Baha’i Faith: The Basics

Christopher Buck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138346178
• eBook ISBN: 9780429663024
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Religion

Bahá'í Faith: The Basics provides a thorough and accessible introduction to a fascinating, independent world religion. Examining its historical development, current "community-building" efforts and the social contributions of the Bahá'í Faith in the world today, this introduction covers:

• Beliefs: Bahá'í spiritual teachings
• Principles: Bahá'í social teachings
• History: Bahá'u'lláh and his covenant.
• Scripture: Bahá'í sacred texts and inspired guidance
• Institutions: The Bahá'í Administrative Order
• Building community: What Bahá'ís do
• Social action: Bahá'í social and economic development projects
• Public discourse: The Bahá'í International Community
• Vision: Foundations for a future golden age

With features including a glossary of terms, and references to the Bahá'í writings throughout, this is the ideal text for students and interested readers wanting to familiarize themselves with the Bahá'í Faith.

1
Introduction

What Is the Bahá’í Faith?

A New World Religion

The Bahá’í Faith is an independent world religion, which began in 19th-century Persia (present-day Iran) and is now established in virtually every country and territory around the world (except for North Korea and the Vatican City State). The Bahá’í Faith therefore is a global community. Although relatively small in numbers, the rapid “diffusion” (or spread) is quite remarkable, given the relatively recent appearance of the Bahá’í religion on the historical horizon. The purpose of the Bahá’í Faith is to “unify the world.” This vision and mandate has inspired many to join the Bahá’í religion, in which peace is made sacred, and powerful social principles are promoted and put into practice in order to build and/or strengthen those institutional foundations upon which world peace and prosperity may be based. “Say: no man can attain his true station except through his justice,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892), prophet-founder of the Bahá’í Faith: “No power can exist except through unity. No welfare and no well-being can be attained except through consultation” (quoted by the Universal House of Justice, April 2017, BRL).

True to its purpose, the Bahá’í religion is truly worldwide. Around 2,100 indigenous tribal, ethnic, and racial groups are represented in the worldwide Bahá’í community, which currently has 188 national councils that oversee Bahá’í community life in their respective regions. Bahá’í scriptures and prayers have been translated into over 800 languages. In September 2018, for instance, a collection of Bahá’í prayers, translated into the Maori language with the assistance of Dr. Tom Roa, professor of Maori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato, was published in New Zealand.

To illustrate the recent growth of the Bahá’í Faith, the following concrete examples may be given. There are now ten Bahá’í Houses of Worship around the world, located in: (1) Wilmette, Illinois, United States (opened in 1953); (2) Kampala, Uganda (1961); (3) Sydney, Australia (1961); (4) Frankfurt, Germany (1964); (5) Panama City, Panama (1972); (6) Apia, Samoa (1984); (7) New Delhi, India (1986); (8) Santiago, Chile (2016); (9) Battambang, Cambodia (2017); and (10) Norte del Cauca, Colombia (2018). Plans are underway to build national Houses of Worship in: Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (design unveiled on 21 March 2018); and in Kinshaha, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, design announced on 2 July 2020). Local Houses of Worship are also being constructed in: Tanna, Vanuatu (design revealed on 18 June 2017); Matunda Soy, Kenya (design disclosed on 15 April 2018); and Bihar Sharif, India (designed publicized on 29 April 2020).

Given its impressive geographic spread as the world’s most widely diffused religion in the world today (second only to Christianity), the Bahá’í Faith is increasingly attracting interest. Christianity, of course, remains the world’s largest religion, with approximately 2.3 billion followers (as of 2015), while the Bahá’í Faith numbers only around seven million adherents. This notable difference in size is directly related to the relative age of each faith. Christianity is over 2,000 years old, whereas the Bahá’í Faith, as of 20 March 2020, is 177 years old, considering that Bahá’í history began in 1844.

Purpose of the Bahá’í Faith

A young, independent world religion—co-founded by the Báb in 1844 and by Bahá’u’lláh in 1863—the Bahá’í Faith claims to have the blueprint to usher in a future golden age of world civilization. Time will tell. Bahá’ís are confident that, over time, the Bahá’í religion will fulfill its purpose, and will contribute greatly to the peace and prosperity of the world. The how and why will be explained further in this book.

Like other world religions, the Bahá’í Faith teaches how to live a better life—morally, ethically, and spiritually. The distinctive feature of the Bahá’í religion is its emphasis on promoting unity, from family relations to international relations. With this in mind, it’s easy to see how the Bahá’í Faith also teaches how to live a better life socially and globally. The teachings of the Bahá’í religion originate with Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892) who was born in Persia (present-day Iran) and who, as a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire, was exiled to Acre (Akka), Palestine (present-day Israel) which is how the Bahá’í World Centre was established on the slopes of Mt. Carmel in Haifa, Israel. The Bahá’í Shrines and Gardens are now a place of pilgrimage for Bahá’ís around the world and was declared a “World Heritage Site” by the United Nations in 2008 (UNESCO 2019). This book will serve as an introduction to the “basics” of the Bahá’í Faith.

The “Oneness of God”

“Unity” is the watchword of the Bahá’í religion. In a nutshell, its teachings revolve around the “oneness of God,” the “oneness of humankind,” and the “oneness of religions.”

Briefly, the first of these three onenesses is the belief in one God. Thus, the Bahá’í Faith, along with Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions, is a “monotheistic” religion. God is regarded as an “unknowable essence,” beyond the reach and ken of human understanding. In such case, God is the supreme “mystery”—yet with the greatest number of clues throughout the universe. Creation being God’s handiwork, Bahá’ís believe, there is nothing in creation that does not reflect some quality or attribute of its maker. Even so, God remains beyond comprehension. After all, the finite cannot comprehend the infinite. In short, God can be apprehended, but not comprehended. In other words, while some things may be known about God, God, who knows all things, cannot be known directly or fully. This may seem paradoxical, especially considering the Bahá’í noonday prayer, which states, in part: “I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee” (Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations, BRL). That is to say, to know and to love God is possible to the extent that God has revealed something of the divine nature and purpose through the prophets and messengers that God has sent in the course of human history.

Put differently, how is it that Bahá’ís—or anyone, for that matter—can believe in, love, and worship a God who cannot truly be known, fathomed, or otherwise understood? The answer is that God sends prophets, messengers, spiritual teachers (known by different names and terms of reference) to reveal the will of God and divine teachings for the betterment of humankind. These teachers are typically the founders of the world’s religions. They appear throughout history and serve to enlighten humanity in their part of the world. Bahá’ís take a bird’s-eye view of the world’s religious history and call this process “Progressive Revelation.” So, not only do spiritual teachers bring timeless—and timely—moral, spiritual, and social truths, their teachings are also typically fuller and more complete than the ones brought before. Bahá’ís believe that the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh represent the will of God for this day and age.

The Oneness of Humankind

The second “oneness” is the idea that humanity is an extended family, to use one metaphor. As Bahá’u’lláh has famously said: “The tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch” (Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, BRL). Like family, all human beings are related and interrelated. This is understood to be scientifically true, as well as spiritually true. The goal of the Bahá’í religion is to make this socially true as well. Bahá’í social teachings all support this overarching goal of promoting the “consciousness of the oneness of humankind” and of taking practical steps to eliminate prejudices of all kinds—whether racial, religious, ethnic, national, gender-based, class-based, etc.—which pose the major barriers to a united world. As previously mentioned, Bahá’ís believe that the will of God for this day and age is that the world should become unified. Humanity, given its spiritual and social evolution, has reached the threshold of its long-awaited “maturity.” So, now is the right time for the world to come together. World unity, therefore, is not simply a utopian dream, but a practical necessity, on which the world’s future survival, as well as peace and prosperity, ultimately depends. As Bahá’u’lláh has stated: “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established” (Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, BRL).

The Oneness of Religion

The third oneness concerns the essential harmony of the world’s religions. This teaching does not overlook the many differences that separate religions today. Sectarianism, religious prejudice, religious persecution, interreligious violence, and even interreligious wars (especially those involving terrorism) remain a seemingly intractable global problem. One approach to solving this problem is to look at similarities among religions, rather than focusing on differences. Differences can also be regarded in a positive light. The Bahá’í Faith and values “unity in diversity” and only criticizes differences if they are the cause of social conflict and injustice.

Bahá’í Social Principles

Social principles may be thought of as the collective morals and ethics of the world. Principles embody values and operate as mandates for social action. The Bahá’í Faith has a number of social principles, a few of which will be described here. Justice, for instance, is highly valued in Bahá’í teachings. Social principles, if they attract widespread consensus and are put into general practice, have the power to transform society, each in their own way. The Bahá’í teachings show a keen awareness of the power of such principles. Social principles can be secular or religious. The Bahá’í religion, renders each secular social principle—that forms part and parcel of the overall Bahá’í social agenda—as sacred. This is a process that the present writer has referred to as “sacralizing the secular.”

Among the many Bahá’í social principles, the most well known are world peace and prosperity, the equality of women and men, the harmony of science and religion, spiritual solutions to economic problems (in which economic values should be based on human values), universal education, the adoption of an auxiliary world language, and so forth. The present writer has, in fact, identified over 50 Bahá’í principles of unity (Buck 2015b). This is simply to illustrate how deep and pervasive the Bahá’í teachings on unity actually are.

Equality of Women and Men

The equality of women and men, for instance, is a major Bahá’í social principle. It is said that the Bahá’í Faith may well be the first world religion to have proclaimed the full social and spiritual equality of women and men from the very inception of that religion. Of course, today, most other religions also espouse gender equality. This is a good thing. Bahá’ís do not claim “ownership” of this, or any other, major social principle. Considering that around half of the world’s population is comprised of women—a vast reservoir of social capital and potential that remains largely untapped and underdeveloped—this social principle is of huge importance, and should receive far more attention than it currently does.

Harmony of Science and Religion

The harmony of science and religion—another major social principle as well—is also of enormous importance. Another way of looking at this principle is to consider science as the major source of empirical knowledge of the physical universe, and religion as a major source of knowledge of the spiritual dimension of the universe. (Any worldview that denies the spiritual dimension of reality may be referred to as philosophical materialism.) Without science, religion can become superstitious. Without religion, science can become unethical, even destructive. When the two major spheres of human knowledge and social influence—science and religion—exist in perfect harmony with one another, an ideal situation results, whereby spiritual and scientific knowledge work together in perfect concert to promote a better life for all.

Systematic Growth and Social Transformation

For the Bahá’í Faith to serve a beneficial influence on societies worldwide, it first has to grow. The greater its growth, the greater its potential influence. To that end, since 1996, Bahá’í institutions have adopted a systematic approach to further expanding the growth of the Bahá’í community—what geographers call “expansion diffusion,” or what sociologists have referred to as “generating and applying spiritual capital” (although these academic terms of art never occur in Bahá’í discourse). In other words, Bahá’ís around the world have embarked on a coherent plan of individual and social transformation. Today, Bahá’ís worldwide are engaged in the systematic process of “community building,” which is all about establishing a new civilization and diffusing Bahá’í principles throughout society and with the cooperation of others. This is achieved through offering children’s classes for moral education, by organizing “junior youth spiritual empowerment programs,” by hosting devotional meetings for prayer and worship, and by offering study circles for community consolidation and skill-building to equip Bahá’ís and friends to better serve their local communities. “Service” to humanity is seen as spirituality in action, where the Bahá’í religion, along with other religions, is put to good use for the betterment of the world. Such emphasis on service is the primary way in which Bahá’ís “practice what they preach,” as it were. This systematic Bahá’í plan will be explained in some detail later in the book.

Bahá’í Administration

That said, there are no “preachers” in the Bahá’í religion, which has no clergy. Instead, the Bahá’í Faith is organized and run by elected councils. Bahá’í elections, in fact, are rather unique since nominating candidates and campaigning are not allowed. Voting is conducted prayerfully by secret ballot, in which the members of Bahá’í councils are elected by “plurality” vote, meaning that the nine individuals who receive the top number of votes are elected to a given Bahá’í council. There are local, regional, national, and international Bahá’í councils. These are called “Spiritual Assemblies,” except for Regional Bahá’í Councils, and the international Bahá’í council known as the Universal House o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: What Is the Bahá’í Faith?
• 2 Beliefs: Bahá’í Spiritual Teachings
• 3 Principles: Bahá’í Social Teachings
• 4 History: Bahá’u’lláh and His Covenant
• 5 Scriptures and Authoritative Writings: Bahá’í Sacred Texts and Inspired Guidance
• 6 Institutions: The Bahá’í Administrative Order
• 7 Building Community: What Bahá’ís Do
• 8 Social Action: Social and Economic Development
• 9 Public Discourse: The Bahá’í International Community and the Individual
• 10 Vision: Foundations for a Future Golden Age
• References
• Glossary: Key Bahá’í Terms
• Index