The reality is that the modern Baha'i mentality is wholly rooted in America, because it originates from Abdul Baha, and Abdul Baha did nothing more than cater to early 20th century American liberal ideals, so the ultimate origin and root of the modern Baha'i mentality is early 20th century America. The pillars of the modern Baha'i mentality are really...
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Friday, March 29, 2024
"Persepolis would be rebuilt in the future as a Baha'i House of Worship"
Mr. XXXX refers to a statement of 'Abdu'l-Baha which indicates that "Persepolis would be rebuilt in the future as a Baha'i House of Worship". He enquires about its source and whether it might possibly be a pilgrim's note.A statement concerning Persepolis as a future site of a House of Worship is found in a talk delivered by 'Abdu'l-Baha on 18 July...
The pressure of work at the Baha'i World Centre does not permit
Dear Baha'i Friend,Your email letters of 13, 18 and 23 May 2007 have been received by the Universal House of Justice, which has asked us to respond as follows.The pressure of work at the Baha'i World Centre does not permit it to continue to provide a detailed response to your questions. You are advised to tum to your Spiritual Assembly or a knowledgeable...
Baha'u'llah's praise for Mirza Yahya's "verses"
During his ministry as head of the Babi movement, Mirza Yahya wrote a book called the Kitab-i Nur. Baha'u'llah wrote a letter in the Baghdad period urging Babis to copy it, describing it as verses from God:Provisional translation:"The Kitab-i Nur was not sent despite repeated insistence. Do not neglect it. It is very necessary for all the people of...
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Sir Ronald Storrs and Abdul Baha
Sir Ronald Storrs was a British colonial administrator and diplomat who served as the first British governor of Jerusalem during the British Mandate period in Palestine. He was known for his pro-Zionist views and his close relationship with prominent Zionist leaders, including Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion.Storrs was sympathetic to the Zionist...
Friday, March 22, 2024
pension money of the Turkish Government and the revenue of Baha's villages
Mrs. Templeton (previously Mrs. Laurence Oliphant), in "Facts for Behaists," tells of the unrighteousness of Abbas Effendi (Abdul Baha) in keeping from his brothers and stepmothers the pension money of the Turkish Government and the revenue of Baha's villages, and of his ostentatious charity in giving away part of these funds by distributing coins...
great success of the Persian Baha'is in teaching the Faith
House of Justice (UHJ), Persian-speaking Baha'is
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Among the reasons offered by the
Hands for the great success of the
Persian Baha'is in teaching the
Faith, in spite of the opposition to
which they have always been subjected, were their diligent study of
the Teachings and their uncompromising obedience to the spirit of the
Baha'i administrative order, and to
the majority decision. Baha'i News, No....
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Titles of Baha'u'llah
The Ancient BeautyThe Blessed BeautyThe Veilless BeautyThe Divine EssenceThe One BeingThe TruthThe UnconstrainedThe FatherThe WordThe VisionThe YouthThe WonderfulThe FashionerThe CounsellorThe ComforterThe CrierThe TrumpetThe BugleThe BalanceThe JudgeThe LawThe LawgiverThe All-GloriousThe All-KnowingThe All-CompellingThe Supreme GoalThe Wronged OneThe...
The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha is the charter for the World Order of Baha’u’llah.
...the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, written by His own hand during a period in which He was under great personal danger, is the charter for the World Order of Baha’u’llah. It is a document that had both immediate and future application. Shoghi Effendi wrote of it: ‘“We must trust to time, and the guidance of God’s Universal House of Justice,...
the Most Great Infallibility... station of Baha'u'llah
However the Most Great Infallibility is confined to the One Whose station is immeasurably exalted beyond ordinances or prohibitions and is sanctified from errors or omissions [Manifestations of God]. Indeed He is a Light which is not followed by darkness and a Truth not overtaken by error. Were He to pronounce water to be win or heaven to be earth...
Baha'u'llah is the Self of God
The most great infallibility as a doctrine, Bahá'u'lláh says, acts to protect his religion. He reiterates that no one can share in it other than the Self of God. This phrase refers to the universal manifestation of God, who is the manifestation of the Self of God,...(The Concept of Manifestation in the Bahá'í Writings by Juan Cole published...
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Muhammad's covenant
Muhammad named ‘Ali, His cousin and son-in-law, to succeed Him. A few months before His passing in June, 632, whilst on the road to Medina from His last pilgrimage to Mecca, He halted at an oasis and had a pulpit raised with saddles. This He ascended and had ‘Ali up so that he could be seen by the multitudes. To them He said in plain terms that whosoever...
The Tablet of Wrath by Wahid Azal
And know that in the initial Days of this Manifestation, with the Permission of God and Its Authorization and with Its Command, We took a copy of the book of the Most Great Cage (kitāb al-aqfas) [i.e. the kitāb-i-aqdas] of your demonic founder, and We urinated upon it with intense urination until We saturated it in Our urine! Then was poured upon...
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Principles of the Glad-Tidings of Baha'u'llah
1. Holy war is abolished.2. (a) Peoples and (b) Religions should unite in friendship.3. A world language and script should be chosen.4. Baha’is must serve and support any king who protects the Faith.5. (a) Baha’is must obey their governments. (b) Peoples of the world should aid the Baha’i cause. (c) Weapons of destruction should be converted into instruments...
Mirza Badi‘u’llah was a very learned man - Edward Browne
In the year 1890, ... Mr Browne arrived in ‘Akka. Ghusn-i Akbar (the Great Branch, Mirza Muhammad-‘Ali) had gone to India for publication of some holy texts. Ghusn-i A‘zam (the Most Great Branch, ‘Abdu’l-Baha) was residing in ‘Akka. This writer [Mirza Badi‘u’llah] ... was hosting this dear guest [Browne] ... He was a very learned man. He spoke eloquently...
Friday, March 15, 2024
Muslim and Jewish messianic pretenders who attracted followers from both the Islamic and Jewish community
Later Muslim and Jewish messianic pretenders who attracted followers from both the Islamic and Jewish community appeared in Yemen (partly Ottoman), around the time when the Bab appeared as the Mahdi and Baha'u'llah claimed to be the Messiah. Two of the Yemenites claimants, Faqih Sa'id (1840) and Sharif Isma'il (1846), were Muslims and proclaimed that...
Ahmed Effendi returned to Haymana to spread the Baha'i faith but at the same time remained in his position as imam.
According to the information from one of his grandchildren, he was born towards the end of the 1850s in the town of Sanandaj in Northern Iraq (Kurdistan). After his education in Halab (Syria) and his marriage he moved to Haymana, near Ankara, where he was an imam. In 1913 he left for Egypt where he heard about the Baha'i faith. Later he visited 'Abdu'l-Baha...
the Bahá’í system of covenant, a system of institutional relationships, from the local level to the global,
... the Bahá’í system of covenant, a system of institutional relationships, from the local level to the global, ... required that ... Bahá’ís adhere to the guidance of a succession of supranational institutions—‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Center of the Covenant, from 1892 to 1921; Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian, and his appointed deputies, the Hands of the Cause,...
But be vigilant awake lest one there should be a follower of Ezelis or a covenant-breaker!
But be vigilant awake lest one there should be a follower of Ezelis or a covenant-breaker! The instant that you feel that a person among these Persians is an Ezeli or a covenant-breaker, assuredly and immediately avoid his company for he is the essence of evil.(Aflame with Devotion by Judy Hannen Moe, p 1...
Thursday, March 14, 2024
one of the most astonishing events which human prejudice has ever created in the world
According to Mirza Abul-Fadl, “. . . the violation by the nakazeen (Covenant-breakers)... is one of the most astonishing events which human prejudice has ever created in the world...”(Champions of Oneness - Louis Gregory and His Shining Circle, by Janet Ruhe-Schoen, p ...
the Faith and its institutions had been banned by special order of the Reichsfuhrer Himmler in Germany.
In 1936, Nazism, so inimical to everything the Baha’i Faith stands for, gripped Germany in its hideous fist, and by the next year the Faith and its institutions had been banned by special order of the Reichsfuhrer Himmler. Baha’i books were confiscated, including those in personal libraries, and some meetings were proscribed. The Gestapo made so-called...
he went to his beloved Switzerland
At this period, the Guardian confronted dark crises of Covenant-breaking within ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s own family. During May’s pilgrimage, one of these crises occurred. Shoghi Effendi, a singularly confiding soul with people he trusted, called May [Maxwell] and her daughter to his bedroom, where he lay prostrated by nerves and grief, and told them he could...
Ruhiyyih purposely orchestrated this evil plan to dismantle the IBC once Shoghi died
Guardianship, House of Justice (UHJ), Personal Observations, Ruhiyyih Khanum, Shoghi Effendi
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Shoghi Effendi did appoint his successor before he died. The successor of Shoghi was the IBC (International Baha’i Council) that he created which was eventually dismantled by Ruhiyyih & the hands.The IBC that Shoghi created was not only supposed to be the embryonic Universal house of Justice (UHJ), it was also the symbolic child of Shoghi Effendi....
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Badri-Jan, the sister of the murdered Mirza Rida-Quli, sought an interview with Ahmad Big Tawfiq and there accused Baha’u’llah of instigating the murders
A year after the murder of the Azalis, the Governor of ‘Akka, who had remained ill-disposed towards the exiles, was dismissed from office and replaced by Ahmad Big Tawfiq, a wise and compassionate man: Soon after his installation as Governor, Badri-Jan, the sister of the murdered Mirza Rida-Quli, sought an interview with Ahmad Big Tawfiq and there...
That which can harm Me is the conduct of those who love Me, who claim to be related to Me, and yet perpetrate what causeth My heart and My pen to groan.
In the Siyah-Chal in Tihran and in His exile from His homeland, Baha’u’llah had endured the onslaughts of external enemies. In Adrianople the severest test ever to befall the infant Faith had been an internal one. This time, in ‘Akka, the assault was threefold, from the Ottoman authorities, from the Azalis and from the misguided followers of Baha’u’llah...
a picture of the mosque in which Bahá’u’lláh prayed in Adrianople
Dr. Grossmann presented many beautiful and precious gifts that had been received by the National Spiritual Assembly of Germany and Austria for the Temple: Persian rugs, a picture of the mosque in which Bahá’u’lláh prayed in Adrianople, a piece of plaster from the room in which Bahá’u’lláh lived there, as well as roses from Bahá’u’lláh’s House which...
the entire planet would be Baha’i in only 10 years!
Another question often raised concerns the ‘methods’ of teaching that are advocated by the National Spiritual Assembly.The answer to that question, simply, is that all forms of teaching are acceptable, so long as the dignity and principles of the Faith are upheld.“Teaching by example,” “fireside teaching,” “door-to-door teaching,” “mass teaching,”...
we found Baha'u'llah, it being the month of Ramadan, engaged in reading the Qur'an
On my return, I received from Mirza Ahmad the joyful tidings of the arrival of Baha'u'llah in Kirmanshah. As we were being ushered into His presence, we found Him, it being the month of Ramadan, engaged in reading the Qur'an, and were blessed by hearing Him read verses of that sacred Book.(The Dawn-Breakers & Nabil's Narrative, Of The Early...
Nineteenth Ramadan is the day the Imám Ḥusayn was wounded on the battlefield of Karbilá, and the twenty-first, which commemorates his death!
The fifteenth day of the month of Sha‘bán is believed to be the birthday of the Twelfth and Hidden Imám, who, according to, the teachings of Shí‘ah Islam, was the last in the series of successors to the Prophet Muḥammad. There are two holy days during Ramaḍán, the Muslim month of fasting-the nineteenth, which commemorates the day the Imám Ḥusayn was...
I immediately threw myself at His feet, held the hem of His robe and entreated Him tearfully saying: ‘O my Beloved! Do not leave me to myself
One day when all the pilgrims from Nayriz were in the House of the Master, Mirza Dhikru’llah gave me the awaited news. He told me that ‘Abdu’l-Baha was alone in the house of Mirza Jalal, His son-in-law, and had called me into His presence. I took the items which I wanted ‘Abdu’l-Baha to bless and with exceeding gladness accompanied Aqa Mirza Dhikru’llah...
Abdu’l-Baha said, ‘Because they have not understood the significance of the fast, they have abandoned the primary purpose and have clung to a secondary matter,
On the first day of Ramadan we were in the presence of ‘Abdu’l-Baha together with a group of pilgrims and resident Baha’is, such as Haji ‘Ali-i-Yazdi, the brother of Haji Muhammad Tahir-i-Malmiri. Because of the difference in the lunar calendar, some of the Muslims had observed the first day of Ramadan the previous day. ‘Abdu’l-Baha asked Haji ‘Ali...
I am He Who feareth no one, though all who are in heaven and all who are on earth rise up against me.…
“Were all the divines, all the wise men, all the kings and rulers on earth to gather together, I, in very truth, would confront them, and would proclaim the verses of God, the Sovereign, the Almighty, the All-Wise. I am He Who feareth no one, though all who are in heaven and all who are on earth rise up against me.… This is Mine hand which God hath...
‘Praise be to God that you have remained in Karbila, and have beheld with your own eyes the countenance of the promised Husayn.”
Shaykh Hasan had lived quietly in Karbila for two years when, in early October of 1851, as he later recounted to Nabil-i-A‘zam, ... while I was passing by the gate of the inner courtyard of the shrine of the Imam Husayn, my eyes, for the first time, fell upon Baha’u’llah. What shall I recount regarding the countenance which I beheld! The beauty of...
The Bab agreed the proposal of Baha'u'llah and appointed Mirza Yahya
Earlier, during the time that the Bab had been imprisoned at Chihriq, Baha’u’llah and one other Babi had suggested to the Bab that Mirza Yahya, Baha’u’llah’s young stepbrother, be known as the appointed nominee of the Bab until such time as ‘He Whom God shall make manifest’ would appear. The Bab had agreed to this proposal. Now, from Kirmanshah, Baha’u’llah...
none of the Baha’is would teach their Faith to anyone in ‘Akka
Baha’u’llah had undertaken that none of the Baha’is would teach their Faith to anyone in ‘Akka or the surrounding countryside while they were exiles and prisoners. (Day of Glory, The Life of Baha’u’llah, by Mary Perkins, George Ronald, p 1...
After the three deaths, Baha’u’llah revealed for the remainder of the party a short healing prayer
Soon all but two of the exiles were sick and nine of the ten guards set to watch over them also fell ill. No doctor was summoned. Malaria and dysentery added to their discomfort and distress. Three of the exiles died, two of them brothers who died in the same night, locked in each other’s arms. There was no money available to pay for their burial and...
Abdu’l-Baha promptly slapped him on the face and ordered him to return to his room at once.
The next night Baha’u’llah and His family were consigned to the upper floor of the north-west wing. The south-west room of that wing, the unglazed windows of which looked towards the sea, was assigned to Baha’u’llah. The floor was of mud, there was no furniture and what plaster still remained on the ceiling was falling onto the floor.Soon after their...
Monday, March 11, 2024
when Baha'u'llah and his son and successor Abbas Effendi died, the Sunni clergy conducted their funeral services.
The Muslims of Akka were all Sunnites, and were quite intolerant of heretics such as the Baha'is. Therefore, in order to avoid trouble, Baha'u'llah and his followers took great pains to conceal their real beliefs, as they had done previously in Iran, Baghdad, and Edirne, and to profess and practice in public the faith of Islam. Accordingly, they went...
Saturday, March 9, 2024
Some earliest Baha'is were expelled from the Baha’i faith because they shared the desire for a more free-thinking, liberal Baha’i faith.
A few years ago I read some out-of-print books on the internet, and was fascinated to discover that the earliest “Covenant-breakers” were expelled from the Baha’i community precisely because they shared the desire for a more free-thinking, liberal Baha’i faith. It is not easy to learn this, because the evidence for this fact has been omitted from recently...
Friday, March 8, 2024
Abbas Effendi was a book burner. His father was too
Abuse, Censorship, Edward Browne, Personal Observations
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Fadil Mazandarani quotes a litany of other letters from Abbas Effendi in his 4 volumes of Asrar al-Athar where Abbas Effendi said exactly the same thing about other books, not just those by Khayrullah. One, for example, is about Browne's edition of nuqtat'ul-kaf where he not only encouraged that it not be read but that the bahais acquire all existing...
According to Abdul Baha, Baha'is are not allowed to own some books
"As to Khayru'llah's book: The blessing of God will be cut off from the house in which a copy of it is found, inasmuch as it is sheer slander. Should one compare his first book with his second, one would readily discover to what extent their texts are contradictory and how much he has lied. In fact the motive behind his second book was but to deceive...
Thursday, March 7, 2024
fewer Bahais would get themselves in these intellectual tangles.
"...if the Bahai community was educated to distinguish strictly between Shoghi Effendi's own letters and those of his secretaries -- and especially those written to individuals with person advice -- fewer Bahais would get themselves in these intellectual tangles."-Sen McGlinnhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/820890881328084/posts/7173609442722831/?c...
Institute of disenrollment
In addition to Covenant-breaking, there is the less-known institute of disenrollment, which means being expelled from the administrative order of the Faith. Several people were disenrolled for unclear reasons despite continuing to believe in Bahá'u'lláh and the institutions that are a part of the Covenant up to the Universal House of Justice. For reference,...
Infallible UHJ's learning experience
Converting People, House of Justice (UHJ), Infallibility
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The second pattern took shape in those countries where the process of entry by troops began, resulting in an exponential increase in membership, new localities, and new institutions. In several countries the Bahá’í community grew to comprise more than one hundred thousand believers, while India reached some two million. Indeed, in a single two-year...
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
God will verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth
It is now evident and firmly established that Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant provides for two authoritative centres. The first is the Book: the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, along with the body of works of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi that constitute authoritative interpretation and explication of the Creative Word. With the passing of Shoghi Effendi, more...