Spiritual Assembly is a term given by ûAbdu'l-Bahá to refer to elected councils that govern the BaháüàFaith. Because the BaháüàFaith has no clergy, they carry out the affairs of the community. In addition to existing at the local level, there are national Spiritual Assemblies (although "national" in some cases refers to a portion of a country or to a group of countries). Spiritual Assemblies form part of the elected branch of the Baháüàadministration.
Baháüu'lláh, ûAbdu'l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi stated how Spiritual Assemblies should be elected by the BaháüÃÂs, defined their nature and purposes, and described in considerable detail how they should function. Since these institutions are grounded in the Baháüàauthoritative texts, BaháüÃÂs regard them as divine in nature, and contrast the wealth of scriptural guidance with the paucity of scriptural texts on which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religious institutions are based.
The Universal House of Justice has added that among the responsibilities of Local Spiritual Assemblies are to be âÂÂchannels of divine guidance, planners of the teaching work, developers of human resources, builders of communities, and loving shepherds of the multitudes.â On a practical level, they organize local Baháüàcommunities by maintaining a local BaháüàFund, owning the local Baháüàcenter (if one exists), organizing Baháüàevents, counseling BaháüÃÂs about personal difficulties, assisting with Baháüàmarriages and funerals, providing educational programs to adults and children, publicizing the BaháüàFaith locally, fostering projects for the social and economic development of the region, and enrolling new members of the religion. Spiritual Assemblies appoint individuals, task forces, and committees to carry out many of their functions. National Spiritual Assemblies have a similar mandate at the national level: they coordinate publishing and distribution of Baháüàliterature, direct relations with national organizations and governmental agencies, oversee the work of local spiritual assemblies, and (in some countries) Regional Councils, set local Baháüàjurisdictional boundaries, provide various educational services and programs, and set the overall tone and direction of the national community.
The origin of the institution of the local Spiritual Assembly originates from Baháüu'lláh's book of laws, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas:
The passage gives the institution a name, a minimum number (nine, for âÂÂthe number of Bahaâ refers to the numerical value of the letters of that word, which is nine), and a general responsibility to take care of the welfare of others even as they would take care of their own. While the resulting institution is local, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Baháüu'lláh also spoke about the responsibilities of the supreme or Universal House of Justice. In response to the passage, MÃÂrzá Asadu'lláh IsfahánÃÂ, a prominent Baháüàteacher, organized an unofficial Baháüàconsultative body in Tehran, Iran, about 1878. The first official Baháüàconsultative body was organized under ûAbdu'l-Bahá's direction by Hand of the Cause HajàÃÂkhúnd in Tehran in 1897; by 1899 it was an elected body. Because of the difficulties in Iran caused by persecution of the BaháüàFaith, the Tehran body served to coordinate both local and national Baháüàactivities. It is not known what name the body was organized under.
The development of a Baháüàcommunity in the United States in the 1890s necessitated the creation of local Baháüàconsultative bodies there. In 1899 the BaháüÃÂs of Chicago elected a local council based on their awareness of the provisions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (which was circulated in provisional English translation as a typescript as early as 1900). The New York BaháüÃÂs elected a âÂÂBoard of Counselâ in December 1900. In 1901 the Chicago body was reorganized and re-elected and took the name âÂÂHouse of Justice of Bahais of Chicago, Ills.â In response, ûAbdu'l-Bahá revealed three tablets of encouragement and guidance to the body, including prayers to say at the beginning and end of their meetings, prayers that BaháüÃÂs use around the world today for their Spiritual Assembly meetings.
In 1902 ûAbdu'l-Bahá sent a very important tablet to the Chicago governing body where he said "let the designation of that body be 'Spiritual Assembly'âÂÂthis for the reason that, were it to use the term 'House of Justice', the government might hereafter come to suppose that it was acting as a court of law, or concerning itself in political matters, or that, at some indeterminate future time, it would involve itself in the affairs of government.... This same designation hath been universally adopted throughout Iran." For this reason, Baháüàlocal and national governing bodies are designated âÂÂSpiritual Assembliesâ to this day.
The first decade of the twentieth century saw the proliferation of local Baháüàgoverning bodies. Often unaware of ûAbdu'l-Bahá's guidance, they had a variety of titles in English and Persian, such as âÂÂCouncil Board, âÂÂBoard of Consultation,â âÂÂHouse of Spirituality,â and "Executive Committee." Unaware ûAbdu'l-Bahá had told the Chicago BaháüÃÂs to elect their body every five years, they were usually elected annually or even semi-annually. The number of members varied from five to nineteen (except in New York City, where ûAbdu'l-Bahá, in 1911, said they should elect twenty-seven members in order to be inclusive of and to foster unity between that city's diverse Baháüàgroups). They were male only until ûAbdu'l-Bahá said, in 1911, that women should be elected to the local governing bodies existing in the United States; their exclusion from local bodies continued in Iran until the 1950s, because of Iranian cultural conventions. In the period of 1900 - 1911, consultative bodies are known to have existed in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Boston, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., Spokane, Washington, northern Hudson County, New Jersey, the greater San Francisco area, California, in the United States; and in Bombay, British Raj India; Cairo, Khedivate of Egypt; Acre, Ottoman Syria; Baku, Tbilisi, Ashgabat and Samarqand in the Russian Empire; and Mashhad, Abadih, Qazvin, and Tabriz, Persia. Consultative bodies also existed for the Jewish and Zoroastrian BaháüÃÂs in Tehran and for the women of a few Baháüàcommunities.
Because efforts to organize local Baháüàconsultative bodies remained informal, few additional ones had formed by 1921 (notable exceptions being Cleveland, Ohio, and London), and some of the ones in the United States had lapsed. Upon assuming the Guardianship of the BaháüàFaith, Shoghi Effendi read ûAbdu'l-Bahá's Will and Testament and made establishment of local spiritual assemblies an early priority. His second general letter to the BaháüÃÂs of the world, dated March 5, 1922, referred to the âÂÂvital necessity of having a local Spiritual Assembly in every locality where the number of adult declared believers exceeds nine.â The letter also quoted extensively from Baháüu'lláh and ûAbdu'l-Bahá about the purposes and duties of Spiritual Assemblies.
The result was a rapid proliferation of local Spiritual Assemblies; a 1928 list had the following: Australia, 6; Brazil, 1; Burma, 3; Canada, 2; China, 1; Egypt, 1; England, 4; France, 1; India, 4; Japan, 1; Korea, 1; Lebanon, 1; New Zealand, 1; Palestine, 1; Iran, 5; Russia, 1; South Africa, 1; Switzerland, 1; Syria, 1; Turkey, 1; and the United States, 47, for a total of 85 local Spiritual Assemblies worldwide.
The number has grown ever since; in 2001 there were 11,740 local Spiritual Assemblies worldwide.
National Spiritual Assemblies are first mentioned in ûAbdu'l-Bahá's Will and Testament, but the fact that they would be established circulated for years before the contents of the Will became publicly available in early 1922. In 1909, wrote extensively about the role of the national House of Justice (as it would have been known then) in his The Universal Religion: Bahaism, Its Rise and Social Import. In that year, also, the BaháüÃÂs of the United States and Canada elected a nine-member âÂÂExecutive Committeeâ for the Bahai Temple Unity, a continental consultative body formed to build the BaháüàHouse of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Subsequently, the Bahai Temple Unity, which held annual conventions, appointed committees to publish Baháüàliterature, coordinate the spread of the BaháüàFaith across North America, and review Baháüàpublications for their accuracy. By the time of ûAbdu'l-Bahá's passing in November 1921, the Bahai Temple Unity functioned as a âÂÂnationalâ Baháüàcoordinating body.
In the same March 5, 1922 letter to the BaháüÃÂs of the world that called for the election of local Spiritual Assemblies, Shoghi Effendi called on them to âÂÂindirectlyâ elect National Spiritual Assemblies. He also enumerated committees that a National Spiritual Assembly should have in order to carry out its responsibilities. âÂÂIndirectâ election referred to the process, mentioned in the Will and Testament of ûAbdu'l-Bahá, of the BaháüÃÂs electing one or more delegates from each locality, who would represent them at a national convention and would vote for the nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly. The 1928 issue of The BaháüàWorld listed nine National Spiritual Assemblies: Persia (Iran); the United States and Canada; Germany; Great Britain and Ireland; India and Burma; Egypt; Turkistan; Caucasus; and Iraq. Of these, the Iranian body was still the âÂÂCentral Spiritual Assemblyâ in Tehran, elected by the BaháüÃÂs of that community; it was not until 1934 that a national Baháüàmembership list could be drawn up that allowed the election of delegates and convening of a fully representative national convention. It is possible that the Turkistan and Caucasus bodies were preliminary as well. By 1953 the number of National Spiritual Assemblies worldwide had increased to 12; in 1963, 56; by 1968, 81, by 1988, 148; by 2001, 182.
An important part of the process was the establishment of âÂÂregionalâ National Spiritual Assemblies; thus in 1951 all of South America elected a single National Spiritual Assembly, but by 1963 nearly every nation on that continent had its own. National Spiritual Assemblies are still being formed as areas of the world achieve religious freedom. Some National Spiritual Assemblies have been formed in areas smaller than a nation: Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico have their own âÂÂnationalâ bodies because they are geographically separated from the lower forty-eight states; Sicily has its own because Shoghi Effendi said major islands also like in the Caribbean should elect independent National Spiritual Assemblies.
Like local Spiritual Assemblies, all National Spiritual Assemblies have nine members and are elected annually, usually during the Ridván Festival (April 21-May 2). All Baháüàelections occur in an atmosphere of prayer where nominations, campaigning, and all discussion of persons is forbidden.
The members of the National Spiritual Assemblies collectively serve as the electoral college for electing the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing body of the BaháüàFaith, which was first formed in 1963.