# Is the Baha'i Faith a World Religion?

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Moojan Momen, Is the Baha'i Faith a World Religion?, Christchurch, NZ: Open Circle Publishing, 1989, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Is the Baha'i Faith a World Religion?
> 
> Moojan Momen
> published in Soundings: Essays in Bahá'í Theologyed. Sen McGlinn, pp. 55-64
> 
> Christchurch, NZ: Open Circle Publishing, 1989
> 
> The Bahá'í Faith has, during its 140-year history, succeeded
> in spreading itself over most of the globe. Indeed, so successful has it
> been in this regard that it is now considered by one authoritative source
> to be the second most widespread religion in the world after Roman Catholicism.[1]
> 
> This geographical diffusion has not been a steady process throughout
> the whole of Bahá'í history. Rather the picture has been
> one of gradual spread and consolidation within one cultural world followed
> by a breakthrough into another. Some early examples of this process are
> the break out of its Shi'i Iranian confines into the Arab and Turkish Sunni
> world (largely as a result of the successive exiles of Bahá'u'lláh
> into Iraq, Turkey, and Syria), or when it first began to convert significant
> numbers of Jews and Zoroastrians in Iran and Christians in Syria and Egypt.
> However, most of the geographical spread of the religion has been as a
> result of two major breakthroughs.[2]
> The first occurred at about the turn of the present century when the
> religion managed to break out of its erstwhile mainly Muslim Middle-Eastern
> constituency and spread to Christian North America and Europe. The foundations
> of this achievement had been laid from the earliest days of the new religion
> when Bahá'u'lláh in two of his writings from the Baghdad
> period[3] addressed Christian issues. Then towards the end of the nineteenth
> century, the famous Bahá'í scholar, Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl
> Gulpaygání, extended these foundations by writing extensively
> on Bahá'í approaches to the New and Old Testaments. This
> was followed by the conversion of numerous Jews, in Iran, and Christians,
> in Syria and Egypt, to the Bahá'í Faith. It was Syrian Christian
> converts in particular who were largely responsible for taking the Bahá'í
> Faith to Christian North America, from where there was further spread to
> Europe and Australia.
> The second major breakthrough occurred from about 1955 to 1965 when
> the Bahá'í Faith began to spread rapidly in the villages
> of the Third World. Again the foundations of this breakthrough can be traced
> back to earlier periods, perhaps to the spread into the villages of Iran
> in the earliest days. Although small numbers of Bahá'ís had
> gone to Latin America from the 1930s and to Africa in the early 1950s,
> there had been few conversions of indigenous peoples. Then suddenly from the late 1950s onwards, there was a rapid increase in
> the number of Bahá'ís in many of the countries of the non-Muslim
> Third World. This breakthrough occurred principally, it would seem, as
> a result of the decision of the Bahá'ís to change the focus
> of their missionary activities from the urban, Western-influenced elites
> in these countries to the rural, illiterate masses. As in the first major
> break-through, some adjustment of the basic Bahá'í message
> was necessary in order to reach this new target group. In India, for example,
> where the Bahá'í message had for decades been primarily addressed
> to Indian Muslims and Parsees (Zoroastrians), a re-interpretation of the
> Bahá'í message in accordance with Hindu ideas was necessary.
> The influx of large numbers of rural peoples from various Third World cultural
> backgrounds has certainly made a great change in the make-up of the world
> Bahá'í community. Some idea of the extent of this comparatively
> sudden change can be gleaned from the fact that prior to 1954, approximately
> 94% of the world Bahá'í population consisted of Iranians.
> Today, a little more than thirty years later, that figure is about 7% while
> Bahá'ís from the non-Muslim Third World represent some 90%
> of the Bahá'í world.[4] Bahá'ís now live in
> most of the countries and major dependent territories of the world.
> 
> The Bahá'í Faith has therefore certainly gone around the
> world. But is it yet a world religion? Of course, this depends on one's
> definition of "world religion". If one were speaking merely in terms of
> geographical spread, then the Bahá'í Faith would certainly
> merit the appellation. However, I propose to look question from the viewpoint
> of a wider definition of the term "world religion".
> In one of his writings, `Abdu'l-Bahá states that although human
> beings are, alone among the physical creation, capable of manifesting all
> of the Names and Attributes of God, yet each specific individual person
> manifests these Names and Attributes to different degrees, and one of the
> Names and Attributes predominates over the others in any individual.[5]
> Given the large number of Names and attributes of God and the range of
> permutations and gradations available, this results in the wide variety
> of human types that can be observed. In this passage, `Abdu'l-Bahá
> is explaining the different ways in which God is conceptualised by different
> human beings and he goes on to give some examples of what he means. He
> states that in those individuals in whom the Divine names "Sanctity" and
> "Transcendence" predominate, there is a tendency to conceptualise God as
> being completely free from any connection with the world of creation, which is indeed considered to be utter nothingness compared
> with God. In other individuals in whom the Names "All-Knowing", "Divinity"
> and "Lordship" predominate, God is only conceptualised in relation to the
> creation, since it is only with the existence of a creation that these
> attributes can come into being.[6] Thus each individual has a unique manner
> in which he or she manifest the Names of God, the individual's soul-psyche
> complex, and this in turn results in a unique viewpoint on such matters
> as God and world. Since both of the viewpoints which `Abdu'l-Bahá
> discusses are valid it is not surprising that statements can be found in
> the Baha'í scriptures supporting both. For example the first viewpoint
> is supported by the following quotation:
> No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him to His creatures.
> He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity
> and remoteness.[7]
> And for the second position:
> Turn thy sight unto thyself that thou mayest find Me standing
> within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.[8]
> Therefore, no person has any right to claim that their understanding of
> either God or the world is the true one in any absolute sense - it is only
> a description relative to their viewpoint.
> 
> This people, all of them, have pictured a god in the realm
> of the mind, and worship that image for themselves . . .But that Essence
> of Essences, that Invisible of Invisibles, is sanctified above all human
> speculation, and never to be overtaken by the mind of man. [9]
> 
> `Abdu'l-Bahá is in effect saying that the different ways
> of conceptualising the Absolute Reality (which in Western culture is called
> God) are each "true" relative to the individual who sincerely holds such
> a view.[10] This conclusion brings us back to our consideration of the
> definition of a world religion. We may now define a world religion as one
> which satisfies the need and fulfills the expectations of all types of
> humanity, i.e. it must be true to the various viewpoints of the different
> types of human soul-psyche complex.
> Before going on to consider the Bahá'í Faith, let us briefly
> consider the manner in which other religions fulfill this definition and
> become entitled to the appellation of "world religions". The two types
> of human soul-psyche complex that `Abdu'l-Bahá refers to in the above-mentioned passage can
> be thought of as representing two extremes of human type which can be used
> as examples. The first type, which considers God as being completely separate
> from the world, is the predominant type in the Western world. This viewpoint
> emphasises the otherness of God and His distance from humanity. Its concomitant
> attitude is one of worship of the Deity and devotion. This represents the
> attitude of the mainline orthodoxies of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions.
> The second type mentioned above, which only conceptualises the Absolute
> in relation to the world, is the major religious form in the Eastern religions.
> Its aim is to realise the ultimate identity of the Absolute and man and
> this is achieved usually through meditation or other techniques that involve
> an altered state of consciousness. In all the major orthodox religions
> of the West, Judaism, Islam (whether Sunni or Shi'i) and Christianity (whether
> Roman Catholicism or the major Protestant movements), the first type of
> approach is the main-stream of orthodox thought, but the second type is
> catered for in various mystical movements, such as Jewish mysticism, Christian
> mysticism and Sufism. Taking Buddhism as an example of religions of the
> East, we see that the main stream of the religion as expounded by Buddhist
> monks is clearly of the second type, but if we look to the religion which
> the ordinary people follow, we see that it is largely a religion of worship
> and devotion suiting the first type of soul-psyche complex. Thus each major
> world religion caters for both extremes of human soul-psyche type as well
> as all gradations in between. They each fulfill the needs and aspirations
> of all types of humanity. However the achievement of this breadth has not
> been a smooth and harmonious process. In the West, Christian gnostics and
> mystics have been declared heretics and persecuted by orthodox Christianity,
> while Sufis have experienced the same fate from their co-religionists.
> In the East, those whose religious outlook is of the first type are regarded
> as practising an inferior form of religion.
> The Bahá'í Faith began in a Muslim country and its initial
> spread was to other Muslim countries and to the countries of the Christian
> West. It is not surprising therefore that the formulations of the Bahá'í
> Faith that were evolved during its early history were closely patterned
> on the models of the Western Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religious and cultural
> world. When Bahá'í pioneers from the Western cultural world
> first began to take the Bahá'í teachings to the Third World,
> they naturally took these formulations with them and taught this to the
> indigenous peoples of the Third World as being the Bahá'í
> 
> Faith. Let us briefly examine the main features of the Western cultural
> mode as compared with other modes, such as the African or South American
> tribal cultures or the more sophisticated Indian and East Asian cultures.
> The main features of the Western approach to any subject are the tendency
> to look at what is being examined as being separate from the person who
> is doing the examining (i.e. Cartesian Dualism); to reduce what is being
> examined to its component elements (reductionism); to rely heavily on rational
> processes of analysis and reasoning; and to consider that an aggressive,
> uncompromising pursuit of the truth (regardless of the means) is laudable.
> These features of Western culture have, to a large extent, stood it in
> good stead. They have been a major factor in the development of science
> and technology in the West and have contributed to the present situation
> where Western culture dominates the world and threatens to overwhelm all
> other cultures. These other cultures are frequently characterised by attitudes
> that run counter to those prevailing in the West: a tendency to emphasise
> relationships rather than things; to look at the whole rather than the
> parts; to attribute great importance to intuitive sources of knowledge;
> and to consider the means to an end to be just as important as the end
> itself.[11]
> We have a situation where Bahá'ís have brought with them
> to the non-Muslim Third World formulations of the Bahá'í
> Faith that have been evolved in the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic world and
> are therefore to some extent foreign to these other cultural worlds. Let
> us examine some examples of this.
> One notable example is the fact that the Bahá'í book most
> frequently translated into other languages has been Esslemont's Bahá'u'lláh
> and the New Era. This book was a major advance in the clear formulation
> of the teachings of the Bahá'í Faith when it was first published
> in 1923. But its British author undoubtedly speaks mainly to a Western
> audience. Its appeal to other cultures is likely to be limited to the Western-educated
> 
> élites of those nations. And yet, despite the fact that a Bahá'í
> community has existed in a country like India since the time of Bahá'u'lláh,
> very little has yet been produced which can be said to be a genuinely indigenous
> formulation of the Bahá'í Faith. The catalogue of the Indian
> Bahá'í Publishing Trust contains mostly translations in the
> native Indian languages of scripture or of introductory books such as Bahá'u'lláh
> and the New Era by non-Indians.
> Another example is the manner in which Bahá'ís have tended to deal with
> the problems of presenting the Bahá'í Faith to Buddhists. Buddhism does
> not have a concept of God in the same way as the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic
> religions have and therefore there is also no concept of a prophet from
> God. Instead of trying to formulate the Bahá'í Faith in such
> a way as to take account of Buddhist attitudes and the Buddhist way of
> seeing things, Bahá'ís have insisted on reformulating Buddhism
> in a manner conformable to the Bahá'í Faith (or rather to
> the Western formulation of the Bahá'í Faith that is accepted
> as the norm).
> Hence the attempt to find a God in Buddhism and thereby to recast Buddhism
> with all the trappings of the Western religions: a prophet, a Holy Book,
> prophecies, etc. When Bahá'ís are challenged with the fact
> that there is not much evidence for all of this in the Buddhist writings,
> the usual response is that the original teachings of the Buddha have been
> lost. Not surprisingly, Buddhists are not very convinced by the exercise.
> However politely they may listen to such an exposition, most are not likely
> to be sympathetic to a viewpoint that says, in effect, that the whole basis
> of their religious belief is false and the civilisation which they have
> erected over the past 2,500 years and the writings of all of their most
> respected saints and scholars have been founded on error. It would seem
> rather impudent of Bahá'ís even to advance such a hypothesis
> and it is almost certainly only the fact that tolerance is one of the strongest
> Buddhist virtues that has prevented a vigorous Buddhist response. A more
> constructive approach to Buddhism can begin with those statements of Bahá'u'lláh
> that are most akin to Buddhist viewpoints. Such statements as:
> 
> Pleasant is the realm of being wert thou to attain thereto;
> glorious is the domain of eternity shouldst thou pass beyond the world
> of mortality; sweet is the holy ecstasy if thou drinkest of the mystic
> chalice from the hands of the celestial Youth. Shouldst thou attain this
> station, thou wouldst be freed from destruction and death, from toil and
> sin.[12]
> Nor indeed is this more constructive view in any way contrary to the Bahá'í
> teachings. Whilst it is true that the Bahá'í writings do
> contain the idea that the true teachings of a religion can become obscured
> by the passage of time and the attempts of men to interpret them, the principle
> is also laid down in the Kitáb-i-Íqán that once the
> physical presence of the Manifestation of God is withdrawn from the earth,
> God would not cause the teachings of the Manifestation to be completely
> lost also for this would be contrary to His Mercy and Grace.[13] From this
> it would appear that the saving aspects of the message of the Buddha must
> still be present in the Buddhist teachings as handed down in the Buddhist
> tradition.
> In summary then, taking Buddhism as an example, the point is that Buddhism
> and Buddhist culture enshrines a certain worldview which predetermines
> how Buddhists see the world. If the Bahá'í Faith is presented
> to Buddhists m a manner that is incongruous with that worldview, then it
> is unlikely to receive a sympathetic hearing. If Bahá'ís
> try to change the Buddhist worldview in order to make it conform to a Western
> vision of the Bahá'í Faith, they are equally unlikely to
> be successful. Only a presentation of the Bahá'í Faith that
> is fully congruent with the Buddhist worldview is likely to succeed in
> any mayor way.
> 
> This is similarly true for all other cultures and societies.
> What must be realised is that at the heart of all religion is the human
> relationship with the Ultimate Reality (I have avoided using the term God
> so as to include Buddhism). Since this relationship has no similarity with
> any other relationship that we experience in our lives, it is beyond the
> ability of words to describe it. Therefore every culture has evolved a
> set of metaphors and symbols to express it. But in the process of bringing
> that relationship down from the level of experience to the level of words,
> the innate biases of particular cultural viewpoints come to the fore. As
> a result, the relationship may be expressed in quite different, even seemingly
> contradictory, ways. For example, the Ultimate Reality may appear positive,
> personal and active according to one viewpoint (God in Western Judaeo-Christian-Islamic
> culture) but an empty void according to another viewpoint (the concept
> of Shunyata in Buddhism). But these contradictions only arise when two
> terms from two different cultures are placed side by side and then interpreted
> as though they occurred within the same culture, i.e. from only one viewpoint.
> If an empty void is seen from a Western viewpoint as a description of God,
> it immediately appears faulty and wrong - a pointless, fruitless dead-end.
> (If God is an empty void, what can that possibly lead to in terms of religious
> expression?) But seen within the context of Buddhism, Ultimate Reality
> viewed as an empty void is a rich and fruitful concept leading to a wide
> diversity of religious expression.
> Since each set of metaphors and symbols is specific to that culture,
> an outsider cannot appreciate the full significance of a given term or
> expression. The real problem is that each individual person is only capable
> of adopting one cultural viewpoint at a time. This is true even with those
> who have expended a great deal of effort in getting inside a culture that
> is different to their own so that they can see things from a different
> viewpoint. Even with such persons, all that they can say is that what appears
> right from one cultural viewpoint appears wrong from another. There is
> no absolute standard by which to judge the relationship with Ultimate Reality.
> Where Bahá'ís have carried out the process of re-interpreting
> the Bahá'í teachings using local cultural symbols and metaphors,
> the results have been extremely good. One example of this is in India.
> Here Bahá'í teachers have transferred Bahá'í
> 
> concepts into corresponding Hindu concepts. Thus for example, Bahá'u'lláh
> has become an Avatar or more particularly the Kalkin Avatar, the Avatar
> who will appear at the end of the Kali-Yuga, the close of the cosmic aeon.
> And in addition, traditional Hindu vehicles of expression such as bhajans
> (songs with a religious theme) are being used. Of particular importance
> in India is the avoidance by Baha'ís of cultural symbols that are
> closely associated with Islam, in view of the age long history of antipathy
> between Islam and Hinduism.[14]
> But this lesson does not appear to have been learned in other parts
> of the world. The Bahá'í Faith has up to the present time
> largely spread through the process of Bahá'ís from the "West"
> (i.e. from the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim world) moving to other parts of
> the world and attempting to interest the peoples there in the Faith. But
> in most places, these Bahá'í "pioneers" from the West continue
> to teach the Bahá'í Faith using the symbols and metaphors of the West,
> an alien culture for the indigenous peoples.
> How then can the Bahá'í teachings be reinterpreted so
> as to appear congruent to those with cultural viewpoints other than the
> Western Judaeo-Christian-Islamic viewpoint within which the Bahá'í
> 
> teachings are currently expressed? Certainly one of the keys to this process
> is the powerful tool of consultation. If true consultation is carried out
> between the Western pioneers, with their advantages of literacy and knowledge
> of the Bahá'í Writings, and the indigenous Bahá'ís
> with their knowledge and intuitive understanding of what aspects of the
> Bahá'í teachings and what approaches are most congruent with
> local culture, then it is very likely that a significant start to the process
> can be made. However, the proviso for this is that "true" consultation
> occurs. Great care must be taken over this since it is all too easy for
> the Western Bahá'ís (given the characteristic qualities of
> Western culture described above) unconsciously to dominate any consultation
> and intimidate indigenous Bahá'ís into agreeing with positions put forward
> by the Western Bahá'ís. This is particularly likely to occur
> where Western Bahá'ís fail to differentiate what the Bahá'í
> 
> Writings say from their own culture-bound understanding of these writings.
> This will be likely to lead to the Western Bahá'ís authoritatively stating
> that a particular approach to the Bahá'í teachings which
> is congruent with local culture is contrary to the Bahá'í
> teachings, where in fact it is only contrary to the culture-bound understanding
> of the Bahá'í teachings current in their home communities in the West.
> One of the key areas where Western Bahá'ís are most likely
> to fall into the trap of imposing their cultural models on indigenous peoples
> is that of the terminology for key concepts such as "God", "prophet", etc.
> In most parts of the world, Christian missionaries have arrived many years
> before the Bahá'ís. The traditional Christian missionary
> attitude to indigenous religious forms has been to treat these as pagan
> ideas and practices which must be obliterated if Christianity is to be
> established. Therefore, in most places, the missionaries have created their
> own words to express the concepts of "God", "prophet" etc. But Bahá'ís
> look upon all sincere expressions of religious feeling as being aspects
> of a wider truth (in accordance with different types of peoples as described
> above), therefore they do not accept the Christian missionary attitude. But
> when the Bahá'ís are trying to translate the Bahá'í
> teachings into local languages, the easiest thing to do is to borrow the
> terms that have been created by the Christian missionaries. The Western
> Bahá'ís can immediately relate to these terms and they feel
> comfortable with them. In some areas it may be appropriate to do this --
> where, for example, local religious terms have fallen into disuse because
> of the predominance of Christianity. But the unspoken (but perhaps keenly
> felt) implication of borrowing these terms is that the Bahá'ís
> agree with the Christian missionary assessment of the local forms of religion,
> and this becomes yet another instance of Western Bahá'ís
> imposing their understanding of the Bahá'í Faith. It may
> be much more difficult for the Bahá'ís to achieve sufficient
> understanding of the local religious forms to enable them to translate
> correctly Bahá'í ideas into local indigenous forms, but the
> effort is likely to be well rewarded in the greater appreciation and understanding
> of indigenous Bahá'ís, who may have no clear understanding
> of the teachings if they are expressed in alien form.
> 
> Another important psychological trap is for Western Bahá'ís
> to imagine that the aspects of the Bahá'í Faith which most
> appealed to them will be the aspects that appeal to those from a completely
> different culture. This may appear, when put down in black and white, so
> obvious that it hardly needs stating, but in fact these cultural differences
> are extremely subtle and even the most wary person cannot avoid occasional
> mistakes. In the West, for example, the fact that Bahá'u'lláh
> has made several strong statements about the importance of agriculture
> is rarely given any prominence in presentations of the Faith. And yet in
> the predominantly-rural third World nations, it perhaps should be given
> much more emphasis.
> In the same way that certain teachings should be brought to the fore
> in some areas so as to appeal more to local culture, so some teachings
> may need to be placed in the background. The Baha'í teaching in
> some areas such as alcohol, drugs, the position of women, etc. may clash
> markedly with local culture. In such cases, the Bahá'í teachings
> should be presented in as attractive a way as possible so that the positive
> aspects are seen first and appreciated. Once the enthusiasm for the Baha'í
> Faith is present, then the other teachings can be introduced in a gradual
> manner. It is important to realise that traditional societies change at
> a very slow rate and therefore patience is need as it may be years, perhaps
> even generations, before much change is seen on points where the Baha'í
> 
> teachings and the local culture conflict.[15]
> Having adapted the Bahá'í teachings themselves to indigenous
> modes, the next task is to adapt the method of delivering the Bahá'í teachings
> so as to accord more closely to indigenous modes. Again the clue must come
> from a study of the local religious traditions themselves. In one area,
> stories may be the most important mode for conveying religious truths,
> in another it may be songs, or art, or drama, or dance. This is an area
> in which the Bahá'ís of the West have failed even in relation
> to their own culture: one of the key modes for the propagation of religious
> truths in Christian culture has been through hymns, but Bahá'ís
> have signally failed to appeal to that cultural taste in recent years.
> 
> For several different groups of Bahá'ís there are clear
> roles in this process of developing local adaptions of the Bahá'í
> teachings. For the Bahá'í "pioneers" from the West, the need
> to suppress their natural tendency to dominate the community and impose
> their own viewpoint of the Faith has been discussed above. For the Bahá'í
> national and local institutions, there is a need to set up appropriate
> committees and working parties, which can develop these new approaches
> to the Bahá'í teachings, and then the provision of the resources
> necessary to put them into effect. The Continental Board of Counsellors
> also have a valuable role in that, being able to compare different national
> communities, they may have a better overview of what is happening in a
> particular country and they are therefore in a good position to provide
> guidance. From Bahá'í scholars there is a clear need for
> research in two main areas. Firstly, there is a wealth of anthropological
> research into local forms of religious expression in many parts of the
> world. This material is most easily found not in the localities to which
> it applies but in the libraries of the universities of the West. Such material
> if located by Bahá'í scholars and provided for the use of
> Bahá'í pioneers (or potential pioneers in pioneer institutes)
> could be of assistance in greatly shortening the time it takes for Bahá'í
> pioneers to acclimatise culturally to their new surroundings, and would
> give them many clues as to ways in which the Bahá'í teachings
> could be presented so as to conform to the cultural norms of the area.
> Secondly, Bahá'í scholars may have the right training to
> be in a position to look dispassionately at the Bahá'í writings
> in order to separate what is the essential core from what is cultural accretions.
> In summary then, the question asked in the tide of this paper: "Is the
> Bahá'í Faith a World Religion?", can be answered thus: it
> has the potential to become a world religion but as yet that potential
> has only been manifested to a limited degree.
> 
> Notes
> 
> 1. See D. Barrett (ed.). World Christian Encyclopaedia. Oxford.
> 1982, p 6
> 2 On this concept of cultural breakthroughs see P. Smith, The Bábí
> and Bahá'í Religions, Cambridge, 1987, pp 162-171.
> 3 The Kitáb-i-Íqán and the Jawáhiru'l-Asrár.
> 4. For the derivation of these figures, see P. Smith and M. Momen'"
> The Bahá'í Faith 1957-86; a survey of Contemporary Developments", Religion,
> forthcoming.
> 5. `Abdu'l-Bahá, Sharh-i Kuntu Kanzan Makhfiyan, (Commentary
> on the Islamic tradition "I was a Hidden Treasure...") in Makatib-i
> `Abdu'l-Bahá, Cairo, Matba`a Kurdistan al-`Ilmiyya, 1330/1912,
> vol 2, pp 41-44.
> 6. ibid.
> 7. Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, London, 1961, p 63.
> 8. Bahá'u'lláh, Hidden Words, Arabic, no. 13.
> 9. Selections from the writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá, p 54-5.
> 10. This subject is dealt with in more detail n M. Momen, "Relativism
> as a Basis for Bahá'í Metaphysics", forthcoming in a volume of papers in
> memory of the late Hand of the Cause, Mr Hasan Balyuzi to be published
> by Kalimat Press.
> 11. It is not without interest that these two sets of attitudes correspond
> to a large degree to the differing attitudes between men and women.
> 12. Bahá'u'lláh, Hidden Words, Persian. No.70.
> 13. Kitáb-i-Íqán, London, 1961, p 57-8.
> 14 For a further consideration of the manner in which the Bahá'í Faith
> has been adapted to Indian cultural norms. see William Garlington, "Bahá'í
> bhajans", World Order, vol 16, no 2 (Winter 1982). pp 43-49.
> 15 On the subject of the gradual assimilation of Bahá'í teachings by
> traditional societies. see M. Momen, The Bahá'í Faith and
> Traditional Societies. Dialogue magazine. Vol 1. No 4, Winter/Spring
> 1987, pp 9-13.
> 
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> — *Is the Baha'i Faith a World Religion? (Used by permission of the curator)*