Part 1: �Fasting breaks the Desires� by Imam al-`Izz Ibn `Abd Al-Salam

Part 1:

�Fasting Breaks the Desires�

� Imam al-`Izz Ibn `Abd Al-Salam

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�As for breaking the desires, hunger and thirst break the desires of a disobedient person. Regarding this, it has been authentically reported from him [s: the Messenger of Allah] � upon him be peace � that he said: �O youth, whoever amongst you is able to marry should do so because it is effective in lowering the gaze and guarding one�s chastity. Whoever is not able, then fasting will be a restraint for him��[1] The word ba�ah (??????) means �marriage� (nikah). The word wija� (??????) means crushing the thighs [s: literally to crush the testicles of a horse or the veins of the scrotum, i.e. the inner parts] of a horse. He (Allah bless him and grant him peace) made breaking the desires through fasting like destroying and terminating the pillars of desire. It has come in the hadith that: �Shaytan flows in a person like blood flows [s: through the body] (so constrict his flow through hunger)�[2]��[3]

Notes:

1. Fasting is a preventative measure � it stops a person from doing a certain action.
2. Fasting puts one in a heightened state of awareness of what one is doing. This causes one to be more wary of one�s actions.
3. Fasting is a controlling mechanism, i.e. it restrains a person and restraint is what is required in order to halt one�s desires.

???? ?????

And to Allah belongs all praises.

s.z.c.

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[1] Bukhari, Sahih (#1905) and Muslim, Sahih (#1400).

[2] What is in brackets is not the words of the Messenger of Allah but that of a narrator (rawi) and hence is an example of mudraj (where the narrator�s own locution intervenes into the transmission of the narration). See al-`Iraqi, al-Mughni `an Haml al-Asfar fi �l-Asfar on the margins of the Ihya� `Ulum al-Din of Imam al-Ghazzali, vol.1, p.232.

[3] Imam al-`Izz Ibn `Abd al-Salam, Maqasid al-Sawm, pp.15-16.

Source