Thank you very much for informing me about what languages the Central
Figures understood and knew, in the real world. it is very helpful to
me, because I did not know.
On Dec 28, 2004, at 2:32 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I'll attempt to answer some of these (leaving opinion out of my reply
til Susan makes comment)
1. The Bab and Baha`u'llah spoke Persian on a day-to-day basis.
Neither one was particularly trained in Arabic though both showed a
remarkable facility for their use of Arabic. Training young men in
Arabic in those days (in Persian speaking countries - Farsi was widely
spoken as a lignua franca in several dialects), was rather cursory -
kind of like training young Jews to read enough Hebrew for their Bar
Mitzvah's. One was supposed to be able to read the Qur'an, but
training was perfunctory, especially for Baha`u'llah who was brought
up as a noble where reading and writing were secondary to the ability
to ride a horse and use a sword. The Bab was a merchant and had
equally perfunctory training in Arabic.
The Bab created a very impressive linguistic style in Arabic, many
found it hard to read, but many others found it fluent and beautiful.
Baha`u'llah was favorably compared to many Arabic and Persian poets.
2) Abdu'l Baha spoke Arabic, Persian and Turkic with fluency. His
world travels must have taught him some smatterings of English and
French, but he always used interpreters in his discourse with
westerners. Shoghi Effendi was trained in Arabic and Persian, Turkic,
English and French, attending western schools in the Holy Land and
eventually attending the best universities in England. As to his
command of English, I have seen a course sylabus for teaching English
literature written by non-Native speakers and Shoghi Effendi is used
as a prime fine example of non-fiction and philosophy written in
English by a non-native speaker and uses Joseph Conrad (a Pole) as its
best example in the writing of fiction. Some find Shoghi Effendi's
writings in English to be very complex, but it is hard to fault his
use of the language by style and grammar usage of his time.
3) The Maiden is a symbol of Revelation for Baha`u'llah. The Bab saw
the severed head of Husayn speak. Muhammed was visited by Gabriel. A
dove appeared to symbolized divine Revelation for Jesus. Moses heard
the burning bush speak. Are these actual physical apparitions? I doubt
it. They are apparitions of the Will of God making itself physically
manifest to the Manifestations.
4) I think prophecies are to be viewed on several levels
simultaneously. To think of prophecies only on the concrete level is
to limit one's understanding. Literalists of whatever sort are only
trying to understand a small part of the Message of the Messengers.
This is true whether studying the prophecies of Christ or the
prophecies of Baha`u'llah.
5) The Manifestations are privy to the Will of God and His
Omniscience, each and every One of them equally. However, part of
Their obedience to the Will of God is that They revealed only what God
bid Them reveal. Jesus was speaking the literal truth when He said: "I
have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now."
Regards,
Scott
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