Fasting and Self-Purification

successful life in this world by keeping his negative feelings under control. Negative feelings, it must be remembered present the greatest obstacle to human progress. Fasting is the pious way to solve this biggest of human problems. As the Hadith says: “There is a Zakah for all things, and the Zakah of the body is fasting” (Mishkat Al-Masabih 1/639). Here, the expression Zakah is used in the sense of purification. There is, indeed, a way of purifying everything. Just as bathing purifies the body, fasting purifies the soul. According to Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad observed: “Whenever one of you is invited to a meal while he is on a fast, he should inform his host that he is fasting” (Mishkat 1/611). According to another tradition the Prophet gave this very sound advice; whenever one of you is on a fast, he should be soft in his demeanor. In the event of being abused or provoked, he should simply say that he is on a fast” (Mishkat, 1/611). Leading a life of restraint for a whole month produces a transformation in one’s thinking. It enables one to offer a positive response even to other’s negative behavior. Even strong abuse and other types of provocation will not push the fasting-believer into retaliating in the same coin. Rather than sink to that level, he will simply explain that he is on a fast. His own heart tells him that by observing a fast he has pledged himself to piety and that he cannot contemplate any evil action. In this way, fasting inculcates in man the necessity to abstain at all costs from anti-social activities, and from all ungentlemanly words and deeds. He is thus brought to a life of moral restraint in this world. □