Nine Pointed White Star

In Bahá’í use, the nine points stand for the number nine. Bahá’í explanations connect nine with completeness and with the nine religions in their spiritual history, including the earlier Bábí faith. They also connect it to Bahá, meaning “Glory”: in abjad, an Arabic letter-number system, the letters in that name add up to nine.

Why did someone send me a nine-pointed star?

In a Bahá’í setting, it signals faith; alone, context matters. If it appears with Bahá’í event details or a publication, read it as a faith emblem. In a geometry context, the same figure can simply mean a nine-pointed star. By itself, it is a clue to a possible Bahá’í reference, not proof of what the sender believes.

Is the nine-pointed star an official Bahá’í symbol?

It is a familiar emblem; the faith’s strict symbol has five points. An early recorded Bahá’í use is tied to the House of Worship planned for Wilmette, Illinois, near Chicago. Architect Louis Bourgeois had sketched a nine-pointed plan by 1909; a 1920 account described the building’s first story as a nine-pointed star and called it a Bahá’í symbol. In 1954, Bahá’í leader Shoghi Effendi approved the star for grave markers; a note says the sacred Arabic calligraphy known as the Greatest Name was considered too holy for a tombstone.