(July 20, 2012 at 1:39 am)Welsh cake Wrote: Does a single Muslim ever ask themselves "What is the point in all this?"
Many do, and many are satisfied believing God has the best wisdom. But there is a often quoted that God is the reward of fasting.
I'm not familiar with Sunni sources, but here is a Shia hadith about fasting:
The Holy Prophet said, 'Fasting is a protection from the calamities of this world, and a veil from punishment of the next.' When you fast, intend thereby to restrain yourself from fleshly appetites and to cut off those worldly desires arising from the ideas of Satan and his kind. Put yourself in the position of a sick person who desires neither food nor drink; expect recovery at any moment from the sickness of wrong actions. Purify your inner being of every lie, turbidity, heedlessness and darkness, which might cut you off from the meaning of being sincere for the sake of Allah.
Somebody said to one of the Companions, 'You are already weak; fasting will weaken you further.' 'I am preparing that fast for the evil of a long day,' he said. 'Patience in obeying Allah is easier than patience in His punishment.' And the Messenger of Allah once quoted Allah's words, 'Fasting is done for Me, and I am its reward.'
Fasting kills the desire of the self and the appetite of greed, and from it comes purity of the heart, purification of the limbs, cultivation of the inner and the outer being, thankfulness for blessings, charity to the poor, increase of humble supplication, humility, weeping and most of the ways of seeking refuge in Allah; and it is the reason for the breaking of aspiration, the lightening of evil things, and the redoubling of good deeds. It contains benefits which cannot be counted. It is enough that we mention some of them to the person who understands and is given success in making use of fasting, if Allah wills.
My family is obeying the teachings of Islam, they are not deciding to fast Ramadan, like they decide a vacation. This is what I meant by decide.
Quote:I'm holding out the hope there are some who realise its silly and insulting to those who are genuinely starving to death in the world.
There is in fact hadiths that state that they remember poor people genuinely starving as one of the reasons. But even if this was not the case, I don't see how it's insulting to the poor or silly.
Quote:I'm starting to think you're a troll mystic. You're giving me weird vibes and coming off as most insincere right now.
You can think what you want, but the message there was simple, it's not Muslims making up their religion, they are following Prophet Mohammad.
If you are upset at a teaching of Islam, they blame shouldn't be on Muslims whom didn't decide that as a feature of their religion.
They are simply following the Prophet. They believe in the Prophet sure, just like Christians believe in the Bible, just like Hindus believe in their religion. None of them decided what their religion is. So why be upset with them.
If you haven't noticed, humans tend to follow leaders, and these leaders tend to follow leaders, and so on and so forth, till a foundation is there, from a long time ago. Mohammad is a foundation. But this is the human condition.
It's not something unique to Muslims.
Native Americans followed their tribal leaders whom followed leaders whom followed leaders.
Aren't you going to upset at most of humanity now? Be angry at most of humanity?
