Inner Dimensions Of Ramadan And Fasting-(Two Fold Meaning Of Sawm)

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Irshaad Hussain, a contemporary Islamic scholar describe beautifully the meaning of the world Saum or Sawm.

Sawm which is translated as fasting in English, in original Arabic carries a two-fold meaning - two seemingly opposing definitions combined into a single word. And Sawm, as described in the Qur'an and the hadith, simultaneously fulfills both of these definitions. The primary meaning is to hold back, to refrain from, to abstain - the further meaning is to rise beyond, to move past former limits.

The month of Ramadan is a time in which we hold our bodily compulsions and instincts under strict control, together with our thoughts and our mental states, our moods and desires. We submit ourselves (our Nafs) and our accustomed patterns of life to a higher template, one that fosters a regimen of self-restraint within the body and mind and correspondingly seeks an intensification of the life of the spirit.

During the interval of daylight, Halal (the allowed) transforms into Haram (the forbidden) and whatever nourishes the physical body becomes Haram. As for the Nafs, it undertakes a psychic fast from anger, backbiting, gossip, harshness towards others, from reaching in any manner through any of the senses towards that which is disallowed. All those inclinations which strengthen the Nafs, which allow it to inject itself with vigor and attachment into the flux of worldly life are proscribed and denied expression.

The material form and its impulses (manifested through the Nafs) are reigned in during fasting. All the things which give strength, vigor, and life to the body and Nafs are terminated - the attachment is reduced, denuded, weakened. By penetrating to the very root of our attachment, to the most fundamental layer, to the very seat of our creaturely connection to the world - food, water, sex (the three cardinal symbols of life) we overturn their dominion and arrive at a position where we, for a time, subdue them.

Over the course of the month of Ramadan, as the days merge into the nights, as the moon journeys different phases the person who undertakes the fast with complete sincerity and profound intensity approaches a state of spiritual readiness.

Until the last ten nights of the month of Ramadan, there arrives the possibility of a profound inner remaking, an unfolding of the potential to witness the laylatul qadr. "And what can convey to you what laylatul qadr is? That night is better than a thousand months...." (Qur'an 97:2-3)

During the day we break ourselves down, we fast from what sustains our existence - we submit our clay form to be unmade, to be kneaded and worked over - we remove ourselves from our material subsistence and turn to prayer and spiritual subsistence from God - we prepare ourselves to be reshaped. The onset of the darkness of night is representative of pure potential waiting to emerge into existence - waiting for the command and decree which will give it form. "The angels and the spirit (ruh) descend in it, by the command of their Lord with every decree...." (Qur'an 97:4) We turn ourselves into malleable clay awaiting the shaping command of that night - anticipating the profound and weighty descents that accompany laylatul qadr. "(That night is) Peace till the breaking of the dawn." (Qur'an 97:5)

So Sawm (fasting) fulfills its meanings - to hold back from, to abstain, pertains to the restraint engendered through the fast - to rise beyond pertains to the results that God bestows upon those who seek the fast with sincerity and knowledge. So the fast is at once a holding back and a lifting up.