By Babatunde Jose
The institution of fasting was made obligatory to the followers of Prophet Muhammad in the second year of their sojourn in Medina. Before that, the prophet had been observing fast on the 10th day of the month of Muharam, and it was said that he encouraged his followers to do the same. The Prophet was influenced by the practice of the Jews, who fast to commemorate God’s deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. And Moses being a highly revered prophet of Islam, Muhammad encouraged his followers to observe this fast.
In the holy Qur’an, the subject of fasting is dealt with only in one place, and that is Sura Baqarah, though there is mention on other occasion of fasting by way of expiation, see Sura Maida 89, also, in Sura Al-Mujadila, Quran 58:3-4.
However, it is in the 23rd section of Sura Baqarah that Allah proclaims that fasting is a universal institution and that fasting has been prescribed for Moslems:
‘as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guide against evil’. Baqarah: 183.
Religious history tells us that the practice of fasting has been recognized in all revealed religions, though with less stress on it as it is in Islam. The mode and motives of fasting varies according to climate, race, civilization, and other circumstances. It would, however, be difficult to name any religious system in which fasting in one mode or the other is not recognized. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Confucianism is the only exception, while others like Zoroastrianism ‘enjoins on its priesthood no fewer than five yearly fasts. Jesus himself, not only kept a fast for forty days, he also observed fast on the Jewish Day of Atonement, and also commended fasting to his disciples: “Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance. . . .But thou, when thou fast, anoint thine head and wash thy face”. Matthew 6:16, 17. We also know that fasting is a great thing amongst the Baptists, and that even St Paul fasted. There is the case of a church in Nigeria that asked its followers to fast for 100 days. Such episodic fast is not uncommon among Pentecostals.
Going further, we read in Cruden’s Concordance that fasting was resorted to in most nations in times of mourning and afflictions. As for the Jews, fasting was generally observed as a sign of grieve or mourning. Thus, David is said to have fasted for seven days during the illness of his son (2nd Samuel 12:16-18) and as a sign of mourning in 1st Samuel 31:13. The Mosaic Law also prescribed fasting on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29). There is no doubt that during their exile, there were several other fasting days that came into vogue in sorrowful commemoration of the various sad events which resulted in the downfall of the kingdom of Judah. The idea underlying these propitiatory forms of fast leads us to conclude that they were generally acts of penitence since afflictions were regarded because of sin. Fasting therefore, becomes a means of expressing a change of heart and repentance.
In all these, there was no systemic or organized form to the fasts. It was in Islam that the practice of fasting would receive a highly developed significance. In Islam, fasting was no more seen as an act of appeasing divine wrath or exciting divine compassion through voluntary suffering but introduced in its place a system of continuous fasting for 30 days, irrespective of the condition of the individual or the community. In Islam, fasting became a means, like prayer, for the development of the inner faculties of man. Though the Qur’an also speaks of expiatory or compensatory fasts, in certain cases of violation of divine laws, yet these are distinct from the obligatory fast in the month of Ramadan.
Fasting in Islam is an injunction made compulsory for every Moslem. It is a spiritual, moral, and physical discipline. It is a distinct institution that has nothing to do with afflictions or sin. Fasting is enjoined on both sinner and the pious. Fasting in Islam has the object of making man ascend spiritual heights. It is therefore, to all intents and purposes a spiritual discipline. The Qur’an on two occasions refers to those who fast as ‘saih’ or spiritual wayfarers. Secondly, the Qur’an says another aim of fast is nearness to God:
Prophet], if My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I respond to those who call Me, so let them respond to Me, and believe in Me, so that they may be guided. Qur’an 2:186
The holy Prophet also refers to ‘Fasting as a shield’, while at the same time there is an underlying moral discipline associated with it. Fasting is a training ground for the teaching of high moral lessons. It trains man to be prepared to suffer privation and trials. Fasting comes as a form of moral exercise that helps to conquer man’s physical desires, his desire for food, drink, and sex. Therefore, the man who can rule his desire and appetites is able to change the course of his life if he so wills. Such a man would have developed his will power to an extent that he can command himself. Such a man is said to have attained true moral greatness. In this regards Allah has made allowance for our physical needs; see Qur’an 2:187.
Fasting also has its social values, which is more effective than which one realize through prayer. Moslems in every community observe the five daily prayers in the mosque, where the rich, poor, and destitute may pray shoulder to shoulder, in an artificial display of equality. Artificial display, in the sense that they all retire to their different abode after the prayer, some to their palaces and others to their slums and squalor. However, with the month of Ramadan, every Moslem all over the world, rich, famous, king, destitute and beggar all obey Allah and abstain from all physical desires from dawn till sunset, for 30 days. Before then, the rich do not feel the pang of hunger that the poor experience daily. It is during this fasting period that the rich and poor, throughout the Moslem world are brought to the same level. Because the rich can now feel what the poor feel all along, it awakens in them a spirit of compassion and empathy and engenders a feeling of sympathy for the poor in the heart of the rich. In fact, it brings to the fore, one of the salient spirits of Ramadan, that of helping the poor.
The significance of the month is that it was during this month that the revelation of the Quran started. See Qur’an 2: 185
To our brothers and sisters, I say, Ramadan Kareem. Barka Jumu’ah and a happy weekend.
