Baha'ism

Practices

Charity

Baha’ Allah specified the payment of zakat ‘purification levy’ according to what was revealed in the Qur’an.70 The regular collection of zakat has not been instituted by Baha’i authorities, however, and Baha’is are instead encouraged to donate regularly to Baha’i funds. There is another purification tax which Baha’ Allah specified in al-Kitab al-Aqdas called huquq allah ‘the Right of God’. This has been made obligatory for Baha’is, but it is left up to the conscious of the individual to fulfill the duty.

Huquq allah is a once-off tax of nineteen mithqals of gold payable after the value of a person’s possessions has reached a nisab ‘minimum amount’ of one hundred mithqals (exempting certain items such as what is needed for a person’s home and occupation).71

Baha’ Allah forbade begging or giving to beggars. Furthermore, Baha’is are encouraged to give money to Baha’i funds rather than donate to other charities, the reason being that only Baha’is may donate to Baha’i funds.72 Here there appears to be a discrepancy between the religious texts of the Baha’i religion which encourage charity and giving support to those in need – one of the prescribed functions of a Spiritual Assembly – and the current policies to date of Baha’i authorities who stress their administrative financial needs (at times euphamistically referred to as “building the Kingdom of God”) over charitable projects.

There are many well-wishers of mankind who devote their efforts to relief-work and charity and to the material well-being of man, but only Bahá’ís can do the work which God most wants done. When we devote ourselves to the work of the Faith we are doing a work which is the greatest aid and only refuge for a needy and divided world.73

This policy of the UHJ is in stark contrast to the great emphasis that Shoghi Effendi placed on charitable work as a duty of Baha’is. Effendi wrote: “helping the poor, needy, orphans, widows, aged and indigent among non-Baha'is is most necessary and absolutely obligatory.”74 He also made the founding of a charity fund an immediate obligation on the forming of a local assembly and instructed the Baha’is of Iran to form a national charitable fund as well.75

Despite the lack of financial attention to charitable causes, Baha’i individuals and communities do perform volunteer work in the wider community, although the underlying emphasis is often on attracting new converts to the religion more than service to the wider community.

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References

70Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1992) 72.
71Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1992) 55.
72Universal House of Justice, The, “From a letter to a Local Spiritual Assembly”, 19 Mar. 1973, Lights of Guidance: A Bahá’í Reference File, comp. Helen Bassett Hornby, rev. ed. (New Delhi, India: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1994) 121.
73Universal House of Justice, The, Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1968-1973, (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, n.d.) 46.
74Passage translated by Juan Cole from Effendi, Shoghi, “To the LSA of Tehran” 19 Dec. 1923. See Cole, Juan R.I., “Shoghi Effendi the Charity Fund”, Mar. 1999, Translations of Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Texts, vol. 3, no. 2, 7 Jun. 2003, .
75Cole, “Shoghi Effendi the Charity Fund”, Translations of Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Texts.

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