Zionist Dates Spoil the Fast

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

How great is the reward the fasting person earns, if his fast is for God’s sake alone?

And how great is the sin that befalls him if he promotes his enemy’s goods, such as Zionist dates?

And does the sin of supporting the enemy’s economy increase if that support is given during Ramadan?

The measure of it is known to God alone, glory be to Him. But I know that inflicting harm on the nation is a grave sin, one that goes beyond harming a single person — a sin that no individual or ritual act of merit can easily offset. In Islam there are expiations for wrongful acts a Muslim commits, but these are expiations tied to acts whose consequences fall on the individual; there are no expiations for acts that harm the nation. What is the expiation for a spy who hands information to the enemy? What is the expiation for one who conducts security coordination with the enemy? What is the expiation for one who embezzles the people’s money? What is the expiation for one who supports the enemy’s economy by buying its products, when he could easily do without them?

I have noticed that the numbers of people performing the tarawih prayers are growing, but I have also noticed that the quantities of Zionist dates that Muslims buy during the blessed month are growing too. I understand that faith leads to righteous action, but much of the action I see is not righteous. So what does this mean? What is it that drives a person who fasts and prays tarawih to break his fast on a Zionist date? Certainly not faith. So what is it that truly indicates faith: is it the fasting and the prayer, or the practical conduct that ought to follow from fasting and prayer? When the practical conduct commensurate with the demands of faith is absent, faith itself becomes questionable.

There are those who work night and day to turn religion into a priesthood or a monastic order, aiming thereby to disable its practical repercussions, so that it becomes a religion of mere rites with no value in practical reality. There are those who forever enumerate for people the virtues of every prostration, every genuflection, the virtues of the night-vigil prayer, the virtues of reciting every sura — but who never enumerate the virtues of keeping the street clean, nor the virtues of jihad, nor the virtues of building a university on sound scientific foundations, nor the virtues of nation-building, nor the virtues of confronting an unjust ruler, and so on. The goal is to empty religion of its practical content, so that it becomes merely a direct relationship between the religious person and Heaven — and thus religion loses both its effect and its worth.

Which is better: praying in al-Aqsa Mosque under the enemy’s spears, or working to liberate al-Aqsa? If you want to buy Zionist dates and support the enemy’s economy, then you are insisting that al-Aqsa remain occupied and violated. And if you want to liberate al-Aqsa, then you must support our national economy by supporting the farmer in Jericho and Gaza, so that date-palm cultivation flourishes among us, and we free ourselves from dependence on our enemy for our daily bread. There is no good in a fast that does not alert a Muslim to the dangers of supporting his enemy’s economy.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “التمر الصهيوني يفسد الصيام” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.