What Makes Fasting and Staying Up at Night Futile?

Question

The respected teacher states in Wisdom 145 that Imam Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him, says:

“There are many who fast yet gain from their fasting nothing but hunger and thirst; and there are many who keep vigil at night yet gain from their vigil nothing but hardship and sleeplessness. Blessed are the intelligent and their thoughts.”

What actions can render fasting and keeping vigil at night so ineffective and fruitless that nothing remains for a person except the hardship?

As for keeping vigil at night, when a person wakes from deep or light sleep, the process of fully awakening has not yet taken place. Gradually, as dawn approaches, awareness and wakefulness increase. Yet, in this state, we begin worship while still awakening. Our concentration and control over our thoughts are weak. Once we become fully alert, we ourselves are dissatisfied with this condition, but to some extent it lies beyond our control.

What advice would you offer to help us overcome this difficulty, so that we can be fully alert from the very beginning? Could this problem be among the matters to which Imam Amir al-Mu’minin referred? For at the end of his statement, he says: “Blessed are the intelligent and their thoughts”?

Accepted Answer

The Commander of the Faithful, peace be upon him, said:

How many a person fasts and gains nothing from fasting but hunger and thirst; how many a person keeps vigil at night and gains nothing from it but sleeplessness and hardship. How excellent are the sleep of the discerning and their breaking of the fast!

*Nahj al-Balagha* (ed. Subhi Salih), p. 497

Fasting and prayer are among the means of serving God, and among the finest ways of expressing love and devotion to the Everlasting Beloved. The human being is a whole made up of interwoven structures and layers. These include the body, the heart, the spirit, the various souls, and the seventy-five faculties. Reason is the governor and guide that brings these layers and dimensions of human existence together in harmony and unity. Any deed performed without the guidance of reason is incomplete and fruitless.

Worship without reason is like a lamp without light, a tree without fruit, or land left untilled. Without reason, worship merely sets the body in motion. It is worship devoid of life and spirit.

The Messenger of God, peace be upon him, said:

«قال رسول الله ص ما قسم الله للعباد شيئا أفضل من العقل فنوم العاقل‏ أفضل من سهر الجاهل و إقامه العاقل أفضل من شخوص الجاهل «1» و لا بعث الله نبیا و لا رسولا حتى یستکمل العقل و یکون عقله أفضل من جمیع عقول أمته و ما یضمر النبی ص فی نفسه أفضل من اجتهاد المجتهدین و ما أدى العبد فرائض الله حتى عقل عنه و لا بلغ جمیع العابدین فی فضل عبادتهم ما بلغ العاقل و العقلاء هم أولو الألباب الذین قال الله تعالى- و ما یتذکر إلا أولوا الألباب .»

*Al-Kafi* (Islamic edition), vol. 1, p. 14

The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “God has bestowed on His servants nothing better than reason. The sleep of a person of reason is better than the night vigil of an ignorant person, and the stay at home of a person of reason is better than the travels of an ignorant person. God did not send a prophet or messenger until his reason was perfected and was superior to the reason of all his community. What a prophet holds in his heart is greater than the striving of those who exert themselves in worship. A servant has not fulfilled God’s obligations until he has understood them through reason. All worshippers, for all the merit of their worship, fall short of the person of reason. Those who possess reason are the people of understanding, of whom God has said: ‘Only those possessed of understanding take heed.’”

What Makes Fasting and Staying Up at Night Futile?

The essence and first answer at a glance (60-word summary)

Answer by Master Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat)

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