Explanation and Benefits of the Prophet Dawood Fasting

The fast of the Prophet Dawood is one of the types of fasting in Islam. The Prophet Dawood fast by one day of fasting and one day not fasting. Prophet Dawood did it with higher intergrity, just to get closer to Allah SWT, just like when we learn how to memorize Qur’an. 

This fasting originally from the prophet Dawood who at that time became the great King in Jerusalem. One day, King Dawood sent his warlord named Aria to take charge of carrying out the war. Secretly, the Prophet Dawood wanted to have Aria’s wife, who was very beautiful, as his wife.

At that time, Prophet Dawood had 99 wifes. Law in that time did not have a prohibition on many wives. It’s because the number of men and women was not comparable after the massacre of newborn sons by Pharaoh (Fir’aun) in Egypt when the time of Moses.

Because of this, Allah SWT warned the Prophet Dawood by sending two angels in human-form as a disguise to complain about their problems.

They were debating about ownership of the sheep. One has 99 sheeps, while the other only has one sheep. Because the one sheep owner were defeated in a debate, the one who had 1 sheep had to give his sheep to the other sheep owner.

Prophet Dawood finally realized that it was a warning from Allah. Prophet Dawood acknowledged his mistake immediately. Then, Prophet Dawood repented by undergoing fasting. His fasting known until now with the name fast of Dawood.

Benefits of Dawood Fasting

The fast of Prophet Dawood has some benefits that brings many merits. This fast is the ultimate sunnah fast. The virtue of Prophet Dawood stated in the hadiths below:

حَدَّثَنَا قُتَيْبَةُ بْنُ سَعِيدٍ، حَدَّثَنَا سُفْيَانُ، عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ دِينَارٍ، عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ أَوْسٍ الثَّقَفِيِّ، سَمِعَ عَبْدَ اللَّهِ بْنَ عَمْرٍو، قَالَ قَالَ لِي رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ “‏ أَحَبُّ الصِّيَامِ إِلَى اللَّهِ صِيَامُ دَاوُدَ، كَانَ يَصُومُ يَوْمًا وَيُفْطِرُ يَوْمًا، وَأَحَبُّ الصَّلاَةِ إِلَى اللَّهِ صَلاَةُ دَاوُدَ، كَانَ يَنَامُ نِصْفَ اللَّيْلِ وَيَقُومُ ثُلُثَهُ وَيَنَامُ سُدُسَهُ ‏”‏‏.‏

“Allah’s Messenger (PBUH) said to me, “The most beloved fasting to Allah was the fasting of (the Prophet) Dawood who used to fast on alternate days. And the most beloved prayer to Allah was the prayer of Dawood who used to sleep for (the first) half of the night and pray for 1/3 of it and (again) sleep for a sixth of it.” (Narrated by Abdullah ibn Amr)

وَأَحَبُّ الصِّيَامِ إِلَى اللَّهِ صِيَامُ دَاوُدَ، كَانَ يَنَامُ نِصْفَ اللَّيْلِ وَيَقُومُ ثُلُثَهُ، وَيَنَامُ سُدُسَهُ، وَيَصُومُ يَوْمًا، وَيُفْطِرُ يَوْمًا. قَالَ عَلِيٌّ وَهْوَ قَوْلُ عَائِشَةَ مَا أَلْفَاهُ السَّحَرُ عِنْدِي إِلاَّ نَائِمًا.

“The fast that most loved by Allah is the fast of Dawood, and the prayer that most loved by Allah is the prayer of Dawood. He sleeps half of the night, and wakes up one third of the night, then he sleeps (again) one-sixth of the night, and he fasts one day and breaks one day.” (Narrated by Bukhari Muslim)

The benefits of Prophet Dawood’s fasting were not only to increase the merit of worship, but also for the health of your body, soul, and closeness to Allah and Messenger but also some of the health benefits. This list below is the benefits of Prophet Dawood’s fasting:

• Prevent disease

You may already know the benefits of Muharram fasting, you should know the benefits of Dawood’s fast. The benefits can be perceived in health. This is exactly like the health condition of the Prophet Dawood who was always healthy and rarely sick.

The fasting of Dawood is like an immunity for your body. By doing the Dawood’s fast, the body’s condition becomes healthier, especially in the digestive tract.

• Strengthen physically

The Prophet Dawood is a prophet who has amazing physical strength. This amazing physical strength complements his tall physique and charismatic charm. This physical strength is very useful to support your daily activity and also make our faith in Islam stronger.

• Detoxifications

Another benefits of Dawood’s fasting is Dawood’s fasting can act as a detoxification process for your body. Fasting in the form of compulsory practices such as Ramadhan fasting and sunnah practices such as fasting Dawood is indeed useful for cleaning the body. All of poisons through food, drink, and the air that you inhale can be detrimental to health if not disposed of.

• Reduced lust

Not only useful for your physical health, the benefits of Dawood’s fasting could control your lust. This lust has mean not only lust of sexual but also lust of anger.

• Follow the sunnah and get Allah’s reward

While doing this fast, we can follow the sunnah of Rasul and get Allah’s reward too. This is very important to Muslims as a one of the 6 pillar of faith.

Prophet Dawood’s fasting is the most preferred fasting by Allah as mentioned in some hadith. So, by doing Prophet Dawood’s fasting, it can bring a lot of benefit.

The benefits of fasting Dawood are in order to get a blessing of Allah so that we can get closer and have fear to Our God.

That is the brief explanation and benefits of Prophet Dawood fasting, now you know the benefits of it, you should know what things that are makruh infasting and its verses and what things that nullify your fasting to make your fasting received by Allah SWT.