IECRC (USA & Canada)

It has been reported by Bayhaqi, Shu’b-al-Iman Bahaar-e-Shariat that Hazrat Salman al-Farisi (may Allah be pleased with him) once said that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (prayers and peace of Allah be upon Him) delivered the following sermon on the last day of Sha’ban:

“O people, a mighty month has cast its protective shade to screen you. A blessed month in which there is a night that is better than a thousand months! Allah has made keeping the fast therein an obligatory religious duty and the observance of the night vigil therein a voluntary practice. If someone seeks to draw near [to the Lord] there in by setting just one example of good conduct, or performs just one religious obligation, that person will be exactly the same as someone who discharges seventy religious obligations during all the other months of the year.

It is the month of patient endurance, and the reward for patient endurance is the Garden of Paradise. It is the month of charitable sharing, and it is the month in which the sustenance of the true believer is increased. So, if someone provides a breakfast meal [Iftaar] for a person who is keeping fast, this will result in forgiveness for his sins, and in his emancipation from the Fire of Hell. The benefactor will also be granted a reward equivalent to that earned by the recipient of generosity, but without anything at all being deducted from the reward due to the latter.

Allah will grant this reward to anyone who gives some kind of breakfast nourishment to a person who is keeping the fast, even if it is merely dried dates, a drink of water, or a cup of diluted milk.

It is a month the beginning of which is mercy, the middle of which is a forgiveness, and the last part of which is a deliverance from the Fire of Hell. So, if a slave-holder lightens the burden borne by his slave* in this month, Allah will forgive him and grant him freedom from the Fire of Hell.

Furthermore, if someone provides a satisfying breakfast meal, in the course of this month, for a person who is keeping the fast, Allah (Exalted is He) will give the benefactor a drink from my Basin, after which he will never feel thirsty again.”

Extracted from IECRC’s Ramadan: The Month of Patience, Empathy and Self Purification (includes essentials prayers related to Ramadan)

*Please note that slavery as understood by the modern world is prohibited in Islam. This refers to anyone who is under one’s payroll providing services.