25. We have enjoined upon you fasting during a brief period # 16Fasting and obligatory prayer constitute the two pillars that sustain the revealed Law of God. Baha'u'llah 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.
A summary of the detailed provisions concerning the law of fasting and of the exemptions granted to certain categories of people is contained in the Synopsis and Codification, section IV.B.1.-6. For a discussion of the exemptions from fasting see notes 14, 20, 30 and 31.
The nineteen-day period of fasting coincides with the Baha'i month of Ala', usually 2-20 March, immediately after the termination of the Intercalary Days (see notes 27 and 147), and is followed by the feast of Naw-Ruz (see note 26).
26. and at its close have designated for you Naw-Ruz as a feast # 16The Bab introduced a new calendar, known now as the Badi' or Baha'i calendar (see notes 27 and 147). According to this calendar, a day is the period from sunset to sunset. In the Bayan, the Bab ordained the month of Ala' to be the month of fasting, decreed that the day of Naw-Ruz should mark the termination of that period, and designated Naw-Ruz as the Day of God. Baha'u'llah confirms the Badi' calendar wherein Naw-Ruz is designated as a feast.
Naw-Ruz is the first day of the new year. It coincides with the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, which usually occurs on 21 March. Baha'u'llah explains that this feast day is to be celebrated on whatever day the sun passes into the constellation of Aries (i.e. the vernal equinox), even should this occur one minute before sunset (Q and A 35). Hence Naw-Ruz could fall on 20, 21, or 22 March, depending on the time of the equinox.
Baha'u'llah has left the details of many laws to be filled in by the Universal House of Justice. Among these are a number of matters affecting the Baha'i calendar. The Guardian has stated that the implementation, worldwide, of the law concerning the timing of Naw-Ruz will require the choice of a particular spot on earth which will serve as the standard for the fixing of the time of the spring equinox. He also indicated that the choice of this spot has been left to the decision of the Universal House of Justice.
3. This passage is translated by E.G. Browne in A Traveller's Narrative, p. 423. "From all this it would seem that the restoration of the old Persian solar year in place of the Arabian lunar year; the solemn sanctioning of the great national festival of the Nawruz, which
corresponds with the beginning of the solar year, the quickening of the earth after its winter torpor, and the entry of the Sun into the sign of Aries; the division of the year into nineteen months of nineteen days each; and the nomenclature certainly of some and probably of all of
these months were integral portions of the system devised by the Bab; while the provision of five intercalary days and the enactments relating to their observance were supplementary details introduced by Beha." Ibid. p. 424.