and He will reward you in keeping with his majesty and grace.

Ramadan is the is the ninth month of the of the lunar calendar, we work by the lunar calendar. All months, we start counting from the time we see the moon, the new moon, and we we close the month when the new more of the second month, or the following month starts. This month, this time, Ramadan will probably start on Thursday. I'm guessing probably because it depends on the siting of the wall, if the wall is should be sited on Wednesday, which would be the 29th of the last month of this one. So if that happens, then the first fast will be on Thursday. Otherwise, the first one would be on Friday depending on the siting of the ward. The fasting itself is from just before dawn to dusk to

sunset. We don't eat we don't drink and we do not have physical relations with our spouses, these three things are prohibited. Interesting thing is again, all these three things in the normal state are permitted. You are permitted to eat good food which is halal which is permissible food and drink and so on.

But in the time of period of fasting, you stop yourself from that it is prohibited. And somebody says, Why is it prohibited? It's not because I want to I should know how poor people feel. You do not know how poor people feel, by delaying your breakfast with your fridge full of food for the next one year, right? Being poor is a issue of being completely without security is nothing to do with hunger.

We fast not because I want to lose weight, we fast not because my sugar level is too much or too less. No, we fast because this is the order of Allah. Now, the message is in Ramadan, if I'm stopping myself from doing what is normally permitted, how about stopping myself from doing what is not permitted, the whole of my life.

Second part, fasting is not about not only about stopping something from going into the mouth, it is also about stopping things from coming out of the mouth. For example, lying for example, cheating, for example, deceiving people, for example, backbiting, for example, slandering, for example, hate speech. All of this stuff is prohibited, not only in the obviously in the past, but the message there is that this is something I must get out of my life. So purifying the heart from envy and greed and hatred, and from all kinds of discrimination, all kinds of arrogance. Number one sin is arrogance. What we are taught in the Quran is when Allah subhanaw taala created Adam, the first

prophet in as we say, the first prophet was Adam, when He created Adam Alayhis Salam peace be upon him. He ordered the angels to bow to him to prostrate to him.

The angels did that, at that time, among the angels was Satan was a bliss. He is not an angel. He's a jinn but he was there with him because he was very pious, he was a very, very learned scholar, and he was very pious. So he was given the status of being with the angels. He refused.

He refused. So Allah subhanaw taala. Of course, he knows, when we say God asked, He's not asking because he didn't know. He's asking to establish the argument in favor or against. So he's asking him now the answer you give him is that you can't say well, I, I will mistake it with you. But this is how you answer. So he asked him, Why didn't you prostrate to him? He said Anna Jairo Minh, who has turned him in narwhal of the human team. He said, I'm better than him. You created me from fire. And you created him from clay. What'd you say? He said, I he say, I am superior as a race from them from him. The first sin committed was racism.

And the and the punishment for that racism was eternal hellfire.

Right. So today when we do racism in any form, in the in the in these countries of the West, I always say West is no longer a direction West is a is a state of mind. But I'm saying usually what we call within quotes white man's country. Racism is white people think they are superior to black people. But I've traveled a lot in Africa. I've lived a lot a lot in Africa, go to South Africa. I have had a Zulu man saying to one of my Shangaan friends, I am Zulu.

You are cattle.

Both are black.

I come from India, where we are all we don't go to the Bahamas because we already turned.

We are born like that, right?

There is racism like you can't believe

the issue is not whether you're white, you're black or you're you know, pink with blue stripes. The thing is, do you consider yourself to be superior to another human being based on your birth, or based on the color of your skin or based on the color of your hair and so on so forth. If you do that, then this in Islam is the primary crime.

Islam is not just non racist, Islam is anti racist. It is the job of the Muslim to fight racism. What's the difference between non racist anti racist and non racists can afford to sit silently and do nothing? He's not being racist, but he's not doing anything either. And anti racist stands up and fights against racism. He's not he will he or she will not remain silent. He said no, this is not going to happen. While I'm alive and I can speak I will do what I need to do to stop racism from happening. This is the primary number one sin is to consider is arrogance is to consider yourself to be superior

to somebody else on whatever basis we even say, including, for example, piety. Allah's Martin says in the Quran in Accra covering the law here at Koco. Allah says that

the the most

honored among you, in the sight of God is the one who's the most pious. Now by it is a state of mind, it's a state of the heart. Nobody can say, I can't look at you and say, Well, you know, you look pious, no doubt, but

I don't want to guess as much as I do. Maybe you are.

Just looking at somebody you don't know anything right?

In the heart, and this is the whole concept of Islam, which is, be true to yourself, be true to God, because He knows what the reality is. And as far as people are concerned, consider everybody else to be superior to you, because you don't know what they are. On the face of it, they may look like nothing. But internally. Their position is with God and He knows what their position is. So be considered people to be humble. Not not out. You're not doing an act, be humbled, because that is who you are.

And then Allah Swatara said that Allah will raise you,

our Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. He said about Jesus. He said, He's Ali salaam, he said that his name in Arabic and Isa, he said, Isa was the humblest of people. He said, The earth was his bed and the sky was his was his roof. He had no money, he had no house. He had no property or no wealth. But God raised his rank such that he said, there are only two people who have who are completely sinless, who Satan never touched. And that is ASA and his mother Maria.

So they asked him, they said, they said to him, oh, Prophet Muhammad, and this is one of the signs that we have of the truthfulness of the person. They asked him, they said, you said Satan never touched. Only these two people. They said, What about you? Did Satan touch you? He said, Satan, Allah protected me. Otherwise Satan would have trust.

Right, so he's not saying I'm superior to Jesus. No.

The point here is that it doesn't matter what somebody looks like, the people aren't Jesus at the time he was there. They didn't think very highly of him. We heard the sermon just now. Right? There were people who thought he was all kinds of negative stuff. But we know

we as Muslims love Jesus. proud I am. I don't want to say more than you guys. But I'm just saying that

I don't want to sit in a cathedral and say that outside I would.

God seriously, we love Jesus more than anybody else. Believe me. Make no mistake. We love Israelis, more than anybody else. We love his mother, Mariam alayhis, salam, Mary more than anybody else. Because, frankly, between you and me, who do you know, in this world women who walk around looking like Mary?

Although most of them do,

right, isn't it?

So seriously, this is, as far as we are concerned. We all believe in one God, which you heard this summer as well. Not only mine, you are your Reverend Thomas. I was well, we all believe in one God, which is our Creator. Right? And I think that's what we need to

keep and think about and fasting is what brings us all the way back again on what we did 11 months or 12 months of the meaning the night we are here and we are focused to one thing only which is to please God