The Baha'i concept of God

The Bahá'í belief in one God means that the universe and all its creatures and its forces have been created by a single Being superhuman and supernatural. This Being we call God, has absolute control of his creation (omnipotence) and the complete and perfect knowledge of the latter (omniscience). Although we have different concepts of the nature of God, although we pray in different languages and gave him different names - Allah or Yahweh, God or Brahma - nevertheless we speak the same unique Being.
Celebrating the creative act of God, Bahá'u'lláh said:
Praise to the unity of God and honor the unique and very glorious sovereign Lord of the universe, none of the most complete, has created the reality of all things that nothing has extracted the most finest and most subtle of its creation and who, issuing his creatures from lower where was the removal of his presence, and saving them from the perils of ultimate extinction, has received his kingdom of incorruptible glory! Nothing less than universal grace and mercy that penetrate all could accomplish.2
Bahá'u'lláh taught that God is a being too large and too subtle for the human mind, with its limitations, could ever understand or properly represent exactly:
How wonderful is the unity of the living God and unchangeable forever - a unit that is above all limitations and understanding that transcends all created things ... How sublime is the incorruptible Essence, how completely independent of knowledge that can have all created things, and how this unity will remain immeasurably exalted above the praise of all the inhabitants of heaven and earth!3
According to Bahá'í teachings, God transcends his creation to such an extent that, for all eternity, we will never be able to make him a clear picture or achieve anything except an assessment fraction of his higher nature. Even when we say that God is the Almighty, the Most Loving, the Infinitely Just, we only use terms derived from human experience very limited power, love and justice. In fact, our knowledge of all things is limited by our knowledge of these attributes and qualities perceptible to us only:
Know that there are two kinds of knowledge: knowledge of the essence of a thing and knowledge of its qualities. The essence of a thing is known through its qualities, otherwise it remains hidden and unknown.
Given that our knowledge of things, even of created and limited things, is knowledge of their qualities and not their essence, how is it possible to understand in its essence the Divine Reality which is unlimited ...? Knowing God, therefore, means understanding and knowing its attributes, not its reality. And this knowledge of attributes is also proportional to the capacity and power of man, is not absolute.4
As for humans, the knowledge of God means the knowledge of qualities and attributes of God, and not direct knowledge of its essence. But how can we attain knowledge of God's attributes? Bahá'u'lláh wrote that everything in creation is God's work and therefore reflects a lot of its attributes. For example, even in the intimate structure of a rock or crystal, one can observe the order of God's creation. And this object is more elegant, more he is able to reflect the attributes of God. The event is the form of creating the highest we know, the event provides us the most complete knowledge of God that we have:
Everything in heaven and on earth is in itself proof of direct names and attributes of God, since, in every atom are enshrined the signs that bear eloquent testimony to the revelation of this great light ... But this is especially true of the man and the highest degree ... For by him were virtually revealed, to a degree that no other created thing can not reach or exceed, all names and attributes of God ... And, of all men, most perfect, the most prominent and best events are the Sun of Truth. Even better, it is only through the operation of the will of these events and by the outpouring of grace, that all other live and move.5
Although a rock or a tree reveals something of the subtleties of his creator, only a conscious being as humans can adopt the attributes of God in his life and his actions. Since the events are already at the stage of perfection in this life that we can more fully grasp the deeper meaning of God's attributes. God is not limited to a physical body, and therefore we can not directly see or observe his personality. So, in fact, knowing the events that we are approaching the greatest knowledge of God.
Know, without doubt, that the Unseen can in no way embody the essence and reveal to men. It is and always will be infinitely exalted above all that can be perceived and expressed ... He who from all eternity, remained hidden from human eyes can not be known by its manifestation, and its manifestation can provide greater evidence of the truth of his mission as proof that the person brings it same.6
And in another similar passage:
The door to knowledge of the Lord has always been and will remain forever closed to men. No human mind only sees ever in his holy court. However, as a token of his mercy and as a sign of his loving kindness He showed to men the Stars the day of his divine guidance, the Symbols of His divine unity, and he wanted to, that knowledge of these sanctified Beings to be identical his own knowledge.7
Of course, only those who lived during the lifetime of the event have the opportunity to observe directly. For this reason, Bahá'u'lláh explained that the writings and words of each event are a vital link between individuals and God. For Bahá'ís, the word of the event is the Word of God, and unto the Word which individuals can turn daily to get closer to God and know Him better. The written Word of God is the instrument that creates an awareness of the presence of God in our daily lives:
Say: The first and most important evidence of its truth is his own person. Just then his revelation. And for those who recognize neither the one nor the other, it is the words he has proved as evidence of its reality and truth ... He has endowed every soul's ability to recognize the signs of God.8
It is for this reason that the discipline of daily prayer, meditation and study of holy writings constitutes an important part of spiritual practice of individual Baha'is. They believe that this discipline is one of the main ways to get closer to their creator.
To summarize: the Bahá'í view of God is that His essence is eternally transcendent, but its attributes and qualities are immanent in the events.9 Our knowledge of anything being limited by our knowledge of the attributes of every perceptible thing, knowledge of events is (for ordinary humans) equivalent to knowledge of God.10 In concrete terms, this knowledge is acquired through study, prayer, meditation and practical application of what the Word of God tells us (that is to say the Holy Scriptures of events).
1">Adapted from William S. Hatcher and J. Douglas Martin, The Baha'i Faith: The emergence of a world religion (Brussels, Baha'i Publishing House, 1997), pp. 93-94, 155-159.
2">Bahá'u'lláh, Extracts from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, (Brussels, Baha'i Publishing House, ed. 1990), p. 44.
3"> Bahá'u'lláh, Extracts from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 172.
`Abdu'l-Bahá, The Lessons of Saint Jean d'Acre (Press Universitaires de France, Paris, 4th edition, revised, 1970), pp. 225-226.
5"> Bahá'u'lláh, Extracts from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, pp. 117-118.
6"> Bahá'u'lláh, Extracts from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 34.
7" Bahá'u'lláh, Extracts from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 34.
8">Bahá'u'lláh, Extracts from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 70.
9">In this regard, Shoghi Effendi said the manifestation of Bahá'u'lláh that the incarnation was complete names and attributes of God. [See The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, (Brussels, Baha'i Publishing House, ed. 1993), p. 108].
10 Abdu'l-Bahá, The Lessons of Saint Jean d'Acre, P. 227.

The Baha’i faith… Haven or deviation?

This is an English translation of an article that appeared recently on Al Waqt:

The Baha’i faith… Haven or deviation?

By: Ali Ahmad Al-Diri

Could a religion be an avenue for deviation?

I am addressing this issue in the wake of the campaign against the Baha’i faith in Egypt, which has, unfortunately, attracted the contribution of writers and journalists who have added fuel to the controversy. For example, the journalist Mahmoud Issa has made virulent observations about an incident related to the citizens of Suhaj, one of the villages of Upper Egypt, who burned down four of their neighbors’ houses because they embraced the Baha’i faith: he pointed out to the mistake of considering the Baha’i faith a religion, the presence of proselytizers and missionaries who propagate this deviant thinking, and the existence of incentives that are mostly of a pecuniary nature and that attract those simple souls to the Bahai faith, which is lacking spiritual incentives. The religious establishment should have been more aware and should have been ready with a plan to confront this dangerous deviation which would transform into heroes and martyrs. (1)

From a religious perspective, it is possible to describe a religion with deviance. As a matter of fact, every religion accuses the religions that come after it of deviance, which is inadmissible from an epistemological, sociological or legal perspective, especially where human rights are concerned. The legal perspective is not the same as that of the canonical law of Islam rightfulness; it is a modern concept and is the product of the human mind, which has created it as a regulatory system for the organization of life and in order to provide people with a framework that would guarantee them their security and the right to live in freedom and justice. As such, the legal system is a human endeavor and is amenable to amendment without the risk of apostasy or heresy; whereas the canonical law of Islam cannot be amended, without the risk of apostasy and heresy.

From a sociological perspective, the followers of the Baha’i faith are human groups of diverse ethnic origins, who practice their life according to teachings which they believe emanate from God; they have their own rituals, their own scriptures and their systems for communicating with and envisioning the universe. We cannot describe these groups as deviant. The common law that governs any modern state necessitates the protection of different groups in its interpretation of deviance and should not adopt the perspective of one religious group in its perception of deviance against another. .modern state has to remain neutral in confronting religions.

In the short film prepared by the blogger Ahmad Ezat, a Baha’i girl says “I do not feel that I am living normally within society”, and the Baha’i boy says: “Baha’is are allowed to live, but they are inexistent in the eyes of the state.” (2)

If the state deems a religious group as deviant (and hence lost), it cannot give it any recognition., which is a way of acknowledging it, and once a group loses this recognition it cannot exist normally within society. The state is the product of the modern legal system, not of the canonical law of Islam.

The canonical law of Islam recognizes human beings according to its definition of deviance, whereas the state recognizes them according to its perception of the individual, who is not defined according to criteria of deviance or revelation but as existent or non-existent. The state recognizes an existing being in its records, and once this being is deceased, the name of this being is deleted from its records and added to its archives.

From the perspective of the state, religion is not a corpus of beliefs determined by either truth and revelation or denial and perdition, but a sum of the many living manifestations of humanity, and these manifestations have as much right to subsist as they have to be recognized by the state.

I have had intimate contacts with Baha’is. I had the opportunity of meeting many of them and attending their weddings, their religious celebrations and social gatherings. These contacts have led me to acquire an informed opinion of their religious dealings and of how religion governs their vision and frames their moral codes. Indeed it is a very strict system in terms of purity and spirituality, and it always gives ample leverage to the inner voice of each individual. Sociology has taught us that minorities always rely much more on their inner moral code than the external one, as is the case with groups that constitute majorities, and the Baha’i religion is no exception. If it becomes a majority anywhere in the world, it necessarily follows that it will have to transform its system to one where the external code takes precedence over the internal one. It is also not exceptional for it, as a religion, to want to spread itself, and to believe in its own superiority, its reasoning, its inclusiveness, its righteousness, its theological dialectic and the fact that as a religion, it brings salvation to humanity, and its reliance on parables, stories, metaphors and dreams in its educational and persuasive process.

At a Baha’i wedding ceremony in Bahrain, I was accompanied by my friend Ali Al-Jalawi who had published a book on the Baha’is of Bahrain. During this event, he drew my attention to the ubiquitous presence of the Arabic language, even in the ceremonial text and the accompanying prayers, in spite of the fact that most of the Baha’is of Bahrain are of Persian extraction. This was the text that was read during the ceremony: “Oh God, oh God, the sun and the moon are wed through Your love, and united in the worship of Your sanctity. They have vowed to serve you. Bless this union as a manifestation of Your abundance.” This prayer instantly clung to my heart like a moon clings to the heart of a lover, because of the excessive love and spirituality that overflow from the term ‘the sun and the moon’.

The Baha’i faith, as I experienced it closely, overflows with ‘lunar’ spirituality; in fact it ‘lunifies’ a person and ‘lunifies’ his or her spirit. During one of my visits, my Baha’i friend offered me a book entitled “Warq’a” as a present. He told me that the Baha’i faith teaches us about love and passion, and the love of light, splendor and mankind and that I would find that Jalal Eddine Al-Roumi expresses the essence of this approach in this book. I opened the book and read the following writing of Jalal Eddine: “you are what you seek”. All religions seek God, the absolute, through man and all the paths create unto you a religion and a path that connect you to him.

The great Sufi Ibn Arabi said “say of the universe what you wish” (3) because one cannot lose the way that would lead to God, for God is omnipresent and whatever one says and in whichever direction will always connect one to Him..

Baha’a Allah says “the word is the number one teacher in the university of existence, and it is the first drop that emanated from God. All names emanate from His name and the beginning and end to all things is within His grip.” (4)

The Muslim Sufi Ibn Arabi Mohieedin saw in the names of the Divine a manifestation of the existence of God. In his book “Fusous Al-Hikam” (Explanation of the rules of governance and Sufism) he talked about the universe and existence through the names of God, by considering them metaphors and ways of seeing the world, understanding it and living in it.

Could a religion be an avenue for deviation? If there is such thing as deviation, the shadows of God should not be seen in all avenues and branches that Baha’ullah talked about in his call upon the world: “O people of the world, ye are all the fruit of one tree, the leaves of one branch, the flowers of one garden and the drops of one ocean. Walk with perfect charity, concord, affection, and agreement.” (5)

Sources:
1. Mahmoud Issa, Baha’i turbulence, Alwatan Qatari newspaper, 10 April, 2009
2. View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drAe_hSCaxI&feature=PlayList&p=841A4BCE9E873E26&index=0&playnext=1
3. Ibn Arabi, Fusous Al-Hikam.
4. http://rands1957.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7CE1906B800AE160!128.entry?_c=BlogPart.
5. http://rands1957.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7CE1906B800AE160!128.entry?_c=BlogPart

Accusations against Baha’is within the Context of Islamic Heresiography Posted: 14 Jul 2009 08:09 AM PDT The Baha’i Faith is an independent world religion which began in the Iran in the 19th century. In 1844 (1260 AH) Siyyid Ali-Muhammad Shirazi declared himself to be the Hidden Imam, the Qa’im or Mahdi expected by Shi’ite Muslims. In 1850 the Bab was executed in Tabriz and for a number of years the Babi community was in disarray until in 1863 Baha’u'llah declared himself to be not only He Whom God Shall Make Manifest foretold by the Bab [man yazhirullah], but the Promised One of all religions. The Baha’i Faith therefore bares the same relationship to Islam that Christianity has to Judaism. Baha’is believes in the divine origin of all religion, but sees their social teachings of revelation as varying according to the needs of the time and place. As a graduate student I sometimes hired Iranian students to assist me with translating certain Persian Baha’i histories. My preference, of course was to use Iranian Baha’is who would be more familiar with the vocabulary specific to our Faith, but there were occasions when I resorted to non-Baha’is. On one occasion an intelligent, rather secularized young man of Muslim background was reading a Baha’i text in Persian with me when he awkwardly asked me the following question: “Is it true that Baha’is believe that before a man gives away an apple, he should taste it first.” I knew better than to take his question literally, but I wasn’t about to guess at what he meant, so I said, “Farhad if you want an answer to your question you’re going to have to be clearer.” After fumbling around a bit he finally asked me if it were true that Baha’is believed that a father should sleep with his daughter before he gave her away in marriage. At that point I said, “Think, for a minute, Farhad. If you were going to make up stories to discredit a religion, what sort of things would you say?” He then admitted that he had figured the stories weren’t true but he couldn’t be sure. This story, as fantastic as it might appear is all too typical of the rumors and slander that are spread about Baha’is in various places throughout the Islamic world.[1] The Nineteen Day Feast where Baha’is gather to say prayers, read from their scriptures, discuss the affairs of the community and share refreshments and food are rumored to be sexual orgies. The Baha’i Faith itself is thought to have been a Russian and British plot to destroy the unity of Islam, notwithstanding the unlikelihood of those two countries having colluded on anything in the 19th century. Nowadays it is imagined that Baha’is are receiving their support from Zionists or the US government. A plethora of largely fabricated evidence has been published to support such charges, the most famous being the forged memoirs of Prince Dolgorukov which are aimed at proving the Baha’i Faith to be a Russian plot.[2] Similarly, Firaydun Adamiyyat, in his biography of Nasser-al-Din Shah’s first Prime Minster, Amir Kabir states that a British intelligence officer claims Arthur Conolly admits to recruiting Mulla Husayn as a spy in his traveler’s narrative Journey to the North of India Overland from England through Russia, Persia, and Affghaunistaun, however there is no mention of Mulla Husayn or the Báb there.[3] As was the case with Dolgorkov’s forged memoirs there was a problem with the chronology. The meeting supposedly takes place in 1830 when Mulla Husayn would have been 17 and the Bab ten years of age. Connolly died two years before the Bab declared his mission to Mulla Husayn. After Adamiyyat was confronted with these facts, this allegation was removed from subsequent editions of the book. In 2003 a somewhat more imaginative version of these charges was published by Abdullah Shahbazi in the Quarterly Journal of the Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies. The article entitled “History of Baha’ism in Iran” argues the Bab had been approached by Anglo-Jews companies to make claims which which disrupt the Islamic world.[4] The article has a rather unique take on an incident which took place in 1839 wherein the Jews of Mashhad were forcibly converted to Islam after accusations of blood libel.[5] Shahbazi’s position is that these Jews voluntarily converted en mass in order to subsequently become Babis in order to provide a false impression that numerous Muslims were converting to the Bab’s religion. About sixty of these crypto-Jews did become Babis and subsequently Baha’is, but the majority did not.[6] They make up only a minuscule portion of the Baha’is of Muslim background in Iran. More recently there has been a renewed effort in Iran to fabricate links between Baha’is and Zionism. The propagandists have gone so far as to masquerade as Baha’is on internet sites such as http://jewbahais.blogspot.com run by someone using the name Yohanna, where misleading information is posted regarding the relationship of Baha’is to both Judaism and Zionism. Photos are included supposedly picturing Jewish-Baha’is in New York that in fact depict Baha’is of Christian background in London. It is not my purpose here to refute these charges as they have been adequately dealt with elsewhere by abler writers than myself.[7] What I wish to do here is provide some insight as to the origins of such charges, and how they have been part of the standard repertoire used against religious dissidence in Islamicate culture for centuries. While some scholars have argued that many of the conspiracies theories regarding the Baha’i Faith emerged only in 1940’s and reflect the propensity of Iranian society to “believe and endorse conspiracy theories,”[8] I would like to suggest that such charges are really quite old, much older than the Baha’i Faith itself and extend beyond the borders of Iran itself. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the charges being made against Baha’is by Shi’ites are virtually the same ones Sunnis have been making against Shi’ites for centuries within the Islamic world. Aside from the Baha’i Faith itself, Islam has historically been the most tolerant of the world’s religions. This is mostly owing to the fact that Qur’an itself asserts that there is no people to whom a prophet has not been sent. (Qur’an 35:24, 16:24.) This opened the door for the acceptance of the legitimacy of nearly all the previous religions, even those not formally considered People of the Book (i.e. Christians and Jews.) Much more problematic has been the acceptance of any claims to revelation after Muhammad. No religion likes to be superseded, but in Islam particularly the notion that there would be no revelation after the Qur’an came to be seen as every bit as fundamental to the religion as the Oneness of God and the Prophethood of Muhammad, so much so that many Muslims erroneously believe that asserting the Finality of Prophethood is part of the shahadah or Islamic declaration of Faith. For this reason, any religious movement arising after Islam or which departed from the common understanding of Islam had to be explained away as something other than a religion. The stock explanation came to be that such movements were really political in nature, usually instigated by an outsider, often a Jew, aimed at creating disruption (fitna.) For instance, Sunni Muslims hold a Yemenite Jew, Abdallah ibn Saba, responsible for the founding Shi’ism, a belief that goes back at least as far as al-Tabari and is most famously cited in al-Shahristani’s classical heresiogrpahy, Al-Milal wa al-Nihal.[9] A classical work which illustrates the manner in which Muslims came to view religious dissidence is in Nizam ul-Mulk’s Siyasat-Nameh or Treatise on Government. Nizam u’l-Mulk served as Grand Vizier to the Seljuks who had invaded the Middle East under the pretext of saving Islam and the Caliphate from Shi’ite heretics. Most especially Nizam u’l-Mulk had to contend with the Ismaeli Assassins, to whom according to some accounts he eventually fell victim. The Siyasat Nameh presents the Sassanid ruler Khosrau the Just as the ideal ruler and one of the acts which is depicted as bringing him to power was his suppression of the Mazdakite heresy. Nizam u’l-Mulk presents the Mazdakite religion as a Manichean-type dualism which was especially dangerous for its social program of community of property and wives.[10] It is difficult to know at this distance if the historical Mazdak really had anything more radical in mind than a more equal distribution of property and ending the practice of the wealthy having several wives while the poor could afford none, but the notion of communism and wife-swapping came to be associated not only with his heresy but with subsequent religious dissidence as well. Shi’ites, as well as the Babis, were accused of engaging in such practices. While the economic prosperity of the Baha’is of Iran during the Pahlavi period may have dissolved any notion that Baha’is were communists, the idea that Baha’is practiced a ‘community of wives’ lived on in lurid stories about Baha’i sexual orgies.[11] As in Christianity, Manicheanism came to be seen in the Islamic world as the paradigmatic heresy, and in works like al-Tabari, it came to be associated with incest as well. Such charges have echoed down the ages and been associated with virtually any dissident religious movement which arose thereafter, especially in Iran, and especially in regards to any movement associated with Shi’ism. The association of heresy with incest appears to go back to the Arabs first encounter with Zoroastrianism. Certain Zoroastrian scriptures appeared to approve of next-of-kin marriages, though the extent to which this was actually practiced during the Sasanian period is a matter of debate. Nonetheless, since Islam had extensive definitions of what constituted incest (lit. mahram or taboo) Muslims found Zoroastrian beliefs in this area to be shocking. As Geert Jan Van Gelder points out in his article on “Incest and Interbreeding” in Encyclopedia Iranica, Marriage rules help to define a religion and a culture; the alleged practices of the Zoroastrians are a recurrent motif in Muslim texts and are used to distinguish between “us” and “them.” Heretical sects are often credited with a sexual free-for-all or holding women as communal sex objects, with all the implications of possible incest.[12] Shi’ites were particularly vulnerable to such charges. For instance, the Arabic poet and prose writer, Abu’l-Ala Maarri (d. 449/1058), accused the Carmathians of incestuous practices. Likewise the Ismaelis are accused by early Muslim heresiographers with allowing “marriage with daughters and sisters, drinking wine, and all sorts of sensual pleasures.”[13] If we compare the attacks against Baha’is even today to those made by Sunni Islamists against Shiites we will see that they are virtually identical. For instance, someone writing under the name of Dr. Abdullah Muhammad al-Gharib warned of Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise to power arguing that he was in fact an American agent, working to support the cause of Zionism in order for Persians to wreck their revenge on Islam for the destruction of the Persian Empire. Al-Gharib insists “the day will comes when people will know that the Jews were behind [the Iranian Revolution] just like Ibn Saba’ was behind their emergence in the first place.”[14] In describing how it was necessary for Salah al-Din to defeat the Fatimids before turning his attention to the Crusaders he notes that despite the defeat of the Shi’ites they once again emerged: with their old beliefs with only the names changed: the Safavids, the Baha’is, the Qadianis, the Druze, the Nusayris [‘Alawites], the Assassins, the Isma’ilis…. The [batinis] returned to support the enemies of Allah and to cooperate with them against Muslims. They cooperated with Britain, Portugal, France, and Czarist Russia…. They returned to shred Islamic unity all over again.[15] Two months before the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, he preached a four hour sermon attacking the Shi’ites utilizing al-Gharib’s work. In that sermon the Iran-Iraq War is blamed on a conspiracy on the part of the U.S., Iran, and Iraqi Shi’ites to destroy an Islamic nation. Even the Lebanese Hizbullah was labeled an “Israeli puppet.” The Shi’ites are accused of sexual corruption which includes, yes, accusations of incest. It should be apparent by now that the charges being made against Baha’is have little to do with their own beliefs and practices but are instead drawn from a standard Islamic repertoire of what a heresy is supposed to look like and the assumed motives behind its origins and propagation. That Muslims might presume some of these things about Baha’is to be true, is perhaps not surprising. What is more disturbing is the fact that evidence is being deliberately fabricated primarily by Shi’ite ‘ulama (though sometimes Sunnis are also involved) to support such charges. One would hope that a religion sect born of oppression would refrain from utilizing the same weapons against Baha’is that been aimed against them. But alas, this appears not to be the case. [1] For instance former Deputy Head of Al-Azhar and Member of the Islamic Research Council Seif Mahmoud Ashour, stated the following in regards to Baha’is: “We hear they permit incest, that a man can marry his sister, pray with nineteen raq’aa , fast nineteen days a year and pray towards Acre (in Israel, resting place of Baha’u’llah’s remains) and not towards Mecca”. The Daily Star, December 7, 2006. The truth of course, is that while Baha’is have a different Qiblih and fast for only nineteen days as opposed to the thirty days in Islam, incest is most certainly not part of their religion, nor do they marry their sisters. [2] Intrafamily-i siyasi ya yad-dashtha-yi Kinyaz Dulquruki [Political Confessions, or the Memoirs of Count Dolgoruki].’ In Salnama-yi Khurasan [Khurasan Yearbook], Historical Section, 1st. Reprinted Tehran, 1323 Sh/1943-44. These fictitious memoirs of the former Russian ambassador to Iran (1846-1853) has the ambassador hatching this plot with Baha’u'llah and Mirza Yahya in the home of Hakim Ahmad Gilani. The problem with this scenario is that Gilani died in 1835, years before Dolgorukov ever set foot in Iran. Baha’u'llah would have been about 17 at the time while Mirza Yahya was only five. No Russian version of Dolgorukov’s memoirs have ever been produced. Some of the more egregious mistakes have been edited out of later editions, such as the one where Dolgorukov supposedly gives Baha’u'llah money to build a house in Akka. Dolgorukov died long before Baha’u'llah was exiled there. [3] Amir Kabir va Iran. Tihran in 1323/1944 (pp. 243-4) [4] Abdullah Shahbazi, “History of Baha’ism in Iran”http://www.shahbazi.org/pages/bahaism2.htm [5] Blood libel accusations against Jews have been historically connected with Christianity, not Islam, but they were introduced to the Islamic world in the 18th and 19th centuries by the French. [6] When the state of Israel was formed in 1948 many members of this community immigrated there, the families which had become Baha’i, did not. [7] cf. Momen, Moojan (2004), “Conspiracies and Forgeries: the attack upon the Baha’i community in Iran”, Persian Heritage 9 (35) As if to prove that refuting such charges is child’s play, an eighteen year old boy Adib Masumian has written a book doing so entitled Debunking the Myths (Lulu:2009.) Unfortunately such refutations cannot be made in the Iranian press where these charges are usually repeated. [8] Eliz Sanasarian , “The Comparative Dimension of the Baha’i Case and Prospects for Change in the Future”, in Brookshaw; Fazel, Seena B., The Baha’is of Iran: Socio-Historical Studies, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2008), p. 159. [9] Al-Milal wa al-Nihal, Ed. William Cureton in Books of Religions and Philosophical Sects. 2 vols. Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz (reprint of the edition of London 1846), vol. 2, p. 11. This story is recounted in numerous Sunni sources, such as the following from ImamAbu Hanifa’s Musnad Imam-e-Azam p. 158: “Abdullah ibn Saba was a Jew who accepted Islam during the time of Uthman and he urged the people of Egypt to kill Uthman and he would exhibit much love for Ali. He was an evil infiltrator and whose mission it was to spread corruption among the Muslims.” [10] Hubert Darke, trans. The book of government, or, Rules for kings : the Siyar al-Muluk, or, Siyasat-nama of Nizam al-Mulk , (Surrey : Curzon Press, 2002) p. 192. [11] Note this description from a Muslim website of Tahirih’s proclamation at the Badasht which separated the early Babis from Islam: “The ruling of Islamic sharee’ah no longer applied and it was permissible for the people – indeed prescribed for them – to share their wealth and women.”http://islamqa.com/en/ref/88689 Accessed June 8, 2009. Tahirih’s proclamation did call for the abrogation of the shariah, but not mention was made of the community of wives and property. [12] http://www.iranica.com/newsite/index.isc?Article=http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v13f1/v13f1005.html, accessed June 10, 2009. [13] ‘Abd-al-Qaher Bagdadi, al-Farq bayn al-feraq, ed. Mohammad Badr, (Cairo, 1910), p. 270. [14] Al-Gharib, Wa ja’a dawr al-majus, [Then came the Turn of the Maajus] p. 296, from the internet edition available at www.d-sunnah.org [15] Al-Gharib, Wa ja’a dawr al-majus, p. 78 [Above paper was presented at 2009 CESNUR Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 11-13, 2009]

Here are 3 quotations from Baha'i teachings about Zionism, which refute the charge that Baha'is are Zionists:

Shoghi Effendi's statement to the "United Nations Special Committee on Palestine", 14th July 1947, which is still the official position of the Baha'i community today (The Priceless Pearl, p. 286):

"The Bahá'í Faith is entirely non-political and we neither take sides
in the present tragic dispute going on over the future of the Holy Land
and its peoples nor have we any statement to make or advice to give
as to what the nature of the political future of this country should be.
Our aim is the establishment of universal peace in this world and our
desire to see justice prevail in every domain of human society, including
the domain of politics. As many of the adherents of our Faith
are of Jewish and Moslem extraction we have no prejudice towards
either of these groups and are most anxious to reconcile them for their
mutual benefit and for the good of the country.

What does concern us, however, in any decisions made affecting
the future of Palestine, is that the fact be recognized by whoever
exercises sovereignty over Haifa and Acre, that within this area exists
the spiritual and administrative center of a world Faith, and that the
independence of that Faith, its right to manage its international affairs
from this source, the right of Bahá'ís from any and every country of
the globe to visit it as pilgrims (enjoying the same privilege in this
respect as Jews, Moslems and Christians do in regard to visiting
Jerusalem), be acknowledged and permanently safeguarded."

http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/simple-solution-to-troubles-in-middle.html
This web page quotes an article from "Star of the West" Baha'i magazine which quotes 'Abdu'l-Baha as saying:

"If the Zionists will mingle with the other races and live in unity with them, they will succeed. If not, they will meet certain resistance. For the present I think a neutral government like the British administration would be best. A Jewish government might come later.
"There is too much talk today of what the Zionists are going to do here. There is no need of it. Let them come and do more and say less.
"The Zionists should make it clear that their principle is to elevate all the people here and to develop the country for all its inhabitants. This land must be developed, according to the promises of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zechariah. If they come in such a spirit they will not fail.
"They must not work to separate the Jews from the other Palestinians. Schools should be open to all nationalities here, business companies, etc. The Turks went down because they attempted to rule over foreign races. The British are always in power because they keep fair and promote harmony.
"This is the path to universal peace here as elsewhere -- unity. We must prevent strife by all means. For 6,000 years man has been at war. It is time to try peace a little while. If it fails, we can always go back to war."



"The accusation: That Bahá’ís are agents of Zionism.

The reality: This charge is based on the fact that the Bahá’í World Centre is in Israel. The Bahá’í World Centre was, however, established on Mt. Carmel in the 19th century, long before the State of Israel came into existence, in accordance with the explicit instructions of Bahá’u’lláh, who was exiled there from Iran."