How should the attitudes of those who fast and who do not fast towards one another be?
Submitted by on Wed, 30/06/2010 - 19:32
Dear Brother / Sister,
Muslims are obliged to be more careful in this century. As Muslims are widely considered to be supporters of violence, their first duty in Islam is to advice people the right with a gentle language. We should know that good communication does not include physical oppression over those whom we address and using words which could insult them. Victory against civilized people is won through persuasion not by force. So, we ourselves should first learn the importance of fasting and after that with a gentle use of language, we should tell it to others.
Those who do not fast might be having problems in belief – if they do not have other valid excuses. We should tell such people about the truth of belief. We cannot expect those who do not believe to commit religious deeds.
As a human being, the duty of those who do not fast in the month of Ramadan is not to obviously reveal that they are not fasting. There are some annotations of hadiths which show that a Jewish person won his/her chance –by saving his/her belief – to enter Paradise because of his/her respect toward a Muslim who fasted.
As people who fast, we should keep it in mind that we will not be serving Islam by being angry with, bearing enmity against and fighting those who do not fast. To consider one’s behaviour to be unpleasant and to dislike it on behalf of God is different than to be angry with such people.
As pointed out above, good deeds which consist of fulfilling Allah’s command and keeping away from His prohibitions is the outcome of a strong belief. Fasting or other ways of worshipping or having good morals can only be achievable by believing in the truthfulness of Islam in order to obey the universal principles of Islam. For this reason, if we desire to raise perfect people in every aspect, we must add good values to their belief with all efforts we can give.
Today’s wretched situation of Islam is beacuse of the wretchedness in belief. This is the purpose of the conveying the message of Islam that is the most important thing in Islam : teaching and learning. The basic of the knowledge is the principles of belief. Knowing the priorty of importance, measuring our speech with the scale of wisdom, analysing the character of those whom we address with our perception, not touching their sore spots, agreeing with them in common subjects which they like, complimenting them and doing all for the sake of God is of utmost importance in this issue.
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