About Holy Writings

Holy Writings aims to make the sacred texts of the Bahá’í Faith accessible in as many languages as possible, in a single place, with reliable cross-referencing.

The project is maintained by Joop Kiefte and is not an official Bahá’í publication. It is a personal project born from a love for the Writings and a desire to serve the worldwide Bahá’í community.

What this site does

There are wonderful Bahá’í prayer and scripture resources online, but they tend to be separate: one site has prayers in 500+ languages, another has a comprehensive catalog, another the authoritative texts. Holy Writings brings them together:

• Prayers in 520+ languages, drawn from bahaiprayers.net, bahaiprayers.app, and other sources.
• Writings — the Hidden Words, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Kitáb-i-Íqán, Gleanings, Prayers & Meditations, Some Answered Questions, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, Days of Remembrance, and Ridván Messages in multiple languages.
• Bible (KJV with marginal notes, Hebrew OT, Greek & Syriac NT, Van Dyck Arabic) and Qur’an with translations.
• Cross-referencing via the Phelps Index — a catalog of 29,000+ Bahá’í Holy Writings, each identified by a unique code.
• Tools — a daily devotion page, a devotional program builder you can share with a link or QR code, and downloadable PDFs.

How it works

The core challenge is connecting prayers across sources and languages. A prayer on bahaiprayers.net might appear under a different title or category than the same prayer on bahaiprayers.app. Connecting them requires identifying which specific prayer each entry is.

I use the Phelps Index Number (PIN) system as the common key. Each prayer or text has a unique code (e.g. BH00074BLE for “Blessed is the spot”). Matching each source entry to its PIN involves:

• Cross-language matching — if a prayer is already identified in one language, the same prayer in another language can often be found through the source site’s internal cross-references.
• Text comparison — comparing opening lines and content against the Phelps inventory’s catalog of first lines.
• Using LLM assistance to translate excerpts from less-common languages into English for matching when automated methods fall short.
• Manual review for ambiguous or high-stakes matches.

The database is hosted on DoltHub (a version-controlled SQL database) and the site source is on GitHub.

Devotional suggestions

The devotional program builder suggests prayers based on the Bahá’í calendar and common devotional themes.

Each Bahá’í month has a spiritual quality (e.g. Núr = Light, Raḥmat = Mercy). I’ve mapped these to prayer categories that seem to reflect that quality — for example, the month of Núr suggests prayers from “Enlightenment”, “Guidance”, and “Teaching”. Similarly, holy days suggest prayers specific to that occasion.

These associations are my own editorial choices, not authoritative assignments. They’re a starting point for inspiration, not a prescription. If you have thoughts on better associations, I’d love to hear them.

Data quality

This is a work in progress. The matching process is imperfect, and I’m continuously improving it. Here’s an honest picture of where things stand:

What’s solid

• Every prayer entry has an identifier — no untagged entries.
• Cross-language matching for major languages is well-tested.
• Known false positives are blacklisted to prevent recurrence.

What needs work

• ~46 unidentified prayers (TMP codes) remain. Some are regional texts not in the Phelps inventory, some are composite entries, some I simply haven’t been able to identify yet.
• About 5% of matches used LLM assistance (translating short excerpts to English for identification). Most are correct, but some may be wrong — especially for short prayers or prayers with similar openings.
• Categories come from the source sites and occasionally have errors (e.g. the Tablet of Wisdom was filed under “Children”).
• Some writing sections (Gleanings, Some Answered Questions, Tablets) still use staging codes and need matching to their real Phelps numbers.
• The French “Prayers & Meditations” turned out to be a different compilation entirely, and has been removed pending reimport.

How I’m checking

• Using LLM assistance to run length-ratio scans across languages — if the “same” prayer is 5x longer in one language, something is probably miscoded.
• Systematic category audits across the top languages.
• Splitting same-tablet prayers that were incorrectly sharing one code.
• And of course: reading reports from people who actually use these prayers and notice when something is off.

How you can help

The most valuable contributions come from people who know these prayers. If you spot something wrong, please tell me — even a short email helps.

• Wrong or missing prayers — if a prayer shows up under the wrong code, in the wrong category, or is missing from a language you know.
• Unidentified prayers — browse the TMP entries and let me know if you recognize any.
• Interface translations — the UI supports 13 languages; more are welcome.
• Suggestion improvements — ideas for better month–theme associations or additional themes for the devotional builder.
• Code contributions — the source code and database are both open.

Contact

[email protected] · GitHub issues

Some matches were made with LLM assistance. This is a community project, not an official Bahá’í publication. Text accuracy depends on the original sources.