Fasting during Ramadan is rarely discussed in terms of its true meaning. The act of abstaining from hunger, thirst and sexual activity, encapsulated by the Arabic verb "imsak," is often not regarded as a meaningful act. Instead, people should talk more about the good deeds done while fasting and the morality of the fast.
This misconception has shaped my understanding of the "Ramadan custom." The morality of fasting has eclipsed the original meaning of the act itself. Statements like "fasting is not merely about hunger" can often be heard at the beginning of conversations. People encourage one another with the morality behind the act, emphasizing that we should focus on being moral rather than just enduring hunger. While this approach is not entirely incorrect, as some hadiths indeed emphasize this idea, the Prophet Muhammad's statement that “some people fast but only experience hunger” raises a question that deserves further reflection. The thoughtful readers following this writing will likely notice that our response to this question would be, “Of course, more needs to be said.”
Such a perspective raises serious issues that must be corrected. Viewing fasting in this light inevitably leads to an esoteric interpretation. This esotericism downplays the importance of the fasting rules, such as "imsak," and directs our attention to the intended purpose of fasting. One of the most important matters in religious life is the relationship between the rules of religion (shariah) and its goals (haqqah).
This was the primary reason for spreading the Sufi movements in Islam: the contradiction between the rules and the goals. In contemporary times, the most serious issue in people’s relationship with religion is the connection between morality and regulations. Many people think, “What’s the point of worship if there is no morality?”
Everyone believes that religion should be about morality. One of the most dangerous statements we encounter in daily life is the subjective notion, “A person should have a pure heart,” which attacks the rules of religion under the guise of a wish or a standard. We must be careful not to make this mistake when discussing the morality of fasting. Therefore, fasting is first and foremost about "imsak": if morality is present, it exists; if not, it does not. A person fasts by abstaining from food and sex. If they do not do this, the fast is not accomplished in any way. Being moral cannot replace fasting, just as fasting is the cause of morality, not its result.
When Islam commands fasting, it asks us to mentally grasp the following point: Excessive eating and the greed it causes are the root causes of human excesses on earth. The desire for excessive nourishment compels us to accumulate and hoard. This accumulation becomes so intense that we end up fighting wars to obtain and hoard things that we will never need. This is a reflection on history and humanity, and fasting begins from this perspective.
To speak of human discipline, one must eliminate excessive attitudes and behaviors. The way to achieve this is by briefly distancing from nourishment, allowing us to enter a reflective process. Fasting, thus, addresses the root instinct of human desire for accumulation and demonstrates this weakness. If we can somewhat reduce our uncontrolled appetite, we create the basis for being moral. We are doing a simple action with a highly symbolic meaning: By abstaining from food during the daytime, when we would typically procure our sustenance, we aim to defeat greed by "thinking."
There is a paradox here. Religion stimulates our minds by prohibiting us from using what we have accumulated during the daytime. Looking at other religions and mystical traditions – where there are prolonged periods of hunger or entire lifetimes of abstaining from sexuality – reminds us that the period of fasting in Islam is relatively short. Islam, by commanding a shorter period of fasting, chose not to discipline the body and our desires directly but instead to focus on disciplining our minds, encouraging us to reflect. Fasting begins with the cultivation of our intellects rather than our bodies. If the fast were only a few days long, it could directly train the body and desires, leading to immediate moral improvement.
However, Islam found such a moral approach, which would bypass human will, to be contrary to nature. Activating our minds with a short period of hunger leaves the responsibility of moral improvement to our willpower. According to what we learn from fasting, overcoming and redirecting our desires – either through moral development or compensating for the hunger we neglected during the fast in non-fasting times – has been left to us. God said, “We have shown man the right way.”
