Ramadan is the Month of Patience
In Ramadan, we go through a good training of patience. We experience high ethics in our own worlds. We accustom our stomach to patience by not eating anything though we are hungry, by not drinking even a sip of water though our throat dries out of thirst.
As is narrated by Abdullah ibn-i esh-Shihhir, may Allah be pleased with him, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, says:
The fast of Ramadan, which is the month of patience, and the fast of three days of each month, clean all evils in the heart. (Musnad, 5:363)
As is stated in the hadith (sayings of the Prophet), another name for Ramadan is the month of patience. In another hadith, the Prophet says: “Sawm (fasting) is the half of patience.” (Kanzu’l-Ummal, 8:444) and he thus highlights the importance of patience in fasting.
In Ramadan, we go through a good training of patience. We experience high ethics in our own worlds. We accustom our stomach to patience by not eating anything though we are hungry, by not drinking even a sip of water though our throat dries out of thirst.
On the other hand, if we happen to get angry, or if our souls force us to backbite or to tell lies and bad words, we instantly refrain and remember that we are fasting and thus show patience against such evils.
This training of patience that we carry out during Ramadan makes us recall those whose circumstances are more straitened than ours. This is because however poor one may be, one can by all means still find others poorer and more in need than oneself.
At least, one may think of the people who are in danger of starvation in certain parts of the world today. Thus, one tries to increase one's patience and thanksgiving.
What leads man to certain mistakes, causes him to perpetrate certain crimes, and lies on the grounds of many calamities that he is faced with is the patience that he could not show in the beginning. If he had shown patience in the first place and persevered, he could have avoided that calamity. So, “The cure for impatience which doubles the disasters humans encounter is fasting.”
The one who thus experiences patience one month long, who adds meaning and color to one's life with it, has eradicated the evil feelings in one's heart and has obtained a pure heart.
If one continues fasting three days in the middle of each month after Ramadan, too, as nafila (an optional, supererogatory practice of worship, not obligatory), it means that by using the cure of patience, one has mended one's ways.
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