“Paradise is enveloped by difficulties and Hell Fire is enveloped by desires.

“I swear by Allāh, surely the fasting one among you enjoys in the gardens of Paradise, and the Angels pray for his success until he breaks his fast.”[^5] Observe the tone of the tradition: Imām ‘Alī (‘a) swears when he informs his true followers about their state when they fast. Many of those who sincerely fast do enjoy these stations in Paradise while they fast , but the curtains that veil them from perceiving the higher realms of existence do not allow them to appreciate this reality.

If the curtains were lifted they would witness their exalted state while they still reside in this mortal world. In the introduction to his anthology ‘ Shahrullāh fī al-Kitāb wa al-Sunnah ’, when explaining the kind of Divine Banquet that believers should anticipate in the holy month of Ramadān, Hujjat al-Islam Muhammadī Ray Shahrī quotes al-Risālah al-Majdiyyah of Shaykh Ridā al-Isfahānī, where the latter explains the kind of Divine Repast that the believers are invited to.

At one point he says: Indeed I have heard several times and repeatedly from one who is closest to me in terms of relationship and kinship[^6] saying: ‘ I was busy reciting the well-known Ziyārat Amīn Allāh ’ in the holy sanctuary in Najaf, and when I reached the verse ‘ wa māwā’id al-mustat‘īmīna mu’addah ” (and the banquets of those who seek sustenance are ready) and reflected over its meaning and thought about it, I was suddenly made to see a banquet on which lay different kinds of food and drinks, which I had never thought of, and I was eating from them, and in the course of that state I was contemplating about an Islamic ruling.