A new version of the Bahá’í Reference Library is now available. This ‘old version’ of the Bahá’í Reference Library will be replaced at a later date.
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A new version of the Bahá’í Reference Library is now available. This ‘old version’ of the Bahá’í Reference Library will be replaced at a later date.
The new version of the Bahá’i Reference Library can be accessed here »
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125. Should anyone acquire one hundred mithqáls of gold, nineteen mithqáls thereof are God’s and to be rendered unto Him # 97 |
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This verse establishes Ḥuqúqu’lláh, the Right of God, the
offering of a fixed portion of the value of the believer’s
possessions. This offering was made to Bahá’u’lláh as the
Manifestation of God and then, following His Ascension, to
‘Abdu’l-Bahá as the Centre of the Covenant. In His Will
and Testament, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá provided that the Ḥuqúqu’lláh
was to be offered “through the Guardian of the Cause of
God”. There now being no Guardian, it is offered through
the Universal House of Justice as the Head of the Faith.
This fund is used for the promotion of the Faith of God and
its interests as well as for various philanthropic purposes.
The offering of the Ḥuqúqu’lláh is a spiritual obligation,
the fulfilment of which has been left to the conscience of
each Bahá’í. While the community is reminded of the
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requirements of the law of Ḥuqúq, no believer may be
approached individually to pay it.
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A number of items in Questions and Answers further
elaborate this law. The payment of Ḥuqúqu’lláh is based on
the calculation of the value of the individual’s possessions. If
a person has possessions equal in value to at least nineteen
mithqáls of gold (Q and A 8), it is a spiritual obligation to
pay nineteen percent of the total amount, once only,
as Ḥuqúqu’lláh (Q and A 89). Thereafter, whenever one’s
income, after all expenses have been paid, increases the
value of one’s possessions by the amount of at least nineteen
mithqáls of gold, one is to pay nineteen percent of this
increase, and so on for each further increase (Q and A 8, 90).
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Certain categories of possessions, such as one’s residence,
are exempt from the payment of Ḥuqúqu’lláh (Q and A
8, 42, 95), and specific provisions are outlined to cover cases
of financial loss (Q and A 44, 45), the failure of investments to
yield a profit (Q and A 102) and for the payment of Ḥuqúq in
the event of the person’s death (Q and A 9, 69, 80). (In this
latter case, see note 47.)
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