32 replies to this topic

[atheism101]

If fasting is supposed to be a physical and spiritual abstinence from desire, why are there so many rules that are essentially irrelevant to abstinence such that if you break these rules, you have broken your fast? For example, medicine into ears or your nose, or according to some, even your eyes, can break your fast. Why are there so many rules concentrating on the superficial physical aspects of fasting?

[Amna4]

Fasting in also a way of purification. Keeping foreign substances out of the body is important for that.

[atheism101]

Fasting in also a way of purification. Keeping foreign substances out of the body is important for that.

I'm not sure I understand why it is important.

[Nightingale]

What don't you understand? You've never heard of keeping your body clean and purified?

To put a sports perspective on this (apologies to everyone) but the doping issues...medicines contain substances that are banned by many sports organizations. Do you not understand that they view it as something to prevent?

[atheism101]

What don't you understand? You've never heard of keeping your body clean and purified?

Seems counter-intuitive to ban, say, brushing your teeth during fasting, if the purpose is to keep the body clean. As far as purification is concerned, I am failing to see why it is important. On a larger scale, perhaps, but on a smaller scale, something like putting medicine in your ear seems really trivial to fuss over.

To put a sports perspective on this (apologies to everyone) but the doping issues...medicines contain substances that are banned by many sports organizations. Do you not understand that they view it as something to prevent?

I'm not really aware of what kind of substances are banned by sports organizations other than obvious ones like steroids, in which case the problem is unfair advantages. Can you specify what kind of medicinal substances you are talking about and why they are prevented? I don't know enough about this topic to go one way or the other.

[Amna4]

Brushing your teeth isn't forbidden... you just need to make sure you rinse your mouth very well and make sure you don't swallow anything. Same with ritual purification (wudu), you have to put water in your mouth and nose, just don't allow it to go down your throat.

As for substances: There are certain cough syrups and pain medications that you can't consume, along with the steroids.

[atheism101]

Brushing your teeth isn't forbidden... you just need to make sure you rinse your mouth very well and make sure you don't swallow anything. Same with ritual purification (wudu), you have to put water in your mouth and nose, just don't allow it to go down your throat.

Some people do actually say it is forbidden, and at least my family in particular follows this. (Although I believe miswak is allowed). I know there aren't universal rules on things like this, but certainly there are rules as silly as that.

As for substances: There are certain cough syrups and pain medications that you can't consume, along with the steroids.

I'm still not sure what kind of cough syrups and pain medications are banned. Do they have some sort of performance enhancing ingredient of some sort? I really doubt the reason has anything to do with purification, which seems to have been the reason suggested.

[Nightingale]

Many pain medicines as well as cough syrups and diuretics and so forth contain steroids. That's why there are also NSAIDs, or Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (things like aspirin and ibuprofen). But many different athletes have found themselves caught and banned because of using a medicine or substance that contains banned ingredients without their knowledge.

As for the other, I've not actually seen anything that forbids brushing teeth or any of that. Can you provide documentational proof showing that please?

[atheism101]

Many pain medicines as well as cough syrups and diuretics and so forth contain steroids. That's why there are also NSAIDs, or Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (things like aspirin and ibuprofen). But many different athletes have found themselves caught and banned because of using a medicine or substance that contains banned ingredients without their knowledge.

Okay, so steroids...I've failed to see the relevance to purification.

As for the other, I've not actually seen anything that forbids brushing teeth or any of that. Can you provide documentational proof showing that please?

Well official documentation is irrelevant to whether or not people believe it, and my family is an example of one that does (since some toothpaste is bound to be swallowed.) To me, this is less absurd than disallowing ear medicine. Here's a Yahoo Answers question, shown not as an authority, but a demonstration that some muslims do agree that you can't brush your teeth with toothpaste while fasting:
http://answers.yahoo...24124739AAF6VBt
It seems really silly to me that you are pretending like this is something totally foreign fabricated by someone like me at the spot. At the very least, some muslims do not think brushing with toothpaste is allowed, which was the only premise of my argument.

[ParadiseLost]

As salaam alaykum

http://islamqa.info/.../brushing teeth

[Saracen21stC]

@ Muslims

This is month of Ramdan. So, do not waste your time by arguing with some arrogant atheists. Ramadan is for the Muslims. And they will follow the rules just to show that they obey Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala) . We did not ask atheists here to show us whether the Islamic rulings (which Muslims should follow) look 'silly' to atheists or not. The Ramadan is valuable for the Muslims.

[atheism101]

@ Muslims

This is month of Ramdan. So, do not waste your time by arguing with some arrogant atheists. Ramadan is for the Muslims. And they will follow the rules just to show that they obey Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala) . We did not ask atheists here to show us whether the Islamic rulings (which Muslims should follow) look 'silly' to atheists or not. The Ramadan is valuable for the Muslims.

Discourage the Q&A! Thanks bud.

[Amna4]

I think what brother Saracen is reminding us is that Ramadan is for prayer and good deeds. We shouldn't waste our time on unimportant things, like to forums (with exception for answering concerns of those fasting). I'm sure there will be many glad to address your questions later in time, if you promise to listen to what is being said an not always contradict.

[atheism101]

I think what brother Saracen is reminding us is that Ramadan is for prayer and good deeds. We shouldn't waste our time on unimportant things, like to forums (with exception for answering concerns of those fasting). I'm sure there will be many glad to address your questions later in time, if you promise to listen to what is being said an not always contradict.

No one is forcing anyone to respond. Everyone can respond in their own time. It is also not as if I can interrupt anyone. Everyone can type full responses and I respond to these full responses. If I disagree, I say I do. Why should I say I agree if I don't?
Regardless, Saracen's response was rude and it seems I have hit a soft spot of the Muslim community. Whenever Q&A is discouraged in this way, there is clearly something wrong. If you have nothing wrong with defending your position in this case, there should be no reason why this thread, and not the various others that I am actively posting in, should receive such hostility.

[Saracen21stC]

No one is forcing anyone to respond. Everyone can respond in their own time. It is also not as if I can interrupt anyone. Everyone can type full responses and I respond to these full responses. If I disagree, I say I do. Why should I say I agree if I don't?
Regardless, Saracen's response was rude and it seems I have hit a soft spot of the Muslim community. Whenever Q&A is discouraged in this way, there is clearly something wrong. If you have nothing wrong with defending your position in this case, there should be no reason why this thread, and not the various others that I am actively posting in, should receive such hostility.

Do not twist your and my words. You did not say that I just disagree, and I did not say that do not get involved in QA or anything like that. You said that there are many 'silly' rules like that in Islam. If forbidding someone from calling Islamic rulings (which are for Muslims) 'silly' makes it sound rude, then that's just the beginning. You have seen nothing of so called hostility. And your theory of hitting the soft spot is as ridiculous as twisting posts.


There is no problem with QA (my post actually contained the answer). But there are problems with useless arguments with some arrogant atheists who have very little respect for month of Ramadan.

[AhmedTi]

The answer about brushing teeth contained in the site provided by ParadiseLost is responsive.

In this respect, I would like to share a Hadith which is self explanatory

The Prophet (salah allahu ‘alayhi wa salam) said: “By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, the smell coming out from the mouth of a fasting person is better in the sight of Allah than the smell of musk” [Al-Bukhari]

[atheism101]

Do not twist your and my words.

I did not.

You did not say that I just disagree, and I did not say that do not get involved in QA or anything like that. You said that there are many 'silly' rules like that in Islam.

My quote:

If I disagree, I say I do. Why should I say I agree if I don't?

was a response to:

if you promise to listen to what is being said an not always contradict.

I was explaining that I only say I disagree if I actually do. You must have misunderstood that part of my post.

If forbidding someone from calling Islamic rulings (which are for Muslims) 'silly' makes it sound rude, then that's just the beginning.
You have seen nothing of so called hostility. And your theory of hitting the soft spot is as ridiculous as twisting posts.

Here we go again with unnecessary hostility.
I haven't twisted anyone's posts. Your reaction is very childish, so my claim that I've hit a soft spot does seem pretty justified.

There is no problem with QA (my post actually contained the answer). But there are problems with useless arguments with some arrogant atheists who have very little respect for month of Ramadan.

I am sure that rude behavior to people who disagree with you is a good way to respect Ramadan.

[atheism101]

The answer about brushing teeth contained in the site provided by ParadiseLost is responsive.

In this respect, I would like to share a Hadith which is self explanatory

The Prophet (salah allahu ‘alayhi wa salam) said: “By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, the smell coming out from the mouth of a fasting person is better in the sight of Allah than the smell of musk” [Al-Bukhari]

I was not disputing whether or not brushing teeth was a rule. I was simply responding to the retort made by Nightingale:

You've never heard of keeping your body clean and purified?

My response was that not brushing your teeth is not exactly keeping your body clean. Whether or not that in and of itself is a good thing is irrelevant to the context in which I was responding.

[Saracen21stC]

I did not.
My quote:

was a response to:

I was explaining that I only say I disagree if I actually do. You must have misunderstood that part of my post.

Here we go again with unnecessary hostility.
I haven't twisted anyone's posts. Your reaction is very childish, so my claim that I've hit a soft spot does seem pretty justified.

I am sure that rude behavior to people who disagree with you is a good way to respect Ramadan.

Someone who wants to know the truth can go to this post: http://www.gawaher.c...t/#entry1263280

And see how atheism101 is lying now. He did say 'there are rules as silly as that' instead of 'I disagree' or something similar.

I don't have much to say after this lie because it will become 'rude' ....as you have seen...

[atheism101]

Someone who wants to know the truth can go to this post: http://www.gawaher.c...t/#entry1263280

And see how atheism101 is lying now. He did say 'there are rules as silly as that' instead of 'I disagree' or something similar.

I don't have much to say after this lie because it will become 'rude' ....as you have seen...

Clearly there seems to be some sort of communication barrier. I did not deny calling anything silly. I said that if I say I disagree, I will say I do - this was as a response to the claim that I only contradict. Nowhere does that imply that I did not call anything silly. I called the rule silly, and I'll call it silly again. You misinterpreted what I was referring to when I said I will say I disagree, and thought I was saying that I will *only* say that I disagree, when in fact I was only saying that I do not disagree for the sake of disagreeing - something completely irrelevant to anything in the post other than that one comment which I was responding to. I attempted to correct your misunderstanding, but clearly that has caused even more misunderstanding. Your posts were impolite in that you purposely used condescending language to refer to me when such a response had not been provoked. Instead of accepting that you were in fact rude, which I am sure you know you were, you increased your hostility. Your ego is clearly involved here, because instead of heeding your own advice, you keep coming back for more.
The original topic of the thread (from which we've clearly digressed) was a request to explain rules which focus on superficial things - such as not being able to brush your teeth due to the possibility that toothpaste will be swallowed - when really fasting should be about more profound things. I have no qualms with fasting. In fact, I find the idea fascinating. What I do not find appealing is these superficial details.