Abrogated Laws: Uncleanliness of Divers Objects and People

Uncleanliness of Divers Objects and People

God hath, likewise, as a bounty from His presence, abolished the concept of “uncleanness,” whereby divers things and peoples have been held to be impure.

(The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, The Most Holy Book, Bahá’u’lláh, para. 57)

Hair doth not invalidate your prayer, nor aught from which the spirit hath departed, such as bones and the like. Ye are free to wear the fur of the sable as ye would that of the beaver, the squirrel, and other animals; the prohibition of its use hath stemmed, not from the Qur’án, but from the misconceptions of the divines. He, verily, is the All-Glorious, the All-Knowing.

(The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, The Most Holy Book, Bahá’u’lláh, para. 9)

In some earlier religious Dispensations, the wearing of the hair of certain animals or having certain other objects on one’s person was held to invalidate one’s prayer. Bahá’u’lláh here confirms the Báb’s pronouncement in the Arabic Bayán that such things do not invalidate one’s prayer.

(The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, The Most Holy Book, Notes NO. 12)

God hath exempted women who are in their courses from obligatory prayer and fasting.

Exemption from obligatory prayer and fasting is granted to women who are menstruating; they should, instead, perform their ablutions and repeat 95 times a day between one noon and the next, the verse “Glorified be God, the Lord of Splendor and Beauty.” This provision has its antecedent in the Arabic Bayán, where a similar dispensation was granted.

In some earlier religious Dispensations, women in their courses were considered ritually unclean and were forbidden to observe the duties of prayer and fasting. The concept of ritual uncleanness has been abolished by Bahá’u’lláh.

The Universal House of Justice has clarified that the provisions in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas granting exemptions from certain duties and responsibilities are, as the word indicates, exemptions and not prohibitions. Any believer is, therefore, free to avail himself or herself of an applicable exemption if he or she so wishes. However, the House of Justice counsels that, in deciding whether to do so or not, the believer should use wisdom and realize that Bahá’u’lláh has granted these exemptions for good reason.

The prescribed exemption from obligatory prayer, originally related to the Obligatory Prayer consisting of nine rak‘ahs, is now applicable to the three Obligatory Prayers which superseded it.

(The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, The Most Holy Book, Notes NO. 20)