[Music]
in the name of Allah the beneficent the
merciful we thank Allah subhana tala for
the blessing of the month of Ramadan and
we send peace and blessings upon our
beloved Prophet Muhammad IB Abdullah
upon his family his companions and all
those who call to his way to the day of
judgment and we begin with the greeting
words of the
righteous alhamdulillah all Praises are
due to Allah the month of Ramadan is
moving along and Muslims are moving with
it alhamdulillah we are moving through
the first part of the month and we are
going toward the middle of the month and
by the mercy of Allah subhana tala
people have been able to fast all
throughout the Planet but we need to
begin to look deeper into the meanings
and the virtues in this
month that is the beauty of Islam that
it gives us not only a surface meaning
but there are deeper levels deeper
dimensions of meaning and understanding
that the Believers can benefit from the
great of Islam have identified at least
three dimensions of the fasting itself
and we'd like to look at these
Dimensions to begin to try to understand
how we can raise the level of our
fasting how we can benefit from the
deeper lessons that comes from the fast
and from the deeper blessings of Allah
subhana wa tala that comes to the
Believers the first level of fasting
that the Great have identified or the
First Dimension we can call S
and that is the fast of the masses of
the people that is the basic fast where
the Muslim believer male or female is
struggling with the basic functions of
the body and so the fast itself becomes
a physical fast the individual then uh
struggles with the food with the drink
they think about the time of IFA as
though it is uh the day of judgment they
look towards uh their watches constantly
and so it is a a basic fast it is a
general fast the prophet sallallah Ali
wasallam who did not speak from himself
who gave guidance from Allah subhana wa
tala has given us uh a basic
understanding of this Dimension and
encouraged his followers to rise out of
the dimension to a higher level in a
tradition of the Prophet Sall wasallam
he has informed
us this Hadith reported in Ma and the
mus of IM Ahmed and alakim as authentic
Hadith the prophet peace be upon him has
informed us there are many who fast but
get nothing out of their fast but hunger
and there are many who stand up in
prayer and gain nothing from their
prayers except
sleeplessness so the prophet sallam was
pointing us towards something deeper
than the struggle that goes on to fight
our hunger and to fight our thirst many
Muslims today look upon the fast as a
burden they don't recognize the
blessings of Allah subhana tala they
don't recognize that this fast is
actually lighting our load lightening
our load it is not putting difficulty
upon us it is actually easing us
you Allah wants for you
ease Allah does not want difficulty this
is what the Quran is telling us and so I
can recall uh entering a store in North
America and Muslims had owned that store
and the young people in the family were
working in the the store we were going
toward uh the time of Salat it was a hot
day and alhamdulillah we were fasting in
a strong way but somehow those young
people did not understand the beauty of
feeling hunger the Beauty and the
importance of feeling thirst and so they
sat around and oh my God it's time uh
when is the fasting going to end and
they looked upon it as though it was the
end of their life this is s aw this is a
level of a fast it is an animal struggle
it is a level where the person is only
struggling against their their
desires in many Muslim
countries Muslim men in
particular want their meals they want
their fure they want their breakfast
they want their lunch on time they want
their dinner on time and when Assa comes
and a and a man is hungry in many
countries we say a Hungry Man is an
angry man and so many Muslims not
understanding the beauty of Al of hunger
what hunger does to the human being that
hunger actually reminds you all of Allah
subh tala get caught up in this feeling
and the dizziness and the tiredness
actually makes them become angry this is
a
misunderstanding and this is
the and we need to be able able to raise
our level out of this this level of
fast we studied this and when you look
at North American society and European
society and now in the global world
where the upper class or people with the
ability H uh to provide food for
themselves constantly they look at food
as a way of life and in some cases and
it may be hard to believe but in some
parts of the world a person eats seven
meals per day now how could we say seven
meals he starts off eating his
breakfast from breakfast he goes to work
and in North America and Europe
especially uh he takes a coffee break
and and the amount of food that he eats
in the coffee break is equivalent to a
meal in many of the third world
countries that's number
two then lunch time comes he takes his
lunch number three when he returns home
from work or when the children return
from school the first place they go to
is the refrigerator so they take a snack
and in many countries the size of That
Snack is the size of a meal for poor
people in other parts of the world
number four then dinner time comes he
eats his dinner after dinner he
stretches himself and after watching
television for a few hours he he now
brings out food to watch television with
and the size of the food the amount of
nourishment taken in watching television
in some countries constitute a whole
meal that's number six and some people
get up in the middle of the night they
walk in their sleep and they eat food
seven potential meals for a day now
imagine a person who takes seven meals
in a day
and Imagine The Habit that they have to
deal with now and so it is a struggle
for them they don't realize that what
they have done to their body is that
they are constantly feeding their
desires they are constantly working on a
lower level an animal struggles within
its existence for food when we look at
the life of a predator the Predator is
an animal that kills for his prey and so
you will see a predator get up in the
morning the Predator doesn't care about
the climate they're not looking at the
stock market the Predator doesn't care
about uh how many uh Vehicles how many
cars there are in the highway they don't
care what the weather is in New York or
in London the Predator is looking for an
animal to kill so its movements is based
upon
food its whole LIF style is based upon
gaining food it stalks its prey even how
it fashion its body the place where it
sleeps how it moves around in its
environment is all based upon eating
food so the Predator is a virtual
killing
machine its life is based upon eating
food that is s aam when the person bases
their life on eating their food when
they think about their coffee break they
think about their lunch they plan ahead
for the food that's at home they call
home for their dinner they prepare their
TV snacks and they get up unconsciously
and walk to the refrigerator and eat
food in the middle of the night they
have reached the level of a
predator if we look at the insects the
insects also will build their home based
upon the attaining of food the spider
builds its uh its home the ankabut and
it is a very uh simple home but the home
is based upon insects falling into it
and therefore the spider is able to eat
so the very home of the spider is based
upon eating food sustaining its life
through fulfilling its
desires animals will also migrate for
water they will move from one section of
the country to another section based
upon the change in the climate or based
upon the availability of Lake water or
river water so their life is based upon
the movements towards drinking because
through that drink they are able to
sustain themselves
sexuality the animal level the sexuality
becomes in many cases the the the
essence of the life of the individual
the Drone
the males that are living within the
Beehive or the ant nest their life is
based upon their SE sexuality their main
job in the nest is to get the Queen
pregnant so therefore sexuality is their
mission in life people
today have actually based their lives
upon their sexuality and we see within
this dun in this world temptation
where people will literally move to a
city based on the possibility of being
involved in a sexual act they will
actually hire a woman for a job based
upon her body shape they will judge the
character of an individual based upon
the amount of weight that they have in
their body or whether they can wear
certain tight jeans or sight tight
clothing it all goes back to sexuality
that is an animal function that is the
awam that is where the the the level of
the struggle is in the very basic nature
of the individual himself s is the basis
it is the animal level the struggle for
food the struggle for drinking water the
struggle for sustaining human life
through sexuality but we need to take it
to a higher stage the prophet Sall
wasallam is saying there are many people
who f fast and get nothing from this
fast but je there is nothing but hunger
what was he saying to us he was saying
there's a higher level than the hunger
he said there are many people who stand
in the night and they make their prayers
but all they get is sleeplessness there
is something more than just standing for
their prayer it's the connection with
Allah subhana wa tala so we need to seek
this in the month of Ramadan we need to
take it to another stage we need to look
beyond the physical struggle yes it is
the basis of our Islam but if we can
look above it then we'll find that we
turn off the systems in our body and we
don't feel as hungry as before we don't
feel as thirsty as before we don't feel
the need for sexuality and we raise to
the angel of Mala may Allah bless us to
be Angels or higher than the level of
Angels in this month of Ramadan I leave
you with this thought was
all