Daily
The obligatory prayer.
Three prayers exist and each Bahá'í picks one each day: a short one said between noon and sunset, a medium one three times a day, or a long one once in twenty-four hours with prescribed bows and standings. You choose freely, you say it alone, and nobody asks which you chose or whether you said it.
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Ninety-five times.
Alláh-u-Abhá — God is Most Glorious — repeated ninety-five times a day after washing. It is also how Bahá'ís greet each other, and its calligraphic form, drawn by a nineteenth-century Persian calligrapher, is the closest thing the faith has to an icon and hangs in a great many Bahá'í homes.
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Weekly
The devotional meeting.
Someone's living room, prayers read aloud by whoever wants to read, scripture from any religion, sometimes music, then tea. Anyone may come and nothing is asked of them. There is no sermon because there is no one who has the standing to preach one.
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The study circle.
A tutor who is not a teacher, a workbook, six to twelve people, and a sequence that alternates reading passages with practical service in the neighbourhood — children's classes, junior youth groups, more devotional meetings. Anyone who has completed a book may tutor it, which is the design: the process replicates without professionals.
held by most
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Yearly
The Fast.
Sunrise to sunset without food or drink, nineteen days — the year hinged on a season of restraint.
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Naw-Rúz.
The Persian new year at the spring equinox, kept as the Bahá'í new year and as the end of the Fast. The Bahá'í calendar runs nineteen months of nineteen days, with four or five intercalary days before the fasting month — a structure the Báb devised, in which every month and every day carries a name of God.
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Ridván, and the ballot.
Twelve days commemorating Bahá'u'lláh's declaration in a garden outside Baghdad in 1863, and on the first of them every Local Spiritual Assembly in the world is elected. There are no candidates and no campaigning: each voter writes nine names from the adults in their community, and the nine with most votes serve. It is the holiest season in the calendar and it is also the election.
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Nine days off.
Work is suspended on nine holy days — the birth and declaration and martyrdom of the Báb, the birth and passing of Bahá'u'lláh, the first, ninth and twelfth days of Ridván, and Naw-Rúz. In most of the world this means asking an employer, which is the practical shape the obligation takes.
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The Twin Birthdays.
The births of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh, kept on consecutive days. Since 2015 the date has been fixed by astronomical calculation from Tehran rather than by a solar date, so it moves each year — an inconvenience the community accepted in order to restore the calculation the Báb specified.
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Once in a life
Every living parent must consent.
The vows are one sentence, said by both parties in identical words before two witnesses. But the marriage cannot proceed without the consent of all four living parents, whatever their religion and whatever their reasons, with no appeal to any institution. It is the most-discussed rule in the faith and the institutions do not waive it.
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Buried within an hour.
The body may not be carried more than an hour's journey from the place of death, by whatever transport is available. It is washed, wrapped, given a ring inscribed I came forth from God, and buried — never cremated, never embalmed. The consequence is that Bahá'ís are buried where they happened to die, and the faith's graves are scattered accordingly.
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Pilgrimage.
Nine days in Haifa and Akká: the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel, the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí, the cell in the Akká prison, the terraces, and the archives where the one photograph of Bahá'u'lláh is shown. The pilgrimage prescribed in scripture is to two houses in Baghdad and Shiraz, and both have been demolished.
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Ongoing
The Nineteen-Day Feast.
Worship, consultation, fellowship — the devotional and administrative heartbeat of a clergy-less faith.
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The House of Worship.
Nine sides, nine entrances, a dome, and inside it nothing — no altar, no pulpit, no image, no clergy and no sermons. Scripture of any religion may be read or sung unaccompanied. There are eight continental ones; the lotus-shaped temple in Delhi is among the most visited buildings on earth and most of its visitors are Hindu.
held by most
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