In the Baha'i Faith we use a Baha'i Calendar called the "Badi" calendar, it is a solar calendar with nineteen months and nineteen days in each month so 19 months x19 days =361 days. To make the full solar year of 365 days we add four days which we call Ayyam-i-Ha or "days of four" so we have the 365 day calendar...since there's a little over 365 days in a year every four years or what's called a leap year, we add a day to Ayyam-i-Ha, this is also called Intercalary Days.


Each month and each day actually are named after an attribute of God.

At sunset yesterday (which would be 12/31 in the Gregorian Calendar) began the month of Sharaf which means "honor".

Every nineteen days Baha'is gather for a Feast and so the Feast of Sharaf was held in my community... Often we will select Writings that concern the theme of the month which would be "honor" in this case.

One brief prayer was read by my son:

"Render thanks unto Him Who is the Desire of all worlds for having invested thee with such high honor. Ere long the world and all that is therein shall be as a thing forgotten, and all honor shall belong to the loved ones of thy Lord, the All-Glorious, the Most Bountiful."

- Baha’u’llah from Gleanings CXL

When my son was born my wife and I decided to give him a middle name and as it happens it is "Sharaf" because he was born in this month.

- Art

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

The months in the Bahá'í Calendar are as follows:

Arabic Name Translation First Days
1st Baha Splendor March 21

2nd Jalal Glory April 9

3rd Jamal Beauty April 28

4th Azamat Grandeur May 17

5th Nur Light June 5

6th Rahmat Mercy June 24

7th Kalimat Words July 31

8th Kamal Perfection Aug. 1

9th Asma' Names Aug. 20

10th 'Izzat Might Sept. 8

11th Mashiyyat Will Sept. 27

12th `Ilm Knowledge Oct. 16

13th Qudrat Power Nov. 4

14th Qawl Speech Nov. 23

15th Masa'il Questions Dec. 12

16th Sharaf Honor Dec. 31

17th Sultan Sovereignty Jan. 19

18th Mulk Dominion Feb. 7

Intercalary Days Feb. 26 to March 1, inclusive.

19th Ala' Loftiness March 2

From "Baha'u'llah and the New Era" by Esslemont


The next Baha'i month after Sharaf is "Sultan" and means the sovereignty of God. We'll hold a Feast of Sultan at a believers home after sunset tomorrow Wednesday.

Usually we select some prayers to read or recite for the occasion that relate to Sovereignty:

"Wert thou to ponder a while, thou wouldst bear witness unto the wisdom, and the power, and the sovereignty of God, exalted be His glory."

- "Epistle to the Son of the Wolf", by Bahá'u'lláh, p. 121

"His loftiness is immeasurably above every other loftiness. His gracious favour is unequalled by any other evidence of favour. His power transcendeth every power. His sovereignty is invincible in the face of every other sovereignty. His celestial dominion is exalted far above every other dominion. His knowledge pervadeth all created things, and His consummate power extendeth over all ..."

"Selections from the Writings of the Báb", p. 157

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

You know I'm very appreciative the Interfaith Forums for permitting me to post this information!!! Not all forums have been so open and friendly as this one!

Tomorrow evening we're having the Feast of Mulk "Dominion", Feb. 7 and this is our eighteenth month in the Baha'i calendar!

A friend of mine will be hosting the event at his home and wanted me to bring a Cake and so I will go to a cake decorator and ask her to write "Feast of Mulk" on it. My friend usually has some social mixing games he selects to amuse people during the social part of the Feast.

The end of the month will begin our Ayyam-i-Ha celebrations which will usually be amusing and fun loving. We have thios time because what follows is our Nineteen Day Fast or Month of Ala' (Loftiness).

Here are a few possible selections form the Baha'i Writings for Mulk:

"All praise, O my God, be to Thee Who art the Source of all glory and majesty, of greatness and honor, of sovereignty and dominion, of loftiness and grace, of awe and power. Whomsoever Thou willest Thou causest to draw nigh unto the Most Great Ocean, and on whomsoever Thou desirest Thou conferrest the honor of recognizing Thy Most Ancient Name. Of all who are in heaven and on earth, none can withstand the operation of Thy sovereign Will. From all eternity Thou didst rule the entire creation, and Thou wilt continue for evermore to exercise Thy dominion over all created things. There is none other God but Thee, the Almighty, The Most Exalted, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise."

—Bahá’u’lláh

"His celestial dominion is exalted far above every other dominion. His knowledge pervadeth all created things, and His consummate power extendeth over all beings."

- The Bab

"Know thou that all the powers combined have not the power to establish universal peace, nor to withstand the overmastering dominion, at every time and season, of these endless wars. Ere long, however, shall the power of heaven, the dominion of the Holy Spirit, hoist on the high summits the banners of love and peace, and there above the castles of majesty and might shall those banners wave in the rushing winds that blow out of the tender mercy of God."

(“Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá”, [rev. ed.] (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1982), p. 174.

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

Nearing the end of the month of "Mulk" - Dominion, Baha'is have four and sometimes five days (on leap years) of Ayyam-i-Ha.

What we do is enjoy each other's company and anyone else whose around to celebrate and have "fun" and enjoy things... light hearted and social happenings occur in and around Baha'i communities.

Ayyam-i-Ha is open to everyone...Baha'is, non-Baha'is, everybody.

Often these "happenings" involve games and gift exchanges...

I will have accumulated perhaps some gifts from after-Christmas sales...Yes I take advantage of the larger holiday season in my own way.

A spirit of friendliness and just "fun" most often typifies Ayyam-i-Ha. How often do we just have fun and enjoy each other? Yeh, just enjoy life without worrying about making a connection with someone or having an ulterior motive of some kind or other...

- Art

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

We've just entered the month of Ala' (Loftiness) March 2 which is our month of fasting. Just as in Islam where the fast is roughly from sunrise to sundown so we fast from solid and liquids during the daylight hours.

Baha'is will generally rise early enough to have some breakfast and prayers before the dawn and after sunset we generally will have a breaking of the fast together which is mutually supportive and agains can be with prayers.

Only Baha'is fifteen years of age to seventy five years old can fast and if one is ill or travelling long distances they are exempt...also those who have to do heavy labor are exempt. Pregnant women and women in their periods are exempt.

There's also no make-up time to fast, that is the time you miss fasting above does not have to be made up later by subsequent fasting.

As might be expected the first days of the fast are usually the most difficult as the body adjusts but the benefits I think are pretty obvious for those individuals who are healthy enough to fast because abstaining from the usual intake of foods during the day encourages discipline and will.

Prayers can be recited and read during a quiet lunch time.

"This material fast is an outer token of the spiritual fast; it is a symbol of self-restraint, the withholding of oneself from all appetites of the self, taking on the characteristics of the spirit, being carried away by the breathings of heaven and catching fire from the love of God."

Samples of prayers during the dast include:

"These are, O my God, the days whereon Thou didst enjoin Thy servants to observe the Fast...Thou hast endowed every hour of these days with a special virtue..."

"...Blessed is he that observeth the fast wholly for Thy sake, and with absolute detachment from all things except Thee..."

"Glory be to Thee, O Lord My God! These are the days whereon Thou hast bidden all men to observe the fast, that through it they may purify their souls...Grant, O my Lord, that this fast may become a river of life-giving waters and may yield the virtue with which Thou hast endowed it....Do not bring our fasts to an end with this fast, O my Lord...Do Thou accept all that we have done for love of Thee..."

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

The Month of Baha is the first Baha'i month of the year because it follows Naw-Ruz or the Persian New Years after March 21st.

I hosted that Feast at my home this time and to prepare for it I painted the bathroom, the hall way trim and did some other repairs around my house.

"Baha" is translated as Glory and Splendour and one reading I had for that Feast was from the Writings of the Bab:

"All majesty and glory, O my God, and all dominion and light and grandeur and splendor be unto Thee. Thou bestowest sovereignty on whom Thou willest and dost withhold it from whom Thou desirest. No God is there but Thee, the All-Possessing, the Most Exalted. Thou art He Who createth from naught the universe and all that dwell therein. There is nothing worthy of Thee except Thyself, while all else but Thee are as outcasts in Thy holy presence and are as nothing when compared to the glory of Thine Own Being.

"Far be it from me to extol Thy virtues save by what Thou hast extolled Thyself in Thy weighty Book where Thou sayest, “No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision. He is the Subtile, the All-Perceiving.” 1 Glory be unto Thee, O my God, indeed no mind or vision, however keen or discriminating, can ever grasp the nature of the most insignificant of Thy signs. Verily, Thou art God, no God is there besides Thee. I bear witness that Thou Thyself alone art the sole expression of Thine attributes, that the praise of no one besides Thee can ever attain to Thy holy court nor can Thine attributes ever be fathomed by anyone other than Thyself.

"Glory be unto Thee, Thou art exalted above the description of anyone save Thyself, since it is beyond human conception to befittingly magnify Thy virtues or to comprehend the inmost reality of Thine Essence. Far be it from Thy glory that Thy creatures should describe Thee or that anyone besides Thyself should ever know Thee. I have known Thee, O my God, by reason of Thy making Thyself known unto me, for hadst Thou not revealed Thyself unto me, I would not have known Thee. I worship Thee by virtue of Thy summoning me unto Thee, for had it not been for Thy summons I would not have worshiped Thee."

—The Báb

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler