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.
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