Al-Baqarah 184: The fasting that was made obligatory upon you is for certain days. Whoever travels or becomes sick, he can make them up on other days (for as many days as he could not fast). For those who do not have the power (to fast), they can give a compensation which amounts to the feeding of one poor person. With that, whoever commits a good deed voluntarily, this is better for them. (Despite its hardship) it is better for you to fast; if you only knew.

Surah Al-Baqarah 184, we have arrived. Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 184.

Yes.

The 184th verse. The fasting

prescribed for you is for a set number of days, it says. Fasting. The month of Ramadan. There are the three months: Rajab, Sha'ban, Ramadan. According to the hadiths of the Prophet (peace be upon him), the month of Rajab, he says, is Allah Almighty's month. The month of Sha'ban is my month, he says. And the month of Ramadan is the month of Allah's servants, he says. They distort this hadith too. (?) there are no other months; this month, that month belongs to this, no, this month belongs to that, saying so, they try to distort the value of these three months. We need to know it like this. Rajab, Sha'ban, Ramadan: the month of Rajab is Allah Almighty's, the month of Sha'ban the Prophet's (peace be upon him), and Ramadan the month of Allah's servants.

The fasting prescribed for you is for a set number of days. How many? 29 days, 30 days. A set number of days. Why does Allah Almighty have people fast Ramadan as a set number of days, 29 or 30 days, for a month?

The human body is a machine.

Think of it as a car. You have loaded the car, you are driving. If you use this car constantly, what will happen? It will overheat. Or the cylinders, the pistons will swell. The car will break down. What do you do? You rest the car (?). So for the human body too, one month in twelve, Allah Almighty, this machine He created, makes it rest. So fasting is a command of Allah; so that you can use well the trust He has given you: 'this trust I gave you, I will call you to account for the way you used it', in response to that verse of His, by resting this body He gave you as a trust for one month, you both fulfill your Lord's command, and since you fulfill His command the worship is accepted.

And you also stay healthy. That's why it says: fast and find health.

Yes. How beautiful. For us, that is. So that we do not suffer pain and torment. But with the whims of the nafs that Satan gives a person, with all kinds of tricks and whims, with showing off, in rivalry with one another, saying look, I don't fast, taking pride in the whims of the nafs Satan gave him, breaking his fast: it is the person going against Allah's command, betraying the trust He gave, and that body becoming sluggish and open to many illnesses. So we... soldiers, He says, are My germ, My germ, I mean, germs are My soldiers, says Allah Almighty. They have explained that wrongly too. I send them to whom I will, He says.

No. He sends them to the one who wants them. Who wants them? The person who does not fulfill Allah's commands and keeps that body open to those germs.

A Muslim does not easily fall ill. A Muslim's illness is rare. Only from the trials Allah Almighty gives him as a test. Then by his patience he either wins the test or loses it. So that the person holds himself as witness, Allah Almighty gives people certain tests; the illnesses are for those. Apart from that, a Muslim does not fall ill. In the time of the Prophet too, in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) there is a doctor. The doctor sees there is nothing for a doctor to do here. As he packs his things and is leaving, they tell the Prophet (peace be upon him). The doctor is leaving. He calls the doctor.

Why are you leaving? As if anyone gets sick here, he says. I can't make a living, he says. Let us assign you a salary from the treasury. You, I say, stay here as a means, he says. How beautifully he says it. Stay as a means. Yes. The fasting prescribed for you is for a set number of days. Whoever of you is traveling or ill, as many days as he could not fast he makes up on other days, it says.

His body has already fallen ill. He is dealing with his own trouble. But as many days as you could not fast, it says, fast when you recover.

For those who are unable to fast, a ransom of feeding one poor person is given. His body has now become weak. And he needs food. In this case his body has no need of resting anyway. Because he spends it on need, you see. In this case, what does this resemble? A car's radiator is leaking. The radiator. As the car goes, when it runs dry it will overheat, right? Until the car's water runs out, its driver, what does he do? He drives the car for a while. When the temperature starts rising, he stops. He adds water. He continues again. When the temperature starts rising again, he stops again. He adds water. He goes again.

The state of an old person is like this. He constantly needs food. He cannot fast. Then it says he gave a ransom enough to feed one poor person. He gave a ransom. I mean, as long as: yes my Lord, I obeyed Your command, I cannot fast but I am giving my ransom. Yes. A ransom of feeding one poor person is given. But whoever does good voluntarily, it is better for him. What does this mean? But whoever does a good deed voluntarily, it is better for him. Let me give myself as an example. Because I have diabetes, saying I can't fast, at the start of every Ramadan, at thirty liras a day, nine hundred liras, a thousand liras, I give as ransom.

Thinking I can't fast, but I keep going. To see if I can fast. I look, and I do fast. A little (?), I manage, I say. I fast. I fast. This Ramadan I got sick. I couldn't fast for ten days. Ten days. I had already given its ransom. Even if I didn't fast it would be fine. But when I recovered from the illness I both continued my fasting and made up the ten missed days. So whoever, what does it say here? But whoever does good voluntarily: this is exactly a voluntary good. Whoever does a voluntary good, it is better for him, it says. How nice: we both explain the verses and, together with our lives, the events we have been through we explain to you so nicely.

Yes. This way the verses are understood better. Isn't that so? Yes. Fasting despite the difficulty is better for you. You see? Fasting despite the difficulty is better for you. If only you knew, it says. If only you knew. What is this 'if only you knew'? Allah Almighty, despite that difficulty, surely our Lord who is the Creator surely (?) you His healing. One day Abdul Qadir Gilani's eye hurts. He goes to the doctor. The doctor says you must not get water on your eye. If you get water on your eye, you will go blind.

Upon this he comes home and thinks. Well, he has to make ablution. What should he do? He thinks like this. I won't give up ablution, he says. Nor give up my Lord. Let me sacrifice one eye for my Lord, he says. My other eye is enough for me, he says. He continues. That night in his dream: O Gilani, you sacrificed your eye for Me. I have given your eye back to you, He says. What? How beautiful.

So Allah, by His power, has power over all things. Just be sincere. Just surrender to Allah. Surrender from the heart. Yes. Just say Allah. But from the heart, with faith, (?) and say it. Surely from Allah Almighty you will surely find (?). Here I am, My servant, He says. He says this.

That the fasting prescribed for people is a set number of days, and even though it is heavy for our nafs, that we would bear hardship and be cleansed of our sins: our place in Allah Almighty's religion, our place with Him, if only we knew. Yes. In a verse Allah Almighty decrees: Allah wills no injustice to the worlds. Whoever travels or falls ill in this month, when he recovers his health, fasts as many days as he could not fast. The traveler, when he returns home, as many days as he spent on the journey fasts.

Those unable to fast, the very old, the permanently disabled, for each day they could not fast, throughout the month of fasting, the amount of feeding a poor person they give as ransom. Moreover, even though fasting is a hardship for them, if they voluntarily try to fast, seeking Allah's pleasure, this is for them much better. If only people knew. Now when it says the amount of feeding a poor person, everyone according to his situation. Today a poor person can be fed for 10 liras a day. A poor person can also be fed for 20 liras. What do you do? Normally twenty liras. Or else, since it says a poor person, you take his family into account, and according to your situation you give thirty liras.

You are richer, you give fifty liras. For the reward. Sir, today normally a poor person is comfortably fed for twenty liras.

So that your reward is greater, you give thirty liras. And on top you add another hundred liras. You give a month's, one lira. In a month, one lira, one poor person, his family, a family. They eat and drink, they get by. Yes.

Although Allah Almighty grants ease in fasting, His (?) people in favor of keeping the fast of the set days is a noteworthy matter.

Fasting is a form of worship observed within thirty days of the year. Within thirty days of the year. That is, within three hundred sixty-five days and six hours, you will fast thirty days. You do not fast three hundred thirty days.

From this it is understood that however ill a person is and however old he is, these bodies Allah Almighty created can bear fasting, and it gives a person health.

In this respect, people, for the fasting that is heavy for them, with all kinds of pretexts, declaring excuses due to illnesses their nafs makes up, on the way of following Satan's footsteps, as it were, set a trap for themselves. If only people knew the virtue of fasting in Allah's knowledge, that the fasting person's mouth odor while fasting is like musk and ambergris with Allah, if only they could grasp it. Allah Almighty says so. The smell of the fasting person's mouth is like musk and ambergris with Me, He says. Whoever does good voluntarily, it is better for him. What Allah Almighty means in this verse: although they are too weak and sickly to fast, those who, with the love of Allah in their hearts and of the virtue of the month of Ramadan in awareness, with the joy of reaching this month, fast, have done a voluntary good.

For the disabled to benefit from the love of Allah and the virtue of Ramadan, without regard to their own bodies' condition, to win Allah's pleasure, the fast that Allah Almighty has lifted from them: such persons fasting it is their doing a voluntary good. Moreover, Allah Almighty: this is better for them, He decrees. Yes.