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H
E BAHA'iWORLD 13
INTRODUCTION
ounded a century and a half ago. the Bahá’í Faith F15 the youngest of the world's independent reli gions. It is based on the claim of Bahá'u'lléth to be the Messenger of God to the age of humanity's maturity. an advent anticipated in all of the scriptural traditions of humanity's past.
The driving force behind the civilizing of human nature. Bahá’u’lláh asserts. has been the successive interventions of the Divine in history. It has been through this influence that the innate moral and spiritual faculties of humanity have been gradually developed and the advancement of civilization made possible. Associated with the missions of such transcendent figures as Krishna, Moses. Buddha. Jesus. and Muhammad. the phenomenon is an ever-recurring one: it is without beginning or end because it is fundamental to the evolutionary order itself.
The essential message of Bahá’u’lláh is that of unity. Humanity. He declares. has collectively come of age in this day, and the distinguishing feature of this stage of its social evolution is that the entire human race is being drawn into the recognition of its own oneness and of the earth as a common homeland.
The overriding challenge facing the peoples of the world. therefore. Bahá’u’lláh says, is to subordinate lesser identities and loyalties to the task of building a unified global society based on principles of social justice and cultivating the spiritual nature of humankind. The capacity
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for such a response has been created in all people through the operation of the Will of God: “This is the Day in which God's most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things."1 The purpose of the Divine Revelation of which Bahá'u’lláh is the Spokesman is to awaken and train this universal capacity.
In just over one hundred years the F alth that Bahá’u’lláh founded has grown from an obscure movement in the Middle East to its present status as an independent world religion. Embracing people from more than 2100 ethnic racial. and tribal groups, and maintaining its cohesiveness in doing so, it represents what is probably the most diverse organized body of people on the planet today. The geographical dimensions of this growth are equally impressive: both the World Christian Encyclopedia (1982) and the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year (1992) show the Bahá’í Faith as the second most widespread of the world's religions. after only Christianity.
The unity of belief and organization that characterizes His Faith provides striking evidence of the capacity of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings to create the moral and spiritual conditions for the new kind of human society He envisions. Despite the wide ethnic and cultural diversity of its adherents, the Faith has successfully overcome the perennial impulse of all forms of human association to break eventually into sects and factions. This seems particularly significant when taken in the context of the challenging Bahá’í moral code for the individual life and the fact that the community pursues a social program that addresses virtually every important trend in the world today.
The Bahá’í World series was created in 1925 by Shoghi Effendi. the appointed Guardian of Bahá’u’lláh's mission. to serve as the public record of the Bahá’í community's achievements. As the Preface of this book explains. the series now enters a new stage in its development. its principal aim being to provide a window on Bahá’í concepts. concerns. and
1. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanlngs from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust. 1982). 6.
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activities that will be particularly useful and accessible to the interested general reader. With this purpose in mind. the editions will appear annually. As this first volume illustrates. the series will continue to provide the kind of basic documentation that is already familiar to the readers of the 1926—1992 series. Because they constitute the authoritative administrative guidance upon which the community has pursued its goals. four major statements issued during the year by the Head of the Faith. the Universal House of Justice, are reproduced here in full. By happy circumstance this first volume in the new series coincides with the period of the second Bahá’í Holy Year. April 1992 to April 1993. Several important pieces have special relation to this commemoration of the centenary of both Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension and the inauguration of the Covenant that provides the authority for the system of institutions He established. The article entitled “Bahá’u’lláh,” for example. was produced to serve as a major resource piece for the commemorative activities. and has been translated into some 102 languages. included. as well. is a brief survey of the major international events of the commemorative period.
Although not a feature of the Holy Year program. the release this April of the first authorized English language translation of Baha'u'llah's Book of Laws. the Kitab-i-Aqdas. has intimate connections With the historical events being remembered. One of the articles. ”I'he Kitab-i-Aqdas: Its Place in Bahá’í Literature.” seeks to place this most important of Bahá’u’lláh's Writings in the broader context of His mission.
A number of items in the book are particularly designed to give the general reader easy access to basic current information. The statistical summaIy inaugurated here, for example. will make it possible for students of the Faith to track the growth of the Bahá’í International community in such areas as membership. the numbers of elected governing bodies at both national and local levels. the production of Bahá’í literature. and the establishment of development agencies of various kinds. Given the growth of the community. The Bahá’í World volumes will no longer include the lengthy obituaries that were a cherished feature of the first series, but a section is devoted
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to brief sketches of prominent Bahá’ís who have died during the year under review. A biographical publication will also be produced as a supplement to the series
While it is not possible to report fully on the multifarious activities of the thousands of Bahá’í communities around the world, a chronoloy provides a representative sampling of the year’s highlights, month by month. Similarly, a bibliographical article surveys the year's principal publications and will serve as a cross-section of the ongoing discussion of ideas that is so important a‘feature of Bahá’í community-life. One long-awaited publishing event is reviewed in greater detail: the appearance of an authoritative edition of the documentation for the crucial pen‘od 1957-1963. between the death of the Faith's Guardian. Shoghi Effendi. and the successful election of the Universal House of Justice. Entitled The Ministry of the Custodians, 19571963, this compilation with an introduction by Shoghi Effendi's widow and close collaborator. Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khanum. fills a major gap in the Faith's detailed historical record.
An index of the development of the Bahá’í Faith and particularly of its growing interaction with the society around it is the interest being shown by the mass media. As in the past, therefore, The Bahá’í World will continue to include a brief section surveying press attention during the period under review. William Collins's article “The Bahá’í Faith in the Eyes of the World: What the Print Media Report About the Bahá’í Faith” moves this effort onto a new level. however. through its careful analysis of the Bahá’í themes that are receiving media attention and a reflection on the trends observed. Mr. Collins believes that the events of the second Bahá’í Holy Year mark “a turning point in the public information activities of the Bahá’í community. and in the media reception of stories about its adherents."
Indeed. readers will find all the essays in the new series considerably more focused than has hitherto been the case. Because of its rapid growth and greater involvement in the life of society. and as conditions in the world permit, the Bahá’í community has been able increasingly to direct attention and emery to those issues of broad public concern to which it
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attaches a particularly high priority. This past year. for example, the Rio summit offered the community a unique platform for the presentation of its strongly—held views on the subject of sustainable development. A particularly thoughtprovoking exploration of some of Bahá’u’lláh's teachings on the subject will be found in Robert White’s article “Spiritual Foundations for an Ecologically Sustainable Society" (page {95). “The work of Bahá‘u'lláh,” Mr. White believes. “offers a vision of wholeness in our relationship to Nature and of spiritual purpose in the whole evolution of life. Its effect is to empower individuals and communities to become agents of transformation in developing an ecologically sustainable global civilization.”
At the practical level of development, the rapid growth of Bahá’í communities. in the Third World especially. has given scope for a wide range of experiments in the application of Bahá’í principles to social and economic life. Holly Hanson's “An Overview of Bahá’í Social and Economic Development" gives a valuable survey of these efforts, emphasizing that “as important. or more important than the immediate concrete results of any development undertaking. is that people are drawn together. that they develop the ability to hear all of the voices in a community, and that they begin to learn the process of collective action."
In recent years a good deal of the current public interest in the Bahá’í Faith has arisen from the bitter campaign of persecution launched against it by ruling circles in the Islamic Republic of Iran and from the energetic efforts of Bahá’í communities in the rest of the world to defend the victims: Douglas Martin’s article “The Case of the Bahá’í Minority in Iran," which looks at the second of these two aspects of the fourteen-yea: struggle. makes the provocative point that “the Bahá’í case" constitutes, in effect. compelling proof of the capacity of the United Nations human rights system to defend religious and other minon’ties.
In building a global community marked by a distinctive pattern of life and guided by a unified network of local, national and international governing councils, the followers of
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Bahá‘u'lláh have created an encouraging mode] for cooperation and social action. The emergence of such a model offers persuasive evidence that humanity. in all its diversity. can eventually learn to live and work as a single people in a global homeland. The Bahá’í World volumes will seek to provide the serious student and the general enquirer alike with a reliable overview of this great enterprise.
