Mustafa Umar – Islamic Law Fiqh 101 Essentials Of Islamic Practice #10
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So fasting in Ramadan.
So what is fasting? Ramadan is really mainly
about fasting. It's It's one of the most
important things that we do. So let's cover
the details of fasting.
Fasting is really an exercise in self control,
and it's designed to bring a Muslim closer
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So the goal
of fasting is to get you closer to
Allah.
And what fasting really involves is 3 main
things. It involves refraining from food,
refraining from drink, and refraining from *
throughout the day, throughout the daytime. And I'm
gonna explain all of that in more detail.
So Muslims are required to fast in the
month of Ramadan. It's a requirement. It's not
something optional. It's not something that you do
if you choose. If you feel like it
today, then you go ahead and you do
it. If it's convenient for you, go ahead
and you do it. It's something that we're
required to do as Muslims
every Ramadan.
And the reason why it's the Ramadan.
Ramadan is the month is a month in
the Islamic lunar calendar. There are 12 months
in the Islamic lunar calendar, and the 9th
month is the month of Ramadan.
So we use January, February, March, April, May,
and in the Islamic calendar, as a lunar
calendar, there's different names for the months, Shaba
and Ramadan, you know, Shawwal, all of these
different months.
It's Al Hijjah, Haram.
So Ramadan is the 9th month in that
calendar. Okay? And that's what we're using when
we say the month of Ramadan.
So why Ramadan?
Who knows? Why do we fast Ramadan? Why
not, in the month of Dhul Hijjah? Why
not in the month of Haram? It's the
first
month.
Exactly.
That's when the Quran was revealed to the
prophet, peace be upon.
And he that's according to some some narrations.
Yeah. So mainly, the main reason is because
the Quran was revealed in the month. So
what are we actually doing when we celebrate
and we fasten the month of Ramadan? We're
actually celebrating the Quran. We're honoring the Quran.
That's why the Ramadan is called the month
of the Quran.
Because it was revealed
and because we're actually giving special emphasis to
this month because the Quran was revealed.
Now,
there are other fasts
that Muslims do throughout the year outside of
Ramadan as well. Some of them are recommended,
some of them are highly recommended,
but Ramadan are the ones which are required,
and they're the only ones which are absolutely
required, throughout the year. So keep in mind
that when we talk about fasting,
fasting
is an act of worship,
very much like prayer,
very much like giving your zakah. It's a
direct act of worship,
and you can perform
fasting like prayer almost anytime throughout the year.
So you can fast all like, you can
pray almost anytime throughout the day with very
few exceptions. Right? So those who are who
are actually enrolled in our official class, what
are some of the exceptions for prayer when
you are not allowed to pray? After Fajr?
After you pray your Fajr, during sunrise,
and during sunset. Right? So these are the
the main times and after you pray your
Asr. So the same thing with with fasting.
You can fast almost anytime you want throughout
the year with few exceptions,
and it's it works the same way. So
fasting is a great act of worship,
and in fact, fasting is not only an
optional act of worship, which you can just
do,
it's also a penalty,
what's called a kafara, which is a makeup
penalty for certain acts which you've missed. So
for example,
if you make a vow and you swear,
I swear by Allah
I'm gonna do such and such thing,
and then you break your vow and you
don't do it. You have to what do
what's called kafar. You learn this in Islamic
law too if you take the class. You
have to do what's called kafar.
Meaning, you have to make you have to
pay a penalty or make up for that
broken vow of yours. And one of the
ways to make it up is by fasting.
Alright? Is by fasting. Does anyone know how
many days the fasting is? 3 days. That's
3 days, actually. So that's one option for
making up, a a broken vow, but you'll
learn that in a different class if you
take our Islamic law 2 class.
So fasting has a number of functions. Number
1, it's mandatory in the month of Ramadan.
Number 2, it's recommended throughout the
year. Number,
you know, it's recommended, you know, to do
it anytime you want. It's highly recommended on
certain days of the year, which we'll talk
about. And number 4, that's number 3. And
number 4, it's
a makeup or an expiation
for certain things which you've done wrong, which
are specifically mentioned in the Quran. So who
needs to fast? This is really the the
main section we we should start with.
Who needs to fast? K. Who's required to
fast and who's not required to fast? Meaning,
when can you skip out and when can
you not skip out? So number 1, you
gotta be a Muslim to fast. So you
don't force your non Muslim friends or something
like that. Come on. You gotta fast. You
got you can encourage them and they can
try it. And in fact, many many non
Muslims at at college campuses around the country,
when they tried to fast, they experienced something
that they've never experienced in their life. Alright.
Any anyone,
fasted before they accepted Islam?
Regina? You I'm sorry. You tried it as
well? Right? So there's a lot of people
and they felt like, wow, this is this
is really something, you know. So it's a
really good, tool for, you know, explaining what
Islam is for people to let them experience
it, what it's gonna be like to actually
fast. But you don't, of course, you know,
force it upon them or try to convince
them, you gotta do it, you gotta do
it, it's Ramadan. Okay? It's not Ramadan for
them. So just keep that in mind. So
first of all, you gotta be a Muslim.
Number 2,
you have to be mature.
So that these these are the conditions of
fasting. What makes it mandatory? Number 2 is
maturity.
Having maturity.
And maturity is something that we talked about
in this class. By the way, for those
of you who are visiting, this is actually
a 10 week class, but we just opened
this portion up to the rest of the
community. But this actually this is actually the
10th week of a 10 week class. So
we covered that what is maturity?
Maturity is the same as the maturity for
prayer. So you have to be at the
age of maturity
or the age of Islamic puberty when you
reach the age when when you need to
start praying.
So does anyone remember what that age or
how you determine that someone is mature is?
Does anyone remember that? So so basically, it's
it's 3 things. It's not intellectual because you
can't tell that. But basically, what it is
is,
when a guy or a girl,
a boy or a girl has their first
*
or equivalent,
when a girl has her first menstruation,
and if none of those happen until the
age of 15, they're automatically considered to be
mature.
As long as there's no signs of intellectual,
you know,
barriers in their way. So this is the
size in maturity. So when a person reaches
the age of maturity, they need to start
praying. They're obligated to start praying, and they're
also obligated to start fasting. So the age
of, prayer and the age of fasting is
the same. It's not like it's different. So
once you once you need to start praying,
you need to start fasting and vice versa.
Yeah. So that's that's the way it is.
But keep in mind, children who have not
reached the age of maturity yet, even though
they're not obligated,
just like prayer, they're supposed to be taught
to start fasting.
So we said that children should be taught
to start praying at what age?
Just according to the prophet, peace be upon
him. 17. The age of 7. They should
be taught at the age of 7 to
start doing this. Sometimes,
meaning to understand what it is, not fasting
all 30 days, not praying all 5 prayers,
but getting in the habit, look, this is
how you do it. Try one here, try
one there. Here's a little reward for you.
Here's, you know, we'll take you to, you
know, the park or something like that. Whatever
it is.
By the age of 10,
as a parent, your responsibility
is to make them fast and to make
them pray. You have to ensure that they're
praying and you have to ensure that they're
fasting by the age of 10.
But in terms of when are they gonna
be held accountable in front of Allah, that's
when they reach the age of maturity.
K. So your job as a parent is
different than the way that Allah is gonna
be judging them. So this is something that
keep in the mind keep in consideration.
And in fact, the companions, you know, they
used to get their children and even the
young children, they used to teach them how
to fast. And one of the,
companions, one of the women, she was, explaining
how she gets her child to fast. She
says she used to make this little,
little doll out of, like, wool. It's like
a little,
little toy or something like that, and she
says, you know what? I would pull out
that toy
the last few hours before fast is about
to break, that's when the children get really,
really hungry. The day is gone for a
very long time, and I would distract them
with, like, a little little drama, you know,
kinda play around with them, and then they
would get distracted, and they would be done
with the fast for that day. So it's
really important that we learn we teach our
children as well to start fasting. Sometimes we
neglect it. So, oh, they'll fast when they
get older.
At least teach them because if they stay
that way for a very, very long time,
they're not gonna fast when they get older
because they were never taught in the first
place. And they became accustomed
to not fasting, and it's it's gonna be
detrimental to their future. So as parents, you
have a responsibility
to make sure that your children learn how
to pray and make sure that they do
pray. And likewise, that they learn how to
fast and that they do fast. You start
it and you have 3 years to prep
them from the age of 7, 8, and
9. 3 years. Once they hit 10, now
they're fasting. Everyone in the family knows this
child is gonna be fasting now in your
family, InshaAllah.
Alright. So that's,
maturity.
Number
3
is sanity.
So a person has to be sane they
they should be free of any mental illness
or anything like that. Otherwise, they're treated like
children in the sense that they're not gonna
be held accountable in front of Allah for
not having,
fasted. But, of course, they should also be
taught to do so and they should be
encouraged to do so.
Number 4,
freedom from from illness.
Meaning, a person who's ill is not required
to fast.
So what you do is you check and
you say, okay,
if I'm sick, that means I don't have
to fast. So
why and how do I qualify as being
a person who's ill? So anyone who's suffering
from an illness,
where fasting
is probably
either going to, number 1, cause harm to
your body,
number 2, increase your illness that you already
have, or number 3, delay your recovery,
then they're excused for fasting.
These three things.
So we're not talking about, you know what?
I coughed a little bit in the morning.
If I'm sick, I'm not gonna fast. Right?
Or if you have a little bit of
a temperature, and the fast is only, like,
let's say, 8 hours and it happens to
be in the winter,
you could probably keep that fast. You're not
you're gonna be perfectly fine for the day.
You take a Tylenol in the morning and
you'll you'll be you'll be okay for the
rest of, you know, acetaminophen.
I don't wanna advertise for giant corporations. So
you take acetaminophen in the morning and you're
gonna be fine. Alright. So in this case,
right, you don't have to skip out on
fasting. But if you're ill and it's actually
gonna affect your body, it's gonna really mess
you up. You got the flu. Right? You
got, you know, mucus coming out and you
got a really high temperature and everything. It's
gonna mess you up if you end up
fasting that day. So you're excused from fasting
and you don't need to fast.
So how do you determine
what level of severity,
should be there in terms of whether you
should fast or you should not fast? Because
some people look. There's this people are different.
Some people are, like, really hardcore. So they
got the flu, 104 degree temperature, then I'm
doing it, man. I'm gonna I'm gonna fast
anyways. And then there are other people, they
have, like, a paper cut. They're like, so
can I skip fasting? Because it's very painful,
you know. The thing is you have to
be in the balance. You have to be
in the middle. So the best way is
to consult,
an expert or consult with someone who has
knowledge about that condition, whether this is really
gonna harm you, and in one way is
it gonna harm you. If you go and
you ask me, say, how is this gonna
harm me if I fast and I avoid
eating and drinking for the whole day? To
what level is this really gonna affect my
body in terms of short term, you know,
effect and long term effect? And you ask
that, you find out, and then you determine
should I be fasting or should I not
be fast? If you're in doubt and you've
consulted with someone who has knowledge, then you
go and you consult some someone who has
Islamic knowledge. So you first consult someone who
has medical knowledge, and you figure out what
the effect is gonna be. And then if
you're not sure, is this an effect which
is enough of a illness or it's too
little of a illness or too little of
a difficulty,
then you consult someone with Islamic knowledge and
say, this is what the expert medical practitioner
said. This is what's likely to happen. Now
should I fast or should I not fast?
And then we can help give you the
answer on that one. Alright. So someone who's
ill and it's really gonna affect them, they
don't need to fast.
Another group of people who falls into the
same category
are pregnant women and breastfeeding women. And there
and that's only if,
the pregnancy
or the fasting
is going to either harm them
or it's gonna harm their child. The breastfeeding
is gonna harm them or it's gonna harm
their child. It doesn't matter. If it harms
anyone, then they could be excused from that
fasting.
Okay?
But keep in mind,
when we say someone who has an illness,
we're talking about someone who has the flu.
How long does the flu generally last?
5, 7 days. 5, 7 days. Have you
ever heard of the flu, like, lasting an
entire year on average?
Yeah. A month, but but not a whole
year. Right? So this is considered an incidental
illness, meaning it's it's not
a chronic long term illness. It's acute. It's
gonna go away after a period of time.
So whenever you have an illness like this,
you don't fast on that day, but you
have to make it up once you're feeling
better. So once the illness is gone, once
the pregnancy is over, once the breastfeeding period
has ended, you have to make,
that period up. K?
There's a net another category,
which is chronic inability.
K? So the next category is someone who
has a chronic issue. Chronic means
continuing for a very long period of time.
K? It's gonna be persistent.
So someone who has a chronic inability so
for example,
someone who has a chronic illness,
they have,
diabetes.
Someone has,
some type of other illness, which just happens
on a regular basis.
That person
is in a different category. They don't need
to fast, but they're don't have to make
up their fast afterwards either because they're always
gonna remain in that in that state of
illness. So if it's gonna keep on persisting
for a long time, they don't need to
fast. Someone who's very old,
they become very weak. It's very difficult to
fast. Let's say you're in your eighties, you
know, hitting nineties or something like that. It's
gonna be very difficult for those people. So
they don't have to fast either.
And the other person who falls in this
category are women who have a pregnancy
and then breastfeeding
and then pregnancy
again, and then breastfeeding again back to back,
such that it lasts for an entire year.
So from 1 Ramadan
to the next Ramadan,
they missed 1 Ramadan because they had either
pregnancy or breastfeeding.
And then
they had no opportunity to make up those
missed fasts because they either were another pregnancy
or breastfeeding until the next Ramadan. So if
that lasts for an entire year,
then they're considered to be in the chronic
category,
which means that they don't need to make
up those fasts. Even though you're not gonna,
you know, you're not gonna keep getting pregnant
and keep breastfeeding for, like, 30, 40 years
in a row. So but technically, you consider
it to be chronic because it's more than
a year. So any type of thing that's
more than a year from 1 Ramadan to
the next Ramadan is considered in the chronic
category. So you don't
have to make up those fasts.
But instead because imagine if you had to.
Someone has pregnancy, then breastfeeding, and then pregnancy,
and then breastfeeding, that could last, let's say,
3 years. Now when you're done, you decide,
you know what? Let's take a break from
having some kids for now. Then you gotta
make up 3 years of fasting.
That's that's a lot. Right? It it to
be done in 1 year. So instead, they
fall in the chronic category where they don't
have to make it up, but they do
the expiation, which is feeding a poor person
for every single day of fasting that they
missed.
So anyone who falls into this category
has to feed a poor person for every
day that they missed.
So this is the way it's different. So
if you are sick and you have the
flu,
you're gonna skip your fasting,
and you're gonna make up the fasting after
Ramadan is over,
sometime before the next Ramadan comes in anytime,
and you're okay. If you have a chronic
condition like diabetes,
because it's chronic, or you're very, very old
and you can't fast anymore, every single day
you miss, you're not gonna make it up
and you're just gonna feed a poor person.
You're gonna use your money to or get
some food, and you're gonna go and feed
a poor person for every day. And that
way, you actually participate and get the reward
like fasting without having to fast because you
weren't able to, which you're feeding someone else.
Okay. So you're fulfilling a very similar purpose
when it comes to fasting. So that's, another
category. The next category is,
someone who's not traveling
is required to fast.
So that means that if you're traveling and
you're on a journey, you're not required to
fast due to some of the difficulties involved
with, you know, traveling, some of the inconveniences
involved.
So we talked about prayers. So when you're
when you're when you're traveling and you're praying,
the prayers are different. Right? The prayers are
shortened when you're traveling as well. So we
had talked about that before. So now we
noticed that even in,
even when it comes to fasting, there there's
some changes in the rules in terms of
fasting. You don't have to fast when you're
traveling.
But keep one thing in mind. It doesn't
mean you're prevented from fasting. It doesn't mean
you're not allowed to fast. It means you
don't have to.
So there's a difference. So if you're traveling,
let's say, to San Francisco,
and it's a very easy trip, and you're
just jumping on an airplane, and you just
fly hour and a half, and you you're
gonna land there and everything. You see, you
know what? This is a piece of cake.
This this traveling is not difficult for me
at all. I I handle it all the
time. It's actually better to fast if there's
almost no difficult.
If there's a lot of difficulty involved,
it's better not to fast. You don't have
to try to be that hardcore person where
you're getting hot and you're in the sun
and you're sweating and all of that. It's
not the best thing to do. Right? Like,
my brother and I one time, we were,
literally
getting on a plane from Jeddah,
Arabia
right after the fast began,
and we're flying back to LA. So you're
going back in time. We wanted to be
really hardcore, like, we're fasting. It ended up
to be like a 30 hour fast. Right?
So we're young, we could handle, but
it's generally you don't have to be that,
you know, hardcore. If it's gonna be really
long or difficult, if you're in the sun
or you're traveling through the, you know, desert
or something like that, you don't have to
fast. It's better not to fast. You take
that. But if it's really, really easy,
then just go ahead and fast anyways.
So you have that concession. You don't have
to fast, and we've seen this concession of
traveling even when it comes to praying Jummah
prayer. The same thing. If it's easy for
you, you're traveling through in the Friday prayer,
there's a mosque nearby. It's better to actually
go and, you know, attend the sermon. But
you're not required to the way you would
be if you weren't traveling, if you're a
resident. Alright. So that's the next category. The
next category is,
being free from menstruation and lokia.
Right? So we had mentioned that when you're
menstruating, when a woman is menstruating or when
she's going through her lochia period or, postnatal
period after she gives birth,
then they're not required to pray.
And there's some other conditions, you know, associated
with that. Also, women will not be fasting
during that time when they're undergoing menstruation,
and when they're in their period of low
key, 40 days or less,
after they've delivered and they're bleeding.
So they're exempted from fasting. But Ramadan so
we talked about before in prayer. When a
woman has this condition, either she's in her
period of menstruation or her period of lochia,
does she need to make up the missed
prayers? She doesn't need to make up the
missed prayers. Right? So if a woman
is not fasting because of the same reason,
does she need to make up the missed
fast?
Yes. The answer is yes. The question is
why why not make up the prayers, but
why you have to make up the missed
fast? It's because the prayers
are every single day. And if you're missing,
you're gonna at the end, you're gonna be
missing so many prayers. You have to make
up, like, 35 prayers right after. That would
be very difficult for you.
But when is the required fasting?
It's only once a year. It's not everyday
thing. It's only once a year. So if
you skip, like, let's say, 7 days or
even 10 days of fasting,
you can make it up. You have an
entire year to make that up, and you're
only making up, like, 7 or 10 or
maybe 15 at most,
and you can actually split them up over
time. It was actually even easier for you.
So it's actually not very difficult at all
to do that. So Islam came to make
it easy for you. It's actually designed to
not overburden you. So you don't have to
make up those prayers that you missed due
to menstruation or low key period, but you
do have to make up the fast that
you missed. So it's very important that when
a woman is skipping those fast, she keeps
track of them. Keep it, you know, in
the database or write it down somewhere so
that you don't forget. And I can't emphasize
this enough because I get questions all the
time. I totally forgot how many I missed
all the time, and you know, from the
previous year I also forgot how many I
missed.
You need to write it down. Right. So
there's you should you shouldn't be forgetting this.
You should remember this. It's very very important
to keep in mind because it's like a
debt, you know. It's like a debt that
you owe a lot. You skip this many
fasts, you need to make up this many
fasts. So even for the guy, they should
write it down whenever they're missing number of
fasts due to illness or whatever it is.
Okay?
So,
that is,
the fasting. So those are the requirements,
okay, in terms of who must fast and
who doesn't need to fast. The next thing
is to determine the month of Ramadan. How
do we figure out what when the month
of Ramadan is exactly? So something you have
to keep in mind is that it's really,
really important to figure out the beginning and
the end of the month of Ramadan because
that's when you're gonna be fasting, and that's,
you know, how you're gonna know when to
start and when to stop.
So Muslims use the Islamic lunar calendar, like
I mentioned before. And the Islamic lunar calendar
has 12 months.
It's not linked with the seasons like the
solar calendar that we use, in America is.
And the year consists of
anyone know how many days in a in
Islamic lunar year?
11 days short. It's 11 days short. So
to be precise, 354.37 days. K. Those are
how many days are in the Islamic lunar
calendar, and that's because the meantime between new
moons is 29.53 days, k, to be precise.
So basically what that means is,
every single day in the Islamic lunar calendar
is either gonna be 29 days or 30
days.
It's either a 29 day month or a
30 day month, but it's not fixed. So,
like, January
is always how many days?
31. And February
okay. Forget February. March, April is how many
days?
It's always 30. Right? But when it comes
to the Islamic lunar calendar, that's not the
case.
So 1 year, it can be 29 days,
1 year, it can be 30 days. So
it fluctuates. It could be one of these
2, and it can't be anything else. And
there's no leap year or anything like that,
like February has leap year. So
this is because you have to make an
adjustment in certain calculations. So the adjustment
happens automatically
in the Islamic lunar calendar rather than having
a forced adjustment.
So this is, you know, the lunar calendar
is determined by the the lunar phase,
that you find in the sky. So
the way that the sun
shines on the moon
and our position on earth relative to looking
at the moon and the position of the
moon relative to the earth is gonna determine
what what you see in the sky. You're
gonna either see a little tiny thin crescent
or you're gonna see, you know, half crescent
or you're gonna see a full moon, and
it varies throughout the month. So,
we actually have a seminar about that
tonight at 5:45.
If you can make it for that seminar,
I really recommend you come.
But that's the way the month is generally
gonna be,
determined
based on the lunar,
phases.
So the beginning of the month is determined
when there's no moon, the moon is not
visible, and then all of a sudden that
little tiny faint side of the crescent begins
to be shown initially.
That's considered to be, the beginning of the
month. So what we do that's called the
new moon crescent.
That's called the new crescent, the crescent of
the new moon. So what you do is
the 8th month so Ramadan is which month
in the lunar calendar?
The 9th month. So So what you do
is you look at the 8th month, and
the 8th month in the lunar calendar, which
is what we're in now, is called Shaaban.
So Shaaban is the 8th month, and on
the 29th
day of Shaaban,
you look
at the crescent and you see can you
see the beginning of that crescent or you
can't see it?
If you can see
it, then that means
the month of Shaaban is over and the
month of Ramadan has begun.
If you don't see
it, it means that the month of Shaaban
has 30 days now instead of 29, because
you can only have 29 or 30. So
what you do is on the 29th of
Shaaban,
Muslims used to go outside, they look out
in the sky, they look for the moon.
If they see the moon, the little tiny
part of the moon, they say, okay, it's
Ramadan, the first starting tomorrow now because we
saw the moon, and today's the 29th of
Sha'aban.
Sha'aban had 29 days, and now we start
Ramadan the next day. If they don't see
it,
it means that Shaaban is gonna have 30
days, and it's gonna automatically be seen tomorrow
for sure because Shaaban cannot have 31 days.
So Ramadan will be the following day, the
day after. K. So that's the first way
to determine, what's happening.
Now Muslims should be trying to figure out
exactly when
the, you know, moon, is gonna be visible,
and this is something which has been, you
know, practiced throughout history for a very long
time that, you search the sky on the
29th and you start checking. So when you
start checking, what do you do with that?
So what you do is, if you see
the moon or someone else sees the moon,
the the new moon, the the crescent of
it, they take these sightings
and they report it to a recognized Muslim
authority.
So there are in the past, there used
to be an Islamic state and there was
a Khalifa
in charge of that Islamic state. So they
would report it to the official, you know,
headquarters
of the Khalifa, who's the leader of the
Muslims,
And then they would take those sightings and
say, okay.
Who's the person that cited it? In what
location did they cite it? What did they
claim to have seen? And they look at
it and they determine, is this person reliable?
Is this sighting seem to be accurate? Does
it seem to be reliable in any case,
you know, shape, way, or form? And then
they're gonna determine
whether or not they should start the month
of Ramadan or not. Should they accept the
testimony
of these people who claim to see the
moon or not?
Because otherwise any random person can just say,
oh, well, I'm just gonna go ahead and
lie and say, yeah, yeah, I saw the
moon. So you have there's some criteria involved
in accepting the testimony of a person who's
claiming to sight the moon for the beginning
of Ramadan.
Today,
if we don't have a a Khalifa or
a Muslim leader, we should at least go
to recognized
Muslim authorities like a Council of Scholars or
something like that.
In the absence of a Council of Scholars,
we're gonna have a lot of problems. Or
in the absence of having a a council
of scholars, but the Muslims are not following
that council of scholars, we're gonna have, a
little bit disunity in this regard, especially in
a locality.
And that's one of the reasons why we
kind of have this.
There are different opinions and there's no unanimity
because there's no real recognized
council of scholars in our area. So it's
okay. It's not the end of the world.
We're still gonna be fasting, but you gotta
keep in mind that there's some, room for
the the real reason why there's people start
on different days is because of the lack
of a central authority
established and respected among the Muslim community. It's
not due to this person doesn't know this,
and this person is weird, and this person
is backwards. The real reason is we don't
have a centralized authority. And if we did,
the problem would be solved because everyone else
would have to give up their own opinion,
and they'd have to follow that authority. And
that's the way it would actually have to
be.
So,
generally, what would happen is you give this
information to the authority, and they determine whether
or not they're gonna start Ramadan or not.
One of the ways that they would determine
it is they would check and say, look,
is there an obstruction in the sky?
If there was an obstruction in the sky
that you weren't able to see the moon,
for example, it was a cloudy day, or
there's fog, or what whatever, it's very cloudy
or something like that, you can't really it's
it's not easy for the average person to
see the moon when it's very cloudy. You
may not be able to see it.
So in this case,
they said, we will accept the testimony
of 1
Muslim
witness
who has upright character.
Whether they're male or female, their testimony will
be accepted. If we can tell that this
person is telling the truth, they know what
they're doing, they know what they saw, we're
gonna go ahead and accept their testimony.
Why?
Because
it's not likely that most people are gonna
be able to see anything because it's extremely
cloudy. So they may have been in a
region where that cloud wasn't above them and
they were able to see it.
But if the sky is clear
and there's no obstruction in the in the
sky,
then
1 or 2 or 3 people is not
gonna be sufficient
to validate that they saw the crescent and
Ramadan is gonna be started the next day.
Why? Because it's very easy for everyone to
figure out.
Everyone should be able to see the moon
if it's there
when the sky is clear. So this person
is claiming to see it, yet everyone else
who was looking, no one else saw it.
So why should we why did this guy
see it, but all these other people didn't
see it? Something doesn't seem right. So the
criteria is if the sky is clear, there
has to be a large,
large number of people who are reporting
having sighted the moon. Otherwise, their testimony is
not gonna be accepted.
What is the exact number? That's the for
them to determine. Right? So it's there's flexibility
in determining that. Now, here's a little side
ish issue, which is interesting. Probably not gonna
happen to you, but it's interesting.
If you see the moon by yourself,
you see the moon and you're sure that
you saw the moon,
but you go to the Muslim authority and
your testimony is rejected.
It's to know we don't trust you, or
we think you, you know, you were hallucinating
or something like that. You didn't see it.
But you're sure. You have a feeling you're
pretty sure. I I I'm pretty sure I
saw it. You're supposed to fast by yourself,
but not go around telling other people
about what you saw if your testimony has
been rejected.
Why not? Because you're gonna cause a fitna
or you're gonna cause division and problems in
the community if you start telling them, look,
they rejected me and I saw it, and
I'm telling you and this and that. The
goal is not to go and create disturbances
and problems in the community.
But you still since you saw it and
you have that level of certainty in yourself,
you have to go ahead and fast yourself.
So you have certainty for you, but not
certainty for other people. Right? So that's just
a interesting, theoretical issue to keep in mind.
Now
if the moon is sited anywhere
in a land where Muslims are present in
that area to some extent, meaning there's some
type of Muslim community in that area,
and the month of Ramadan
will begin for every single Muslim around the
entire world. And this is according to the
majority of scholars. Some scholars have said, no,
it's every locality has their own,
sighting of the moon. But this means that
if in Argentina,
and there's a Muslim community in Argentina,
if they see the moon
and they let the people
everywhere else in the world know that, you
know what, we saw the moon, all Muslims
are gonna start fasting the next day. So
the sighting of that moon in that community
is gonna count for all Muslims in the
entire world, and this is the majority opinion.
Okay?
There's another way to aid
in the sighting of the moon.
So the question is when you sight the
moon, does it have to be with the
naked eye? Or can you use binoculars?
Or can you use a telescope?
Or can you use a super telescope?
Or can you use certain calculations,
which have actually astronomical
calculations to determine the crescent visibility
in a certain region or not. Right? So
this has been the issue of, somewhat of
a debate,
in the last century in particular. Actually, it's
been throughout history, but even more it's picked
up in the last century.
So there's a few, things.
One of them is to use astronomical data.
You're allowed to use astronomical data according to
one opinion in order to reject somebody's sighting,
but not to confirm somebody's sighting.
So if somebody comes, says, you know what?
I saw the moon, you know, and then
3 guys come and they say, we all
saw it right in this location and everything.
And you say, look, according to the calculations
which we have,
in that region,
at that time, you said you saw it
at 703.
703 in that location at that time, it
there is no way you could have ever
seen the moon because it should not have
been visible. Unless you guys have, like, you
know, Superman eyes or something like that, there's
no way you could have seen it.
So what happens is their testimony can be
rejected
based on these astronomical calculations, even though it
would have been accepted otherwise.
That's one opinion. The second opinion
is to use astronomical
calculations
to
validate
the beginning of the month of Ramadan without
even anyone sighting it. They say, if it's
visible in Argentina,
and there are Muslims there, but the Muslims,
they all fell asleep for some reason, and
they decided not to go out of their
houses and even check for the moon. We
know that it's visible in Argentina right now.
So the fact that it's visible, we're gonna
go ahead and we're gonna say that since
it was visible for sure,
the month of Ramadan is gonna start next
the next day, even though no one physically
saw it, but we know it was there.
And in the right region, in the right
location, we're gonna go ahead and start it.
Right. So that's something that,
you should keep in mind. And in fact,
there's a lot of discussion about whether or
not we should use the calculations
to
acknowledge the beginning of the next month or
not.
And that's the entire 2 hour seminar tonight,
5:45
PM, about whether or not we should use
these calculations
and how accurate they are and the history
of these calculations and the science behind these
calculations. Okay? So I would really recommend you
check that out coming back tonight at 5:45.
And that's as long as the data is
highly reliable. Right? So let's keep that in
mind.
How do you determine the end of the
month of Ramadan? So now you're in Ramadan,
you know when it started. You're fasting, you're
fasting, you're fasting.
To determine the end of the month, you
start searching the sky, you go outside.
Which day do you think of Ramadan you
go out to check? The 29th.
You go out on the 29th of Ramadan
and you start going around and looking in
the sky to see, is Ramadan gonna be
29 days or is it gonna be 30
days long?
And if you see the crescent,
it means what does it mean? It means
Ramadan is over. Ramadan was 29 days. The
next month is starting tomorrow. So that's how
you determine the end of the month of
Ramadan. So if it's either seen
or calculated
according to that opinion, the next day will
be the first day of the month of
Shawwal.
So you have Sha'aban before Ramadan, and Shawwal
is the month after Ramadan.
So Shawwal, just to make sure you're awake
and following along, is what number month in
the Islamic calendar?
10. 10. Very good. Okay.
So if it's not visible and you can't
see the moon or you can't determine the
calculation of the moon, the Ramadan is gonna
have 30 days and the month of Shawwal
will be the following day, will be the
day after that.
If there's so if you're sighting the moon
physically, if there's an obstruction in the sky,
there's it's a cloudy cloudy day. How many
witnesses do you need?
So it was one for the previous one.
But Muslim scholar said for this one, you
need 2 witnesses.
So wait a minute. Why one witness for
entering the month of Ramadan, and why 2
witnesses
for concluding the month of Ramadan? Because
which one is which one is to be
on the safer side? If you make the
mistake accidentally by accepting someone's testimony wrongly
and you started early, what did you do?
You ended up fasting one extra day.
If you stopped early and the people were
mistaken
about their sighting, what did you end up
doing?
You you cut off one day of Ramadan.
So to be on the safe side, you
you you make the standard stricter
because if you fast an extra day, it's
better. It is not a big deal if
you fast an extra day. But if you
cut off an extra day, then it's a
problem. So it's something that needs to be
kept in mind.
Okay.
So you need 2 reliable Muslim witnesses because
if there's a worldly benefit in skipping. So
imagine you have a community where there's a
bunch of people who are not honest.
Of course, that that would never be our
community. But imagine there was a group of
people who are not honest. What would happen?
They would say, you know what? We don't
care about Ramadan.
Get 3 people together
or a few people together and you come
and say, come on. Let's just let's just
say we saw the moon. And one of
one of them qualifies for being a reliable
witness for whatever reason, no one knows he's,
you know, messed up or something like that.
It's a big problem for the Muslim community.
So the standards become stricter, 2 or even
more.
There's a worldly benefit. But if the sky
is clear, the large number of people has
to be seeing the moon, otherwise it's not
gonna count, has to be very reliable.
Now if you see the moon yourself,
okay, and your testimony is rejected,
what what should you do in this case?
You not fast because it's certainty for you?
In this case, to be on the safe
side, you fast as well.
Because in the previous case,
you start fasting by yourself
because to be on the safe side, in
case you were right, you're gonna go ahead
and start fasting. But here, what if you
were wrong? What if you were seeing things?
It's better to fast an extra day. So
in this case, it's opposite, you fast an
extra day. It's more cautious,
to continue fasting. So that is,
determining the month of Ramadan. So requirements for
fasting.
So what are the requirements?
Fasting is an act of worship.
Alright. So like, as we mentioned before. So
first, you would need to have the intention
in order for this action to be accepted
from you. So how could you not have
the intention and how could you fast possibly?
Well, imagine
you woke up
and,
you know, you had the intention of dieting.
Your doctor told you need to go on
a diet and you say, okay, I'm gonna
abstain from food. I have a blood test
coming up. And you go, you know, you
you abstain from food, you abstain from drink,
and then all of a sudden you're like,
oh, well, this is will this count as
my fast as well? It's not gonna count
as your fast unless you actually intended it,
not only to have the intention for doing
it for your blood test, but you had
the intention to actually fast for Allah as
well. So you have to have the correct
intention. Right?
For the month of Ramadan,
it's sufficient to make a general intention
that you're gonna be fasting this entire month.
So you don't need to wake up every
morning and say, okay, I'm fasting
for Allah before I eat this food and
I'm gonna start my fasting. You make one
general intention. This Ramadan, I'm fasting every single
day. Even if you wake up late one
day and the fast you're already in the
middle of fast, you already had the intention
to be fasting this Ramadan, your intention will
not break. Okay?
If anything causes the intention to change
such as illness, you get sick and you
say, oh, well I'm not fasting tomorrow because
I'm really really sick, right, tonight,
or you're traveling and you say I'm not
gonna be fasting, then your intention to continue
in fast continue fasting Ramadan needs to be
made again. So if you if you if
you were ill, let's say tonight, and you
say, I'm not gonna fast tomorrow, then the
next day you're ill again and you don't
fast the next day, and then the next
day
you're debating, should I fast? I'm feeling better.
I shouldn't fast. I shouldn't fast. You need
to have the intention before you begin. You
can't start and say, oh, no. I'm not
gonna fast. And then 2 hours after the
fasting, you know, started,
you know what? Actually, I'm feeling better. I'm
just gonna start fasting. You have to have
the intention before you start to fast. That's
very important. Okay? So keep the intention,
there and make the intention sincerely for Allah
that you wanna get closer to Allah by
your fasting.
What breaks your fast and what is required
for you in fasting? So we talked about
eating, drinking, and * are the 3 things
you absolutely need to refrain from. And this
is in Islamic law.
Remember law is the external
aspect of things.
Internally, there's a lot more spiritually involved. You're
not supposed to be using foul language, you're
not supposed to be getting angry, you're not
supposed to be getting, you know, upset at
people and all of that, but we're just
covering for this one,
the outward aspects in terms of what is
legally legally required. If you get angry, it
doesn't break your fast in the sense that
you can start eating a burger again.
But it breaks your fast in the sense
that you don't get the reward for that
fast because you just went and yelled at
someone, and you're not supposed to be doing
that. So spiritually,
you've lost the reward of that fast, but
technically, from a legal perspective, from an external
perspective,
your fast is still valid. So when we
say valid, it means from an external
aspect, not from a spiritual aspect, which is
probably even more important,
But still the rules are important to know,
so there we're gonna cover the rules mainly.
So
what breaks the fast?
You have to make sure that from dawn
until sunset, you don't do anything that breaks
your fast among these three categories.
So let's define what is dawn again, by
the way. So we talked about dawn, the
beginning of the prayer for fajr time.
Dawn is defined as
when you're looking outside in the horizon,
and imagine there were no houses, no mountains,
nothing, and you could just see out there
clearly, and you're looking at night. As soon
as you see the white streak of light
start coming out in the horizon, that's called
dawn, the breaking of dawn.
Okay? It's not sunrise, and many people confuse
sunrise with dawn, and they're 2 different things,
so keep that in mind. Alright. Dawn. Sunrise
is
when when you're looking out in the horizon
and the disc of the sun
starts this is the what you can see,
the disc of the sun starts to go,
and you see the top little tiny bit
of the sun start coming up, that's sunrise.
But dawn
is when the sun is actually below the
horizon,
but some of the light starts creeping up
and you can see this little white thread
of light in the horizon, that's dawn, and
that's when the fasting begins. So from that
time
until sunset,
and sunset is when the sun is completely
gone
all the way
below the horizon.
From dawn until sunset, you refrain from 3
main things. Number 1, eating or drinking.
Absolutely no eating or drinking. That includes water.
That includes everything. It includes any substance
which is intentionally entering your body through your
mouth,
which resembles
food or drink in some way, shape, or
form.
K.
It also includes anything which enters your body
from another place,
but it results
in nourishment to your body.
So for example,
if you have a glucose
drip, you know, glucose going and being injected
into your body and it's nourishing you,
that's gonna break your fast.
Because
then we'd have people selling to Muslims, hey,
you don't eat or drink but you could
just get this glucose injected into you and
you're gonna feel great through the rest of
the day. If you're in a hospital or
something like that and you're getting it there,
that's breaking your fast because it nourishes you.
So if it nourishes you
and it comes in through any part of
the body,
then in that case, it's considered to break
your fast.
If it nourishes or doesn't nourish you, and
it resembles food or drink in some way,
and it goes through your mouth, and you
swallow it down, then it breaks your fast.
Anything outside of that
does not break your fast, technically.
Okay? So eating or drinking.
Number 2,
*
will break your fast. You're not allowed to
have *.
Any other type of foreplay which is done
is allowed
as long as no one gets to the
point of
being tempted
to engage in *. So if you if
you you should know yourself and you should
be careful about not going a little bit,
you know, getting too intimate when you're fasting
because it might you might lose control of
yourself and you might, you know, end up
going and doing something you weren't allowed to
do in the first place. Now this varies
from person to person. So the prophet used
to say
that he used to tell a one young
man came to him, He said, am I
allowed to, you know, engage in foreplay and
this and that? And he said, no, you're
not. And then there was another guy who
came and he asked him, and he said,
am I allowed to do this and that?
He said, yeah, you are.
Companions were like, well, what's going on here?
Said they realized
that the young guy, the prophet said no.
Because young people, newly married, you know, couples
and all of that,
they should not be doing this because they're
not gonna have that level of control. This
other guy who came was really old. Right?
You've been married for a long, long time.
The level of self control that they have
when it comes to intimacy is very different
and they have experience. So they know what
level they can go and what level they
shouldn't be going to. So that's the way
you determine,
that. Keep in mind, if you intentionally,
masturbate,
it will break the fast.
K? So intentionally masturbate intentional * will break
the fast.
Unintentionally
having a * when you're sleeping or
when you wake up during the daytime or
something does not break your fast because it
was unintentional.
So it's not something that you're gonna be
held, accountable for. But, of course, you do
have to perform your ghusl, your your bat
before you start praying again. That's category number
2, *. And number 3,
vomiting a mouthful
intentionally.
K. Intentionally trying to vomit something up, which
is at least like a mouthful of vomit,
not like a little tiny bit, where you
kinda cough it up or something,
but an entire mouthful or more.
Unintentionally
throwing something up does not affect the fast.
K. So if you accident if you're sick,
you get sick and then you vomit something
up, it doesn't break your fast. But if
you try to vomit intentionally, you try to
induce yourself to vomiting,
that will break your fast. K. So these
are the things which do break your fast.
Things which will not break your fast.
Right.
If any one of these things so by
the way, if
if any one of the things which you're
not allowed to do, if you do them
forgetfully
and you just you totally forgot and you
did them, your fast will not break and
you don't need to make up your fast
because that's something that you accidentally you just
weren't paying attention, you totally forgot. In the
middle of the day, you're thinking, oh, man,
I'm so thirsty. And, you know, it's been
a long day and all of a sudden
you just pick up that water and you
start drinking, you get a burger, these these
are really good fries, these are my favorite
fries. And you're eating, you ate like 5
fries
and then
oh, my god, I'm fasting.
Now what do you do? You stop eating
immediately,
you don't have to induce yourself to vomit
or anything like that, and you just continue
fasting.
Simple as that. Just keep on fasting as
if it never happened and you just say,
oh Allah, you know, forgive me, I forgot
and you move on, your fast still counts,
you don't need to make up your fast
after Ramadan is over, you don't need to
make a special prayer, you don't need to
feel guilty for the rest of the day,
just be more alert next time, you know,
and just try to keep remember that you're
fasting. Otherwise, it's fine. Allah gave you that
food, you know, maybe you needed it, you
know. So he allowed you to get you
that little amount of food and then that's
it, and you're done and you continue fasting,
you're fine.
But you gotta stop immediately. Now you don't
say, oh, well, let me just finish this
fry, which is already in my mouth. I
already chewed it and I don't wanna waste
food. I'm a good Muslim. Right? So let
me just swallow that last one. No. You
you you get rid of the food that's
there. Now the following things which are very
common, they do not break your fast.
K. These are, like, the most common questions,
and they don't break your fast. So the
first three categories, I said they do break
your fast. These are things which you might
think they do, but they actually don't.
Number 1,
tasting food
without swallowing the food.
So if you taste food and you don't
swallow it, then it doesn't actually break your
fast. Now obviously, this is disliked unless you
have a good reason. So you don't go
to the farmers market and say, oh, samples?
Can I just taste that? I'm fasting by
the way. I'm I'm just tasting. Okay? You
taste the sugar and you taste that and
This is for people who are like working
in a profession as like being a chef
and you don't wanna get fired. And when
you're making that pasta and stuff like that,
you gotta taste the, you know, recipe that
you just made. You don't swallow it. Just
taste it with the tip of your tongue.
If you see, like, enough salt, enough sugar,
enough spice, or whatever it is, and then
you spit it out.
If you're it's mainly for cooking, pretty much.
So you do that,
if you have a good reason. So you're
working as a chef or something like that,
you can spit it out. Yeah. You just
taste it and you spit it out, and
you're good. The food is gonna be prepared.
Like the people who are preparing the food
for in the mosque over here for people
who are breaking their fast. Right? You know
what's gonna happen if they don't taste it
and there's a wrong amount of salt and
everything? You got a lot of people who've
gone the entire day without food,
and they're expecting the food and imagine what's
gonna happen to that cook. Right?
Obviously, we're gonna be very easy on the
cook,
but keep that in mind. Okay? So you
can taste it, but you don't swallow it,
you spit it out immediately, and you don't
try and like, it's really good. Let me
taste a little bit more. Just taste what
you need to. Number 2,
chewing food
without swallowing it.
So chewing, not meaning food per se, but
chewing something
without actually swallowing that thing. So if you
choose something, like, let's say,
even chewing food. Right?
If you have a good reason for doing
that, it's allowed. If there's no good reason,
it's dislike you shouldn't be doing. So why
in the world will you choose you chew
food without wanting to swallow it? If you
have to chew it for your children, for
example. Your children are not fasting, and they're
little, and you need to chew something to,
you know, just soften it up for them,
and then you put it in their mouth.
So you're allowed to chew that food for,
a reason, as long as you don't swallow
any of it, and you you spit out
there, whatever remnants are there. So that's not
gonna break your fast, because technically, you didn't
swallow anything,
so it doesn't break your fast. Number 3,
using eye drops
does not break your fast.
Very common question. You say, well, what if
you use a eye drop or you use
what's called kuhal, which is like a eyeliner
type of thing,
and when you put it in your eye,
you actually feel
this, like, sensation,
this moisture sensation in your throat. It's a
very common sensation that people have. They feel
like a little moisture sensation in the throat.
Something has gone through somehow to your throat,
cavity or whatever. It still doesn't break your
fast. K? So using eye drops is fine.
Using ear drops.
It used to be thought that the ear
canal is connected to the throat canal in
some way, shape, or form, but it's actually
not and it doesn't break your fast. So
using ear drops is also fine. Using a
nose drop,
even though the nose is connected to your
throat,
is also fine as long as you're not
sniffing it in, it gets to your throat,
and then you swallow it.
So if you swallow it, then it's then
it's gonna break your fast. If you don't
swallow it and you just put the nasal
spray in or you just put the nose
drops, but you're not getting anything in your
throat and then swallowing it. If it gets
to your throat and you spit it out,
you're fine. So using nose drops is also
fine, and using an enema
is also fine.
If you don't know what an enema is,
you probably
think a lot.
Enema is something that people need for med
medic medical reasons,
inserting from the rear end. Okay? So putting
that, that's also fine. Those things are not
nourishing and they're not directly connected to, you
know, your stomach cavity. It's not gonna be
nourishing you or anything like that. So these
things are fine,
and the reason why is the medicine does
not reach the stomach or nourish the individual,
and that's the reasoning behind it.
Number 4,
a medical injection.
Any type of medical injection that you're getting,
whether it's a intramuscular
injection or it's intravenous
injection,
it will not invalidate your fast because it
neither reaches your stomach,
in most cases,
and it does not enter your body through
the mouth. So it's not doing either of
these two things, so it's not going to,
it's not going to, invalidate your fast.
Number I don't know what number we're on.
Number 5. Number 5.
Medical patches,
medicinal patches. So having a medicinal patch,
which you have on your your, you know,
like,
what are those heat patches or something like
that? Neosporin,
salon pass, yes, salon pass, those kind of
patches and stuff like that.
It's not gonna break your fast either because
even though it's entering your body, it's not
reaching your stomach, it's not nourishing your body
and it's not even entering through the mouth.
So it's very very safe. It's not gonna
break your fast at all. Number 6,
brushing your teeth
with a wet brush,
whether it's a miswak or a stick, or
whether it's a toothbrush,
or even whether it's with toothpaste.
You're allowed to brush your teeth as long
as nothing is swallowed.
As long as you don't swallow anything, you're
allowed to brush your teeth. But you have
to be very careful when you're brushing near
the back of your mouth
because it's more likely that you're gonna swallow
and if you gag or something like that.
And when you're gargling, when you're putting rinsing
water in your mouth, when you're done with
brushing your teeth, don't go back and gargle
if you normally do that. Don't go, blah
blah blah, because then it's actually going down.
Now it's true that when you brush your
teeth or even when you take water in
your mouth when you're performing wudu,
It's a it's a fact that the water
is being absorbed by your tongue and it
is nourishing you, but it's not going down
your throat. And it's something that the prophet,
peace be upon him, and all the companions,
they always made wudu and they never stopped,
you know, performing the the the rinsing their
mouth part. So just keep that in mind.
Don't gargle, but you rinse your mouth is
perfectly fine. Brushing your teeth is fine.
Even using toothpaste is fine as long as
you're careful.
Don't swallow anything and be careful. And if
you swallow water normally when you're brushing your
teeth after for whatever reason,
be extra careful and make sure not to
do that.
Number
7,
swallowing small bits of food
that have been stuck in your teeth already
when you were eating the morning breakfast.
Right. And small, when we say small small,
like little tiny sesame seeds or something like
that. Right.
Because
you just generally consider them to be kinda
mixed in with your saliva and is you're
not intentionally eating those things, they're just kind
of stuck in there. You can't just keep
spitting out all the time. Some little tiny
pieces will be stuck in your mouth. So
whatever you swallow of that is not gonna
break your fast, because you're not even intending
to eat any of those things. It's just
leftover, try to brush your teeth after, you
know, you,
eat your morning breakfast and you should be
fine. The next one is giving blood.
So giving blood does not break your fast,
but it's disliked to give blood
if it's gonna weaken you, and it's gonna
make your fasting more difficult for you. So
it's better not to give blood if you
think you're gonna get weak. But if you're
tough, you've given blood before, you're like, it
doesn't bother me, I don't even get light
headed or anything, you can go ahead and
give blood and it's not a problem. It
will not break it too fast.
Next one is using an asthma inhaler.
Now this is a lot of debate amongst
scholars about the asthma inhaler and whether or
not it can be used. But
generally,
you know, it's something that I've really I've
thought a lot for, discuss with a lot
of people.
It generally goes into your lungs.
Doesn't go into your stomach, just go straight
into your lungs and doesn't actually provide any
nourishment for your body. So since it's not
falling in any of those categories, using an
asthma inhaler would generally be okay. K. Although
some scholars differ with this, because they believe
it's going through your mouth and it's getting
in into your body.
The next one is
inhaling incense
or inhaling some other type of smoke,
because
it neither nourishes nor does it reach your
stomach. So if you there's incense being burned
or something like that and you smell it,
you say, oh, well, this smoke, you know,
the incense went into my, you know, body,
I inhaled it, or something like that, it's
not gonna break,
your fast either.
Now keep one thing in mind, that it's
when it comes to smoking, when it comes
to smoking cigarettes, when it comes to smoking
hookah,
these are things that are prohibited from Muslims
in the first place. We should not be
doing them in Ramadan or outside of Ramadan,
but Ramadan is the perfect time to quit
these things. So once you know that you
should not be using these things at all,
especially not in Ramadan,
especially not while fasting, this is the time
where you can the best time to quit
if you're, addicted to that. So this is
a great opportunity to get rid of that.
Otherwise, any type of other incense or something
is not gonna break your,
fast just by inhaling it. And lastly, rinsing
your mouth with water or taking a bath
to cool down. There's nothing wrong with that.
So if you would like, you know, I'm
just really hot and it's a long day
and everything,
just jump in the shower. Take a nice
cool shower, you come out, you feel good,
you're energized again. And then you're like, you
know what? That worked for about 3 hours,
but I'm hot again.
Just jump in the shower again and cool
down. There's nothing wrong with taking a bath
or shower to cool down. It's not like,
oh, but but but it's not feeling the
fast or something. No. You can go ahead
and take it and there's nothing wrong with
that. So it doesn't break your fast and
there's nothing wrong with doing it either. K?
Lastly, before I take questions on this subject
is there are some special rules
about changing from one state to another state.
And that is,
if a person was not required to fast,
let's say you're sick, let's say you're in
a state of menstruation,
but then during the day,
it stops.
You're fine now, or your menstruation ends, or
something like that. Now you've changed to another
state where you're supposed to be fasting,
or vice versa.
You weren't you you were gonna be fasting
and then all of a sudden your menstruation
started in the middle of the day, or
you got sick in the middle of the
day. What do you do when you're changing
from one state to another state in the
middle of the day? So like let's say
even a child, a child becomes mature in
the middle of the day. Someone who's not
a Muslim,
they accept Islam in the middle of the
day.
Do they start fasting immediately or do they
not do that? What do they do,
in that case? So like a woman too,
same thing. Woman begins her period and starts
in the day, what should she do?
So if someone,
is not a Muslim and they accept Islam
during the day, they need to start fasting
for the rest of the day. K. So
they change from a state of not having
to fast
to having to fast. In that case, they
will start fasting even for that half day.
When it comes to a woman
who starts menstruating
or starts having her lokia in the middle
of the day,
k, when she didn't have it, now she's
not supposed to fast. So she's going from
a state of,
having to fast to not having to fast.
She must break her fast. So she starts
fasting
and she's allowed to eat.
So it doesn't mean that, you know, she
she's allowed to she doesn't finish that day.
She starts eating, but she needs to make
up that day later, because she only did
like half a day or something like that.
K?
If the excuse for not fasting
goes away during the day,
so for example, woman's period ends, traveler
returns back home, and he's not a traveler
anymore, but he was deciding not to fast,
A sick person was he you know, healed
now, he's cured now. That person should refrain
from eating for the rest of the day,
but
they still need to make up that missed
day.
So you say, well, wait a minute. Okay.
I'm,
I'm a traveler.
I started
eating because it was hard for me.
Half the day has passed, and I come
back home.
And now I gotta
refrain from eating the rest of the half
day, but I have to make up my
fast anyways. So technically, I fasted half a
day, but I need to make up a
whole day. So why?
The reason why
is because
Muslim
fasting
is a community thing.
So you don't wanna be
resembling
anyone in the community where, you know what,
you're going and eating. Say, well, well, I'm
not in that case right now. I can
go ahead and do this. If you have
an excuse and the excuse is still valid,
like, let's say you're menstruating. Right? You're allowed
to eat and no one can say anything,
about you because you're allowed to eat 100%.
But now here, it's better to even keep
that half a day because technically you're in
a state with everyone else to avoid,
resembling someone who's not fasting because technically you
should be fasting. That's the reasoning behind it.
K? Whoever is excused from fasting, if you're
ill, menstruation, whatever else it is, try to
eat in private.
Don't eat around other people because it might
give them the illusion
that you're violating Ramadan or something like that.
So all of a sudden, you know, if
someone doesn't know, someone's eating eating a burger
and everything,
what are you doing, man? This guy's
they may not even ask you. Right?
Like, man, I'm sick. You probably should be
eating a burger when you're sick, by the
way. It's health, the rule there. But, you're
eating a burger or something and all of
a sudden people look at you and they
don't know you're they don't know that you're
sick. They don't know that maybe, you know
what, you have diabetes, you have to eat.
So it's best to eat in secret so
that people don't get the wrong idea unless
they know.
And the thing is you say, well, that's
their problem. Why they have to be so
nosy and why they have to look at
me and everything? Okay. That's true. At the
same time,
people have natural, you know,
tendencies, and there's whispers coming from shaitans. Start
looking at that person, looking at that person.
It's best to cut the problem at its
root. So don't you know, if you're excused
from fasting, try to eat it in private.
Try to eat in private when you can.
What is recommended for fasting? So we talked
about the requirements.
But what is recommended?
First of all, it's recommended to wake up
before dawn and to eat something as your
pre dawn meal, what's known as the suhoor,
before you start your fast.
So why? Why is this recommended? Because it's
actually gonna help you to remain strong, remain
healthy throughout the day. A lot of people
become lazy
and they just say, oh, I'd rather just
sleep an extra 30 minutes
than eat that extra 30 minute meal. I
guarantee you that eating that even if you
wake up for 5 minutes and eat something,
drink something,
is gonna help you more than if you
had that 5 or 10 minutes of extra
rest. So it's very important. The point is
not to make your life difficult. The point
is not to get tired during the day.
The point is to fast and stay in
control of yourself, but you need to make
sure that you have that meal.
And in fact, it's actually better and more
recommended to delay that meal
until right before the fasting begins.
So if you say, well, oh, you know
what? I usually stay up to, like, 2
o'clock in the morning. So I'll just go
ahead and have my meal at 2 o'clock
in the morning,
and then I'll just wake up for fudge
or prayer at, like, 5 AM, and I'll
pray my fajr and I'll skip the rest
of the meal. It's actually better that you
sleep at 2 AM,
you wake up again right before the fast
starts. Let's say it starts at 4:50. You
wake up at 4:40 and you eat for
10 minutes. It's better that you do that,
because it's closer.
It's more, you know, blessing in that time
anyways and it's something that's recommended. The prophet,
peace be upon him, and all the companions,
they used to do the exact same thing.
And also on a side note,
you should eat healthy food for breakfast. I
have to emphasize this because
Muslim culture has become in many cultures, especially
like Arab culture, Desi culture especially,
they eat like
fried ground beef or something like that for
breakfast. Okay? This is not healthy.
Eating, like, really oily fried foods in the
morning is definitely not gonna keep your energy
sustained. You wanna eat something that's what would
generally was called little bit of complex carbohydrates.
What they do is they give you energy,
but the energy releases slowly over a long
period of time throughout the day. You wanna
eat a little bit, maybe sugary foods,
little bit of sugar to get you some
energy. You wanna eat something that gives you
a good balanced nutrition that you need for
the day, and and likewise when you're breaking
the fast as well. So it's very important
to eat eat good stuff,
as well.
It's also recommended to begin fasting
about 5 to 10 minutes before the actual
time of dawn.
Right? So don't just look at the time
of dawn. It's better to to maybe 5
minutes before you start. You stop eating 5
minutes before
or something like that. And the reason why
is that, 1, so you don't accidentally keep
on eating and drinking beyond the time, And
2, because the calculation
that's done for exactly the time of dawn,
it's a little bit difference of opinion in
terms of how it plays out. So it's
better to be on the safe side and
keep some, a little bit of a barrier.
And that's recommended, so it's not a requirement,
but if you do, it's better. When the
sun sets,
right, when your fast is over, it's recommended
to break your fast immediately.
So why immediately?
Right? You might think, well, if I fast
an extra hour, that's even better. I fasted
more. So no. You actually break immediately to
show that you're following
the prescribed way of fasting that the prophet,
peace be upon him, taught us, and that
way that Allah taught us. So it's not
about you going and doing what you think
is better. It's about following the way that
the Islam actually taught you. So if you're
in traffic, you're driving home, and you're stuck
in traffic, and you know you're gonna be
stuck in traffic,
you make sure to keep, like, some dates
or you keep something food with you in
the car or some water so that you
can break your fast while you're in the
car. If you have nothing, you should actually
pull over to a gas station, get some
water, get a drink, and break your fast,
and get back on the road again. So
you should be breaking your fast exactly when
the fast is over to show that you're
following the prescribed way. And so that's important.
It's also recommended to break your fast with
an odd number of dates,
and this is the practice of the prophet,
peace be upon him. So if you have,
you know, dates, everyone knows what a date
is pretty much. It's a type of little
fruit,
very
has a lot of sugar, has a lot
of calories too, but it's very, very healthy,
and it gives you a lot of energy.
It's very healthy, and there's been a lot
of actually scientific studies that show that dates
are very good source of nutrients,
and it's great especially after you're done fasting.
It helps you rehydrate your body, helps to
rebuild some of the,
you know,
things that, you know, you've lost while you
were fasting. So you break it with the
odd number of dates.
Either one date is enough or 3 dates
or 5 dates or 7 dates, any odd
number, of dates. And if you have no
dates, then you break it with water. So
this is what the recommended thing is. 1st
option is dates. If you don't have it
or if you don't want it, then water
when you break your fast. And that's why
you'll notice that in Ramadan, Muslims always have
dates with them, and you'll find that everyone
is going and buying a giant box of
dates. Right? So this is the opportunity. If
you wanna get those dates, now is the
time to go and get it. And there
are really good, like, deals all over Brookhurst
Street and Anaheim and all these areas. Just
buy a box of dates, enough for your
family. If you're fasting by yourself, you just
need 30 dates. You got a wife,
you know, or husband,
60 days. If you got kids, just get
an entire box. So you got your dates
for the entire,
month. When you're breaking your fast, it's recommended
to recite this following supplication, and that is
Insha'Allah.
And that means the thirst is gone
because you were thirsty the whole day. The
thirst now is gone because you're gonna be
breaking your fast and eating.
The veins are moist
because you were, like, you know, out of
water, basically,
And the reward is affirmed
if Allah wills.
Meaning that I'm gonna be rewarded for this
fast if Allah wills, and I'm breaking my
fast now. So this is the
supplication to make when you're breaking your fast.
You can say it in English. It's perfectly
fine,
where however you say it.
And if you're performing an optional fast,
k, not Ramadan. Okay. Ramadan is mandatory fast.
If you're performing an optional fast and you're
invited
to someone's house for a meal,
okay,
Then
and and they're like, you know what? I
put a lot of effort into really making
this food and inviting you and everything. You
said, but I'm fasting. I can't eat. I'm
coming to your house, but, you know, thank
you so much for preparing all this food,
but I'm not gonna eat. Can pack it
up in a box for me. I'm gonna
go home. That's
kinda messed up. Right? So, actually, it's recommended
to break your fast if the person is
really gonna feel offended. They they put they
put some effort into it. Even though it's
because it's an optional fast, and you can
break it. So you break that fast, it's
recommended to break that fast, and it's not
more pious to say, you know what? No.
No. Sorry. I'm fasting. You know? But Ramadan,
obviously, is different case. Ramadan is a mandatory
fast. You're not gonna break that fast. So
this is what's recommended,
during fasting.
Let's talk about making up missed fasts.
K. So whoever misses a fast and they
need to make it up, they're allowed to
make it up at their leisure.
At their leisure means they don't need to
make it up immediately after Ramadan.
It can be done 1 month later. It
can be done 3 months later. It can
be done 7 months later. And some people
who really want the easy way,
guess which season they choose to fast in
when they make up their fast?
Winter, like right in the middle of winter,
because it's the shortest period and it's nice
and cool. That's the time to make up
your fast if you're into that.
But you have to make it up before
the next Ramadan.
So if you delay until the next Ramadan
comes and you have not made up your
fast,
then you will be sinful.
So don't delay and you should try to
do it a little bit earlier than later.
But you do have
a, you know, a window to work with.
And they don't even have to be made
up in order.
So if you miss 7 fasts due to
whatever reason, illness or menstruation or something, you
don't even have to make them up in
exactly the order. Even though in Ramadan, it
would have been in order. So you can
make up 3, and then you hit up
2, and then you hit up 2 more,
and you're fine. Even if they had a
gap in between, that's fine.
But don't miss. So I know people right
now
who are struggling to make up their missed
fast, like, right now because Ramadan is starting
next week. You should not be in that
state where you're waiting till the end end
end. It's not a good habit. Alright? Whoever
missed more than one fast, I just said
it, can make can either you can make
them up consecutively,
or you can make them up intermittently.
You can make them up with gaps in
between, but obviously if you did consecutively, it's
better.
Why? Because it resembles what you actually were
doing in Ramadan. It's better and it's it's
more closer to the way Ramadan was.
Whoever's not made it up until the following
Ramadan
like I said, if you don't make it
up by the next Ramadan, you're sinful.
But do you still have to make it
up?
Yes. It doesn't just drop and say, oh,
okay. I got the sin, but I'm not
gonna make it up. You still have to
make it up, but you're late. It's like
a late prayer.
It's sinful for delaying a prayer
without any good excuse,
but you still have to make it up.
It doesn't just drop and go away. So
you're still gonna be held accountable, so you
gotta do that. There's a penalty for violating
the sanctity of the month of Ramadan.
So we talked about this word kafara, which
is a penalty for doing something which you
you weren't supposed to do. So there are
some rules in Islam where there's a penalty,
you have to do something. Like, you have
to fast this many days, you have to
pay this much money because you didn't do
something you were supposed to do. Like breaking
a vow was one example.
Whoever intentionally
breaks their fasts
in the month of Ramadan by eating
or by drinking or by having * in
Ramadan,
not only do they have to make up
that fast, but they have to pay a
certain penalty.
As
for for doing what? For violating the month
of Ramadan. The month of Ramadan is a
special month. Everyone's supposed to be fasting, and
you decide, you know what? You just you
were in a really, really bad mood. You
were in a rebellious mood that day.
I don't care. I'm just tired of this
fast. I'm just I'm gonna eat something.
And then all of a sudden you realize,
you know, what did I do? Why did
I do that? There is a penalty for
that. So the penalty for doing that,
I'm gonna tell you in a moment. So
why why is there a penalty? It's to
emphasize the idea that every single Muslim
must take fasting very seriously in Ramadan. It's
not something like something that's very very serious.
So what is the penalty?
Penalty is
to, number 1,
free a slave.
Now, you don't have This was the penalty
in the past. You have to free a
slave, and it doesn't matter if it's a
Muslim slave or a non Muslim slave. If
there's a slave to be freed, you have
to free them. Now freeing a slave was
a very expensive thing in the past. It's
not it's not something cheap.
So removing slavery from the community or from
the society is something which is a great
deed, but it's very expensive. So that was
the penalty.
Generally, we do have slavery today, but it's
very very hard to find, a slave to
free. So you're generally not gonna find 1,
and then you say what kind of slave
there's these kind of slaves, and then there's
the people who are you being used for
prostitution. They're considered to be slaves and all
that. How do you free them when there's
like a gang mafia
running all of these operations? It's very hard
to even do that. So if you're unable
to do this,
and and pretty much you're there's no no
one in this community is gonna be able
to do that, You're gonna have to fast
for 2 consecutive
months
straight. That means 60 days. You fast consecutively
straight. It's like 2 Ramadans.
So you mess with Ramadan one time and
you have to make up 2 months of
Ramadan outside of the month of Ramadan.
Alright.
And when this when you're consecutively making up
these things,
anyone who has an excuse in the middle
so you say, well, okay, wait a minute.
Let's say I have to make up 60
days of fasting.
In the middle of fasting, I have my
menstruation,
so it's not consecutive anymore.
Well,
as soon as it's done, you have to
resume again. If you have a illness in
between, as soon as it's done, you have
to resume again without even a one day
break. It'll still be considered consecutive as long
as there's no, in other interruption besides that.
Now, there are some people who will not
be able to fast 60 days consecutively because
they're weak, they're ill, they could handle, you
know, a few fasts, but they can't handle
this much. So if you're unable to fast
60 days, then you have to feed 60
poor people.
Sixty poor people
for a day. That's with 2 full meals.
When you feed someone for a day, it
means 2 meals.
Right?
Anyone who intentionally
broke their fast more than once in Ramadan.
So let's say you did it twice in
1 Ramadan,
you still perform one penalty,
but it's still 60 days. So you broke
your fast three times, you don't make it
180 days, still 60 days. K. But of
course, hopefully, you won't be doing that.
If someone breaks their fast by doing something
which resembles eating, drinking, or having *,
but it's not actually breaking it like that,
then they have to make up the fast,
but they don't have to pay a penalty.
So let me give you an example.
Somebody
masturbates
intentionally.
They don't have to pay the penalty because
it's not considered *, but it resembles *.
So if you have * intentionally,
you have to pick make up 60 days
of fasting. If you masturbate intentionally,
you make up that day, but you don't
have to make up 60 days.
Engaging in foreplay and then you end up
accidentally, you know, *, but there's no *
involved.
That's also you make up that fast, but
you don't have to,
do 60 days. If you
vomit mouthful intentionally,
that's outside of the category. You make up
one day, you don't have to make up
60 days.
And if you eat something which is not
normally eaten by people,
so for some weird reason you decide to
eat some dirt or something like that,
You you make up that fast, but you
don't have to,
fast 60 days. K. Other recommended fasts, and
then now it's coming. So it's highly recommended
to fast on 10th of Muharram.
So Muharram is another month in the Islamic
lunar calendar,
and the 10th day of Muharram is known
as the day of Ashura.
And Ashura is special and significant for one
and one main reason
primarily, and we fast on that day. Does
anyone know what the reason is?
That's right. So prophet Moses, prophet Musa was
saved on that day when he crossed over
the sea and the people of pharaoh were
drowned on that day. That's the reason why
we fast.
It has nothing to do with the death
of anyone else
that happened. It happened to be Hussain,
who's the grandson of the Prophet, peace be
upon him, also was martyred on that day,
but that has nothing to do with this
fast. K? This fast is because of Prophet
Moses.
So that's a very recommended day, highly highly
recommended to fast on 10th of Muharram,
and it's also encouraged to fast either a
day before or a day after when you're
fasting as well on that day, because the
Jews used to fast on this day. But
to be a little bit different from them,
we do an extra day before and extra
day afterwards.
It's also highly recommended to fast 6 days
of the month of Shawwal.
Shawwal is the 10th month
of the Islamic calendar. So that's after Ramadan
or before Ramadan?
After Ramadan. So immediately the month after Ramadan,
there's 6 more fasts which you should keep,
and it's highly, highly recommended
if you fast those additional 6 fasts. You
don't have to, but it's recommended.
And why?
Because they serve as the completion of Ramadan.
So if you think about it,
good deeds,
if you if you, you know, learn more
if you if you learned, there's a statement
of the prophet, peace upon him, which says,
every good
deed counts as 10
10 times the reward or more.
So if every good deed counts as 10
times,
when you fast Ramadan, you're fasting a month.
Right? That month of fasting is multiplied by
10.
In the sight of Allah, that's 10 months
as if you fasted 10 months.
So you're only missing
2 months and you would have it's like
you fasted the whole year. Every year, you're
fasting 10 months. You're getting the reward of
fasting 10 months. If you only you were
able to fast the extra 2 months,
you would it would it's like every year
you're fasting through the entire year. You get
the reward as if you're fasting every day
in the year. That would be awesome. Right?
So how do you do that? So the
prophet told us, if you do these extra
6 fasts
and the 6 fasts are multiplied by 10
good deeds,
you got 60 days. Those are your 2
months. So he said, if you fast the
6 days of Shawwal,
it's as if you fasted the entire year
because you fasted Ramadan times 10,
6 of Shawwal times 10 makes 60, 60
divided by, you know, 30, 2 months, you
get 12 months.
That make sense?
Calculation wise. So that's the way it is.
So if you fast these 6 in showa,
it's like you're fasting the entire year after
you finish your Ramadan, if you did your
Ramadan. Right. So this is great and it's
something that you should really,
you know, try to do. Now do they
have to be consecutive? No.
They don't have to be consecutive. They don't
have to be immediately
after Ramadan.
They could be anywhere in the month of
Shawwa.
Right? So just keep that in mind. Sometimes
people think it has to be done immediately,
like the day after Eid. No. That's not
the case. Alright? So that's,
that's the the the wisdom behind it. Alright.
So they don't have to be done in
order. They could be performed on any day
of the month,
of Shawwal, long as it's done.
It's also recommended
to fast 3 days every month.
So it's recommended to fast 3 days every
month for any any month, any time of
the year, and it's preferable to do it
on the 13th, the 14th, and 15th of
the month.
Now why do you think that is? What
does the moon look like on the middle
of the month, 13, 14, and 15?
Yeah. It's it's full.
Right? So it's it's the full moon that
around that time. That is the easiest time
to kind of remember when to fast and
everything middle of the month. So otherwise, you
could do any 3 days, but these are
3 recommended days.
These are known as the white days because
the moon is at its largest size. It's
they're they're called the white days,
and it's recommended to do that. Why? Because
it gives you some fasting every single month
You're doing some kind of fast. Right? So
just think about that. If you fast 3
days every month
and each fast is multiplied by 10, and
you do this literally every month throughout the
year, it's like you're fasting the whole year.
Right? So those 3, it's not like you're
fasting the whole month in terms of reward.
Right? So that's one of the reasons why
it's it's done.
It's also recommended
to fast on Mondays and fast on Thursdays
or both
because this is a a practice that the
Prophet, peace be upon him, used to do.
So if you can do that, it's a
good goal to have in your life. I'm
gonna start fasting on Mondays,
you know, for for a period of time,
or I'm gonna start fasting on Thursdays, or
both.
You can almost fast on any day you
feel like fasting, and it it'll it'll be
considered an act of worship, and it's a
great thing, whenever you feel like fasting. But
there are some days which it's disliked to
fast on, and then some days which it's
prohibited, you're not allowed to fast on. So
it's disliked to fast on a Friday
or on a Saturday
only. So if you just pick Friday and
you say, you know what, I'm gonna fast
on Friday because Friday is the is the
day of prayer and, you know, we have
the sermon and everything. You don't single out
Friday only,
unless,
let's say, it happens to be the 13,
14, or 15, and you wanted to fast
those 3 days, then there's nothing wrong with
fasting on Friday. But sometimes people will think
in their mind, you know what? Friday's a
special day, and it is. So I'm gonna
fast on Friday.
Just because Friday is a special day doesn't
mean that you're supposed to fast on the
special day. So there's a certain way of
doing things and and, the prophet wanted to
make sure people don't confuse things and think
that special means you start fasting.
You do what Islam teaches you to do,
not just what you think is gonna be
the best thing for you. So that's that's
the reason behind it. Saturday also because the
Jews fasted on Saturday, and they had their
Sabbath and everything, so you don't do it
only on that day, unless there's a reason
for it.
Right? Like, it coincides with another day or
something.
It's pro so this this one is disliked.
It's prohibited to fast on 5 days.
The day of Eid al Fitr, which is
the day after Ramadan, is the day of
celebration.
The day after Ramadan
is completely prohibited. No one is allowed to
fast. The day of Eid ul Adha, the
second day of the festival, after the Hajj
pilgrimage,
that's also prohibited to fast on that day,
and on 11th, the 12th, and the 13th
of Dhul Hijjah. So the days following the
the Eid al Alha, the, the second Eid.
It's prohibited to fast on those days. So
basically the 2 Eids, and then the 3
days following the second Eid is prohibited to
fast on these 5 days. Alright? And the
reason is because we're celebrating on these days.
And when you're celebrating, part of the celebration
is everyone eats together. And if you say,
no. No. No. I decided I wanna fast
on this day. You're cutting yourself off from
the community and you shouldn't be doing that,
so it's prohibited.
Otherwise, you can fast almost any other day.
It's also prohibited
to fast every single day with the intention
that you're gonna continue throughout the rest of
your life.
So you know what? I'm gonna fast every
day for the rest of my life. It's
not allowed in Islam.
You say, well, why is it not allowed
in Islam? Because Islam is about moderation, it's
about balance, and it keeps people in check
by making sure they don't become extreme. Even
when it comes to something good,
being that extreme is gonna weaken your body
and you won't be able to keep it
up without difficulty in messing up your life.
So it's not allowed to fast every single
day. So if you decide, you know what,
this year, I'm gonna fast every single day
this entire year. You're not allowed to do
that as a Muslim. You should not be
doing that.
You lose the purpose of fasting, you become
accustomed to it, your body becomes weak and
it's not good. It's also prohibited to fast
2 days in a row straight, not breaking
your fast. So if you're in Ramadan, you
say, you know what? Sun just set.
No. I feel great. I don't even need
to eat. I can do another day straight.
And you just you don't eat at all
the whole night and then you start to
fast again the next day. You cannot do
that. You have to break your fast. Not
allowed in Islam. You say, well, why did
it well, it's I'm getting closer to God
that way and it's better for me. No.
Because there are restrictions to make sure you
don't become extreme even in that. So,
it is not allowed.
Last thing, we're gonna cover is what's known
as Ettigaf,
and that's seclusion in the mosque.
So Ettigaf
is something which is highly recommended
that someone goes and they seclude themselves inside
of a mosque,
for a period of time.
The most recommended one is the last 10
nights of Ramadan.
So Ramadan has, let's say, 29 or 30
days. The last 10 nights, you
know, or as many as possible, it's really,
really recommended that you go and you
stay inside the masjid. This is called iqatikaf,
which means seclusion, and you can do it
any you could do it any time of
the year, but in Ramadan, it's really really
recommended, the last 10 nights of Ramadan.
What is a mosque? Let's talk about what
is a mosque. Because many mosques around here,
they're rental buildings in a commercial area. Was
that considered to be a mosque or it's
not considered to be a mosque? So a
mosque actually is defined
by the intention of the people who started
that mosque. And one of the conditions is
that as long as people are generally praying
in that place 5 times a day, even
if it's one person or something like that,
usually they're praying 5 times a day, it's
considered to be a mosque. If it's not
and they're not praying 5 times a day,
they only open for Friday or they only
have 2 days, you know, they're open and
then they're closed the rest of the week,
It's not considered to be a mosque anymore,
it's called a mussallah.
Just a place where people pray, but it's
not a mosque. So you go and you
isolate yourself inside of a mosque,
in the last 10 nights of Ramadan. This
is known as iatikaf, and it's a great
act of worship. So what are the requirements?
What do you have to do?
What do you mean isolate yourself in a
mosque? What do you do exactly?
The requirements are very simple.
You just you do 2 things. Alright? In
order to be in a state of
or seclusion.
Number 1,
you stay inside the mosque
and you don't leave without some kind of
necessity.
Alright? You just you just stay there. You
can be reading Quran, you can be doing
whatever you want, you can be even just
having a conversation, you know, try to focus
on something that's beneficial.
But the fact that you're inside the mosque
and you decided, I'm gonna stay here. I'm
not going to the mall. I'm not going
home. I'm not going shopping. I'm not going
anywhere else. I'm gonna stay in the mosque
for these 10 days
or whatever period you can do. It's a
great act of worship.
I said without with necessity.
With leaving without necessity. So what is a
necessity? A necessity would be that you need
to go out in order to get some
food.
Now if you
have family or if you have friends who
can bring you food, they need to bring
you the food. You're not supposed to be
leaving. But if you're let's say, you don't
have friends, you don't have family, you don't
have anyone who can help get you some
food, you're allowed to go out, grab some
food and come right back, because you need
to break your fast, you need to eat
something.
Helping someone in an emergency situation.
So if you have the option of staying
inside the Masjid and someone really, you know,
middle of the night, flat tire, they call
you up, look man, I'm in the middle
of the freeway, I really need some help,
can you help me out? So, you know,
I'm sorry I'm secluding myself in the mosque.
No. You leave the mosque and you go
and you help that person. Alright?
Using the toilet, let's say the toilet is
obviously
let's say it's outside of the mosque area.
Alright. Or let's say there's a mosque, but
you have there's no toilet in a mosque,
let's say, hypothetically.
Really, really bad Masjid administration,
but you would have to walk across the
street to use the toilet. Obviously, you're allowed
to leave, the mosque for that, and then
you come right back when you're done.
You don't stop by, you know, the quickie
mart or whatever and get some food and
then come back, unless you needed to. It's
only allowed to leave for the amount of
time that would be necessary to perform that
required task, the thing that you need to
get done.
Women who feel safer and more comfortable
to perform the Atikaf in their house
may actually do so in their house,
provided that they're inside that part of their
house, which is designated for prayers. So most
places they have this,
you know, place in their house where this
is like the prayer area. So you're gonna
be staying in that prayer room or that
prayer area, especially if you live in an
area where it's kind of it's not very
safe,
for women or even for children or young
people or someone to be around. They can
go ahead and do that in that part
of their house.
So that's condition number 1, is just you
gotta stay inside the mosque. That's it. Condition
number 2,
no intimacy
or * is allowed in Aptica
during the daytime or the nighttime.
Right? No intimacy, no, you know, spousal relations
or anything like that because it's a continuous
act of worship and you're just focusing on
that. If you violate any of these two
requirements,
your is broken and you just need to
start again. But if you wanna do all
10 days, you don't break any one of
these things, and that's it. There's nothing else.
You're allowed to speak. You're allowed to talk.
You're allowed to use the cell phone. You're
allowed to use the phone. You're allowed to
go on the Internet. You're allowed to do
all these other things. Now it's not recommended
necessarily to waste your time because you're sitting
in the mosque for a reason. You're not
there to just have conversations with people. You're
not there to, you know, run your your
your business on Ebay from the mosque. Although
anyone can do that. The goal is to
focus on reading Quran,
reading some books, praying,
making zikr, remembering Allah, just focusing and just
being inside the mosque at that time is
gonna have a change in your environment. You
know, when you go to the mall, you
have a different mentality. When you go,
you know, to, like, some kind of, recreation
area,
park or something, you have a different mentality.
You go to the forest, you have a
different mentality.
Just being inside the mosque for that long
period of time, it just shifts your mentality.
So I recommend you try it sometime. It's
if you haven't done it, try it. Any
anyone done it? Anyone done 10 days before?
Anyone you done 10 days? Anyone done, like,
a few just a few days? In a
few days? It changes you. It really, really
changes you. You could do it in any
mosque around this area. Just Just make sure
you ask the administration that it's allowed,
for you to do it or not. Right?
In some places, they have showers as well.
Some places, they don't have showers, so you
need to go to a a one that
has maybe some facilities or something like that.
What are the etiquettes that you should be
doing when you're at Tikaf? So like I
said,
when you're inside you should focus on your
prayer, on worship, and on reflection.
And it's disliked,
it's disliked
to focus on anything which is considered like
a worldly activity,
like doing business,
you know, unless, you know, apps like you
need to buy food or something that's that's
different.
Speaking about things which will distract you away
from remembering Allah, so it's disliked.
But keep in mind, it's also disliked
to be quiet and not talk to anyone
at all. So there's this mentality and this
idea that you just sit there and you
don't speak at all. That's not true. So
if someone comes says, salaam, how are you
doing? How's your family? You're like,
get the gas. You know, that's that's not
correct either. Okay? Because that used to be
the case in the past.
In the previous
scriptures,
the the seclusion in the mosque used to
involve not speaking as well. And you find
that in some of the stories, like Zachariah,
when he was not speaking for a period
of time, that was part of his yeah.
Tikav and his seclusion in the mosque, but
that's not for us anymore. So it's we're
not supposed to resemble because what happens is
there are people who go into, like, meditation
for days on end. The Buddhists have it,
Hindus have it, some Christian monks and stuff
they have it. And when it comes to
Islam, Islam is supposed to be not resembling
other people. There's good practices where, you know,
we we we do the same thing
among the good things that they do, but
Islam is supposed to actually stand out and
be a little bit unique.
So there has to be some differentiating factors,
and this is one of the very important
differentiating factors that we do we are allowed
to talk when you're in Antica. Doesn't mean
you become a, you know, a chatterbox or
something, but at the same time you're allowed
to talk, when you're an anti cap. So
that's a common misconception.
And lastly,
the day after Ramadan
is the day of Eid, and it's known
as Eid al Fitar,
which means the festival. Eid means festival.
Fitar means breaking, fast breaking. So it's the
festival of breaking your fast, and this is
basically a celebration for Muslims.
All Muslims in the world are gonna be
celebrating right after the month day of Ramadan,
the month of Ramadan is over,
and we go to people's houses and we
eat and we drink, we exchange gifts.
In some cultures, you know, people give, you
know, gifts to children and give them money
and cash and all of that. So this
is a day where you're supposed to basically
be partying. You're not supposed to be, you
know, sitting at home. You're not supposed to
be by yourself. You're supposed to be enjoying
yourself, going and meeting other people, going to
people's houses.
There's a Eid prayer in the morning and
then the rest of the day, you know,
you you're supposed to have fun, you're supposed
to meet people, you're supposed to enjoy.
You still pray, there's still 4 more prayers
at the end of the day throughout the
day, but you're supposed to be enjoying yourself.
So it's very important, try to prepare for
Eid. And my advice when it comes to
Eid, if you have children in particular,
children look around living in a as as
Muslim minorities,
they look around and they see, you know,
Christmas is full of lights,
and they see, like, you know, Halloween is
full
of devils. No. They're full of, like, decorations
and stuff like that. There's always, like, something
going on. Right?
And when it comes to aid, if you're
like if you like if you make the
family like a boring Eid,
your children are not gonna really enjoy Eid.
It's like, oh, wow, look it's Eid. We're
gonna drive to the place, we're gonna pray,
and then we're gonna go home and you're
gonna watch me talk to uncle so and
so while you sit in the corner, and
be bored out of your mind with some
kids who you've never met in your life
before, and you're probably not gonna meet until
next eve again. You're not setting a good
example for your kids. Right? You wanna make
this really fun and special. This is a
great time to pick up on those,
unsold Christmas lights, you know, that in December,
get them for cheap.
Decorate the place. Even for Ramadan, there are
places to decorate your house, put some lights
in there, put some decorations,
get them some really awesome gifts, like way
better, like birthdays,
like whatever you would plan on getting your
children for a birthday, just outdo it on
the day of Eid. So like, you know
what? Well, you know, my friend, they got
a a a bicycle, you know, on Eid.
You know, I got you
a racing car on Eid. Right? So that
just just blows his bicycle away. Like, you
wanna really do something special so that people,
the children, and and you yourself, you feel
great on the day of Eid. Supposed to
wear nice clothes, buy some brand new clothes,
Have it all ready. Get some gifts ready.
Give it to your nieces and nephews and
family and all of that. Go out for
breakfast, you know, as a family and everything.
This is a great time. Prepare Eid celebrations,
but here's what you don't wanna do. You
don't wanna be thinking about how you're gonna
party on Eid in the last 10 nights
of Ramadan because that's the most important nights
of Ramadan. So if you let's say you
do seclusion in the mosque and you're secluding
yourself and you think, oh man, I need
to buy those gifts. How am I gonna
buy those gifts and those lights and the
clothes? What kind of clothes am I gonna
buy? I need to go to the mall,
I need to go shopping, I need to
do this.
Handle that beforehand.
So now this is the week before Ramadan,
handle all that stuff now. Get the gifts,
get the clothes, think about what you wanna
wear, think about what kind of shoes are
gonna match your dress, and this and all
that stuff, and handle it now so you
have a really, really nice aid and a
great aid inshallah.
Alright. So,
that's about it. That's all I have.