Fasting is a complete golden recipe for the fitness and health of the body

The glorious Quran, which captures and illuminates all the darkness even in the most remote periods of time, started to illuminate the earth in Ramadan as the greatest miracle of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Although the Prophet was in the early years of his prophethood, he felt this greatest event of the universe and performed fasting two days a week though it was not fard. The Prophet (pbuh) always kept Mondays and Thursdays alive in his heart, the former as the day when the Quran started to be sent down and the latter as the day when he was allowed to proclaim and convey the Quran to all people; he fasted on those days

For, fasting was the art of abandoning the world and pleasures for the sake of Allah. The pleasure of the feast opened for the hearts from the spiritual world could only be experienced in the moments of fasting when the souls surrendered and prostrated.

The Prophet (pbuh) would destroy the pains of the unbelievable torments and troubled days in this eternal secret of fasting. In those years, he told only his very close relatives to fast on Monday and Thursday. Finally, the peaceful days of Madinah started. Unfortunately, the evil people did not allow the Prophet (pbuh) to have peace; they wanted to cast shadows on the flowers of belief that blossomed in the hearts. Finally, the divine answer came to the subtle and wise prayers of the Prophet (pbuh):

"Perform fasting!"

The verses of fasting started to be sent down. Allah granted the miracle of Badr in the first month of Ramadan with fasting in order to show the eternal miracle of wisdom given to the Islamic world and hence to humans. All the polytheists attacked the believers who were about to complete the first half of their first fasting. However, they all fell under the feet of a handful of Islamic mujahids, whose hearts were purified with the secret of fasting and were filled with spirituality.

Almighty Lord meant the following by burning the victory torch of Badr, which represented the salvation and establishment of Islam in a sense:

"Burn the veil of the soul covering the hearts with the surrendering fire of fasting so that I will grant you spiritual conquests." The Messenger of Allah, who was the loftiest being in the realms, experienced the pleasure of the month of Ramadan so deeply that he did not waste even one second of the great blessed month.

Where did the subtle, spiritual secret of fasting come from?

It states the parallelism of watching the wisdom "I do not fit into the earth, heavens and the Throne but I fit into the heart of a pure believer" with the condition of "purification". This purification depends on the removal of two thick curtains in front of the window of the heart. One of them is eating-drinking and the other is sexual feelings. What matters is not to break off from these feelings completely but to stop them for a certain period of time for the sake of Allah. This is the safest way to obtain the secret codes of the "safe of the soul", which we try to open throughout life but cannot open.

The most important goal of fasting is to destroy all of the traps that the soul sets up in order to deprive us of the spiritual world. Besides, the decrees brought by the shari’ah related to the deeds of the fasting person clearly indicate what we say.

It is easily noticed even by those who fast for the first time that fasting is a secret originating from "spirituality". Since a fasting person takes a little food and energy, his feelings are expected to weaken but on the contrary they become stronger. He starts to be able to smell better. His ears and eyes become more delicate and bright compared to the time when he is full because man does not take orders from the cells of the brain; he is taken under the protection of the spirit. In the course of time, the secret of this loftiness and the intuitions coming from spirituality deepens. A believer gets rid of the ugliness of the ambitions of world that prick him like a thorn in his heart and spirit on the way that leads him to Allah. He notices that he is approaching spirituality with very fast steps as he performs fasting though he suffered in every step he took before. After a while, he senses that not eating for Allah during the day and living for Allah in the evening is a different pleasure. Besides, the secret of slavery is not to eat, drink and pursue ambition, but to do everything one does for Allah. In addition, he senses, in the secret of Ramadan, how much he will please Allah if he earns money in order to do charity and help the homeless. From this point of view, a magnificent secret of Islam, which is not present in any other religion, is revealed: Life must be maintained as a duty given by Allah. The best deed of worship in which it can be perceived is fasting.

This beautiful worship has a secret that gives life to four basic elements of us separately.

l- The pleasure of life fasting gives to the spirit:

When our spirit comes from the realm of spirits and is imprisoned in the body, it suffers from the grief of the soul wriggling in worldly troubles. It finds it very hard to pursue the world, which is no different from a toy that is bound to break, instead of pursuing the real beauties he knows very well. The pleasure of eating-drinking abandoned due to fasting suddenly makes man attain the same characteristic as angels; and the spirit suddenly ascends, virtually being freed from homesickness. He becomes happy as if he lives in his own homeland.

2- The pleasure fasting gives to the heart:
The heart, which longs to breathe with divine love, cannot attain the secret of "hayy (the living)" due to writhing under the dirty veil of the soul. Therefore, all of its lights will eventually go out and disappear in a dark well. When fasting begins, the heart begins to watch the divine beauties behind the veil of the soul, which is opened out, and attains the best of pleasures by reviving gradually.

3- The blessings that fasting gives to the soul:

Despite all its ambitions and astonishment, the one that complains most about this characteristic is the soul itself. No matter how crazily it acts, it cannot be happy because the ambition it uses to be happy is actually the main reason for its unhappiness. The soul understands this fact thanks to the bridle of fasting placed on it in Ramadan and gradually runs toward true happiness knowing that unhappiness stems from itself.

4- The blessings that fasting gives to the body:

Fasting is a complete golden recipe for the fitness and health of the body. We can summarize it as follows:  

a- Since fasting reduces the liquid dam in front of the heart by not drinking water, it provides absolute rest to the heart.

b- Fasting is the best tranquilizer for the circulatory system especially because it definitely lowers diastolic pressure.

c- It completely eliminates the nutrient residues in the blood, especially in the last hours of fasting, mainly the fat residues (lipid cholesterol).

d- Fasting provides a unique opportunity for the revision of the digestive system cells that work continuously throughout life. Thus, several disorders in the stomach and intestine are eliminated during Ramadan.

e- Digestive glands start to work more efficiently after a wonderful holiday lasting a month.

f- Due to the limitation of sexual functions, a harmonious hormone balance is obtained by making the pituitary gland rest.

g- Fasting facilitates the biosynthesis of cells since it provides a relative decrease in intracellular water.

h- Cell stimulating effect of fasting is accepted by all western scientists whether they are believers or not. What is more, intermittent fasting is applied to remove the toxins that accumulate in the body in cases of chronic cancer.

ı- The biggest benefit of fasting is to the liver cell itself. In fact, as Ramadan approaches, liver cells spiritually keep asking one another, "When is Ramadan?". These cells, which operate continuously throughout life and have many different biological functions, have a chance to rest only in Ramadan. The human beings of our age have now understood the importance of the liver and walk around with liver analysis papers. On the other hand, they ignore the fact that liver cells say, "do not walk around in vain; perform fasting".

God Almighty has bestowed the best blessing on the ummah of Muhammad (pbuh) in the formula of worship. We hope there will be no one who will not benefit from the blessing of fasting in this country as soon as possible and our Lord will grant a sample of Badr victory, which He bestowed on those who performed the first Ramadan fasting, to His servants in this age. I celebrate your Ramadan, wishing you to spend it in a way that fits the ummah of Muhammad (pbuh).

Onc. Dr. Halûk Nurbâki