As regards the membership of the International House of
Justice, ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá states in
a Tablet that it is confined to men, and that the wisdom of it will be revealed
as manifest as the sun in the future. In any case the believers should know
that, as ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá Himself
has explicitly stated that sexes are equal except in some cases, the exclusion
of women from the International House of Justice should not be surprising. From
the fact that there is no equality of functions between the sexes one should
not, however, infer that either sex is inherently superior or inferior to the
other, or that they are unequal in their rights.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 14
December 1940 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer,
quoted in a letter from the Universal House of Justice to an individual
believer, 24 July 1975; ‘Messages from the Universal House of justice 1963-1986’)
