From Nine Rakʿahs to Three Prayers: The Historical Development of Obligatory Prayer in the Bahá’í Faith

Obligatory prayer (ṣalát) occupies a central place in the devotional life prescribed by Bahá’u’lláh in his central work, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Yet the historical development of this law has received almost no scholarly attention. This paper reconstructs the evolution of the Bahá’í obligatory prayer from its earliest formulation to its final canonical form. Drawing on textual evidence from the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and Bahá’u’lláh’s correspondence, it demonstrates that the law passed through three successive stages: an original nine-rakʿah prayer prescribed in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas but later lost, a second prayer composed but never disseminated, and finally the current set of three alternative obligatory prayers. The paper explores the historical circumstances that shaped these developments, including the precarious social context of Bahá’ís in Ottoman Syria and Persia and Bahá’u’lláh’s gradualist approach to religious legislation. By situating the Bahá’í law of obligatory prayer within the broader history of ritual prayer in Abrahamic traditions, the study highlights how Bahá’u’lláh reshaped inherited patterns of devotional practice while emphasizing flexibility, individual devotion, and progressive revelation.