RELIGION in its fullest development, its perfection, will have the outward and visible form in complete correspondence with the inward invisible spirit. Its institutions, its philosophy, and its essential spiritual purpose will be in full harmony and agreement.
The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, the symbol and embodiment of the Bahá’í Revelation, is the outcome and fulfillment of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh in the world of action. It embodies those teachings in a manner applying them to daily life. It makes unity a practice and habit as well as an ideal. It identifies religion with the social body, not by materializing religion, but by inspiring society. The appearance of an institution of this character in the world today is a proof of the re-birth of religion acceptable to those who have lost faith in the evidences of doctrine.
The present age is moving toward the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in its realization of the need to co-ordinate the churches with the fundamental problems of civilization, and in the willingness to abandon unnecessary duplication of religious effort. Community churches have come into existence which foreshadow the Bahá’í Temple in many respects, but none possesses the whole range of its significance.
In the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár we have a house of worship and devotion open to people of all religions, races and classes without distinction. Its services consist of reading and chanting the holy Word. The purpose is to turn the heart directly to the divine Source, and this purpose is not compatible with human sermons or the artifice of ritual. There will be the music of voices but not of instrument. Those who enter the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár will do so most frequently in order to meditate and pray.
The Bahá’í House of Worship becomes new and unique in that the central edifice will be surrounded with accessory buildings of humanitarian intent, and the relation of all these buildings one with another and with the central edifice discloses the relation of the organic functions of society with the spirit of religion. The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár perfectly symbolizes the two-fold nature of religion—one aspect the turning to God, the other aspect service to man. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said: “Religion is an attitude toward God reflected in life.”
The writings of the Bahá’í Movement contain many references to the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár.
In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá’u’lláh said: “O Concourse of creation! O people! Construct edifices in the most beautiful fashion possible, in every city, in every land, in the name of the Lord of Religions. Adorn them with that which beseemeth them. Then commemorate the Lord, the Merciful, the Clement, in spirit and fragrance.
“Teach your children what hath been revealed through the Supreme Pen. Instruct them in what hath descended from the Heaven of greatness and power. Let them memorize the Tablets of the Merciful and chant them with melodious voices in the galleries built in the Temple of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár. The prayers
of the Lord should be chanted in a
manner to attract the hearts and