Fast From Your Tongue, Not Just Food

Alhamdulillah. Continuing in in the book of fasting in the chapter regarding what is preferred, what is encouraged and also what are the etiquets It's for a person who is fasting. Yesterday morning we began with an important point and that is a and that is that a person have a pre-dawn prefast breakfast and our prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam tells us that the minimum of a is even just one drink of water even just one gulp of water. Now with respect to when is the appropriate time to have a when is the best time to have a we have who is narrating tob. So these are two companions, one more senior than the other, narrating his experience with the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. He says,.

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Said, "We had which is pre-dawn breakfast." It's not just breakfast, but it is breakfast just before dawn with the prophet sallall.aii wasallam and then he got up and made salah. So already this wording articulates that there was very little time between the act of eating and the salah because he says we had with the prophet sallall.aii wasallam and then he got up and prayed. So this wording here articulates that there was not a lot of time and a lot of delay between the and the salah. But he gets more specific then asks he says and so asks he says how long was the time between and the aen and answered saying around 50 verses length recitation. So we mentioned that this is roughly 10 to 12 minutes the the time between the two. This narration is collected by both bkari and Muslim and as a matter of fact it is the sunnah of the prophet sallall.aii that a person delay a right up until right up until the adan of fud. So much so that the prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam advises us with respect to if we hear the aden or if the time for adan comes in we have our very precise super fancy 2026 clocks and watches we are very sophisticated people so if that moment of adan comes in what do we do? Do we immediately stop eating? Do we spit out what's already in our mouths? Do we have to stop a few minutes before? What is the recourse?

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Was.

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The author says, "And if a person were to hear the aden whilst he has in his hand food or drink and the aden is heard, then it is permissible for him to eat or drink what is already in front of him. The author says what is already in his hand. However, this narration is not just what is in your hand as opposed to what's right in front of you. There is no difference between what is in your hand coincidentally when the adan comes in and what is on the table in front of you. Rather the prophet sallall.aii Wasam says as Abu narrates, "If any of you hears the aden and his cup is in his hand, then he is not to put it down until he finishes what is in front of him." meaning that a person finish what he has his heart set on what he needs of that drink or of that food. So there is a minute or two where the adan may happen to be cold. This is not for a person to plan to eat until the adan is called. Notice the wording of the narration.

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So the prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam here instructs us we're not to understand from the narration that a person is to plan to eat or drink past the exact moment that the adan is made. Rather what we understand from the narration is there is a level of surprise there or there is a there is an element of coincidence there. the person is eating or drinking and the time where the adan is then called. The person may finish what is in his hands, what is before him quickly to you know one last drink of water or you know whatever it is. This is what our prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam tells us and we also surmise from this that the sunnah is for the to be late as late as possible. As a matter of fact in some narrations the prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam explicitly commands as much and he he he tells us to delay as much as possible and to and to hasten breaking our fast at time. The second thing the author mentions is The next etiquette of fasting is that a person refrain from. So these two things was.

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In Arabic. Our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam here prohibits us from what is okay. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes the believers year round as he describes the believers as those who when they hear al they ignore it. They turn away from it. They do not engage in it. They do not indulge it. They do not suffer. What is alu? Alu in the Arabic language is literally the description of the sounds that birds make. The exact translation of is Twitter. I'm not not making that up. Sometimes in Right? I mean that's actually the word right in the dictionary that you would look it up. Right? What is the sound that birds make? The chirping. This is called Twitter. All right. So in the Arabic language is the sound the twitter that birds make. And the Arabs refer to something that is useless, that is just a pastime, something that has no benefit in it, something that is inconsequential, something that is immaterial. They refer to it as it's nothing but a backdrop. It's background noise, right? It's background noise. Just the birds chirping, we don't pay attention. We're not missing much of if we were to understand what they were saying, right? If they're saying anything at all. And so this is in Islamic legislation in the language of the Quran, language of the Sunnah. Al is quantified as any action or speech that has no benefit. benefit meaning worldly benefit somebody's livelihood or benefit. There's no benefit to it. It's what we refer to in the modern age as killing time. Right? This is alu. The next thing he mentions is although.

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What is a in general is any sinful or it is it is a general term used to refer to that which is sinful and especially that which is vulgar of sinfulness. And so is vulgarity in general or it it is sinfulness in general and vulgarity specifically. This is referred to as now the prophet sallall.aii specifically tells us that we are to avoid and during our fast. If we were to look at these two together in this context, what it means is we are to avoid that which is vulgar or sinful and that which has no benefit. Right? A person is doing something they're the thing they are doing has to be of consequence. The thing they are speaking about is to be of consequence. Killing time is something that people are very prone to while they're fasting. Especially if a person has some kind of vice or some kind of addiction. Now they are trying to just get through every second, do anything just to get through the finish line so that we can flood the body again with whatever it is that it is craving. And so part of the discipline of fasting which is difficult I mean we all go through this. We all have this difficulty and it's part of our growing process. It's not that a person is either fasting or they're not. They're either good or they're bad. No. Even if a person were to spend the entire day in but there is half an hour left of their fast and they come to their senses a half an hour before they don't throw that half hour away. They hold on to that half hour. Look at Ramadan in general. Not just the day of Ramadan, but the month of Ramadan, right? Every one of us had things that we wanted to see of ourselves during this month. Whether it's something we wanted to change about ourselves or something that we wanted some new habit we wanted to adopt, some new, some new worship. And much of that, some of that if not much of that maybe didn't come to pass. And the idea is that once we start to stumble in the first week or 10 days, Shan comes and tries to convince you to to throw the whole rest of it away because I mean, what's the point? But you can turn this around. If you can turn this ship around, even in the last half hour of the last day of Ramadan, right? If there is a half an hour left of the last day, you throw away 29 and a half days and there's one half left, there's still one half left. That one half could be that one thing that tips your scales. that one statement, that one dua with the heart in the right place at the right moment, that is the cause of being forgiven. And so there is a principle and that is right.

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And that is that even if we haven't you know achieved the whole thing we don't throw away all of it just because of that right you hold on to that last minutes of that last hour of that last day. You can turn it around right now. Let's say somebody, you know, was not benefiting from Ramadan at all in a total days throughout the entirety of Ramadan and just right now they're thinking about themselves and they feel a bit of remorse. They feel a bit of shame. They feel repentance. They feel right now this is the chance. This is a new day, right? And this is not something that's only in Ramadan, but obviously Ramadan is an opportune time. The point is is that these two things are what we are to specifically go out of our way to avoid. We are trying to build a habit. How long does it usually take for habits to take root? Huh? 30 days. You said how much? 30. 30 roughly. It was 3 weeks a month. Is that what psychologists tell us? Yes. Okay. Well, as long as they say it, then it must be true. So, it takes 30 days roughly to break a habit, to build a new habit. You know what that means? You know what that means? If you were here for every single day, every single night throughout the month of Ramadan, that has now become a habit. You are going to have to go out of your way to break that habit after Ramadan is over to not come. If you spent the entire month of Ramadan avoiding a particular thing, you have now built a habit or broken a habit. and to go back to that thing, you are now going out of your way to rembbrace that habit. That's what that means. If you came to the masid or if you made or every night throughout the month of Ramadan, first of all, congratulations to you. But second of all, even if it is two, you have now built a habit and you've proven that you can do it and that there is time and that you can make time and that your very busy schedule can fit it. You've just proven that. So after Ramadan is over to go ahead and go back to that or to drop that habit, you are literally tearing down a habit that you've built and you know basically taking deliberate steps backwards, right? The habit's already there. Imagine if just I know this is kind of out there but just think about it. Imagine if we kept the same amount that we make in salah at night after is let's say you made four every night of the of the if you were to keep that retain that until next year and then next year you build something else on top of that 10 15 20 years of Ramadan's go by what kind of person would you be after that that that time unrecognizable and that's the whole point of Ramadan but we don't advance because every time Shael comes in we take those steps back because we can't imagine that there is there are levels higher than that but there are so many levels higher than that and so much more and so if a person were to retain ain that one good habit or leave off that one bad habit for that month of Ramadan. Next year when Ramadan comes, you'll have something else to build on top of that. And once you start that inertia, that that momentum going, it's very hard to stop because the human being is prone to what is called sunk cost. When you invest in something, you are very reluctant to abandon that thing after having invested in it. He says, Abu.

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Narrates that the messenger of Allah sallall.aii Wasam said, "If you are fasting any day, then you are not to engage in vulgarity. You are not to engage in obnoxious or loud behavior or unruliness. And you are not to engage in ignorance. And if anyone were to insult you or attempt to argue or fight with you, you are to say, "I am fasting." You are to proclaim I am fasting. And Abu likewise narrates that the messenger of Allah said whoever does not leave off false speech and its implementation. So anything haram but especially lying then Allah has no use for him to leave off his food and his drink. Imagine this here. These are habits that a person builds up throughout the month. If you are to retain these habits, just even let's look at this sitting in this little talk after fudgel. Those who are not used to sitting and listening for 20 minutes to this kind of information every day. Can you not feel that once you forced yourself to do it the first day and the second day and the third that it became easier? That over time it not only became easier but it actually became something you look forward to. that it actually became something that you wished wouldn't end that it would that's exactly what the battle is between good and evil for your heart. Right? And the same thing goes for building habits. You can't just imagine yourself to start a good habit immediately. It takes time. It's a muscle. You have to build it over time. And the more you build it, the stronger you become. I've apparently bored some of us to to to to sleep. So we will end with that inshallah subhanahu.

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It's a little bit.