Ayyam-i-Ha and the Baha'i Fast:

[arthra]

Tomorrow Thursday February 26th after sunset begins a four day period called Ayyam-i-Ha ..."The days of Five"... The letter "Ha" has a numerical value of five.

Ayyam-i-Ha is a fun time of year when Baha'is socialize..sharing food or some gifts.. Anyone can participate in Ayyam-i-Ha.

The purpose of Ayyam-i-Ha is also I believe to have a light hearted season before our Nineteen Day Fast...where people over fifteen years of age that are healthy abstain from liquid and solid food between sunrise and sunset. The Baha'i fast occurs in the last month of the Baha'i year before Naw-Ruz our New Year.. The ancient Persian New Year on the vernal equinox.

Ayyam-i-Ha will be four days this year..in a "leap year" Ayyam-i-Ha would be five days. The Baha'i year has nineteen months with nineteen days in each month...for 361 days so Ayyam-i-Ha the four or five days makes a 365 day solar calendar.

 

[arthra]

 

[arthra]

I'm unsure what happened to my last post above...probably hit the wrong thingamajig!

Suffice it to say we are in the Baha'i Fast which lasts nineteen days and began on March 2nd. When Baha'is fast we do not consume liquids or solid food from sunrise to sunset. Baha'is from the age of fifteen to seventy years are supposed to fast. There are exemptions granted during the Fast. If you are ill you do not have to fast... Pregnant women and nursing mothers do not have to fast. People who have to do hard manual labor during the day do not have to fast. If you are travelling a vast distance.. you do not have to fast... of course this exemption was granted when traveling was by horseback or on foot.

A fairly good summary of the Baha'i Fast can be found at

Nineteen Day Fast - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[arthra]

One of the interesting collections of Baha'i material in the West... The USA and English speaking countries was a magazine called "Star of the West". There was a particularly interesting passage on Fasting which Baha'is are currently involved in:

I:18, 7 February 1914
page 303
The mystery of fasting

From Sacred Mysteries by Mírzá Asadu'lláh.

Know thou that Fasting is a command given in all the Holy Books in all times.
The outward appearance thereof is restraining the self from that which is prohibited in the Books.
Special times are appointed and particular forms are ordained by every religion. The Zoroastrians have certain forms, the Jews have others; the Christians, the Muslims, each differ in their forms, and the Bahá'ís have forms of fasting differing from all former religions. These apparent or outward differences were according to the exigencies of the times when given.
The outward fruit of fasting is the preservation of the material health through the purifying of the body once a year. The inward fruits pertain to the other states of existence.
In the world of soul its fruit is the sanctifying of the soul from the animal qualities and clothing it with the intellectual attributes, thereby releasing the soul from the lower human nature.
In the world of mind, it is the process of filtering, sifting out the dust and taints and dross of the self, and soaring to the Spiritual and Divine Kingdoms.
In the world of spirit, it is the longing, the aspiring to the stations of Divinity, and attaining to the meeting of God in both this world and those to come after death.
Thus one of the doors, through which one may attain to the meeting of God and entrance into His Kingdom, is fasting; but success depends upon following the forms prescribed in the Heavenly Book.

(SOW - Star of the West, Star of the West - 3)

 

[arthra]

O Pen of the Most High! Say: O people of the
world! We have enjoined upon you fasting during a
brief period, and at its close have designated for you
Naw-Ruz as a feast. Thus hath the Day-Star of
Utterance shone forth above the horizon of the Book as
decreed by Him Who is the Lord of the beginning and
the end.

~ Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 24