SHAFAQNA – Imam Sadeq (AS) said: You must be humble before God in public or private in appropriate ways, and present your life to God in your fasting, and free your heart from everything for God’s sake, and appoint yourself to fulfill whatever God has commanded. Then after carrying out these deeds completely, you have fulfilled the reality of the fasting for God, and have established what God has commanded. But if you fall short of the mentioned actions, to the same amount (you fall short) the rewards and blessings of the fasting will be deducted. Indeed, fasting is not just to avoid eating and drinking, rather God has placed it as an obstacle for the behaviour and saying which make fasting void (Batel). How little in numbers are those who truly fast, and how large in numbers are those who only endure hunger [1].
[1] Wasa’elul Shia, Vol. 10, Page 166.