# Meanings of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

---

> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Sen McGlinn, Meanings of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Meanings of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar
> 
> Sen McGlinn
> 
> 1997
> 
> Let's start with life the universe and everything and circle round to what the Mashriq
> means, because it 'means' different things at all sorts of different levels. We have
> learn to talk and think in a multi-valent way if our understandings of the
> Mashriqu'l-Adhkar are to rise above questions of bricks and mortar and costs. In the
> Bahá'í cosmology, the attributes of God radiate outward from the Godhead through
> successive levels of realization.
> 
> Take Sovereignty, for instance. Sovereignty is expressed in the
> archangelic and angelic realms is some way or other. In one sense, the
> Manifestations embody this name as they embody every other. In another
> sense, human government, and archtypically monarc hs, embody it. The
> worldly monarchs in turn reflect some equivalent reality on a spiritual
> level, the 'monarchs of the realms of the Kingdom'(Proclamation of
> Bahá'u'lláh, pp. 29-30, see also Gleanings, p. 212). In some sense the
> 'idea' of kingship as a re flection of sovereignty is also embodied in
> other forms of government and at other levels, down to the village elder
> or the local council, and in another way it is reflected in the Houses of
> Justice, and in yet another way in the sovereignty of the indivi dual who
> has attained the station at which his or her faith is conditioned by no
> one else, one who sees with justice and is unaffected by the approval or
> disapproval of anyone but God. And we respond to the sovereignty of God at
> all of these levels, from the adoration of the Godhead to recognizing and
> following the Manifestation to obeying our government and praying for it
> night and day (Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 220, Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, p.
> 375.) and by taking part in the elections and in the affairs of the
> [American] republic (Tablets of `Abdu'l-Bahá 343). So once you have a
> clear concept of a spiritual reality and the way it radiates out through
> the worlds of God, that spiritual reality will also begin to radiate out
> through all the various aspect s of your own life and the life of the
> Bahá'í community (Selections from the Writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá, pages
> 95-6). Various otherwise fragmentary bits of 'being Bahá'í' cohere
> together when related to one another as differing manifestations of the
> names o f God, within the architecture of the 'kingdom of names', and this
> way of thinking opens up a metaphorical language of realities, levels and
> manifestions - and this is the kind of language we need to answer a simple
> question like "What is intended by Mashriqu'al Adkar?"
> 
> Terry already posted part of a most illuminating passage from
> `Abdu'l-Bahá:
> 
> In reality, the radiant, pure hearts are the Mashrak-el-Azcar
> and from them the voice of supplication and invocation continually
> reacheth the Supreme Concourse. I ask God to make the heart of every one
> of you a temple of the Divine Temples and
> to let the lamp of the great guidance be lighted therein; and WHEN THE
> HEARTS FIND SUCH AN ATTAINMENT, they will certainly exert the utmost
> endeavor and energy in the building of the Mashrak-el-Azcar; thus may the
> outward express the inward, and the form
> (or letter) indicate the meaning (or reality). (Tablets of `Abdu'l-Bahá
> Abbas p 678)
> 
> Your radiant heart is, in the first place, the Mashriq. Are the lights
> shining? are the doors open? is the voice of supplication continually
> rising? (which points towards a whole chapter on the remembrance of God as
> a key spiritual idea, on dhikr and othe r meditative and liturgical forms
> to express the remembrance of God, the importance of chanting the
> Allah'u'Abhas and so on. But I'll skip that chapter for now, it is too
> important for a note: "only in the remembrance of God can the heart find
> rest"). THE N, when the hearts are radiant and pure, and the voice of
> supplication is continually rising, "They will certainly exert the utmost
> endeavor and energy in the building of the Mashrak-el-Azcar; THUS MAY THE
> OUTWARD EXPRESS THE INWARD". Once there is an inw ard reality it naturally
> seeks its expression (manifestation is a universal law, not an
> exception-clause in the constitution of history). In the same way, when
> the friends understand the nature of the House of Justice and the role it
> should therefore play
> in human society, there will be a natural movement towards 'building' the
> House of Justice - both strengthening the institution and finding a
> suitable physical expression for it. So once the House of Worship exists
> as an inward reality, then its outward expression begins to flower, and
> the outward expression reinforces the inward.
> 
> So what are the outward expressions? Some which suggest themselves are the
> spiritual meetings, the mashriq-centred community, the dependencies of the
> Mashriq, and the sacred space of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar itself. These forms
> of the Mashriq may well begin to evolve in this sequence, since the
> Mashriq-centred community cannot logically begin to grow without the
> spiritual meetings, and the dependencies of the Mashriq cannot begin to
> grow until the centre of gravity - or levity - in the community has
> shifted from the Feast and House of Justice to the Mashriq. But as we will
> see, the sacred space begins to flower at the level of the individual
> radiant heart, and is not complete until the realities of both the Mashriq
> and its dependencies are manifest.
> 
> Spiritual meetings:
> 
> Mashriqu'l-Adhkar means 'rising place of rememberance', where 'rising
> place' has connotations of the East and thus of the dawn, and
> 'remembrance' connotes dhikr and more broadly acts of worship which change
> our consciousness and being. So the same word is
> applied appropriately to the radiant heart, the physical building, and
> meetings for worship, particularly at dawn. Many western communities try
> in a disultory manner to organize dawn prayers, but few seem able to carry
> it through consistently. From the e xperience in our own community (South
> Limburg) it appears that it is difficult to sustain the dawn prayers as
> simply one activity among all those worthy activities that go with 'being
> Bahá'í', and that it becomes rather easier when they are understood as one
> form of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar and thus as a response to the Aqdas'
> command: "Build ye houses of worship throughout the lands in the name of
> Him Who is the Lord of all religions" and an integral part - in fact, the
> central part - of the whole structure
> of the community. Various kinds of Mashriq meeting are possible:
> community meetings for prayers and meditation, more experimental liturgies
> with chanting and the recitation of dhikr, 'firesides' which consist
> primarily of meditation and chanting and incl ude the answering of
> questions as these arise, dawn prayers and after-work moments of silence,
> short lunchtime meetings to say the shorter obligatory prayer and share a
> smile and some fellowship, longer evening gatherings for the heavy
> meditation and the long obligatory prayer (see Jackson's book, and also a
> tablet of Abdu'l-Bahá to the Spiritual Assembly of Bushruyih in Ganjinih
> Hudud va Ahkam p. 230), the meetings of orders of Bahá'í dervishes using
> particular devotional arts (Memorials of the Faithful p. 38), or meetings
> for particular liturgical forms (Gregorian morningsong, Vespers with
> 3-part harmony, Arabic chanting, African drumming). Each of these can be
> called a 'rising place' for praise and thus a Mashriqul-Adhkar, though
> perhaps the daily morn ing prayers have a particular priority in relation
> to the way in which the inspiration derived in the Mashriq is expressed in
> action during the day (God Passes By, pp. 339-340) and because they are
> specifically endorsed by Bahá'u'lláh in the Aqdas para 11 5:
> 
> Blessed is he who, at the hour of dawn, centring his thoughts
> on God, occupied with His remembrance, and supplicating His forgiveness,
> directeth his steps to the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar and, entering therein,
> seateth himself in silence to listen to the verses of God, the Sovereign,
> the Mighty, the All-Praised. From the above it follows that there can and
> eventually should be multiple Mashriq meetings in one Bahá'í community. It
> is of the essence of the functioning of a House of Justice that there sh
> ould be one and only one House of Justice in each community, but this is
> not so for the Mashriq, either as a meeting or as a building (Tablet from
> Abdu'l-Bahá to Mirza Ali-Asghar Faridi-yi Usku'i, quoted by Ishraq-Khavari
> in Ganjinih Hudud va Ahkam [p 230 +?]).
> 
> A Mashriq meeting, if it is held frequently and consistently, will build
> up a mashriq community consisting of the people who regularly worship
> together. This community of hearts bound in worship could be considered
> another form of the mashriq: "Build ye houses of worship throughout the
> lands in the name of Him Who is the Lord of all religions. Make them as
> perfect as is possible..." Each mashriq community is open to all,
> including non- Bahá'ís and people without voting rights. They are the home
> for all m ankind, not just for the Bahá'ís: "Temples are symbols of the
> reality and divinity of God - the collective center of mankind. Consider
> how within a temple every race and people is seen and represented. (PUP
> 163) If as I have said western societies are gen erally characterized by
> spiritual malnourishment, then one might expect that offering an open
> mashriq community in a form accessible to the people of a neighbourhood
> (such as Sunday morning prayers) might be an appropriate form of social &
> economic develo pment. In Europe, the young people today are the
> generation whose grandparents turned their backs on the church, so those
> who want to learn to pray have to learn it, and this itself is most
> important service: What "oppression" is more grievous than that a
> soul seeking the truth, and wishing to attain unto the knowledge of God,
> should know not where to go for it and from whom to seek it? (Kitab-i-Iqan
> p 31)
> 
> Western communities who have begun this form of the Mashriq have reported
> positive results in terms of gradually attracting a circle of people who
> will join the Bahá'ís in worship (in addition to more immediate results in
> revitalizing their own communitie s and Local Spiritual Assemblies and
> Feasts). I have not heard of a community which began to build the Mashriq
> as an institution and did not note any effects in attracting others to
> join them. We have also found that meditation evenings, devoted to prayer
> s, meditations, and reading the mystic writings and poetry of Bahá'u'lláh
> are both more effective and more sustainable than firesides on the old
> model. Spiritual gatherings such as Sunday morning worship and mystic
> firesides may attract a different group of people (Bahá'ís and
> non-Bahá'ís) than those who come to public meetings and firesides. One
> community reported that the mashriq community at its Sunday morning
> prayers had a higher proportion of non-European and working-class people,
> while the firesides
> attracted largely European and middle-class people (incidentally, I would
> like to collect your experiences, good or bad, and what you have learned
> from them). In this particular community that may reflect a preponderance
> of people of Catholic background among the non-European and working class
> population, as compared to a broadly Protestant culture and ethic in the
> middle-class and white population. How this will work out will depend on
> the particular forms of Mashriq meeting which develop and what the n eeds
> are in the neighbourhood in which they take place. `Abdu'l-Bahá has linked
> the building of the Mashriq to entry by troops in America:
> 
> ... a Mashrak-el-Azcar will soon be established in America.
> The cries of supplication and invocation will be raised to the Highest
> Kingdom therefrom and, verily, the people will enter into the religion of
> God by troops with great enthusiasm an d attraction. (Tablets of
> `Abdu'l-Bahá Abbas page 681)
> 
> But in my observation of western communities, when a community redirects
> its attention to 'building the mashriq' the largest effect is not
> attracting very large numbers of people but retaining people - both new
> declarants and existing believers. There are
> various ways of obtaining groups of declarations, which may even be more
> effective than putting the emphasis on the Mashriq. What is unique about
> the Mashriq meetings is that they are a way of forming and sustaining a
> sense of community:
> 
> Although to outward seeming the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar is a
> material structure, yet it hath a spiritual effect. It forgeth bonds of
> unity from heart to heart; it is a collective centre for men's souls.
> Every city in which, during the days of the M anifestation, a temple was
> raised up, hath created security and constancy and peace, for such
> buildings were given over to the perpetual glorification of God, and only
> in the remembrance of God can the heart find rest. Gracious God! The
> edifice of the Hou se of Worship hath a powerful influence on every phase
> of life. Experience hath, in the east, clearly shown this to be a fact.
> Even if, in some small village, a house was designated as the Mashriqu'l
> -Adhkar, it produced a marked effect; how much greater would be the impact
> of one especially raised up. (Selections from the Writings of
> `Abdu'l-Bahá, pp. 95-6)
> 
> Thus the Mashriq structure stengthens the bonds of unity from heart to
> heart, with obvious effects on the functioning of the Feast and
> administrative organs and on the relationship between individual members
> of the community and the administrative personn el (who may well find
> themselves part of the same mashriq community, perhaps saying their
> obligatory prayers together). It also helps to retain people, and people
> of more different types, by providing another space to 'be' in the
> community. Not everyone i s madly keen on Feast consultations and serving
> on the Assembly or its committees, or for that matter on the formulation
> of plans and the execution of teaching campaigns or organization of public
> meetings. Too many people enter the Faith, look around, and
> finding no place in the community which reflects their own particular
> spiritual calling, they pass on - a little richer perhaps but still
> wishing to attain to the knowledge of God, and not knowing where to go for
> it and from whom to seek it.
> 
> Thus I would expect the Mashriq to relate to the teaching work not only
> as a magnet in its own right but also as a sort of waiting-room. The
> meetings for worship (and sacred space where this is possible) are
> symbolized by a building open on all sides, wh ich Bahá'ís and
> non-Bahá'ís, and the socially marginalized and wounded of every type, can
> enter to become part of the worshipping community. 'Membership' here is
> fuzzily defined, and the threshold - the perceived barrier to entry - is
> correspondingly low.
> But membership can be no less deeply felt because of that, if the hearts
> are indeed bound to the hearts. From the Mashriq are doors leading outward
> in various directions. One leads to the Bahá'í administrative order, and
> there's a lot of good to be done through that archway. Formal declaration
> of belief is a pre-requisite, because systems such as majority voting
> don't work without clearly defined memberships. Other doors lead to
> humanitarian and spiritual acitivities and to the 'dependencies' - eg care
> f or the aged, medical care, education etc - which again are in the first
> place an individual attitude of concern, in the second place community
> activities and ultimately also an institutional expression. Some people
> may be content to spend all their time ' in' the House of Worship, most
> will be driven to express the God-centred consciousness in the activities
> going on through one or more of those doors.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views21442 views since posted 1997; last edit 2015-02-26 14:03 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../mcglinn_meanings_mashriq_adhkar;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
> Language
> English
> Permission
> author
> Share
> 
> Shortlink: bahai-library.com/508
> Citation: ris/508
> 
> select Collection:
> Archives
> Articles
> Articles-unpublished
> Audio
> Bibliographies
> BIC
> Biographies
> Books
> Chronologies
> Compilations
> Compilations-NSA
> Compilations-personal
> Documents
> East-asia
> Encyclopedia
> Essays
> Etc
> Excerpts
> Fiction
> Glossaries
> Guardian
> Histories
> Introductory
> Letters
> Maps
> Music
> Newspapers
> NSA-documents
> NSA-letters
> Personal
> Pilgrims
> Poetry
> Presentations
> Resources
> Reviews
> Scripts
> Software
> Statistics
> Study
> Talks
> Theses
> Transcripts
> Translations
> UHJ-documents
> UHJ-letters
> Video
> Visual
> Writings
> 
> home
> 
> sitemap
> 
> series
> 
> chronology
> 
> search:
> author
> 
> title
> 
> date
> 
> tags
> 
> adv. search
> languages
> 
> inventory
> 
> bibliography
> 
> abbreviations
> 
> links
> 
> about
> 
> contact
> 
> RSS
> 
> new
>
> — *Meanings of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar (Used by permission of the curator)*