Nothing, after prayer, will cause the development of the spirit, save fasting. The First Point, the Báb, ordained for all the people to fast until they should reach the age of forty-two, but the Blessed Perfection [Bahá’u’lláh] said: “We love fasting! Unless the people become old and weak, they should fast.” Thus the limit for fasting was appointed. One should begin to observe the fast from the age of fifteen, and continue the observance of it until the body may become too weak to do so without injury. His Holiness, the Blessed Perfection, used to fast throughout the set time every year.
In the Kitab-i-Aqdas the rules for fasting are as follows: Eating and drinking should cease before the rising of the sun and until the setting thereof. The traveler, the sick, pregnant women and nursing mothers are free from this obligation.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From 'Table Talks' by ‘Abdu’l-Baha, recorded by Corinne True, Haifa; Star of the West, vol. 4, no. 18, February 7, 1914)