Ramadan Revealed: A Practical Guide to Fasting and Devotion

This concise manual will equip the reader with all they need to know about the act of fasting, the month of Ramadan, and the esteem that comes with them. The author does this to re-orient how Muslims view their relationship with Allah — the entirety of the book illustrates how fasting in Ramadan, when done with full awareness of what it means, elevates the doer and deed beyond just depriving oneself of food and drink.

As the act, among others, distinguishes the believer from the rest of humanity in spiritual stature, the author focuses the second half of the book on “moral fasting” — of the doer restraining both his outward and inward senses, with the aim of “[diving] into the river of his heart so as to lose himself so that he wipes out the mention of his own existence.” Hence all the rulings detailed prior and thereafter are to guard the nobility of human being in reaching the month’s spiritual pinnacle of Laylatul Qadr.

In just 74 pages, the author provides a comprehensive overview of the rites of Ramadan. Mawlana ‘Abd al-‘Alim shows great care in not only outlining, but also clarifying the rites and regulations surrounding both Ramadan and the fast to show readers how great of a blessing it is to fast. Altogether, the work celebrates Ramadan as a source of purification, communal unity, and deep devotion.