The Night of Destiny and Spiritual Retreat
In His infinite Wisdom, Allah (swt) has prescribed unalterable rules for His creatures ensuring them a dignified life in this world and blissful happiness in the hereafter.
Among these rules is fasting which He has ordained to successive communities of believers. Far from being reduced to abstinence from food, fasting must be accompanied by a mastery of the senses and more particularly of the tongue.
The spiritual exercise of fasting must demonstrate to man his ability to deprive himself for a [period of] time of what seemed essential to him. It must reveal to him that, in this domain, as in many others, he can have the power to do it [when there is a will, there is a way!] provided that the intention is firm and that the aim sought is the pleasure of Allah.
The purpose of such an act of worship has been clearly defined as the search for the state of reverential fear of God (piety, Taqwa) criterion of superiority of one individual over another. This quality is only measured by that of the works that bear witness to it.