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From Issue: 596 [Read full issue]
Moral Healing
The purpose of creation is for the human self to struggle (jihad) to attain the highest human perfection possible. This struggle is known as the greater struggle (jihad al-akbar). It is a struggle between reason and the passions for the attention of the heart. If reason succeeds in attracting the heart to itself, the self is turned towards the spiritual and external world. If the passions succeed, the self is turned towards the material and impermanent world.
This struggle - a continuous kind of tension - is a more difficult one requiring one's constant attention to remember and recall the purpose of life. Forgetfulness and heedlessness, seen as aspects of satanic-ego temptations, are as strong a natural force which when in control of self, allow for the responses of lust and anger to take over the self.
Traditional prescribed fasting, which is always accompanied by prescribed prayer and supplication, serves to cut off the energies to the passions, weakening their response. This, in turn, strengthens the powers of reason.
Mastering, controlling the passions is traditionally known as moral healing. Anything that reinforces and strengthens the power of reason to attract the heart, the centre of self, towards the Real, the Truth, serves to morally heal and balance the self. Prescribed fasting is one of the best disciplines to reinforce values about what is right or wrong for the believer.
Compiled From:
Ramadan: Motivating Believers To Action, "Moral Healing Through Fasting'" - Laleh Bakhtiar, pp. 141-145