Fasting and the Month of Ramadhan

Allah has prescribed fasting in the Month of Ramadhan and declared the two to be inseparable. The joining of these two blessings is an act of great significance primarily because it was in this month that the Quran was revealed and the joyful tidings of a new dawn were given to the ailing humanity. It was therefore appropriate that just as the rising of the sun was linked with the commencement of the fast, the month of Ramadhan, too, in which the whole of mankind emerged from a long spell of darkness, should be marked out for fasting, more so when it was also superior to all other months in effulgence and propitiousness deserved that its days should be adorned with fasting and nights with prayer.

A most intimate association exists between fasting and the Quran. The Holy Prophet (sallallahu alaiyhi wassallam) used to pay the greatest attention to the recitation of the Quran in Ramadhan. It is related by ibn Abbas (RA) that the Holy Prophet (sallallahu alaiyhi wassallam) was the most generous of all men but in the month of Ramadhan, when the Jibraeel (AS) used to come to him, his generosity knew no bounds. In Ramadhan Jibraeel (AS) came to him every night and joined in the recitation of the Quran. During those days the Holy Prophet (sallallahu alaiyhi wassallam) appeared to be faster than the wind in acts of charity and benevolence.

Hazrat Mujaddid Alf Thani rahmatullahi alaihi says in one of his letters that "this month bears a special relationship with the Quran and, hence, it was in it, that the Quran was revealed. It is endued with every kind of virtue and blessedness. The blessings, which fall to the lot of a man in a whole year, are as insignificant when compared to the blessings of Ramadhan as a drop of water is before an ocean. The attachment of inner peace and tranquillity in this month suffices for the entire year while mental dispute and uneasiness during it takes the whole of the year in its grasp. Blessed, indeed, are they with whom this auspicious month departs in good pleasure while those who deprive themselves of goodness and felicity by displeasing it are, for sure, doomed and accursed.

The great majaddid, in another letter, writes: "If a person is fortunate enough to perform a good deed in the month of Ramadhan the blessedness of it will not depart from him for the whole year and if this month is spent in distress and frustration the danger is that the whole of the year will pass for him in the same way."

FROM Meaning and Message of the Traditions
BY SHAYKH Mohammad Manzoor Nomani (RA).