Sen, I understood your point to be that since the Bayan permitted bigamy
for a childless couple, the Baha'i Faith does also; and that the Master
did not ultimately come down on the matter specifying monogamy. I may
have misunderstood. I really am all in favor of analysis of the
teachings and using our rational faculties. What I didn't see in your
approach using the Bayan, was using the guidance of the Guardian and the
House; and a conclusion that, using the Bayan, maybe there are
circumstances when monogamy is not the Baha'i law.
That the laws in the Bayan are closely connected with the laws in the
Aqdas is clear, and is explicit in one of the quotes I provided from the
House of Justice from the Introduction to the Aqdas.
My personal understanding is that only when Baha'u'llah specifically
endorses a law from a previous Dispensation, such as the Zakat and the
Qur'an, or the Badi Calendar established by the Bab, or the
specification of the Qiblih, is parsing of the specific wording from the
prior Book appropriate. My impression is that Baha'u'llah's endorsement
of the law of the Qiblih in the Bayan was explicit and not implicit, as
was His endorsement of the Quranic law of the Zakat; and since He
accepted these laws by reference, then it's appropriate to do a close
analysis of the wording in the Quran and Bayan. It's further my
impression that the House has always identified this in the Notes to the
Aqdas where appropriate; and that for other laws of the Aqdas having
Babi or Muslim antecedents what is in the Bayan and Qur'an is
interesting, but not binding, and not determinative of the meaning of
the verse in the Aqdas.
As to the source of the provision that two witnesses must witness the
marriage vow, perhaps instead of the source of this being an implicit
importing of the law from the Bayan, this is an extension of the verse
in the Aqdas that two reliable witnesses must witness the beginning and
end of the year of patience (Q&A 73), and also the end of a marriage by
the death of a spouse, (K67). Since Baha'u'llah also states in the
Aqdas that the "justness" of witnesses is not dependent on their being
Baha'is (Q&A 79), this may also be the source of the House of Justice'
statement that the witnesses to a Baha'i marriage need not be Baha'is.
So the law Baha'u'llah specifies for the end of the marriage is also
applied to the beginning of the marriage. Maybe that's it.
Brent
Sen & Sonja wrote:
On 2 Jan 2008 at 6:23, Brent Poirier Attorney wrote:
However, I have never seen either the Guardian or the House of Justice
perform an analysis of the law of the Bab, to determine what the
meaning of a law of Baha'u'llah was.
This is a good point, but then, there are only a few places where
Shoghi Effendi closely analyses texts from Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-
Baha to determine what the Bahai law is. The electoral law is one
case, certainly, (Bahai Administration, p. 41) but there are not many
like it. And in that case, he makes whatever he advises for the NSA
subject to later review and alteration by the Universal House of
Justice. The sparcity of examples of legal reasoning based on the
Bayan -- or the Bahai writings -- is in part because the Guardian
considered the making of Bahai laws to fall in the UHJ's sphere, not
the Guardian's:
Though the Guardian of the Faith has been made the permanent head of
so august a body he can never, even temporarily, assume the right of
exclusive legislation. (The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 149)
However what about the law of the Qiblih? The law and its explanation
are given in the Persian Bayan, and more briefly in the Arabic Bayan.
The obligatory prayer says to "turn to God" and the Q&A explains this
means the Qiblih, and the Aqdas says that after his death we should
turn to the spot God has made the centre -- but what text tells us
that the Qiblih is wherever the Manifestation is, during his life,
and his burial place after death? Isn't it the Bayan (in Persian
Bayan 5:1 for example)? It seems that Baha'u'llah, the Master, Shoghi
Effendi and the UHJ all refer to the Bayan, directly or indirectly.
It is true there is no extended argumentation on the point, but this
is not needed: it is such a simple matter.
Shoghi Effendi writes that, in the Aqdas, Baha'u'llah "'fixes the
Qiblih" God Passes By, p. 214). If we look for a verse in the Aqdas
that says where the Qiblih is, all we find is "turn your faces
towards the Spot that We have ordained for you." Yet for Shoghi
Effendi, this is 'fixing the Qiblih' -- and I think this is because
the two texts and two systems of law are so intertwined, in Shoghi
Effendi's thinking, that he sees nothing odd about saying something
is in the Aqdas when in fact it is in the Bayan. This is exactly
analogous to the way I read the law on monogamy: Shoghi Effendi says
it is prescribed in the Aqdas, but the actual text is found in the
Bayan (and it prescribes monogamy not in so many words but rather by
delimiting one permissible exception).
I think that despite the Tablets Sen has quoted from the Master, the
entire issue of bigamy is settled by the Guardian's statement that the
Aqdas prescribes monogamy,
I am not arguing with this !! Not one jot or tittle. I accept it 101%
and more.
What I have tried to answer is the question which, logically, has to
come next: just *how* does the Aqdas prescribe monogamy, when the
text apparently allows two wives and Abdu'l-Baha has specifically
said that he has not changed this law? Answering this question does
not detract at all from the fact that what Shoghi Effendi says is an
authoritative interpretation.
I think that the Aqdas prescribes monogamy by means of an abbreviated
reference to the Bayanic law. That's just my explanation, but is
there any other explanation available? Some people will just believe
"without asking how or why", and that's well and good for them. Most
people have a critical rational faculty. They look at what Shoghi
Effendi says in God Passes by, and compare it to the text of the
Aqdas, and they get mightily puzzled. Such puzzles in moderation are
an intellectual stimulus, but they can also be a real test of faith
for many. My providing an intellectual answer to the puzzle should
not be read as an attack on the "faith" solution: faith and reason
are complements, not competitors.
As for whether the UHJ ever uses the Bayan to get a fuller
understanding of what the Bahai law is, the simple thing to do would
be to ask them. I can think of one example that goes even further
back: to the Quran. In Islamic law the dowry is paid to the bride,
not to the bride's family, and it becomes her personal property. I
don't think I've seen anywhere in the writings of Baha'u'llah or
Abdu'l-Baha or Shoghi Effendi that explains that the dowry is paid to
the bride (although it is implicit in Messages to the Indian
Subcontinent, p. 275), yet the House of Justice writes that "The law
of Bahá'u'lláh abolishes all such variants and converts the dowry
into a symbolic act whereby the bridegroom presents a gift of a
certain limited value to the bride." (Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 208) In its
list of currently binding law it includes "the payment of a dowry by
the groom *to the bride* on marriage." (Letter of July 1 1996).
So far as I know (my knowledge on this is limited), the Bayan also
does not specify that it is the bride who receives the dowry. But it
is explicitly stated in the Quran, in surah 4 vs 4, and somewhat
indirectly in Surah 2 vss 236-7. This is one example of the
usefulness of knowing about the Islamic "institutions and
circumstances that are directly connected with ... the laws revealed
by [Baha'u'llah]. (Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, p.
49)
Similarly the marriage law in the Aqdas does not specify what verse
is to be said at the wedding, or that there must be witnesses present
(in Shiah law this is not required). When asked, Baha'u'llah
explained that the verse is "We wil all verily abide by the will of
God" (Q&A 3). This is simply a quote from the Arabic Bayan 6.7. No-
one thought to ask Baha'ullah if witnesses were required (or the
question is unrecorded), but Persian Bayan 6.7 adds "there must be
witnesses present on both sides." Are we to suppose that, because
the Aqdas does not specify witnesses, that part of the Bayan is
abrogated ? But the House of Justice writes "According to the
explicit text of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, both the bride and groom must, in
the presence of witnesses, recite the prescribed verse... (to the
National Spiritual Assembly of Norway, May 23, 1985) and in the same
letter it says that there must be "at least two witnesses." I could
be wrong, but I think this information has been derived from the
Bayan: the pointer in the Aqdas is an endorsement of the explanation
of the law, and its details, given in the Bayan.
I could go on, but you can see how closely the Bahai law and the
Bayan are woven together. We have to read them together, but with
close attention to the earlier and the later, the abrogated and the
obrogating. The Aqdas has priority: Islamic and Babi law is abolished
unless confirmed. The point is also made by the Bab in the Persian
Bayan 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5, and no doubt elsewhere. But there is also
the point of the basic continuity of revelation, each revelation
being contained in that which follows it.
The most important point, for me, is not the continuity of the law,
or the details of the marriage law, but the principle that we can use
reason, imperfect though it is, to try to understand the Bahai
teachings.
Sen
Sen McGlinn
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When, however, thou dost contemplate the innermost essence of things,
and the individuality of each,
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