Meanings of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar
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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.
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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.

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-- Meanings of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar (Used by permission of the curator)