First Bahá’í House of Worship (Former Site), Ashgabat

Ashgabat was the site of the world’s first Bahá’í House of Worship, an institution of exceptional importance in the architectural and communal history of the Bahá’í Faith. The Bahá’í World News Service records that the House of Worship was completed in 1908 in what was then known as Ishqabad.

It formed the centre of a broader Mashriqu’l-Adhkár complex that included facilities serving the religious and social life of the community. Official Bahá’í sources document that the property was later expropriated under Soviet rule, that the building suffered serious earthquake damage and that it was ultimately demolished in 1963.

No temple building survives at the site today, so this record is explicitly for a former sacred site rather than a currently visitable House of Worship. Its importance is nevertheless international: it established the first physical example of a Bahá’í House of Worship and became a reference point for later temples around the world.

This row does not invent a modern street address or coordinates for the former structure because the reviewed authoritative source does not provide them with enough precision. The site is included as sacred heritage representing an important chapter in the history of the Bahá’í community and the development of its worship architecture.