The Twin Holy Birthdays
Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, (1873), Bahá'í Publishing Trust · Read original
When in Bahá'í history
Shíráz (today: Shíráz, Iran)
A short account based on The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (paragraph 110, Questions and Answers no. 2, and note 138), with the dates of birth as given in J. E. Esslemont's Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, and the present calendar from the Universal House of Justice's message of 10 July 2014. Words in quotation marks are quoted from the Kitáb-i-Aqdas.
Bahá'u'lláh was born in Tihrán on 12 November 1817, between dawn and sunrise. The Báb was born in Shíráz on 20 October 1819. In the Muslim lunar calendar the two births fall on consecutive days: Bahá'u'lláh's on the second day of the month of Muḥarram in the year 1233, and the Báb's on the first day of the same month in 1235.
In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá'u'lláh sets out four great festivals. Two are the "Most Great Festivals," Riḍván and the Declaration of the Báb. The other two are the "two other Festivals that fall on the twin days," the anniversaries of the births of Bahá'u'lláh and the Báb, which are therefore known as the Twin Birthdays.
Asked about the Festival of the Twin Birthdays, Bahá'u'lláh answered: "The Birth of the Abhá Beauty was at the hour of dawn on the second day of the month of Muharram, the first day of which marketh the Birth of His Herald. These two days are accounted as one in the sight of God."
He also stated that if the Twin Birthdays fall within the month of fasting, the command to fast does not apply on those days. Because the Bahá'í calendar is a solar calendar, the notes to the Kitáb-i-Aqdas explain, it was left to the Universal House of Justice to decide whether the Twin Holy Birthdays would be celebrated on a solar or a lunar basis. In a message of 10 July 2014 the Universal House of Justice decided that, from 2015, they would be observed on the first and second days following the eighth new moon after Naw-Rúz, which fall between mid-October and mid-November.
For the texts, see The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, paragraph 110, Questions and Answers no. 2 and note 138.
Cite this story
Bahá'u'lláh. (1873). *The Kitáb-i-Aqdas*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/kitab-i-aqdas/
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