Fasting in Ramadan provides a month of health benefits By Dr. Ashraf Ali

Muslims all over the world fast during the month of Ramadan just because it was ordained to them by Allah and not for any other purpose. However, this month-long fasting period has spiritual, religious, social, physical and economical benefits.



The most important issue is that fasting in Islam is not absolute fasting (i.e. fasting all day), which harms the body immensely. Instead, fasts last during the day and one is free to eat and drink at night. In other words, there is a mere re-scheduling of meals so that breakfast is advanced to Suhoor (just before dawn), lunch is skipped, and the fast is broken at sunset. Therefore, abstention from eating and drinking is only for about 12 to 14 hours in most parts of the Muslim world. This abstention brings a wealth of health benefits to the human body.


Rest and Rejuvenation
The entire digestive tract from the mouth down the stomach, liver,pancreases and intestines is at rest during the fast. Any organ which is rested this way has time to repair and renew itself for sustained work with renewed vigor.


Detoxification
The food we consume gives us life-sustaining nutrition as well as toxic by-products which are excreted in urine, stool and sweat. The detoxification process is undertaken by the liver which has ample time to catch up with its pending work in this 12–14 hours of fasting.


Prevention of cell choking
Each cell in the body is a chemical factory. By the constant supply of digested products, the cell gets ‘choked’, and fasting gives it ample time to clear pending work and escape from this ‘choking’.


Weight loss
Fasting leads to modest weight loss which results in a host of benefits like improvement in blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnola, atherosclerosis, heart diseases, lung diseases, obesity, digestive disorders, fatty liver, infertility, hypertrighlyceridermia and prevention of heart attacks and strokes.


However, these benefits only come to those who adhere to their fasts the way it has been laid out in the holy Qu’ran and Ahadith and not to those who fast all day and feast all night, as fasting in Ramadan has widely become these days. Islam’s prescription of month-long fasting - if done correctly - can act as an insurance against the obesity pandemic threatening society of late.


Tuning and Toning
During fasting, every day the glycogen storage in the liver gets depleted during the day and replenished in the night. Similarly, the dormant fat in the body cells gets renewed. This dormant fat is committed into active participation of energy generation.


Mental acuity and stamina
Fasting also improves mental acuity as well as increasing the physical and mental stamina of the fasting person. The more athletes practice, the more stamina they acquire. Fasting works the same way; making the body get used to working without the instant gratification provided by food and drink.


Doctor’s advice
Kindly break your fast with some fruit or fruit juice for instant energy, drink water and take a small, bland and easily digestible meal like porridge. Take your usual night meal, and do not make your Suhoor too heavy or too light. Make sure to drink water at regular intervals. – SG

Can you count on face masks to defend against the A(H1N1)?

While the sales of face masks and respirators have surged worldwide, their effectiveness in protecting the wearer against an airborne virus, such as A (H1N1) is limited.


This year the Kingdom’s Ministry of Health is recommending the use of surgical masks in crowds to prevent the spread of the H1N1 virus. Moreover, it has revised its national plan for communicable diseases, under which the health minister has said that pilgrims will be required to wear face masks in order to reduce the risk of flu transmission. Moreover, certain district municipalities, apart from stepping up food safety, have placed a condition on barbers to use disposable gloves and wear a face mask.


The question, however, is what constitutes a ‘mask’ and how helpful they are in protecting against the virus. Dr. Essam Mousa, an internal medicine consultant in a hospital in Jeddah, has recommended “any kind of three-layered masks” for protection against the infection.


However, Dr. V. P. M. Mustafa, the medical director of a local polyclinic in Jeddah, said the effectiveness of masks in protecting against the infection is not ‘100 percent guaranteed’. “Because the mask does not stick to the skin, there is a gap between the mask and the skin, through which the virus can enter,” he said. The virus can still make its way through your fingers touching your nose or mouth, which may have earlier touched infected hard surfaces like door handles, food counters and supermarket trolleys.


While not recommending the general public to wear masks, the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) says the effectiveness of respirators and facemasks in preventing the transmission of A(H1N1) or seasonal influenza in various settings is not reliably known. The CDC also says that the use of a facemask or respirator (e.g. N95) is more likely to be of benefit if used as early as possible when exposed to an ill person and when the facemask or respirator is used consistently. For more read here.

What happens when you experience a personal swine flu scare?

One of the most heart- wrenching experiences parents can go through is to see their children sick or in pain. It started with my daughter running a mild fever that we did not take too seriously. Right away I made Aya, our seven-year old-daughter get comfortable in bed with lots of rest and quiet time. We gave her the usual remedies: fever medication, fluids, chicken broth, and vegetable soups.


At around two A.M. the next morning, when the whole house was asleep, I was awakened by the sound of Aya vomiting. When we rushed to her side to hold her and clean her up I noticed that her body was extremely hot. I immediately gave her fever medication but she vomited that too. My husband bought suppositories from the nearest pharmacy to give her and we rubbed her forehead and limbs with cold, wet towels.


The next day Aya kept vomiting and I was afraid she would get dehydrated so I took her to the hospital. The doctor advised that I continue giving her Tylenol suppositories and additional suppositories to stop the vomiting and to run a stool analysis to detect any intestinal bacteria or parasites. At home we continued with the prescribed treatments but she was just getting worse. She was exhausted and her fever persisted even after we had given her two suppositories to bring it down.


I took her back to the same hospital the following day with her lab results. The doctor said her stool analysis test was completely fine and they could not detect any intestinal infection. When he checked her and found that she had nasal congestion and a sore throat he told me to go the main lab and get an A (H1N1) - or swine flu - test done.


When I heard that my heart skipped a beat. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind as I started blaming myself and questioning where I took my children. I let them go to the beach and play and swim, I took them to a pet store. Could she have caught something from there? The doctor told me not to worry and to take the test to be on the safe side. For more read here.

Award, Award and Award!

Yay! I'm soooooo happy to share with you all the Awards I'd received from: AMW, Hajar & Nadia, respectively. Alhamdulillah.

I have to really apologize to AMW and Hajar, coz I'm putting up their awards sooooo late. But anyways, better late than never. I was soooo busy that time.

I thank you three sisters soooooo much, you've made my day :D

Ok, so let me do it in order:

First comes AMW's Amazing Bloggers Award, it's amazing how she describes my humble blogs, gee thanks for all the praise Brandy *blush*. You can read it here.



Second comes Hajar's Beautiful Girl's Award




And Third comes Nadia's Freakin Fabulous Blog Award



To give the Amazing Bloggers Award is the sole right of AMW, as this is part of her 2009 goals featuring each month an Awesome Blogger SHE finds that is doing A LOT of work online to help their sisters or has a very interesting blog. So, I have no right to award this to anyone accept AMW herself as a gesture of gratitude.

The Beautiful Girl's Award I give to all my Blogger Pal's and Followers, of course I don't have to mention the whole list.

The Freakin Fabulous Award goes only to selected five, I'm sorry, as per the rules.

Rules of the Award:

• List five current obsessions.
• Pass the award on to five more fabulous blogs.
• On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them.
• When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well.
• Don’t forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by leaving a comment on their blog.

My Five Current Obsessions:

1) Blogging. Yeah I like to blog. I love the blogosphere. I love my blog Pals. Ah! this blog experience is one of the best things that's happened in my life.

2) Reading Blogs. Woah! there are just soooooo many fabulous people with fabulous blogs out there, it's hard to stop myself from reading there posts. Most of the time I feel glued to my screen LOL.

3) Makkah and Madinah. I sometimes doubt if I'll ever leave this place. LOL I'm sooooo obsessed with these two places that I dread even thinking of leaving them sometimes, I want to keep clinging to them.

4) To the words detective, sleuth, mystery, adventure LOL. I'm sooooooo obsessed that sometimes I think if I'd been a boy I'd definitely go for a forensic degree.

5) The PC games.


I’m giving this award to the following fabulous bloggers:

AMW

Nida

Habayeb

Farhana

Muslim Girl


UPDATE: I received another award from Hajar.

Benefits Blog: What did the Prophet eat for Iftar?

Looking at the surfeit of food on our Sufras, the sumptuous Suhoor banquets at five-star hotels, the mouth-watering Iftar meals advertised by restaurants, the supermarket trolleys piled high with goodies and the frequent fisticuffs that break out outside Fool-Tamees shops during Ramadan rush hour, it would be understandable if a stray observer concluded that Ramadan is about indulgence, not denial.


It never ceases to appall me how much time, energy, expense and effort is spent in preparing, consuming, serving and clearing up elaborate meals in the name of “maintaining Ramadan traditions.”


It’s no secret that harried housewives and working women have resorted to outsourcing traditional Ramadan fare, and rather than going through the elaborate ordeal of conjuring a multi-course homemade meal every single day, they simply pay someone to supply it. After all, Ramadan “traditions” must be maintained, never mind the cost.


It makes me wonder: Who taught us the tradition of the over-laden table and the distended stomach?


It was certainly not our Prophet (peace be upon him) whose Sunnah we are obligated to follow. Doesn’t it strike us as hugely ironic, that even as we make Ramadan resolutions to improve our acts of worship, and strive to develop Ittiba’ (practice/following) in other areas of our lives, we tend to conveniently overlook this aspect of the Prophet’s life – his moderation to the extent of abstinence in indulging his appetite?


Are we the Ummah of the Prophet (peace be upon him) who said: “The offspring of Adam fills no vessel worse than his stomach. Sufficient for the child of Adam are a few morsels to keep his back straight. If he must eat more, then a third should be for his food, a third for his drink, and a third left for air?” (Musnad Ahmad)


Going by the statistics, which state that cases of acute indigestion and a host of other digestive disorders increase by almost 48 percent all over the world at the beginning of Ramadan, it certainly doesn’t seem so.


For curiosity’s sake, let’s take a look at some of the things the Prophet (peace be upon him) is reported to have broken his fasts with:

1) The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) used to prefer breaking the fast with dates, and if he did not find any, he would then break it with water. For more read here.

Ramadhan Mubarak!

Assalamualikum,

Ramadan a month of Allah's Mercy ......

A month full of Blessings and Bounties .....

Month of Redemption, Forgiveness and Repentance

A month of Prayers, Qur'an, Charity, ....

Devotion and Patience ....

A month of Reflection and Self-training and the best

Night (Laylat al-Qadar) is in it; which is better than a 1000 month.

May Allah(SWT) enlighten our hearts with the Qur'an .....

May Allah(SWT) gather us together under His Shelter, on that Day when there will be no shelter except for His .....

May Allah(SWT) help us to gain the Blessings of Ramadan ....

May Allah(SWT) make us from those who He redeems from the hell fire....

May Allah(SWT) grant us forgiveness for He is The Most Gracious ....

May Allah(SWT) gather us and our loved ones together in Firdaus al-A'la....

And May Allah(SWT) accept our prayers, fasts, charity and other good deeds ...... Ameen ......

Wishing You All A Blessed and Fruitful Ramadan .....

Are you ready for Ramadan?

“O you who believe! Observing As-Saum (the fasting) is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become Al-Muttaqun (the pious).” (Qur’an, 2:183)



Ramadan is fast approaching and it is about time we pick up the pace and prepare for this month in the right way. How do we prepare for a very important meeting for example? We spend time planning and drawing up a schedule to organize what needs to be done beforehand so that we are ready for the big day. Ramadan requires more dedication than that.



Usually people are excited and zealous in the start to make the best out of this blessed month but many begin to slack off and wither down soon. Not setting the right foundation before Ramadan begins is one reason for that. Let’s remember that witnessing another Ramadan is a great blessing and mercy of Allah that many have been deprived of this year. So many people passed away last year. They are not with us this Ramadan and they do not have the chance that we have to do good deeds and seek forgiveness.



Allah tells us in the Qur’an that the purpose of fasting is to become Muttaqoon – those who have Taqwa. Taqwa means piety or being conscious of Allah Almighty. It means to avoid sins fearing His punishment and do good deeds hoping for His reward. Think about it, do we become like that or even close to that quality at the end of Ramadan? If the answer is yes, then Alhamdulillah, we have Insha Allah made benefit out of Ramadan. But if the answer is no then we have missed the whole point of fasting!



One reason for this sad reality is that people are not ready for Ramadan when it begins. Stocking our refrigerator with food for Suhoor and Iftar is not the real preparation of Ramadan. Fasting is a worship that we do in obedience to Allah’s commands seeking His pleasure. We strive to become more righteous and get closer in our relationship to our Lord.



Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, the smell coming out from the mouth of a fasting person is better in the sight of Allah than the smell of musk. (Allah says about the fasting person), ‘He has left his food, drink and desires for My sake. The fast is for Me. So I will reward (the fasting person) for it...” (Al-Bukhari, 3/31, no. 118)

Here are some tips that can help in our preparation Insha Allah, click here.