Salaaman Akponly, to the forum. I could be wrong...Allah knows best. I am just adding the possibilities that I see. You gave your answer yourself. (2183) O you who believe, fasting is decreed for you as it was decreed for those before you perhaps you may be righteous. The command to fast applies to all believers, whether they are rich or POOR. The meaning is plain and simple. Wrong! The command to fast applies only to rich believers. How? Continue..... Whoever of you is ill or traveling, then the same number from different days; . One should look at the general application of the verse in actual life situation In this, I will focus on the POOR believers. There is a question of why a POOR believer undertakes a travel (journey) And how would a POOR believer go on travel (journey) if he has no means? It does not make sense to me. If, indeed, such POOR believer opts to travel (journey), then his travel would be a ?travel (journey) of suffering?. I think there is a need to review and explore all possible contextual meaning of the verse on traveling. Why? I see lot of poor, very poor people working in Dubai. They traveled to Dubai and they are happy. and as for those who can do so but with difficulty, they may redeem by feeding the needy. And whoever does good voluntarily, then it is better for him. And if you fast it is better for you if you knew. Here again, one should look at the application of the verse in real life situation. There is no problem with the rich, for he can easily feed a needy. But, what about the POOR believer ? How would a Miskin believer feed another miskin if the former is himself in need? It does not make sense to me again. A miskin believer with fasting difficulty cannot make any redemption and doing so would make his life more difficult. This would contradict the verse (2185) ? God wants to bring you ease and not to bring you hardship;? And the quran also states in 2362? And We do not burden a soul except with what it can bear??. And I have experienced that fasting (traditional) is not as an easy task. And what can you say about those poor fasting Moslems whose livelihood depends on manual labor, under the heat of the sun ? Ease or hardship? Yes! Here is the answer. If miskin believer feeding another miskin? Who is getting fed here? What means needy? Needy of food? Is this miskin not fasting? How is he taking food? I think, poor people has to be fed by rich when rich people are not fasting for whatever reasons. Over time, the traditional meaning of sawm as fasting has a long lasting effect on most of the Moslems that they cannot take any other meaning except what is handed down to them by their parents. And they do not dare to ask! By clinging to traditional meaning, one will have a contradictory and out-of-the-real-world interpretation of the cited verses. In addition, by taking the context of the verse mentioning Mary (1926) one will find a different meaning of sawm. . The quran encourages us to find the best meaning (391 and we are also told that we cannot find contradiction in Quran (482). I think, 1926 does not have another meaning of sawm, but as per my understanding Sawm means 'to keep ourselves away'. Maryam was keeping away herself from speaking to other people. And we are commanded to keep ourselves away from food and water. In addition, I would like to say that you have mentioned earlier in this post a translation of "Tattaqoon" (last word of 2183) as righteous is wrong. Tattaqoon means something similar to Sawm 'to keep ourselves away from what ever is prohibited / unlawful for us from Allah'. Here again, it may help my understanding that rich persons may need to get an habit to be away from something (Allah knows best). But poor persons are already away from so many things, so why they need sawm? Please correct me if you feel I am wrong. Allah knows best. He is only best Knower of all. May Allah open our hearts to understand His word. Regards, mmKhan

Peace be upon you all, I disagree with the "commitments" view. I take salaat to be programming of the NAFS (spirit/mind). Salaat accompanies many of the duties we are to perform to let us know that these BEHAVIORS must be PROGRAMMED into the spirit of man. Man has two divisions, the part that WILLS and the part that CARRIES THINGS OUT. We can verify this ourselves. We all know how we Say (will) that we will workout this year, or be better "muslims" this year, or budget bater this year, or stop smoking, or stop eating ice cream, etc, but we keep on doing it. We have discussions in our heads "I shouldnt be eating this, etc". There is a battle going on in our minds. This is because there are two parts of BEING, the SELF which wills, and the SPIRIT/MIND(Nafs) which carries things out, but what most dont understand is that the SPIRIT is TIME RESTRICTED. The metaphor is the man and woman, the man can always give seed, the woman is time based and cannot always accept the seed. Same with the SUN and MOON. So we are given TIMES when the NAFS is most receptive, and it so happens that these times are when the DAY and NIGHT merge. Also, the FULL MOON is a time of high receptivity, as well as the summer and winter solstice. The heavenly bodies are timing devices for us. In conclusion, we must BURN the proper behavior into our spirits, not just read or listen to the recitation of proper behavior. We know from school that just listening to a teaching is not enough, we must go over it again and again and again and again. Repitition is a way of putting is in a TRANCE state, which is how the human truly burns the info in the Spirit to be recalled when needed.