Disability

Regarding disability and Obligatory Prayer (long)

• https://bahai-library.com/uhj_prayers_disabled

When becoming weak or incapacitated, workmen should have sufficient benefits from the industry income or have high enough wages to save for such days

"...laws and regulations should be enacted which would grant the workers both a daily wage and a share in a fourth or fifth of the profits of the factory in accordance with its means, or which would have the workers equitably share in some other way in the profits with the owners. For the capital and the management come from the latter and the toil and labour from the former. The workers could either be granted a wage that adequately meets their daily needs, as well as a right to a share in the revenues of the factory when they are injured, incapacitated, or unable to work, or else a wage could be set that allows the workers to both satisfy their daily needs and save a little for times of weakness and incapacity."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, Chapter 78, par. 5)

Act of kindness to explain disease of patient; can never say invalid is robust and healthy as He wishes his recovery; this is kindness not enmity

"Should be (Abdul-Baha) not overlook them and explain all the events then there would remain no doubt as to Abdul-Baha's extreme kindness. How patient and long suffering he (Abdul-Baha) is! If he ever utters a word or dictates something concerning a soul, it is a matter of warning which arises from kindness.

"It is an act of kindness on the part of a physician when he explains the disease of his patient, for his explanation secures the recovery.

"I swear by the God beside Whom there is no other God, were any one to amputate any of my limbs, I would pardon him before he had committed the crime; but I can never say that an invalid is robust and healthy, for I wish his recovery, and this is extreme kindness not enmity."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Star of the West, vol. 5, no. 11, p. 8)

Those radiant souls who are deprived of advantages due to handicaps and trials and leave the world without having lived life to the full is a cause for grieving and Manifestations lay down Their lives to bestow life on these people

"As to those souls who are born into this life as ethereal and radiant entities and yet, on account of their handicaps and trials, are deprived of great and real advantages, and leave the world without having lived to the full--certainly this is a cause for grieving. This is the reason why the universal Manifestations of God unveil Their countenances to man, and endure every calamity and sore affliction, and lay down Their lives as a ransom; it is to make these very people, the ready ones, the ones who have capacity, to become dawning points of light, and to bestow upon them the life that fadeth never. This is the true sacrifice: the offering of oneself, even as did Christ, as a ransom for the life of the world."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, sec. 31, pp. 64-65)

See also

• Retirement

To-dos for this page

• Re: any others on performance of obligatory prayers?