The Meccan Revelations
Chapter 71
On knowing the secrets of Fasting.
فى الصوم
- Cairo reference
- Volume 1, page 601
- Konya reference
- Volume 9, page 14
The English title is a guide to the chapter. Translation records are resolved from printed references, and a corresponding English text may not yet be available.
Annotated Arabic–English passage
Chapter introduction
Fasting: abstention and bodily need
An editorial orientation based on the linked reading; not a translation or complete summary of this chapter.
At Cairo I, 601–604, the opening moves from poetry to abstention and the absence of a likeness. Keep the comparison’s limits: fasting’s distinctiveness among acts of worship does not make a human being independent of food. The joy of breaking the fast acknowledges the self’s need. Follow the author’s stated sequence of outward prescription and its interpretation for self and heart. The selected passage at I, 602 needs that surrounding argument.
Question to consider
What is negated by calling fasting abstention, and which bodily rights remain?