Zimpapers Logo

Flora Teckie-Baháí Perspective

Celebrations to mark the Bahai New Year will take different forms throughout the world, but will typically include programmes of spiritual upliftment and music.

Bahá’ís of Harare are celebrating their New Year festival, known as Naw-Ruz (literally “New Day”), today.

 The event planned for Harare is typical of the kind of multi-cultural celebration that will be observed in many of the over 100 000 localities where Bahais reside around the world.

Naw-Ruz is celebrated by the Baháís as the annual festival of the spiritual and physical springtime. Spring is the time of freshness and renewal in nature. 

It is also symbolic of the periodic renewal of the religion of God – the coming of the spiritual spring.

The Bahá’í Writings state that “At the time of the vernal equinox in the material world a wonderful vibrant energy and new life-quickening is observed everywhere in the vegetable kingdom; the animal and human kingdoms are resuscitated and move forward with a new impulse. The whole world is born anew, resurrected. 

Gentle zephyrs are set in motion, wafting and fragrant; flowers bloom; the trees are in blossom, the air temperate and delightful; how pleasant and beautiful become the mountains, fields and meadows.

 Likewise, the spiritual bounty and springtime of God quicken the world of humanity with a new animus and vivification.

 All the virtues which have been deposited and potential in human hearts are being revealed from that Reality as flowers and blossoms from divine gardens. It is a day of joy, a time of happiness, a period of spiritual growth”.

The Baháí Faith has a new calendar – based on the solar year. The year is divided into 19 months of 19 days each month.

 Four intercalary days are added (and in the leap years a fifth day) to make up the year.

The months are named after some of the attributes of God such as might, grandeur and glory. The Bahá’í calendar dates its years from 1844, which marks the beginning of the Bahá’í Era. This year is 180 B.E. (Bahá’í Era). Naw-Ruz is the first day of the first of 19 months in the Bahá’í calendar.

Naw-Rúz is one of the nine Baháí holy days on which work is suspended. The festival comes at the end of a 19-day fast in which Bahais abstain from food and drink between sunrise and sunset, as a reminder of the need for individuals to be detached from their material desires.

According to the Baháí Writings, “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”.

The Bahá’í new year coincides with the vernal spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, the first day of spring.

The Bahá’í Faith is the youngest of the world’s independent religions. Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, teaches that there is only one God, that there is only one human race, and that all the world religions have been stages in the revelation of God’s purpose for humankind. 

As Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “… the peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly source, and are the subjects of one God”.

In this day, Baháulláh said, humanity has collectively come of age. As foretold in all of the world’s scriptures, the time has arrived for the uniting of all peoples into a peaceful and integrated global society. 

“The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens”, says Bahá’u’lláh and He further affirms that the unification of mankind, the last stage in the evolution of humanity towards maturity is inevitable … and He regards the ‘love of mankind’ and service to its interests as the worthiest and most laudable objects of human endeavour”.

It is the Bahá’í belief that, with unity – a unity that welcomes and honours the full diversity of mankind – the problems which face humanity today, can be solved.

The other principles of the Bahá’í Faith include the elimination of all forms of prejudice; the equality of men and women; recognition of the essential oneness of the world’s great religions; the elimination of extremes of poverty and wealth; universal education; a high standard of personal conduct; the harmony of science and religion; and the establishment of a world federal system, based on collective security and the oneness of humanity.

An important concept in the Bahá’í teachings is that refinement of one’s inner character and service to humanity should go hand in hand. Bahá’u’lláh says: “That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race”.

The Baháí Community of Harare welcomes everyone to join hands with them in building better communities and creating a just, peaceful, and prosperous global civilisation.

Feedback: [email protected] or [email protected]