Allah has given the order of fasting to the Muslims in the month of Ramadhan. It is the third Pillar of Islam. The first Pillar of Islam which is the first order of Allah involves the sacrifice body, mind and soul. When we have to do the work of inviting the non-Muslims to recite the Great Kalimah and the work of reminding the Muslims about the Great Kalimah we need to use not only the whole body, but also our soul and mind. We also need to sacrifice our time as well as our wealth and health in doing the work of Dakwah. The work of Dakwah is the work to fulfil the right of the first Pillar of Islam which is reciting the Great Kalimah, I bear witness there is no God except Allah and I bear witness Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah. The work that fulfils the right of reciting the Great Kalimah is so demanding of men’s time, wealth and health and because of that only very few from among the peoples who have recited the Great Kalimah are willing to do it. When the love of worldly thing has entered a person heart, the first order of Allah, which is to fulfil the right of the first Pillar of Islam, reciting the Great Kalimah will be disobeyed by that person. Because the first order of Allah is so demanding of men’s time, health and wealth thus it is the first order of Allah to be disobeyed by Muslims and disappeared from this world. This first order of Allah had disappeared from the life of Muslims when the loves of worldly thing have entered the hearts of Muslims.
The second order of Allah which is the second Pillar of Islam is the performance of five times daily prayers. In order for a person to perform this order of Allah, a person needs to sacrifice only his or her time and not his or her wealth, health, mind and soul. However times are also related to the work of earning money and wealth. We need to give time in order to work to earn money. When the love of worldly thing has entered into a person heart, he or she will find it difficult to sacrifice his or her time in order to perform the five times daily prayers. In our everyday experience, we can observe ourselves when the call for the five times prayers is made, there are very few peoples particularly from among those who are busy with trades and business, who are able to leave their business and go for prayers in mosques. We can observe that there are a lot more peoples who in-spite of hearing the call for prayer still continues with their businesses and works. The second order of Allah requires a person to sacrifice only his or her time, and it is not so demanding as compared to the first order of Allah. When Muslims are inflicted with the diseases of the love of worldly thing, the first order of Allah will be the first to disappear from the life of Muslims in all over the world.

The third Pillar of Islam which is the third of Allah is the observance of fasting in the month of Ramadhan and the fast start from the dawn of Fajar prayer to the time of Maghrib prayer. During the time of fast, a person is not allowed to eat, drink and has sexual relationship even with his or her marriage partner. It is also said that during fasting a person must also safeguard his mouth not only from eating but also from speaking what is forbidden by Allah. Fasting by definition is to safeguard oneself during the month of Ramadhan from the dawn of Fajar prayer to Maghrib prayer from eating and drinking. One of the desires that men’s have is the desire to eat and drink and the order of fasting in the month of Ramadhan is to control the desire of eating and drinking during the day. Fasting also teaches us on how to eat and drink because it is an order of Allah and to please Allah. Fasting end when sunset and azan for Magrib prayer is called and at that particular time the order of Allah, loves most by Allah is to eat and drink and the intention has to be to please Allah. This practice of eating and drinking at the time of sunset in the month of Ramadhan is known as Iftar. The practice of eating and drinking at the time just before the call for Fajar prayer in the month of Ramadhan is known as Sahur.

Allah has never ever ordered men not to eat at all in the month of Ramadhan but only to shift the time of eating and drinking. In other months other than Ramadhan, Allah order men to eat when they are hungry and to stop before they are full but in the month of Ramadhan Allah orders men not to eat and drink during the daytime even though they are hungry and the order to eat and drink only comes at the time when the sun set until the dawn of Fajar prayer the next morning. In the month of Ramadhan a person who fast can start eating only when the sun is set. When at the time of breaking the fast, we eat and continue to eat until we are full it will cause more harm than good to our body. Allah ordered us to fast in the month of Ramadhan in order to teach us that we should only eat when there is an order of Allah and we should stop eating when there is an order of Allah. The aim of fasting is to enable us to control our desire of eating and drinking and when we can control our desires we can obey the orders of Allah. However, when at the time of breaking our fast, we do not control our desires and we eat until our stomach is full, it will cause us more hazards to our body. We have obeyed Allah during the daytime in the month of Ramadhan by fasting and when the sun set in the month of Ramadhan, we should also obey the orders of Allah at the time of breaking our fast. The order of Allah at time of sunset in the month of Ramadhan is to break our fast by taking food and drink. Because we have weak iman we can obey the order of Allah by eating at the time of breaking our fast, but we cannot obey the order of Allah to stop eating before our stomach is full.

It is easy to most peoples to obey the order of Allah at the time when they are hungry. When we are hungry, the order of Allah is to eat and drink and the intention of eating is only to please Allah. When we are eating, the order of Allah is to stop eating before we are full. It is hard to most peoples to obey the order of Allah to stop eating before we are full, particularly when we are in the middle of eating foods that we love most. Although we may know that the order of Allah is to stop eating before we are full, yet we fail to obey the orders because it is difficult to curb our desires of loving to eat good foods. Many including the so call religious peoples also fail to obey the order of Allah to stop eating before we are full. Generally the normal habits of most peoples during the month of Ramadhan are to eat with awesome amount of food to their full stomach at the time of breaking their fast. After the performance of Terawih prayers, most peoples will again eat some more food called Moreh before they go to sleep and to wake up the next morning from their sleep, a few hours before the Fajar prayer and takes another awesome amount of food. It looks as if to most peoples, they are trying to eat the same amount of foods as they used to do when they are not fasting. When we try to eat in Ramadhan the same amount of food that we used to eat during the day outside Ramadhan, it will become detrimental to our health. Foods that we consume when we are not fasting during the day are used for our day activities but the food that we consume during the night during the month of Ramadhan will only be stored by the body. When we still eat to a full stomach during the month of Ramadhan we are not giving any opportunities to our digestive system to rest. All the year round our digestive system is working very hard to digest all the food that we eat and during the month of Ramadhan we should eat less than usual so that we are letting our digestive system to rest. When we continue to overburden our digestive system with work, a day will come when it will become weak and inefficient. As any machines must be given a rest so that it can recuperate again, similarly we must also give rest to our digestive system. Allah has given Muslims in the month of Ramadhan the amal of fasting so that the digestive system of human being can be given a rest from working continuously. Allah the creator of humankind certainly knows what is good for His creation.

Eating and drinking is an important activity of any human being. We have been ordered by Allah to eat when we are hungry and drink when we are thirsty and Allah also ordered us to stop eating before we are full. When we eat because it is the order of Allah in the way shown by Prophet Muhammad saw and to please Allah, the action of eating and drinking will becomes an act of worship or Ibadah. When we eat only because we are hungry and the intention of eating is only the satisfy the hunger and we eat not in the way shown by Prophet Muhammad saw, thus the actions of eating and drinking will not become an acts of worship or Ibadah. In the whole day we spend so much time in eating and drinking and yet it is a mere waste of our times as we are not getting any reward for the actions of eating and drinking. When our intention of eating and drinking is wrong we have disobeyed Allah. As a practice we must always speak out our intention prior to taking food and drink .Because we break the orders of Allah in our act of eating and drinking, instead of eating and drinking bring good health to us, it brings disaster and ill health to all of us. We should eat and drink only when there is an order of Allah to do so and the intention of eating and drinking should be only to please Allah. Allah orders us to eat and drink, only when we are hungry and thirsty and to stop eating before we are full. In contrary to that, most of us usually eat and drink because we are hungry and thirsty and our intention of eating and drinking is to satisfy our hunger and to quench our thirst. Due to wrong intention, we have wrong action and one of our wrong action is we eat so much until our stomach is full.

Allah ordered us to fast in the month of Ramadhan in order to teach us not to eat because we are hungry but to eat because it is the order of Allah and to please Allah. During the day, in the month of Ramadhan, even when we are hungry, there is no order of Allah for us to eat. The order of eating only comes when the sun has set and the order to eat when we are hungry, last until the dawn of Fajar prayers. Some of us may have been fasting for more than twenty years, but still we have not learnt to eat because it is the order of Allah and to please Allah. Until now most of us still fail to eat with the correct intention because the Great Kalimah has not entered into our heart. Because the Great Kalimah has not entered into our heart, our fasting in the month of Ramadhan has become a mere ritual or adat nenek moyang. Because our fasting is only a ritual practice, instead of gaining Taqwa or the fear of Allah, we gain nothing out of our fasting in the month of Ramadhan except hungry. We have recited the Great Kalimah but the Great Kalimah has not entered into our heart because we have not done the actions of the first Pillar of Islam. We can find many peoples who can perform the order of fasting in the month of Ramadhan but are not able to perform the five time’s daily prayers or doing the work of Dakwah. This is because the order of fasting does not involve the sacrifice of time as the performance of five times daily prayers and the sacrifice of time, wealth, health, mind and soul as the work of Dakwah. Fasting is the order of Allah on stomach and stomach is the centre of men’s body. When our stomach is good, the blood will be good and when our blood is good, our body will be healthy and when our body is healthy we can use it to obey all the orders of Allah particularly the first and the second orders of Allah which is to be done every day. The health of our stomach depends on the foods that we eat, the way we eat and cook our foods and the way we act in our daily life. Fasting in the month of Ramadhan is teaching us the way we should eat our foods which is a major contributing factor that influence digestion of our foods in our stomach and intestines.

Prof Dr Nasoha Saabin
August 2011
Integrative Holistic Wellness Centre