Today is the first day of Ramadhan, the start of the Holy Month in the Islamic calendar, the day when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset as a spiritual discipline to raise their spiritual awareness and to cleanse the body of accumulated impurities through the rigor of the fast. The fast is not just physical. There is a mental fast in which the practictioner is required to refrain from evil thoughts and actions that do injustice or cause harm to others. The fast is an exercise of will in which a person deliberately says NO to something, such as food and drink on the physical level, or slander, hatred and envy on the mental level, for the sake of a higher more universal principle, far bigger than they themselves who are taking part in the fast. The fasting of Ramadhan is one of the five specified duties in Islam.
