| Age of maturity |
| |
| YOUTH (Regarding the Age of Fifteen) |
| "Regarding the age of fifteen fixed by Bahá'u'lláh: This relates only to purely spiritual functions and obligations and is not related to the degree of administrative capacity and fitness which is a totally different thing, and is, for the present, fixed at twenty-one." |
| "Bahá'í youth under twenty-one may serve on Committees. |
| "The question of young Bahá'ís being permitted to serve on committees other than the Youth Committee has been raised in a number of letters recently, and in considering the matter he felt that Bahá'í young people under twenty-one should not be denied the privilege of committee work. Though they cannot be voting members of Bahá'í communities (or exercise the electoral vote at all until they reach that age), and though they cannot, likewise, be elected to Assemblies, there is no reason why they should not serve the Cause on various committees as all committees, national or local, are subordinate to Assemblies and their members not elected but appointed, and appointed by Assemblies. We have many devoted and talented young believers who can be of great assistance to the Cause even though not yet legally of age." |
| "This Cause, although it embraces with equal esteem people of all ages, has a special message and mission for the youth of your generation. It is their charter for their future, their hope, their guarantee of better days to come. Therefore the Guardian is especially happy that the young Bahá'ís are active in the pioneer work." |
| "The importance of young Bahá'ís to become thoroughly steeped in every branch of the teachings can not be over-emphasized, as they have great teaching tasks ahead of them to accomplish." |
| [Shoghi Effendi, Directives from the Guardian, p. 85] |
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| Nothing, after prayer, will cause the development of the spirit, save fasting. The "First Point", the Báb, ordained for all the people to fast until they should reach the age of forty-two, but the Blessed Perfection [Bahá'u'lláh] said: "We love fasting! Unless the people become old and weak, they should fast." Thus the limit for fasting was appointed. One should begin to observe the fast from the age of fifteen, and continue the observance of it until the body may become too weak to do so without injury. His Holiness, the Blessed Perfection, used to fast throughout the set time every year. |
| In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas the rules for fasting are as follows: Eating and drinking should cease before the rising of the sun and until the setting thereof. The traveller, the sick, pregnant women and nursing mothers are free from this obligation. |
| [Star of the West - 3] |
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| Note 13. We have commanded you to pray and fast from the
beginning of maturity ¶10 |
| Bahá'u'lláh defines the "age of maturity with respect to religious duties" as "fifteen for both men and women" (Q and A
20). |
| [Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, Note 13] |
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| 20. QUESTION: Concerning the age of maturity with respect to religious duties. |
| ANSWER: The age of maturity is fifteen for both men and women. |
| [Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, Q & A 20] |
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| 92. QUESTION: In a treatise in Persian on various questions, the age of maturity hath been set at fifteen; is marriage likewise conditional upon the reaching of maturity, or is it permissible before that time? |
| ANSWER: Since the consent of both parties is required in the Book of God, and since, before maturity, their consent or lack of it cannot be ascertained, marriage is therefore conditional upon reaching the age of maturity, and is not permissible before that time. |
| [Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, Q & A 92] |
