Abdul Baha - "The Christ of this generation"

The station of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the central point about which Bahá’ís in New York City were unclear. Even a believer as experienced as Edward Getsinger, who had been to ‘Akká three times for a total of six months and who had listened to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá numerous times as well as having studied with numerous Persian teachers, continued to equate ‘Abdu’l-Bahá...

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Station of Abdul Baha!!

Whether in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the most weighty and sacred of all the works of Bahá’u’lláh, or in the Kitáb-i-‘Ahd, the Book of His Covenant, or in the Súriy-i-Ghusn (Tablet of the Branch), such references as have been recorded by the pen of Bahá’u’lláh—references which the Tablets of His Father addressed to Him mightily reinforce—invest ‘Abdu’l-Bahá...

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The Twelfth Imam - Bayani perspective

The Twelfth Imam lived during the entire period of the Minor Occultation (874 CE to 941 CE) until the beginning of the Greater Occultation just after the passing of the 4th gate, Abu'l-Hasan 'Ali ibn Muhammad al-Samarri (ر), in 329 AH/941 CE when He Himself ascended to the realms of Divine Power, Eternal Subsistence and Glory. He archetypally and metaphysically...

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How they converted the innocent people?

Baha'is went from house to house up and down the road, asking blacks "if they believed in peace, brotherhood, and equality." If they answered: "yes", they were told that they were Baha'is and should Sign a declaration card. Seeberger claims that these blacks were not told of any restrictions resulting from membership in the Faith and were led to believe...

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Mason Remey

The establishment of the council as the forerunner of the UHJ as well as the appointment of its president was very explicit and formal if we can accept that this was the embryonic UHJ whose president can only be the guardian according to the Will and Testament of Abdu'l-Baha. Here are some useful extracts from Shoghi Effendi and some historical information:9th...

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There are no officers in this Cause.

Relative to certain matters which came up, Mr. A. W. Randall quoted the following words from Abdul-Baha: "There are no officers in this Cause. I do not and have not appointed any one to perform any special services, but I encourage every one to engage in the service of the Kingdom. The foundation of this Cause is purely a democracy, and not a theo...

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Babi revolts - Origins of Bahaism

In Iran the despotic court continued to rule as before, with little attention to the new ideas of liberalism abroad and even at home which had been brought back by Persians who had travelled or lived in Europe. The year 1850 saw the execution of a religious heretic called the Bab, or “the Gate," at Tabriz. This was the origin of a religious movement...

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Influence of Mir Damad and Mulla Sadra on Babism and Bahaism

There is no space to catalogue the religious teachers of the Safavid period or their teachings. The philosophical writings of Mir Damad (d. ca 1631) and Mulla Sadra of Shiraz (di ca 1641) have been characterized by some scholars as the bases on which the movements of Babism and then Bahaism were built, but this is a matter of much dispute.(Routledge...

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Introduction of the Babi faith and the Babi revolts.

The interaction of internal discontent with growing foreign influences produced a series of social-religious movements in Iran, the most important of which was that of the Babis. Much has been written about the Babis and their successors the Baha'is and we shall but briefly review their history here. 'Ali Muhammad, called the Bab or 'Gate', was born...

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The Baha'i religiolect

There is abundant evidence recorded in the literature of the Baháʼí Faith – a religion only some 170 years old – which demonstrates that it has a religiolect all its own. Take the following sentence, for instance:The Blessed Beauty, a Manifestation of God, was born in the Cradle of the Faith.This sentence is written entirely in English, but the terms...

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Shoghi's stand towards modernization of the Arab world and his hate towards Islamic institutions

However, Shoghi Effendi’s writings went even further: the major difference between the tenets of Ottoman reformers and the views he expressed is that in his, Islam features as the factor behind the East’s obscurantism and as a bar to progress, whereas in theirs, it had a role as a unifying factor capable of modernization and reform (Makdisi 2002)....

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Two pillars upon which Shoghi Effendi's Baha'i narratives were constructed.

The late nineteenth-century writings on Persia of British author George Nathaniel Curzon were especially chosen to aid this project. Gesturing to the Aryan-Persianism explored earlier in the century by John Malcolm, Henry Rawlinson, Arthur Gobineau, Ernest Renan, and latterly Edward Granville Browne, Curzon suited Shoghi Effendi’s preference for authors...

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Condemning the Islamic world

Behind Shoghi Effendi’s heavily derivative style of writing drawn from eighteenth-century and Victorian prosody with its syntactically complex sentences and Latinate vocabulary can be discerned a mindset to which the term “self-orientalizing” Westerner can most effectively be applied. Having had no direct personal contact with the land of his ancestors,...

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Shoghi Effendi discarded eastern dress (with the exception of a karakul hat) and cutting off intercourse with locals altogether received mainly British and Zionist VIPs

An ethnic Iranian born in Palestine in 1897 and brought up in a predominantly Persian speech-community, associating in his early adult years with British colonial administrators, high-ranking military officers, orientalists, and Western Bahai figures from wealthy and professional backgrounds, as a religious leader Shoghi Effendi occupied a niche and...

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Endorsing Western rule in the East under the rubric of "obedience to rulers"

Bahai leaders, however, have had very little to say about imperialism and the dominion of the West, and tended to endorse Western rule in the East under the rubric of “obedience to rulers”. Orientalism being the dominant apparatus for relaying notions about the East in the era of Empire, depictions of Islam as a backward, stagnant element in eastern...

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New religion from the Middle East entered the Christian world

As followers of a new religion from the Middle East, Bahais entered the space already opened in the United States by nineteenth-century Christian millenarian movements. New religious sects—Mormons, Adventists, Jehovah’s witnesses—shared a common heritage with respect to the millennium and the expectancy it generated for the return of Christ.(What Is...

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Short introduction of the Baha'i Faith by Geoffrey Nash

In the topic I have chosen to write about postcolonial analysis alerts us to the imperial dimensions behind the birthing of a new eastern religion. The focus here is on the nineteenth-century Islamicate world and on a faith which traces its origin to an Iranian Mahdi. Ali Muhammad Shirazi, or the Bab as he is more generally known, was the founder...

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Official Baha'i translations

One non-Baha'i scholar states:I have read most of the books by the central figures and Shoghi Effendi I could find. I just think that there is a clear difference in vision between all of them. On top of that I have read many writings of the Bab and Baha'u'llah in Arabic, which are infinitely better for understanding their teachings than translations.For...

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How do you explain this Baha'is?

The Bab instituted a law that you should not hurt children as one of these children could be He whom God shall make manifest. He also declared semen to be clean, in contrast with the Quran, because each sperm cell could be the one He whom God shall make manifest. Baha'u'llah was older than the Bab. How then do you explain th...

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Let deeds, not words, be your adorning! - Woe to you, O swine!

From Suratu’l Nus’h, قل أفّ لك يا خنزير وبما اكتسبت أيداك بحيث جرّبت سيف نفسك على وجه الله واستكبرت على الله المهيمن العزيز القدّوس.Provisional TranslationSay: Woe to you, O swine! For what your hands have wrought to the extent that you have drawn the sword from its sheath towards the Countenance of God, and waxed arrogantly against God, the Help in...

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Baha'u'llah's law does not consider semen unclean, Pork is allowed and the concept of "uncleanness" is abolished.

One of the major reforms in the Bahá’í teachings involves the laws of cleanliness, which were instituted in various faiths, including Hinduism and Judaism. In The Most Holy Book, Bahá’u’lláh revokes the notion of the uncleanness of various objects and people, specifically “of semen [and] of certain objects for purposes of prostration”. This serves...

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Baha'u'llah's attitude

I noticed in doing a critical analysis of the Kitab-i-Aqdas in the fall of 2017 how incredibly entitled he seemed to be. At one point, he scolded the Emperor of the Austria-Hungary Empire for not seeing him when the Emperor visited Palestine. Uh, he wasn't a Baha'i, he was most likely a Christian going to visit holy sites associated with his own religion......

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Treasury Tells Baha'is to Hire More Israelis if Status Pact Is to Be Renewed.

The Finance Ministry is threatening to torpedo a status agreement between the Bahai World Center and the Israeli government unless the Bahai agree to hire Israelis at their centers in the Haifa region in place of current workers who are mainly Bahai volunteers from around the world, sources told Anglo File.https://www.haaretz.com/1.5286...

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Shoghi Effendi's love for Switzerland

Shoghi Effendi loved nature. Whenever he felt the need for a rest it was not to the big cities that he went but to the mountains of Switzerland where he bicycled and climbed... His travels to Africa were for the love of nature and the simple life. (Lowell Johnson, Our Beloved Guardian, p. 41)His one single personal hobby was photography; he took superlatively...

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"liberation of Palestine" by the British forces

No need to dwell on the energetic steps which the English believers as soon as they had been apprized of the dire peril threatening the life of `Abdu'l-Bahá undertook to insure His security; on the measures independently taken whereby Lord Curzon and others in the British Cabinet were advised as to the critical situation at Haifa; on the prompt intervention...

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Weigh not the Book of God with... sciences

Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring Balance established amongst men. In this most perfect Balance whatsoever the peoples and kindreds of the earth possess must be weighed, while the measure of its weight should be tested according to its own standard, did ye but...

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Fanaticism - growing tendency in the Baha'i community

We must beware of thinking that fanaticism is something which is only practiced by others. On the contrary, it is a universal human frailty, namely the high virtue of steadfastness taken to an extreme, an evil from which even we, who call ourselves Baha'is, are not immune.There is a growing tendency in the Baha'i community to allude to "covenantal...

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