Of the more than one hundred volumes comprising the sacred
Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is of unique importance. “To build
anew the whole world” is the claim and challenge of His Message, and the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the Charter of the future world civilization that Bahá’u’lláh
has come to raise up. Its provisions rest squarely on the foundation
established by past religions, for, in the words of Bahá’u’lláh, “This is the
changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future.” In this
Revelation the concepts of the past are brought to a new level of
understanding, and the social laws, changed to suit the age now dawning, are
designed to carry humanity forward into a world civilization the splendours of which
can as yet be scarcely imagined.
In its affirmation of the validity of the great religions of
the past, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas reiterates those eternal truths enunciated by all
the Divine Messengers: the unity of God, love of one’s neighbour, and the moral
purpose of earthly life. At the same time it removes those elements of past
religious codes that now constitute obstacles to the emerging unification of
the world and the reconstruction of human society. (The Universal House of
Justice, ‘Introduction to Kitab-i-Aqdas’)
