If you want to say that Bahais are not currently persecuting Muslims or that Bahais are currently defending the rights of Muslims I have no interest in trying to refute what you are saying. I really do think that is great. I have had good interactions with the Bahais I've actually met face to face and with many of the Bahais I've "met" online. I'm not trying to say that you are bad people.
But I still feel that people in here are just ignoring the parallels which I've pointed out and not addressed them at all.
For example here is a paper I just found online on Christian anti-semitism.
And it points out how Christian anti-semitism appears very early on, and can even be found in Biblical passages. It has a strong theological component, it predates the crusades, and is not just based on economics. A major touchstone for anti-semitic sentiment is the charge that Jews were behind the plot to kill Christ, who for Christians wasn't just a man but was God in person.
The obvious parallel from the Bahai side is that Muslims were guilty of persecuting and killing not just one but two Manifestations of God.
Let me just go back to what Hasan said:
Dear friends,
When reflecting on the causes of millennial suffering of Jewish and connecting it to Biblical prophecies, one found some historical concordances. In this Dispensation, could this suffering apply to Muslims? If we gather the facts related to the Babí and Bahá'í Faiths, a similar or worse situation could happen, even if we only take into account the suffering caused to the persons of the Twin Manifestations and not the social, spiritual and moral consequences for not accept the Message.
Thanks, Hasan
PS. Does the suffering of Manifestations caused by a particular group of people (religion, sect, etc.) is a real reason which causes suffering to the entire world (including innocent people)?
This quote of the Guardian is related to this issue:
Islam, at once the progenitor and persecutor of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, is, if we read aright the signs of the times, only beginning to sustain the impact of this invincible and triumphant Faith. We need only recall the nineteen hundred years of abject misery and dispersion which they, who only for the short space of three years persecuted the Son of God, have had to endure, and are still enduring. We may well ask ourselves, with mingled feelings of dread and awe, how severe must be the tribulations of those who, during no less than fifty years, have, "at every moment tormented with a fresh torment" Him Who is the Father, and who have, in addition, made His Herald--Himself a Manifestation of God--to quaff, in such tragic circumstances, the cup of martyrdom.
(28 March 1941, written by Shoghi Effendi to the Bahá'ís of the World, published in The Promised Day Is Come (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1980), pp. 99-100) [3]
http://bahai-library.com/?file=compilation_holocaust_greater_plan
I'm not saying Hasan is an evil person. But the idea that an entire religious group should be punished for the actions of a small group of its members is a real difficulty. Doesn't anyone see that? The idea that Jews today should be held responsible for the sins of Jews 2000 years ago has been a major source of Christian anti-semitism. And the parallel which is set up in the above passage is suggesting that Muslims now and in the future will be punished (and so are somehow guilty) of the actions of some Muslims towards Bahaullah in the past. So the above passage suggests that if Muslims continue to suffer in the world in various ways, that from a Bahai perspective, such suffering is deserved because Muslims persecuted Bahaullah.
Peace
Gilberto
