29 Ramadan 1431

From Ramadan

Today is the last day of the month of Ramadan.

Imam Sajjad (‘a) has an amazing du’a for saying good-bye to the month.

I said to my son: “Look at this, talking to a month! Isn’t that weird! What sense does it make to talk with a month, as if the month could hear us in prayer! What is a month, after all? It is just a period of time between sightings of new moons.” My son, Ali, said: “No. It’s not weird. We can be friends with Ramadan. Why not? We can be friends with anything.” Ali is right. We can be friends with the blessed month. It has been a teacher. It has been a protector. It has been a guide. It has been a warner. Of course, the month is none of these things on its own, and certainly not as a mere period of time. But the month is much more than a measure of time, and what it means for us and our friendship with it is due to what God has ordained for us through His sanctification of this month.

Lots of people think that we can only have a meaningful relationship with God if God is a person with thoughts and emotions. Exalted is He far above what they attribute. But we can have a meaningful personal relationship even with a month. There is no need to get silly about it.

Here are some bits of Imam Sajad’s farewell to the month of Ramadan.

Peace be upon thee,

O greatest month of God!

O festival of His friends!

24 Peace be upon thee,

O most noble of accompanying times!

O best of months in days and hours!

25 Peace be upon thee,

month in which

expectations come near

and good works are scattered about!

26 Peace be upon thee,

comrade

who is great in worth when found

and who torments through absence when lost,

anticipated friend

whose parting gives pain!

27 Peace be upon thee,

familiar

who brought comfort in coming,

thus making happy,

who left loneliness in going,

thus giving anguish!

28 Peace be upon thee,

neighbour in whom

hearts became tender

and sins became few!

29 Peace be upon thee,

helper

who aided against Satan,

companion

who made easy the paths of good-doing!

30 Peace be upon thee -

How many became freedmen of God within thee!

How happy those who observed the respect due to thee!

31 Peace be upon thee -

How many the sins thou erased!

How many the kinds of faults thou covered over!

32 Peace be upon thee -

How drawn out wert thou for the sinners!

How awesome wert thou in the hearts of the faithful!

33 Peace be upon thee,

month with which no days compete!

34 Peace be upon thee,

month which is peace in all affairs!

35 Peace be upon thee,

thou whose companionship is not disliked,

thou whose friendly mixing is not blamed!

36 Peace be upon thee,

just as thou hast entered upon us with blessings

and cleansed us of the defilement of offenses!

37 Peace be upon thee -

Thou art not bid farewell in annoyance

nor is thy fasting left in weariness!

38 Peace be upon thee,

object of seeking before thy time,

object of sorrow before thy passing!

39 Peace be upon thee -

How much evil was turned away from us through thee!

How much good flowed upon us because of thee!

40 Peace be upon thee

and upon the Night of Decree

which is better than a thousand months!¹⁹⁰

41 Peace be upon thee -

How much we craved thee yesterday!

How intensely we shall yearn for thee tomorrow!

42 Peace be upon thee

and upon thy bounty

which has now been made unlawful to us

and upon thy blessings gone by

which have now been stripped away from us!

This is followed by praise to God, the patron of the knowledge by which He has preferred us, and its prescribed practices to which He has guided us. We have undertaken, through Thy giving success, its fasting and its standing in prayer, but with shortcomings, and we have performed little of much.

Then there is more praise of God, and repentance for shortcomings and sins, blessings on Muhammad and his household, and prayer for moral reform:

49 O God,

with the passing of this month

make us pass forth from our offenses,

with its departure

make us depart from our evil deeds,

and appoint us thereby among its most felicitous people,

the most plentiful of them in portion,

and the fullest of them in share!

Then there is prayer for a good Eid.

Thou art the most generous of those who are beseeched,
the most sufficient of those in whom confidence is had,
the most bestowing of those from whom bounty is asked,
and Thou art powerful over everything!¹⁹⁵

http://www.al-islam.org/sahifa/dua45.html

28 Ramadan 1431

From Ramadan

Hoping is needed for coping.

Much of what we observe reveals a progression,
From what was concealed to its opening expression.

In this world, or in a dream’s reality,
I told a friend, or a friend told me,
“If there is a lock, then there must be a key.”

When at dusk the owl of Minerva flew,
It called out its dhikr of “Hu, hu, hu!”
Now tell me what you are going to do
When you find your way blocked from any breakthrough?

If something is finite, a philosopher said,
then if only you would just use your head,
you would know where beyond it the road always has led,
just as there must have been a loaf, if there’s a piece of bread,
and if there is a scrap, from a greater it was shred.

A sophomore will complain that this logic fails;
it provides no cure to the mind that ails.
His refutation takes sharp aim and then assails
the demonstration of a hammer from a box of nails.
Science without teleology prevails,
no matter how complex one observes details.

To this, I will protest, if I may,
that the point was never to force my way
until a flag of surrender was put on display,
but only to suggest we might reasonably say
that the hole in the lock is just as plain as day,
and for what lacks in one’s heart, it might at least pay
to seek where it leads as we bow down and pray.

27 Ramadan 1431

Some of my students brought me a book of hymns from the Granth Sahib, when they returned from India.
Here are a couple samples.

O saints, such is the creation of God,
Some regard life as transient; others deem it permanent.
How mysterious is the human world!
Man is gripped by lust, anger, attachment.
He has forgotten the Divine Presence.
He believes the mortal body to be lasting,
though it is illusory like a dream during the night.
All that you see will vanish
Like the shadow of moving clouds.
Nanak, the devotee, says,
Know the world as insubstantial
and find refuge in the presence of God.
---------------------------------------

One practices deceit and loots the riches of others,
And spends them on his wife and sons.
O my foolish mind, do not engage in fraud,
for ultimately, it is your soul which has to account for your actions.
The body wears off every minute, and in the end old age fails you.
Then no one will offer you even a palmful of water.
Kabir says, "Listen, O man, no one belongs to you,
So why not recite the Lord's Name early in the morning?"
----------------------------------------------------------

In these days we should remember those who are suffering from the flooding in Pakistan and India. It was reported today:

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said the worst flood of country’s history has caused large-scale devastation which is beyond imagination.

The idea that the world is temporary is held in common between Muslims, Sikhs, and many others.
We should not refuse to read the hymns of those of other faiths, nor should we fail to help them when they are in need.
There are many reactions to the recognition that the world is fleeting.
Some say, "Enjoy it while you can!"
It seems more reasonable to be virtuous while you can.
If we are just here for a short time,
would it not be better to let some virtue shine,
and, in so doing, to find refuge in the presence of God?

26 Ramadan 1431

One of the goals of fasting is to push aside the veils of appetite and anger that block the eye of the heart, so that the heart may see the beauty of the divine kingdom. The human spirit comes from the kingdom of God, but its return is blocked by the devils within and without. It is said that the Prophet said: "If the devils did not swarm arount the hearts of the children of Adam, they would look at the dominion of the heavens." The instruments used by the devils are anger and appetite.

Anger and appetite are peacock and snake.
They misguide us through the devil and through the self.
Could there have been a Fall without them?

Hunger is a symbol for the starving of anger and appetite.
The devil of the person with faith is emaciated.
When the devil has no weapon left, he cannot whisper.
This is why Jesus told the apostles to fast, so that perhaps their hearts could see God.

Too much hunger, however is harmful. Moderation is the counsel of wisdom.
Fasting has three degrees:
1. The ordinary fasting according to Islamic law.
2. Keeping from any disobedience to God.
3. The examination of ones thoughts and prevention of thinking of anything but God.
The third is the fasting of the people of faqr, spiritual poverty. Their capital for wayfaring is nothingness.
God's being inclines only to non-being.
Take as your provision on this way non-being.
{God has bought from the faithful their selves and their possessions in order that they should have the Garden.} (9:111)

A man of perfection
walked the path of annihilation
and departed from existence
like dust.

When someone is destroyed in God, God must provide him a substitute.

The above remarks are a reconsideration of the words of another "revert" to Islam: Sayf al-Din Tughril, who lived centuries ago.
You can find his words in translation in William Chittick's Faith and Practice of Islam: Three Thirteenth Century Sufi Texts,
Albany: SUNY Press, 1992.

25 Ramadan 1431

From Ramadan

If, by the end of the blessed month of Ramadan, there is no change in your works and deeds, and your ways and manners are no different from what they were before the month of fasting, it is evident that the fast which you were expected to perform was not realized; and that which you have done is no more than a vulgar physical fast. In this noble month, in which you have been invited to the divine banquet, if you do not gain insight (ma'rifah) about God the Almighty nor insight into yourself, it means that you have not properly participated in the feast of Allah and failed to observe the etiquette of the feast. You must not forget that if you are not able to reform and refine yourselves in this blessed month, which is the 'month of Allah,' in which the gates of divine mercy are opened to the servants of God and the satans and devils-according to some reports-are locked in chains, [25] and if you fail to manage and control your nafs e ammarah (the 'commanding self'), [26] to subdue your selfish lusts and to cut off your relations and interests with this world and material things, then after the end of the month of fasting it will be difficult for you to be able to accomplish this.
Imam Khomeini, Jihad al-Akbar (The Greatest Struggle)

24 Ramadan 1431

From Ramadan

O God, guide me in it (in this month) to do good.

And decree for me in it what I need and what I hope.

O Who has no need for explanations or for supplications,

O Knower of what is in the breasts of all the nations,

send blessings on Muhammad and on his folk, the pure ones.

Ramadan is coming to a close. There is less than a week left, and yet there is so much left to do. We begin with the self, the examination of conscience, review of habits and faults, and speculate on how to stand back and take charge of our lives. Next, we need to notice that we are not fasting alone. We seek to stand together against injustice even while we fast.

In traditional Islamic and Medieval Christian practical philosophies, the areas to which practical wisdom are applied were divided (following Aristotle) into three: the self, the family, and the community.

Today I have been thinking about the family. We fast together as families. Even those who are too old or too young or too sick to observe the formal rules of the fast are yet in some manner observant. There is the reading of the Qur’an, the gathering of iftār, prayers. We need to also be observant of the roles we play in our families, and to reform them, to break bad habits in our family relationships, and to develop good ones. As families, to we need to break the bad habits that we as families have and to improve ourselves as families.

The Prophet of Allah (ṣ) is reported to have said:

“The more one is faithful, the more one shows kindness to his spouse.”

Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 103, 228.

and

“Whoever is more well-behaved is more complete in his faith. The best among you is one who does good to his family.”

Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 103, 226.

and

“He is not one of us who possesses money but keeps his family away from his wealth.”

Mustadrak, vol. 2, 643.

Imam Sadiq (‘a) is reported to have said:

“Whoever is our friend shows greater kindness to his spouse.”

Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 103, 227.

So, I pray, too, that I may improve myself as a son, husband, brother, and father, and grandfather (!), and that God and my family members may forgive me for my odius shortcomings in relation to them.

O God, I beseech You in it for that which pleases You,

And I seek refuge in You from whatever offends You,

And I beseech You in it for success in being obedient to You,

And never to sin against You, O Abundant Giver to those who ask!

23 Ramadan 1431

Learning Nonviolence

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Rachelle Friesen

As I prepared to move to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a friend of mine said, “If Palestinians could only learn the art of nonviolence then they could gain their freedom.” Upon arrival I was encouraged at what I found. The spirit of nonviolence was active across the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Whenever a violent action hits Israel or Palestine, the media is quick to report it; however what is not reported is the nonviolent action that happens here on a weekly basis. Every weekend there is a host of demonstrations throughout the territories, often protesting the construction of the separation wall and settlements, the recent mistreatment at a checkpoint, or the abuse of prisoners in Israeli detention.

Every Saturday, folks in Hebron protest to open a settler-only road in the middle of the city to everyone and to allow Palestinian shops to open again in what once was a busy market.

Every Friday, villages such as Bil’in, Ni’lin, Wadi Rahal, Al Ma’sara, and Al-Walaja gather after the midday prayers to protest the construction of the wall and settlements on their village property. Often these nonviolent protesters, who are Palestinian with international and Israeli supporters, are met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and arrests.

It is not an easy decision to attend these protests, especially as a Palestinian. Consequences for attending can include being gassed, hit with rubber bullets, or roughly detained. Even worse, one’s family can also be targeted with threats and intimidation tactics. Yet despite the potential ramifications, Palestinians still gather.

For example, this week in Al-Walaja (a village just outside Bethlehem), approximately 60 Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals gathered to protest the construction of both the wall and a settlement built on Palestinian confiscated land, braving the 40-degree heat, even while many were fasting for the holy month of Ramadan. Men, women, and children marched, banging drums, chanting slogans, and waving flags. Children from Al-Walaja had created a large papier-mâché Palestinian who could be seen climbing the Wall.

Although soldiers were watching on a nearby hill and two Jeeps came driving up close to the protesters, they eventually turned around and kept their distance. The previous week local activists reported that the soldiers gave the protesters five minutes to disperse, and then five seconds later they started firing tear-gas.

Al-Walaja, sitting between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, is a village of Palestinians who in 1948 became refugees, many fleeing to camps throughout the West Bank and Jordan. In times of calm, many returned, preferring their rural village to life in the crowded camps. Yet continually the village has become victim to Israeli military action and settler activity.

The neighboring settlement and the wall now threaten their village. Upon the planned completion of the wall, Al-Walaja will become completely encircled by the barrier with only one access gate that will be controlled by the Israeli military.

Witnessing the creativity and determination of Palestinians protesting, I have come to believe that it is not the Palestinians that need to learn the art of nonviolence, but it is us from the West that need to learn to listen to the voices that our media and governments have silenced, to act in the face of injustice, and to sacrifice ourselves for peace even when the consequences are difficult to handle.

from http://mccpalestine.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/learning-nonviolence/

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I invite Muslims all over the globe to consecrate the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan as Al-Quds Day and to proclaim the international solidarity of Muslims in support of the legitimate rights of the Muslim people of Palestine.~ —Ruhollah Khomeini^[9]

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22 Ramadan 1431

Learning a language, building muscle, reading a long novel, regular aerobic exercise, acquiring a skill, all of these things take a long time and they require systematic effort. You have to have a program. Spirituality is like that, too. Ramadan is a program. Religion is education; and learning is a sacred activity. All education is a drawing out of what lies within. Information is only the occasion of self-development. On certain days, you have to commit yourself to staying up at night. Tonight is the night of the 23rd of Ramadan, the night after the 22nd day. Perhaps it is the night of decree, or measure, or worth, or all of them. Perhaps it is a night of empowerment. A night to understand that power does not come with the ability to force one’s way, to make others conform to one’s will, but that real power comes from what the Mennonites call Gelassenheit, and what Muslims cal Islam, the autonomous decision to let God’s will be done.

21 Ramadan 1431

It has occurred to me that our prayer

has the form of the waves of the ocean.

The water stands still for a while

and then it gathers and spills.

We stand still to recite the Qur’an,

And spill over into a bow.

Then there is the most complete spilling over into sajdah.

The ocean’s fingers run up on the sand

as it splashes its head down again and again.

Again the water pulls back and sits,

and again the water fingers slide up the sand.

There are swells that do not break into sajdah,

that raise what is on the water up.

So, is this the prayer of the ocean?

Do I pray as well?

O God, let my prayer be an ocean,

an ocean to drown in You!

20 Ramadan 1431

From Ramadan

A memory, like a ghost,
passes through—
a pool of cool air!
In reply to being spooked,
a little shout
flutters out.
Who goes there?
Whose memory
do I descry?
What word was spoken,
half heard?
Whose blurred call: All or nothing at all?
Just a passing thought,
a cipher, naught,
in a night that looms
larger than a thousand nights,
a night of spirits’ flight.

19 Ramadan 1431

These days are called "ayyAm al-Darbah," the days of the hit, the blow (of the sword), against Imam `Ali (`a).
Everything is black. It was during the fajr prayer that the attack was carried out, before dawn.
Out of the darkness came a poisoned sword. They say the assailant paid a thousand dirhams for the sword and another thousand to have it impregnated with poison. There are many stories about the attack and its motivation. They come to us out of the darkness of history. The assassin was Ibn Muljam, a Kharajite. It is said that he plotted with others. There is also a story that a woman who hated Imam `Ali because some of her relatives had fallen in battle with him asked Ibn Muljam to kill Ali as a part of her bride price when he proposed to her. He was caught immediately after the attack. It is said that when he was brought to Ali, the Imam ordered the ropes with which he had been bound to be loosened. Ali advised his sons not to seek revenge, but to carry out the execution of the murderer if he, Ali, should die, swiftly and by a single stroke. He forbade the dismembering of the corpse of the murderer, saying that the Prophet had said that even a rabid dog should not be dismembered. This is in Nahj al-Balagha. Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi elaborates on the story to get to its more general point, imagining Imam `Ali (`a) to have said: Take care not to kill him with cruelty or torture, for I once heard your grandfather Muhammad (Sall Allahu alaihi wa Aalihi wa Sallim) say: "Do not kill even a rabid dog with torture and pain." It is also reported that when he was given milk, Ali ordered that half of it be offered to Ibn Muljam because of his hunger.
What is the point? We should not let gut reactions, inclinations, anger, and such take over. Even when faced with the most horrible crimes, and even if the punishments for those crimes are to be carried out, `Ali (`a) advises his son (in Letter 23 of Nahj al-Balagha):
If I forgive, it is a means of nearness (to Allah) for me, and for you a good deed. Therefore, do forgive! What? Would you not love God to forgive you?
Here is an example for us in Ramadan, as we try to learn to control ourselves so that we may direct our own actions toward what is best.
These are days and nights in which prayers are answered. Last night was the first of the three nights that might be considered Laylat ul-Qadr, the night of great worth, which might also be called the night of destiny, the night in which the future is measured out by divine decree. So, last night I prayed for family members, friends, colleagues, correspondents, as many as I could by name, and others generally, those suffering from flood, earthquake, and other natural disasters, and for all those made miserable by the human institutions, such as war and poverty, and other forms of corruption, that humanity has not been able to tame.

18 Ramadan 1431

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.

The author of these words may not have known that the name of the fountain is Kawthar,
or the significance of Kawthar as Zahra (`a), the spring from which flows the imamate.
Tonight will be the first night of qadr, the night of great worth. We will attend this night with empty cups,
seeking to fill them with blessings.
There are many poems, stories, historical events, and personal memories that seem to have no objective connection to the path to Allah,
yet they become meaningful when understood as signs on the way.
One of my favorites is Heinrich Heine's Lorelei. The poet tells of his sadness and how an old story runs through his mind
of a girl on the top of a cliff, singing and combing her golden hair, and the young man who crashes his boat on the rocks below the cliff
because of distraction. Heine might not have known that the beauty is a symbol for divinity, the Beloved,
and that the lover must drown in order to be united with the Beloved,
as the self must be annihilated in divinity to be perfected.
The night of qadr, laylat ul-qadr, is usually translated as "the night of power",
but I don't think this has the right connotations. Qadr means measure and worth, too.
This night is one of such great worth, one who's measure is so great, that in it the Qur'an could be revealed in a moment.
We come to this night with our empty cups with hands reaching out and crying for our cups to be filled.
O Saki!

Hey, here Winebringer, circulate, offer the cup this way;
For love at first seemed easy, now problems come to stay.

Finally breeze sent muskpod's scent from that forehead:
Its twist Of musky hair makes blood clot our hearts today.

Can wayfarers stay happy and secure in Beloved's house,
When suddenly the bell clangs to: "Lift your load! Away!"

With wine dye your prayer-mat if the Master commands;
This experienced traveller has understanding of the way.

The dark night and terrifying wave and fierce whirlpool:
Do those light of burden on shore know where we stay?

By acting upon my own desires I ruined my reputation:
Can the secret stay that way when crowds tell it all day?

Hafiz, if you desire the Divine Presence, do not be absent:
When you visit your Beloved: "Farewell" to the world say.

---

Translator:

Smith, P. (1986). Divan of Hafiz. Melbourne: New Humanity Books.

For translations of Hafiz by Paul Smith contact the author.

17 Ramadan 1431

Last night, I polished off two bottles

of pure water,

but my hands were scented,

with white ginger

from a lotion

that I picked up

years ago

at a hotel

in Malaysia.

It is hot, and water relieves the heat. One of the acts of worship recommended on various nights of Ramadan is ghusl. In practice under the circumstances, this means taking a shower and letting the water flow over one's head, right side and left side in sequence. Showers in Iran are tiled rooms. I like the water to be cool.

We fast, and Imam Reza (`a) tells us that by fasting we should feel the pain of those who are hungry and thirsty. As I dry off from the shower at night and sip more cold water, I recall how many people don't have access to clean water.

Here is a map of projected water scarcity for 2025.

Here is another.

According to UN statistics, about 700 million people in 43 countries are under "water stress" and suffer from water shortages. About one-sixth of the global population does not have access to clear drinking water, and one-third to basic sanitation.

The number of refugees from the world's dry regions, according to UN statistics, surpassed the number of displaced persons fleeing from armed conflict in 2009.

As we drink water in the nights and bathe ourselves, let's remember the 700 million under water stress in our prayers.

16 Ramadan 1431

There is a calmness that can come with fasting. It is Friday; I'm home today. It is quiet.
Yesterday was Imam Hasan's birthday. I pray that I can benefit from his guidance and in the stillness of the fast today, to let God draw me to Himself.

So, how was Imam Hasan (`a) drawn to his Lord? Through suffering.
Throughout his life he suffered treachery and disloyalty. He was attacked by people who accused him of having become an idolater, and he was poisoned by a wife who was bribed to do so by his enemy. Throughout everything that happened to him, Imam Hasan (`a) maintained patience and sought to increase justice while avoiding bloodshed. When he was dying he predicted that his funeral procession would be confronted by hostile forces, and he urged his brother, Husayn (`a) to let no blood be spilled. It transpired as he had predicted, and heeding Hasan's request, Husayn was able to prevent any bloodshed so that Hasan's body passed by the grave of his grandfather, Muhammad (s) and was buried in Baqi cemetery nest to his mother Fatimah (`a).

From Ramadan

1. Fatimah bint Muhammad

2. Hassan ibn Ali ibn Abu Talib

3. Zain Abideen ibn Hussain ibn Ali

4. Muhammad Baaqir ibn Zainul Abideen

5. Jafar as-Sadiq ibn Muhammad Baaqir

6. Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib

15 Ramadan 1431

Some of the most moving prayers are the munajat of Imam Sajjad (`a ). One of them was read on TV this morning while I shared a meal with my family prior to the day's fast. It is called "The Whispered Prayer of the Complainers" (Munajat al-Shakiyyin), and is superbly translated by Wm. Chittick (may God bless him abundantly). Chittick calls the munajat "whispered prayers", which gives something of the feeling of the intimacy assumed between the supplicant and God. In these prayers the supplicant holds nothing back and cries out (or whispers?) from the depths of his soul his needs and longings.

The Whispered Prayer of the Complainers

---

In the Name of God, the All-merciful,
the All-compassionate

1	My God, to Thee I complain of a soul commanding to evil,308 rushing to offenses, eager to disobey Thee, and exposing itself to Thy anger. It takes me on the roads of disasters, it makes me the easiest of perishers before Thee; many its pretexts, drawn out its expectations; when evil touches it, it is anxious, when good touches it, grudging;309 inclining to sport and diversion, full of heedlessness and inattention, it hurries me to misdeeds and makes me delay repentance.
2	My God, I complain to Thee of an enemy who misguides me and a satan who leads me astray. He has filled my breast with tempting thoughts, and his suggestions have encompassed my heart. He supports caprice against me, embellishes for me the love of this world, and separates me from obedience and proximity!
3	My God, to Thee I complain of a heart that is hard, turned this way and that by tempting thoughts, clothed in rust and the seal,310 and of an eye too indifferent to weep in fear of Thee and eagerly seeking that which gladdens it!
4	My God, there is no force and no strength except in Thy power, and no deliverance for me from the detested things of this world save through Thy preservation. So I ask Thee by Thy far-reaching wisdom and Thy penetrating will not to let me expose myself to other than Thy munificence and not to turn me into a target for trials! Be for me a helper against enemies, a coverer of shameful things and faults, a protector against afflictions, a preserver against acts of disobedience! By Thy clemency and mercy, O Most Merciful of the merciful!

14 Ramadan 1431

Fasting used to have a prominent place in Christian spirituality. In a book about the Desert Fathers, it is written:

An old man was asked, ‘‘How can I find God?’’ He said, ‘‘In

fasting, in watching, in labours, in devotion, and, above all,

in discernment. I tell you, many have injured their bodies

without discernment and have gone away from us having

achieved nothing. Our mouths smell bad through fasting, we

know the Scriptures by heart, we recite all the Psalms of David,

but we have not that which God seeks: charity and humility.’’

(Ward, B. (ed.), The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian

Monks. London/New York: Penguin Books, 2003., number 90)

Someone asked an old man, ‘‘What is humility?’’ He replied,

‘‘Humility is a great and divine work. The road leading to

humility is through bodily labours, and considering oneself a

sinner, inferior to all.’’ Then the brother said, ‘‘What does that

mean, ‘inferior to all’?’’ The old man said, ‘‘It is this: not paying

attention to others’ sins, but always to one’s own, praying to

God ceaselessly. (Ward, number 166)

Although Protestants are considered less ascetic than Catholics and Orthodox Christians, fasting played an important part in Pietist spirituality, which stemmed from the Lutheran tradition.

The fundamental framework for Wesleyan spirituality (expressed in a

tract called the Large Minutes) had five elements: prayer both

personal and collective, scriptural reading and meditation,

frequent Communion, fasting on Fridays, and spiritual conversation.

The Oxford or Tractarian Movement of Anglo-Catholicism also emphasized fasting.

Today, I personally know of a number of Mennonites who fast at least for a few days of Ramadan, and on other occasions, often in solidarity with those suffering from war and oppression.

May Allah let our fasting bring us humility, ceaseless remembrance of God, and compassion and solidarity with all those who suffer from the ravages of war, persecution, and other miseries.

13 Ramadan 1431

In the Risalat al-Huquq, Imam Sajjad (`a) writes about the right that our fasting has over us:

The right of fasting is that you know it is a veil that Allah has set up over your tongue, your hearing, your sight, your stomach, and your private parts to protect you from the Fire. If you abandon the fast, you will have torn God's protective covering away from yourself.

Coverings can be good or bad. The bad ones are barriers that prevent us from reaching our goals. The good ones are armor against Satan, barriers against the evils that surround us. The protective covering (hijab) can take many forms. It can be a retreat or seclusion. It can be a sanctuary. In the olden days criminals would seek sanctuary at shrines, and the police would leave them alone there until they came out. How is fasting supposed to protect us? How can it be a sanctuary? Is it because we keep our tongues, hearing, sight, stomach and privates from sin? But we are supposed to be doing that all the time, whether fasting or not. I think the fast is one in which we are to keep our tongues, hearing, etc., not only from what is prohibited, but from what is otherwise allowed. When we fast, we refrain from food, drink, and sex, which are otherwise allowed. But we should try to abstain even from what is otherwise allowed to see and hear and say, to try to make our fasting into a little hijab for us to crawl under and where we can concentrate on our relationship to Allah.

Sometimes our relationship to Allah suffers from the adversities we face, and sometimes, and even worse, in times of good fortune when one becomes neglectful. We should pray for all our brothers and sisters whose relationship with God has suffered because of adversity or fortune, and hope that during this month of fasting they may find sanctuary by which to restore themselves in communion with Him. We should try to cut off not only food during the hours of the fast, but to spend some hours cut off from everything but God. Then maybe we can gain some understanding of the negative coverings that prevent us from enjoying divine love through adversity and fortune.

12 Ramadan 1431

Fasting can be hypocritical. We can fast to show ourselves how pious we are. We can brag of how much weight we have lost in just twelve days. We can occupy ourselves with the outer rules of fasting but forget about what we are fasting for.

To make a show of prayer and fasting are condemned by Jesus (‘a) in the gospels. Jewish scholars also have made the point that fasting is worthless if it does not awaken one to repentance. Jews used to put ashes on their heads when they began to fast, and the eldest among them would admonish them: “Brethren, it is not written of the men of Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) that God saw their sack cloth and their fasting, but that ‘God saw their deeds, that they turned away from their evil ways.’”

All of the laws of the Torah, civil and penal as well as ritual, serve no other purpose than to clarify and facilitate our response to God. But they do so not by vanishing nor by subjuming or displacing that response but by sustaining and giving it its concrete sense and instantiated application.

Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah (of Maimonides) concerns sound opinions, the beliefs that convey the essential elements of the true understanding that philosophers pursue in regard to God and nature and our relations toward both. Regulations regarding fasts and repentance fall under this heading, since moral reformation and spiritual purgation are prerequisites of theological insight and of the alchemy that transmutes sound opinions into critically testable philosophical ideas.

-Lenn E. Goodman, God of Abraham, p. 162.

)وَاتَّقُوا اللٌّهَ وَيُعَلِّمُكُمُ اللٌّهُ وَاللٌّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ (

“Be God-wary and God shall teach you, and God has knowledge of all things.”[89]

11 Ramadan 1431

From Ramadan

Robert Brandom has a famous book: Making It Explicit, in which he develops some Hegelian themes in application to some problems that arise in analytic philosophy. The name of the book shows its indebtedness to Hegel, because Hegel's philosophy is all about the way in which Spirit makes itself manifest. Hegel was influenced by Jakob Boehme, a Lutheran mystic. Maybe that had something to do with his idea of the way that Spirit makes itself explicit. I think this is an idea that crosses denominational lines. It is a theme that can be found in Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi, for example. He writes:

What is this testimony? To make the hidden manifest, whether through words, deeds, or something else. For the goal is to make manifest the hidden secret of your substance: Its attribute will remain, but these accidents will pass.... This prayer, spiritual warfare, and fasting do not remain: The spirit remains with a good name. (Mathnavi V 246-247, cited in Chittick's The Sufi Path of Love, p. 89.)

10 Ramadan 1431

So far, I've been thinking of the fast as a way to break habits and attain freedom or to take control of our lives. But as we saw in the discussion of gratitude, this is only a preliminary. The next step is to decide who we want to become. That is too overwhelming. So, we can decide in what respect we want to be a better person, as a spouse, as a parent, as a teacher, as a citizen, and all of these, at the same time, as a servant of God. The Holy Prophet (s) is reported to have said:

رُبَّ صَائِمٍ حَظُّهُ مِنْ صِيَامِهِ الْجُوْعُ وَالْعَطَشُ، وَرُبَّ قَائِمٍ حَظُّهُ مِنْ قِيَامِهِ السَّهَرُ.

“How often is the share of one who fasts, [nothing save] hunger and thirst, and how often is the share of one who stands in prayer [nothing but mere] vigil.[75]”In order to make it more than this, we have to try to improve ourselves. I can improve myself by getting rid of some faults, or lessening them; but I can also improve by acquiring new habits, and hoping to make them into virtues. According to Imam Khomeini:شده‏ايد، اگر به حق تعالى معرفت پيدا نكرديد يا معرفت شما زيادتر نشد، بدانيد در ضيافة اللّه درست وارد نشديد و حق ضيافت را به جا نياورديد...

“In this noble month, in which you have been invited to the divine banquet, if you do not gain insight (ma’rifah) about God the Almighty nor insight into yourself, it means that you have not properly participated in the feast of Allāh and failed to observe the etiquette of the feast...[86]”

Therefore our aspirations should be high, and we should struggle to attain the position which would enable us enter the Divine Feast. In the supplication of Abū Hamzah al-Thumāli, which Imām al-Sajjād (‘a) taught to his noble companion, we are taught to pray in the following way:


...وَلَدَيْكَ أَرْجُوْ ضِيَافَتِي...

“…And I aspire to be a guest near You…”[87]

9 Ramadan 1431

On Thursday afternoon we went to Khaveh to visit a friend. We walked a bit around the village. I was feeling somewhat faint and leaned on my son, Ali. When we got back to my friend’s house, he told me to sit down while he poured cool water over my feet and into a plastic tub. I remembered the narration about Jesus (‘a) washing the feet of his disciples to teach them humility.

Jesus the son of Mary ('a) said, “O assembly of Apostles! I have a request of you. Fulfill it for me.” They said, “Your request is fulfilled, O Spirit of Allah!” Then he stood up and washed their feet. They said, “It would have been more proper for us to have done this, O Spirit of Allah!” Then he said, “Verily, it is more fitting for one with knowledge to serve the people. Indeed, I humbled myself only so that you may humble yourselves among the people after me, even as I have humbled myself among you.” Then Jesus ('a) said, “Wisdom is developed by humility, not by pride, and likewise plants only grow in soft soil, not in stone.”

(Kàfí, 1, 37, 6)

Humility is a difficult virtue. It was not considered a virtue at all by the Greeks. Farabi used the Aristotelian idea of virtue as a mean between extremes, and introduced humility as standing between arrogance and baseness, while Ibn Sina considered humility a part of wisdom that restrains the wise from arrogance. Ghazali considers it a principle virtue of those who possess taqwā.

On Friday morning we returned to Qom, and on Friday night I attended a sermon by Ayatullah Misbah Yazdi. He spoke about gratitude. Gratitude is a natural reaction that arises within one when one receives aid, especially when the aid is badly needed. [Aristotle recognizes gratitude, but only as what is due to one who has given someone something. He does not consider it as a virtue.] Religion teaches us gratitude to God, although it is a natural reaction to the divine blessings we enjoy. Some of the mutakallimin even argued for the existence of God on the basis of this natural appreciation of the good things of life. [I have also argued that belief in God is rational because it is reasonable to thank something for the bounties we enjoy, and nothing could be an appropriate object for such thanks except Allah.] Gratitude has many levels. One of the lowest levels is merely verbal. One approaches one's benefactor humbly and says "thank you". In saying "thank you" one acknowledges a debt. How can the debt be paid? One expresses readiness to serve the benefactor. [In English, we say, "much obliged", and "what can I ever do to repay you?"] If someone gives you a book, you might verbally express gratitude, but if you then throw the book in the rubbish or let children destroy it, you are ungrateful. The book should be used for study as the benefactor intended. [God has given us a book. In this blessed month the Glorious Qur'an was revealed. How can we show our gratitude?]