# Baha'is

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Christopher Buck, Baha'is, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Bahāʾīs
> (6,160 words)
> 
> Adherents of Bahāʾism (ahl al-Bahāʾ), widely known as the “Bahāʾī Faith,”
> an independent world religion with Islamic origins. The Bahāʾī religion, a
> universalization of Bābism, was founded by Mīrzā Ḥusayn-ʿAlī Nūrī
> (1817–92), known as Bahāʾ Allāh/Bahāʾullāh (Splendor of God; standard-
> ized Bahāʾī spelling, Bahā’u’llāh), in Baghdad in the year 1863. In 1866, it
> emerged as a distinct faith-community in Adrianople (Edirne). Bahāʾī
> identity is fully independent. While Bahāʾīs do not identify as Muslims,
> Bahāʾīs regard the Qurʾān with profound respect as divine revelation, as do
> Muslims, except that Bahāʾīs have their own corpus of sacred scriptures,
> quite apart from the Qurʾān.
> 
> Bahāʾīs also believe in Muḥammad as the “Seal of the Prophets and of the
> Messengers” (going beyond the Qurʾān’s honorific of Muḥammad as the
> “Seal of the Prophets” (khātam l-nabiyīn) in Q 33:40) and hold him to be
> the final Messenger for the “Cycle of Prophecy.” Prophecy foretells, as
> well as tells forth. In Bahāʾī doctrine, the “Cycle of Prophecy (kawr-i
> nubuvvat) or “Adamic Cycle” (kawr-i ādam) prepared the world for the
> “Cycle of Fulfillment” (kawr-i taḥaqquq va ikmāl) or “Bahāʾī Cycle”
> (kawr-i Bahāʾī), symbolically foreshadowed in the Qurʾān as the “Great
> Announcement” (al-nabāʾ al-ʿaẓīm, Q 78:2; Bahāʾullāh, Kitāb l-aqdas, par.
> 167). This Cycle of Fulfillment was inaugurated by the Bāb, who
> prophesied the imminent advent of “Him who God shall manifest” (man
> yuẓhiruhu llāh), whom the majority of Bābīs (followers of the Bāb) came
> to recognize as Bahāʾullāh.
> 
> A Bahāʾī theology of pluralism, with special reference to Islam, may be
> based on a statement by Shoghi Effendi, “Guardian” of the Bahāʾī Faith
> (1921–57): “Unequivocally and without the least reservation it proclaims
> all established religions to be divine in origin, identical in their aims,
> complementary in their functions, continuous in their purpose, indispen-
> sable in their value to mankind.” (S. Effendi, World Order, p. 58). This, of
> course, applies as much to Islam as to other religions.
> 
> Having arisen out of Islamic historical context and milieu, the Bahāʾī
> religion has certain Islamicate elements, yet Bahāʾism exhibits certain
> other features that are supra-Islamicate and distinct in character. For
> instance, Islamic doctrine adheres to a belief in successive revelations,
> beginning with Adam, and culminating with the Prophet Muḥammad as the
> “Seal of the Prophets.” In Bahāʾī teachings, the idea of successive
> revelations is invested with a teleology that transforms it into “progressive
> revelation” (tajdīd va takāmul-i adyān) where the succession of
> Messengers throughout the history of religions is not only sequential but
> cumulative, coefficient with the social evolution of humanity (Y.
> Ioannesyan, The concept of the “manifestations of God’s will”). As
> humankind advances socially, so does the corresponding need for guidance
> and laws suited to the exigencies of the day and age. Here, “progressive”
> conveys the notion of “superior” in respect of “fuller” and “more
> advanced,” without making a claim of intrinsic superiority.
> 
> Before focusing on Bābī and Bahāʾī approaches to the interpretation of the
> Qurʾān, some distinctive features of Bahāʾism may be highlighted here.
> Bahāʾullāh, on 22 April 1863 privately declared himself “Him whom God
> shall manifest” (man yuẓhiruhu llāh), the messianic theophany foretold by
> the Bāb. In open epistles to Queen Victoria, Napoleon III, Pope Pius IX
> and other world leaders during the Adrianople and ʿAkkā (Haifa) periods
> (1864-92), Bahāʾullāh publicly proclaimed himself the advent of the
> millenarian “Promised One” of all religions—a “multiple-messiahship” (C.
> Buck, Unique, 158), i.e. the Zoroastrian Shāh Bahrām Varjāvand, the
> Jewish Everlasting Father (Isa 9:6)/Lord of Hosts, the Christian Spirit of
> Truth, the Shīʿī al-Ḥusayn redivivus, the Sunnī return of Christ, and “Him
> who God shall manifest,” as announced by the Bāb (see APOCALYPSE).
> 
> As “World Reformer” (muṣliḥ al-‘ālam), Bahāʾullāh advocated world
> peace, parliamentary democracy, disarmament, an international language,
> the harmony of science and religion, interfaith concord as well as gender
> and racial equality. From a historicist perspective, Bahāʾī principles
> represent modernist universalizations of Islamic canons—which were
> announced during the reform period in the Ottoman Empire where
> Bahāʾullāh was an exile (Alkan, Dissent, p. 90 and ch. 4)—yet transcend-
> ing the traditional believer/infidel dichotomy (see BELIEF AND UNBELIEF).
> On the basis of a comparative approach to the writings of Bahāʾullāh and
> the Ottoman reformers, we can say that certain ideas, such as the criticism
> of autocratic rule and its substitution by a constitutional monarchy, certain-
> ly converged. The approach of Ottoman and Iranian reformers was
> embedded in the framework of a modernist or revivalist Islam. However,
> the responses of Bahāʾullāh—and those of his eldest son and designated
> successor, ʿAbduʾl-Bahā (1844–1921)—can be regarded as supra-Islamic
> 
> and universalistic reforms that went beyond the proposals of the reformers
> in the Ottoman Empire (Alkan, Dissent, p. 218). Much the same held true
> in comparison with the Islamic reforms advocated by Iranian modernists
> (Buck, Bahāʾullāh as “World Reformer”).
> 
> In precocious religious preparation for a global society, Bahāʾullāh’s signal
> contribution was to sacralize certain secular modernist reforms within an
> irreducibly original paradigm of world unity in which peace is made
> sacred. By designating his son ʿAbduʾl-Bahā (Servant of Bahāʾ, d. 1921) as
> interpreter, exemplar and successor and by establishing elected councils,
> Bahāʾullāh instituted his Covenant, symbolized as “the Crimson Ark” (C.
> Buck, Paradise, ch. 5). This is the organizing principle of the Bahāʾī
> community and the means to safeguard its integrity against major schism.
> Succeeding ʿAbduʾl-Bahā in 1921 as “Guardian” of the Bahāʾī Faith,
> Shoghi Effendi (d. 1957) globalized and evolved the Bahāʾī administration
> as a system of local and national Spiritual Assemblies. This led in 1963 to
> the establishment of the Universal House of Justice, the international
> Bahāʾī governing body, on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.
> 
> The purpose of the Bahāʾī Faith, as the religion is now known, is to unify
> the world through its principles of unity, which range from family relations
> to international relations. According to a recent survey, some 50 Bahāʾī
> principles of unity have been identified in the primary sources (Persian,
> Arabic and English) as follows:
> 
> 50 Bahāʾī Principles of Unity
> I. Individual Relationship with God: (1) “Mystic feeling which unites
> nan with God”; II. Family Relations: (2) Unity of Husband and Wife
> (vaḥdat); (3) Unity of the family (ittiḥād va ittifāq dar miyān-i
> khāndān); III. Interpersonal Relations: (4) Oneness of Emotions
> (iḥsāsāt-i vāḥida); (5) Spiritual Oneness (vaḥdat-i rawḥānī); IV.
> Gender Relations: (6) Unity of the Rights of Men and Women
> (vaḥdat-i huqūq-i rijāl va nisāʾ); (7) Unity in Education (vaḥdat-i uṣūl
> va qavānīn-i tarbiyat); V. Economic Relations: (8) Economic Unity
> (ittiḥād-i iqtiṣādī); (9) Unity of People and Wealth (ittiḥād-i nufūs va
> amvāl) [i.e. beneficence/philanthropy]; VI. Race Relations: (10) Unity
> in Diversity; (11) Unity of Races (vaḥdat-i jins); VII. Environmental
> Relations: (12) Unity of Existence (Oneness of Being and Manifes-
> tation (Arabic: waḥdat al-wujūd wa shuhūd/Persian: vaḥdat-i vujūd va
> 
> shuhūd); (13) Unity of Species (vaḥdat-i jins); (14) Unity with the
> Environment; VIII. Interfaith Relations: (15) Unity of God (tawḥīd-i
> ilāhī); (16) Mystic Unity of God and His Manifestations; (17) Unity
> of the Manifestations of God (maqām-i tawḥīd); (18) Unity of Truth
> (vaḥdat-i ḥaqīqat); (19) Unity Among Religions (ittiḥād dar dīn); (20)
> Peace Among Religions (sabab-i ulfat bayn-i adyān/ṣuḥul bayn-i
> adyān); IX. Scientific Relations: (21) Unity of Science and Religion
> (vaḥdat-i ‘ilm va dīn); (22) Methodological Coherence; (23) Unity of
> Thought (vaḥdat-i ārā) in World Undertakings; X. Linguistic
> Relations: (24) Unity of Language (vaḥdat-i lisān); XI. International
> Relations: (25) Unity of Conscience (vaḥdat-i vujdān); (26) Unity in
> Freedom (vaḥdat-i āzādī); (27) Evolving Social Unities; (28) Unity in
> the Political Realm (vaḥdat-i siyāsat); (29) Unity of Nations (vaḥdat-i
> vaṭan); (30) Unity of All Mankind/World Unity (ittifāq-i kull va
> ittiḥād-i ‘umūm/vaḥdat-i ‘ālam-i insānī); (31) Unity of the World
> Commonwealth; (32) Unity of the Free; XII. Bahāʾī Relations: (33)
> Unity of the Bahāʾī Revelation; (34) All-Unifying Power (jaat-i
> jāmiʻa); (35) Unity of Doctrine; (36) Unity of Meaning; (37) Bahāʾī
> Unity (vaḥdat-i Bahā’ī); (38) Unity among Bahāʾī Women (al-ittiḥād
> wa’l-ittifāq); (39) Unity in Religion (vaḥdat-i dīnī); (40) Unity of
> Station (ittiḥād-i maqām); (41) Unity of Souls (ittiḥād-i nufūs); (42)
> Unity in Speech (ittiḥād dar qawl); (43) Unity in [Ritual] Acts
> (ittiḥād-i ā’māl); (44) Unity of Bahāʾī Administration; (45) Unity of
> Purpose; (46) Unity of Means; (47) Unity of Vision; (48) Unity of
> Action; (49) Unity of the Spiritual Assembly (yigānigī); (50) Unity of
> Houses of Justice and Governments (Buck, God & Apple Pie, p. 329;
> id., Fifty Bahāʾī principles of unity).
> Applying a secular methodology to better understand the genesis of these
> doctrinal, ethical, social and administrative principles, the Bahāʾī religion
> may be viewed as a distinctive “response to modernity.” From a faith-
> perspective, however, Bahāʾīs hold that the Bāb and Bahāʾullāh were each
> the recipients of divine revelation (waḥy), with new social teachings best
> suited for modernity and postmodernity.
> 
> Bahāʾism underwent transformations in ethos and organization throughout
> three missionary phases: the Islamic context (1844–92), the international
> missions (1892–1963) and global diffusion (1963–present). The Islamic
> context was co-extensive with the combined ministries of Bahāʾullāh and
> 
> his precursor, Sayyid ʿAlī-Muḥammad Shīrāzī (1819–50), known as the
> Bāb (Gate), the prophet-martyr of the Bābī movement.
> 
> The year 1260/1844 marked the Shīʿī millennium, a thousand lunar years
> since the occultation of the Twelfth Imām (see IMĀM; SHĪʿISM AND THE
> QURʾĀN). On 22 May 1844 the Bāb effected a decisive, eschatological
> break from Islam by means of composing, aloud before a guest, Mullā
> Husayn Bushrū’ī (1813–1849), that evening, the first sūra (Sūrat al-Mulk)
> of an exegetical work, entitled Sustainer of the Names (of God) (Qayyūm
> al-asmāʾ), often referred to as the Commentary on the Sūra of Joseph, an
> audacious and revolutionary commentary on the twelfth sūra of the Qurʾān
> (see JOSEPH). In this work he “proclaimed himself the focus of an Islamic
> apocalypse” (T. Lawson, Structure, 8).
> The Bāb’s earliest works exhibit a conscious effort to extend and amplify a
> qurʾānic voice, a crucial warrant of revelation. Perhaps the most
> remarkable feature of the Qayyūm al-asmāʾ is its claim to be the “new
> Qurʾān” (22). To illustrate this audacious claim, two exemplars may be
> cited: “And verily, had these two Furqans not been from God, they (i.e.
> people) would, verily, have found in them more disparities” (QA 99, trans.
> Y. Ioannesyan, Prophetic mission of the Bāb, p. 197). And: “Verily, We
> have sent down this Book as the mystery of the Qurʾān. … And there is no
> one except for those who have renounced God, who would question even
> one of its letters as not being from God. And verily, God hath sent it (i.e.
> the Book) down by His pre-existent might to His Remembrance (i.e. the
> Bāb) anew, with a new Truth, in a new way” (QA 41, id., p. 202). N.
> Mohammadhosseini, confirming this same claim, explains that the Bāb, in
> QA 3, “mentions three times that the Qurʾān has been revealed to his heart”
> (idem, The Commentary on the Sūra of Joseph, p. 8). Similar claims are
> made in QA 7 and 26 (id.). N. Saiedi states generally: “The Qayyūm al-
> asmāʾ is also frequently called the ‘Qurʾān’ or the ‘Inner Qurʾān’” (idem,
> Gate of the Heart, p. 140). In the first chapter of the QA, the Bāb makes
> the stunning declaration that his religion is henceforth the “true Islam” to
> which all should turn: “Thus whoso seeketh Islam (submission to God), let
> him submit unto this Remembrance. … Whoso rejecteth this true Islam,
> God shall not accept, on the Day of Resurrection, any of his deeds” (trans.
> Saiedi, Gate of the Heart, p. 142).
> 
> The QA is written in the form of the divine reality speaking to the Bāb,
> which Cambridge Orientalist, Edward Granville Browne, presumed to be
> the “Universal Intelligence” (ʿaql-i kull) (The Bābis of Persia, p. 909, n. 2).
> Evidence from the QA, according to Y. Ioannesyan (Prophetic mission of
> the Bāb, passim), shows that the Bāb proclaimed his teaching as an
> independent divine revelation, while Bābism, from its inception, emerged
> as a post-Islamic, independent religious system. The divine origin of QA
> Book and its uniqueness are repeatedly emphasized. The Bāb is privileged
> in the QA as “the Word of God” (i.e. personifying the Bāb as the recipient
> and manifestation of divine revelation).
> The Bāb clearly differentiates between Muslims (“the people of the
> Qurʾān”) and the Bābis as “the people of this Book,” referring to the QA).
> Such evidence, and more, prove that Bābism went well beyond any
> reformist movement in Islam and that the Bāb did not fall into the category
> of an Islamic modernist or reformer. No founder of a school would ever
> claim this station for himself as the Bāb did. The QA is so extraordinary as
> to be revolutionary within an Islamic context. This remarkable text
> instantly projected the Bāb beyond the orbit of Islam, notwithstanding the
> QA’s consciously qurʾānic style and discourse.
> One of the Bāb’s most distinctive exegetical techniques is his “exploded
> commentary,” which is an exegetical tour de force. In works on Q 108 and
> Q 103, the exegesis proceeds “not only verse by verse, or even word by
> word, but also letter by letter” (T. Lawson, Dangers, 179). For instance, the
> Bāb wrote a commentary on the sūra of al-Kawthar (Q 108), the shortest
> sūra in the Qurʾān, consisting of four lines of Arabic only. Based on the
> text of a very early manuscript which originated during the Bāb’s lifetime,
> the Bāb’s Commentary on the sūra of al-Kawthar spans over two hundred
> pages in length, in which the Bāb interprets every letter of every single
> word comprising al-Kawthar in manifold aspects. This highly mystical and
> original work is full of imagery that serves as a grammar of symbols
> vindicating the mission of the bearer of a new religious revelation which
> the Bāb claimed for himself (Y. Ioannesyan, The Bāb’s Commentary on the
> sūra of al-Kawthar, passim). O. Ghaemmaghami reinforces this thesis in a
> close reading of an episode, found midway through the tafsīr, in which the
> Bāb recounts his meeting with the Hidden Imam. After an in-depth
> analysis, Ghaemmaghami concludes: “In an exquisite performance of
> storytelling the Bāb is able to carefully present himself as the promised
> Imam” (idem, The Bāb’s Encounter with the Hidden Imam, p. 185). The
> Bāb’s commentaries on the Qurʾān are remarkable in that, by force of his
> 
> prophetic authority, “interpretation became revelation” (T. Lawson,
> Interpretation, 253). In 1848, he produced a new law code (Bayān-i fārsī),
> paradoxically super-Islamic in piety, yet supra-Islamic in principle.
> According to A. Eschraghi, the Bāb had three primary purposes in produc-
> ing this new sharīʿa: (1) to prepare for the advent of “He whom God shall
> manifest”; (2) “to provoke the clerical establishment and shatter the
> foundations of their often-abused institutionalized authority” which “led to
> the ulama’s hostility and the Bāb’s subsequent martyrdom”; and (3) to
> prove the independence of the the Bābī religion from Islam (idem,
> Undermining the foundations of orthodoxy, 238).
> 
> After the Bāb’s execution (1850) by the Persian authorities, Bahāʾullāh
> revitalized the Bābī community by employing symbolic interpretation as
> strategy to abolish episodic Bābī antinomianism. In the Arabic Tablet of
> “all food” (Lawḥ-i kull al-ṭaʿām, 1854—note that the titles of Bahāʾi
> works written in Arabic are conventionally given in Persianized form),
> Bahāʾullāh related the abolishment of the Jewish dietary restrictions in Q
> 3:93 to the mystical and cosmological realms. While the Baghdad period
> (1853–63) was eschatologically charged with his own messianic secrecy
> (ayyām-i buṭūn), Bahāʾullāh, in his pre-eminent doctrinal work, the Book of
> certitude (Kitāb-i īqān, hereafter Īqān), advanced an extended qurʾānic and
> biblical argument to authenticate the Bāb’s prophetic credentials. This
> remarkable text was “revealed” (as stated in the colophon) in the span of
> 48 hours. It was the late Bahāʾī scholar, Ahang Rabbani, who discovered
> that the Īqān was written in January 1861 (Rabbani, Conversion, pp. 34–
> 35). Bahāʾullāh’s repertoire of exegetical techniques includes most of the
> twelve “procedural devices” attested in the classical commentaries
> (Wansbrough, QS, part ii) as well as others.
> 
> Bahāʾullāh’s style of discourse is itself exegetical, with frequent pairings,
> linked by the Persian metaphorical genitive (iḍāfa-yi majāzī), of qurʾānic
> symbols and referents. Hermeneutically, Certitude resonates with five
> Islamic orientations to symbolism: 1. the semanticism of rhetoric,
> especially the science of tropes (ʿilm al-bayān); 2. the dialectic of theology
> (kalām); 3. reason (ʿaql) and analogy (qiyās) as a reflex of philosophy
> (falsafa) and jurisprudence (fiqh); 4. the use of allusion (ishāra) and gnosis
> (maʿrifa qalbīya) in Ṣūfī/Ishrāqī mysticism (see ṢŪFISM AND THE QURʾĀN);
> 5. recourse to apocalyptic presentism, adducing prophetic proof-texts to
> instantiate a realized eschatology, a common characteristic of millenarian
> sectarianism.
> 
> In his Commentary on the sūra “By the sun” (Tafsīr sūrat wa-l-shams),
> while critical of rhetoric (ʿilm al-balāgha) and the cognate qurʾānic
> sciences, Bahāʾullāh echoes al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and al-Taftazānī (d.
> 791/1389) in stressing the need to harmonize literal and figurative
> interpretations (C. Buck, Symbol, 91-2, 104). In his Tablet on esoteric
> interpretation (Lawḥ-i taʾwīl), citing Q 3:5, Bahāʾullāh states that eschato-
> logical verses are properly susceptible to esoteric interpretation (taʾwīl)
> whereas qurʾānic laws are to be understood by their obvious sense (tafsīr,
> see EXEGESIS OF THE QURʾĀN: CLASSICAL AND MEDIEVAL).
> Islamic prophetology is anchored in the received interpretation of Q 33:40,
> which is widely believed to establish Muḥammad as the final prophet (see
> PROPHETS AND PROPHETHOOD). In what is perhaps his most significant
> exegetical maneuver, Bahāʾullāh relativizes that claim in order to supersede
> it, refocusing the reader’s attention a mere four verses later (Q 33:44) on
> the eschatological attainment to the presence of God (liqāʾ Allāh) on the
> last day (see ESCHATOLOGY):
> 
> Even as the Lord of being hath in His unerring Book (Qurʾān), after
> (baʿd az) speaking of the “Seal” in His exalted utterance: “Muḥammad
> is the Apostle of God and the Seal of the Prophets” (Q 33:40), hath
> revealed unto all people the promise (vaʾda) of “attainment unto the
> divine Presence (liqāʾ-yi khudā).” To this attainment to the presence of
> the immortal King testify the verses of the Book, some of which We
> have already mentioned (vide par. 148: Q 29:23, 2:46, 2:249, 18:110,
> 13:2). The one true God is My witness! Nothing more exalted or more
> explicit than “attainment unto the divine Presence” hath been revealed
> in the Qurʾān. (va khudā-yi vāḥid shāhid-i maqāl ast kih hīch amrī
> a’ẓam az liqā’ va asraḥ-ī az ān dar furqān zikr nayāftih.) Well is it
> with him that hath attained thereunto, in the day wherein most of the
> people, even as ye witness, have turned away therefrom.
> And yet, through the mystery of the former (avval) verse, they have
> turned away from the grace promised by the latter (thānī), despite the
> fact that “attainment unto the divine Presence” in the “Day of
> Resurrection” (liqāʾ dar yawm-i qiyām) is explicitly stated in the Book
> (Qurʾān). (Bahāʾullāh, Certitude, trans. Shoghi Effendi, Pars. 181–
> 182; parenthetical references added; id. Īqān, Pars. 181–182).
> 
> In this pivotal passage, although Bahāʾullāh relates back to “verses of the
> Book, some of which We have already mentioned,” a quick search of the
> Īqān shows that, in par. 148, Bahāʾullāh cites Q 29:23, 2:46, 2:249, 18:110,
> 13:2. Yet in this passage, Bahāʾullāh also alludes to a Qurʾānic announce-
> ment of the “attainment unto the divine Presence” in the “Day of Resur-
> rection” (liqāʾ dar yawm-i qiyām) that comes “after” (baʿd az) the “Seal”
> verse.
> Shoghi Effendi, in his dual role as authorized translator and interpreter of
> Bahāʾī scriptures, provides a word-for-word, literal translation in rendering
> the Persian so: “And yet, through the mystery of the former.” Then Shoghi
> Effendi inserts one word for amplification: “verse” (not in the original
> Persian). This subtle, yet highly significant, gloss disambiguates the text,
> narrowing the reading from an episodic sequence of prophetic/
> eschatological events (“Seal of the Prophets” followed by “Divine
> Presence”) to a textual, qurʾānic sequence, i.e. of a pair verses descriptive
> of this same sequence. This makes perfect sense since the preposition
> “after” (baʿd az) can also mean “next.”
> An attractive hypothesis (with strong evidence shy of conclusive proof) is
> that Bahāʾullāh intended this pair of verses, Q 33:40 and Q 33:44, to be read
> together. Indeed, the very next verse after the “Seal” verse that refers to the
> eschatological encounter with God is Q 33:44, which reads: “Their greeting
> the Day they meet Him will be, ‘Peace.’ And He has prepared for them a
> noble reward” (tr. Sahih International). A Shīʿī rendering is: “On the day
> when they will be brought into the presence of their Lord, their greeting to
> each other will be, ‘Peace be with you.’ God has prepared an honorable
> reward them” (tr. Muḥammad Sarwar).
> 
> Here, cognates of liqāʾ and yawm are found in Q 33:44. The Arabic word
> for “they will meet Him” is yalqawnahu (3rd person masculine plural
> imperfect verb, related to liqāʾ) and “Day” is yawma (accusative masculine
> noun). These terms correspond—conceptually as well as linguistically—to
> Bahāʾullāh’s reference to “‘attainment unto the divine Presence’ in the
> “Day of Resurrection’” (liqāʾ dar yawm-i qiyām).
> 
> In 1974, the late Bahāʾī scholar and martyr, Kamāl al-Dīn Bakhtāvar
> (executed in Kashmar in Khurasan, Iran on 26 July 1981), in his Risāla-yi
> Istimrār-i Ẓuhūrāt-i Ilāhiyya (Tehran 1974), pp. 101–102, drew the very
> same connection between Q 33:40 and 33:44 that, in 1995, Buck
> 
> independently made in Symbol and Secret (pp. 194–98) (Bakhtāvar, Risāla,
> 101 (quoting Q 33:44a)–101 (quoting Bahāʾullāh, Kitāb-i īqān, Pars. 181–
> 182/p. 112).
> The juxtaposition—indeed, the pairing—not only of two concepts, but two
> pivotal verses—Q 33:40 and Q 33:44—has dramatic effect. Among
> Muslims worldwide, the importance of Q 33:40 is universally acknow-
> ledged. In the Īqān, Bahāʾullāh places Q 33:44 on a par with Q 33:40.
> Indeed, as paramount in prophetic history as the advent of Muḥammad as
> the “Seal of the Prophets” surely is, of even greater moment is the
> eschatological encounter with God, according to Bahāʾullāh’s interpreta-
> tion/argument.
> 
> It now remains to be seen how Bahāʾullāh interprets Q 33:44 and parallels
> (adduced in par. 48 as Q 29:23, 2:46, 2:249, 18:110, 13:2). Arguing that
> direct beatific vision of God is impossible, Bahāʾullāh reasons that Q 33:44
> anticipates a future theophany who, as deus revelatus and divine vice-
> gerent, is symbolically God by proxy. Similarly, Bahāʾullāh, in an earlier
> Baghdad work, Gems of divine mysteries (Jawāhir al-asrār), explains:
> Know then that the paradise (hadhihi al-janna, lit. “this Garden”) that
> appeareth in the day of God (yawm Allāh) surpasseth every other
> paradise and excelleth the realities of Heaven (ḥaqāʾiq al-riḍwān). For
> when (baʿd alladhī, lit. “after”) God—blessed and glorified is He—
> sealed the station of prophethood (maqām al-nubuwwa) in the person
> of Him Who was His Friend (ḥabībihi), His Chosen One (ṣafiyyihi),
> and His Treasure (khiyaratihi) amongst His creatures, as hath been
> revealed from the Kingdom of glory: “but He is the Apostle of God
> and the Seal of the Prophets” (Q 33:40), He promised all men that
> they shall attain unto His own presence in the Day of Resurrection
> (waʿada al-ʿibād bi-liqāʾihi yawm al-qiyāma). In this He meant to
> emphasize the greatness of the Revelation to come, as it hath indeed
> been manifested through the power of truth. (Bahāʾullāh, Gems of
> Divine Mysteries, par. 58; id., Jawāhir al-Asrār, par. 58.)
> Here, a greater “Revelation” is posited. Revelation is a concept familiar to
> all Muslims. Simply put, Bahāʾullāh, at some length in the Īqān, argues
> that the Qurʾān presages the advent of the Bāb as the “Promised One.” Of
> even greater moment is what Bahāʾullāh implies. The entire thesis of
> Buck’s monograph, Symbol and Secret (1995/2004), is that the primary
> 
> eschatological symbol in the Īqān is the Bāb, while, at the same time, a
> messianic “secret” pervades the Īqān as a subtext, charging the work with
> heightened eschatological tension, auguring Bahāʾullāh’s imminent
> declaration of his mission, to the discerning, whether before or after
> Bahāʾullāh’s prophetic mission commenced. By force of explicative logic,
> Certitude—arguably the world’s most-widely-read non-Muslim qurʾānic
> commentary—served as an advance prophetic warrant for Bahāʾullāh’s
> proclaimed mission to unify the world.
> 
> Bahāʾullāh’s other Qurʾān commentaries include, inter alia, Commentary
> on the mysterious (lit. “disconnected”) letters (Tafsīr-i ḥurūfāt-i muqaṭṭaʿa;
> see LETTERS AND MYSTERIOUS LETTERS), which incorporates a discourse
> on the Light Verse (Q 24:35); Commentary on “He is” (Tafsīr-i Hū[wa]).
> As A. Eschraghi notes, Bahāʾullāh “initially engaged in esoteric and
> allegorical qurʾānic exegesis” but, from the 1860s onwards, “the
> prominence of ‘Islamic’ topics clearly diminished in Bahāʾullāh’s writings
> as he works towards founding a new religion and introduces distinct
> doctrines” (idem, Promised One, 112). Moreover, Bahāʾullāh, while affirm-
> ing the legitimacy of the Imamate in principle, criticizes the popular Shīʿī
> belief in existence of a Twelfth Imam. Eschraghi notes that “it became
> patently clear that Bahāʾ Allāh did not believe in the Twelfth Imam’s
> continued presence” (referring to the Greater Occultation), yet “stopped
> short of explicitly denying his very existence” (idem, Promised One, 123).
> In roundly critiquing Twelver Shīʿī Mahdī doctrines as impossible of literal
> fulfillment, Bahāʾullāh radically reinterpreted the Shīʿī eschaton such that
> the “Bahāʾī Faith” is more aptly characterized as a “de-messianized”
> religion, rather than a “messianic movement” (id., p. 134). (For a similar
> analysis, see C. Buck, Bahāʾullāh as Zoroastrian Saviour.)
> 
> Succeeding his father Bahāʾullāh on the latter’s passing in 1892, ʿAbduʾl-
> Bahā authored works of tafsīr as well, which provide both exoteric and
> esoteric commentaries. A good example is ʿAbduʾl-Bahāʾ’s tafsīr on the
> opening verses of sūra 30. Alive to the priority of spiritual over material
> realities, ʿAbduʾl-Bahā quickly addresses the exoteric meaning by acknow-
> ledging the standard commentary that these verses refer to the overthrow
> of the Byzantines in 614 CE by the Persian king Chosroes. Then ʿAbduʾl-
> Bahā gives nine esoteric, or mystical, interpretations in which he sets forth
> the stages of the soul in the Arc of Ascent (M. Momen, ʿAbduʾl-Bahā’s
> commentary on the qurʾānic verses concerning the overthrow of the
> 
> Byzantines, passim). See also N. Alkan, “By the Fig and the Olive.”
> ʿAbduʾl-Bahā’s commentary in Ottoman Turkish on the qurʾānic sūra 95.
> 
> Since the works of the Bāb, Bahāʾullāh and ʿAbduʾl-Bahā constitute the
> corpus of Bahāʾī scriptures, the Qurʾān itself, while respected and revered
> by Bahāʾīs worldwide (numbering some seven million, with Bahāʾī
> communities established in every country in the world except for North
> Korea and the Vatican City), does not occupy a central place in Bahāʾī
> doctrine and praxis. However, because of their positive disposition toward
> the Qurʾān and Muḥammad alike, Bahāʾīs have long promoted a positive
> appreciation for the Book and Prophet par excellence. In this regard,
> Bahāʾīs are natural allies of Muslims. A sad irony is that this view of
> common cause based on common ground is not always reciprocated. The
> Bahāʾī-Muslim encounter in Iran—the country where the Bābī and Bahāʾī
> religions originated—continues to be fraught with difficulty (due to
> ongoing persecution of the Bahāʾīs as the largest non-Muslim religious
> minority in Iran), which topic is outside the scope of this article. Suffice it
> to say that Bahāʾīs appreciate, and will continue to value, their historical
> and doctrinal Islamic heritage.
> Christopher Buck
> Acknowledgments:
> The present writer gratefully acknowledges the following readers for their
> edits and recommendations: Moojan Momen, Ph.D. (independent scholar);
> Youli Ioannesyan, Ph.D. (faculty, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian
> Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia); Omid Ghaemmaghami,
> Ph.D. (Assistant Professor of Arabic, Department of Classical and Near
> Eastern Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New York);
> Necati Alkan, Ph.D. (scholarship holder and lecturer in the Department of
> Islamic Studies at Bamberg University, Germany); Daniel Gebhardt, M.A.
> (Temporary Faculty in the Department of Philosophy, University of
> Nevada, Reno).
> Bibliography
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> 
> id., Tafsīr sūrat al-kawthar, Cambridge, Browne Or. Ms. F. 10 (19).
> 
> Note: The following inventory of the Bāb’s works of qurʾānic tafsīr is
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> 
> id., Tafsīr-i hāʾ (Commentary on the letter hā’). INBA 53:81–125.
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> 
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> 
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> Cite this page
> 
> Buck, Christopher. “Bahāʾīs.” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Georgetown
> University, Washington DC. Brill Online, 2015. Reference. BRILL demo user. 31 August 2015 <http://
> referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/bahais-EQSIM_00042>
>
> — *Baha'is (Used by permission of the curator)*