Baha'ism

Societal Law

Dress

In practice there are no specific prescriptions or proscriptions regarding permissible dress except to general injunctions to avoid extreme expressions and to dress modestly.

The Lord hath relieved you, as a bounty on His part, of the restrictions that formerly applied to clothing and to the trim of the beard. He, verily, is the Ordainer, the Omniscient. Let there be naught in your demeanour of which sound and upright minds would disapprove, and make not yourselves the playthings of the ignorant.95

Silk and gold are permissible for men but they are prohibited from shaving their heads or growing their hair past the ears.

Shave not your heads; God hath adorned them with hair, and in this there are signs from the Lord of creation to those who reflect upon the requirements of nature. He, verily, is the God of strength and wisdom. Notwithstanding, it is not seemly to let the hair pass beyond the limit of the ears. Thus hath it been decreed by Him Who is the Lord of all worlds.96

During the time that Baha’ Allah and his successors resided in Palestine, females were encouraged to cover their heads which was considered modest behaviour in the culture of the time.

Despite a letter from ‘Abd al-Baha’ which instructs women to cover their head and arms,97 Baha’i women do not observe hijab but dress according to the norms of the culture in which they live. It is possible that Baha’i authorities effectively ignore this instruction of ‘Abd al-Baha’ in order to maintain a strong distinction from Islam. In practice Baha’is, presumably unaware of the instruction of ‘Abd al-Baha’, can be disparaging about female Islamic dress, which is seen to be a sign of enforced inequality.

References

95Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas 76.

96Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas 35.

97Denis MacEoin in Rituals in Babism and Baha’ism 68 paraphrases a letter of ‘Abd al-Baha’ in Amr wa khalq, vol. III, Mirza Asad Allah Fadil-i Mazandarani ed., (Tehren 1971-2).