I usually hear from Sibitai people that they experienced a different Ramadan after becoming a Sibitai. But what is the shape of Sibitai fast? What is going on in the mind of a Sibitai fasting person? What does he experience during fasting?
I try to answer these questions.
1- Thanksgiving
Every food is a gift, a blessing, and the fasting person of Sibitai opens his eyes to the fact that he is sitting at the head of God's blessing. For example, it is enough to visit your local fruit shop and look at the colorful and fragrant fruits and vegetables to find out that God has not spared anything in the table setting for us and has prepared all kinds of delicious food for his guests.
Therefore, a Sibitai does not see food only as a carrier of calories and nutrients, and in his eyes, food is also a carrier of God's favor, a carrier of God's love and affection, just like a gift from a very dear friend, and by understanding this, his existence is filled with gratitude.
Dear Sibitai: I always thanked God, but with the beautiful word Kam, I thanked God with my whole being, that is, with all the cells of my body.
Masouma Sibitai: I have realized the quality of God's grace. There is no shortage of food that I crave. God sees me and provides for me. It was me who ate fast and a lot as if I didn't believe in this attribute of God, but now I feel it with all my heart.
2- Appreciation
Just as separation makes us appreciate our connection more, hunger and thirst also make us appreciate food and water and with a broader view, all our possessions. When we take a sip of water and a bite of food after several hours of hunger and thirst, we realize with all our heart the importance of water and food, and this vulva, after the intensity, makes us better understand the amazing truth of food. If we think for a while, it will make us appreciate our other possessions that we are usually unaware of.
🔆 Story: Luqman Hakim, while in poverty, advised his son to eat the most delicious food, and when he saw his son's surprise, he told him that if you sit at the table hungry, the simplest food will be more delicious for you than the food of kings.
3- Restraint
Which category of people are you? Do you automatically respond to the first urge or impulse? Or do you react with patience and reflection?
Fasting teaches us to be patient and not to respond quickly to internal and external stimuli and learn to manage our thoughts and feelings. Fasting is practicing the skill of saying no. It is a practice of self-restraint and abstinence.
It is also mentioned in the Qur'an that, O people of faith, fasting has become obligatory for you, so that you may be pious.
Of course, the Sibitai fasting person does not only avoid eating food, but also avoids thinking about food because he knows that thoughts and behavior are intertwined and are not separate from each other, he also avoids negative thoughts and wrong behaviors.
✔️ First point: Psychologists believe that the skill of self-control is one of the most important skills needed to have a proper weight.
✔️ Second point: If you have practiced self-restraint from morning to night in front of food and the desire to eat, this trait should be manifested in you when you want to break your fast. If you greedily reach for various foods during Iftar and overeat, it is a sign that your training has not been effective, it is a sign that you still do not have control over food and it is still the food that eats you, not you the food.
✔️ One question: Why is the consumption of groceries and food in our country more during the month of Ramadan than in other months?
🔆 Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH): How many people fast and get nothing from their fasting except hunger and thirst.
Maryam Sibitai: My Ramadan experience this year is very different from previous years. Because every year I had such cravings during Iftar that when I started Iftar, I would only eat fast and fast and I would eat everything at once and until the end of the night I was sad about the heaviness and guilt of what I had eaten, but this year I eat light food during Iftar and I don't have any cravings and by the end of the night when I eat some fruit I am light and comfortable and I feel good mentally.4- Empathy
You must have heard the story of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, that when she was told that poor people had gathered in front of the palace and wanted bread, she replied, "If they don't have bread in their homes, why don't they eat sweets!"
To understand a situation, one must experience that situation. There is no other way. Any other understanding is incomplete. When great actors want to play a role, they experience that role for a long time in the real world and live among the people who want to play their role.
When we fast, without a doubt, we better understand the situation of the hungry, who are not few around us. Maybe this understanding and empathy will make us roll up our sleeves and help them.
Saadi believes that if you fast and do not feed the helpless, your fasting is meaningless:
A Muslim was someone who was fasting
who gives bread and food to the helpless
Otherwise, why bother?
self-restraint and self-eating
Ohadi Maraghei also advises us like this:
Fast and feed others
Badran's stomach is not eaten day and night
This is why the conscious fasting person is satisfied with a simple iftar and chooses the pleasure of eating instead of the pleasure of eating and follows the example of Ali and Fatima who gave their brief iftar three nights in a row to the poor, orphaned and afflicted despite being hungry.
5- self-improvement
When we study the biographies of great people, we see that one of the most obvious common features among them is the many hardships they have experienced in life. It seems that hardships and difficulties make human beings and cause the growth and prosperity of human inner forces.
It will appear under severe calamity
Bounty, magnanimity and leadership
Rudaki
Unfortunately, the treasure cannot be reached
Saadi
Nazparvard of Tanāُُّم does not take the way to a friend
Hafez
🔆 Note: In the Qur'an, it is written "It is with the hardship of Yasri" and then it is repeated and emphasized "Fan َّ with the hardship of Yasri"
It is interesting that he does not say that it is easy after difficulty, he says that it is easy with difficulty, that it is easy with difficulty.
✔️ Example: It may be difficult to climb a mountain, but in the experience of climbing a mountain, there is meaning, beauty and pleasure that no mountaineer is willing to get off the top of the mountain with a helicopter, install his flag and come down with a helicopter.
✔️ Some people ask what should we do so that we are not hungry and thirsty during fasting? This question is fundamentally wrong. Because you fast at all when you are hungry and thirsty, and hunger and thirst are necessary for fasting, but of course it is not the purpose of fasting. The goal is to be watered during these hardships.
6- Feeding the soul
Maulavi compares the human body to Jesus' donkey and the human soul to Jesus himself and advises us not to feed just the donkey and find Jesus as well:
Enough of serving the donkey, enough of the straw and boiling it
In the service of Jesus, we should also help
Up to the table and the bread, who sees life and the world
My soul and my world
Excessive attention to physical desires kills the heart, and fasting causes a balance to be established:
Stop eating the food of your stomach
Molvi
This closed mouth was opened
The owl became the eater of secret morsels
Molvi
If you empty this storehouse of bread
Fill it with brilliant gems
Molvi
The interior is empty of food
To see in him the light of knowledge
void of wisdom because of that
which is full of food up to the nose
Saadi
✔️ We always say that Sibita is a food program for both the body and the soul, and without a doubt, the Ramadan package is one of the best foods for the soul. The customs and rituals of this month, including fasting, waking up at dawn, prayer, patience and self-control, offerings, intimate iftar meals, feeding the poor and other spiritual matters, just like a detox diet, cleanses the spirit and soul of the fasting person from toxins and impurities and brings him to the level of purity.
7- Freedom
Freedom from external chains and constraints is valuable, but freedom from internal constraints is more valuable. Freedom from greed, grudges, complexes, anger, grief, extravagance, arrogance and habits. And fasting is the practice of freeing oneself from these inner shackles. A person who does not have control over his desires and desires is a slave, not a free person. On the other hand, a person who is in control of his thoughts, feelings and behavior is free. He who does not follow his instincts and habits is free. He who does not think about food from morning to night is free. And true fasting gives us this freedom.
Author: Dr. Farid Zaker - designer of Sibita weight loss program
