Errors stemming from a lack of familiarity with original source materials or ignorance of Islamic and Persian matters are not, of course, confined to issues relating to Islam as such. On page 180 [of Hatcher and Martin's book], for example, we are told that 'Baha'u'llah encouraged each of his followers to try, at least once during a lifetime, to undertake a nine-day pilgrimage to the World Centre of the Baha'i Faith in Haifa, Israel'. As in Islam, there are two types of 'pilgrimage' in Baha'ism: hajj and ziyara. The former, which corresponds to the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, is, in Baha'ism, a rite undertaken by men only, either to the house of the Bab in Shiraz or that of Baha'u'llah in Baghdad. It is this pilgrimage which was ordained by Baha'u'llah. Ziyara is a much simpler 'visitation' to the shrines of saints. In the case of the Shrines of the Bab and Baha'u'llah in Haifa and at Bahji, near Acre, it was 'Abdul Baha who prescribed the pilgrimage. The nine-day period and the format of the current extended 'pilgrimage' (which actually involved much more than plain ziyara) were largely worked out by Shoghi Effendi and the present-day Baha'i administration. The 'Baha'i World Centre' did not, of course, exist at the time of Baha'u'llah.
(Denis MacEoin (1987) Article, British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Bulletin, 13:2, 193-208, DOI: 10.1080/13530198708705441)
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