Pleasure – By Talha Ghannam

My fellow YMAG member Talha Ghanam writes this blog on his reflections of Ramadan.

The highest pleasure in food is the vomit of bees – Honey

The highest pleasure in cloth excrement of worms – Silk

The highest pleasure in Smell is the mucus of a gazelles – Musk

The highest pleasure in drink is the most abundant thing in the world – Water

The highest pleasure in Pleasure is the meeting of the two urinary tracks – Sexual Intercourse

– Imam Ghazali

Having just finished my summer internship, its easy to believe that we get happier as we earn more and buy more.

In Ramadan, we are asked to give up our sensory pleasures for the sake of God. For many this seems insane, starving your appetite of the pleasures we regularly indulge in. For a person distant from God, this seems torturous for human beings, teaching our souls what the poor and needy must feel regularly.

For me, fasting is one of the greatest pleasures man can come to enjoy. It brings pleasure far beyond excrement and mucus of other animals. Instead, it teaches gratitude, patience and self control; the very things which make material goods pleasurable.

But fasting itself cannot and should not be linked to material gain. Even its reward cannot be quantified, as we learn from the famous Hadith Qudsi:

“Every action of the son of Adam is multiplied. A good action receives from ten to seven hundred times. Allah Almighty said, “Fasting is Mine and I repay it. He leaves his appetites and food for My sake. The faster experiences two joys: a joy when he breaks his fast and a joy when he meets his Lord. The changed breath in the mouth of the faster is more fragrant to Allah than the scent of musk.”

–Sahih Muslim

So I guess when you ask me dont I miss the pleasure of eating, drinking and the rest of it whilst fasting. I ask you have you ever experienced the pleasure of when you abstain?