Question:
Salaam alaykum Sheikhs,
I have 2 different translations of Qushayri’s Risala. In the chapter on hunger, one of them translates: ..I heard Ibn Salim say: “The proper rule of one who practices hunger is to limit one’s daily meal to the size of a cat’s ear.”
The other translates it as:
“The proper conduct with regard to hunger is for a person to diminish what he is accustomed to eating by an amount no larger than a cat’s ear.”
Please can you tell me which is right?
(PS. on the subject of hunger, can one who practices eating once a day carry on like that during Ramadan or should he break his fast in the evening?)
Answer:
Alaykum Salam,
The correct translation is the second one. Al-`Arusi said in his marginalia on Shaykh al-Islam’s commentary on the Qushayriyya: “What is meant is that discipline is pursued only gradually due to the Lawgiver’s (upon him blessings and peace) emphasis on the conservation of health and lest one tires and becomes overwhelmed if suddenly depriving oneself.”
In our own times what is meant is not to break fast with more food than one is accustomed to eat, but less. As Imam Ghazali said on the inner dimensions of fasting, “Do not overeat to make up for your fast and thereby cancel its benefit.”
Mawlana Shaykh Nazim said the Qushayriyya is not a book one reads alone. Furthermore it is a book for the people of a bygone time, thus he does not recommend to practice it but only to increase your love for Awliya through it. Mawlana’s recommendation with regard to voluntary fasting in our time is to begin by leaving the haram.
As for the question “can one who practices eating once a day carry on like that during Ramadan or should he break his fast in the evening?” one can certainly do both, since one can break fast with a mere cup of water or bowl of soup in the evening, and eat something more substantial before dawn. Thus one will have the angels supplicate for one at both
times, and also reap the huge benefits of congregational worship since these occasions are often communal.
Hajj Gibril Haddad
