The Bahá’í Calendar
There are a surprising number of calendars in use around the world and it is essential, if real world unity is to be achieved, that there should be one calendar that is recognized and accepted the world over. It is an essential part of the distinctive Bahá’í life that all the Bahá’í’s the world over observe, in their religious activities, a calendar which was inaugurated by the Báb. This calendar brings some entirely new ideas in the measurement of time and the fixing of dates. The solar year was adopted but it begins, like the ancient Persian New Year and the modern Iranian Naw-Rúz, with the March Equinox (21 March). It is therefore astronomically fixed and the Bahá’í era commences with the year of the Declaration of the Báb (1844).
In the Bahá’í year there are nineteen months of nineteen days each, making a total of 361 days, so between the eighteenth and nineteenth month there are four or five ‘intercalary days’; the nineteenth month is a month of fasting in preparation for the celebration of the New Year's Day (Naw-Rúz). The Báb named the months after the attributes of God, and the Bahá’í day starts and ends at sunset.
The names of the nineteen months are as follows, including the day on which each month starts (known as the Feast Day):
- Baha (Splendor) March 21
- Jalal (Glory) April 9
- Jamal (Beauty) April 28
- Azamat (Grandeur) May 17
- Nur (Light) June 5
- Rahmat (Mercy) June 24
- Kalimat (Words) July 13
- Kamal (Perfection) August 1
- Asma (Names) August 20
- Izzat (Might) September 8
- Mashiyyat (Will) September 27
- Ilm (Knowledge) October 16
- Qudrat (Power) November 4
- Qawl (Speech) November 23
- Masail (Questions) December 12
- Sharaf (Honor) December 31
- Sultan (Sovereignty) January 19
- Mulk (Dominion) February 7
- Ala (Loftiness) March 2
