IA quick read in five sentences
The Bahá'í Faith بهائی is a monotheistic religion that arose in Persia in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Arabic word bahá بهاء means glory or splendor, and a Bahá'í is a follower of Bahá'u'lláh, a title meaning the Glory of God. The Faith has two figures who opened its way: the Báb, who declared in 1844 that he was the gate heralding one who was soon to come, and Bahá'u'lláh, who declared in 1863 that he himself was that one. What newcomers find most unusual about this religion is that it has no clergy. There are no priests, no imams, no professional preachers. All common affairs, from a small village to the whole world, are handled by councils of nine, and those councils are elected by secret ballot in which no one may stand as a candidate or campaign. The second thing that often surprises people is that the Faith reads the religious history of humankind as a chain of successive revelations, so in a Bahá'í House of Worship one may hear the scriptures of other religions read aloud as well.
One. The Faith teaches three onenesses: God is one, the great religions share one source, and humankind is one family.
Two. The Faith has a clear line of succession: the Báb died in 1850, Bahá'u'lláh died in 1892, then came his son 'Abdu'l-Bahá, then 'Abdu'l-Bahá's eldest grandson through his daughter, Shoghi Effendi, and since 1963 the Universal House of Justice, a council of nine elected once every five years.
Three. The scriptures are the authentic writings of the Báb, of Bahá'u'lláh and of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, written in Arabic and Persian. The foundational book of laws is the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, meaning the Most Holy Book.
Four. The Faith uses its own calendar, called the Badí' calendar, with nineteen months of nineteen days each, and the new year falls on the spring equinox. The last month of the year is the month of fasting.
Five. The place of collective worship is called the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár, which outsiders usually call a Bahá'í temple or House of Worship. It is built on a nine-sided plan with a central dome and is open to people of every religion. The best known of these temples is the Lotus Temple in New Delhi.
This page follows fifteen sections and is written in a descriptive voice. The library reports what the Bahá'í Faith holds about itself in the boxes marked as the tradition's teaching, reports what historians can verify in the boxes marked as historical record, and keeps the two clearly apart. Where sources disagree, as on the number of followers worldwide, the year the Faith reached Vietnam or the month its certificate of registration for religious activities was issued, the library records both figures with their sources rather than choosing one. The page does not judge whether this religion is right or wrong compared with any other.
IINineteenth-century Persia and the expectation of the Qá'im
To understand why the Báb's declaration in 1844 stirred up such a large movement, one has to look at the religious life of Persia at the time. Under the Qájár dynasty the country followed Twelver Shia Islam, the largest Shia branch, described on the library's Islam page. This branch believes that the twelfth Imam went into occultation in the ninth century and will one day return as the Qá'im, meaning he who shall arise, to restore justice on earth. That expectation was not a remote matter confined to books. By the 1840s, calculations were circulating among scholars that the moment was near, because the year 1260 of the Hijri calendar, that is 1844 in the Gregorian calendar, marked a full thousand years since the Imam went into occultation.
The Shaykhí school, a bridge to the Báb
Within Shia Islam at the time there was a small but lively school called the Shaykhí school, named after Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsá'í, who died in 1826, and his successor Siyyid Kázim Rashtí, who died at the end of 1843. The two teachers taught that the return of the Qá'im should be understood in a spiritual sense more than a literal one, and they told their disciples that the day was very close. When Siyyid Kázim died without naming a successor, many of his disciples spread out in different directions to search for the promised one. One of them was Mullá Husayn, and he was the first person to hear the Báb's declaration in Shiraz.
Twelver Shia Islam awaited the return of the Hidden Imam. The texts of the Báb's movement and of the Bahá'í Faith read themselves as the answer to that expectation, and to the expectations of other religions as well.
It had prepared a group of disciples who believed the time had come and were ready to go searching. Most of the Báb's early followers came from this group.
In Persia at that time, the clergy controlled teaching, the courts and many civil matters. A claim of new revelation therefore collided at once with an entire system, and that is why the Báb's movement met opposition very early.
Because it arose in a Shia setting, the Bahá'í Faith is often called a branch or a reform movement of Islam. Bahá'ís themselves do not accept that description. They regard their Faith as an independent religion with its own founders, scriptures, laws, calendar and places of worship, just as Christianity arose in a Jewish setting but is not a branch of Judaism. For their part, Muslim scholars in general also do not regard the Bahá'í Faith as part of Islam, because Islam holds that Muhammad is the final messenger. The two sides start from different premises but arrive at the same conclusion: these are two different religions.
IIIThe Báb, the one who opened the gate
The Báb's given name was Siyyid 'Alí-Muhammad. He was born on October 20, 1819, in Shiraz, into a merchant family descended from Muhammad, and so bore the title siyyid. His father died early, and he was raised by a maternal uncle and followed the family trade. The title he took for himself was the Báb باب, literally the gate. In Shia usage the word refers to someone who serves as the gateway between the faithful and the Hidden Imam. Later, his writings stated more clearly that he was not merely a gateway to the Imam but was himself the awaited Qá'im, and at the same time the herald of a greater one who would come after him.
According to the Faith's own account, on the evening of May 22, 1844, Mullá Husayn arrived in Shiraz and was invited home by a young man he did not know. In an upper room, the young man wrote in a single sitting the opening of a commentary on the Súrih of Joseph (Yúsuf) in the Qur'an and declared that he was the one Mullá Husayn was seeking. The Bahá'í Faith regards that moment as the beginning of a new age. The year 1844 is the first year of the Badí' calendar, and the Declaration of the Báb is one of the greatest holy days of the year. Also according to the Faith's tradition, on that same night in Tehran, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, was born.
In the months that followed, eighteen people found their way to him one after another and accepted him. They are known as the Letters of the Living. Among them was a woman, the poet Táhirih, who later became famous for removing her veil before a gathering of the Báb's followers at Badasht in 1848, as a gesture declaring that the old law had had its day. The Báb sent his disciples across Persia and the Iraq region to spread the news, while he himself set out on pilgrimage to Mecca. On his return he was placed under house arrest, then imprisoned in two fortresses in the northwestern mountains, Máh-Kú and Chihríq. Most of his writings were produced during these years of imprisonment, the most important being the Bayán, the book that laid down laws for his community and repeatedly refers to one whom God shall make manifest.
On July 9, 1850, the Báb was executed in a public square in Tabriz, at only thirty years of age. His remains were hidden by his followers and kept secret for nearly sixty years, moved from place to place, and only in 1909 were they laid in a shrine on the slope of Mount Carmel in Haifa. That golden-domed shrine is today the most familiar image of the Bahá'í Faith.
The documentation on the Báb is fairly rich compared with that of many other religious founders, because he lived in the middle of the nineteenth century and many of his texts survive. Alongside his own manuscripts there are community chronicles, the most important being the work usually known as The Dawn-Breakers by Nabíl-i-A'zam, translated and edited into English by Shoghi Effendi in 1932, as well as records by European diplomats and Orientalists of the time. The scholar Edward Granville Browne of Cambridge was the first Westerner to study the movement systematically. Historians broadly agree on the major dates: the year of birth, the year of the declaration, the years of imprisonment and the year of execution. What remains under discussion is how to read each stage of the Báb's thought, especially how far he claimed his role in the early years compared with the final years.
Bahá'ís regard the Báb as an independent Manifestation of God with his own revelation, and at the same time as the forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh. For that reason the Bahá'í Faith says it has twin founders, and the birthdays of the two are celebrated on consecutive days as a double holy day. The Báb's movement before 1863 is usually called the Bábí movement by researchers, and it should be distinguished from the later Bahá'í Faith, even though most Bábís went on to follow Bahá'u'lláh.
IVBahá'u'lláh, forty years of exile
Bahá'u'lláh بهاءالله, whose given name was Mírzá Husayn-'Alí Núrí, was born on November 12, 1817, in Tehran, the son of an official at the Qájár court, with family roots in the district of Núr in the province of Mázandarán. In 1844, on hearing of the Báb through a messenger of Mullá Husayn, he accepted the declaration at once and became one of the most prominent supporters of the movement, although he never met the Báb.
The Síyáh-Chál, the dark dungeon of 1852
In 1852, during a mass arrest of the Báb's followers, Bahá'u'lláh was imprisoned in the Síyáh-Chál, meaning the Black Pit, an underground dungeon in Tehran, with a heavy chain around his neck. By his own later account, during those four months he received the first intimations of his mission. The Bahá'í Faith regards that dungeon as the place where Bahá'u'lláh's revelation began, although he kept it to himself for another ten years.
Baghdad and the Garden of Ridván
After his release, Bahá'u'lláh was banished from Persia and arrived in Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman Empire, at the beginning of 1853. This was the start of a chain of exiles that lasted for the rest of his life. From 1854 to 1856 he went off alone into the mountains around Sulaymaniyah and lived as an ascetic for two years. After returning to Baghdad he wrote the three works that would later be the most widely read: the Hidden Words, a collection of short aphorisms in Arabic and Persian, the Seven Valleys, a mystical treatise written in the manner of Sufi poetry, and the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the Book of Certitude, which explains how to read the prophecies of earlier scriptures.
In 1863, having been ordered to move to Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh pitched a tent in a garden on the bank of the Tigris and stayed there for twelve days, from April 21 to May 2. Bahá'ís call that garden Ridván رضوان, meaning paradise or good pleasure. During those twelve days, according to the Faith's tradition, he made known to those close to him that he was the one the Báb had foretold. The twelve days of Ridván are today the Faith's greatest festival, and also the time when Bahá'í councils around the world hold their annual elections.
Adrianople, Akka and the letters to the kings
From Constantinople he was sent on to Adrianople, today Edirne, and lived there from 1863 to 1868. It was in Adrianople that he proclaimed his mission more openly, and it was also there that the split occurred with his half-brother Mírzá Yahyá, whom the Báb had chosen as the nominal head of the Bábí community. Most Bábís followed Bahá'u'lláh and from then on called themselves Bahá'ís. A small group followed Mírzá Yahyá and were called Azalís.
In his last years in Adrianople and his first years in Akka, Bahá'u'lláh wrote a series of letters to the kings and religious leaders of his day in Europe and Asia, calling on them to make justice their foundation and to be reconciled with one another. The Bahá'í Faith regards those letters as the proclamation of his mission to the world. In 1868 he was exiled to Akka, a walled city on the Mediterranean coast, and in his final years he was allowed to live in a mansion outside the city called Bahjí. He passed away there on May 29, 1892. His shrine at Bahjí is the holiest place for Bahá'ís, and the direction they face when saying their obligatory prayer.
In 1890 the scholar Edward Granville Browne came to Bahjí and was received by Bahá'u'lláh four times. Browne recorded the meeting in the introduction to his translation A Traveller's Narrative, published in 1891, and that passage is one of the very few accounts by an outsider who met him in person. As for the texts, researchers estimate that the writings of Bahá'u'lláh comprise from fifteen thousand to more than twenty thousand letters and works, most of them not yet translated. The dates of the main events are little disputed, since most appear in the administrative records of the Persian and Ottoman empires.
No, according to Bahá'í teaching itself. The Faith teaches that God is an essence that can never be fully known and does not become incarnate in a human being. Bahá'u'lláh is regarded as a Manifestation of God, like a mirror reflecting the light of the sun: the mirror shows the sun but is not the sun. Photographs and paintings of Bahá'u'lláh and the Báb do survive, but Bahá'ís do not hang them in places of worship or in their homes, and view them only in the setting of pilgrimage at the World Center, as a way of keeping reverence.
V'Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice
Many religions split soon after their founder dies, over the question of who has the right to lead and who has the right to interpret scripture. The Bahá'í Faith has a concept of its own that answers this question in advance, called the Covenant. Under it, Bahá'u'lláh himself set down in writing who would succeed him, who had the right to interpret his words, and which body would legislate on matters the scriptures do not address.
'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Center of the Covenant
'Abdu'l-Bahá عبدالبهاء, whose given name was 'Abbás, was born on May 23, 1844, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh. The title he chose for himself means Servant of Bahá. He accompanied his father throughout the forty years of exile, from the age of eight, and under his father's will became the head of the Faith and the sole authorized interpreter of Bahá'u'lláh's words. The Faith calls him the Center of the Covenant and regards him as the exemplar of Bahá'í life, but does not regard him as a Manifestation of God.
In 1908 he was set free after forty years of confinement in Akka. From 1910 to 1913, though already over sixty, he traveled to Egypt, Europe and North America, speaking in churches, synagogues, universities and charitable societies and presenting Bahá'í teachings to the Western public. In 1912 he laid the cornerstone of the Bahá'í temple in Wilmette near Chicago. He passed away in Haifa on November 28, 1921. His letters and his Will and Testament form part of the Bahá'í scriptures.
Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian
Under the will of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the head of the Faith from 1921 was his eldest grandson through his daughter, Shoghi Effendi Rabbání, born in 1897, who was then only twenty-four and studying at the University of Oxford. His office was called the Guardian of the Faith. Over thirty-six years he carried out three major tasks. First, he translated many of the principal works into English, and his translations became the standard for most translations into other languages. Second, he built the administrative system of local and national councils according to the framework Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá had outlined. Third, he had the superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb built, completed in 1953, and laid out the gardens on Mount Carmel. He died suddenly in London on November 4, 1957, without children and without appointing a successor Guardian.
The Universal House of Justice, since 1963
After Shoghi Effendi's death, a group of senior believers he had appointed, called the Hands of the Cause, looked after common affairs on an interim basis for six years. In April 1963, exactly at the centenary of Ridván, the delegates of the fifty-six national councils then in existence elected the Universal House of Justice بيت العدل الأعظم, the body Bahá'u'lláh had ordained in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. It has nine members, elected once every five years at an International Convention, by secret ballot of the members of all the national councils. Since 1983 it has worked from a building on Mount Carmel. It has the authority to legislate on matters the scriptures do not make clear, but not the authority to interpret scripture, which belongs solely to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi.
VINearly two hundred years on a timeline
The Bahá'í Faith is one of the youngest of the major religions, so nearly every milestone in its history is documented, and dates rarely have to be guessed. Below are the milestones large enough to change the course of the Faith, told as religious events.
- 1817Bahá'u'lláh is born in TehranNovember 12, into a family of officials from the district of Núr.
- 1819The Báb is born in ShirazOctober 20. Since 2015 the two birthdays have been celebrated on consecutive days according to the lunar calendar.
- 1844The Báb declares his mission in ShirazThe night of May 22 to 23, before Mullá Husayn. The first year of the Badí' calendar. On that same night 'Abdu'l-Bahá is born.
- 1850The Báb is executed in TabrizJuly 9. His remains are hidden and kept safe for nearly sixty years.
- 1852Bahá'u'lláh is imprisoned in the Síyáh-ChálFour months in a Tehran dungeon, which the Faith regards as the place where his revelation began.
- 1853Exile to BaghdadThe start of forty years of exile. From 1854 to 1856 he lives alone in the mountains of Sulaymaniyah.
- 1863The twelve days of RidvánFrom April 21 to May 2, in a garden beside the Tigris. The founding date of the Bahá'í Faith.
- 1868Arrival in AkkaConfined in the walled city, then spends his final years in the mansion of Bahjí outside the city.
- around 1873Kitáb-i-AqdasThe Most Holy Book, the foundational book of laws of the Faith, written in Arabic in Akka.
- 1892Bahá'u'lláh passes away at BahjíMay 29. His will appoints 'Abdu'l-Bahá as his successor.
- 1910 to 1913'Abdu'l-Bahá travels to the WestTravels to Egypt, Europe and North America. In 1912 he lays the cornerstone of the Wilmette temple.
- 1921'Abdu'l-Bahá passes awayNovember 28, in Haifa. Shoghi Effendi becomes the Guardian.
- 1953Dedication of the Wilmette temple and completion of the Shrine of the Báb's superstructureThe first Bahá'í temple in the West, forty-one years after its cornerstone was laid.
- 1954The Bahá'í Faith reaches VietnamAccording to Ban Tôn giáo Chính phủ (the Government Committee for Religious Affairs). A 2021 study, however, states that the Faith entered the country in the 1920s. See the section In Vietnam.
- 1957Shoghi Effendi dies in LondonNovember 4. The Hands of the Cause look after common affairs on an interim basis.
- 1963First election of the Universal House of JusticeApril, exactly one hundred years after Ridván. Elected once every five years since then.
- 1986Dedication of the Lotus Temple in New DelhiDecember. One of the most visited buildings in India.
- 2008The holy places in Haifa and western Galilee are added to the World Heritage ListUNESCO inscribes the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh in Akka and the Shrine of the Báb in Haifa. In the same year, the Bahá'í organization in Vietnam is recognized.
- 2015The Badí' calendar is unified worldwideFollowing the letter of the Universal House of Justice dated July 10, 2014, the new year is fixed by the moment of the spring equinox in Tehran.
VIICore teachings
The Bahá'í Faith has no short creed that everyone must recite, like the Christian Creed or the Islamic Shahada. Its teachings are spread throughout the writings of Bahá'u'lláh and were gathered by 'Abdu'l-Bahá into easily remembered principles when he spoke in the West. Bahá'ís often sum it all up in three onenesses, and from these they draw principles for personal and social life.
God is one
According to Bahá'í teaching, there is only one God, who creates and sustains all things. The essence of God lies beyond all human understanding, just as a painting cannot comprehend the painter. Human beings can know God only through His attributes reflected in all created things, and most clearly through the Manifestations He sends to each age. The different names the religions use, such as God, Allah, Brahman or the Creator, are understood as different ways of naming the same reality.
The religions share one source, and progressive revelation
This is the most distinctive point of the Bahá'í Faith. It teaches that God does not reveal Himself once and for all, but sends humankind a succession of Manifestations of God, each suited to the capacity and needs of his own time. The Bahá'í writings name Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Zoroaster, the Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad, then the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh. This understanding is called progressive revelation. 'Abdu'l-Bahá often compared it to a school with many grades, where the teacher of each grade teaches differently but within one and the same education.
Each religion, in this reading, has two parts. The spiritual part consists of love of God, love of one's fellow human beings and truthfulness, and that part does not change. The social part consists of laws on food, marriage and ritual, and that part changes with the times. Bahá'ís also state clearly that Bahá'u'lláh is not the last: the writings say there will be another Manifestation after him, but not before a thousand years have passed.
Scholars of comparative religion note that the idea of progressive revelation has roots in Islam itself, which already regarded Abraham, Moses and Jesus as prophets who came before Muhammad. What is new in the Bahá'í Faith is that it extends this chain beyond the Abrahamic line to include figures such as Krishna and the Buddha, and does not close the chain with any single figure. Scholars also point out that each religion has its own self-understanding, which the Bahá'í Faith does not necessarily share. For example, most Buddhists do not regard the Buddha as someone sent by God, because Buddhist teaching does not place a creator at its center. This is how the Bahá'í Faith reads other religions, not how other religions read themselves.
Humankind is one
The third oneness is the heart of the whole Faith. One of the most often quoted sayings of Bahá'u'lláh states that the earth is but one country and humankind its citizens. Bahá'ís understand that humanity is passing through the final stage of its adolescence into its maturity, and that the sign of maturity is recognizing itself as one family. Every form of prejudice, whether of race, class, religion or nationality, is therefore regarded as contrary to the will of God.
The principles 'Abdu'l-Bahá set out in the West
When speaking in Europe and North America, 'Abdu'l-Bahá often presented the teachings as a list of principles. The list was not fixed, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, but the following points came back in almost every talk:
Every person has the duty to search for truth independently, and not to follow a religion merely because their parents or their country follow it. Children of Bahá'í families decide for themselves at fifteen whether to declare themselves Bahá'ís.
'Abdu'l-Bahá compared the two to the two wings of a bird. A religion that teaches what contradicts reason and science is, in his words, superstition and not religion.
The two sexes are like the two wings of humanity, and if one wing is weak the bird cannot fly. When a family must choose which child to educate first, the writings direct that priority go to daughters, because girls will be the first teachers of the next generation.
Every child must be educated, and parents have the duty to see to it. Every community is encouraged to open moral education classes for children regardless of religion.
Each people keeps its mother tongue, while the whole world adopts one additional common language to be learned alongside it. The Faith does not specify which language.
Not an equal division of wealth, but not letting anyone fall below a decent standard of living and not letting wealth concentrate to an extreme in one group. Work done in a spirit of service is regarded as equal to worship.
Prejudices of race, religion, class and nation are regarded as the root of division and conflict.
The long-term goal the Faith sets for humanity, accompanied by spiritual conditions such as mutual trust and justice.
The soul and the afterlife
The Bahá'í Faith teaches that each person has a rational soul, which comes into being at conception and does not perish after death. The Faith does not accept reincarnation. This life is compared to the time a child spends in the womb: the fetus develops eyes, ears, hands and feet that it does not yet use in the womb, and in this life human beings develop spiritual qualities such as love, justice and patience, to be used in the next world. Heaven and hell are not two places but states of nearness to or distance from God, and the soul continues to progress after death.
Consultation
A concept few outsiders know about but which runs deep in Bahá'í life is consultation. It is a way of deliberating to reach decisions, used from the family to the global council. Participants state their views frankly but do not cling to them. Once an idea has been expressed it belongs to the whole group and no longer to the person who said it, and everyone is encouraged to change their mind if another idea seems more fitting. If there is no consensus, the matter is decided by majority vote, and everyone carries out the decision together, including those who voted against it. The reason given is that when all act in unity, any error comes to light quickly and can be corrected.
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding. The Bahá'í Faith teaches that the religions share one source, but it does not teach that they are identical, nor does it take a little from each religion and stitch the pieces together. The Faith has its own scriptures, its own laws, its own calendar, and recognizes Bahá'u'lláh as the Manifestation for this age. Vietnamese readers who reach this point may easily think of Caodaism, with its aim of returning the Three Teachings to their source and restoring the Five Branches to one. The two religions come close in the idea that the religions share a common root, but differ in almost everything else: the Bahá'í Faith does not venerate the Three Saints (Tam Trấn), has no Divine Eye, no spirit writing and no hierarchy of dignitaries, and it arose in Persia, not in Cochinchina. The library's Caodaism page explains that religion's own position.
VIIIScriptures and the Most Holy Book
The Bahá'í scriptures consist of the authentic writings of three figures: the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Only what these three wrote themselves or reviewed is regarded as scripture. Words that others recorded from memory, however reliable, are only reference material. In addition, the interpretations of Shoghi Effendi are binding as to meaning, and the letters of the Universal House of Justice are binding as to law and guidance. The body of writings is very large and most of it is in two languages: Arabic, usually used for formal texts on law and prayer, and Persian, usually used for letters and treatises.
| Work | Author and date | Core content |
|---|---|---|
| Kitáb-i-Aqdas الكتاب الأقدس | Bahá'u'lláh, around 1873, in Akka | The Most Holy Book. The foundational book of laws: prayer, fasting, marriage, inheritance, the calendar, administrative structure. The authorized English translation was published in 1992 |
| Kitáb-i-Íqán | Bahá'u'lláh, around 1861 to 1862, in Baghdad | The Book of Certitude. Explains how to read the prophecies in earlier scriptures and the concept of the Manifestation of God. The principal doctrinal work of the Faith |
| The Hidden Words | Bahá'u'lláh, around 1857 to 1858, in Baghdad | More than a hundred short aphorisms, in an Arabic part and a Persian part, on ethics and the spiritual life |
| The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys | Bahá'u'lláh, Baghdad period | Mystical treatises written in the manner of Sufi poetry, describing the journey of the soul through its stages |
| Bayán | The Báb, around 1847 to 1848, while imprisoned at Máh-Kú | The Báb's book of laws. Bahá'ís regard the laws of the Bayán as superseded by the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, but keep the Bayán as sacred text |
| The Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá | 'Abdu'l-Bahá, written between about 1901 and 1908 | Appoints Shoghi Effendi as Guardian and outlines the framework of the Universal House of Justice |
| Some Answered Questions | 'Abdu'l-Bahá, answers given between about 1904 and 1906 | Table talks in Akka on philosophy, the Bible, the soul and evolution |
The Most Holy Book
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas holds the central place, yet it is the book outsiders know least, because an authorized English translation appeared only in 1992. The book is not long. It is written in Arabic, in rhymed passages interspersed with concrete laws. In it Bahá'u'lláh sets out the daily obligatory prayer, the month of fasting, the laws of marriage and inheritance, the prohibition of alcohol and drugs, the prohibition of gambling, the abolition of confession to clergy, the abolition of monasticism, the abolition of ritual impurity, and the establishment of the Houses of Justice. The book also says that these laws are to be understood not as a penal code but as the keys of the mercy of God toward humankind.
Reading scripture without a preacher
Because the Faith has no clergy, no one has an exclusive right to expound scripture. Each believer reads and understands it personally, and is encouraged to read the sacred writings every morning and every evening. One may share one's own understanding, but no one may claim that this understanding carries authority over others. Study groups in the Bahá'í community usually have only a facilitator, not a preacher.
Some are, but not many. The library has not been able to find an officially published Vietnamese edition of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas or the Kitáb-i-Íqán, and so gives no Vietnamese book title here. Readers who want the original texts can use the Faith's digital library at bahai.org, which has the originals and the authorized English translations.
IXThe Badí' calendar, holy days and laws of life
The Bahá'í Faith has no sacraments, no ritual ceremony of initiation and no officiant. Rituals are very few and very simple. What sets the rhythm of religious life is a calendar of its own, daily prayers, a month of fasting each year, and the gathering of the local community once every nineteen days.
The Badí' calendar, nineteen times nineteen
The Badí' بديع calendar, meaning new or wondrous, was established by the Báb and confirmed by Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. The year has nineteen months of nineteen days each, which adds up to three hundred sixty-one days. The four or five days still needed to match the solar year are inserted before the last month and are called Ayyám-i-Há, days set aside for gifts, festivities and charity. Each month bears the name of an attribute of God. The first year is 1844, so the Gregorian year 2026 corresponds for the most part to year 183 of the Badí' calendar.
The new year is called Naw-Rúz نوروز, meaning new day, and falls on the spring equinox. Since 2015, following the letter of the Universal House of Justice dated July 10, 2014, this day has been determined by the moment of the equinox in Tehran, so its Gregorian date shifts between March 20 and 21. From that same year, the two birthdays of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh have been reckoned by the moon: they fall on the first and second days after the eighth new moon following Naw-Rúz, so they differ from year to year, somewhere between mid-October and mid-November.
| Order | Month name | Meaning | Begins around |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bahá | Glory | March 21 |
| 2 | Jalál | Majesty | April 9 |
| 3 | Jamál | Beauty | April 28 |
| 4 | 'Azamat | Grandeur | May 17 |
| 5 | Núr | Light | June 5 |
| 6 | Rahmat | Mercy | June 24 |
| 7 | Kalimát | Words | July 13 |
| 8 | Kamál | Perfection | August 1 |
| 9 | Asmá' | Names | August 20 |
| 10 | 'Izzat | Might | September 8 |
| 11 | Mashíyyat | Will | September 27 |
| 12 | 'Ilm | Knowledge | October 16 |
| 13 | Qudrat | Power | November 4 |
| 14 | Qawl | Speech | November 23 |
| 15 | Masá'il | Questions | December 12 |
| 16 | Sharaf | Honor | December 31 |
| 17 | Sultán | Sovereignty | January 19 |
| 18 | Mulk | Dominion | February 7 |
| Intercalary | Ayyám-i-Há | The Days of Há, four or five days | February 26 |
| 19 | 'Alá' | Loftiness, the month of fasting | around March 1 or 2 |
Eleven holy days
| Holy day | Approximate date | Commemorates | Work suspended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naw-Rúz | March 20 or 21 | The new year, right after the month of fasting | Yes |
| First Day of Ridván | April 20 or 21 | Bahá'u'lláh's arrival in the Garden of Ridván in 1863 | Yes |
| Ninth Day of Ridván | April 28 or 29 | Bahá'u'lláh's family arrives in the garden | Yes |
| Twelfth Day of Ridván | May 1 or 2 | Bahá'u'lláh leaves the garden and sets out on his journey | Yes |
| Declaration of the Báb | May 23 or 24 | The night of the Báb's declaration in 1844 | Yes |
| Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh | May 28 or 29 | The day Bahá'u'lláh passed away in 1892 | Yes |
| Martyrdom of the Báb | July 9 or 10 | The day the Báb was executed in 1850 | Yes |
| Birth of the Báb | By the moon, October or November | Born in 1819 | Yes |
| Birth of Bahá'u'lláh | The following day | Born in 1817 | Yes |
| Day of the Covenant | November 25 or 26 | The role of 'Abdu'l-Bahá | No |
| Ascension of 'Abdu'l-Bahá | November 27 or 28 | The day 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in 1921 | No |
Prayer, fasting and prohibitions
Every believer from the age of fifteen says an obligatory prayer each day, choosing one of three: the short prayer is said once between noon and sunset, the medium prayer three times, in the morning, at noon and in the evening, and the long prayer once at any time of the day. The prayer is said individually, not in a congregation led by someone. While saying it, the believer faces toward the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí. There is also the practice of repeating the phrase الله أبهى, transliterated Alláh-u-Abhá, meaning God is Most Glorious, ninety-five times a day.
The month of fasting is the month of 'Alá', the last nineteen days of the year, usually from March 1 or 2 to March 19 or 20. Believers between fifteen and seventy abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. Exempt are the sick, travelers, women who are pregnant or nursing, and those doing heavy labor. Bahá'ís also observe Huqúqu'lláh حقوق الله, meaning the Right of God, an offering of nineteen percent of the wealth remaining after necessary expenses, calculated according to each person's conscience, and no one may go around collecting it. The Faith prohibits alcohol and drugs unless prescribed by a doctor, prohibits gambling, and prohibits backbiting.
The Nineteen Day Feast
On the first day of each Badí' month, the Bahá'í community of a locality holds a gathering called the Nineteen Day Feast. The gathering has three parts. The spiritual part consists of readings from the sacred writings and prayers. The administrative part hears reports from the local council, and the whole community consults and offers suggestions. The social part is a time of eating and drinking together. This gathering is for believers only, unlike the devotional meetings and classes that are open to everyone.
Marriage and funerals
A Bahá'í wedding has no officiant. The only requirement is that the bride and groom, in the presence of two witnesses accepted by the local council, each say a short verse from the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: we will all, verily, abide by the will of God. The rest follows local culture. Marriage is monogamous and requires the consent of both parties and of all living parents on both sides, a rule explained as a way of preserving unity between the two families. As for funerals, the dead are buried, not cremated, and are not carried more than an hour's journey from the place of death, and there is a special prayer for the dead, the only prayer in the Faith that is recited in congregation.
XNine-sided temples and the World Center
The name of a Bahá'í temple is Mashriqu'l-Adhkár مشرق الأذكار, meaning the Dawning Place of the Mention of God. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas directs that such a house be built in every place, but in practice temples are very rare, and most Bahá'í communities meet in private homes or in Bahá'í centers, that is, buildings used as offices and meeting rooms, not places of worship.
The rules of a temple
Every temple has nine sides and a central dome. Beyond that convention, architects are free to follow local materials and culture, so no two temples look alike.
The nine sides usually have nine entrances. Anyone may enter, without needing to be a Bahá'í, without asking permission, without making a donation.
Inside there are no human images, no altar and no pulpit. Inside there are only seats and silence.
Services consist only of reading or chanting scriptures, both Bahá'í and those of other religions, with no one giving an exposition. Musical instruments are not used inside, only the human voice.
| Location | Year completed | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Ashgabat, Turkmenistan | Early 20th century | The first temple, no longer standing |
| Wilmette, near Chicago, United States | 1953 | Continental |
| Kampala, Uganda | 1961 | Continental |
| Sydney, Australia | 1961 | Continental |
| Langenhain, near Frankfurt, Germany | 1964 | Continental |
| Panama City, Panama | 1972 | Continental |
| Apia, Samoa | 1984 | Continental |
| New Delhi, India | 1986 | Continental, the Lotus Temple |
| Santiago, Chile | 2016 | Continental |
| Battambang, Cambodia | 2017 | Local |
| Norte del Cauca, Colombia | 2018 | Local |
| Matunda Soy, Kenya | 2021 | Local |
| Tanna, Vanuatu | 2021 | Local |
| Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo | 2023 | National |
The Lotus Temple, the temple closest to Vietnamese readers
The temple best known to people in Asia is the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, dedicated in December 1986 and designed by the architect Fariborz Sahba. The building consists of twenty-seven petals clad in white marble, arranged in three rings of nine, surrounded by nine pools. The lotus was chosen because it is a sacred image shared by many religions of the subcontinent. Compiled sources record that the temple receives more than two and a half million visits a year, with more than one hundred thousand on some holidays. The temple geographically closest to Vietnam is the local temple in Battambang, in western Cambodia, dedicated in 2017, whose roof recalls the roofs of Khmer pagodas.
The World Center in Haifa and Akka
Because Bahá'u'lláh was exiled to Akka and passed away there, and because the remains of the Báb were laid on Mount Carmel just across the bay, these two coastal cities became the Bahá'í World Center. There stand the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí, the Shrine of the Báb with its gilded dome, nineteen garden terraces stretching down the slope of Mount Carmel, opened in 2001, and the building of the Universal House of Justice. In 2008 UNESCO added the Bahá'í holy places in Haifa and western Galilee to the World Heritage List. According to the Bahá'í World News Service, around one million people visit the shrines and gardens each year.
The nine-pointed star, which is also the emblem the library uses for this page, is the most widely used symbol for recognizing the Bahá'í Faith, but it is not prescribed by scripture. The number nine was chosen because, under the abjad system that assigns numbers to Arabic letters, the word bahá adds up to nine, and nine is the largest single-digit number, regarded as a symbol of completeness. Bahá'ís also use two other symbols of a more devotional character: the calligraphy of the Greatest Name, the phrase يا بهاء الأبهى, transliterated Yá Bahá'u'l-Abhá, meaning O Glory of the Most Glorious, and the ringstone symbol, made of three horizontal bars representing the world of God, the world of the Manifestations and the world of humankind, joined by a vertical line, with two five-pointed stars on either side standing for the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh.
XINo clergy, only councils
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas abolishes the clerical class altogether. No one in the Bahá'í Faith is paid to perform rites, preach or interpret scripture. In its place is a system of elected councils called the Administrative Order. Its most notable feature is that decision-making authority belongs to the council as a body and not to any individual member. A member who leaves the meeting room becomes once again a believer like everyone else.
Nine members, elected each year on the first day of Ridván, in any locality with nine or more adult believers. It looks after education, marriage, the organization of the Nineteen Day Feast, and support for the believers in the area.
Nine members, elected each year by delegates from across the country at a national convention. According to the Bahá'í World News Service, there are currently 188 national-level councils.
Nine members, elected once every five years at the International Convention in Haifa by the members of the national councils. It is the supreme body of the Faith.
Alongside the elected councils there is a branch of appointed individuals, made up of the Continental Boards of Counsellors and the members of the Auxiliary Boards. They encourage, advise and follow the life of the community but have no authority to make administrative decisions.
A network of study programs in small groups, the best known being the sequence of books of the Ruhi Institute, developed in Colombia from the 1970s. BWNS records more than three hundred training institutes worldwide.
Elections without candidates
The Bahá'í way of holding elections is what outsiders find most unusual. No one may put themselves forward as a candidate, no one may nominate anyone else, and no one may campaign, not even by hinting. Each person in the voting room, after prayer and silent reflection, writes on a secret ballot the names of the nine people they consider most suitable, based on qualities named in the writings, such as loyalty, devotion, a well-trained mind and proven experience. The nine people with the most votes form the council. Those elected may not decline without good reason. The council elects its own chair and secretary from among its nine members, but the chair only presides over meetings and has no special authority. Bahá'ís regard this kind of election as a form of worship rather than a contest.
The Covenant and the groups that broke away
Thanks to the line of succession set out clearly in written wills, the Bahá'í community worldwide is today almost entirely united under the Universal House of Justice. Even so, the history of the Faith records a few breakaway groups, all very small. In the Adrianople period there was the group that followed Mírzá Yahyá, called Azalís, who were in fact a Bábí branch and did not call themselves Bahá'ís. After Bahá'u'lláh's death, another of his sons, Mírzá Muhammad-'Alí, refused to accept the role of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and had some followers. After 1957, a few small groups followed one of the Hands of the Cause who had claimed the office of Guardian for himself. These groups now remain only on a very small scale. The mainstream Bahá'í Faith regards opposing the established line of succession as a violation of the Covenant, and a person who does so is no longer regarded as a member of the community.
People familiar with the structure of the Catholic Church may easily read the Bahá'í councils as a clerical apparatus. The difference lies in two points. First, no one in the system holds holy orders, meaning no one is regarded as having a special grace to mediate between believers and God. Second, no one holds power for life, and every office in the councils goes through periodic election. Even the Universal House of Justice is a council, and no member has a personal voice to speak in its name.
XIINumber of followers, and why the figures differ
The Bahá'í Faith is a religion with clear membership boundaries: a person who becomes a Bahá'í usually signs a registration card and is entered in the records by the local council. Even so, the published figures differ widely, from under five million to nearly eight and a half million. The 2025 report of the Pew Research Center does not count Bahá'ís separately but places them in a common group with Sikhs, Jains, Shinto, Taoism, Zoroastrianism and many other religions, a group that makes up 2.2 percent of the world population according to 2020 data.
| Scope | Figure | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Worldwide | More than 5 million people, in more than one hundred thousand localities | Current statistics page, checked September 2026 | Bahá'í World News Service, the official news service of the Bahá'í community |
| Worldwide | 8.3 million people | 2018 | World Religion Database, as cited by the encyclopedia Bahaipedia |
| Worldwide, group of other religions | 2.2 percent of the world population, Bahá'ís not counted separately | 2020, published 2025 | Pew Research Center |
| India, by census | 11,324 people | 2001 | Census of India 2001 |
| India, by census | 4,572 people | 2011 | Census of India 2011, as cited by the English-language Wikipedia |
| India, by estimate | Nearly 1.9 million people | around 2010 | Religious demographic estimates compiled on the English-language Wikipedia |
| Vietnam | About 7,000 people in 45 provinces and cities | December 2021 | Government Committee for Religious Affairs, document posted on August 25, 2023 |
A plain account of the discrepancies.
First, the two worldwide figures come from two different methods. The figure of more than five million is the community's official figure, close to its membership rolls. The figure of eight million from the World Religion Database is a demographic estimate, based on national records and extrapolation. The library gives both rather than choosing one.
Second, censuses and membership rolls measure two different things. In India, most of those who joined the Faith from the 1960s onward live in rural areas, and researchers suggest that many of them still give the religion of their village community or of their old papers when they meet a census taker. Conversely, membership rolls may keep the names of people who stopped taking part long ago. These two distortions run in opposite directions.
Third, identifying with a religion and practicing it are two different things, and every figure counts affiliation, not the degree of participation.
Fourth, this religion is spread very thinly over a great many countries. According to the community itself, Bahá'ís are present in almost every country and territory, belong to some two thousand one hundred ethnic and indigenous groups, and the writings have been translated into more than eight hundred languages. In most countries, the census does not separate out such a small group.
XIIIThe Bahá'í Faith in Vietnam
The Bahá'í Faith is one of the sixteen religions recognized by the Vietnamese state. This section records only four things: when the Faith arrived in Vietnam, which organization was recognized and in what year, how many followers there are according to official sources, and where they gather. In administrative documents the name of the Faith is usually written without diacritics as Baha'i, and the recognized organization is called Cộng đồng tôn giáo Baha'i Việt Nam (the Baha'i Religious Community of Vietnam).
On the year the Faith arrived in Vietnam, two sources differ, so the library records both.
The 1954 date. The document Tôn giáo và chính sách tôn giáo ở Việt Nam (Religion and religious policy in Vietnam) by the Government Committee for Religious Affairs, posted on August 25, 2023, and an article in the Nhân Dân newspaper of July 25, 2008, both state that the Faith was introduced into Vietnam in 1954. The Bahá'í community's own sources link this date to the 1954 visit to Sài Gòn by Mrs. Shirin Fozdar, a Bahá'í then living in Singapore.
The 1920s date. A research article by Vũ Văn Chung in the Hồ Chí Minh City Open University Journal of Science, volume 16, issue 2, 2021, states that the Baha'i Faith was introduced into Vietnam in the 1920s, in the first half of the twentieth century.
It may be that the 1920 date refers to the first scattered contacts while the 1954 date refers to when a community began to form, but the library has not been able to check the primary sources for the 1920 date and so draws no conclusion.
Registration of activities and recognition of the organization
Recognition came in two steps. The first step was the issuing of a certificate of registration for religious activities in 2007, and here three sources give three versions. The Nhân Dân newspaper in 2008 states that the Government Committee for Religious Affairs handed over the certificate in February 2007. The Government Committee for Religious Affairs' own 2023 document gives March 28, 2007. The 2021 research article by Vũ Văn Chung gives March 2007. The library records all three and has not been able to check the original document.
The second step was recognition as a religious organization in 2008. Before that, on March 21, 2008, exactly on Naw-Rúz, the community held its first national convention and elected a national-level Spiritual Assembly of nine members. According to Vũ Văn Chung's article, on July 14, 2008 the Government Committee for Religious Affairs signed the decision recognizing the organization Cộng đồng tôn giáo Baha'i Việt Nam, and the Nhân Dân newspaper reported this recognition on July 25, 2008. The Government Committee for Religious Affairs' document gives only the year 2008.
| Source | Data year | Followers | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nhân Dân newspaper, July 25, 2008 | 2008 | About 7,000 | Gathering in 93 communities in 43 provinces and cities |
| Vũ Văn Chung, Hồ Chí Minh City Open University Journal of Science, 2021 | 2020 | More than 8,000 | In 45 provinces and cities. In Hà Nội alone nearly 450 followers, with two Spiritual Assemblies, Lê Đại Hành and Hữu Bằng |
| Government Committee for Religious Affairs, document posted August 25, 2023 | As of December 2021 | About 7,000 | Living in 45 provinces and cities |
| VietNamNet newspaper, July 20, 2025 | 2025 | About 7,000 | Gathering in 36 communities in various provinces and cities |
One more figure must be mentioned for completeness. International religious databases estimate the number of Bahá'ís in Vietnam at a much higher level, with one source citing the World Religion Database for 2015 at around 413,000 people. The library has not been able to verify how that figure was calculated, so it records it only as an estimate and uses the figure of the Government Committee for Religious Affairs as the main figure.
Places of gathering
Vietnam has no Mashriqu'l-Adhkár temple yet. The 2023 document of the Government Committee for Religious Affairs states clearly that Cộng đồng tôn giáo Baha'i Việt Nam has no central place of worship and holds its religious activities only in a number of local offices and in private homes. This matches the way the Faith operates in most countries. For that reason the library does not yet have any page for a Bahá'í place in Vietnam.
XIVThrough the eyes of feng shui
Let this be said plainly at the outset. This section is the library's own reading, looking at the Bahá'í Faith through the lens of traditional Vietnamese feng shui, so that readers familiar with that approach have a point of comparison. The Bahá'í Faith does not teach feng shui, has no art of choosing sites or orientations according to qi, and nothing in this section is something that religion teaches.
The position of the Faith itself
The Bahá'í scriptures lay down no procedure for choosing auspicious days for weddings, funerals or building a house. The wedding date is chosen by the two families themselves. Holy days in the year are set by the Badí' calendar, and that calendar is calculated by astronomy, not by auspicious and baleful spirits. The general spirit of the Faith places reason and science on a par with faith, so assigning good or bad fortune to directions or numbers has no place in its teachings. From the standpoint of the Faith itself, feng shui is no part of the religion.
The one direction the Faith prescribes: the Qiblih
Each religion has its own rules about direction, and those rules usually have nothing to do with energy fields. Catholic churches traditionally faced east, with a liturgical meaning. Mosques are oriented by the qibla toward Mecca. Japanese Shinto shrines have their own art of site selection. The Bahá'í Faith has exactly one direction, called the Qiblih قبله, which is the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí, near Akka. Bahá'ís turn to face it when saying the obligatory prayer, wherever they are. This direction does not change with the age of the person praying, does not change with the year, and does not change with the stars.
Calculated along a great circle on the globe, the direction from Hà Nội is about 297 degrees and from Hồ Chí Minh City about 301 degrees, that is, west-northwest. The calculation of degrees is the library's own measurement. Placed on the twenty-four-mountain compass of traditional feng shui, both figures fall within the Tuất mountain. This is only a comparison for readers familiar with the compass. For Bahá'ís it is simply the direction of Bahjí.
A temple with no front
The entire method of choosing orientation in feng shui rests on a building having a front and a back, that is, a sitting direction and a facing direction. A Bahá'í temple has nine sides and nine equal entrances, so by the traditional measure it has no sitting and facing directions to calculate. The library's Sikhism page meets exactly the same point at the four-doored Harmandir Sahib, and that is where the traditional reading runs out of use.
The number nine and the spring equinox
Two other points prompt associations for readers of numerology, and the library records them to keep matters clear. The number nine: in the East Asian Lo Shu, nine is the greatest yang number, placed in the Li palace in the south, and the nine palaces form the framework of many divinatory arts. In the Bahá'í Faith, nine comes from the abjad value of the word bahá. The two numbers coincide but come from two sources that have nothing to do with each other. The spring equinox: the Bahá'í new year falls exactly on the Spring Equinox solar term, one of the twenty-four solar terms that the Vietnamese agricultural calendar still uses, when day and night are of equal length. Persians celebrated Naw-Rúz on that day for many centuries before the Bahá'í Faith existed, and the Faith kept that date as the start of its year.
Everything in this section is the library's reading, not what the Faith teaches. Bahá'ís build nine-sided temples because of the number of the word bahá, not because of the nine palaces, face Bahjí because it is where Bahá'u'lláh is laid to rest, not because of the Tuất mountain, and celebrate the new year at the spring equinox because the Badí' calendar sets it so, not because of the solar terms. This page does not advise Bahá'ís to consult feng shui, and does not attribute feng shui to that religion. In short: architecture can be read by many measures, but doctrine has only one.
XVCommon misunderstandings
This last part gathers the questions Vietnamese readers often ask about the Bahá'í Faith. The three most common slips are: confusing a separate religion with a branch of another religion because both arose in the same land, confusing the teaching that the religions share one source with merging the religions into one, and confusing a temple built in a local style with a temple of the local religion.
No. The Faith arose in a Shia setting in Persia, but it has its own founders, scriptures, laws, calendar and places of worship. Bahá'ís regard their Faith as an independent religion, and Muslim scholars in general also do not regard it as part of Islam.
Not quite. The Faith teaches that the great religions share one source and one unchanging spiritual core, but that their laws change with the times. Nor does it take a little from each religion and stitch them together, since it has its own laws and scriptures.
No. Bahá'u'lláh is a Manifestation of God, like a mirror reflecting the sun, not the sun itself. The Faith teaches that God does not become incarnate in a human being.
No. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas abolishes the clerical class. Common affairs are handled by councils of nine elected by secret ballot, and no one is paid to perform rites or to preach.
No. It is a Bahá'í temple dedicated in 1986. The lotus shape was chosen because it is a sacred image shared by many religions of the subcontinent. Inside there are no statues, only seats and the sound of scriptures being read.
No. It is a customary symbol, taken from the number nine, the abjad value of the word bahá. The two symbols of a more devotional character are the calligraphy of the Greatest Name and the ringstone symbol.
The Faith encourages sharing one's beliefs but forbids coercion and forbids using material benefits to attract people. Children of Bahá'í families also decide for themselves only at fifteen whether to declare themselves Bahá'ís.
Not yet. According to the Government Committee for Religious Affairs, Cộng đồng tôn giáo Baha'i Việt Nam has no central place of worship and gathers in local offices and private homes. The geographically closest temple is the local temple in Battambang, Cambodia.
?Quick Questions
What is the Bahá'í Faith?
The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion that arose in Persia in the middle of the nineteenth century, heralded by the Báb in 1844 and founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 1863. It teaches three onenesses: God is one, the great religions share one source, and humankind is one family. The Faith has no clergy, and common affairs are handled by councils of nine elected by secret ballot, headed by the Universal House of Justice in Haifa. According to the Bahá'í World News Service, the Faith has more than five million followers, while the World Religion Database estimates about eight million.
Is the Bahá'í Faith a branch of Islam?
No. The Bahá'í Faith arose in a Shia Muslim setting in Persia, but it has its own founders, scriptures, laws, calendar and places of worship. Bahá'ís regard their Faith as an independent religion, just as Christianity arose in a Jewish setting without being a branch of Judaism. Muslim scholars in general also do not regard the Bahá'í Faith as part of Islam, because Islam holds that Muhammad is the final messenger.
Who is Bahá'u'lláh?
Bahá'u'lláh, meaning the Glory of God, was born Mírzá Husayn-'Alí Núrí in 1817 in Tehran and died in 1892 at Bahjí near Akka. He is the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, declared his mission in the Garden of Ridván in Baghdad in 1863, and lived nearly forty years in exile. Bahá'ís regard him as the Manifestation of God for this age, not as God himself. His main works are the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and the Kitáb-i-Íqán.
How many months does the Bahá'í calendar have?
The Bahá'í calendar, called the Badí' calendar, has nineteen months of nineteen days each, plus four or five intercalary days called Ayyám-i-Há to match the solar year. Each month bears the name of an attribute of God, such as Glory, Light or Knowledge. The new year, Naw-Rúz, falls on the spring equinox, around March 20 or 21. The last month of the year is the month of fasting. The first year of the calendar is 1844, the year the Báb made his declaration in Shiraz.
Why do Bahá'í temples have nine sides?
Nine sides are the common convention for every Bahá'í temple, linked to the number nine, which is the abjad value of the word bahá, meaning glory, and the largest single-digit number, symbolizing completeness. The nine sides usually have nine equal entrances, so that people from every direction and every religion can enter. Beyond the convention of nine sides and a dome, the architecture of each temple is free to follow local culture, as with the Lotus Temple in New Delhi or the temple in Battambang, whose roof recalls the roofs of Khmer pagodas.
Is the Bahá'í Faith recognized in Vietnam?
Yes. Cộng đồng tôn giáo Baha'i Việt Nam (the Baha'i Religious Community of Vietnam) received a certificate of registration for religious activities in 2007, on March 28 according to the Government Committee for Religious Affairs and in February according to the Nhân Dân newspaper, and was recognized as a religious organization in 2008, on July 14 according to a 2021 study. According to the Government Committee for Religious Affairs, as of December 2021 the Faith had about seven thousand followers in 45 provinces and cities, with no central place of worship, gathering in offices and private homes.
Does the Bahá'í Faith have priests or preachers?
No. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas abolishes the clerical class, so the Faith has no priests, imams or professional preachers. Each believer reads the scriptures and understands them personally. Common affairs are handled by the Local Spiritual Assembly, the National Spiritual Assembly and the Universal House of Justice, each a council of nine, elected by secret ballot in which no one may stand as a candidate, be nominated or campaign. Decision-making authority belongs to the council as a body, not to any individual.