– For Islam and faith are not complete without it.

– It engenders an increase of faith, trains one in patience and the kinds of hardship that draw a servant close to the Lord of all worlds, and it becomes a cause for a profusion of acts of obedience—prayer, recitation, remembrance, charity, and the like—that realize God-consciousness.

– It restrains the soul from prohibited words and deeds, which is itself one of the pillars of God-consciousness.

– Among its virtues is that fasting instills watchfulness of Allah: a person abandons what his soul craves, though able to indulge, because he knows his Lord sees him. Nothing else rivals this, and without doubt it is one of the greatest aids to God-consciousness.

– Another virtue is that fasting constricts the pathways of Satan, for “he flows through the son of Adam like blood” (1); through fasting his influence is weakened and the servant’s sins are reduced.

– Likewise, when the affluent taste the pain of hunger, that experience obliges them and moves them to show solidarity with the destitute poor.

All of these are traits of God-consciousness.

– After declaring fasting obligatory, He informed them that it is “a limited number of days,” that is, few and easy. Its ease is further enhanced by the fact that it occurs in a single, specified month in which all Muslims participate together. Undoubtedly, this collective observance lightens the burden and facilitates the duty, and it is one of the subtle mercies and aids the Master grants to those who fast.