I heard a wonderful talk from Maulana Tariq Jameel today. It was an analysis of how to tackle Iblees, when he attacks us humans. And all the defence centres around the practice of fasting.
Iblees attacks us from four directions. He will never attack from above, because he is scared of Allah being above us humans. Nor will Iblees attack from below, because his pride does not allow him to be below us humans (the original sin still prevails in his mind). So, his attack comes from our front, back and from the left and right.
Front
So what is in front? In front of us is the image of Qiyamah, of Jannah and Dozaq.
It is a travesty that a significant portion of the human race do not believe in the existence of the hereafter. Another significant portion of us, believe that in the hereafter they are going to be blessed, as Allah (swt) will excuse them and send them to Jannah. So we are left a smaller portion who realise that this life is a balance of good and bad. In the final analysis a weighing scale and a judgement will happen, for us humans. The rehmat of Allah (swt) might prevail after the judgement, nevertheless a judgement will occur.
This is the frontal attack from Iblees and he has succeeded in taking out a major portion of the human race.
Back
The next attack is from the back and that involves an exquisite image of the world. So much so, that we start equating the world and this life with Jannah. In this fabrication, we fall into a struggle. Because we are built for focus, this diversion creates a loss of faith and breakdown of our purpose. We are lost in a diversion. We have taken an alternative route and the road not taken is the righteous one.
Left
The third attack comes from the left side. The angels Raqib and Atid sit on our shoulders overviewing us and recording our actions. In their presence, Iblees entices us with evil. This is the attack where actions like murder, robbery, adultery, lying, cruelty etc happen. It is the easiest to understand and is most likely the lowest level of attack, as most humans who are involved, are those who have lost the front or back battles already.
Right
So what is on the right? On the right is belief, faith and righteousness.
This is Iblees at his most insidious. He is using your very strength in faith and your goodness and converting that to evil. This is the evil whisperer who lets you feel knowledgeable, superior and critical of others actions. Unfortunately, we see many examples of this today. A scholar who feels above question. A scholar who thinks of ordinary humans as inferior. One who despises others actions based on a superiority complex etc. All of us see many examples of this arrogance. It is the route to a huge fall into an abyss.
The shield.
In all the above we have our faith as our protection. But, only one of all our ritual allows us protection against a direct attack of Iblees, it is not namaaz, zakaat or Hajj which is a strong defence. No, it is fasting. It is the only time when a human voluntarily sacrifices on a personal basis and it pleases Allah and it simply kills Iblees. He keeps a distance. That is why in the month of Ramadan, we find it so much easier to do goodness.
So from above, it is quite obvious why our fasting is good for us in a spiritual sense. This is leaving aside matters of health, where it has been shown that fasting for a month has huge positives for us in physical terms.
This article is simply paraphrasing and translating the words of Maulana Jameel. May Allah (swt) guide us and excuse me in case of any errors.
* picture is from Pinterest.com
