Continuation of my Contentions Series.

Link to Shaykh Abd al Hakim Murad’s Contentions part 1

47. The dietary laws are an opportunity to fast.

The dietary laws we ’struggle’ with include: not eating pork, not consuming alcohol, eating Zabihah, etc. Often, we may begin discussing with others, ‘why’ we follow these dietary restrictions.

I’m a firm adherent to the concept that trying to explain the ‘why’ of a command which has come from Allah, Most High is near sacrilegious. This is quite clear when one has a very clear sense of tauheed, since one can understand that to attempt to fit God’s purpose into a neat little box of human rationality is literally impossible. It either involves elevating our minds to the level of the Divine, or bringing down the Divine’s level to our own. Both of which are concepts that I am not too keen on.

What the Shaykh does here is give us an additional perspective. Why do we fast? Like I discussed in the Ramadan posts, we are fasting to follow His Command, and by doing so earn favor from Allah. Although we all love Ramadan for all of its opportunities to gather blessings and forgiveness, we should also realize that some of our standard dietary laws also exist as a form of fasting.

We say “no” to that cheeseburger, not because there is some deep social consequence to eating it, but because, in a way, we are always fasting now, in this life. We are fasting from certain things to earn the same type of favor and blessings that we try to achieve when we fast from food completely.

The way that the Shaykh is reminding us to look at dietary laws is not as a chain of restrictions, but rather a chain of opportunities.