About
May 29, 1992, marks the
centenary of the passing of Bahá'u'lláh. His
vision of humanity as one people and of the earth as a common
homeland, dismissed out of hand by the world leaders to whom
it was first enunciated over a hundred years ago, has today
become the focus of human hope. Equally inescapable is the
collapse of moral and social order, which this same
declaration foresaw with awesome clarity.
The occasion has encouraged
publication of this brief introduction to
Bahá'u'lláh's life and work. Prepared at the
request of the Universal House of Justice, trustee of the
global undertaking which the events of a century ago set in
motion, it offers a perspective on the feeling of confidence
with which Bahá'ís the world over contemplate the
future of our planet and our race.
Chapter 1
Introduction
As the new millennium approaches, the crucial
need of the human race is to find a unifying vision of
the nature of man and society. For the past century
humanity's response to this impulse has driven a
succession of ideological upheavals that have convulsed
our world and that appear now to have exhausted
themselves. The passion invested in the struggle, despite
its disheartening results, testifies to the depth of the
need. For, without a common conviction about the course
and direction of human history, it is inconceivable that
foundations can be laid for a global society to which the
mass of humankind can commit themselves.
Such a vision
unfolds in the writings of Bahá'u'lláh, the
nineteenth century prophetic figure whose growing
influence is the most remarkable development of
contemporary religious history. Born in Persia, November 12, 1817,
Bahá'u'lláh1 began at
age 27 an undertaking that has gradually captured the
imagination and loyalty of several million people from
virtually every race, culture, class, and nation on
earth. The phenomenon is one that has no reference points
in the contemporary world, but is associated rather with
climactic changes of direction in the collective past of
the human race. For Bahá'u'lláh claimed to be
no less than the Messenger of God to the age of human
maturity, the Bearer of a Divine Revelation that fulfills
the promises made in earlier religions, and that will
generate the spiritual nerves and sinews for the
unification of the peoples of the world.
If they were
to do nothing else, the effects which
Bahá'u'lláh's life and writings have already
had should command the earnest attention of anyone who
believes that human nature is fundamentally spiritual and
that the coming organization of our planet must be
informed by this aspect of reality. The documentation
lies open to general scrutiny. For the first time in
history humanity has available a detailed and verifiable
record of the birth of an independent religious system
and of the life of its Founder. Equally accessible is the record of the response
that the new faith has evoked, through the emergence of a
global community which can already justly claim to
represent a microcosm of the human race.2
During the
earlier decades of this century, this development was
relatively obscure. Bahá'u'lláh's writings
forbid the aggressive proselytism through which many
religious messages have been widely promulgated. Further,
the priority which the Bahá'í community gave to
the establishment of groups at the local level throughout
the entire planet militated against the early emergence
of large concentrations of adherents in any one country
or the mobilization of resources required for large-scale
programs of public information. Arnold Toynbee, intrigued by phenomena that
might represent the emergence of a new universal
religion, noted in the 1950s that the Bahá'í Faith
was then about as familiar to the average educated
Westerner as Christianity had been to the corresponding
class in the Roman empire during the second century A.D.3
In more
recent years, as the Bahá'í community's numbers
have rapidly increased in many countries, the situation
has changed dramatically. There is now virtually no area
in the world where the pattern of life taught by
Bahá'u'lláh is not taking root. The respect
which the community's social and economic development
projects are beginning to win in governmental, academic,
and United Nations circles further reinforces the
argument for a detached and serious examination of the
impulse behind a process of social transformation that
is, in critical respects, unique in our world.
No
uncertainty surrounds the nature of the generating
impulse. Bahá'u'lláh's writings cover an
enormous range of subjects from social issues such as
racial integration, the equality of the sexes, and
disarmament, to those questions that affect the innermost
life of the human soul. The original texts, many of them
in His own hand, the others dictated and affirmed by
their author, have been meticulously preserved. For
several decades, a systematic program of translation and
publication has made selections from
Bahá'u'lláh's writings accessible to people
everywhere, in over eight hundred languages.
Chapter 2
Birth of a New
Revelation
Bahá'u'lláh's mission began in a
subterranean dungeon in Teheran in August 1852. Born into
a noble family that could trace its ancestry back to the
great dynasties of Persia's imperial past, He
declined the ministerial career open to Him in
government, and chose instead to devote His energies to a
range of philanthropies which had, by the early 1840s,
earned Him widespread renown as "Father of the
Poor." This privileged existence swiftly eroded
after 1844, when Bahá'u'lláh became one of
the leading advocates of a movement that was to change
the course of His country's history.
The early
nineteenth century was a period of messianic expectations
in many lands. Deeply disturbed by the implications of
scientific inquiry and industrialization, earnest
believers from many religious backgrounds turned to the
scriptures of their faiths for an understanding of the
accelerating processes of change. In Europe and America
groups like the Templers and the Millerites believed they
had found in the Christian scriptures evidence supporting
their conviction that history had ended and the return of
Jesus Christ was at hand. A markedly similar ferment
developed in the Middle East around the belief that the
fulfillment of various prophecies in the Qur'an and
Islamic Traditions was imminent.
By far the most dramatic of these
millennialist movements had been the one in Persia, which
had focused on the person and teachings of a young
merchant from the city of Shiraz, known to history as the
Báb.4 For nine years, from 1844 to 1853, Persians of
all classes had been caught up in a storm of hope and
excitement aroused by the Báb's announcement that the
Day of God was at hand and that He was himself the One
promised in Islamic scripture. Humanity stood, He said,
on the threshold of an era that would witness the
restructuring of all aspects of life. New fields of
learning, as yet inconceivable, would permit even the
children of the new age to surpass the most erudite of
nineteenth-century scholars. The human race was called by
God to embrace these changes through undertaking a
transformation of its moral and spiritual life. His own mission was to prepare
humanity for the event that lay at the heart of these
developments, the coming of that universal Messenger of
God, "He Whom God will make manifest," awaited
by the followers of all religions.5
The claim had
evoked violent hostility from the Muslim clergy, who
taught that the process of Divine Revelation had ended
with Muhammad; and that any assertion to the contrary
represented apostasy, punishable by death. Their
denunciation of the Báb had soon enlisted the support of
the Persian authorities. Thousands of followers of the new faith had
perished in a horrific series of massacres throughout the
country, and the Báb had been publicly executed on July
9, 1850.6 In an age of growing Western involvement in the
Orient, these events had aroused interest and compassion
in influential European circles. The nobility of the Báb's life and teachings,
the heroism of His followers, and the hope for
fundamental reform that they had kindled in a darkened
land had exerted a powerful attraction for personalities
ranging from Ernest Renan and Leo Tolstoy to Sarah
Bernhardt and the Comte de Gobineau.7
Because of
His prominence in the defense of the Báb's cause,
Bahá'u'lláh was arrested and brought, in
chains and on foot, to Teheran. Protected in some measure
by an impressive personal reputation and the social
position of His family, as well as by protests which the
Bábí pogroms had evoked from Western embassies, He was
not sentenced to death, as influential figures at the
royal court were urging. Instead, He was cast into the
notorious Síyáh-Chál, the "Black Pit", a
deep, vermin-infested dungeon which had been created in
one of the city's abandoned reservoirs. No charges were
laid but He and some thirty companions were, without
appeal, kept immured in the darkness and filth of this
pit, surrounded by hardened criminals, many of them under
sentence of death. Around Bahá'u'lláh's
neck was clamped a heavy chain, so notorious in penal
circles as to have been given its own name. When He did
not quickly perish, as had been expected, an attempt was
made to poison Him. The marks of the chain were to remain
on His body for the rest of His life.
Central to
Bahá'u'lláh's writings is an exposition
of the great themes which have preoccupied religious
thinkers throughout the ages: God, the role of Revelation
in history, the relationship of the world's religious
systems to one another, the meaning of faith, and the
basis of moral authority in the organization of human
society. Passages in these texts speak intimately of His
own spiritual experience, of His response to the Divine
summons, and of the dialogue with the "Spirit of
God" which lay at the heart of His mission.
Religious history has never before offered the inquirer
the opportunity for so candid an encounter with the
phenomenon of Divine Revelation.
Toward the
end of His life, Bahá'u'lláh's writings
on His early experiences included a brief description of
the conditions in the Síyáh-Chál.
We were consigned for four months to a
place foul beyond comparison.... The dungeon was
wrapped in thick darkness, and Our fellow-prisoners
numbered nearly a hundred and fifty souls: thieves,
assassins and highwaymen. Though crowded, it had no
other outlet than the passage by which We entered. No
pen can depict that place, nor any tongue describe
its loathsome smell. Most of these men had neither
clothes nor bedding to lie on. God alone knoweth what
befell Us in that most foul-smelling and gloomy
place! 8
Each day the guards would descend the three
steep flights of stairs of the pit, seize one or more of
the prisoners, and drag them out to be executed. In the
streets of Teheran, Western observers were appalled by
scenes of Bábí victims blown from cannon mouths, hacked
to death by axes and swords, and led to their deaths with
burning candles inserted into open wounds in their
bodies.9 It was in these circumstances, and faced with
the prospect of His own imminent death, that
Bahá'u'lláh received the first intimation of
His mission:
One night, in a dream, these exalted
words were heard on every side: "Verily, We
shall render Thee victorious by Thyself and by Thy
Pen. Grieve Thou not for that which hath befallen
Thee, neither be Thou afraid, for Thou art in safety.
Erelong will God raise up the treasures of the earth
-- men who will aid Thee through Thyself and through
Thy name, wherewith God hath revived the hearts of
such as have recognized Him."10
The experience of Divine
Revelation, touched on only at secondhand in surviving
accounts of the lives of the Buddha, Moses, Jesus Christ,
and Muhammad, is described graphically and in
Bahá'u'lláh's own words:
During the days I lay in the prison of
Tihran, though the galling weight of the chains and
the stench-filled air allowed Me but little sleep,
still in those infrequent moments of slumber I felt
as if something flowed from the crown of My head over
My breast, even as a mighty torrent that
precipitateth itself upon the earth from the summit
of a lofty mountain. Every limb of My body would, as
a result, be set afire. At such moments My tongue
recited what no man could bear to hear.11
Chapter 3
Exile
Eventually,
still without trial or recourse, Bahá'u'lláh
was released from prison and immediately banished from
His native land, His wealth and properties arbitrarily
confiscated. The Russian diplomatic representative, who
knew Him personally and who had followed the Bábí
persecutions with growing distress, offered Him his
protection and refuge in lands under the control of his
government. In the
prevailing political climate, acceptance of such help
would almost certainly have been misrepresented by others
as having political implications.12 Perhaps for this reason,
Bahá'u'lláh chose to accept banishment to the
neighboring territory of Iraq, then under the rule of the
Ottoman Empire. This expulsion was the beginning of forty
years of exile, imprisonment, and bitter persecution.
In the years
which immediately followed His departure from Persia,
Bahá'u'lláh gave priority to the needs of the
Bábí community which had gathered in Baghdad, a task
which had devolved on Him as the only effective Bábí
leader to have survived the massacres. The death of the
Báb and the almost simultaneous loss of most of the
young faith's teachers and guides had left the body of
the believers scattered and demoralized. When His efforts to rally those
who had fled to Iraq aroused jealousy and dissension,13 He followed the path that had been taken by all
of the Messengers of God gone before Him, and withdrew to
the wilderness, choosing for the purpose the mountain
region of Kurdistan. His withdrawal, as He later said,
had "contemplated no return." Its reason
"was to avoid becoming a subject of discord among
the faithful, a source of disturbance unto Our
companions." Although the two years spent in
Kurdistan were a period of intense privation and physical
hardship, Bahá'u'lláh describes them as a
time of profound happiness during which He reflected
deeply on the message entrusted to Him: "Alone, We communed
with Our spirit, oblivious of the world and all that is
therein."14
Only with
great reluctance, believing it His responsibility to the
cause of the Báb, did He eventually accede to urgent
messages from the remnant of the desperate group of
exiles in Baghdad who had discovered His whereabouts and
appealed to Him to return and assume the leadership of
their community.
Two of the
most important volumes of Bahá'u'lláh's
writings date from this first period of exile, preceding
the declaration of His mission in 1863. The first of
these is a small book which He named The Hidden Words.
Written in the form of a compilation of moral aphorisms,
the volume represents the ethical heart of
Bahá'u'lláh's message. In verses which
Bahá'u'lláh describes as a distillation of
the spiritual guidance of all the Revelations of the
past, the voice of God speaks directly to the human soul:
O Son
of Spirit!
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. By its aid thou shalt see with thine
own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and
shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the
knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart;
how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My
gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set
it then before thine eyes.
O Son of Being!
Love Me that I may love thee.
If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach
thee. Know this, O servant.
O Son of Man!
Sorrow not save that thou art
far from Us. Rejoice not save that thou art drawing
near and returning unto Us.
O Son of Being!
With the hands of power I made
thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee;
and within thee have I placed the essence of My
light. Be thou content with it and seek naught else,
for My work is perfect and My command is binding.
Question it not, nor have a doubt thereof. 15
The second of
the two major works composed by Bahá'u'lláh
during this period is The Book of Certitude, a
comprehensive exposition of the nature and purpose of
religion. In passages that draw not only on the Qur'an,
but with equal facility and insight on the Old and New
Testaments, the Messengers of God are depicted as agents
of a single, unbroken process, the awakening of the human
race to its spiritual and moral potentialities. A
humanity which has come of age can respond to a
directness of teaching that goes beyond the language of
parable and allegory; faith is a matter not of blind
belief, but of conscious knowledge. Nor is the guidance
of an ecclesiastical elite any longer required: the gift
of reason confers on each individual in this new age of
enlightenment and education the capacity to respond to
Divine guidance. The test is that of sincerity:
No
man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true
understanding except he be detached from all that is
in heaven and on earth.... The essence of these words
is this: they that tread the path of faith, they that
thirst for the wine of certitude, must cleanse
themselves of all that is earthly – their ears
from idle talk, their minds from vain imaginings,
their hearts from worldly affections, their eyes from
that which perisheth. They should put their trust in
God, and, holding fast unto Him, follow in His way.
Then will they be made worthy of the effulgent
glories of the sun of divine knowledge and
understanding, ... inasmuch as man can never hope to
attain unto the knowledge of the All-Glorious ...
unless and until he ceases to regard the words and
deeds of mortal men as a standard for the true
understanding and recognition of God and His
Prophets.
Consider
the past. How many, both high and low, have, at all
times, yearningly awaited the advent of the
Manifestations of God in the sanctified persons of
His chosen Ones.... And whensoever the portals of
grace did open, and the clouds of divine bounty did
rain upon mankind, and the light of the Unseen did
shine above the horizon of celestial might, they all
denied Him, and turned away from His face – the
face of God Himself....
Only
when the lamp of search, of earnest striving, of
longing desire, of passionate devotion, of fervid
love, of rapture, and ecstasy, is kindled within the
seeker's heart, and the breeze of His loving-kindness
is wafted upon his soul, will the darkness of error
be dispelled, the mists of doubts and misgivings be
dissipated, and the lights of knowledge and certitude
envelop his being.... Then will the manifold favors
and outpouring grace of the holy and everlasting
Spirit confer such new life upon the seeker that he
will find himself endowed with a new eye, a new ear,
a new heart, and a new mind.... Gazing with the eye
of God, he will perceive within every atom a door
that leadeth him to the stations of absolute
certitude. He will discover in all things the ...
evidences of an everlasting Manifestation.
When the channel of the
human soul is cleansed of all worldly and impeding
attachments, it will unfailingly perceive the breath
of the Beloved across immeasurable distances, and
will, led by its perfume, attain and enter the City
of Certitude....
That
city is none other than the Word of God revealed in
every age and dispensation.... All the guidance, the
blessings, the learning, the understanding, the
faith, and certitude, conferred upon all that is in
heaven and on earth, are hidden and treasured within
these Cities. 16
No overt
reference is made to Bahá'u'lláh's own as yet
unannounced mission; rather, The Book of Certitude
is organized around a vigorous exposition of the mission
of the martyred Báb. Not the least of the reasons for
the book's powerful influence on the Bábí community,
which included a number of scholars and former
seminarians, was the mastery of Islamic thought and
teaching its author displays in demonstrating the Báb's
claim to have fulfilled the prophecies of Islam. Calling
on the Bábís to be worthy of the trust which the Báb
had placed in them and of the sacrifice of so many heroic
lives, Bahá'u'lláh held out before them the
challenge not only of bringing their personal lives into
conformity with the Divine teachings, but of making their
community a model for the heterogeneous population of
Baghdad, the Iraqi provincial capital.
Though living
in very straitened material circumstances, the exiles
were galvanized by this vision. One of their company, a
man called Nabil, who was later to leave a detailed
history of both the ministries of the Báb and
Bahá'u'lláh, has described the spiritual
intensity of those days:
Many
a night no less than ten persons subsisted on no more
than a pennyworth of dates. No one knew to whom
actually belonged the shoes, the cloaks, or the robes
that were to be found in their houses. Whoever went
to the bazaar could claim that the shoes upon his
feet were his own, and each one who entered the
presence of Bahá'u'lláh could affirm that
the cloak and robe he then wore belonged to him....
O, for the joy of those days, and the gladness
and wonder of those hours! 17
To the dismay
of the Persian consular authorities who had believed the
Bábí "episode" to have run its course, the
community of exiles gradually became a respected and
influential element in Iraq's provincial capital and
the neighboring towns. Since several of the most
important shrines of Shi'ih Islam were located in
the area, a steady stream of Persian pilgrims was also
exposed, under the most favorable circumstances, to the
renewal of Bábí influence. Among dignitaries who called
on Bahá'u'lláh in the simple house He
occupied were princes of the royal family. So enchanted
by the experience was one of them that he conceived the
somewhat naive idea that by erecting a duplicate of the
building in the gardens of his own estate, he might
recapture something of the atmosphere of spiritual purity
and detachment he had briefly encountered. Another, more deeply moved by
the experience of his visit, expressed to friends the
feeling that "were all the sorrows of the world to
be crowded into my heart they would, I feel, all vanish,
when in the presence of Bahá'u'lláh. It is as
if I had entered Paradise..." 18
Chapter 4
The Declaration in
the Ridvan Garden
By 1863,
Bahá'u'lláh concluded that the time had come
to begin acquainting some of those around Him with the
mission which had been entrusted to Him in the darkness
of the Siyah-Chal. This decision coincided with a new
stage in the campaign of opposition to His work, which
had been relentlessly pursued by the Shi‘ih Muslim
clergy and representatives of the Persian government.
Fearing that the acclaim which Bahá'u'lláh
was beginning to enjoy among influential Persian visitors
to Iraq would reignite popular enthusiasm in Persia, the
Shah's government pressed the Ottoman authorities to
remove Him far from the borders and into the interior of
the empire. Eventually, the Turkish government acceded to
these pressures and invited the exile, as its guest, to
make His residence in the capital, Constantinople. Despite the courteous terms in
which the message was couched, the intention was clearly
to require compliance.19
By this time,
the devotion of the little company of exiles had come to
focus on Bahá'u'lláh's person as well as
on His exposition of the Báb's teachings. A growing
number of them had become convinced that He was speaking
not only as the Báb's advocate, but on behalf of
the far greater cause which the latter had declared to be
imminent. These beliefs became a certainty in late April
1863 when Bahá'u'lláh, on the eve of His
departure for Constantinople, called together individuals
among His companions, in a garden to which was later
given the name Ridvan ("Paradise"), and
confided the central fact of His mission. Over the next
four years, although no open announcement was con-
sidered timely, the hearers gradually shared with trusted
friends the news that the Báb's promises had been
fulfilled and that the "Day of God" had dawned.
The precise circumstances
surrounding this private communication are, in the words
of the Bahá'í authority most intimately familiar
with the records of the period, "shrouded in an
obscurity which future historians will find it difficult
to penetrate."20 The
nature of the declaration may be appreciated in various
references which Bahá'u'lláh was to make to
His mission in many of His subsequent writings:
The purpose underlying
all creation is the revelation of this most sublime,
this most holy Day, the Day known as the Day of God,
in His Books and Scriptures – the Day which all
the Prophets, and the Chosen Ones, and the holy ones,
have wished to witness.21
...this is the Day in
which mankind can behold the Face, and hear the
Voice, of the Promised One. The Call of God hath been
raised, and the light of His countenance hath been
lifted up upon men. It behooveth every man to blot
out the trace of every idle word from the tablet of
his heart, and to gaze, with an open and unbiased
mind, on the signs of His Revelation, the proofs of
His Mission, and the tokens of His glory.22
As repeatedly
emphasized in Bahá'u'lláh's exposition of the
Báb's message, the primary purpose of God in revealing
His will is to effect a transformation in the character
of humankind, to develop within those who respond the
moral and spiritual qualities that are latent within
human nature:
Beautify your tongues, O
people, with truthfulness, and adorn your souls with
the ornament of honesty. Beware, O people, that ye
deal not treacherously with any one. Be ye the
trustees of God amongst His creatures, and the
emblems of His generosity amidst His people....23
Illumine and hallow your
hearts; let them not be profaned by the thorns of
hate or the thistles of malice. Ye dwell in one
world, and have been created through the operation of
one Will. Blessed is he who mingleth with all men in
a spirit of utmost kindliness and love.24
The
aggressive proselytism that had characterized efforts in
ages past to promote the cause of religion is declared to
be unworthy of the Day of God. Each person who has
recognized the Revelation has the obligation to share it
with those who he believes are seeking, but to leave the
response entirely to his hearers:
Show forbearance and
benevolence and love to one another. Should any one
among you be incapable of grasping a certain truth,
or be striving to comprehend it, show forth, when
conversing with him, a spirit of extreme kindliness
and good-will....25
The whole duty of man in
this Day is to attain that share of the flood of
grace which God poureth forth for him. Let none,
therefore, consider the largeness or smallness of the
receptacle....26
Against the
background of the bloody events in Persia,
Bahá'u'lláh not only told His followers that
"if ye be slain, it is better for you than to
slay," but urged them to set an example of obedience
to civil authority: "In
every country where any of this people reside, they must
behave towards the government of that country with
loyalty, honesty and truthfulness."27
The
conditions surrounding Bahá'u'lláh's
departure from Baghdad provided a dramatic demonstration
of the potency of these principles. In only a few years,
a band of foreign exiles whose arrival in the area had
aroused suspicion and aversion on the part of their
neighbors had become one of the most respected and
influential segments of the population. They supported
themselves through flourishing businesses; as a group
they were admired for their generosity and the integrity
of their conduct; the lurid allegations of religious
fanaticism and violence, sedulously spread by Persian
consular officials and members of the Shi'ih Muslim
clergy, had ceased to have an effect on the public mind.
By May 3, 1863, when He rode out of Baghdad, accompanied
by His family and those of His companions and servants
who had been chosen to accompany Him to Constantinople,
Bahá'u'lláh had become an immensely popular
and cherished figure. In the days immediately preceding
the leave-taking a stream of notables, including the
Governor of the province himself, came to the garden
where He had temporarily taken up residence, many of them
from great distances, in order to pay their respects. Eyewitnesses to the departure
have described in moving terms the acclaim that greeted
Him, the tears of many of the onlookers, and the concern
of the Ottoman authorities and civil officials to do
their visitor honor.28
Chapter 5
"The Changeless
Faith of God..."
Following the
declaration of His mission in 1863,
Bahá'u'lláh began to elaborate a theme
already introduced in The Book of Certitude, the
relationship between the Will of God and the evolutionary
process by which the spiritual and moral capacities
latent in human nature find expression. This exposition
would occupy a central place in His writings over the
remaining thirty years of His life. The reality of God,
He asserts, is and will always remain unknowable.
Whatever words human thought may apply to the Divine
nature relate only to human existence and are the
products of human efforts to describe human experience:
Far, far from Thy glory
be what mortal man can affirm of Thee, or attribute
unto Thee, or the praise with which he can glorify
Thee! Whatever duty Thou hast prescribed unto Thy
servants of extolling to the utmost Thy majesty and
glory is but a token of Thy grace unto them, that
they may be enabled to ascend unto the station
conferred upon their own inmost being, the station of
the knowledge of their own selves.29
To every discerning and
illumined heart it is evident that God, the
unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely
exalted beyond every human attribute, such as
corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and
regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue
should adequately recount His praise, or that human
heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is and
hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His
Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly
hidden from the sight of men....30
What humanity
experiences in turning to the Creator of all existence
are the attributes or qualities which are associated with
God's recurring Revelations:
The door of the
knowledge of the Ancient of Days being thus closed in
the face of all beings, the Source of infinite grace,
... hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness to
appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble
form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto
all men, that they may impart unto the world the
mysteries of the unchangeable Being, and tell of the
subtleties of His imperishable Essence....31
These sanctified Mirrors
... are one and all the Exponents on earth of Him Who
is the central Orb of the universe, its Essence and
ultimate Purpose. From Him proceed their knowledge
and power; from Him is derived their sovereignty. The
beauty of their countenance is but a reflection of
His image, and their revelation a sign of His
deathless glory....32
The
Revelations of God do not differ in any essential respect
from one another, although the changing needs they serve
from age to age have called out unique responses from
each of them:
These attributes of God
are not and have never been vouchsafed specially unto
certain Prophets, and withheld from others. Nay, all
the Prophets of God, His well-favored, His holy, and
chosen Messengers, are, without exception, the
bearers of His names, and the embodiments of His
attributes. They only differ in the intensity of
their revelation, and the comparative potency of
their light....33
Students of
religion are cautioned not to permit theological dogmas
or other preconceptions to lead them into discriminating
among those whom God has used as channels of His light:
Beware, O believers in
the Unity of God, lest ye be tempted to make any
distinction between any of the Manifestations of His
Cause, or to discriminate against the signs that have
accompanied and proclaimed their Revelation. This
indeed is the true meaning of Divine Unity, if ye be
of them that apprehend and believe this truth. Be ye
assured, moreover, that the works and acts of each
and every one of these Manifestations of God, nay
whatever pertaineth unto them, and whatsoever they
may manifest in the future, are all ordained by God,
and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose....34
Bahá'u'lláh compares the interventions
of the Divine Revelations to the return of spring. The
Messengers of God are not merely teachers, although this
is one of their primary functions. Rather, the spirit of
their words, together with the example of their lives,
has the capacity to tap the roots of human motivation and
to induce fundamental and lasting change. Their influence
opens new realms of understanding and achievement:
And since there can be
no tie of direct intercourse to bind the one true God
with His creation, and no resemblance whatever can
exist between the transient and the Eternal, the
contingent and the Absolute, He hath ordained that in
every age and dispensation a pure and stainless Soul
be made manifest in the kingdoms of earth and
heaven.... Led by the light of unfailing guidance,
and invested with supreme sovereignty, They [the
Messengers of God] are commissioned to use the
inspiration of Their words, the effusions of Their
infallible grace and the sanctifying breeze of Their
Revelation for the cleansing of every longing heart
and receptive spirit from the dross and dust of
earthly cares and limitations. Then, and only then,
will the Trust of God, latent in the reality of man,
emerge ... and implant the ensign of its revealed
glory upon the summits of men's hearts.35
Without this
intervention from the world of God, human nature remains
the captive of instinct, as well as of unconscious
assumptions and patterns of behavior that have been
culturally determined:
Having
created the world and all that liveth and moveth
therein, He [God] ... chose to confer upon man the
unique distinction and capacity to know Him and to
love Him -- a capacity that must needs be regarded as
the generating impulse and the primary purpose
underlying the whole of creation.... Upon the inmost
reality of each and every created thing He hath shed
the light of one of His names, and made it a
recipient of the glory of one of His attributes. Upon
the reality of man, however, He hath focused the
radiance of all of His names and attributes, and made
it a mirror of His own Self. Alone of all created
things man hath been singled out for so great a
favor, so enduring a bounty.
These
energies with which the ... Source of heavenly
guidance hath endowed the reality of man lie,
however, latent within him, even as the flame is
hidden within the candle and the rays of light are
potentially present in the lamp. The radiance of
these energies may be obscured by worldly desires
even as the light of the sun can be concealed beneath
the dust and dross which cover the mirror. Neither
the candle nor the lamp can be lighted through their
own unaided efforts, nor can it ever be possible for
the mirror to free itself from its dross. It is clear
and evident that until a fire is kindled the lamp
will never be ignited, and unless the dross is
blotted out from the face of the mirror it can never
represent the image of the sun nor reflect its light
and glory.36
The time has
come, Bahá'u'lláh said, when humanity has
both the capacity and the opportunity to see the entire
panorama of its spiritual development as a single
process: "Peerless
is this Day, for it is as the eye to past ages and
centuries, and as a light unto the darkness of the
times."37 In this perspective, the
followers of differing religious traditions must strive
to understand what He called "the changeless
Faith of God"38 and to
distinguish its central spiritual impulse from the
changing laws and concepts that were revealed to meet the
requirements of an ever-evolving human society:
The Prophets of God
should be regarded as physicians whose task is to
foster the well-being of the world and its peoples,
that, through the spirit of oneness, they may heal
the sickness of a divided humanity.... Little wonder,
then, if the treatment prescribed by the physician in
this day should not be found to be identical with
that which he prescribed before. How could it be
otherwise when the ills affecting the sufferer
necessitate at every stage of his sickness a special
remedy? In like manner, every time the Prophets of
God have illumined the world with the resplendent
radiance of the Day Star of Divine knowledge, they
have invariably summoned its peoples to embrace the
light of God through such means as best befitted the
exigencies of the age in which they appeared....39
It is not only the heart, but
the mind, which must devote itself to this process of
discovery. Reason, Bahá'u'lláh asserts, is
God's greatest gift to the soul, "a sign of the
revelation of ... the sovereign Lord."40 Only by freeing itself from inherited dogma,
whether religious or materialistic, can the mind take up
an independent exploration of the relationship between
the Word of God and the experience of humankind. In such
a search, a major obstacle is prejudice: "Warn ... the beloved
of the one true God, not to view with too critical an eye
the sayings and writings of men. Let them rather approach
such sayings and writings in a spirit of open-mindedness
and loving sympathy."41
Chapter 6
The Manifestation of
God
What is
common to all who are devoted to one or another of the
world's religious systems is the conviction that it is
through the Divine Revelation that the soul comes in
touch with the world of God, and that it is this
relationship which gives real meaning to life. Some of
the most important passages in
Bahá'u'lláh's writings are those which
discuss at length the nature and role of those who are
the channels of this Revelation, the Messengers or
"Manifestations of God." A recurrent analogy
found in these passages is that of the physical sun.
While the latter shares certain characteristics of the
other bodies in the solar system, it differs from them in
that it is, in itself, the source of the system's
light. The planets and moons reflect light whereas the
sun emits it as an attribute inseparable from its nature.
The system revolves
around this focal point, each of its members influenced
not only by its particular composition, but by its
relationship to the source of the system's light.42
In the same
way, Bahá'u'lláh asserts, the human
personality which the Manifestation of God shares with
the rest of the race is differentiated from others in a
way that fits it to serve as the channel or vehicle for
the Revelation of God. Apparently
contradictory references to this dual station,
attributed, for example, to Christ,43 have been among the many sources of religious
confusion and dissension throughout history.
Bahá'u'lláh says on the subject:
Whatever is in the
heavens and whatever is on the earth is a direct
evidence of the revelation within it of the
attributes and names of God ... To a supreme degree
is this true of man, who, among all created things,
... hath been singled out for the glory of such
distinction. For in him are potentially revealed all
the attributes and names of God to a degree that no
other created being hath excelled or surpassed....
And of all men, the most accomplished, the most
distinguished, and the most excellent are the
Manifestations of the Sun of Truth. Nay, all else
besides these Manifestations, live by the operation
of their Will, and move and have their being through
the outpourings of their grace.44
Throughout
history, the conviction of believers that the Founder of
their own religion occupied a unique station has had the
effect of stimulating intense speculation on the nature
of the Manifestation of God. Such speculation has,
however, been severely hampered by the difficulties of
interpreting and resolving the allegorical allusions in
past scriptures. The attempt to crystallize opinion in
the form of religious dogma has been a divisive rather
than unifying force in history. Indeed, despite the
enormous energy devoted to theological pursuits – or
perhaps because of it – there are today profound
differences among Muslims as to the precise station of
Muhammad, among Christians as to that of Jesus, and among
Buddhists with respect to the Founder of their own
religion. As is all too apparent, the controversies
created by these and other differences within any one
given tradition have proven at least as acute as those
separating that tradition from its sister faiths.
Particularly
important to an understanding of
Bahá'u'lláh's teachings on the unity of
religions, therefore, are His statements about the
station of the successive Messengers of God and the
functions performed by them in the spiritual history of
humankind:
[The]
Manifestations of God have each a twofold station.
One is the station of pure abstraction and essential
unity. In this respect, if thou callest them all by
one name, and dost ascribe to them the same
attributes, thou hast not erred from the truth....
The
other station is the station of distinction, and
pertaineth to the world of creation, and to the
limitations thereof. In this respect, each
Manifestation of God hath a distinct individuality, a
definitely prescribed mission, a predestined
revelation, and specially designated limitations.
Each one of them is known by a different name, is
characterized by a special attribute, fulfills a
definite mission...
Viewed
in the light of their second station ... they
manifest absolute servitude, utter destitution, and
complete self-effacement. Even as He saith: "I
am the servant of God. I am but a man like
you."...
Were any of the
all-embracing Manifestations of God to declare:
"I am God," He, verily, speaketh the truth,
and no doubt attacheth thereto. For ... through their
Revelation, their attributes and names, the
Revelation of God, His names and His attributes, are
made manifest in the world.... And were any of them
to voice the utterance, "I am the Messenger of
God," He, also, speaketh the truth, the
indubitable truth.... Viewed in this light, they are
all but Messengers of that ideal King, that
unchangeable Essence.... And were they to say,
"We are the Servants of God," this also is
a manifest and indisputable fact. For they have been
made manifest in the uttermost state of servitude, a
servitude the like of which no man can possibly
attain....45
Thus it is that
whatsoever be their utterance, whether it pertain to
the realm of Divinity, Lordship, Prophethood,
Messengership, Guardianship, Apostleship, or
Servitude, all is true, beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Therefore these sayings ... must be attentively
considered, that the divergent utterances of the
Manifestations of the Unseen and Day Springs of
Holiness may cease to agitate the soul and perplex
the mind.46
Chapter 7
"An
Ever-Advancing Civilization"
Implicit in
these paragraphs is a perspective which represents the
most challenging feature of
Bahá'u'lláh's exposition of the function
of the Manifestation of God. Divine Revelation is, He
says, the motive power of civilization. When it occurs,
its transforming effect on the minds and souls of those
who respond to it is replicated in the new society that
slowly takes shape around their experience. A new center
of loyalty emerges that can win the commitment of peoples
from the widest range of cultures; music and the arts
seize on symbols that mediate far richer and more mature
inspirations; a radical redefinition of concepts of right
and wrong makes possible the formulation of new codes of
civil law and conduct; new institutions are conceived in
order to give expression to impulses of moral
responsibility previously ignored or unknown: "He was in the world, and
the world was made by him..."47 As the new culture evolves into a civilization,
it assimilates achievements and insights of past eras in
a multitude of fresh permutations. Features of past
cultures that cannot be incorporated atrophy or are taken
up by marginal elements among the population. The Word of
God creates new possibilities within both the individual
consciousness and human relationships.
Every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God is endowed with
such potency as can instill new life into every human
frame... All the wondrous works ye behold in this
world have been manifested through the operation of
His supreme and most exalted Will, His wondrous and
inflexible Purpose.... No sooner is this resplendent
word uttered, than its animating energies, stirring
within all created things, give birth to the means
and instruments whereby such arts can be produced and
perfected.... In the days to come, ye will, verily,
behold things of which ye have never heard before....
Every single letter proceeding out of the mouth of
God is indeed a mother letter, and every word uttered
by Him Who is the Well Spring of Divine Revelation is
a mother word....48
The sequence of the Divine
Revelations, the Báb asserts, is "a process
that hath had no beginning and will have no end."49 Although the mission of each of the
Manifestations is limited in time and in the functions it
performs, it is an integral part of an ongoing and
progressive unfoldment of God's power and will:
Contemplate with thine
inward eye the chain of successive Revelations that
hath linked the Manifestation of Adam with that of
the Báb. I testify before God that each one of these
Manifestations hath been sent down through the
operation of the Divine Will and Purpose, that each
hath been the bearer of a specific Message, that each
hath been entrusted with a divinely revealed Book...
The measure of the Revelation with which every one of
them hath been identified had been definitely
foreordained....50
Eventually,
as an ever-evolving civilization exhausts its spiritual
sources, a process of disintegration sets in, as it does
throughout the phenomenal world. Turning again to
analogies offered by nature, Bahá'u'lláh
compares this hiatus in the development of civilization
to the onset of winter. Moral vitality diminishes, as
does social cohesion. Challenges which would have been
overcome at an earlier age, or been turned into
opportunities for exploration and achievement, become
insuperable barriers. Religion loses its relevance, and
experimentation becomes increasingly fragmented, further
deepening social divisions. Increasingly, uncertainty
about the meaning and value of life generates anxiety and
confusion. Speaking about this condition in our own age
Bahá'u'lláh says:
We can well perceive how
the whole human race is encompassed with great, with
incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on
its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned.
They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have
interposed themselves between it and the Divine and
infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled
all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their
devices. They can neither discover the cause of the
disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy.
They have conceived the straight to be crooked, and
have imagined their friend an enemy.51
When each of
the Divine impulses has fulfilled itself, the process
recurs. A new Manifestation of God appears with the
fuller measure of Divine inspiration for the next stage
in the awakening and civilizing of humankind:
Consider the hour at
which the supreme Manifestation of God revealeth
Himself unto men. Ere that hour cometh, the Ancient
Being, Who is still unknown of men and hath not as
yet given utterance to the Word of God, is Himself
the All-Knower in a world devoid of any man that hath
known Him. He is indeed the Creator without a
creation.... This is indeed the Day of which it hath
been written: "Whose shall be the Kingdom this
Day?" And none can be found ready to answer! 52
Until a
section of humanity begins to respond to the new
Revelation, and a new spiritual and social paradigm
begins to take shape, people subsist spiritually and
morally on the last traces of earlier Divine endowments.
The routine tasks of society may or may not be done; laws
may be obeyed or flouted; social and political
experimentation may flame up or fail; but the roots of
faith -- without which no society can indefinitely endure
-- have been exhausted. At the "end of the
age," at the "end of the world," the
spiritually minded begin to turn again to the Creative
source. However clumsy
or disturbing the process may be, however inelegant or
unfortunate some of the options considered, such
searching is an instinctive response to the awareness
that an immense chasm has opened in the ordered life of
humankind.53 The
effects of the new Revelation, Bahá'u'lláh
says, are universal, and not limited to the life and
teachings of the Manifestation of God Who is the
Revelation's focal point. Though not understood, these
effects increasingly permeate human affairs, revealing
the contradictions in popular assumptions and in society,
and intensifying the search for understanding.
The
succession of the Manifestations is an inseparable
dimension of existence, Bahá'u'lláh declares,
and will continue throughout the life of the world: "God hath sent down His
Messengers to succeed to Moses and Jesus, and He will
continue to do so till ‘the end that hath no
end'..."54
Chapter 8
The Day of God
What does
Bahá'u'lláh hold to be the goal of the
evolution of human consciousness? In the perspective of
eternity, its purpose is that God should see, ever more
clearly, the reflection of His perfections in the mirror
of His creation, and that, in the words of
Bahá'u'lláh:
...every
man may testify, in himself, by himself, in the
station of the Manifestation of his Lord, that verily
there is no God save Him, and that every man may
thereby win his way to the summit of realities, until
none shall contemplate anything whatsoever but that
he shall see God therein.55
Within the
context of the history of civilization, the objective of
the succession of divine Manifestations has been to
prepare human consciousness for the race's unification as
a single species, indeed as a single organism capable of
taking up the responsibility for its collective future: "He Who is your Lord,
the All-Merciful," Bahá'u'lláh
says, "cherisheth in His heart the desire of
beholding the entire human race as one soul and one
body."56 Not
until humanity has accepted its organic oneness can it
meet even its immediate challenges, let alone those that
lie ahead: "The
well-being of mankind," Bahá'u'lláh
insists, "its peace and security, are
unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly
established."57 Only a
unified global society can provide its children with the
sense of inner assurance implied in one of
Bahá'u'lláh's prayers to God: "Whatever duty Thou
hast prescribed unto Thy servants of extolling to the
utmost Thy majesty and glory is but a token of Thy grace
unto them, that they may be enabled to ascend unto the
station conferred upon their own inmost being, the
station of the knowledge of their own selves."58 Paradoxically, it is only by achieving true
unity that humanity can fully cultivate its diversity and
individuality. This is
the goal which the missions of all of the Manifestations
of God known to history have served, the Day of "one
fold and one shepherd."59 Its attainment, Bahá'u'lláh says,
is the stage of civilization upon which the human race is
now entering.
One of the
most suggestive analogies to be found in the writings not
only of Bahá'u'lláh, but of the Báb before
Him, is the comparison between the evolution of the human
race and the life of the individual human being. Humanity
has moved through stages in its collective development
which are reminiscent of the periods of infancy,
childhood, and adolescence in the maturation of its
individual members. We
are now experiencing the beginnings of our collective
maturity, endowed with new capacities and opportunities
of which we as yet have only the dimmest awareness.60
Against this
background, it is not difficult to understand the primacy
given in Bahá'u'lláh's teachings to the
principle of unity. The oneness of humanity is the
leitmotif of the age now opening, the standard against
which must be tested all proposals for the betterment of
humanity. There is, Bahá'u'lláh insists, but
one human race; inherited notions that a particular
racial or ethnic group is in some way superior to the
rest of humanity are without foundation. Similarly, since
all of the Messengers of God have served as agents of the
one Divine Will, their revelations are the collective
legacy of the entire human race; each person on earth is
a legitimate heir of the whole of that spiritual
tradition. Persistence in prejudices of any kind is both
damaging to the interests of society and a violation of
the Will of God for our age:
O contending peoples and
kindreds of the earth! Set your faces towards unity,
and let the radiance of its light shine upon you.
Gather ye together, and for the sake of God resolve
to root out whatever is the source of contention
amongst you.... There can be no doubt whatever that
the peoples of the world, of whatever race or
religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly
Source, and are the subjects of one God. The
difference between the ordinances under which they
abide should be attributed to the varying
requirements and exigencies of the age in which they
were revealed. All of them, except a few which are
the outcome of human perversity, were ordained of
God, and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose.
Arise and, armed with the power of faith, shatter to
pieces the gods of your vain imaginings, the sowers
of dissension amongst you....61
The theme of
unity runs throughout Bahá'u'lláh's
writings: "The
tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one
another as strangers."62 "Consort
with the followers of all religions in a spirit of
friendliness and fellowship."63 "Ye
are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one
branch."64
The process
of humanity's coming-of-age has occurred within the
evolution of social organization. Beginning from the
family unit and its various extensions, the human race
has developed, with varying degrees of success, societies
based on the clan, the tribe, the city-state, and most
recently the nation. This progressively broader and more
complex social milieu provides human potential with both
stimulation and scope for development, and this
development, in turn, has induced ever-new modifications
of the social fabric. Humanity's coming-of-age,
therefore, must entail a total transformation of the
social order. The new society must be one capable of
embracing the entire diversity of the race and of
benefiting from the full range of talents and insights
which many thousands of years of cultural experience have
refined:
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. It is incumbent
upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their
differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide
beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and
loving-kindness.... Soon will the present-day order
be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.
Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the
Knower of things unseen.65
The chief
instrument for the transformation of society and the
achievement of world unity, Bahá'u'lláh
asserts, is the establishment of justice in the affairs
of humankind. The subject has a central place in His
teachings:
The light of men is
Justice. Quench it not with the contrary winds of
oppression and tyranny. The purpose of justice is the
appearance of unity among men. The ocean of divine
wisdom surgeth within this exalted word, while the
books of the world cannot contain its inner
significance....66
In His later
writings Bahá'u'lláh made explicit the
implications of this principle for the age of humanity's
maturity. "Women
and men have been and will always be equal in the sight
of God,"67 He
asserts, and the advancement of civilization requires
that society so organize its affairs as to give full
expression to this fact. The earth's resources are
the property of all humanity, not of any one people.
Different contributions to the common economic welfare
deserve and should receive different measures of reward
and recognition, but the extremes of wealth and poverty
which afflict most nations on earth, regardless of the
socio-economic philosophies they profess, must be
abolished.
Chapter 9
Announcement to the
Kings
The writings
which have been quoted in the foregoing were revealed,
for the most part, in conditions of renewed persecution.
Soon after the exiles' arrival in Constantinople, it
became apparent that the honors showered upon
Bahá'u'lláh during His journey from Baghdad
had represented only a brief interlude. The Ottoman authorities'
decision to move the "Bábí" leader and His
companions to the capital of the empire rather than to
some remote province deepened the alarm among the
representatives of the Persian government.68 Fearing that the developments in Baghdad would
be repeated, and might attract this time not only the
sympathy but perhaps even the allegiance of influential
figures in the Turkish government, the Persian ambassador
pressed insistently for the dispatch of the exiles to
some more distant part of the empire. His argument was
that the spread of a new religious message in the capital
could produce political as well as religious
repercussions.
Initially,
the Ottoman government strongly resisted. The chief
minister, ‘Alí Páshá, had indicated to Western
diplomats his belief that Bahá'u'lláh was
"a man of great distinction, exemplary conduct,
great moderation, and a most dignified figure." His teachings were, in the
minister's opinion, "worthy of high esteem"
because they counteracted the religious animosities
dividing the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim subjects of
the empire.69
Gradually,
however, a degree of resentment and suspicion developed.
In the Ottoman capital, political and economic power was
in the hands of court functionaries who, with but few
exceptions, were persons of little or no competence.
Venality was the oil on which the machinery of government
operated, and the capital was a magnet for a horde of
people who flocked there from every part of the empire
and beyond, seeking favors and influence. It was expected
that any prominent figure from another country or from
one of the tribute territories would, immediately upon
arrival in Constantinople, join the throngs of
patronage-seekers in the reception rooms of the pashas
and ministers of the imperial court. No element had a
worse reputation than the competing groups of Persian
political exiles who were known for both their
sophistication and their lack of scruple.
To the
distress of friends who urged Him to make use of the
prevailing hostility toward the Persian government and of
the sympathy which His own sufferings had aroused,
Bahá'u'lláh made it clear that He had no
requests to make. Although several government ministers
made social calls at the residence assigned to Him, he
did not take advantage of these openings. He was in
Constantinople, He said, as the guest of the Sultan, at
his invitation, and His interest lay in spiritual and
moral concerns.
Many years later, the Persian
ambassador, Mírzá Husayn Khán, reflecting on his tour
of duty in the Ottoman capital, and complaining about the
damage which the greed and untrustworthiness of his
countrymen had done to Persia's reputation in
Constantinople, paid a surprisingly candid tribute to the
example which Bahá'u'lláh's conduct had been
able briefly to set.70 At the
time, however, he and his colleagues made use of the
situation to represent it as an astute way on the
exile's part of concealing secret conspiracies
against public security and the religion of the State.
Under pressure of these influences, the Ottoman
authorities finally took the decision to transfer
Bahá'u'lláh and His family to the provincial
city of Adrianople. The move was made hastily, in the
depth of an extremely severe winter. Housed there in
inadequate buildings, lacking suitable clothing and other
provisions, the exiles endured a year of great suffering.
It was clear that, though charged with no crime and given
no opportunity to defend themselves, they had arbitrarily
been made state prisoners.
From the
point of view of religious history, the successive
banishments of Bahá'u'lláh to Constantinople
and Adrianople have a striking symbolism. For the first
time, a Manifestation of God, Founder of an independent
religious system which was soon to spread throughout the
planet, had crossed the narrow neck of water separating
Asia from Europe, and had set foot in "the
West." All of the other great religions had arisen
in Asia and the ministries of their Founders had been
confined to that continent. Referring to the fact that
the dispensations of the past, and particularly those of
Abraham, Christ, and Muhammad, had produced their most
important effects on the development of civilization
during the course of their westward expansion,
Bahá'u'lláh predicted that the same thing
would occur in this new age, but on a vastly larger
scale: "In
the East the Light of His Revelation hath broken; in the
West the signs of His dominion have appeared. Ponder this
in your hearts, O people..."71
It is then
perhaps not surprising that Bahá'u'lláh chose
this moment to make public the mission which had been
slowly enlisting the allegiance of the followers of the
Báb throughout the Middle East. His announcement took
the form of a series of statements which are among the
most remarkable documents in religious history. In them,
the Manifestation of God addresses the "Kings and
Rulers of the world," announcing to them the dawning
of the Day of God, alluding to the as yet inconceivable
changes which were gathering momentum throughout the
world, and calling on them as the trustees of God and of
their fellow human beings to arise and serve the process
of the unification of the human race. Because of the
veneration in which they were held by the mass of their
subjects, and because of the absolute nature of the rule
which most of them exercised, it lay in their power, He
said, to assist in bringing about what He called the "Most
Great Peace," a world order characterized by
unity and animated by Divine justice.
Only with the
greatest difficulty can the modern reader envision the
moral and intellectual world in which these monarchs of a
century ago lived. From their biographies and private
correspondence, it is apparent that, with few exceptions,
they were personally devout, taking a leading part in the
spiritual life of their respective nations, often as the
heads of the state religions, and convinced of the
unerring truths of the Bible or the Qur'an. The
power which most of them wielded they attributed directly
to the divine authority of passages in these same
Scriptures, an authority about which they were vigorously
articulate. They were the anointed of God. Prophecies of
"the Latter Days" and "the Kingdom of
God" were not for them myth or allegory, but
certainties upon which all moral order rested and in
which they would themselves be called on by God to give
an account of their stewardship.
The letters
of Bahá'u'lláh address themselves to this
mental world:
O Kings of the earth! He
Who is the sovereign Lord of all is come. The Kingdom
is God's, the omnipotent Protector, the
Self-Subsisting.... This is a Revelation to which
whatever ye possess can never be compared, could ye
but know it....
Take heed lest pride deter you from
recognizing the Source of Revelation, lest the things
of this world shut you out as by a veil from Him Who
is the Creator of heaven....
By the righteousness of God! It is not
Our wish to lay hands on your kingdoms. Our mission
is to seize and possess the hearts of men....72
Know ye that the poor
are the trust of God in your midst. Watch that ye
betray not His trust, that ye deal not unjustly with
them and that ye walk not in the ways of the
treacherous. Ye will most certainly be called upon to
answer for His trust on the day when the Balance of
Justice shall be set, the day when unto every one
shall be rendered his due, when the doings of all
men, be they rich or poor, shall be weighed....
Examine Our Cause, inquire into the
things that have befallen Us, and decide justly
between Us and Our enemies, and be ye of them that
act equitably towards their neighbor. If ye stay not
the hand of the oppressor, if ye fail to safeguard
the rights of the downtrodden, what right have ye
then to vaunt yourselves among men?73
If ye pay no heed unto
the counsels which ... We have revealed in this
Tablet, Divine chastisement shall assail you from
every direction, and the sentence of His justice
shall be pronounced against you. On that day ye shall
have no power to resist Him, and shall recognize your
own impotence....74
The vision of
the "Most Great Peace" evoked no response from
the rulers of the nineteenth century. Nationalistic
aggrandizement and imperial expansion recruited not only
kings but parliamentarians, academics, artists,
newspapers, and the major religious establishments as
eager propagandists of Western triumphalism. Proposals
for social change, however disinterested and idealistic,
quickly fell captive to a swarm of new ideologies thrown
up by the rising tide of dogmatic materialism. In the
Orient, mesmerized by its own claims to represent all
that humanity ever could or would know of God and truth,
the Islamic world sank steadily deeper into ignorance,
lethargy, and a sullen hostility to a human race which
failed to acknowledge this spiritual preeminence.
Chapter 10
Arrival in the Holy
Land
Given the
earlier events in Baghdad, it seems surprising that the
Ottoman authorities did not anticipate what would result
from the establishment of Bahá'u'lláh in
another major provincial capital. Within a year of His
arrival in Adrianople, their prisoner had attracted first
the interest and then the fervent admiration of figures
prominent in both the intellectual and administrative
life of the region. To the dismay of the Persian consular
representatives, two of the most devoted of these
admirers were Khurshíd Páshá, the Governor of the
province, and the Shaykhu'l-Islám, the leading
Sunni religious dignitary. In the eyes of His hosts and the public
generally, the exile was a moral philosopher and saint
the validity of whose teachings was reflected not only in
the example of His own life but in the changes they
effected among the flood of Persian pilgrims who flocked
to this remote center of the Ottoman Empire in order to
visit Him.75
These
unanticipated developments convinced the Persian
ambassador and his colleagues that it was only a matter
of time before the Bahá'í movement, which was
continuing to spread in Persia, would have established
itself as a major influence in Persia's neighboring and
rival empire. Throughout this period of its history, the
ramshackle Ottoman Empire was struggling against repeated
incursions by Tsarist Russia, uprisings among its subject
peoples, and persis- tent attempts by the ostensibly
sympathetic British and Austrian governments to detach
various Turkish territories and incorporate them into
their own empires. These unstable political conditions in
Turkey's European provinces offered new and urgent
arguments supporting the ambassador's appeal that the
exiles be sent to a distant colony where
Bahá'u'lláh would have no further contact
with influential circles, whether Turkish or Western.
When the
Turkish foreign minister, Fu'ád Páshá, returned
from a visit to Adrianople, his astonished reports of the
reputation which Bahá'u'lláh had come to
enjoy throughout the region appeared to lend credibility
to the Persian embassy's suggestions. In this climate of
opinion, the government abruptly decided to subject its
guest to strict confinement. Without warning, early one
day, Bahá'u'lláh's house was surrounded by
soldiers, and the exiles were ordered to prepare for
departure to an unknown destination.
The place
chosen for this final banishment was the grim
fortress-town of ‘Akká (Acre) on the coast of the
Holy Land. Notorious throughout the empire for the
foulness of its climate and the prevalence of many
diseases, ‘Akká was a penal colony used by the
Ottoman State for the incarceration of dangerous
criminals who could be expected not to survive too long
their imprisonment there. Arriving in August 1868,
Bahá'u'lláh, the members of His family, and a
company of His followers who had been exiled with Him
were to experience two years of suffering and abuse
within the fortress itself, and then be confined under
house arrest to a nearby building owned by a local
merchant. For a long time the exiles were shunned by the
superstitious local populace who had been warned in
public sermons against "the God of the
Persians," who was depicted as an enemy of public
order and the purveyor of blasphemous and immoral ideas. Several members of the small
group of exiles died of the privations and other
conditions to which they were subjected.76
It seems, in
retrospect, the keenest irony that the selection of the
Holy Land as the place of Bahá'u'lláh's
forced confinement should have been the result of
pressure from ecclesiastical and civil enemies whose aim
was to extinguish His religious influence. Palestine,
revered by three of the great monotheistic religions as
the point where the worlds of God and of man intersect,
held then, as it had for thousands of years, a unique
place in human expectation. Only a few weeks before
Bahá'u'lláh's arrival, the main leadership of
the German Protestant Templer movement sailed from Europe
to establish at the foot of Mount Carmel a colony that
would welcome Christ, whose advent they believed to be
imminent. Over the
lintels of several of the small houses they erected,
facing across the bay to Bahá'u'lláh's prison
at ‘Akká, can still be seen such carved
inscriptions as "Der Herr ist nahe" ("The
Lord is near").77
In
‘Akká, Bahá'u'lláh continued the
dictation of a series of letters to individual rulers,
which He had begun in Adrianople. Several contained
warnings of the judgment of God on their negligence and
misrule, warnings whose dramatic fulfillment aroused
intense public discussion throughout the Near East. Less
than two months after the exiles arrived in the
prison-city, for example, Fu'ád Páshá, the
Ottoman foreign minister, whose misrepresentations had
helped precipitate the banishment, was abruptly dismissed
from his post and died in France of a heart attack. The event was marked by a
statement which predicted the early dismissal of his
colleague, Prime Minister ‘Alí Páshá, the
overthrow and death of the Sultan, and the loss of
Turkish territories in Europe, a series of disasters
which followed on the heels of one another.78
A letter to Emperor Napoleon III
warned that, because of his insincerity and the misuse of
his power: "...thy kingdom shall be thrown into
confusion, and thine empire shall pass from thine hands,
as a punishment for that which thou hast wrought.... Hath
thy pomp made thee proud? By My life! It shall not
endure..."79 Of the
disastrous Franco-Prussian War and the resulting
overthrow of Napoleon III, which occurred less than a
year after this statement, Alistair Horne, a modern
scholar of nineteenth century French political history
has written:
History knows of perhaps no
more startling instance of what the Greeks called peripateia,
the terrible fall from prideful heights. Certainly no
nation in modern times, so replete with apparent
grandeur and opulent in material achievement, has
ever been subjected to a worse humiliation in so
short a time.80
Only a few
months before the unexpected series of events in Europe
that led to the invasion of the Papal States and the
annexation of Rome by the forces of the new Kingdom of
Italy, a statement addressing Pope Pius IX had urged the
Pontiff "Abandon
thy kingdom unto the kings, and emerge from thy
habitation, with thy face set towards the Kingdom... Be
as thy Lord hath been.... Verily, the day of ingathering
is come, and all things have been separated from each
other. He hath stored away that which He chose in the
vessels of justice, and cast into the fire that which
befitteth it...."81
Wilhelm I,
King of Prussia, whose armies had won such a sweeping
victory in the Franco-Prussian War, had been warned by
Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas to
heed the example of the fall of Napoleon III and of other
rulers who had been victorious in war, and not to allow
pride to keep him back from recognizing this Revelation.
That Bahá'u'lláh foresaw the failure of the
German Emperor to respond to this warning is shown by the
ominous passage which appears later in that same Book:
O banks of the Rhine! We
have seen you covered with gore, inasmuch as the
swords of retribution were drawn against you; and you
shall have another turn. And We hear the lamentations
of Berlin, though she be today in conspicuous glory.82
A strikingly different note
characterizes two of the major pronouncements, that
addressed to Queen Victoria83 and another to the "Rulers of America and
the Presidents of the Republics therein." The former
praises the pioneering achievement represented by the
abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire, and
commends the principle of representative government. The
latter, which opens with the announcement of the Day of
God, concludes with a summons, a virtual mandate, that
has no parallel in any of the other messages: "Bind ye the broken
with the hands of justice, and crush the oppressor who
flourisheth with the rod of the commandments of your
Lord, the Ordainer, the All-Wise."84
Chapter 11
Religion as Light and
Darkness
Bahá'u'lláh's severest
condemnation is reserved for the barriers which,
throughout history, organized religion has erected
between humanity and the Revelations of God. Dogmas,
inspired by popular superstition and perfected by
misspent intelligence, have repeatedly been imposed on a
Divine process whose purpose has at all times been
spiritual and moral. Laws of social interaction, revealed
for the purpose of consolidating community life, have
been made the basis for structures of arcane doctrine and
practice which have burdened the masses whose benefit
they were supposed to serve. Even the exercise of
intellect, the chief tool possessed by the human race,
has been deliberately hampered, producing an eventual
breakdown in the dialogue between faith and science upon
which civilized life depends.
The
consequence of this sorry record is the worldwide
disrepute into which religion has fallen. Worse,
organized religion has become itself a most virulent
cause of hatred and warfare among the peoples of the
world. "Religious
fanaticism and hatred," Bahá'u'lláh
warned over a century ago, "are a world-
devouring fire, whose violence none can quench. The Hand
of Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this
desolating affliction."85
Those whom
God will hold responsible for this tragedy,
Bahá'u'lláh says, are humanity's religious
leaders, who have presumed to speak for Him throughout
history. Their attempts to make the Word of God a private
preserve, and its exposition a means for personal
aggrandizement, have been the greatest single handicap
against which the advancement of civilization has
struggled. In the pursuit of their ends, many of them
have not hesitated to raise their hands against the
Messengers of God themselves, at their advent:
Leaders of religion, in
every age, have hindered their people from attaining
the shores of eternal salvation, inasmuch as they
held the reins of authority in their mighty grasp.
Some for the lust of leadership, others through want
of knowledge and understanding, have been the cause
of the deprivation of the people. By their sanction
and authority, every Prophet of God hath drunk from
the chalice of sacrifice...86
In an address
to the clergy of all faiths, Bahá'u'lláh
warns of the responsibility which they have so carelessly
assumed in history:
Ye are even as a spring.
If it be changed, so will the streams that branch out
from it be changed. Fear God, and be numbered with
the godly. In like manner, if the heart of man be
corrupted, his limbs will also be corrupted. And
similarly, if the root of a tree be corrupted, its
branches, and its offshoots, and its leaves, and its
fruits, will be corrupted. 87
These same
statements, revealed at a time when religious orthodoxy
was one of the major powers throughout the world,
declared that this power had effectively ended, and that
the ecclesiastical caste has no further social role in
world history: "O
concourse of divines! Ye shall not henceforward behold
yourselves possessed of any power..."88 To a particularly vindictive opponent among the
Muslim clergy, Bahá'u'lláh said: "Thou art even as the
last trace of sunlight upon the mountaintop. Soon will it
fade away as decreed by God, the All-Possessing, the Most
High. Thy glory and the glory of such as are like thee
have been taken away..."89
It is not the
organization of religious activity which these statements
address, but the misuse of such resources.
Bahá'u'lláh's writings are generous in their
appreciation not only of the great contribution which
organized reli- gion has brought to civilization, but
also of the benefits which the world has derived from the
self-sacrifice and love of humanity that have
characterized clergymen and religious orders of all
faiths:
Those divines ... who
are truly adorned with the ornament of knowledge and
of a goodly character are, verily, as a head to the
body of the world, and as eyes to the nations....90
Rather, the
challenge to all people, believers and unbelievers,
clergy and laymen alike, is to recognize the consequences
now being visited upon the world as the result of the
universal corruption of the religious impulse. In the
prevailing alienation of humanity from God over the past
century, a relationship on which the fabric of moral life
itself depends has broken down. Natural faculties of the
rational soul, vital to the development and maintenance
of human values, have become universally discounted:
The vitality of
men's belief in God is dying out in every land;
nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever
restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating
into the vitals of human society; what else but the
Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and
revive it?... The Word of God, alone, can claim the
distinction of being endowed with the capacity
required for so great and far-reaching a change.91
Chapter 12
World Peace
In the light
of subsequent events, the warnings and appeals of
Bahá'u'lláh's writings during this period
take on a terrible poignancy:
O ye the elected
representatives of the people in every land!...
Regard the world as the human body which, though at
its creation whole and perfect, hath been afflicted,
through various causes, with grave disorders and
maladies. Not for one day did it gain ease, nay its
sickness waxed more severe, as it fell under the
treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave full rein
to their personal desires...
We behold it, in this
day, at the mercy of rulers so drunk with pride that
they cannot discern clearly their own best advantage,
much less recognize a Revelation so bewildering and
challenging as this....92
This is the Day whereon
the earth shall tell out her tidings. The workers of
iniquity are her burdens, could ye but perceive
it....93
All men have been
created to carry forward an ever-advancing
civilization. The Almighty beareth Me witness: To act
like the beasts of the field is unworthy of man.
Those virtues that befit his dignity are forbearance,
mercy, compassion and loving-kindness towards all the
peoples and kindreds of the earth....94
A new life is, in this
age, stirring within all the peoples of the earth;
and yet none hath discovered its cause or perceived
its motive. Consider the peoples of the West. Witness
how, in their pursuit of that which is vain and
trivial, they have sacrificed, and are still
sacrificing, countless lives for the sake of its
establishment and promotion....95
In all matters
moderation is desirable. If a thing is carried to
excess, it will prove a source of evil.... Strange
and astonishing things exist in the earth but they
are hidden from the minds and the understanding of
men. These things are capable of changing the whole
atmosphere of the earth and their contamination would
prove lethal....96
In later
writings, including those addressed to humanity
collectively, Bahá'u'lláh urged the adoption
of steps toward what He called the "Great
Peace." These, He said, would mitigate the
sufferings and dislocation which He saw lying ahead of
the human race until the world's peoples embrace the
Revelation of God and through it bring about the Most
Great Peace:
The time must come when
the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast,
an all-embracing assemblage of men will be
universally realized. The rulers and kings of the
earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its
deliberations, must consider such ways and means as
will lay the foundations of the world's Great
Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the
Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the
tranquility of the peoples of the earth, to be fully
reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up
arms against another, all should unitedly arise and
prevent him. If this be done, the nations of the
world will no longer require any armaments, except
for the purpose of preserving the security of their
realms and of maintaining internal order within their
territories.... The day is approaching when all the
peoples of the world will have adopted one universal
language and one common script. When this is
achieved, to whatsoever city a man may journey, it
shall be as if he were entering his own home.... That
one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to
the service of the entire human race.... It is not
for him to pride himself who loveth his own country,
but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The
earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.97
Chapter 13
"Not of Mine Own
Volition"
In His letter
to Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, the ruler of Persia, which
refrains from any rebuke concerning His imprisonment in
the Síyáh-Chál and the other injustices He had
experienced at the king's hand,
Bahá'u'lláh speaks of His own role in the
Divine Plan:
I was but a man like
others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of
the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me
the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is
not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and
All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between
earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what
hath caused the tears of every man of understanding
to flow. The learning current amongst men I studied
not; their schools I entered not. Ask of the city
wherein I dwelt, that thou mayest be well assured
that I am not of them who speak falsely.98
The mission to which He had
devoted His entire life, which had cost Him the life of a
cherished younger son,99 as well
as all of His material, possessions which had undermined
His health, and brought imprisonment, exile, and abuse,
was not one that He had initiated. "Not of Mine
own volition," He said, had He entered on such
a course:
Think ye, O people,
that I hold within My grasp the control of God's
ultimate Will and Purpose?... Had the ultimate
destiny of God's Faith been in Mine hands, I would
have never consented, even though for one moment, to
manifest Myself unto you, nor would I have allowed
one word to fall from My lips. Of this God Himself
is, verily, a witness.100
Having
surrendered unreservedly to God's summons, He was
equally in no doubt about the role which He had been
called upon to play in human history. As the Manifestation of God to
the age of fulfillment, He is the one promised in all the
scriptures of the past, the "Desire of all
nations," the "King of Glory." To Judaism
He is "Lord of Hosts"; to Christianity, the
Return of Christ in the glory of the Father; to Islam,
the "Great Announcement"; to Buddhism, the
Maitreya Buddha; to Hinduism, the new incarnation of
Krishna; to Zoroastrianism, the advent of
"Shah-Bahram."101
Like the
Manifestations of God gone before Him, He is both the
Voice of God and its human channel: "When I contemplate, O my God, the
relationship that bindeth me to Thee, I am moved to
proclaim to all created things ‘verily I am
God!'; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find
it coarser than clay!"102
"Certain ones among
you," He declared, "have said:
‘He it is Who hath laid claim to be God.' By
God! This is a gross calumny. I am but a servant of God
Who hath believed in Him and in His signs... My tongue,
and My heart, and My inner and My outer being testify
that there is no God but Him, that all others have been
created by His behest, and been fashioned through the
operation of His Will.... I am He that telleth abroad the
favors with which God hath, through His bounty, favored
Me. If this be My transgression, then I am truly the
first of the transgressors...."103
Bahá'u'lláh's writings seize upon
a host of metaphors in their attempt to express the
paradox that lies at the heart of the phenomenon of God's
Revelation of His Will:
I am the royal Falcon
on the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping
wings of every broken bird and start it on its
flight.104
This is but a leaf
which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the
Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred. Can it be
still when the tempestuous winds are blowing? Nay, by
Him Who is the Lord of all Names and Attributes! They
move it as they list....105
Chapter 14
The Covenant of God
with Humankind
In June 1877,
Bahá'u'lláh at last emerged from the strict
confinement of the prison-city of ‘Akká, and moved
with His family to "Mazra'ih", a small
estate a few miles north of the city.106 As had been predicted in His statement to the
Turkish government, Sultán ‘Abdu'l-‘Azíz
had been overthrown and assassinated in a palace coup,
and gusts from the winds of political change sweeping the
world were beginning to invade even the shuttered
precincts of the Ottoman imperial system. After a brief two-year stay at
Mazra'ih, Bahá'u'lláh moved to
"Bahjí", a large mansion surrounded by
gardens, which His son ‘Abdu'l-Bahá had rented
for Him and the members of His extended family.107 The remaining twelve years of His life were
devoted to His writings on a wide range of spiritual and
social issues, and to receiving a stream of Bahá'í
pilgrims who made their way, with great difficulty, from
Persia and other lands.
Throughout
the Near and Middle East the nucleus of a community life
was beginning to take shape among those who had accepted
His message. For its
guidance, Bahá'u'lláh had revealed a system
of laws and institutions designed to give practical
effect to the principles in His writings.108 Authority was vested in councils democratically
elected by the whole community, provisions were made to
exclude the possibility of a clerical elite arising, and
principles of consultation and group decision making were
established.
At the heart
of this system was what Bahá'u'lláh termed a
"new Covenant" between God and humankind. The
distinguishing feature of humanity's coming of age
is that, for the first time in its history, the entire
human race is consciously involved, however dimly, in the
awareness of its own oneness and of the earth as a single
homeland. This awakening opens the way to a new
relationship between God and humankind. As the peoples of
the world embrace the spiritual authority inherent in the
guidance of the Revelation of God for this age,
Bahá'u'lláh said, they will find in
themselves a moral empowerment which human effort alone
has proven incapable of generating. "A new race of men"109 will emerge as the result of this relationship,
and the work of building a global civilization will
begin. The mission of the Bahá'í community was to
demonstrate the efficacy of this Covenant in healing the
ills that divide the human race.
Bahá'u'lláh died at Bahjí on May 29,
1892, in His seventy-fifth year. At the time of His
passing, the cause entrusted to Him forty years earlier
in the darkness of Teheran's Black Pit was poised to
break free of the Islamic lands where it had taken shape,
and to establish itself first across America and Europe
and then throughout the world. In doing so, it would
itself become a vindication of the promise of the new
Covenant between God and humankind. For alone of all the
world's independent religions, the Bahá'í
Faith and its community of believers were to pass
successfully through the critical first century of their
existence with their unity firmly intact, undamaged by
the age-old blight of schism and faction. Their
experience offers compelling evidence for
Bahá'u'lláh's assurance that the human
race, in all its diversity, can learn to live and work as
one people, in a common global homeland.
Just two
years before His death, Bahá'u'lláh received
at Bahjí one of the few Westerners to meet Him, and the
only one to leave a written account of the experience.
The visitor was Edward Granville Browne, a rising young
orientalist from Cambridge University, whose attention
had originally been attracted by the dramatic history of
the Báb and His heroic band of followers. Of his meeting
with Bahá'u'lláh, Browne wrote:
Though I dimly suspected
whither I was going and whom I was to behold (for no
distinct intimation had been given to me), a second
or two elapsed ere, with a throb of wonder and awe, I
became definitely conscious that the room was not
untenanted. In the corner where the divan met the
wall sat a wondrous and venerable figure... The face of him on whom I gazed I can never
forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing
eyes seemed to read one's very soul; power and
authority sat on that ample brow... No need to ask in
whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one
who is the object of a devotion and love which kings
might envy and emperors sigh for in vain! A mild
dignified voice bade me be seated, and then
continued: — "Praise be to God that
thou hast attained!...Thou hast come to see a
prisoner and an exile...We desire but the good of the
world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem
us a stirrer up of strife and sedition worthy of
bondage and banishment...That all nations should
become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the
bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men
should be strengthened; that diversity of religion
should cease, and differences of race be annulled
— what harm is there in this?...Yet so it shall
be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall
pass away, and the ‘Most great Peace' shall
come..."110
Chapter 15
Notes
1.
Bahá'u'lláh ("Glory of God") was
born Husayn-‘Alí. The authoritative work on the
missions of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh is
Shoghi Effendi's God Passes By (Wilmette:
Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1987). For a biographical
study see Hasan Balyuzi's Bahá'u'lláh:
The King of Glory (Oxford: George Ronald, 1980).
Bahá'u'lláh's writings are extensively
reviewed in Adib Taherzadeh's The Revelation of
Bahá'u'lláh (Oxford: George Ronald,
1975), four volumes.
2. Britannica
Yearbook, 1988, indicates that, although the
Bahá'í community numbers only about five million
members, the Faith has already become the most widely
diffused religion on earth, after Christianity. There are
today 155 Bahá'í National Assemblies in
independent countries and major territories of the globe,
and more than 17,000 elected Assemblies functioning at
the local level. It is estimated that 2,112 nationalities
and tribes are represented.
3. Arnold Toynbee, A
Study of History, Vol. VIII (London: Oxford, 1954),
p. 117.
4. The Báb
("Gate" or "Door") was born Siyyid
‘Alí-Muhammad in Shiraz, October 20, 1819.
5. Passages in the
Báb's writings which refer to the advent of "Him
Whom God will make manifest" include cryptic
references to "the year Nine" and "the
year Nineteen" (i.e., roughly 1852 and 1863,
calculating in lunar years from the year of the
Báb's inauguration of His mission, 1844). On
several occasions the Báb also indicated to certain of
His followers that they would themselves come to
recognize and serve "Him Whom God will make
manifest."
6. The proclamation of
the Báb's message had been carried out in mosques
and public places by enthusiastic bands of followers,
many of them young seminarians. The Muslim clergy had
replied by inciting mob violence. Unfortunately, these
events coincided with a political crisis created by the
death of Muhammad Sháh and a struggle over the
succession. It was the leaders of the successful
political faction, behind the boy-king
Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, who then turned the royal army
against the Bábí enthusiasts. The latter, raised in a
Muslim frame of reference, and believing that they had a
moral right to self-defense, barricaded themselves in
makeshift shelters and withstood long, bloody sieges.
When they had eventually been overcome and slaughtered,
and the Báb had been executed, two deranged Bábí youth
stopped the Sháh in a public road and fired birdshot at
him, in an ill-conceived attempt at assassination. It was
this incident which provided the excuse for the worst of
the massacres of Bábís which evoked protests from
Western embassies. For an account of the period see W.
Hatcher and D. Martin, The Bahá'í Faith: The
Emerging Global Religion (San Francisco: Harper and
Row, 1985), pp. 6-32.
7. For an account of
these events see God Passes By, chapters I-V.
Western interest in the Bábí movement was aroused,
particularly, by the publication in 1865 of Joseph Arthur
Comte de Gobineau's Les religions et les
philosophies dans l'Asie centrale (Paris:
Didier, 1865).
8.
Bahá'u'lláh, Epistle to the Son of the
Wolf (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing
Trust, 1979), pp. 20-21.
9. A number of Western
diplomatic and military observers have left harrowing
accounts of what they witnessed. Several formal protests
were registered with the Persian authorities. See Moojan
Momen, The Bábí and Bahá'í Religions,
1844-1944 (Oxford: George Ronald, 1981).
10. Epistle,
p. 21.
11. Epistle,
p. 22.
12. There was,
understandably, great suspicion in Persia about the
intentions of the British and Russian governments, both
of which had long interfered in Persian affairs.
13. The focal point of
these problems was one Mírzá Yahyá, a younger
half-brother of Bahá'u'lláh. While still a
youth and under the guidance of Bahá'u'lláh
Yahyá had been appointed by the Báb as nominal head of
the Bábí community, pending the imminent advent of "Him
Whom God will make manifest." Falling under the
influence of a former Muslim theologian, Siyyid Muhammad
Isfahání, however, Yahyá gradually became estranged
from his brother. Rather than being expressed openly,
this resentment found its outlet in clandestine
agitation, which had a disastrous effect on the exiles'
already low morale. Yahyá eventually refused to accept
Bahá'u'lláh's declaration, and played no
role in the development of the Bahá'í Faith which
this declaration initiated.
14.
Bahá'u'lláh, The Book of Certitude
(Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1985),
p. 251.
15.
Bahá'u'lláh, The Hidden Words of
Bahá'u'lláh (Wilmette, Ill.:
Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1985), Arabic 2 on pp.
3-4, Arabic 5 on p. 4, Arabic 35 on p. 12, Arabic 12 on
p. 6.
Except where the context
makes it obvious, the conventional use of the English
word "man" translates the concept of
"humanity".
16. Certitude,
pp. 3-4, pp. 195-200.
17. Cited in God
Passes By, p. 137.
18. Quotation from
Prince Zaynu'l-‘Ábidín Khán, God Passes
By, p. 135.
19. See Note 68 below.
20. God Passes By,
p. 153. Increasingly, after 1863, the word
"Bahá'í" replaced "Bábí" as
the designation for the new faith, marking the fact that
an entirely new religion had emerged.
21. Cited in Shoghi
Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice (Wilmette,
Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1984), p. 77.
22.
Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings
of Bahá'u'lláh (Wilmette, Ill.:
Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1983), pp. 10-11.
23. Gleanings,
p. 297.
24. Gleanings,
p. 334.
25. Gleanings,
p. 8.
26. Gleanings,
p. 8.
27. The two statements
quoted may be found cited by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá in
J. E. Esslemont, Bahá'u'lláh and the New
Era (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing Trust
1987), p. 170 and Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh
Revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Haifa:
Bahá'í World Centre, 1982), pp. 22-23,
respectively.
28. God Passes By,
pp. 127-57, gives an account of these events.
29. Gleanings,
pp. 4-5.
30. Certitude,
p. 98.
31. Certitude,
p. 99.
32. Certitude,
pp. 99-100.
33. Certitude,
pp. 103-4.
34. Gleanings,
p. 59.
35. Gleanings,
pp. 66-67.
36. Gleanings,
pp. 65-66.
37. Cited in Advent
of Divine Justice, p. 79.
38. Gleanings,
p. 136.
39. Gleanings,
p. 80.
40. Gleanings,
p. 164.
41. Gleanings,
p. 329.
42. For a detailed
exposition of this subject see ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, Some
Answered Questions (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í
Publishing Trust, 1970), pp. 163-201.
43. Examples, in the
words of Jesus, are "Why callest thou me good?
There is none good but one, that is, God..."
(Matthew 19:17); "I and my Father are one."
(John 10:30)
44. Gleanings,
pp. 177-79.
45. Gleanings,
pp. 54, 55.
46. Gleanings,
p. 56.
47. New Testament,
John 1:10.
48. Gleanings,
pp. 141-42.
49. Cited in Shoghi
Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh:
Selected Letters (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í
Publishing Trust, 1982), p. 117.
50. Gleanings,
p. 74. In the Bahá'í writings the term
"Adam" is used symbolically in two different
senses. The one refers to the emergence of the human
race, while the other designates the first of the
Manifestations of God.
51. Gleanings,
p. 213.
52. Gleanings,
p. 151.
53. See
Bahá'u'lláh, The Seven Valleys and The
Four Valleys (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í
Publishing Trust, 1986), pp. 6-7: "Yea, although
to the wise it be shameful to seek the Lord of Lords in
the dust, yet this betokeneth intense ardor in
searching."
54. Cited in The
World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 116.
55. Seven Valleys,
pp. 1-2.
56. Gleanings,
p. 214.
57. Gleanings,
p. 286.
58. Gleanings,
pp. 4-5.
59. New Testament,
John 10:16.
60. For elaboration on
the subject of Bahá'u'lláh's teachings
on the process of the maturation of the human race, see World
Order of Bahá'u'lláh, pp. 162-63, 202.
61. Gleanings,
p. 217.
62. Tablets,
p. 164.
63. Gleanings,
p. 95.
64. Tablets,
p. 164.
65. Gleanings,
pp. 6-7.
66. Tablets,
pp. 66-67.
67. Women:
Extracts from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh,
‘Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi and the Universal
House of Justice (Thornhill, Ontario: Bahá'í
Publications Canada, 1986), p. 26.
68. A combination of
unusual circumstances had made the central authorities in
Constantinople especially sympathetic to
Bahá'u'lláh, and resistant to pressure from
the Persian government. The governor of Baghdad, Namíq
Páshá, had written enthusiastically to the capital
about both the character and influence of the
distinguished Persian exile. Sultan
‘Abdu'l-‘Azíz found the reports
intriguing because, although he was Caliph of Sunni
Islam, he considered himself a mystical seeker. Equally
important, in another way, was the reaction of his chief
minister, Alí Páshá. To the latter, who was an
accomplished student of Persian language and literature
as well as a would-be modernizer of the Turkish
administration, Bahá'u'lláh seemed a highly
sympathetic figure. It was no doubt this combination of
sympathy and interest which led the Ottoman government to
invite Bahá'u'lláh to the capital rather than
send Him to a more remote center or deliver Him to the
Persian authorities, as the latter were urging.
69. For the full text
of the report of the Austrian ambassador, Count von
Prokesch-Osten, in a letter to the Comte de Gobineau,
January 10, 1886, see Bábí and Bahá'í
Religions, pp. 186-87.
70. Revelation,
Vol. 2, p. 399.
71. Tablets,
p. 13.
72. Gleanings,
pp. 210-12.
73. Gleanings,
pp. 251-52.
74. Gleanings,
p. 252.
75. For a description
of these events see Revelation, Vol. 3,
especially pp. 296, 331.
76. For a description
of this experience see God Passes By, pp.
180-89.
77. In the 1850s two
German religious leaders, Christoph Hoffmann and Georg
David Hardegg, collaborated in the development of the
"Society of Templers," devoted to creating in
the Holy Land a colony or colonies which would prepare
the way for Christ, on His return. Leaving Germany on
August 6, 1868, the founding group arrived in Haifa on
October 30, 1868, two months after
Bahá'u'lláh's own arrival.
78. For a description
of the disasters which befell European Turkey in the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 see Addendum III in Bahá'u'lláh:
King of Glory, pp. 460-62.
79. Epistle,
p. 51.
80. Alistair Horne, The
Fall of Paris (London: Macmillan, 1965), p. 34.
81. Cited in Shoghi
Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come (Wilmette,
Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1980), pp. 32-33.
82. Cited in Promised
Day, p. 37.
83. Cited in Promised
Day, p. 35.
84. Cited in Shoghi
Effendi, Citadel of Faith: Messages to America
1947-1957 (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing
Trust, 1980), pp. 18-19.
85. Epistle,
p. 14.
86. Certitude,
p. 15.
87. Cited in Promised
Day, p. 83.
88. Cited in Promised
Day, p. 81.
89. Epistle,
p. 99.
90. Cited in Promised
Day, pp. 110-11.
91. Gleanings,
p. 200.
92. Gleanings,
pp. 254-55.
93. Gleanings,
p. 40.
94. Gleanings,
p. 215.
95. Gleanings,
p. 196.
96. Tablets,
p. 69.
97. Tablets,
pp. 165-67.
98. Epistle,
p. 11. The phrase "Not of Mine own
volition" appears in the same paragraph
immediately above the excerpt cited.
99.
Bahá'u'lláh's son, Mírzá Mihdí,a youth of
twenty-two, died in 1870 in an accidental fall resulting
from the conditions in which the family was imprisoned.
100. Gleanings,
pp. 91.
101. God Passes By,
pp. 94-96.
102. Cited in World
Order of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 113.
103. Gleanings,
p. 228.
104. Tablets,
p. 169.
105. Epistle,
pp. 11-12.
106. Although Sultán
‘Abdu'l-‘Azíz' order of banishment
was never formally revoked, the responsible political
authorities came to regard it as null and void. They,
therefore, indicated that Bahá'u'lláh could
establish His residence outside the city walls, should He
choose to do so.
107. The mansion,
which had been built by a wealthy Christian Arab merchant
of ‘Akká, had been abandoned by him when an
outbreak of plague began to spread. The property was
first rented and, some years after
Bahá'u'lláh's passing, purchased by the
Bahá'í community. Bahá'u'lláh's grave
is located in a Shrine in the gardens of Bahjí, and is
now the focal point of pilgrimage for the Bahá'í
world.
108. For a summary of
this body of teaching see World Order, pp.
143-57, and Shoghi Effendi's Principles of
Bahá'í Administration (London: Bahá'í
Publishing Trust, 1973), throughout. A fully annotated
English translation of the central document in this body
of writings, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas ("The Most
Holy Book"), is being published to coincide with the
centenary of Bahá'u'lláh's passing, 1992.
109. Advent,
p. 16.
110. Edward G. Browne,
A Traveller's Narrative (New York:
Bahá'í Publishing Committee, 1930), pp. xxxix-xl.
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