Baha'u'llah's Kitab-i-Aqdas instructs Baha'is to build a House of Worship in every city, naming it the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, the dawning place of the remembrance of God, but leaves its architectural form largely open. Over the movement's first temples, a convention fixed itself that later rulings of the faith's institutions confirmed as normative: nine sides around a central hall beneath a dome, nine being a number Baha'is read as a symbol of completeness and of the nine extant major world religions the building's practice honors. Each of the nine sides typically opens onto its own entrance and garden, so that the building itself expresses the idea that people may approach truth from more than one direction and arrive at a common center.
Inside, the design serves a single, deliberately restricted purpose. No pulpit, altar or images furnish the hall; there is no clergy to officiate and no sermon is preached. Congregants read or chant scripture aloud, drawn from Baha'i writings and, distinctively, from the sacred texts of other religions as well, so that a service inside a Mashriqu'l-Adhkar may include verses from the Qur'an, the Bible, or Hindu or Buddhist scripture beside the Baha'i writings, unified only by devotional intent rather than a fixed liturgy. The buildings are open to visitors of any religion or none, a policy the Baha'i administration treats as inseparable from the institution's purpose rather than as a courtesy.