The virtues of fasting The First Sermon In The Name of Allah, the Compassionate, The Merciful.

His Eminence, Sayyed Ali Fadlullah, delivered the two Friday prayer sermons at the Imamain Al-Hassanain Mosque, Ramadan 2, 1444/ March 24, 2023. Several prominent religious scholars, dignitaries and hundreds of believers attended the Jumu’a prayer. Following is an edited text of the sermons.

Allah, The Most Exalted, says in His Glorious Book: O you who have believed, decreed upon you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before you that you may become righteous –

[Fasting for] a limited number of days. So whoever among you is ill or on a journey [during them] – then an equal number of days [are to be made up]. And upon those who are able [to fast, but with hardship] – a ransom [as substitute] of feeding a poor person [each day]. And whoever volunteers excess – it is better for him. But to fast is best for you, if you only knew. Allah, the Most Exalted, speaks the Truth.

We are very grateful to Allah for having made us reach the month of Ramadan to attain its blessings and awards and perform its rites…

Perhaps the most significant act of worship associated with this month is the duty of fasting that Allah commanded us to perform and withstand its burden. He clarified its significance when He pointed out in the Ayat we recited that it was ordained in all the previous heavenly messages and that it is the means to reach the status of piety (righteousness ) that Allah promised those who do attain it with the highest of ranks and the biggest of awards, when He said:  And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a garden as wide as the heavens and earth, prepared for the righteous.

The Hadiths too talked about the significance of fasting. The Messenger (p.) asserted that Allah said: every good deed of Adam’s son is for him except fasting; it is for Me. and I shall reward (the fasting person) for it. He also said: Sleep for he/she who fasts is worship, their silence is Tasbih, their supplication is granted and their deeds are multiplied…

But why is all this emphasis on fasting and the awards the fasters receive? Is it only because they abstain from eating drinking and other fast-breaking acts; or are there certain goals and aims that God wishes to be achieved?

 Fasting is not, of course, merely what we are used to of abstaining from food and drink… Several other goals are meant to be achieved through fasting. This is what the meaning of several Hadiths such as: “There are people who fast and get nothing from their fast except hunger and thirst.

In our sermon today, we are going to touch on one of these important aims. It is the goal that Imam As-Sadiq mentioned in the following Hadith: God made fasting obligatory so that the rich and the poor are made equal. If there were no fasting, the rich would never experience the feeling of hunger that would make them have mercy on the poor, for whenever the rich desire something they are able to acquire it. Thus, God desired to place His servants on the same level, and that the rich experience hunger and pain so that they have compassion for the weak and have mercy on the hungry…

This Hadith clearly states that this rite aims to awaken the feelings of the rich with the hunger and suffering of the poor, for their wealth might make them oblivious of these sufferings and they would tend to think that all people are as satisfied as they are. Here we recall what Queen Marie Antoinette said when she found out that the people have revolted because they cannot find bread to eat, suggesting that they should eat biscuits instead…

  In this context, the rich are not only those who have huge wealth but also those whose money exceeds their needs. Thus, we deduce that there is a correlation between the duty of fasting and the call of Islam to the rich to shoulder their responsibility towards the poor and the needy. This responsibility is further emphasized by the Ayat we recited which states that those who cannot fast out of sickness or inability… should feed a poor person. This is also evident by the duty that Allah ordained to be performed at the end of the month of Ramadan to complete their fast and realize one of its most important goals, which is Zakat Al-Fitra, and asserted that the fast would not be completed if it is not performed.

That is why we find that the Messenger spoke in great length in his Ramadan speech about making this month a month in which the rich help the poor and the needy, adding that the one who gives food to a believer to break his fast, is given the reward of freeing a slave and his past sins will be forgiven.

Some people listening to the sermon said, “O Prophet of Allah, not all of us are able to invite those who are fasting”

 

The Prophet(p.) said, “You could avoid hellfire with even a piece of date or a drink of water… “

Dear loved ones: we are in dire need to enhance the feeling of responsibility towards those who suffer and those poor and needy people who need our help.  We ought to be liberated of the selfishness that makes us think about ourselves only, even at the expense of others, becoming greedy and monopolizing …to face the difficult economic conditions we live in, where the rich become richer and the poor become poorer…  Scarce financial resources are not an excuse before God for not helping the poor and needy.

We should consider, in this blessed month, that helping the poor and the needy is the criterion of our success in shouldering the responsibilities of this month. To accept our deeds, it is not enough in God’s view to perform the duties of Fasting, praying and reciting the Quran… God will also ask us about what we did to help His servants…

 Let us make this month, a month in which, as God wished and as His Messenger and the Imams worked for, the poor, the orphans and the disabled attain all their needs…

The Second Sermon

 

Worshippers of Allah, The Most Exalted, I advise you and myself, to be pious as piety is the goal and aim of this month, without which we will not be considered to have fasted.

Piety means to be where God wants us to be and keep away from where He does not, which means that we should not do any act or say any word before we make sure that it pleases Him.

We are in dire need of piety that acts as a security valve in both worlds and enables us to become more aware, responsible and capable of facing challenges…

 

We begin with the horrible collapse of the Lira we witnessed last week when the dollar exceeded 140 thousand Lebanese pounds, which threatened the ability of the civil service agencies to continue and had an enormous impact on the lives of the Lebanese and their purchasing power. The measures taken by the Central Bank were of a minimal and temporary effect as the dollar will soon resume its rise again.

Any effective solutions will not take place unless a political solution is reached and a reform and economic revival plan is devised…

We had hoped that these catastrophic conditions would have driven the government officials to hasten to implement radical solutions, or at least to start executing them, but unfortunately, those in power continue to act indifferently, as if what is happening does not concern them and the people could adapt to it.

 The initiatives that are taking place continue to be nominal and lack the needed seriousness, such as the parliamentary meeting held to hold the government and the Central Bank into account, which did not come out with any initiative that would contribute to stopping this devastating collapse. However, this downward path will not be reversed except by reaching a formula that secures the election of a new president who is capable of uniting all Lebanese as a  prelude to forming an effective government that will implement solution and initiate reform…

Moreover,  the political parties are capable of doing so, provided as we said before, they put aside their individual calculations and partisan interests, replacing them with the country and citizens’ interests.  However, such prospects do not seem imminent and the country seems to be waiting for external changes, which is also not near, either because of the division of the foreign powers or because Lebanon is not one of their priorities…

Thus, we say to all the Lebanese that they should voice their protest, not by demonstrating or blocking roads since they lead to confusion and disruption of the people’s lives, but by well-planned and carefully studied and effective measures that will make those in power feel that you are dissatisfied with them and that they have to execute what they had promised in their speeches and agendas. They should not blame one another or the external forces to evade shouldering their responsibilities.

 Nonetheless, until the desired solutions emerge, which we are afraid is not near, we repeat, yet again, our call to the Lebanese to continue their solidarity and cooperation to overcome these difficult times, especially in this blessed month of giving…

 On another level, the Israeli repeated aggressions against Syria that increase its suffering, demands a supporting Arab and Muslim stand to prevent the Zionist enemy from singling out Syria.  In this respect, we would like to stress the importance of opening up to this country and restoring relations with it.

  In Palestine that faces a  new challenge to the extent of denying the existence of a Palestinian nation and the determination to change the demographic status of the West Bank as well as turning it into a group of several isolated islands by insisting on building new settlements including the ones that were frozen.

 As we salute the Palestinian nation’s resistance to the occupation and its continuous confrontation with the expanding settlement aggressions, we welcome all the condemnations of certain countries to this new settlement project. And we would like to point out that this is insufficient if it is not accompanied by a firm stance against this occupation, as well as deterring sanctions.