“O you who have faith! Prescribed for you is fasting as it was prescribed for those who were before you, so that you may be Godwary. * That for known days. But should any of you be sick or on a journey, let it be a [similar] number of other days. Those who find it straining shall be liable to atonement by feeding a needy person. Should anyone do good of his own accord, that is better for him, and to fast is better for you, should you know. *
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The month of Ramadan is one in which the Quran was sent down as guidance to mankind, with manifest proofs of guidance and the Criterion. So let those of you who witness it fast [in] it, and as for someone who is sick or on a journey, let it be a [similar] number of other days. Allah desires ease for you, and He does not desire hardship for you, and so that you may complete the number and magnify Allah for guiding you, and that you may give thanks. * When My servants ask you about Me, [tell them that] I am indeed nearmost. I answer the supplicant’s call when he calls Me. So let them respond to Me, and let them have faith in Me, so that they may fare rightly.” (Qurʾan 2:183–186). Fasting the month of Ramadan, and supplication, reading the Qurʾan and prayer in it: all of that is considered a means of drawing near to Allah the Exalted. So whoever fasts must discipline his intention and his limbs and bring them to devote their resolve to the pure journey toward the Creator, Mighty and Majestic is He.
As for reading the Qurʾan in this month, it must be a conscious reading, for Allah has manifested Himself to His servants in His Book, and the Holy Qurʾan is entirely a call to Allah; so whoever wishes to see the face of Allah must reflect on the Book of Allah.
The light of Allah must reach the human heart, and that after the various kinds of veils have been removed from it. Among the most important means of achieving this sacred goal is making use of the opportunity of the month of Ramadan; if use is made of it, the fasting will be a real fasting in the full sense of the word, and the fasting person will then be nearer to his Lord than those who get nothing from their fasting but hunger and thirst.
So removing the veils means a person's not accepting the words of any misleader; it also means his possessing that which distinguishes truth from falsehood for him. This overwhelming media and cultural hurricane to which the Muslim mind is exposed in the present age must be met by a counterpart of criterion (furqan) and divine light that refutes it, and this criterion and light is nothing other than the will of the believing Muslim human being to flee to Allah and draw near to Him.
Adherence to the details of the Qurʾanic fasting of which the verses mentioned above speak raises a person to the level of the friends of Allah, the prophets, the truthful and the martyrs—and excellent companions are they!—because whoever draws near to Allah by a span, Allah draws near to him by a mile. At that point the veils of Satan and his means will not affect him, for he has covered the distance, or let us say that the distance between him and his Lord has vanished, until he has reached the degree of perfection.
We ask Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, to grant us success in fasting this noble month and in keeping vigil in it, in its nights and its days, and to grant us intimate converse with Him, nearness to Him and humble entreaty to Him; and that we may read the Qurʾan with reflection and derive from it guidance, manifest proofs and the Criterion..
