Baha'i Holy Days

Hi Brian,

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Months[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The names of the months in the Bahá'í ( Badí) calendar were given by the Báb, who drew them from the nineteen names of God invoked in a prayer said during the month of fasting in Shí'ih Islam. They are:[/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/font]1. [font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Bahá - Splendour - 21 March - 8 April
2. Jalál - Glory - 9 April - 27 April
3. Jamál - Beauty - 28 April - 16 May
4. 'Azamat - Grandeur - 17 May - 4 June [/font]
5. [font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Núr - Light - 5 June - 23 June
6. Rahmat - Mercy - 24 June - 12 July
7. Kalimát - Words - 13 July - 31 July
8. Kamál - Perfection - 1 August - 19 August
9. Asmá' - Names - 20 August - 7 September
10. 'Izzat - Might - 8 September - 26 September
11. Mashíyyat - Will - 27 September - 15 October
12. 'Ilm - Knowledge - 16 October - 3 November
13. Qudrat - Power - 4 November - 22 November
14. Qawl - Speech - 23 November - 11 December
15. Masá'il - Questions - 12 December - 30 December
16. Sharaf - Honour - 31 December 18 January
17. Sultán - Sovereignty - 19 January - 6 February
18. Mulk - Dominion - 7 February - 25 February
19. 'Alá - Loftiness - 2 March - 20 March [/font]

more information can be found here...

http://www.bahaindex.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=66

 

Thanks for that - much appreciated.

 

Basically the calendar is fitted to a solar calendar. 19 months of 19 days, plus as many days as needed to fit the solar year. There are also cycles for 19 years, and other units. Not exactly solar, but closer to solar than lunar.... And of course the calendar starts with the Declaration of the Bab. So we are in year 162.

 

Actually the calendar year begins with Naw Ruz (21st of March), though the cycle of the calendar begins with the year 1260 AH (1844AD).

Regards,
Scott

 

Hi, Brian!

A couple additional details on the calendar:

As was mentioned, the Baha'i calendar is solar. Between the eighteenth and nineteenth months, during February 26-March 2, are the Intercalary Days (aka "Ayyam-i-Ha"); these, added to the 19x19 (361) days of the rest of the year make the calendar come out even. This is a period of celebration and partying for Baha'is.

The 19th (last) month, Ala / Loftiness, is the Baha'i fasting period, during which Baha'is ages 15-70 abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset each day. This is a period of reflection on what is important in life, and of preparation for the New Year which immediately follows.

Elections for our Local Spiritual Assemblies are indeed held yearly on the first day of Ridvan (April 20/21). Later during the twelve-day Ridvan period (April 21-May 2) the delegates we elected at our conventions in the fall gather and elect the National Spiritual Assembly, and near the end of Ridvan every five years, the National Spiritual Assemblies gather in Haifa, Israel to elect the Universal House of Justice, our supreme elected body (five-year term). (Some countries also have Regional Baha'i Councils between the local and national levels; these are elected by all a nation's Local Spiritual Assembly members each year on the Day of the Covenant, November 25/26.)

Every Baha'i month, each Baha'i community world wide celebrates the Nineteen-day Feast. This is an internal meeting for Baha'is, and consists of three parts: devotional (prayers, readings, and often music), administrative (announcements, reading of mail, financial matters, consultation on plans, etc.), and social (light refreshment and fellowship). Feast is ordinarily held during the first day of each month (either the day listed on the calendar or the evening before <as the Baha'i day, like those of all Abrahamic religions, begins at sunset, but Feast may be postponed to later in the month if necessary. (Some National Spiritual Assemblies send out a newsreel video every few months; we often watch these during the social portion of the Feast.) As Feasts typically happen every 19 days, they obviously fall on every day of the week sooner or later.

So see? Now you're an expert, and can impress your friends at parties!

Regards,

Bruce

 

BBC on the Birth of Baha'u'llah

I thought others might enjoy this BBC reveiw of the early life and history of Baha'u'llah:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/bahai/history/bahaullah.shtml

- Art

 

Some of this has appeared in different threads overtime, but the time is fresh for the return of this Holy Day, and some of the context it has for Baha'is (some of it is new here....)

As a circumstantial context some might find interesting I also note this period with the Leonid Meteor shower which plays an enormous role in a variety of ways. First, in 1833, this meteor shower put on a show that overawed wide swaths of America - from slave owners to Lakota indians - people took note:

here, here , and here and mentioned per the Lakota near the bottom of here.

The meteor shower also played a role in igniting the hobby as well as the science of watching meteors and the meteor showers around the year were discovered. In more recent years there was a great leap forward. Storms of meteors had never been well explained until the late 90's with any reasonable success. Now it is thought that there is a carefull dance of gravity which aligns trails of dust left by the sources of meteor showers and then occasionally the earth wanders through the exact path. Some were noticed and mapped and confirmed.

For those looking for other links to such an experience consider that the Leonid meteor showever happens to appear from near the head of Leo the Lion of the zodiac. The meteor shower might be referred to in prophecy, and it so happens Leo is mentioned in the Baha'i scriptures:

"Consider, for example, the sun: its transit from one zodiacal sign to the next occurreth within a short period of time, yet only after a long period doth it attain the plenitude of its resplendency, its heat and glory, in the sign of Leo. It must first complete one full revolution through the other constellations before it will enter the sign of Leo again, to blaze out in its full splendour. In its other stations, it revealeth not the fullness of its heat and light."here and this is linked with Baha'u'llah. That is to say that though he was born in November, his place in the long scale history of religion is as the sun in august, which is when the sun is in Leo, and the period where the light and heat, the glory if you will, of the Sun of God, is revealed in it's greatest extent.

Another contextual syzygy for Nov 11 is perhaps alittle more well known, and at the same time perhaps alittle less.

The modern day American holiday of Veteran's Day. Nov 11, 1918, at 11am, (yes, that would be 11/11/18 @ 11am,) all hostilities ceased and WWI ended. The event is of such magnetude of course that it transcends any one country's notice. It started as an observance of the signing of the Armistice, or ending of hostilities. Then it became a rembrance of those fallen in the "War to end all wars" which of course we did a terrible job of starting with the Peace Treaty, one the United States never even signed and actively opposed certain elements of. Now, far from signalizing the moment peace settled upon the land, still far from commemorating those who have fallen in the Great War, it has become a memorialization of those who fell and continue to fall, or who have fought, in war. But it started very well. A plan was set forth to be exactly that. But President Wilson's 14 Points, while not generally adopted, signilize, to Baha'is a very great honor and duty - "To her President, the immortal Woodrow Wilson, must be ascribed the unique honor, among the statesmen of any nation, whether of the East or of the West, of having voiced sentiments so akin to the principles animating the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh, and of having more than any other world leader, contributed to the creation of the League of Nations--achievements which the pen of the Center of God's Covenant acclaimed as signalizing the dawn of the Most Great Peace, whose sun, according to that same pen, must needs arise as the direct consequence of the enforcement of the laws of the Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh."

Another aspect of WWI which Baha'is take special note of is related to events of WWI in Palesitine less than two months before....

For those looking for content reviewing this period, one of some of the most momentous for the Baha'is and the world at large, and how closely they intertwined, I would commend the book "The Servant, The General, and Armageddon" which synthesizes a number of first hand accounts into a history of events, a narative. Unfortunately I can find no significant reference to the work online except from it's publisher. Some other references speak of these events as well (1 and 2 for example.)

The abstract of the book is as follows:

"They called the kings together at the place, called in Hebrew, Armageddon. The seventh angel emptied his bowl into the air, and a voice shouted from the sanctuary, 'The end has come'. Then there were flashes of lightning and peals of thunder and the most violent earthquake that anyone has ever seen since there have been men on the earth. Revelation 16:16-18

The world war, which has raged across Europe, North Africa and the Ottoman Empire for four years, is finally drawing to a close. General Edmund H. H. Allenby - broad-shouldered, square-jawed man possessed of great physical strength, 'an explosive general' - marches his army north past Megiddo, 'the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon'. The goal: the town of Haifa in the north of Palestine.

In Haifa the small and terrified Bahá'í community gathers in the house of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the head of the Bahá'í Faith. 'Abdu'l-Bahá calms the excited Bahá'ís and calls them to prayer. He assures them that all will be well. But His own life has been threatened by the Ottoman leader, Djemal Pasha. Here is the intriguing story of a battle foretold in the Hebrew Bible that linked the lives of two men who shaped history in very different ways. Published to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Armageddon."

However a paper by an individual Baha'i covering many of the issues, and looking more at prophecies about Armageddon, can be found here.

 

Greetings, Steven!

As you may know "Apocalypse Unsealed" is available at www.bahai-library.org and other sites.

In it, Riggs explains, among other things, that the zodiacal signs are in fact paired, and that the one recently started is therefore not just Aquarious, but Aquarius/Leo (the two being six months apart).

So this may provide an interesting correlation to what you had posted....

(For the benefit of skeptics, I'll point out that the Baha'i Faith is NOT heavily into astrology; but certain Baha'i authors have pointed out that many Biblical prophecies (John in particular) in fact used astrology and astrological symbolism in their writings, and therefore--even if we don't accept astrology itself that directly, a certain familiarity with its symbolism is useful in understanding certain prophecies.)

Regards,

Bruce

 

I think this thread is going *way* off-topic - it was about the Baha'i calendar - I really don't see how re-introducing the early history of the Bah'u'llah and discussion on meteor showers is pertinent to the thread.

I mentioned it was getting long before - I think it's going to be a better idea to close it.