Distinguished from the Official Symbols

The nine-pointed star should be distinguished from the two symbols that carry formal doctrinal weight: the Greatest Name, a calligraphic rendering of the invocation O Glory of the All-Glorious, and the ringstone symbol designed by Abdu'l-Baha, whose lines represent the worlds of God, the Manifestation and creation. The star is a general emblem rather than a sacred one. Its most conspicuous expression is architectural: Baha'i Houses of Worship are built to a nine-sided plan, each with nine sides, nine entrances and a central dome, the nine doors read as the many paths by which people of all religions may approach one God, a built statement of the faith's core principle of the unity of religion.

The design recurs at every continental Mother Temple raised since Wilmette, including the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, completed in 1986 and built from twenty-seven freestanding marble petals grouped in clusters of three to form its nine sides, where the ringstone symbol and a nine-pointed star are again set at the centre of the prayer hall, carrying the same numerology into an entirely different architectural language despite the two buildings sharing no common architect and being separated by more than three decades and half the globe.