Not to over-indulge in lawful food at the time of breaking Fast, to the point of stuffing one's belly ... There is no receptacle more odious to God, than a belly stuffed full with lawful food ... Of what use is the Fast as a means of conquering God's enemy and abating appetite, if at the time of breaking it one not only makes up for all one has missed during the daytime, but perhaps also indulges in a variety of extra foods ??? ... It has even become the custom to stock up for Ramadan with all kinds of foodstuffs, so that more is consumed during that time than in the course of several other months put together ... It is well known that the object of Fasting is to experience hunger and to check desire, in order to reinforce the soul in piety ... If the stomach is starved from early morning till evening, so that its appetite is aroused and its craving intensified, and its taste for pleasure is increased and its force exaggerated ... Passions are activated which would have lain dormant under normal conditions ...
The spirit and secret nature of Fasting is to weaken the forces which are Satan's means of leading us back to evil ... It is therefore essential to cut down one's intake to what one would consume on a normal night, when not Fasting ... No benefit is derived from the Fast if one consumes as much as one would usually take during the day and night combined ... Moreover, one of the proprieties consists in taking little sleep during the daytime, so that one feels the hunger and thirst and becomes concious of the weakening of one's powers, with the consequent purifications of the heart ...
One should let a certain degree of weakness carry over into the night, making it easier to perform the night Prayers (Tahajjud) and to recite the litanies (awrad) ... It may then be that Satan will not hover around one's heart, and that one will behold the Kingdom of Heaven ... The Night of Destiny represents the night on which something of this Kingdom is revealed ... This is what is meant by the words of God, Exalted is He:
"We surely revealed it on the Night of Power" - ( Qur'an, al-Qadr, 97:1 )
(Inna anzalnahu fi laylati-lqadr)
Anyone who puts a bag of food between his heart and his breast becomes blind to this revelation ... Nor is keeping the stomach empty sufficient to remove the veil ... Unless one also empties the mind of everything but God ... That is the entire matter ... And the starting point of it all, is cutting down on food ...
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