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Fasting is a Shield | Khutbah
The Prophet ﷺ described fasting as both a shield and a means by which desire is diminished. What are the meanings of these ahadith?
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. We bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment and we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen. Dear brothers and sisters, in the analogies that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam uses to describe this exercise of fasting that we have right now is a very interesting one. He called as-siyam sallallahu alayhi wasallam, he called it a shield. Fasting is a shield. As-sawmu junna. Fasting is a shield. Which is very interesting and I'll come back to this at the end of this khutbah inshallah ta'ala because taqwa also comes from a similar word. Kutiba alaykum al-siyam kama kutiba ala ladheena min qablikum la'allakum tattaqun. Fasting was prescribed on you as it was prescribed on those who came before you so that you may gain taqwa. Taqwa is a protective barrier. Fasting is a shield. And what beautifies this even further is when you start to read about the ways in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam elaborated on it being a shield. In one authentic narration the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said as-sawmu junna ma lam yakhriqha. He said sallallahu alayhi wasallam fasting is a shield so do not damage your own shield. Do not crack your own shield. As if to say that no one else would be able to crack through this shield. Don't crack
your own shield. Don't do anything that would compromise the potency, the strength of that armor that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given to you. And what the scholars mention here is of course this is the one who cracks their own shield of fasting with their own sins. Where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam says in many similar narrations that Allah has no need of the fasting of a person who gives up their food and drink but does not give up idle speech and foul speech. What's the point? Right? So a person who penetrates their own shield, breaks their own shield in places. And so I want you to imagine your fasting as a junna. That's the first thing. Don't crack your shield. He teaches us sallallahu alayhi wasallam. The second way in which it is a junna, in which it is a shield, is where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam says as-siyamu junna fa idha kana yawmu sawmi ahadikum fala yarfuth yawma idhin wala yaskhab. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said fasting is a shield. So when anyone of you is fasting, let them neither indulge in any type of obscene language nor raise their voices. Okay? La yaskhab. Don't raise your voices at one another. Meaning don't get into arguments. Don't get into fights. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said fa insabahu ahad aw qatalahu falyakul inni sa'im inni sa'im. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said so if anyone tries to argue with you, tries to fight with you, then simply respond, I am fasting, I am fasting. Now by the way the ulama here say very beautiful things about this. Is this, you know, a way to win an argument? Like sometimes you use may Allah forgive you, not to actually make dua for someone's forgiveness, you use it to win an argument. Right? Or you say salama, like wa idha khatabahumul jahilun qalu salama when the ignorant start to address you, then say salama. So you say salama as a means of actually insulting that person, not as a means of actually saying peace, but as a means of
suggesting or implying that they are ignorant. So there's actually quite a bit of writing on whether or not you should verbalize your inni sa'im. You should actually say I am fasting, I am fasting. And so the scholars actually have a difference of opinion on this. And the most balanced opinion Allah knows best is that when it comes to the obligatory fasts like Ramadan where it should be known that everyone is fasting, then say I am fasting. Because it's also a means of reminding the other person if they are Muslim to fast as well. So you set the tone and it's not like anyone is trying to hide this good deed. If anything, everyone is supposed to be encouraging this virtue of fasting. But they say that if you are doing a voluntary fast, then say it to yourself. Right? Like inni sa'im, like remind yourself I'm fasting, I'm fasting. Inni sa'im, inni sa'im. Okay? I'm not going to compromise the shield that I have on today by getting into the silly argument and potentially losing this fast. So inni sa'im, I'm fasting. In any case, it's a means of affirming oneself, reminding yourself, and in some situations even reminding the other person. But the function of the shield here is that fasting is a shield from ignorance that provokes your arrogance. Al-jahl in the Arabic language does not simply refer to the loss of knowledge or information. It actually refers to anger. Okay? It refers to people that lose their temper frequently. So you protect yourself from an ignorance that provokes your own arrogance. Why? You're supposed to be curbing the nafs. You're supposed to be curbing the nafs. And just like how Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la sometimes allows you to accidentally take a bite of food or a sip of water, you know in Ramadan, and it's a gift from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, right? In the same way, it's a gift to your nafs sometimes that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
humbles the nafs. Allah Azawajal humbles the nafs through the encounter with someone else. So the first one once again, assawmu junna ma lam yakhriqha, fasting is a shield from your own sins. Don't crack your shield with your own sins. The second one, fasting is a shield from ignorance that provokes your arrogance. If someone is ignorant towards you, belligerent towards you, remind yourself, inni sa'im, inni sa'im. And if it is the day of Ramadan, inni sa'im, inni sa'im. Not as a way of shouting the person down or being arrogant with the person, but as a way of, look, let's put this aside. Let's recalibrate and focus on the season that is at hand. The last one, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says in another authentic hadith from Uthman ibn Abi Al-As, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, qala alayhi salatu wasalam, as-siyamu junna minannar kajunnati ahadikum minal qital. He said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that fasting is a shield from the fire. The same way that you have a shield in battle. And so the ulama here mentioned that in this way, fasting is a shield from the punishment in the afterlife. So subhanAllah, look at the ways in which the shield is so comprehensive. A shield from your sins, a shield from your arrogance, and from the ignorance of others provoking your arrogance, and a shield from the punishment in the hereafter. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from the fire. Allahumma ameen. In another hadith, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said very famously, as Ibn Mas'ud radiAllahu ta'ala anhu narrates, he said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, ya ma'shar ash-shabaab, oh young man min istata'a minkumul ba'ah, fal yatazawwaj. Whoever amongst you can get married, then let them get married, fa innahu aghadhu lil-basari, wa ahsanu lil-farj. He said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that lowers the gaze and it guards a person's chastity, it guards their modesty. And he said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, wa man nam yastata'a fa alayhi bil-sawm, fa innahu
lahu wija'a. He said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that if you cannot get married, then practice fasting frequently because it is wija'a. Wija'a means it diminishes the desires. It diminishes the desires. Now subhanAllah, there is a very beautiful statement from Imam al-Ghazali rahim Allah ta'ala in this regard, that there are secular ways to diminish desires, right? You diet to diminish your appetite for food and drink, right? You could endure other types of methods to diminish your desires, to control your appetite, right? But when you pair the diminishing of desires with quwwat al-irada, with willpower, strengthening that desire for Allah's pleasure, which is what we do in the act of fasting, then it's far more rewardable because then it has benefits in the worldly sense as well as in the hereafter sense. So you're pairing off the diminishing of desires, you're weakening the desires, and strengthening the desire for Allah subhanAllah ta'ala's pleasure. And that's what makes this exercise of fasting so comprehensive and so beautiful. So what's the relationship between taqwa and sawm in this regard? Taqwa comes from the word wija'a. Wija'a. Now wija'a could be any protective barrier that you wear, any protective barrier. So wija'a is a very general term in this regard. Not necessarily for al-qital, you could have for fighting or for battle, you could have wija'a because it's cold outside, okay? Wija'a is a protective barrier. And the ulema say it could be something very thin or very thick, because not everyone has the same level of taqwa, right? May Allah subhanAllah grant us high levels of taqwa. Nakhayr az-zad. It's the best provision. May Allah grant us much taqwa. Allahumma ameen.
So some people have a little bit of taqwa, a lot of taqwa, right? But it's a protective barrier. But ultimately it is to put a barrier between you and the prohibitions, the ma'asi, the disobedience of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala. So taqwa is the protective barrier that you put between yourself and haram, yourself and the disobedience of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala. Jannah is an added layer of protection. So imagine you've got the armour of taqwa and you put on top of it the armour of fasting. Now what is beautiful about that is that the scholars say that jannah is a barrier between you and your shahawat. This shield of fasting is a barrier between you and your desires. And taqwa, which is what it is meant to generate, is a barrier between you and the disobedience of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala. As if to say that if a person puts a proper barrier between them and their shahawat and their desires, then they will naturally have a stronger barrier between themselves and the disobedience of Allah. Because ultimately we disobey Allah subhanAllah ta'ala once we allow our appetites, once we allow our desires to overcome the higher pursuits of the pleasure of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala. And what is more beautiful than all of this in the sense of the comprehensive nature of Islam. So taqwa is the body armour, fasting is the jannah, is the shield, what you put on top of the armour is what the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam said about dhikr Allah ta'ala, the remembrance of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala. He didn't describe sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam dhikr as merely something that you wear or something that you hold. He described dhikr sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam like a fortress. It's a fortress, subhanAllah, a fortress.
Because the shayateen, the devils cannot penetrate a place of dhikr. Whether that is the heart, whether that is the body involved in the remembrance of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala, whether that is a home of dhikr, the shayateen are not able to penetrate the fortress of dhikr. That's why the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned that if you were to remember Allah at all times, you'd be like what? You'd be like the angels who have no desire nor disobedience of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala. Because the state of dhikr removes the lure of desire and it removes the pull towards disobedience. And one of the things that we beautify our fast with of course and what will remain with us once we go back to eating and drinking at a regular pace is the remembrance of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala to keep ourselves busy with dhikr of Allah subhanAllah ta'ala. May Allah make us amongst dhakirin. Innaka samee'un qareebun mujeebu da'wat. Allahumma khafir lana warhamna wa a'fu anna wa la tu'adhibna. Rabbana dhalamna anfusana wa in lam takhfir lana wa tarhamna. Lanakoon anna minal khasireen. Allahumma innaka a'fuun kareemun tuhibbu al'afwa fa'afu anna. Allahumma khafir liwalidina. Rabbir hamdu wa maa kama rabbauna sigara. Rabbana hamalana min azwajina wa dhurriyatina qurra ta'ayun. Wa ja'anna lilmuttaqina imama. Allahumma nsir ikhwan al-mustad'afina fee mashariki al-ardi wa magharibiha. Allahumma izzal al-islam wa al-muslimin wa athilla al-shirka wa al-kathibin wa damr al-a'da al-deen. Allahumma ahliki al-dhalimeen wa al-dhalimeen wa akhrijna wa ikhwanan min baynihim salimeen. Ibadullah anna Allah ya'mur bil'alli wa al-ihsan wa ita'ilil qurba wa yanha'an al-fahsha'i wa al-munkari wa al-baghi.
Ya'idukum la'al lakum tathakkarun. Fathkuru Allahi yathkurukum. Washkuruhu a'la ni'ma yazid lakum. Wala dhikru Allahi akbar. Wallahu ya'nima ma fasna'oon wa aqeema as-salam.
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