Though sprung from Shi'ih Islam, and regarded, in the early
stages of its development, by the followers of both the Muslim and Christian
Faiths, as an obscure sect, an Asiatic cult or an offshoot of the Muhammadan
religion, this Faith is now increasingly demonstrating its right to be
recognized, not as one more religious system superimposed on the conflicting
creeds which for so many generations have divided mankind and darkened its
fortunes, but rather as a restatement of the eternal verities underlying all
the religions of the past, as a unifying force instilling into the adherents of
these religions a new spiritual vigor, infusing them with a new hope and love
for mankind, firing them with a new vision of fundamental unity of their
religious doctrines, and unfolding to their eyes the glorious destiny that
awaits the human race.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Faith of Baha’u’llah: A World
Religion’, a brief document prepared by Shoghi Effendi and accompanied his
Statement to the Special UN Commission on Palestine, 14 July 1947)
