Rashid Ridá's encounter with the Baha'i faith in Egypt

Rashid Ridá, then a student in Tripoli, read the al-Muqtataf article and with a group of friends wrote a letter to Gulpáygání protesting its contents. This was the beginning of Ridá's antipathy to the Bahá'í Faith. Later, when he arrived in Cairo, he met with Gulpáygání and was unhappy with the latter's exposition of the divinity of Bahá'u'lláh. As a strict Sunní Muslim, Ridá was unable or unwilling to understand the doctrine of theophany (zuhuru'lláh) preached by the Bahá'ís. It smacked to him of incarnationism and seemed to make the Bahá'í Faith far more similar to Christianity than to the transcendalist faith of Islám.

Juan R.I. Cole. "Muhammad `Abduh and Rashid Rida: A Dialogue on the Baha'i Faith." World Order Vol. 15, nos. 3-4 (Spring/Summer 1981):7-16.

https://www.h-net.org/~bahai/diglib/articles/A-E/cole/abduh/abduh.htm

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Abdul Baha would attend Muhammad 'Abduh's study sessions

He [Rashid Ridá] says that when 'Abduh [one of the key figures of Islamic Modernism and the Salafi movement, also an opponent of the Ottoman ulama] was living in Beirut (presumably in the late 1880s) 'Abdu'l-Bahá more than once came to Beirut from Haifa and would make a point of attending some of Muḥammad 'Abduh's study sessions. Bahá'í sources, however, speak of only one encounter between 'Abdu'l-Bahá and 'Abduh, and the matter of how intimate the two men were bears more investigation. After 'Abduh returned to Cairo, he continued to correspond with 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and Ridá said that he had in his possession some of the latter's letters to 'Abduh.

Juan R.I. Cole. "Muhammad `Abduh and Rashid Rida: A Dialogue on the Baha'i Faith." World Order Vol. 15, nos. 3-4 (Spring/Summer 1981):7-16.

https://www.h-net.org/~bahai/diglib/articles/A-E/cole/abduh/abduh.htm

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Sunni Muslims are Covenant-breakers

In the Tablet of Salman Bahá'u'lláh explains one of the most interesting mysteries in the Qur'an, a mystery which had hitherto remained unnoticed. He refers to the well-known phrase, 'There is no God but Him'. This is the cardinal statement of faith which every Muslim must make, and which is the basis of the Islamic religion.

As we have previously written, the Word of God has many significances which are beyond the ken of men. There are inner meanings enshrined in the Word of God which only His Manifestation and those whom He guides understand. Bahá'u'lláh explains that in this phrase 'There is no God but Him', the letter of negation precedes that of affirmation. Therefore as a result of the creative influence of this phrase, ever since it was revealed, the violators of the Cause of God, representing the letter of negation, dominated over the faithful in the past. All the sufferings which the hands of the breakers of the Covenant of God inflicted upon the steadfast Muslims and their apparent superiority, were the fulfilment of the Words uttered by Muhammad. God had, through His wisdom, so destined that those who were impure and rebellious should dominate those who were true and sincere.

It is a Bahá'í belief that those who usurped the right of Imam Ali, the lawful successor of Muhammad and the interpreter of His Word, were acting against the expressed wishes of their Prophet. They disregarded the injunctions of Muhammad concerning His successor, became the primary cause of division within the Faith of Islam, brought about the death of the holy Imams and persecuted their followers. They were the letters of negation and till the end of the Dispensation of Muhammad, dominated His faithful followers.

History demonstrates that great differences arose among the followers of each religion soon after the death of its Founder. These differences led to schisms and divisions which have increased with the passage of time.

(Revelation of Baha'u'llah volume two: Adrianople, 1863-1868 by Adib Taherzadeh)

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Shaykh Ahmad's attitude towards Ibn Arabi and Mulla Sadra

The radical aspect of Shaykh Ahmad's thought is apparent in its revisionism and its dynamism. On the one hand, he clearly was motivated by what Harold Bloom called the "anxiety of influence", the desire of creative thinkers to somehow escape the conceptual and literary structures erected by their forebears where these are perceived as limiting. Shaykh Ahmad's acceptance of much in Ibn 'Arabi's metaphysics while sharply criticizing the Andalusian Sufi himself, and his love-hate relationship with previous Shi'ite theosophers such as Mulla Sadra and Mulla Muhsin Fayz Kashani demonstrate this anxiety no less than do his doctrinal innovativeness and his idiosyncratic scripture commentary.

(Juan R. I. Cole, The World as Text: Cosmologies of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i, Studia Islamica No. 80 (1994), pp. 145-163 Published By Brill)

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Unity of Religions! How is that possible?

The doctrine of mazhariyya, which turns all religious founders into ‘Manifestations of God’ derives from the esoteric systems of Shi'ism and Sufism, which means that most Sunni Muslims will find it repugnant. Other components of the world religions, from the Jewish halakha to the crucifixion (which Baha’is accept, but which Muslims deny) to the Trinity to circumcision (which Baha’is have abandoned) to Holy Communion to performing the hajj all have to be consigned to the dustbin.

(Making the invisible visible: introductory books on the Baha'i religion, Denis MacEoin)

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The glory of Sunni and Shia Islam shall be turned into the most abject abasement - Abdul Baha

The voice of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Center of the Covenant of God, has, likewise, been raised, announcing the dire misfortunes which were to overtake, soon after His passing, the ecclesiastical hierarchies of both Sunní and Shí’ih Islám. “This glory,” He has written, “shall be turned into the most abject abasement, and this pomp and might converted into the most complete subjugation. Their palaces will be transformed into prisons, and the course of their ascendant star terminate in the depths of the pit. Laughter and merriment will vanish, nay more, the voice of their weeping will be raised.” “Even as the snow,” He moreover has written, “they will melt away in the July sun.”

The dissolution of the institution of the Caliphate, the complete secularization of the state which had enshrined the most august institution of Islám, and the virtual collapse of the Shí’ih hierarchy in Persia, were the visible and immediate consequences of the treatment meted out to the Cause of God by the clergy of the two largest communions of the Muslim world.

https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/PDC/pdc-22.html

(The Promised Day Is Come, Shoghi Effendi)

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=13KdDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA287#v=onepage&q&f=false

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Dissimulation of Baha'u'llah and Abdul Baha in Palestine

"...both Baha’u’llah and his son and successor made efforts to appear palatable to Sunni Muslim authorities in Palestine. Both frequented Friday prayers at local mosques and both dressed and were bearded in the manner of many Muslim clerics. In addition, neither taught or propagated the tenets of their faith among Palestinian Muslims, apparently to avoid causing offense."

-Randall S. Geller, The Baha’i minority in the State of Israel, 1948–1957

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329816410_The_Baha'i_minority_in_the_State_of_Israel_1948_-_1957

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Shi'ih - Sunni

In the Tablet of Salman Bahá'u'lláh explains that in the Islamic Dispensation the letter of negation stood above that of affirmation. Those among the followers of Muhammad who disregarded His wishes about the appointment of His successor and violated His wishes after His passing, dominated over the faithful ones and ruled over them for centuries.

https://bahai-library.com/rev_bahaullah_4/taherzadeh_revelation_bahaullah_4.txt

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Muslims will suffer for denying Baha'u'llah

March 11. On this date in 1953, Shoghi Effendi said "Just as the Jews have crucified Christ - they suffered 2000 years of persecution - so also will the Moslems suffer a similar fate. The Jews rejected Christ - the Moslems Bahá'u'lláh and His Cause."

https://bahai-library.com/levy_pilgrims_1953

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Baha'u'llah proved his "prophethood(?)" to Sunnis!

The Sunni clerics and students who asked Baha'u'llah to elucidate the meaning of Futuhat-i-Makkiyyih asked Him to compose "a poem in a rhyme and meter identical with that of the longer of the two odes, entitled Qasidiy-i-Ta'iyyih composed by Ibn-i-Farid...This request was complied with, and no less than two thousand verses, in exactly the manner they had specified, were dictated by Him, out of which He selected one hundred and twenty-seven, which He permitted them to keep, deeming the subject matter of the rest premature and unsuitable to the needs of the times."

(GPB:123)

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Shoghi Effendi's opinion about Islam

Strange, incredibly strange, must appear the position of this most powerful branch of the Islamic Faith (Sunni), with no outward and visible head to voice its sentiments and convictions, its unity irretrievably shattered, its radiance obscured, its law undermined, its institutions thrown into hopeless confusion. This institution that had challenged the inalienable, divinely appointed rights of the Imáms of the Faith of Muḥammad, had, after the revolution of thirteen centuries, vanished like a smoke, an institution which had dealt such merciless blows to a Faith Whose Herald was Himself a descendant of the Imáms, the lawful successors of the Apostle of God.

To what else could this remarkable prophecy, enshrined in the Lawḥ-i-Burhán, allude if not to the downfall of this crowned overlord of Sunní Muslims? “O concourse of Muslim Divines! Because of you the people were abased, and the banner of Islám was hauled down, and its mighty throne subverted.” What of the indubitably clear and amazing prophecy recorded in the Qayyúm-i-Asmá? “Erelong We will, in very truth, torment such as waged war against Ḥusayn [Imám Ḥusayn], in the Land of the Euphrates, with the most afflictive torment, and the direst and most exemplary punishment.” What other interpretation can this Muḥammadan tradition be given? “In the latter days a grievous calamity shall befall My people at the hands of their ruler, a calamity such as no man ever heard to surpass it.”

This was not all, however. The disappearance of the Caliph, the spiritual head of above two hundred million Muḥammadans, brought in its wake, in the land that had dealt Islám such a heavy blow, the annulment of the sharí’ah canonical Law, the disendowment of Sunní institutions, the promulgation of a civil Code, the suppression of religious orders, the abrogation of ceremonials and traditions inculcated by the religion of Muḥammad. The Shaykhu’l-Islám and his satellites, including muftís, qádís, hujáhs, shaykhs, súfís, ḥájís, mawlavís, dervishes, and others, vanished at a stroke more determined, more open, and drastic than the one dealt the Shí’ihs by the Sháh and his government. The mosques of the capital, the pride and glory of the Islamic world, were deserted, and the fairest and most famous of them all, the peerless St. Sophia, “the Second Firmament,” “the Vehicle of the Cherubim,” converted by the blatant creators of a secular regime into a museum. The Arabic tongue, the language of the Prophet of God, was banished from the land, its alphabet was superseded by Latin characters, and the Qur’án itself translated into Turkish for the few who still cared to read it. The constitution of the new Turkey not only proclaimed formally the disestablishment and disendowment of Islám, with all its attendant and, in the view of some, atheistic enactments, but also heralded various measures that aimed at its further humiliation and weakening. Even the city of Constantinople, “the Dome of Islám,” apostrophized in such condemnatory terms by Bahá’u’lláh, which, after the fall of Byzantium, had been hailed by the great Constantine as “the New Rome,” and exalted to the rank of the metropolis of both the Roman Empire and of Christendom, and subsequently revered as the seat of the Caliphs, was relegated to the position of a provincial city and stripped of all its pomp and glory, its soaring and slender minarets standing sentinel at the grave of so much vanished splendor and power.

“O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas!” Bahá’u’lláh has thus apostrophized the Imperial City, in terms that call to mind the prophetic words addressed by Jesus Christ to Jerusalem, “The throne of tyranny hath, verily, been stablished upon thee, and the flame of hatred hath been kindled within thy bosom, in such wise that the Concourse on high, and they who circle around the Exalted Throne, have wailed and lamented. We behold in thee the foolish ruling over the wise, and darkness vaunting itself against the light. Thou art indeed filled with manifest pride. Hath thine outward splendor made thee vainglorious? By Him Who is the Lord of mankind! It shall soon perish, and thy daughters, and thy widows, and all the kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament. Thus informeth thee the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.”

Such was the fate that overtook both Shí’ih and Sunní Islám, in the two countries where they had planted their banners and reared their most powerful and far-famed institutions. Such was their fate in these two countries, in one of which Bahá’u’lláh died an exile, and in the other the Báb suffered a martyr’s death. Such was the fate of the self-styled Vicar of the Prophet of God, and of the favorite ministers of the still awaited Imám. “The people of the Qur’án,” Bahá’u’lláh testifies, “have risen against Us, and tormented Us with such a torment that the Holy Spirit lamented, and the thunder roared out, and the clouds wept over Us…. Muḥammad, the Apostle of God, bewaileth, in the all-highest Paradise, their acts.” “A day shall be witnessed by My people,” their own traditions condemn them, “whereon there will have remained of Islám naught but a name, and of the Qur’án naught but a mere appearance. The doctors of that age shall be the most evil the world hath ever seen. Mischief hath proceeded from them, and on them it will recoil.” And again: “Most of His enemies will be the divines. His bidding they will not obey, but will protest saying: ‘This is contrary to that which hath been handed down unto us by the Imáms of the Faith.’” And still again: “At that hour His malediction shall descend upon you, and your curse shall afflict you, and your religion shall remain an empty word on your tongues. And when these signs appear amongst you, anticipate the day when the red-hot wind will have swept over you, or the day when ye will have been disfigured, or when stones will have rained upon you.”

- Shoghi Effendi

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/PDC/pdc-24.html

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The realisation of 12th Imam has never been in the world of corporeal existence.

Thou hast asked the detail in relation to the 12th Imam. The realisation of this entity has never been in the world of corporeal existence. Rather His holiness the 12th Imam has always been in the realm of the unseen. He had never a realization in the world of physicality rather some of the leaders of the Shi'ihs at that time in the past, merely to protect the weak souls considered it expedient to describe that Personage Who is present in the realm of the unseen in this manner. Their descriptions were such that one could almost imagine that He is in the realm of physicality. For the world of existence in its totality is one world. "It is only unseen in relation to you and it is only visible in relation to you." All this was their consideration, their thought their expedience. There is a couplet composed by Ibn Hajar in this regard in his Sawaa'iq Muharriqah (Sunni book written against Shi'is)

How can the Sardab [=the Cellar in Samarra Iraq] give birth to a human child?

God forgive your thoughts! for you have truly found a third to the mythical twin of the phoenix and the mythical giant.

In sum if you refer to all the traditions in this regard and if you exert the utmost careful study you will conclude that this peerless being the 12th Imam has never existed in the world of physical existence.

- 'Abdu'l-Baha

MuhAdarat Volume 2 page 833 Dar khusus e Imam e Thaani 'ashar.

http://fananapazir.co.nr/sixtranslations.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20160308184005/http://fananapazir.co.nr/sixtranslations.html

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Nusayri Baha'is !

In brief, the intense opposition and hostility of the enemies in those years emblazoned the fire of the love of God and generated an atmosphere of great enthusiasm and excitement among the friends. If the Covenant-breakers misinterpreted the blessed verse: "Turn "{149} in accordance with their own whim and fancy, and not unlike the Sunnis in the early years of Islam adopted the verse: "The book of God shall be sufficient unto us" as their justification for breaking away from the body of the Faith, some of the Bahá'ís out of their intense love and devotion for 'Abdu'l-Bahá now became Nusayri.{150} They extended the interpretation of the verse "Turn " to the furthest extremes of its meaning, interpreting the word "after" in accordance with the verse: "after God there is naught but utter darkness".

Memories of Nine Years in Akka by Youness Afroukhteh

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No Bahá'í in the West can be called a Bahá'í unless he is first Muslim

No Bahá'í in the West can be called a Bahá'í unless he is first Muslim (believer in Muhammad's revelation and teachings and the Imams) and a Sunni Muhammadan can never become a Bahá'í unless he becomes first a Shi'ih Muslim. The Sunnis were following a false line, they must recognize their error and accept the Shi'ih truth and then this Revelation. The fact that the Bab is a lineal descendant of Muhammad is sufficient proof for us that the line of the Imam Husayn (son of Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet) was the authentic one. Could the Bab have descended from a line of usurpers? In the light of Bahá'u'lláh's tribute to the Imam Husayn could we doubt it? So must the Jews first become Christians, then Shi'ih Muhammadans, then Bahá'ís.

http://bahai-library.com/maxwell_haifa_notes&chapter=1

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