Al Salam Alaikum 🌱 

📈 The Economy of Your Hunger

It’s Day 3 of Ramadan. 2:47 PM.

Your stomach isn’t just empty- it’s loud.

That familiar growl that used to send you to the fridge, to the cafe, to the vending machine. Every signal in your body is screaming: consume.

But you don’t.

For the first time in months- maybe years- you’re not responding to the signal. You’re not feeding the hunger. You’re sitting with it. Watching it. Letting it pass.

And something profound is happening that you might not have language for yet:

You are becoming useless to the market.

Think about what your average day looked like two weeks ago. The morning coffee you “needed.”

The mid-morning snack.

The lunch- maybe eaten at your desk, maybe grabbed from somewhere fast because you were busy.

The afternoon pick-me-up.

The scroll through your phone while eating.

The evening delivery because you were too tired to cook.

Every single one of those moments was a transaction. Every single one fed a system that depends on your constant consumption to survive.

Now multiply that by 2 billion Muslims worldwide, all simultaneously refusing to participate in the consumption economy during daylight hours for 30 consecutive days.

This is not a diet. This is not a detox. This is a general strike. This is refusal.

🛍️ The Consumer Self

Let’s be clear about what we're actually fasting from.

Yes, food and water. But those are just the most obvious layers.

The Quran doesn’t say fasting was prescribed so you could lose weight or reset your gut biome.

It says fasting was prescribed “that you may attain taqwa”- that protective consciousness, that shield against everything that pulls you away from Allah.

And what pulls you away from Allah more consistently than anything else in the modern world?

Consumption.

Not just food. The endless consumption of content. Of products. Of experiences. Of validation. Of novelty.

The average person in the West is exposed to between 4,000 and 10,0000 advertisements per day. Each one a small whisper: You are not enough. You need this. Buy this. Consume this. Then you’ll be complete.

This isn’t accidental. This is architecture. The entire economy depends on you believing that you are perpetually incomplete, perpetually hungry, perpetually in need of the next purchase, the next scroll, the next hit.

Capitalism doesn’t just sell your products. It creates the consumer self- an identity built entirely around acquisition, appetite, and the belief that satisfaction is always one purchase away.

Fasting attacks this self at the root.

When you fast, you prove- in your heart and body, not just in your mind- that the hunger can be sat with. That the craving can be observed and not obeyed. That you are not your appetite.

🚫 The Wider Fast

But here’s where most of us stop short.

We fast from food, water and intimacy- obligatory, non-negotiable, the bare minimum- while continuing to consume everything else at the same rate.

We scroll through social media while fasting, feeding the attention economy.

We online shop for Eid outfits, feeding the retail economy.

We binge content while fasting, feeding the entertainment economy.

We check work emails compulsively while fasting, feeding the productivity economy.

And then we wonder why Ramadan feels spiritually thin. Why we finish the month and feel like something was missing.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Whoever does not give up false speech and acting upon it, Allah has no need for his giving up food and drink.”

False speech. Acting upon it. This isn’t just about lying. This can also be interpreted as the entire false way of being that consumption culture creates- the performance, the pretense, the endless signaling of a self that doesn’t actually exist beneath all the purchases and posts.

If you’re fasting from food but not from consumption patterns that define your life, you’re missing what fasting is actually for.

The fast was never meant to be partial. It was meant to be total.

✊ What Total Refusal Looks Like

So what would a real fast look like?

A fast that actually functions as resistance?

Fasting from unnecessary purchases.

The Ramadan sales are already in your inbox. The Eid collections are dropping. The algorithm knows you’re Muslim and it’s ready to sell your holiest month back to you.

Refuse.

For 30 days, buy nothing that isn’t genuinely necessary. Not “I really want it” necessary. Actually necessary. Food for iftar. Medication. Genuine needs.

Everything else can wait. And if it can wait for 30 days, it can probably wait forever- which tells you something about how necessary it actually was.

Fasting from the attention economy.

Your attention is the product that social media companies sell to advertiers. Every minute you spend scrolling, you’re being harvested.

For 30 days, reclaim your attention as your own.

Delete the apps. Or set hard limits. One check per day. Thirty minutes maximum. Whatever boundary actually creates freedom rather than just managing addiction.

When you feel the urge to scroll- and you will, constantly- notice it. That urge is the same as the hunger for food. It can be sat with. It doesn’t have to have obeyed.

Fasting from content consumption.

The podcasts. The Netflix queue. The YouTube rabbit holes. The constant input of other people’s thoughts, stories, and opinions.

For 30 days, let the only “content” be the Quran.

This sounds extreme. It is extreme. And that’s the point. You’ve been living in a state of constant mental consumption, and you didn’t even know it was a choice. Ramadan reveals that it is.

Fasting from the performance of consumption.

No iftar or Masjid photos. No Ramadan aesthetics posts. No content about your spiritual journey for public consumption.

The ego wants to turn every worship into content. Fast from that.

📿 The Prophetic Model

The Prophet (peace be upon him) lived in a state of permanent fast from the consumption patterns of his society.

When the wealth of conquered nations flowed into Madinah, his household remained simple.

Sayida Aisha (RA) reported that months would pass with no fire lit in the Prophet’s home for cooking- they lived on dates and water.

This wasn’t poverty. By the end of his life, the Prophet (peace be upon him) had access to tremendous wealth. He chose simplicity. He chose tha akhira over the dunya. He chose refusal.

When he was offered the treasures of the earth, he declined. When Quraysh offered him money, power, and status to stop his message, he refused. His famous response to his uncle Abu Talib:

“By Allah, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left to stop this matter, I would not stop until Allah makes it prevail or I die trying.”

This is not the disposition of a consumer. This is the disposition of someone free from the systems of his society.

The Prophet (peace and blessings upon him) was fasting from dunya long before Ramadan was prescribed. Ramadan just formalized what was already his blessed way of being.

The question for us:

😱 The Fear Beneath the Hunger

Here’s what no one talks about: fasting is terrifying.

Not the hunger itself. You can handle hunger. But what hunger exposes.

When you can’t reach food to sooth anxiety, you have to feel the anxiety.

When you can’t scroll to escape boredom, you have to sit in the boredom.

When you can’t buy something to fill the void, you have to face the void.

Consumption is medication.

We use it to numb ourselves to the existential realities we’d rather not face: our morality, our meaninglessness without Allah, our desperate need for something beyond this dunya.

Fasting removes the medication. And that’s uncomfortable.

But it’s in that discomfort that taqwa is built.

Taqwa- that shield, that protection- only develops when you face what you’ve been hiding from and discover that Allah is sufficient.

You won’t know the answer to that question until you stop relying on everything else.

🫂 The Communal Dimension

One more thing about refusal: it only works if it’s collective.

One person fasting from consumption is an eccentric.

A billion people fasting together is a movement.

This is why Ramadan is communal. Not just because shared hardship builds solidarity (though it does). But because collective refusal has power that individual refusal doesn’t.

When the entire Ummah simultaneously steps back from the consumption economy, something shifts. The market notices. The system feels the absence.

And more importantly: you’re not alone in your refusal. You’re surrounded by a global community doing the same thing.

The isolation that capitalism creates- the sense that you’re the only one who feels this way, the only one who wants something different- dissolves when you realize that a quarter of humanity is resisting alongside you.

This is why praying taraweeh in congregation matters.

This is why breaking fast with others matters.

This is why the communal nature of Ramadan isn’t optional.

Alone, you’re an anomaly.

Together, you’re a revolution.

💭 Closing Reflection

The market has a plan for your Ramadan.

It wants you to buy Ramadan-themed products. It wants you to consume Ramadan content. It wants you to perform Ramadan spirituality online. It wants to take your holiest month and make it another revenue stream.

But you have a different option.

For 30 days, you can become unmarketable. Unreachable. Unprofitable. You can let your hunger- for food, for content, for purchases, for validation- go unanswered.

And in that emptiness, you can discover what was always there beneath the consumption: a self that doesn’t need any of it.

A soul that is sufficient with Allah.

That discovery is worth more than anything the market is selling.

✖️ Stop buying.

✖️ Stop scrolling.

✖️ Stop consuming.

✖️ Start fasting for real.

✊ Opt out of the system.

This week is about awareness first, then action.

🔍️ Days 1-2: The Audit

Before you can fast from consumption, you need to see how much you’re actually consuming. Most of us have no idea.

Track everything you consume that isn’t water and food:

• Every social media check (count them- you’ll be horrified)

• Every piece of content (videos, articles, podcasts, shows)

• Every purchase or browsing session

• Every advertisement you notice

• Every moment you reach for your phone out of habit

Don’t judge. Just observe. You’re gathering data.

At the end of two days, look at your list. This is what you’re actually feeding on. This is what your soul is consuming while your body fasts.

🚫 Days 3-7: The Fast

Now, choose one consumption fasts to maintain for the rest of the week:

1. One financial fast: No purchases except genuine necessities. When you feel the urge to buy, write down what you wanted and why. You’re tracking the cravings.

2. One attention fast: Set a hard limit on social media and entertainment. For some, this might be zero. For others, 30 minutes daily. Whatever boundary creates actual freedom. When you feel the urge to scroll, sit with it like you sit with hunger.

3. One input fast: Choose significant portions of your day with no content- no podcasts during commutes, no background videos while working, no noise to fill the silence. Let the silence be.

💌 I’d Love to Hear From You!

If this reflection sparked something in you, I’d love to hear it. You can reply directly to this email- I read and respond to every message. Share your thoughts and let me know how you are turning your Ramadan into Resistance! 🌱 

🤲 Closing Dua

“O Allah, we ask You for detachment from this world and desire for the Hereafter. O Allah, make us self-sufficient with what is halal so that we have no need for what is haram, and with Your bounty so that we have no need for anyone other than You.”

Ameen