Guide 02 Bahá'í literature independent reference
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas: what the Most Holy Book is
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the book Bahá'ís place at the centre of their writings. This page explains the title, the setting and the contents in general terms, and points to the full text.
What the title means
Kitáb-i-Aqdas is usually translated as the Most Holy Book. Kitáb is the Arabic word for book, and Aqdas is a superlative form of the word for holy. Bahá'í institutions also use the shorter English name the Aqdas. Readers who want to say it aloud will find it written in English as kee-TAHB ee ahk-DAHS, close to the usual transliteration used in Bahá'í sources.
Who wrote it and when
The book is the work of Bahá'u'lláh. It was written in Arabic in 'Akká, in what is now Israel, around 1873, during his imprisonment and exile by the Ottoman authorities. Bahá'ís regard it as the charter of the laws and ordinances of the Faith.
What the book contains
The Aqdas opens with a call to recognise the divine source of the writings and then sets out laws and principles. These include obligatory prayer, fasting, the Nineteen Day Feast, holy days, marriage and burial, together with moral guidance. It also speaks to rulers and religious leaders, and it names 'Abdu'l-Bahá as the interpreter of the teachings.
Many of its provisions are bound up with the life of the community and are explained in other texts. Some were deliberately left for later application by the Universal House of Justice, so a first reading of the book alone does not give the full picture of Bahá'í practice.
Supplementary texts
The authorised English edition, published by the Bahá'í World Centre in 1992, contains the Kitáb-i-Aqdas with notes and related material. Companion texts include a Synopsis and Codification that arranges the laws by subject, and a set of Questions and Answers in which Bahá'u'lláh replied to queries from believers. These help a reader see how the laws work together.
How it is read and published
The text can be read freely online in the Bahá'í Reference Library, where it sits in the collection of Bahá'u'lláh's writings. An outside reader will do best with the notes beside the text, since the notes explain the terms, the historical background and the cross references.
For the calendar, fasting and holy day provisions that the Aqdas mentions, see the Bahá'í calendar and the Bahá'í holy days.