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Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. The Month of Ramadan is also when it is believed the Holy Quran "was sent down from heaven, a guidance unto men, a declaration of direction, and a means of Salvation"
It is during this month that Muslims fast. It is called the Fast of Ramadan and lasts the entire month. Ramadan is a time when Muslims concentrate on their faith and spend less time on the concerns of their everyday lives. It is a time of worship and contemplation
During the Fast of Ramadan strict restraints are placed on the daily lives of Muslims. They are not allowed to eat or drink during the daylight hours. Smoking and sexual relations are also forbidden during fasting. At the end of the day the fast is broken with prayer and a meal called the iftar. In the evening following the iftar it is customary for Muslims to go out visiting family and friends. The fast is resumed the next morning
According to the Holy Quran:
One may eat and drink at any time during the night "until you can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread by the daylight: then keep the fast until night"
The good that is acquired through the fast can be destroyed by five things -
the telling of a lie
slander
denouncing someone behind his back
a false oath
greed or covetousness
These are considered offensive at all times, but are most offensive during the Fast of Ramadan
During Ramadan, it is common for Muslims to go to the Masjid (Mosque) and spend several hours praying and studying the Quran. In addition to the five daily prayers, during Ramadan Muslims recite a special prayer called the Taraweeh prayer (Night Prayer). The length of this prayer is usually 2-3 times as long as the daily prayers. Some Muslims spend the entire night in prayer
On the evening of the 27th day of the month, Muslims celebrate the Laylat-al-Qadr (the Night of Power). It is believed that on this night Muhammad first received the revelation of the Holy Quran. And according to the Quran, this is when God determines the course of the world for the following year
When the fast ends (the first day of the month of Shawwal) it is celebrated for three days in a holiday called Id-al-Fitr (the Feast of Fast Breaking). Gifts are exchanged. Friends and family gather to pray in congregation and for large meals. In some cities fairs are held to celebrate the end of the Fast of Ramadan.
It in the month of Ramadân that one reduces Coran, as guided for people, and of evidence of is guided and understanding. Therefore, whoever among you is present at this month, that it fasts it!" (Sourate 2:185a)"God wants for you the facility, It does not want for you the difficulty"
(Sourate 2:185b)
You observe the fast? You for of test the need? If you attach importance to the commands of God, then to fast has importance for you.
However, generally, the men and the women who deprive themselves of food, water and toxic substances do not fast according to the will of God. In our world one includes/understands the direction of the fast badly.
To fast during the month of Ramadan in Coran and Hadith
Coran very clearly imposes the fast of the Ramadan. A fifth of the population of the sphere has to abstain from food during the hours of the day. It is one month when one commemorates the revelation of Coran and it should be accompanied by prayers and reading of Coran. One exerts there also indulgence and flexibility towards the patients and the travellers. The intention of God is révèlée:"Dieu there wants for you the facility, It does not want for you the difficulty..." (sourate 2:185b).
"Islam was founded on 5 [ pillars ]" among which there is the fast of the month of the Ramadan (Year-Nawawi Forty Hadith: 3). the fast is also mentioned like one of the conditions to enter to the Paradise (Year-Nawawi: 22). Mahomet and its companions do not doubt his importance.
At the same time, let us recall that the fast is not the characteristic of only one and single religion. Who is enough proud to believe that its good works are better than those of another? Even at the time of Mahomet, numbers not-Moslems fasted just like the companions of the prophet (Year-Nawawi: 25). Even the atheists and the pagan ones practised the fast, but certainly not for God.
The fast of the Ramadan, today
This point, let us admit that the Christians like the Moslems of the whole world failed in their practice of the fast. For example, it is well-known that during Ramadam the Moslems consume more food than in any other period of the year. In more one knows that during this month the Moslems live much of social strains which finish in angers and arguments.
In general the Christian world is not better; the practice of the fast passed from the secret act to the about non-existent act, even if some still fast during the Lent. If we seek a fast which God likes, then we do not show the ones the others. The majority of excesses in the Christian and Moslem worlds come from the black hole of the materialism which aspired all planet.
But what imports me or which is essential you if the Moslems and the Christians do not fast correctly? Should it be thought that the laws of God correspond exactly to the practices of people who surround us? Not, we must seek the fast which God likes, that which taught us all the prophets, since Adam, while passing by Abraham and its truths children (Galates 3:29)!
1000 years before Hégire
God always had his prophets to recall his people to the repentance. It was the case with the prophet Esaïe, a descendant of Abraham which lived and prophesied before the arrival of Christianity and Islam, at one time when the people of God had forgotten what the fast meant according to Its will. He declares:
"Here, you fast to dispute and quarrel you... Is this there the fast to which I take pleasure, one day when the man humiliates his heart? To curve is the head like a snap ring, and to lie down on the bag and ash, there what you call a fast, one day pleasant with the Eternal? Here the fast to which I take pleasure: Detach the chains of spite, unties the bonds of the constraint, returns free oppressed, and that one breaks any species of yoke; divide your bread with that which is hungry, and inserts in your house the unhappy ones without asylum; if you see a naked man it covers, and is not diverted a similar tone. Then your light will come up like the dawn, and your cure will germinate promptly; your justice will go in front of you, and the glory of the Eternal will accompany you." (Esaïe 58:4-8).
approximately 600 years before Mahomet, Jesus, wire of Marie, declared:
"When you fast, do not take a sad air, like the hypocrites, who go the face all demolishes, to show the men who they fast. I say it to you in truth, they have their reward. But when you fasts, scents your head and washes your face, in order not to show to the men only you fasts, but to your Father who is there in the secret place; and your Father, who sees in the secrecy, you will return it." (Matthieu 6:16-18).
To stick to the prophets
If the prophets speak, we must listen to them, even if we live hundreds of years aprés their ministry. The lesson of Jesus on the matter deserves our respect. It said that after Its departure, those which follow it would practise the fast. It is exactly what occurred. The companions of Jesus and his disciples practised a secret fast assiduously, normally twice by week, even if many, in incredulity, refused to do it. Also moments ago when believing fasted together, usually in times of crisis, or for particular subjects. It was not a fast annually not prescribed. There was an immediate objective. Those which fasted distributed the money which they would have spent to nourish with the poor ones, believing or incroyants, without anything to ask in exchange. It was a share of their love for God, not a means to gain the Paradise. They wished food according to the Spirit of God not of their stomach.
Their fast was impresses of compassion. Nobody was obliged to fast neither into private, nor as a public, because it is what the hypocrites of the religion do. If the company forces us to fast, then it steals us the joy of obeying God by love.
It is a little the same thing for us today, if we seek to follow the prophets. Let us let see with God alone who we fast; the fast should be an instrument to control our appetite not to increase it! It should put a term at our sin, to give the opportunity to us to give to eat with those which are hungry and which are in the need, to offer the advisability to us of requesting and of interceding in front of God for those which are around us. It should purify our hearts in order to bring us closer, in character, of the prophets of God. Our lives should change through the fast; and especially, to fast should help us with better knowing God, and not knowing facts and doctrines in connection with God.
Wonder: To fast, is for you a private or public exercise? If you do not do it into private, then I regret, you already received your reward, the approval of the company. If it is secret, then your reward is in the skies, with God.
Wonder: Does your fast form part of a regular and daily process to have the victory over your sins and your appetites, to require of God to improve your character and to bring it closer to His? Not, you, shocked a little, nobody will answer cannot be similar to God; God is God. It is true. But God made the man with his image. We are not like the animals, incompetents to include/understand God. God has the desire to communicate in a friendly way with that which It created with His image.
And what the religion if our character does not improve to be similar to His? Only a package of rules! Rules invented by the men because only God can show the way to know It.
If you say, yes, I fast to build a relation with God, then of accord.Tu took the good step to include/understand which is the pleasant fast with God, such as the Jesus ensign, wire of Marie. And thanks to the secret fast, crowned, which belongs to Him, through the life of Jesus Christ, we learn how to love and know God. As all the prophets testify some.
