Al-Sha’bi reported: Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, would deliver a sermon when the month of Ramadan arrived, saying, “This is the blessed month in which Allah has obligated fasting and not obligated night prayers. Certainly, fasting is not merely from food and drink, but rather from lying, falsehood, and vain talk.” Al-Sha’bi said, “Ali would say this after the Fajr Salah and the Asr Salah.”
Ponder This Sermon
Hazrat Ali is shown here affirming that fasting has an inward dimension as well—abstaining from lying, falsehood, and vain speech.
But notice carefully what he does not do.
He does not redefine fasting as a purely inward state.
He does not minimize abstaining from food and drink.
He does not permit eating and drinking while claiming spiritual realization.
Instead, he highlights inward discipline alongside outward obligation.
This is the balanced, Prophetic model:
- Not an empty fast of hunger alone, stripped of moral restraint.
- And not a hollow spirituality that abandons the law while claiming the heart.
Both are required.
The inward perfects and polishes the outward—it does not replace it.
This is not a new belief system introduced by Ali, nor a spiritual reinterpretation unique to him. What Ali teaches here is inherited directly from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself.
The Prophet ﷺ taught that fasting is not merely restraint of the stomach, but restraint of the tongue, behavior, and character—a teaching he embodied, and which is firmly established in Prophetic Hadith.
In other words:
Both the outward dimension and inner dimension of fasting were taught by the Prophet ﷺ.
Ali adhered to both, and taught both.
So ask yourself:
If the inward were meant to cancel the outward,
why does Ali insist on both?
And if abandoning the outward rites were a higher realization,
why does he never model it—especially when he was the Caliph of the Muslim Ummah and had the ability to do so?