Website: www.aaiil.uk

Nearness to Allah through fasting and the concept of moderation

Eid-ul-Fitr Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 31 March 2025

“And when My servants ask you (O Prophet) concerning Me (God), surely I am near. I answer the prayer of the supplicant when he calls on Me, so they should hear My call and believe in Me that they may walk in the right way.” —ch. 2, Surah Al-Baqarah, v. 186

وَ اِذَا سَاَلَکَ عِبَادِیۡ عَنِّیۡ فَاِنِّیۡ قَرِیۡبٌ ؕ اُجِیۡبُ دَعۡوَۃَ الدَّاعِ اِذَا دَعَانِ ۙ فَلۡیَسۡتَجِیۡبُوۡا لِیۡ وَ لۡیُؤۡمِنُوۡا بِیۡ لَعَلَّہُمۡ یَرۡشُدُوۡنَ ﴿۱۸۶﴾

Today is the festival of Eid-ul-Fitr. It is not held to commemorate some historical event, such as a war or battle, or any famous person’s birth or death. Every year it marks the end of fasting, a personal achievement for each Muslim, in perhaps their own individual ways. Our knowledge about Eid-ul-Fitr, and how to commemorate it, comes from the practice of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. He established this celebration and its main features, and Muslims acted accordingly in his lifetime and afterwards. Then, a couple of centuries later, when Muslim scholars compiled books of his sayings and practices, they included in them details of Eid-ul-Fitr as taught by the Holy Prophet.

This shows that the religion of Islam is based not only on the Holy Quran but also on the practice of the Holy Prophet. It is fashionable among some Muslims to say that they believe only in the Quran and that nothing outside it, such as Hadith, can be an obligatory part of the teachings of Islam. This would mean that after undergoing all the rigours of fasting for a month, because fasting in Ramadan is ordered in the Quran, they cannot celebrate after it because such a celebration is not mentioned in the Quran! There cannot be any Muslims who actually do not celebrate Eid because it is not in the Quran. If there were any, they would be quite miserable today. So those who glibly and simplistically say: “We only believe in the Quran”, should think more deeply of the consequences of their standpoint.

While Eid-ul-Fitr does not mark any historical event, Ramadaan does mark such an event. That event was the beginning of the revelation of the Holy Quran to the Holy Prophet Muhammad, which happened when he reached the age of forty years. To mark that occasion, we undertake, on a smaller scale, the acts of devotion which he performed before he received the Word of God for the first time. We fast and in the month of fasting we read and study the Quran extensively, so that, having become purified, we understand its teachings better and can take them to the world. It should be pointed out that it was not only the Holy Prophet Muhammad, but also the great religious teachers before him who undertook very hard and rigorous fasting as a preliminary before light from God shone upon their hearts and minds and He revealed to them His guidance to spread to people. Prime examples of this are Moses, Jesus and Buddha.

The verse I read above occurs in Holy Quran in connection with fasting in Ramadan. It clearly shows that attaining nearness to God is a major purpose of fasting in Ramadan. There is a general impression, among Muslims and non-Muslims, that Allah is presented in the Quran as remote and stern, a hard and harsh taskmaster, Whose relationship with humans is merely that He requires His laws to be observed by us on threat of punishment. People think that our relationship with Him is like our relationship with the authorities of this world, such as our law-makers. We have no personal connection with them, but we only obey their instructions. This verse contradicts all such ideas.

It begins with the words: “And when My servants ask you (O Prophet) concerning Me”. In the Quran Allah often speaks of Himself as “We” and “Us”. Those pronouns are used to express His power and greatness, as in what is called the “royal We”. When Allah uses the pronouns “Me”, “My” and “I”, it is to express His closeness. Human beings are called here as “My servants”. It does not say to the Holy Prophet: When “your followers” ask you concerning Me, but “My servants”. In Arabic this is ‘ibādī or My ‘ibād. We know that the Holy Prophet himself is described as Allah’s servant several times in the Quran. And, of course, in a well-known version of the Kalima of Islam, declaring its basic creed, we acknowledge that he is Allah’s servant. Therefore this wording, “when My servants ask you (O Prophet) concerning Me”, conveys that human beings are trying to find out about God in their position as His servants, and they are asking another such servant, the Holy Prophet Muhammad for this information. The Holy Prophet is a human like them, who has found God, but he does not hold a position in between humans and God

God is near us human beings in any case, whether we feel it or not. As the Quran says elsewhere:

“And certainly We created man, and We know what his mind suggests to him — and We are nearer to him than his life-vein.” — ch. 50, v. 16	وَ لَقَدۡ خَلَقۡنَا الۡاِنۡسَانَ وَ نَعۡلَمُ مَا تُوَسۡوِسُ بِہٖ نَفۡسُہٗ ۚۖ وَ نَحۡنُ اَقۡرَبُ اِلَیۡہِ مِنۡ حَبۡلِ الۡوَرِیۡدِ ﴿۱۶﴾
“… And know that Allah comes in between a man and his heart, and that to Him you will be gathered.” — ch. 8, v. 24	…وَ اعۡلَمُوۡۤا اَنَّ اللّٰہَ یَحُوۡلُ بَیۡنَ الۡمَرۡءِ وَ قَلۡبِہٖ وَ اَنَّہٗۤ اِلَیۡہِ تُحۡشَرُوۡنَ ﴿۲۴﴾

These verses obviously indicate an unimaginable nearness of God to every human being. He is nearer to a human being than that human’s own mind and heart. A person can realize this fact through prayer, in particular prayers during the month of Ramadan when the idea of the closeness of God is strongly present in the mind of the person fasting. According to the verse I read at the beginning about fasting, God takes the initiative in answering prayers, and humans, in response, should answer the call of God, i.e., believe in and act on His teachings. God is holding out His hand for man to grasp. Therefore, closeness to God should not just be a vague feeling in our hearts. It must be manifested in action by walking in the right way out of belief in God.

Fasting create a feeling of nearness to God. We make a pledge with God to refrain from certain actions till a certain time. No one can know if we break that promise, but it is only God Who can see us all the time. That feeling, of God seeing us, is intensified in our hearts. People these days are very concerned about the gathering of their personal information by human agencies, such as governments or technology companies, etc. But how many are worried about the comprehensive knowledge which God has recorded about us and our doings, and by which he will judge us?

I mentioned above that the great religious teachers in world history before the Holy Prophet Muhammad undertook very rigorous, austere and prolonged fasting. Now we can expect that the Holy Prophet Muhammad knew from the Jews and Christians living in Arabia that their religious sages had fasted, and as a result he also fasted even before being appointed as Messenger of Allah. But he could not possibly have known that Buddha, who was born as Prince Siddhartha in India about 500 years before Jesus and 1000 years before the Holy Prophet himself, had also undertaken rigorous and severe fasting before starting his mission of preaching. This shows that it was, in fact, God Who revealed in the Quran that prophets and messengers of Allah had appeared in all nations of the world before the coming of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, and had followed a similar path to what he followed.

Buddha, before he acquired the rank of the Buddha or the Enlightened one, went to a forest and tried severe fasting, with very little intake of food and drink. As a result, he became emaciated and extremely weak. Then he realized that in such a state of weakness he was unable to achieve anything physically or mentally. He learnt from this that you have to follow the path of moderation and not extreme deprivation. He called this the ‘Middle Way’ and said:

“From now on I will take the middle way. I shall neither starve my body nor feed it too richly, but will eat just what is needed and no more.”

Islam also teaches us to follow a middle way. It says about the Muslims:

وَ کَذٰلِکَ جَعَلۡنٰکُمۡ اُمَّۃً وَّسَطًا

meaning: “We have made you a middle people” (2:143).

The word wasaṭ used here signifies the middle part of anything, and therefore not inclining to either extreme. We should neither fall short in performing our religious or worldly duties, nor indulge in them to an excess. The Holy Prophet Muhammad said:

أَحَبُّ الدِّيْنِ إِلَى اللهِ الْحَنِيْفِيَّةُ السَّمْحَةُ

meaning: “The religion most liked by Allah is that which is moderate and easy” (Bukhari, book 2, ch. 29),

which of course is also practical to act upon.

An American psychotherapist, Dr Randi Fredricks, has written a book Fasting: An Exceptional Human Experience. She writes in it in a section on The Buddha’s fasting experience:

“The Buddha’s fasting experiences played a central role in the formation of Buddhism. … The Buddha spoke highly of fasting and said that during his fasts ‘my soul becomes brighter, my spirit more alive in wisdom and truth’. … some historians believe that the Buddha’s fasting experience was the spiritual vehicle for his enlightenment. … His experience illustrates how the physiological and spiritual changes during a fast affect an individual over time: before, during, and afterward. Once the ascetic act is over, a spiritual awakening can occur.” (pages 241–242)

When fasting was instituted in Islam, and some Muslims, out of enthusiasm and eagerness, took it too strictly and too far, both the Quran and the Holy Prophet restrained them from doing so. You cannot be more religious than what Allah and His Messenger require you to be. The Quran in connection with fasting laid down the principle:

“Allah desires ease for you, and He does not desire hardship for you” (2:185).

It appears that Companions of the Holy Prophet thought that in the month of fasting, eating, drinking and sexual relations were only allowed at fast breaking time. If someone was asleep at iftar time and missed it, then he would fast all the way till the next iftar. Once a Companion who missed iftar because he was asleep, and continued fasting, fainted the next day at midday. So it was revealed in the Quran:

“Allah knows that you acted unjustly to yourselves, so He turned to you in mercy and removed (the burden) from you. So now be in contact with them (i.e., your wives) and seek what Allah has ordained for you, and eat and drink until the whiteness of the day becomes distinct from the blackness of the night at dawn, then complete the fast till nightfall, and do not touch them (i.e., your wives) while you keep to the mosques.” (2:187)

This informed them that after the fast breaking time at sunset there is no restriction on them all the time until dawn. The only restriction outside fasting hours is if someone enters into the state of what is called i‘tikāf in the last ten days of Ramadan. This is a voluntary practice which involves a person cutting himself or herself off from all worldly matters and confining themselves to a mosque or their home, devoting themselves entirely to worship. Various other activities, including sexual relations, are not allowed.

Buddha undertook severe fasting and eventually had to give it up. The Holy Prophet Muhammad also undertook severe and extensive fasting but he forbade his followers from doing the same as they would not be able to do it, nor would they achieve anything by it, but only harm themselves. He himself sometimes combined fasts together into one continuous fast, without a break between the two fasts. But he forbade others from doing it, and the reason given in Hadith is that it was:

“out of mercy for them, and that their energy may remain, and because severity in religion is disapproved.” (Bukhari book: Fasting, ch. 47, above hadith 1961)

When he cautioned Muslims against combining fasts, they asked him: “But you combine them.” He said:

“While I spend the night, my Lord gives me food and drink. So undertake deeds of only the hardship for which you have the strength.” (Bukhari, hadith number 1966)

The Holy Prophet strongly advised his followers not to undertake too much voluntary fasting outside Ramadan. He said to someone who used to fast day after day:

“It is sufficient for you to fast three days a month, for each good deed brings you ten times the reward (for the deed), so this would be like fasting all the time.” (Bukhari, hadith 1975).

But the man insisted that he could do more. The Holy Prophet replied:

“Fast one day and leave it off for one day.” (hadith 1976)

He followed the Holy Prophet’s advice, but afterwards when he became old he used to say:

“I wish I had accepted the relief given by the Prophet (i.e., to fast three days a month).” (hadith 1975)

What this advice shows is that it is not the physical side of fasting which is accepted by Allah and brings us closer to Him, because fasting in excess of a certain limit brings no further benefit, and is, in fact, damaging to the person fasting. How we benefit is by continuing in our normal lives the lessons we learn from fasting.

May Allah enable us to follow the middle path, neither neglecting our spiritual duties, nor over-indulging in them to the detriment of our worldly life, ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk