Bahá'í worship

Bahá'í worship

Bahá'ís see themselves as a people with a mission to bring harmony and unity in the world, and this is reflected in their spiritual practice.

The main purpose of life for Bahá'ís is to know and love God.

Prayer, fasting and meditation are the main ways of achieving this and for making spiritual progress.

Service to others is worship

Bahá'í texts state that work performed in the spirit of service to humanity is a form of worship.

Absence of ritual

The Bahá'í faith has no clergy or sacraments, and virtually no rituals.

There are only three Bahá'í rituals:

• Obligatory daily prayers
• Reciting the prayer for the dead at a funeral
• The simple marriage rite

There are two reasons Bahá'ís avoid ritual:

• Rituals can easily degenerate and become meaningless, so that people carry them out for the sake of the ritual and forget the spiritual purpose behind them
• Rituals can be a form of cultural imperialism, imposing the same rituals across different cultures and destroying their rich diversity

Shoghi Effendi wrote in 1949...

Events and celebrations

Doing without rituals does not mean doing without celebrations or special events.

Communal worship

Bahá'ís have no liturgy, since the minimising of ritual makes it impossible to develop one.

The emphasis on prayer and meditation, and on social action in Bahá'í thinking means that congregational worship plays a much smaller part in Bahá'í life than it does in other faiths.

Bahá'í services are very simple with readings from the scriptures, along with interpretations of them and prayers. Hymns and poetry are allowed, but not common. The atmosphere is usually dignified.

Bahá'í are encouraged to come together in communal worship, but there are no congregational prayers. One person will recite prayers on behalf of everyone present.

This is because prayer is seen essentially as a private duty, and because there are no professional clergy within the Bahá'í faith.

Morning prayer

Bahá'í scripture recommends that the community should meet together for prayer each morning, although this is not commonly done by modern Bahá'ís.

Nineteen day feast

For modern Bahá'í the main occasion for group worship is the devotional portion of the nineteen day feast.

Holy days

Bahá'ís usually hold special worship events on holy days and festivals.

Find out more

• Bahá'í holy days
• Bahá'í prayer