Abstinence

1. Remember the Lord in retirement from the people and make prayer thy sleep, and hunger thy food.

2. Kill not your hearts with excess of eating and drinking.

3. Illumine your hearts with hunger, and strive to conquer yourself with hunger and thirst; continue to knock on the gates of paradise by hunger.

4.  The world is sweet in the heart, and green to the eye; and verily God hath brought you, after those who went before you: then look to your action, and abstain from the world of wickedness.

5.  The nearest to me are the abstinent, whoever they are, wherever they are.

6. A keeper of the fast, who doth not abandon lying and detraction, God careth not about his leaving off eating and drinking.

7. A man once said to Muhammad (Peace be upon him), "O Messenger of God, permit me to become a Eunuch." He said, "That person is not of me who maketh another a eunuch, or becometh so himself; because the manner in which my followers become eunuchs is by fasting and abstinence." The man said permit me to retire from society, and to abandon the delights of the world." He said, "The retirement that becometh my followers is to live in the world and yet to sit in the corner of a mosque in expectation of prayers."

8. A man while fasting must abstain from all bad expressions and must not even resent an injury.

9. Torment not yourselves, lest God punish you.

10.  There is no monasticism in Islam.

11. S'ad b. Abi Waqas said: “The apostle forbade Uthman b. Mazun from avoiding marriage: and if he had permitted that to him, we would have become eunuchs."

12. The man I most emulate is a Muslim unencumbered; a man of small family, and little money, a performer of prayers and a perfect worshipper of God in private, one who is unknown, and hath enough to supply his wants, and when he dieth, he will leave few women to cry for him, and few legacies.

13.  Keep fast and eat also, stay awake at night and sleep also, for verily there is a duty on you to your body, not to labour overmuch, so that ye may not get ill and destroy yourselves; and verily there is a duty on you to your eyes, ye must sometimes sleep and give them rest; and verily there is a duty on you to your wife, and to your visitors and guests that come to see you; ye must talk to them; and nobody hath kept fast who fasted always; the fast of three days in every month is equal to constant fasting: then keep three days' fast in every month.