The breakers of the Covenant are consigned to the wrath of God...

"The breakers of the Covenant are consigned to the wrath of God..."

https://www.bahai.org/documents/essays/balyuzi-hasan-m/commentary-will-testament-abdul-baha

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Recently Azali movement has been revived by the Iranian scholar Dr Wahid Azal

The Qiyamat has been proclaimed (I believe) twice in Shiite history; first in 1164 at Alamut by the Assassin Pir Hasan II – "The chains of the Law have been broken" - (described so beautifully in Henry Corbin's book 'Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi'); second, 1848, in Iraq and Persia, by the Bab, Sayyid Ali Mohammed Shirazi. As the self-proclaimed "Gate" Bab) of the Hidden Imam, he had already initiated a schism in the Shaykhi School of esoteric Shiism (which was written about with great enthusiasm by Corbin); now the Bab broke with Islam altogether and precipitated a violent revolution against the Qajar dynasty; but the revolt failed. 

The Bab was martyred in 1850 by the Qajars, as were thousands of Babis, including his extraordinary disciple the poetess Qurrat al 'Ayn, who had first announced the Qiyamat. The Bab's chosen successor Mirza Yahya Nuri ("Prince John the Light") known as Subh-i Azal ("Dawn of Eternity'), a precocious teenager from Tehran, managed to escape and eventually ended up in Cyprus where he died in 1912. His half-brother Baha'u'llah meanwhile had split from the Azali ("Bayani") Babi sect and founded his own religion - the Baha'is. From the Azali point of view Baha'ism is considered a betrayal of real Babism.

The Azali cause was memorialized by the great English scholar, E. G. Browne, who described his friendship with wild antinomian Azali dervishes in his 'A Year Amongst the Persians.' But the Azali movement declined after Subh-i Azal's death, and almost vanished. Recently however it has been revived by the Iranian scholar Dr Wahid Azal, founder of the "post-Islamic" Fatimi Sufi Order and editor of the Bayani corpus. His system owes aspects to esoteric Shiism, Sufism, and Ayahuasca ritualism.

(Peacock Angel, The Esoteric Tradition of the Yezidis By Peter Lamborn Wilson, page 76-77)

www.google.com/books/edition/Peacock_Angel/ZPw9EAAAQBAJ

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Baha'i Long Obligatory Prayers "similar to Muslim prayers"

Bahá'u'lláh forbade the congregational recitation of prayer, as is done by Muslims five times a day, with the exception of the Prayer for the Dead, usually recited at a funeral. Otherwise, prayers are said individually or recited by one individual while others listen. Bahá'u'lláh has, however, enjoined Bahá'ís to perform daily obligatory prayers, preceded by ablutions (washing of the hands and face). To perform obligatory prayers, Bahá'ís must face the qiblih ("point of Adoration")—initially Bahá'u'lláh himself, but after his death, the location of his interred remains outside Haifa, Israel, near the Bahá'i World Center. During the Medium and Long Obligatory Prayers, certain genuflections must be performed (similar to Muslim prayers), involving bending down with one's hand resting on one's knees, raising one's hands "in supplication," and bowing one's forehead to the ground. Many Bahá'ís from Christian backgrounds told me that it took them a while to get used to this form of prayer; some even said they were Bahá'ís for years before they knew that ablutions were required (many said it wasn't until the full text of the Kitab-i-Aqdas came out that this was clear to them).

-Michael McMullen, The Bahá'í, The Religious Construction of a Global Identity, Page 78

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Bahá_í/lF0UquZAZW8C

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Authoritarian Organization

Fundamentalist Baha’is have an authoritarian view of how the Baha'i “administrative order” should function. They insist on obedience, and forbid criticizing Baha’i officials or institutions. The typical logic of Baha'i fundamentalists roots obedience in the legitimacy of authority, disallowing a rational examination of the substance of a command or an inquiry into whether the body giving the command has the “constitutional” prerogative to give it. In this way, arbitrary commands by Baha'i bodies or officials are made to be an either-or proposition. If one accepts Baha’u’llah, one accepts his administrative order, and must obey whatever it orders one to do, whether one agrees in conscience or no. Rejection of the command, ipso facto, represents a rejection of Baha’u’llah (Semple 1991, McMullen 2000:66-71). Thus, fundamentalist Baha’is secretly consider liberals and some moderates “not Baha’is” at all because they do not demonstrate sufficient compliance in immersing their wills in the authority of the Baha'i administration. Kazemzadeh expressed the fundamentalist philosophy on obedience when he visited a Baha'i study class in Los Angeles in 1979 to caution its members about the tone of their discussions, which were being published in a small-circulation newsletter. A class participant suggested that tone was not the real issue, saying “Dissent seems more the issue... Every time a Baha'i criticizes or disagrees with a policy of the NSA, is his commitment to the Covenant to be questioned and his Baha'i status threatened?” Kazemzadeh said that no one questioned the right of the Baha’is to gather for discussions, “but the word dissent implies separating oneself from the activities of the group and putting oneself outside the mainstream of the community, and that is contrary to Baha'i practice” (Kazemzadeh in Los Angeles Baha’i Study Class 1979:4). The National Assembly subsequently demanded the right to censor the newsletter, which had a circulation of about 120.

Juan Cole, Review of Religious Research, Vol. 43, no. 3 (March, 2002)

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Our judgment (ijtihad) is in accord with the spirit of Islam - Abdul Baha

Süleyman Nazif ends the story of his encounter with ‘Abdu’l-Baha with the latter’s words that “We have no belief that is contrary to true Islam. Our judgment (ijtihad) is in accord with the spirit of Islam, let alone contrary”.

https://bahai-library.com/alkan_nazif_history_tahirih

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"particularly their sons, into higher education"

The over-representation of Iranian Baha'i students at AUB from Shiraz, and especially from the Afnan family, provides a clue to the broader patterns of class formation in the Middle East. The Afnans were involved in transnational commercial activities spanning Iran, India and the Persian Gulf. Merchant families sending their children, particularly their sons, into higher education indicates an awareness of the shifting nature of the modern economy, and the perceived need for command over new forms of knowledge in order to thrive in it.

The main member of the Afnan family who lived in Beirut and who sent many of his children to AUB was Sayyid ‘Ali Afnan. 

(The Iranians of AUB and Middle Class Formation in the Early Twentieth-Century Middle East, Farzin Vejdani)

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Fundamentalist Baha'is

Others view election to high Baha’i office as a sign of divine selection of that individual for a “high station,” though some Baha’is object to such differentiation. Some fundamentalist Baha’is speak of being a Baha'i as a status that bestows special spiritual privileges. One wrote on SRB, “Donating to the Bahai Cause is a privilege that only Bahais, who have not lost their voting rights, are granted.” When challenged as to why the Baha’is do not do more philanthropy than they do, they will often reply that others can carry out such charity work, whereas only Baha’is can build the foundation of the New World Order. Attending the regular Baha'i worship and community business meeting, the “nineteen-day feast,” is also often called a “privilege” pertaining to being a Baha'i, from which non-Baha’is are excluded (SRB 15 Aug 1997). As for boundaries, as we have seen, in the past decade fundamentalist Baha’is have begun drawing sharper boundaries between themselves and “humanist” or “materialist” liberal Baha’is as well as between their beliefs and mainstream U.S. values.

Juan Cole, Review of Religious Research, Vol. 43, no. 3 (March, 2002)

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Baha'i Laws

I am sure that some laws, especially the penal provisions of the Book, will be the target of harsh criticism, and it is quite obvious that the Bahá'ís must reach a new level of knowledge and understanding of their Faith in order to protect the Cause.

-Udo Schaefer

https://bahai-library.com/schaefer_challenges_bahai_studies

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"The ills from which the world now suffers will multiply"

Let us consider the First World War, which Shoghi Effendi has described in his writings as “the first stage in a titanic convulsion long predicted by Bahá’u’lláh.” Although it ended outwardly in a Treaty of Peace, ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá remarked: “Peace, Peace, the lips of potentates and peoples unceasingly proclaim, whereas the fire of unquenched hatreds still smolders in their hearts.” And then in 1920, He wrote: “The ills from which the world now suffers will multiply; the gloom which envelops it will deepen.” And again: “another war, fiercer than the last, will assuredly break out.” After this Second World War broke out in 1939, Shoghi Effendi called it a “tempest, unprecedented in its violence,” and the “great and mighty wind of God invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth.” After the termination of this War and the creation of the United Nations, the Guardian wrote in 1948, anticipating “still more violent convulsions” and referred to the “wings of yet another conflict” destined to “darken the international horizon.” And finally in his last Riḍván Message of April 1957, he left for posterity the following analysis of world conditions in the light of the prophecies and predictions recorded in the writings of the Faith:

Indeed, as we gaze in retrospect beyond the immediate past, and survey, in however cursory a manner, the vicissitudes afflicting an increasingly tormented society, and recall the strains and stresses to which the fabric of a dying Order has been increasingly subjected, we cannot but marvel at the sharp contrast presented, on the one hand, by the accumulated evidences of the orderly unfoldment, and the uninterrupted multiplication of the agencies, of an Administrative Order designed to be the harbinger of a world civilization, and, on the other, by the ominous manifestations of acute political conflict, of social unrest, of racial animosity, of class antagonism, of immorality and of irreligion, proclaiming, in no uncertain terms, the corruption and obsolescence of the institutions of a bankrupt Order.

https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-universal-house-of-justice/messages/19760707_001/1#809149464

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Baha'u'llah is the Godhead who had sent the other prophets.

One faction of Iranian emigrants to the U.K. in the 1980s and early 1990s led by a Cambridge-trained Iranian scholar even developed a doctrine that Baha'u'llah was the Godhead who had sent the other prophets.

Juan Cole, Review of Religious Research, Vol. 43, no. 3 (March, 2002)

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The remains of the Bab were kept in the room of Bahiyyih Khanum for ten years

Abdul Baha entrusted her with the sacred remains of the Báb which were housed in her room for some ten years in the house of 'Abdu'lláh Páshá.

https://bahai-library.com/50th-anniversary_greatest_holy_leaf

The construction of the Shrine had begun over forty years ago. The Guardian recounted how the Bab’s Sacred remains journeyed in hiding for decades in Iran before arriving in the Holy Land where they were hidden in the room of the Greatest Holy Leaf for another ten years. ‘Abdu’l-Baha showed the remains to the assembled Baha’is to verify that they had arrived intact, and he buried them with great solemnity in a marble sarcophagus sent by the Baha’is of Burma.

(The Memoirs of Shamsi Sedaghat by Shamsi Sedaghat edited by Hillary Chapman - 2023)

https://bahai-library.com/sedaghat_chapman_memoirs

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The Baha'i administration has increasingly come under the control of fundamentalists

In his book Modernity and the Millennium, published by Columbia University Press in 1998, Professor Cole observes the Baha'i administration has increasingly come under the control of fundamentalists, "stressing scriptural literalism... theocracy, censorship, intellectual intolerance, and denying key democratic values (196)."

Similarly, Karen Bacquet has written an insightful article on Baha'i fundamentalism: "Enemies Within: Conflict and Control in the Baha'i Community," which was published in the American Family Foundation's Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 18, 2001, pp.109-140:

https://www.angelfire.com/ca3/bigquestions/enemies.html 

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Converting to the Baha'i faith is very easy

Israelis

Whenever an Israeli citizen living in the West, irrespective of his background and religious affiliation, declares his belief and interest in becoming a member of the Baha'i community, he should be informed that the Faith is not taught in Israel and that [6.6] there is no Baha'i community there apart from those who are associated with the Baha'i World Center. He cannot be accepted into the Baha'i community if he is planning to return to Israel to reside there.

If he plans to continue to reside outside Israel, his enrollment can be accepted, but he will then be subject to the same restrictions about travel to Israel as any other Baha'i, in that he could do so only with the express permission of the Universal House of Justice. In any event, the Universal House of Justice should be informed of any such declaration.

Letter from the Universal House of Justice, dated October 20, 1994, to several National Spiritual Assemblies

Mainland Chinese

Citizens of the PRC [People's Republic of China] may be accepted as believers without making a written declaration of faith or being officially registered. It should be made clear to them that there is no Baha'i administration in China and therefore at this time Baha'i laws of personal status are not binding, nor are they required to withdraw from membership in other associations. However, they should endeavor to learn about Baha'i laws and principles and should, as a matter of conscience, endeavor to practice these to the best of their ability.

Chinese believers who are citizens of the PRC should be introduced to each other as Baha'is only if they are willing for this to be done. They may participate in the social life of the Baha'i community in a normal manner but not be singled out for undue attention or be subjected to public gaze.

Baha'is from the PRC should be advised of the caution needed regarding teaching the Faith on the Chinese mainland and be asked to observe it for their own protection as well as the future of the Faith there.

Membership records of the Baha'is who are citizens of the PRC are maintained at the World Center at present. Each National Spiritual Assembly is asked to supply the House of Justice with the following information on each of these friends who have accepted the Faith under its jurisdiction: full name of the person in Chinese script, full name in the Roman alphabet, current address, home address in China, date of declaration and occupation.

Letter from the Universal House of Justice, dated April 19, 1989, to a National Spiritual Assembly

Iranians and Arabs

Iranian declarants (any persons from an Iranian background regardless of their immigration status or length of stay in the United States) and other Muslim declarants from the Middle East may participate in administrative functions only after their enrollments are confirmed by the National Spiritual Assembly. Every Iranian seeking to be enrolled as a Baha'i should complete the Persian Enrollment/Registration Information Form in addition to completing the declaration card. This form can be obtained from the Baha'i National Center (Department of Management Information Systems).

In addition to ensuring that the appropriate forms are completed and sent to the Baha'i National Center, the Local Spiritual Assembly should meet with declarants to find out the depth of their understanding of the Faith and the sincerity of their claims. A report of the meeting and the Local Assembly's recommendations for accepting the enrollments should be sent to the Department of Management Information Systems.

The enrollment process is completed when the Baha'i National Center issues an identification card. Except for children of registered members of the American Baha'i community, enrollment of all Persians (including youth) requires confirmation from Baha'is in Iran. Enrollment of Muslims from other Middle Eastern countries requires confirmation from the Universal House of Justice. These communications are coordinated through the Baha'i National Center.

Because communication with the believers in Iran is extremely difficult, the verification process may be lengthy more than a year in some instances. In the meantime, the Local Assembly may invite these persons to attend those events open to the public and encourage them to continue their study of the Faith.

(See also Chapter 7, Appendix C, Section entitled "Special Circumstances Regarding Teaching Muslims in the West")

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Music in the Baha'i Temples (Yes or No?)

Bahāʾ-Allāh urges the recital and the melodious chanting of scripture in the Mašreq al-Aḏkār, especially by children and especially at dawn (Ketāb-e Aqdas, vv. 115-16, 150, pp. 110-11, 143-44; tr., pp. 61, 74). With regard to saying prayers at dawn, he states that this could be done anytime from dawn until two hours after sunrise (Ketāb-e Aqdas, p. 47; tr., p. 111). In writing to the prominent Iranian musician and Bahai, Mirzā ʿAbd-Allāh Farāhāni (ca. 1843-1918, see ʿABDALLĀH, MIRZĀ), ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ encourages music in the Mašreq al-Aḏkār (Māzandarāni, Amr va Ḵalq, III, p. 364, tr. Compilation of Compilations, II, p. 76). Shoghi Effendi has stated that there should be no musical instruments used, only a capella singing by live singers (not recorded). The words sung should be from the Bahai or other scriptures (Shoghi Effendi, 1982, pp. 607-8).

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/mashreq-adkar

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Baha’is may not move to Israel without the permission of the Universal House of Justice.

Registered Baha’is may not move to Israel without the permission of the Universal House of Justice. They are, of course, free to move anywhere else in the world, provided they do it legally. Some registered Baha’is who are not volunteers at the Baha’i World Centre do live in Israel.

https://cementanswers.com/what-do-bahai-believe-about-afterlife/

Whatever the purpose of their travel to Israel, Bahá'ís must have the permission of the Universal House of Justice for their visit.

https://pilgrimage.bwc.org/visits/

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