Holy Days: letters for requesting time off

In these letters, for use by employees and students, the National Spiritual Assembly provides a list of Holy Days in 2023 and an explanation of their significance. They can be used by the friends when requesting time off in order to observe these important days on our calendar, in accordance with the laws of the Faith.

Reflections on the potency of Holy Days

The Universal House of Justice has written that “moments sacred in human history and commemorated at Holy Days have immense power to uplift individual souls and to weld a people together through shared experience. What great promise for advances at the level of culture lies in the universal celebration of such Festivals in place after place in the years to come!” [1]

Regarding the Twin Birthdays of the Bab and Baha’u’llah, in the context of their bicentaries, the House of Justice wrote: “These glorious Festivals will be opportunities for Bahá’ís in every land to attract the largest possible number of believers, their families, friends, and collaborators, as well as others from the wider society, to commemorate moments when a Being peerless in creation, a Manifestation of God, was born to the world. Celebrating these bicentenaries is sure to increase appreciation for how the observance of Holy Days, now according to a calendar that unites the friends of God everywhere, strengthens Bahá’í identity.” [2]

Days on which work is suspended

According to the beloved Guardian:

… according to our Bahá’í laws, work is forbidden on our Nine Holy Days. Believers who have independent businesses or shops should refrain from working on these days. Those who are in government employ should, on religious grounds, make an effort to be excused from work; all believers, whoever their employers, should do likewise. If the government, or other employers, refuse to grant them these days off, they are not required to forfeit their employment, but they should make every effort to have the independent status of their Faith recognized and their right to hold their own religious Holy Days acknowledged. [3]

And the Universal House of Justice has confirmed:

In connection with your question about stoppage of work and closing of establishments owned by Bahá’ís, it is absolutely clear in the Writings that not only should Bahá’ís refrain from work on the nine Holy Days but the shops and establishments owned by Bahá’ís should be closed on those days.… [4]

For comprehensive information about Holy Days, see Chapter 8 of “Guidelines for Local Spiritual Assemblies in New Zealand”.

Footnotes

[1] Universal House of Justice, 8 November 2019, to the Bahá’ís of the World

[2] Universal House of Justice, 29 December 2015, to the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors

[3] Shoghi Effendi, in Principles of Bahá’í Administration, p. 55, quoted by the Universal House of Justice in a letter of 28 January 1966 to all National Spiritual Assemblies

[4] From a letter dated 20 June 1972 written by the Universal House of Justice to a National Spiritual Assembly