26. FASTING IN ISLAM (1)

The Muslims of Edmonton and elsewhere are observing the fasting of the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic year. Fasting (الصَّوْم) technically means to abstain completely from food, drink, intimate intercourse and smoking, before the break of the dawn till sunset, during the entire month of Ramadan.

Fasting is the third pillar of Islam after the shahādah (bearing witness that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger) and the five daily prayers. Other pillars of Islam are zakāh and h.ajj. Zakāh is an annual tax of 2.5 % of one’s net savings as a purifying sum to be distributed among the poor in the community. H...ajj is the pilgrimage to the Ka‘bah in Mecca, once in a lifetime, to those who are healthy and have the means to do so.

The prescription of fasting was revealed by Allah to Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) in the second year of Hijrah (migration of the Prophet and his followers from Mecca to Madinah in 622 to avoid the persecution of the Meccan infidels). The Qur’ān, the very words of Allah revealed to Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) says:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الصِّيَامُ
كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ
(البقرة: ۱٨٣)
“O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to
you as it was prescribed to those before you,
that ye may (learn) self-restraint.” 113

As the Muslim calendar is based on lunar calendar, Ramadan can be in any season of the year. As Ramadan this year (1986 here in Edmonton) is in late spring, the Muslim community of this area is fasting about 18 hours (in summer, about 19 hours). Before dawn Muslims are highly recommended to have their light meal so that fasting will not be too hard for them.

Very old people, pregnant women and the sick are exempt from fasting. Old people have to pay a sum of money or food to feed the poor. Pregnant women and sick people fast respectively after delivery and recovery. To healthy people fasting is far from being dangerous. Man can survive without food for several weeks. Without water in normal condition he can survive not more than 70 or 80 hours, i.e., about 3 days. However, it was reported that a baby survived miraculously after being trapped in a collapsed building for one week in Mexico City when this city was being devastated by earthquake last year (1985).
Abstaining from water in 18 or 19 hours is only one-fourth of the length of time that can cause death from starvation. Allah says in the Qur’ān:
لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا (البقرة: ۲٨٦)
“On no soul doth Allah placed a burden
greater than it can bear” 114

Beside spiritual advantage such as patience, self-restraint, sympathy with the poor and sincere and deep love for Allah, fasting has also its physical advantages. It has a healing power. The fact that hunger is the best cure to many ailments has been proved and defended by many medical authorities. The historian Herodotus described the early Egyptian who fasted three days a month as extremely healthy people. The Arab and Muslim physician Ibn Sina (Avicenna) prescribed fasting for all ailments. The Nobel Prize winner Dr. Alexis Carrel described important hidden phenomena in fasting when he said:
The sugar of the liver and the fat
of the subcutaneous deposits are mobilized,
and also the proteins of the muscles and the glands.
All the organs sacrifice their own substances in
order to maintain blood, heart and brain in
a normal condition. Fasting purifies and
profoundly modifies our tissues.

We Muslims are recommended to break our fast with dates or water. The Prophet said: “Break your fast with a date, for it is blessing; if you have no date, then with water, for it is pure.” According to late Dr. Anwar al-Mufti sweet liquid is absorbed by the intestine in less than five minutes eliminating the symptom of sugar deficiency; sugar in food is absorbed within three or four hours, so that the symptom of sugar deficiency still remains in a person who breaks his fasting with solids rather than sweet liquids as if one is still fasting. Dr. Allen Scott said: ‘Water is a faster’s best friend. It facilitates the flushing or toxins and waste materials that accumulate when fatty tissues are being burned.’” Our beloved Prophet Muhammad had said thirteen centuries ago: صُوْمُوْا تَصِحُّّوْا “Fast so that you will be healthy.”

Footnotes:
113. Qur’ān, al-Baqarah [2]:183
114. Qur’ān, al-Baqarah [2]: 286