Baha'u'llah and Liberation Theology
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Juan Cole, Baha'u'llah and Liberation Theology, Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1997, bahai-library.com.
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BAHkU’LLliH             AND LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Juan R. I. Cole

The tragedy of global poverty in the late twentieth century has
increasingly preoccupied thinkers of all religions, both lay and cleri-
cal, as secular strategies for overcoming it have achieved only limited
and sectional successes. New theologies addressing the concerns of the
poor are in many ways attempting to recover the voice of the prophets,
rather than limiting themselves to the otherworldly concerns of
scholastic theologians.1 Prophets throughout history have, after all,
tended to side with the poor against the rich, if not politically then at
least morally and spiritually. The prophets of the Hebrew Bible
decried injustice toward the downtrodden. The Buddha, a prince, for-
sook the ephemeral material world to wander with destitute monks in
the forests near Benares. Jesus, an artisan-peasant, was a partisan of
the needy and the outcasts in his society, and had a low estimation of
the likelihood that the rich would enter the kingdom of heaven. The
Prophet Muhammad, an orphaned member of the noble Quraysh
tribe, thunderously condemned in his early preaching the callousness
of Mecca’s wealthy elite toward the indigent. Baha’u’llah, as well,
made the amelioration of the condition of the poor a prime goal of his
religion, laying heavy obligations in this regard upon private individ-
uals, religious institutions, and the state.
Baha’u’llah’s commitments are all the more remarkable given that
he was from the class of wealthy government officials and was raised
in the lap of luxury. For the sake of principle (first his embrace of the
80       Revisioning        the   Sacred

Babi religion, then his revelation of the Baha’i Faith) he relinquished
his wealth and threw in his lot with the laborers, cobblers, tailors,
shopkeepers, housewives, and peasants who constituted the majority
of Babis and then Baha’is. As a result, not only was he left impover-
ished, but he was also subject to exile and harsh jailings. He said that
when he was imprisoned in the shah’s dungeon in Tehran in 1852, he
did not have a dinar to his name and at one point was given nothing
to eat or drink for two days, but he was at that point the richest per-
son in the world.2
The idea of liberation is integral to the Baha’i Faith, for
Baha’u’llah wrote, “the Ancient Beauty hath consented to be bound
with chains that mankind may be released from its bondage, and hath
accepted to be made a prisoner within this most mighty Stronghold
that the whole world may attain unto true liberty.“3 BahB’u’llah was
a Manifestation of God become poor to enrich humankind, become
inmate to set us all free. Elsewhere he specifies that he acquiesced in
his imprisonment in order to free human beings from the chains of
“self and passion” (nufs vu haua). 4 Selfishness is intimately wrought
up with questions of the distribution of wealth in society. The Baha’i
scriptures, like the life of their Author, evince a special commitment
to the poor, though they embrace universally all human beings.
This faith in the downtrodden may help explain why most Baha’is
have been, and are today, drawn from the ranks of the poor. Such
groups as the impoverished weavers of Kashan or the suffering tailors
of Shiraz constituted the bulk of early Baha’is.5      Since the 1960s
masses of peasants, both men and women, have entered the Baha’i
Faith in India, Africa, and Latin America. The typical Baha’i in the
1990s is a poor villager in the global South. Even in the United States,
about one-third of the national community consists of African-
Americans, and a third of them in turn live in South Carolina and
northern Georgia, two of the least wealthy areas in the country.6 The
Baha’i Faith lacks any class of official clergy, and since local Baha’i
affairs are directed not by a seminary-trained clergyman appointed
from above, but by elected Spiritual Assemblies, Baha’i peasants,
sharecroppers and workers have a real voice in the spiritual gover-
nance of their communities.
It is therefore appropriate, in a volume aimed at exploring the
possibilities of a Baha’i theology, that we consider the scriptural
sources of a Baha’i theology of liberation. As I intimated above, the
Bahd’u’llcEh     and Liberation Theology             81

starting point for any serious such line of thought must be the ground-
breaking work of Catholic theologians (especially Gustav0 Gutierrez)
and laypeople in Latin America, to whom I am grateful for many key
insights that resonate across religious boundaries, and my debt to
whom will be apparent below to anyone familiar with this literature.7
It is desirable that Baha’i pioneers and anthropologists inform us
more fully about the daily, lived theology of poor Baha’is in the global
South, so that we in the North can gain essential spiritual insights
from them. My purpose here is simply to make a beginning, by exam-
ining what I think are key texts by and about Baha’u’llah, for even
theology done from the underside of history must have a foundation in
scripture and in theophanology (the Person of the Manifestation of
God). I will focus here on Baha’u’llah (even though extremely impor-
tant perspectives exist on this issue in the writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha,
Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice) simply for rea-
sons of lack of space and the desirability of beginning with the reve-
lation of the Manifestation of God himself.
It is worth saying briefly that by a BahB’i theology of liberation I
mean a theology that is grounded in a special commitment to the poor
and the workers (male and female, adult and child), that includes
their perspective in the consideration of scriptural meaning, and that
underpins reformist thought and social action by them and by others
in solidarity with them. It recognizes that late international capital-
ism, while capable of creating much wealth, also does a very poor job
of distributing it equitably, thereby contributing to continued poverty
in some regions and social sectors. This capitalist order also subjects
the poor disproportionately to the dangers of an excessive industrial-
ism, especially environmental pollution and hazards of the workplace.
By a theology of revolution I do not, and cannot as a Baha’i,
intend, on the one hand, any way of thinking that sanctions violence
or class warfare, or indeed, entanglement in the petty squabbles of
party politics. On the other hand, a Baha’i theology of liberation must
involve speaking out against injustice and engaging in social activism
in order to have any meaning. Liberation, in this view, would consist
in nothing less than a truly BahB’i society, which would provide
employment at a fair wage to every citizen; would ensure a decent and
dignified life to all; would guarantee basic human rights as outlined
in United Nations declarations and covenants; would give the less
well-off a voice in their own governance and scope for expressing their
82       Revisioning        the    Sacred

spiritual and creative energies; and would eliminate the vast gap
between the wealthy and the poor characteristic of late capitalist soci-
eties. In the post-Cold War world, wherein the materialist and totali-
tarian vision of state-imposed economic equality has collapsed, wherein
the excesses of industrialism and of laissez-faire capitalism are largely
unrestrained and the gap between the poor in the global South and the
rich in the North is growing, the world desperately needs a new vision
of spiritual and social justice such as BahB’u’llah enunciates.

THE POOR IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY
MIDDLE EAST

The struggle of the poor is not everywhere and always the same,
depending rather on the sort of social system and the historical
moment in which they subsist. BahB’u’llah was addressing a society
very different from any that still exists today. The Middle East of his
day was ruled by the absolute monarchies of the Ottoman Empire and
&ajar Iran, and a variety of political economies uneasily coexisted
therein. In the 1860s and 1870s perhaps a third of Iranians were still
pastoral nomads, most of them organized into tribes (the percentage
was less in most Ottoman possessions, with the exception of Iraq).
Although the tribes often lacked formal title to land, they did possess
substantial wealth in the form of livestock, and every tribal family
had at least a few sheep or goats. But in subsequent decades, most
nomads were made to settle by the state, and in the process, tribes-
people frequently lost their herds and any claim to tribal lands, being
reduced to the worst of fates-that of landless peasants. Some fifty
percent of the population of Iran consisted of villagers, divided into
landless peasants, smallholders, and medium and rich peasants.
Many villages were still actually owned by semi-feudal landlords, and
all paid heavy taxes to nobles, to governors, and to the king. Some
twenty percent of the population lived in cities (less in Ottoman
lands), where the majority were laborers and artisans. In the cities
also lived the absentee landlords, landholding government officials,
and the great merchants.
This social structure of cities, villages and tribes was anything
but static, coming under new pressures throughout the period
1850-1900. This half-century saw a vast expansion of agrarian capi-
talism (but not yet much substantial industrialization in the area).
BahcA.‘u’llcE,h   and Liberation Theology              83

Subsistence farming was giving way to the cash-cropping of cotton,
tobacco, grains, and opium. Imported European industrial goods were
putting thousands of Middle Eastern artisans out of work.
Governments, used to taxing land, were not very good at adapting to
the new importance of commerce, with many great merchants enjoying
an exemption from taxes. The population of the region began growing
by leaps and bounds from about 1850, increasing the supply of labor
faster than the numbers of new job opportunities (and therefore keep-
ing wages low), and reducing the size of family farms through estate
fragmentation. The landless and smallholding peasants, day laborers,
and displaced artisans (such as weavers) were or became the poorest of
the poor, sometimes even starving to death during famines such as
that of 1869-1872 in Iran.8

BAHkU’LLAH          AND THE POOR

The first indication we have of Baha’u’llah’s attitude toward the
poor comes in his Baghdad-era collection of mystical aphorisms, The
Hidden Words (1858). His emphasis at this point is largely personal
and ethical rather than institutional.9 He continually draws a con-
trast between the dangers and powerful temptations of wealth versus
the virtue of poverty. “Busy not thyself with this world,” he writes, “for
with fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants.”
(Arabic, No. 55) He adds, “Thou dost wish for gold and I desire thy
freedom from it.” (Arabic, No. 56) Baha’u’llah castigates wealth as “a
mighty barrier between the seeker and his desire” and warns that
“the rich, but for a few, shall in no wise attain the court of His pres-
ence nor enter the city of contentment and resignation.” (Arabic, No.
53) Hardheartedness and selfishness especially afflict the wealthy:
“Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor lest heedlessness
lead them into the path of destruction, and deprive them of the Tree
of Wealth.” (Persian, No. 49) Wealth is, then, a test, a barrier, an
obstacle to spiritual progress and the attainment of union with the
beloved (a Sufi metaphor for a feeling of oneness with the divine that
is the goal of the seeker). It carries with it the risk of indifference to
the plight of the less fortunate, a moral and spiritual lapse that inex-
orably ends in doom.
If being rich is a drawback on the path, being poor is an asset.
Baha’u’llah says, “Yet to be poor in all save God is a wondrous gift,
84        Revisioning        the   Sacred

belittle not the value thereof, for in the end it will make thee rich
in God.” (Persian, No. 51) Since he recognizes the grief of the
impoverished, having spoken of the “midnight sighing of the poor,”
BahB’u’llah does not glamorize their lives. He does say that they are
beloved of God because of their poverty, and that the undeniable hard-
ships they face can be aids to spiritual advance, aids not naturally
available to the comfortable bourgeoisie or opulent nobility. By the
poor, Baha’u’llah makes it clear that he is referring to the working
poor and the poor who want to work if only they might find employ-
ment, for he commands all to engage in arts and crafts, and to provide
for their loved ones. (Persian, Nos. 80, 82)
On the social and human plane, BahB’u’llah insists that all human
beings are equal: “Know ye not why We created you all from the same
dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other.” (Arabic, No. 68)
Elsewhere, he wrote, in the same vein: “0 ye rich ones on earth! If ye
encounter one who is poor, treat him not disdainfully. Reflect upon
that whereof ye were created. Every one of you was created of a sorry
germ. “10 The rich and their apologists in every age have a tendency to
justify their affluence, often by asserting their innate superiority. But
this is not a claim that BahB’u’llah will countenance, insisting instead
on the universal unity of humankind: “Since We have created you all
from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul,
to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the
same land.” (Arabic, No. 68) The poor, then, are spiritually superior to
the rich and are their equals in civil society. Baha’u’llah’s attitude in
this regard is extremely challenging. Certainly, many in the Ottoman
and Iranian upper classes would have shrunk in horror from the idea
of sitting down to eat with the poor, or from being one with them in any
meaningful way. Baha’u’lltih      was just as antagonistic to the hierar-
chies of Mediterranean society as Jesus Christ had been nearly two
millenia before. His call for unity among persons of the various social
classes clearly requires an active attempt on their part to mix and
break down neighborhood and cultural barriers.
BahB’u’llAh   is also clear about what the rich can do to lessen the
spiritual opprobrium he has laid upon them: They must “cleanse
themselves” of the “defilement of riches,” for only through detachment
from material things can they pursue the spiritual path. (Persian, No.
55) Nor is it enough, for instance, to make over one’s wealth to a fam-
ily member and then pursue the cleansing of the soul. “Bestow My
Bahd’u’llcih and Liberation Theology                   85

wealth,” he commands, “upon My poor, that in heaven thou mayest
draw from stores of unfading splendor and treasures of imperishable
glory.” (Arabic, No. 57) Elsewhere he speaks of the absolute responsi-
bility of the wealthy for the welfare of the needy: “0 ye rich ones on
earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be
not intent only on your own ease.” (Arabic, No. 54)
The vast inequalities of wealth characteristic of modern societies
can often only be maintained by authoritarian and repressive state
structures acting on behalf of the wealthy elite. Here, too, BahB’u’llah
is unequivocal: “0 oppressors on earth! Withdraw your hands from
tyranny, for I have pledged Myself not to forgive any man’s injustice.
This is My covenant which I have irrevocably decreed in the preserved
tablet and sealed it with My seal of glory.” (Persian, No. 64) When
BahB’u’llah praises the wealthy who are not “hindered” by their “rich-
es from the eternal kingdom” (Persian, No. 531, it seems in view of
these other passages that provision for the poor and commitment to
social and political justice are implied along with faith as a prerequi-
site for attaining such splendor.
The circumstances of BahB’u’llah’s  life threw him in with the poor.
In 1854-56, he lived the life of a wandering holy man or dervish
(daruish, a word literally meaning “poor”) in Iraqi Kurdistan, dwelling
alone in a cave for a while and then consorting with other dervishes
and Sufis in Sulaymaniyyah. Even once he had returned to Baghdad,
where he lived as a despised exile expelled from his country for heresy,
his life was by no means one of ease. “There was a time in ‘Iraq,” he
recalled, “when the Ancient Beauty . . . had no change of linen. The one
shirt He possessed would be washed, dried and worn again.“ll
Communal sharing and an obliteration of the usual social hierarchies
characterized the life of the Babi partisans of BahB’u’llah.     They lived
in very humble dwellings in Baghdad, and the disciple Nabil-i A’zam
Zarandi occupied, with two other men, a room that had no furniture.
Baha’u’llah, he says, came to the room one day and remarked: “Its
emptiness pleases Me. In my estimation it is preferable to many a spa-
cious palace, inasmuch as the beloved of God are occupied in it with
the remembrance of the Incomparable Friend.“12 Nabil reports: “Many
a night no less than ten persons subsisted on no more than a penny-
worth of dates. No one knew to whom actually belonged the shoes, the
cloaks or the robes that were to be found in their houses. . . . Their own

I
names they had forgotten, their hearts were emptied of aught else
86        Revisioning          the    Sacred

except adoration for their Beloved.“l3 The severity of a room without
furniture, the comradeship of intermingled possessions, the nights of
communal meditation and ecstatic worship in the presence of their
beloved BahB’u’llah,  make this band of his Babi followers icons for the
virtues of the poor.
In Baghdad in the early 1860s Baha’u’llah used to meet occasion-
ally with Iranian princes of the &ajar house. Often such persons were
out of favor with the shah and had taken refuge outside Iran near the
Shi‘i shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf, not far from Baghdad in
Ottoman Iraq. He would inquire as to the political situation in Tehran.
They complained at one point, however, that he never discussed spiri-
tual issues with them, only worldly ones. In reply, Baha’u’llah set very
stringent standards for his willingness to converse on things of the
spirit. To one of the princes, BahB’u’llah said, “My purpose in coming
to this corrupt world where the tyrants and traitors, by their acts of
cruelty and oppression, have closed the doors of peace and tranquillity
to all mankind, is to establish, through the power of God and His
might, the forces of justice, trust, security and faith.“14 He says that
when these aims have been achieved, an attractive woman wearing
jewelry should be able to travel all over the earth without fear of
molestation, given the high standards of trustworthiness and justice
that would have been attained. Baha’u’llah’s choice of example is inter-
esting in that it focuses on sexual harrassment as a prevailing evil he
wishes to see eliminated. Although the example he gives is of a wealthy
woman being protected from the lust and greed of men, it goes without
saying that most women likely to be sexually harrassed were poor, and
so would be the primary beneficiaries of a true Baha’i society.
Another example which BahB’u’llah provided the princes had to do
with self-renunciation:

Suppose there is a very rich person whose wealth is enormous and
beyond measure. And suppose that gradually and in the course of time he
bestows so much of his wealth upon a poor person that he himself is
reduced to absolute poverty while the poor man has turned into a very
rich man. . . Suppose in his poor and distressed state he reaches a situ-
ation in which he incurs some small debt. Being unable to pay it, he is
brought to a public square in town where he is humilated and punished.
He is further informed that his release will not be considered until he
pays his debt. At this point suppose he sees his friend (who once was poor
and as a result of his generosity has become rich). Should the thought
Bahci’u’lkih and Liberation Theology                      87
flash through his mind that he wishes that in return for all his generosi-
ty to him, this friend would now come forward and relieve him of this
calamity, immediately all his deeds would become void, he would become
deprived of the virtue of contentment and acquiescence, and would be
shut away from the virtues of the human spirit.is

Personal obligations or individual gratitude, BahB’u’llah says, are
not the point of his teachings on detachment from the material world.
Thus, he says, if the second man, grown rich at the expense of the
first, is tempted to help him out of specific gratitude, he too is lost. The
only worthy motive is a universal one, irrespective of person. Love,
giving, and responsibility to others must be all-encompassing. This
principle is crucial, since otherwise the rich will help only the poor
they know personally, and the poor so assisted will be more clients
than simply fellow human beings.
In Edirne, where BahB’u’llah was kept in exile (1863-1868) by the
Ottoman government, he continued to address the problem of the
poor. His discourse here, however, takes on a more institutional tone,
as he begins elaborating the bases of the new Baha’i religion and con-
sidering its relationship to the governments of the world. In the Surah
of God (Suratu’ZZah, ca. Spring, 18661, BahB’u’llah writes that a sub-
ject is better than a thousand rulers, a subordinate is more exalted
than a myriad of superiors, and one oppressed is more excellent than
a city full of tyrants. He urges the Baha’is to emulate Baha’u’llah him-
self in severing themselves from all things.16 These pronouncements
have the effect of turning upside down conventional social distinctions
based on wealth and power. The subaltern is better than the elite, and
the oppressed superior to the oppressor. Here, as in the Hidden Words
and Five Treasures, Baha’u’llah condemns political tyranny along
with excessive attachment to the things of this world, perhaps a clue
that he thought the two things went together. Later, in the ‘Akka peri-
od, he pointed out that many of the rich had been prevented by their
riches from accepting the BahB’i Faith, whereas many of the poor had
attained to the mystical knowledge (‘b-fan) of God.17
In the early-‘Akka-period Surah of Utterance (Surcitu’l-Bayin),
BahB’u’llah reaffirmed the ethical foundations of his teachings on
wealth and poverty. “Withhold not from the poor,” he wrote, “the gifts
which the grace of God hath bestowed upon you. He, verily, shall rec-
ompense the charitable, and doubly repay them for what they have
bestowed.“18 In the same work, he reaffirms that God loves the poor, not
because they are good, but because they are poor and suffering. He says:
88        Revisioning the Sacred

If ye meet the abased or the down-trodden, turn not away disdainfully
from them, for the King of Glory ever watcheth over them and sur-
roundeth them with such tenderness as none can fathom except them
that have suffered their wishes and desires to be merged in the Will of
your Lord, the Gracious, the All-Wise. 0 ye rich ones of the earth! Flee
not from the face of the poor that lieth in the dust, nay rather befriend
him and suffer him to recount the tale of the woes with which God’s
inscrutable Decree hath caused him to be afflicted. By the righteousness
of God! Whilst ye consort with him, the Concourse on high will be looking
upon you, will be interceding for you will be extolling your names and glo-
rifying your action. lg

The rich are urged, not simply to “give to the poor” in a cold or abstract
way, but to actually befriend them and listen to their accounts of the
travails through which they have lived. This very act of listening is
itself raised to the station of a deed that brings the intercession of the
Concourse on High.
In his Tablet to the Kings (Surcitu’Z-Multik) of the late Edirne peri-
od, Baha’u’llah, virtually alone and a political and religious prisoner
under house arrest and in internal exile, dared address the Ottoman
Sultan ‘Abdu’l-‘Aziz, his jailer. He urged the sultan not to pay his min-
isters and aides so well that they would be enabled to “lay up riches
for themselves” or to be “numbered with the extravagant.” He attacks
the vast extremes of wealth he witnessed in the Ottoman imperial
capital, where destitute rural immigrants lived near rich landlords,
tax-farmers, and import-export merchants. He says: “We observed
upon Our arrival in the City [Istanbul]” that some of its inhabitants
“were possessed of an affluent fortune and lived in the midst of exces-
sive riches, while others were in dire want and abject poverty. This ill
beseemeth thy sovereignty, and is unworthy of thy rank.“20 The huge
wealth inequalities visible in a Mediterranean city like Istanbul dur-
ing the incipient Age of Capital shocked and dismayed BahB’u’llah.      He
correctly saw that government officials were among the chief
exploiters of the people, amassing private fortunes from their public
service, and warned the sultan not to “aggrandize thy ministers at the
expense of thy subjects. Fear the sights of the poor and of the upright
in heart who, at every break of day, bewail their plight, and be unto
them a benignant sovereign.” He calls the poor the ruler’s “treasures
on earth” and urges him to safeguard them from those who wish to rob
and expropriate them. “Inquire into their affairs, and ascertain, every
BahcE’u’ll&h     and Liberation Theology               89

year, nay every month, their condition, and be not of them that are
careless of their duty.“21 Not only do the rich owe an absolute respon-
sibility to the poor, but so does the government. The state is charged
with intervening against excessive extremes of wealth and poverty,
and of continually monitoring the welfare of the citizenry.
The implicit danger to the poor here is overtaxation, especially the
imposition of fraudulent or unwarranted taxes by state officials seek-
ing to line their own pockets. BahB’u’llah identifies, in addition,
another motive for excessive levies on the destitute, the arms race
engaged in by modern states. He instructs the rulers of the earth to
“compose your differences, and reduce your armaments, that the bur-
den of your expenditures may be lightened, and that your minds and
hearts may be tranquillized.” He urges states to engage in proactive
peace-making of a sort that will allow them to have low military
expenditures, and to maintain something akin to militias for self-
defense rather than armies for conquest. He complains bitterly: “We
have learned that you are increasing your outlay every year, and are
laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is more than
they can bear, and is a grievous injustice.” He reaffirms that the poor
are “the trust of God” in the midst of the rulers, and warns them
against betraying that trust22
The Tablet to the Kings is remarkable in subordinating the issue of
world peace, a key teaching of Baha’u’llah, to that of the elimination of
poverty. That is, one of the primary reasons given for the implementa-
tion of a peaceful world order is that this step will reduce military bud-
gets and in turn allow lower rates of taxation on those least able to
afford it. The corollary of this principle is the implication that martial,
praetorian states create poverty and social injustice. In the beginning of
his own independent ministry, then, Baha’u’llah goes beyond the ethi-
cal and mystical aspects of wealth and poverty that had preoccupied
him in his Baghdad-era works, now addressing the role of the state. The
government is responsible, in his view, for keeping the salaries of offi-
cials reasonable and taxes low and for continually inquiring into the
condition of the poor and the means of improving it. This view of the
responsibilities of the state, it should be noted, differs radically from
that espoused by most nineteenth-century reformers, whether in the
Middle East or Europe. Baha’u’llah’s anti-militarism and his dim view
of extremes of wealth and poverty clearly place him on the progressive
end of the spectrum in the political discourse of the time.
90       Revisioning         the    Sacred

In the early ‘Akka period, from 1868, Baha’u’llah denounced the
tyranny of the Ottoman state in no uncertain terms (Lawh-i Fu‘cid)
and began praising British-style parliamentary democracy. He
praised Queen Victoria, in his tablet to her, for abolishing slavery and
putting the reins of democratic governance (which he ,called, in nine-
teenth-century Middle Eastern parlance, “counsel”) in the hands of
the people. The word he uses for “people” (an-nas) indicates the com-
mon people, and it is clear that here he not only advocates that the
state work for the interests of the poor, but also insists that the poor
should have a voice in their own governance. His abolition of slavery
reaffirms the inherent dignity of every human being before God, and
it implies, by analogy, that not only classical slavery but also any form
of unpaid or barely paid bondage is illicit.
In his Most Holy Book (Kit6i Aqdas; ‘Akka, 18731, BahB’u’llah
reaffirms the democratic principle, predicting that Iran would undergo
a revolution and be ruled by a democracy of the people (jumhur an-
nas).23 BahB’u’llah’s   principle that Baha’i communities should be
administered by local Houses of Justice (currently called local Spiritual
Assemblies) comprised of lay believers also gave a voice to the poor. In
a village, local Baha’i community policy is not made by a clergyman
from the urban middle class posted to the countryside, but rather by
the villagers themselves, who enjoy universal adult suffrage and freely
elect representatives to the local Spiritual Assemblies. Again, in the
1990s the vast majority of local Spiritual Assembly members are what
most of those in the global North would consider “poor.” Baha’u’llah
instructed that the local Spiritual Assemblies make their decisions
through “consultation,” a process that allows a multitude of voices to
be heard and encourages individuals to seek the truth and the best
course, rather than to cling stubbornly to their initial opinions.
Several of the laws BahB’u’llah enacted in the Most Holy Book
were aimed at improving the situation of the poor. He designates
them as appropriate recipients of gifts during the annual BahB’i festi-
val, Ayyam-i Ha, in which presents are given prior to the period of the
Fast.24 He insists on universal education for children (in most of the
world at that time, children received schooling only if their parents
could afford to pay for it, and this is still the case in much of the glob-
al South) and makes the House of Justice responsible for providing
instruction to indigent children .25 Since education is a key to
improved skills and economic independence, and since the education
Bahd’u’llkh and Liberation Theology                 91

of women brings down birth rates and allows them greater economic
independence, universal education provided by social institutions
such as the state or religious bodies can have an important impact on
poverty. Also in the Most Holy Book, BahB’u’llah ordains the payment
by Baha’is of z&at, a form of alms originating in Islam.26 In contem-
porary Muslim countries such as Pakistan, zakat is formally assessed
as a 2.5 percent annual levy on liquid wealth (principally bank
accounts), and the funds are distributed in poor neighborhoods.
BahB’is in the West have not yet begun paying zakat, but its imple-
mentation would be a significant step forward in providing funds for
a proactive role by BahB’i institutions in working with the poor.
Although the percentage is small, if the funds were wisely employed
they could, alongside governmental and private charitable efforts,
have an important impact.
Helping the poor is also among the purposes of the larger BahB’i
tax of nineteen percent on profits or accumulated wealth, called the
Right of God (huquqz~‘ZZcih).~7 In his own lifetime, BahB’u’llah super-
vised the distribution of the Right of God to indigent Baha’is. One
community asked him if they should support the impoverished with
these funds, and he replied that this should only be done with his per-
mission-he wanted an accounting of Right of God contributions and
the particulars of its possible recipients among the poor. He feared
that giving blanket authority for such measures to the new Baha’i
communities in Iran might prove a cause of dissension.2s (Some who
thought themselves deserving might blame the local believers in
charge of the funds if they were excluded, whereas no one would argue
with Baha’u’llah). Baha’u’llah’s personal attention to the needs of
impoverished Baha’is is quite touching, and his solicitude comes
through in his letters, as for instance when he directs that specific
sums from the Right of God be given to individuals like “Mr. A. Z.” in
Khurasan because he is in debt and anti-Bah8’i enemies have mulct-
ed him.29 In a letter to a prominent believer in Shiraz probably writ-
ten around 1879430, Baha’u’llah instructs that half the Right of God
collected in that city be given to the poor. He adds that the communi-
ty should strive, however, to see that all are provided with gainful
employment, since being reduced to dependence on charity is inap-
propriate to the station of a human being.30
Baha’u’llah makes the indigent an issue for governmental and reli-
gious institutions and gives the poor an active voice in the governance
92        Revisioning          the    Sacred

of both (in contrast to the kings, caliphs, and popes who ruled
absolutely in his own day). Nor does he intend by “the poor” only men,
for here, as elsewhere, he is concerned to overturn the gender
inequities of patriarchy. He says that “the servants of God and His
handmaidens are regarded on the same Plane.” Devoted Baha’i
women, he writes, “excel over men in the sight of God. How numerous
are the heroes and knights in the field who are bereft of the True One
and have no share in His recognition.“31
Baha’u’llah envisages the rich working with the poor to change
the world:

They who are possessed of riches, however, must have the utmost
regard for the poor, for great is the honor destined by God for those poor
who are steadfast in patience. By My life! There is no honor, except what
God may please to bestow, that can compare to this honor. Great is the
blessedness awaiting the poor that endure patiently and conceal their
sufferings, and well is it with the rich who bestow their riches on the
needy and prefer them before themselves.
Please God, the poor may exert themselves and strive to earn the
means of livelihood. This is a duty which, in this most great Revelation,
hath been prescribed unto every one, and is accounted in the sight of God
as a goodly deed. Whoso observeth this duty, the help of the invisible One
shall most certainly aid him. He can enrich, through His grace, whomso-
ever He pleaseth. He, verily, hath power over all things.32

Baha’u’llah continually stresses the self-worth, agency, and indepen-
dent action of the poor themselves, which explains his emphasis on the
need to earn a livelihood. Of course, the other side of this coin is the
responsibility of the state and the economic system to provide gainful
employment for all who seek it, a responsibility implied by Baha’u’llah’s
emphasis on governmental responsibility in his Tablet to the Kings.
The patience Baha’u’llah calls for in the poor (a patience he exer-
cised himself, for most of his life) is not a passive, static suffering. It
is the patience that eschews violence and hatred while working cease-
lessly toward the creation of a new civilization wherein the extremes
of wealth and poverty would be eliminated at last. BahB’u’llah,        in a
Persian tablet, says to the devoted Baha’i poor that they should not
despair, for even in this life innumerable doors exist, and that the poor
should open them with the fingers of volition so as to witness new
worlds in this one. He announces that he keeps company with all who
are poverty-stricken, gives his solicitude to the oppressed, and gazes
BahcE’u’lkih      and Liberation Theology                 93

upon the grief-stricken. The delights of the Word of God, he says,
I   transform and efface the bitterness of this ephemeral world.33 The
Word of God does not only solace the poor in their suffering or offer
them a “mystical” escape from their pitiful condition. Rather, they are
called upon to exercise their own wills in order to take advantage of
opportunities for change that exist in this world, with the help of
divine benevolence and of the principles revealed in Baha’i scripture.
The poor, like other Baha’is, are called upon to denounce tyranny and
infractions against basic human rights, to work for parliamentary
democracy, to allow the expression of the views of the humblest BahB’i
within the community, and to reform the world’s economy so as to
reflect the divine attribute of justice.
Subsequent Baha’i holy figures, such as Baha’u’llah’s son and
authorized interpreter, ‘Abdu’l-Baha (184&1921), and the latter’s
grandson Shoghi Effendi (Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, 1921-19571,
have further elaborated on issues in the theology of liberation. A spe-
cial commitment to the poor continues to be evident in ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s
teachings, which include corporate profit-sharing, binding arbitration
of labor disputes, a graduated income tax, a commitment to the aboli-
tion of poverty, and the condemnation of workers being impoverished
while capitalists grow rich-which he refers to as “industrial slavery.”
Nevertheless, as ‘Abdu’l-Baha makes clear, he does not envisage a
classless society, simply a society in which everyone is at least com-
fortable. In 1875, ‘Abdu’l-Baha wrote:

Wealth is most commendable, provided the entire population is wealthy.
If, however, a few have inordinate riches while the rest are impoverished,
and no fruit or benefit accrues from that wealth, then it is only a liabili-
ty to its possessor. If, on the other hand, it is expended for the promotion
of knowledge, the founding of elementary and other schools, the encour-
agement of art and industry, the training of orphans and the poor-in
brief, if it is dedicated to the welfare of society-its possessor will stand
out before God and man as the most excellent of all who live on earth and
will be accounted as one of the people of paradise.34

Shoghi Effendi wrote that the “Cause neither accepts the theories
of the Capitalistic economics in fun, nor can it agree with the Marxists
and Communists in their repudiation of the principle of private own-
ership and of the vital sacred rights of the individual”35
From 1908, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, in response to the turmoil of the Iranian
Constitutional Revolution (1905-11) reversed his earlier support for it
94       Revisioning         the    Sacred

and temporarily adopted a policy of political neutrality.36 This policy
has since been maintained, during this early stage of the expansion of
the Baha’i faith into a world religion, so as to avoid divisions within the
community along political lines. Non-intervention in party politics,
however, does not necessarily impede social activism, as Baha’is
showed in the United States in the 1980s when they mobilized to work
with other groups to aid the ratification of the United Nations
Convention on Genocide bill by the U.S. Congress. Practical action for
the poor, as with the establishment by the National Spiritual Assembly
of the Baha’is of India of numerous vocational schools in that country,
are clearly key duties for all Baha’is. BahB’u’llah      does not prescribe
only a sort of paternalistic philanthropy, however. Rather, he urges
that the voices of the poor themselves be heard, and that the poor exer-
cise their own volition and agency in changing their condition.
A Baha’i theology of liberation must begin from and take account
of key themes in the Revelation of the Manifestation of God for this
day. In the passage quoted at the beginning of this essay, BahB’u’llah
speaks of having been chained in order to win the release (it&) of the
world from its bondage, and having been imprisoned in the Most
Great Fortress in order to emancipate (‘itq; literally, to manumit from
slavery) all peoples. The theme of emancipation is therefore central to
BahB’u’llah’s message and intimately bound up with BahB’i theo-
phanology. God loves the poor because of their suffering, watching
over them and surrounding them with supreme tenderness. The poor,
because of their lack of material means, are “rich in God,” and their
sufferings can aid them on the spiritual path, even if not all among the
poor avail themselves of this natural advantage. The rich, in contrast,
labor under a vast spiritual disability that can only with the greatest
difficulty be overcome. To draw near to the divine Beloved, the rich
must invest substantial amounts of their wealth in improving the con-
ditions of the poor, ensuring that the latter are no longer needy. They
must be motivated in so doing by nothing less than universal love.
The state has a key role to play, according to Baha’u’llah. It must
intervene through tax policy and in other ways to prevent the accu-
mulation of vast disparities in wealth between rich and poor, must
ensure that taxes on the less-well-off are as low as possible, and
must work for peace and world government in order to keep the mil-
itary budget minimal. It must prevent slavery (and therefore bonded
labor) and must give even the poor a voice in government through
democratic, parliamentary elections.
Bah&‘u’ll&h      and Liberation Theology              95

BahB’i institutions themselves have a responsibility to the desti-
tute, to ensure the education of their young and to distribute to the
needy the proceeds of the zakat alms-tax and some of the Huququ’llah,
the “Right of God.” Since Baha’i administrative institutions are elect-
ed by the local community, the BahB’is already have thousands of
grassroots village communities governed by and for the poor, which
are experimenting with new societal values. Baha’is have a constant
duty to remind the rich of the “midnight sighing of the poor.”
Baha’u’llah throws down the false idol of the market as the unchal-
lenged system for distributing wealth (whatever its virtues in distrib-
uting goods). The emphasis here on social action in addition to spiri-
tual concerns is characteristic of the Baha’i Faith, which inherited
from Islam both a strong mystical strain and a this-worldly orienta-
tion, combining these with a distinctly modern vision. All human
beings, Baha’u’llah says, “have been created to carry forward an ever-
advancing civilization.“37
The challenge for Baha’is while they are a relatively small com-
munity of six million, mostly themselves poor, is to ever remain mind-
ful that involuntary poverty is evil and illegitimate, that the vast
wealth of capitalism has frequently been the fruit of the exploitation
of workers and peasants (“industrial slavery”), and that structural
changes must be introduced and society transformed if things are to
change. Charitable work is highly praiseworthy, but within the con-
text of rapaciously materialist societies it always faces the danger of
being coopted by the laissez-faire status quo.
Another danger lies in becoming absorbed in the economic theo-
ries and minutiae that might underlie a Baha’i social democracy. In
the end, what is wanted in a Baha’i theology of liberation is not social
policy alone but universal love, not only new bureaucracies but also
steadfast faith in the Promised of all Ages, not class struggle but class
transcendence, not a patronizing of the poor but their empowerment
and enrichment. Social action must be grounded in mystical percep-
tion and in faith. As Baha’u’llah instructed us: “Be a treasure to the
poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy,
a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge.“38
What is needed is not choirs singing to one side as corporate union
busters intimidate on the shop floor or as the shock troops of an exces-
sive industrialism murder Yanomamo Indians in order to despoil the
Amazon rain forest. We are all challenged to listen to the poor-“suffer
96         Revisioning the Sacred

him to recount the tale of the woes with which God’s inscrutable
Decree hath caused him to be afflicted”-and join with them in radi-
cally critiquing the conditions of our collective existence.

NOTES

I am grateful for substantive comments on earlier drafts of this paper
to John Walbridge, Todd Lawson, Seena Fazel, Khazeh Fananapazir,
and J. A. (Jack) McLean.

1. See Dan Cohn-Sherbok, ed., World Religions and Human Liberation
(Maryknoll, MD: Orbis, 1992).
2. BahB’u’llah,    quoted in Mu’idih-‘i Asmani, 9 ~01s. (Tehran: BahB’i
Publishing Trust, 1972) vol. 4, p. 96.
3. Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, trans. Shoghi Effendi
(Wilmette, Ill.: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1976) p. 99. This passage is from a
late-‘Akka period work; see BahB’u’llah,       al-Kit&b al-Mubin (Bombay, n.d.) p.
307. All passages in Gleanings can be found in the original languages in
BahB’u’llah,      Muntakhabati az athar-i Hadrat-i Bahc+‘llah      (Hofheim:   Bahi’i
Verlag, 1984).
4. BahB’u’llah,   Athar-i Q&am-i A’la, 7 volumes (Bombay and Tehran:
Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1890-1978),     vol. 7, p. 5.
5. For the nineteenth-century Baha’i community, see my “Religious
Dissidence and Urban Leadership: Baha’is in &ajar Shiraz and Tehran,” in
Michael Bonine and Ahmad       Ashraf, eds. City and Society in &ajar Iran, forth-
coming. S.V. “Iran,” by Moojan Momen, in Moojan Momen and John
Walbridge, eds., A Short Encyclopaedia of the Baha’i Faith, 2 ~01s. (Wilmette,
Ill.: Baha’i Publishing Trust, forthcoming); and Peter Smith, The Babi and
Baha’t      Religions: From Messianic Shi’ism to a World Religion (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987) chapter 6: “The Iranian Baha’i
Community, c. 1866-1921.” For the impoverished weavers of Kashan, see
Haydar ‘Ah Isfahani, Stories from the Delight of Hearts, trans. A. Q. Faizi (Los
Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1980) p. 96.
6. See Peter Smith and Moojan Momen,             “The BahB’i Faith, 1957-1988: A
Survey of Contemporary Developments,” Religion 19 (1989) pp. 63-91.
7. Important works here include Gustav0 Gutierrez, The Power of the
Poor in History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984) and Leonardo Boff, On the
Edge: Religion and Marginalized Existence, trans. Robert R. Barr (San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989). Good discussions of the context of these
works include Harvey Cox, The Silencing of Leonardo Boff: The Vatican and
the Future of World Christianity (Oak Park, Ill.: Meyer Stone Books, 1988)
and Penny Lernoux, People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism (New
Bahc%‘u’llbh       and Liberation Theology                   97

York: Viking Penguin, 1989). However, clearly both BahB’i scripture and the
lived experience of BahB’is as a distinct religious community have their own
individuality, which will become apparent. I am taking the works cited above
as starting-points for my own investigation, and am not attempting to simply
clone them. Much of the impetus for what I have to say here comes from
points made to me by Baha’i workers and villagers in Senegal, Gambia, India,
Lebanon, and Jordan.
8. See Charles Issawi, ed., The Economic History of Iran, 1800-1914
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19’71), and John Foran, Fragile
Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1993).
9. BahB’u’llah,    The Hidden Words, trans. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.:
BahPi Publishing Trust, 1979). Below, passages from this work will be cited
by number and language (e.g., “Arabic, No. 4”).
10. Baha’u’llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, trans. Shoghi Effendi
(Wilmette, Ill.: BahB’i        Publishing Trust, 1971) p. 55.
11. Quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha’i
Publishing Trust, 1970) p. 137.
12. BahB’u’llah,     ibid.
13. Nabil Zarandi, Ibid.
14. Baha’u’llah, quoted in Nab&i Zarandi, Panj Ganj and translated in
Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha’u’llah, 4 ~01s. (Oxford: George
Ronald, 19741987) vol. 2, p. 141.
15. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 142.
16. BahB’u’lhih,    “Siirat Allah,” in Athar-i Qalam-i A‘la, vol. 4 (Tehran:
BahB’i Publishing Trust, 125B.E./1968) p. 23; Juan R. I. Cole, “Redating the
Surah of God (Surat Allah): An Edirne Tablet of 1866?-Provisional Translation
Appended” Baha’i Studies Bulletin vol. 6:4-7:2 (October 1992) p. 11.
17. Baha’u’llah, Athar-i &a&m-i A‘&, vol. 6, p. 241.
18. Gleanings, p. 278.
19. Ibid., pp. 314-15.
20. Ibid., p. 235.
21. Ibid., p. 236.
22. Ibid., pp. 250-51.
23. Baha’u’llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book (Haifa: Baha’i
World Centre, 1992) para. 93.
24. Kitab-i-Aqdas, para. 16
25. Kitab-i-Aqdas, para. 48
26. Kitab-i-Aqdas, para. 146
27. BahB’u’llah     in The Compilation of Compilations, 2 ~01s. (Sidney:
BahB’i Publications Australia, 1991) vol. 1, p. 504, cf. vol. 1, p. 515. I am grate-
ful to Seena Faze1 for this citation.
28. Baha’u’llah, Athar-i Qalam-i AU, vol. 7, pp. 236-37.
98         Revisioning           the     Sacred

29. Majmu’ih-‘i Al&h-i Mub&aki, p. 196.
30. Ath&--i &a&m-i A‘& vol. 6, p. 283.
31. Both passages from Baha’u’llah, quoted in Compilation of
Compilations, vol. 2, p. 358.
32. Gleanings, pp. 202-3; Baha’u’llah, Zqtidarat ua Chand Lawh-i Digar
(Bombay: n.p, 131oA.H./18%-93)        pp. 291-96.
33. Baha’u’llah, quoted in Ma’idih-‘i Asmcini,    vol. 4, p. 96.
34. The Secret of Divine Ciuilization,      trans. Marzieh Gail (Wilmette, Ill.:
BahB’i Publishing Trust, 1970) pp. 24-25.
35. Quoted in Badi Shams, A Bahk’i Perspective on Economics of the
Future (New Delhi: BahB’i Publishing Trust, 1989) pp. l-2. Earlier points
made in this paragraph about ‘Abdu’l-BahB’s          teachings can also be found in
this useful compilation.
36. Juan R.I. Cole, “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in
the 19th Century.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992) pp.
l-26.
37. Gleanings, p. 215.
38. Ibid., p. 285.
-- Baha'u'llah and Liberation Theology (Used by permission of the curator)