...The David referred to by the Bab, and stated by Him to
have preceded Moses, is not the same one as King David, the father of King
Solomon, who lived in the tenth century B.C. and who obviously lived many
years, and indeed many centuries after Moses. Abdu’l-Baha has explained this in
a Tablet. 
With reference to your question in connection with the
observance of Baha’i Holy Days; the Baha’i day begins and ends at sunset. The
night preceding a Holy day is therefore included in the day, and consequently
work during that period is forbidden.
We must also remember that sex is a characteristic of this
world, not of the spiritual world. When the Guardian was asked about "soul
mates" and the problem that could arise in the next world if one were to
remarry in this life, his secretary replied on his behalf, on 4 December 1954:
Even though there have been outstanding women such as Sarah,
Ásíyih, the Virgin Mary, Fáṭimih, Ṭáhirih and the Greatest Holy Leaf in every
Dispensation, it is an incontrovertible fact that all Manifestations of God
known to us have been men. Moreover, it is a clear provision in Bahá’í
administration that the Guardians were to be men and that membership on the
Universal House of Justice is confined to men. Whether these facts point to a
differentiation in function that is unalterable, or whether it was merely a
characteristic of a period which will change when mankind attains its maturity
is a matter that will, no doubt, become clear in the future. The important
point for Bahá’ís to remember is that, in face of the categorical
pronouncements in Bahá’í Scripture establishing the equality of men and women,
even these facts are no evidence at all of the superiority of the male over the
female sex. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has explained that equality does not mean identity of
function. He has also stated that the few areas in which men and women are not
equal are "negligible".
There are Prophets mentioned in the Qur’án, such as Húd and
Sálih, about whom the Bible is silent. Idrís, whom the Qur’án states was a
Prophet, is identified with Hermes by Bahá’u’lláh, Who states "In every
tongue he hath a special name." It is clear that He must have lived in
very ancient times. Bahá’u’lláh made no mention of Buddha, and if it had not
been for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's statement we would not have been in a position to state
definitely that Buddha had been a Manifestation of God. There are a myriad
traditions in the legends of peoples that point back to some sort of divine
revelation but, as the beloved Guardian's secretary pointed out on his behalf
in a letter written to an individual believer on 13 March 1950, ". . . We
cannot possibly add names of people we (or anyone else) think might be Lesser
Prophets to those found in the Qur’án, the Bible and our own Scriptures. For
only these can we consider authentic Books." We must just accept that
there are undoubtedly many prophetic figures of whom all authentic record has
been lost. As to the future, the Research Department knows of no Text which
states explicitly in which country Manifestations of God will appear.
The attitude of the Cause towards the problem of race, be it
in America or elsewhere, has been repeatedly clarified by the Guardian. To the
faithful followers of Baha'u'llah who fully grasp the essential implications of
the principle of the oneness of mankind so much emphasized in His teachings,
racial prejudice, in all its forms, is simply a negation of faith, a
repudiation of the belief in the brotherhood of man which is, beyond doubt, the
cornerstone of the Religion of God. Loyalty to this basic principle should,
therefore, be wholehearted and unqualified.
Bahá’ís are required by the teachings of their Faith to
refrain from involvement in partisan political activity and civil disorder.
This is true whether such activity is a response to racial oppression, as is
generally the case in South Africa, or to more widespread attempts to keep
people divided and vulnerable such as the persecution of religious belief, the
suppression of women, or the denial of political freedom. The hard-won
experience of Bahá’ís under all these conditions convinces them beyond any
doubt that humanity can learn to live as one family and that all the forces of
contemporary history are rapidly impelling the race in this direction. The
pressure of quality of that response, and its speed, will depend as much on
spiritual and moral conditions as it will on economic and political ones.
You raise two basic issues, that all the Manifestations of
God known to us have been men, and that they have appeared in the East.
…from the time of its inception more than a century ago, the
Bahá’í world community has been characterized by the integration of the many
religious, racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and national elements which it
comprises. Marriage between persons of different ethnic, and cultural
backgrounds, and particularly between black and white Bahá’ís, is warmly
encouraged in the Bahá’í scriptures. In order to make certain that those
members who suffer discrimination in society as a whole are not prevented from
full participation in the life of the community, the Bahá’í teachings contain
certain administrative principles which are designed to overcome the handicaps
created by social inequalities. For example, where a tie vote has been cast in
a Bahá’í community election or where two or more believers are equally
qualified for a particular office, priority is given as a matter of principle
to the one representing the disadvantaged or oppressed sector of society.
...The Guardian would suggest that you study very carefully
the statements of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in connection with the question of visions,
dreams, etc., as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has very fully explained this delicate subject.
You will find references to this in “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era,” 'Some
Answered Questions' and the Books of Tablets. The Guardian likewise has
commented on this matter.
If the American government should command you [an American
pioneer in Falkland Islands]to return, as a citizen you would have no
alternative but to obey. However, if they merely advise you to leave, he does
not think you would have to follow this advice unless you wanted to. During the
present crisis in this part of the world, the American Baha'is serving here
have been advised to leave; but they have explained that they did not wish to
because of their Baha'i services; and that has been quite acceptable to the
American representatives in this country.
He feels that, as you will need a profession in order to
earn your living in the future, you should not discontinue your studies.
However, he makes two suggestions for you: that if possible you continue your
studies in a school in some city where there is not a Spiritual Assembly, and
where by your efforts you may be able to reach, and establish an Assembly; and
that you devote as much time during the summer vacation as you can to traveling
and teaching, or to going to some weak center and helping build it into a
strong one.
He was happy to know that so many of the Persian Baha'is
have been able to migrate to Brazil; and hopes that they will make a special
point of settling in centers where they can easily, because of their numerical
strength, help form new Spiritual Assemblies, and thus broaden the foundation
upon which the future Regional Assembly for that area will be formed, and
eventually the National Assembly.
He attaches great importance to the spread of the Faith in
Brazil which is a country not only vast in size, but in potentialities, and
which has proved itself to be a melting-pot for people of different
nationalities. It has certainly a great future in the Faith and in the world.
He is urging the Baha'is everywhere to try and have the
Baha’i Community representative of the population of the country insofar as
possible; in other words, where the majority of the people are Hindus, to try
and have a majority of Hindu Baha'is; where the majority are Christian,
Christian; where the majority are Negroes, etc. In this way the Cause is more
deeply identified with the life of the people of the country.
As there were no followers of the Báb or Bahá'u'lláh derived
from the religions of the Far East in Their days, this may be the reason that
They did not address any Tablets directly to these people. Also we must
remember that every religion springs from some root, and just as Christianity
sprang from Judaism, our own religion sprang from Islam, and that is why so
many of the teachings deduce their proofs from Islam.
You must not make the great mistake of judging our Faith by
one community which obviously needs to study and obey the Bahá’í teachings.
Human frailties and peculiarities can be a great test. But the only way, or
perhaps I should say the first and best way, to remedy such situations, is to oneself
do what is right. One soul can be the cause of the spiritual illumination of a
continent. Now that you have seen, and remedied, a great fault in your own
life, now that you see more clearly what is lacking in your own community,
there is nothing to prevent you from arising and showing such an example, such
a love and spirit of service, as to enkindle the hearts of your fellow Bahá’ís.
When we realize that Bahá’u’lláh says adultery retards the
progress of the soul in the afterlife—so grievous is it—and that drinking
destroys the mind, and not to so much as approach it, we see how clear are our
teachings on these subjects.
He was grieved to hear of some of the things you describe.
It shows great spiritual immaturity on the part of some of the Bahá’ís and an
astonishing lack of understanding and study of the teachings. To live up to our
Faith’s moral teachings is a task far harder than to live up to those noble
principles the Moral Re-Armament inculcates, fine and encompassing as they are!
Every other word of Bahá’u’lláh’s and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s writings is a preachment
on moral and ethical conduct; all else is the form, the chalice, into which the
pure spirit must be poured, without the spirit and the action which must
demonstrate it, it is a lifeless form.
The very moment the shots were fired [to execute of the
Báb] a gale of exceptional violence arose and swept over the city. From noon
till night a whirlwind of dust obscured the light of the sun, and blinded the
eyes of the people. In Shíráz an “earthquake,” foreshadowed in no less weighty
a Book than the Revelation of St. John, occurred in 1268 A.H. which threw the
whole city into turmoil and wrought havoc amongst its people, a havoc that was
greatly aggravated by the outbreak of cholera, by famine and other afflictions.
In that same year no less than two hundred and fifty of the firing squad, that
had replaced Sám Khán’s regiment, met their death, together with their
officers, in a terrible earthquake, while the remaining five hundred suffered,
three years later, as a punishment for their mutiny, the same fate as that
which their hands had inflicted upon the Báb. To insure that none of them had
survived, they were riddled with a second volley, after which their bodies,
pierced with spears and lances, were exposed to the gaze of the people of
Tabríz. The prime instigator of the Báb’s death, the implacable Amír-Nizám,
[the Grand Vizir] together with his brother, his chief accomplice, met their
death within two years of that savage act.
Sám Khán… remembering, with feelings of awe and wonder, the
reassuring words addressed to him by the Báb, ordered his men to leave the
barracks immediately, and swore, as he left the courtyard, never again, even at
the cost of his life, to repeat that act. Áqá Ján-i-Khamsíh, colonel of the
body-guard, volunteered to replace him. On the same wall and in the same manner
the Báb and His companion were again suspended, while the new regiment formed
in line and opened fire upon them. This time, however, their breasts were
riddled with bullets, and their bodies completely dissected, with the exception
of their faces which were but little marred.
Sám Khán [the colonel of the Armenian regiment ordered to
carry out the execution] accordingly set out to discharge his duty. A spike was
driven into a pillar which separated two rooms of the barracks facing the
square. Two ropes were fastened to it from which the Báb and one of his
disciples, the youthful and devout Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí-i-Zunúzí, surnamed Anís,
who had previously flung himself at the feet of his Master and implored that
under no circumstances he be sent away from Him, were separately suspended. The
firing squad ranged itself in three files, each of two hundred and fifty men.
Each file in turn opened fire until the whole detachment had discharged its
bullets. So dense was the smoke from the seven hundred and fifty rifles that
the sky was darkened. As soon as the smoke had cleared away the astounded
multitude of about ten thousand souls, who had crowded onto the roof of the
barracks, as well as the tops of the adjoining houses, beheld a scene which
their eyes could scarcely believe. The Báb had vanished from their sight! Only
his companion remained, alive and unscathed, standing beside the wall on which
they had been suspended. The ropes by which they had been hung alone were
severed.
The siege of Zanján was still in progress when he, [the
Grand Vizir] dispensing with an explicit order from his sovereign, and acting
independently of his counsellors and fellow-ministers, dispatched his order to
Prince Hamzih Mírzá… the governor of Ádhirbayján, instructing him to execute
the Báb. Fearing lest the infliction of such condign punishment in the capital
of the realm would set in motion forces he might be powerless to control, he
ordered that his Captive be taken to Tabríz, and there be done to death.
Confronted with a flat refusal by the indignant Prince to perform what he
regarded as a flagitious crime, the Amír-Nizám commissioned his own brother,
Mírzá Hasan Khán, to execute his orders.
While the convulsions of Mázindarán and Nayríz were pursuing
their bloody course the Grand Vizir of Násiri’d-Dín Sháh, anxiously pondering
the significance of these dire happenings, and apprehensive of their
repercussions on his countrymen, his government and his sovereign, was
feverishly revolving in his mind that fateful decision which was not only
destined to leave its indelible imprint on the fortunes of his country, but was
to be fraught with such incalculable consequences for the destinies of the
whole of mankind. The repressive measures taken against the followers of the
Báb, he was by now fully convinced, had but served to inflame their zeal, steel
their resolution and confirm their loyalty to their persecuted Faith. The Báb’s
isolation and captivity had produced the opposite effect to that which the
Amír-Nizám had confidently anticipated. Gravely perturbed, he bitterly
condemned the disastrous leniency of his predecessor, Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, which
had brought matters to such a pass. A more drastic and still more exemplary
punishment, he felt, must now be administered to what he regarded as an
abomination of heresy which was polluting the civil and ecclesiastical
institutions of the realm. Nothing short, he believed, of the extinction of the
life of Him Who was the fountain-head of so odious a doctrine and the driving
force behind so dynamic a movement could stem the tide that had wrought such
havoc throughout the land.
A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated
anxieties, disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now
moved swiftly towards its climax. The most turbulent period of the Heroic Age
of the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination. The cup of
bitter woes which the Herald of that Dispensation had tasted was now full to
overflowing. Indeed, He Himself had already foreshadowed His own approaching
death. In the Kitáb-i-Panj-Sha’n, one of His last works, He had alluded to the
fact that the sixth Naw-Rúz after the declaration of His mission would be the
last He was destined to celebrate on earth. In His interpretation of the letter
Há, He had voiced His craving for martyrdom, while in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá He had
actually prophesied the inevitability of such a consummation of His glorious
career. Forty days before His final departure from Chihríq He had even
collected all the documents in His possession, and placed them, together with
His pen-case, His seals and His rings, in the hands of Mullá Báqir, a Letter of
the Living, whom He instructed to entrust them to Mullá
‘Abdu’l-Karím-i-Qazvíní, surnamed Mírzá Aḥmad, who was to deliver them to
Bahá’u’lláh in Tihrán.
In the heart of the European continent a community [Germany]
which, as predicted by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, is destined, by virtue of its spiritual
potentialities and geographical situation, to radiate the splendour of the
light of the Faith on the countries that surround it, has been momentarily
eclipsed through the restrictions which a regime that has sorely misapprehended
its purpose and function has chosen to impose upon it. Its voice, alas, is now
silenced, its institutions dissolved, its literature banned, its archives
confiscated, and its meetings suspended.
Historians cannot be sure Socrates did not visit the Holy
Land. But believing as we do that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had an intuitive knowledge quite
different from our own, we accept His authority on this matter....
We must not take many of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statements as
dogmatic finalities, for there are other points which when added to them round
out the picture. For instance, when He calls Aristotle and Plato Philosophers
of the East, He is obviously placing them in that category because He believes
they belong more correctly to Eastern culture than to Central European and the
New World cultures of the West. When He calls the philosophers of the West
materialistic this does not for a moment mean He includes all Western
philosophers for, as you truly point out, many of them have been very spiritual
in their concepts....
