# Choice Wine: The Kitab-i Aqdas and the Development of Baha'i Law

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> Preface
> 
> First, I should begin by confessing that I speak neither  Persian nor Arabic,
> and so this paper is not intended as a  scholarly analysis of the Kitab-i Aqdas
> or its laws, which I  am certainly not qualified to undertake.  Rather, I am
> proposing a "theory of the Kitab-i Aqdas," so to speak--a  tentative conceptual
> framework within which we can understand  the Most Holy Book and the role that
> it is intended to play  in the Bahá'í religion.   
> 
> In particular, I wish to investigate the attitude which  the Book takes toward
> Bahá'í law by looking at the historical  development of the text itself, as
> well as a few of the  central laws which were promulgated by that text.  My
> intention is to demonstrate that the Kitab-i Aqdas was not  intended to estab
> lish a new law code (shari'a) similar to the  one known to nineteenth-century
> Muslim jurisprudence, but  rather to discard that approach to law in favor of a
> more  organic promulgation of ethical principles.1
> 
> Choice Wine
> 
> Near the beginning of the Kitab-i Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh  issues this warning:  
> Think not that We have revealed unto you a mere  code of laws.  Nay, rather, We
> have unsealed the  choice Wine with the fingers of might and power.   To this
> beareth witness that which the Pen of  Revelation hath revealed.  Meditate upon
> this, O  men of insight!  (K5)
> 
> The metaphor that he chooses here is extremely instructive.   Bahá'u'lláh's
> reference to a "mere code of laws" is most  certainly an allusion to the
> shari'a, the holy law of Islam  which is the basis of orthodox faith and
> practice.  With  astonishing brevity, Bahá'u'lláh appears to dismiss this
> ancient and hoary tradition out of hand.  Instead, he  explains, he has
> unsealed the "choice Wine."  
> 
> Wine is, of course, forbidden in Islam as it is in the   Bahá'í Faith.  In
> Islam it is a symbol of violation of God's  law and, through Sufi usage, also a
> symbol of mystical  communion with God--spiritual intoxication--before which
> the  law is at best irrelevant.  That such a statement should  preface
> Bahá'u'lláh's own Book of Laws is indeed astonishing.   But, it appears to me
> to presage his attitude toward law  throughout the book.   
> 
> Nonetheless, it seems to me that very often Bahá'ís--and  especially Bahá'ís
> from Muslim societies--have very naturally  understood the Kitab-i Aqdas to be
> a simple update of the  Muslim code of laws, modernized and sanitized for
> contemporary consumption.  In this view, we have a Bahá'í  shari'a which is to
> last for a thousand years.  I believe  that is a mistaken assumption which
> cannot withstand careful  inquiry, and which could not withstand the challenges
> of  modernity--and now post-modernity.
> 
> The Revelation of the Kitab-i Aqdas
> 
> Almost nothing has been written in English about the  manner in which the
> Kitab-i Aqdas was pr oduced by  Bahá'u'lláh.  However, it is suggested by
> internal evidence  and the little that is known of the history of the book's
> revelation that the Kitab-i Aqdas consists of an initial  Tablet of laws which
> was supplemented over time with verses  written in response to questions put to
> Bahá'u'lláh over a  period of three or four years.  
> 
> Ekbal has noted that Fadil-i Mazandarani's scholarship  suggests that
> Bahá'u'lláh had begun to reveal some parts of  the Kitab-i Aqdas from the first
> years of his arrival in  'Akka (1868), or perhaps even during his last year in
> Edirne.2   It would appear that, after the initial composition, the  Aqdas was
> increased in response to letters and petitions from  the believers which put
> questions to Bahá'u'lláh which  required answers. In verse 98 of the Aqdas, he
> explains: 
> 
> Various petitions have come before Our throne from the  believers, concerning
> the laws of God, the Lord of the  seen and the unseen, the Lord of all worlds.
> We have,  in consequence, revealed this Holy T ablet and arrayed it  with the
> mantle of His Law that haply the people may  keep the commandments of their
> Lord.  Similar requests  had been made of Us over several pervious years, but
> We  had, in Our wisdom, withheld Our Pen until, in recent  days, letters
> arrived from a number of the friends, and  We have therefore responded, through
> the power of truth,  with that which shall quicken the hearts of men.3   
> 
> 
> 
> Walbridge4 has suggested that the initial passages of  the Kitab-i Aqdas come
> to an end around verse 17, which  begins: "These are the ordinances of God that
> have been set  down in the Books and Tablets by His Most Exalted Pen."5  And
> while that verse does present a natural break in the text, it  appears to me
> that the book remains integrated and coherent,  at least as a compilation of
> laws, until Bahá'u'lláh  completes his apostrophes to various lands and peoples
> around  verse 96.  After that, the discussion becomes quite choppy  and random,
> and appears to consist of answers to various  questions, rev ealed in no
> particular order.   
> 
> Of course, both of these positions remain mere  speculation.  The history of
> the revelation of the Kitab-i  Aqdas has yet to be written.  But, it is
> virtually certain  that it could easily be written by consulting the original
> text of the book and the documents which are associated with  it.  Naturally,
> this would have to be done in the original  language and by inspection of the
> documents at the Bahá'í  World Center in Haifa.6 
> 
> By 1873, the text of the Aqdas was substantially  complete and copies were
> circulated in Iran.  However, the  last verse of the modern text, verse 190
> (the second  prohibition on the use of opium7), was not revealed along  with
> the rest of the book.  Indeed, this last verse was not added  to the text until
> 1890, when Mirza Muhammad-'Ali arranged for  the first printing of the Kitab-i
> Aqdas in Bombay.  Earlier  (hand-copied) versions of the Aqdas which had
> circulated in  Iran did not include this final verse.8 
> 
> Beyond this addition of a final verse, however, the  Aqdas continued to be
> amended and supplemented by Bahá'u'lláh  in the Questions and Answers, which is
> virtually an integral  part of the Most Holy Book itself.  Indeed, a reading of
> Bahá'u'lláh's answers (without the questions) gives the same  feel as a reading
> of the latter parts of the Aqdas itself.   It seems to be that the Holy Book
> itself was compiled in the  same method as were the Questions and Answers,
> except that in  the text of the Aqdas, we are not given the questions! 
> 
> It seems to me, that in  Muslim context, with those  involved being familiar
> with the Qur'an and the manner of its  revelation, this development of the
> Aqdas would have seemed  perfectly normal.  After all, the Qur'an is not a
> continuous  narrative, exhibits no organization, and was simply revealed  by
> the Prophet as the occasion demanded.  For Bahá'u'lláh,  and for the early
> believers, it probably seemed appropriate  that the Mother Book of the Bahá'í
> revelation would also be  revealed in short pieces over years, and  that it
> would  develop as a compilation of holy verses.   
> 
> In any case, Bahá'u'lláh continued to expand and  supplement the Kitab-i Aqdas
> after 1873, not only with the  Questions and Answers, but with the revelation
> of other  Tablets and supplementary texts bearing on Bahá'í law.  In  his
> Tablet of Splendors (Ishraqat), for example, the eighth  Ishraq is explicitly
> made a part of the Aqdas:   
> 
> This passage, now written by the Pen of Glory, is accounted as part of the Most Holy Book . . .9
> 
> Indeed, according to Shoghi Effendi, Bahá'u'lláh continued to  elaborate, to
> elucidate, and to supplement the provisions of  the Most Holy Book "until the
> last days of His earthly  life."10  It would seem that, according to the
> Guardian, the  Aqdas was never regarded by Bahá'u'lláh as fixed or complete.
> 
> 
> Beyond this, of course, the laws of the Kitab-i Aqdas  have continued to
> develop in an organic manner through the  application and interpretation of
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and later, of  Shoghi Effendi.  Bahá'í laws continues to  be
> modified and  expanded through the present-day legislation of the Universal
> House of Justice.  
> 
> The Uncreated Qur'an vs. the Dynamic Aqdas 
> 
> It is a fundamental tenet of (at least Sunni) Islam that  the Qur'an is
> "uncreated."  That is, the doctrine insists  that the Holy Book was not created
> by God, but has existed  from all eternity (in Arabic) as a fixed and
> unchanging guide  for human behavior.  As such, the laws of the Qur'an are
> regarded as a rigid blueprint for human life.  As a  consequence, an elaborate
> and detailed system of Muslim law  has developed which purports to provide a
> guide to human  behavior in every possible situation.  
> 
> On the contrary, it is the thesis of this paper that  Bahá'u'lláh did not
> intend his Holy Book to be understood in  this manner.  Indeed, the laws of the
> Aqdas developed and  changed even in Bahá'u'lláh's lifetime, and certainly
> afterward.  Rather, it is my contention that Bahá'u'lláh  intended by the
> revelation of the Aqdas to offer the "choice  wine" of upright  and ethical
> conduct embodied in general  principles and examples of beneficial law.  That
> Bahá'u'lláh  himself regarded these laws as flexible can be demonstrated.
>
> — *Choice Wine: The Kitab-i Aqdas and the Development of Baha'i Law (Used by permission of the curator)*