Life for many today is a dreary grey monotony characterised by mediocrity. The commercialisation of society causes the lives of the masses to become moulded into the work 9 to 5, two weeks summer holiday in the sun, family at Christmas stereotype.
With the wealth that people have, they should be happy – but they are not. People can’t experience the happiness and gratitude that they should feel for what they have because very few have experienced extreme poverty and very few have experienced real misery and grief. It is thus that sometimes, only through opposite extremes can the truth of ones station be emotionally experienced.
Are you grateful for eyes that can see and legs that can carry the weight of your body to take you from place to place without pain? Have you ever even considered the question? But if you lost your eyesight or injured your legs, you might then consider the great privilege a person who has those things has! It is in this way that the life of this world has become a sea of haughty ingratitude and lack of appreciation of the beauty and happiness this life offers most of us.
Ramadan is the antidote to this disease of existence without realising ones existence. Food and water are necessary for life and refusing them, even for 16 or 18 hours, slows down the body and the mind in a way that only the Fasting person knows. The hunger, thirst and fatigue experienced brings a person a step closer to understanding death and only through understanding death can a person understand life. The pleasure that is felt at sunset and the vitality restored by a piece of bread or a sip of water reminds you of the benefits you have in this life and the comfort and pleasure that you normally have.
In the same way, your own weakness exaggerates to you the magnificence of a God who does not eat or drink or require sustenance in any way and proves the privilege that it is to be His creation, the gratitude we should have for the many provisions he has placed on the earth for our sustenance and how we should be honoured to be one of Hs worshipers.
[Taken from Islam-Explained Website]
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