Baha'i

Christopher Buck and J. Gordon Melton, “Baha’i Calendar and Rhythms of Worship.” Religious Celebrations: An Encyclopedia of Holidays, Festivals, Solemn Observances, and Spiritual Commemorations. By J. Gordon Melton, Editor, with James A. Beverley, Christopher Buck, and Constance A. Jones. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Vol. 1, pp. 79–86.

ABSTRACT 

The Bahá’í calendar charts physical time, as do all calendrical systems, yet is additionally designed to inspire spiritual progress by associating time with the cultivation of human nobility. The precise name for the Bahá’í calendar is the Badí‘ (“Unique” or “Wondrous”) calendar. It originated with Sayyid ‘Alí-Muḥammad of Shiraz (1819–1850), entitled the Báb (“the Gate”), who founded the Bábí religion, soon superseded by the Bahá’í Faith, established by Mírzá Ḥusayn-‘Alí Núrí (1817–1892), known as Bahá’u’lláh (a spiritual title meaning the “Splendor [or “Glory”] of God”). By adopting and modifying the Badí‘ calendar for use by the Bahá’í community, Bahá’u’lláh gave it formal sanction.

Time is invested with spiritual significance by the naming of weekdays, days of the month, months, years, and cycles of years after godly perfections that can be translated into goodly virtues, such as “Beauty” (Jamál) “Knowledge” (‘Ilm), “Honor” (Sharaf), and “Grandeur” (‘Aẓamat), which are names of 4 of the 19 Bahá’í months. These dynamic “names of God” each highlight a distinctive quality of sterling character and human nobility, in a process of transformation that may, to coin the present author’s term, be called theophoric metamorphosis. Literally, the term “theophoric,” as its Greek root indicates, means “God-bearing.” Here, the “names” of God may be conceived of as “qualities” or, better still, as “powers” of God that can be potentially manifested by man (and, to a lesser degree, by each created thing when it reaches its potential state of perfection).

In the Báb’s Kitáb al-Asmá’ (“Book of [Divine] Names”), which exceeds 3,000 pages and is said to be “the largest revealed book in sacred history,” the Báb treats human beings as reflections of divine names and attributes (Saiedi, Gate of the Heart, 36). To the extent that a person is a “bearer” of one of the “names” (i.e., qualities or powers) of God, that individual is empowered to express that quality in human action. Through the progressive spiritualization of all persons—and, indeed, of all things—the Báb wished to transform all of reality into “mirrors” reflecting the perfections represented by these divine names.