I stumbled upon these beautiful sayings and I couldn’t find a better time to share them during lent. This is my personal efforts in translating his sayings. Click here if you want the actual source of his sayings in Arabic.
"By true fasting, man can entrain the heart of God"
True fasting is in which the fasting person trains self-control and continues with self-control as a way of life."
"There must be an abstaining period, because if we ate from the beginning of the day without abstaining, we would become vegetarians and not fasting."
"Make sure that fasting has changed anything in you. Consider how much you have fasted and you’re still the same!
"The most dangerous thing when some are tired from fasting; where the body is not nourished and the soul is also not fed and this situation makes fasting a period of deprivation or torture, and this is not the spiritual meaning of fasting."
"Our fathers didn't fast just to follow the rules. They did not fast in obedience to the commandment, but to love the commandment. Obedience is a beginner’s degree, but love is the degree of maturity and perfection.”
"It is known that leaving food or some kind of it is nothing but training to leave everything for God"
"Put before you two observations in your fasting: the first is that you do not ask for certain foods that you like. The second is that if put in front of you such desired foods- without asking - do not fill your cravings for them."