This is my final post on fasting. It’s been tough to write this series not only because of the nature of the topic, mainly the difficulty of honest self-reflection, but also because of the difficulty in writing in ‘real time’. Most of my posts are about subject matters that I’ve had a long time to dwell on, but in writing about my fasting experience I’ve had to write and reflect in immediacy, something I’ve discovered is not easy to do. On top of those factors, it’s been a busy few weeks of family gatherings/reunions.
With all that being said, this past week of fasting went relatively well, I tried to not only fast at least 16 hours daily but also not to eat more than two meals a day. I was pretty exhausted after the family reunion so it was relatively easy to eat by 6 pm at the latest and go to sleep a few hours later. I also tried to have heavy meals so I’d stayed full. In one of Rabia Al Adawi’s exchanges with Hasan Al Basri (1), he asks her why animals flock to her but run from him and she responds by saying it is because he eats their flesh (paraphrasing). It’s clear that the saints understood the relationship between what we eat, how much we eat and our ‘Hal’ (state). And it’s something I feel is desperately missing in my own life. I don’t often think about the relationship between my food and my state, it rarely occurs to me that I should but if all the saints are concerned about this aspect of one’s life why should we dismiss it?
I remember someone once asked Sheikh Nuh why he talked about health so much, and he made his case by stating the numerous hadith in which the prophet, peace be upon him, talks about health and advises us on how to eat. But what struck me more than his answer was the question, why have we dissevered the relationship between the body and the spirit to the point that we find it odd for a sheikh to discuss health? Some of the most (apparently) righteous among us have guts, eat poorly and have food-related health issues. It’s not to say this makes them (or us) bad Muslims, but rather that the importance of health has become a serious blind spot in our community. InshaAllah I hope to continue on this (immensely difficult) weight loss/health/fasting journey and I hope to one day write about my success with this path. Even if you don’t want to lose weight fasting can still be an immensely powerful tool for our minds, bodies, and spirits.
Thanks for reading this series,
Take care.
1. Doorkeeper of the Heart: Versions of Rabia by Charles Upton
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