Bahá’í World/Volume 7/Aims and Purposes of the Bahá’í Faith
THE BAHÁ’Í WORLD
AIMS AND PURPOSES OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH
BY HORACE HOLLEY
1. A WORLDWIDE SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY
"The Tabernacle of Unity has been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. . . . Of one tree are ye all the fruit and of one bough the leaves. . . . The world is but one country and mankind it’s citizen”—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
UPON the spiritual foundation established by Bahá’u’lláh during the forty year period of His Mission (1853-1892), there stands today an independent religion represented by nearly eight hundred local communities of believers. These communities geographically are spread throughout all five continents. In point of race, class, nationality and religious origin, the followers of Bahá’u’lláh exemplify well-nigh the whole diversity of the modern world. They may be characterized as a true cross-section of humanity, a microcosm which, for all its relative littleness, carries within it individual men and women typifying the macrocosm of mankind.
None of the historic causes of association served to create this worldwide spiritual community. Neither a common language, a common blood, a common civil government, a common tradition nor a mutual grievance acted upon Bahá’ís to supply a fixed center of interest or a goal of material advantage. On the contrary, membership in the Bahá’í community in the land of its birth even to this day has been a severe disability, and outside of Írán the motive animating believers has been in direct opposition to the most inveterate prejudices of their environment. The Cause of Bahá’u’lláh has moved forward without the reinforcement of wealth, social prestige or other means of public influence.
Every local Bahá’í community exists by the voluntary association of individuals who consciously overcome the fundamental sanctions evolved throughout the centuries to justify the separations and antagonisms of human society. In America, this association means that white believers accept the spiritual equality of their Negro fellows. In Europe, it means the reconciliation of Protestant and Catholic upon the basis of a new and larger faith. In the Orient, Christian, Jewish and Muḥammadan believers must stand apart from the rigid exclusiveness into which each was born.
The central fact to be noted concerning the nature of the Bahá’í Faith is that it contains a power, fulfilled in the realm of conscience, which can reverse the principle momentum of modern civilization—the drive toward division and strife—and initiate its own momentum moving steadily in the direction of unity and accord. It is in this power, and not in any criterion upheld by the world, that the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh has special significance.
The forms of traditional opposition vested
in nationality, race, class and creed are not
the only social chasms which the Faith has
bridged. There are even more implacable, if
less visible differences between types
and temperaments, such as flow
inevitably from the
contact of rational and emotional individuals,
of active and passive dispositions,
undermining capacity for cooperation in every
organized society, which attain mutual
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understanding and harmony
in the Bahá’í community. For personal
congeniality, the
selective principle elsewhere continually
operative within the field of voluntary
action, is an instinct which Bahá’ís
must sacrifice to serve the principle
of the oneness of
mankind. A Bahá’í community, therefore,
is a constant and active spiritual victory, an
overcoming of tensions which elsewhere
come to the point of strife. No mere passive
creed nor philosophic gospel which need
never be put to the test in daily life has
produced this world fellowship devoted to
the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.
The basis of self-sacrifice on which the Bahá’í community stands has created a religious society in which all human relations are transformed from social to spiritual problems. This fact is the door through which one must pass to arrive at insight of what the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh means to this age.
The social problems of the age are predominantly political and economic. They are problems because human society is divided into nations each of which claims to be an end and a law unto itself and into classes each of which has raised an economic theory to the level of a sovereign and exclusive principle. Nationality has become a condition which overrides the fundamental humanity of all the peoples concerned, asserting the superiority of political considerations over ethical and moral needs. Similarly, economic groups uphold and promote social systems without regard to the quality of human relationships experienced in terms of religion. Tension and oppositions between the different groups are organized for dominance and not for reconciliation. Each step toward more complete partisan organization increases the original tension and augments the separation of human beings; as the separation widens, the element of sympathy and fellowship on the human level is eventually denied.
In the Bahá’í community the same tensions and instinctive antagonisms exist, but the human separation has been made impossible. The same capacity for exclusive doctrines is present, but no doctrine representing one personality or one group can secure a hearing. All believers alike are subject to one spiritually supreme sovereignty in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. Disaffected individuals may withdraw. The community remains. For the Bahá’í teachings are in themselves principles of life and they assert the supreme value of humanity without doctrines which correspond to any particular environment or condition. Thus members of the Bahá’í community realize their tensions and oppositions as ethical or spiritual problems, to be faced and overcome in mutual consultation. Their faith has convinced them that the "truth” or "right” of any possible situation is not derived from partisan victory but from the needs of the community as an organic whole.
A Bahá’í community endures without disruption because only spiritual problems can be solved. When human relations are held to be political or social problems they are removed from the realm in which rational will has responsibility and influence. The ultimate result of this degradation of human relationships is the frenzy of desperate strife—the outbreak of inhuman war.
2. THE RENEWAL OF FAITH
"Therefore the Lord of Mankind bas caused His holy, divine Manifestations to come into the world. He has revealed His heavenly books in order to establish spiritual brotherhood, and through the power of the Holy Spirit has made it possible for perfect fraternity to be realized among mankind.”—‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
In stating that the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh is an independent religion, two essential facts are implied.
The first fact is that the Bahá’í Cause historically was not an offshoot of any prior social principle or community. The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are no artificial synthesis assembled from the modern library of international truth, which might be duplicated from the same sources. Bahá’u’lláh created a reality in the world of the soul which never before existed and could not exist apart from Him.
The second fact is that the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh
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is a religion, standing
in the line of
true religions: Christianity, Muḥammadanism,
Judaism and other prophetic Faiths. Its
existence, like that of early Christianity,
marks the return of faith as a direct and
personal experience of the will of God.
Because the divine will itself has been revealed
in terms of human reality, the followers of
Bahá’u’lláh are confident that their personal
limitations can be transformed by an inflow
of spiritual reinforcement from the higher
world. It is for the privilege of access to
the source of reality that they forego
reliance upon the darkened self within and the
unbelieving society without.
The religious education of Bahá’ís revolutionizes their inherited attitude toward their own as well as other traditional religions.
To Bahá’ís, religion is the life and teachings of the prophet. By identifying religion with its founder, they exclude from its spiritual reality all those accretions of human definition, ceremony and ritualistic practice emanating from followers required from time to time to make compromise with an unbelieving world. Furthermore, in limiting religion to the prophet they are able to perceive the oneness of God in the spiritual oneness of all the prophets. The Bahá’í born into Christianity can wholeheartedly enter into fellowship with the Bahá’í born into Muḥammadanism because both have come to understand that Christ and Muḥammad reflected the light of the one God into the darkness of the world. If certain teachings of Christ differ from certain teachings of Moses or Muḥammad, the Bahá’ís know that all prophetic teachings are divided into two parts: one, consisting of the essential and unalterable principles of love, peace, unity and cooperation, renewed as divine commands in every cycle; the other, consisting of external practices (such as diet, marriage and similar ordinances) conforming to the requirements of one time and place.
This Bahá’í teaching leads to a profounder analysis of the process of history. The followers of Bahá’u’lláh derive mental integrity from the realization made so clear and vivid by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that true insight into history discloses the uninterrupted and irresistible working of a Providence not denied nor made vain by any measure of human ignorance and unfaith.
According to this insight, a cycle begins with the appearance of a prophet or manifestation of God, through whom the spirits of men are revivified and reborn. The rise of faith in God produces a religious community, whose power of enthusiasm and devotion releases the creative elements of a new and higher civilization. This civilization comes to its fruitful autumn in culture and mental achievement, to give way eventually to a barren winter of atheism, when strife and discord bring the civilization to an end. Under the burden of immorality, dishonor and cruelty marking this phase of the cycle, humanity lies helpless until the spiritual leader, the prophet, once more returns in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Such is the Bahá’í reading of the book of the past. Its reading of the present interprets these world troubles, this general chaos and confusion, as the hour when the renewal of religion is no longer a racial experience, a rebirth of one limited area of human society, but the destined unification of humanity itself in one faith and one order. It is by the parable of the vineyard that Bahá’ís of the Christian West behold their tradition and their present spiritual reality at last inseparably joined, their faith and their social outlook identified, their reverence for the power of God merged with intelligible grasp of their material environment. A human society which has substituted creeds for religion and armies for truth, even as all ancient prophets foretold, must needs come to abandon its instruments of violence and undergo purification until conscious, humble faith can be reborn.
3. THE BASIS OF UNITY
"The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee.”— BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.
Faith alone, no matter how whole-hearted and sincere, affords no basis on which the organic unity of a religious fellowship can endure. The faith of the early Christians was complete, but its degree of inner conviction when projected outward upon the field of action soon disclosed a fatal lack of social principle. Whether the outer expression of love implied a democratic or an aristocratic order, a communal or individualistic society, raised fundamental questions after the crucifixion of the prophet which none had authority to solve.
The Bahá’í teaching has this vital distinction, that it extends from the realm of conscience and faith to the realm of social action. It confirms the substance of faith not merely as source of individual development but as a definitely ordered relationship to the community. Those who inspect the Bahá’í Cause superficially may deny its claim to be a religion for the reason that it lacks most of the visible marks by which religions are recognized. But in place of ritual or other formal worship it contains a social principle linking people to a community, the loyal observance of which makes spiritual faith coterminous with life itself. The Bahá’ís, having no professional clergy, forbidden ever to have a clergy, understand that religion, in this age, consists in an "attitude toward God reflected in life.” They are therefore conscious of no division between religious and secular actions.
The inherent nature of the community created by Bahá’u’lláh has great significance at this time, when the relative values of democracy, of constitutional monarchy, of aristocracy and of communism are everywhere in dispute.
Of the Bahá’í community it may be declared definitely that its character does not reflect the communal theory. The rights of the individual are fully safeguarded and the fundamental distinctions of personal endowment natural among all people are fully preserved. Individual rights, however, are interpreted in the light of the supreme law of brotherhood and not made a sanction for selfishness, oppression and indifference.
On the other hand, the Bahá’í order is not a democracy in the sense that it proceeds from the complete sovereignty of the people, whose representatives are limited to carrying out the popular will. Sovereignty, in the Bahá’í community, is attributed to the divine prophet, and the elected representatives of the believers in their administrative function look to the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh for their guidance, having faith that the application of His universal principles is the source of order throughout the community. Every Bahá’í administrative body feels itself a trustee, and in this capacity stands above the plane of dissension and is free of that pressure exerted by factional groups.
The local community on April 21 of each year elects by universal adult suffrage an administrative body of nine members called the Spiritual Assembly. This body, with reference to all Bahá’í matters, has sole power of decision. It represents the collective conscience of the community with respect to Bahá’í activities. Its capacity and power are supreme within certain definite limitations.
The various local communities unite
through delegates elected annually according
to the principle of proportionate
representation in the formation of a
National Spiritual Assembly for their
country or natural
geographical area. This National Spiritual
Assembly, likewise composed of nine
members, administers all national Bahá’í
affairs and may assume jurisdiction
of any local
matter felt to be of more than local
importance. Spiritual Assemblies, local and
national, combine an executive, a legislative
and a judicial function, all within the limits
set by the Bahá’í teachings. They have no
resemblance to religious bodies which can
adopt articles of faith and regulate the
processes of belief and worship. They are
primarily responsible for the maintenance
of unity within the Bahá’í community and
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for the release of its
collective power in
service to the Cause. Membership in the
Bahá’í community is granted, on personal
declaration of faith, to adults.
Nine National Spiritual Assemblies have come into existence since the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1921. Each National Spiritual Assembly will, in future, constitute an electoral body in the formation of an International Spiritual Assembly, a consummation which will perfect the administrative order of the Faith and create, for the first time in history, an international tribunal representing a worldwide community united in a single Faith.
Bahá’ís maintain their contact with the source of inspiration and knowledge in the sacred writings of the Faith by continuous prayer, study and discussion. No believer can ever have a finished, static faith any more than he can arrive at the end of his capacity for being. The community has but one meeting ordained in the teachings—the general meeting held every nineteen days, on the first day of each month of nineteen days given in the new calendar established by the Báb.
This Nineteen Day Feast is conducted simply and informally under a program divided into three parts. The first part consists in the reading of passages from writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—a devotional meeting. Next follows general discussion of Bahá’í activities—the business meeting of the local community. After the consultation, the community breaks bread together and enjoys fellowship.
The experience which Bahá’ís receive through participation in their spiritual world order is unique and cannot be paralleled in any other society. Their status of perfect equality as voting members of a constitutional body called upon to deal with matters which reflect, even though in miniature, the whole gamut of human problems and activities; their intense realization of kinship with believers representing so wide a diversity of races, classes and creeds; their assurance that this unity is based upon the highest spiritual sanction and contributes a necessary ethical quality to the world in this age—all these opportunities for deeper and broader experience confer a privilege that is felt to be the fulfillment of life.
4. THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW DAY
"If man is left in his natural state, he will become lower than the animal and continue to grow more ignorant and imperfect. The savage tribes of Central Africa are evidence of this. Left in their natural condition, they have sunk to the lowest depths and degrees of barbarism, dimly groping in a world of mental and moral obscurity. . . . God has purposed that the darkness of the world of nature shall be dispelled and the imperfect attributes of the natal self be effaced in the effulgent reflection of the Sun of Truth.”—‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
The complete text of the Bahá’í sacred writings has not yet been translated into English, but the present generation of believers have the supreme privilege of possessing the fundamental teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, together with the interpretation and lucid commentary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and more recently the exposition made by Shoghi Effendi of the teachings concerning the world order which Bahá’u’lláh came to establish. Of special significance to Bahá’ís of Europe and America is the fact that, unlike Christianity, the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh rests upon the prophet’s own words and not upon a necessarily incomplete rendering of oral tradition. Furthermore, the commentary and explanation of the Bahá’í gospel made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá preserves the spiritual integrity and essential aim of the revealed text, without the inevitable alloy of human personality which historically served to corrupt the gospel of Jesus and Muḥammad. The Bahá’í, moreover, has this distinctive advantage, that his approach to the teachings is personal and direct, without the veils interposed by any human intermediary.
The works which supply the Bahá’í teachings to English-reading believers are: “The Kitáb-i-Íqán” (Book of Certitude), in which Bahá’u’lláh revealed the oneness of the prophets and the identical foundation of all true religions, the law of cycles according
The Master, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, taken with American and Íránian Friends.
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to which the prophet returns
at intervals of approximately one
thousand years, and
the nature of faith; "Hidden Words,” the
essence of truths revealed by prophets in
the past; prayers to quicken the soul’s life
and draw individuals and groups nearer to
God; "Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh” (Ṭarázát,
The Tablet of the World, Kalimát,
Tajalliyát, Bishárát, Ishráqát),
which establish social and spiritual
principles for the new
era; "Three Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh” (Tablet
of the Branch, Kitáb-i-‘Ahd, Lawḥ-i-Aqdas),
the appointment of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as
the Interpreter of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings,
the Testament of Bahá’u’lláh, and His
message to the Christians; “Epistle to
the Son of the Wolf,” addressed to the
son of a prominent Íránian who had been
a most ruthless
oppressor of the believers, a Tablet which
recapitulates many teachings Bahá’u’lláh had
revealed in earlier works; “Gleanings from
the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.” The
significant Tablets addressed to rulers
of Europe and the Orient, as well as
to the heads of
American republics, about the year 1870,
summoning them to undertake measures for
the establishment of Universal Peace,
constitute a chapter in the
compilation entitled “Bahá’í Scriptures.”
The largest and most authentic body of Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings in the English language consists of the excerpts chosen and translated by Shoghi Effendi, and published under the title of “Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.” This work has replaced “Bahá’í Scriptures” as source of study and meditation, for the volume includes the Author’s words on a great variety of subjects, and has the unique value of the English rendering made by the Guardian of the Faith.
In “Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh,” Shoghi Effendi has similarly given to the Bahá’í Community in recent years a wider selection and a superb rendering of devotional passages revealed by Bahá’u’lláh.
The published writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are: “Some Answered Questions,” dealing with the lives of the prophets, the interpretation of Bible prophecies, the nature of man, the true principle of evolution and other philosophic subjects; “Mysterious Forces of Civilization,” a work addressed to the people of Írán about forty years ago to show them the way to sound progress and true civilization; “Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,” three volumes of excerpts from letters written to individual believers and Bahá’í communities, which illumine a vast range of subjects; "Promulgation of Universal Peace,” in two volumes, from stenographic records of the public addresses delivered by the Master to audiences in Canada and the United States during the year 1912; "The Wisdom of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,” a similar record of His addresses in Paris; “ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London”; and reprints of a number of individual Tablets, especially that sent to the Committee for a Durable Peace, The Hague, Holland, in 1919, and the Tablet addressed to the late Dr. Forel of Switzerland. The Will and Testament left by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has special significance, in that it provided for the future development of Bahá’í administrative institutions and the Guardianship.
To these writings is now to be added the book entitled "Bahá’í Administration,” consisting of the general letters written by Shoghi Effendi as Guardian of the Cause since the Master’s death in 1921, which explain the details of the administrative order of the Cause, and his letters on World Order, which make clear the social principles imbedded in Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation.
These latter letters were in 1938 published in a volume entitled “The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.” Here the Guardian defines the relation of the Faith to the current social crisis, and sums up the fundamental tenets of the Bahá’í Faith. It is a work which gives to each believer access to a clear insight on the significance of the present era, and the outcome of its international perturbations, incomparably more revealing and at the same time more assuring than the works of students and statesmen in our times.
The literature has also been enriched by Shoghi Effendi’s recent translation of “The Dawn-Breakers,” Nabil’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation, a vivid eye-witness account of the episodes which resulted from the announcement of the Báb on May 23, 1844. “The Traveller’s Narrative,” translated from a manuscript given
‘Abdu’l-Bahá during the last year of His life, Haifa, 1921.
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by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to the
late Prof. Edward G. Browne of Cambridge
University, is the only other historical
record considered authentic from the
Bahá’í point of view.
When it is borne in mind that the term “religious literature” has come to represent a wide diversity of subject matter, ranging from cosmic philosophy to the psychology of personal experience, from efforts to understand the universe plumbed by telescope and microscope to efforts to discipline the passions and desires of disordered human hearts, it is clear that any attempt to summarize the Bahá’í teachings would indicate the limitations of the person making the summary rather than offer possession of a body of sacred literature touching the needs of man and society at every point. The study of Bahá’í writings does not lead to any simplified program either for the solution of social problems or for the development of human personality. Rather should it be likened to a clear light which illumines whatever is brought under its rays, or to spiritual nourishment which gives life to the spirit. The believer at first chiefly notes the passages which seem to confirm his own personal beliefs or treat of subjects close to his own previous training. This natural but nevertheless unjustifiable over-simplification of the nature of the Faith must gradually subside and give way to a deeper realization that the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are as an ocean, and all personal capacity is but the vessel that must be refilled again and again. The sum and substance of the faith of Bahá’ís is not a doctrine, not an organization, but their acceptance of Bahá’u’lláh as Manifestation of God. In this acceptance lies the mystery of a unity that is general, not particular, inclusive, not exclusive, and limited in its gradual extension by no boundaries drawn in the social world nor arbitrary limitations accepted by habits formed during generations lacking a true spiritual culture.
What the believer learns reverently to be grateful for is a source of wisdom to which he may turn for continuous mental and moral development—a source of truth revealing a universe in which man’s life has valid purpose and assured realization. Human history begins to reflect the working of a beneficent Providence; the sharp outlines of material sciences gradually fade out in the light of one fundamental science of life; a profounder sociology, connected with the inner life, little by little displaces the superficial economic and political beliefs which like waves dash high an instant only to subside into the moveless volume of the sea.
“The divine reality,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. has said, "is unthinkable, limitless, eternal, immortal and invisible. The world of creation is bound by natural law, finite and mortal. The infinite reality cannot be said to ascend or descend. It is beyond the understanding of men, and cannot be described in terms which apply to the phenomenal sphere of the created world. Man, then, is in extreme need of the only power by which he is able to receive help from the divine reality, that power alone bringing him into contact with the source of all life.
“An intermediary is needed to bring two extremes into relation with each other. Riches and poverty, plenty and need: without an intermediary there could be no relation between these pairs of opposites. So we can say that there must be a Mediator between God and man, and this is none other than the Holy Spirit, which brings the created earth into relation with the ‘Unthinkable One,’ the divine reality. The divine reality may be likened to the sun and the Holy Spirit to the rays of the sun. As the rays of the sun bring the light and warmth of the sun to the earth, giving life to all created things, so do the Manifestations bring the power of the Holy Spirit from the divine Sun of Reality to give light and life to the souls of men.”
In expounding the teachings of
Bahá’u’lláh to public audiences in
the West, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá frequently
encountered the attitude that,
while the liberal religionist might
well welcome and endorse such tenets, the
Bahá’í teachings after all bring nothing
new, since the principles of
Christianity contain all the
essentials of spiritual truth. The
believer whose heart has been touched by
the Faith so perfectly exemplified
by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá feels no desire
for controversy, but must needs
point out the vital difference
between a living faith and a
passive formula or doctrine.
What religion in its renewal
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brings is
first of all an energy to
translate belief into life.
This impulse, received into
the profoundest depths of
consciousness, requires no
startling "newness” of
concept or theory to be appreciated as a
gift from the divine world. It carries its
own assurance as a renewal of life itself; it
is as a candle that has been lighted, and in
comparison with the miracle of light the
discussion of religion as a form of
belief becomes secondary in importance.
Were the Bahá’í Faith no more than a
true revitalization of the revealed
truths of former religions, it
would by that quickening quality
of inner life, that returning to God, still
assert itself as the supreme fact of human
experience in this age.
For religion returns to earth in order to re-establish a standard of spiritual reality. It restores the quality of human existence, its active powers, when that reality has become overlaid with sterile rites and dogmas which substitute empty shadow for substance. In the person of the Manifestation it destroys all those imitations of religion gradually developed through the centuries and summons humanity to the path of sacrifice and devotion.
Revelation, moreover, is progressive as well as periodic. Christianity in its original essence not only relighted the candle of faith which, in the years since Moses, had become extinguished—it amplified the teachings of Moses with a new dimension which history has seen exemplified in the spread of faith from tribe to nations and peoples. Bahá’u’lláh has given religion its world dimension, fulfilling the fundamental purpose of every previous Revelation. His Faith stands as the reality within Christianity, within Muhammadanism, within the religion of Moses, the spirit of each, but expressed in teachings which relate to all mankind.
The Bahá’í Faith, viewed from within, is religion extended from the individual to embrace humanity. It is religion universalized; its teaching for the individual, spiritually identical with the teaching of Christ, supplies the individual with an ethics, a sociology, an ideal of social order, for which humanity in its earlier stages of development was not prepared. Individual fulfillment has been given an objective social standard of reality, balancing the subjective ideal derived from religion in the past. Bahá’u’lláh has removed the false distinctions between the “spiritual” and "material” aspects of life, due to which religion has become separate from science, and morality has been divorced from all social activities. The whole arena of human affairs has been brought within the realm of spiritual truth, in the light of the teaching that materialism is not a thing but a motive within the human heart.
The Bahá’í learns to perceive the universe as a divine creation in which man has his destiny to fulfill under a beneficent Providence whose aims for humanity are made known through Prophets who stand between man and the Creator. He learns his true relation to the degrees and orders of the visible universe; his true relation to God, to himself, to his fellow man, to mankind. The more he studies the Bahá’í teachings, the more he becomes imbued with the spirit of unity, the more vividly he perceives the law of unity working in the world today, indirectly manifest in the failure which has overtaken all efforts to organize the principle of separation and competition, directly manifest in the power which has brought together the followers of Bahá’u’lláh in East and West. He has the assurance that the world’s turmoil conceals from worldly minds the blessings long foretold, now forgotten, in the sayings which prophesied the coming of the Kingdom of God.
The Sacred Literature of the Bahá’í Faith conveys enlightenment. It inspires life. It frees the mind. It disciplines the heart. For believers, the Word is not a philosophy to be learned, but the sustenance of being throughout the span of mortal existence.
"The Bahá’í Faith,” Shoghi Effendi stated
in a recent letter addressed to a
public official, "recognizes
the unity of God and of
His Prophets, upholds the principle of an
unfettered search after truth, condemns all
forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches
that the fundamental purpose of religion is
to promote concord and harmony, that it
must go hand-in-hand with science, and
that it constitutes the sole and ultimate
basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive
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society. It
inculcates the principle of
equal opportunity, rights and privileges for
both sexes, advocates compulsory education,
abolishes extremes of poverty and wealth,
recommends the adoption of an
auxiliary international language,
and provides the necessary agencies
for the establishment and
safeguarding of a permanent and universal
peace.”
Those who, even courteously, would dismiss a Faith so firmly based, will have to admit that, whether or not by their test the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are "new,” the world’s present plight is unprecedented, came without warning save in the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and day by day draws nearer a climax which strikes terror to the responsible student of current affairs. Humanity itself now seems to share the prison and exile which an unbelieving generation inflicted upon the Glory of God.
5. A BACKGROUND OF HEROIC SACRIFICE
"O My beloved friends! You are the bearers of the name of God in this Day. You have been chosen as the repositories of His mystery. It behooves each one of you to manifest the attributes of God, and to exemplify by your deeds and words the signs of His righteousness, His power and glory. . . . Ponder the words of Jesus addressed to His disciples, as He sent them forth to propagate the Cause of God.—THE BÁB.
The words of Bahá’u’lláh differ in the minds of believers from the words of philosophers because they have been given substance in the experience of life itself. The history of the Faith stands ever as a guide and commentary upon the meaning and influence of the written text.
This history, unfolded contemporaneously with the rise of science and technology in the West, reasserts the providential element of human existence as it was reasserted by the spiritual consecration and personal suffering of the prophets and disciples of former times.
The world of Islám one hundred years ago lay in a darkness corresponding to the most degraded epoch of Europe’s feudal age. Between the upper and nether millstones of an absolutist state and a materialistic church, the people of Írán were ground to a condition of extreme poverty and ignorance. The pomp of the civil and religious courts glittered above the general ruin like firedamp on a rotten log.
In that world, however, a few devoted souls stood firm in their conviction that the religion of Muḥammad was to be purified by the rise of a spiritual hero whose coming was assured in their interpretation of His gospel.
This remnant of the faithful one by one became conscious that in ‘Alí-Muḥammad, since known to history as the Báb (the “Gate”), their hopes had been realized, and under the Báb’s inspiration scattered themselves as His apostles to arouse the people and prepare them for the restoration of Islám to its original integrity. Against the Báb and His followers the whole force of church and state combined to extinguish a fiery zeal which soon threatened to bring their structure of power to the ground.
The ministry of the Báb covered only the six years between 1844 and His martyrdom by a military firing squad in the public square at Tabríz on July 9, 1850.
In the Báb’s own written message He interpreted His mission to be the fulfillment of past religions and the heralding of a world educator and unifier, one who was to come to establish a new cycle. Most of the Báb’s chosen disciples, and many thousands of followers, were publicly martyred in towns and villages throughout the country in those years. The seed, however, had been buried too deep in hearts to be extirpated by any physical instrument of oppression.
After the Báb’s martyrdom, the weight of official wrath fell upon Ḥusayn-‘Alí, around whom the Bábís centered their hopes. Ḥusayn-‘Alí was imprisoned in Ṭihrán, exiled to Baghdád, from Baghdád sent to Constantinople under the jurisdiction of the Sultán, exiled by the Turkish government to Adrianople, and at length imprisoned in the desolate barracks at ‘Akká.
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In 1863, while delayed
outside of Baghdád for the
preparation of the caravan to
be dispatched to Constantinople,
Ḥusayn-‘Alí established His Cause
among the Bábís who insisted upon
sharing His exile. His
declaration was the origin of the Bahá’í
Faith in which the Báb’s Cause was
fulfilled. The Bábís who accepted
Ḥusayn-‘Alí as Bahá’u’lláh (the Glory of God) were
fully conscious that His mission was not a
development of the Bábí movement but a
new Cause for which the Báb had sacrificed
His life as the first of those who recognized
the manifestation or prophet of the new age.
During forty years of exile and imprisonment, Bahá’u’lláh expounded a gospel which interpreted the spiritual meaning of ancient scriptures, renewed the reality of faith in God and established as the foundation of human society the principle of the oneness of mankind. This gospel came into being in the form of letters addressed to individual believers and to groups in response to questions, in books of religious laws and principles, and in communications transmitted to the kings and rulers calling upon them to establish universal peace.
This sacred literature has an authoritative commentary and interpretation in the text of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s writings during the years between Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension in 1892 and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s departure in 1921, Bahá’u’lláh having left a testament naming ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (His eldest son) as the Interpreter of His Book and the Center of His Covenant.
The imprisonment of the Bahá’í community at ‘Akká ended at last in 1908, when the Young Turks party overthrew the existing political régime.
For three years prior to the European War, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, then nearly seventy years of age, journeyed throughout Europe and America, and broadcast in public addresses and innumerable intimate gatherings the new spirit of brotherhood and world unity penetrating His very being as the consecrated Servant of Bahá’í. The significance of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s commentary and explanation is that it makes mental and moral connection with the thoughts and social conditions of both East and West. Dealing with matters of religious, philosophical, ethical and sociological nature, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá expounded all questions in the light of His conviction of the oneness of God and the providential character of human life in this age.
The international Bahá’í community, grief-stricken and appalled by its loss of the wise and loving “Master” in 1921, learned with profound gratitude that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in a will and testament had provided for the continuance and future development of the Faith. This testament made clear the nature of the Spiritual Assemblies established in the text of Bahá’u’lláh and inaugurated a new center for the widespread community of believers in the appointment of His grandson, Shoghi Effendi, as Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith.
During the seventeen years of general confusion since 1921, the Bahá’í community has carried forward the work of internal consolidation and administrative order and has become conscious of its collective responsibility for the promotion of the blessed gospel of Bahá’u’lláh. In addition to the task of establishing the structure of local and national Spiritual Assemblies, the believers have translated Bahá’í literature into many languages, have sent teachers to all parts of the world, and have resumed construction of the Bahá’í House of Worship on the shore of Lake Michigan, near Chicago, the completion of which will be impressive evidence of the power of this new Faith.
In the general letters issued to the Bahá’í community by Shoghi Effendi in order to execute the provisions of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s testament, believers have been given what they are confident is the most profound and accurate analysis of the prevailing social disorder and its true remedy in the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
