Keeping In Training

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

Allah blessed us with Ramadhan and made fasting compulsory so that we become pious, God-fearing and God-conscious. He commanded us to stay away from eating, drinking and cohabitation from true dawn to sunset with an intention of fasting.

If we stop eating one minute before dawn, our fast is valid, but if we eat after dawn, even a second later, our fast does not count. What difference does it make between stopping eating or drinking before Fajr and doing so a second later? No significant difference really but a great difference in terms of the reward and punishment.

If we follow the rules of fasting, we can hope for a great reward from Allah for fasting. ["Fasting is for Me. And it is I who shall reward it." Bukhari] But if one were to intentionally eat or cohabit between dawn and sunset without a valid reason (deliberately while aware), one must fast 60 consecutive days after Ramadhan (for each deliberately invalidated fast) as an expiation in addition to making up the fast.

Our fasts won't reach the level of the righteous if we don't also seek to do and avoid what seem negligible and insignificant or what seem don't make sense to many. This is the idea of slavehood. A slave must obey his Lord in all matters, big or small, what make sense and what the minds cannot make sense out of it. We hear and we obey--the way of the Prophets.

وَقَالُوا سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا ۖ غُفْرَانَكَ رَبَّنَا وَإِلَيْكَ الْمَصِيرُ ﴿٢٨٥

...And they say: "We hear, and we obey: (We seek) Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the end of all journeys." Qur'an Al-Baqarah 2:285

This applies to all our worship. Ramadhan was the training ground. Don't let the training go to waste. Fast regularly throughout the year and that will keep you in training and make you a better slave of Allah, inshaAllah. Besides, fasting has many physical, moral and social benefits. Everything from Allah is for our own benefit. He is not in need of our anything.

Allah has spread other blessed times throughout the year for fasting, such as 6 days in Shawwal, day of Arafa, first 10 days of Zulhijjah, Mondays and Thursdays, 9th and 10th of Muharram, Sha'ban, 3 white days of each lunar month, etc. -- for us to take advantage of.

And always on a look out for opportunities to do good and seek His Mercy and Pleasure. Pound on all the doors of opportunity. Be The First. And you will be of those who are successful.

Don't miss fasting the 6 days in Shawwal for it has tremendous virtue. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

Whoever fasts Ramadhan and follows it up with six from Shawwal, it is as though he has fasted all of time, because each day is equivalent to ten days. Whoever performs a good deed, he will have ten like it.

May Allah give you tawfiq. Ameen. Please don't forget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam