Shakiel Humayun – Supernatural Fasting 8th Sermon
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AI: Transcript ©
The prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
used to engage
in non stop fasting.
It's called
where the prophet would
fast,
and then sunset would come. He would not
make iftar.
He would not break the fast, and he
would continue fasting
for the next day and so on and
so forth.
The companions of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wasallam who
used to love
imitating
and following the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
saw the prophet doing this, and they tried
to do the same nonstop fasting.
And they came across some challenges. It was
difficult.
And when the prophet, Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
found out about this,
he said to them,
do not engage in nonstop fasting.
And their response was,
they said to the prophet
but you engage
in nonstop fasting.
And then the prophet
said,
The prophet
then said, I am not like one of
you.
Or in another narration, he said,
I do not have your build.
Meaning the build of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam was different.
And then he said,
I am being fed,
and I am being given drink,
which enables the prophet
to continue fasting.
But there's an issue here.
Fasting means not eating, not drinking.
So if the prophet
is engaged in nonstop
fasting,
how is he telling the companions that he's
being fed
and he's being given nourishment
to continue the nonstop fasting?
To answer that,
we're going to go to another narration
by
where
she prefaces this narration
with a statement which we will show how
why it's important.
She said the prophet Muhammad when
he used to command the people to do
things,
he would only command them to do things
that were within
their ability.
Then she continues,
and she says people came to the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and said,
They said to the prophet
we don't have your build.
We're not like you.
And Allah has already forgiven your past and
future sins.
When the prophet
heard this,
he was not pleased. He got upset.
The narrator says, you can see the anger
on the prophet
face.
Because the intent here with this statement
is that
you can make acts of worship. You can
do the, you can pray 5 times a
day, you can perform all these great deeds
because
as you yourself have said, you're not like
one of us. So if you're not like
one of us and you don't have our
build, why are we expected to do these
acts of worship?
And this is why Aisha prefaced this narration
by saying the prophet
never told them to do anything
that was not within their ability.
As this is the
arch principle,
the arch principle in Islam.
That Allah does not task a soul beyond
its ability.
And the
just there is no obligation if there's an
ability.
So whatever the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
told them to do was within their ability,
but the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam became
upset
because they were not comparing apples to apples.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was not telling
them to do things that befitted
his build,
his spiritual
infrastructure.
What he told them to do was be
fitting for their build. So for them to
use the difference of builds between them and
the prophet as
a means to try to get out of
some of the commandments
was not a valid argument.
But the answer that we're looking
for, how can the prophet
be engaged in nonstop fasting
at the same time say he's being fed
and given drink and be nourished?
That answer comes
in the next statement of the prophet when
he speaks to them when they questioned his
build.
He said,
He said the the one that has the
most righteousness,
and the one that knows Allah the most
among all of you
is me.
How is this the answer?
This is the answer because the prophet
when they questioned the difference between his build
and their build, he gave us this statement,
which means
that the difference
of the build is in the degree
of his righteousness
and the degree of his iman
and the degree of his knowledge about Allah
subhanahu.
So when the prophet
said,
when he said, I am being fed,
and I am being given drink while I
do my non stop fasting for days.
He's not talking about the physical food. What
he's talking about
is that he's being fed through taqwa.
He's being fed through iman.
He's being fed through his ilm about Allah
He's being fed through these spiritual
calories
that enable him to continue going on for
days without food or drink, and fast without
iftar.
This
unit of energy
is another form
of energy which allowed the prophet
to do this supernatural fasting that we cannot
do.
And maybe we can try
to approximate
or feel or experience a little bit of
this because every piece of knowledge of Islam,
every piece of righteousness
and knowledge and and
every degree of faith,
we acquire some of that spiritual calorie. But
of course, we can't get to the level
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And so if you were if you may
remember some times you may hear an aya,
a verse of the Quran, or you may
hear a hadith of the prophet Muhammad salallahu
alaihi wa sallam, and that hadith moved you,
or that verse moved you. When you're moved
by these texts, you get a burst of
energy.
What's happening is you're getting these spiritual calories
that allow you to be energized.
Sometimes you can hear an eye and then
you get up that same night and pray
tuhajjud. Where did that energy come from?
That's the spiritual calories that you've just acquired
and that you can now use to do
acts of worship.
So the prophet was
fueled
by this secondary
this second source
of energy
which comes through spiritual calories.
That fasting has been prescribed upon you as
it was prescribed upon those before you so
that you may acquire taqwa.
Every year, we hear this ayah,
that the purpose of fasting is to acquire.
Is defined as righteousness, to be more closer
to Allah, to be more righteousness,
to be more righteous.
And so the purpose of fasting
is our intention should not be that this
is the month we're gonna try to lose
weight.
That's a byproduct, but it should not be
our intention now. This is, you know, a
good time for me to get fit before
summer comes in.
Now is fasting a time
where we can say, well, we're gonna start
binge watching and catch up on some of
the Netflix series so I can get through
the day and get through Iftop.
But the purpose of fasting is just that.
And so if this is the the purpose
of fasting, and if every year we can
acquire taqwa and more taqwa because taqwa and
righteousness comes in degrees,
where the prophet Muhammad
had the highest degree. He was Sayid Al
Ibada. He was the master of worship.
Then
implied in this verse
is that we are responsible to make and
perform measurements,
to look at the metrics
of taqwa.
What is our level
of taqwa day in and day out?
What is our level of taqwa
throughout Ramadan? And
gives us an insight
that can help us understand how to
use this spiritual barometer to measure the metrics
and level
of.
Said,
who is a
2nd century scholar,
he said, if you cannot
get up at night to pray a,
the night prayer, the optional prayers,
and if you cannot fast during the day,
meaning the optional
fasting,
then no.
Your sins
have held you back
and chained you down.
So what's happening here is
we have spiritual calories that come from knowledge,
iman,
and then we have something that burns your
spiritual
calories.
And those are sins.
Sins take away energy from us.
And that is why sometimes we may hear
an eye of the Quran, we have this
burst of energy that we feel like we
can do some good.
And when we sin, we find that just
opening the Quran becomes so heavy. Just reading
on
Friday becomes so difficult.
Just getting up and praying all the
prayers becomes
very heavy on us. It becomes difficult.
Because sins burn our energy,
which is needed by our soul.
And this is why
the more we seek knowledge of Islam, the
more spiritual calories we get, the more we
are motivated
to worship Allah and do good.
And this is why the very first word
revealed is because
this is the basic unit of the spiritual
calorie,
is to seek knowledge.
And so Allah commanded us to seek knowledge
because that builds our energy to do good
and to worship Allah
more.
And this is why
in Sahih al Bukhari, Imam al Bukhari made
the very first chapters chapters to be
all about the spiritual energy.
The first book is Kitabul Wahi,
chapter of Revelation. The second is Kitabul Iman,
the chapter of Iman, which is a unit
for spiritual calories. And then Kitabul Iman, the
chapter of knowledge, which is a unit for
spiritual
energy and calories.
And then Alima Al Bukhari brings
the chapter of wudu, ablution.
Because to make ablution, to do ablution, to
worship Allah, you need the spiritual energy which
is derived
from now seeking knowledge about Islam, about Allah,
about who he is,
and then also
through our in the increase of our faith
and our iman. Our iman is increased if
we do more good deeds. So the way
to get out of it is simple. If
sins are making us weak and we feel
like we can't do good deeds, it's simple.
There's a
there's a f 5 button that we have
in Islam, which refreshes everything.
It's just
all we have to do is make tawba.
By making tawba, all the sins disappear. You
just you just now have broken those chains.
Now you you've broken the chains, but now
you need fuel. To get that fuel, you
start with knowledge,
you start with acts of worship, and you
get stronger and stronger and stronger over time.
And Ramadan is an amazing institute
where we can learn how we can stock
up
with these spiritual calories that sometimes can last
us months.
It's an amazing opportunity
to get this spiritual energy
so we can get close to Allah,
I ask Allah to enable us to benefit
from the knowledge that we receive
and to enable us
to have that knowledge convert into spiritual calories,
which we can use to for his sake.