Islam_in_Focus_text

3. The non-Islamic Fasting does not demand more than
partial abstinence from certain material things. But the Is-
lamic type is accompanied by extra devotion and worship,
extra charity and study of the Qur'an, extra sociability and
liveliness, extra self-discipline and conscience-awakening.
Thus the fasting Muslim feels a different person altogether.
He is so pure and clean inside as well as outside, and his
soul is so transparent that he feels close to perfection be-
cause he is near to God.
4. To the best of our knowledge and on the authority of
daily experience, other moral philosophies and religions
teach man that he cannot attain his moral aims or enter the
Kingdom of God unless and until he uproots himself from
the stem of worldly affairs. Accordingly, it becomes neces-
sary for such a man to divorce his mundane interests, neglect
his human responsibilities and resort to some kind of self-
torture or severe asceticism of which Fasting is an essential
element. Fasting of this kind with people of this type may be
used- and it has been used- as a pretext to cover the humili-
ating retreat from the normal course of life. But Fasting in
Islam is not a divorce from life but a happy marriage with it,
not a retreat but a penetration with spiritual armaments, not a
negligence but a moral enrichment. The Islamic Fasting does
not divorce religion from daily life or separate the soul from
the body. It does not break but harmonizes. It does not dis-