When you fast...

When you fast, you should let your hearing, vision, hair, skin, tongue, stomach and modesty fast with you, and you should safeguard yourself so that there is a distinction between the day you fast and the day you do not." On p. 351, Vol. 94, of Bihar al-Anwar , it is recorded that the greatest ibn Abdullah (S) is our role model and leader. Once he (S) heard a woman cursing one of her neighbors, so he ordered some food to be brought, then he ordered her to eat it.

She told him that she was fasting, so he asked her, "How can you fast and still curse your neighbor? Fast is not just abstention from eating and drinking." He (S) is also quoted saying, "Anyone who fasts during the month of Ramadhan and protects his modesty and tongue and not hurt anyone, the Almighty will forgive his sins, the past and the future, and He will release him from the fire of hell and permit him to enter the eternal abode of bliss.

He will accept his intercession as many times as the number of sands in the lands of the guilty ones living among the monotheists." Imam al-Sadiq (as) quotes his ancestors who quote the Commander of the Faithful Ali ibn Abu Talib, peace be upon them all, regarding what things the Messenger of Allah (S) has prohibited, saying, "Anyone who backbites another Muslim will have voided his own fast and diminished his wudu (ablution), and he will come on the Day of Resurrection suffering from a smell more foul than that of a cadaver, offending others waiting for their reckoning.

So, if he dies before repenting, he dies like one who considered everything Allah has prohibited as permissible." Imam al-Sadiq (as) quotes his forefathers who in turn quote the Messenger of Allah (S) saying, "Anyone who starts his day fasting and is cursed and he responds by saying, ‘I am fasting; peace be with you; I shall not curse you as you have cursed me,' the Almighty will then say, ‘My servant has sought refuge with fast against the evil of one of My servants.

Protect him, therefore, from My fire, and take him into My garden.'" It is recommended that the fasting person should, if possible, spend half the daytime sleeping. The Prophet (S) is quoted saying that the sleep of a fasting person is an act of adoration and his breath praises the Almighty. Previous…