Each Day of Fasting and its Merits
FASTING on each day of Ramadhan means the following to Allah, the Most
High, the Most Sublime:- You can save this huge narration and read it
day by day, until thirty days are over. This way, we can digest the
wonders of Allah and the wonders of His Greatness and Mercy on each of
these great days during the Holy Month of Ramadhan!
On p. 64, Vol. 2, of Safeenat al-Bihar, the Messenger of Allah (S) is
quoted saying that Allah Almighty has charged a group of His angels with
the task of supplicating for those who observe the fast.
On the same page of the same reference, Imam Ja'fer al-Sadiq (A.S.) is
quoted saying that if a person fasts during a hot day, and he suffers
from thirst, Allah will assign a thousand angels to wipe his face and
convey to him glad tidings, and when he breaks his fast, Allah, the most
Exalted, the most Glorified, addresses him with these words, 'How sweet
your smell and soul are! O' My angels! Bear witness that I have forgiven
him?.'
On page 96 of Thawab al-A'mal wa Iqab al- A'mal, and also on page 48 of
his book Al-Amali (or pp. 29-32 of old editions), Shaikh Abu Ja'fer
Muhammad ibn Ali ibn al-Husain ibn Babawayh al-Qummi al-Saduq (306-381
A.H.) quotes Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim al-Ma'athi saying that Ahmed ibn
Jaylawayh al-Jurjani al- Muthakkar quotes Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Bilal
quoting Abu Muhammad quoting Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Kiram quoting
Ahmed ibn Abdullah quoting Sufyan ibn 'Ayeenah quoting Mu'awiya ibn Abu
Ishaq quoting Sa'eed ibn Jubayr saying,
I asked Ibn Abbas once about the reward of one who fasts during the
month of Ramadan knowing its greatness. He said,
O' Son of Jubayr! Get ready to listen to what your ears have never heard
before, nor your heart has ever experienced, nor your soul has ever
reckoned regarding that about which you have inquired! What you are
seeking is the knowledge of the first generations and the last!
So I left him and prepared myself to meet him again. I returned to him
at early daybreak. Having said the morning prayers (together), I
reminded him of the tradition which I had sought, so he turned his face
to me and said,
Listen carefully to what I am going to tell you. I have heard the
Messenger of Allah (S) saying,
Had you ever come to know about your rewards during the month of
Ramadan, you would surely have thanked the Almighty a great deal more
(than you usually do).
When the first night is over, Allah, the Almighty and the Exalted One,
forgives the sins committed by all members of my nation, the ones
committed in secrecy and the ones committed in public, and He elevates
your status two thousand degrees and builds you fifty towns in Paradise.
* * *
On the next day, He rewards you for every step you take during that day
with the rewards of one who adored Him for a full year and the reward of
one of His prophets, and He will reward you as though you had performed
the fast for a full year.
* * *
On the third day, the Exalted and Dear One grants you a dome in Paradise
for each hair on your body, a dome of a white pearl on top of which are
twelve thousand light houses and at the bottom of which are twelve
thousand houses in each one of which there are one thousand beds and on
each bed of which there is a Heavenly Lady with large lovely eyes, each
served by one thousand servants the head-covering of each one of them is
better than this world and everything in it.
* * *
On the fifth day, He builds you in Paradise a million cities in each one
of which there are seventy thousand houses, inside each one of which
there are seventy thousand tables, and on each table there are seventy
thousand bowls, and in each bowl there are sixty thousand types of food
each one of which is different from the other.
* * *
On the sixth day, He will grant you in the Abode of Peace a hundred
thousand towns in each one of which there are a hundred thousand rooms,
in each room there are a hundred thousand beds of gold the length of
each is a thousand yards, and on each bed is a Heavenly Lady with large
lovely eyes whose hair has thirty thousand locks braided with pearls and
sapphires, and each lock is carried by a hundred concubines.
* * *
On the seventh day, the Almighty grants you in the Garden of Bliss the
rewards of forty thousand martyrs and forty thousand pious men (amongst
the truthful).
* * *
On the eighth day, Allah Almighty grants you the rewards of the good
deeds of sixty thousand worshippers and sixty thousand ascetics.
* * *
On the ninth day, Allah, the Exalted One, gives you what is equal to
what He gives a thousand scholars and a thousand devotees and a thousand
warriors fighting for Allah in a foreign land.
* * *
On the tenth day, He gives you the fulfillment of seventy thousand of
your worldly wishes and orders the sun, the moon, the stars, the
animals, the birds, the beasts, every rock and every rain-drop,
everything wet and everything dry, all fish in the oceans and all leaves
on the trees, to pray for your forgiveness.
* * *
On the eleventh day, the Exalted and Mighty One grants you the rewards
whereby He rewards one who performs the pilgrimage and umra four times
and one who performs the pilgrimage with His Prophets and the umra with
every Truthful or Martyr.
* * *
On the twelfth day, He takes upon Himself to replace your sins with good
deeds, then He multiplies your good deeds many times and gives you the
rewards of each of your good deeds a million times.
* * *
On the thirteenth day, Allah Almighty grants you what He grants the
devotees of Mecca and Medina and bestows upon you an intercession for
each and every stone and rain drop between Mecca and Medina.
* * *
On the fourteenth day, He treats you as though you had met and followed
in the footsteps of Prophet Adam, Nuh, Ibrahim, Musa, Daud and Prophet
Suleiman (peace be on all of them), and as though you had worshipped the
Almighty Allah in the company of His prophets for two hundred years.
* * *
On the fifteenth day, He fulfills ten of your worldly wishes and those
of the hereafter and grants you what He granted Prophet Ayub (A.S.),
then He orders the angels who bear the 'Throne' to pray for your
forgiveness and grants you on the Day of Resurrection forty lights: ten
on your right, ten on your left, ten before you and ten behind you.
* * *
On the sixteenth day, the Almighty grants you sixty outfits to wear as
soon as you abandon your grave and a she-camel to ride, and He will send
a cloud to overshadow you to protect you from the heat of that Day.
* * *
On the seventeenth day, the Almighty Allah says, 'I have forgiven them
and their parents and exempted them from having to undergo the hardships
of the Day of Resurrection?'
* * *
On the eighteenth day, the Praised and Exalted One orders Archangel
Gibrael, Mikael and Israfil (Peace be on all of them) as well as the
Angels who bear the 'Throne' and all Archangels to seek forgiveness for
the nation of Prophet Muhammad (S) till the next year, and He will also
grant you on the Day of Resurrection whatever rewards He grants to those
who participated in the Battle of Badr.
* * *
On the nineteenth day, all Angels in the heavens and on earth will have
already sought permission of their Lord to visit your graves and to
bring you every day a present and a drink (as long as you remain in the
barzakh).
* * *
So, if you complete your fast for twenty full days, the Almighty Allah
sends you seventy thousand angels to protect you from every accursed
devil, and He will have granted you for each day of your fast your
rewards as though you fasted a hundred years, and He will set a ditch
between you and hell and grant you the rewards of all those who recited
the Torah, the Gospel, the Psalms and the Holy Qur'an, and will write
for you for each feather on Gibrael the reward of a full year and will
grant you the rewards of those who glorify Him at the 'Throne' and
'Chair' and will marry you to a thousand nymphs for each of the verses
of the Qur'an.
* * *
On the twenty-first day, the Almighty expands your grave a thousand
parasangs and lifts the darkness and loneliness of your graves and makes
your graves look like the graves of the martyrs and your faces like the
face of Prophet Yusuf (A.S.) son of Prophet Ya'qub (A.S.).
* * *
On the twenty-second day, the Almighty dispatches the angel of death as
He dispatches him to His prophets to remove your worldly worries and the
torment of the hereafter.
* * *
On the twenty-third day, you will pass on the Straight Path in the
company of the prophets, the first to follow the prophets, and the
martyrs, as if you had fed each orphan and clothed everyone who needed
to be clothed.
* * *
On the twenty-fourth day, you will not leave this life before each one
of you sees the place reserved for him or her in Paradise and is given
the rewards of a thousand sick and a thousand who go back to their creed
and will grant you the rewards of one who freed a thousand captives from
the descendants of Prophet Ismael (A.S.).
* * *
On the twenty-fifth day, Allah will have built you under His 'Throne' a
thousand green domes on top of each one of which is a tent of light.
The Almighty and Exalted One will then say,
'O' Followers of Muhammad! I am your Lord and you are My servants! Enjoy
the shade of My 'Arsh in these domes and eat and drink with enjoyment,
for there will be no fear on you, nor will you grieve. O' Nation of
Muhammad! By My Dignity and Greatness! I shall dispatch you to Paradise
in a way which will amaze the first generations and the last, and I
shall crown each one of you with a thousand light crowns, and I shall
provide for each one of you a she camel whose reins are made of light,
and in it are a thousand gold rings, in each is an angel looking after
it, in the hand of each angel is a light rod so that he may enter
Paradise without a reckoning?'
* * *
And on the twenty-sixth day, Allah will look at you with compassion and
will forgive all your sins except those of shedding innocent blood or
robbing people's wealth, and He will grant you every day a thousand
barriers against backbiting, lying and slandering.
* * *
On the twenty-seventh day, He will consider you as though you had aided
every believing man and woman and clothed seventy thousand naked persons
and equipped a thousand soldiers to camp in a foreign land to defend
Islam, and as if you have recited every book Allah has revealed to His
prophets.
* * *
On the twenty-eighth day, Allah will have built you in Paradise a
hundred thousand light cities and granted you in the garden of bliss a
hundred thousand silver mansions and a hundred thousand cities in each
one of which there are a thousand rooms, and granted you in the garden
of greatness a hundred thousand pulpits of musk inside each one of which
there is a thousand saffron houses in each one of which there are a
thousand beds of pearls and sapphires and on each bed a wife of the
Heavenly Ladies with large lovely eyes.
* * *
So if you complete your fast till the twenty-ninth day, the Almighty
Allah will grant you a million quarters, inside each quarter is a white
dome underneath which is a white camphor bed on which there are a
thousand mattresses of green silk on each one of which there is a
Heavenly Lady decorated with seventy thousand ornaments and crowned with
eighty thousand locks each one of which is decorated with diamonds and
sapphires.
* * *
So if you finish thirty complete days of fast, the Almighty will have
granted you for each day the rewards of a thousand martyrs and a
thousand foremost believers in His Prophets, and He will have assigned
for you the rewards of fifty years of adoration, and He will have
decreed a clearance for you from hell and a passage on the Straight Path
and a security against the torment. One of the gates of Paradise is
called al-Rayyan, and it shall never be opened before the Day of
Resurrection. It will be opened for those among the nation of Prophet
Muhammad (S) who performed the fast. Ridwan, custodian of Paradise, will
call out saying: 'O Followers of Muhammad! Come to the al-Rayyan Gate!'
So he will let my nation enter Paradise through that gate. Therefore, if
one is not forgiven during the month of Ramadan, in which month can he
be forgiven? There is neither will nor strength except from Allah; Allah
suffices us, and what a great Helper He is!
This lengthy tradition is also recorded on pp. 183-185, Vol. 8, of Bihar
al-Anwar.
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