An Excerpt from the talk, ‘The Benefits of Fasting’ – Delivered by Shaykh Riyadh ul Haq on Friday 19th May 2017 at Al Kawthar Academy, Leicester (UK).
Many students will be taking their exams during the blessed month of Ramadan this year, but will fasting serve as a hindrance, or boost their abilities?
In this brief excerpt, Shaykh Riyadh ul Haq will explain how fasting was used by Greek philosophers to increase their intellectual ability before taking exams and would even go as far as to instruct their students to do the same. Fasting has many mental and spiritual benefits; and it is a practice still used today by many academics and athletes.
The speaker discusses the concept of exams and how they can affect one's health. They explain that people have a routine of fasting for 40 days before exams, and that even if they fast for 10 days, they will still have mental health issues. The speaker also talks about how people are conditioned to believe they will not be able to study with the speaker, and how they have conditioned themselves to not be able to study.
This is discussion. Look, I'm not prescribing anything medically. Got make sure you consult your
doctors and your health professionals. This is just, I'm just sharing my thoughts.
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But there's this whole discussion about exams.
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What happens with exams in the month of Ramadan?
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Pythagoras, the famous Greek mathematician, and philosopher.
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He
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won wanted to take an exam
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in the University of Alexandria.
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And He fasted for that exam. Do you know for how long 40 days, so for the exam, He fasted for 40
days.
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Socrates, Plato, and many of the others, they had a regular routine of fasting for 10 days, not for
health benefits, because they were very cautious when it came to food anyway.
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Because there were philosophers and poets who would never indulge in food, or gluttony. So they were
healthy, physically anyway, but merely to the already sharp, but to sharpen their minds even
further.
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And to gain even more clarity. They would fast regularly for 10 days, Pythagoras did it to enter an
exam. And later when he started having a large growing body of students, he had a condition. Nobody
could study with him, unless they fasted for 40 days first. So to enroll in his classes,
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if we had that you wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be here.
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But to enroll in his classes, people had to study for 40 days, students had to complete a 40 day
fast math study. They had to complete a 40 day fast, then they were allowed to study with him.
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So fasting sharpens the mind. It creates clarity. Why are we then so dope? During the fast a lot of
it is mental. It's all in the mind. We've programmed ourselves we've conditioned ourselves to feel
that if I fast, I'm going to be lethargic, I'm going to be sleepy, I'm going to be drowsy, dull, my
mental faculties are going to suffer, I'm going to be weak Subhanallah as Muslims, we fast and we
are drowsy and dreary. And non Muslims are fasting without any intention of religion or reward. And
they're going for 160 mile 100 mile bike rides whilst fasting, no food, no drink.
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So it's possible. We've conditioned and programmed ourselves to believe otherwise.
