What Is a Bahá’í House of Worship? Nine Sides, Prayer, and Service

Who can participate?

Encyclopaedia Iranica describes worship as open to people regardless of religious affiliation or background. Readings and chants can draw on Bahá’í and other religious scriptures in different languages. Devotional services have no clergy or formal sermons, and choirs may sing without instrumental accompaniment. These features describe the worship setting; they do not make it an unrestricted venue for every kind of event. [2]

The same account distinguishes a movable lectern from a pulpit and describes a worship space without altars, statues, or images. A nine-sided plan is required, but a dome is not essential. This leaves room for substantially different architectural forms. A visitor should therefore not expect every Bahá’í temple to reproduce the silhouette of a familiar example. [2]

Why nine sides?

An explanation in the Bahá’í Reference Library connects nine with completeness and unity, as well as the numerical value of the letters in Baha. It advises against explaining the temple's nine sides as a count of nine existing religions. The number is a theological and numerical symbol, rather than a count or ranking of the world's faiths. [3]

A building, a gathering, and a wider complex

Moojan Momen's Iranica entry explains related uses of Mashriqu'l-Adhkar for devotional gatherings, a dedicated building, and a wider complex. It also distinguishes the House of Worship from an ordinary Bahá’í administrative or meeting center. This helps resolve a practical confusion: a community may hold prayer gatherings without every building it uses being a purpose-built House of Worship. [4]

The early temple at Ashgabat illustrates why construction dates require care. The entry dates the start to 1902, exterior completion to 1907, ornamentation to 1917, and gardens and portico to 1919. The building was later expropriated and eventually demolished in 1963. A single label saying 'completed' can conceal several different stages in a building's history. [4]

Wilmette: ornament and structure

For the House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, Louis Bourgeois's design was selected in 1920. The US Bahá’í community describes John Earley's development of ornamental cast-concrete panels using white cement and crushed quartz, supported by a steel structure. Gardens and reflecting pools extend the setting outside. The temple opened on May 2, 1953. Its appearance is the result of specific design and construction decisions, not a universal material requirement. [5]

Chile: a different approach to light

A 2016 Bahá’í World News Service account describes Siamak Hariri's Chile temple through nine wing-like forms, cast glass outside, and white marble inside. The design brief included nine entrances, while daylight and evening illumination shaped the intended architectural effect. Comparing this account with Wilmette shows how a shared institutional purpose and nine-sided requirement can produce different buildings. The descriptions concern architectural intentions, not a guarantee that every visitor will experience the space in the same way. [6]