This a translation to a question posted at this link

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/show_fatwa.php?main_id=335

Wasting the Fast Of Ramadan

Question Text:

The media insists upon recommendations from the Sunni sect explaining how to act and conduct ourselves during Ramadan… But how should be the form of life in Ramadan for us who are not Sunnis?

If the Sunnis read the Qur'an in Ramadan every day a part, until fully finished at the end of the month, because they believe in just reading it, there is a reward from God Almighty in every letter uttered. They perform The long-prayers at night (Taraweeh), following the example of Omer Ibn Al-Khattab, they increase inter-family visits, visiting friends and invitations of others for Iftar as a form of strengthening kinship , compassion, doing good work and good deeds in general. They believe in the superiority of intensive worship in the last ten days of Ramadan, the number of pilgrims performing Umrah drives the cost sky high, and before the end of the month. A sum of money  is taken out to be spent in some form of  goodness they call Zakat al-Fitr, because they believe that fasting is suspended between heaven and earth and do not go up unless  Zakat al-Fitr propels it and the reward of fasting is rendered in vain if they do not pay it up. After the end of the  fasting month, they  follow it with fasting six days of Shawwal, since a good deed is rewarded with ten like-wise of rewards, so to fast the extra 6 days plus the 30 days of the month, as if you fasted the whole year,  (30X10) + (6 x 10) = 360 the number of days in a year…..

Ahmed Subhi Mansour’s reply:

More important than of all this, is the goal of fasting or worship in general

This is the difference between Islam and the man -made religion of the Sunni and other Muslim religions, they invented through jurisprudence, Ahadith and traditional transcription and interpretation. According to them, performing the obligatory prayers, fasting, pilgrimage and giving charity is the objective. If they have achieved the objective, they are not to be blamed  if they commit evil deeds and sins, because those acts of worship will get them to be forgiven, consequently praying, fasting, almsgiving and pilgrimage become justification to indulge in sins and in encouraging them.

In Islam, the Quran confirms that performing acts of worship is a way to Piety, a tool to fear God and to stay away from sin.  A true genuine prayer is the one that forbids indecency and evil, and that the purpose of fasting is (That you may have Piety and fear and awareness of God), as well as pilgrimage and charity, all of which to elevate the soul and raise it to higher levels.

After clarifying the difference between worship in Islam and worship in the Sunni religion, we branch off to the results, which became landmarks in the school of Sunni jurisprudence.

You will see them fond of superficial religiosity in terms of clothes, beards, niqab and hijab. At the same time you find them the worst people in dealing with others within the family, at home, the street and at work etc…, most in committing debauchery secretly, and furthest from the piety of the heart … of them comes terrorists and experts in bloodletting in the name of Islam.

Because of this superficial religiosity, you see Ramadan has turned at their hands to exactly the opposite of what it was meant to be. It is no longer the month of piety and  of contemplating and comprehending of the Quran, but has become a social event where bellies are filled with foods, regular, and specific to Ramadan, and the minds and

hearts are filled with various types of entertainment programs dramas and contests shows.

While a day in Ramadan passes on slowly and boringly, they painstakingly work during it, and circumvent in any way until it is time to break the fast. Yet its night is the time for mosques to be filled to listen to the singing and dancing and to the mantra of the Quran, which turned into a Sunni religious material to sing… there is the voice of such-n-such a Sheikh and such-n-such Sheikh. , In the congested traffic access to mosques and roads, there you will find prostitutes alongside with venders of lying preaching elders.

A festival and an auction to enter paradise is conducted based on the number of rak’as of a prayer (not as much as you fear  of God  or as much as you have piety in your heart, especially at times other than prayer’s time) and as much of the money offerings that  goes in part to the elders and beneficiaries.

Briefly, Ramadan turns into a monthly procession of celebration, of fun, of games, of decorations, of splurge, of proliferation, of competition and reverence for humans and stone.

We find quite the opposite in Islam.

In Islam: Ramadan is the month of piety and of modifying the behavior and reading of the Quran, a reflective pondering reading, a humble and sincere opportunity for prayer and devotion to God.

According to Islam, fasting is for the heart not to think of sin in adherence to piety, and for the faculties and the tongue to fast from doing what angers God Almighty in adherence to piety. For the heart to get busy and other faculties to engage in more acts of obedience, more acts of worship, more good deeds in order to please God without taking into account people or showing off before them.

Accordingly, fasting is reflected in the conduct of a true Muslim, to become benevolent in dealing with people, honest and truthful in words, with vigor and vitality in work, in lightness in food consumption and learning patience, in compassion and mercy toward the needy… all without festivals and processions, or TV series or songs, or lights ,or mayhem, or crowds staying up late for no good.