Allah has given all people numerous benefits and blessings. As the greatest, the best of these, He has sent prophets and messengers and has shown the way to eternal happiness, declaring in sûra Ibrâhîm, âyat 7 (interpreted as follows): “If you appreciate the value of My gifts and if you use them as I command, I will increase them. If you don’t appreciate them, if you abhor them, I will take them back and torture you vehemently. ” The reason why Islam has been in such a deplorable state for a century – especially recently, it has gone quite far away, leaving the world covered with the darkness of disbelief and apostasy – is solely because of Muslims not appreciating the blessings of Islam, and thereby turning away from them.

As Allahu ta’âlâ employs those whom He loves as intermediaries for auspicious deeds, so He employs at evil places those who bear hostility towards Him.

There are eight kinds of fast:

1. The fasts that are fard. Fard fasts also have two kinds: the one which is performed at a certain time, fasting during Ramadân-i-sherîf.
2. The fast that is fard and yet which is not performed at a certain time. Examples of this are the fasts of qadâ and kaffârat. But the fast of kaffârat is fard-i-amalî. That is, he who denies it does not become a disbeliever.
3. The fast that is wâjib and which is performed at a certain time, too, such as vowing to fast on a certain day or on certain days.
4. The fast which is performed at haphazard times.
5. The fast that is sunna, e. g. fasting on the ninth and tenth days of Muharram.
6. The fast that is mustahab, examples of which are fasting on the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth days of every Arabic month, fasting only on Fridays, fasting on the day of ’Arafa, which is the day previous to the ’Iyd of Qurbân (Ad’ha). It is also said (by some savants) that it is makrûh to fast only on Fridays. A person who wants to fast on Friday had better fast on Thursday and Saturday, too. For it is better not to do something which is said to be sunnat or makrûh.
7. The fast that is harâm. It is harâm to fast on the first day of the ’Iyd of Fitra and on any of all four days of the ’Iyd of Qurbân.
8. The fast that is makrûh: to fast only on the tenth day of Muharram, only on Saturdays, on the days of Nawruz and Mihrijan, [which are the twentieth days of March and September], to fast every day throughout the year, and to fast without talking at all.