I remember telling a non-Muslim classmate in high school about Ramadan and fasting. To my surprise, he expressed disgust and even anger. “You have to not eat and drink for 1/12th of your life!” The very thought was offensive to him.
If a person doesn’t recognize that one’s food and drink are blessings from Allah and that the only reason we are able to enjoy such blessings in the course of day to day life is that Allah has facilitated that and allowed us to do so, then the alternative is entitlement. One feels entitled to eat, drink, and live according to one’s desires at every moment in life. To be deprived of that which one’s desires demand, for a month or a week or a day or even for one minute, is thus deeply offensive. Even if it is God Himself telling you to abstain, one’s sense of entitlement intervenes: “Who is God to tell me not to eat MY food and not to drink MY beverages?!”
Let us use fasting to break our sense of entitlement and to regain awareness of the reality of our existence, namely as needy slaves, utterly dependent on our Lord and ever ready to hear and obey Him.
I remember telling a non-Muslim classmate in high school about Ramadan and fasting. To my surprise, he expressed disgust…
Posted by Daniel Haqiqatjou on Tuesday, May 23, 2017
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