Today is the beginning of the Nineteen Day fast in the Baha'i faith, which has a calendar of 19 months with 19 days (periodically adjusted). The Báb, who founded the faith, insisted this sunrise-to-sunset abstention from food and drink for all healthy Baha'is between the ages of 15 and 70. Fasting is acceptable at other times of the year but it is obligatory during this month (with the exceptions of the sick, elderly, pregnant, and others, similar to the Ramadan fast). Shoghi Effendi, the head of the Baha'i Faith in 1921-1957, writes: "It 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." (From this site). See also this description.
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