Contrary to common belief , Islam has also made all the religious rituals a personal matter . There is no worldly penalty for not performing any mandatory or religious obligation. Even the Islamic state is not allowed to punish people for not performing their salaat, fast , hajj , zakaat etc. Why because if someone is performing his/her salaat they do not have to announce it to the world similarly if they are not performing saalat they do not have to announce to the world. Yes Islam emphasizes that people invite each other to good deeds and forbid each other from doing bad deeds, that is the end of it. There is no ghunda gardi or dada geeri in Islam for enforcing obligations to Allah. Islam has penal system only for worldly crimes like murder , theft etc.
Now if a husband or wife does not have a valid reason for fasting all we can do is tell them that we would love to be togather in Jannat and salaat and fasting will be one of the contributing factor to make it possible. We can cry over their lack of interest and love for their religion.
totally agree, imagine if in islam it was ok to force/make people to perform their salat and have a worldly penality for not doing it etc... do you thnk those people would be praying for Allah, and their prayer will be worth something? it would right out negate the whole point of the ibadat anyways ...
i think the only time this is ok, is with very young kids ( e.g. sometimes you have to discipline them to sit down, leave their play or cartoons and read quran with their qari sahib ), but for any baaligh kid or adult (and teenagers are baligh once reached puberty) you can in no way at all force them to fast or pray, and most of the ibaadaat like fasting etc become only farz when you are baaligh for this reason...
the only thing you can do , i s talk to them about how good it is to do something, why people who do it, actually do it, what do they get out of it... etc... what do quran and hadith say about these ibaadaats etc.