Of the many definitions of taqwa, essentially on two things: we carry out Allah’s command according to our ability and leave His entire ban.
So it is with the nature of the pious, if we trace in the Quran, hadith and sayings of salafush pious, in the word of taqwa will be summed up in three letters. The word of taqwa consists of letters “ta”, “qaf”, and “waw”. “Ta” stands of tawadhu (humble), “qaf” stands of qana’a (feel enough) and “waw” stands of wara’ (caution).
The above three of traits are the root of goodness, while the opposites are arrogance, greed and lust. It can be seen from the story of devil, as Adam, and his sons, Habil and Qabil.
Allah informed the angels that He was going to make Adam a caliph in the earth. Angels protested to Allah and doubted the ability of Adam, because as a human being, he has a tendency to destroy his surroundings and shed blood. Then Allah asked Adam to show his brilliance in front of the angels. Then the angels acknowledged Adam capabilities.
However, it was different with Satan. Not only did Satan protests and did not obey Allah’s command to respect Adam. Satan felt he was better than Adam, because he was the created first and made of fire. This was the first conceit occurrence on the creatures of Allah. Satan was accursed.
Allah created Adam and Eve. They lived in paradise and could eat everything, except the “fruit of eternity” (khuldi). Approaching the tree it should not be, let alone eat it. It was precisely this prohibition was an entrance for satan to plunge the parent of humans. Adam and Eve disobeyed, because they were greedy, Allah had given all, but they still wanted the ban fruit, so they were expelled from Heaven with satan. They were sent down to earth.
Short story, Adam and Eve who had split up, eventually reunited and had children. Qadhi Nashiruddin Baidhawi in the book of Nizhâm al-Tawârikh, explains that Eve had always given birth to twins, one male and one female, except childbirth of prophet Tsis. As for the number of children of Adam-Eve, according to Thabari in the book of Tarikh there are three opinions, namely: 1). as many as 120 children, both boys and girls; 2). 40 sons and daughters, and 25 sons and 4 daughters. The first born, twins named Qabil and Iqlima. Second birth, twin of Habil (Abel) and Lubida.
Allah revealed to Adam, when his children had grown, had married to cross twin, not on their own twin. This rule was rejected by Qabil (Cain), he did not want to marry Lubida, whom he considered not beautiful enough. As a solution, Adam offered sacrifices to them and both did, whose sacrifices were acceptable to Allah then he had the right to decide who would be his partner. Allah SWT accepted Habil’s (Abel) animal sacrifice, while Qabil’s (Cain) was rejected. Again, Qabil did not want to accept reality. He followed his own desires which is to assasinate Habil.
The story of Satan, Adam and Qabil was, essentially depicts three tests: throne (position), treasure (wealth), and women (desire). Satan was arrogant that because he felt he was entitled to receive the throne as the leader, Adam and Eve were greedy, because according to them it did not matter that they had toyed with the forbidden tree and ate the fruit, and Qabil followed his own desires, because he thought by killing his sibling, then his desire would be achieved.
From the above story, we can infer that shaum is a process to undermine or eliminate (takhalli) the nature of arrogance, greed, and surrendering to desires (lust) as well as condemn or enhance (tahalli) to the humble nature ‘qana’a and wara‘, aka God-fearing, so that later comes (tajalli) mercy, blessing, and the pleasure of Allah SWT.
When we perform shaum, we train ourselves not to be arrogant or in the other hand, to become humble through words and deeds, where we train ourselves of not being greedy or qana’a by refraining from eating and drinking from dawn until sunset. Further, we are by conducting shaum, we can become better trained not to follow the passions or wara‘ passing refrain from jima‘ during the day.
When we can eliminate arrogance, greed and desires (lust) of the self, thus arise within us is our humble nature, qana’a and wara’, and this is called taqwa. In other words, the pious are those who survive the test of throne, treasure (wealth) and women (desires/lust). The people who is succeed in shaum will be victorious and happy. Therefore, they celebrate in humbleness. So, only those of taqwa people who deserve to celebrate Eid al-Fitr.
