The Bahá'í Fast
What Bahá’í communities “are striving to accomplish is God’s will for the day in which we live. That it is His will for humanity to live as one family; that it is His will for every single human being to live up to his or her full potential; that it is His will for peace and justice to fill every land and for love to reign in every heart. …all are valued contributors to the task of changing the world.”
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(From National Spiritual Assembly Letter dated 12-08-17 to the Baha’is of the United States)
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A series of videos for inspiration during the Fast.
The Fasting period - a time to align heart, mind, and spirit with God’s will. A time for . . .
Fasting and obligatory prayer constitute the two pillars that sustain the revealed Law of God. Bahá’u’lláh in one of His Tablets affirms that He has revealed the laws of obligatory prayer and fasting so that through them the believers may draw nigh unto God.
Shoghi Effendi indicates that the fasting period, which involves complete abstention from food and drink from sunrise till sunset, is …essentially a period of meditation and prayer, of spiritual recuperation, during which the believer must strive to make the necessary readjustments in his inner life, and to refresh and reinvigorate the spiritual forces latent in his soul. Its significance and purpose are, therefore, fundamentally spiritual in character. Fasting is symbolic, and a reminder of abstinence from selfish and carnal desires.
Fasting is enjoined on all the believers once they attain the age of 15 and until they reach the age of 70 years.
The nineteen-day period of fasting coincides with the Bahá’í month of ‘Alá’, usually 2–20 March, immediately after the termination of the Intercalary Days, and is followed by the feast of Naw-Rúz.
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá’u’lláh / Note 25