The Twin Holy Birthdays

The story behind the day

The Twin Holy Birthdays are two consecutive Bahá'í holy days that celebrate the births of the Báb, on 20 October 1819 in Shiraz, and of Bahá'u'lláh, on 12 November 1817 in Tehran. They are called twin because the two births fell on successive days of the Islamic month of Muḥarram, in years two apart. Bahá'ís hold that the two days count as one occasion in the sight of God, and they keep both as holy days on which work and school are suspended. Their Gregorian dates change from year to year, and the calendar in the app shows the days for the current one.^[1–5]

Origins

The Báb was born in Shiraz and Bahá'u'lláh in Tehran, and Bahá'ís understand their lives as closely joined: the Báb heralded the coming of a promised messenger, and Bahá'u'lláh declared himself to be the one so heralded. Bahá'u'lláh taught, in words Bahá'ís preserve, that the two birthdays count as a single occasion in the sight of God. His book of laws, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, speaks of two further festivals that fall on the twin days, set beside the two Most Great Festivals.^{[1–2, 4, 6–7]}

What it marks

The days celebrate the coming into the world of the two figures whom Bahá'ís honour as the herald and the promised one of their faith. A reference work on religious celebrations counts the birthdays, with the Declaration of the Báb and the Festival of Riḍván, among four great festivals of the Bahá'í year, a reading that follows the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. In Bahá'í reckoning the first of these figures opened his mission in 1844, and the second declared his own in 1863.^{[6, 8–9]}

How it came to be

Reckoned by the Islamic lunar calendar, the Báb was born on the first of Muḥarram 1235 AH and Bahá'u'lláh on the second of Muḥarram 1233 AH, which is why the two festivals follow one another. A reference work published in 2011 noted that the Universal House of Justice, the community's international governing body, had yet to decide whether the days should be kept by the sun or by the moon. In 2014 the House ruled that, from Naw-Rúz 2015, the two days fall on the first and second days after the eighth new moon following Naw-Rúz, with the new moon calculated astronomically for Tehran.^{[3, 10–11]}

How it is kept

the Shrine of the Báb terraces lit — The Shrine of the Báb terraces litIllustration · AI-generated

Work and school are suspended on both days. Bahá'ís prescribe no set ceremony, and communities usually gather to pray and spend time together, frequently in devotional meetings or musical evenings that anyone may attend. As with every Bahá'í day, the observance begins at sunset on the evening before the Gregorian date listed.^{[5, 12–13]}

Across traditions

Before the 2014 ruling, practice differed by region. Many Bahá'ís in the Middle East kept the two days by their country's Islamic lunar calendar, while Bahá'ís in the West and some other countries kept the fixed dates of 20 October and 12 November. Both ways of keeping the days rested on the same pair of births, set one day apart in the Islamic calendar.^{[3, 14]}

Sources

Each statement above was checked against published sources; the verdict says whether it stood as written, was corrected or was hedged.