TEMPLE
OF BAHA'ULLA
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Bahá'u'lláh was born in 1817 and died in 1892. He was the son of a Persian nobleman and born to wealth and luxury. Yet the major part of His life was spent in imprisonment and exile. He knew intimately torture and the dungeon, scorn and hunger, poverty and betrayal. The story of His life and of the Faith which bears His name, the Bahá'í Faith (Bahá'í means "a follower of Bahá"), is intensely dramatic and, until recent years, was little known in the west.
About the first half of the nineteenth century, many Christians were stirred by the hope of the return of Christ. This expectancy, latent in the Teachings of the New Testament, was by no means limited to Christians nor was it limited to America. Europe too was stirred by this phenomenon. A group of German Templars left their native land and settled permanently at the foot of Mount Carmel, in Israel, to await their Lord.
What most Westerners do not understand, is that at the same time a wave of expectancy swept through Islam. In Islam, some students and theologians felt that Islamic prophecies indicated an end of the laws of Koran and a beginning of a new spiritual age. The thinking of these theologians was that the "Lord of the Age", to use the Islamic phrase, would appear.
In 1844 a young merchant of Shiraz, Iran, named Siyyid `Ali Muhammad suddenly began to teach a new faith in Persia. He assumed the title of the Báb, which literally means "The Gate". The force of the Báb's character and utterance was like a bombshell in that backward, priest-ridden land. Pleasant academic discussions as to the meaning of the traditions of Islam were at an end. A flame of interest in the Báb and devoted acceptance of Him swept the country. The astonished priests reacted with orthodox fury. They arrested and imprisoned the Báb and instigated systematic massacres of His followers.
The Báb taught that a new spiritual era was at hand. He criticized vehemently the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of the Muslim clergy. He urged the highest standard of character. And He promised that within nineteen years "Him Whom God would make manifest" would begin to teach and bring to men the basic laws and principles for a new age. The degenerate clergy, long corrupted by their powerful position in the church-state of Persia, feared and hated the Bábi faith initiated by the Báb. It was as if a strong, clean wind had suddenly swept through the dank atmosphere of a room long closed. The massacres of the Bábis find their parallel in the bloody holidays of ancient Rome. Hypocrisy and tyranny tried to destroy faith by the sword. The Báb was soon arrested and imprisoned in a remote mountain village. On July 9, 1850 hatred found its climax when the Báb was publicly martyred in the barracks square of the city of Tabriz, Iran. An attempt was made to completely exterminate the new faith in Persia. Bloody scenes multiplied throughout the country, and the surviving faithful went underground.
The consternation of the priesthood during those years had been deepened by the fact that many of their own outstanding members had accepted the Teachings of the Báb. Also outstanding men in other walks of life had accepted Him. Among these was Mirza Husayn `Ali, a young man of eminent and wealthy family. Ignoring the jibes of family and class, Mirza Husayn `Ali, Who is known to history as Bahá'u'lláh ("The Glory of God"), publicly championed the Báb. In the nation-wide campaign to exterminate the faith, Bahá'u'lláh's position had caused Him to be spared. But in 1852 when two crazed young Bábis made an attempt to kill the Shah, Bahá'u'lláh was imprisoned for four months in the Siyah Chal, a dreadful underground prison in Tehran. Bahá'u'lláh's innocence was clearly proven in the courts. But this incident is of great historic significance because during the imprisonment Bahá'u'lláh became aware that He was the Promised One foretold by the Báb.
Immediately after being released from prison, He was exiled to Baghdad by the Persian government, in an effort to remove from the country the last effective leader of the detested new faith. Bahá'u'lláh was an exile in Iraq for about ten years. During this time He transformed the outlook and character of the followers of the Báb. His own fame spread to such an extent that scholars and men of renown visited Him in increasing numbers.
The Muslim priests and the Turkish and Persian governments as Islamic church-states could not tolerate the rebirth of the new faith under Bahá'u'lláh. So it was decreed that Bahá'u'lláh be exiled from Baghdad to Constantinople (now called Istanbul), on the theory that distance would dissipate His influence -- a theory repeatedly tried and repeatedly bringing opposite results. In 1863 the exile was ordered. And in a few days while a caravan was being prepared for the long journey, Bahá'u'lláh announced to His followers that He was the One Whose coming the Báb foretold.
After being four months in Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh was banished to Adrianople. There He publicly proclaimed His message, addressing collectively the temporal and spiritual rulers of the earth. He wrote some of the first of a series of letters known collectively as the "Tablets to the Kings". He addressed the Sultan of Turkey, the Shah of Persia, and Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. Among the themes in those letters was a call to the rulers "to be just and vigilant, to compose their differences and reduce their armaments." Later He addressed such letters to Queen Victoria, Alexander II of Russia, Pope Pius IX, William I, the Emperor of Germany, and Francis Joseph, the Emperor of Austria. In His book of laws The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh addressed a passage to "the Rulers of American and the Presidents of the Republics therein," asking them to "adorn the temple of dominion with the ornament of justice" and bidding them "bind with the hands of justice the broken."
A fourth and final exile was ordered, this time (1868) sending Bahá'u'lláh to the prison-city of Akka on the Bay of Haifa in the Holy Land. There He revealed the major portions of His Teachings, and despite restrictions His influence increased. Bahá'u'lláh was an exile in Akka and the surrounding countryside until the end of His life in 1892.
In the Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh we find that He "abolishes the institution of priesthood; prohibits slavery, asceticism, mendicancy, monasticism, penance, the use of pulpits and the kissing of hands; prescribes monogamy; condemns cruelty to animals, idleness and sloth, backbiting and calumny; censures divorce; interdicts gambling, the use of opium, wine and other intoxicating drinks ... stresses the importance of marriage and lays down its essential conditions; imposes the obligation of engaging in some trade or profession, exalting such occupation to the rank of worship; emphasizes the necessity of providing the means for the education of children..."
The chief principle of Bahá'u'lláh's Teachings is "the oneness and wholeness of the human race". This is the pivotal point of all that He taught. The purpose of the Bahá'í Faith is to unite the entire world in one common faith and one common social order. We may perhaps state that Bahá'u'lláh's second challenging contribution to the unity of the human race is a set of principles and a social structure designed to produce justice. He called justice "the best beloved of all things" in the sight of God. He urged moderation and warned against fanaticism and excesses of all kinds. The acquiring of education is essential to everyone. True religion and science are in agreement. Consultation is the key method for the settling of disputes and for developing plans and policies for the common good.
The aim of religion is to produce the strong, intangible bonds of unity. Bahá'u'lláh clarifies the historic development of religion as the evolution of one faith, serving different needs in each age. Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá'u'lláh have been successive Manifestations, through Whom God has progressively revealed the purpose of religion. Because of ignorance, the followers of these Manifestations may quarrel, but the open-minded individual can see the pattern of agreement and evolution in what these supreme Educators taught. Stripped of the many layers of theology and custom, the different faiths of the world assume an integrated relationship, each leading to the other in historic development, as links in a chain. And none of the great Founders of the world's religions has ever taught that He was the only or the last Revealor of Divine Teachings. Instead, Each of them has praised the Prophet Who lived and taught before Him, and also has pointed to the future when another such Educator, or "Spirit of Truth" as Jesus taught, would live.
Bahá'u'lláh spoke with the same Divine Authority as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. He taught that the time was now ripe for the coming of age of the human race and the beginning of its conscious unity.
To achieve this, He urged the abolition of racial, religious, political, and economic prejudices, the adoption of an international auxiliary language, equal opportunities and privileges for men and women, a universal system of education, the independent investigation of truth, the adoption of a world code of human rights and responsibilities, and the creation of a world federal government. He taught that in each community there should be a House of Justice, this finally culminating in a Universal House of Justice.
Bahá'u'lláh has called into being a constantly growing body of followers in all the five continents of the globe. These people come from differing racial and religious backgrounds. In the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh they become united in belief and action. While wars are waged and the moral fabric of modern civilization becomes more and more tattered, Bahá'ís continue to tell the story of Bahá'u'lláh's life, of the reawakening of men to the call of God in our time. For, to Bahá'ís, quite literally, "This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future." While the rot of modern materialism does its deadly work, Bahá'ís continue to patiently sacrifice and work to build the group consciousness and the social institutions which Bahá'u'lláh promised them would, in time, flower into a world civilization, a new world order.
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
Bahai
(Persian, “of glory”), religious faith founded in the late 19th century
as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Mirza Ali Muhammad of Shìraz,
known as the Bab. The founder of Bahai was Mirza Hoseyn Ali Nuri, born
in Persia and later known as Bahaullah (Arabic, “the Splendor of God”).
He became a follower of the Bab, and in 1850, upon the martyrdom of the
Bab, became the leader of one of the Babi factions. The Persian government,
which had been persistently persecuting the Babists, in 1852 carried out
a general massacre in which an estimated 20,000 died. Bahaullah, his family,
and some of his followers were spared, but Bahaullah was imprisoned and
tortured and then exiled to Baghdad,
then under Turkish control. A political prisoner for the rest of his life,
Bahaullah was sent by the Turkish government, together with his family
and followers, on successive rigorous marches from Baghdad
to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul)
to Adrianople (now Edirne) and finally to a penal colony in Acre, Palestine
(modern-day ‘Akko, Israel), where he remained until his death.
Upon establishing the Babi faith in 1844, the Bab had foretold that in 19 years a divine figure would appear, “him whom God should manifest.” In 1863, in Baghdad, Bahaullah proclaimed himself to be that manifestation. His followers, called Bahais, believe that he was the latest in a series of divine manifestations that includes Zoroaster, the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Muhammad and that he brought a new revelation to the world.
Bahaullah had sought above all to establish a universal religion; his teachings urging moral and social improvement were spread mainly by his eldest son, Abbas, later called Abd ul-Baha (Arabic, “the Servant of the Glory”). Like his father, he was a political prisoner for years. In 1908, when parts of the Ottoman Empire were overthrown, he was freed; he subsequently traveled to Europe and North America to introduce his father's teachings. He summarized the Bahai faith in a set of principles that included among its concrete social aims the abolition of racial and religious prejudice, equality of the sexes, an international auxiliary language, universal education, a universal faith founded on the assumption of the essential identity of the great religions, and a universal representative government. The writings of the Bab, Bahaullah, and Abd ul-Baha constitute the sacred literature of Bahai, which has no other form of institutional authority; neither a priesthood nor a body of ritual is recognized. In his will, Abd ul-Baha named his eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi Rabbani, as guardian of the faith.
Although Bahai developed in Persia, by 1920 it had its greatest following in the United States. Under the direction (1921-57) of Shoghi Effendi, the U.S. Bahais developed an administrative system with headquarters in Wilmette, Illinois. Wherever nine or more Bahais reside, a “spiritual assembly” may be formed; more than 1700 assemblies have been organized in the U.S. Delegates are sent from the local assemblies to an annual convention at the national headquarters, at which a National Spiritual Assembly is elected. Of an estimated 5.3 million Bahais worldwide as the 1990's began, about 110,000 lived in the U.S. The Islamic fundamentalist government of Iran has persecuted Bahais in that country since coming to power in 1979.
Bahai has adherents in more than 300 countries and dependencies, and Bahai literature has been translated into more than 350 languages. Bahai world headquarters is in Israel, on the slopes of Mount Carmel overlooking Haifa and ‘Akko; there, a shrine of the Bab, an archives building, and an administrative center have been constructed.
Shoghi Effendi:
The Bahá'í Faith recognizes the unity of God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand-in-hand with science, and that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive society. It inculcates the principle of equal opportunity, rights and privileges for both sexes, advocates compulsory education, abolishes extremes of poverty and wealth, exalts work performed in the spirit of service to the rank of worship, recommends the adoption of an auxiliary international language, and provides the necessary agencies for the establishment and safeguarding of a permanent and universal peace.
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All of the world's Bahá'í Houses of Worship have a central dome, and nine entrances.
