Re: “The World Religion A summary of Its Aims, Teachings and History by SHOGHI EFFENDI
The Baha'i Studies Listserv Very good and thank you John. Have notated my file accordingly. By the time I became a Baha’i, this statement had long disappeared, having been replaced by the 1947 statement subsequently published as a stand alone piece. This we know about. On 9 July 47, he received a letter from the chairman of United Nations Special Committee on Palestine requesting a statement on the relationship which the Bahá'í Faith had to Palestine and the Bahá'í attitude towards any future changes in the status of the country. His reply was dated 15 July 47, and a portion of the cover letter were published in BW and not made part of the statement published as a pamphlet. That letter is as follows as published in Ruhiyyih Khanum’s 1988 book, “The Guardian of the Baha’i Faith” [which is similar but not identical to “The Priceless Pearl.] What is interesting about this letter is how he distances the Faith from any political involvement or activity, a position echoed during the 1948 war when he was the only Haifa area non-Jewish religious leader to not leave the country. Don C Mr. Justice Emil Sandstrom, Chairman, United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. Sir: Your kind letter of July 9th reached me and I wish to thank you for affording me the opportunity of presenting to you and your esteemed colleagues a statement of the relationship which the Baha' Faith has to Palestine and our attitude towards any future changes in the status of this sacred and much disputed land. I am enclosing with this letter, for your information, a brief sketch of the history, aims and significance of the Bahá'í Faith, as well as a small pamphlet setting forth its views towards the present state of the world and the lines on which we hope and believe it must and will develop. The position of the Bahá'ís in this country is in a certain measure unique: whereas Jerusalem is the spiritual center of Christendom it is not the administrative center of either the Church of Rome or any other Christian denomination. Likewise although it is regarded by Moslems as the spot where one of its most sacred shrines is situated, the Holy Sites of the Muhammadan Faith, and the center of its pilgrimages, are to be found in Arabia, not in Palestine. The Jews alone offer somewhat of a parallel to the attachment which the Bahá'ís have for this country inasmuch as Jerusalem holds the remains of their Holy Temple and was the seat of both the religious and political institutions associated with their past history. But even their case differs in one respect from that of the Bahá'ís, for it is in the soil of Palestine that the three central Figures of our religion are buried, and it is not only the center of Bahá'í pilgrimages from all over the world but also the permanent seat of our Administrative Order, of which I have the honor to be the Head. 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. The Sepulchre of the Bab on Mt. Carmel, the Tomb of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in that same spot, the Pilgrim Hostel for oriental Bahá'ís in its vicinity, the large gardens and terraces which surround these places (all of which are open to visits by the public of all denominations), the Pilgrim Hostel for western Baha's at the foot of Mt Carmel, the residence of the Head of the Community various houses and gardens in Acre and its vicinity associated with Bahá'u'lláh's incarceration in that city, His Holy Tomb at Bahji, near Acre, with His Mansion which is now preserved as a historic site and a museum (both likewise accessible to the public of all denominations), as well as holdings in the plain of Acre — all these comprise the bulk of Baha' properties in the Holy Land. It should also be
Re: The World Religion A summary of Its Aims, Teachings and History by SHOGHI EFFENDI
The Baha'i Studies Listserv The Faith of Bahá'u'lláh: A World Religion This summary of the origin, teachings and institutions of the Bahá'í Faith was prepared in 1947 for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine by Shoghi Effendi in his capacity as Head of the Bahá'í Faith. Haifa, Palestine July, 1947 The Faith established by Bahá'u'lláh was born in Persia about the middle of the nineteenth century and has, as a result of the successive banishments of its Founder, culminating in His exile to the Turkish penal colony of'Akká, and His subsequent death and burial in its vicinity, fixed its permanent spiritual center in the Holy Land, and is now in the process of laying the foundations of its world administrative center in the city of Haifa. Alike in the claims unequivocally asserted by its Author and the general character of the growth of the Bahá'í community in every continent of the globe, it can be regarded in no other light than a world religion, destined to evolve in the course of time into a world-embracing commonwealth, whose advent must signalize the Golden Age of mankind, the age in which the unity of the human race will have been unassailably established, its maturity attained, and its glorious destiny unfolded through the birth and efflorescence of a world-encompassing civilization. Restatement of Eternal Verities Though sprung from Shi'ah Islam, and regarded, in the early stages of its development, by the followers of both the Muslim and Christian Faiths, as an obscure sect, an Asiatic cult or an offshoot of the Muhammadan religion, this Faith is now increasingly demonstrating its right to be recognized, not as one more religious system superimposed on the conflicting creeds which for so many generations have divided mankind and darkened its fortunes, but rather as a restatement of the eternal verities underlying all the religions of the past, as a unifying force instilling into the adherents of these religions a new spiritual vigor, infusing them with a new hope and love for mankind, firing them with a new vision of the fundamental unity of their religious doctrines, and unfolding to their eyes the glorious destiny that awaits the human race. The fundamental principle enunciated by Bahá'u'lláh, the followers of His Faith firmly believe, is that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the non-essential aspects of their doctrines, and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society. To Reconcile Conflicting Creeds The aim of Bahá'u'lláh, the Prophet of this new and great age which humanity has entered upon - He whose advent fulfils the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments as well as those of the Qur'an regarding the coming of the Promised One in the end of time, on the Day of Judgment - is not to destroy but to fulfill the Revelations of the past, to reconcile rather than accentuate the divergencies of the conflicting creeds which disrupt present-day society. His purpose, far from belittling the station of the Prophets gone before Him or of whittling down their teachings, is to restate the basic truths which these teachings enshrine in a manner that would conform to the needs, and be in consonance with the capacity, and be applicable to the problems, the ills and perplexities, of the age in which we live. His mission is to proclaim that the ages of the infancy and of the childhood of the human race are past, that the convulsions associated with the present stage of its adolescence are slowly and painfully preparing it to attain the stage of manhood, and are heralding the approach of that Age of Ages when swords will be beaten into plowshares, when the Kingdom promised by Jesus Christ will have been established, and the peace of the planet definitely and permanently ensured. Nor does Bahá'u'lláh claim finality for His own Revelation, but rather stipulates that a fuller measure of the truth He has been commissioned by the Almighty to vouchsafe to humanity, at so critical a juncture in its fortunes, must needs be disclosed at future stages in the constant and limitless evolution of mankind. Oneness of the Human Race The Bahá'í Faith upholds the unity of God, recognizes the unity of His Prophets, and inculcates the principle of the oneness and wholeness of the entire human race. It proclaims the necessity and the inevitability of the unification of mankind, asserts that it is gradually approaching, and claims that nothing short of the transmuting spirit of God, working through His chosen Mouthpiece in this day,
Re: The World Religion A summary of Its Aims, Teachings and History by SHOGHI EFFENDI
The Baha'i Studies Listserv At 04:30 PM 1/25/2014, Don C wrote: I recently found an old pamphlet entitled The World Religion A summary of Its Aims, Teachings and History by SHOGHI EFFENDI Guardian of the Bahá'i Faith as reprinted Jan 1941. The first two paragraphs from the statement appear inside the back cover of each issue of The Journal of Baha'i Studies, which is probably where people are most likely to have encountered it. I see that there is a reference to the statement on the Lincoln, Nebraska Web site, where they refer to it as having been written in 1933: http://www.lincolnbahai.org/Content/BahaiFaith.php Following up on that I noticed that a single phrase from the statement scientific in its method,[121] is referred to in: Shoghi Effendis The Dispensation of Baháu'lláh: A Theology of the Word by Jack McLean Published in Lights of Irfan, Volume 9, pages 239-280 (Wilmette, IL: Irfan Colloquia, 2008) This document is also online as a formatted PDF; download from irfancolloquia.org/79/mclean_proactive. http://jack-mclean.com/articles/shoghi-effendis-dispensation-of-bahaullah/#_edn121 The footnote (121) indicates the origin of the statement as: [121] Shoghi Effendi, letter of June 1933 to the High Commissioner of Palestine. Extract from Compilation of Letters and Extracts of Writings From the Guardian Published in the Baháí News of the United States (December 1924 November 1934), no. 85. This letter provides a cogent summary statement of the teachings of the Baháí Faith. -- Likewise, the first two paragraphs are also referred to in a compilation on Science and Technology put together by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice: http://bahai-library.com/compilation_science_technology And the source is again identified as: (June 1933, from a letter written by Shoghi Effendi to the High Commissioner for Palestine) - The entire statement is also online, but without identification of its source, at: http://bahairesearch.com/english/Baha'i/Authoritative_Baha'i/Shoghi_Effendi/Summary%20Statement%20-The%20World%20Religion.aspx Possibly this rendering has its origins with the pamphlet that you found. John B. __ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:arch...@mail-archive.com Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-738670-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to ly...@list.jccc.edu Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:bahai-st@list.jccc.edu Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.net New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.edu
