Fasting

Jum'ah khutba (Friday sermon) by Sheikh Abdal Hakim Murad - Cambridge - 13th October 2005 - 18 mins 50 secs

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With Ramadan swiftly approaching, it seemed appropriate to post this sermon on fasting. The sheikh reflects on the antiquity and ubiquity of fasting, which - in one form or another - has been and remains common to very many cultures and religions. But he reminds us that it is useless without the ethical core that directs toward a genuine change of one's inward state. Hunger is not just a reminder of solidarity with the less fortunate, but a good in itself in that it promotes an ongoing awareness of our dependence on God and His knowledge of all our actions. This, the sheikh explains, is why fasting is explicitly described in the Qu'ran as a means to attain taqwa (God-consciousness or awareness of God).

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