Search for Values: Ethics in Baha'i Thought
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: John Danesh, Search for Values: Ethics in Baha'i Thought, Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 2004-05, bahai-library.com.
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STUDIES IN THE
BÁBÍ AND BAHÁ’Í RELIGIONS
Volume Fifteen

General Editor
Anthony A. Lee

Search for Value:
Ethics in Bahá'í Thought
Edited
by
Seena Fazel
and
John Danesh

KALIMÁT PRESS
LOS ANGELES
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Copyright © 2003 by Kalimát Press
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United State of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Search for Values: Ethics in Bahá’í Thought

ISBN xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kalimát Press
1600 Sawtelle Blvd., Suite 310
Los Angeles, CA 90025

www.kalimat.com
KalimatP@aol.com
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Foreword
The essays in the present volume share a focus on the core values of
the Bahá’í Faith, explaining ethics and ideas that have helped to create the Faith’s distinctive vision. This volume contains revised versions of five outstanding works that previously appeared in the
Bahá’í Studies Review plus two articles published for the first time.
A recurrent theme is how Bahá’í writings reaffirm, renew, and, yet
frequently, re?interpret previous religious teachings. Bahá’í texts
link the Faith’s ethical values with those of the great religions of the
past: Bahá’í ethics are based on teachings “revealed unto the
Prophets of old”, “described in all the heavenly books”; they are
“the fundamental reality of the divine religions”, “changeless and
eternal.” Yet, Udo Schaefer argues in “Towards a Bahá’í Ethics”
that Bahá’í texts collectively provide a novel and coherent moral
system, prioritizing certain values, such as justice, that are critical to
the achievement of the Faith’s central objective of social harmony.
William Collins provides an example of this theme of pivotal renewal in “Bahá’í Family Life”. The Bahá’í Faith, in common with several other religious traditions, commends married life, but Collins
suggests that the application of Bahá’í values to the family situation
(including elimination of domination based on gender, physical
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xiv          KEVEN BROWN

strength, or earning power, and the legal notion of mutatis mutandis
as an equalizing principle) yields an entirely fresh perspective.
A second idea cutting across these essays relates to the integration
of spiritual values in various types of discourse. In “Discourses of
Knowledge”, Franklin Lewis suggests that the ethical application of
knowledge is likely to be the most distinctive Bahá’í contribution to
methodology. He provides substantial evidence from Bahá’í texts to
support the validity and desirability of adopting Western academic
methods in the intellectual quest. Drawing on passages from Bahá’í
scripture, Lewis argues that prioritizing rational and critical thinking, promoting an open spirit of inquiry, and an awareness of the
ethical implications of knowledge are important elements of a culture of learning. According to John Hick, writing from the point of
view of a Christian theologian in “Only One True Religion?”, the
neglect of such reasonable attitudes can lead to outbursts of exclusivism, triumphalism, and fanaticism among religious people.
The final section of this volume focuses on three notable individuals, each of whom translated a distinctive vision of Bahá’í values
into a path?breaking life. Alain Locke was one of the most outstanding intellectuals of his generation: the first ever African
American Rhodes Scholar (the second did not follow until 1960, 53
years later); philosophical architect of the Harlem Renaissance of
the 1920s and 1930s; and father of the idea of multiculturalism. In
“Alain Locke and Cultural Pluralism”, Christopher Buck uncovers
archival material to provide the most extensive account so far of the
impact of Locke’s Bahá’í identity on his philosophical ideas. He
concludes that Locke’s fluid hierarchy of values (which included
loyalty, tolerance, reciprocity, and cultural pluralism) had their foundations in the Bahá’í principle of unity in diversity.
The subjects of the two remaining essays - Jamal Effendi and
Ibrahim Kheiralla - were, together with Martha Root, the most effective disseminators of Bahá’í teachings outside Iran during the
Faith’s first century. In “Jamal Effendi and the Bahá’í Faith in South
Asia”, Moojan Momen describes in fascinating detail the travels of
the charismatic Jamal Effendi during the late 19th century, including
accounts of his legendary resourcefulness, such as his intervention
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FOREWORD             xv

to help curtail a smallpox epidemic in a remote Indonesian island.
Despite problems later in his life, Ibrahim Kheiralla was extraordinarily successful in the late 19th century as the first Bahá’í teacher
in the USA. In “Ibrahim Kheiralla and the Making of the American
Bahá’í Community”, Richard Hollinger argues that this success was
partly due to Kheiralla’s ability to “Americanize” his message, a
process fashioned by local Bahá’ís. Although Jamal Effendi and
Kheiralla faced different circumstances and used different approaches to spread Bahá’í teachings, we are led to conclude that the success of each was partly due to their abilities to appreciate local values and to correlate their teaching with elements of local popular
culture.
Hence, the overall theme of this volume parallels an overarching
Bahá’í idea: the need for the re?invigoration of individual and social
life with ethical values, or, as stated in Bahá’í writings, to breathe “a
new life into every human frame,” and to instill “into every word a
fresh potency.”

John Danesh and Seena Fazel
Cambridge and Oxford
August 2003
-- Search for Values: Ethics in Baha'i Thought (Used by permission of the curator)