Fifth point:

 

Fifth point: Fasting Ramadan prevents the carnal self from rebelling and adorns it with good morals.

A person’s carnal self forgets itself through heedlessness. It neither sees nor wants to see its inherent infinite impotence, poverty, and defects. It does not reflect on how it is exposed to misfortune and subject to decay, that it consists of flesh and bones that disintegrate and decompose rapidly. It rushes upon the world with a violent greed and attachment, as if it had a steel body and would live forever, and clings to whatever is profitable and pleasurable. In this state, it forgets its Creator, Who trains it with perfect care. Being immersed in the swamp of bad morals, it does not think about the consequences of its life here or its afterlife.

But fasting Ramadan causes even the most heedless and stubborn to feel their weakness and innate poverty. Hunger becomes an important consideration, and reminds them how fragile their bodies really are. They perceive their need for compassion and care and, giving up haughtiness, want to take refuge in the Divine Court in perfect helplessness and destitution, and rise to knock at the door of Mercy with the hand of tacit thanksgiving—provided, of course, that heedlessness has not yet corrupted them completely.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi