Khutbah: Fasting – Not Just About Abandoning Food and Drink

All praise is truly Allah's. We praise Him, seek His help and ask His forgiveness. We take refuge in Allah from the bad of our selves and from the evil of our actions. Whomever Allah guides, none can lead him astray. And whomever He leads astray, there is none to guide him. I testify that there is no one worthy of worship but Allah alone, without any partner to Him. And I testify that Muḥammad is His slave and messenger. May Allah's prayers and peace be upon our master Muḥammad, and upon his family and companions.

To proceed:

Allah says:

يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلصِّيَامُ كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ

"O you who have believed! Prescribed upon you is fasting, just as it was prescribed upon those before you, so that perhaps you may have taqwā." (Qur’ān 2:183)

Dear brothers and sisters! Know that fasting is essentially an exercise in attaining taqwā (piety; God-consciousness and God-fearingness; technically defined as guarding oneself from Allah's ghaḍab (wrath) by obeying His commands and staying away from His prohibitions). Taqwā is expensive. Expensive things are hard to attain. Attaining taqwā isn't going to be easy. You aren't going to attain taqwā just by keeping away from food and drink for 12 hours a day. To attain taqwā, you're gonna have to struggle against your own self. Your own desires. You're going to have to struggle against the desires of your eyes. Which means lowering your gaze from looking at that which is ḥarām to look at. Also, the desires of your tongue. Which means keeping away from gossip, swearing, lying, rudeness, hurting others. This one is especially important. No teasing and calling names. No swearing. No speaking bad about your teachers behind their backs. No lying about your homework. No being rude to parents, teachers and elders. Also, the desires of your ears. Which means no listening to gossip, ḥarām songs, etc. Also, the desires of your hands. Which means no hurting one another. No bullying the weak kid in class. No stealing your friend's stationery, even as a joke. All these things – it's important to be careful about them while fasting, for the Prophet ﷺ said:

رُبَّ صَائِمٍ حَظُّهُ مِنْ صِيَامِهِ الْجُوعُ وَالْعَطَشُ

"How many a fasting person is there whose only portion from his fast is hunger and thirst!" (Narrated by al-Ṭabarānī)

Because some people fast people but do so many things to spoil and damage their fast that all they get out of it his hunger and thirst. Yes, their fast is legally valid and so they don't have to make up for it after Ramaḍān. But when they've been throwing swear words left, right and centre throughout the whole day, do you think they'll be rewarded for their fast? Hardly – if they even get rewarded for it in the first place, that is.

Subḥān Allāh, some people fast by refraining from normally halal food, yet at the same time they indulge in eating the flesh of their fellow brothers and sisters. How? By backbiting and gossiping about and speaking ill of them. To them we remind them of what the Prophet ﷺ said:

مَنْ لَمْ يَدَعْ قَوْلَ الزُّورِ وَالْعَمَلَ بِهِ فَلَيْسَ لِلَّهِ حَاجَةٌ فِي أَنْ يَدَعَ طَعَامَهُ وَشَرَابَهُ

"Whoever does not abandon false speech and action upon it – Allah has no need that he abandon his food and drink." (Narrated by al-Bukhārī)

Because Allah never needed us to fast in the first place. It is us who need to fast in order to please Him. So if we damage our own fast via foul speech, we only harm ourselves – we don't harm Allah in the slightest.

Also, you have other people who have, like, three meals at once for ifṭār. They stuff their bellies with food. This defeats one of the main purposes of fasting. Fasting is supposed to make you suppress your desires and thus make you spiritually stronger. But now instead, you're busy indulging in your desires once more, trying to make up what you lost in the daytime. Subḥān Allāh! Realise, dear brothers and sisters, that the way you deal with food is an indication of the way you deal with dunyā. And so by reducing your food intake, you'll grow to become less attached to this dunyā – this temporary, worthless dunyā – and your heart will grow stronger for its journey to the Hereafter. So only eat as much as you need. A traveller should only carry as much supplies as he needs, otherwise he'll collapse from the heaviness of it all and never reach the destination he set out for in the first place.

So, we mentioned that taqwā is expensive. Expensive things are hard to get. But once you do have them in your hands, Subḥān Allāh, you've got one amazing thing. And so for the person with taqwā, he truly has something amazing. Allah says:

وَمَن يَتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ يَجْعَل لَّهُۥ مَخْرَجًا وَيَرْزُقْهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ

"And whoever has taqwā of Allah, He will make for him a way out [of the hardships of this life and the next,] and provide for him from [sources] he could never imagine." (Qur’ān 65:2-3)

And He says:

وَمَن يَتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ يَجْعَل لَّهُۥ مِنْ أَمْرِهِۦ يُسْرًا

"And whoever has taqwā of Allah, He will make ease for him of his affair." (Qur’ān 65:4)

And He says

وَمَن يَتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ يُكَفِّرْ عَنْهُ سَيِّـَٔاتِهِۦ وَيُعْظِمْ لَهُۥٓ أَجْرًا

"And whoever has taqwā of Allah, He will remove from him his misdeeds and make great for him his reward." (Qur’ān 65:5)

Subḥān Allāh, isn't that awesome? When you seek Allah and the reward of the Hereafter, Allah doesn't just give you the best of the next world – He'll give you the best of this world too!

So to conclude, fasting isn't just about controlling your desires for food and drink. It's about attaining taqwā. And that means controlling the desires of all your body parts – your eyes, ears, tongue, etc. –  so that you don't end up like those who get nothing from their fast except hunger and thirst.