One Common Faith
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Universal House of Justice, One Common Faith, Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 2005, bahai-library.com.
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One Common Faith

Universal House of Justice

Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 2005

Foreword

At Ridvan 2002, we addressed an open letter to the world's religious leaders.
Our action arose out of awareness that the disease of sectarian hatreds, if not
decisively checked, threatens harrowing consequences that will leave few areas
of the world unaffected. The letter acknowledged with appreciation the achievements
of the interfaith movement, to which Bahá'ís have sought to contribute since an
early point in the movement's emergence. Nevertheless, we felt we must be forthright
in saying that, if the religious crisis is to be addressed as seriously as is
occurring with respect to other prejudices afflicting humankind, organized religion
must find within itself a comparable courage to rise above fixed conceptions inherited
from a distant past.

Above all, we expressed our conviction that the time has come when religious
leadership must face honestly and without further evasion the implications of
the truth that God is one and that, beyond all diversity of cultural expression
and human interpretation, religion is likewise one. It was intimations of this
truth that originally inspired the interfaith movement and that have sustained
it through the vicissitudes of the past one hundred years. Far from challenging
the validity of any of the great revealed faiths, the principle has the capacity
to ensure their continuing relevance. In order to exert its influence, however,
recognition of this reality must operate at the heart of religious discourse,
and it was with this in mind that we felt that our letter should be explicit in
articulating it.

Response has been encouraging. Bahá'í institutions throughout the world ensured
that thousands of copies of the document were delivered to influential figures
in the major faith communities. While it was perhaps not surprising that the message
it contained was dismissed out of hand in a few circles, Bahá'ís report that,
in general, they were warmly welcomed. Particularly affecting has been the obvious
sincerity of many recipients' distress over the failure of religious institutions
to assist humanity in dealing with challenges whose essential nature is spiritual
and moral. Discussions have turned readily to the need for fundamental change
in the way the believing masses of humankind relate to one another, and in a significant
number of instances, those receiving the letter have been moved to reproduce and
distribute it to other clerics in their respective traditions. We feel hopeful
that our initiative may serve as a catalyst opening the way to new understanding
of religion's purpose.

However rapidly or slowly this change occurs, the concern of Bahá'ís must be
with their own responsibility in the matter. The task of ensuring that His message
is engaged by people everywhere is one that Bahá'u'lláh has laid primarily on
the shoulders of those who have recognized Him. This, of course, has been the
work that the Bahá'í community has been pursuing throughout the history of the
Faith, but the accelerating breakdown in social order calls out desperately for
the religious spirit to be freed from the shackles that have so far prevented
it from bringing to bear the healing influence of which it is capable. If they
are to respond to the need, Bahá'ís must draw on a deep understanding of the process
by which humanity's spiritual life evolves. Bahá'u'lláh's writings provide insights
that can help to elevate discussion of religious issues above sectarian and transient
considerations. The responsibility to avail oneself of this spiritual resource
is inseparable from the gift of faith itself. "Religious fanaticism and hatred",
Bahá'u'lláh warns, "are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench.
The Hand of Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this desolating affliction...."
Far from feeling unsupported in their efforts to respond, Bahá'ís will come increasingly
to appreciate that the Cause they serve represents the arrowhead of an awakening
taking place among people everywhere, regardless of religious background and indeed
among many with no religious leaning.

Reflection on the challenge has prompted us to commission the commentary that
follows. One Common Faith, prepared under our supervision, reviews relevant passages
from both the writings of Bahá'u'lláh and the scriptures of other faiths against
the background of the contemporary crisis. We commend it to the thoughtful study
of the friends.

THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

Naw-Ruz 2005

One Common Faith

1

THERE IS EVERY REASON FOR confidence that the period of history now opening
will be far more receptive to efforts to spread Bahá'u'lláh's message than was
the case in the century just ended. All the signs indicate that a sea change in
human consciousness is under way.

2

Early in the twentieth century, a materialistic interpretation of reality had
consolidated itself so completely as to become the dominant world faith insofar
as the direction of society was concerned. In the process, the civilizing of human
nature had been violently wrenched out of the orbit it had followed for millennia.
For many in the West, the Divine authority that had functioned as the focal centre
of guidance-however diverse the interpretations of its nature-seemed simply to
have dissolved and vanished. In large measure, the individual was left free to
maintain whatever relationship he believed connected his life to a world transcending
material existence, but society as a whole proceeded with growing confidence to
sever dependence on a conception of the universe that was judged to be at best
a fiction and at worst an opiate, in either case inhibiting progress. Humanity
had taken its destiny into its own hands. It had solved through rational experimentation
and discourse-so people were given to believe-all of the fundamental issues related
to human governance and development.

3

This posture was reinforced by the assumption that the values, ideals and disciplines
cultivated over the centuries were now reliably fixed and enduring features of
human nature. They needed merely to be refined by education and reinforced by
legislative action. The moral legacy of the past was just that: humanity's indefeasible
inheritance, requiring no further religious interventions. Admittedly, undisciplined
individuals, groups or even nations would continue to threaten the stability of
the social order and call for correction. The universal civilization towards the
realization of which all the forces of history had been bearing the human race,
however, was irresistibly emerging, inspired by secular conceptions of reality.
People's happiness would be the natural result of better health, better food,
better education, better living conditions-and the attainment of these unquestionably
desirable goals now seemed to be within the reach of a society single-mindedly
focused on their pursuit.

4

Throughout that part of the world where the vast majority of the earth's population
live, facile announcements that "God is Dead" had passed largely unnoticed. The
experience of the peoples of Africa, Asia,
Latin America and the Pacific had long confirmed them in
the view not only that human nature is deeply influenced by spiritual forces,
but that its very identity is spiritual. Consequently, religion continued, as
had always been the case, to function as the ultimate authority in life. These
convictions, while not directly confronted by the ideological revolution taking
place in the West, were effectively marginalized by it, insofar as interaction
among peoples and nations was concerned. Having penetrated and captured all significant
centres of power and information at the global level, dogmatic materialism ensured
that no competing voices would retain the ability to challenge projects of world
wide economic exploitation. To the cultural damage already inflicted by two centuries
of colonial rule was added an agonizing disjunction between the inner and outer
experience of the masses affected, a condition invading virtually all aspects
of life. Helpless to exercise any real influence over the shaping of their futures
or even to preserve the moral well-being of their children, these populations
were plunged into a crisis different from but in many ways even more devastating
than the one gathering momentum in Europe and North
America. Although retaining its central role in consciousness, faith
appeared impotent to influence the course of events.

5

As the twentieth century approached its close, therefore, nothing seemed less
likely than a sudden resurgence of religion as a subject of consuming global importance.
Yet that is precisely what has now occurred in the form of a groundswell of anxiety
and discontent, much of it still only dimly conscious of the sense of spiritual
emptiness that is producing it. Ancient sectarian conflicts, apparently unresponsive
to the patient arts of diplomacy, have re-emerged with a virulence as great as
anything known before. Scriptural themes, miraculous phenomena and theological
dogmas that, until recently, had been dismissed as relics of an age of ignorance
find themselves solemnly, if indiscriminately, explored in influential media.
In many lands, religious credentials take on new and compelling significance in
the candidature of aspirants to political office. A world, which had assumed that
with the collapse of the Berlin Wall an age of international peace had dawned,
is warned that it is in the grip of a war of civilizations whose defining character
is irreconcilable religious antipathies. Bookstores, magazine stands, Web sites
and libraries struggle to satisfy an apparently inexhaustible public appetite
for information on religious and spiritual subjects. Perhaps the most insistent
factor in producing the change is reluctant recognition that there is no credible
replacement for religious belief as a force capable of generating self-discipline
and restoring commitment to moral behaviour.

6

Beyond the attention that religion, as formally conceived, has begun to command
is a widespread revival of spiritual search. Expressed most commonly as an urge
to discover a personal identity that transcends the merely physical, the development
encourages a multitude of pursuits, both positive and negative in character. On
the one hand, the search for justice and the promotion of the cause of international
peace tend to have the effect of also arousing new perceptions of the individual's
role in society. Similarly, although focused on the mobilization of support for
changes in social decision-making, movements like environmentalism and feminism
induce a re-examination of people's sense of themselves and of their purpose in
life. A reorientation occurring in all the major religious communities is the
accelerating migration of believers from traditional branches of the parent faiths
to sects that attach primary importance to the spiritual search and personal experiences
of their members. At the opposite pole, extraterrestrial sightings, "self-discovery"
regimens, wilderness retreats, charismatic exaltation, various New Age enthusiasms,
and the consciousness-raising efficacy attributed to narcotics and hallucinogens
attract followings far larger and more diverse than anything enjoyed by spiritualism
or theosophy at a similar historical turning point a century ago. For a Bahá'í,
the proliferation even of cults and practices that may arouse aversion in the
minds of many serves primarily as a reminder of the insight embodied in the ancient
tale of Majnun, who sifted the dust in his search for the beloved Layli, although
aware that she was pure spirit: "I seek her everywhere; haply somewhere I shall
find her."1

7

The reawakened interest in religion is clearly far from having reached its
peak, in either its explicitly religious or its less definable spiritual manifestations.
On the contrary. The phenomenon is the product of historical forces that steadily
gather momentum. Their common effect is to erode the certainty, bequeathed to
the world by the twentieth century, that material existence represents ultimate
reality.

8

The most obvious cause of these re-evaluations has been the bankruptcy of the
materialist enterprise itself. For well over a hundred years, the idea of progress
was identified with economic development and with its capacity to motivate and
shape social improvement. Those differences of opinion that existed did not challenge
this world view, but only conceptions as to how its goals might best be attained.
Its most extreme form, the iron dogma of "scientific materialism", sought to reinterpret
every aspect of history and human behaviour in its own narrow terms. Whatever
humanitarian ideals may have inspired some of its early proponents, the universal
consequence was to produce regimes of totalitarian control prepared to use any
means of coercion in regulating the lives of hapless populations subjected to
them. The goal held up as justification of such abuses was the creation of a new
kind of society that would ensure not only freedom from want but fulfilment for
the human spirit. At the end, after eight decades of mounting folly and brutality,
the movement collapsed as a credible guide to the world's future.

9

Other systems of social experimentation, while repudiating recourse to inhumane
methods, nevertheless derived their moral and intellectual thrust from the same
limited conception of reality. The view took root that, since people were essentially
self-interested actors in matters pertaining to their economic well-being, the
building of just and prosperous societies could be ensured by one or another scheme
of what was described as modernization. The closing decades of the twentieth century,
however, sagged under a mounting burden of evidence to the contrary: the breakdown
of family life, soaring crime, dysfunctional educational systems, and a catalogue
of other social pathologies that bring to mind the sombre words of Bahá'u'lláh's
warning about the impending condition of human society: "Such shall be its plight,
that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly."2

10

The fate of what the world has learned to call social and economic development
has left no doubt that not even the most idealistic motives can correct materialism's
fundamental flaws. Born in the wake of the chaos of the Second World War, "development"
became by far the largest and most ambitious collective undertaking on which the
human race has ever embarked. Its humanitarian motivation matched its enormous
material and technological investment. Fifty years later, while acknowledging
the impressive benefits development has brought, the enterprise must be adjudged,
by its own standards, a disheartening failure. Far from narrowing the gap between
the well-being of the small segment of the human family who enjoy the benefits
of modernity and the condition of the vast populations mired in hopeless want,
the collective effort that began with such high hopes has seen the gap widen into
an abyss.

11

Consumer culture, today's inheritor by default of materialism's gospel of human
betterment, is unembarrassed by the ephemeral nature of the goals that inspire
it. For the small minority of people who can afford them, the benefits it offers
are immediate, and the rationale unapologetic. Emboldened by the breakdown of
traditional morality, the advance of the new creed is essentially no more than
the triumph of animal impulse, as instinctive and blind as appetite, released
at long last from the restraints of supernatural sanctions. Its most obvious casualty
has been language. Tendencies once universally castigated as moral failings mutate
into necessities of social progress. Selfishness becomes a prized commercial resource;
falsehood reinvents itself as public information; perversions of various kinds
unabashedly claim the status of civil rights. Under appropriate euphemisms, greed,
lust, indolence, pride-even violence-acquire not merely broad acceptance but social
and economic value. Ironically, as words have been drained of meaning, so have
the very material comforts and acquisitions for which truth has been casually
sacrificed.

12

Clearly, materialism's error has lain not in the laudable effort to improve
the conditions of life, but in the narrowness of mind and unjustified self-confidence
that have defined its mission. The importance both of material prosperity and
of the scientific and technological advances necessary to its achievement is a
theme that runs through the writings of the Bahá'í Faith. As was inevitable from
the outset, however, arbitrary efforts to disengage such physical and material
well-being from humanity's spiritual and moral development have ended by forfeiting
the allegiance of the very populations whose interests a materialistic culture
purports to serve. "Witness how the world is being afflicted with a fresh calamity
every day", Bahá'u'lláh warns. "Its sickness is approaching the stage of utter
hopelessness, inasmuch as the true Physician is debarred from administering the
remedy, whilst unskilled practitioners are regarded with favour, and are accorded
full freedom to act."3

13

In addition to disillusionment with the promises of materialism, a force of
change undermining the misconceptions about reality that humanity brought into
the twenty-first century is global integration. At the simplest level, it takes
the form of advances in communication technologies that open broad avenues of
interaction among the planet's diverse populations. Along with facilitating interpersonal
and intersocial exchanges, general access to information has the effect of transmuting
the cumulative learning of the ages, until recently the preserve of privileged
elites, into the patrimony of the entire human family, without distinction of
nation, race or culture. With all the gross inequities that global integration
perpetuates-indeed intensifies-no informed observer can fail to acknowledge the
stimulus to reflection about reality that such changes have produced. With reflection
has come a questioning of all established authority, no longer merely that of
religion and morality, but also of government, academia, commerce, the media and,
increasingly, scientific opinion.

14

Apart from technological factors, unification of the planet is exerting other,
even more direct effects on thought. It would be impossible to exaggerate, for
example, the transformative impact on global consciousness that has resulted from
mass travel on an international scale. Greater still have been the consequences
of the enormous migrations that the world has witnessed during the century and
a half since the Báb declared His mission. Millions of refugees fleeing from persecution
have swept like tidal waves back and forth across the European, African and Asiatic
continents, particularly. Amid the suffering such turmoil has caused, one perceives
the progressive integration of the world's races and cultures as the citizenry
of a single global homeland. As a result, people of every background have been
exposed to the cultures and norms of others about whom their forefathers knew
little or nothing, exciting a search for meaning that cannot be evaded.

15

It is impossible to imagine how different the history of the past century and
a half would have been had any of the leading arbiters of world affairs addressed
by Bahá'u'lláh spared time for reflection on a conception of reality supported
by the moral credentials of its Author, moral credentials of the kind they professed
to hold in the highest regard. What is unmistakable to a Bahá'í is that, despite
such failure, the transformations announced in Bahá'u'lláh's message are resistlessly
accomplishing themselves. Through shared discoveries and shared travails, peoples
of diverse cultures are brought face to face with the common humanity lying just
beneath the surface of imagined differences of identity. Whether stubbornly opposed
in some societies or welcomed elsewhere as a release from meaningless and suffocating
limitations, the sense that the earth's inhabitants are indeed "the leaves of
one tree"4 is slowly becoming the standard by which humanity's collective efforts
are now judged.

16

Loss of faith in the certainties of materialism and the progressive globalizing
of human experience reinforce one another in the longing they inspire for understanding
about the purpose of existence. Basic values are challenged; parochial attachments
are surrendered; once unthinkable demands are accepted. It is this universal upheaval,
Bahá'u'lláh explains, for which the scriptures of past religions employed the
imagery of "the Day of Resurrection": "The shout hath been raised, and the people
have come forth from their graves, and arising, are gazing around them."5 Beneath
all of the dislocation and suffering, the process is essentially a spiritual one:
"The breeze of the All-Merciful hath wafted, and the souls have been quickened
in the tombs of their bodies."6

17

Throughout history, the primary agents of spiritual development have been the
great religions. For the majority of the earth's people, the scriptures of each
of these systems of belief have served, in Bahá'u'lláh's words, as "the City of
God",7 a source of a knowledge that totally embraces consciousness, one so compelling
as to endow the sincere with "a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind".8
A vast literature, to which all religious cultures have contributed, records the
experience of transcendence reported by generations of seekers. Down the millennia,
the lives of those who responded to intimations of the Divine have inspired breathtaking
achievements in music, architecture, and the other arts, endlessly replicating
the soul's experience for millions of their fellow believers. No other force in
existence has been able to elicit from people comparable qualities of heroism,
self-sacrifice and self-discipline. At the social level, the resulting moral principles
have repeatedly translated themselves into universal codes of law, regulating
and elevating human relationships. Viewed in perspective, the major religions
emerge as the primary driving forces of the civilizing process. To argue otherwise
is surely to ignore the evidence of history.

18

Why, then, does this immensely rich heritage not serve as the central stage
for today's reawakening of spiritual quest? On the periphery, earnest attempts
are being made to reformulate the teachings that gave rise to the respective faiths,
in the hope of imbuing them with new appeal, but the greater part of the search
for meaning is diffused, individualistic and incoherent in character. The scriptures
have not changed; the moral principles they contain have lost none of their validity.
No one who sincerely poses questions to Heaven, if he persists, will fail to detect
an answering voice in the Psalms or in the Upanishads. Anyone with some intimation
of the Reality that transcends this material one will be touched to the heart
by the words in which Jesus or Buddha speaks so intimately of it. The Qur'án's
apocalyptic visions continue to provide compelling assurance to its readers that
the realization of justice is central to the Divine purpose. Nor, in their essential
features, do the lives of heroes and saints seem any less meaningful than they
did when those lives were lived centuries ago. For many religious people, therefore,
the most painful aspect of the current crisis of civilization is that the search
for truth has not turned with confidence into religion's familiar avenues.

19

The problem is, of course, twofold. The rational soul does not merely occupy
a private sphere, but is an active participant in a social order. Although the
received truths of the great faiths remain valid, the daily experience of an individual
in the twenty-first century is unimaginably removed from the one that he or she
would have known in any of those ages when this guidance was revealed. Democratic
decision-making has fundamentally altered the relationship of the individual to
authority. With growing confidence and growing success, women justly insist on
their right to full equality with men. Revolutions in science and technology change
not only the functioning but the conception of society, indeed of existence itself.
Universal education and an explosion of new fields of creativity open the way
to insights that stimulate social mobility and integration, and create opportunities
of which the rule of law encourages the citizen to take full advantage. Stem cell
research, nuclear energy, sexual identity, ecological stress and the use of wealth
raise, at the very least, social questions that have no precedent. These, and
the countless other changes affecting every aspect of human life, have brought
into being a new world of daily choices for both society and its members. What
has not changed is the inescapable requirement of making such choices, whether
for better or worse. It is here that the spiritual nature of the contemporary
crisis comes into sharpest focus because most of the decisions called for are
not merely practical but moral. In large part, therefore, loss of faith in traditional
religion has been an inevitable consequence of failure to discover in it the guidance
required to live with modernity, successfully and with assurance.

20

A second barrier to a re-emergence of inherited systems of belief as the answer
to humanity's spiritual yearnings is the effects already mentioned of global integration.
Throughout the planet, people raised in a given religious frame of reference find
themselves abruptly thrown into close association with others whose beliefs and
practices appear at first glance irreconcilably different from their own. The
differences can and often do give rise to defensiveness, simmering resentments
and open conflict. In many cases, however, the effect is rather to prompt a reconsideration
of received doctrine and to encourage efforts at discovering values held in common.
The support enjoyed by various interfaith activities doubtless owes a great deal
to response of this kind among the general public. Inevitably, with such approaches
comes a questioning of religious doctrines that inhibit association and understanding.
If people whose beliefs appear to be fundamentally different from one's own nevertheless
live moral lives that deserve admiration, what is it that makes one's own faith
superior to theirs? Alternatively, if all of the great religions share certain
basic values in common, do not sectarian attachments run the risk of merely reinforcing
unwanted barriers between an individual and his neighbours?

21

Few today among those who have some degree of objective familiarity with the
subject are likely, therefore, to entertain an illusion that any one of the established
religious systems of the past can assume the role of ultimate guide for humankind
in the issues of contemporary life, even in the improbable event that its disparate
sects should come together for that purpose. Each one of what the world regards
as independent religions is set in the mould created by its authoritative scripture
and its history. As it cannot refashion its system of belief in a manner to derive
legitimacy from the authoritative words of its Founder, it likewise cannot adequately
answer the multitude of questions posed by social and intellectual evolution.
Distressing as this may appear to many, it is no more than an inherent feature
of the evolutionary process. Attempts to force a reversal of some kind can lead
only to still greater disenchantment with religion itself and exacerbate sectarian
conflict.

22

The dilemma is both artificial and self-inflicted. The world order, if it can
be so described, within which Bahá'ís today pursue the work of sharing Bahá'u'lláh's
message is one whose misconceptions about both human nature and social evolution
are so fundamental as to severely inhibit the most intelligent and well-intentioned
endeavours at human betterment. Particularly is this true with respect to the
confusion that surrounds virtually every aspect of the subject of religion. In
order to respond adequately to the spiritual needs of their neighbours, Bahá'ís
will have to gain an in-depth understanding of the issues involved. The effort
of imagination this challenge requires can be appreciated from the advice that
is perhaps the most frequently and urgently reiterated admonition in the writings
of their Faith: to "meditate", to "ponder", to "reflect".

23

A commonplace of popular discourse is that by "religion" is intended the multitude
of sects currently in existence. Not surprisingly, such a suggestion at once arouses
protest in other quarters that by religion is intended rather one or another of
the great, independent belief systems of history that have shaped and inspired
whole civilizations. This point of view, in turn, however, runs up against the
inevitable query as to where one will find these historic faiths in the contemporary
world. Where, precisely, are "Judaism", "Buddhism", "Christianity", "Islam" and
the others, since they obviously cannot be identified with the irreconcilably
opposed organizations that purport to speak authoritatively in their names? Nor
does the problem end there. Yet another response to the enquiry will almost certainly
be that by religion is intended simply an attitude to life, a sense of relationship
with a Reality that transcends material existence. Religion, so conceived, is
an attribute of the individual person, an impulse not susceptible of organization,
an experience universally available. Again, however, such an orientation will
be seen by a majority of religiously minded persons as lacking the very authority
of self-discipline and the unifying effect that give religion meaning. Some objectors
would even argue that, on the contrary, religion signifies the lifestyle of persons
who, like themselves, have adopted severe regimens of daily ritual and self-denial
that set them entirely apart from the rest of society. What all such differing
conceptions have in common is the extent to which a phenomenon that is acknowledged
to completely transcend human reach has nevertheless gradually been imprisoned
within conceptual limits-whether organizational, theological, experiential or
ritualistic-of human invention.

24

The teachings of Bahá'u'lláh cut through this tangle of inconsistent views
and, in doing so, reformulate many truths which, whether explicitly or implicitly,
have lain at the heart of all Divine revelation. Although in no way a comprehensive
reading of His intent, Bahá'u'lláh makes it clear that attempts to capture or
suggest the Reality of God in catechisms and creeds are exercises in self-deception:
"To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable
Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute,
such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it
from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that
human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery."9 The instrumentality through which
the Creator of all things interacts with the ever-evolving creation He has brought
into being is the appearance of prophetic Figures who manifest the attributes
of an inaccessible Divinity: "The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days
being thus closed in the face of all beings, the Source of infinite grace ...
hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness to appear out of the realm of the
spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men,
that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being, and
tell of the subtleties of His imperishable Essence."10

25

To presume to judge among the Messengers of God, exalting one above the other,
would be to give in to the delusion that the Eternal and All-Embracing is subject
to the vagaries of human preference. "It is clear and evident to thee", are Bahá'u'lláh's
precise words, "that all the Prophets are the Temples
of the Cause of God, Who have appeared clothed in divers attire. If thou wilt
observe with discriminating eyes, thou wilt behold Them all abiding in the same
tabernacle, soaring in the same heaven, seated upon the same throne, uttering
the same speech, and proclaiming the same Faith."11 To imagine, further, that
the nature of these unique Figures can be-or needs to be-encompassed within theories
borrowed from physical experience is equally presumptuous. What is meant by "knowledge
of God", Bahá'u'lláh explains, is knowledge of the Manifestations Who reveal His
will and attributes, and it is here that the soul comes into intimate association
with a Creator Who is otherwise beyond both language and apprehension: "I bear
witness", is Bahá'u'lláh's assertion about the station of the Manifestation of
God, "...that through Thy beauty the beauty of the Adored One hath been unveiled,
and through Thy face the face of the Desired One hath shone forth...."12

26

Religion, thus conceived, awakens the soul to potentialities that are otherwise
unimaginable. To the extent that an individual learns to benefit from the influence
of the revelation of God for his age, his nature becomes progressively imbued
with the attributes of the Divine world: "Through the Teachings of this Day Star
of Truth", Bahá'u'lláh explains, "every man will advance and develop until he
... can manifest all the potential forces with which his inmost true self hath
been endowed."13 As humanity's purpose includes the carrying forward of "an ever-advancing
civilization",14 not the least of the extraordinary powers that religion possesses
has been its ability to free those who believe from the limitations of time itself,
eliciting from them sacrifices on behalf of generations centuries into the future.
Indeed, because the soul is immortal, its awakening to its true nature empowers
it, not only in this world but even more directly in those worlds that lie beyond,
to serve the evolutionary process: "The light which these souls radiate", Bahá'u'lláh
asserts, "is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of
its peoples.... All things must needs have a cause, a motive power, an animating
principle. These souls and symbols of detachment have provided, and will continue
to provide, the supreme moving impulse in the world of being."15

27

Belief is thus a necessary and inextinguishable urge of the species that has
been described by an influential modern thinker as "evolution become conscious
of itself".16 If, as the events of the twentieth century provide sad and compelling
evidence, the natural expression of faith is artificially blocked, it will invent
objects of worship however unworthy-or even debased-that may in some measure appease
the yearning for certitude. It is an impulse that will not be denied.

28

In short, through the ongoing process of revelation, the One Who is the Source
of the system of knowledge we call religion demonstrates that system's integrity
and its freedom from the contradictions imposed by sectarian ambitions. The work
of each Manifestation of God has an autonomy and an authority that transcend appraisal;
it is also a stage in the limitless unfolding of a single Reality. Because the
purpose of the successive revelations of God is the awakening of humankind to
its capacities and responsibilities as the trustee of creation, the process is
not simply repetitive, but progressive, and is fully appreciated only when perceived
in this context.

29

In no sense can Bahá'ís profess to have grasped at this early hour more than
a minute portion of the truths inherent in the revelation on which their Faith
is based. With reference, for example, to the evolution of the Cause, the Guardian
said, "All we can reasonably venture to attempt is to strive to obtain a glimpse
of the first streaks of the promised Dawn that must, in the fullness of time,
chase away the gloom that has encircled humanity."17 Apart from encouraging humility,
this fact should serve also as a constant reminder that Bahá'u'lláh has not brought
into existence a new religion to stand beside the present multiplicity of sectarian
organizations. Rather has He recast the whole conception of religion as the principal
force impelling the development of consciousness. As the human race in all its
diversity is a single species, so the intervention by which God cultivates the
qualities of mind and heart latent in that species is a single process. Its heroes
and saints are the heroes and saints of all stages in the struggle; its successes,
the successes of all stages. This is the standard demonstrated in the life and
work of the Master and exemplified today in a Bahá'í community that has become
the inheritor of humanity's entire spiritual legacy, a legacy equally available
to all the earth's peoples.

30

The recurring proof of the existence of God, therefore, is that from time immemorial
He has repeatedly manifested Himself. In the larger sense, as Bahá'u'lláh explains,
the vast epic of humanity's religious history represents the fulfilment of the
"Covenant", the enduring promise by which the Creator of all things assures the
race of the unfailing guidance essential to its spiritual and moral development,
and calls on it to internalize and give expression to these values. One is free
to dispute through historicist interpretations of the evidence the unique role
of this or that Messenger of God, if that is one's purpose, but such speculation
is of no help in accounting for developments that have transformed thought and
produced changes in human relationships critical to social evolution. At intervals
so rare that the known instances can be counted on one's fingers, the Manifestations
of God have appeared, have each been explicit as to the authority of His teachings
and have each exerted an influence on the advance of civilization incomparably
beyond that of any other phenomenon in history. "Consider the hour at which the
supreme Manifestation of God revealeth Himself unto men", Bahá'u'lláh points out:
"Ere that hour cometh, the Ancient Being, Who is still unknown of men and hath
not as yet given utterance to the Word of God, is Himself the All-Knower in a
world devoid of any man that hath known Him. He is indeed the Creator without
a creation."18

31

The objection most commonly raised against the foregoing conception of religion
is the assertion that the differences among the revealed faiths are so fundamental
that to present them as stages or aspects of one unified system of truth does
violence to the facts. Given the confusion surrounding the nature of religion,
the reaction is understandable. Chiefly, however, such an objection offers Bahá'ís
an invitation to set the principles reviewed here more explicitly in the evolutionary
context provided in Bahá'u'lláh's writings.

32

The differences referred to fall into the categories of either practice or
doctrine, both of them presented as the intent of the relevant scriptures. In
the case of religious customs governing personal life, it is helpful to view the
subject against the background of comparable features of material life. It is
most unlikely that diversity in hygiene, dress, medicine, diet, transportation,
warfare, construction or economic activity, however striking, would any longer
be seriously advanced in support of a theory that humanity does not in fact constitute
one people, single and unique. Until the opening of the twentieth century, such
simplistic arguments were commonplace, but historical and anthropological research
now provides a seamless panorama of the process of cultural evolution by which
these and countless other expressions of human creativity came into existence,
were transmitted through successive generations, underwent gradual metamorphoses
and often spread to enrich the lives of peoples in far distant lands. That present-day
societies represent a wide spectrum of such phenomena, therefore, does not in
any way define a fixed and immutable identity of the peoples concerned, but merely
distinguishes the stage through which given groups are-or at least until recently
have been-passing. Even so, all such cultural expressions are now in a state of
fluidity in consequence of the pressures of planetary integration.

33

A similar evolutionary process, Bahá'u'lláh indicates, has characterized the
religious life of humankind. The defining difference lies in the fact that, rather
than representing simply the accidents of history's ongoing method of trial and
error, such norms were explicitly prescribed in each case, as integral features
of one or another revelation of the Divine, embodied in scripture, their integrity
scrupulously maintained over a period of centuries. While certain features of
each code of conduct would eventually fulfil their purpose and in time be overshadowed
by concerns of a different nature brought on by the process of social evolution,
the code itself would lose none of its authority during the long stage of human
progress in which it played a vital role in training behaviour and attitudes.
"These principles and laws, these firmly-established and mighty systems", Bahá'u'lláh
asserts, "have proceeded from one Source, and are the rays of one Light. That
they differ one from another is to be attributed to the varying requirements of
the ages in which they were promulgated."19

34

To argue, therefore, that differences of regulations, observances and other
practices constitute any significant objection to the idea of revealed religion's
essential oneness is to miss the purpose that these prescriptions served. More
seriously, it misses the fundamental distinction between the eternal and the transitory
features of religion's function. The essential message of religion is immutable.
It is, in Bahá'u'lláh's words, "the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past,
eternal in the future".20 Its role in opening the way for the soul to enter into
an ever-more mature relationship with its Creator-and in endowing it with an ever-greater
measure of moral autonomy in disciplining the animal impulses of human nature-is
not at all irreconcilable with its providing auxiliary guidance that enhances
the process of civilization building.

35

The concept of progressive revelation places the ultimate emphasis on recognition
of the revelation of God at its appearance. The failure of the generality of humankind
in this respect has, time and again, condemned entire populations to a ritualistic
repetition of ordinances and practices long after these latter have fulfilled
their purpose and now merely stultify moral advance. Sadly, in the present day,
a related consequence of such failure has been to trivialize religion. At precisely
the point in its collective development where humanity began to struggle with
the challenges of modernity, the spiritual resource on which it had principally
depended for moral courage and enlightenment was fast becoming a subject of mockery,
first at those levels where decisions were being made about the direction society
should take, and eventually in ever-widening circles of the general population.
There is little cause for surprise, then, that this most devastating of the many
betrayals of trust from which human confidence has suffered should, in the course
of time, undermine the foundations of belief itself. So it is that Bahá'u'lláh
repeatedly urges His readers to think deeply about the lesson taught by such repeated
failures: "Ponder for a moment, and reflect upon that which has been the cause
of such denial...."21 "What could have been the reason for such denial and avoidance...?"22
"What could have caused such contention...?"23 "Reflect, what could have been
the motive...?"24

36

More detrimental still to religious understanding has been theological presumption.
A persistent feature of religion's sectarian past has been the dominant role played
by clergy. In the absence of scriptural texts that established unarguable institutional
authority, clerical elites succeeded in arrogating to themselves exclusive control
over interpretation of the Divine intent. However diverse the motives, the tragic
effects have been to impede the current of inspiration, discourage independent
intellectual activity, focus attention on the minutiae of rituals and too often
engender hatred and prejudice towards those following a different sectarian path
from that of self-appointed spiritual leaders. While nothing could prevent the
creative power of Divine intervention from continuing its work of progressively
raising consciousness, the scope of what could be achieved, in any age, became
increasingly limited by such artificially contrived obstacles.

37

Over time, theology succeeded in constructing in the heart of each one of the
great faiths an authority parallel with, and even inimical in spirit to, the revealed
teachings on which the tradition was based. Jesus' familiar parable of the landowner
who sowed seed in his field addresses both the issue and its implications for
the present time: "But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the
wheat, and went his way."25 When his servants proposed to uproot them, the landowner
replied, "Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with
them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will
say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles
to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn."26 Throughout its pages, the
Qur'án reserves its severest condemnation for the spiritual harm caused by this
competing hegemony: "Say: The things that my Lord hath indeed forbidden are: shameful
deeds, whether open or secret; sins and trespasses against truth or reason; assigning
of partners to God, for which he hath given no authority; and saying things about
God of which ye have no knowledge."27 To the modern mind it is the greatest of
ironies that generations of theologians, whose impositions on religion embody
precisely the betrayal so strongly denounced in these texts, should seek to use
the warning itself as a weapon in suppressing protest against their usurpation
of Divine authority.

38

In effect, each new stage in the progressively unfolding revelation of spiritual
truth was frozen in time and in an array of literalistic images and interpretations,
many of them borrowed from cultures which were themselves morally exhausted. Whatever
their value at earlier stages in the evolution of consciousness, conceptions of
physical resurrection, a paradise of carnal delights, reincarnation, pantheistic
prodigies, and the like, today raise walls of separation and conflict in an age
when the earth has literally become one homeland and human beings must learn to
see themselves as its citizens. In this context one can appreciate the reasons
for the vehemence of Bahá'u'lláh's warnings about the barriers that dogmatic theology
creates in the path of those seeking to understand the will of God: "O leaders
of religion! Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are
current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring Balance established amongst
men."28 In His Tablet to Pope Pius IX, He advises the pontiff that God has in
this day "stored away ... in the vessels of justice" whatever is enduring in religion
and "cast into fire that which befitteth it".29

39

Freed from the thickets with which theology has hedged religious understanding
about, the mind is able to explore familiar scriptural passages through the eyes
of Bahá'u'lláh. "Peerless is this Day," He asserts, "for it is as the eye to past
ages and centuries, and as a light unto the darkness of the times."30 The most
striking observation that results from taking advantage of this perspective is
the unity of purpose and principle running throughout the Hebrew scriptures, the
Gospel and the Qur'án, particularly, although echoes can readily be discerned
in the scriptures of others among the world's religions. Repeatedly, the same
organizing themes emerge from the matrix of precept, exhortation, narrative, symbolism
and interpretation in which they are set. Of these foundational truths, by far
the most distinctive is the progressive articulation and emphatic assertion of
the oneness of God, Creator of all existence whether of the phenomenal world or
of those realms that transcend it. "I am the Lord," the Bible declares, "and there
is none else, there is no God beside me",31 and the same conception underpins
the later teachings of Christ and Muhammad.

40

Humanity-focal point, inheritor and trustee of the world-exists to know its
Creator and to serve His purpose. In its highest expression, the innate human
impulse to respond takes the form of worship, a condition entailing wholehearted
submission to a power that is recognized as deserving of such homage. "Now unto
the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory
for ever and ever."32 Inseparable from the spirit of reverence itself is its expression
in service to the Divine purpose for humankind. "Say: All bounties are in the
hand of God: He granteth them to whom He pleaseth: and God careth for all, and
He knoweth all things."33 Illumined by this understanding, the responsibilities
of humanity are clear: "It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces towards
East or West", the Qur'án states, "but it is righteousness-to believe in God ...
to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for
the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask...."34 "Ye are the salt of the
earth",35 Christ impresses on those who respond to His call. "Ye are the light
of the world."36 Summarizing a theme that recurs time and again throughout the
Hebrew scriptures and will subsequently reappear in the Gospel and the Qur'án,
the prophet Micah asks, "...what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"37

41

There is equal agreement in these texts that the soul's ability to attain to
an understanding of its Creator's purpose is the product not merely of its own
effort, but of interventions of the Divine that open the way. The point was made
with memorable clarity by Jesus: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man
cometh unto the Father, but by me."38 If one is not to see in this assertion merely
a dogmatic challenge to other stages of the one ongoing process of Divine guidance,
it is obviously the expression of the central truth of revealed religion: that
access to the unknowable Reality that creates and sustains existence is possible
only through awakening to the illumination shed from that Realm. One of the most
cherished of the Qur'án's surihs takes up the metaphor: "God is the Light of the
heavens and the earth.... Light upon Light! God doth guide whom He will to His
Light."39 In the case of the Hebrew prophets, the Divine intermediary that was
later to appear in Christianity in the person of the Son of Man and in Islam as
the Book of God assumed the form of a binding Covenant established by the Creator
with Abraham, Patriarch and Prophet: "And I will establish my covenant between
me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant,
to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee."40

42

The succession of revelations of the Divine also appears as an implicit-and
usually explicit-feature of all the major faiths. One of its earliest and clearest
expressions occurs in the Bhagavad-Gita: "I come, and go, and come. When Righteousness
declines, O Bharata! When Wickedness is strong, I rise, from age to age, and take
visible shape, and move a man with men, succouring the good, thrusting the evil
back, and setting Virtue on her seat again."41 This ongoing drama constitutes
the basic structure of the Bible, whose sequence of books recounts the missions
not only of Abraham and of Moses-"whom the Lord knew face to face"42-but of the
line of lesser prophets who developed and consolidated the work that these primary
Authors of the process had set in motion. Similarly, no amount of contentious
and fantastical speculation about the precise nature of Jesus could succeed in
separating His mission from the transformative influence exerted on the course
of civilization by the work of Abraham and Moses. He Himself warns that it is
not He Who will condemn those who reject the message He bears, but Moses "in whom
ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of
me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"43 With
the revelation of the Qur'án, the theme of the succession of the Messengers of
God becomes central: "We believe in God, and the revelation given to us, and to
Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob ... and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that
given to (all) Prophets from their Lord...."44

43

For a sympathetic and objective reader of such passages what emerges is a recognition
of the essential oneness of religion. So it is that the term "Islam" (literally
"submission" to God) designates not merely the particular dispensation of Providence
inaugurated by Muhammad but, as the words of the Qur'án make unmistakably clear,
religion itself. While it is true to speak of the unity of all religions, understanding
of the context is vital. At the deepest level, as Bahá'u'lláh emphasizes, there
is but one religion. Religion is religion, as science is science. The one discerns
and articulates the values unfolding progressively through Divine revelation;
the other is the instrumentality through which the human mind explores and is
able to exert its influence ever more precisely over the phenomenal world. The
one defines goals that serve the evolutionary process; the other assists in their
attainment. Together, they constitute the dual knowledge system impelling the
advance of civilization. Each is hailed by the Master as an "effulgence of the
Sun of Truth".45

44

It is, therefore, an inadequate recognition of the unique station of Moses,
Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad-or of the succession of Avatars who inspired
the Hindu scriptures-to depict their work as the founding of distinct religions.
Rather are they appreciated when acknowledged as the spiritual Educators of history,
as the animating forces in the rise of the civilizations through which consciousness
has flowered: "He was in the world," the Gospel declares, "and the world was made
by him...."46 That their persons have been held in a reverence infinitely above
those of any other historical figures reflects the attempt to articulate otherwise
inexpressible feelings aroused in the hearts of unnumbered millions of people
by the blessings their work has conferred. In loving them humanity has progressively
learned what it means to love God. There is, realistically, no other way to do
so. They are not honoured by fumbling efforts to capture the essential mystery
of their nature in dogmas invented by human imagination; what honours them is
the soul's unconditioned surrender of its will to the transformative influence
they mediate.

45

Confusion about the role of religion in cultivating moral consciousness is
equally apparent in popular understanding of its contribution to the shaping of
society. Perhaps the most obvious example is the inferior social status most sacred
texts assign to women. While the resulting benefits enjoyed by men were no doubt
a major factor in consolidating such a conception, moral justification was unquestionably
supplied by people's understanding of the intent of the scriptures themselves.
With few exceptions, these texts address themselves to men, assigning to women
a supportive and subordinate role in the life of both religion and society. Sadly,
such understanding made it deplorably easy to attach primary blame to women for
failure in the disciplining of the sexual impulse, a vital feature of moral advancement.
In a modern frame of reference, attitudes of this kind are readily recognized
as prejudiced and unjust. At the stages of social development at which all of
the major faiths came into existence, scriptural guidance sought primarily to
civilize, to the extent possible, relationships resulting from intractable historical
circumstances. It needs little insight to appreciate that clinging to primitive
norms in the present day would defeat the very purpose of religion's patient cultivation
of moral sense.

46

Comparable considerations have pertained in relations between societies. The
long and arduous preparation of the Hebrew people for the mission required of
them is an illustration of the complexity and stubborn character of the moral
challenges involved. In order that the spiritual capacities appealed to by the
prophets might awaken and flourish, the inducements offered by neighbouring idolatrous
cultures had, at all costs, to be resisted. Scriptural accounts of the condign
punishments that befell both rulers and subjects who violated the principle illustrated
the importance attached to it by the Divine purpose. A somewhat comparable issue
arose in the struggle of the newborn community founded by Muhammad to survive
attempts by pagan Arab tribes to extinguish it-and in the barbaric cruelty and
relentless spirit of vendetta animating the attackers. No one familiar with the
historical details will have difficulty in understanding the severity of the Qur'án's
injunctions on the subject. While the monotheistic beliefs of Jews and Christians
were to be accorded respect, no compromise with idolatry was permitted. In a relatively
brief space of time, this draconian rule had succeeded in unifying the tribes
of the Arabian Peninsula and launching the newly forged community on well over
five centuries of moral, intellectual, cultural and economic achievement, unmatched
before or since in the speed and scope of its expansion. History tends to be a
stern judge. Ultimately, in its uncompromising perspective, the consequences to
those who would have blindly strangled such enterprises in the cradle will always
be set off against the benefits accruing to the world as a whole from the triumph
of the Bible's vision of human possibilities and the advances made possible by
the genius of Islamic civilization.

47

Among the most contentious of such issues in understanding society's evolution
towards spiritual maturity has been that of crime and punishment. While different
in detail and degree, the penalties prescribed by most sacred texts for acts of
violence against either the commonweal or the rights of other individuals tended
to be harsh. Moreover, they frequently extended to permitting retaliation against
the offenders by the injured parties or by members of their families. In the perspective
of history, however, one may reasonably ask what practical alternatives existed.
In the absence not merely of present-day programmes of behavioural modification,
but even of recourse to such coercive options as prisons and policing agencies,
religion's concern was to impress indelibly on general consciousness the moral
unacceptability-and practical costs-of conduct whose effect would otherwise have
been to demoralize efforts at social progress. The whole of civilization has since
been the beneficiary, and it would be less than honest not to acknowledge the
fact.

48

So it has been throughout all of the religious dispensations whose origins
have survived in written records. Mendicancy, slavery, autocracy, conquest, ethnic
prejudices and other undesirable features of social interaction have gone unchallenged-or
been explicitly indulged-as religion sought to achieve reformations of behaviour
that were considered more immediately essential at given stages in the advance
of civilization. To condemn religion because any one of its successive dispensations
failed to address the whole range of social wrongs would be to ignore everything
that has been learned about the nature of human development. Inevitably, anachronistic
thinking of this kind must also create severe psychological handicaps in appreciating
and facing the requirements of one's own time.

49

The issue is not the past, but the implications for the present. Problems arise
where followers of one of the world's faiths prove unable to distinguish between
its eternal and transitory features, and attempt to impose on society rules of
behaviour that have long since accomplished their purpose. The principle is fundamental
to an understanding of religion's social role: "The remedy the world needeth in
its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age
may require", Bahá'u'lláh points out. "Be anxiously concerned with the needs of
the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements."47

50

The exigencies of the new age of human experience to which Bahá'u'lláh summoned
the political and religious rulers of the nineteenth century world have now been
largely adopted, at least as ideals, by their successors and by progressive minds
everywhere. By the time the twentieth century had drawn to a close, principles
that had, only short decades earlier, been patronized as visionary and hopelessly
unrealistic had become central to global discourse. Buttressed by the findings
of scientific research and the conclusions of influential commissions-often lavishly
funded-they direct the work of powerful agencies at international, national and
local levels. A vast body of scholarly literature in many languages is devoted
to exploring practical means for their implementation, and those programmes can
count on media attention on five continents.

51

Most of these principles are, alas, also widely flouted, not only among recognized
enemies of social peace, but in circles professedly committed to them. What is
lacking is not convincing testimony as to their relevance, but the power of moral
conviction that can implement them, a power whose only demonstrably reliable source
throughout history has been religious faith. As late as the inception of Bahá'u'lláh's
own mission, religious authority still exercised a significant degree of social
influence. When the Christian world was moved to break with millennia of unquestioning
conviction and address at last the evil of slavery, it was to Biblical ideals
that the early British reformers sought to appeal. Subsequently, in the defining
address he gave regarding the central role played by the issue in the great conflict
in America, the president of the United States warned that if "every drop of blood
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgements of the Lord
are true and righteous altogether'."48 That era, however, was swiftly drawing
to a close. In the upheavals that followed the Second World War, even so influential
a figure as Mohandas Gandhi proved unable to mobilize the spiritual power of Hinduism
in support of his efforts to extinguish sectarian violence on the Indian subcontinent.
Nor were leaders of the Islamic community any more effective in this respect.
As prefigured in the Qur'án's metaphorical vision of "The Day that We roll up
the heavens like a scroll",49 the once unchallengeable authority of the traditional
religions had ceased to direct humanity's social relations.

52

It is in this context that one begins to appreciate Bahá'u'lláh's choice of
imagery about the will of God for a new age: "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."50 Through His revelation, the principles required
for the collective coming of age of the human race have been invested with the
one power capable of penetrating to the roots of human motivation and of altering
behaviour. For those who have recognized Him, equality of men and women is not
a sociological postulate, but revealed truth about human nature, with implications
for every aspect of human relations. The same is true of His teaching of the principle
of racial oneness. Universal education, freedom of thought, the protection of
human rights, recognition of the earth's vast resources as a trust for the whole
of humankind, society's responsibility for the well-being of its citizenry, the
promotion of scientific research, even so practical a principle as an international
auxiliary language that will advance integration of the earth's peoples-for all
who respond to Bahá'u'lláh's revelation, these and similar precepts carry the
same compelling authority as do the injunctions of scripture against idolatry,
theft and false witness. While intimations of some can be perceived in earlier
sacred writings, their definition and prescription had necessarily to wait until
the planet's heterogeneous populations could set out together on the discovery
of their nature as a single human race. Through spiritual empowerment brought
by Bahá'u'lláh's revelation the Divine standards can be appreciated, not as isolated
principles and laws, but as facets of a single, all-embracing vision of humanity's
future, revolutionary in purpose, intoxicating in the possibilities it opens.

53

Integral to these teachings are principles that address the administration
of humanity's collective affairs. A widely quoted passage in Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet
to Queen Victoria expresses emphatic praise of the principle of democratic and
constitutional government, but is also an admonition about the context of global
responsibility in which that principle must operate if it is to realize its purpose
in this age: "O ye the elected representatives of the people in every land! Take
ye counsel together, and let your concern be only for that which profiteth mankind
and bettereth the condition thereof, if ye be of them that scan heedfully. Regard
the world as the human body which, though at its creation whole and perfect, hath
been afflicted, through various causes, with grave disorders and maladies. Not
for one day did it gain ease, nay its sickness waxed more severe, as it fell under
the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave full rein to their personal desires
and have erred grievously. And if, at one time, through the care of an able physician,
a member of that body was healed, the rest remained afflicted as before."51 In
other passages, Bahá'u'lláh spells out some of the practical implications. The
governments of the world are called upon to convene an international consultative
body as the foundation, in the words of the Guardian, of "a world federal system"52
empowered to safeguard the autonomy and territory of its state members, resolve
national and regional disputes and coordinate programmes of global development
for the good of the entire human race. Significantly, Bahá'u'lláh attributes to
this system, once established, the right to suppress by force acts of aggression
by one state against another. Addressing the rulers of His day, He asserts the
clear moral authority of such action: "Should any one among you take up arms against
another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest justice."53

54

The power through which these goals will be progressively realized is that
of unity. Although to Bahá'ís the most obvious of truths, its implications for
the current crisis of civilization appear to escape most contemporary discourse.
Few will disagree that the universal disease sapping the health of the body of
humankind is that of disunity. Its manifestations everywhere cripple political
will, debilitate the collective urge to change, and poison national and religious
relationships. How strange, then, that unity is regarded as a goal to be attained,
if at all, in a distant future, after a host of disorders in social, political,
economic and moral life have been addressed and somehow or other resolved. Yet
the latter are essentially symptoms and side effects of the problem, not its root
cause. Why has so fundamental an inversion of reality come to be widely accepted?
The answer is presumably because the achievement of genuine unity of mind and
heart among peoples whose experiences are deeply at variance is thought to be
entirely beyond the capacity of society's existing institutions. While this tacit
admission is a welcome advance over the understanding of processes of social evolution
that prevailed a few decades ago, it is of limited practical assistance in responding
to the challenge.

55

Unity is a condition of the human spirit. Education can support and enhance
it, as can legislation, but they can do so only once it emerges and has established
itself as a compelling force in social life. A global intelligentsia, its prescriptions
largely shaped by materialistic misconceptions of reality, clings tenaciously
to the hope that imaginative social engineering, supported by political compromise,
may indefinitely postpone the potential disasters that few deny loom over humanity's
future. "We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great,
with incalculable afflictions", Bahá'u'lláh states. "They that are intoxicated
by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible
Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the
mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor
have they any knowledge of the remedy."54 As unity is the remedy for the world's
ills, its one certain source lies in the restoration of religion's influence in
human affairs. The laws and principles revealed by God, in this day, Bahá'u'lláh
declares, "are the most potent instruments and the surest of all means for the
dawning of the light of unity amongst men." 55 "Whatsoever is raised on this foundation,
the changes and chances of the world can never impair its strength, nor will the
revolution of countless centuries undermine its structure." 56

56

Central to Bahá'u'lláh's mission, therefore, has been the creation of a global
community that would reflect the oneness of humankind. The ultimate testimony
that the Bahá'í community can summon in vindication of His mission is the example
of unity that His teachings have produced. As it enters the twenty-first century,
the Bahá'í Cause is a phenomenon unlike anything else the world has seen. After
decades of effort, in which surges of growth alternated with long stretches of
consolidation, often shadowed by setbacks, the Bahá'í community comprises several
million people representative of virtually every ethnic, cultural, social and
religious background on earth, administering their collective affairs without
the intervention of a clergy, through democratically elected institutions. The
many thousands of localities in which it has put down its roots are to be found
in every country, territory and significant island group, from the Arctic
to Tierra del Fuego, from Africa
to the Pacific. The assertion that this community may today already constitute
the most diverse and geographically widespread of any similarly organized body
of people on the planet is unlikely to be challenged by one familiar with the
evidence.

57

The achievement calls out for understanding. Conventional explanations-access
to wealth, the patronage of powerful political interests, invocations of the occult
or aggressive programmes of proselytism that instil fear of Divine wrath-none
have played any role in the events involved. Adherents of the Faith have achieved
a sense of identity as members of a single human race, an identity that shapes
the purpose of their lives and that, clearly, is not the expression of any intrinsic
moral superiority on their own part: "O people of Baha! That there is none to
rival you is a sign of mercy."57 A fair-minded observer is compelled to entertain
at least the possibility that the phenomenon may represent the operation of influences
entirely different in nature from the familiar ones-influences that can properly
be described only as spiritual-capable of eliciting extraordinary feats of sacrifice
and understanding from ordinary people of every background.

58

Particularly striking has been the fact that the Bahá'í Cause has been able
to maintain the unity thus achieved, unbroken and unimpaired, through the most
vulnerable early stages of its existence. One will search in vain for another
association of human beings in history-political, religious, or social-that has
successfully survived the perennial blight of schism and faction. The Bahá'í community,
in all its diversity, is a single body of people, one in its understanding of
the intent of the revelation of God that gave it birth, one in its devotion to
the Administrative Order that its Author created for the governance of its collective
affairs, one in its commitment to the task of disseminating His message throughout
the planet. Over the decades of its rise, several individuals, some of them highly
placed and all of them driven by the spur of ambition, did their utmost to create
separate followings loyal to themselves or to the personal interpretations they
had imposed on Bahá'u'lláh's writings. At earlier stages in the evolution of religion,
similar attempts had proved successful in splitting the newborn faiths into competing
sects. In the case of the Bahá'í Cause, however, such intrigues have failed, without
exception, to produce more than transient outbursts of controversy whose net effect
has been to deepen the community's understanding of its Founder's purpose and
its commitment to it. "So powerful is the light of unity", Bahá'u'lláh assures
those who recognize Him, "that it can illuminate the whole earth."58 Human nature
being what it is, one can readily appreciate the Guardian's anticipation that
this purifying process will long continue-paradoxically but necessarily-to be
an integral feature of the maturation of the Bahá'í community.

59

A corollary of the abandonment of faith in God has been a paralysis of ability
to address effectively the problem of evil or, in many cases, even to acknowledge
it. While Bahá'ís do not attribute to the phenomenon the objective existence it
was assumed at earlier stages of religious history to possess, the negation of
the good that evil represents, as with darkness, ignorance or disease, is severely
crippling in its effect. Few publishing seasons pass that do not offer the educated
reader a range of new and imaginative analyses of the character of some of the
monstrous figures who, during the twentieth century, systematically tortured,
degraded and exterminated millions of their fellow human beings. One is invited
by scholarly authority to ponder the weight that should be given, variously, to
paternal abuse, social rejection, professional disappointments, poverty, injustice,
war experiences, possible genetic impairment, nihilistic literature-or various
combinations of the foregoing-in seeking to understand the obsessions fuelling
an apparently bottomless hatred of humankind. Conspicuously missing from such
contemporary speculation is what experienced commentators, even as recently as
a century ago, would have recognized as spiritual disease, whatever its accompanying
features.

60

If unity is indeed the litmus test of human progress, neither history nor Heaven
will readily forgive those who choose deliberately to raise their hands against
it. In trusting, people lower their defences and open themselves to others. Without
doing so, there is no way in which they can commit themselves wholeheartedly to
shared goals. Nothing is so devastating as suddenly to discover that, for the
other party, commitments made in good faith have represented no more than an advantage
gained, a means of achieving concealed objectives different from, or even inimical
to, what had ostensibly been undertaken together. Such betrayal is a persistent
thread in human history that found one of its earliest recorded expressions in
the ancient tale of Cain's jealousy of the brother whose faith God had chosen
to confirm. If the appalling suffering endured by the earth's peoples during the
twentieth century has left a lesson, it lies in the fact that the systemic disunity,
inherited from a dark past and poisoning relations in every sphere of life, could
throw open the door in this age to demonic behaviour more bestial than anything
the mind had dreamed possible.

61

If evil has a name, it is surely the deliberate violation of the hard-won covenants
of peace and reconciliation by which people of goodwill seek to escape the past
and to build together a new future. By its very nature, unity requires self-sacrifice.
"...self-love", the Master states, "is kneaded into the very clay of man."59 The
ego, termed by Him the "insistent self",60 resists instinctively constraints imposed
on what it conceives to be its freedom. To willingly forgo the satisfactions that
licence affords, the individual must come to believe that fulfilment lies elsewhere.
Ultimately, it lies, as it has always done, in the soul's submission to God.

62

Failure to meet the challenge of such submission has manifested itself with
especially devastating consequences throughout the centuries in betrayal of the
Messengers of God and of the ideals they taught. This discussion is not the place
for a review of the nature and provisions of the specific Covenant by means of
which Bahá'u'lláh has successfully preserved the unity of those who recognize
Him and serve His purpose. It is sufficient to note the strength of the language
He reserves for its deliberate violation by those who simultaneously pretend allegiance
to it: "They that have turned away therefrom are reckoned among the inmates of
the nethermost fire in the sight of thy Lord, the Almighty, the Unconstrained."61
The reason for the severity of this condemnation is obvious. Few people have difficulty
in recognizing the danger to social well-being of such familiar crimes as murder,
rape or fraud, nor the need for society to take effective measures of self-protection.
But how are Bahá'ís to think about a perversity which, if unchecked, would destroy
the very means essential to the creation of unity-would, in the uncompromising
words of the Master, "become even as an axe striking at the very root of the Blessed
Tree"?62 The issue is not one of intellectual dissent, nor even of moral weakness.
Many people are resistant to accepting authority of one kind or another, and eventually
distance themselves from circumstances that require it. Persons who have been
attracted to the Bahá'í Faith but who decide, for whatever reason, to leave it
are entirely free to do so.

63

Covenant-breaking is a phenomenon fundamentally different in nature. The impulse
it arouses in those under its influence is not simply to pursue freely whatever
path they believe leads to personal fulfilment or contribution to society. Rather,
are such persons driven by an apparently ungovernable determination to impose
their personal will on the community by any means available to them, without regard
for the damage done and without respect for the solemn undertakings they entered
into on being accepted as members of that community. Ultimately, the self becomes
the overriding authority, not only in the individual's own life, but in whatever
other lives can be successfully influenced. As long and tragic experience has
demonstrated all too certainly, endowments such as distinguished lineage, intellect,
education, piety or social leadership can be harnessed, equally, to the service
of humanity or to that of personal ambition. In ages past, when spiritual priorities
of a different nature were the focus of the Divine purpose, the consequences of
such rebellion did not vitiate the central message of any of the successive revelations
of God. Today, with the immense opportunities and horrific dangers that physical
unification of the planet has brought with it, commitment to the requirements
of unity becomes the touchstone of all professions of devotion to the will of
God or, for that matter, to the well-being of humankind.

64

Everything in its history has equipped the Bahá'í Cause to address the challenge
facing it. Even at this relatively early stage of its development-and relatively
limited as its resources presently are-the Bahá'í enterprise is fully deserving
of the respect it is winning. An onlooker need not accept its claims to Divine
origin in order to appreciate what is being accomplished. Taken simply as this-worldly
phenomena, the nature and achievements of the Bahá'í community are their own justification
for attention on the part of anyone seriously concerned with the crisis of civilization,
because they are evidence that the world's peoples, in all their diversity, can
learn to live and work and find fulfilment as a single race, in a single global
homeland.

65

This fact underlines, if further emphasis were needed, the urgency of the successive
Plans devised by the Universal House of Justice for the expansion and consolidation
of the Faith. The rest of humanity has every right to expect that a body of people
genuinely committed to the vision of unity embodied in the writings of Bahá'u'lláh
will be an increasingly vigorous contributor to programmes of social betterment
that depend for their success precisely on the force of unity. Responding to the
expectation will require the Bahá'í community to grow at an ever-accelerating
pace, greatly multiplying the human and material resources invested in its work
and diversifying still further the range of talents that equip it to be a useful
partner with like-minded organizations. Along with the social objectives of the
effort must go an appreciation of the longing of millions of equally sincere people,
as yet unaware of Bahá'u'lláh's mission but inspired by many of its ideals, for
an opportunity to find lives of service that will have enduring meaning.

66

The culture of systematic growth taking root in the Bahá'í community would
seem, therefore, by far the most effective response the friends can make to the
challenge discussed in these pages. The experience of an intense and ongoing immersion
in the Creative Word progressively frees one from the grip of the materialistic
assumptions-what Bahá'u'lláh terms "the allusions of the embodiments of satanic
fancy"63-that pervade society and paralyze impulses for change. It develops in
one a capacity to assist the yearning for unity on the part of friends and acquaintances
to find mature and intelligent expression. The nature of the core activities of
the current Plan-children's classes, devotional meetings and study circles-permits
growing numbers of persons who do not yet regard themselves as Bahá'ís to feel
free to participate in the process. The result has been to bring into existence
what has been aptly termed a "community of interest". As others benefit from participation
and come to identify with the goals the Cause is pursuing, experience shows that
they, too, are inclined to commit themselves fully to Bahá'u'lláh as active agents
of His purpose. Apart from its associated objectives, therefore, wholehearted
prosecution of the Plan has the potentiality of amplifying enormously the Bahá'í
community's contribution to public discourse on what has become the most demanding
issue facing humankind.

67

If Bahá'ís are to fulfil Bahá'u'lláh's mandate, however, it is obviously vital
that they come to appreciate that the parallel efforts of promoting the betterment
of society and of teaching the Bahá'í Faith are not activities competing for attention.
Rather, are they reciprocal features of one coherent global programme. Differences
of approach are determined chiefly by the differing needs and differing stages
of inquiry that the friends encounter. Because free will is an inherent endowment
of the soul, each person who is drawn to explore Bahá'u'lláh's teachings will
need to find his own place in the never-ending continuum of spiritual search.
He will need to determine, in the privacy of his own conscience and without pressure,
the spiritual responsibility this discovery entails. In order to exercise this
autonomy intelligently, however, he must gain both a perspective on the processes
of change in which he, like the rest of the earth's population, is caught up and
a clear understanding of the implications for his own life. The obligation of
the Bahá'í community is to do everything in its power to assist all stages of
humanity's universal movement towards reunion with God. The Divine Plan bequeathed
it by the Master is the means by which this work is carried out.

68

However central the ideal of the oneness of religion unquestionably is, therefore,
the task of sharing Bahá'u'lláh's message is obviously not an interfaith project.
While the mind seeks intellectual certainty, what the soul longs for is the attainment
of certitude. Such inner conviction is the ultimate goal of all spiritual seeking,
regardless of how rapid or gradual the process may be. For the soul, the experience
of conversion is not an extraneous or incidental feature of the exploration of
religious truth, but the pivotal issue that must eventually be addressed. There
is no ambiguity about Bahá'u'lláh's words on the subject and there can be none
in the minds of those who seek to serve Him: "Verily I say, this is the Day in
which mankind can behold the Face, and hear the Voice, of the Promised One. The
Call of God hath been raised, and the light of His countenance hath been lifted
up upon men. It behoveth every man to blot out the trace of every idle word from
the tablet of his heart, and to gaze, with an open and unbiased mind, on the signs
of His Revelation, the proofs of His Mission, and the tokens of His glory."64

69

One of the distinguishing features of modernity has been the universal awakening
of historical consciousness. An outcome of this revolutionary change in perspective
that greatly enhances the teaching of Bahá'u'lláh's message is the ability of
people, given the chance, to recognize that the whole body of humanity's sacred
texts places the drama of salvation itself squarely in the context of history.
Beneath the surface language of symbol and metaphor, religion, as the scriptures
reveal it, operates not through the arbitrary dictates of magic but as a process
of fulfilment unfolding in a physical world created by God for that purpose.

70

In this respect, the texts speak with one voice: religion's goal is humanity's
attainment of the age of "ingathering",65 of "one fold, and one shepherd"; 66
the great age to come when "the Earth will shine with the glory of its Lord"67
and the will of God is carried out "in earth, as it is in heaven";68 "the promised
Day"69 when the "holy city"70 will descend "out of heaven, from ... God",71 when
"the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains,
and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it",72 when
God will demand to know "what mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind
the faces of the poor";73 the Day when scriptures that have been "sealed till
the time of the end"74 would be opened and union with God will find expression
in "a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name";75 an age utterly beyond
anything humanity will have experienced, the mind conceived or language as yet
encompassed: "even as We produced the first Creation, so shall We produce a new
one: a promise We have undertaken: truly shall We fulfil it."76

71

The declared purpose of history's series of prophetic revelations, therefore,
has been not only to guide the individual seeker on the path of personal salvation,
but to prepare the whole of the human family for the great eschatological Event
lying ahead, through which the life of the world will itself be entirely transformed.
The revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is neither preparatory nor prophetic. It is that
Event. Through its influence, the stupendous enterprise of laying the foundations
of the Kingdom of God
has been set in motion, and the population of the earth has been endowed with
the powers and capacities equal to the task. That Kingdom is a universal civilization
shaped by principles of social justice and enriched by achievements of the human
mind and spirit beyond anything the present age can conceive. "This is the Day",
Bahá'u'lláh declares, "in which God's most excellent favours have been poured
out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all
created things.... Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one
spread out in its stead."77

72

Service to the goal calls for an understanding of the fundamental difference
distinguishing the mission of Bahá'u'lláh from political and ideological projects
of human design. The moral vacuum that produced the horrors of the twentieth century
exposed the outermost limits of the mind's unaided capacity to devise and construct
an ideal society, however great the material resources harnessed to the effort.
The suffering entailed has engraved the lesson indelibly on the consciousness
of the earth's peoples. Religion's perspective on humanity's future, therefore,
has nothing in common with systems of the past-and only relatively little relationship
with those of today. Its appeal is to a reality in the genetic code, if it can
be so described, of the rational soul. The Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus taught two
thousand years ago, is "within".78 His organic analogies of a "vineyard",79 of
"seed [sown] into the good ground",80 of the "good tree [that] bringeth forth
good fruit"81 speak of a potentiality of the human species that has been nurtured
and trained by God since the dawn of time as the purpose and leading edge of the
creative process. The ongoing work of patient cultivation is the task that Bahá'u'lláh
has entrusted to the company of those who recognize Him and embrace His Cause.
Little wonder, then, at the exalted language in which He speaks of a privilege
so great: "Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth
at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life
of all men...."82

73

The process bears within itself the assurance of its fulfilment. For those
with eyes to see, the new creation is today everywhere emerging, in the same way
that a seedling becomes in time a fruit-bearing tree or a child reaches adulthood.
Successive dispensations of a loving and purposeful Creator have brought the earth's
inhabitants to the threshold of their collective coming-of-age as a single people.
Bahá'u'lláh is now summoning humanity to enter on its inheritance: "That which
the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the
healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause,
one common Faith."83

References

1. Bahá'u'lláh refers to the ancient Persian and Arabian story of Majnun and
Layli, The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
1991), page 6.

2. Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
Trust, 1983), section LXI.

3. ibid., section XVI.

4. Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Wilmette: Bahá'í
Publishing Trust, 1988), page 27.

5. Gleanings, section XVII.

6. Bahá'u'lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
Trust, 1988), page 133.

7. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqán (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1993),
paragraph 216.

8. ibid. 9. ibid., paragraph 104.

10. ibid., paragraph 106.

11. Gleanings, section XXII.

12. Prayers and Meditations by Bahá'u'lláh (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
1987), page 311.

13. Gleanings, section XXVII.

14. ibid., section CIX.

15. ibid., section LXXXI.

16. Julian Huxley, cited by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man
(London: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1959), page 243. See also Julian Huxley,
Knowledge, Morality, and Destiny (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), page 13.

17. Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh: Selected Letters (Wilmette:
Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1991), page 35.

18. Gleanings, section LXXVIII.

19. ibid., section CXXXII.

20. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
Trust, 1993), paragraph 182.

21. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqán, paragraph 4.

22. ibid., paragraph 8.

23. ibid., paragraph 13.

24. ibid., paragraph 14.

25. St. Matthew 13.25, Authorized King James Version.

26. ibid., 13.29-30.

27. Qur'án, surih 7, verse 33, Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation, third edition,
(n.p.: 1938).

28. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, paragraph 99.

29. The Summons of the Lord of Hosts: Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh (Haifa:
Bahá'í World Centre, 2002), paragraph 126.

30. Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice (Wilmette:
Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1990), page 79.

31. Isaiah 45.5.

32. Timothy 1.17.

33. Qur'án, surih 3, verse 73.

34. ibid., surih 2, verse 177.

35. St. Matthew 5.13.

36. ibid., 5.14.

37. Micah 6.8.

38. St. John 14.6.

39. Qur'án, surih 24, verse 35.

40. Genesis 17.7.

41. Bhagavad-Gita, chapter IV, Sir Edwin Arnold translation.

42. Deuteronomy 34.10.

43. St. John 5.45-47.

44. Qur'án, surih 2, verse 136.

45. The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by 'Abdu'l-Bahá during
His Visit to the United States
and Canada in
1912, revised edition (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1995), page 326.

46. St. John 1.10.

47. Gleanings, section CVI.

48. Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the
United States
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989).

49. Qur'án, surih 21, verse 104.

50. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, paragraph 5.

51. The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, paragraph 174.

52. Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, page 204.

53. Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh,
page 192.

54. Gleanings, section CVI.

55. Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, page 129.

56. Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh,
pages 202-203.

57. Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, page
84.

58. Gleanings, section CXXXII.

59. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
Trust, 1990), page 96.

60. Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre,
1997), page 256.

61. Bahá'u'lláh, from a previously untranslated Tablet.

62. Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
1944), page 25.

63. Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqán, paragraph 213.

64. Gleanings, section VII.

65. The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, paragraph 126.

66. St. John 10.16.

67. Qur'án, surih 39, verse 69.

68. St. Matthew 6.10.

69. Qur'án, surih 85, verse 2.

70. Revelation 21.2.

71. ibid., 3.12.

72. Isaiah 2.2.

73. ibid., 3.15.

74. Daniel 12.9.

75. Isaiah 62.2.

76. Qur'án, surih 21, verse 104.

77. Gleanings, section IV.

78. St. Luke 17.21.

79. St. Matthew 21.33.

80. ibid., 13.23.

81. ibid., 7.17.

82. Gleanings, section XCVI.

83. ibid., section CXX.

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