House of Worship - no images or effigies
Houses of Worship to be adorned, but not with images and effigies[edit]
"O people of the world! 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 in the world of being, and adorn them with that which befitteth them, not with images and effigies. Then, with radiance and joy, celebrate therein the praise of your Lord, the Most Compassionate. Verily, by His remembrance the eye is cheered and the heart is filled with light."
- (Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, par. 31)
(The existence of statues and images in places of worship is not in accordance with the principle of the oneness of God)[edit]
"The founder of Buddhism was a precious Being Who established the oneness of God, but later His original precepts were gradually forgotten and displaced by primitive customs and rituals, until in the end it led to the worship of statues and images.
"Consider, for example, that Christ admonished the people time and again to heed the Ten Commandments of the Torah and insisted upon their strict observance. Now, one of the Ten Commandments forbids the worship of images and statues.[122 Cf. Exod. 20:4–5; Deut. 5:8–9.] Yet today there are a myriad images and statues in the churches of certain Christian denominations. It is clear and evident, then, that the religion of God does not preserve its original precepts among the people, but that it is gradually changed and altered to the point of being entirely effaced..."
- ('Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, Chapter 43, par. 8-9)
Portrait of Bahá'u'lláh not to be hung in Mashriqu'l-Adhkár[edit]
"As to thy question: “To whom should we turn?”—turn thou to the Ancient Beauty. God willing, a copy of His blessed portrait will in due course be despatched to thee so that when offering prayer thou mayest turn thyself in spirit towards that Holy Likeness, and not towards some mere figment of the imagination. Know thou, however, that at no time should His blessed portrait be hung in the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár."
