The fasting period,
which lasts nineteen days starting as a rule from the second of March every
year and ending on the twentieth of the same month, involves complete
abstention from food and drink from sunrise till sunset. It 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, fundamentally spiritual in character. Fasting is
symbolic, and a reminder of abstinence from selfish and carnal desired.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a
letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly
of the United States, January 10, 1936; compilation: Lights of Guidance)
