UNCORRECTED OCR

	See the pdf scan of this book at jack-mclean.com/books/revisioning-the-sacred


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STUDIES IN THE
BABI AND BAHA'I RELIGIONS
VOLUME EIGHT
REVISIONING THE SACRED:
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON A
BAHA'I THEOLOGY.

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STUDIES IN THE BABI AND BAHA'I RELIGIONS
(formerly Studies in Babi and Baha'i History)
Anthony A. Lee, General Editor
Studies in Babi and Baha'i History, Volume One,
edited by Moojan Momen
From Iran East and West: Studies in Babi and Baha'i History,
Volume Two, edited by Juan R. Cole and Moojan Momen
In Iran: Studies in Babi and Baha'i History, Volume Three,
edited by Peter Smith
Music, Devotion, and Mashriqu'l-Adhkcir: Studies in Babi and Baha'i
History, Volume Four, by R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram
Studies in Honor of the Late Hasan M. Balyuzi: Studies in the Babi
and Baha'i Religions, Volume Five, edited by Moojan Momen
Community Histories: Studies in the B6bi and Baha'i Religions,
Volume Six, edited by Richard Hollinger
Symbol and Secret: Qur'an Commentary in Baha'u'llah Kitcib-i
jqcin: Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions, Volume Seven by
Christopher Buck
Revisioning the Sacred: New Perspectives on a Bah2i Theology:
Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions, Volume Eight, edited by J.
A.McLean.

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    [ Picture ]

THE ENTRANCE TO THE SHRINE OF BAHA'U'LLAH
The resting place of the prophet and founder of the Baha'i Faith and
The most holy spot in the Baha'I world, at Bahji, Israel

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STUDIES IN THE
BABI AND BAHA'I RELIGIONS
VOLUME EIGHT
General Editor
ANTHONY A. LEE
REVISIONING THE SACRED:
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON A
BAHA'I THEOLOGY
Edited by
J. A. MCLEAN
KALIMAT PRESS
Los ANGELES

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Copyright 0 1997 by Kalimat Press
All Rights Reserved
First Edition
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
(Revised for vol. 5)
Studies in Babi and Baha'i history.
Vol. 5 has title: Studies in the Babi and Baha'i religions.
Includes bibliographies.
Contents: v. 1 [no title&v. 2. From Iran east and west/
edited by Juan R. Cole and Moojan Momen-[etc.l-v.
8. Revisioning the Sacred: New Perspectives on a
Baha'i Theology I edited by J. A. McLean.
1. Baha'i Faith-History. 2. Babism-History.
I. Momen, Moojan. II. Series.
BP 330.578 1982 297'.9'09 83-227
ISBN o-933770-16-2 (v. 1)
ISBN O-933770-95-2 (v. 8, cloth)
ISBN 0-933770-96-O (v. 8, paper)

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This volume is dedicated to
Udo Schaefer
for his outstanding contribution in helping to break the
ground some forty years ago and for his present labors.

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction
J. A. McLean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . xi
. . . . . . . . . . . . . x111
The Baha'i Principle of Religious Unity:
A Dynamic Perspectivism
Dunn J. May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Background and Centrality of Apophatic
Theology in Babi and Baha'i Scripture
Stephen N. Lambden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Baha'u'llah and Liberation Theology
J u a n R .I .C o l e ..................................... 7 9
The Spiritual Foundations of Science
Anjam Khursheed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Interreligious Dialogue and the Baha'i Faith:
Some Preliminary Observations
SeenaFazel........................................ 1 2 7
Hermes Trismegistus and Apollonius of Tyana
in the Writings of Baha'u'llah
Keven Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Promises to Keep: Thoughts on an Emerging Baha'i Theology
J .A .M c L e a n ......................................, 1 8 9
B i b ~o g r a p h y ....................................... 2 1 7
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In today's world, any theology, Baha'i or other, is viewed as hav-ing
virtually no significant impact on thought, culture, or conduct.
Yet, in theological and comparative studies of religion, more common-ly
called today "global theology," unsuspected resources lie as yet
untapped to help form a world consciousness based on the on-going
elaboration of common ethical ties, spiritual life styles, and shared
beliefs. Global theology, moreover, can certainly assist in building
bridges between the ever-shrinking intellectual shores of East and
West and thereby facilitate cross-cultural communication. Religious
Studies also contain an as yet undeveloped peace component that can
significantly contribute to a pacific mindset, not only among the
world's great religions, but also within the larger secular community.
In this light, Anthony A. Lee and Payman Afsharian deserve the
first vote of thanks for their willingness to venture to publish Baha'i
works of a theological nature. Without their continued support, the
achievements in Baha'i Studies of the English-speaking community
would not have received as wide a notice. I thank also all the scholars
who recognized the value of producing such a book and who were con-cerned
enough to contribute to its publication. It has been a pleasure
collaborating and corresponding with all of you over these past two
years throughout the several tasks that have led to this volume.
I mention here again Dr. Udo Schaefer to whom this volume is ded-icated,
as a serious promoter of Baha'i theology over the past four
decades. Dr. Schaefer recognized some forty years ago the necessity of
an independent Baha'i theology and has dedicated his ensuing years to
the publication of a number of works to that end. Udo Schaefer, like
other scholars who share the same outlook, has long since realized that
the Baha'i Faith cannot come to be recognized as a distinct and inde-pendent
world religion without a distinctive theology. Moreover, every
scholar who contributes to this emerging field is worthy of mention.
This is the first multi-authored volume dedicated to the under-standing
of Baha'i theology per se as a free-standing discipline with-in
Baha'i studies. It is my hope that this work will help attract the

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attention of Baha'i theologians in the making and the wider notice of
scholars of religion. My aim is to perpetuate the sacred study of reli-gion
in a Baha'i context so that in the twenty-first century it might
continue to thrive and take its rightful place alongside the great the-ological
traditions of the sister religions of the world.

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INTRODUCTION
The publication of Revisioning the Sacred: New Perspectives on a
Baha'i Theology has provided a group of scholars with an opportunity
to collaborate on a publication that presents some current issues in
emergent Baha'i theology. The Baha'i scholars of religion appearing in
this volume are among those living in the last two decades of the
twentieth century, years that may well prove to be a historic turning
point for the development of the sacred study.
I say historic for three reasons. The first is that although Baha'i
theology is still in a formative stage, it is nonetheless beginning to
demonstrate certain characteristic features and a recognizable voice
of its own. The second is that these articles, although they could not
hope in one volume to adequately depict the whole field, nonetheless
represent some of the preoccupations of the current generation of
Baha'i scholars of religion. These writings reflect selected concerns
and styles of the present period. Third, the Study of Religion Seminars
held under the auspices of The Association for Baha'i Studies in
English-speaking Europe and also in North America have been instru-mental
in helping to form a small but dedicated group of scholars who
have by now acquired the skills, and in some cases the professional
training, to do exegesis and to write thoughtfully on theology and the
history and comparative study of religion. The following essays reflect
some of these acquired skills.
It is worth noting that the modest but steadily growing accom-plishments
achieved thus far in the field have been made in large part
without the advantages enjoyed by scholars in the more ancient tradi-tions
and institutions of the other great religions of the world. While
the Baha'i sacred writings shed much light on both ancient questions
and contemporary issues, there is as yet no centuries-old tradition of
theological and philosophical reflection on the Baha'i revelation upon
which to draw. Indeed, there are some who still reject the validity of the
whole notion of Baha'i theology itself, however broadly and carefully
one defines the concept. The work of the present generation of scholars
is consequently still very much ground-breaking, and I hope this vol-ume
will help water the seed bed that is now beginning to flourish.

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Since the Baha'i Faith is a religion without professional clergy,
nothing resembling Baha'i divinity schools has been established and
only a restricted number of Baha'i scholars has thus far had formal
academic training in the study of religion. An even smaller number is
teaching religious studies at university and of these very few are in
the envious position of being able to teach university-accredited cours-es
on the Baha'i Faith. Lectureships and courses on the Baha'i Faith
have been established only during the past decade within selected
departments of religion, a significant accomplishment that augurs
well for future developments. At this time, several Baha'i scholars of
religion work professionally in fields unconnected to the academic
study of their faith. Consequently, these scholars have had to rely to
a large extent on their own resources to promote critical studies of the
Faith of Baha'u'llah.
Fortunately, the Study of Religion Seminars or Special Interest
Groups of the Associations for Baha'i Studies mentioned above have
provided a much-needed and valuable focus for research and formal
presentations, as well as providing avenues for publication of scholar-ly
articles. Although scholars of religion have had to work in less than
favorable conditions to further their aims, their competence and dedi-cation
have lead to the publication of instructive works. With the pub-lication
of The Baha'i Studies Bulletin (1982) and more recently Abhci:
A Journal of B&-Baha'i Studies (U.K.) edited by Stephen Lambden
and The Baha'i Studies Review (1990) under the auspices of the
Association for Baha'i Studies for English-speaking Europe with Seena
Faze1 acting as current co-editor, periodicals devoted to studies of the
Baha'i religion have been established, although both World Order and
more recently The Journal of Baha'i Studies CABS-North America)
have published occasional articles on specifically religious themes.
Another significant development worthy of mention is the estab-lishment
of the Baha'i Studies lectures at the American Academy of
Religion begun by Anthony Lee and Susan Maneck in 1984 and whose
current secretary is Robert Stockman. Although the name of the
group, now called Baha'i Studies Colloquy, has changed several times,
the activities of this group provides an important venue for the
exchange of ideas relating to Baha'i religious studies.
In a recent article, Seena Fazel, using the technique of citation analy-sis,
has pointed to a significant increase in the output of articles

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related to the specifically religious aspects of the Baha'i Faith in the
years 1988-1993.1 Yet unfulfilled tasks still beckon the scholar of the
Baha'i religion. The systematic "Baha'i theologian" has yet to
emerge-if indeed that were possible in the postmodern and post-sys-tematic
age into which we have slipped-and a number of fundamen-tal
Baha'i teachings have suffered from neglect. Some eighty-five
years (to 1996) after ÔAbdu'l-Baha's proclamation in pastor R. J.
Campbell's nonconformist City Temple in London on September 10,
1911 of the oneness of religion as "the gift of God to this enlightened
age,"2 there is still no major scholarly work in Baha'i perspective on
this most vital theme, which along with the oneness of humanity, is
the most distinctive and characteristically Baha'i teaching. Neither is
there yet any major scholarly work on progressive revelation, one of
the grand themes of Baha'u'llah's preeminent doctrinal work the
Kitab-i Iqan (The Book of Certitude), although Christopher Bucks
recent work Symbol and Secret: Qur'an Commentary in Bahcfi'u'lltih's
Kit&b-i 1qqQn (Kalimat Press, 1995) provides a focused scholarly dis-cussion
of the Islamic references in Baha'u'llah's work of "unsur-passed
pre-eminence." Rather than enumerate the gaps that current-ly
exist in Baha'i studies of religion, I refer the reader to Stephen
Lambden's instructive article that argues for the pressing need of
Baha'i theology to fill several vacuums.3
In a volume dedicated to the study of Baha'i theology, it would be help-ful
to allude briefly to certain parameters of the field. Theology, at least
in its Christian versions, has for centuries been associated with an
oppressive dogmatism. The reemergence of fundamentalism in recent
times can be viewed as an on-going manifestation of the dogmatic
mindset in another guise. Of course, it would not be true to assert that
the dogmatic mentality generally prevails in religious studies today.
We are hardly living in the age of the great dogma, but rather in a post-dogmatic
age. Postmodernism and especially, today's current intellec-tual
fashion, deconstructionism, are dedicated to the overthrow of
authoritarian systems, be they theological or other. To say, however,
that Baha'i theology is non-dogmatic-at least in the Christian sense
of the word-does not derive from a respect for the postmodern temper
of the times. It is rather because the Baha'i Faith simply declines to
give institutional sanction to the opinions of individual scholars as
being normative and binding, however authoritative or cogent their

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arguments may be. Baha'i scholarship is, moreover, dedicated to cre-ativity
and diversity, which mitigate against monolithic thinking, and
while it defends and preserves the integrity of those teachings
enshrined in Baha'i scripture, it respects the right of the individual to
a full expression of his or her views.
It would not be entirely true, however, to maintain that there is
no sense of a qualified "dogmatic" authority in the Baha'i Faith. While
Adolf von Harnack (l&51-1930), proponent of Albrecht Ritschl's liber-al
Protestant theology, in his classic seven-volume Dogmengeschichte
(The History of Dogma),4 came to view dogmas as oppressive fabrica-tions
that obscured the purity of the Gospel message, he maintained
nonetheless that the meaning of dogma in the primitive church was
that of a revealed truth.5 This thought, I think, can be applied to the
kerygmatic theology of Shoghi Effendi, which, as a theology of the
Word proclaims, interprets, and hands down the truths of
Baha'u'lMr's and ÔAbdu'l-Baha's writings. It does not easily escape
one's notice that the certitude of Shoghi Effendi's doctrinal interpre-tations
speak with the very clear voice of the charismatic authority of
his office as Guardian of the Baha'i Faith. In this sense, and to use
George Santayana's apt phrase, the word dogmatic is not entirely an
outmoded "term of reproach."
I view the shape of emerging Baha'i theology, which I define loose-ly
here as critical reflection on the specifically religious content of the
Word of God, as being outlined by three subdisciplines: exegesis, crit-ical
apologetics, and philosophical theology. I highlight here a few
points from this last statement.
First, any Baha'i theology must be firmly text-rooted. The Word of
God, Baha'u'llah tells us, is the celestial city6 and it is first and fore-most
to that city that we must direct our steps in order to discover the
worlds of inner meaning and outer significance. Baha'u'llah says:
Please God, that we avoid the land of denial, and advance into the ocean
of acceptance, so that we may perceive, with an eye purged from all con-flicting
elements, the worlds of unity and diversity, of variation and one-ness,
of limitation and detachment, and wing our flight unto the highest
and innermost sanctuary of the inner meaning of the Word of God.7
Second-and this is the more liberal side of Shoghi Effendi's theolo-gy-
Baha'i theo1 ogy must correlate its findings with other world reli-gions
and systems of thought. Correlation is a method that one may

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view as a kind of theology in its own right, for it includes dialogue and
rapprochement as well as making correspondences or, when neces-sary,
disjunctures of the Baha'i Faith and classical or more mod-ernistic
philosophical, theological, or spiritual issues, and just as
importantly, movements. Third, Baha'i theology should remain with-in
the borderlands of theology and philosophy. For it is clear from even
the most cursory reading of Baha'i sacred scripture that Baha'i Holy
Writ embeds at source a variety of philosophical concepts. Fourth, I
return to the point made above that Baha'i theology should strive to
avoid the oppressive noise of dogmatism and invite diversity without
scattering to the four winds those teachings which are clearly and dis-tinctly
its own.
But it is above all the substance or content of the Baha'i sacred
writings that defines what makes for a distinctive Baha'i theology.
While gathering up and stating the essential of certain primordial
teachings from antiquity and anticipating at the same time questions
of modernity, the Baha'i writings touch on a great variety of themes:
the old question of "the one and the many" (unity and diversity), the
prophetic teaching of the apophatic godhead, the ethical mission of the
prophets, the nature of faith, progressive revelation, the relativity of
religious truth, the spiritual oneness of the world's great religions, the
indwelling names and attributes of God,8 the role of religion as a prog-enitor
of cultures and civilizations, spiritual anthropology in the form
of an interaction of soul, mind, body, and spirit, and of course, spiri-tuality
which is the living expression of faith, and spirituality's
friends, prayer and mysticism. These are just some of the Baha'i
Faith's more outstanding teachings which will lend themselves hand-ily
to the further development of Baha'i theology.
/ i While the articles that follow reflect the preoccupations of the present,
i they also have implications for the future. For the outstanding Baha'i
thinkers who will no doubt emerge in the twenty-first century will
either develop further some of the questions and dialectical styles rep-resented
here, or they will take Baha'i theology in other directions,
determining another discourse and raising and answering other ques-
tions. But the basic task of the Baha'i theologian will always remain
the elucidation of "the teachings," and Shoghi Effendi has said that:
"Teaching is of course the head cornerstone of all Baha'i service. . . ."g
The insights of every Baha'i scholar, theologian or other, will result.. . .

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from a close, prayerful, and faithful reflection upon the Baha'i sacred
writings. In the twenty-first century, the Baha'i Faith must continue
to make good its birthright and fulfill its great potential as a signifi-cant
unifier of the world's great religions, one of the exciting promis-es
of its sacred scriptures. In this task, Baha'i theology has no mean
part to play.
NOTES
1. Seena Fazel, "Baha'i Scholarship 1988-1993: An Examination Using
Citation Analysis," a paper presented at the Seminar on Baha'i Studies,
Bedfordshire, U.K., 6-8 January 1995. Citation analysis is widely used as a
quantitative tool to assess the influence, significance, and impact of research in
a field. In his study, Faze1 determined which books, articles, and authors were
most frequently cited in publications on the Babf-Baha'i religions appearing in
both Baha'i &nd non-Baha'i academic periodicals in 19881993. These results
were compared with the citation data from 1978-1983. The emerging theme in
the later years is Baha'i theology, compared with the situation between
1978-1983 when history dominated the most cited list of publications.
2. ÔAbdu'l-Bah& in London, p. 19. The talk in City Temple on September
10, 1911 was ÔAbdu'l-Baha's first in the West. The talk was given on the first
Sunday after ÔAbdu'l-Baha's arrival in England. "He spoke from the City
Temple pulpit to the evening congregation at the special desire of the Pastor,
the Reverend R. J. Campbell" (ÔAbdu'Z-Bahd in London, p. 17).
Reginald John Campbell (1867-1956) became famous in the first decade
of the twentieth century as an unorthodox preacher and proponent of the con-troversial,
so-called "New Theology." In The New Theology, Campbell opposed
what he viewed as antiquated dogmatic theology. Without being a pantheist,
Campbell took a very immanentist view of God in the universe and in human-ity
and following the absolute idealists argued for a unity in multiplicity.
Campbell reinterpreted the basic Christian doctrines of the fall, atonement,
the person of Christ in less absolute, more metaphysical terms, and greatly
reduced the historical uniqueness of Christ. He also embraced socialism as a
means of inaugurating the Kingdom of God on earth.
3. "Doing Baha'i Scholarship in the 1990's: A Religious Studies
Perspective," The Baha'i Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 2, (1994), pp. 59-80.
4. Translated by Neil Buchanan from the third German edition (London:
Williams and Norgate, 1897).
5. ". . . for according to the conception of the church, dogma can be noth-

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ing else than the revealed faith itself." (History of Dogma, Vol. 1, p. 9)
Harnack makes the same point on p. 15.
6. Kitctb-i iqcin, p. 199.
7. Kitcib-i jqdn, p. 160.
8. This question was systematically elaborated by Hegel's contemporary,
the philosopher Karl C. F. Krause (1781-1832) as panentheism.
9. The full quotation is: "Teaching is of course the head cornerstone of all
Baha'i service, but successful teaching is dependent upon many factors, one of
which is the development of a true Baha'i way of living and the fulfilment of
responsibilities which we have incurred." (From a letter dated 3 June 1952,
written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, in The
Compilation of Compilations, Vol. II, p. 317)

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DIVINE REVELATORS


   [ LIST / CHART ]



POPULAR CHART OF PROGRESSIVE REVELATION
Included in the well-known Baha'i pamphlet One Universal Faith


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THE BAHA'I PRINCIPLE OF RELIGIOUS
UNITY: A DYNAMIC PERSPECTIVISM
Dunn J May
Every religion, according to ÔAbdu'l-Baha, has a particular focus,
a central theme or vision that both grounds and informs all of its doc-trines,
teachings, and laws. For the Baha'i Faith, this central theme
"is the consciousness of the oneness of mankind."1 The theological
foundation and key prerequisite for the realization of the oneness of
humanity is the Baha'i principle of the essential unity of the world's
religions. According to ÔAbdu'l-Baha, the Baha'i principle of religious
unity is "the cornerstone" of the oneness of all people and the very
foundation for its realization in the world of human affairs.2
Baha'u'llah asserts, moreover, that the fundamental purpose of reli-gious
faith "is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the
human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst
men."3 The principal reason that the necessity of religious unity must
lie at the heart of the oneness of humankind rests in the conviction
that religious faith is the sole basis from which people will find the
necessary motivation, devotion, and vision to accomplish truly global
fellowship among the peoples of the world. Wilfred Cantwell Smith is
typical of many religious thinkers around the world who have recog-nized
the role of faith in such an undertaking:
The task of constructing even that minimum degree of world fellowship
that will be necessary for man to survive at all is far too great to be

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accomplished on any other than a religious basis. From no other source
than his faith, I believe, can man muster the energy, devotion, vision, res-olution,
capacity to survive disappointment, that will be necessary-that
are necessary-for this challenge.4
Since the Baha'i Faith would recognize its own aims and objectives in
this line of reasoning, it should come as no surprise when Shoghi
Effendi asserts that:
The fundamental principle enunciated by Baha'u'llah . 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 nonessential aspects of their doctrines, and that their
missions represent successive stages in the spiritual development of
human society.5
Thus, while the oneness of humankind is the "pivotal principle" and
central vision of the Baha'i Faith, its realization rests on the doctrine
of religious unity.
The Baha'i principle of religious unity may be unique in the his-tory
of revealed religion. Unlike other post-revelational theologies, it
is one of several foundational doctrines of the Baha'i Faith whose
source is to be found within its own sacred writings rather than in
interpretation and commentary. 6 Indeed, there is no lack of clear
scriptural references to this important principle in the Baha'i canon.
In fact, an entire volume of Baha'u'llah's sacred writings, the K&b-i
f&n (The Book of Certitude), has the concept of religious unity as one
of its central themes.
One becomes aware, however, of a noticeable gap when one begins
to review the theological literature written by Baha'i scholars on the
topic of religious unity. It seems that the principle of religious unity is
so central to the Baha'i Faith, so obvious and compelling that little
serious writing has been done on the subject and the potential prob-lematic
nature of the unity paradigm has been scarcely addressed by
Baha'i scholars. Hatcher and Martin's The Baha'i Faith: The Emerg-ing
Global Religion (19841, intended to serve as a textbook on the
Baha'i Faith, devotes only three pages to the principle of religious
unity.7 The welcome recent exception is Udo Schaefer's instructive

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essay "Baha'u'llah's Einheitsparadigma und die Konkurrenz religios-er
Wahrheitsanspruche" title translated as Beyond the Clash of
Religions. The Emergence of a New Paradigm (1995), which sets out
the Baha'i interpretation of religious unity as the new paradigm of the
age, while at the same time accounting for religious diversity.8
The Baha'i doctrine of religious unity raises a number of questions.
In those writings where the principle of religious unity is mentioned it
is often unclear what the Baha'i writings intend by such phrases as
"the religions of God," "all religions," "the divine religions," or "all the
Prophets." Do such phrases mean what Muslims intend by the term
ahl al-kit&, literally "the people of the Book" (i.e., Jews, Christians,
Muslims, and perhaps Zoroastrians)? Most often, the only examples
cited in the Baha'i corpus are from these traditions. In fact, in the
sacred writings of the Bab and Baha'u'llah, these are the only religious
traditions mentioned, although ÔAbdu'l-Baha's authoritative interpre-tations
of Baha'u'llah's writings state that the Buddha originally estab-lished
the oneness of God and a new religion.9 Or do such phrases also
include the religious traditions of Asia (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism,
Sikhism, Chinese religions, and so on) since these faiths are occasion-ally
mentioned in the writings of ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi, and the
Universal House of Justice? Or does the Baha'i view also include the
vast and varied so-called tribal or indigenous traditions of the world?
In any case, such generic terms raise questions about the very real and
profound differences that exist between the various religious tradi-tions,
let alone those differences that exist within each one.
Another possible hermeneutic approach may be that what is
intended by such phrases is not to be taken literally but symbolically.
This raises the further question of whether the Baha'i view is a
descriptive statement about the world's religions or a symbolic one
lacking any cognitive content. Is the Baha'i view an assertion about
the true nature of religion, or a symbolic or mythological statement,
designed to provide a coherent worldview in order to foster better rela-tions
between Baha'is and the people of other faiths? Despite the exis-tence
of many capable Baha'i scholars around the world, answers to
these questions have not been worked out in any detail.
EXEGESIS OF IMPORTANT TERMS AND PHRASES
A fuller understanding of the Baha'i principle of religious unity
rests significantly on the understanding and interpretation of key

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Baha'i phrases. Since Baha'i scriptural terminology is in large part
derived from Islamic theology, the exegesis that follows will depend
heavily on Islamic sources.
Initially we may ask how the phrases "all religions" and "all the
Prophets," both of which are employed in the Baha'i scriptures to refer
collectively to the world's religions and their founders, are to be inter-preted.
These phrases, together with other similar ones such as "the
divine religions" or "the religions of God," are the usual English trans-lations
of the corresponding Arabic or Persian terms. The phrase "all
religions" is the English translation of the Arabic al-adyan kullihu
and the Persian jumi'-yi udyun.10 Adyun is the plural of din, the
Arabic and Persian word for "religion," while kullihu and jumi are the
Arabic and Persian words for "all. "I1 Islamic sources define din as
"Ôreligion' in the broadest sense," thus, it "may mean any religion" or
even religious knowledge as opposed to intellectual knowledge; but it
is primarily used in the Qur'an to refer to "the religion of Islam" (din
al-Islam).12 When other religions are mentioned in the Qur'an, the
Arabic word milla (lit., "religion" or "sect") is used. However, this
meaning is now largely obsolete in the Arabic speaking world.l3
Nevertheless, the phrase "all religions" and its variants are still
unclear, for it is not immediately obvious what religious traditions are
intended by such phrases.
As a partial clarification of the question, it may be said that the
authoritative writings of ÔAbdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi do include
the names of other religions. For example, in the letters written in
English on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, there are references made to the
"nine existing religions," those being the Baha'i Faith, the religion of
the Bab (Babism), Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, and the religion of the Sabians. While Shoghi
Effendi recognizes the problematic and controversial nature of such a
list, he does not consider these nine religions as "the only true reli-gions
that have appeared in the world."14 In fact, other religious
groups (e.g., Confucians, Sikhs, and Native Americans) are positively
mentioned in Baha'i canonical literature.15 Furthermore, within the
Baha'i scriptures, the number nine is symbolic for completeness or
wholeness because it is seen as the completion or culmination of the
single digit numbers.16 Consequently, the use of the phrase "nine exist-ing
religions" can be interpreted metaphorically to refer to all religions.
The obscure reference to the Sabians as one of the "nine existing
religions" is cryptic. However, an analysis of this term will shed some

+P5

light on what the Baha'i writings intend by such phrases as "all the
religions." The Sabians (Arabic: Sabi, pl. Sabi'un) are first mentioned
in the Qur'an (259, 5:73, and 22:17), but their identity has long been
problematic.17 The Qur'an identifies the Sabians, along with the Jews
and the Christians (and by implication, the Zoroastrians) as ahl al-K&
b, those who have received revealed scriptures. Islamic sources
identify at least two distinct groups associated with the term Sabians:
(1) the Mandaeans or Subbas, a Judeo-Christian sect practising the rites
of baptism in Mesopotamia (i.e., Christian followers of John the Baptist);
(2) The Sabaeans of Harran, a pagan sect which survived for a consider-able
period under Islam.Ô8
A clear identification of the Sabians is further hampered by the
fact that many groups, upon encountering Islam, often claimed adher-ence
to the Sabian religion mentioned in the Qur'an in order not to be
put to the sword and to benefit from the quranic privileges and the
protection associated with the ahl al-KitQb. Furthermore, sympathet-ic
Muslims frequently employed the term upon encountering peoples
of diverse religious faiths including Mazdaens in Mesopotamia and
Iran, Samaritans in Palestine, Buddhists and Hindus in India, and
followers of tribal religions in East Africa.lg Despite the confusing use
of the term, Christopher Buck, employing an historical methodology
based on the use of both Muslim and Christian sources, persuasively
argues that the original quranic Sabians were southern
Mesopotamian peoples (i.e., Mandaeans and Elchasaites) practising
various purification rituals.20 In summing up the problems associated
with the term, Buck concludes:
Exactly because it was imprecise, the word sabi'un functioned as a term
of great legal importance by contributing to an attitude of toleration
towards minority religions under Muslim rule. The term evolved from a
once-specific designation to a classification which, adapted to ever new
historical contexts, expanded its meaning to embrace peoples of otherwise
uncertain standing, giving them a place of security within a Quranically
sanctioned framework.zl
Accordingly, the designation "Sabians," as it is used in the Islamic
world, appears to be inclusive in nature, and may thus be used by
Baha'is as a reference to any religion not specifically mentioned in the
Qur'an. Moreover, since the term Sabians was applied to so-called

+P6

"pagan" groups (i.e., religions other than Christianity, Judaism, or
Islam; or religions that predate them) its use may best be interpreted
as symbolically referring to all ancient, tribal, or indigenous religions.
This interpretation would make viable an alternative interpretation
of the Baha'i listing of the "nine existing religions," since tribal or
indigenous religions, which claim some 112 million people world wide,
are rarely mentioned otherwise.22
In the Baha'i scriptures, the phrases "all the Prophets" or "all the
Prophets of God" are often used to refer collectively to various
prophets or, to use the Baha'i term, "Manifestations" (Arabic: mazhar,
"manifestation" of the essence of God), those extraordinary individu-als
who initiated and founded the various religious traditions.23 Such
phrases are the English translations of the Persian jumi' unbiyck
Anbiyci. is the plural of the Arabic and Persian word nabi, meaning a
prophet, that is, one "whose mission lies within the framework of an
existing religion" (e.g., Ezekiel or Isaiah), as opposed to a rustil
("Messenger" or "Envoy," pl. rustil), one "who brings a new religion or
major new revelation," such as Christ or Muhammad.24 This distinc-tion
between a rustil and a nubi has been recently challenged by
Seena Faze1 and Khazeh Fananapazir in their essay "A Baha'i
Approach to the Claim of Finality in Islam,"25 which contains a good
analysis of these and other related terms. It should be noted, howev-er,
that ÔAbdu'l-Baha uses a similar terminology to distinguish
between what he terms the "independent" and "dependent" prophets.
The independent prophets are those who bring new laws and claim a
new revelation (e.g., Moses, Christ, Muhammad, and Baha'u'llah)
while the dependent prophets are those who work within an existing
religious tradition (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Confucius).26
According to the British scholar of religion, Geoffrey Parrinder,
the Qur'an mentions twenty-eight prophets and messengers by
name-including many of those mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and
Christian New Testament. 27 The Qur'an, however, does not seem to
limit their number to twenty-eight. In fact, it indicates that there
have been countless prophets sent throughout the history of the
human race. For many of these prophets, the details of their lives are
lost in the mists of ancient history and prehistory. Concerning these
prophets, the Qur'an states:
We did aforetime send Messengers [rustill before thee: of them there are
some whose story we have related to thee, and some whose story we have

+P7

not related to thee. (Qur'an 40:78)
And there never was a people without a warner [nadhir] having lived
among them. (Qur'an 85:24)2s
No doubt, on this basis, later Islamic theologians and scholars
increased the number of prophets well beyond twenty-eight. Indeed,
even in the ha&h, the collected sayings of Muhammad, the number
of prophets is symbolically said to be 124,000, a number so large as to
both dazzle the imagination and prevent humanity from claiming that
it was not adequately warned of universal judgment.29
Like the Qur'an, the Baha'i scriptures contain the names of
numerous prophets and messengers. To be precise, at least thirty-two
prophets are mentioned by name in the Baha'i writings, twenty-three
of which are identical to those mentioned in the Qur'an. A significant
difference about the prophets named in the Baha'i writings is that,
whereas the Qur'an names only prophets associated with Abrahamic
heritage, the Baha'i scriptures include "prophets" or founders of reli-gion
from Asian cultures, Zoroaster (Zarathustra), the Buddha,
Confucius, and Krishna.
Also, like the Qur'an, the Baha'i writings do not limit the number
of these individuals to thirty-two. Thus, the Bab declares: "God hath
raised up Prophets and revealed Books as numerous as the creatures
of the world, and will continue to do so to everlasting."30 This would,
theoretically at least, make the number of prophets practically infi-nite,
or at the very least, even larger than the highest numbers men-tioned
in Islam. In fact, Shoghi Effendi, while quoting from the writ-ings
of Baha'u'llah, asserts that:
From the "beginning that hath no beginning," these Exponents of the
Unity of God and Channels of His incessant utterance have shed the light
of the invisible Beauty upon mankind, and will continue, to the "end that
hath IZO end," to vouchsafe fresh revelations of His might and additional
experiences of His inconceivable glory. To contend that any particular
religion is final, that "all Revelation is ended, that the portals of Divine
mercy are closed, that from the daysprings of eternal holiness no sun shall
rise again, that the ocean of everlasting bounty is forever stilled, and that
out of the Tabernacle of ancient glory the Messengers of God have ceased to
be made manifest" would indeed be nothing less than sheer blasphemy.31

+P8

Clearly then, the Baha'i writings recognize the existence of vast
numbers of Manifestations who have appeared in all cultures
throughout the history of the human race. Thus, given such refer-ences,
the phrase "all the Prophets" is best interpreted as broadly and
as open-endedly as possible. Such an interpretation would include all
known historical prophets, messengers, and founders of the world's
religions, whether of the past, present, or future, together with all
those whose identity has now been lost. Similarly, the phrase "all reli-gions"
should also be interpreted in the widest possible context to
include all known existing religions together with those that are no
longer practiced.
TRANSCENDENT UNITY
According to the Baha'i Writings, the nature of reality is ulti-mately
a unity, in contrast to a view that would postulate a multiplic-ity
of differing or incommensurate realities. In other words, the
nature of truth is unitary and not pluralistic. In a talk delivered in
New York City in December 1912, ÔAbdu'l-Baha stated that "oneness
is truth and truth is oneness which does not admit of plurality."32 In
a similar vein, during a talk in Paris in October 1911, ÔAbdu'l-Baha
stated that "Truth has many aspects, but it remains always and for-ever
one."33
The Baha'i principle of the unity of religions is grounded on this
basic conception of the oneness of reality (al haqq). This principle, so
frequently discussed in the Baha'i sacred writings, asserts that a com-mon
transcendent truth not only lies above the varying and divergent
religious traditions but also is their ultimate source and inspiration.
For example, the Bab claims in The Book of Names (Arabic: Kit6i
Asmci) that "every religion proceedeth from God, the Help in Peril, the
Self-Subsisting," while Baha'u'llah, in referring to the religions of the
world, writes that "these principles and laws, these firmly-established
and mighty systems, have proceeded from one Source, and are rays of
one Light."34 In the most direct and concise passage on the subject,
Baha'u'llah maintains that the revelation that each Manifestation or
Messenger of God receives "is exalted above the veils of plurality and
the exigencies of number."35 Finally, in the Kitab-i Aqdas, Baha'u'llah
even refers to God as "the Lord of all Religions."36
It should be clear from the passages quoted above that the
Baha'i principle of religious unity affirms the existence of a common

+P9

transcendent source from which the world's religious traditions origi-nate
and receive their inspiration. As such, the Baha'i view is remark-ably
similar to the thought of Frithjof Schuon, a Swiss metaphysician
and Sufi mystic who persuasively argues for what he terms the "tran-scendent
unity of religions," which he claims lies at the very heart of
every religious tradition. 37 Like the Baha'i Faith, Schuon holds that
the religions of the world originate from the same ultimate source.
"The Divine Will," writes Schuon, "has distributed the one Truth
under different forms or, to express it in another way, between differ-ent
humanities. "3s Writing on the same subject and in similar lan-guage,
Baha'u'llah insists that:
There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the world, of whatev-er
race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and
are the subjects of one God. The difference between the ordinances under
which they abide should be attributed to the varying requirements and
exigencies of the age in which they were revealed.39
It should be obvious from this reference that Baha'u'llah, like
Schuon, is not affirming that all religions are the same, for he alludes
to the differences among them. Indeed, he claims that the religions of
the world only seem to be dissimilar due to "the varying requirements
of the ages in which they where promulgated."40 In other words, the
apparent differences that exist among the various religious traditions
are due to particular cultural and historical factors.
While this scriptural explanation is a recurrent theme throughout
the Baha'i writings, it is certainly not unique to the Baha'i Faith,
although it significantly predates modern scholastic interpretations.
Such cultural and historical factors have been recognized and dis-cussed
by several scholars of religion. For instance, the philosopher of
religion, Patrick Burke, argues that:
The principle by which religions resemble and differ from one another is
not religious, but cultural. Similarities and differences between religions
are similarities and differences between cultures. . . It is these cultural
elements that confer on any particular religion its distinctive identity. . . .
What appear to be conflicts between religious faiths must be seen then,
first and foremost as conflicts between cultural values.41
Nevertheless, the Baha'i writings are quite explicit that such dif-ferences
are not intrinsic nor innate to the ultimate source of these

+P10

religions. Thus, Baha'u'llah's argument about the Prophets of God is
as follows:
It is clear and evident, therefore, that any apparent variation in the
intensity of their light is not inherent in the light itself, but should rather
be attributed to the varying receptivity of an ever-changing world. Every
Prophet Whom the Almighty and Peerless Creator hath purposed to send
to the peoples of the earth hath been entrusted with a Message, and
charged to act in a manner that would best meet the requirements of the
age in which He appeared.42
THE TWOFOLD NATURE OF EVERY RELIGION
While the Baba'i principle of religious unity does not claim that all
the religions are the same, it does claim that they all share certain fun-damental
and essential features that are distinguished from other
nonessential aspects related to the historical, cultural, and linguistic
context in which each religious tradition develops. Consequently, the
Baha'i writings, while recognizing the existence of religious diversity,
seek to explain it as secondary to an essential transcendental unity com-mon
to all religious traditions. For example, in a talk delivered at the
Church of the Ascension, in New York City, on June 2, 1912, ÔAbdu'l-Baha
presents an often-repeated explanation of the Baba'i view of reli-gious
unity, a view that is known as "the twofold nature of religion":
The religions of God have the same foundation, but the dogmas appear-ing
later have differed. Each of the divine religions has two aspects. The
first is essential. It concerns morality and development of the virtues of the
human world. This aspect is common to all. It is fundamental; it is one;
there is no difference, no variation in it. As regards the inculcation of
morality and the development of human virtues, there is no difference
whatsoever between the teachings of Zoroaster, Jesus and Baha'u'llah. In
this they agree; they are one. The second aspect of the divine religions is
nonessential. It concerns human needs and undergoes change in every
cycle according to the exigency of the time.43
ÔAbdu'l-Baha, both in his writings and in his public presentations,
constantly elaborates these two aspects of religion. For instance, in a
talk delivered at the Foyer de Z'kme in Paris, ÔAbdu'l-Baha argues that:

+P11

All these divisions we see on all sides, all these disputes and opposition,
are caused because men cling to ritual and outward observances, and for-get
the simple, underlying truth. It is the outward practices of religion
that are so different, and it is they that cause disputes and enmity-while
the reality is always the same, and one. The Reality is the Truth, and
truth has no division.44
The Baha'i concept of the twofold nature of religion distinguishes
between two basic aspects held to be characteristic of every religious
tradition: the first is characterized as "essential" or "fundamental"
and refers to spiritual matters, while the second is characterized as
"nonessential" or "accidental" and refers to matters related to the
material or physical world. The essential aspect consists of "funda-mental"
and "universal truths" which are considered to be changeless
and eternal and which constitute "the one foundation of all the reli-gions
of God. "45 These universal truths lie at the core of every reli-gious
tradition and, according to the Baha'i writings, consist of faith
in God (or, in nontheistic terms, ultimate reality), existential truths of
life, the awakening of human potential, and the acquisition of spiritu-al
attributes or virtues.46 Similarly, the philosopher of religion John
Hick underscores the importance of the acquisition of virtues when he
states that "love, compassion, generous concern for and commitment
to the welfare of others is a central ideal" in each of the world's reli-gious
traditions.47
In contrast, the nonessential aspect of religion involves the out-ward
form of religious practice and operates within the sphere of lin-guistic,
cultural, and historical circumstances. ÔAbdu'l-Baha argues
that the "divine religions of the Holy Manifestations of God are in real-ity
one though in name and nomenclature they differ."48 In addition,
the nonessential aspect further consists of the social laws and regula-tions
governing human affairs as well as ritual practices and doctrinal
beliefs, which vary in every age and culture and even within any one
religious tradition, as Wilfred Cantwell Smith has so persuasively
argued.49 For example, most if not all religious traditions stress the
importance of the institution of marriage and the role of the family life,
but they all differ on the particulars of the marriage ceremony, the
rights and obligations of the husband, wife, and children, and the cir-cumstances
under which divorce is granted.
The distinction between the essential and nonessential aspects of
religion is not unique to Baha'i theology. It resembles closely the "form

+P12

versus content" or "accident versus essence" debate over the content of
myth. In his comprehensive four-volume work on mythology, The
Musks of God, Joseph Campbell makes the distinction between what
he calls the local manifestation of myth and ritual within a particular
culture (what the Baha'i writings call the nonessential or accidental
aspects) and the universal aspects (what the Baha'i writings call the
essential or fundamental aspects) which go beyond what is historical-ly
and culturally determined. 50 As with the Baha'i view, it is the local
manifestations of the universal aspects that differ and seem at vari-ance
with one another. This distinction between the essential and
nonessential aspects of religion is also advanced by the historian
Arnold Toynbee. Within every religious tradition, writes Toynbee,
"there are essential counsels and truths, and there are nonessential
practices and propositions."51
FAITH: A COMMON DENOMINATOR
Besides the recognition of a transcendental unity of religions, the
Baha'i writings also emphasize the process of personal transformation
brought about through faith as another unifying factor in all religious
traditions. For this reason, the Baha'i scriptures make a distinction
between institutionalized religion, which involves ritual performance,
traditional practice, and accumulated doctrine, and faith-that deeply
personal attitude, feeling, and inward response of an individual to the
transcendent, a response that usually has a powerful transforming effect
on an individual and expresses itself in outward practice and belief.52
In the Baha'i sacred writings, the Arabic word im6.n is usually
translated into English as the word faith. According to the Islamic
scholar Cyril Glasse, imcin refers to "those articles of belief which are
part of Islam" such as "faith in God, His Angels, His books (revela-tions),
His Prophets, and the Day of Judgement."53 Zmbn is also under-stood
as one of three aspects that make up Islam as religion (din),
those other two being islum (the rites, practices, and laws) and ihsun
(virtue). However, as with the corresponding English terms religion
and faith; the words imbz, islam, and din are often used ambiguously
and interchangeably. Despite such ambiguity, philosophers, theolo-gians,
and scholars of religion often distinguish between the concepts
of faith on the one hand and religion or practice on the other.
Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, often draws a
distinction between faith and religion in his letters to individual

+P13

Baha'is. In such letters, he frequently contrasts those Baha'is "whose
religion is Baha'i," those who merely "accept and observe the teach-ings"
or call themselves Baha'is, from those "who live for the Faith,"
whose lives are transformed, "ennobled and enlightened."54 He fur-ther
clarifies this difference by contrasting "spiritual awareness" (per-sonal
faith) with "administrative procedure" and "adherence to rules"
(institutionalized religion):
The need is very great, everywhere in the world, in and outside the
[Baha'i] Faith, for a true spiritual awareness to pervade and motivate
people's lives. No amount of administrative procedure or adherence to
rules can take the place of this soul-characteristic, this spirituality which
is the essence of man.55
Indeed, Shoghi Effendi characterizes such spiritual awareness as
"that mystical feeling which unites man with God," which, he
declares, is at "the core of religious faith."
For the core of religious faith is that mystic feeling that unites man with
God. This state of spiritual communion can be brought about and main-tained
by means of meditation and prayer. And this is the reason why
Baha'u'llah has so much stressed the importance of worship. It is not suffi-cient
for a believer to merely accept and observe the teachings. He should,
in addition, cultivate the sense of spirituality, which he can acquire chiefly
by the means of prayer. The BahcYi Faith, like all other Divine Religions, is
thus fundamentally mystic in character. Its chief goal is the development of
the individual and society, through the acquisition of spiritual virtues and
powers. It is the soul of man which first has to be fed. And this spiritual
nourishment prayer can best provide. Laws and institutions, as viewed by
Baha'u'llah, can become really effective only when our inner spiritual life
has been perfected and transformed. Otherwise religion will degenerate
into mere organization, and become a dead thing.56
He @3ah8'ullAh] further claims that the fundamental purpose of religions is to
bring man nearer to God, and to change his character, which is of the utmost
importance. Too much emphasis is often laid on the social and economic
aspects of the Teachings; but the moral aspect cannot be overemphasized.57
It is the moral life and the personal response of the individual to
divinity that is considered by Baha'is to lie at the basis of the religious
life, a life that must be transformed through the acquisition of virtues
and the spiritual nourishment of prayer and meditation, and not the

+P14

mere adherence to various doctrines and teachings, nor the pious partic-ipation
in ceremonies and rituals, holidays and commemorations. Thus,
Shoghi Effendi, in a letter written on his behalf to an individual believ-er,
distills the essence of the Baha'i view in the following statement:
Every other Word of Baha'u'llah's and ÔAbdu'l-Baha's Writings is a
preachment on moral and ethical conduct; all else is the form, the chalice,
into which the pure spirit must be poured; without the spirit and the
action which must demonstrate it, it is a lifeless form.58
This distinction between the spirit and the form of religious faith
is also echoed in the words of the great Hindu teacher Sri
Ramakrishna when he pleads:
Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or sects, or churches, or
temples; they count for little compared with the essence of existence in
each, which is spirituality. . . .Earn that first, acquire that, criticise no
one, for all doctrines and creeds have some good in them.59
Thus, it should be clear that when the Baha'i writings declare that
the religious traditions share certain fundamental and essential
aspects, it is primarily the transforming power of faith and its effects
upon the individual and upon society as a whole that is meant. In
other words, it is the religious life itself, the process of transformation
that brings the individual nearer to God or ultimate reality, that is
considered to be an essential feature of every religion. And while the
particular path or outward expression may vary, it is the result or
goal, and the process which leads to it, that are held to be the same.
To take a commonplace analogy: there are many paths and approach-es
that may be used to scale a difficult and challenging mountain (dif-ferences
in technique, equipment used, and so on) but they all share a
common goal: reaching the summit.60 Or, seen from a more philo-sophical
perspective, Hick has effectively argued that
the great world faiths embody different perceptions and conceptions of,
and correspondingly different responses to, the Real or the Ultimate from
within the major variant cultural ways of being human; and that within
each of them the transformation of human existence from self-centred-ness
to Reality-centredness is manifestly taking place-and taking place,
so far as human observation can tell, to much the same extent. Thus the
great religious traditions are to be regarded as alternative soteriological

+P15

"spaces" within which, or "ways" along which, men and women can find
salvation/liberation/ enlightenment/fulfillment.s1
Accordingly, for Hick, while the various religious traditions differ
in terms of their outward expression or linguistic form, in their
attempts to describe and approach "the Real" (al haqq, his general
term for divinity or the absolute), yet they all are involved in a simi-lar
process. No doubt this is what Ramakrishna is referring to when
he suggests:
As one and the same water, is called by different names in different lan-guages,
one calling it "water," another "Vatri," a third "aqua," and a
fourth "Pani," so the one Sachchiclanancla, Absolute Being-Intelligence-Bliss,
is invoked by some as God, by some as Allah, by some as Hari, and
by others as Brahman. . As one can ascend to the roof of a house by
means of a ladder or a bamboo, or a staircase or in various other ways, so
diverse are the ways and means to approach God. Every religion in the
world is one of the ways to reach Him.62
In all of the cases that have been considered thus far, it is termi-nology
and outward practice that are different, while the process, the
conscious and active life of faith and its effects on the individual, is
declared to be common to the various religious traditions. Similarly,
in his influential book The Meaning and End of Religion, W. C. Smith
argues that "faith differs in form, but not in kind. This applies both
within communities and from one community to another."63 In this
work, Smith further argues that while almost all cultures have a word
for faith or its equivalents (i.e., piety, religiosity, or reverence), very
few have a term corresponding to the Western notion of religion as an
empiric a !1 phenomenon-an overt system of principles and practices
separate from other aspects of life. e4 In fact, Smith argues that when
a culture coins a word for "religion" as an overt abstract system, it is
well on its way to losing sight of the importance of faith.
I have pointed out that the Baha'i writings contrast faith with
religion, that system of practices and traditions, rites and beliefs,
which, if followed only in an outward sense, often degenerates into a
mere organization. It is religion as mere organization, devoid of the
transforming power of faith, which the Baha'i writings point to as the
source of so much of the diversity, conflict, and dissension that have so
often characterized the religious traditions of the world. Furthermore,

+P16

the Baha'i concept of religious unity is not some isolated or obscure
notion, since it has its parallel expressions in such diverse thinkers as
Ramakrishna, Hick, Schuon, and W. C. Smith. It is equally clear that
the Baha'i concept is not so much about the existence of similar doc-trines
or beliefs, but rather about the transformation that religion is
capable of effecting in the moral and religious life of an individual-a
life transformed and animated by and through the power of faith.
THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
On strictly empirical grounds, asserts David Tracy, "diversity or
plurality is a fact" of the world in which we live. Moreover, Tracy con-tinues,
"in every discipline it is the sheer plurality of the subject matter
that needs some explanation. "65 This is no less true of philosophy, the-ology,
or religious studies. Indeed, our modern awareness of the tremen-dous
variety manifested by the world's religious traditions has spawned
a wide-ranging interest in the general field of religious pluralism.
The term "religious pluralism" so prevalent today in the writings
of scholars of religion requires a brief explanation. "Pluralism" has at
least two distinct meanings. A first meaning expresses the growing
tendency toward openness, tolerance, and interreligious dialogue
found among many modern religious communities, while a second
meaning takes note of the tremendous diversity found both within
and among the world's religious traditions.66 It is especially within
the context of this second meaning that one may speak of a theology
or even a philosophy of religious pluralism.
Over the centuries, several distinct theories have been propound-ed
to explain the great variety observed in the world's religious tradi-tions,
what Wilfred Cantwell Smith aptly describes as "the arresting
diversity of mankind's faith."67 Such religious diversity is what many
historians of religion call the problem of religious pluralism.
According to Hick, "the term religious pluralism refers simply to the
fact that the history of religions shows a plurality of traditions and a
plurality ofvariations within each."68
TYPOLOGY OF RESPONSES TO RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
In his essay, "Religious Pluralism: The Metaphysical Challenge,"
global theologian Raimundo Panikkar presents a typology of six pos-sible
options for coming to terms with religious pluralism. Panikkar

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divides these options into two broad categories: the first five he groups
under "monistic options" and the sixth he assigns to what he calls the
"non-dualistic option."
(A) Monistic Options: All approaches to the problem of religious
pluralism in which truth is said to be one, either one for all or one
for every single individual.
(1) False Claims: All religions are false because of the falsity
of their claim. There is no such ultimate destiny or Reality.
(2) Subjectivism: Each religion is true because it is the best for
its adherents. Truth is subjective.
(3) Exclusivism: Only one religion is true. All the others are,
at best, approximations.
(4) InclusivismlPrimordial TraditionlPerennial Philosophy:
Religions share a common essence or refer ultimately to the same
truth although in approximations. They all point to Reality and
may all be included in a single world view.
(5) Historical Process I Historical Relativism: Religions are the
products of history and thus are both similar and different accord-ing
to the historical factors that have shaped them.
(B) Non-Dualistic Option
(1) Radical pluralismlPost-Modernism: Each religion has
unique features and presents mutually incommensurable
insights. Each statement of a basic experience is to be evaluated
on its proper terrain and merits because the very nature of truth
is pluralistic.6g
The last four of Panikkar's options are those most often debated in
discussions of religious pluralism. Whereas Panikkar finds fault with
the first five options, he makes a strong case for option six, that of rad-ical
pluralism. While the Baha'i tradition accepts the existence of reli-gious
diversity, it ac_knowledges a common source for the world's reli-gions
and it recognizes certain underlying patterns and trends that
historical and cultural factors both partially obscure and reveal. Thus,
on the surface, the Baha'i principle of religious unity seems to be
inclusivistic, although a more careful examination of this principle
reveals that it incorporates elements of perspectivism and historial
process. I will examine below the Baha'i concept of religious unity in

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light of Panikkar's typology and some contemporary Western theories
of religious pluralism that resemble the Baha'i concept.
THE BAHkf REPUDIATION OF RELIGIOUS EXCLUSIVITY
In using the Baha'i principle of religious unity as a criterium,
three of Panikkar's options can be immediately ruled out. Obviously,
the Baha'i conception of religious unity does not deny the existence of
a divine or ultimate reality. On the contrary, the Baha'i view holds
that the world's religious traditions originate from the same ultimate
reality and, consequently, they all contain certain universal truths. It
should also be obvious that the Baha'i view cannot be considered sub-jectivistic,
since it holds that religious truths, especially those that
concern the nature of ultimate reality, are not simply what I or any-one
else make them out to be. Indeed, Baha'i theology is grounded in
the conception that ultimate reality is completely beyond the compre-hension
of human beings. In a wider discussion of Baha'i theology,
Baha'i scholar J. A. McLean, as does Stephen N. Lambden in the
essay found in this volume, borrows from the Sufi apophatic tradition
to designate this conception of ultimate reality as "Baha'u'llah's nega-tive
theology" of the unmanifested God (God-&hut).70 Given such
considerations, the Baha'i writings address the need for an interme-diary
or Manifestation of God who mediates between the unmanifest-ed
God and humankind and whose primary functions include the rev-elation
of religious truth and the manifestation of divine attributes.
Finally, and most significantly, the Baha'i approach to other reli-gions
is clearly not exclusivistic. Nowhere in the Baha'i corpus of
sacred writings do we find the claim that one and only one religion is
true or correct, to the exclusion of all the rest. Indeed, a central Baha'i
principle related to the oneness of religion is that "religious truth is not
absolute but relative," that it is not static but dynamic and that the
process of "Divine Revelation is progressive, not final."71 In fact,
according to Shoghi Effendi, Baha'u'llah not only rejected the claim of
any religion to be a final revelation, but he also disclaimed the finality
of his own revelation:
Repudiating the claim of any religion to be the final revelation of God to
man, disclaiming finality for His own Revelation, Baha'u'llah inculcates
the basic principle of the relativity of religious truth, the continuity of
Divine Revelation, the progressiveness of religious experience. . . . 72

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The Baha'i repudiation of religious exclusivism is more fully elab-orated
by Shoghi Effendi in his essay "The Dispensation of
Baha'u'llah." Near the end of this powerfully written essay, he
unequivocally asserts:
. . great as is the power manifested by this Revelation and however vast
the range of the Dispensation its Author has inaugurated, it emphatical-ly
repudiates the claim to be regarded as the final revelation of God's will
and purpose for mankind. To hold such a conception of its character and
functions would be tantamount to a betrayal of its cause and a denial of
its truth. It must necessarily conflict with the fundamental principle
which constitutes the bedrock of Baha'i belief, the principle that religious
truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is orderly, con-tinuous
and progressive and not spasmodic or final. Indeed, the categori-cal
rejection by the followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah of the claim to
finality which any religious system inaugurated by the Prophets of the
past may advance is as clear and emphatic as their own refusal to claim
that same finality for the Revelation with which they stand identified.
"To believe that all revelation is ended, that the portals of Divine mercy are
closed, that from the daysprings of eternal holiness no sun shall rise
again, that the ocean of everlasting bounty is forever stilled, and that out
of the tabernacle of ancient glory the Messengers of God have ceased to be
made manifest" must constitute in the eyes of every follower of the Faith
a grave, an inexcusable departure from one of its most cherished and fun-damental
principles.73
BAHA'I INCLUSIVISM: GUARDING AGAINST
OVERSIMPLIFICATION
Several writers of histories of religion have characterized the
Baha'i view as inclusivist. For instance, in her textbook Living
Religions, Mary Pat Fisher mentions the Baha'i Faith as one of sever-al
examples of inclusivism. While Huston Smith does not use the term
in The World's Religions, a revised version of his popular textbook The
Religions of Man, his discussio_n of the Baha'i Faith would clearly
place it in this category.74 There is also what appears to be direct
scriptural evidence within the Baha'i writings to support an inclu-sivist
label. ÔAbdu'l-Baha has written:
The Baha'i Cause is an inclusive movement; the teachings of all religions
and societies are found here. . . .The Baha'i message is a call to religious

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unity and not an invitation to a new religion, not a new path to immortal-ity.
God forbid! It is the ancient path cleared of the debris of imaginations
and superstitions of men, of the debris of strife and misunderstanding.75
ÔAbdu'l-Baha claims that the Baha'i Faith is not simply another
religion, but "the ancient path," which his father, Baha'u'llah,
describes as "the changeless Faith of God [Arabic: din AMhI, eternal
in the past, eternal in the future."76
By reading these and other passages in isolation from the vast and
overall context of the Baha'i sacred writings, one may find superficial
support for characterizing the Baha'i Faith as inclusivistic. However,
the inclusivist label is far too simplistic. It does not adequately
describe the complex, subtle, and multi-faceted Baha'i position, espe-cially
as it is developed by Baha'u'llah in such works as the Kitab-i
Iqan. Indeed, the Baha'i Faith continually frustrates such easy and
simplistic classifications. For example, while Baha'i theology might be
described by some as liberal or conversely even radical, its strict moral
standards might be characterized by others as conservative. While the
Baha'i view does incorporate what might be considered to be inclu-sivistic
elements, these elements must be understood in their rela-tionship
with other well-known Baha'i principles such as the concept
of "the relativity of religious truth," the admonition to foster and pre-serve
"unity in diversity," and the notion that the religions of the
world are involved in a dynamic historical process, what Baha'is call
"progressive revelation."
Modifications of the inclusivist position include perspectivist theo-ries
of religious pluralism, of which John Hick's theory, as he presents
it in his recent book An Interpretation of Religion, is typical.77 Hick's
perspectivism is grounded on the Kantian distinction made between
noumenon and phenomenon, between an entity an sich ("in itself") as
unperceived by anyone, and an entity as perceived by human beings.
Consequently, Hick makes a distinction between ultimate reality an
sich and ultimate reality as experienced and perceived by different
religious traditions.78 Hick categorizes these varying perceptions into
two broad categories: (1) the Real (Hick's general term for the
absolute) understood as a deity or god, and as having a divine persona
(e.g., Yahweh, Shiva, Vishnu, Ahura Mazda, Allah, God the Father,
the Great Spirit, and so on), and (2) the Real understood as a non-per-sonal
Absolute, or as the ground of being, or as the animating force in
the universe (e.g., the Taoist conception of the Tao, the varying.1
3

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Mahayana Buddhist conceptions ofdharma, shunyata, or nirvana, the
Advaita Vedanta conception of Brahman, or the Chinese understand-ing
of Tien).
Armed with this distinction, Hick contends that the various
understandings of ultimate reality propounded by the religions of the
world are not incommensurate views but differing perspectives of the
same reality. Accordingly, since reality is understood from a host of
differing perspectives, we find among the world's religious traditions,
a plurality of perceptions about reality. In summarizing his own posi-tion,
Hick writes that "the great world faiths embody different per-ceptions
and conceptions of, and correspondingly different responses
to, the Real or the Ultimate from within the major variant cultural
ways of being human."79
Having dealt with diverse understandings of ultimate reality,
Hick proceeds to explain the apparent differences in metaphysical,
cosmological, and eschatological conceptions of the world's religions by
viewing all such matters as within the domain of what he calls "myth,
mystery and unanswered questions."80 For example, the doctrine of
reincarnation, so essential to the religious traditions of India (e.g.,
Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism), is conspicuously absent
from the so-called Western religions (e.g., Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, and Baha'i). Hick accounts for this difference by noting that it
is the literal understanding of reincarnation that divides these tradi-tions.
However, if reincarnation is understood as a powerful
metaphor, as myth, the differences between these two great religious
traditions collapses. In Hick's words:
The doctrine of reincarnation is seen by some as a mythological way of
making vivid the moral truth that our actions have inevitable future con-sequences
for good or ill, this being brought home to the imagination by
the thought that the agent will personally reap those consequences in a
future earthly life.81
Hick makes similar arguments for the Christian doctrines of the
incarnation and resurrection'of Christ. Hick contends that all such
exclusive sounding religious doctrines are susceptible to being interpret-ed
metaphorically. This being the case, the exclusive character of all
such apparent differences that arise from these doctrines would collapse,
according to Hick. The allure of such an approach is indeed appealing.

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On all of these matters, the Baha'i concept of religious unity is
essentially the same as Hick's.82 Indeed, the Baha'i writings are filled
with examples of how such doctrines as reincarnation, or the incarna-tion
and resurrection of Christ, or the claim that Muhammad is the
Seal of the Prophets, may be metaphorically interpreted in such a way
as to lose their exclusive character. In other words, it is the literal
interpretation of such doctrines, and not the doctrines themselves
that results in the traditionally exclusive tone found in many religious
traditions. For example, in ÔAbdu'l-Baha's discussion of the resurrec-tion
of Christ, it is not the doctrine itself that is rejected, but rather
the traditional literal interpretation of the resurrection story that is
called into question.83 Some might object to this line of reasoning, cit-ing
ÔAbdu'l-Baha's and Shoghi Effendi's clear rejection of reincarna-tion.
84 Given HickÔs mythological interpretation of this and other such
doctrines, could it not be argued that it is the literal understanding of
such doctrines that is rejected in the Baha'i writings? Such a theolog-ical
stance has obvious advantages since it removes, or at least
lessens, the exclusive nature of such doctrines while honoring their
profound mythological content.
Since it is very similar to Hick's perspectivist view, the Baha'i
principle of religious unity is more appropriately characterized as a
type of perspectivism. Baha'i perspectivism differs from Hick's insofar
as his appears to operate in one direction only: from human beings to
ultimate reality. The Baha'i conception, however, operates in both
directions: from human beings to the Absolute and from the Absolute
to human beings. In other words, not only do human beings have dif-ferent
perspectives of God or ultimate reality but, according to the
Baha'i writings, God or ultimate reality also adapts or accommodates
the understanding of Itself to the different historical periods and cul-tures
of the world. Thus, implicit in the Baha'i principle of religious
unity is the concept that religious truth is relative, that divine reve-lation
is uniquely suited and adapted to the age, culture, and stage of
human development in which it appears. For example, in referring to
the various religions of the world, Baha'u'llah asserts that
every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine
Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the
circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.85
That they differ one from another is to be attributed to the varying
requirements of the ages in which they were promulgated.86.i

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This concept is hardly unique to Baha'i theology; similar notions
have been advanced by a number of thinkers. For example, in a recent
essay, Rabbi Daniel Polish argues that God's revelation is
. . conditioned by the circumstances and situations of each of the peoples
to whom such disclosure was made. The one God is seen as having
addressed each people in terms appropriate to that people. The various
religious traditions are understood as the records and elaborations of
those disclosures, in the languages, forms, symbols and constructs appro-priate
to each of the groupings of humankind.87
To summarize, the Baha'i principle of religious unity is perspec-tivism
with a twist. The conventional meaning of perspectivism
involves various responses to or perspectives of divinity made by the
adherents and theologies of the world's religions. However, Baha'i
perspectivism also entails the varying responses of the Absolute to
humankind. In other words, a mutual process or hermeneutical circu-lation
exists between religious communities and the Absolute;
between the ever-evolving perspectives of divinity and religious truths
on the one hand, and the adaptation of those truths by that same
source of divinity or ultimate reality to particular societies and tradi-tions
on the other. Baha'i perspectivism incorporates a human-divine
interaction similar to what W. C. Smith observes about religious com-munities
the world over:
. . . each of these processes has been and continues to be a divine-human
complex. To fail to see the human element in any would be absurd; to fail
to see the divine element in any would . . . be obtuse. (To fail to see the
interrelatedness of all is, I suggest, old-fashioned.)88
The Baha'i approach to religious pluralism further parts ways
with Hick over his assertion that the phenomenon of religion, in all
its worldwide diversity, is best understood from a family resemblance
model, after the usage of Ludwig Wittgenstein.89 In this conception
of religion, there are no essential characteristics, no common princi-ples
that every religion must have; there is no collective essence, no
essential core, no sure foundation upon which all religions either
share, agree in principle, or are founded upon. Instead, according to
Hick, there is a continuum of characteristics "distributed sporadical-ly
and in varying degrees which together distinguish" the family of
religious traditions from other families such as political movements
or philosophical schools of thought.90

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In contrast, the Baha'i view asserts the very things that a family
resemblance model would deny: namely, that there are certain essen-tial
characteristics that all religions share. In this view, the religions
of the world are "as differing species of the same genus," to borrow an
insightful analogy from W. C. Smith.ol For example, under the genus
Felis falls a wide variety of cats, including both wild and domestic
species. Despite differences in size, geographic distribution, and cer-tain
behaviors, all cats share many common characteristics such as
their predatory behavior, carnivorous diet, and general physical
appearance, which includes that most catlike of all features-whiskers-
and, as any cat-lover well knows, an appealing aloofness.
The world's religious traditions are understood in a similar way.
While the religions of the world vary greatly, they share, according to
the Baha'i conception, certain fundamental features including their
common origin and their emphasis on the ability of faith to transform
an individual profoundly.
With the preceding analogy in mind, it should be clear that the
Baha'i principle of religious unity is best characterized as a type of
perspectivism similar to the theory advocated by Hick. Baha'i per-spectivism,
does not, however, incorporate, as Hick's does, a family
resemblance model. On the contrary, the Baha'i view clearly holds
that behind the seeming diversity of the world's religions there exist
certain unifying features that they all have in common. For this rea-son,
as I have already argued, the Baha'i view also shares certain sim-ilarities
with the concept of the "transcendent unity of religions,"
which Schuon so persuasively argues. The Baha'i view is also similar
to what Huston Smith terms the "primordial tradition."92 All these
views have in common the assertion that behind the seeming diversi-ty
of the world's religious traditions lie both a common origin and cer-tain
universal truths.
In pulling together the various lines of my argument so far, it is
readily apparent that the Baha'i principle of religious unity is best
characterized as a modified inclusivist position that incorporates a
perspectivist understanding of religious pluralism. This analysis is
not complete, however, for the Baha'i view also includes, as a basic
component, an historical understanding of the world's religions.

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THE BAHkf PRINCIPLE OF RELIGIOUS UNITY AND
HISTORICAL PROCESS
"The world is in flux, and we know it," affirms Wilfred Cantwell
Smith at the beginning of his thought-provoking book The Meaning and
End of Religion. It is in this work that Smith persuasively argues for
the importance of understanding religion within a dynamic historical
context. "Like other aspects of human life," continues Smith, "the reli-gious
aspect too is seen to be historical, evolving, in process."93 Thus, for
Smith, the religious traditions of the world have been involved in a
dynamic process of historical contact and mutual influence.
With the possible exception of Islam, the Baha'i Faith may be
unique among the world's religious traditions in embracing the idea
that religion must be understood historically.94 Indeed, within the
Baha'i corpus, the religious traditions of the world are not seen as sta-tic
and isolated events that sporadically appear. Rather, they are seen
as participating in a progressive, dynamic, and never-ending process.
Smith echoes the Baha'i view when he argues that the religious tra-ditions
of the world should be seen as active "participants in the world
history of religion. "95 Not surprisingly, the Baha'i conception of reli-gious
history is grounded in a process metaphysics. Indeed, in lan-guage
reminiscent of that found in Henri Bergson's Creative Euolu-tion,
96 ÔAbdu'l-Baha affirms:
Creation is the expression of motion. Motion is life. A moving object is a
living object, whereas that which is motionless and inert is as dead. All
created forms are progressive in their planes, or kingdoms of existence,
under the stimulus of the power or spirit of life. The universal energy is
dynamic. Nothing is stationary in the material world of outer phenome-na
or in the inner world of intellect and consciousness.97
It follows directly from such an understanding of reality that the
phenomenon of religion would be subject to the same dynamic process.
ÔAbdu'l-Baha thus continues:
Religion is the outer expression of the divine reality. Therefore, it must
be living, vitalized, moving and progressive. If it be without motion and
nonprogressive, it is without the divine life; it is dead. The divine insti-tutes
are continuously active and evolutionary; therefore, the revelation
of them must be progressive and continuous. All things are subject to
reformation.98

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In a cyclical view, ÔAbdu'l-Baha likens the story of religion to a
process of growth and decline similar to "the progression of the seasons
of the year," with the beginning of each religion comparable to the
beginning of spring.99 In similar fashion, the Bab and Baha'u'llah often
use the analogy of the rising and setting of the sun when explaining
this concept.100 The point of these and similar references, too numer-ous
to mention, is this: the Baha'i Faith regards the religions of the
world as participants in a dynamic, cyclical, and progressively unfold-ing
process, what Baha'is call "progressive revelation."101 This process
both stimulates human civilization and keeps pace with it.
Following from the main lines of my argument, I can now reason-ably
substantiate the Baha'i position that the religions of the world
are to be regarded as participants in the successive unfoldment of the
"ancient path of God" in which the Baha'i Faith is only one of the most
recent participants and, by its own admission, not the final partici-pant.
Indeed, Shoghi Effendi points out that the Baha'i Faith recog-nizes
the religions of the world "as different stages in the eternal his-tory
and constant evolution of one religion, Divine and indivisible, of
which it itself forms but an integral part."102
The concept of progressive revelation provides the final factor for
the analysis of the Baha'i concept of religious unity. Since the reli-gions
of the world have been successively revealed to an ever-advanc-ing
human civilization, many of the apparent differences between
these religions are due to historical and cultural factors. In other
words, the religious traditions of the world differ because the histori-cal
and cultural conditions have differed. Given this understanding,
any discussion of religious pluralism would have to take the changing
historical and cultural conditions into account, which is precisely
what the Baha'i principle of religious unity does.
DYNAMIC PERSPECTIVISM
In attempting to synthesize the various strands that comprise the
Baha'i principle of religious unity as elaborated above, it becomes
apparent that no existing label or categorization is adequate. Baha'i
doctrine combines elements of perspectibism and transcendent unity,
while situating the various religious traditions within an unfolding
and progressive historical process (i.e., "progressive revelation"). For
these reasons, I have designated the Baha'i doctrine of religious unity

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a "dynamic perspectivism." Hopefully, such a designation will help to
clarify the various misconceptions of the Baha'i principle that a sim-plistic
use of the current terminology perpetuates.
CHALLENGES TO THE BAHA'f PRINCIPLE OF
RELIGIOUS UNITY
The greatest philosophical challenge to the Baha'i principle of reli-gious
unity originates from the diverse group of current trends in phi-losophy
and literary criticism that fall under the general heading of
post-modernism. Radical pluralism may be seen as one such trend in
the post-modern movement. When radical pluralists focus their atten-tion
on religion, they hold that even after one employs the kind of per-spectivism
advocated by the Baha'i Faith, there remain "irreducible
aspects," "mutually incommensurable insights," and stubbornly differ-ent
doctrines and worldviews in every religious tradition that cannot
simply be reduced to some "monolithic unity," intellectual abstraction,
or ultimate reality.103 As I have previously argued, the Baha'i writings
do not claim that all the religions are the same. Important differences
are in fact acknowledged. For instance, the Christian doctrine of incar-nation
and the corresponding Hindu concept of the avatara are reject-ed,
together with all pantheistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of
the Divine.lo4 What radical pluralists and others argue is that such
differences are either largely ignored, viewed as relatively unimpor-tant
secondary or nonessential aspects, or worse, that such differences
represent corrupt degenerations from some supposed pure or essential
core of truth.105 Others, including many adherents of a deconstructive
approach, go even further and deny the validity of any and all ultimate
truths or the existence of some one absolute reality, ultimate being, or
universal spirit. They reject what the French literary critic and
founder of deconstruction Jacques Derrida terms the Western tradi-tion
of "onto-theology" or "foundationalism."los
Obviously, whether an ultimate truth exists or not, or whether
truth is unitary or pluralistic, or whether differences are to be privi-leged
or treated as secondary characteristics, are questions not open
to proof either through the appeal to emptrical evidence or conclusive
arguments. Each view has gathered around it certain lines of reason-ing
which support its own perspective. It is clear to many that those
who favor one view over the other do so not on the basis of any indis-putable
line of reasoning. Rather they do so on the basis of certain

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presuppositions that bias them in one direction or the other. As
Huston Smith simply puts it, "Everything turns on which foot one
comes down on."lo7 Consequently, this debate is, at least partly, a
matter of emphasis. To be more specific, on the one hand, for those
who emphasize differences, diversity is granted a privileged position
and any unitary features are seen as less important or superficial. On
the other hand, for those who presuppose the existence of some under-lying
universal truth, unitary principles are given a privileged posi-tion,
while any differences that may be encountered are considered
secondary or nonessential. Such considerations call to mind the clas-sical
Greek debate over "the one and the many."108
This debate may have less to do with meaningful philosophical
issues and more to do with the tension that exists between what
Schuon calls the esoteric and exoteric dimensions found within each
religious tradition.lcg Schuon identifies the esoteric dimension as the
inherently more mystical of the two, since it is characterized by a
monistic realization of an inclusive, absolute, undifferentiated unity, or
supreme identity that can only be spoken of through symbols and
myths, allegories and metaphors. Accordingly, it is at the esoteric level
that the concept of the unity of religions is realized. According to
Schuon, while this realization is potentially available in any tradition
or culture, only a small minority of people in any given tradition ever
achieve it. In contrast, the exoteric dimension is concerned with doc-trines
and dogmas, outward forms, logical proofs, and concrete images.
The exoteric level is characterized by a monotheistic or dualistic exclu-sivism
that recognizes as correct one concrete form or expression over
others. At the exoteric level, for example, Islam is proclaimed to be the
only true religion. It is at this level that the world's religions are per-ceived
to be both bewilderingly diverse and mutually exclusive.
Schuon sees the esoteric and exoteric dimensions as embodied in
two distinct personality types found within all religious traditions,
with the majority of religious adherents being exoteric. This is very
similar to T. Patrick Burke's discussion of the "popular" or "devotion-al"
(exoteric) and "reflective" (esoteric) aspects of religion.ll'J Like
Schuon, Burke argues that the reflective (esoteric) personality type
has more in common with its counterparts in other religious traditions
than its shared commonality with those within its own tradition. The
same is true for the devotional (exoteric) personality. In other words,
these distinctions cut across religions traditions.

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Given Schuon's distinction, radical pluralism seems to belong more
to the exoteric dimension, while views that advance religious unity
belong more to the esoteric dimension. Since, for Schuon, these two
dimensions of religion represent deeply felt approaches to religious life,
it is doubtful whether the debate between radical pluralism and per-spectivist
views will ever be resolved. In its favor, the Baha'i unity par-adigm,
what I have characterized as a dynamic perspectivism, does
have the advantage of fostering, at least among Baha'is, a deep appre-ciation
and love for the worlds religious traditions. Baha'u'llah encour-ages
his followers to "consort with the followers of all religions in a
spirit of friendliness and fellowship. "111 This attitude follows directly
from the Baha'i doctrine of religious unity, for the adherents of the
world's religious traditions are one's brothers and sisters in an ancient
and progressively unfolding process of which the Baha'i Faith is only
the most recent, and certainly not the last, development.
I close with Huston Smith's conclusion from his own defense of
primordialism, remarks that apply likewise to what I have called the
dynamic perspectivism of the Baha'i Faith:
Some thinkers are so occupied with these differences that they dismiss
claims of commonality as simply sloppy thinking, yet identity within dif-ference
is as common an experience as life affords. Green is not blue, yet
both are light. A gold watch is not a gold ring, but both are gold. Women
are not men, but both are human. . . .Blue is not red, but both are light.
Exoterics can be likened to people who hold that light isn't truly such, or
at least that it is not light in its purest form, unless it is of a given hue.
Meanwhile academicians have become so fearful that a hue will be over-looked
or that some that are known will become victimized-marginalized
is the going word-that they deny the existence of light itself. There is
nothing that hues instance and embody; nothing, in deconstructionist lan-guage,
that texts signify. All that exists is an endless stream of signifiers.
The primordialist believes there is such a thing as light in itself-pure
white light that summarizes all the wave-lengths-and that it is the
Light of the World.112
Smith's closing sentence echoes the words of Baha'u'llah when, in
referring to the religions of the world, he proclaims:
These principles and laws, these firmly established and mighty systems,
have proceeded from one Source, and are rays of one Light. That they dif-fer
one from another is to be attributed to the varying requirements of the
ages in which they were promulgated.113 ,

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NOTES
1. Quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come (Wilmette, Ill.:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1980) p. 119.
2. Quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah: Selected
Letters from Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1974) p.
39. Hans Kiing echoes this idea when he writes: "There will be no peace
among the peoples of this world without peace among the world religions."
(Hans Kung, with Heinz Bechert, Josef van Ess, and Heinrich von
Stietencron, Christianity and the World Religions: Paths of Dialogue with
Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Trans. Peter Heinegg [Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 19861 p. 443)
3. Lawh-i Maqsud, in Tablets of Baha'u'llah Revealed after the Kitab-i
Aqdas. Comp. Research Dept. of the Universal House of Justice. Trans. Habib
Taherzadeh and a committee at the Baha'i World Centre (Haifa: Baha'i World
Centre, 19781 p. 168.
4. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Faith of Other Men (New York: Harper
and Row, 1963) p. 127.
5. Promised Day is Come, p. v.
6. John Hick notes that the principle of religious unity, whether inclu-sivistic
or pluralistic is found "within each of the world's religions, although
not as central themes." ("Religious Pluralism," Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol.
12, p. 331)
7. William S. Hatcher and J. Douglas Martin, The Baha'i Faith: The
Emerging Global Religion (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984) pp. 81-84.
8. Udo Schaefer, Beyond the Clash of Religions: The Emergence of a New
Paradigm (Prague: Zero Palm Press, 1995). Schaefer's book consists of two
extended essays: "Time of the End or a New Era?" and "On the Diversity and
Unity of Religions."
9. In Some Answered Questions ÔAbdu'l-Baha said: "Buddha also established
a new religion . . ." and ". . The founder of Buddhism was a wonderful soul.
He established the Oneness of God . . ." (Comp. and trans. Laura Clifford
Barney [Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 19811 p. 165). Obviously the
modern nontheistic interpretation of Buddhism would be at odds with ÔAbdu'l-Baha's
assertion that Buddha established the oneness of God.
10. For example, see Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, trans.
Shoghi Effendi, rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1976) pp. 80,
158; Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, pp. 22, 87, 205; and Baha'u'llah,
Kitab-i Iqan: The Book of Certitude, trans. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1950) p. 40.
11. Todd Lawson, letter to the author, May 28, 1992.
12. H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Krammers, eds., "Din" and "Milla", Shorter
Encyclopedia of Islam, 1953.

+P31

13. F. Buhl and C. E. Bosworth, "Milla," The New Encyclopedia of Islam,
1990. The word milla, as far as I know, is not used in the Baha'i writings.
14. From two letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to individual
believers, dated July 28, 1936 and July 13, 1938, in The Compilation of
Compilations, Vol. 1, #s 54 and 55, pp. 19-20.
15. In reference to the "Confucianists," ÔAbdu'l-Baha attests that
"Confucius renewed morals and ancient virtues . . ."; however, he goes on to
argue that the beliefs and rites of the Confucianists have diverged greatly
from the fundamental teachings of Confucius (Some Answered Questions, p.
165). In the so-called "Tablet of Purity," ÔAbdu'l-Baha, while not mentioning
the Sikhs by name, commends them as a community of people "far and away
superior to others" due to their strict avoidance of alcohol, opium, and tobac-co,
as well as for their strength, courage, health, and physical beauty.
(Selections from the Writings of ÔAbdu'l-Bahk, camp. Research Dept. of the
Universal House of Justice, trans. Habib Taherzadeh and a committee at the
Baha'i World Centre [Haifa, Israel: Baha'i World Centre, 19781, p. 150) In
Tablets of the Divine Plan, ÔAbdu'l-Baha compares the Native American
Indians of today with the seventh-century pre-Islamic Arabs who, when
inspired by the teachings of Muhammad, illumined the whole world." (rev. ed.
[Wilmette, Ill.: Ba al u is mg Trust, 19771 pp. 32-33) h"' P bl' h'
16. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual
believer, October 28, 1949, in Lights of Guidance, #1375, p. 415.
17. For a thorough analysis of the identity of the Sabians, see Christopher
Buck's essay "The Identity of the Sabi'un: An Historical Quest," The Muslim
World, Vol. 74 (July-October, 1984) pp. 172-86.
18. Gibb, and Krammers, eds. Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 477.
19. Buck undertakes an extensive analysis of these and other groups in
"Identity of the Sabi'un."
20. Ibid., pp. 178-86.
21. Ibid., p. 186.
22. Barrett, David B. "World Religious Statistics," 1996 Britannica Book
of the Year, p. 298. See Fadil-i Mazandarani's Amr ua Khalq, Vol. 2, pp. 45546
for one of ÔAbdu'l-Baha's references to the tribal religions.
23. The Baha'i concept of the "manifestation" of God is not one of divine
incarnation (Ar. hulul, lit. "indwelling") where the essence of God descends
into human form like the Christian concept of Christ or that of the auatara in
the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Rather, the Baha'i theology likens the
manifestation of God to a perfectly polished mirror which reflects or manifests
the attributes of God. Thus, in such a view, God remains utterly transcendent,
above ascent or descent, incarnation or indwelling, while the Manifestation of
God is understood as a unique human being capable of reflecting a perfect
image of the attributes of God. Juan Ricardo Cole designates such a theology
a theophanology or "manifestation theology" in his essay "The Concept of

+P32

Manifestation in the Baha'i Writings" (Baha'i Studies, No. 9 [Ottawa:
Association for Baha'i Studies, 19821). J. A. McLean further elaborates Baha'i
manifestation theology in his essay "Prolegomena to a Baha'i Theology." (The
Journal ofBaha'i Studies, Vol. 5, no. 1 119921, pp. 25-67)
24. Cyril Glasse, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (New York: Harper
Collins, 1989) p. 318.
25. Journal of Baha'i Studies, Vol. 5, no. 3 (1993) pp. 17-40.
26. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 43.
27. Jesus in the Qur'an (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977) p. 40.
These twenty-eight prophets include Adam, Abraham, David, Elijah, Elisha,
Enoch or Esdras? (Idras) Ezekiel, Ezra, Hud, Isaiah (?) Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob,
Jesus, Job, John the Baptist, Jonah, Joseph, Lot, Luqman, Moses,
Muhammad, Noah, Salih, Shu'ayb, Solomon, and Zachariah. The Baha'i writ-ings
also include the Bab, Baha'u'llah, the Buddha, Confucius, Daniel,
Jeremiah, Joel, Joshua, Krishna, and Zarathustra.
28. All quranic quotations are taken from ÔAbdullah Yusuf ÔAh's transla-tion
The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary, rev. ed. 1934;
(reprinted Brentwood, MD: Amana Corp., 1989).
29. Glasse, Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 318.
30. Excerpt from the Dala'il-i Sab'ih, in Selections from the Writings of
the Bab, camp. Research Dept. of the Universal House of Justice, trans. Habib
Taherzadeh and a committee at the Baha'i World Centre (Haifa, Israel: Baha'i
World Centre, 1976) p. 125.
31. World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 58.
32. The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ÔAbdu'l-Baha
during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912, camp. Howard
MacNutt, 2d ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1982) p. 454.
33. Paris Talks, 11th ed. (London: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1972) p. 53.
34. The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 139 and
Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 13.
35. Kitab-i Iqan, p. 153.
36. The Kitab-i Aqdas: The Most Holy Book (Haifa, Israel: Baha'i World
Centre, 1992) p. 32, #35.
37. The Transcendent Unity of Religions Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical
Publishing House, 1984). Schuon's phrase "transcendent unity" appears occa-sionally
throughout the English translations of the writings of Baha'u'llah.
See, for instance, Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah, trans. Shoghi
Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1974) pp. 89, 192-93, 307,
a n d 3 3 4 .
38. Transcendent Unity, p. 17.
39. Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, trans. Shoghi Effendi,
rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1952) pp. 117-18.
I
40. Ibid., pp. 79-80.

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41. The Fragile Universe (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1979) pp. 40, 57.
42. Gleanings, pp. 79-80, #34.
43. Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 168-69, emphasis added.
44. Paris Talks, pp. 120-21.
45. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, pp. 92, 82.
46. The Baha'i writings include among these virtues such traits as mercy,
compassion, equity, trustworthiness, wisdom, knowledge (including scientific
knowledge) courtesy, and kindness. So important is the acquisition of these
virtues that when ÔAbdu'l-Baha was asked in Paris, "What is the purpose of
our lives?" he responded, "To acquire virtues." (Paris Talks, p. 177)
47. An Znterpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 1989) p. 316. Hick devotes the entire eighteenth
chapter to demonstrating the universality of this point.
48. Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 151.
49. Towards a World Theology, pp. 4-5.
50. Primitive Mythology, Vol. 1 of The Masks of God (New York: Penguin
Books, 1969) p. 32.
51. An Historian's Approach to Religion (London: Oxford University
Press, 1956) p. 264.
52. For a comprehensive discussion of the importance of spiritual trans-formation
and the acquisition of virtues within the Baha'i tradition see Jack
McLean's Dimensions in Spirituality (Oxford: George Ronald, 1995).
53. Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 187.
54. Excerpts from the Writings of the Guardian on the Baha'i Life, camp.
the Universal House of Justice (N.c.: National Spiritual Assembly of the
Baha'is of Canada, n. d.) pp. 18, 10, and Lights of Guidance, p. 418, #1139.
55. Excerpts, p. 12.
56. Letter dated 8 December 1935 to an individual believer, in
Compilation of Compilations, Vol. 2, #1762, p. 238, emphasis added.
57. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual
believer, September 6, 1946, in Lights of Guidance, #1701, p. 505.
58. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual
believer, September 30, 1949, in Lights of Guidance, #1159, p. 345.
59. Quoted in Vivekananda, Ramakrishna and His Message (Howra,
India: Swami Adhayananda, 1971) p. 25.
60. For a full account of this analogy, see Ronald Eyer's illuminating dis-cussion
in his book Ronald Eyre on the Long Search: His Own Account of a
Three-Year Journey (Cleveland: William Collins, 1979) pp. 275-76.
61. Problems of Religious Pluralism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985)
pp. 36-37.
62. Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, compiled by Swami Abhedananda
(Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1975) p. 248, #686 and p. 251, #694.
63. The Meaning and End ofReligion (New York New American; 1963) p. 168.

+P34

64. Ibid., p. 51ff.
65. "Christianity in the Wider Context: Demands and Transformations,"
Religion and Intellectual Life, Vol. 4, no. 4 (Summer 1987) pp. 9 and 8.
66. Mark Jurgensmeyer, Review of Modern Indian Responses to Religious
Pluralism, ed. Harold G. Coward (State University of New York Press, 1987)
in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 56, no. 4 (Winter, 1988)
p. 773. In this review, Jurgensmeyer notes that in "the recently revised ver-sion
of Claude Welch and John Dillenberger's Protestant Christianity, the
authors have added a new concluding chapter describing what they regard as
the most significant new trend in Protestant thought: theologies of religious
pluralism."
67. Meaning and End of Religion, p. 170.
68. "Religious Pluralism," Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 12, pp. 331. In
his book Towards a World Theology, Wilfred Cantwell Smith similarly writes:
"Religious diversity is a problem within, as well as among, [religious] com-munities."
(p. 23)
69. "Religious Pluralism: The Metaphysical Challenge" in Religious
Pluralism, ed. Leroy S. Rouner, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1984) p. 98. I have modified Panikkar's list by giving his six options a
name after the usage of John Hick, Paul Knitter, and others.
70. J. A. McLean, "Prolegomena to a Baha'i Theology," pp. 53-57.
71. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 58.
72. Guidance for Today and Tomorrow: A Selection from the Writings of
Shoghi Effendi (London: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1953) p. 118.
73. World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 115. The italicized portion of this pas-sage
is a quotation from Baha'u'llah found in the Kitab-i &an, p. 137.
74. Living Religions, 2d. ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994)
p. 386 and The World's Religions: A Completely Revised and Updated Edition
of the Religions of Man (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991) p. 385.
75. Quoted in Pritam Singh, "The Scriptures of Different Faiths," in God,
His Mediator, and Man (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1958) p. 14;
emphasis added. This and other such scriptural references predate the recent
scholarly approaches to religious pluralism as well as the formal definitions
of religious exclusivism and inclusivism.
76. Baha'u'llah, Kitab-i Aqdas, p. 85, #182.
77. See "Part Four: Religious Pluralism" in An Interpretation of Religion.
Hick also discusses perspectivism in Chapter 3 of his Problems of Religious
Pluralism and Chapter 3 of God Has Many Names (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1982).
78. Ibid., pp. 240ff. Armed with this distinction Hick contends that the
various understandings of ultimate reality propounded by the religions of the
world are not incommensurate views but differing perspectives of the same
reality. Moojan Momen has previously discussed the similarity between

+P35

HickÔs view and the Baha'i position. See "Relativism: A Basis for Baha'i
Metaphysics," in Studies in the Babi and Baha'i' Religions, Vol. 5 (Los
Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1988) pp. 207-208.
79. Problems of Religious Pluralism, pp. 36-37.
80. See Chapter 19 of An Znterpretation of Religion.
81. Ibid., p. 349. Hick cites a number of Buddhists who hold this view,
including such notable thinkers as the Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani
(p. 376, note 9).
82. For example, many of ÔAbdu'l-Baha's explanations of apparently
exclusive religious concepts depend on metaphorical interpretations. See, for
instance, Some Answered Questions.
83. Some Answered Questions, pp. 103-106.
84. Some Baha'is might challenge the metaphorical or mythical view of
reincarnation by holding to the stricter theological interpretation based on
ÔAbdu'l-Baha's explanation that the belief in reincarnation is erroneous. For
references to reincarnation, see ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, pp.
282-88, and Shoghi Effendi's interpretations in Lights of Guidance, ns. 1820,
p. 536 and 1826, p. 538.
85. Gleanings, p. 81, #34.
86. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 13.
87. "Understanding Religious Pluralism," Religion and Zntellectual Life,
Vo14, no. 4 (Summer 1987) p. 56.
88. Towards a World Theology, p. 34.
89. An interpretation of Religion, pp. 3ff. See Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1963). Hick points out that the term "cluster concepts" is a syn-onymous
term.
90. Ibid., p. 4.
91. Towards a World Theology, p. 52.
92. See Smith's article "Philosophy, Theology, and the Primordial Claim,"
Cross Currents, Vol. 38, no. 3 (Fall 1988) pp. 276-88 and Chapter 3 of his
Beyond the Post-Modern Mind (New York: Crossroad, 1982).
93. P. 2.
94. I stress here the idea of the religious tradition itself, rather than the
work of scholars. One of the central foci of Religionswissenshaft is to view reli-gion
historically.
95. Ibid., p. 20.
96. Bergson is considered the founder of process philosophy, an early
20th-century movement in philosophy that also claims such thinkers as
Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and Teilhard de Chardin.
97. From a public lecture given at the Free Religious Association, Boston,
Mass., May 24, 1912, in Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 140.
98. Ibid.

+P36

99. Ibid., pp. 126-27, from a talk given at the Church of the Divine
Paternity, New York City, May 19, 1912.
100. The Bab, Persian Bayan 4:12, in Selections from the Writings of the
Bab, p. 106; Baha'u'llah, Kitab-i Iqan, pp. 21-22, 160-61.
101. For the specific occurrence of the phrase "progressive revelation," see
Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, pp. 74-75, #31. In this same passage, Baha'u'llah
refers to the world's religions as links in a "chain of successive revelations." In
Towards a World Theology, W. C. Smith suggests that the image of a flowing
river may help communicate the dynamic and fluid process in which the
world's religions are involved. (p. 26)
102. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 114.
103. This initial definition is largely taken from Raimundo Panikkar's
essay "Religious Pluralism: The Metaphysical Challenge."
104. For references to the rejection of the incarnation doctrine, see
Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, p. 49, #20, Shoghi Effendi, World Order of
Baha'u'llah, pp. 112-13, and Lights of Guidance, #1699, p. 504. For similar
references on anthropomorphism and pantheism, see two letters written on
behalf of the Shoghi Effendi, dated April 21, 1939 and October 26, 1932, in
Lights of Guidance, #1574, p. 477 and #1583, p. 479.
105. Cultural anthropologist Michael Fischer makes an argument typical
of this type of criticism in his analysis of the Baha'i community of Yazd in
"Social Change and the Mirrors of Tradition: The Baha'is of Yazd" in Heshmat
Moayyad, ed. The Baha'i Faith and Islam, Proceedings of a Symposium,
McGill University, March 23-25, 1984 (Ottawa, Canada: Association for
Baha'i Studies, 1990) pp. 25-55.
106. See Purusottama Bilimoria, "A Problem for Radical (onto-theos)
Pluralism," Sophia, Vol. 30, no. 1 (1991) pp. 21-33. For a well-written evalu-ation
of Derrida's views, see Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and
Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982)
especially Chapter 2. For works by Derrida, see Positions, trans. Alan Bass
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981) and Margins of Philosophy,
trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).
107. Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, p. 35.
108. See Plato's Parmenides or Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book X, Chapter 3.
109. Frithjof Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, chapters 2
and 3.
110. The Fragile Uniuerse (New York: Barnes and Noble, 19791 pp. 79-92.
111. Lawh-i Dunya, in Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 87.
112. Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, p. 35; and "Philosophy, Theology, and
the Primordial Claim," p. 288.
113. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 13.

+P37

THE BACKGROUND AND CENTRALITY OF
APOPHATIC THEOLOGY IN BABI AND
BAHkf SCRIPTURE
Stephen N. Lambden
God Qzaqq) in His Essence (bi-dhcitihi) and in His Own Self (bi-nc$
sihi) hath ever been unseen, inaccessible and unknowable.
-Baha'u'llah
Epistle to the Son of the Wolf
Born out of a concern with the ultimate Godhead/Reality/Truth,
the precise origins of the concept of the incomprehensible-unknowable
God are both complex and uncertain. The idea has multifaceted, some-times
interrelated roots in, for example, Greek philosophical sources,
Hellenistic Judaism, and gnostic mythologies as well as the writings of
key Christian apologists and Fathers. There are possibly related
dimensions of this via negutiua in non-Semitic, Asian, and other reli-gious
and philosophical sources. l This paper will trace aspects of the
history of the theological position of the unknowablility of God in select
Abrahamic religions and will highlight its significance for the Baha'i
Faith. It should become clear that the Baha'i theological position, far
from being new or unique in all its aspects, is rooted in the propositions
of past religious and philosophical thinkers.
In his Kitab-i Iqan (1861-62), Baha'u'llah clearly acknowledges
the past realization of the incomprehensibility of the ultimate Reality:

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All the Prophets of God (anbiyci') and their chosen Ones (awsiyci'), all the
divines (Ôulamd), the sages (Ôurufci), and the wise of every generation
(@ukam6'), unanimously recognize their inability to attain unto the com-prehension
of that Quintessence of all truth (iawhar al-jawcihir), and con-fess
their incapacity to grasp Him, Who is the inmost Reality of all things
(&qiqat al-F,aqci'iq).2
The Baha'i uia negcztiua is most directly rooted in Babi theology
and in those Islamic, Shi'i, and Shaykhi texts which have apophatic
(i.e., negative) theological dimensions. Any student of the Babi and
Baha'i religions will readily come to realize that the doctrine of the
unknowability of the ultimate Godhead is foundational. One can only
say what God is not or use negative theological (apophatic) language
when referring to God. The incomprehensibility of the nature of the
divine Essence (dhbt; dh& al-dhcit) is frequently celebrated in Babi
and Baha'i scripture; in the extensive Arabic and Persian writings of
Sayyid ÔAh Muhammad, the Bab (1819-1850), and Mirza Husayn ÔAh,
Baha'u'llah (1817-1892). In their writings, apophatic language is
quite frequent.3 No Baha'i systematic theology could be written with-out
locating the essence of divinity beyond the infinite cosmos and
totally beyond human knowledge.
Any Baha'i theology would, however, identify the Manifestation of
God as the locus of God's indirect "knowability." While the divine
Essence is the center of negative theology, the person of the
Manifestation of God, who is born from age to age to communicate the
divine Will to humankind, is the center of a positive, affirmative (cat-aphatic)
theology of the nearness and knowability of God. It is by
virtue of this doctrine that the divine immanence is realized without
incarnation but through the perfect manifestation of the divine
Names and Attributes in nature, in humanity, and in the loving par-enthood
of the Manifestations or Messengers of God.
The Babi-Baha'i doctrine of the unknowability of God is not a
bloodless theological abstraction emphasizing cold remoteness, but
rather one which points to and celebrates the truth of the fact that
through the Messengers an intimate nearness to God can be realized.
Through God's divine representatives, the Manifestations, God is clos-er
to human beings than their, "jugular vein." (Q. 50: 16b) By virtue
of the Manifestation of God, the divine "image" lies deep within the
soul of every individual. The absolute deity ever remains, however,
outside the scope of the human universe of discourse.

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JUDAISM
Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself, 0 God of Israel, the
Saviour.
-Isaiah 45:15
The Hebrew Bible does not contain a systematic theogony, theolo-gy,
or theodicy. It champions the oneness and supremacy of the incon-ceivable
yet personal, universal God of Israel (Hebrew: ÔEloha,
ÔElohim, YHWH=Yahweh, etc.). Though hardly directly spelled out in
Hebrew scripture, the belief that the nature or essence of God is
unfathomable came to be paramount in Jewish religious thought.
Implying that God is incomparable, Isaiah posed the rhetorical ques-tion:
"To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare
with him" (Isa 40:18). Indeed, he states that no likeness can be made
of the invisible God of Israel (Exod 20:4) who created the heavens and
the earth (Gen 1:lff).
The absence of images of God in the ancient Israelite cult has been
reckoned a "most striking feature."4 In referring to the God of Israel as
One supremely, One thrice "holy" (Hebrew: qadosh), the implication is
that God is One distinctly "set apart."5 Direct vision of this transcen-dent
God who dwells in "thick darkness" (Hebrew: araphel; Exod 20:21;
I Rings 8: 12) is denied Moses and other human beings (Exod 33:20; Jud
13:22): "The Lord reigns. . . . Clouds and thick darkness are round
about him . _ ." (Psalm 97:2). Moses himself was refused direct vision of
God's "face" (Exod 33:18fl. It has sometimes been reckoned that the
mysterious hiddenness of this Self-Existent God is reflected in God's
terse Self-designation (in the RSV loose translation) "I AM WHO I AM"
(Hebrew: Ôehyeh Ôusher Ôehyeh; Exod 3:14).
During the second Temple period (6th-1st century BCE), rever-ence
for the transcendent God was greatly underlined. Biblical
anthropomorphisms were often avoided or reinterpreted. Both the
writing and the uttering of God's personal divine name YHWH
(ÔYahweh") came to be strictly outlawed. It was indirectly pronounced,
that is vowelled, as ÔAdonai ("Lord"). The Qumran Jewish faction,
sometimes identified with the Essenes, which preserved the "Dead
Sea Scrolls," at some stage observed a Community Rule (Serek ha-yahad,
l&S. c. lOO? BCE) in which the following rather extreme guide-line
is contained:

+P40

If any man has uttered the [Most] Venerable Name even though frivo-lously,
or as a result of shock or for any other reason whatever, while
reading the Book or praying, he shall be dismissed and shall return to the
Council of the Community no more.6
Certain Jewish thinkers and various Christian biblical exegetes
found hints of God's unknowability in the Hebrew Bible. In A Jewish
Theology, Louis Jacobs states that in the history of Jewish religious
thought there is "a definite tendency among some thinkers to negate
all attributes from God. He is to be described, if He is to be described
at all, as unknowable."7
The Jewish philosopher and scriptural exegete Philo of Alexandria
Judaeus (c. 20 BCE-c. 50 CE) "has some claim to be called the Father of
negative theology."8 In his allegorical interpretation of the Greek
Septuagint, he often had reason to underline the supreme transcen-dence
and unknowability of the God of Israel, "the Existent" (Greek: to
on; cf. Plato Timaeus 27Df; see De. Som. 1:67; De Mut. nom. 10; De post.
Caini, 169, etc.). Human beings can grasp the truth of the existence of
God but not the nature of the unknowable Being: "Do not . . . suppose
that the Existent that truly exists is apprehended by any man. . . . why
should we wonder that the Existent cannot be apprehended by men
when even the mind in each of us is unknown to us?"9
Though Philo found many scriptural indications of God's
unknowability, he yet held that God is indirectly knowable through
divine works and powers (dynameis), through the intermediaries of
"Logos," "Idea," and "Angel." While Philo gave great weight to the ulti-mate
unknowability of God, his ontology and anthropology neither
rule out the human ecstatic mystical experience of the Godhead nor
the vision of God's blinding Light.10
The largely occasional rabbinic perspectives extant in the
Midrashic and Talmudic literatures (1st cent. BCE-6th cent. CE) con-tain
relatively little precise theological speculation. A few references
that approach a "theology of negation" have been registered by Louis
Jacobs. He notes, for example, that the Palestinian teacher R. Abin
said: "When Jacob of the village of Neboria was in Tyre, he interpret-ed
the verse, ÔFor Thee, silence is praise, 0 God' (Psalm 65:2) to mean
that silence is the ultimate praise of God."ll
Influenced by Neoplatonism, many of the medieval Jewish
philosophers proposed a negative theology. They held the belief that
God transcends all human knowledge and experience. In discussing

+P41

the significance of the unity of God in The Book of Direction to the
Duties of the Heart, Bahya ibn Pakuda (c. 1050-c. 1156?) propounds
such a negative theology. Human beings should negate from God all
human and finite limitations and hold that God is unknowable,
beyond human comprehension: "The essence of your knowledge of
Him, 0 my brother, is your firm admission that you are completely
ignorant of His true essence."12
In his Guide for the Perplexed, the great Spanish Jewish philosopher
Maimonides (Mosheh ben Maimon, c. 1135-1204) dwelt at length on
aspects of a negative theology of the nature or essence of God. For him,
talk about attributes of the divine nature was tantamount to polytheism.
Even negative attributes cannot be befittingly predicated of God:
In the contemplation of His essence, our comprehension and knowledge
prove insufficient; in the examination of His works, how they necessarily
result from His will, our knowledge proved to be ignorance, and in the
endeavour to extol Him in words, all our efforts in speech are mere weak-ness
and failure.13
The Jewish Kabbalistic tradition, partly rooted in antiquity,
upholds an esoteric theology in which the ultimate Godhead, En Sof
(without limit) is unknowable and incomprehensible. The Infinite
without name and beyond attribute is one with, though beyond, the
emanated ten Sefirot (Spheres) which are his instruments in both the
seen and unseen cosmos. Writing about God in the Kabbalah,
Gershom Scholem has stated:
From the sayings of some early kabbalists, it is apparent that they are
careful not even to ascribe personality to God. Since He is beyond every-thing-
beyond even imagination, thought, or will-nothing can be said of
him that is within the grasp of our thought.14
CHRISTIANITY
As with the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literatures, the New
Testament does not contain a systematic doctrine of God (Greek:
theos; ky-ios="Lord))). The word trinity is not found, nor is there a sus-tained
deification of Jesus of Nazareth. The Galilean Messiah fre-quently
spoke intimately of the God of the Hebrew Bible as the divine
"Father" (Aramaic: Abba) though he did not compromise his exalted

+P42

transcendence. Certain Pauline and pseudo-Pauline letters uphold
the divine transcendence (e.g., -1 Cor. 15:28c; 1 Tim 6:16).l5 The
Fourth Gospel records that God cannot be visioned; "No one has ever
seen God" (John 1:18a). As a divine manifestation, however, Christ
the "Son" has indirectly "made him [God the Father] known" (Jn
1:18b, cf. Jn 6:46).
Due to limitations of space, full details of the numerous testi-monies
to the incomprehensibility and unknowability of God in the
early Christian centuries cannot possibly be registered here. What fol-lows
is consequently only a highly selective set of notes. Along with
other Abrahamic religious traditions, the Christian doctrine of the
unknowability of God is closely associated with the assimilation of
various eclectic forms of Middle and Neoplatonic philosophy. It was in
part due to this influence that a negative definition of God "appears
occasionally and incidentally among the apostolic fathers . . . and is a
significant feature among the apologists."ls Like Philo, various early
Christian apologists use such negative theological epithets as "uncre-ated,
" "uncontained," "unnameable. "17 By doing so, they underlined
the transcendence of Almighty God.
From the early second century CE, occasional and then numerous
Christian writers variously held to a negative theology. The "incom-prehensibility"
of God was widely affirmed. The partially preserved
apocryphal Preaching of Peter (Kerygma Petrou, llO? CE) contains one
of the earliest explicit Christian references to God being "incompre-hensible,"
the "Incomprehensible who comprehends all things."18
Certain early gnostic groups viewed the ultimate Godhead as One
unknown. He is the "Wholly Other" not responsible for this material
domain of darkness. Such is the basic theodicy of many gnostic
groups.lg Presenting itself as a revelation of "the mysteries" by Jesus
the Savior to John Son of Zebedee, The Apocryphon of John, one of the
Nag Hammadi texts, for example, opens with an extended negative
theology.2o The early gnostic theologia negatiua has been thought to
be "an anticipation of the speculations of the Church Fathers, espe-cially
of the mystics among them."21
Justin Martyr (c. 100-165) was perhaps the most important sec-ond-
century apologist. He states that God "the Father" is "nameless"
and "unbegotten" and adds: "The name Christ . . . contains an
unknown significance, just as the title ÔGod' is not a name, but repre-sents
the idea, innate in human nature, of an inexpressible reality."22

+P43

Christ the "Logos" is a subordinate deity distinguished from the ulti-mate
unknowable Godhead. He is a "visible God"-God born from
God, like fire lit from another fire or light radiating from the Sun.23
While in the late 170s CE, Athenagoras of Athens in his Presbeia
(Supplication) refers to "the One God" as "incomprehensible,"24
Theophilus, bishop of Antioch (d.c. 180 CE), in his Ad Autoclycum (To
Autolycus) declared: "The form of God ineffable . . . in glory He is uncon-tainable,
in greatness incomprehensible, in height inconceivable."25
The famed author of the anti-gnostic Adversus haeresus (Against
the Heresies), Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (fl. c. 115-1901, spoke of
Christ the Logos as the Mediator of revelation. The Son (Jesus) "safe-guarded
the invisibility of the Father (God)," for the invisible, incom-prehensible
God in his "true nature and immensity cannot be discov-ered
or described by his creatures."26
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-c. 215) reckoned God both one and
beyond oneness, a transcendent deity that human thoughts can never
fathom. He reckoned Moses a true gnostic (gnostikos) since he did not
attempt to "encompass" the transcendent God Who "cannot be encom-passed,"
and since he did not set up any representative "statue" of
God in the "sanctuary" (the Holy Place/Holy of Holies, at the centre
of the Tabernacle or Jerusalem Temple), "thus making it clear that
God is a mystery, invisible and illimitable."27 Like Philo then,
Clement and other apologists specifically refer to God as "unknow-able"
(Greek: akataZeptosj.28
Son of a Christian martyr, the erudite Origen (c. 185-c. 254), per-haps
the most prolific and learned of the fathers of the Church, in his De
Principiis (On First Principles) and other works, propounds a primarily
negative theology. He asserts that, without doubt, God is "incomprehen-sible
and immeasurable," beyond the grasp of the human mind.29 God
comprehends all things but is comprehended by none .among creation.
Human minds cannot behold God as He is in Himself.30
Like Origen, Plotinus (205-270), founder of Neoplatonism, studied
under Ammonius Saccas (d.c. 242), an Alexandrian ex-Christian rec-onciler
of Plato and Aristotle who had an interest in Persian religion.
Plotinus settled in Rome around 245 and subsequently composed his
fifty-four treatises known, after their grouping by his disciple Porphry
(d. 3041, as the Enneads ("Nines"; 6x9=54). He was an important and
key source of negative and mystical theology,31 for he raised these con-cepts
to "philosophical respectability."s2 Among his teachings is that

+P44

the divine exists in a "Triad" of "entities" (hypostuses), the highest
degree of which, the "One," transcends psyche (Soul) and nous
(Intellect), is unknowable, beyond human thoughts, essence, existence,
and oneness.33 It can only be inadequately described negatively.34
The adoption of consubstantial (homoousios) trinitarianism by
more than 300 largely Eastern Christian bishops at the Council of
Nicaea (325) did not prevent most Church Fathers from continuing
to champion the absolute mystery of the Godhead. The doctrine of
the incomprehensibility of God was not eclipsed by either a literalist
incarnationalism nor a trinitarianism of "substance" (ousia).
Writing in the Platonic and Alexandrian tradition, the influential
bishop and theologian Athanasius (d. 3771, a youthful champion of
Nicean orthodoxy and anti-Arianism, in his Letter to the Monks
(3581, wrote: ". . . even if it is impossible to grasp what God is, yet it
is possible to say what he is not."35
The various major Cappadocian theologians of the fourth century
spoke variously about the incomprehensibility of God. Gregory of
Nyssa (c. 335-395?), for example, regarded the heights of mystical
contemplation as the realization of the incomprehensibility of God.
His writings, which were influenced by Neoplatonic works, laid the
foundation of a "mysticism of darknes$ based upon an exegesis of
Moses' Sinaitic ascent (Exodus 24: 15fQ. This mysticism of darkness is
related to the three stages of: (1) being in the "light" (phos), purifica-tion;
(2) being in the "cloud" (nephele), contemplation of intelligibles;
and (3) being in the "darkness" (gnophos; Exod. 20:21), which corre-sponds
to the termination of knowledge before the ultimate inaccessi-bility
of God and the mystical ascent through divine love: "Moses'
vision of God began with light; afterwards God spoke to him in a
cloud. But when Moses rose higher and became more perfect he saw
God in the darkness."36
Among the many illuminating passages in the writings of
Gregory, it must suffice to quote a brief extract from his marvellous
exegetical treatise On the Life of Moses:
What then does it mean that Moses entered the darkness and then saw
God in it? [Exod 20:21] . . as the mind progresses, through an even
greater and more perfect diligence, comes to apprehend reality, as it
approaches more nearly to contemplation, it sees more clearly what of the
divine nature is uncontemplated. For leaving behind everything that is
observed, not only what sense comprehends but also what the intelligence

+P45

thinks it sees, it keeps on penetrating deeper until by the intelligence's
yearning for understanding it gains access to the invisible and the incom-prehensible,
and there it sees God. This is the true knowledge of what is
sought; this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which
is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by
incomprehensibility as by a kind of darkness. Wherefore John the sub-lime,
who penetrated into the luminous darkness, says No one has euer
seen God, [John 1: 181 thus asserting that knowledge of the divine essence
is unattainable not only by men by every intelligent creature.
When, therefore, Moses grew in knowledge, he declared that he had
seen God in the darkness, that is, that he had then come to know that
what is divine is beyond all knowledge and comprehension, for the text
says, Moses approached the dark cloud where God was. What God? He
who made darkness his hidingplace as David says [Psalm 17:12] who was
initiated into the mysteries in the same inner sanctuary.37
Referring to Psalm 138:6 and other biblical texts, Basil of
Caesarea (d. 379) warned that it is "presumptuous to claim to know
what is God's essence (ousia). "38 A number of homilies on the
"Incomprehensible nature of God" (Peri akatalepton) are extant from
the great orator and one-time bishop of Constantinople, John
Chrysostom, the "golden mouth" (c. 354-407j.39 John quite categori-cally
taught that God in His transcendent majesty is completely
beyond the comprehension of even the higher angels, let alone weak,
mortal humanity:
We call Him [God] the inexpressible, the unthinkable God, the invisible,
the inapprehensible; who quells the power of human speech and tran-scends
the grasp of mortal thought; inaccessible to the angels, unbeheld
by the Seraphim, unimagined by the Cherubim, invisible to the rules and
authorities and powers, and, in a word, to all creation.40
Though not exactly a proponent of negative theology, the influen-tial
Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo (d. 430) advised when
talking about God: "Put everything from your mind; whatever occurs
to you deny it . . . say, He is not that."41
The writings of the unknown philosopher-monk Pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite (fl. c. 500, cf. Acts 17:34) present a synthesis of Christian
doctrines and neoplatonic thought. Perhaps of Syrian provenance, they
are very important texts in the history of Christian mysticism. Lossky
reckoned that they "have enjoyed an undisputed authority in the theo-logical
tradition of the East, as well as that of the West."42

+P46

Following Proclus (d. c. 487), Pseudo-Dionysius seems to have
been the first Christian thinker to have made use of the theological
terms apophatic (negative theology) and cataphatic (affirmative theol-ogy).
43 They subsequently became familiar terms in Byzantine theolo-gy,
from the time of the Greek theologians Maximus the Confessor (d.
662) and John Damascene (d. c. 749).44 For Pseudo-Dionysius, "the ref-erence
of both apophatic and cataphatic theology is the One God. . . .
It is of the same God that we are to make both affirmations and
denials."45 For Pseudo-Dionysius, God in Himself is beyond the God
we know through cataphatic theology. God is more adequately
"known" through apophatic theology, the paradoxical mystical theolo-gy
of denial or unknowing:
God is known in all things and apart from all things; and God is known
by knowledge and by unknowing. Of him there is understanding, reason,
knowledge, touch, perception, opinion, imagination, name and many
other things, but he is not understood, nothing can be said of him, he can-not
be named. He is not one of the things that are, nor is he known in any
of the things that are; he is all things in everything and nothing in any-thing;
he is known to all from all things and to no-one from anything. For
we rightly say these things of God, and he is celebrated by all beings
according to the analogy that all things bear to him as their Cause. But
the most divine knowledge of God, that in which he is known through
unknowing, according to the union that transcends the mind, happens
when the mind, turning away from all things, including itself, is united
with the dazzling rays, and there and then illuminated in the unsearch-able
depth of wisdom.46
The first chapter of Pseudo-Dionysius' The Mystical Theology
poses the question: "What is the Divine darkness?" and opens with a
beautiful prayer in which the supplicant says:
. . Lead us up beyond unknowing and light, up to the farthest, highest
peak of mystic scripture, where the mysteries of Gods Word lie simple,
absolute and unchangeable in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence.47
Mystical union with God is only possible in terms of the darkness
of "unknowing" (agrxkia). It is never an actual or complete union with
the unnameable God, the transcendent divinity beyond Being (huper-ousios).
This work and others in the Dionysian corpus have had a
major influence upon a range of key Christian thinkers and mystics,

+P47

many of whom made significant theological statements about the
incomprehensibility of God.
At the end of the Patristic period, John of Damascus (d. 749)
taught that positive statements about God do not reveal God's nature.
Nothing can be said about God beyond what has been indicated in rev-elation.
In his On the Orthodox Faith (1.4), he states that the existence
of God is clear though God's nature is incomprehensible: ". . . what He
is by His essence and nature, this is altogether beyond our compre-hension
and knowledge. "4s The Irish theologian and Neoplatonist
philosopher John Scotus Eriugena (d. c. 875) translated the writings
of Pseudo-Dionysius into Latin and gave a central place to apophatic
theology. Scotus Eriugena mediated apophatic theology to the theolo-gians
of the Latin Middle Ages, who frequently voice the doctrine of
the incomprehensibility of God. The same doctrine was also upheld by
the Christian Scholastics and by notable reformist theologians.
In his Summa Theologica, the Italian Dominican theologian
Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) discussed whether or not God is the object
of the science of theology. He noted that theology does "not start by
making the assumption of defining God; as St John Damascene
remarks, In God we cannot say what he is."49 In various of his works,
Aquinas echoes his words: "What God actually is always remains hid-den
from us. And this is the highest knowledge one can have of God in
this life, that we know Him to be above every thought that we are able
to think of Him."50
The unknown English, possibly Carthusian, author of the mystical
treatise The Cloud of Unknowing (14th cent.) gave preeminence to
spiritual love in the quest for experience of the unknowable Godhead
beyond reason. Much influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius (Saint Denis),
already cited as having said, "The truly divine knowledge of God is that
which is known in unknowing," The Cloud of Unknowing states that
the mystic quest is beyond both intellectual study and the imaginative
faculty. In the humble lifting up of the heart to God, one finds a "cloud
of unknowing," for "this darkness and cloud is always between you and
your God, no matter what you do, and it prevents you from seeing him
clearly by the light of understanding in your reason, and from experi-encing
him in sweetness of love in your affection."51
The German philosopher Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) wrote a trea-tise
On Learned Ignorance (1440). Much influenced by Dionysius and
Erigena, he reckoned "learned ignorance" to be the most advanced

+P48

stage of knowledge. Cusa upheld this understanding in the light of the
unknowability of absolute truth and of the Godhead beyond names and
positive attributes. He regarded negative theology as fundamental.
Martin Luther (d. 1546) frequently referred to the All-Powerful
God as hidden, Deus Absconditus (hidden God) "in distinction from the
Deus Revelatus (revealed God) as still a hidden God in view of the fact
that we cannot fully know Him even through His special revelation."s2
Having bypassed many important Christian thinkers due to the
limitations of space, we mention a few more recent influential
thinkers. Best known for his monumental The Mystical Theology of
the Eastern Church, Vladimir Lossky (d. 1958) is widely recognized as
having been a preeminent Russian Orthodox e'migre' writer. He con-sidered
negative theology (apophasis) to be normative in Christian
dogmatic reflection.53
The influential Swiss Reformed Protestant theologian Karl Barth
(d. 1968), in his incomplete though massive Church Dogmatics
(1927>), devotes a section to "Limits of the knowledge of God,"54 the
basic "Hiddenness of God." A useful sketch of the history of the
Christian affirmation of the incomprehensibilitas Dei is registered.
The unknowability of God has a "basic and determinate position" rel-ative
to those doctrines surrounding the knowledge of God.55
Finally, in this connection it may be noted that in the article
"Trinity" in the recent Encyclopedia of Religion, the incomprehensi-bility
of God is clearly stated: "First, God is an ineffable and Absolute
Mystery, whose reality cannot adequately be comprehended or
expressed by means of human concepts."56
ISLAM
The Arabic word alkih (probably a contraction of al + ilcih, "the
deity") is the Islamic proper name indicative of the Essence of God
occurring over 2,500 times in the Qur'an (ca. 610-632). It is basically
the same as several of the biblical Hebrew and other Semitic designa-tions
of God (e.g., Hebrew: El, Eloah, Elohim). According to Gardet,
the term all&h describes God "in his inaccessible nature as a deity
both unique and one (tazuhid) whose essence remains unrevealed."s7
Without bypassing the divine providential immanence, the Qur'an
repeatedly underlines God's transcendence. It refers, for example, to
God's great exaltation above limited theological and other modes of
human understanding. God is "above and beyond all categories of.F


+P49

human thought and imagination, for He is "beyond all that they
describe [of Him]." (Q. 6:lOOb)ss He is one who "cannot be compre-hended
by vision" (Q. 6:lOl): "Vision comprehendeth Him not, but He
comprehendeth [all] vision." God is incomparable: "There is naught
like unto Him." (Q. 42:ll; cf. 16:60; 32:27) God is supremely "All-High,"
"Transcendent," or "Exalted" (al-Ôa&). (Q. 4:34; 22:62; 31:30)
In Islamic theosophy and mysticism as well as in Babi and Baha'i
texts, the Arabic letter "II" (h&) is sometimes taken to indicate the
divine essence (al-dh&) or hiddenness of God and is given a range of
qabbalistic, cosmological, and esoteric significances. It is, for example,
the first letter of the personal pronoun "He/It is" (huwa) and the last
letter in the word aZZbh (God) .59 The Arabic third-person masculine
pronoun huwa ("He/It [God] is") is many times used of God (allbh) in
the Qur'an. An extended form of it, huwiyya (lit., "He-ness") indicates
the divine self-identity or ipseity. 60 In medieval and later Islamic
mysticism, as well as in numerous Babi and Baha'i texts, it is used to
denote the transcendent divinity or the exalted Manifestation of
God.61 For Shaykh Muyf al-Din Ibn al-ÔArabi (d. 1270), it indicated the
divine Essence: "huwiyya ("He-ness") signifies the Unseen Reality"
(al-haqiqat al-ghaybiyyaj62; the "Reality [al-haqiqat] in the world of
the Unseen."63 In his I&iZci(z& (Sufi Lexicon), Ibn ÔArabi also inter-preted
Hti (He) to signify "the Unseen [God] (al-ghayb) Whom it is not
fitting to observe."e4
There is a section on huwiyya ("He-ness") in the important al-Ins&
z al-kcimil (The Perfect Man) of ÔAbd al-Karfm al-Jili (d. c. 1428).
This Persian Shi'i Sufi writes in this work:
The Ipseity of the True One (God; huwiyya al-haqq): this indicates His hid-denness
(ghayb), the manifestation of which is impossible save by means
of the totality of the [Divine] Names and Attributes. This since their
Reality alludeth unto the interior&y of the Divine Uniqueness (bcitin al-wct&
diya); it alludeth unto His Being (kun) and His Essence @h&t) by
means of His Names and Attributes: "The Ipseity (al-huwiyya) is the
Hiddenness of the Divine Essence which is Uniquely One (w@id)."65
Also related to the Arabic letter h&' ("l-i") and huwa ("He is") is the
designation of the divine Essence, Mhtit (loosely, "the sphere of the
Divine Ipseity"). Traditionally, it lies "above" and "beyond" the ever
more elevated succession of spheres or "worlds," (1) N&slit ("this
Mortal World"); (2) Malaktit ("the world of the angels or the Kingdom

+P50

[of God]"); (3) Jubarrit ("the sphere of the divine decrees or celestial
Powers"); (4) L&hit ("the realm of the Divine theophany"). The term
H&tit is modelled on the names of these "realms," which are them-selves
rooted in Christian Aramaic/Syriac theological terminology.66
References to H&tit are found in the writings of Muslim theosophical
writers and mystics. It indicates the inaccessible sphere of the wholly
Other, the divine Essence.
The Qur'an accords God various "Names" as being indicative of
the divine perfections. Certain of these quranic "Names of God" are
traditionally reckoned among the ninety-nine "Most Beautiful Names
[of God]" (al-asm&' al-&usn&., see Q. 209). A few of them indicate the
divine unknowability, just as others refer to the divine immanence. Of
obvious relevance to the former is God's being al-ghayb (the Mystery,
the Unseen), which occurs a number of times in the Qur'an.67
Relevant also is the hapax Zegomenon ("once occurring") and divine
attribute, the name vamad (loosely, "Impenetrable," "Eternal,"
"Everlasting"), which occurs only in the centrally important Stirat al-tawhid
(Sura of the Divine Unity, Q. 112:2). The Arabic root S-M-D
has the primary meaning "without hollow" or "without cleft," perhaps
indicating, as Louis Gardet has recently argued, the divine impene-trability
or unknowability. 68 The same writer has translated the
name of God Ôaqim as "Inaccessible" (Q. 2:255; 42:4, etc.), indicating
one "well beyond the bounds of human understanding, which cannot
limit him in any way or compare him to anything."@ Qur'an 57:3 not
only describes God as the "First and the Last" but also the "Manifest
and the Hidden" (&hir wal-b&in). While the attribute &hir implies
the possibility of God's being "disclosed," "manifest," or "outward,"
b&in indicates his being "Hidden," "Unmanifest," or "Inward."
It is sometimes reckoned that the supreme or Greatest Name of
God (al-ism al-a'qam) is the "name of God's Essence (al-Dhcit) as well
as of all the Divine Names (asmc?) and Qualities @if&) as related to
and Ôcontained' in the Divine Nature. "To The many attributes of God
@if&t AZ&h) are fundamentally appellations and actions of the divini-ty.
From early medieval times, attempts were made to systematize
and classify them. The relationship of the various attributes and the
essence was much debated. The most basic attribute was wujrid
(Existence), which has been equated with the dh& A&h, the Essence
of God, and with nafs A&h or the Self of God mentioned several times
in the Qur'an (Q. 3:28; 6:54; 5:116; 20:41).

+P51

Some Muslim theologians, furthermore, have spoken of the
"attributes of the Essence" ($ifbt al-dh&), which indicate aspects of
the divine transcendence (e.g., qayytim, "Self-Subsisting") that are dif-ferentiated
from other supplementary divine attributes, that is, vari-ous
divine powers, providence, and immanence. Islamic theologians
and philosophers disagreed as to whether the divine attributes are (1)
the very Essence-the opinion of various Mu'tazilites and philoso-phers;
(2) something different from the Essence, or (3) neither the
Essence nor something different. 71 ShiÔi Muslims have often made a
sharp distinction between the attributes of the divine dh& (Essence)
and the other divine attributes they generally understood figurative-ly.
Worth quoting in this connection is Imam ÔAh's declaration:
"Absolute unity (kamkl al-tawhid) excludeth all attributes (al-sifbt).
"72 The same was concluded from Arabic Neoplatonic sources.
In sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and the Twelver
Imams contained in a multitude of Sunni and Shi'i sources, many
statements underlining the exalted transcendence or unknowability of
God are registered. A well-known prophetic tradition cited by al-Ghazali
(d. 1111) in his Mishkat al-anw& (The Niche of Lights) and
occasionally referred to by the Bab and Baha'u'llah, has it that: "Before
God are Ô70 [,OOOl veils of Light and Darkness. Should they be unveiled,
the Splendours of His Countenance (subu(z& wajhihi) would assured-ly
set ablaze all who discern Him with their vision"73 In summing up
aspects of Shi'i cosmology, it has been noted that "the essence of the
Creator is separated from the creation by veils (hejdb), curtains (setr),
and pavilions (soradeq) impregnated with the divine attributes."T4 The
inaccessibility and unknowability of God are indirectly expressed in
Islamic cosmology in a multitude of different ways.
Among the significant traditions of the Imams cited by Kulayni is
his U+Z al-Kkfi is the following attributed to Abu Ja'far:
Talk together about the creation of God (khalq AZZcih) but do not talk
about God Himself for direct discussion about God increases naught but
the bewilderment of the one who indulges in it.
and also:
Talk together about everything but never talk about the Essence of God
(dhcit AZZcih).75

+P52

Neoplatonic influence was evident in Islamic sources from early
times. A recension of the last three books of Plotinus's Enneads, with
some commentary, was translated early on into Arabic and Syriac
under the erroneous title "The Theology of Aristotle" (Uthulujiya
Arist&ciZis). Widely known from the mid-ninth century, the Pseudo-Aristotelian
"Theology" was commented upon by early Muslim philo-sophical
theologians, including al-Kindi (d. c. 870) and al-Farabi (d.
950). One of the Arabic Plotinus sources Fi al-ilm al-ilcihi (On the
Divine Science) has it that "whoever wishes to describe the Almighty
Creator must remove from Him all attributes."76 This is echoed in
many Islamic and Babi-Baha'i sources.
In addition to the writings of Plotinus, certain works of Porphyry
and Proclus were also available in Arabic "as a result of the
Hellenistic scholars having taken refuge in Persian courts after
Justinian closed the then Neoplatonic Platonic academy at Athens in
529."77 As a religious philosophy, Neoplatonism was utilized by
Avicenna (Ibn Sina d. 1037), Aver-roes, and other Islamic theologians
and philosophers. It had a significant effect upon major Jewish,
Christian, and Islamic medieval philosophers and theologians, many
of whom underlined the unknowability of God.78
At one point in his Mishkat al-anwcir (Niche of Lights), the great
Muslim theologian Abb Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) writes that ". . .
none knows Allah with a real knowledge but He Himself; for every
[thing] known falls necessarily under the sway and within the
province of the Knower. "79 In his article "The Unknowability of God in
al-Ghazali," Burrell writes: "So the upshot of God's unknowability for
Ghazali, is to render speculative inquiry into God and the things of
God effectively incompatible with the essential human task of
responding wholeheartedly to the lure of the One."80
The aforementioned Ibn ÔArabi underlined the unknowability and
unmanifest nature of the transcendent divine Essence: "The Divine
Essence (al-dh& al-ilhhiyya) cannot be understood by the rational fac-ulty.
"81 The divine Essence is transcendent above the cosmos, "inde-pendent
of the worlds." (Q. 3:97)s2 The great Shaykh often cited the
following prophetic tradition: "Reflect (tafakkur) upon all things, but
reflect not upon Gods Essence. "83 Any attempt by human beings to
fathom the divine Essence is futile, as implied in the quranic phrase:
"God would have you beware of Himself (nafiihi)." (Q. 3:28/30)
Chittick sums up key aspects of Ibn ÔArabls theology when he states:
"God is known through the relations, attributions, and correlations that

+P53

become established between Him and the cosmos. But the Essence is
unknown, since nothing is related to It." Ibn ÔArabi's explanation is:
In respect of Itself the Essence has no name, since It is not the locus of
effects, nor is It known by anyone. There is no name to denote It without
relationship, nor with any assurance (tamkin). For names act to make
known and to distinguish, but this door [to knowledge of the Essence] is
forbidden to anyone other than God, since "None knows God but God." So
the names exist through us and for us. They revolve around us and
become manifest within us. Their properties are with us, their goals are
toward us, their expressions are of us, and their beginnings are from us.
. . . Reflection (fikr) has no governing property or domain in the Essence
of the Real, neither rationally nor according to the Law. For the Law has
forbidden reflection upon the Essence of God, a point to which is alluded
by His words, "God warns you about His Self" (35%). This is because there
is no interrelationship (munasaba) between the Essence of the Real and
the essence of the creatures.84
In our view there is no disputing the fact that the Essence is
unknown. To It are ascribed descriptions that make It incomparable with
the attributes of temporal things (al-haalath). It possesses eternity (al-qidam),
and to Its Being is ascribed beginninglessness (al-azal). But all
these names designate negations, such as the negation of beginning and
everything as appropriate to temporal origination.85
According to Walker, nascent IsmB'fli (Shi'i) philosophy was
strongly influenced by Neoplatonic thought: ". . . leading members of
the Isma'ili sect accepted . . . a considerable dose of neoplatonic theo-ry
as a reinforcement for a dogma whose central proposition was the
unknowableness of God."86 Neoplatonic cosmology and theology
seems to have been introduced by the d&i' (summoner> al-Nasafi (d.
Bukhara 9431, who was influenced by an Arabic recension of Plotinus'
Enneads in the form of the Pseudo-Aristotelian "Theology."s7 His
ideas were developed by Ab6 Ya'qub al-Sijistani (fl. mid. tenth cent.?).
For al-Sijist&-n, the ultimate Godhead is beyond "being" and attribut-es;
the divine Identity (inniyuh) is far beyond unknowability. Even the
logic of apophatic theology is an inadequate indication of the nature of
the Godhead. Negative theology is negated before the sublime mys-tery
of the ultimately unknowable; the transcendent Godhead is
beyond unknowing. Before the God Who transcends being and non-being
is the double negation of the negated:

+P54

There does not exist a tanzih [transcendence] more brilliant and more
splendid than that by which we establish the absolute transcendence of
our Originator through the use of these phrases in which a negative and
a negative of a negative apply to the thing denied.88
Many other Muslim writers, theologians, philosophers, and mys-tics
have, in one way or another, followed a theological uia negatiua
and supported the doctrine of the unknowability of God. Among them,
Shaykh Ahmad al-Ah&Y (d. 1826) and Sayyid Kazim Rashti (d. 18441,
the twin forerunners of the Bab. The former, at one point in his Tafsir
stirat al-tawhid (Commentary on the Sura of the Divine Oneness, [i.e.,
Q. 11211, for example, gives this key quranic text an apophatically ori-ented
exegesis when he writes:
So God, praised be He, negates from His Attribute (ifa) the mode of mul-tiplicity
and number through His saying, "He God is One" (112:l). He
negates alternation and diminution through His saying, "God is the All-Enduring"
(al-samad; 112:2). He negates causation and production (Ôilul
wu mu'lzZ) through His saying, "He neither begetteth nor is begotton"
(112:3). And He negates similarity and contrariety through His saying,
"Not any one is comparable to Him" (112:4).ss
THE WRITINGS OF THE BiiB
There is hardly a major or minor work of the Bab (1819-1850)
which does not contain a celebration of the divine transcendence. For
the Prophet from Shiraz, the absolute divine Essence (dh&u'Z-dh&) is
"Wholly Other." Numerous exordiums to scores of the Bab's Arabic
and Persian compositions contain verses in which the ultimate
Godhead is declared beyond the ken of the human mind. So central
was the Bab's view of the transcendence of God that he changed the
basmalah, "In the Name of God the Merciful the Compassionate," to
"In the Name of God, the Inaccessible (al-amnaÔ), the Most Holy (al-aqdas).
"90 The last two divine attributes of this classical Islamic invo-cation,
present before all but one of the 114 s&-as of the Qur'an, are
replaced with two non-quranic superlatives which indicate that in
transcendent holiness the ultimate godhead is set apart.
From the Qayytimu'l-asm6' (1844; suras 30, 32, 33, etc.) to the
Kitkbu'l-asmci' (Book of Names; late 184Os), the phrase: "There is
naught like unto Him [God]" (Q. 42:llb) is frequently quoted in the

+P55

writings of the Bab. The central theological importance of apophatic
theology is, for example, indicated in the Bab's Sbhifay-i Ôadliyya
(Equitable Tract; early 1847?). In the third section of this seminal
Persian work headed "On the knowledge of God (maÔrifat AZ&h) and
the knowledge of His saints," it is stated that the basis of religion is the
knowledge of God (maÔrifat Allcih), the perfection of which is the knowl-edge
of the divine unity (taw@d). This demands the negation of the
divine names and attributes from the sactified divine essence (dhdt-i
muqaddas), for the perfection of apophasis (negation) is the appear-ance
of the Manifestation of God who is the locus of the divine Oneness
(ahadiyya) around whom the divine names and attributes revolve.
What follows are a few notes on selected writings of the Bab which
are not wholly in strict chronological order and which contain testi-monies
to the incomprehensibility of God and related theological issues.
Commentary on a Phrase Within the Dawn Prayer. Among the minor
though significant works of the Bab is his Tafsir du'a al-Sub& a com-mentary
on a phrase within a dawn prayer ascribed to Imam ÔAh (d.
6611, the cousin, son-in-law, and successor of the Prophet
Muhammad.ol The phrase commented upon is from a supplication in
which God is addressed as the One Who, "the proof of Thine Essence
is furnished through Thine Essence (dulla Ôal6 dhktihi bi-dhcitihi)."92
This phrase is cited quite frequently in Babi-Baha'i scripture. The
transcendent divine essence is really only adequately testified to by
its own self. Only God can comprehend God's "Essential Reality"
(dhbtiyyat) for the "bird" of the human "heart" has, for all eternity,
been unable to "ascend" unto the domain of His mystery.
Knowledgelgnosis of the eternal divine essence is impossible and inac-cessible.
93 The transcendence and unknowability of God is quite fre-quently
underlined in this work of the Bab.
Commentary on the Tradition of the (Divine3 Cloud (Ijadith al-ÔamcE').g4
A hadith has it that the Prophet Muhammad was asked, "Where was
our Lord before He created the creation?" He is said to have replied,
"He [God] was in a Cloud (Ôamk'), above it [or Him] air (hawk') and
below it [or Him] air." This reply probably originally expressed the con-viction
that God was hidden and self-subsisting in his own Being. It
indicates that before God's work of creation, God was in obscurity,
enshrouded in the cloud of his own Being, wrapped in a dark mist.

+P56

The Bab and Baha'u'llah were both significantly influenced by
this tradition and its interpretation in theosophical Sufism-Baha'u'llah's
earliest extant work is entitled Rash&i ÔAm&' ("The
Sprinkling of the Divine Cloud," 1269Zlate 1852). The term Ôurn&'
(loosely, "cloud") is quite frequent in their writings. In Babi-Baha'i
scripture, as in Sufi interpretations, it is sometimes indicative of the
hidden and unknowable Essence of God.
In one of his early epistles, the B&b comments in some detail on
the "tradition of Ôama' ":95 " God was in Ôurn&' (a "cloud") above it air
and below it air." He states that this tradition indicates God's isolat-ed
independence. The term al-Ôurn&' ("the Cloud") only inadequately
indicates the divine dh& ("essence") .96 In his interpretation, the Bab
seems to underline God's absolute otherness to such an extent that
the term Ôumb' only indirectly hints at His transcendent unknowabil-ity.
God's nufi ("Self') and dhctt ("Essence") are probably thought to be
created and hypostatic realities indicative of, yet ontologically distin-guishable
from, God's untreated and absolute Ipseity. For the Bab,
Ôumci' indicates God's absolute otherness. It is derived from al-Ôumi or
al-Ôurn& ("blindness, " "unknowing"), for vision is blinded before God's
Face and eyes are incapable of beholding God's Countenance.
For the B&b, the IIadith of ÔAma' also enshrines the mysteries sur-rounding
the Sinaitic theophany (Q. 7:143). It was not the eternal
unknowable Essence of God (dh&u'Z-uzul) that appeared in the celes-tial
realm of Ôurn& (mulukritu'l-Ôumci') and radiated forth through the
divine light on Mount Sinai but an umr (lit. "command"; "Logos")
which God created from nothing. The theophany on the Mount was
not the manifestation of Ôurn6 as God's absolute essence-not a monis-tic
type "theophany or the Divine Essence" (tujuZZi al-dhbt)-but the
disclosure of the divine Light (ntir) unto, through, and in God's Self
(nufs), the Manifestation of God. The Bab clarifies his interpretation
of the modes of the divine theophany including the "theophany of the
Divine Essence" (tujulli al-dh&) found in certain Sufi treatises.97
Such a theophany does not involve a manifestation of the divine
Essence understood as a "cloud" or anything else.
Letter to Mirzci Ifusun Wuqbyf-nigcir. In a letter addressed to Mirza
l&San Waqayi'-nigar, the Bab comments upon various quranic texts
including the quranic phrase, "We [God; the Divine] are nearer to him
[the human being] than his jugular vein (h&Z al-warid)." At the
very beginning of his commentary, the Bab underlines the utter

+P57

Singleness, Isolatedness, Transcendence, and Unknowability of the
divine Essence (al-c&2). God has eternally "detached" the divine
"Names and Attributes" from referring to the "court" of God's tran-scendent
"Presence" (hadrutihi). They apply primarily to God's "Will"
(al-mashiyyut). Nearness to the divine essence is impossible except by
virtue of the theophany (tu&zZZi) of God's "Self' (nub), the locus of
God's "Will," and of the Messenger or Manifestation of God. Qur'an
50:16b alludes to the "sign of God" (kyut AZZQh) which is found within
the inmost human reality, which is, symbolically speaking, the depths
of the human "heart" (fti'ci~0.~~
Commentary on the Night of Power (Tufsir LuyZutu'Z-Qudr). Probably
dating from the time of the Bab's imprisonment in Adhirbayjan
(184%49), the "Commentary on the Night of Power" is a succinct com-mentary
on a phrase in sura 97 (Srirutu'l-qudr) of the Qur'an. The
sublimity of God's dh&iyyut (Essential Reality) is early on declared
transcendent above "all things" (kull shuy'). The Bab indicated that no
praise is more lofty than praise of God and no eulogium more splen-did
(ubhb) than that of the divine Being. Human beings only inade-quately
testify to the "Divinity" (uluhiyyu) and "Lordship" (rububiyyu)
of the transcendent God Who is beyond human comprehension.100
A Verse of the Sermon of the Gulf (Khutbu al-tutunjiyyc4.101 The direct
vision of the absolute divine Essence is not regarded as possible in
either Babi or Baha'i scripture. In a sermon ascribed to Imam ÔAh
known as the (loosely) "Sermon of the Gulf," the Imam at one point
declares, "I saw God (rciytti'lldh) and Paradise through the vision of
the eye (rciyu'l-Ôayn)." Taken literally, this statement is highly contro-versial.
102 In his epistle known as al-Law&mi'uZ-budi' (The Wondrous
Brilliances, X346/7), the Bab interpreted it to refer to Imam ÔAh's
inner "vision of the Primal Will of God" (rri'yutu'l-mushiyyu) and not a
direct vision of the transcendent Deity.103 In the previously referred
to commentary on the DuÔu al-sabcih (Dawn Prayer), the same passage
from the Khutbu al-tutunjiyya is quoted and interpreted in terms of
the "vision of the Divine Theophany" (rti'yat al-tujulli), understood as
a divine Manifestation not a disclosure of the divine Essence.lo4
Persian and Arabic Buy&s (Expositions). Both the Persian and
Arabic Buy&s (Expositions) of the Bab contain clear statements
about the transcendence and incomprehensibility of the Godhead.

+P58

Some key theological issues are set down in the first two bcibs (gates)
of the fourth WC&~ (Unity) of the Persian Buy&z. The Persian Buy&z
IV:2 discusses the two stations (maqcEmayn) of the Nuqta (Point) or
"Sun of Truth" Lshums-i bqiqut; Manifestation of God). The first sta-tion
is that of his being the divine Manifestation (mu~hur-i iMhiyyu),
representative of the ghuyb-i dhcit (Unseen Essence). As the voice of the
ghayb-i dhcit, the Bab articulates a divinely revealed negative theology:
. . . He is One Indescribable by any description; One Who cannot be char-acterized
by any depiction. Supremely Transcendent (muta'di) is He
above any mention or praise-sanctified beyond both pristine whiteness
(kciftir; lit., camphor) and the acme of actualization (jawhar imc&Ôi). It is
impossible that He be comprehended by anyone other than Himself or for
anyone other than He Himself to be united with Him. His is the creation
and the Command. No God is there except Him, the One, the All-Powerful,
the Transcendent.105
The second bcib of the fourth W&hid makes it clear that, God being
unknowable, the "Point" (nuqta; Manifestation of God) as the center
of the divine Will (mashiyya) is the locus of all theological statements.
The Bab maintains that the "essence of this section (bkb)" is that the
eternal divine Essence (dhcit-i azal) has ever been and will ever
remain incomprehensible, indescribable, and beyond characterization
and human vision.loo
The Seven Proofs (Daki'il-i Sab'ih). Addressed perhaps to a Shaykhi
(and Babi?), the Persian Dalk'il-i subÔih opens with a testimony to
God's uniqueness, eternality, and unknowability. In the light of his
claim to be the Qa'im, a shift in the Bab's eschatological views can be
seen in the Dulci'il-i subÔih. His earlier futurist though imminent
eschatological perspective begins to be transformed into a partly real-ized
or inaugurated eschatological stance. Traditional apocalyptic and
other expected latter-day "signs" central to Shi'i messianism are
given, in the light of their proposed fulfilment, non-literal interpreta-tions.
107 The eschatological "meeting with God" (Ziqc5'u'ZZcih; see
Quian 13:2, etc.) is not a literal coming into the presence of the eter-nal
divine essence (dh&-i-a&), but the meeting with the divine man-ifestation
of God (rnuqhur-i &zqiqat), with, in fact, the Bab on the
mount of Maku or wherever he resides.108

+P59

Apart from underlining the transcendence and unknowability of
the essence of God, the Bab also emphasized the presence of the "Day
of God" through his manifestation. He frequently claimed (secondary)
divinity and also bestowed it upon others. There exist writings of the
Bab cited by Baha'u'llah in his Law&i sarr&j (c. 1867) which make it
clear that a pleroma of Babis shared in his eschatological divinity (al-ulrihiyya)
and Lordship (al-rubtibiyyu). He stated that God conferred
"divinity" and "Lordship" upon whomsoever he pleased.log He never
compromised, however, the absolute otherness and transcendent
unknowability of the divine Essence.
THE BAHkf SCRIPTURE
As with Babi scripture, the Baha'i texts are strictly monotheistic,
or rather supra-monotheistic in the sense that the essence of God lies
far beyond any notion of numerical oneness, let alone multiplicity.110
The doctrine of tuwhid (the divine Oneness) is uncompromisingly
upheld. There is no place for anthropomorphism, anthropopathism,lll
pantheism, or any vision of or unio mysticu with the unknowable god-head.
Baha'u'llah understood tuwhid (the Oneness of God) in a variety
of ways. Its primary significance is the complete transcendence of God:
Regard thou the one true God (haqq) as One Who is apart from, and
immeasurably exalted above, all created things. The whole universe
reflecteth His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcen-deth
His creatures. This is the true meaning of Divine Unity (ta~hid).ll2
Tablet of All Food (Luwh-i kullu't-@Ô6m). Baha'u'llah's early "Tablet
of All Food" (c. 1854) is basically a mystical commentary upon Qur'an
397, which, as he explains, has "subtle meanings infinite in their
infinitude." Towards the beginning of this tablet the mystical signifi-cance
of food ($a'cEm) is related to the hierarchy of metaphysical
realms well known in theosophical Sufism and mentioned below.
Following Islamic mystical cosmology, Baha'u'llah mentions the
Ôurshul-hbhbt ("the Throne of He-ness/Ipseity") related to the
"Paradise of the divine oneness" Cjunnutu'Z-c&udiyyu). None, not even
Baha'u'llah himself, can expound the mysteries of even a letter of the
unfathomable mysteries of Qur'an 3:87 relative to this sphere. The
sphere of the unknowable Essence is "Wholly Other."

+P60

The Seven Valleys (Haft vkdt). In the fourth of the Seven Valleys (c.
l&57-58), the "Valley of Unity" (vbdi-i tawhid), Baha'u'llah counters
an anthropomorphic understanding of the experience of the divine
and underlines the divine transcendence and unknowability:
. . . let none construe these utterances to be anthropomorphism (hulril),
nor see in them the descent of the worlds of God into the grades of the
creatures. .. . For God is, in His Essence (bi-clh&ihi mzqaddus), holy above
ascent and descent, entrance and exit; He hath through all eternity been
free of the attributes of human creatures (ai/%i khalq), and ever will
remain so. No man hath ever known Him; no soul hath ever found the path-way
to His Being. Every mystic knower (Ôurufi) hath wandered far astray
in the valley of the knowledge (u&C maÔrifutish) of Him; every saint (awli-~
6) hath lost his way in seeking to comprehend His Essence (clhc2ish).
Sanctified is He above the understanding (Ôirfbn) of the wise (Ôh-if); exalted
is He above the knowledge of the knowing! The way is barred and to seek
it is impiety; His proof is His signs; His being is His evidence.
Wherefore, the lovers of the face of the Beloved have said [words of
Imam ÔAh]: "0 Thou, the One Whose Essence alone showeth the way to
His Essence (dulla Ôal6 dhcithihi bi-dhcitihi), and Who is sanctified above
any likeness to His creatures." How can utter nothingness gallop its steed
in the field of preexistence, or a fleeting shadow reach to the everlasting
sun? The Friend hath said, "But for Thee, we had not known Thee," and
the Beloved hath said, "nor attained Thy presence."l13
The Hidden Words (Kalimcit-i makntinih). The sixty-sixth Arabic
Hidden Word (c. 1858) is addressed, in language reminiscent of that
of al-J%, to the "children of the Divine and Invisible Essence" (al-huwiyya
al-ghayb). Humanity is reminded of the incomprehensibility
and inaccessibilitiy of the ultimate divinity.
Ye shall be hindered from loving Me and souls shall be perturbed as they
make mention of Me. For minds (al-Ôuql) cannot grasp Me not hearts (al-qultiib)
contain Me.114
Commentary on the "He is" (Tafsir-i Hti [Huwal).ll5 Baha'u'llah wrote
a highly theosophical "Commentary on the phrase ÔHe is' n (c. 1859),
which was evidently written soon after "The Hidden Words" (Kalimat-i
makntinih c. 1858), one of which (Arabic No. 3) is cited and inter-preted.
116 It contains many noteworthy theological statements about
the divine Identity (huwa, "He-ness"), "Essence" (dh&), Names

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(as&Ô), and Attributes (sQ%t). It was written mainly to explain a pas-sage
from a writing of the Bab (or other) and addressed to a "Mirror"
(mir&) of the Babi dispensation, probably Mirza Yahya.117 The issue of
the relationship of the "Mirror," the divine Names and Attributes, the
"Most Beautiful Names" (al-asmci' al-husn@, and the divine Identity
(Arabic: huwa= "He is," Persian: Hti) is central to the commentary.
Baha'u'llah presents the Manifestation of God as the locus of the
Names and Attributes of God and the vehicle through which the
unknowable Essence, which is beyond the "Most Beautiful Names" (al-asmci'al-
hasnO, communicates with creation. While the totality of the
divine "Names" (al-asmci') revolve around the "Divine Will"
(mushiyya), all the divine "Attributes" (al-&i5t) are realized through
God's "Intention" (irada). Everything circumambulates the divine and
unfathomable Essence (dhkt) whose theophany (manifestation; tujuZZi)
is realized through the major prophets or Manifestations. The Bab is
referred to as the "Fountainhead of His Essence" (manbaÔ al-dhQtihi)
and the "Locus of His Activity" (Source of His Action; musdur fiÔihi).
The divinely revealed verse commented upon indicates that all the
divine Names (al-asmQ7 are concentrated in the expression "all
things" (kullu shay'), which were subsequently compacted or limited
within the divine name "He is" (huwa). In Arabic, huwa is composed
of the two letters "H" (hc?) and "w" (w&w), which are indicative of its
"inner" and "outer" dimensions respectively. The inner dimension of
the divine Identity is expressed in the phrases: "hiddenness of the
Ipseity" (ghayb al-huwiyya), "interiority of the divine Oneness" (sirr
al-uhadiyyu), and the "primordial, pristine divine Essence" (al-dh&t
al-buhta al-qadima). When the hidden "H" is established upon the
"enthroned, eternal Temple" (al-hayhal al-Ôarshiyya al-uzuliyyu), "the
beauty of the divine Ipseity" CjumkZu'Z-huwiyya) is established in the
"Luminous Temple" ChaykuZu'Z-ntiriyyu) of the Manifestation of God.
God made his name "He is" (huwu) the greatest of the divine designa-tions,
for it is a "Mirror" (mir&> of all the divine Names (al-asmc?Ô) and
Attributes (al-Sif%).
Unlike the divine Names and Attributes whose manifestation
accounts for all earthly and heavenly things, the reality of the divine
Essence is not in its very Self (al-dh& bi'l-dhhtihi) manifested unto a
single thing. Neither is it grasped or comprehended by anything. It is
guarded from the comprehension of God's creatures and immeasur-ably
beyond the gnosis of God's servants. Experiential knowledge of
the divine Essence (muÔrifat dh&ihi) is impossible.

+P62

ÔAbdu'l-Baha' wrote a number of important tablets in explanation
of huwa AlUh (He is God), an expression that is not only found sever-al
times in the Qur'an (e.g., Q. 28:70) but also is widely used in Islam.
As in the Tufsir-i Hz& his explanation focuses on the doctrine of the
unknowability of God. One tablet written in reply to the question why
the epithet "He is God" is frequently written at the beginning of Baha'i
scriptural tablets (aZwQh) begins by acknowledging its use in the
Orient and its customary prefixing to Babi and Baha'i tablets. ÔAbdu'l-Baha
explains that it indicates the incomprehensibility of the one,
divine Essence (haqiqat-i-dh&-i-ahadiyyat), which is beyond concep-tualization.
It further indicates the "Beauty of the Promised One"
Who is the "Sun of Reality" as the manifest Divinity (i.e., Baha'u'llah)
in allusion to whose name ÔAbdu'l-Baha commences his writings.lls
Another tablet by ÔAbdu'l-Baha to a Western Baha'i reads:
0 Thou who art firm in the Covenant!
Thou hast asked regarding the phrase "He is God!" written above the
Tablets. By this Word it is intended that no one hath any access to the
Invisible Essence. The way is barred and the road impassable. In this world
all men must turn their faces toward "Him-whom-God-shall-Manifest." He
is the "Dawning-place of Divinity" and the "Manifestation of Deity." He is
the "Ultimate Goal," and the "Adored One" of all and the ÔWorshipped One"
of all. Otherwise, whatever flashes through the mind is not that Essence of
essences and the Reality of realities; nay, rather, is it pure imagination
woven by man and is surrounded, not the surrounding. Consequently, it
returns finally to the realm of suppositions and conjectures.lls
"He is" (huwa) signifies that human beings must turn indirectly to
God through the Manifestation. The ultimate deity, the Essence of
essences, cannot become an object of direct identification.
Tablet of the City of the Divine Oneness (Law&-i madinatu'l-tawhid).
This centrally important tablet (c. 1858) is one of the cornerstones of
any systematic Baha'i theology. It begins with Baha'u'll&h's categorical
and repeated assertion of the transcendent incomprehensibility of God:
Praise be to God, the All-Possessing, the Ring of incomparable glory, a
praise which is immeasurably above the understanding of all created
things, and is exalted beyond the grasp of the minds of men. None else
besides Him hath ever been able to sing adequately His praise, nor will
any man succeed at any time in describing the full measure of His glory.

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Who is it that can claim to have attained the heights of His exalted
Essence, and what mind can measure the depths of His unfathomable
mystery? . . .
. .So perfect and comprehensive is His creation that no mind nor
heart, however keen or pure, can ever grasp the nature of the most
insignificant of His creatures; much less fathom the mystery of Him Who
is the Day Star of Truth, Who is the invisible and unknowable Essence.
The conceptions of the devoutest of mystics, the attainments of the most
accomplished amongst men, the highest praise which human tongue or
pen can render are all the product of man's finite mind and are condi-tioned
by its limitations. Ten thousand Prophets, each a Moses, are thun-derstruck
upon the Sinai of their search at His forbidding voice, "Thou
shalt never behold Me!"; whilst a myriad Messengers, each as great as
Jesus, stand dismayed upon their heavenly thrones by the interdiction,
"Mine Essence thou shalt never apprehend!" From time immemorial He
hath been veiled in the ineffable sanctity of His exalted Self, and will
everlastingly continue to be wrapt in the impenetrable mystery of His
unknowable Essence. Every attempt to attain to an understanding of His
inaccessible Reality hath ended in complete bewilderment, and every
effort to approach His exalted Self and envisage His Essence hath result-ed
in hopelessness and failure.120
This key tablet further clarifies that the doctrine of tawhid (the
Divine Oneness) is no mere abstract theological proposition. Its affrr-mation
involves regarding God and the Manifestation of God as "One
and the same" in purpose, but not in essence. Trinitarian consubstan-tiability
is frequently rejected in Babi and Baha'i scripture. In its
Baha'i interpretation, tawhid enshrines the central Baha'i teaching of
the oneness of the Manifestations of God.
The Essence of the Mysteries (Jawbhiru'l-as&). Written in response
to a number of written questions about the expected Muslim messiah
(the Mahdi) posed by Sayyid Ytisuf-i Sidihi IsfhhBni, about a year
before the composition of the KitAb-i iqan, Baha'u'llah's Juwdhiru'l-As&
r (c. 1860-61) also touches on the question of the transcendent
unknowability of God. This work is closely related to the earlier Seven
Valleys (Haft v&d& c. 1858) and contains a discussion of the "stations
(maqcimcit) of the spiritual path (as-sultik)." In the fourth stage, the
"City of the Divine Unity" (madinatu'l-tawhid), Baha'u'llah explains
that God was never manifested in his own Being (kuyntiniyya) or
essential Reality (dhcitiyya) since God was "eternally hidden in the

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ancient Eternity of His Essence." This, until God decided to send
Messengers to manifest his Beauty in the "Kingdom of Names."121
The Book of Certitude (Kit&b-i iq&z). Key theological passages in the
Kitab-i fqan (1862) clearly maintain that "the door of the knowledge
of the Ancient of Days" (dh&i-a&; the ultimate godhead) is "closed
in the face of all beings"122
To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the
unknowable Essence (ghayb-i huwiyya), the divine Being @h&i
ahadiyya-i muqaddas), is immensely exalted beyond every human
attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and
regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately
recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mys-tery.
He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His
Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the
sight of men. "No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is
the Subtile, the All-Perceiving [Q. 6: 1031 ."lss
As in the B&b's D&U-i sab'ih (Seven Proofs), the Kitab-i fqan
interprets the eschatological Ziqd'u'ZZ~h (meeting with God) non-liter-ally.
In the light of the transcendence of the divine Essence, it cannot
be other than meeting the Manifestation of God in faith.124
The passages reviewed above, which are largely from early titled
tablets, all have apophatic theological dimensions and date from the
first decade of Baha'u'llah's ministry (1853-63). Numerous other rel-evant
texts from these early years as well as the subsequent three
decades cannot be discussed in detail here. We now turn to a brief
exposition of the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God in the
writings of ÔAbdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi.
THE WRITINGS OF ÔABDU'L-Bm
In addition to the commentaries referred to above, numerous the-ological
expositions were written by Baha'u'llah's eldest son ÔAbdu'l-Baha
(1844-1921). When asked to what extent the human being can
comprehend God, ÔAbdu'l-Baha explained that there are two kinds of
knowledge: (1) "knowledge of the essence of a thing (maÔrifut-i dhdt-i
shuy')" and (2) "the knowledge of its qualities [or attributes] (maÔrifut-i
sifbt-i ' shuy ). "125 The knowledge of the inner essence of anything is

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impossible, although it can be known by its attributes. God can only
be known indirectly through the divine attributes focused on the
Manifestation of God: "It is certain that the Divine Reality (haqiqat-i
rubtibiyyat) is unknown with regard to its essence (dh&) and is known
with regard to its attributes (aifcit>."126
In a tablet to the Swiss entomologist Dr. Auguste Fore1 (d. 19311,
ÔAbdu'l-Baha reiterated the theological principle that God is beyond
known attributes. The following excerpt has a definite apophatic
theological dimension:
As to the attributes (sif2) and perfections (kam&t) such as will ("inten-tion"
ircidih), knowledge and power and other ancient attributes that we
ascribe to that Divine Reality (&aqiqat-i Zbhritiyyih), these are the signs
that reflect the existence of beings in the visible plane and not the
Absolute Perfection of the Divine Essence (haqiqat-i uldhiyya) that cannot
be comprehended. . . . Thus we say His attributes are unknowable. . . . The
purpose is to show that these attributes and perfections that we recount
for that Universal Reality (lpqiqut-i kulliyyu) are only in order to deny
[or negate] imperfections (salb-i naqci'is), rather than to assert [or affrrml
perfections (thubut-i kamcilcit) that the human mind can conceive. Thus
we say His attributes are unknowable.r27
For ÔAbdu'l-Baha, the divine names and attributes are not posited
to prove the divine perfections but rather in order to disprove imper-fections.
128 The names and attributes of God revolve around and are
perfectly mirrored in the Messenger or Manifestation of God:
. . . all that the human reality knows, discovers and understands of the
names (usmu'), the attributes (s&t) and the perfections (kumbZc8) of God
refer to these Holy Manifestations [of God] (muqcihir-i muqudassih).
There is no access to anything else: "the way is barred and seeking for-bidden
. . .for the essential names and attributes of God (asmci' vu sifbt-i
dhcitiyyu-i ilbhiyyu) are identical with His Essence (Ôuyn-i dh&), and His
Essence is above all comprehension. . . . Accordingly all these names,
praises and eulogies apply to the Places of Manifestation; and all that we
imagine and suppose besides them is mere imagination, for we have no
means of comprehending that which is invisible and inaccessible.129
It should also be noted that ÔAbdu'l-Baha, indirectly clarifying an
aspect of Baha'i cosmology when explaining the significance of the
Greatest Name (al-ism al-uÔgxxm, i.e., Baha'), spoke of three "worlds":
the inaccessible world of the True One (Divine Essence, Warn-

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haqq), which is the source of emanated reality; (2) the "world of the
Divine Command" or sphere of the Manifestation(s) of God (Ô&m-i
amr), in which the divine attributes are mirrored; and (3) the world(s)
of creation (Ôdam-i khaZq).130
SHOGHI EFFENDI
Shoghi Effendi (c. 1896-19571, the great-grandson of Baha'u'llah
and head of the Baha'i religion for thirty-six years, authored thousands
of authoritative expositions of Baha'i doctrine. In his compilation of
selected English-language translations from tablets of the Founder of
the Baha'i Faith entitled Gleanings from the Writings of Bahci'u'llcih (1st
ed. 19351, he opened this volume with a lengthy supplication addressed
to a certain Aqa Muhammad Hasan that expressed God's immeasurable
exaltation above human attempts to "unravel Thy mystery, to describe
Thy glory or even hint at the nature of Thine Essence."131
Among the most important works of Shoghi Effendi is The
Dispensation of Bahci'u'llcih (1937). Therein, the authoritative Baha'i
view of the station of the central figures of the Baha'i Faith is lucidly
set out. Anthropomorphism, incarnationalism, and pantheism are
rejected in the light of the divine transcendence and unknowability.
Though a divine being and a complete "incarnation of the Names and
Attributes of God," Baha'u'llah should ever remain entirely distin-guished
from the ultimate Godhead-that "invisible yet rational God
Who, however much we extol the divinity of His Manifestations on
earth, can in no wise incarnate His infinite, His unknowable, His
incorruptible and all-embracing Reality in the concrete and limited
frame of a mortal being."132
Clarifying a fundamental aspect of Baha'i theology, Shoghi
Effendi also states in this work that Baha'u'llah should be regarded as
no more than a Manifestation of God, "never to be identified with that
invisible Reality, the Essence of Divinity itself." This, he remarks, is
"one of the major beliefs of our Faith,"133 which should neither be
obscured nor compromised.
Shoghi Effendi's interpretation of the doctrine of the unknowability
of God is indirectly expressed in a letter written through his secretary
in 1929. Therein, Shoghi Effendi cites ÔAbdu'l-Baha as having made a
distinction between the standpoint of "gnostics" and "religionists":

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ÔAbdu'l-Baha says that the main difference between the gnostics and the
religionists is that the gnostics maintain the existence of only two worlds,
the world of God and the world of the creature. The prophets however,
maintained the existence of three worlds [l] the world of God, [2] the
world of the Will or the Word, and 131 the world of created things. The
prophets, therefore, maintained that a knowledge of God is impossible. As
ÔAbdu'l-Baha says man can never know God or even imagine Him. If he
does that object is not God but an imaginary idol.134
Shoghi Effendi did not, however, maintain that Baha'i negative
theology should rule out a personal relationship with God through the
Manifestation or messenger. In a tablet to a Western Baha'i, ÔAbdu'l-Baha
responded to the assertion of the "Impersonality of Divinity" by
stating that the "Personality is in the Manifestation of the Divinity,
not in the Essence of Divinity. "~5 Baha'i scripture does not speak of
the so-called "Persons" (aqrztim) of the ultimate divinity. No exact the-ology
of the "personality" of the ultimate Godhead exists in Baha'i
sacred scripture, although the doctrine of the human "individual real-ity"
(haqiqat-i .sh&+zi&h) and the "distinct personality" (shakh+yyat-i
makh&ih) of the Manifestation of God, defined as the "rational
soul" (nafs-i nc@iqih), is definitely taught.136
In 1939, Shoghi Effendi wrote a letter explaining that the Baha'i
notion of a "personal God" rules out God being considered "an uncon-scious
and determined force operating in the universe," as some scien-tists
and materialists suppose. The "personal God," he explained, is not
an anthropomorphic deity but a Godhead "beyond human comprehen-sion,"
which, having a "Mind," "Will," and "Purpose," is "conscious of
His creation."l37 The supreme Being is beyond names and attributes
and is "Wholly Other." This being is "suprapersonal" in terms of its
essence though not absolutely abstracted from creation, for which God
has conceived a purpose. God is, quite definitely "personal" by virtue of
the divinity and humanity of the Messenger through whom the divine
providence is operative. A personal relationship with God through the
Manifestation may be intimate, loving, and heartfelt. Humanity may
achieve the depths of nearness to God and something of the infinite
knowledge of God through the mediating Messenger and the study and
experience of his sacred writings.
The foregoing sketch of the numerous Babi and Baha'i testi-monies
to the incomprehensibility of God is not intended to leave a
mere theological vacuum. A key point to be noted is that the

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apophatically oriented Baha'i doctrine of the incomprehensibility of the
godhead does not totally depersonalize the relationship between God
and humankind. By virtue of the Messenger or Manifestation of God,
a cataphatic (affirmative) theology makes God intimately personal.
Human proximity to the supreme Being is an eternal spiritual possi-bility.
138 In Baha'i scripture, there is a fundamental emphasis upon
the cataphatic or affirmative theology of the Manifestation of God. The
Baha'i apophatic or negative theology does not eclipse the all-impor-tant
cataphatic theology of the Messenger or Manifestation of God.
CONCLUSION
This article is but a partial register of the numerous religious and
philosophical testimonies to the unknowability and incomprehensibil-ity
of God. From at least the beginning of the common era, apophatic
theological/philosophical statements become increasingly numerous
within the Abrahamic and non-Semitic-Asian religions. Such state-ments
have come to have a major place within Babi-Baha'i scripture.
Analysis of the implications of apophatic theological statements can
be, moreover, spiritually and intellectually rewarding.
One can adore and worship God in and for his transcendence.
Apophasis, as humble unknowing, might be experienced by one who
becomes conscious of the sublime mystery of God and the
Manifestation of God. It might be said to involve sensible bewilder-ment
before the divine Beloved: "To merit the madness of love man
must abound in sanity. ÔWEI Ideally, to approach the All-Knowing, the
aspirant must be full of that humble self-negation that is the ecstasy
of unknowing. Consciousness of God's sublime and lofty unknowabili-ty
is not the realization of an obscure vacuity-a theological "black
hole"-but a cause of mystic religious exhilaration: "0 Lord, Increase
my astonishment (taJzuyyir) at Thee!"ldo
Baha'is can supplicate God and experience the profound mysteri-ousness
of the Ultimate Divinity. They can experience the tremen-dous
mystery of the divine Manifestation who also has unknowable
dimensions; who is a "Beauty" veiled in oceans of Light: "His beauty
hath no veiling save light, His face no covering save revelation."141
Awe before the unfathomable, the ultimate divinity in a state of hum-ble
"unknowing" can be a profound mystical experience. It is not born

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out of ignorance or anti-intellectualism, but rather out of a loving
openness to the sublime. A realization of the namelessness, gender-lessness,
awe-inspiring "Wholly Other" may be a source of religious
exhilaration and unity. God is unknowable but not at all remote. God's
knowability is centered around the Manifestation who is the locus of
the divine Names and Attributes. Nearness to the Messenger is near-ness
to God. Knowledge of God's revelation is the knowledge of God.
The doctrine of the unknowability of the Transcendent is one of
the teachings the major world religions have in common. The con-sciousness
that God is "Wholly Other" could be regarded as an impor-tant
pathway within interreligious dialogue. In his comparative study
Knowing the Unknowable God, Burrell argues that the received doc-trine
of God in the West was "an intercultural, interfaith achieve-ment."
142 The Muslim Avicenna influenced the Jew Maimonides, and
both influenced the Christian, Dominican theologian Thomas
Aquinas. Perhaps a fresh appreciation of this mutual theological com-mon
ground would inspire a greater sense of religious unity amongst
contemporary seekers of the Transcendent.
Michael Sells begins his article "Apophasis in Plotinus" by asking
"Is apophasis dead? Can there be a contemporary apophatic theology,
or critical method, or approach to comparative religion and interreli-gious
dialogue? If such approaches are possible, then a resource of vir-tually
unfathomable richness lies largely untapped. I suggest that
apophasis has much to offer contemporary thought and that, in turn,
classical apophasis can be critically reevaluated from the perspective
of contemporary concerns. "143 Baha'i philosophers and theologians
might be well advised to take up Sells' focus on apophasis as a path to
inter-religious dialogue and unity.
This essay has done no more than selectively map out something
of our rich apophatic theological heritage. It remains for Baha'is and
other theologians to full71 this task more adequately and contribute to
a global apophatic theology in which the unknowable is loved and
appreciated for his transcendent Mystery as well as for the Person of
the Messenger or Manifestation of God.

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NOTES
1. See V. Kesich, "Via Negativa," in Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 15, ed. by
M. Eliade, et al. (New York Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987) pp. 253f.
2. Baha'u'llah, Kitub-i Zqan (Hofheim-Langenhain: Baha'i-Verlag, 1980)
p. 74; Kitab-i-Zqan: The Book of Certitude, trans. by Shoghi Effendi (London:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1961) p. 64.
3. The terms upophatic (negative) and catuphutic (positive) to indicate a
theology seem to have been first used in the Christian world by Pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite (f.c. 500 CE).
4. H. Ringgren, Israelite Religion (London: SPCK, 1966) p. 39.
5. See, for example, the trisagion, Isaiah 6:3.
6. Geza Vermes, trans. The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (N.c.: Pelican
Books, n.d.) p. 70.
7. The Via-Negatiuu in Jewish Religious Thought (New York: Judaica
Press, 1967) p. 38.
8. Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, From
Pluto to Denys (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) p. 19.
9. Mut. 11:7, 10.
10. Opif. 71; Abr. 74-6.
11. Louis Jacobs, A Jewish Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd,
1973) pp. 47-48.
12. Baya ibn Pakuda, The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart,
trans. from Arabic by Menahem Mansoor (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1973) p. 143; cf. Jacobs, Jewish Theology, p. 39f.
13. Guide LVIII, Moses Maimonides,The Guide for the Perplexed, trans.
by Friedhinder (New York: Dover Publications, 1956) p. 83.
14. G. Scholem, "God" (In Kabbalah) in Encyclopedia Judaica. Vol. 7
(Jerusalem: Keter Pub. House, 1972) p. 661.
15. According to Acts 17:23, Paul referred to an altar with the inscription
"To an unknown God" (agnosto the@ though it is unlikely, as has been argued,
that this is a reference to the unknown God spoken about in gnostic texts (E.
Norden, Agnostos Theos [Leipzig, 19131; cf. T. Rajak, "The Unknown God" in
Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 29 [1978] pp. 20-29).
16. D. W. Palmer, "Atheism, Apologetic, and Negative Theology in the
Greek Apologists of the Second Century" in Vigiliue Christianue, Vol. 37
(1983) p. 224; see R. M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century
(London: SPCK, 1988).
17. Jean Danielou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture: A History of
Christian Doctrine before the Council of Niceu, Vol. II (London: Darton,
Longman & Todd, 1973) p. 323f; cf. the Christian apologists uses of "invisible,"
"impalpable, " "impassible," "uncontainable."
18. E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocryphu, ed. by W. Schneemelcher.
Vol. 2 (London: SCM, 1965) p. 99; cf. Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 6, p. 19.

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19. J. Zandee Zandee, "Gnostic Ideas of the Fall and Salvation" in Numen,
Vol. 11 (1964) p. 21.
20. See J. M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984) p. 99ff.
21. G. Quispel, "The Jung Codex and its Significance" in The Jung Codex:
A Newly Recovered Gnostic Papyrus, ed. by F. M. Cross (London: A. R.
Mowbray & Co., 1955) p. 57.
22. Apologia 11.5, cited in H. Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers
(London: Oxford University Press, 1969) p. 63.
23. Dial. 128.
24. Suppl. 10.1, cited in G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London:
SPCK, 1952) p. 3.
25. Ad. Aut. 1.3; cited in Prestige, God in Patristic Thought.
26. Adv. Haer. IV.20.6, cited in Bettenson, Early Christian Fathers, p. 75.
27. Strom V 11:74.4, cited in Danielou, Gospel Message, p. 326.
28. Clement, Strom V.12.82, etc.
29. De Prin. 1.1.5.
30. Ibid., IV.4.8; 1.1.5f.
31. Mary T. Clark, "Plotinus" in Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 11 (New
York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987) p. 368.
32. P. E. Walker, "An IsmB'ili Answer to the Problem of Worshipping the
Unknowable, Neoplatonic God" in American Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol.
2 (1974) p. 9.
33. Ennead V. 3.13; 5.6, etc.
34. Plotinus' work, directly or indirectly through such of his followers as
the anti-Christian Porphyry (232-305) Iambilicus (c. 245-326) and Proclus (c.
412-485) influenced many Church Fathers as well as emergent Islamic phi-losophy.
(See R. Baine Harris, "A Brief Description of Neoplatonism" in The
Significance of Neoplatonism, ed. by R. Baine Harris. International Society for
Neoplatonic Studies [Norfolk, VA: Old Dominion University, 19761 p. lff).
35. R. P. C. Hanson, "Biblical Exegesis in the Early Church" in Ackroyd,
P. R., & C. F. Evans. The Cambridge History of the Bible: From the Beginnings
to Jerome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 448.
36. Comm. on the Song X1:1000; cited in Louth, Christian Mystical
Tradition, p. 83.
37. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, trans. by A. Malherbe and E.
Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978) pp. 94-95.
38. H. J. M. Turner, "The Mysterious Within Christianity" in Eastern
Churches Review, Vol. 3 (Spring, 1971) p. 302.
39. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational
Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational, trans. by J.
W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press) App.1; F. Graffn & A. M.
Malingren, "La Tradition syriaque des homelies de Jean Chrysostom sur

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l'incomprehensibilite de Dieu" in Epektasis, ed. by C. C. Kassinengiesser
(Paris, 1972) pp. 603-09.
40. Chrysostom, trans. Otto, Idea of the Holy, p. 184.
41. Enarr. 2 in Ps 26:B; MPL xxxvi, col. 203, cited in Turner, "The
Mysterious Within Christianity," p. 301.
42. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Eng.
tr. of Essai sur la Theologie) (Cambridge and London: James Clarke & Co.,
1957) p. 24.
43. These terms were earlier used by Proclus (412- c. 487 CE) in a quasi-theological
context. Harry A. Wolfson opens his 1957 paper as follows, "By the
time the Fathers of the Church began to offer negation as a solution to the
problem of divine attributes, the theory of negative attributes had already
been dealt with by Philo, Albinus and Plotinus." ("Negative Attributes in the
Church Fathers and the Gnostic Basilides" in Harvard Theological Review,
Vol. 50 119571 p. 145)
44. See Andrew Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Geoffrey Chapman,
1989) p. 87.
45. Louth, ibid.
46. DN VII.3: 872A-B.
47. Cited in P. Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts
and an Zntroduction to Their ZnfZuence (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993) p. 184.
48. PG. xciv, 797b, cited in T. Ware, The Orthodox Church (Maryland:
Penguin Books, 1964) p. 217.
49. Ia.7; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiz. Vol. 1, trans. by Thomas
Gilby (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1964) p. 25.
50. De Veritate, cited in F. C. Happold, Prayer and Meditation (London:
Pelican Books, 1971) p. 31.
51. III:33 trans. James Walsh, ed., The Cloud of Unknowing (New York:
Paulist Press, 1981) p. 120
52. Cited Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth Trust, 1976) p. 31. See further, J. Dillenberger, God Hidden and
Revealed (Philadelphia: np., 1953); B. A. Gerrish, "To the Unknown God:
Luther and Calvin on the Hiddenness of God," Journal of Religion, vol. 53
(1973) pp. 263-92.
53. R. G. Williams, "The Via Negativa and the Foundations of Theology:
An Introduction to the Thought of V. N. Lossky" in New Studies in Theology
1, ed. by Stephen Sykes and Derek Holmes (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.
Ltd., 1980) p. 96; Lossky, Mystical Theology.
54. II $27 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1976 119571) pp. 179-254.
55. Barth, ibid., p. 185.
56. Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 15, p. 55.
57. Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 6, p. 29.

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58. Cited in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "God" in Islamic Spirituality:
Foundations (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987) p. 314.
59. Cf. A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1976) p. 270.
60. Arabic huwiyya is an abstract word that was originally "coined in
order to express in Arabic the nuances of Greek philosophy." (A. M. Goichon,
"Huwiyya" in The Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol. 3 [Leiden, 19601 p. 644) It
occurs in the so-called "Theology of Aristotle," Ibn Sin& and in numerous later
mystical writers.
61. In his Meccan Revelations (al-Futuhat al-Makiyya) and other works,
Ibn ÔArabi frequently uses huwiyya alone or in construct form with other
words, e.g., huwiyya al-ahadiyya ("the He-ness of the Divine Oneness");
huwiyya al-haqq ("the He-ness of the True One") (Shaykh Muhyi al-Din Ibn
ÔArabi, Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya (ÔThe Meccan Revelations [Openings]") 4 Vols
[Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d.; 1968 = Cairo Ed. 19111).
62. Futuhat 11:130.
63. Istilahat, cited in ÔAh al-Jurjani, Kitab al-TaÔrifat (A Book of
Definitions) (Reprint, Librairie du Liban, 1985) 395; cf. W. Chittick, The Sufi
Path of Knowledge (Albany: SUNY, 1989) p. 394.
64. Cited in al-Jurjani, Kitab al-TaÔrifat, p. 395.
65. ÔAbd al-Karim ibn Ibrahim al-Jili, al-Ins&x al-kamil fX ma'rifat al-awakhir
wa'l-awa'il. 2 Vols. in 1 (Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-ljalabi, 1375
Awl956 CE) pp. 1:96, 97.
66. See R. Arnaldez, "Lahut and Nasut," The Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol.
5 (1960) pp. 611-14.
67. 2:3; see Hanna E. Kassis, A Concordance to the Qur'an (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1983) pp. 479-80.
68. L. Gardet, "God in Islam" in Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 6 (New
York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987) p. 28.
69. Ibid., p. 31.
70. Nasr, "God," p. 312.
71. E. M. Al-Sharkawi, "The Aristotelian Categories and the Problem of
Attributes in Islamic Theology" in Graeco-Islamica, Vol. 3 (1983) p. 30. The com-plications
of the various categories of the divine attributes cannot be entered
into here. See further, for example, Garde& "God in Islam," pp. 33-34. For some
Sunni Muslims, the strict doctrine of tawhid ("Unity of God") was maintained
by holding that the "Attributes of the Essence" were co-eternal with and sub-sisted
in God's Essence. In an inexplicable way, they were not God nor other
than God (bi-la kayf wa bi-la tashbth; "Without asking how or comparison").
72. Cited in Baha'u'llah, Mirza Husayn ÔAli. Athar-i-&alum-i-A'lci. Vol. III
(New Delhi: Baha'i Publishing Trust, n.d.) p. 15 = Seven Valleys, p. 15. Seven
Divine Attributes are sometimes called the "Names of the Essence." Ibn ÔArabi
reckoned them as [l] "The Living" (al-flayy) [2] "the Knowing (al-Ôaltm) [3].

+P74

"the Wanting" (al-mririd) 141 "the Powerful" (al-qadir) 151 "the Speaking" (al-mutukuZZiml
al-q&Z) [6] "the Hearing" (al-samiÔ) and [7] "the Seeing" (al-ba+
ir). I follow here the translation of M. Chodkiewicz, An Ocean Without
Shore: Zbn Arabi, The Book, and the Law (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993) p. 97,
referring to various passages in Ibn ÔArabi's Futri&t.
73. Cited in Ab6'1-I&mid al-Ghazali, Mishkut al-unwtir ed. by Ab6 ÔAla
ÔAfffi (Cairo: Dar al-Qaymiya li'l-Tab8'a wa'l-Nashara, 1383/1964) p. 39.
74. Encyclopedia Zranica VZ, ed. by E. Yarshater, Vol. 6 (Costa Mesa:
Mazda Publishers, 1993) p. 317. Worth noting in this respect is the following
spontaneous supplication for the month of Ramadan transmitted by Abi ÔAbd
Allah (Imam JaÔfar al-Sadiq, d. c. 669-700) in which six pavilions are spoken
about relative to specific divine attributes: "0 my God! I verily, ask Thee by
Thy Name which is inscribed in the pavilion of Glory (sz&diqu'Z-majd) and I
beseech Thee by Thy Name which is inscribed in the pavilion of Splendour
(sz&diqu'Z-bah&). I verily, ask Thee by Thy Name which is inscribed in the
pavilion of Grandeur (surcidiqu'l-Ôazamat) and I beseech Thee by Thy Name
which is inscribed in the pavilion of Radiance (sur&diqu'Z-juZ61). I verily, ask
Thee by Thy Name which is inscribed in the pavilion of Might (surhdiqu'l-Ô
izzut) and I beseech Thee by Thy Name which is inscribed in the pavilion of
Secrets (surcidiqu'z-sara'ir) which is Foremost (al-skbiq) Paramount (al-fci'iq)
Beauteous (al-husn) Splendid (al-n&r). And by the Lord of the Eight [Arch-l
Angels (al-maZ~Ôikatu'Z-thum&iyut) and the Lord of the Mighty Celestial
Throne (rabbu'l-Ôurshu'l-Ôuqt'm)." (Cited in Muhammad Baqir Bihar Majlisi,
Biar al-anwcir2, 105 Vols (Beirut: Dar Ihya al-turath al-ÔArabi, 1956-72) p.
58:43, from al-ZqbctZ of Sayyid Radiy al-Din ibn Tawus 1193-1266).
75. Kafi, 1:92.
76. From the Arabic Enneuds fragments, cited in Walker, "An IsmB'ili
Answer," p. 13.
77. P. Morewedge, Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1992) p. viii.
78. Fazlur Rahman succinctly sums up the influence of Neoplatonic
streams of thought about the One into early Islam: "On the basis of the
Plotinian idea of the ultimate ground of Reality the One of Plotinus, as inter-preted
by his followers and endowed with a mind that contained the essences
of all things, the philosophers reinterpreted and elaborated the MuÔtazilite
doctrine of the Unity of God. According to the new doctrine, God was repre-sented
as Pure Being without essence or attributes, His only attribute being
necessary existence. The attributes of the Deity were declared to be either
negations or purely external relations, not affecting His Being and reducible
to His necessary existence. God's knowledge was thus defined as Ônon-absence
of knowable things from Him'; His Will as Ôimpossibility of constraint upon
His Being'; His creative activity as Ôemanation of things from Him', etc."
(ZsZam [London: University of Chicago Press, 19791 p. 118)

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79. Mishkat aLAnwar ("The Niche for Lights") trans. by W. H. T Gairdner
(Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1952) p. 107.
80. D. B. Burrell, Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides,
Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986) p. 179.
81. Ibn ÔArabi, Futuhat II, p. 257; Chittick, Sufi Path, p. 60.
82. Ibn ÔArabi, Futrihat II, p. 502.
83. Cited in Chittick, Sufi Path, p. 62
84. Futrihat I, p. 230.
85. Fctuhat II, p. 557; cited in Chittick, Sufi Path, p. 62.
86. Walker, "An IsmB'ili Answer," p. 7.
87. P. E. Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism: The Ismaili Neoplatonism of
Abu Ya'qtib al-Sijistani. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) p. 40f.
88. Kitab al-Iftikhar, cited in Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism, p. 78.
The unknowability of the God beyond attributes is also discussed in the
Rasa'il Ikhwanu'l-safa' ("Treatises of the Brethren of Purity." 10th cent. CE?)
which show the influence of various schools of Hellenistic wisdom (I. R.
Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists: An Zntroduction to the Thought of the Brethren
of Purity (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982) p. 390.
89. Shaykh Ahmad Al-A&Y, Tafsir Suratu'l-Tawhid (Ku-man: al-Sa'ada,
1379/1958-59) p. 15.
90. The new basmalah of the Bab is used, for example, throughout the
Arabic Bayan (1847/B). It also prefixes a fairly large number of tablets of
Baha'u'llah.
91. The DuÔa al-sub@ ("Dawn Prayer") can be found, for example, in
ÔAbbas al-Qummi, Mufatih al-j&in (Beirut: Dar al-adwa', 1409/1989) pp.
91-94. Clarification of a phrase within it was requested of the Bab by a cer-tain
Mirza Muhammad ÔAh, the Guilder-the Tafsir DuÔa al-sabah can be
found, among other manuscript locations, in Iran National Baha'i Archives
Manuscript Collection (INBMC) 100+5 vols (Privately published,
132-134/1976-1978) 40, p. 155-62.
92. al-Qummi, Mafatih al-jinan, p. 9.
93. INBMC, 40, pp. 155-59.
94. The hadith of Ôam& is found in a variety of forms in a number of Sunni
and ShiÔi sources. The word Ôama' (loosely "Cloud") has been variously trans-lated
and interpreted. For some details, see Stephen Lambden, "An Early
Poem of Mirza Husayn ÔAh Baha' Allah: The Sprinkling of the Cloud of
Unknowing (Rashh-i ÔAma')" in Baha'i Studies Bulletin, vol. 3, no. 2 (Sept.
1984) pp. 4-114. For Sufis like ÔAbd al-Karim al-Jili (d. c. 1420) Ôama' indicat-ed
the absolute hiddenness of the transcendent godhead. It signified "Being
sunk in itself, bare potentiality, " "the eternal and unchangeable ground of
Being," the "absolute inwardness (but&n) and occultation (istitar)" of the tran-scendent
divine Essence (al-ins& 1:5Of; R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic
Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967) pp. 94-96).

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95. This letter of the Bab is contained in Tafsir hadith al-Ôurn6
(6007C:lff. 6007 C:l-16). It was apparently written in reply to questions
posed by Siyyid Yahya Darabf, Vahid (a leading disciple of the Bab; see Fadil-i-
Mazandarani, Asrcir aLczth6r, vol. 4 (N.c.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1972) p.
391 (text also partially quoted here).
96. One another level, Ôurn& and haw&' ("air") indicate the created nufs
("Self") of God, as opposed to the mystery of God's transcendent and uncreat-ed
reality. God's being in Ôam6 is expressive of the station (maqdm) of the
manifestation (quhrir) of the "First Dhikr" (dhikr al-awwcil; the primal divine
manifestation and locus of prophethood).
97. Various modes of the divine theophany (tajalli) are mentioned in Sufi
treatises; i.e., (1) tujalli al-dhcit ("the theophany of the Divine Essence"); (2)
tajalli al-.@f& ("the theophany of the Divine Attributes") and (3) tajalli
al-afdl ("the theophany of the Divine Actions").
98. Q. 50:16b; see INBMC, vol. 40, pp. 180-92.
99. See INBMC, vol. 40, pp. 181-83ff.
100. See INBMC, vol. 69, p. 14f.
101. The Khutba al-(utunjiyya ("Sermon of the Gulf') is found in various
sources including Rajab al-Bursi, Mush6riq aldnwcir (Beirut: Dar al-Andalus,
1978) pp. 166-70; and ÔAli Yazdi H&f, ZZzcim al-N&b, vol. 2 (Beirut:
Mu'assat al-A'lami lil-Mabu'at, 1404\1984) pp. 242-52. For an introduction
and full translation, see Lambden and Fananapazir, 1996 (forthcoming). As
both the spelling and vowelling of the consonants of tutunjiyya vary, this is
but one of a number of possibile readings.
102. Both Sayyid Kazim and the Bab accept this reading (see Sayyid
K&im, Sharh Khutba al-futunjiyya [Tabriz, 1270/1853/4] p. 185ff). The
recent edition in Bursi's Mashckiq reads: "I saw the Mercy of God (rubmat
All&h)" (p. 1661, while that printed in HB'iri's ZZ.zcim al-N&ib places a letter
"wow" before the word God (All&h) (p. 243).
103. INBMC, vol. 40, p. 179.
104. INBMC, vol. 40, p. 161.
105. Bay&-i-F&s& vol. 4, pp. 1, 105; provisional trans. cf. al-Bay& al-Ô
Arabi, vol. 4, p. 1.
106. Bay&-i-F&-.& vol. 4, p. 2, 110; cf. al-Bay& al-ÔArabi, vol. 4, p. 2.
107. See S. Lambden and K. Fananapazir, ÔThe Sermon of the Gulf (Khutba
al-Tutunjiyya f Tat anjiyya) of Imam ÔAh: An Introduction and Translation with
Occasional Notes"Ôin Bah& Studies Bulletin, vol. 9, no. 1 (forthcoming).
108. DaZQ'iZ-i SabÔih (Seven Proofs) of the Bab, 31f; cf. 57f.
109. See Mh'idiy-i Asmcini, camp. by Ishraq Khavari, 9 ~01s. (Tehran:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 128-911972-73) vol. 7, p. 64
110. Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Bah&u'ZZkh, trans. and
camp. by Shoghi Effendi (London: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1949) p. 166;
ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing
Trust, 1981) p. 103.

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111. Anthropopathism is ascribing to the Deity human emotions, pas-sions,
or affections.
112. Gleanings, p. 165.
113. Bahs'u'llah, Athar-i Qalam-i A'& vol. 3 (New Delhi: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, n.d.) pp. 114-15; The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys,
trans. by ÔAh Kuli Khan assisted by Marzieh Gail (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1978) pp. 22-23.
114. The Hidden Words, trans. by Shoghi Effendi (London: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1975) p. 20.
115. This tablet is listed by Shoghi Effendi in his list of "Baha'u'llah's
Best-Known Writings." As far as I am aware, it has not been published. I have
relied on a typed Arabic copy supplied to me in 1986 by the Baha'i World
Center (Haifa, Israel).
116. In Islamic theosophy and mysticism as well as in Babi and Baha'i
texts, the Arabic letter "H" (ha') and the masculine pronoun HuwalHli are
given kabbalistic, cosmological, and esoteric significances. In his I$iZ@&.
("S&i Lexicon") Ibn ÔArabi interprets Hu ("He") to signify "the Unseen [God]
(al-ghayb) Whom it is not fitting to observe" (cited in Ali Al Jurj&nni, Kitab al-Ta'rifat
(A Book of Definitions) [Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 19851 p. 395).
117. The BBb accorded various titles to his followers ranging, for exam-ple,
from being part of the pleroma of (subordinate) divinity
(uluhiyy / rububiyya) to being a "mirror" (maraya) or "mirror of God" (mir'at
Allah). Mirza Yahya is known to have been among those accorded this latter
title by the Bab.
118. See Ma'idiy-i-Asmani, vol. 9, pp. 22-23.
119. See Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas (New York: Baha'i Publishing
Committee, 1930) vol. 3, p. 485 (= SW IV/18:304 = Horace Holley, ed., Baha'i
Scriptures (New York: Baha'i Publishing Committee, 1928) No. 847, pp.
459-60; cf. SW III/14:8f).
120. MajmuÔih-i Alwah-i Mubaraka (Reprint, Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1978) p. 307ff; trans. Gleanings, pp. 60, 62-63.
121. Athar-i-&alum-i-A%, vol. 3, p. 40. Also worth noting in this context
is the fact that in the Jawahiru'l-Asrar seven mystic stages are outlined, the
last of them being a transcendent city without name or designation and unut-terable
(86ff). Therein the "Sun of the Unseen" (shamsu'l-ghayb) blazes forth
from the "Horizon of the Unseen" (ufqu'l-ghayb). In its universe are spheres
with moons generated from light which dawn forth and set in the "Ocean of
Ôthe Unseen" (bahru'l-ghayb). None but God and the "Manifestations of His
Self" (mazahir nafsihi) are aware of this realm and its recondite mysteries
(Athar-i-&alum-i-A'la, vol. 3, p. 86ff).
122. Kitab-i-iqan, p. 74; trans., p. 64.
123. Kitab-i-iqan, p. 73; trans., pp. 63-64.
124. Kitab-i-iqan, p. 107E/ trans., p. 89ff.

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125. Mufawadat,. p. 166; trans., Some Answered Questions, p. 220.
126. Ibid., p. 176; trans. Some Answered Questions, pp. 220-21
127. N. M. Hosseini, Dr. Henry Auguste Fore1 (Dundas, Ontario: Persian
Institute for Baha'i Studies,19891 pp. 101-2.
128. Ibic.; trans. Some Answered Questions, p. 220-21.
129. Mufawadat, p. 113; Some Answered Questions, pp. 148-49.
130. See Ma'idiy-i-Asmani, vol. 2, p. 102.
131. See Gleanings, p. 3ff.
132. Shoghi Effendi, The Dispensation of Baha'u'llah (London: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1947) pp. 22-23.
133. Ibid., p. 122.
134. Lights of Guidance: A Baha'i Reference File, camp. by Helen Hornby,
2d ed. (New Delhi: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1988) 1724, p. 511.
135. Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas, vol. 1, p. 204.
136. See Some Answered Questions, p. 116f; trans., p. 154f.
137. "What is meant by personal God is a God Who is conscious of His cre-ation,
Who has a Mind, a Will, a Purpose, and not, as many scientists and
materialists believe, an unconscious and determined force operating in the
universe. Such conception of the Divine Being, as the Supreme and ever pre-sent
Reality in the world, is not anthropomorphic, for it transcends all human
limitations and forms, and does by no means attempt to define the essence of
Divinity which is obviously beyond any human comprehension. To say that
God is a personal Reality does not mean that He has a physical form, or does
in any way resemble a human being. To entertain such belief would be sheer
blasphemy" (from a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual
believer, April 21, 1939, cited in Lights of Guidance, p. 477 No 1574).
138. See The Promulgation of Universal Peace (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1982) p. 147f.
139. The Seven Valleys, p. 9.
140. Cited in Athar-i &alum-i A'la, vol. 3, p. 127; trans. Seven Valleys, p. 34.
141. Cited in Seven Valleys, p. 39.
142. Knowing the LJnknowable God, p. 109.
143. M. Sells, "Apophasis in Plotinus" in Harvard Theological Reuiew,
Vol. 78 (1985) p. 47. Michael Sells' recently published Mystical Languages of
Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) is an important contribution
to the mysticism of apophasis, "speaking away." It came to my atten-tion
too late to make use of in the writing of this paper.

+P79

BAHAU'LLlAH AND LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Juan R. I. Cole
The tragedy of global poverty in the late twentieth century has
increasingly preoccupied thinkers of all religions, both lay and clerical,
as secular strategies for overcoming it have achieved only limited
and sectional successes. New theologies addressing the concerns of the
poor are in many ways attempting to recover the voice of the prophets,
rather than limiting themselves to the otherworldly concerns of
scholastic theologians.1 Prophets throughout history have, after all,
tended to side with the poor against the rich, if not politically then at
least morally and spiritually. The prophets of the Hebrew Bible
decried injustice toward the downtrodden. The Buddha, a prince, forsook
the ephemeral material world to wander with destitute monks in
the forests near Benares. Jesus, an artisan-peasant, was a partisan of
the needy and the outcasts in his society, and had a low estimation of
the likelihood that the rich would enter the kingdom of heaven. The
Prophet Muhammad, an orphaned member of the noble Quraysh
tribe, thunderously condemned in his early preaching the callousness
of Mecca's wealthy elite toward the indigent. Baha'u'llah, as well,
made the amelioration of the condition of the poor a prime goal of his
religion, laying heavy obligations in this regard upon private individuals,
religious institutions, and the state.
Baha'u'llah's commitments are all the more remarkable given that
he was from the class of wealthy government officials and was raised
in the lap of luxury. For the sake of principle (first his embrace of the

+P80

Babi religion, then his revelation of the Baha'i Faith) he relinquished
his wealth and threw in his lot with the laborers, cobblers, tailors,
shopkeepers, housewives, and peasants who constituted the majority
of Babis and then Baha'is. As a result, not only was he left impoverished,
but he was also subject to exile and harsh jailings. He said that
when he was imprisoned in the shah's dungeon in Tehran in 1852, he
did not have a dinar to his name and at one point was given nothing
to eat or drink for two days, but he was at that point the richest person
in the world.2
The idea of liberation is integral to the Baha'i Faith, for
Baha'u'llah wrote, "the Ancient Beauty hath consented to be bound
with chains that mankind may be released from its bondage, and hath
accepted to be made a prisoner within this most mighty Stronghold
that the whole world may attain unto true liberty."3 Baha'u'llah was
a Manifestation of God become poor to enrich humankind, become
inmate to set us all free. Elsewhere he specifies that he acquiesced in
his imprisonment in order to free human beings from the chains of
"self and passion" (nufs vu haua). 4 Selfishness is intimately wrought
up with questions of the distribution of wealth in society. The Baha'i
scriptures, like the life of their Author, evince a special commitment
to the poor, though they embrace universally all human beings.
This faith in the downtrodden may help explain why most Baha'is
have been, and are today, drawn from the ranks of the poor. Such
groups as the impoverished weavers of Kashan or the suffering tailors
of Shiraz constituted the bulk of early Baha'is.5 Since the 1960s
masses of peasants, both men and women, have entered the Baha'i
Faith in India, Africa, and Latin America. The typical Baha'i in the
1990s is a poor villager in the global South. Even in the United States,
about one-third of the national community consists of African-Americans,
and a third of them in turn live in South Carolina and
northern Georgia, two of the least wealthy areas in the country.6 The
Baha'i Faith lacks any class of official clergy, and since local Baha'i
affairs are directed not by a seminary-trained clergyman appointed
from above, but by elected Spiritual Assemblies, Baha'i peasants,
sharecroppers and workers have a real voice in the spiritual gover-nance
of their communities.
It is therefore appropriate, in a volume aimed at exploring the
possibilities of a Baha'i theology, that we consider the scriptural
sources of a Baha'i theology of liberation. As I intimated above, the

+P81

starting point for any serious such line of thought must be the ground-breaking
work of Catholic theologians (especially Gustav0 Gutierrez)
and laypeople in Latin America, to whom I am grateful for many key
insights that resonate across religious boundaries, and my debt to
whom will be apparent below to anyone familiar with this literature.7
It is desirable that Baha'i pioneers and anthropologists inform us
more fully about the daily, lived theology of poor Baha'is in the global
South, so that we in the North can gain essential spiritual insights
from them. My purpose here is simply to make a beginning, by exam-ining
what I think are key texts by and about Baha'u'llah, for even
theology done from the underside of history must have a foundation in
scripture and in theophanology (the Person of the Manifestation of
God). I will focus here on Baha'u'llah (even though extremely impor-tant
perspectives exist on this issue in the writings of ÔAbdu'l-Baha,
Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice) simply for rea-sons
of lack of space and the desirability of beginning with the reve-lation
of the Manifestation of God himself.
It is worth saying briefly that by a Baha'i theology of liberation I
mean a theology that is grounded in a special commitment to the poor
and the workers (male and female, adult and child), that includes
their perspective in the consideration of scriptural meaning, and that
underpins reformist thought and social action by them and by others
in solidarity with them. It recognizes that late international capital-ism,
while capable of creating much wealth, also does a very poor job
of distributing it equitably, thereby contributing to continued poverty
in some regions and social sectors. This capitalist order also subjects
the poor disproportionately to the dangers of an excessive industrial-ism,
especially environmental pollution and hazards of the workplace.
By a theology of revolution I do not, and cannot as a Baha'i,
intend, on the one hand, any way of thinking that sanctions violence
or class warfare, or indeed, entanglement in the petty squabbles of
party politics. On the other hand, a Baha'i theology of liberation must
involve speaking out against injustice and engaging in social activism
in order to have any meaning. Liberation, in this view, would consist
in nothing less than a truly Baha'i society, which would provide
employment at a fair wage to every citizen; would ensure a decent and
dignified life to all; would guarantee basic human rights as outlined
in United Nations declarations and covenants; would give the less
well-off a voice in their own governance and scope for expressing their

+P82

spiritual and creative energies; and would eliminate the vast gap
between the wealthy and the poor characteristic of late capitalist soci-eties.
In the post-Cold War world, wherein the materialist and totali-tarian
vision of state-imposed economic equality has collapsed, wherein
the excesses of industrialism and of laissez-faire capitalism are largely
unrestrained and the gap between the poor in the global South and the
rich in the North is growing, the world desperately needs a new vision
of spiritual and social justice such as Baha'u'llah enunciates.
THE POOR IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY
MIDDLE EAST
The struggle of the poor is not everywhere and always the same,
depending rather on the sort of social system and the historical
moment in which they subsist. Baha'u'llah was addressing a society
very different from any that still exists today. The Middle East of his
day was ruled by the absolute monarchies of the Ottoman Empire and
&ajar Iran, and a variety of political economies uneasily coexisted
therein. In the 1860s and 1870s perhaps a third of Iranians were still
pastoral nomads, most of them organized into tribes (the percentage
was less in most Ottoman possessions, with the exception of Iraq).
Although the tribes often lacked formal title to land, they did possess
substantial wealth in the form of livestock, and every tribal family
had at least a few sheep or goats. But in subsequent decades, most
nomads were made to settle by the state, and in the process, tribes-people
frequently lost their herds and any claim to tribal lands, being
reduced to the worst of fates-that of landless peasants. Some fifty
percent of the population of Iran consisted of villagers, divided into
landless peasants, smallholders, and medium and rich peasants.
Many villages were still actually owned by semi-feudal landlords, and
all paid heavy taxes to nobles, to governors, and to the king. Some
twenty percent of the population lived in cities (less in Ottoman
lands), where the majority were laborers and artisans. In the cities
also lived the absentee landlords, landholding government officials,
and the great merchants.
This social structure of cities, villages and tribes was anything
but static, coming under new pressures throughout the period
1850-1900. This half-century saw a vast expansion of agrarian capi-talism
(but not yet much substantial industrialization in the area).

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Subsistence farming was giving way to the cash-cropping of cotton,
tobacco, grains, and opium. Imported European industrial goods were
putting thousands of Middle Eastern artisans out of work.
Governments, used to taxing land, were not very good at adapting to
the new importance of commerce, with many great merchants enjoying
an exemption from taxes. The population of the region began growing
by leaps and bounds from about 1850, increasing the supply of labor
faster than the numbers of new job opportunities (and therefore keep-ing
wages low), and reducing the size of family farms through estate
fragmentation. The landless and smallholding peasants, day laborers,
and displaced artisans (such as weavers) were or became the poorest of
the poor, sometimes even starving to death during famines such as
that of 1869-1872 in Iran.8
BAHkU'LLAH AND THE POOR
The first indication we have of Baha'u'llah's attitude toward the
poor comes in his Baghdad-era collection of mystical aphorisms, The
Hidden Words (1858). His emphasis at this point is largely personal
and ethical rather than institutional.9 He continually draws a con-trast
between the dangers and powerful temptations of wealth versus
the virtue of poverty. "Busy not thyself with this world," he writes, "for
with fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants."
(Arabic, No. 55) He adds, "Thou dost wish for gold and I desire thy
freedom from it." (Arabic, No. 56) Baha'u'llah castigates wealth as "a
mighty barrier between the seeker and his desire" and warns that
"the rich, but for a few, shall in no wise attain the court of His pres-ence
nor enter the city of contentment and resignation." (Arabic, No.
53) Hardheartedness and selfishness especially afflict the wealthy:
"Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor lest heedlessness
lead them into the path of destruction, and deprive them of the Tree
of Wealth." (Persian, No. 49) Wealth is, then, a test, a barrier, an
obstacle to spiritual progress and the attainment of union with the
beloved (a Sufi metaphor for a feeling of oneness with the divine that
is the goal of the seeker). It carries with it the risk of indifference to
the plight of the less fortunate, a moral and spiritual lapse that inex-orably
ends in doom.
If being rich is a drawback on the path, being poor is an asset.
Baha'u'llah says, "Yet to be poor in all save God is a wondrous gift,

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belittle not the value thereof, for in the end it will make thee rich
in God." (Persian, No. 51) Since he recognizes the grief of the
impoverished, having spoken of the "midnight sighing of the poor,"
Baha'u'llah does not glamorize their lives. He does say that they are
beloved of God because of their poverty, and that the undeniable hard-ships
they face can be aids to spiritual advance, aids not naturally
available to the comfortable bourgeoisie or opulent nobility. By the
poor, Baha'u'llah makes it clear that he is referring to the working
poor and the poor who want to work if only they might find employ-ment,
for he commands all to engage in arts and crafts, and to provide
for their loved ones. (Persian, Nos. 80, 82)
On the social and human plane, Baha'u'llah insists that all human
beings are equal: "Know ye not why We created you all from the same
dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other." (Arabic, No. 68)
Elsewhere, he wrote, in the same vein: "0 ye rich ones on earth! If ye
encounter one who is poor, treat him not disdainfully. Reflect upon
that whereof ye were created. Every one of you was created of a sorry
germ."10 The rich and their apologists in every age have a tendency to
justify their affluence, often by asserting their innate superiority. But
this is not a claim that Baha'u'llah will countenance, insisting instead
on the universal unity of humankind: "Since We have created you all
from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul,
to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the
same land." (Arabic, No. 68) The poor, then, are spiritually superior to
the rich and are their equals in civil society. Baha'u'llah's attitude in
this regard is extremely challenging. Certainly, many in the Ottoman
and Iranian upper classes would have shrunk in horror from the idea
of sitting down to eat with the poor, or from being one with them in any
meaningful way. Baha'u'lltih was just as antagonistic to the hierar-chies
of Mediterranean society as Jesus Christ had been nearly two
millenia before. His call for unity among persons of the various social
classes clearly requires an active attempt on their part to mix and
break down neighborhood and cultural barriers.
Baha'u'llah is also clear about what the rich can do to lessen the
spiritual opprobrium he has laid upon them: They must "cleanse
themselves" of the "defilement of riches," for only through detachment
from material things can they pursue the spiritual path. (Persian, No.
55) Nor is it enough, for instance, to make over one's wealth to a fam-ily
member and then pursue the cleansing of the soul. "Bestow My

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wealth," he commands, "upon My poor, that in heaven thou mayest
draw from stores of unfading splendor and treasures of imperishable
glory." (Arabic, No. 57) Elsewhere he speaks of the absolute responsi-bility
of the wealthy for the welfare of the needy: "0 ye rich ones on
earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be
not intent only on your own ease." (Arabic, No. 54)
The vast inequalities of wealth characteristic of modern societies
can often only be maintained by authoritarian and repressive state
structures acting on behalf of the wealthy elite. Here, too, Baha'u'llah
is unequivocal: "0 oppressors on earth! Withdraw your hands from
tyranny, for I have pledged Myself not to forgive any man's injustice.
This is My covenant which I have irrevocably decreed in the preserved
tablet and sealed it with My seal of glory." (Persian, No. 64) When
Baha'u'llah praises the wealthy who are not "hindered" by their "rich-es
from the eternal kingdom" (Persian, No. 531, it seems in view of
these other passages that provision for the poor and commitment to
social and political justice are implied along with faith as a prerequi-site
for attaining such splendor.
The circumstances of Baha'u'llah's life threw him in with the poor.
In 1854-56, he lived the life of a wandering holy man or dervish
(daruish, a word literally meaning "poor") in Iraqi Kurdistan, dwelling
alone in a cave for a while and then consorting with other dervishes
and Sufis in Sulaymaniyyah. Even once he had returned to Baghdad,
where he lived as a despised exile expelled from his country for heresy,
his life was by no means one of ease. "There was a time in ÔIraq," he
recalled, "when the Ancient Beauty . . . had no change of linen. The one
shirt He possessed would be washed, dried and worn again."ll
Communal sharing and an obliteration of the usual social hierarchies
characterized the life of the Babi partisans of Baha'u'llah. They lived
in very humble dwellings in Baghdad, and the disciple Nabil-i A'zam
Zarandi occupied, with two other men, a room that had no furniture.
Baha'u'llah, he says, came to the room one day and remarked: "Its
emptiness pleases Me. In my estimation it is preferable to many a spa-cious
palace, inasmuch as the beloved of God are occupied in it with
the remembrance of the Incomparable Friend."12 Nabil reports: "Many
a night no less than ten persons subsisted on no more than a penny-worth
of dates. No one knew to whom actually belonged the shoes, the
cloaks or the robes that were to be found in their houses. . . . Their own
names they had forgotten, their hearts were emptied of aught else

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except adoration for their Beloved."l3 The severity of a room without
furniture, the comradeship of intermingled possessions, the nights of
communal meditation and ecstatic worship in the presence of their
beloved Baha'u'llah, make this band of his Babi followers icons for the
virtues of the poor.
In Baghdad in the early 1860s Baha'u'llah used to meet occasion-ally
with Iranian princes of the &ajar house. Often such persons were
out of favor with the shah and had taken refuge outside Iran near the
ShiÔi shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf, not far from Baghdad in
Ottoman Iraq. He would inquire as to the political situation in Tehran.
They complained at one point, however, that he never discussed spiri-tual
issues with them, only worldly ones. In reply, Baha'u'llah set very
stringent standards for his willingness to converse on things of the
spirit. To one of the princes, Baha'u'llah said, "My purpose in coming
to this corrupt world where the tyrants and traitors, by their acts of
cruelty and oppression, have closed the doors of peace and tranquillity
to all mankind, is to establish, through the power of God and His
might, the forces of justice, trust, security and faith."14 He says that
when these aims have been achieved, an attractive woman wearing
jewelry should be able to travel all over the earth without fear of
molestation, given the high standards of trustworthiness and justice
that would have been attained. Baha'u'llah's choice of example is inter-esting
in that it focuses on sexual harrassment as a prevailing evil he
wishes to see eliminated. Although the example he gives is of a wealthy
woman being protected from the lust and greed of men, it goes without
saying that most women likely to be sexually harrassed were poor, and
so would be the primary beneficiaries of a true Baha'i society.
Another example which Baha'u'llah provided the princes had to do
with self-renunciation:
Suppose there is a very rich person whose wealth is enormous and
beyond measure. And suppose that gradually and in the course of time he
bestows so much of his wealth upon a poor person that he himself is
reduced to absolute poverty while the poor man has turned into a very
rich man. . . Suppose in his poor and distressed state he reaches a situ-ation
in which he incurs some small debt. Being unable to pay it, he is
brought to a public square in town where he is humilated and punished.
He is further informed that his release will not be considered until he
pays his debt. At this point suppose he sees his friend (who once was poor
and as a result of his generosity has become rich). Should the thought

+P87

flash through his mind that he wishes that in return for all his generosi-ty
to him, this friend would now come forward and relieve him of this
calamity, immediately all his deeds would become void, he would become
deprived of the virtue of contentment and acquiescence, and would be
shut away from the virtues of the human spirit.is
Personal obligations or individual gratitude, Baha'u'llah says, are
not the point of his teachings on detachment from the material world.
Thus, he says, if the second man, grown rich at the expense of the
first, is tempted to help him out of specific gratitude, he too is lost. The
only worthy motive is a universal one, irrespective of person. Love,
giving, and responsibility to others must be all-encompassing. This
principle is crucial, since otherwise the rich will help only the poor
they know personally, and the poor so assisted will be more clients
than simply fellow human beings.
In Edirne, where Baha'u'llah was kept in exile (1863-1868) by the
Ottoman government, he continued to address the problem of the
poor. His discourse here, however, takes on a more institutional tone,
as he begins elaborating the bases of the new Baha'i religion and con-sidering
its relationship to the governments of the world. In the Surah
of God (Suratu'ZZah, ca. Spring, 18661, Baha'u'llah writes that a sub-ject
is better than a thousand rulers, a subordinate is more exalted
than a myriad of superiors, and one oppressed is more excellent than
a city full of tyrants. He urges the Baha'is to emulate Baha'u'llah him-self
in severing themselves from all things.16 These pronouncements
have the effect of turning upside down conventional social distinctions
based on wealth and power. The subaltern is better than the elite, and
the oppressed superior to the oppressor. Here, as in the Hidden Words
and Five Treasures, Baha'u'llah condemns political tyranny along
with excessive attachment to the things of this world, perhaps a clue
that he thought the two things went together. Later, in the ÔAkka peri-od,
he pointed out that many of the rich had been prevented by their
riches from accepting the Baha'i Faith, whereas many of the poor had
attained to the mystical knowledge (Ôb-fan) of God.17
In the early-ÔAkka-period Surah of Utterance (Surcitu'l-Bayin),
Baha'u'llah reaffirmed the ethical foundations of his teachings on
wealth and poverty. "Withhold not from the poor," he wrote, "the gifts
which the grace of God hath bestowed upon you. He, verily, shall rec-ompense
the charitable, and doubly repay them for what they have
bestowed."18 In the same work, he reaffirms that God loves the poor, not
because they are good, but because they are poor and suffering. He says:

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If ye meet the abased or the down-trodden, turn not away disdainfully
from them, for the King of Glory ever watcheth over them and sur-roundeth
them with such tenderness as none can fathom except them
that have suffered their wishes and desires to be merged in the Will of
your Lord, the Gracious, the All-Wise. 0 ye rich ones of the earth! Flee
not from the face of the poor that lieth in the dust, nay rather befriend
him and suffer him to recount the tale of the woes with which God's
inscrutable Decree hath caused him to be afflicted. By the righteousness
of God! Whilst ye consort with him, the Concourse on high will be looking
upon you, will be interceding for you will be extolling your names and glo-rifying
your action. lg
The rich are urged, not simply to "give to the poor" in a cold or abstract
way, but to actually befriend them and listen to their accounts of the
travails through which they have lived. This very act of listening is
itself raised to the station of a deed that brings the intercession of the
Concourse on High.
In his Tablet to the Kings (Surcitu'Z-Multik) of the late Edirne peri-od,
Baha'u'llah, virtually alone and a political and religious prisoner
under house arrest and in internal exile, dared address the Ottoman
Sultan ÔAbdu'l-ÔAziz, his jailer. He urged the sultan not to pay his min-isters
and aides so well that they would be enabled to "lay up riches
for themselves" or to be "numbered with the extravagant." He attacks
the vast extremes of wealth he witnessed in the Ottoman imperial
capital, where destitute rural immigrants lived near rich landlords,
tax-farmers, and import-export merchants. He says: "We observed
upon Our arrival in the City [Istanbul]" that some of its inhabitants
"were possessed of an affluent fortune and lived in the midst of exces-sive
riches, while others were in dire want and abject poverty. This ill
beseemeth thy sovereignty, and is unworthy of thy rank."20 The huge
wealth inequalities visible in a Mediterranean city like Istanbul dur-ing
the incipient Age of Capital shocked and dismayed Baha'u'llah. He
correctly saw that government officials were among the chief
exploiters of the people, amassing private fortunes from their public
service, and warned the sultan not to "aggrandize thy ministers at the
expense of thy subjects. Fear the sights of the poor and of the upright
in heart who, at every break of day, bewail their plight, and be unto
them a benignant sovereign." He calls the poor the ruler's "treasures
on earth" and urges him to safeguard them from those who wish to rob
and expropriate them. "Inquire into their affairs, and ascertain, every

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year, nay every month, their condition, and be not of them that are
careless of their duty."21 Not only do the rich owe an absolute respon-sibility
to the poor, but so does the government. The state is charged
with intervening against excessive extremes of wealth and poverty,
and of continually monitoring the welfare of the citizenry.
The implicit danger to the poor here is overtaxation, especially the
imposition of fraudulent or unwarranted taxes by state officials seek-ing
to line their own pockets. Baha'u'llah identifies, in addition,
another motive for excessive levies on the destitute, the arms race
engaged in by modern states. He instructs the rulers of the earth to
"compose your differences, and reduce your armaments, that the bur-den
of your expenditures may be lightened, and that your minds and
hearts may be tranquillized." He urges states to engage in proactive
peace-making of a sort that will allow them to have low military
expenditures, and to maintain something akin to militias for self-defense
rather than armies for conquest. He complains bitterly: "We
have learned that you are increasing your outlay every year, and are
laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is more than
they can bear, and is a grievous injustice." He reaffirms that the poor
are "the trust of God" in the midst of the rulers, and warns them
against betraying that trust22
The Tablet to the Kings is remarkable in subordinating the issue of
world peace, a key teaching of Baha'u'llah, to that of the elimination of
poverty. That is, one of the primary reasons given for the implementa-tion
of a peaceful world order is that this step will reduce military bud-gets
and in turn allow lower rates of taxation on those least able to
afford it. The corollary of this principle is the implication that martial,
praetorian states create poverty and social injustice. In the beginning of
his own independent ministry, then, Baha'u'llah goes beyond the ethi-cal
and mystical aspects of wealth and poverty that had preoccupied
him in his Baghdad-era works, now addressing the role of the state. The
government is responsible, in his view, for keeping the salaries of offi-cials
reasonable and taxes low and for continually inquiring into the
condition of the poor and the means of improving it. This view of the
responsibilities of the state, it should be noted, differs radically from
that espoused by most nineteenth-century reformers, whether in the
Middle East or Europe. Baha'u'llah's anti-militarism and his dim view
of extremes of wealth and poverty clearly place him on the progressive
end of the spectrum in the political discourse of the time.

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In the early ÔAkka period, from 1868, Baha'u'llah denounced the
tyranny of the Ottoman state in no uncertain terms (Lawh-i FuÔcid)
and began praising British-style parliamentary democracy. He
praised Queen Victoria, in his tablet to her, for abolishing slavery and
putting the reins of democratic governance (which he ,called, in nine-teenth-
century Middle Eastern parlance, "counsel") in the hands of
the people. The word he uses for "people" (an-nas) indicates the com-mon
people, and it is clear that here he not only advocates that the
state work for the interests of the poor, but also insists that the poor
should have a voice in their own governance. His abolition of slavery
reaffirms the inherent dignity of every human being before God, and
it implies, by analogy, that not only classical slavery but also any form
of unpaid or barely paid bondage is illicit.
In his Most Holy Book (Kit6i Aqdas; ÔAkka, 18731, Baha'u'llah
reaffirms the democratic principle, predicting that Iran would undergo
a revolution and be ruled by a democracy of the people (jumhur an-nas).
23 Baha'u'llah's principle that Baha'i communities should be
administered by local Houses of Justice (currently called local Spiritual
Assemblies) comprised of lay believers also gave a voice to the poor. In
a village, local Baha'i community policy is not made by a clergyman
from the urban middle class posted to the countryside, but rather by
the villagers themselves, who enjoy universal adult suffrage and freely
elect representatives to the local Spiritual Assemblies. Again, in the
1990s the vast majority of local Spiritual Assembly members are what
most of those in the global North would consider "poor." Baha'u'llah
instructed that the local Spiritual Assemblies make their decisions
through "consultation," a process that allows a multitude of voices to
be heard and encourages individuals to seek the truth and the best
course, rather than to cling stubbornly to their initial opinions.
Several of the laws Baha'u'llah enacted in the Most Holy Book
were aimed at improving the situation of the poor. He designates
them as appropriate recipients of gifts during the annual Baha'i festi-val,
Ayyam-i Ha, in which presents are given prior to the period of the
Fast.24 He insists on universal education for children (in most of the
world at that time, children received schooling only if their parents
could afford to pay for it, and this is still the case in much of the glob-al
South) and makes the House of Justice responsible for providing
instruction to indigent children .25 Since education is a key to
improved skills and economic independence, and since the education

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of women brings down birth rates and allows them greater economic
independence, universal education provided by social institutions
such as the state or religious bodies can have an important impact on
poverty. Also in the Most Holy Book, Baha'u'llah ordains the payment
by Baha'is of z&at, a form of alms originating in Islam.26 In contem-porary
Muslim countries such as Pakistan, zakat is formally assessed
as a 2.5 percent annual levy on liquid wealth (principally bank
accounts), and the funds are distributed in poor neighborhoods.
Baha'is in the West have not yet begun paying zakat, but its imple-mentation
would be a significant step forward in providing funds for
a proactive role by Baha'i institutions in working with the poor.
Although the percentage is small, if the funds were wisely employed
they could, alongside governmental and private charitable efforts,
have an important impact.
Helping the poor is also among the purposes of the larger Baha'i
tax of nineteen percent on profits or accumulated wealth, called the
Right of God (huquqz~ÔZZcih).~7 In his own lifetime, Baha'u'llah super-vised
the distribution of the Right of God to indigent Baha'is. One
community asked him if they should support the impoverished with
these funds, and he replied that this should only be done with his per-mission-
he wanted an accounting of Right of God contributions and
the particulars of its possible recipients among the poor. He feared
that giving blanket authority for such measures to the new Baha'i
communities in Iran might prove a cause of dissension.2s (Some who
thought themselves deserving might blame the local believers in
charge of the funds if they were excluded, whereas no one would argue
with Baha'u'llah). Baha'u'llah's personal attention to the needs of
impoverished Baha'is is quite touching, and his solicitude comes
through in his letters, as for instance when he directs that specific
sums from the Right of God be given to individuals like "Mr. A. Z." in
Khurasan because he is in debt and anti-Bah8'i enemies have mulct-ed
him.29 In a letter to a prominent believer in Shiraz probably writ-ten
around 1879430, Baha'u'llah instructs that half the Right of God
collected in that city be given to the poor. He adds that the communi-ty
should strive, however, to see that all are provided with gainful
employment, since being reduced to dependence on charity is inap-propriate
to the station of a human being.30
Baha'u'llah makes the indigent an issue for governmental and reli-gious
institutions and gives the poor an active voice in the governance

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of both (in contrast to the kings, caliphs, and popes who ruled
absolutely in his own day). Nor does he intend by "the poor" only men,
for here, as elsewhere, he is concerned to overturn the gender
inequities of patriarchy. He says that "the servants of God and His
handmaidens are regarded on the same Plane." Devoted Baha'i
women, he writes, "excel over men in the sight of God. How numerous
are the heroes and knights in the field who are bereft of the True One
and have no share in His recognition."31
Baha'u'llah envisages the rich working with the poor to change
the world:
They who are possessed of riches, however, must have the utmost
regard for the poor, for great is the honor destined by God for those poor
who are steadfast in patience. By My life! There is no honor, except what
God may please to bestow, that can compare to this honor. Great is the
blessedness awaiting the poor that endure patiently and conceal their
sufferings, and well is it with the rich who bestow their riches on the
needy and prefer them before themselves.
Please God, the poor may exert themselves and strive to earn the
means of livelihood. This is a duty which, in this most great Revelation,
hath been prescribed unto every one, and is accounted in the sight of God
as a goodly deed. Whoso observeth this duty, the help of the invisible One
shall most certainly aid him. He can enrich, through His grace, whomso-ever
He pleaseth. He, verily, hath power over all things.32
Baha'u'llah continually stresses the self-worth, agency, and indepen-dent
action of the poor themselves, which explains his emphasis on the
need to earn a livelihood. Of course, the other side of this coin is the
responsibility of the state and the economic system to provide gainful
employment for all who seek it, a responsibility implied by Baha'u'llah's
emphasis on governmental responsibility in his Tablet to the Kings.
The patience Baha'u'llah calls for in the poor (a patience he exer-cised
himself, for most of his life) is not a passive, static suffering. It
is the patience that eschews violence and hatred while working cease-lessly
toward the creation of a new civilization wherein the extremes
of wealth and poverty would be eliminated at last. Baha'u'llah, in a
Persian tablet, says to the devoted Baha'i poor that they should not
despair, for even in this life innumerable doors exist, and that the poor
should open them with the fingers of volition so as to witness new
worlds in this one. He announces that he keeps company with all who
are poverty-stricken, gives his solicitude to the oppressed, and gazes

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I upon the grief-stricken. The delights of the Word of God, he says,
transform and efface the bitterness of this ephemeral world.33 The
Word of God does not only solace the poor in their suffering or offer
them a "mystical" escape from their pitiful condition. Rather, they are
called upon to exercise their own wills in order to take advantage of
opportunities for change that exist in this world, with the help of
divine benevolence and of the principles revealed in Baha'i scripture.
The poor, like other Baha'is, are called upon to denounce tyranny and
infractions against basic human rights, to work for parliamentary
democracy, to allow the expression of the views of the humblest Baha'i
within the community, and to reform the world's economy so as to
reflect the divine attribute of justice.
Subsequent Baha'i holy figures, such as Baha'u'llah's son and
authorized interpreter, ÔAbdu'l-Baha (184&1921), and the latter's
grandson Shoghi Effendi (Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, 1921-19571,
have further elaborated on issues in the theology of liberation. A spe-cial
commitment to the poor continues to be evident in ÔAbdu'l-Baha's
teachings, which include corporate profit-sharing, binding arbitration
of labor disputes, a graduated income tax, a commitment to the aboli-tion
of poverty, and the condemnation of workers being impoverished
while capitalists grow rich-which he refers to as "industrial slavery."
Nevertheless, as ÔAbdu'l-Baha makes clear, he does not envisage a
classless society, simply a society in which everyone is at least com-fortable.
In 1875, ÔAbdu'l-Baha wrote:
Wealth is most commendable, provided the entire population is wealthy.
If, however, a few have inordinate riches while the rest are impoverished,
and no fruit or benefit accrues from that wealth, then it is only a liabili-ty
to its possessor. If, on the other hand, it is expended for the promotion
of knowledge, the founding of elementary and other schools, the encour-agement
of art and industry, the training of orphans and the poor-in
brief, if it is dedicated to the welfare of society-its possessor will stand
out before God and man as the most excellent of all who live on earth and
will be accounted as one of the people of paradise.34
Shoghi Effendi wrote that the "Cause neither accepts the theories
of the Capitalistic economics in fun, nor can it agree with the Marxists
and Communists in their repudiation of the principle of private own-ership
and of the vital sacred rights of the individual"35
From 1908, ÔAbdu'l-Baha, in response to the turmoil of the Iranian
Constitutional Revolution (1905-11) reversed his earlier support for it

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and temporarily adopted a policy of political neutrality.36 This policy
has since been maintained, during this early stage of the expansion of
the Baha'i faith into a world religion, so as to avoid divisions within the
community along political lines. Non-intervention in party politics,
however, does not necessarily impede social activism, as Baha'is
showed in the United States in the 1980s when they mobilized to work
with other groups to aid the ratification of the United Nations
Convention on Genocide bill by the U.S. Congress. Practical action for
the poor, as with the establishment by the National Spiritual Assembly
of the Baha'is of India of numerous vocational schools in that country,
are clearly key duties for all Baha'is. Baha'u'llah does not prescribe
only a sort of paternalistic philanthropy, however. Rather, he urges
that the voices of the poor themselves be heard, and that the poor exer-cise
their own volition and agency in changing their condition.
A Baha'i theology of liberation must begin from and take account
of key themes in the Revelation of the Manifestation of God for this
day. In the passage quoted at the beginning of this essay, Baha'u'llah
speaks of having been chained in order to win the release (it&) of the
world from its bondage, and having been imprisoned in the Most
Great Fortress in order to emancipate (Ôitq; literally, to manumit from
slavery) all peoples. The theme of emancipation is therefore central to
Baha'u'llah's message and intimately bound up with Baha'i theo-phanology.
God loves the poor because of their suffering, watching
over them and surrounding them with supreme tenderness. The poor,
because of their lack of material means, are "rich in God," and their
sufferings can aid them on the spiritual path, even if not all among the
poor avail themselves of this natural advantage. The rich, in contrast,
labor under a vast spiritual disability that can only with the greatest
difficulty be overcome. To draw near to the divine Beloved, the rich
must invest substantial amounts of their wealth in improving the con-ditions
of the poor, ensuring that the latter are no longer needy. They
must be motivated in so doing by nothing less than universal love.
The state has a key role to play, according to Baha'u'llah. It must
intervene through tax policy and in other ways to prevent the accu-mulation
of vast disparities in wealth between rich and poor, must
ensure that taxes on the less-well-off are as low as possible, and
must work for peace and world government in order to keep the mil-itary
budget minimal. It must prevent slavery (and therefore bonded
labor) and must give even the poor a voice in government through
democratic, parliamentary elections.

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Baha'i institutions themselves have a responsibility to the desti-tute,
to ensure the education of their young and to distribute to the
needy the proceeds of the zakat alms-tax and some of the Huququ'llah,
the "Right of God." Since Baha'i administrative institutions are elect-ed
by the local community, the Baha'is already have thousands of
grassroots village communities governed by and for the poor, which
are experimenting with new societal values. Baha'is have a constant
duty to remind the rich of the "midnight sighing of the poor."
Baha'u'llah throws down the false idol of the market as the unchal-lenged
system for distributing wealth (whatever its virtues in distrib-uting
goods). The emphasis here on social action in addition to spiri-tual
concerns is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, which inherited
from Islam both a strong mystical strain and a this-worldly orienta-tion,
combining these with a distinctly modern vision. All human
beings, Baha'u'llah says, "have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing
civilization."37
The challenge for Baha'is while they are a relatively small com-munity
of six million, mostly themselves poor, is to ever remain mind-ful
that involuntary poverty is evil and illegitimate, that the vast
wealth of capitalism has frequently been the fruit of the exploitation
of workers and peasants ("industrial slavery"), and that structural
changes must be introduced and society transformed if things are to
change. Charitable work is highly praiseworthy, but within the con-text
of rapaciously materialist societies it always faces the danger of
being coopted by the laissez-faire status quo.
Another danger lies in becoming absorbed in the economic theo-ries
and minutiae that might underlie a Baha'i social democracy. In
the end, what is wanted in a Baha'i theology of liberation is not social
policy alone but universal love, not only new bureaucracies but also
steadfast faith in the Promised of all Ages, not class struggle but class
transcendence, not a patronizing of the poor but their empowerment
and enrichment. Social action must be grounded in mystical percep-tion
and in faith. As Baha'u'llah instructed us: "Be a treasure to the
poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy,
a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge."38
What is needed is not choirs singing to one side as corporate union
busters intimidate on the shop floor or as the shock troops of an exces-sive
industrialism murder Yanomamo Indians in order to despoil the
Amazon rain forest. We are all challenged to listen to the poor-"suffer

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him to recount the tale of the woes with which God's inscrutable
Decree hath caused him to be afflicted"-and join with them in radi-cally
critiquing the conditions of our collective existence.
NOTES
I am grateful for substantive comments on earlier drafts of this paper
to John Walbridge, Todd Lawson, Seena Fazel, Khazeh Fananapazir,
and J. A. (Jack) McLean.
1. See Dan Cohn-Sherbok, ed., World Religions and Human Liberation
(Maryknoll, MD: Orbis, 1992).
2. Baha'u'llah, quoted in Mu'idih-Ôi Asmani, 9 ~01s. (Tehran: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1972) vol. 4, p. 96.
3. Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, trans. Shoghi Effendi
(Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1976) p. 99. This passage is from a
late-ÔAkka period work; see Baha'u'llah, al-Kit&b al-Mubin (Bombay, n.d.) p.
307. All passages in Gleanings can be found in the original languages in
Baha'u'llah, Muntakhabati az athar-i Hadrat-i Bahc+Ôllah (Hofheim: Bahi'i
Verlag, 1984).
4. Baha'u'llah, Athar-i Q&am-i A'la, 7 volumes (Bombay and Tehran:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1890-1978), vol. 7, p. 5.
5. For the nineteenth-century Baha'i community, see my "Religious
Dissidence and Urban Leadership: Baha'is in &ajar Shiraz and Tehran," in
Michael Bonine and Ahmad Ashraf, eds. City and Society in &ajar Iran, forth-coming.
S.V. "Iran," by Moojan Momen, in Moojan Momen and John
Walbridge, eds., A Short Encyclopaedia of the Baha'i Faith, 2 ~01s. (Wilmette,
Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, forthcoming); and Peter Smith, The Babi and
Baha'i Religions: From Messianic Shi'ism to a World Religion (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987) chapter 6: "The Iranian Baha'i
Community, c. 1866-1921." For the impoverished weavers of Kashan, see
Haydar ÔAh Isfahani, Stories from the Delight of Hearts, trans. A. Q. Faizi (Los
Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1980) p. 96.
6. See Peter Smith and Moojan Momen, "The Baha'i Faith, 1957-1988: A
Survey of Contemporary Developments," Religion 19 (1989) pp. 63-91.
7. Important works here include Gustav0 Gutierrez, The Power of the
Poor in History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984) and Leonardo Boff, On the
Edge: Religion and Marginalized Existence, trans. Robert R. Barr (San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989). Good discussions of the context of these
works include Harvey Cox, The Silencing of Leonardo Boff: The Vatican and
the Future of World Christianity (Oak Park, Ill.: Meyer Stone Books, 1988)
and Penny Lernoux, People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism (New

+P97

York: Viking Penguin, 1989). However, clearly both Baha'i scripture and the
lived experience of Baha'is as a distinct religious community have their own
individuality, which will become apparent. I am taking the works cited above
as starting-points for my own investigation, and am not attempting to simply
clone them. Much of the impetus for what I have to say here comes from
points made to me by Baha'i workers and villagers in Senegal, Gambia, India,
Lebanon, and Jordan.
8. See Charles Issawi, ed., The Economic History of Iran, 1800-1914
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19'71), and John Foran, Fragile
Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1993).
9. Baha'u'llah, The Hidden Words, trans. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.:
BahPi Publishing Trust, 1979). Below, passages from this work will be cited
by number and language (e.g., "Arabic, No. 4").
10. Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, trans. Shoghi Effendi
(Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1971) p. 55.
11. Quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1970) p. 137.
12. Baha'u'llah, ibid.
13. Nabil Zarandi, Ibid.
14. Baha'u'llah, quoted in Nab&i Zarandi, Panj Ganj and translated in
Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha'u'llah, 4 ~01s. (Oxford: George
Ronald, 19741987) vol. 2, p. 141.
15. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 142.
16. Baha'u'lhih, "Siirat Allah," in Athar-i Qalam-i AÔla, vol. 4 (Tehran:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 125B.E./1968) p. 23; Juan R. I. Cole, "Redating the
Surah of God (Surat Allah): An Edirne Tablet of 1866?-Provisional Translation
Appended" Baha'i Studies Bulletin vol. 6:4-7:2 (October 1992) p. 11.
17. Baha'u'llah, Athar-i &a&m-i AÔ&, vol. 6, p. 241.
18. Gleanings, p. 278.
19. Ibid., pp. 314-15.
20. Ibid., p. 235.
21. Ibid., p. 236.
22. Ibid., pp. 250-51.
23. Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book (Haifa: Baha'i
World Centre, 1992) para. 93.
24. Kitab-i-Aqdas, para. 16
25. Kitab-i-Aqdas, para. 48
26. Kitab-i-Aqdas, para. 146
27. Baha'u'llah in The Compilation of Compilations, 2 ~01s. (Sidney:
Baha'i Publications Australia, 1991) vol. 1, p. 504, cf. vol. 1, p. 515. I am grate-ful
to Seena Faze1 for this citation.
28. Baha'u'llah, Athar-i Qalam-i AU, vol. 7, pp. 236-37.

+P98

29. Majmu'ih-Ôi Al&h-i Mub&aki, p. 196.
30. Ath&--i &a&m-i AÔ& vol. 6, p. 283.
31. Both passages from Baha'u'llah, quoted in Compilation of
Compilations, vol. 2, p. 358.
32. Gleanings, pp. 202-3; Baha'u'llah, Zqtidarat ua Chand Lawh-i Digar
(Bombay: n.p, 131oA.H./18%-93) pp. 291-96.
33. Baha'u'llah, quoted in Ma'idih-Ôi Asmcini, vol. 4, p. 96.
34. The Secret of Divine Ciuilization, trans. Marzieh Gail (Wilmette, Ill.:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1970) pp. 24-25.
35. Quoted in Badi Shams, A Baha'i Perspective on Economics of the
Future (New Delhi: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1989) pp. l-2. Earlier points
made in this paragraph about ÔAbdu'l-Baha's teachings can also be found in
this useful compilation.
36. Juan R.I. Cole, "Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in
the 19th Century." International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992) pp.
l-26.
37. Gleanings, p. 215.
38. Ibid., p. 285.

+P99

THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATSONS OF SCIENCE
Anjam Khursheed
In 1912, during an Open Forum talk in San Francisco, ÔAbdu'l-Baha
satirized the then prevailing mood of Western philosophy by
describing the cow as one of its leading exponents.1 He stated that the
cow was a "professor emeritus" in the school of thought that gave prime
importance to the tangible, a philosophy based upon sense-perception
as the touch-stone of truth. He was, of course, referring to empiricism
normally associated with a line of philosophers starting with Hobbes,
Locke, and Hume. Of course, there is more to modern Western philos-ophy
than empiricism, but ÔAbdu'l-Baha was speaking in a much more
general sense. He cited, for instance, those who reduced the origins of
humanity to animal evolution, as prime examples of "philosophers of
the West." ÔAbdu'l-Baha alluded to empiricism more as an attitude of
mind, rather than describing it in terms of a formal philosophy.
Empiricism as an attitude of mind has continued to permeate
Western thinking since ÔAbdu'l-Baha traveled to the West in the early
part of this century. The trend of reducing human nature to animal
nature, one of the main themes that ÔAbdu'l-Baha opposed in his
Western addresses, has been greatly accentuated in the interim. From
the successive reductionisms of human nature to resemble uncon-scious
animal drives and the conditioned responses of albino rats,
through to the survival instincts of aggressive apes, and more recent-ly,
Darwinian survival machines, twentieth-century humans, whether
in popular culture or intellectual circles, have increasingly painted

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their self-portrait in terms of "cow-like" qualities. Moreover, the
empiricism underlying many of the reductions of human nature to
either animal or machine, or both, is characterized by an appeal to sci-ence
as its founding authority.
The behavioral school of psychology, popular in the early to mid-decades
of the twentieth century, rejected all human qualities which
were not directly observable. The rejection of distinctive human qual-ities
of mind were made by an appeal to the scientific method. In the
words of one of the founding fathers of behaviorism, B. F. Skinner, the
rejection of free will was characterized as follows: "the hypothesis that
man is not free is essential to the application of the scientific method
to the study of human behavior."2 This claim of empiricism to be a phi-losophy
founded on the scientific method has existed from the very
beginnings of empiricism as a formal philosophy. In the eighteenth
century, David Hume, one of the acknowledged founders of modern
empiricism, understood his own work to have extended the physics of
Isaac Newton to the study of human nature. This can be seen in the
subtitle that Hume gave to one of his famous works, A Treatise of
Human Nature, in which he expressed the intention to "introduce the
experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects."
An underlying theme of this paper is that the prevailing conception
of empiricism, as a philosophy founded on the scientific method, is in
fact a misconception. It comes from a naive view of science that differs
both from the scientist's own experience and the Baha'i understanding
of science. It should also be pointed out that although empiricism may
reflect the general mood of Western philosophy in this century, there
have been important exceptions to the empirical trend, some of which
will be cited below. Generally speaking, during the latter part of the
twentieth century, particularly in academic circles, there has arisen
significant opposition to the prevailing empiricist worldview.
PHILOSOPHIES OF SCIENCE IN THE
TWENTIETH CENTURY
One of the more common ways the modern mind pictures science is
to see it as a collection of "facts and numbers." Science is perceived as
an objective method of observation, hypothesis and experiment. This
view of science is generally classed as "positivist." The positivist view
portrays science as a method dominated by empirical measurements,

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either in observation, experiment, or hypotheses that are constructed
according to rigorous methods of logic, whether they be deductive or
inductive. Such a description of science, as is well known, was explic-itly
formulated by the logical positivists in the early part of this cen-tury.
3 The positivist conception of science is based upon understand-ing
science through explicit methods of verification which are thought
to be objective and independent of moral and spiritual values. A posi-tivist
view of science gave rise to value neutralism, the notion that the
elimination of value judgments was a necessary precondition to the
successful practice of science. A scientific frame of mind came to be
closely associated with neutrality vis-a-vis moral commitments.
Although a positivist might insist that it is only within science
that one should be value-neutral and that we need not necessarily
suspend our commitments to moral values outside science, the line
between science and nonscience cannot in practice be so well-defined.
Alfred J. Ayer extrapolated on the implications of logical positivism
for human values when he stated that they were "literally senseless."4
This conclusion derives from the assumption that total experience can
be adequately described in terms of empirical facts and is closely
related to a fact-dominated conception of science. A scientific approach
to problem-solving, even if such problems are identified as lying out-side
science, in such non-scientific activities as religion and art, was
associated with a value-neutral approach.
An important point to emphasize about the positivist conception
of science is that it understands scientific knowledge to be essentially
non-mysterious. From the positivist viewpoint, all that can be mean-ingfully
discovered is to be expressed in terms of the methods of logic
and empirical measurements. In the words of one of the founders of
logical positivism, Rudolf Carnap: "There are no questions which are
in principle unanswerable."5 The founders of logical positivism under-stood
their philosophy to be based upon strict methods of science
which they attempted to use to "decontaminate" the rest of philosophy
from "metaphysics."6 In practice, this entailed the negation of the
greater part of theology and human values.
Although logical positivism as a school of philosophy was relative-ly
short-lived (between the two world wars), it expressed important
elements of the psychology of the modern worldview. In particular, it
emphasized the belief that modern science contains verification tests
of truth that other human cultural activities do not possess. The

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famous verification principle of logical positivism-the attempt to
define all meaningful propositions to be either statements of a logical-mathematical
kind or of an experimental factual type-was an exam-ple
of such a test to distinguish science from other spheres of human
activity.7 The verification principle was an attempt to derive a scien-tific
definition of meaning. Logical positivism derived from Hume's
empiricist philosophy. The verification principle, for example, was a
generalization of "Hume's Fork," which divided all meaningful propo-sitions
into either mathematics or sense experience.8
Logical positivism articulated much of the empiricism underlying
twentieth-century Western philosophy. Bryan Magee, a professional
philosopher who has contributed greatly to making formal philosophy
more accessible to the general public, has commented that most edu-cated
people in the West are still under the impression that formal
philosophy is dominated by logical positivism. He states that "a lot of
people-well educated but not in philosophy-are under the impres-sion
that contemporary philosophy is logical positivism."9 In specific
areas in formal philosophy, however, particularly within the philoso-phy
of science, logical positivism has received considerable opposition.
Only a brief outline of some of these opposing voices will be given here.
There is, nevertheless, enough literature to indicate that significant
challenges to the prevailing empiricism of Western thought have been
mounted. It is too early, however, to assess these influences on
Western philosophy beyond the confines of academic circles.
Much of the literature usually cited in the context of the philoso-phy
of science in the twentieth century arose out of a reaction to logi-cal
positivism. The philosophy of Karl Popper, for instance, set out to
demonstrate the limitations of the notion of "proof' within a positivist
conception of science. For Popper, a theory could never be proved
absolutely true, only disproved. Popper objected to the step of induc-tion
implicit in the positivist's model of science. Popper understood
science to advance by a series of "conjectures and refutations"10 For
Popper, theories within science were in effect good guesses which
could be falsified by experiment. For Popper, any good theory that is
likely to advance scientific understanding is consequently one that
can, in principle, be falsified. Popper likened advances in science to a
kind of survival of the fittest of theories, not unlike the process of nat-ural
selection in biological evolution.
Popper stressed in his epistemology that scientific research is
rooted in problem-solving, as opposed to the positivist model of science

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which cliams to be founded in observation. In this way, Popper sug-gested
that theory precedes observation. He also objected to relegat-ing
all meaningful statements to two categories: mathematics or
experimentally verified facts. Indeed, one of the flaws of logical posi-tivism
that led to its eventual abandonment as a formal philosophy
arose precisely from the objection that the verification principle was
neither a mathematical proposition nor empirically grounded.
It should be pointed out in this context that Popper did not pro-pose
his criterion of falsifiability as a truth-criterion in the same man-ner
as the founders of logical positivism had proposed the verification
principle. Popper understood that there was much in science that
could not be explicitly defined. Popper used the falsifiability criterion
or "demarcation criterion," as he called it, to separate genuine science
from pseudo-science.ll He used it, for instance, to demonstrate that
Marxism and Freud's psychoanalytical theory could not in principle be
falsified, and thus, fell into the pseudo-science category.12 This does
not mean that Popper's demarcation criterion undermined a belief in
theology or human values, since he applied it only to belief systems
that claimed to be scientific such as Marxism or Freud's psychoana-lytical
theory. Unlike the logical positivists, Popper did not attempt to
use a "scientific" criterion of truth as the balance in which all philos-ophy
was to be weighed.
Much of Popper's philosophy has also been directed against the
empiricist's reductionism of the human mind into strictly natural
processes. Popper, for example, places all phenomena into three
"worlds": World 1, contains the material constituents of the universe;
World 2, denotes mental categories and subjective knowledge such as
feeling and thinking; World 3, represents the category of objective knowl-edge,
such as scientific knowledge, mathematics, art, history. In this lat-ter
category, Popper also places theology. Popper has argued that nei-ther
World 2 nor World 3 can be reduced down to World 1, as advocated
in one form or another by the prevailing empirical school. He states that
World 3 in particular is autonomous and has a life of its own.13
Popper's challenge to the empiricist school within the philosophy
of mind recently entered a new phase with the publication of The Self
and Its Brain, a book Popper wrote in collaboration with the neuro-scientist
John Eccles.14 Popper and Eccles argue in favor of what has
come to be known as traditional "dualism," the view that the mind and
body are two distinct but interacting entities. Popper and Eccles

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defend the autonomy of the mind, its uniqueness and creativity. In
stating that all significant human experience, and particularly scien-tific
knowledge, is based on unique qualities of the mind, Popper is, of
course, working within the "rationalist" tradition of Western philoso-phy.
Rationalism gives primacy to the mind in the acquisition of
knowledge over, say, information gathered from the senses. The ratio-nalist
tradition in the West includes such philosophers as Plato,
Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant. Popper, as a modern-day
rationalist, however, belongs to a minority of professional philoso-phers.
Generally speaking, one of the consequences of the prevailing
empirical outlook is that most rationalist philosophers in Western
philosophy are not taken seriously. Plato and Aristotle, for instance,
are now usually only studied for historical and academic interest.
During his talk at the Open Forum in San Francisco in 1912, ÔAbdu'l-Baha
contrasted Western philosophy with "philosophers of the East,"
among whom he included Aristotle and Plato.15 Popper, a modern-day
rationalist philosopher who is taken seriously, is an exception.
The philosophy of Thomas Kuhn, also influential in the philoso-phy
of science in this century, sought to remedy the limitations of log-ical
positivism. Kuhn emphasized the cultural character of science. In
particular, Kuhn stressed that behind any single theory of science,
there is a certain worldview or, as he called it, a "paradigm."16 Kuhn
argued that single theories are rarely tested or falsified on their own.
Facts are selected and interpreted according to an underlying world-view
present in the minds of scientists at a given time. He believed
that progress in science was achieved through the impact of back-ground
worldview rather than the successes of individual theories.
Kuhn argued that progress in science was achieved through "para-digm
shifts" that led to the acquisition of a new worldview. According
to Kuhn, most scientists work within orthodox paradigms. There is a
period of transition and crisis, however, from one paradigm to anoth-er,
during which scientists discover a growing number of anomalies
with the orthodox worldview and propose new ways of resolving the
ensuing contradictions.
Other developments that relate to the philosophy of science in this
century have further stressed the social character of science. John
Marks, a historian of science, represents the view that science has cer-tain
"ethics," without which it cannot develop.l7 He stresses the need
for self-critical scientists vis-a-vis their own work and the necessity

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for science to be subjected to public criticism. Marks argues that for
science to advance these criticisms need to be considered seriously. He
also maintains that scientists should be partly autonomous to super-vise
their own work, so that they can operate under conditions that
foster a free flow of information. Marks places particular importance
on the correct functioning of the social institutions of science as a pre-condition
to scientific advancement.
The philosophies of science put forward by the founders of logical
positivism and by Popper and Kuhn all have the common feature of
attempting to describe scientific advances in terms of mechanisms,
whether those of the individual scientist or within the scientific com-munity.
Against this approach, Paul Feyerabend argued that there
could in fact be no comprehensive description of the nature of science
and that it is much more productive to practice science than to
attempt to describe it.18
There are, of course, many other developments in the philosophy
of science in the twentieth century. Yet, the negative impact of this
opposition to positivism, in terms of changing the underlying empiri-cist
worldview, is not yet clear. Even within other schools of formal
philosophy, and despite notable exceptions, a predominantly empiri-cal
worldview still prevails. This is true within the philosophy of
mind, where the empirical worldview dominates most published liter-ature.
19 It is even truer outside philosophy where science still retains
a largely positivist image.
Within the modern philosophy of science, there are still unre-solved
tensions about the fundamental question: In what sense is sci-ence
objective? The philosophies of Feyerabend and Kuhn, for
instance, are often referred to as "relativist" since they emphasize
that science is related to the cultural beliefs and values of society. In
contrast, most of the philosophy of science in this century depicts sci-ence
as being objective, that is, independent of cultural biases. It is
especially the international nature of science, beyond class, culture,
and country, that is touted as being one of its greatest strengths. Not
only scientists, but informed others also have this concept of science:
that it uncovers truths about the universe that are independent of the
cultural beliefs of the individual scientists.
The opposing voices to the view that scientific knowledge is inher-ently
"relative" usually advocate some form of "pragmatism." They
suggest that theories capable of surviving the tests to which they are

+P106

subjected are in a sense objective. These theories are universal and
transcend cultural and personal biases. Popper's definition of objec-tive
knowledge is one of the most clear expressions of the pragmatic
approach to scientific truth. His model of objective knowledge emerg-ing
out of "the natural selection of hypotheses" expresses the belief
mentioned above that scientific theories need to pass some kind of
"test" before they can be accepted.20 Or, more accurately, Popper's
position is that they need to pass "refutations." The spirit behind this
pragmatic approach is that objective truth must have the resilience to
withstand the "tests" to which it is subjected. In other words, it must
be successful and stand the test of time.
It must be re-emphasized that most people, particularly those
unfamiliar with the reactions to positivism among academics, usually
equate objectivity in science with the application of formal methods of
procedure, whether as observation, hypothesis, or experiment. The
public, including many scientists, usually apply the verification test as
the true version of science: propositions that do not relate to mathe-matics
or cannot be empirically verified are somehow less significant.
This is particularly true with respect to religion. Science is set apart
from religion on the grounds that, unlike religion, it has an objective
method. Very few philosophies of science explicitly relate science to
religion. It is this view of science that still dominates the modern mind.
In this way, empiricism still dominates the modern view of science.
THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE
From the Baha'i point of view, one cannot understand the nature
of science without first understanding human nature. Science is not
understood to be based on methodology, but is perceived to be found-ed
on a spiritual faculty of human nature. In this sense, the Baha'i
Faith differs from most philosophies of science that separate human
nature from scientific investigation, or take for granted the special
characteristics of the mind that make science possible. Human nature
from the Baha'i perspective is not reducible to the mere processes of
nature. One of humanity's special characteristics, not found within
nature, is said to be intellectual capacity. ÔAbdu'l-Baha states:
[Humanity] is endowed with ideal virtues-for example, intellection, voli-tion,
faith, confession and acknowledgement of God-while nature is
devoid of all these. The ideal faculties of man, including the capacity for

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scientific acquisition, are beyond nature's ken. These are powers where-by
man is differentiated and distinguished from all other forms of life.21
According to this view science is possible only because human nature
is fundamentally different from the world of nature. Human nature is
viewed as "conscious intelligence and reflection," characteristics not
found elsewhere. ÔAbdu'l-Baha states:
Nature is without the crown of human faculties and attributes. Man pos-sesses
conscious intelligence and reflection; nature does not. . . . Man is
endowed with volition and memory; nature has neither.22
The Baha'i conception of science views the capacity for scientific inves-tigation
as a singularly human activity. Without the special qualities
of conscious intelligence and free will, science would be impossible.
The Baha'i view of science thus has much in common with the ratio-nalist
tradition within Western philosophy.
From the Baha'i viewpoint, since the character of science essen-tially
derives from supernatural powers of the mind, it is not artifi-cially
separated from other creative spheres of human activity.
Science is frequently mentioned in the Baha'i writings in the same
context as the arts and crafts. Baha'u'llah states that the "arts, crafts
and sciences uplift the world of being" and uses the general term
"knowledge" to refer to them all.23 ÔAbdu'l-Baha states that one must
put effort in striving to acquire "science and the arts."2* From the
Baha'i perspective, since arts and crafts are also founded on the
unique creative powers of the mind, they share a natural unity with
science. There is no strict boundary between sciences, arts, and crafts
in the Baha'i view. All are regarded as important forms of knowledge
which Baha'is have a spiritual obligation to acquire.
Another important Baha'i concept is one that links science to a
reflection of profound cosmological mysteries. The Baha'i view of sci-ence
is unlike most modern views of science in that it does not separate
science from religious mysteries. The Baha'i writings state that science
is a revelation from God. The universe, from the Baha'i perspective, is
perceived to be filled with the knowledge and signs of God. Each atom
is said to contain within it profound cosmological mysteries.
The unity and order of the cosmos, a belief which underlies all sci-entific
investigation, is given special emphasis in the Baha'i Faith and
is looked upon as an ultimate sign of divine purpose and design. The

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Baha'i writings state that the universe is regulated by laws which
operate from the atomic to astronomical level. ÔAbdu'l-Baha states:
This Nature is subjected to an absolute organization, to determined laws,
to a complete order and a finished design, from which it will never
depart-to such a degree, indeed, that if you look carefully and with keen
insight, from the smallest invisible atom up to such large bodies of the
world of existence as the globe of the sun or other great stars and luminous
spheres, whether you regard their arrangement, their composition, their
form or their movement, you will find that all are in the highest degree of
organization and are under one law from which they will never depart.25
The nature of science is ultimately impossible to capture or
describe since this knowledge, embedded within the universe, is
regarded as infinite. Human science is viewed, however, as being
empowered to capture a portion of this knowledge. Baha'u'llah states:
Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth is a direct evi-dence
of the revelation within it of the attributes and names of God, inas-much
as within every atom are enshrined the signs that bear eloquent
testimony to the revelation of that Most Great Light. Methinks, but for
the potency of that revelation, no being could ever exist. How resplendent
the luminaries of knowledge that shine in an atom, and how vast the
oceans of wisdom that surge within a drop! To a supreme degree is this
true of man, who, among all created things, hath been invested with the
robe of such gifts, and hath been singled out for the glory of such distinc-tion.
For in him are potentially revealed all the attributes and names of
God to a degree that no other created being hath excelled or surpassed.26
The Baha'i conception of science is thus inseparable from a sense of
mystery and the belief that science is essentially infinite. In the
Baha'i view, science is founded on such cosmological mysteries as the
unity and order of the universe, perceived as signs of God, and on the
creative power of the human mind, regarded as the greatest of all
signs of God in the universe.
The Baha'i sacred writings perceive science to be unfathomable
because the mysteries that it conceals are believed to be likewise
unfathomable. Baha'u'llah states the rational soul is a "mystery
among His mysteries." He states that "every created thing in the
whole universe is but a door leading into His knowledge. . . . Verily I
say, the human soul is, in its essence, one of the signs of God, a mys-tery
among His mysteries."27

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Speaking of the rational faculty, Baha'u'llah states:
Wert thou to ponder in thine heart, from now until the end that hath no
end, and with all the concentrated intelligence and understanding . . . this
divinely ordained and subtle Reality, this sign of the revelation of the All-Abiding,
All-Glorious God, thou wilt fail to comprehend its mystery or to
appraise its virtue.28
The very recognition of such a mystery is in itself regarded by
Baha'u'llah as the "acme of human understanding":
This confession of helplessness which mature contemplation must even-tually
impel every mind to make is in itself the acme of human under-standing,
and marketh the culmination of man's development.29
The recognition of the essential mystery of the power of the ratio-nal
faculty-the foundation of scientific investigation-from the
Baha'i point of view is crucial to understanding the nature of science.
According to this view, as science makes continued progress, the cos-mological
truths that make this progress possible confront the enquir-er
as being increasingly mysterious. Contrary to modern popular pos-itivist
conceptions of science, scientific progress is believed to enhance
mystery, not to diminish it.
In modern thought, particularly within positivism, wisdom is sep-arated
from knowledge. Very few modern philosophies of science rec-ognize
the irreducible mystery of human nature to be the "culmination
of man's development." The above quotation from Baha'u'llah pro-claims
that wisdom lies forever beyond the reach of knowledge. By
contrast, modern thought, particularly within positivism, displays an
overt lack of humility, a loss of wisdom.
From the Baha'i point of view, there is no mechanism in science
that one can employ that protects it from error. All human criteria for
establishing truth are thought to be ultimately fallible. From this
point of view, science is not entirely human. It is guided by God's
grace. From the Baha'i perspective, science ultimately advances by
the light of the Holy Spirit reflecting in the human mind. ÔAbdu'l-Baha
declared that "without the Holy Spirit he [a scientist] would have no
intellect. He would be unable to acquire his scientific knowledge."30
The notion that science is objective and impersonal, without ref-erence
to the mind, its convictions and values, is not upheld in Baha'i
sacred scripture. Baha'is believe that the preconditions necessary for

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acquiring truth, including scientific truth, lie first in acquiring spiri-tual
characteristics. In the Baha'i view, scientific "facts" are not set in
opposition to religious ideals. Unlike the value-neutral conception of
science, the Baha'i concept maintains that the ability to acquire
knowledge depends upon cultivating certain moral and spiritual pre-requisites
on the part of the enquirer. One of the most important of
these preconditions is the obligation to think for oneself and to rely on
one's own reasoning powers.
The spirit of Baha'i enquiry entails where possible taking respon-sibility
for carrying out one's own investigations and for minimizing
the passive absorption of information received from others. Blind imi-tation
of other people's views is perceived as being the main source in
the proliferation of prejudices. ÔAbdu'l-Baha states:
Furthermore, know ye that God has created in man the power of rea-son,
whereby man is enabled to investigate reality. God has not intended
man to imitate blindly his fathers and ancestors. He has endowed him
with mind, or the faculty of reasoning, by the exercise of which he is to
investigate and discover the truth, and that which he finds real and true
he must accept. He must not be an imitator or blind follower of any soul.
He must not rely implicitly upon the opinion of any man without investi-gation;
nay, each soul must seek intelligently and independently, arriv-ing
at a real conclusion and bound only by that reality. The greatest cause
of bereavement and disheartening in the world of humanity is ignorance
based upon blind imitation.31
As a vital spiritual precondition to acquiring knowledge, ÔAbdu'l-Baha
also stresses the importance of having an open mind and of
being ready to relearn all that one knows.32 This prerequisite should
not be confused with the positivist's notion of being objective in a sus-pended
value-neutral state. The Baha'i concept of being open-minded
expresses the spiritual condition of a readiness to revise what one
already knows. It does not require neutrality about human values.
An important spiritual prerequisite to the successful practice of
science from the Baha'i point of view is the search for truth and the
value we place on such a search. In the Baha'i understanding, truth
is both universal and unifying. From this perspective, all truths are
ultimately connected and emanate from a single truth. Baha'u'llah,
quoting an Islamic hadith, states that "knowledge is a single point,
but the ignorant have multiplied it. "33 Science and religion fmd com-mon
ground in their search to discover universal truths. ÔAbdu'l-Baha

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recommends to enquirers: "Put all your beliefs into harmony with sci-ence;
there can be no opposition, for truth is one."34 From the Baha'i
perspective, the universality of certain beliefs, the degree to which
they bring a unified vision, are indications of their validity.
The approach to truth within the Baha'i Faith is also pragmatic,
one that assesses the validity of a certain theory or belief by its effects.
ÔAbdu'l-Baha emphasized the technological effects of science as proof of
the validity of the scientific concepts underlying them. He constantly
referred to the predictive power of science, its ability to understand the
past, and its capacity to transform the means of transportation and
communication as powerful demonstrations of the laws of nature that
scientific investigation helps to reveal.35 In the Baha'i Faith, the
importance of understanding phenomena in terms of the "fruits" they
produce is stressed. ÔAbdu'l-Baha stated that "for nothing on earth can
be demonstrated by words alone, and every level of existence is known
by its signs and symbols, and every degree in man's development has
its identifying mark."36 Baha'u'llah warns, however, against such sci-ences
that "begin in mere words and end in mere words." He encour-ages
the acquisition of "such arts and sciences, however, as are pro-ductive
of good results, and bring forth their fruit."37 In this sense, the
more evident the effects (i.e., the more universal and unifying they
are), the greater the truth that substantiates them. One might describe
this pragmatic test of the universality and unifying effects of beliefs or
theories as an implicit truth-criterion of the Baha'i Faith. It is not,
however, rigidly applied, stipulating what Baha'is can or cannot
believe. Objective truths, from the Baha'i perspective, are ones that are
universally shared. The objective character of scientific truth is demon-strated,
not so much by its possessing an impersonal method, or by
rational or philosophical demonstrations, but by the transforming
power of its effects, which prove to be universal and unifying.
The Baha'i Faith can only be considered to be "scientific in its
method"38 in terms of its reliance on using one's own unique powers of
mind, as opposed to the passive absorption of information. The phrase
"scientific in its method" captures an important attitude of mind that
characterizes the Baha'i approach: the unique powers of the mind upon
which science is founded, its ability for creative abstraction, its truth-seeking
nature, its ability to reason, its ability to be independent of
social prejudices, its ability to perform courageous leaps of faith-these
are viewed as being just as indispensable to the progress of religion as

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they are to the progress of science. The Baha'i has an obligation to use
the same creative qualities of mind which underlie scientific investiga-tion
in the study of religion. ÔAbdu'l-Baha states:
Consider what it is that singles man out from among created beings, and
makes of him a creature apart. Is it not his reasoning power, his intelli-gence?
Shall he not make use of these in his study of religion? I say unto
you: weigh carefully in the balance of reason and science everything that
is presented to you as religion. If it passes this test, then accept it, for it is
truth! If, however, it does not conform, then reject it, for it is ignorance!39
Here ÔAbdu'l-Baha suggests a truth-criterion for religious beliefs, name-ly,
the extent to which they are in harmony with "reason and science."
In the Baha'i writings, the socio-spiritual conditions necessary for
the advancement of science are described as a reciprocal relationship
between science and religion. An often quoted metaphor makes sci-ence
and religion the two wings of a bird. ÔAbdu'l-Baha states that
only by maintaining a balance between these two wings of humanity
can the bird make progress. Religion without science leads to super-stition,
while science without religion results in materialism:
Religion and science are the two wings upon which man's intelligence can
soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not
possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try and fly with the
wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of super-stition,
whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science alone he would
also make no progress, but fall into the despairing slough of materialism.
All religions of the present day have fallen into superstitious practices,
out of harmony alike with the true principles of the teaching they repre-sent
and with the scientific discoveries of the time.40
From the Baha'i perspective, religion has two components. The first
component consists of eternal spiritual truths that are virtually identi-cal
in all the world's great religions. These primary truths typically
include exhortations to spiritual detachment, striving to attain a
greater measure of love, justice, humility, and other virtues. The second
component consists of laws and ordinances relating to social conditions
and forms of worship that are relative to time and place. From the
Baha'i perspective, science can perform an important service to religion.
It can purify religion by constantly distinguishing religion's primary
irreducible truths from its secondary non-essentials. Further, science

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can protect religion from literalism vis-a-vis its spiritual beliefs. The
well-known example of science's protective function against literalism
occurred when scientific investigation demonstrated that the earth's
age was far older than the traditional six thousand years which had
been calculated by using the genealogies found in the Bible. Referring
to the biblical passages upon which this mistaken belief was based,
ÔAbdu'l-Baha stated: "This [the days of creation] has an inner meaning
and significance; it is not to be interpreted literally."41
Conversely, religion can direct the fruits of scientific study to
moral ends, for religion provides spiritual values by which science can
best serve society. From the Baha'i perspective, religion gives science
spiritual vision. Shorn of its dogmas, religion is understood to com-plement
science with spiritual meaning. The Baha'i writings indicate
that only when a balance between science and religion is achieved will
a lasting and universal peace become possible. ÔAbdu'l-Baha states:
When religion, shorn of its superstitions, traditions, and unintelligent
dogmas, shows its conformity with science, then will there be a great uni-fying,
cleansing force in the world which will sweep before it all wars, dis-agreements,
discords and struggles-and then will mankind be united in
the power of the Love of God.42
The Baha'i principle that science be in harmony with religion
encompasses many of the prerequisites set out by the philosophy of
science for the advancement of science such as the need for public crit-icism,
the scrutiny of scientists themselves, and the free flow of infor-mation.
The Baha'i concept of the complementarity of religion and sci-ence
also advocates that scientists cooperate, not only among them-selves,
but also for the greater good of society. In the Baha'i view, sci-ence
must serve society, for science has far-reaching social conse-quences
from which it cannot be separated. To be valid, science must
serve a spiritual purpose. This is quite different from the modern pos-itivist
views of science that reflect a value-neutralist frame of mind
which requires the scientist to suspend moral commitments. For
instance, after having given a discourse on the nature of science,
ÔAbdu'l-Baha stated:
How shall we utilize these gifts and expend these bounties? By direct-ing
our efforts toward the unification of the human race. We must use
these powers in establishing the oneness of the world of humanity

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Consequently, from the Baha'i point of view, science cannot be
removed from its impact on society. Human beings have a special
responsibility to use the creative powers of the mind in the service of
humanity. Without this end purpose in mind, developments in science
endanger civilization. Baha'u'llah warned:
The civilization, so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and
sciences, will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great
evil upon men. . If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a
source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints
of moderation.44
ÔAbdu'l-Baha echoes the same theme when he stated:
Material progress alone does not tend to uplift man. On the contrary, the
more he becomes immersed in material progress, the more does his spir-ituality
become obscured. . . only if material progress goes hand in hand
with spirituality can any real progress come about.45
In this quotation one finds a vision of progress quite different from the
one normally associated with science. From the Baha'i point of view,
real progress must entail a moral dimension or an evolution in values.
The Baha'i approach to science may be summarized by the follow-ing
quotation from ÔAbdu'l-Baha which closely relates science to the
service of humanity, the development of human virtues, and the dis-covery
of cosmological mysteries:
This endowment is the most praiseworthy power of man, for through
its employment and exercise the betterment of the human race is accom-plished,
the development of the virtues of mankind is made possible and
the spirit and mysteries of God become manifest.46
SCIENTISTS AND THEIR EXPERIENCES
In the Tablet of Wisdom, Baha'u'llah states that the main innova-tors
of ancient Greek science and philosophy all acknowledged a belief
in God as the "Causer of causes. "47 The same is true, broadly speak-ing,
for the innovators of modern science.
The positivist conception of science only partially captures the
nature of scientific investigation. Formal methods of logical reasoning
and empirical tests, as attested by some great scientists of the past

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and present, only capture the surface layers of science's true nature.
Science is built upon spiritual foundations, not just empirical-mathe-matical
ones. Successful science does consist, of course, in a delicate
balance between theory and experimentation. Theories need to be
tested. But this process cannot be explicitly defined by listing rules of
methodology. Science is a multi-layered activity where "facts," "num-bers,"
and experiments only lie at the surface. Certain statements by
scientists themselves about the nature of science support the broader
Baha'i concept of science. Only a few examples will be cited here from
the many available.
One scientist whose work directly disproved a fundamental tenet
of logical positivism was the mathematician Kurt Godel. Logical posi-tivism
was based upon the premise that mathematical propositions
could be essentially reduced down to chains of deductive logic. This
view of mathematics is essentially tautological, consisting of such
statements as "All bachelors are men." In 1931, about the same time
that logical positivism was being formulated as a formal philosophy,
Kurt Godel demonstrated this tautological view of mathematics to be
false. Godel demonstrated that there is a natural incompleteness to
the entire domain of arithmetic and mathematics, one that involves
the creative participation of the mind. Godel demonstrated that arith-metic
cannot be reduced down to a single set of axioms.48 He proved
that there will always be genuine truths of arithmetic lying outside a
given number of logical axioms. The conclusion follows that mathe-matics
is infinitely more creative than a mere tautology. New discov-eries
in mathematics occur from acts of intuition that cannot be
described in a formal way and do not result from logical inferences
alone. This discovery contributed significantly to the demise of logical
positivism as a formal philosophy. On a more general level, Godel's
proof shows that science progresses through creative acts of the mind
and that there is much in science which cannot be fully articulated.
Isaac Newton's view of his own lifetime of work in physics reveals
that he considered science to be founded on an ocean of spiritual truths:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to
have been only a boy playing on a seashore, and diverting myself in now
and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary,
whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.49

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Newton's view of science is characteristic of pre-modern conceptions of
science and also anticipates the Baha'i approach. Every scientific
advance emerges from an ocean of spiritual truth. Every scientific fact
indicates the presence of deeper truths. According to this metaphor,
the nature of science is unfathomable. Empirical tests and observa-tions,
rational hypotheses, are likened to "pebbles" on the shoreline of
scientific truth, whose reality is intuitively believed to extend in&
nitely beyond them. This metaphor of an "ocean of truth" also appears
in the Baha'i writings, in the context of Baha'u'llah describing his own
Revelation. He states:
My holy, My divinely ordained Revelation may be likened unto an ocean
in whose depths are concealed innumerable pearls of great price, of sur-passing
luster. . . . This most great, this fathomless and surging Ocean is
near, astonishingly near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you than your
life-vein!5o
The rational faculty, from the Baha'i perspective, as in most of the
world's great religions, is described as one of the clearest signs of God
within. It is the ocean of truth that provides science with spiritual
vision and background meaning, without which science would become
divided into a series of meaningless measurements and observations.
A spiritual vision of truth gives unity and meaning to science.
Another image used within the history of science, particularly by
the seventeenth-century pioneers of modern science, was the metaphor
of science being the Book of Nature. Here science was likened to the
Book of Revelation within religion. From this perspective, the world of
nature unfolds through scientific investigation as a story of meaning.
Nature is understood in this view to contain its own parables. The book
of science is not to be read in a detached manner, but rather should
involve the reader in a series of discoveries designed from the very
beginning to point the reader's attention to spiritual truth. The turning
of each page of the Book of Nature is believed to bring one closer to its
Author. The views of the seventeenth-century astronomer Kepler exem-plify
this perspective. Kepler understood mathematics to be the script
from which God had written the Book of Nature, and the ability to deci-pher
this script was a sign that humans were made in God's image. For
Kepler, mathematics was God's signature in the Universe.51 Kepler's
great success in science, his famous three mathematical laws of plane-tary
motion, were inspired by this spiritual vision.

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It is interesting to note that in the Baha'i sacred writings the
world of nature is also likened to a book. Baha'u'llah states:
Look at the world and ponder a while upon it. It unveileth the book of its
own self before thine eyes and revealeth that which the Pen of thy Lord,
the Fashioner, the All-Informed, hath inscribed therein.52
That the nature of science penetrates far beyond formal proce-dures
of logic and empirical observation was also indicated by Niels
Bohr. The revolution of quantum theory in physics necessitated a
more profound view of science than the positivist one. Perhaps the
greatest philosophical lesson of quantum theory is that absolute objec-tivity
is unattainable in science. By the scientist's mere participation
in the experiment, absolute objectivity is impossible to maintain. An
observation will always be to some degree uncertain because of the
influence of the subject on the object. The more the subject shares
with the object, the greater the uncertainty. Niels Bohr states that
under such circumstances we can only make progress in terms of
"images and parables":
Quantum theory thus provides us with a striking illustration of the fact
that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it
in images and parables. In this case, the images and parables are by and
large the classical concepts, i.e., "wave" and "corpuscle." They do not fully
describe the real world and are, moreover, complementary in part, and
hence contradictory. For all that, since we can only describe natural phe-nomena
with our everyday language, we can only hope to grasp the real
facts by means of these images. This is probably true of all general philo-sophical
problems and particularly of metaphysics. We are forced to
speak in images and parables which do not express precisely what we
mean. Nor can we avoid occasional contradictions; nevertheless, the
images help us draw nearer to the real facts. Their existence no one
should deny. "Truth dwells in the deeps."53
In this quotation, Bohr describes characteristics of scientific
investigation. He expresses the belief that scientific investigation con-tains
more than can be expressed in explicit formal terms: "truth
dwells in the deeps." This is a vision of science which understands
human knowledge to capture only imperfect glimpses of the reality of
the universe, a vision that has obvious parallels to religion. The con-tradictions
of quantum mechanics, which states that light is in certain

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circumstances composed of waves and in other circumstances of par-ticles,
are not unlike the paradoxes of religion. The study of human
nature or of God will be associated with inevitable paradoxes since,
like Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, human beings cannot be
totally objective about such questions since they are inherent to the
mystery they describe.
From this perspective, science and religion might be represented
as two aspects of one reality. What we understand of this reality will
depend on how we seek to understand it. Niels Bohr, referring to the
ban which positivist philosophy would place on scientific investiga-tion,
stated: "This ban would prevent our understanding of quantum
theory. "54 A positivist's concept of science has often been used to
assess negatively the claims of religion. The logical positivists used
the verification principle to dismiss the greater part of ethics and the-ology.
Yet, from the perspective of such eminent scientists as Niels
Bohr, positivist science is an inadequate guide to understanding sci-ence
itself, let alone being capable of providing answers to the cosmo-logical
questions of religion.
Max Planck is another founder of quantum theory worthy of men-tion
in this context. This great physicist affirmed that science is
founded on a search for the "absolute," and that the measure of every
scientific theory could be known by applying the biblical criterion of
"By their fruits ye shall know them":
I emphasized that I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as
the noblest and most worth while task of science. . . . These absolute values
in science and ethics are the ones whose pursuit constitutes the true task
of every intellectually alert and active human being . . . there is an infalli-ble,
time-honored measure, a phrase which pronounces the final authorita-tive
judgement for all times; By their fruits ye shall know them!55
Elsewhere, Planck stated God to be the final goal to which all scien-tific
research was moving, and wrote that religion and science "mutu-ally
supplement" one another:
The natural scientist recognizes as immediately given nothing but the
content of his sense experiences and of the measurements based on them.
He starts from this point, on a road of inductive research, to approach as
best as he can the supreme and eternally unattainable goal of his quest-God
and His world order. Therefore, while both religion and natural sci-ence
require a belief in God for their activities, to the former He is the

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starting point, to the latter the goal of every thought process. To the for-mer
He is the foundation, to the latter the crown of the edifice of every
generalized worldview. . . . Religion and natural science do not exclude
each other, as many contemporaries of ours believe or fear; they mutual-ly
supplement and condition each other.56
The Baha'i Faith affirms, moroever, that science is founded on an
intuition of unity in the universe. It is an intuition that is inextricably
tied to a conviction of the rationality of the cosmos, a rationality which
cannot be completely demonstrated to be true. The rationality of the
universe requires faith. One can always be skeptical about such a
faith, as Hume's philosophy clearly showed.57 Hume started out to
arrive at a strictly empirical description of human nature, and ended
by doubting the validity of science itself. A purely empirical approach
to science will always be "blind" to the laws of nature which meaning-fully
connect the different sense-perceptions of experience. Hume
found, for instance, that he could doubt fundamental beliefs upon
which science was built such as the law of causality and the separate
existence of the universe being external to the mind. It is clear that
the primary intuitions upon which all scientific investigation is made
require a leap of faith.
All great advances in the history of science have brought our
vision of the universe into a greater unity. This was demonstrated in
ancient Greece, where the Ionian philosophers looked for the "One
behind the Many," or in the science of Pythagoras by his discovery of
an equivalency principle between musical intervals and the numerical
ratios of the length of a cord of a musical instrument. This discovery
led Pythagoras to believe that science discovers the underlying har-mony
of the universe, the "music of the spheres." Such a vision of
unity is also evident in Newton's physics when he demonstrated that
the same laws of motion that applied to projectiles on the surface of
the earth also regulated planetary motion. The trajectory of a falling
apple on earth and the trajectory of the moon were united together.
Similarly in the mid-nineteenth century, James Clerk Maxwell
showed that the electric and magnetic forces were in fact one single
force-the electromagnetic force. The equivalency principles discov-ered
by Einstein also brought a vision of the universe into greater
unity; that of the unity between energy and mass or the unity between
inertial acceleration and gravitational force. A search for unity in the
universe also continues to motivate research in physics today, through

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its goal of uniting the fundamental forces of nature into a single "uni-fied
field theory." The character of modern physics has much in com-mon
with the Baha'i description of the universe as one organic whole
that has hidden connections, both material and spiritual.58
These discoveries in the history of science serve to demonstrate
the same point that progress in science advances by integrating the
vision of the universe into a wider scheme of unity. In The Seven
Valleys (Haft u&&j, Baha'u'llah describes the different stages of devel-opment
that an individual must traverse in the search for God. He
describes the Valley of Unity as the natural culmination of the Valley
of Knowledge. Within the Valley of Knowledge, Baha'u'llah states that
"in the ocean he fmdeth a drop, in a drop he beholdeth the secrets of
the sea," and quotes a traditional Islamic verse which states: "Split
the atom's heart and lo! Within it thou wilt find a Sun."59 Modern
physics is doing precisely this.
Scientific investigation is founded upon the conviction that the
universe is intelligible. Einstein, for instance, stated a view similar to
that of the Baha'i Faith when he affirmed that science is founded on
the great mysteries of the mind: "The most incomprehensible thing
about the universe is that it is comprehensible."60 The spirit of science
is characterized by a search for universal truths, and science is based
upon the value one places upon such a search. Scientific investigation
entails the search for an ever-deeper meaning in the universe. Thus,
science is founded upon spiritual values, a search for meaning, a faith
in the rationality and unity of the universe, and the search to acquire
universal truths. Einstein expressed these spiritual characteristics in
the following way:
But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with
the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling,
however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs
the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of exis-tence
are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of
a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be
expressed by an image: Science without religion is lame, religion without
science is blind.61
Elsewhere, speaking against the prevailing empiricist mood of mod-ern
philosophy, Einstein noted that a "fear of metaphysics" has come
to be the "malady of contemporary empiricistic philosophizing."62

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Both science and religion also require the precondition of rever-ence.
Science requires respect by the subject for the object under study
and an obligation to purge oneself of egocentric prejudices. Religion
likewise also requires reverence. The scientist-philosopher Michael
Polanyi stated: "We need reverence to perceive greatness, even as we
need a telescope to observe spiritual nebulae."63 The many works of
Polanyi in the area of the philosophy of science emphasize the irre-ducible
role of faith or truth in the process of scientific investigation.s*
Polanyi's philosophy of science represents one of the more significant
attempts to understand the nature of science in this century. The
objections to positivism, normally associated with Kuhn and
Feyerabend, are all anticipated in Polar& works.65 But Polanyi's
philosophy of science goes beyond most other descriptions of science
by demonstrating that science is furthered by a community of enquir-ers
who follow self-imposed transcendent obligations in their interest
to uncover objective truths. He shows that commitments to truth and
meaning are an essential part of a scientist's faith. Polanyi argues
that the positivist's notion of objectivity in science is a disguised form
of nihilism and a form of "intellectual subterfuge."@ He characterizes
the modern notion that science somehow reveals the universe to be
without purpose as a "modern myth." Polyani states that such posi-tivist
notions of science "are the stoppages in our ears that we must
pull out if we are ever once more to experience the full range of mean-ings
possible to man"67
Universal truths cannot be compartmentalized. The scientist who
genuinely searches for universal truths will become attracted to the
universe of religion. Correspondingly, a sincere member of a religious
faith cannot avoid having an interest in scientific investigation. Isaac
Newton, for instance, spent more time on theology than he did on sci-ence.
Frank Manuel, a biographer of Newton's life, commenting on the
great legacy of papers left behind by Newton, amounting to millions of
words, stated: "There is far more about God than man in these
papers. "a8 Newton wrote scores of papers and commentaries on bibli-cal
subjects, which, for the most part, were unpublished during his life-time,
and are even now still being properly organized and catalogued.
Newton's work on biblical prophecy is generally not thought to be
significant. From the Baha'i perspective, however, Newton's theologi-cal
efforts were not fruitless, and in some respects, they bear close
resemblance to Baha'i interpretation of scripture. In his

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"Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St
John," first published in 1733, Newton shows how the prophecies of
Daniel correctly predicted the first coming of Christ, and goes on to
examine the prophecies relating to the second coming. Newton, how-ever,
explicitly refrains from interpreting the prophecies of Daniel
which relate to Christ's second coming, stating that "this part of the
Prophecy being therefore not yet fulfilled, I shall not attempt a partic-ular
interpretation of it."sg Newton did not think it wise to emphasize
the date of a biblical prophecy before its occurrence. He also believed
that only well after the prophesied event had taken place would it be
possible to recognize the validity of the prophecy. There are, moreover,
indications that Newton believed himself to be living on the eve of the
fulfillment of the times. He stated: "I seem to gather that God is about
opening these mysteries. "70 These words of Newton were written in
the eighteenth century, the century immediately preceding the one
that witnessed the rise of the Baha'i revelation. Newton's statement is
basically in accord with the Baha'i writings, which state that the ful-fillment
of the second coming of Christ prophesied in biblical scripture
came with the birth of the Baha'i Revelation in 1844.71
Newton also shares something in common with the Baha'i approach
in his secret Unitarianism. In this respect, he differed significantly from
his contemporaries. In his private manuscripts, he attempted to show
that the doctrine of the Trinity lacked prophetic authority. He support-ed
his belief in the unity of God with both theological and historical evi-dence.
One suspects that the unity of God underlying Newton's theolo-gy
was not unrelated to his conviction in the unity of nature, which lay
at the foundation of his science. Newton also spent much of his time on
alchemy and studying ancient Greek literature.
The work of Einstein also has many areas of agreement with
Baha'i teachings and demonstrates the close association of science
and religion within the mind of this scientific genius. Einstein
understood science to be founded on the search to uncover universal
truths. Perhaps what is less well-known is that Einstein was a
strong advocate of world government and very much concerned with
universal peace. Einstein wrote hundreds of letters to universities,
governmental organizations, and social groups, proposing that the
only way to end war and to obtain universal peace was to create a
supra-national organization that would have at its disposal an inter-national
army capable of enforcing its decisions and a world court

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which could bindingly adjudicate international disputes. In an open
letter to the United Nations written in 1947, Einstein suggested that
the United Nations function as an interim institution in a move
toward world federal government.72 He also suggested a series of
changes to the same body to help prepare it for this task. His views on
this subject bear remarkable similarity to Baha'i teachings on the
New World Order.73
From the Baha'i point of view, the nature of science is not so much
understood with reference to a philosophy of science, but in relation to
the universality of its effects and its transforming power. With this
perspective in mind, it is clear that the lives and words of those sci-entists
who have greatly contributed to the advancement of science
are a more accurate guide to the nature of science than the philoso-phers'
concept of science. The same qualities of mind that distin-guished
Newton and Einstein in science were also present in many of
their other activities. The same courageous commitment to truth, the
same faith in unity which was foundational to their success in physics,
were applied in Newton's case to theology and in Einstein's to peace
issues. The words and lives of Newton and Einstein affirm the Baha'i
concept of science being ultimately grounded on spiritual foundations.
It is perhaps no accident that, generally speaking, over the last four
hundred years, those who have advocated an empirical view of sci-ence,
such as Hume and Russell, have been philosophers, while those
who have described science in terms of the spiritual mysteries under-lying
nature and the mind were scientists such as Kepler, Newton,
and Einstein. Within the mind of certain scientific geniuses, science is
not artificially separated from religion. When one possesses a vision of
unity and a belief that ultimately all truths are one, the modern bar-riers
between science and religion, between science and art, between
fact and values, disappear.
Both science and religion require a feeling of child-like humility,
of child-like trust. Newton pictured himself as a boy playing on the
shore of truth, while in the Bible it is stated that only those who
become as little children are able to enter the kingdom of heaven.74
NOTES
1. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace (Wilmette, Ill.:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1982) p. 361.
2. B. F. Skinner quoted by Floyd Matson, The Broken Image (New York:

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Anchor Books, 1966) p. 30.
3. See, for instance, Alfred Ayer, Language Truth and Logic (London:
Penguin Books, 1971).
4. Ibid., pp. 9-10.
5. R. Carnap quoted in A. J. Ayer, Logical Positivism (New York The Free
Press, 1959) p. 145.
6. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, pp. 9-10.
7. Ibid.
8. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975) Sec. 7:3.
9. Bryan Magee, Modern British Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1986) p. 77.
10. Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972)
p. 258.
11. See, for instance, A Pocket Popper, edited by D. Miller (London:
Fontana Press, 1983) pp. 118-30.
12. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 5th ed. (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966) p. 108.
13. Popper, Objective Knowledge, p. 161.
14. Popper and Eccles, The Self and Its Brain (Springer, NY: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1977). See especially Chapter 1 for experience being divided
into Worlds 1, 2 and 3, and Chapter 3 for a critique of various forms of mate-rialism
within the philosophy of science debate.
15. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 356.
16. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1970) pp. 10-11.
17. John Marks, Science and the Making of the Modern World (London:
Heinmann, London, 1983) pp. 363-66.
18. See Feyerabend in A. F. Chalmers, What is This Thing Called
Science? (Milton Keynes, England: Open University Press, 1982) pp. 13435.
19. See, for instance, D. M. Rosenthal's 600-page The Nature of Mind
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) which contains selections from recent
writings in the philosophy of mind. A dualist picture of the mind is covered
briefly in 30 pages, largely in a historical perspective, while the rest of the
book is devoted to essays that for the most part model the mind on phenome-na
of biological and artifical intelligence such as computers, robots, and net-works.
Most of the essays describe the mind from an empiricist perspective.
20. Popper, Objective Knowledge, p. 261
21. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 51.
22. Ibid.
23. Baha'u'llah, The Writings of Baha'u'llah: A Compilation (New Delhi:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1986) p. 316.
24, Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 50.

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25. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1984) p. 3.
26. Baha'u'llah, Gleanings From the Writings of Baha'u'llah, trans.
Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1982) pp. 176-77.
27. Ibid., p. 160.
28. Ibid., pp. 164-65.
29. Ibid., p. 165.
30. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks (London: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1969) p. 59.
31. Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 291.
32. Paris Talks, p. 137.
33. Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 11.
34. Paris Talks, p. 146.
35. Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 30, 50.
36. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, trans. Marzieh Gail
(Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1990) p. 99.
37. Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 313.
38. Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1955) p. 7.
39. Paris Talks, p. 144.
40. Ibid., p. 143.
41. Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 463.
42. Paris Talks, p. 146.
43. Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 51.
44. Gleanings, pp. 34142.
45. Paris Talks, p. 107.
46. Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 31.
47. Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 243.
48. See E. Nagel and J. Newman, Godel's Proof (New York University
Press, 19581, especially Chapters seven and eight.
49. Isaac Newton quoted in Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond
(London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1971) pp. 207-8.
50. Gleanings, p. 325.
51. Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (Middlesex, England: Penguin
Books, 1964) p. 268.
52. Writings of Bahd'u'llah, p. 24.
53. Niels Bohr quoted in Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond, p. 210.
54. The reference is actually from Heisenberg recollecting what Bohr
said, Physics and Beyond, p. 208.
55. Max Planck quoted in John Eccles, The Human Psyche (London:
Routledge, 1992) p. 218.
56. Ibid., pp. 24647.
57. See David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (London: Penguin
Books, 1984).

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58. See Anjam Khursheed, Science and Religion. Towards the Restoration
of an Ancient Harmony (London: OneWorld Publications, 1987) pp. 108-20.
59. Writings of Baha'u'llcih, p. 6.
60. G. Holton and Y. Elkana, Albert Einstein (New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1982) p. 242.
61. Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Citadel Press,
1956) p. 26.
62. Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (London: Souvenir Press, 1973)
p. 24.
63. Michael Polayni, The Study of Man (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1958) p. 96.
64. See, for example, Polanyi's Personal Knowledge (London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 19581, Chapters 8-10.
65. See, for example, Polanyi's Science, Faith and Society (Chicago: Chicago
University Press, 1964), where he argues convincingly that science cannot be
adequately described by methodology alone or by "refutations." He demon-strates
that there will always be an irreducible residue of personal judgment.
66. M. Polyani and H. Prosch, Meaning (Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 1975) p. 56.
67. Ibid., p. 181.
68. F. E. Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton (New York: Da Capo, 1968)
p. 6.
69. Sir William Whitla, Sir Isaac Newton's Daniel and the Apocalypse
(London: John Murray, 1922) p. 228.
70. Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton, p. 367.
71. See ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, pp. 36-44.
72. Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, Einstein on Peace (New York: Avenel
Books, 1981) pp. 44043.
73. See J. Tyson, World Peace and World Government (Oxford: George
Ronald, 1986).
74. John 3: l-10.

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INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AND THE
BAHkf FAITH: SOME PRELIMINARY
OBSERVATIONS
Seena Faze1
Anyone who begins an interreligious conversation with the pro-nouncement
of a common sharing of beliefs and values among the
world's religions, one that is merely masked by superficial semantical
differences, has done precisely that-only made a beginning. Such dec-larations
of commonality, although they contain a grain of truth, can
be maintained only at a superficial level. They start to lose meaning as
one goes deeper into the inner landscape, the experience, beliefs and
practices of the different religious traditions. Paul Knitter, a promi-nent
dialogue theologian, likens dialogue to the situation of a newly
married couple beginning to grow out of the infatuation that brought
them together. As they begin to experience the daily tests and trials of
living and working as partners, as they get to know one another bet-ter,
they soon arrive at the existential realization of how bewildering-ly
different they are. Like the young couple experiencing the harsh
light of real living for the first time, Knitter observes that the contem-porary
challenge in interreligious dialogue is to reconcile differences:
. . . one might still believe that Ultimate Reality or God is one and that
ultimately differences will be swallowed into oneness; but right now, in
the dust and dirt of the real world, we have to deal with the manyness,

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the differences, among the religions before we can ever contemplate,
much less realize, their possible unity or oneness.1
Dialogue is a term used to describe a great variety of interfaith
relations. Generally, it involves a collective process or a conversation,
a two-way communication or a reciprocal relationship in which two or
more parties holding significantly different beliefs endeavor to
express accurately to dialogue partners what they mean and to learn
from each other in the process. But dialogue is more than just an
exchange of views and has come to mean a personal process of refin-ing
the beliefs and values of one's own faith vis-a-vis the insights that
one has gleaned from others.
Three goals of dialogue are succinctly summarized by Leonard
Swidler, a Catholic professor of interreligious dialogue: (1) to know
oneself more profoundly, just as one learns more about one's native
land as a result of living abroad; (2) to know the other ever more
authentically; and (3) to live ever more fully, a process described as
"mutual transformation."2 Furthermore, John Cobb, a liberal
Protestant scholar of interreligious dialogue, reflects the academic
consensus when he states that "a sharp distinction is made between
dialogue and evangelistic witness." While the latter aims at conver-sion,
the former does not. The goal is rather mutual understanding,
appreciation, and transformation.3
This paper will explore the Baha'i imperative to foster dialogue.
Questions arise along the way. Why, for example, should Baha'is
involve themselves in inter-religious dialogue? What does dialogue
have to offer to the development of the Baha'i community? What chal-lenges
will Baha'is face in the process? The focus in answering these
questions will not be historical, but rather will center on the theory
and practice of dialogue as depicted in the Baha'i sacred writings and
how it correlates to contemporary scholarship in the field.
Six Forms of Dialogue
Broadly defined, there are six ways that people engage in dia-logue:
parliamentary dialogue, institutional dialogue, theological dia-logue,
dialogue in community, spiritual dialogue, and inner dialogue.
A brief description of each will illustrate their distinctive features and
the interplay between them.

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Parliamentary dialogue refers to large assemblies created for inter-faith
discussion, such as those organized by the World Conference on
Religion and Peace and the British-based World Congress of Faiths.
The impetus to engage in interreligious dialogue in this century is
arguably the result of the first-ever parliamentary dialogue, the 1893
World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago. Such sizeable interna-tional
gatherings do not lend themselves to a tightly focused agenda,
but tend to explore broader concerns, such as the possibilities for bet-ter
cooperation between religions, and global issues such as peace,
poverty, and the environment. They also serve as an important symbol
of the strength and vitality of the interfaith movement.
Institutional dialogue includes the organized efforts of particular
religious institutions that aim at initiating and facilitating various
kinds of dialogue. This type of dialogue also seeks to establish and
nurture channels of communication between the institutional bases of
religious communities. The World Council of Churches and the
Vatican have been active in this area. Numerous variations of this
form of dialogue exist on a local level.
Theological dialogue refers to the process of representatives from
different religious communities discussing theological and philosoph-ical
issues in a structured format. Christians and Muslims may, for
example, concentrate their respective understandings on such reali-ties
as their prophet-founders, their sacred scriptures, moral values,
and the role of religion in society. Academics in particular have pio-neered
this type of dialogue.
Dialogue in community is a term that encompasses the unstruc-tured
interaction between people of different religions. "Most interre-ligious
dialogue takes place in markets and on street corners, at times
of festivals or holy days, in the course of civic or humanitarian pro-jects,
at times of community or family crisis."4 Importantly, it also
includes cooperative social projects organized by religious groups in
response to local problems and practical concerns.
Spiritual dialogue is concerned with deepening spiritual life
through interfaith encounter. This type of dialogue does not struggle
with theological problems between religious communities, but rather,
focuses on shared experience as a means of developing spirituality.

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Examples of this are participation in joint worship experiences, and
the common celebration of religious festivals and World Religion Day
by different faiths.
Inner dialogue takes place within each individual as religious per-spectives
change on encountering other faiths. This is "the dialogue
that takes place in our minds and hearts when we read the Bhagavad
Gita, when we meet a Buddhist monk or nun, when we hear the
Muslim call to prayer, or when we share the Sabbath meal with
Jewish friends"5
The Dialogical Imperative
There are a number of Baha'i scriptural passages that bear on
interreligious dialogue. In his Most Holy Book, the Kitab-i Aqdas,
Baha'u'llah enjoins his followers to "Consort [Arabic: Ô&hirri] ye then
with the followers of all religions, " and restates later in that book the
command to "Consort with all religions with amity and concord."6
This call is reiterated on three occasions after the revelation of the
Aqdas in a similar vein: "Consort with the followers of all religions in
a spirit of friendliness and fellowship."7 The original Arabic for "con-sort"
is most probably an imperative form of the verb Ôbshara.
Arabic-English lexicons suggest that the word used in this form
implies "to be on intimate terms, associate (closely)"s with someone,
and is indicative of intimate social intercourse and fellowship.g This
term has the implication of close, intimate association and fellowship,
as, for example, the members of the same clan would have had in
ancient Arabia.10 The root of Ôdshara is the triliteral Ôashr, which is
the basis of the quranic term ÔAshirah. l1 ÔAshirah appears three times
in the Qur'an translated as clan in the context of one's immediate fam-ily:
"your brothers, your wives, your clann (924); "warn thy clan, thy
nearest kin" (26:214); "or their brothers, or their clan" (E&22).
Baha'u'llah's call to the peoples of the world to promote unity and
concord contains some explicit injunctions to dialogue. He states that
his revelation is centered on the promotion of the unity of humankind:
"The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion
is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race,
and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men."12 In the
same tablet, Baha'u'llah expresses the desire that religious leaders of

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the world "take counsel together" in order to implement whatever mea-sures
are necessary to advance the cause of unity:
Our hope is that the world's religious leaders and the rulers thereof will
unitedly arise for the reformation of this age and the rehabilitation of its
fortunes. Let them, after meditating on its needs, take counsel together
and, through anxious and full deliberation, administer to a diseased and
sorely-afflicted world the remedy it requireth.13
In another tablet, he calls the conflicting peoples of the world to "gath-er
ye together" so that differences may be explored and resolved:
0 contending peoples and kindreds of the earth! Set your faces towards
unity, and let the radiance of its light shine upon you. Gather ye togeth-er,
and for the sake of God resolve to root out whatever is the source of
contention amongst you.14
Furthermore, Baha'u'llah commands the "men of wisdom among
nations" to "fix your gaze upon unity."15 Thus, Baha'i sacred scripture
presents us with a series of statements that appeal to leaders of both
secular and religious thought to consult on the challenges of and
prospects for promoting unity. Baha'u'llah's plan for the unity of
humankind, elaborated throughout his writings, calls for a range of
approaches from institutional and theological dialogue to the practical
implementation of such consultations through dialogue in community.
Further endorsement for the importance of dialogue comes from
ÔAbdu'l-Baha's talks. While in North America in 1912, he stressed in a
number of talks in churches the need for theological dialogue: "We must
investigate reality"; "all of you must strive with heart and soul in order
that enmity may disappear entirely" and "seek the means by which the
benefits of agreement and concord may be enjoyed"; "the religionists of
the world must lay aside imitations and investigate the essential foun-dation
of reality itself. This is the divine means of agreement and unifi-c
a t i o n ."16 ÔAbdu'l-Baha also encouraged spiritual dialogue: "All must
abandon prejudices and must even go into each other's churches and
mosques, for, in all of these worshipping places, the Name of God is
mentioned. Since all gather to worship God, what difference is there?"17

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Five Contributions of Dialogue
Interreligious dialogue would appear to be emphasized in the
Baha'i writings for at least five major reasons:
Baha'i Education and Scholarship: Dialogue can serve as a tool for
Baha'is to understand more fully the meaning of Baha'i scripture or, as
Baha'is put it, to "deepen" in the sacred writings of the Baha'i Faith.
Knowledge of the teachings and scriptures of other religions can aid in
the understanding of the Baha'i writings, which are infused with the
religious symbolism and imagery of other revelations. This principle is
most obviously exemplified in the case of Islam, the study of which can
enable Baha'is to learn more about the theological background and ter-minology
of their own religion. This may be viewed as being analogous
to the significant impact of Jewish studies on modern Christian schol-arship.
18 Thus, Shoghi Effendi suggests that the Qur'an is an "indis-pensable"
tool for the understanding of Baha'i scripture:
The knowledge of this revealed holy Book [the Qur'anl is, indeed, indis-pensable
to every Baha'i who wishes to adequately understand the
Writings of Baha'u'lGih.le
It is interesting that Shoghi Effendi broadens this approach when
responding to a question of a young Baha'i, in which he recommends
an "intensive study" of the Kitab-i fqan (Book of Certitude) and Some
Answered Questions. He ends the letter by encouraging study of the
best contemporary religious scholarship in order "to clarify" these
Baha'i texts:
It is well, too, to read contemporary books, selecting the best, dealing with
the same subjects, in order to become thoroughly acquainted with the
subject and be able to clarify the BahA'i teachings.20
Theological dialogue is a means to the same end of becoming "thor-oughly
acquainted" with the best contemporary religious thinking in
order to "clarify the Baha'i teachings." Moreover, dialogue can provide
the setting to uncover the universal qualities, the ability of Baha'i scrip-ture
to speak through their time and intended recipient to all time.
Further to being a tool for education and insight, dialogue serves
to motivate people to challenge their present understanding of their

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religion. Swidler describes that by acting as a "mirror" for a religious
community, participants are provoked into rethinking: "Our dialogue
partner . . . becomes for us something of a mirror in which we perceive
our selves in ways we could not otherwise do."21 This mirror effect
occurs because, through dialogue, the participants are provided with
a reflection of how others see them. Since dialogue also raises many
questions in the process, it focuses the minds of the participants on
aspects of their religious teachings that need to be worked out and fur-ther
clarified.
Another important challenge facing the Baha'i community is its
approach to religious pluralism. There is a desperate need for Baha'is
to produce adequate literature that explores the Baha'i approach to
the major religions.22 The scarce material that exists has been writ-ten
with Protestant Christianity and Shi'i Islam in mind.23 Little has
been written to clarify the Baha'i teachings in light of modern views
of world theology and religious pluralism.
I would maintain that a comprehensive Baha'i theology of other
religions can only be worked out in the context of dialogue. Dialogue
acts as a theological tool and method to explore the relationship of the
Baha'i Faith to other religions. Discussing the importance of the dia-logue
methodology, Leonard Swidler believes that there will be "no
systematic reflection, including Christian theology, [that] can appro-priately
be done today outside this matrix of interreligious, interideo-logical
dialogue. "24 In light of this statement, Baha'i scholars need to
dialogue in order to develop a Baha'i theology of other religions.
The Transformation of Other Religions: Dialogue can act as a tool
in fulfilling the preeminent aim of the Baha'i Faith-the transforma-tion
of the world religions so their sequence, interdependence, whole-ness,
and unity can be realized. Shoghi Effendi has written that " its
avowed, its unalterable purpose" lies in its relation to other religions-"
to widen their basis, . . .to reinvigorate their life, to demonstrate their
oneness, to restore the pristine purity of their teachings."25 In a relat-ed
passage, Shoghi Effendi states: "Its declared, its primary purpose is
to enable every adherent of these Faiths to obtain a fuller understand-ing
of the religion with which he stands identified, and to acquire a
clear apprehension of its purpose."26
Instructive in working towards this goal are two examples of
dialogue that ÔAbdu'l-Baha, as leader of the Baha'i Faith, had with
religious leaders in the West. Both these encounters pursue this

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challenging theme of the transformation of other religions. The first
took place in May 1912 in the United States with Rabbi Stephen Wise,
a prominent Jewish theologian of the day. The description of this
encounter suggests that the rabbi was impressed by ÔAbdu'l-Baha's
message: "Indeed, indeed you are one of the greatest logicians of the
world. Up to this time I have been talking to you as a man; now I will
address you as a Rabbi."27 ' Abdu'l-Baha's approach in this interview
was to champion the cause of Christ and, in so doing, to challenge
Jews to reconcile their differences with Christians. His tribute to
Christ is itself notable:
All the great prophets, the kings and the worthies of the Israelitish nation
could not make the Persians believe in Moses. All the prophets such as
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Nehemiah, et al., could not make one
Zoroastrian believe in Moses. But one Jew came and many millions believe
in Him. He spread His name in the East and in the West. He caused the
Bible to be translated in all the languages of the world, and today nearly
every home contains a Bible. He demonstrated throughout the world to all
the nations of the world that the Israelitish people were the chosen people,
that the Israelitish prophets were the prophets of God, that their books
were the books of God, that their words were the words of God.28
ÔAbdu'l-Baha pursued this approach in various addresses to
Jewish audiences in his tour of North America. When addressing a
vast congregation of two-thousand Jews in San Francisco in 1912,29
ÔAbdu'l-Baha challenged the audience to widen the basis of their faith
and accept Jesus Christ as the Word of God: "Why do you not say that
Christ was the Word of God? Why do you not speak these words that
will do away with all this difficulty ?,, In Washington D.C., he similar-ly
stated to another Jewish audience, "And now it is time for the Jews
to declare that Christ was the Word of God and then this enmity
between the two great religions will pass away."30
Another interreligious encounter was with a group of Protestant
theologians and priests in Paris in February 1913. Here the emphasis
was on christology, and ÔAbdu'l-Baha presented an interpretation of
the Prologue of St John's Gospel which celebrates the uniqueness of
Christ without recourse to exclusivism. He then developed the theme
that religions have essential and non-essential parts, consigning the
dogmas (including the doctrine of the Trinity) and rituals of the
Church to the non-essentials. He suggests that many of these non-essentials
have been at the root of religious strife and conflict. The

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stage is then set for a renewal of the essentials, and ÔAbdu'l-Baha con-tinues
his discourse by highlighting principles foundational for a the-ology
of peace between the religions. 31 Of interest in this encounter is
the link made between religious differences and world peace.
Specialists in the field have argued that the process of transform-ing
other religions is central to the goal of dialogue. Paul Grifiths, a
professor of the philosophy of religions at the University of Chicago,
uses the term "positive apologetics" to describe a process by which dia-logue
participants "relate themselves apologetically to claims made by
their opposite numbers within other religious communities."s2 He
argues that apologetics "is an essential component of interreligious
relations," and a task that needs to be undertaken by "representative
intellectuals" from religious communities.33 Griffths believes that
without apologetics, dialogue is "pallid, platitudinous, and degut-ted."
34 Other writers in the field have written that the purpose of dia-logue
is the transformation of the religions. Cobb has written: "The
transformation of the other traditions ranks higher as a goal than
their supersession."35 Knitter suggests that the aim of interreligious
dialogue is for the dialogue partners to have "their lives to be touched
and transformed as ours have been. "36 However, the transformation
is reciprocal: "We must say that in dialogue, and beyond dialogue,
Christians seek to be transformed and to transform others through
mutual witness."37 Indeed, Knitter has argued that the world reli-gions
cannot assume their full meaning without this process:
. . the Christian doctrine of the trinity needs the Islamic insistence on
divine oneness; the impersonal Emptiness of Buddhism needs the
Christian experience of the divine Thou; the Christian teaching on the dis-tinction
between the ultimate and the finite needs the Hindu insight into
the nonduality between Brahma and atman; the prophetic-praxis oriented
content of the Judeo-Christian tradition needs the Eastern stress in per-sonal
contemplation and "acting without seeking the fruits of action."38
This sort of analysis can be extended to the Baha'i Faith. One can
argue that the Baha'i Faith can only assume a fuller meaning when
the Baha'i teachings and practice are allowed to benefit, for example,
from the metaphysical insights of Buddhism, the devotional practices
of Hinduism, the Christian emphasis on the prophet-founder as
mediator and savior, the Islamic stress on the sanctity of divine laws,
and the importance of communal religiosity in Jewish life.

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The Transformation of the BahPi Faith: As was noted above, reci-procity-
the challenge to mutual transformation and change-is integral
to dialogue. Hans Kiing has argued that interreligious dialogue "calls for
self-criticism and self-correction on all sides," and a "reform of ourselves,"
if the- world religions are to seriously construct a theology of peace.3g
Baha'is naturally are not immune from the need for self-renewal.
One potential area for the transformational effect of dialogue on
Baha'i theology and practice lies in the Baha'i concept of religion.
Moojan Momen, a leading Baha'i historian, has argued that Baha'is
have constructed a version of the Baha'i Faith that is based on Western
concepts of what religion should be. "Thus, in their presentations
Baha'is emphasize the concepts of God, the prophet or messenger of
God, the revelation of a Holy Book, the establishment of a sacred law,
etc."@ Although this is understandable in view of the historical back-ground
and development of the Baha'i Faith, it has perpetuated a some-what
narrow vision of religion and has consequently seriously limited
the potential of the BahA'i Faith to be relevant to non-Western societies.
To overcome this problem, the Baha'i community needs to familiarize
itself with and, where compatibility is feasible, adapt itself to the world-views
of non-Western peoples. This vital process of broadening the basis
of the Baha'i Faith can be undertaken by inter-religious dialogue.
The BahA"i Peace Program: Inter-religious dialogue is integral to
the process of developing a framework that will allow for the sustain-able
development of world peace. BahA'u'llah has stated that the
"essence of the Faith of God" is to prevent religious strife-an impor-tant
goal of dialogue:
That the divers communions of the earth, and the manifold systems of
religious belief, should never be allowed to foster the feelings of ani-mosity
among men, is, in this Day, of the essence of the Faith of God
and His Religion.41
The Promise of World Peace, a Baha'i peace charter, calls religious
leaders to dialogue in order to remove the causes of religious strife by
raising a challenging question: "How are the differences between them
[the world's religions] to be resolved in theory and in practice?" The
Universal House of Justice suggests a partial response to its own ques-tion
indicating that theological differences will have to be submerged
in a spirit that "will enable them to work together for the advancement
of human understanding and peace. "42 The same exhortation was.I

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extended to the Baha'i community by ÔAbdu'l-Baha, who challenged
Baha'is and others to act as a "propelling agent"4s to overcome obsta-cles
to world peace.
The importance of the contribution of the world religions to the
peace process has been highlighted by a number of theologians.
Knitter has written: "Peace . . . is becoming a universal religious sym-bol
that challenges and calls together all religions."44 Hans Kiing has
argued for the central role of interreligious dialogue in current inter-national
affairs and that the only alternative to dialogue is continuing
international instability and warfare.45 In the quest to tackle peace
issues practically, religionists will realize that the problems afflicting
humanity cannot be resolved without a new world vision and under-standing
of humankind and its future, a vision and understanding
that can be found in the worlds great religions. Standing together on
the common ground of the desire for peace, the religions can help con-struct
a more fruitful dialogue than they have previously experienced.
Kung's call for a theology of peace to be constructed by interreli-gious
dialogue should not be confused with "an abstract, appellative
theology of peace of the kind that is so often preached in Rome and
Geneva." Calls to passive theologies of peace are ineffectual since gen-eral
appeals to understanding, tolerance, and peace do not stress com-mitment:
". . . so it remains voluntary, harmless and inefficient."
Rather, Kiing argues that "this theology of peace must be convincing
by its concreteness."46
Douglas Martin's challenging presentation to the fortieth anniver-sary
gathering of the World Congress of Faiths addresses this need for
a creative and concrete theology of peace. It proposes a disinterested
study of the Baha'i community as a model for the realization of the
goals of the Congress of Faiths and the wider dialogue movement. The
Baha'i model can well serve as a unique focus for an interreligious dia-logue
on peace:
The model is a global community which, far from seeing itself as already
complete or self-sufficient, is embarked on an infinite series of experi-ments
at the local, national, and international levels in its efforts to real-ize
the vision of mankind's oneness which it finds in the Writings of its
Founder and of all the Messengers of God. . . . No matter how restricted
in size or still restricted in influence the model may be, such a phenome-non
deserves the most able and the most disinterested study mankind
can bring to it.47

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There are two distinct advantages in furthering cooperative
social action between the religions as part of the peace process. The
first is a moral reason: the need for world peace and the alleviation
of the suffering of the victims of war is a universal concern of all reli-gious
communities, and it therefore provides a common ground for all
religions to participate in dialogue. Every religion will feel the obliga-tion
to respond. The second advantage is practical and indirect: the
process of solving practical problems together will eventually spill
over into discussing the theological issues among the religions. This
"hermeneutical method" that facilitates dialogue will evolve naturally
once the participants have already worked together and established a
sense of trust and fellowship.48 Under the momentum of practical dia-logue
in the community, the partners in dialogue will move to prayer,
reflection, discussion, and study. Knitter describes this dynamic:
Having acted together, Buddhists and Christians and Muslims now
reflect and talk together about their religious convictions and motiva-tions.
Here is where the partners in dialogue can enter into the scriptures
and doctrines and explain not only to themselves but to others what it is
that animates and guides and sustains them in their liberative praxis.49
The Emergence from Obscurity. An important byproduct of inter-religious
dialogue is that it reinforces the perception of the status of the
Baha'i Faith as an independent world religion, and one that has a con-tribution
to make to the challenges facing humanity today. Dialogue
also creates alliances and friendships that can protect the Baha'i com-munity
from future opposition. In reviewing the achievements of the
Six-Year Plan (1986-921, the Universal House of Justice wrote that the
Baha'i community's involvement in the work of inter-religious organi-zations
was a significant landmark in the participation of the Baha'i
Faith in public affairs. In other words, institutional dialogue has made
an important contribution to the emergence from obscurity:
. . . the formal relationship which the Baha'i International Community
established with the Conservation and Religion Network of the World Wide
Fund for Nature and with the World Conference on Religion and Peace, in
conjunction with numerous such relationships established by National
and Local Spiritual Assemblies in their respective jurisdictions, reflects a
trend in the Faith's emergence as an entity to be reckoned with.sO

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In summary, these are the main contributions of dialogue for the
Baha'i community: it can aid in developing a more profound under-standing
of the Baha'i writings and a Baha'i theology of world reli-gions;
it can contribute to the Baha'i peace program and to a greater
public perception that the Baha'i Faith is emerging as an independent
world religion; dialogue can act as a tool to transform the world reli-gions
in order to promote their unity; and dialogue can foster the
process of broadening the applicability and relevance of the Baha'i
Faith to non-Western societies.
CHALLENGES OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE
Dialogue presents a number of challenges to the Baha'i community.
The first challenge is greater visibility. Baha'is have not always been
invited to participate in interreligious exchanges. This is partly due to
the fact that the Baha'i Faith has not yet achieved world religion status
in the eyes of many academics and religious leaders, and therefore
would not be afforded the privilege of a platform with other world reli-gions.
51 Although the Baha'i Faith is not a new religious movement
(NRM), the Baha'is themselves must take up John Saliba's challenge to
ensure their greater visibility at inter-religious encounters: "many mem-bers
of NRM's apparently are not aware of the fact that social and reli-gious
acceptance are not immediately granted by outsiders but develop,
often painfully, over a period of time. "52 As the Mormons have done over
the last century, new religions need "to make concessions to become rec-ognized
as legitimate religious options"53 A central concession is the
ability to benefit from the dynamic of internal self-criticism.
A related problem is that the development of Baha'i theology has
not yet reached the requisite level from which a constructive dialogue
with the other world religions can proceed. Historian of religion,
Jacques Chouleur, noted in the 1970's that Baha'i theology is "too sim-ple,
too lax and vague. The assertion that all religions are one and
that the teachings of God's envoys are identical may fail to convince
those who go to the trouble of closely comparing the words attributed
to Jesus, Muhammad or Buddha Gautama."M Babi scholar, Denis
MacEoin stated in the 1980's that "the level of sophistication of. . .
Jewish or Christian scholarship is considerable and enables useful
dialogue to take place. By way of contrast, the low level of attainment
in Baha'i writing precludes anything like a meeting of equals.

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Comparability only exists with the productions of groups like
Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, or Theosophists, with whom no useful
dialogue is likely in any case."55
A 1994 survey of articles on the Baha'i Faith in academic periodi-cals
demonstrates that even this comparison may be flattering. Over
seventeen times more articles were written on Mormonism than the
Baha'i religion during 1985-1993 according to one of the most com-prehensive
indexes of academic periodicals, the Arts and Humanities
Citation Index. Furthermore, the majority of the Baha'i articles in the
1980s were on the recent persecutions of Baha'is in Iran and the archi-tectural
aspects of the Baha'i House of Worship in New Delhi (dedi-cated
in 1986). Few articles were published on theology, philosophy,
or history.56 Not only is more scholarly literature badly needed, but a
culture of critical reflection and reform, important elements in the
scholarly discourse among dialogue communities, also need to be fur-ther
developed in Baha'i studies. This need is further compounded by
a vicious circle: the continued development of Baha'i studies in part
depends on theological dialogue with other religions, but this dialogue
cannot take place if Baha'is have nothing to offer such a process.
Further important challenges await followers of all faiths to avoid
engaging in opportunistic manipulations of dialogue. "The term dia-logue
has become faddish, and is sometimes, like charity, used to
cover a multitude of sins."57 Among these sins is the "soft-sell"
approach, which encourages partners in dialogue to express their
views in the hope that such a "dialogue" may well make the "ignorant"
person more receptive to the truth that only one side possesses. Some
may also feel that in today's more fashionable climate of dialogue,
they can more effectively communicate "the truth" to the "ignorant" in
a less aggressive style. The clear mandate put forward in the Baha'i
writings is that of informed dialogue and cordial fellowship.58
However, awareness of such potential misuses of dialogue need not
translate into a watered-down presentation of the truths held by the
participants in the various religious traditions. When dialogue is truly
free, participants will affirm their own beliefs clearly and passionate-ly.
One of the more appealing and effective methods of dialogue is that
the laying bare of one's own deeply held religious convictions estab-lishes
at the same time an open climate that eagerly invites the dia-logue
partners to affirm their vision of the truth. Paul Knitter argues
that participants should speak from the richness of their own religious

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experience in order to persuade: "We seek not only to explain but to
persuade." Therefore, dialogue is animated by "a certain missionary
dlan. We want our partners to see what we have seen; we want their
lives to be touched and transformed as ours have been."59 Cobb rein-forces
this view: "Real dialogue consists in the effort of both sides to
persuade the other. "so The motivation here is of sharing with the dia-logue
partner, not trying to win them over. The hope is that the dia-logue
partner can be transformed by the process. As dialogue involves
listening openly and attentively in an attempt to understand the oth-er's
position as precisely and as much from within as possible, Swidler
notes that such an attitude assumes that at some point we might find
the dialogue partner's position so persuasive that, if we were to act
with integrity, we would have to change: "That means that there is a
risk involved in dialogue that old positions and traditions may be
found wanting."61 If we talk of conversion, "then the conversion we
seek is much more of a matter of metanoia, of trying to Ôturn around
our partners. "62 Transformation rather than conversion is the most
appropriate term for the goal of dialogue.
Another challenge of interreligious dialogue is that participants
may find themselves becoming increasingly alienated from their own
religious community. Dialogue can be a lonely quest in which individ-uals
engaging in dialogue may find themselves inadvertently drifting
further and further away from their community of origin, partly
because dialogue brings about a growth in understanding and an
extension of religious experience that is not shared by those who have
not participated.
To summarize, dialogue presents some real challenges. Baha'is
must make greater efforts to ensure that they are valuable contribu-tors
in forums of religious dialogue. Baha'i participants should guard
against a tendency to over-simplify a commonality of belief among the
world's great religions. The Baha'i community must stimulate the
development of more scholarly literature and Baha'is need to avoid
conflating dialogue with propagation activities.
STARTING POINTS OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE
I propose here three main approaches that the Baha'i community
could pursue in inter-religious dialogue. Each of these three "bridges"-the
ethical, the intellectual, and the mystical/spiritual-can link

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Baha'is to the communities of other faiths. Along each "bridge," some
practical steps are suggested as starting points in this process.
The Ethical Bridge. I argued above that cooperative social projects
focusing on world peace are advantageous in that they call the partic-ipant
religions to respond and create the momentum leading to deeper
forms of association and dialogue. Examples of practical cooperation
are given in a recent publication by Charles Kimball that charts a way
forward for Christian-Muslim relations. He asserts that "opportuni-ties
for cooperative social action abound. Obvious concerns relate to
societal problems such as homelessness, poverty, and the proliferation
of drugs."63 Kimball argues that both communities can benefit from
reciprocal learning, and that Christians in particular have much to
learn from Muslim initiatives in drug and prison rehabilitation pro-grams
in North America. John Hick also notes that the major inter-faith
effort of Jews, Christians, and Muslims today "is rightly direct-ed
towards developing this practical cooperation in face of the press-ing
need to achieve peace and justice on earth within a sustainable
global economy. "64 One of Hans Kting's dialogical imperatives in the
"postmodern" world is the need for local and regional interreligious
groups and working parties to "discuss and remove problems where
they arise, and investigate and realize possibilities for practical col-laboration."
Diana Eck writes that "our task is to learn to collabo-rate
with one another on issues that none of us can solve alone," and
argues that dialogue should begin with the questions that arise from
the common context of our lives together.66
This applies to Baha'i communities who have both much to learn
from and much to contribute to cooperative social projects with other
religious communities. Examples of possible joint activities include
overcoming the seven obstacles to world peace identified in The
Promise of World Peace: racism, extremes of poverty and wealth,
unbridled nationalism, religious strife, inequality between the sexes,
the low levels of education and literacy throughout the world, and the
lack of an international auxiliary language. On national and interna-tional
levels, dialogue can assist in meeting the goals of the Baha'i
International Community (BIG) at the United Nations whose external
affairs strategy as outlined in October 1994, is "to guide the global
activities of the community for the immediate future."67 BIG's strate-gy
will concentrate especially on human rights, the status of women,

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global prosperity, and moral development. In a similar vein, in 1990,
Hans K&g proposed a future agenda for interreligious dialogue, after
widespread consultation with representatives of the various world reli-gions.
The agenda includes the preservation of human rights, the
emancipation of women, the realization of social justice, and the
immorality of war.68
The challenge that the Universal House of Justice issued to the
Baha'i community in 1983 for "greater involvement in the develop-ment
of the social and economic life of peoples"69 and the opening of
"a wider horizon" of "new pursuits and undertakings upon which we
must shortly become engaged70 invites Baha'i communities to work
creatively toward implementing their vision of an ever-advancing civ-ilization,
a process that would do well to involve the participation and
contribution of other religions.
The Intellectual Bridge. Theological dialogue must take note of reli-gious
differences. As noted in the introduction, Paul Knitter argues
that "we have to deal with the manyness, the differences, among the
religions before we can ever contemplate, much less realize, their pos-sible
unity or oneness. "71 This approach is endorsed in the Baha'i
writings. Baha'u'llah calls upon the peoples of the world to "root out
whatever is the source of contention amongst you,"72 and the
Universal House of Justice appeals to the religious leaders of the
world to consider how their differences can "be resolved in theory and
in practice. "73 Two difficulties are presented to Baha'is who approach
dialogue with these questions in mind. The first is the tendency to
oversimplify and to reduce all religions to something they are not.
David Tracy warns against this danger, which is present in all reli-gious
communities that favor the primordial tradition: "The official
pluralist too often finds ways to reduce real otherness and genuine dif-ferences
to some homogenized sense of what we already know. . . .
Some pluralists, the vaunted defenders of difference, can become the
great reductionists-reducing differences to mere similarity, reducing
otherness to the same, and reducing plurality to my community of
right-thinking competent critics."T4
A second related problem is to assume that religious differences
will be swept away as all humanity gradually embraces the Baha'i
Faith. Although the Baha'i writings suggest nothing of the sort, this
attitude is occasionally expressed when Baha'is teach their faith. A
notable and recent example of this assumption on outsider perception

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is the comment of the current President of the World Congress of
Faiths, Edward Carpenter. When Carpenter was asked about the
relationship of the Baha'i Faith to Christianity, he explained: "it dis-turbs
me when on occasion I hear a well-meaning Baha'i taking the
view that it is God's will that all religions will be absorbed, ultimate-ly,
into the Baha'i Faith. This is a form of imperialism which, I think,
we need to guard ourselves against. "75 Hans K&g has called for a dia-logue
that places emphasis on religious freedom and tolerance: "The
question of truth must not be trivialized and sacrificed to the utopia
of future world unity and one world religion. On the contrary, we are
all challenged to think through anew, in an atmosphere of freedom,
the whole question of truth."76
In order to resolve religious differences, Bahsi'i scholars have iden-tified
a number of principles that are applicable to the many theolog-ical
disputes among the religions. Among the most controversial dif-ferences
are those concerning the nature of God and the nature of the
founders of the various religious communities. Baha'i scholars have
explored three theories that attempt to address these questions: cog-nitive
relativism, the essence-attribute distinction, and complemen-tarity.
These theories can be seen as hypotheses that should be test-ed,
developed, and refined in the context of interreligious dialogue.
Moojan Momen has argued that the Baha'i principle of the relativ-ity
of religious truth means that any absolute knowledge of ultimate
reality is impossible. Consequently, individuals possess no right to
claim that their understanding is the only true one in any absolute
sense. Of the Divinity, Baha'u'llah has written: "Exalted, immeasur-ably
exalted, art Thou above the strivings of mortal man to unravel
Thy mystery, to describe Thy glory, or even hint at the nature of Thine
Essence."y7 Consequently, all descriptions, all schemata, all attempts
to define the nature of God, are limited by the viewpoint of the indi-vidua1.78
All such attempts "are but a reflection of that which hath
been created within themselves."79 This has led Momen to argue that
the theory of "cognitive relativism" is an important approach to deal
with conflicting truth claims among the religions. This theory presents
the view that the differing ways of conceptualizing the Absolute
Reality are each "true" relative to the individual who sincerely makes
them. Momen applies the principle of relativism to resolve the contrast
between the dualist (Judaeo-Christian-Islamic) and monist (Eastern
religions) perceptions of the Ultimate. Momen explores ÔAbdu'l-Baha's.I

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rich commentary of the Islamic tradition "I was a Hidden Treasure,"
which presents the view that no matter how hard an individual strives
in an effort to gain a knowledge of the Absolute, the only success is to
achieve a better knowledge of his or her own self. ÔAbdu'l-Baha likens
this state of affairs to a compass: no matter how far the compass trav-els,
it is only going around the point at its center. Similarly, however
much human beings may strive for and achieve realms of spiritual
knowledge, ultimately they are only attaining a better and greater
knowledge of themselves, not of any exterior Absolute.80
As to the metaphysical nature of the prophet-founders, Juan
Cole discusses the theological implications of the philosophical dis-tinction
between the essence of a thing and its attribute made by
ÔAbdu'l-Baha, rather like the phenomenon-noumenon distinction of
Kant, to explain the differences between conceptions of the founders
of the world religions:
Essence and attribute have an identical referent, save that attribute is
the thing as perceived and conceptualized, and essence is the thing as it
is in itself. Insofar as perception is never direct, but always involves inter-mediaries
between the perceiver and the object of perception, the essence
of a thing uncolored by perceptual intermediaries . . . must remain in
some sense unknowable.sl
This approach can also significantly contribute to reconciling the
differences in the representation of the Ultimate among the world's
religions. An attempt in this direction has been made with John
Hick's complex theory of religious pluralism. Hick uses Kant's phe-nomenon-
noumenon distinction to hypothesize that the great world
faiths are various responses to the Ultimate, conceived and experi-enced
through differing human perceptions, some in terms of the
Deity or Ultimate as personal, and others in terms of the Absolute
as non-personal:
On this view the God figures-Adonai, the Heavenly Father, Allah,
Vishnu, Shiva, etc.-are different personae of the Real, formed jointly by
the ultimate universal presence in which "we live and move and have our
being" and by the different historical thought-forms projected by the
human mind. Likewise the non-personal Brahman, Tao, Dharmakaya,
etc. are impersonae of the Real, formed at the interface between the Real
and the non-personal religious thought-forms that have been developed
within yet other traditions.82

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A third approach to religious differences is through the principle
of complementarity. Cole applies Niels Bohr's principle of comple-mentarity-
a conceptual model to explain the observable phenomenon
that electrons appear to behave under certain conditions like particles
and under other conditions like waves-to explain differing under-standings
of the historical founders of the world religions:
. the Manifestations of God exhibit evidences of both divinity and human-ity
in much the same way as electrons behave alternately as waves and
particles and that as with the latter, so with the former, both models need
taken in conjunction if a more complete understanding is to be reached.83
Cole suggests that the Christian-Muslim debate about the station of
the founders of their religions can be partially reconciled by suggest-ing
that Christians have perceived one aspect of the prophet-founder
(the particle) and Muslims another (the wave).84
Again, this philosophical idea can be used to resolve differences in
the conceptions of the deity. For example, Cobb, himself a pioneer in
the field of Christian-Buddhist dialogue, has argued that Zen
Buddhist thought and traditional Christian teaching in relation to the
Ultimate can be seen to be complementary. The foci of the two tradi-tions
are seen as "compatible without being identical" so that the fol-lowing
resolution can be suggested:
Is it not conceivable that in the full complexity of reality, so far exceeding
all that we can know or think, "Emptying" identifies one truly important
aspect, and "God" another? I think so: Would acknowledging that possi-bility
contradict fundamentally what it is most important to either Zen
Buddhists or Christians to assert? I think not. But to come to that con-clusion
does require that one rethink the insights on both sides.85
The Mystical-Spiritual Bridge. Much writing on interreligious dia-logue
has been done by individuals who have pioneered theological
dialogue. Consequently, there has been a temptation to over-empha-size
the importance of this form of dialogue. Monica Hellwig, a
Catholic professor of interreligious dialogue, has made an important
critique of theological dialogue and argued for the centrality of spiritu-al
dialogue: "the exchange of theologies is not the fundamental or pri-mary
path to mutual understanding, but depends very heavily on some
prior experience of the ritual, the life and story."@ Drawing on the

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thinking of Hans Gadamer and, in particular, his theory of interpreta-tion,
which proposes that the meaning of a dance is in the dancing of
it, the meaning of a song is in the singing of it, and the meaning of life
in the living, Hellwig proposes that "one approaches the meaning of
others' dances, songs and lives across bridges of empathy in which the
imagination enters into experience other than its own." It is only at
this level that explanations, theories, and prescriptions convey mean-ing.
"87 Hellwig is therefore, suggesting that spiritual dialogue is "a
primary path" to understanding other religions.
This theme was explored by the distinguished Baha'i writer and
dignitary George Townshend, who represented the Baha'i community
at the first World Congress of Faiths in 1936. In his presentation,
Townshend explored the importance of mystical experience in demon-strating
the unity of religions, the striking "fundamental unity of all
mystical experience":
If one is to accept the account of their experience given by contemporaries
or by themselves, these mystics seem all the world over to have gone upon
the same spiritual adventure, to be drawn onward by the same experi-ence
of an outpoured heavenly love. . . .
By what diverse paths have mystics who had nothing in common
save whole-hearted servitude before the one loving God, by what diverse
paths have they all alike attained the blessed Presence!88
Townshend suggests that the example of mystics would lead wor-shippers
in all religions to "find something in the fundamental nature
of religion itself which promotes a sweet, precious and abiding sense
of true companionship."89
There is also a sense in which the mystical-spiritual bridge can
aid in developing the community life of religions. It is notable that
Baha'is face a great challenge in cultivating a deeper sense of both
spirituality and community. The ritual and mystical sparseness of
Baha'i community meetings has been noted by Michael Fischer, pro-fessor
of anthropology at Rice University. He recalls his disappoint-ment
on visiting the Baha'i House of Worship in Chicago in finding
that the service lacked ritual richness and depth:
As an anthropologist, however, I was somewhat disappointed: what was
read from each text destroyed the particularity of the tradition from
which it was drawn, leaving, seemingly, but banal platitudes.90

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Momen has noted that "what we have in the West, where Baha'i
groups meet for a few hours each week, can scarcely be called a com-munity.
The term ÔBaha'i community' is more an expression of an
aspiration than of present reality."g1 This weakness is sometimes
reflected in the public presentation of their religion by Baha'is.
Jacques Chouleur has observed "a certain reticence or timidity in
exhibiting this mystic aspect of their religion and its Founder" in pref-erence
to a focus on the social teachings. He warns of the potentially
tragic consequences of becoming detached from "the essentially mys-tic
origin" of the Baha'i Faith. He concludes:
The transfiguration of this earthly world by the implementation of the
Baha'i principles may be for them a doubtless exhilarating objective,
but quite incomplete, insufficient if it is deprived of mysticism and con-templationg2
Thus, I would argue that the Baha'i community needs to engage in
spiritual dialogue for two reasons. It provides a deeper understanding
of other religions, or as Hellwig puts it "a primary path to mutual
understanding," and an approach demonstrating the unity of religious
experience. The mystical-spiritual bridge also addresses a deep need
in the Baha'i community to develop an ambience of spiritality and mys-ticism
in Baha'i gatherings, services, and commemorative events that
can contribute to the creation of a richer community life.
In summary, I have examined three bridges that can link the
Baha'i community to other religions in dialogue. I have proposed that
the ethical bridge should focus on tackling obstacles to world peace in
cooperative projects with other religious communities. The intellectu-al
bridge needs to confront religious differences and attempt to resolve
them. The mystical-spiritual bridge can significantly enrich the
nature of Baha'i community and devotional life and contribute to a
Baha'i theology of religions.
NOTES
I am grateful to Arash Abizadeh, Morten Bergsmo, Mina Fazel, J. A.
(Jack) McLean, Udo Schaefer, Robert Stockman and others who have
commented on earlier drafts of this paper.

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1. Paul Knitter, "Interreligious Dialogue: What? why? How?" in Death or
Dialogue?: From the Age of Monologue to the Age of Dialogue, ed. by L.
Swidler, et al. (London: SCM Press, 1990) p. 20.
2. "Interreligious and Interideological Dialogue: The Matrix for all
Systematic Reflection Today" in Towards a Universal Theology of Religion, ed.
by L. Swidler (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987) pp. 26-27.
3. "A Dialogue on Dialogue" in Death or Dialogue?: From the Age of
Monologue to the Age of Dialogue, ed. by L. Swidler, et al. (London: SCM
Press, 1990) p. 8.
4. D. Eck, "What do we mean by ÔDialogue'?" Current Dialogue, vol. 11
(1986) p. 11.
5. Ibid., pp. 14-15.
6. The Kitab-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book (Haifa: Baha'i World Centre,
1992) K75, K144.
7. Tablets of Baha'u'llah Revealed after the Kitab-i-Aqdas, trans. by H.
Taherzadeh with the assistance of a committee at the Baha'i World Centre
(Haifa: Baha'i World Centre, 1978) pp. 22, 35, 87.
8. H. Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, ed. by J. Milton
Cowan (Weisbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1979) p. 718.
9. E. W. Lane, Arabic English Lexicon, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Islamic Texts
Society Trust, 1984) p. 2051.
10. I am grateful to Stephen Lambden for this information.
11. H. E. Kassis, A Concordance of the Qur'an (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1983) pp. 281-82. Cf. Qur'an 22:13, where the
masculine noun Ôashir ("friend/companion") occurs.
12. Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, trans. by Shoghi Effendi,
rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1976) p. 215.
13. Ibid., pp. 215-16.
14. Ibid., p. 217.
15. Tablets, p. 67.
16. The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks during His Visit to the
United States and Canada in 1912, camp. Howard Macnutt, 2d. ed. (Wilmette:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1982) pp. 40, 42, 299, 339.
17. Star of the West, vol. 9, no. 3 (Oxford: George Ronald, 1978) p. 37.
18. The studies of Geza Vermes, for example, have caused New
Testament scholars to revise the meaning of the phrase "Son of Man" and the
New Testament texts in which this phrase is contained.
19. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, dated 23 November
1934, in Deepening our Understanding and Knowledge of the Faith, camp.
Research Dept. of the Universal House of Justice (London: Bah6'i Publishing
Trust, 1983) pp. 31-32.
20. From a letter on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, quoted in The Baha'i
Magazine, Vol. 24 (Chicago: Baha'i News Service, 1934) p. 144

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21. "Dialogue on Dialogue," p. 63.
22. Stephen Lambden, "Doing Baha'i Scholarship in the 1990s: A
Religious Studies Approach," The Baha'i Studies Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (1994)
pp. 66-67.
23. Examples include the work of George Townshend and Robert
Stockman in Protestant Christianity; Mirza Abu'l Fadl, Fadil Mazandarani,
and Abbas Amanat in Shi'i Islam.
24. "Interreligious and Inter-ideological Dialogue," p. 5.
25. The World Order of Bahd'u'llcih: Selected Letters, rev. ed. (Wilmette,
Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1974) p. 114.
26. Ibid., p. 58.
27. "Interview between a Prominent Rabbi and Abdul-Baha," Star of the
West, vol. 3, no. 9 (24 June 1912) pp. 7.
28. Ibid.
29. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1974) p. 291.
30. Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 368,409.
31. "ÔAbdu'l-Baha on Christ on Christianity," The Bah6'i Studies Review,
vol. 3, no.1 (1993) pp. 7-17.
32. An Apology for Apologetics: A Study in the Logic of Interreligious
Dialogue (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991) pp. 1, 14.
33. Ibid., pp. 3, 7.
34. Ibid., p. xii.
35. "Dialogue," p. 9.
36. "Interreligious Dialogue," p. 23.
37. Cobb, "Dialogue," p. 9.
38. Paul Knitter, No Other Name? A Survey of Christian Attitudes
towards World Religions (London: SCM Press, 1985) p. 221.
39. Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (New York:
Continuum, 1993) pp. 131-32.
40. "Learning from History," The Journal of Baha'i Studies, vol. 2, no.2
(1990) p. 61.
41. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, trans. Shoghi Effendi, rev. ed.
(Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1979) p. 13.
42. Universal House of Justice, The Promise of World Peace (London:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 19851 p. 12.
43. Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 12.
44. "Interreligious Dialogue," p. 29.
45. "Christianity and World Religions: Dialogue with Islam" in Towards a
Universal Theology of Religion, ed. by L. Swidler (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987) p. 194.
46. Global Responsibility, p. 131.
47. D. Martin, "Baha'u'llah's Model for World Fellowship," World Order,
vol. 11, no.1 (1976) p.19.

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48. Knitter, "Response II," in Death or Dialogue?: From the Age of
Monologue to the Age of Dialogue, ed. by L. Swidler, et al. (London: SCM
Press, 1990) p. 129.
49. "Interreligious Dialogue," p. 35.
50. Universal House of Justice, Ridvan Message, April 21, 1992, in A
Wider Horizon: Selected Messages of the Universal House of Justice 1983-1992.
Comp. by Paul Lample (Riviera Beach, Florida: Palabra, 1992) p. 100.
51. For a discussion of this issue, see my paper "Is the Baha'i Faith a
World Religion?" The Journal of Baha'i Studies, vol. 6, no.1 (1994) pp. 1-16.
52. J. A. Saliba, "Dialogue with New Religious Movements: Issues and
Prospects," The Journal of Ecumenical Studies, vol. 30, no.1 (1993) p. 72.
53. Ibid.
54. J. Chouleur, "The Baha'i Faith: World Religion of the Future," World
Order, Vol. 12, no. 1 (1977) p. 17.
55. D. MacEoin, "Problems of Scholarship in a Baha'i Context," Baha'i
Studies Bulletin, Vol. 1, no. 3 (1982) p. 58.
56. Seena Fazel, "The Baha'i Faith and Academic Journals," The Baha'i
Studies Review, Vol. 3, no. 2 (1994) p. 83-85.
57. Swidler, "A Dialogue on Dialogue," p. 57.
58. The difficulties outlined are more problematic for NRM's (Saliba,
"Dialogue with New Religious Movements," pp. 72-771, but nevertheless are
present to one degree or another in the Baha'i community. Specific examples
are found in Baha'i literature, where examples exist of dialogue being conflated
with missionary-type activities, and where literature towards other religions is
occasionally overtly critical. In an important review, Chris Buck has highlight-ed
this failing of Baha'i apologetic literature: "Apologetic . . . has taken on
implicit invective" and "that criticism is not sufficiently counterbalanced by
construction." ("Review of The Prophecies of Jesus by M. Sours," The Journal of
Baha'i Studies, Vol. 5, no. 2 [1992] pp. 79-86) It would appear that negative
apologetics outweighs positive apologetics in some Baha'i theological literature.
59. "Interreligious Dialogue," pp. 23.
60. "Dialogue," p. 9.
61. Swidler, After the Absolute: The Dialogical Future of Religious
Reflection (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990) p. 3.
62. Knitter, "Interreligious Dialogue," p. 23.
63. C. Kimball, Striving Together: A Way Forward in Christian-Muslim
Relations (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991) p. 119.
64. J. Hick, "Interfaith and the Future," The Baha'i Studies Review, Vol.
4, no. 1 (1994) p. 4.
65. Global Responsibility, p. 137.
66. Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1993) pp. 213, 218.
67. Letter from the Universal House of Justice, Department of the

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Secretariat to all National Spiritual Assemblies, 10 October 1994.
68. Global Responsibility, p. 88.
69. Letter of the Universal House of Justice, 20 October 1983, in A Wider
Horizon, p. 139.
70. Universal House of Justice, Ridvan letter, 21 April 1983, in A Wider
Horizon, p. 138.
71. "Interreligious Dialogue," p. 20.
72. Gleanings, p. 217.
73. The Promise of World Peace (London: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1985)
p. 12.
74. D. Tracy, "Christianity and the Wider Context: Demands and
Transformations," Religion and Intellectual Life, Vol. 4 (1987) p. 12.
75. C. Gouvion and P. Jouvion, The Gardeners of God: An Encounter with
Five Million Baha'is (Oxford: Oneworld, 1993) p. 169.
76. "Foreword" to The Peace Bible, ed. by S. Scholl (Los Angeles: Kalimat
Press, 1986) p. 8.
77. Gleanings, pp. 3-4.
78. Momen, "Relativism: A Basis for Baha'i Metaphysics," in Studies in
Honor of the Late Hasan M. Balyuzi: Studies in the Babi & Baha'i Religions,
Volume 5, ed. by M. Momen (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1988) pp. 200-201.
79. Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, p. 318.
80. Momen, "Relativism," p. 203.
81. J. R. I. Cole, "The Christian-Muslim Encounter and the Baha'i Faith,"
World Order, Vol. 12, no. 2 (1977-78) p. 24. Cf. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Some Answered
Questions (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1984) pp. 146-50.
82. "Straightening the Record: Some Response to Critics," Modern
Theology, Vol. 6, no. 2 (1990) p. 191.
83. "Christian-Muslim Encounter," pp. 26-27.
84. Ibid.
85. "Dialogue," p. 6.
86. M. K. Hellwig, "The Thrust and Tenor of Our Conversations," in
Death or Dialogue?: From the Age of Monologue to the Age of Dialogue, ed. by
L. Swidler et al. (London: SCM Press, 1990) p. 50.
87. "Thrust and Tenor," p. 50.
88. G. Townshend, Baha'u'llah's Ground Plan of World-Fellowship as
Presented by ÔAbdu'l-Baha in The Baha'i World. Volume 6 (New York: Baha'i
Publishing Committee, 1937) pp. 617, 618.
89. Ibid.
90. M. Fischer, "Social Change and the Mirrors of Tradition: The Baha'is
of Yazd," in The Baha'i Faith and Islam, ed. by H. Moayyad (Ottawa:
Association for Baha'i Studies, 1990) p. 26.
91. "Learning from History," p. 66, fn. 11.
92. "The God of Baha'u'llah," World Order, Vol. 13, no. l(1978) pp. 18-19.

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HERMES TRISMEGISTUS AND APOLLONIUS
OF TYANA IN THE WRITINGS OF BAHA'U'LLAH
Keven Brown
The name Hermes Trismegistus is commonly associated with occult
sciences such as theurgy, alchemy, and astrology, which partly origi-nated
in the technical Hermetic literature circulating in the Roman
empire from as early as the second century B.C.E. Our modern expres-sion
"hermetically sealed" derives from the name Hermes. Apollonius of
Tyana, the Pythagorian philosopher of the first century C.E., is less well
known. Greek and Latin sources do not connect these two figures doc-trinally,
but in the Arabic Hermetic literature, some of which was trans-lated
from pagan Syrian sources in the time of Caliph Ma'mun
(813~833), Apollonius (in Arabic Balinus) is often associated with
Hermes. There he is depicted as the discoverer and representative of
Hermes' teachings on the secrets of creation that had been lost to the
generations before him. It is this later picture of Hermes and Apollonius
that is most relevant to this study, for this is the tradition that is adopt-ed
by Baha'u'llah in his writings. In his Lawh-i &I&mat (Tablet of
Wisdom), for example, Baha'u'llah states: "It was this man of wisdom
[Balinusl who became informed of the mysteries of creation and dis-cerned
the subtleties which lie enshrined in the Hermetic writings."l
According to the Eastern, Islamic tradition of Hermes
Trismegistus, Hermes was a divine philosopher or prophet who lived
before the time of the Greek philosophers, and he was the first person
to whom God instructed the secrets of wisdom and divine and natural

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sciences. Muslims equate Hermes to the prophet Id& whom the Jews
know as Enoch. In the Qur'an, it is written: "Commemorate Idrfs in
the Book; for he was a man of truth, a prophet; and we uplifted him to
a place on high" (Q. 19:57-58). Hermes is also called the "father of the
philosophers" in the Muslim Hermetic tradition, because he was
believed to be the most ancient of those who propagated wisdom and
sciences. In accord with this tradition, Baha'u'llah writes in his Lawh
Basit al-Ijaqiqat (Tablet on the Simple Reality):
The first person who devoted himself to philosophy was Idris. Thus was
he named. Some called him also Hermes. In every tongue he hath a spe-cial
name. He it is who hath set forth in every branch of philosophy thor-ough
and convincing statements. After him Balinus derived his knowl-edge
and sciences from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philoso-phers
who followed him made their philosophical and scientific discover-ies
from his words and statements.2
In this quotation, "after him" represents a long period of time, since
Balinds lived in the first century C.E. The "philosophers who followed
him" would, accordingly, refer to philosophers after the first century
C.E. who followed the Hermetic tradition.
Inasmuch as Baha'u'llah refers to Hermes and Apollonius in his
writings, (1) what relevance does the Hermetic legacy in Islam have to
Baha'i thought in general and (2) what attitude should Baha'is take
toward these references in view of the declared infallibility of Baha'i
scripture? The first question is important as part of an investigation of
the sources of Baha'u'llah's cosmological teachings; the second question
is significant insofar as it concerns the issue of scriptural interpreta-tion
in Baha'i theology. Before answering these questions, however, it
is first necessary, in order to obtain a more balanced picture, to see how
Hermes and Apollonius were viewed in the Roman empire before the
conquest of Islam, and then see how they were incorporated into the
Islamic worldview. Furthermore, what of their writings were known,
and how did they influence religious and philosophical thought?
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS
Since, from the fragmentary textual evidence remaining from the
Roman empire, the names of Hermes and Apollonius are not associat-ed
with each other at that time, they will be examined separately. The

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legendary name of Hermes Trismegistus in the Roman empire is,
firstly, connected to the Egyptian god Thoth, whom Herodotus associ-ated
with the Greek Hermes in the fifth century B.C.E. In Egypt, in the
most ancient period, Thoth was a powerful national god associated
with the moon. As the moon is illuminated by the sun, likewise Thoth
derived his authority from the sun god Re, to whom he acted as sec-retary
and advisor. The moon ruled the stars and distinguished the
seasons and months of the year, thus becoming the lord of time and
the regulator of individual destinies. Thoth came to be viewed both as
the source of cosmic order and of religious and civic institutions and,
as such, he presided over temple cults and laws of state. According to
one account: "Tiberius enacted his laws for the World in the same way
as Thoth, the creator of justice."3
As the lord of wisdom, a role in which he was widely recognized,
he was regarded as the origin of sacred texts and formulae, and of arts
and sciences. The tradition that Thoth had revealed the arts of writ-ing,
number, geometry, and astronomy to Ring Ammon at Thebes was
known to Plato and related by him in the Phaedrus.4 As the scribe of
the gods, he was the inventor of writing.5 Plutarch explains that the
first letter of the Egyptian alphabet is the ibis, the sacred bird symbol
of Hermes, because Hermes invented writing.6
Thoth was also a physician. In a representation of him from the
time of Tiberius, he appears holding the stick of Asclepius with the
snake.7 When a person died, he guided the soul to the afterlife, where
he recorded the judgments of Osiris. s Because the Greek Hermes, like
Thoth, was associated with the moon, medicine, and the realm of the
dead, and both served as a messenger for the gods and were known for
inventiveness, the Greeks assimilated Hermes to Thoth.9 It is the
Egyptian Thoth, however, who comes down to us as Hermes
Trismegistus. Walter Scott believes that to distinguish this Hermes
from the Greek Hermes, the Greeks added the epithet Trismegistus,
meaning "thrice-great," which they borrowed from the Egyptian epi-thet
for Thoth, aci a&, meaning "very great."10
But another view of Hermes also prevailed in the Roman empire,
probably due to the appearance of the Hermetic writings between the
late first and late third centuries C.E. In this view, Hermes is not a god
but a divinely guided man or prophet. Long before, Plato had already
questioned whether Thoth was a god or just a divine man.ll In the
writings ascribed to Hermes, he is usually pictured as the mortal
agent of a holy revelation from God which offers salvation to the soul

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from the bondage of matter and promises to disclose the secrets of cre-ation.
Ammianus Marcellinus, the fourth-century pagan historian,
refers to Hermes Trismegistus, Apollonius of Tyana, and Plotinus as
individuals with a special guardian spirit.12 To both Christians and
pagans of the late Roman empire, the Egyptian Hermes was a real
person of great antiquity. Some considered him to be a contemporary
of Moses, and they regarded him as the first and greatest teacher of
gnosis and sophia, from whose teachings later philosophers derived
the fundamentals of their philosophy. For example, Iamblichus (d. c.
330 C.E.), one of the Neoplatonic successors of Plotinus, wrote that
Plato and Pythagoras had each visited Egypt and there read the
tablets of Hermes with the assistance of native priests.ls
Baha'u'llah does not explicitly support a direct philosophical con-nection
between Hermes and the early Greek philosophers, as
Iamblichus does, but only between Hermes and Balinus and the
philosophers who followed after Balinus in the Hermetic tradition. This
is significant because part of the Islamic Hermetic tradition from which
Baha'u'llah draws, as will be seen below, places Balinus prior in time
to Aristotle, which is impossible in the light of historical evidence.
Baha'u'llah, therefore, may be deliberately recounting those parts of
the tradition that he believes to be true while remaining silent about
those parts that he believes to be false.14 In regard to a possible
Egyptian influence on the early Greek philosophers, Jonathan Barnes
writes: "Although some [Egyptian] fertilization can scarcely be denied,
the proven parallels are surprisingly few and surprisingly imprecise."l5
Lactantius, one of the early fathers of the Christian Church,
believed Hermes to be the Gentile prophet who not only predicted the
coming of Christ but also recognized the Logos as God's son. He writes
in his Institutes:
And even though he [Hermes] was a man, he was most ancient and well
instructed in every kind of learning-to such a degree that his knowledge
of the arts and of all other things gave him the cognomen or epithet
Trismegistus. He wrote books-many, indeed, pertaining to the knowl-edge
of divine things-in which he vouches for the majesty of the supreme
and single God and he calls Him by the same names which we use: Lord
and Father. Lest anyone should seek His name, he says that He is "with-out
a name," since He does not need the proper signification of a name
because of His very unity.16

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Augustine, likewise, allows that "Hermes makes many. . . statements
agreeable to the truth concerning the one true God Who fashioned this
world," but he also castigates Hermes for what appears to be his sym-pathy
for the gods of Egypt.17
THE HERMETIC WRITINGS
The Hermetica are those writings which in antiquity were
ascribed to the figure of Hermes Trismegistus. Apart from this, there
exists a body of Hermetic literature in Arabic that appears distinct
from the Hermetica of the Roman empire, and which will be consid-ered
separately. These writings are presented as revelations of divine
truth not as the products of human reason, which in itself distin-guishes
them from the Greek philosophical tradition. The Hermetica
may be divided, for the sake of convenience, into two general cate-gories:
those which deal with philosophical and theological matters
and those which are of a technical nature, i.e., texts on alchemy,
astrology, and theurgy. Walter Scott, who translated the Hermetica
into English and published it together with commentary and testimo-nia,
put all of his attention on the philosophical writings.18 Other
scholars of the Hermetica, including Andre-Jean Festugiere and
Garth Fowden, treat the philosophical and technical texts as manifes-tations
of a single worldview.
The philosophical texts that have survived to the present consist
of collections of discourses in dialogue form, usually between Hermes
and one or more of his disciples. They include the Corpus Hermeticum
(C.H.), a collection of eighteen discourses including the well-known
Poimandres as C.H. I. The last three discourses in this collection were
commonly dropped out by Christians, probably because they con-tained
material more noticeably pagan.20 Another collection, the
Anthologium, was made by Stobaeus in the fifth century. It included
extracts from C.H. 11, N, and X, and from otherwise unattested
Hermetica. Neither of these collections included the Axlepius, or
Perfect Discourse, which contains Hermes' famous prophecy on Egypt.
The Perfect Discourse has survived only in Latin, save for Greek frag-ments
in Lactantius, likely because the work contains several pas-sages
of a clearly pagan nature, which were proscribed by Byzantine
censorship.21 Other specimens of philosophical Hermetica are known
to exist in Coptic and Armenian translations.22

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The general consensus of modern scholars, beginning with Isaac
Casaubon in 1614, puts the composition of the philosophical texts
between the late first to the late third centuries C.E.23 The composition
of the technical texts may have begun as much as two centuries earlier.
These calculations are based on external testimonia and analysis of the
linguistic style and the doctrinal content of the texts. Tertullian of
Carthage is the earliest known writer to quote from the philosophical
Hermetica in his Adversus Valentinianos and the De anima, both com-posed
around 206-207.24 There are earlier references to Hermetic texts.
Galen of Pergamon mentions a treatise on medical botany by Hermes
Trismegistus that was supposedly well-known in the first century.25
The modern dating of the texts refutes the possibility that they
themselves are an ancient fount of divine wisdom pre-dating Plato.
Nevertheless, it is possible that the Hermetica represent an authentic
Egyptian religious tradition that came under the influence of Greek
philosophy and was later written down in a highly Hellenized style.
This idea was proposed in antiquity in a book called Abammonis Ad
Porphyrium Responsum, written by Iamblichus, although ostensibly
written by Abammon, an Egyptian priest of high rank, in reply to
questions addressed by Porphyry (c. 232-301). Porphyry asked about
the theology and religious practices of the Egyptians, especially about
theurgy, implying that he found it difficult to reconcile them with his
own beliefs. "Abammon" says that he will base his answers on two
sources: (1) the "books of Thoth," written in ancient times by Egyptian
priests, and (2) books written by recent writers who have condensed
or summarized the contents of the ancient writings. Under the second
category, the author includes the Greek Hermetica, which Porphyry
said he had read. Abammon explains that these texts were based on
Egyptian documents which were translated, paraphrased, or inter-preted
by priests who were experts in Greek philosophy.26 According
to this scheme, the works of Balinus known in the Islamic tradition
would also fall under the second category, since he was regarded as
the discoverer and propounder of the Hermetic writings.
Scott was of the opinion that if the above hypothesis was true,
then the Egyptian priests of the Roman period could only have imag-ined
that they found doctrines in their ancient writings that were in
accord with Platonic philosophy. But there have been some modern
scholars more sympathetic to the view of Abammon. For example, in
1904, Richard Reitzenstein published his Poimandres wherein he

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challenges Isaac Casaubon's opinion that the Hermetica were merely
Christian forgeries. William C. Grese sums up Reitzenstein's position
in that work: "Reitzenstein portrayed the Hermetica as a Hellenistic
development of ancient Egyptian religion."27 With the publication of
the Nag Hammadi library of Coptic gnostic and Hermetic texts in the
1970s Garth Fowden states that Hermetic scholarship has entered a
new phase, one which emphasizes a closer connection of the
Hermetica to traditional Egyptian thought.28
It is true that the Roman empire in the first few centuries after
Christ was known for the syncretistic drive of its component cultures.
Greeks and Romans were borrowing from the Egyptians, the Jews,
and the Persians, while these cultures in turn borrowed from the
Greeks and the Romans, and from each other. The intermingling of
races as well as religious and philosophical ideas made such borrow-ing
not only possible but necessary, and contributed to a widespread
feeling of toleration.
In common with revived Platonism and Pythagoreanism, and with
the monotheistic religions of the time, Hermeticism taught that all
beings derive from one supreme God, who is the object of each soul's
adoration. Although some of the Hermetic texts may lend themselves to
a pantheistic interpretation, God is also depicted as a personal creator,
who is separate and independent from the world He creates. Fowden
concurs: "Some conception of the transcendence of God (as, for example,
the creator of the All rather than Himself the All) can often be found
even in the most immanentist of treatises."29 One's view of God depends
upon the level of understanding obtained while journeying through the
stages of the "way of Hermes.30 Hermes says: "By stages he [the seek-er]
advances and enters into the way of immortality."31
The first step of the soul seeking reunion with God is to recognize
its own ignorance, for only then can it obtain the knowledge of God.s2
It is God's wish to be known by humanity, God's most glorious cre-ation.
Knowing God requires the second birth of the spirit, the
unveiling of the "essential" human within, which means that the seek-er
must acquire wisdom, practice virtue, and learn detachment from
worldly things.34 Life is the classroom for such spiritual transforma-tion.
"The pious fight," teaches Hermes, "consists in knowing the
divine and doing ill to no man. "35 A human being becomes divine as
he or she reflects the divine virtues that are equivalent to the essen-tial
self, which is the image of God. Such a life includes praying and

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singing hymns of praise to God. It does not preclude marriage and a
normal family life, according to Hermes.36
APOLLONIUS OF TYANA
Unlike the figure of Hermes Trismegistus, who is veiled in the
mists of legend, Apollonius of Tyana is a known historical figure.
According to his chief biographer, Flavius Philostratus (c. 175-245),
Apollonius lived to be over ninety years old and died near the end of
the first Christian century. Recent scholarship puts Apollonius' life
between approximately 40-120 C.E.37 The empress Julia Domna, who
was born in Syrian Emesa in the eastern confines of the Roman
empire where Apollonius had flourished, commissioned Philostratus
to write the life of Apollonius, which was completed some time after
Julia Domna's death in 217. Philostratus says of his sources:
I have gathered my materials partly from the many cities that were
devoted to him, partly from the shrines which he set right when their
rules had fallen into neglect, partly from what others have said about
him, and partly from his own letters. . . . But my more detailed informa-tion
I have gathered from a . . . man called Damis who . . . became a dis-ciple
of Apollonius and has left an account of his master's journeys, on
which he claims to have accompanied him, and also an account of his say-ings,
speeches and predictions. . . I have also read the book by Maximus
of Aegae, which contains all that Apollonius did there. . . But it is best
to ignore the four books which Moeragenes composed about Apollonius,
because of the great ignorance of their subject that they display.38
As to the reliability of Philostratus' work and the possibility of
reconstructing an accurate historical picture of Apollonius of Tyana
from it, modern historians generally agree that Philostratus fabricat-ed
much of his biography to please the expectations of his patroness.
Such likely fabrications include the figure of Damis, the accounts of
Apollonius' encounters with several Roman emperors, and Apollonius'
journeys to India and Rome. 39 Apollonius does not seem to have been
known in Rome until the fourth century, when his legend became
famous due to the controversy between Eusebius and Hierocles, which
will be explained below. Philostratus himself was "a man of letters
and a sophist full of passion for Greek Romance and for studies in
rhetoric . . . hardly interested in the historical Apollonius."*o

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The works by Maximus and Moeragenes have not survived,
although there is a reference to Moeragenes' work by Origen in his
Contra Celsum, in which he mentions Moeragenes' view that
Apollonius was both a philosopher and a magician.41 The earliest
known mention of Apollonius is in Lucian's Alexander siue
Pseudomantis written in about 18Oc.~., in which he ridicules
Alexander as a charlatan whose teacher had been a pupil of
Apollonius.42 In sum, historical sources contemporary with Apollonius
are silent about him, those remaining from the second century are
sparse and fragmentary, and Philostratus' biography written in the
first half of the third century is unreliable. Furthermore, there is no
body of extant works by Apollonius in Greek or in Syriac (at least ones
considered to be authentic) to give us an accurate picture of his teach-ings.
All that remains from the Greek is a collection of about one hun-dred
of his letters, most quite short and some probably fabricated
after his death. A fragment from a work of Balinus entitled
Concerning Sacrifices found in Eusebius was probably translated into
Greek, because Philostratus says that Apollonius wrote this book in
his "own language," Syriac. 43 Given this state of affairs, revealing the
true Apollonius is a formidable if not impossible task. Nevertheless,
Philostratus' Life of Apollonius and the letters give us a picture of
Apollonius that cannot be entirely out of line.
Philostratus describes many of Apollonius' wonderful acts, but he
chooses to stress his wisdom, his ascetic practices, and his mission to
restore the purity of the ancient religions of the empire. That
Apollonius could do things beyond the capability of ordinary men,
Philostratus explains, was the result of the "knowledge which God
reveals to wise men."44 His wonders consisted primarily of instances
of divining the future, seeing or hearing things in visions, and healing
the sick. In a case where he restored a young girl to life upon meeting
her funeral procession, Philostratus comments: "He may have seen a
spark of life in her which her doctors had not noticed, since apparent-ly
it was drizzling and steam was coming from her face."45
As Christianity grew in size and power, some pagans felt com-pelled
to respond to the miracles Christians attributed to Christ with
their own stories about the miracles of Apollonius. The first to do so in
writing, according to Eusebius of Caesarea, was Hierocles, a philoso-pher
and the governor of Bithynia at that time (302). He wrote a work
called A Friend of the Truth, in which he contrasts the wonderful

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works of Apollonius with the miracles of Christ as a proof to
Christians that they should not claim divinity for Christ based on his
miracles. Eusebius of Caesarea responded vehemently to Hierocles,
not by disclaiming the virtue of Apollonius, but by discrediting
Philostratus' biography of Apollonius.4s Lactantius, who heard
Hierocles read his book publicly in Nicomedia, argued that Christ is
divine, not because of the miracles he did, but because it was Jesus
who had fulfilled the prophecies announced by the Jewish prophets.47
As a result of this debate between Christians and pagans, Apollonius'
legend as a wonder worker began to grow and Philostratus' biography
became popular. The cult at the temple of Asclepius in Aegaeae, where
Apollonius had served as a healer of both bodies and souls, began to
flourish again (as did many other temples loyal to his memory), until
the emperor Constantine had this temple destroyed in 331.4s
Where did the legends of Apollonius' talismans come from? They
are not mentioned by Philostratus, so they were either unknown to
him or he did not wish to speak about them. Maria Dzielska, whose
book Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and History has been very help-ful
in constructing this account of Apollonius, has explained this ques-tion.
Eusebius is the first to refer to them in his Contra Hieroclem. He
says that "certain queer implements attributed to Apollonius were
used in his times."49 After Eusebius, references to Apollonius' talis-mans
begin to appear frequently. Pseudo-Justin mentions the dis-semination
of Apollonius' talismans in Antioch. It appears that these
objects were so popular that Antioch's church leaders decided to
accept them. Pseudo-Justin illustrates the problem in a work contain-ing
a dialogue between a theologian and a Christian:
The Christian is concerned about the popularity and spread of Apollonius'
talismans. He wonders how to explain their magical powers. . . He won-ders
why God . . . allows them. . . . The theologian dispels his doubts say-ing
that there is nothing evil about those objects because they were pro-duced
by Apollonius who was an expert in the powers governing nature
and in the cosmic sympathies and antipathies . . and that is why they
did not contradict God's wisdom ruling the world.50
The talismans, which were usually made out of stone or metal, were
placed in cities to protect their inhabitants against plagues, wild ani-mals,
vermin, natural disasters, and the like. Two other centers in the
Greek east where memories of Apollonius had been strongest, Agaeae

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and Tyana, were completely converted to Christianity by this time, so
there is no mention of Apollonius' talismans there. However, surpris-ingly,
in Constantinople itself, Apollonius' talismans became popular.
The sixth-century Antiochian historian Malalas wrote that, during
Domitian's rule, Apollonius paid a visit to Byzantium where he left
many talismans in order to help the Byzantines in their troubles.51 In
the thirteenth century, in the hippodrome in Byzantium, there was still
a bronze eagle holding a snake in its claws, which citizens said had been
placed there by Apollonius to protect them against a scourge of ven-omous
snakes. This talisman was destroyed by the crusaders in 1204.52
What is left of Apollonius' reputation if we divest him of his time-honored
epithet "the producer of talismans, the performer of won-ders"?
In Philostratus' Life of Apollonius, we are told that Apollonius
was a man vigorously devoted to God and to the spiritual life, one who
accepted all creeds as diverse expressions of one universal religion. In
a letter to his brother, he writes: "All men, so I believe, belong to the
family of God and are of one nature; everyone experiences the same
emotions, regardless of the place or condition of a person's birth,
whether he is a barbarian or a Greek, so long as he is a human
being. "53 In the fragment from the work of Apollonius called
Concerning Sacrifices, he advises: "It is best to make no sacrifice to
God at all, no lighting a fire, no calling Him by any name that men
employ for things of sense. For God is over all, the first; and only after
Him do come the other gods. For He doth stand in need of naught,
even from the gods, much less from us small men. . . . The only fitting
sacrifice to God is man's best reason [i.e., man's "showing to God his
own perfection" according to Dzielska541, and not the word that comes
out of his mouth."55
Wherever he traveled, Apollonius is said to have discouraged the
use of animals for sacrifice, and encouraged the use of incense instead.
Philostratus relates that he refused to eat meat and subsisted on a
diet of fruits and vegetables. As part of his daily regimen, Apollonius
prayed three times a day: at daybreak, mid-day, and at sundown.
Damis describes his manner as gentle and modest, yet if some injus-tice
was being committed he would be the first to speak out against it.
For example, in a letter to some Roman officials, he states: "Some of
you take care of harbors, buildings, walls, and walkways. But, as for
the children in the cities or the young people or the women, neither
you nor the laws give them any thought. If things were otherwise, it

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would be good to be governed by YOU."~~ In a letter to Valerius, we
learn something about his opinion on human immortality: "There is
. no death of anything except in appearance only, just as there is no
birth of anything except in appearance only. For the passage of some-thing
from the realm of pure substance into that of nature appears to
be birth, and likewise the passage of something from the realm of
nature into that of pure substance appears to be death."57
THE ISLAMIC HERMETIC TRADITION
It is not clear when Hermetic works first became known to
Muslims. According to the great catalog&, Ibn an-Nadim, some
alchemical treatises were known and used by Khalid (d. c. 720), son of
the Umayyad Caliph Yazid II.58 Later, the famous Muslim alchemist,
Jabir ibn Hayyan (722-815), developed a good part of his own cosmo-logical
system from the Sirr al-Khaliqa (The Secret of Creation)
attributed to Balinus (i.e., Apollonius of Tyana), which Balinus says
he derived from the Kitdb al-ÔIZaZ (The Book of Causes) of Hermes.59
In his works, Jabir also claims to have been an intimate disciple of the
sixth ShiÔi Imam, JaÔfar as-Sadiq (d. 765), who acted as "Jabir's critic
and guide par excellence. "60 Although Jabir's link to Ja'far as-Sadiq
and the traditional dating and authorship of the Jabirian corpus have
all been challenged by Paul Kraus in his monumental study, recent
and more critical scholarship by Syed Nomanul Haq shows that Kraus
was unduely skeptical in his judgement.61 The name Hermes and per-haps
Persian versions of Hermetic texts were also known during the
reign of Harun ar-Rashid (786-809). Ar-Rashid's Persian librarian
and court astrologer, Abu Sahl al-Fadl, mentions a Babylonian
Hermes, whose works were translated into Pahlavi during the reign
of the Sasanian monarch, Shapur. Ab6 Sahl is said to have translat-ed
some of those works for ar-Rashid.
Whatever the case may be, the identification of Hermes with the
quranic Idris, who had already been identified with Enoch by the
Jews,63 was made by the pseudo-Sabians of Harran during the reign
of al-Ma'mun. In the words of MasÔudi (d. 959), "Enoch is identical
with the prophet Idrfs; the Sabians say he is the same person as
Hermes."64 Harran, in Syria, had remained a stronghold of pagan reli-gion
and learning where Christianity had not been able to penetrate.
Here, it seems that both philosophical and technical Hermetica were

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well-known and in use. The story of al-Ma'mun's encounter with the
Ijarranians is related by Ibn an-Nadim, who took his account from
that of a Christian named Abu Yusuf Ays haÔ al-Qati'i. According to
this account, the caliph was on a military expedition into the land of
the Byzantines, during which time he was received by people who
came to swear allegiance to him. Among them were the Harranians.
When al-Ma'mt'in asked them about their religion, they were unable
to give a satisfactory answer. Al-Ma'mun said, "Then you must be
heretics and worshipers of idols; your blood is lawful. . . . You must
choose either Islam or any of the religions which God has mentioned
in His Book, otherwise you shall be exterminated."65 To escape from
this impasse, the Harranians identified themselves with the
Mandaean Sabians mentioned in the Qur'an, and said that their
prophets were Hermes and Agathodaimon (said to be the biblical
Seth), and their scriptures the writings of Hermes.
Al-Kindi (c. 850) gives an account of the teachings of the Ijarran-ian
Hermeticists, recorded in the memoir of Ahmad ibn ath-Thayyib,
which bears some resemblance to teachings found in the Greek philo-sophical
Hermetica:
The Sabians with one accord teach as follows: The world has one First
Author, who has never ceased to be, who is unique and without plurality,
and to whom none of the attributes of caused things are applicable. He
(God) imposed on those of his creatures that are endowed with the facul-ty
of judgement the duty of acknowledging his supremacy; he revealed to
them the right way (of life and thought), and sent emissaries (prophets)
to guide them aright, and to establish proofs (of Gods existence). He bade
these prophets summon men to (live according to) God's good pleasure,
and warn them of God's wrath. . . According to their opinion, the rewards
and punishments will affect the spirit only, and will not be postponed to
an appointed time [i.e., there is no resurrection of the body, and no one
Day of Judgment for all mankind together].@
The Arabic H&-metic writings, a large share of which belong to the
technical category, are numerous, and many of these texts have yet to
be studied.67 "The Book of Causes" of Hermes, adopted by Balinus
under the title of The Secret of Creation, has already been mentioned.
It ranges from explaining the metaphysical origin of the universe to
considerations on the ontological categories of the world and the
nature of the human soul. The Arabic version of this book is no doubt
based on an original written in Syriac, Balinds's native tongue. A

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Christian monk of Neapolis in Palestine named Sajiyus states that he
translated the work (into Arabic?) "so that those who remain after me
may have the benefit of reading it."68 A number of the sayings of
Hermes quoted in the Mci' al-Wuruqi (The Silvery Water) by Ibn
Umail have been shown to be derived from Greek alchemy texts.6g
Arabic authors who have included collections of philosophical and eth-ical
sayings attributed to Hermes in their works include Ibn al-Qifti,
al-Shahrastani, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Miskawayh, Ibn Durayd,
al-Mubashshir, and Abu &layman al-Mantiqi. A discourse by
Hermes to the human soul in Arabic, MuÔcidilat an-Nafs, was trans-lated
into Latin under the title Hermes de Castigatione Animae. Scott
says of this work: "The doctrines taught in [it] have been derived from
the similar doctrines taught in Greek writings; and it seems not
unlikely that some of them are more or less exact translations of
Greek Hermetica which were written in Egypt before A.D. 300, and
were included in the collection of Hermetica which the Harranian
Sabians, in A.D. 830, put forward as their scripture."70
From the time of al-Ma'mun forward, references to Hermes and
the Hermetic writings are frequent in the writings of Muslim philoso-phers
and historians. Their view and that held by their Christian con-temporaries
in the West continued to be the view held by many peo-ple
in antiquity: Hermes was a divine sage or prophet and the founder
of sciences and of wisdom. Coming closer to the time of Baha'u'llah,
the Safavid philosopher Mulla Sadra (d. 1640) writes: "Know that wis-dom
originally began with Adam and his progeny Seth and
Hermes. .. . And it is the greatest Hermes who propagated it through-out
the regions of the world . . . and made it emanate upon the true
worshipers. He is the Father of the philosophers and the master of
those who are the masters of the sciences."71
As for Balinus, hg carries into Islam the same contradictory repu-tation
that followed him in the Roman empire. In one view, he is pre-sented
as a magician who, in various cities of the Middle East, erect-ed
talismans (consecrated objects) to protect their inhabitants from
floods, famines, insects, and the like. The Kit&b at-Talcisim al-Akbar
(The Great Book of Talismans), addressed by Balinus to his son, is a
book in this category. It partly matches up with a Greek pseudepi-graph
titled The Book of Wisdom of Apollonius of Tyana, which
Dzielska believes was composed no earlier than the late fifth century,
probably in Antioch by Christian Gnostics.T2 For example, when

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Balinus is threatened by one of the Roman emperors with death, he
miraculously escapes to Antioch through a basin that had been pre-pared
for him in the palace. A demon was frightening the inhabitants of
Antioch when Balinus, in the middle of being bled, reduces him to obe-dience
with one word, obliges him to serve his bath, and then chases
him through the eastern gate of the city. Upon the request of the inhab-itants,
he regulates the flow of the river and places talismans against
the lice and rats.73 This tradition of Balintis, therefore, must have found
its way into Islam some time after the Muslims conquered Syria.
Jabir ibn IjIayyan, like Philostratus earlier, defends a different pic-ture
of Balinus. In his Kit&b al-B&, he criticizes vehemently such sto-ries
of magical exploits and attributes them to the inventions of char-latans
and liars. If Balinus is truly the master of talismans, according
to Jabir, it is not due to magic but to his perfect knowledge of the prop-erties
of things. For Jabir and other Muslim scientists, Balinus was
primarily a natural philosopher, and they attribute to him several cos-mological,
astrological, and alchemical treatises.T* Among these are
the Sirr al-Khaliqa, mentioned above, and the Dhakhirat al-Iskandar
(The Treasury of Alexander). In the introduction to the latter, Aristotle
is made to present the book to Alexander, which he says was given to
him by Balinus, who retrieved it from a watery tomb, where Hermes
had deposited it for safekeeping. The book discusses, among other
things, the principles of alchemy and the manufacture of elixirs, the
composition of poisons and their antidotes, and the use of talismans for
healing.75 Jabir ibn Hayyan also wrote ten books according to the opin-ion
of Balinus (Ôal& ra'y Balinds). A collection of sayings from Balinus
in Arabic have come into Latin under the title Dicta Belini. There is
also a work in Arabic by a disciple of Apollonius named Artefius, called
Mift@ al-&kmat (The Key to Wisdom).76
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS AND APOLLONIUS OF
TYANA IN THE WRITINGS OF BAHA'U'LLh
With this information as background, it is now possible to answer
the first question posed in the introduction: what is the relevance of
the Islamic Hermetic tradition to Baha'i thought? Baha'u'llah's refer-ence
to Hermes/Id& as the first person to devote himself to philoso-phy
and how Balinus derived his knowledge from the Hermetic writ-ings
has already been cited in the introduction. Another passage,

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along these lines, can be found in Baha'u'llah's Lawh-i Ijikmat (Tablet
of Wisdom), here cited in full:
I will also mention for thee the invocation voiced by Balmus, who was
familiar with the theories put forward by the Father of Philosophy [Hermes]
regarding the mysteries of creation as given in his chrysolite tablets. . . .
This man hath said: "I am Balinus, the wise one, the performer of
wonders, the producer of talismans." He surpassed everyone else in the
diffusion of arts and sciences and soared unto the loftiest heights of
humility and supplication. Give ear unto that which he hath said,
entreating the All-Possessing, the Most Exalted: "I stand in the presence
of my Lord, extolling His gifts and bounties and praising Him with that
wherewith He praiseth His Own Self, that I may become a source of bless-ing
and guidance unto such men as acknowledge my words." And further
he saith: "0 Lord! Thou art God and no God is there but Thee. Thou art
the Creator and no creator is there except Thee. Assist me by Thy grace
and strengthen me. My heart is seized with alarm, my limbs tremble, I
have lost my reason and my mind hath failed me. Bestow upon me
strength and enable my tongue to speak forth with wisdom." And still fur-ther
he saith: "Thou art in truth the Knowing, the Wise, the Powerful, the
Compassionate." It was this man of wisdom who became informed of the
mysteries of creation and discerned the subtleties which lie enshrined in
the Hermetic writings.77
Balinds' exclamation: "I am Balinus, the wise one, the performer of
wonders, the producer of talismans," quoted by Baha'u'llah, can be
found in the introduction to the Sirr al-Khaliqa. This statement may
be a literary stock piece derived from the tradition that primarily
regards Apollonius as arfiracle worker. As for the supplications of
Balinus to God cited by Baha'u'llah, they can also be found verbatim
in the Sirr al-KhaZiqa78 They do reflect faithfully the picture of
Apollonius given by Philostratus as one devoted to serving the one
God behind the many. On the question of Baha'u'llah citing from
ancient accounts, Juan Cole has established that several passages in
the Tablet of Wisdom about the Greek philosophers are actually quo-tations
from the works of Muslim historians such as Abu'l-Fatb ash-Shahristani
(1076-1153) and ÔImadu'd-Din Abu'l-Fida' (1273-13311.79
According to Balinus in the Sirr al-Khaliqa, God brought the uni-verse
into existence in the following manner:
The first thing to be created was God's Word: "Let there be so and so."
That Word was the cause of all creation, all other created things being the

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effects thereof. . . .Now, there is no doubt that a caused thing has a cause;
otherwise, it would be self-subsistent @u-d), and this is manifestly not the
case. Next it must be asked whether its cause is connected to it or not, for
if it is connected [i.e., ontologically similar], then the cause is created, and
if it is not connected to it [i.e., ontologically different], then it is not cre-ated
and not, therefore, a cause. As we have explained, it is not possible
for the Creator to be the cause of what He has created, because the cause
must resemble in certain respects that of which it is the cause and differ
from it in other respects, while the Creator has no resemblance to His cre-ation
whatsoever. Verily, the cause [of creation] must needs be other than
God. It is, as we have described, the likeness of all created things in one
respect and their contrary in another. Indeed, the Word of God--exalted
be His glory-is higher and far superior to that which the senses can per-ceive.
For it is neither a property nor a substance, neither hot nor cold,
neither dry nor moist. But it was through it that all these things came to
be. It is the Permission of God and His Command. Man cannot grasp the
Word of God, for he is powerless to comprehend anything that transcends
his own station. The human intellect is only capable of grasping what is
associated with it in the realm of creation, because it is of the world and
the world is of it, and man apprehends it according to his own capacity.
The first thing to arise after God's Word was action (fi?). By action
motion is implied, and by motion heat. This was the beginning of natural
causation. Then, when motion diminished and ceased the opposite state
of rest occurred, and by rest coldness is implied. That motion, which is the
heat, is the spirit of our Father, Adam.80
Balintis goes on to explain how the four elements were formed and
the heavenly bodies, and plants and animals, the crowning goal of the
process of creation being human beings. This picture of creation is
strikingly close to the theory for creation given by Baha'u'llah in the
Law&i Ijikmat. There, Baha'u'llah states that the Word of God is "the
cause of the entire creation, while all else besides His Word are but
the creatures and the effects thereof." He goes on to say, almost ver-batim
with Balinus, that this transcendent reality, the Word of God,
"is higher and far superior to that which the senses can perceive, for
it is sanctified from any property or substance. . . . [It] is none but the
Command of God which pervadeth all created things."81
Baha'i texts likewise take the position that God is not the cause of
contingent beings in a necessary sense, wherein cause and effect
share the same substratum of existence. The idea of creation as a nec-essary
emanation from the Creator was accepted by most of the
Islamic philosophers. Baha'u'llah, however, follows the position of the

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Islamic theologians in teaching that God is the creator of the world by
choice. As a voluntary agent, God's relation to contingent existence is
one of beneficence only. As it is expressed in Baha'u'llah's Hidden
Words: "I loved thy creation, hence I created thee."s2 God has willed
creation into being freely, out of love. It is the Will, or Word, of God,
which is God's first "emanation" (first in the sense of priority, not
time), that has a necessary connection to created things, such that
Baha'u'llah calls nature both "God's will and . . . its expression."83 In
other words, the Will of God, once issued from the Supreme Godhead,
necessarily manifests nature and all the beings in the universe, and it
is itself, according to ÔAbdu'l-Baha, identical to the inner realities of
all created things.84
Baha'u'llah continues to follow the cosmology of the Sirr
al-Khaliqa very closely: the first thing to be generated from the Word
of God is heat, and this heat is the cause of all motion in the universe.85
Although Balinus seems to equate heat and motion in the passage
cited above, a little later when discussing the origin of the elements, he
clarifies that "the cause of motion is heat, and the cause of rest is cold-ness."
so In Baha'u'llah's scheme, the Word of God possesses two com-plementary
poles, one active and the other receptive, for Baha'u'llah
states in the Lawh-i II&mat that "the world of existence came into
being through the heat generated from the interaction between the
active force and that which is its recipient."87 It is my opinion that the
active force and the recipient mentioned by Baha'u'llah in the Lawh-i
Ijikmat correspond to the incorporeal, eternal Forms of Plato and pri-mary
matter, the passive, formless medium for their reflection.88 This
notion is further confirmed by Baha'u'llah in one of his tablets where-in
he says: "The meaning of the active force is the lord of the species
(rabbi nawÔ), and it has other meanings"89 In the terminology of the
Illuminationist philosophers, the lords of specie2 are the same as
Platonic Forms, which are the formal causes of the individual members
of the species over which they have influence.go
In Baha'i texts, as in the Sirr al-Khaliqa, the formative, purpose-ful
motion, which is the effect of the heat generated by the Word of
God, becomes, first of all, the four elements (also called by Baha'u'llah
the two agents and the two patients, and which should not be con-fused
with the active force and its recipient). For example, Baha'u'llah
states in the Lawh-i Ayiy-i Nur: "Know that the first tokens brought
into existence by the pre-existent Cause in the worlds of creation are

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the four elements: tire, air, water, and earth."91 These four elements
are equivalent to the four basic states of matter in the modern sense:
solid, gaseous, liquid, and radiant, and they were understood in a sim-ilar
way by the ancient philosophersg2
The theory of creation presented in the Lawh-i IIikmat and other
Baha'i texts focuses chiefly on the metaphysical origin of existence.
Baha'u'llah, in most cases, leaves the explanation of physical process-es
in nature to science, advising researchers to observe nature care-fully,
rather than to impose pre-conceived models on reality: "Look at
the world and ponder a while upon it. It unveileth the book of its own
self before thine eyes and . . . it will acquaint thee with that which is
within it and upon it and will give thee such clear explanations as to
make thee independent of every eloquent expounder."93
Another Baha'i text wherein Baha'ullah mentions Hermes and
Apollonius together is one of the Tablets of the Elixir (alwcih-i iksir). In
this text, Baha'u'llah quotes from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, which
alchemists claim conceals the secret of their craft. Baha'u'llah relates:
Balinus, the sage, upheld the same view and mentioned the inscription on
the Tablet held in the hand of Hermes. He said: "In truth and of a cer-tainty,
there is no doubt that the higher is from the lower and the lower
is from the higher. The working of wonders is from one as all things came
from one. Its father is the sun and its mother is the moon." Furthermore,
He said: "The subtle is nobler than the gross. The light of lights with the
power of all powers ascends from earth to heaven and then descends. It
is supreme over both earth and heaven, the higher and the lower."94
This passage can be found in its entirety on two pages of Jabir ibn
Hayyan's Kitcib Ustuqus al-Us.95 According to the account recorded
in the introduction to the Sirr al-Khaliqa, Balinus discovered both the
Emerald Tablet of Hermes and the "Book of Causes" while exploring
a crypt beneath a statue of Hermes: I
Thus, I found myself across from an old man seated upon a golden throne
who was holding in his hand an emerald Tablet on which was written:
"Here is the craft of nature." And in front of him was a book on which was
written: "Here is the secret of creation and the science of the causes of all
things." With complete trust I took the book [and the Tablet] and went
out from the crypt. Thereafter, with the help of the book, I was able to
learn the secrets of creation, and through the Tablet, I succeeded in
understanding the craft of nature.g6

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The full text of the Emerald Tablet can be found at the end of the
Sirr al-Khaliqa. The first part that Baha'u'llah quotes is very close to
the version given in the Sirr al-Khaliqu (reading variant L), but the
second part does not quite correspond with any of the variants given
by the editor. Hence, Jabir must have had access to still another ver-sion.
According to the Aleppo edition prepared by Ursula Weisser, the
Emerald Tablet reads:
In truth and of a certainty, there is no doubt that the higher is from the
lower and the lower is from the higher. The working of wonders is from one
as all things came from one by the treatment of the one. Its father is the
sun and its mother is the moon. The wind has borne it in its belly, and the
earth has nourished it. It is the father of talismans, the bearer of wonders,
and the perfecter of powers-a fire which became earth. Separate the earth
from the fire, [for] the subtle is nobler than the gross, with care and pru-dence.
It ascends from earth to heaven and then descends back to the
earth. Within it is the power of the higher and the lower, for it has acquired
the light of lights, and, therefore, darkness flees from it. This is the power
of all powers which conquers everything subtle and penetrates everything
solid. The origin of this work is according to the creation of the universe.
This is my glory, and for this reason I am called Hermes Trismegistus.97
Kraus is of the opinion that the cosmology and metaphysics present-ed
in the Sirr al-Khuliqu ultimately have the "craft of nature" in mind,
what Baha'u'llah usually refers to as the "hidden craft." In other
words, the Sirr al-Khuliqu introduces the theoretical framework nec-essary
for understanding and practicing the craft of nature. The
Emerald Tablet itself teaches in veiled language how to produce the
alchemical elixir, that which is born from a single thing, yet whose
father is the sun and whose mother is the moon, which "conquers
everything subtle and penetrates everything solid."
Baha'u'llah mentions or alludes to the hidden craft in about forty
different tablets, and more may yet come to light.98 In ten of these, he
gives detailed explanations of its practice, explanations which depend
for their proper interpretation upon correctly decoding the names
used to describe different stages of the process. Baha'u'llah's descrip-tions
of the hidden craft typically abound in metaphors, and he uses
such terms as "sun" and "moon," "father" and "mother," and the mem-bers
of the four elements mentioned above. Regarding the use of this
metaphorical terminology, Baha'u'llah explains: "These various
names are the protectors of this treasure of the One True Lord, that

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the truth of it might remain hidden from the ignorant and preserved
from the deceptive in heart"99
Baha'u'llah believed in the truth of the hidden craft. For example,
he wrote to one of his followers: "This is that which has been called the
hidden craft and the concealed secret by the tongues of the philoso-phers.
By My life, assuredly it is a noble science. Whosoever God aids
unto it and its knowledge shall become apprised of the secrets of cre-ation
and independent from all save God. He shall be confident in the
power of his Lord and shall be of those who are well-assured."100 In
regard to the basic objective of the hidden craft, Baha'u'llah says: "In
short, the object of the hidden craft is this: From one thing the four
elements should be separated, and, after the purification of each of
these elements from their non-essential drosses, these elements
should be made one thing by dissolution and congelation."
Furthermore, Baha'u'llah explains: "If thou art able to separate
anything in heaven or on earth and marry all of it together again,
after purification, so that it becomes one thing, the secret of this great
mystery will become clear to thee . . . for this principle has encom-passed
the contingent world and all created things both inwardly and
outwardly. "101 Although these words may refer to a physical process
that Baha'u'llah has in mind, they have a clear parallel in the process
of spiritual transformation, both individually and collectively.
Alchemy as a mirror for psychological or spiritual transformation has
a long tradition, going back at least to the time of Zosimus (c. 300). For
example, on an individual level, through suffering and life experience
(separation), a human being can learn and grow, become purified from
harmful habits or characteristics, and finally become a more integrat-ed
and whole person.
It is worth noting that in the same tablet in which Baha'u'llah
praises the hidden craft, he dismisses other secret sciences (Ôulzim
al-ghariba): "Know that most of what thou hast heard about these sci-ences
is such as doth not Ôfatten nor appease the hunger', even were
one to look attentively into them."102 I
Despite his endorsement of the hidden craft, Baha'u'llah prohibit-ed
his followers from engaging in it, except for one or two individuals
who were probably also the recipients of most of the practical elixir
tablets. To others who asked, Baha'u'llah's typical response was, as
placed into the mouth of his secretary, Mirza &a Jan: "Every soul
desirous to work with this craft was forbidden by Him. He said: ÔThe

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time for it has not come. Be patient until God brings it forth in His
time'."103 Baha'u'llah's purpose in prohibiting the practice of the hid-den
craft among his followers also appears to have been for their own
protection, for he says: "Many who occupied themselves with the elixir
and the science of divination lost their minds on account of their imag-inings
and the concentration of their thoughts, and evidences of insan-ity
were observed in them."lo4
I know of only one other Tablet of Baha'u'llah that mentions a
statement made by Hermes, though more such texts may come to
light. In response to a Baha'i, who was asking about the uncertainty
of events and the inconstancy of the world, Baha'u'llah responded:
The world has never had nor does it now possess stability (thabc2),
notwithstanding the complaints of some unfaithful and wavering souls.
But, in truth, whatever takes place is well-pleasing, for the divine wisdom
has ordained it. Without His command and will, not a leaf can stir, and
whatever occurs is conformable to wisdom. All must be contented with it,
nay eagerly desire it. However, in some cases, such as when the sweet-ness
of reunion [with God] gives way to the bitterness of separation and,
likewise, when, by the decree of remoteness, nearness and meeting are
banished-this causes sighs of sorrow and grief to be upraised and the
tears to flow. Otherwise, the matter is as some of the philosophers have
cited from the words of Idtis [Hermes]: "It is impossible for the realm of
creation to be better than it already is."105
In addition to its mention of Hermes/Idrfs, this passage is impor-tant
in itself in regard to the question of God's determinism versus
human free will. This theme is discussed in many other Baha'i texts,
which indicate that it is not a question of one or the other, but of
both.lo6 In other words, God's predestination of things and human
free will work together to effect the outcome of history. What God has
predestined is the laws of nature, such that necessary cause and effect
relationships exist between all created things. ÔAbdu'l-Baha explains:
"For example, God hath created a relation between the sun and the
terrestrial globe that the rays of the sun should shine and the soil
should yield. These relationships constitute predestination, andtthe
manifestation thereof in the plane of existence is fate. Will is that
active force which controlleth these relationships and these inci-dents."
lo7 This is why Baha'u'llah states that "without His command
and will not a leaf can stir." The natural relationships existing
between things are according to God's perfect wisdom, such that the

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universe cannot be better than it is, as given by Hermes. In other
words, the determinism evident in the laws of nature is due to their
perfection, and God does not change what is already perfect, although
possessing the power to do ~0.~08
Since human beings are part of the web of life, they too cause
events and receive the effects of events. But unlike other creatures
who live perforce in harmony with nature's laws, human beings have
a choice in observing these laws, insofar as they include ethical and
spiritual principles meant to guide human actions. In other words, the
circumstances that affect human beings during the course of life are
part of the web of predestination, but how we choose to react to cir-cumstances
is not determined.
Human free will is also created in accord with the wisdom and
love of God and, like everything else, it receives the power to act from
the Primal Will of God. ÔAbdu'l-Baha compares the condition of the
human will to the captain of a ship who is able to turn the ship in
whatever direction he wishes, but is dependent on the power of wind
or steam to move the ship. This wind or steam is analogous to the Will
of God and without it a human being cannot carry out either good or
evil actions.109 In sum, human beings and natural phenomena are
secondary agents that directly effect the course of history, whereas
God's Will is the necessary cause sustaining the existence of these sec-ondary
agents, and giving them the power to act.
The Hermetic writings describe a similar picture of determinism
and free will. Human beings must choose to act, but may act either
morally or like brutes. It is in this context only (the spirit) that
Hermes indicated that human beings can achieve freedom from des-tiny.
110 The body, however, was always regarded as held by the chains 
of multiple causes. The Alexandrian alchemist Zosimus refers to
Hermes' book On Natural Dispositions, in which Hermes condemns
those who seek to evade fate for self-aggrandizing reasons:
Hermes calls such people mindless, only marchers swept along in the pro-cession
of fate, with no conception of anything incorporeal, and with no
understanding of fate itself, which conducts them justly. Instead they
insult the instruction it gives through corporeal experience, and imagine
nothing beyond the good fortune it grants.111

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CONCLUSION
From the foregoing it is evident that the Hermetic tradition is rel-evant
to Baha'i studies in several ways. For example, Baha'u'llah
refers to Balinus as one who discerned the mysteries of creation
"which lie enshrined in the Hermetic writings."112 Baha'u'llah's teach-ings
on creation in his Lawh-i &Iikmat are seen to correspond very
closely to the theory of creation contained in the Sirr al-Khaliqa.
A comparison of Baha'i alchemy texts with the Emerald Tablet of
Hermes and other alchemy texts is beyond the scope of this essay.
However, the principles alluded to in the Emerald Tablet resemble
statements made by Baha'u'llah on the same subject. Likewise, a
comparison of Jabir's alchemy writings, which rely heavily on
Hermetic sources, with Baha'i alchemy texts will no doubt reveal
many specific parallels.
The philosophical-theological texts of the Hermetica will likely
prove a more fruitful ground for comparison, due to their strong
Platonic tendency and their close connection to religious doctrines
found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Religious scholars from
each of these religions, especially during the Middle Ages, held
Hermes in high regard for this very reason. The Hermetic position on
human will and fate, however briefly touched upon, is seen to have an
affinity to the corresponding Baha'i teachings.
Lastly, as a corollary issue, what attitude should Baha'is take
toward Baha'u'llah's references to Hermes and Balinus in view of the
declared infallibility of Baha'i scripture? In my opinion, there are two
possible perspectives for Baha'is to take. The first is to accept a non-metaphorical
statement given in revelation as factually true, by virtue
of the authority invested in the Manifestation of God, even though by
the standard of current academic scholarship it is considered improb-able.
(This, of course, does not include passages that are obviously
meant to be interpreted symbolically according to the standard given
by Baha'u'llah in the Kitab-i fqan.)
For example, ÔAbdu'l-Baha teaches categorically that Socrates
journeyed to Palestine and Syria and there learned the doctrines of
the unity of God and the immortality of the human soul from the
Jewish divines. He continues that "this is authentic" even though it
"cannot be found in the Jewish histories."113 When Shoghi Effendi
was asked about the discrepancy between this position and current

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views in Greek historiography, he answered: "We have no historical
proof of the truth of the Master's statement regarding the Greek
philosophers visiting the Holy Land, etc. but such proof may come to
light through research in the future. "114 Shoghi Effendi does not com-promise
the Baha'i principle of the essential harmony existing
between science, as a method of acquiring truth about reality, and
religion, as a vehicle of inspired knowledge, but he does deny the cor-rectness
of a particular modern historical perspective. The difference
in conclusions depends on the initial premises. Because of lack of his-torical
evidence, those who do not recognize the possibility of a divine
source for historical knowledge logically deduce that Socrates did not
acquire any of his theories from Jewish divines.
If this first perspective is applied to Baha'u'llah's statements
about Hermes and Balinus, then the believer will accept as factual
that Hermes was a real individual of great antiquity whose historici-ty
has been lost in the mists of legend, and view the Hermetica not as
mere syncretistic creations of the early Roman empire, but as authen-tic,
albeit Hellenized, descendants of Egyptian religious doctrines
originating with Thoth, doctrines which were later discovered and
propagated by Balinus and accepted by the philosophers who followed
Balinus in the Hermetic tradition.
How does this position hold up against the findings of modern
scholarship in the field of Hermetic studies? First, let us look at
Baha'u'llah's assertion that Hermes was "the first person who devot-ed
himself to philosophy." There is no historical evidence by which
this statement can be proved or disproved. Rather, it is an assertion
that can only be accepted on the authority of Baha'u'llah and the
Hermetic textual tradition preceding Baha'u'llah. The modern dating
of the earliest philosophical Hermetic texts from the late first to the
late third centuries is not contrary to anything Baha'u'llah has stated
since Baha'u'llah only affirms the great antiquity of Hermes, not the
texts associated with his name. As for Baha'u'llah's statement that
Balinus "derived his knowledge and sciences from the Hermetic
Tablets," this is seemingly more problematic because Hermes is not
mentioned in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius, where he should be
mentioned if Apollonius/Balinus gained his knowledge from the
Hermetic texts. However, in view of the fact that Philostratus' biogra-phy
is considered to be unreliable as a historical source by most mod-ern
scholars of the subject, we should not be surprised if Philostratus
has left out many crucial details about Apollonius' life and sources of

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inspiration. Since nothing in Baha'u'llah's account of Hermes and
Balinus can be shown to be in opposition to historical facts, there is no
reason why Baha'is should not accept Baha'u'llah's statements, in this
case, as factually intended. 115 The statements, however, are also not
verified by known historical facts.
The second perspective, which it is possible for Baha'is to take in
the absence of an authoritative statement in Baha'i scriptures stating
that a certain revealed passage is to be understood literally as stated,
is for the believer to adopt a more broadly contextual view of particu-lar
statements embedded in revelation. Juan Cole has taken the posi-tion
that some statements embedded in revelation, such as
Baha'u'llah's quotation from Shahrastani that "Empedocles . . . was a
contemporary of David, while Pythagoras lived in the days of
Solomon," are "factually inaccurate by any standards of reasoning and
historical documentation available to contemporary historians," while
at the same time these statements do not invalidate "the central
propositions contained in the Tablet of Wisdom."116 In other words,
Baha'u'llah's intention in revealing these statements is what is essen-tial,
not the historical accounts themselves. The Universal House of
Justice, in a letter written on its behalf, states: "The fact that
Baha'u'llah makes such statements [the historical accounts in the
Lawh-i Ijikmatl, for the sake of illustrating the spiritual principles
that He wishes to convey, does not necessarily mean that He is
endorsing their historical accuracy."117
This view focuses on the Baha'i principle of the relativity of reli-gious
truth, according to which religious teachings, as given by the
prophets, are suited particularly to the age in which they appear and
are colored by the traditions and thoughts of the people living in the
time of the prophet. For example, ÔAbdu'l-Baha says that earlier
prophets referred to the seven celestial spheres (or heavens) of the
Ptolemaic cosmos without trying to correct people's perceptions by
explaining to them the true structure of the universe. "Such refer-ences,"
he explains, "were dictated by the conventional wisdom pre-vailing
in those times, for every cycle has its own characteristics which
are determined by the capacities of the people."118 Baha'u'llah likewise
refers to the "fourth heaven" of the early astronomers without expla-nation
in the Kitab-i fqan because this book, accordin f to Shoghi
Effendi, "was revealed for the guidance of that sect [the Shi ah]," where
"this term was used in conformity with the concepts of its followers."119

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In the same way, the tablets of Baha'u'llah mentioning Hermes
and Balinus were addressed to individuals who were familiar with the
Islamic Hermetic tradition, which was particularly strong in Iran.
Within such a milieu, it would be reasonable for Baha'u'llah to use
this tradition, without regard for its historical accuracy, to support
the teaching he wished to convey. In the Lawh-i Ijikmat, for example,
Baha'u'llah is intent on affirming, through his accounts of certain
Greek philosophers, their ultimate dependence upon the inspiration of
the prophets (particularly the doctrine of monotheism) as the only
basis for developing an accurate system of metaphysics. The theories
of these philosophers, in turn, had a significant impact on the devel-opment
of Western civilization. He says:
Consider Greece. We made it a Seat of Wisdom for a prolonged period. . . .
Although it is recognized that the contemporary men of learning are
highly qualified in philosophy, arts and crafts, yet were anyone to observe
with a discriminating eye he would readily comprehend that most of this
knowledge hath been acquired from the sages of the past, for it is they
who have laid the foundation of philosophy, reared its structure and rein-forced
its pillars. Thus doth thy Lord, the Ancient of Days, inform thee.
The sages aforetime acquired their knowledge from the Prophets, inas-much
as the latter were the Exponents of divine philosophy and the
Revealers of heavenly mysteries. Men quaffed the crystal, living waters
of Their utterance, while others satisfied themselves with the dregs.120
Since, from the second perspective, the accuracy of the historical
details about Hermes and Balinus set forth by Baha'u'llah is not
essential to the intention of the text, those details may be dispensed
with, or regarded as insignificant. In regard to Baha'u'llah's words in
the Lawh-i IJikmat that Empedocles and Pythagoras were contempo-raries
of David and Solomon, Shoghi Effendi advises: "We must not
take this statement too literally. "121 The comparison made earlier in
this paper, however, between the cosmology of Balinus in the Sirr
al-Khaliqa and the cosmology of Baha'u'llah in the Lawh-i IJikmat
demonstrates that (historical views aside) Baha'u'llah considers
Hermes and Balinus to be true sources of knowledge about the secrets
of creation. He agrees with certain ideas that tradition says they sup-ported,
and he used them as examples within a culture that recog-nized
them in order to support his own teachings.

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NOTES
1. Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah Revealed after the Kitab-i-Aqdas
(Haifa: Baha'i World Centre, 1978) p. 148.
2. Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 148n. In the final sentence of this passage in
the Persian it is not clear whether the antecedent of the pronoun is Hermes
or Balinus. The sentence literally reads: "Most of the philosophers made their
philosophical and scientific discoveries from the words and statements of that
blessed being (ha&at)." It is clear, though, that Baha'u'llah intends Hermes
as the ancient source from which many philosophers derived their inspiration,
and Balinus was the first to discover the Hermetic wisdom after it had been
concealed for a long period of time.
3. Cited in L. Kakosy, "Problems of the Thoth-Cult in Roman Egypt," Acta
Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 15 (1963) p. 124; see
also Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late
Pagan Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) pp. 22-31 for
the evolution of Hermes Trismegistus from Thoth.
4. Plato, Phaedrus 274d.
5. Ibid., 274~.
6. Kakosy, "Problems of the Thoth-Cult."
7. Kakosy, "Problems of the Thoth-Cult," p. 125.
8. Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. 23.
9. Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. 23.
10. Walter Scott, Hermetica: The Ancient Greek and Latin Writings which
Contain Religious or Philosophical Teachings Ascribed to Hermes
Trismegistus, Vol. 1 (Boston: Shambhala, 1985) pp. 4-5.
11. Plato, Philebus 18b.
12. Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354378) sel.
and trans. Walter Hamilton (New York: Penguin Books, 1986) p. 228.
13. Cited in Jack Lindsay, The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman
Egypt (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970) p. 107.
14. For this view that Baha'u'llah may be consciously and deliberately
selecting from the Hermetic tradition only those parts that he regards to be
true, I owe a great debt of thanks to Wendy Heller. She has pointed out the
dangers of trying to interpret Baha'u'llah's words by reference to historical con-text
alone: "BahPu'll%h often infuses new meanings into traditional concepts
and terms through his usage of them. The prophet, above all, is not bound by
the conventional thought that characterizes any historical era, but often radi-cally
challenges and corrects it." (Personal communication to the author).
15. Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (New York: Penguin Books,
1987) p. 15.
16. Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, trans. Sister Mary F. McDonald
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1964) I,, p. 

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17. Augustine, The City of God in Great Books of the Western World, Vol.
18, trans. Marcus Dods (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952) Book 8, p.
23. Book 8, Chapters 23 through 26 contain Augustine's ideas about Hermes.
18. See Walter Scott, Hermetica. Scott's commentary on the Hermetica is
contained in volumes 2-3, while the testimonia, addenda, and indices are in
volume 4.
19. Andre-Jean Festugiere, La re'v~lation d'Hermt?s Trismbgiste, 4 ~01s.
(Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1944-54); and Garth Fowden, The Egyptian
Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987).
20. Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, pp. 8-9.
21. Ibid., p. 10.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., p. 11; see also Scott, Hermetica, vol. 1, pp. 9-10.
24. Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. 198.
25. John Scarborough, "Hermetic and Related Texts in Classical
Antiquity," Hermeticism and the Renaissance, ed. by I. Merkel and A. G.
Debus (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1988) p. 22.
26. Abammonis Ad Porphyrium Responsum and Scott's notes on this text
in Hermetica, vol. 4, pp. 40-102.
27. William C. Grese, "Magic in Hellenistic Hermeticism" in Hermeticism
and the Renaissance, p. 45.
28. Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. xv. For example, J. P. Mahe, a profes-sor
of Armenian, sees a connection between the philosophical Hermetica and
the earlier Egyptian Wisdom literature in HermPs en Haute-Egypte (Quebec:
[publisher?], 1978-1982); also Eric Iverson, Egyptian and Hermetic Doctrine
(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1984).
29. Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. 102.
30. Iamblichus refers to the "way of Hermes" in his response to Porphyry,
Mysteriis viii, 4-5, cited in Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. 96.
31. "The Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth," The Nag Hammadi
Library in English, gen. ed. James M. Robinson (New York Harper Collins,
1990) p. 326.
32. Corpus Hermeticurn vii; i.27; x.8; and xiii.7, 8. This and the following ref-erences
to the C.H. are from Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, chapter four, pp. 105-12.
33. Ibid. C.H. i.31; x.4, 15; and Asclepius 41.
34. Ibid. C.H. xiii.
35. Ibid. C.H. x.19.
36. Ibid. C.H. ii.17 and iii.3.
37. See Maria Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and History, trans.
Piotr Pienkowski (Rome: "L'Erma" di Bretschneider, 1986) pp. 32-38, 185.
38. Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 2 vols., trans. F. C.
Conybeare (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ,l912) i.2, 3.

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39. See Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, Chapter 1, on problems with
Philostratus' reliability as a historian and arguments that Damis is a ficti-tious
figure.
40. Ibid., p. 14.
41. See D. H. Raynor, "Moerangenes and Philostratus: Two Views of
Apollonius of Tyana," Classical Quarterly, Vol. 34 (1984) p. 223.
42. Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, p. 86.
43. Ibid., pp. 149-50.
44. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, iv.44.
45. Ibid., iv.45.
46. Ibid., vol. 2, "The Treatise of Eusebius."
47. Lactantius, Divine Institutes, V, iii-iv.
48. Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, pp. 157-58.
49. Cited in Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, p. 101.
50. Ibid., pp. 101-102.
51. Ibid., p. 108.
52. Ibid., p. 110.
53. The Letters of Apollonius of Tyana, trans. Robert J. Penella (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1979) letter no. 44.
54. Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, p. 140.
55. Cited in G. R. S. Mead, Apollonius of Tyana: The Philosophical Explorer
and Social Reformer of the First Century A.D. (London, 1901) pp. 153-54.
56. Letters of Apollonius, no. 54.
57. Ibid., no. 58.
58. J. W. Fiick, "The Arabic Literature on Alchemy According to an-Nadim,"
Ambix (Feb. 1951) p. 93.
59. Paul Kraus, Jabir ibn fiayyan: Contribution a I'Histoire des Zdees
Scientifiques duns l'lslam, vol. 2 (Paris: Societe d'Edition les Belles Lettres,
1986) p. 282.
60. Syed Nomanul Haq, Names, Natures and Things: The Alchemist Jcibir
ibn &Zayyan and his Kitab al-Ahjar (Book of Stones) Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, vol. 158 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1994) p. 15.
61. Ibid., chapter 1.
62. See F. E. Peters, Allah$ Commonwealth: A History of Zslam in the
Near East, 600-1100 A.D. (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1973) pp. 273-74. In
Islam, there is also a tradition of three different Hermeses. Ibn Abi UsaybiÔa
records this tradition as he borrows it from the astronomer Ab6 MaÔshar
al-Balkhi: "There were three Hermeses. As for the first Hermes . . the
Persians call him H&hang, which means the Just. . . The Persians say that
his grandfather was Kayomarth, that is Adam. The Hebrews say that he is
Akhnukh (Enoch) Idris in Arabic. Abu MaÔshar said: He was the first man to
talk about such things as the motions of the stars. . . . He was the first man

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to build temples and praise God in them; the first person to study the science
of medicine and talk about it. . He was the first man to give warning of the
Flood, and he foresaw the advent on earth of a great catastrophe coming from
the skies by fire and water. He resided in Upper Egypt. . . . As for the second
Hermes, he was one of the Babylonians. He lived in the city of the Chaldeans,
in Babel. He lived after the Flood. . .He excelled in medicine and in philos-ophy
and he knew the nature of numbers. Pythagoras, the arithmetician was
his pupil. This Hermes revived what was lost of medicine, philosophy and the
art of numbers in the Flood, in Babel. . . .As for the third Hermes, he lived in
the city of Misr, and he came after the Flood. He is the author of the book
about venomous animals. He was a physician and a philosopher, and he knew
the nature of deadly medicines and harmful animals. . He wrote a beauti-ful
and valuable book about alchemy which is related to many crafts, such as
the making of glass, glass objects, clay and the like. He had a disciple, by the
name of Asklepios, who lived in Syria." (Quoted in A. Fodor, "The Origins of
the Arabic Legends of the Pyramids," Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum
Hungaricae 23 119701 pp. 33637)
63. An interesting study by Birger A. Pearson shows that the Poimandres
of Hermes and a Jewish document, 2 Enoch, probably originating from first-century
Egypt, have numerous, specific parallels such that either one could be
borrowing from the other or both derive from a common, earlier source.
("Jewish Elements in Corpus Hermeticurn I [Poimandres]" in Studies in
Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions, ed. by R. van den Broek and M. J.
Vermaseren [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 19811)
64. Quoted in Scott, Hermetica, vol. 4, (Testimonia) p. 255.
65. Quoted in A. E. Aflifi, "The Influence of Hermetic Literature on
Moslem Thought," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol.
13 (1951) pp. 842-43.
66. Quoted in Scott, Hermetica, vol. 4 (Testimonia) p. 248.
67. Regarding Hermetic writings in Arabic, an-Nadim lists twenty-two
treatises of Hermes in his Fihrist (Catalog) thirteen on alchemy, four on
theurgy, and five on astrology. Only a few of these remain intact such as the
Kitab &a&is al-hakim, Kitab al-Habib, Kitab at-Tankalush, and Kitcib
al-Masmumat Shanciq. For a fuller treatment of Hermetic texts, see Seyyed
Hossein Nasr's chapter "Hermes and Hermetic Writings in the Islamic World"
in his Islamic Studies (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1967) pp. 63-89.
68. Balinus, Sirr al-Khaliqa wa San'at at-TabiÔat (Kitab al-flu0 ed.
Ursula Weisser (Aleppo, Syria: University of Aleppo, 1979) p. 100.
69. H. E. Stapleton, G. L. Lewis, and F. Sherwood Taylor, "The Sayings
of Hermes Quoted in the Ma' al- Waraqi of Ibn Umail," Ambix (April 1949)
pp. 69-90.
70. Scott, Hermetica, vol. 4, pp. 280-81.
71. Quoted in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Studies, p. 69

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72. Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana, pp. 104-105.
73. Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayyan, pp. 293-94.
74. Ibid., p. 295.
75. Julius Ruska, Tab&a Smaragdina: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
Hermetischen Literatur (Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitatisbuchhand-lung,
1926) pp. 72, 79.
76. Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayyan, p. 298, and Encyclopedia of Islam, new edi-tion,
vol. 1, p. 995.
77. Baha'u'llah, Tablets, pp. 14748.
78. Balinus, Sirr al-Khaliqa, pp. 2, 51. Baha'u'llah explains in the Law&i
&kmat that he has not discovered these sayings by perusing books as other
men do: "Thou knowest full well that We perused not the books which men pos-sess
and We acquired not the learning current amongst them, and yet when-ever
We desire to quote the sayings of the learned and the wise, presently there
will appear before the face of thy Lord in the form of a tablet all that which
hath appeared in the world and is revealed in the Holy Books and Scriptures.
Thus do We set down in writing that which the eye perceiveth. Verily His
knowledge encompasseth the earth and the heavens." (Tablets, p. 149)
79. See Juan Cole, "Problems of Chronology in Baha'u'llah's Tablet of
Wisdom," World Order (Spring 1979) pp. 24-39. Also see note 78 above on the
manner in which Baha'u'llah says he acquired this information.
80. Balinus, Sirr al-Khaltqa, pp. 101-103.
81. Tablets, pp. 14041.
82. Baha'u'llah, The Hidden Words (London: Baha'i Publishing Trust,
1975) p. 6.
83. Tablets, p. 142.
84. See Keven Brown, "A Baha'i Perspective on the Origin of Matter,"
Journal of Baha'i Studies, vol. 2, no. 3 (1990) p. 24.
85. Baha'u'llah states: "The cause of motion has ever been heat, and the
cause of heat is the Word of God," from Persian text in Vahid Ra'fati, "Lawh-i
Hikmat: FB'ilayn va MunfaÔilayn," ÔAndaltb, vol. 5, no. 19 (1986) p.36.
86. Baliniis, Sirr al-Khaliqa, p. 104.
87. Tablets, p. 140.
88. See Keven Brown, "A Baha'i Perspective," pp. 1544, where this the-sis
is more fully treated.
89. Baha'u'llah, Athar-i &alum AÔ&, vol. 7, p. 113.
90. Qutb al-Din Shirazi, the thirteenth-century commentator of
Surawardi, explains: "Therefore, it is established that the intent of the sages
is that the lords of species (arbcib al-nawÔ) are not the individualized forms of
the images (asnam). Nay, rather the species lord is the model (mithal) of the
image (sanam) in the world of intellect, just as the image with all of its acci-dents
is its likeness in the world of sense." (Quoted by Ahmad ibn Harawi,
Anwariyya, ed. Hossein Ziai [Tehran: Amir Kabir, 13581 p. 40)

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91. Baha'u'llah, Mci'idiy-i Asm&i, vol. 4 (Tehran: Baha'i Publishing
Trust, 129 B.E.) p. 82.
92. That the four elements were thought of as primary states of matter by
the ancient philosophers is evident from Plato's frequent use of the term "kind"
or "genus" as a synonym for "element" in the Timaeus 53a-57d, so that earth
includes all solids, water all liquids, and so forth. Baghdad, one of the Muslim
Mutakallimun, also uses the term "genus" Gins) for element. He says: "For
example, earth loses density and changes into water, as with salt when it is
dissolved, and water in some places freezes and becomes a stone, although it is
from the genus of earth." (lJ@Zu'd-Din [Istanbul, 19281 p. 54)
93. Tablets, pp. 141-42.
94. M&idiy-i Asmcini, vol. 1, pp. 54-55.
95. See The Arabic Works of Jhbir ibn Hayycin, ed. E. J. Holmyard, vol. 1
(Paris: Librairie Orientaliste, 1928) pp. 90, 104.
96. Balinbs, Sirr al-Khaliqa, p. 7. There is another story in Philostratus
(viii, 19-20) where Apollonius enters a cave at the temple of Trophonius in
Greece to visit its oracle, declaring that his purpose is "in the interests of phi-losophy."
After seven days, he returns to his companions, carrying a book of
philosophy supposedly conformable to the teachings of Pythagoras.
Philostratus says that this book, along with the letters of Apollonius, was later
entrusted to the care of the emperor Hadrian and kept in his palace at Antium.
97. Ibid., pp. 524-25.
98. The published Baha'i alchemy texts, or texts which mention alchemy,
may be found in the following sources: (1) Gleanings from the Writings of
Bah&ÔZZrEh, pp. 197-98, 200; (2) Kitab-i Iqan, pp. 157, 186-90; (3) Mci'diy-i
Asmdni, vol. 1, pp. 19-20, 24-57; vol. 3, p. 15; vol. 4, pp 77-85; (4) Amr ua
Khalq, vol. 3, pp. 350-58; and (5) Asrciru'l Athcir (letter alif) pp. 207-208. In
addition to these published sources, several of which contain textual errors
and ommisions, a number of unpublished Baha'i alchemy texts are held at the
International Baha'i Archives.
99. M&Ôidiy-i Asmcini, vol. 1, p. 30.
100. From an unpublished tablet of Baha'u'llah in the International
Baha'i Archives.
101. From two unpublished tablets of Baha'u'llah in the International
Baha'i Archives.
102. Ibid. Seyyed Hossein Nasr explains what these secret sciences are in
Chapter 9 of his Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study (World of Islam Festival
Publishing Co., 1976): "Besides the Ôopen' and Ôaccessible' sciences . . . the
Islamic sciences include a category called the hidden (khafiyyah) or occult
(gharibah) sciences, which have always remained Ôhidden', both in the content
of their teachings and in the manner of gaining accessibility to them, because
of their very nature. . .Although dozens in number, the occult sciences were
classified in the famous compendium of Husayn ÔAh Wa'iz al-Ktishifi into the

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five sciences of kimiyci' (alchemy) limiyd' (magic) himiyci' (the subjugating of
souls) simiyci' (producing visions) and rimiyd' (jugglery and tricks). The first
letter of the five words together form the words kulluhu sirr, which means,
Ôthey are all secret'. The texts on the occult sciences contain numerous
other branches. Probably the most popular of the occult sciences was jufr,
dealing with the numerical value of the letters of the Arabic alphabet and said
to have been first cultivated by ÔAh ibn Abi Talib. It is used to this day for pur-poses
ranging from interpreting the opening letters of the verses of the Holy
Qur'an to casting evil spells. Almost as widespread is raml, or geomancy,
which is said to have come down from the Prophet Daniel. Although it origi-nally
made use of pebbles of sand, special instruments were later devised with
various squares and dots from which future events are prognosticated."
103. Baha'u'llah in Amr ua Khalq, vol. 3 (Tehran: Baha'i Publishing
Trust, 122B.E.) p. 355.
104. Ibid., p. 353.
105. From an unpublished tablet of Baha'u'llah in the International
Baha'i Archives.
106. An example of a Baha'i text that emphasizes the importance of free
will is the following: "All that which ye potentially possess can, however, be
manifested only as a result of your own volition. Your own acts testify to this
truth. . . .Men, however, have wittingly broken His law. Is such a behavior to
be attributed to God, or to their proper selves? Be fair in your judgment. Every
good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves." (Baha'u'llah,
Gleanings from the Writings of Bah6'u'llcih [Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing
Trust, 19801 p. 149)
107. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of ÔAbdu'LBah6 (Haifa:
Baha'i World Centre, 1978) p. 198.
108. On the question of theodicy in Islam, see E. L. Ormsby, Theodicy in
Islamic Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
109. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 249.
110. Corpus Hermeticum XII(i)7 in Scott, Hermetica.
111. Zosimos quoted in Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, p. 123.
112. Baha'u'llah, Tablets, p. 148.
113. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings, p. 55. See also
ÔAbdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1970) p. 77.
114. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, 15 February 1947,
published in Unfolding Destiny (London: British Baha'i Publishing Trust,
1981) p. 445. The Baha'i Faith also accepts some events as factually true, such
as the virgin birth of Jesus by means of the Spirit of God, even though they go
against the laws of nature. The principle of the harmony between science and
religion is, once again, not compromised, according to Baha'is, because God is
a higher principle than the laws of nature. As "the Father of the Universe,

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[God] can, in His wisdom and omnipotence, bring about any change, no matter
how temporary, in the operation of the laws which He himself created."
(Letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, 27 February 1938, published in
Baha'i References to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, camp. James Heggie
[Oxford: George Ronald, 19861 p. 143).
115. In a tablet written to Mrs. Ethel Rosenberg in 1906, ÔAbdu'l-Baha indi-cates
that Baha'u'llah's accounts of the philosophers in the Lawh-i Hikmat are
to be taken as factually correct, for he states: "How many historical questions
were deemed settled in the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth century
the opposite was proved true. Hence, the sayings of the historians and the
accounts prior to Alexander the Great, even the dates of the lives of important
persons, cannot be relied upon. Be not surprised, therefore, at the difference
between the contents of the Tablet of Wisdom and the texts of the historians. It
is necessary to examine carefully the great disparities existing among the vari-ous
historians and historical accounts, because the historians of the East and
the historians of the West differ greatly. The Tablet of Wisdom was written in
accordance with some of the histories of the East. . . . The firm basis of reality
is the Divine Universal Manifestation of God. After He has established the
truth, whatever He says is correct." (Mk'idiy-i Asmcini, vol. 2, pp. 65, 67)
The second perspective given in the conclusion to this paper, namely that
the historical accuracy of the accounts revealed by Baha'u'llah is tangential to
his primary purpose, should not be considered as contradictory to the view
given here by ÔAbdu'l-Baha. The second perspective holds that whether the
historical accounts are accurate or not is insignificant compared to
Baha'u'llah's purpose in revealing them.
116. Juan Cole, "Problems of Chronology in Baha'u'llah's Tablet of
Wisdom," World Order, Vol. 13, no. 3 (Spring 1979) pp. 38, 39.
117. Letter of 3 November 1987 written on behalf of the Universal House
of Justice to an individual.
118. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, Min MakcSb-i ÔAbdu'Z-BaM, vol. 1 (Rio de Janeiro:
Editora Baha'i Brasil, 1982) p. 53.
119. Quoted in a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice
dated 3 November 1987.
120. Baha'u'llah, Tablets, pp. 144-45, 149-50.
121. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, quoted by Juan
Cole in "Problems of Chronology," p. 37n.

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+P189

THE POSSIBILITIES OF EXISTENTIAL
THEISM FOR BAHkf THEOLOGY
J A. McLean
Although rooted in antiquity, modern existentialism is an intellec-tual
movement that first took shape in the nineteenth century and
came to prominence in the post-World War II period. John Macquarrie
has detailed the broad-spectrum influence of existentialism not only on
theology, philosophy, and literature but also on a variety of areas in the
arts, education, and culture.1 As a much compressed background to
this paper, it might be useful to distinguish at the outset four general
modes within existentialism. These modes have all borrowed from,
reacted to, and influenced one another, so the divisions are in no way
complete. (Even theists and atheists share common concerns in exis-tentialism,
although the treatment, as we might expect, is different.)
First, there is the theistic existentialism founded by Splren
Kierkegaard (1813-1855) who is the ancestral figure for post-World
War II existentialists, whether believing or atheistic.2 Pre-dating
Kierkegaard, one can recognize existential moods in the Book of Job,
the Psalmist, Ecclesiastes, and in Augustine and Pascal. Indeed, exis-tential
theism finds its most ancient roots in the human condition
itself, as reflected in the Greek myths of estrangement and loss and
the Genesis account of the exile of humanity's original parents from
Eden with its everafter estrangement from self. Second, there are the
philosophical existentialists such as Sartre, Jaspers, and Heidegger
who are considered to be the founders of post-World War II existential

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philosophy.3 Third, there is the literary existentialism of writers such
as Dostoevsky, Kafka, Camus, and Sartre, a literature that tends to
be dark and pessimistic about human motives and the ability of the
individual to overcome psychological conflict and live happily. Sartre
and Camus completely exploded the possibility of a positive or joyful
existence when they pointed to an absurdity inherent in the human
condition.4 This literature is to be contrasted with the more positive
implications for interpersonal relations of Heidegger's
Besorgen / Fiirsorge5 (concern/solicitude) and Buber's I-Thou,6 or
Gabriel Marcel's "mktaphysique de l'espoir" (metaphysic of hope).7
Fourth, there is the school of existential psychiatry and psychology,
founded by the Swiss psychiatrists Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966)
and Medard Boss (b. 1903), which has a strong philosophical flavor
and which has markedly influenced such writers as Rollo May, Eric
Fromm, and Viktor Frankl. Even though American experimental psy-chology
worked hard to divest itself of the influence of the philosoph-ical
overtones of European existentialist thought, the existentialist
outlook has found a responsive chord in English-speaking readers of
psychology, particularly in North America.8
KIERKEGAARD AND THE RELEVANCE OF EXISTENTIAL
THEOLOGY FOR BAHkf STUDIES OF RELIGION
In his polemic against Hegelian philosophers during the last cen-tury,
g Kierkegaard made a point that is relevant to the present state
of Baha'i studies. He argued that the speculative philosophers with
their categories, finality, systematization, and historicization of reli-gious
phenomena had failed to deal with the most crucial issues in
Christianity: the meaning of suffering, anxiety, and despair, peace of
mind, faith and doubt, hope, happiness, and spiritual rebirth. We may
also well ask, as Kierkegaard did, where did such a vital reality as
divine love fit into the philosophers' schemes? Although Kierkegaard
created his own highly individualistic metaphysical worldview, which
was in part indebted to the speculative idealism he so strongly criti-cized,
he was surely correct in his observation that the philosophical
systems of his day for the most part bracketed the most real and
urgent of human questions.
In a passage loaded with the irony interspersed throughout his
writings, Kierkegaard leveled against philosophy the criticism that.7

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speculation amounted to a desertion of existence. Philosophy made one
immortal indeed, Kierkegaard wrote, but in the same way that the doc-tor
with his medicine expels the fever but kills the patient. His state-ment
is a cogent example of what he viewed as the most serious lacu-nae
of philosophy vis-a-vis the concrete problems of human existence.
It is difficult to deny Kierkegaard's affirmation that the individual is
"infinitely interested in existing," whereas speculative philosophy, he
is telling us, does not address the real questions of human existence:
Now if we assume that abstract thought is the highest manifestation of
human activity, it follows that philosophy and philosophers proudly
desert existence, leaving the rest of us to face the worst. . . . [Philosophy]
is disinterested; but the difficulty inherent in existence constitutes the
interest of the existing individual, who is infinitely interested in existing.
Abstract thought thus helps with respect to my immortality by first anni-hilating
me as a particular existing individual and then making me
immortal, about as when the doctor Holbert killed the patient with his
medicine-but also expelled the fever.10
It was not speculation that interested the religious subject,
Kierkegaard maintained, but rather eternal happiness:
The subject is in passion infinitely interested in his eternal happiness,
and is now supposed to receive assistance from speculation, i.e., by him-self
philosophizing. But in order to philosophize he must proceed in pre-cisely
the opposite direction, giving himself up and losing himself in objec-tivity,
thus vanishing from himself.11
What Kierkegaard criticizes here is the annihilation of the religious
subject in the objective question. His statement suggests rather the
discovery of spiritual selfhood through experience and discourse.
While the Western Baha'i community still awaits the emergence
of grand systematising philosophers or theologians,12 Kierkegaard's
,point is pertinent to the current preoccupations of Baha'i scholars of
religion working in Baha'i history, exegesis, and theology, the three
main sub-disciplines thus far defining Baha'i studies of religion. While
these three disciplines have opened up instructive avenues in Baha'i
studies, they remain nonetheless bound by content orientation rather
than process. By content orientation I mean that the Baha'i Faith is
basically apprehended by the scholar as an independent collection of
data to be researched and explicated in an original manner. While

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content orientation is basic to scholarship and valid in its own right,
its virtue masks a defect that weakens its effectiveness for the per-sonal
dimensions of religious studies. Such an approach, if pursued
exclusively, neglects Urn-i utijtidz ÔM (the knowledge of being/existence)
which has profound implications for a living philosophy
(Lebensphilosophie) or le V&U, the lived experience of the individual.
I argue that Baha'i theology should retain as one of its major tasks
the elucidation of spiritual anthros and the provision of meaning or
insight into the "real life" of the individual. If Baha'i theology does not
inspire the believer or shed light on personal dilemmas, raise con-sciousness,
or provide insights into spiritual transformation, then it
risks becoming identified with ÔAbdu'l-Baha's pointed critique of reli-gion
as "the noise, the clamor, the hollowness of religious doctrine"14
and becoming mired in what he also referred to as ". . . thought that
belongs to the world of thought alone. "15 The existential outlook I
advocate here reflects, moreover, an indirect pastoral concern, but one
that would be addressed through the discourse of philosophical theol-ogy
rather than through homily or counselling. Such an approach with
its potential diversity of worthwhile themes relating to concrete life
issues would result in an aspiring synthesis of the real with the ideal.
THE SCHOLAR AS PERSONA
Scholars generally speak through an objective/detached mode of
discourse. Yet there is still much room for the scholar to speak through
the subjective/engaged mode as a persona (Latin: mask; per=through +
sonus=sound). The persona reflects the scholar's vision of the truth
expressed in a characteristic voice of the experiencing subject who is as
much an advocate of his personal vision as a detached analyst. The
voice in the subjective/engaged mode would reflect the experiences and
perceptions of the real self.lo This move toward authenticity in schol-arship
would offer the reader the scholar/writer's experience of divine
subjectivity in a spirit of intersubjective communion.
In the objective/detached content approach that has thus far char-acterized
Baha'i studies, however, the scholar is not transparent to
the work, but has subjugated the self to the objective question under
study. The individual is not present, so to speak. It is the question
that predominates and the elucidation of the question is the main
goal. When writing in the persona of spiritual self, however, one
becomes a hermeneute in an interaction of both text and experience.

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In this mode of writing, the author becomes more transparent to the
reader and less subjugated to the dialectics of the objective idea. This
form of exposition holds the potential for liberating the scholar/writer
to move further along the path of creativity by placing the framework
of interpretation within an interaction of sacred scripture and the
scholar's individual spiritual perception. Put differently, the subjec-tive/
engaged mode allows the scholar to become largely the creator of
one's own world of discourse.17
In this same vein, Rudolf Bultmann writes that it is a false notion
to suppose that one has to suppress subjectivity and individuality in
order to attain "objective knowledge":
Nothing is sillier than the requirement that an interpreter must silence
his subjectivity, extinguish his individuality, if he is to attain objective
knowledge. That requirement makes good sense only in so far as it is
taken to mean that the interpreter has to silence his personal wishes with
regard to the outcome of the interpretation. . . For the rest, unfortu-nately,
the requirement overlooks the very essence of genuine under-standing.
Such understanding presupposes precisely the utmost liveli-ness
of the understanding subject and the richest possible development of
his individuality.
The question of commitment also crops up in the discussion of
scholar as persona. The style of academic scholarship today requires an
emotional distance of the self vis-a-vis the objective question. Indeed,
in hard-edged scholarship, nuances of emotion are usually looked upon
as being suspect, having no place in the cognitive milieu. Convention
requires moreover that unless one is writing apologetics, the writer is
not to openly avow commitment to the tradition in question-if one is
committed to it-although this commitment may sometimes be pre-sumed.
And yet religion is all about a sense of commitment. One may
consequently ask why, without it becoming shouting or the preaching
of one who "clamorously asserteth his allegiance to this Cause,"19 a
practice deprecated by Baha'u'llah, such a sense of commitment would
be necessarily excluded. Existential theology makes it clear, however,
that the scholar/writer is sitting inside the theological circle and is pro-foundly
engaged not only in reflection but also in life itself.
When one raises the question of a scholar's commitment, one usu-ally
has to raise the flag of caution against dogmatism or preaching
because there is always the fear and the danger of the one slipping

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into the other. Karl Jasper-s put it well, however, when he said: "Man
can seek the path of his truth in unfanatical absoluteness, in a deci-siveness
which remains open. "20 In reality, this advocacy of the schol-ar
as persona, as a subjective interpreter of the spiritual experience,
flows naturally from a commitment to the acquisition of personal
knowledge which is an aspiration to seek and find wisdom.
A BAHA'I PERSPECTIVE OF SOME DEFINING
POINTS OF EXISTENTIAL THEISM
Some defining points of existential theism from a Baha'i perspec-tive
are: (1) the engaged subject and spiritual passion in the search for
truth; (2) living-in-the-world; (3) overcoming primordial alienation
from God; (4) the personal mode in divine subjectivity; (5) the exis-tential
and the epiphanic moments; and (6) the realism of confronting
self. These points will be considered in global fashion.21
In the search for truth, which ÔAbdu'l-Baha has called "the first
teaching of Baha'u'llah"22 and Shoghi Effendi a "primary duty,"23
there is always a seeking subject. This seeking subject gives meaning
to the spiritual world order, for without the truth-seeker there would
be no application of spiritual principles or values in the world.
Although truth may exist in other cosmological realms beyond our
ken, as for the dimensions in which "we live, and move, and have our
being,"24 truth would not exist without its apprehension by the ratio-nal
soul. It is only the rational soul that is capable of apprehending
the truth in its depths, in its profoundest meaning.
Truth, then, cannot be confined merely to an objective body of data
waiting to be discovered outside the seeker, for she or he is subjec-tively
engaged in the truth-seeking process. Bearing this in mind,
purely objective theological knowledge or judgment becomes a quasi-impossibility.
The search for truth is rather a movement toward the
depths of the center of being, what St. Paul called "the deep things of
God." (1 Corinthians:lO) In one sense, the seeker is the truth that is
being sought. Reinhold Niebuhr has pointed out:
The self knows the world, insofar as it knows the world, because it stands
outside both itself and the world, which means that it cannot understand
itself except as it is understood from beyond itself and the world.25

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This statement clearly points to the capacity of the self to under-stand
both itself and the world once it has experienced transcendence.
World understanding becomes possible with self-understanding. In
this sense, the self becomes the vehicle or framework of interpretation
for understanding the world. Self-understanding and world-under-standing
are inextricably linked. Put differently, the catalyst of divine
revelation (Holy Word/Holy Spirit) will precipitate the perception of
the truth that lies both within the seeker's own soul and the world.
The seeker's truth does not lie consequently in a projected intellectu-al
space outside the individual as a body of correct, objective, and sta-tic
knowledge. Rather, the truth is revealed to the soul in ongoing
fashion in a process of meaningful moments of search and discovery.
According to this view, all knowledge is in some sense self-knowledge.
For Kierkegaard, moreover, only to the extent that one's truth is inter-nalized
is one happy or unhappy: "The unhappy person is one who has
his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the
essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself."26
The process of truth-seeking is nourished, moreover, by a spiritu-al
attitude on the seeker's part of active zeal or passion, one that
leaves no stone unturned. Even a desperate search would be prefer-able
to the way of negative detachment, a detachment lacking the key
ingredients of sincerity and spiritual passion. Kierkegaard made pas-sion
a positive element in the quest for truth, for it alone could confer
certainty: "The conclusions of passion are the only reliable ones," he
said in a memorable phrase. Another of his statements could well
apply to the state of truth-seeking today: "What our age lacks is not
reflection but passion."27 In the Baha'i Faith, however, truth-seeking
is God-seeking, a thought that would be quite congruent with
Kierkegaard. In his epistemology of divine Truth, Baha'u'llah makes
spiritual passion a precondition of the search for God. This element of
spiritual passion is not an irrational enemy of logic, as is sometimes
supposed, but a co-rational, extra-rational, or super-rational dynamic
of operational reality:
Only when the lamp of search, of earnest striving, of longing desire, of
passionate devotion, of fervid love, of rapture, and ecstasy, is kindled
within the seeker's heart, and the breeze of His loving-kindness is waft-ed
upon his soul, will the darkness of error be dispelled, the mists of doubt
and misgivings be dissipated, and the lights of knowledge and certitude
envelop his being.28

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In a talk on "Baha'i Scholarship: Definitions and Perspectives,"
Moojan Momen refers to the key role played by passion in Baha'i epis-temology:
"I have never known an expert who was an impartial
observer; the very fact that they [sic] are expert means that they have
a passion about the subject. So it is illogical to consider them as
impartial and dispassionate. "29 Momen thus links passion to exper-tise
as one of its key ingredients. It would be illogical, according to this
line of reasoning, not to have passion.
In The Joyful Wisdom (Die Frbliche Wissenschaft), Nietzsche, in
his typically provocative and intense style, speaks of an age to come in
which what he calls "preparatory men" will "carry heroism into the
pursuit of knowledge. "30 Like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche had understood
that knowledge had to be pursued with an almost violent intensity:
. . . men characterised by cheerfulness, patience, unpretentious-ness,
and contempt for all great vanities. . . . Soon the age will be
past when you could be satisfied to live like shy deer, hidden in the
woods! At long last the pursuit of knowledge will reach out for its
due: it will want to rule and own, and you with it! . . . For, believe
me, the secret of the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoy-ment
of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities under
Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with
your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors, as long as
you cannot be rulers and owners, you lovers of knowledge!31
The existential point of departure is the life of the solitary individual
living or being in-the-world.32 Existentialists hold that being, or more
concretely, life itself (existence) rather than the world of the idea
(essence> should become the object of reflection. Sartre says, for example:
ÔWhat they [existentialists] have in common is simply the fact that they
believe existence comes before essence-r, if you will, that we must begin
from the subjective. "33 His point is valid, for even if the essence is
unknown, we can be sure of the empirical fact of our existence. Sartre
was, of course, a representative of atheistic humanism, and so designat-ed
himself.34 Consequently, for Sartre, this existence could not mean any
other than human existence: "Man is nothing else but that which he
makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism."35
In the Baha'i perspective, this v&u or Existenz of the believer, the
lived experience, aims at transformation or insight, a shift in con-sciousness,
or a deepening of the spirit of wisdom, dynamics that point

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in large part to the great purposes of religion. This necessary connec-tion
between philosophy and life as Lebensphilosphie is what lies
behind Ludwig Feuerbach's remark: "Do not wish to be a philosopher
in contrast to being a man . . . do not think as a thinker . . . think as a
living, real being, think in existence.36 Feuerbach seems to be saying
that it is life itself rather than speculation which provides the materia
bruta for philosophy, a commonplace which we are apt to forget. This
is suggested by his phrase "think in existence." Philosophy cannot be,
then, a flight from the quotidian. Moreover, thought should reflect
upon the concrete situation in order to gain its view of truth, for phi-losophy
originated in reflections upon life's common experiences.
There is an inexorability about the life situation which cannot be
escaped and which must be willingly embraced for both spiritual trans-formation
and reflection in depth. On this theme Martin Buber writes:
But he will not remove himself from the concrete situation as it actually
is; he will, instead, enter into it, even if in the form of fighting against it.
Whether field of work or field of battle, he accepts the place in which he
is placed. He knows no floating of the spirit above concrete reality; to him
even the sublimest spirituality is an illusion if it is not bound to the situ-ation.
Only the spirit which is bound to the situation is prized by him as
bound to the Pneuma, the spirit of God.37
The life of the solitary individual in its relationship to the world is
in Heidegger's word Dasein, our being-in-the-world, literally, our
"being there" (Da=there, Sein=to be),38 which suggests an openness,
an availability or sensitivity to the emerging, unfolding world around
us, or in Gabriel Marcel's word a disponibilitk (availability) which
"connotes openness, abandonment of self, welcoming" of persons and
events and which, for Marcel, is an expression of hope.39 Existential
theism does not, moreover, ignore or deny the malaise of the spiritual
subject who is in some sense dislocated, or not whole, because he/she
lives in a world that seems to contrive to impede both happiness and
spiritual transformation. Writer-poet-theologian G. K. Chesterton
(1874-1936) wrote amusingly about his own dislocation in the world
which was resolved by a sudden shift of consciousness:
The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the
world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal,
like any other which sought its meat from God. . . . The modern philoso-pher
told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still

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felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the
wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. . . . I knew
now why grass has always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a
giant, and why I could feel homesick at home.40
The ancient philosophers and prophets were well aware, of course,
of our being dislocated in the world, and the existential view-although
it did not come to be known by that name until the post-World
War II period, and contrary to those who think of it strictly as
an outgrowth of modern self-alienation and angst-is really an ancient
perspective on the human condition. Paul Tillich, who defined himself
as fifty-percent existentialist and fifty-percent essentialist,41 points to
the origins of existentialism in Plato's allegory of the cave, in which the
human being finds himself or herself estranged from the knowledge of
true self: "But Plato's existentialism appears in his myth of the human
soul in prison, of coming down from the world of essences into the body
which is its prison, and then being liberated from the cave."*2
In a Baha'i perspective, this overcoming of alienation from God
and self involves the recovery of the supremely important belief in self
as soul, for this conviction in the existence of the divine reality
imparts the message of what Gabriel Marcel called "une meta-physique
de l'espoir" (a metaphysic of hope):
I spoke of the soul. This word, so long discredited, should here be given
its priority once more. We cannot help seeing that there is the closest of
connections between the soul and hope. I almost think that hope is for the
soul what breathing is for the living organism. Where hope is lacking the
soul dries up and withers, it is no more than a function, it is merely fit to
serve as an object of study to a psychology that can never register any-thing
but its location or absence. It is precisely the soul that is the trav-eller;
it is of the soul and of the soul alone that we can say with supreme
truth that "being" necessarily means "being on the way" (en route143
Existential theism values the personal. It puts the person above
the proposition. Personal refers here to a perceptible, dynamic, inter-active,
and fully alive dimension that glimpses into the intimacies of
the drama of the soul and the transpersonal space shared by the com-munity
of persons. Buber writes that ". . . every genuine religious
experience has an open or a hidden personal character, for it is spoken
out of a concrete situation in which the person takes part as a per-son."*
4 This "hidden personal character" indicates that the personal
also contains elements of the esotericor, the mysterious.

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Believing existentialism looks at the universe as a dialogue with
a "Thou," a "Thou" Buber expounded as a new epistemology based on
the notion of Begegnung (meeting/encounter). "All real living is meet-ing,"
wrote Buber.45 In all of the spiritual events that impact upon the
soul one finds the encounter of a greater "Thou" with a lesser "thou,"
a greater Personal Being speaking to a lesser personal being. Buber
writes: "In every sphere in its own way, through each process of
becoming that is present to us, we look out toward the fringe of the
eternal Thou; in each we are aware of the breath from the eternal
Thou; in each Thou we address the eternal Thou."46 This "Thou" is
nothing other than the holy, the numinous, or the sacred encountered
in the process of becoming.
The encounter (or Begegunung) with the divine, self, other, or event
takes on essentially two forms: the existential moment and the epiphan-ic
moment. The existential moment is apocalyptic. It strongest psycho-logical
element is unpredictability or surprise. It is a sudden meeting.
Its psychological elements are various: ambivalence, suspense, confu-sion,
anger, despair, grief, anxiety, or, in Kierkegaard's phrase, "fear
and trembling."47 In its ultimate form, the existential moment brings
"the sickness unto death."4s It is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The existential moment radically alters consciousness and leaves us
better or worse. It is in reality a disguised form of a meeting with the
alter ego, the spiritual self that is seeking to emerge, the potential true
believer who is now being forced to peel away the mask of the old self
so that the new might emerge, a continual process that can be both
acutely painful and challenging to the self's spiritual resources.
In this spiritual crisis or "life test,"4g one is brought face to face
with one's own finitude, weakness, or powerlessness to control or
direct an event or to recognize its full import. The event seems rather
to direct us. In this moment of spiritual crisis, a hostile and some-times
unpredictable world rises up as other (It> to confront the believ-er.
The contrary experiences brought on by suffering and eventual
death which the believer unavoidably faces in the world, provide at
the same time a silver lining in the sometimes dark cloud of exis-tence.
Tests and difficulties create an opportunity for the believer
either to choose or to reject the realm of spiritual values, to embrace
or to reject the Word of God, to follow the path of the insistent, ele-mental
self or to follow the ways of God. It is worth noting in this con-text
that in Chinese the word for "crisis" is made of two symbols: one

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means danger, the other opportunity. These two symbols are closely relat-ed
to the meaning of the existential moment---a moment in which the fate
of our spiritual development, even our soul, hangs in the balance.
In the existential moment, the believer comes face to face with the
lower self, either in oneself or others, which, Shoghi Effendi writes, can
develop-at the extreme end of the spectrum-into "a monster of self-ishness."
50 If we have come to know the ideal self as found in the first
valley of The Four Valleys (Chohcir uadi) in the station of: "On this
plane, the self is not rejected but beloved; it is well-pleasing and not to
be shunned";51 now we come to know the lower self as: "0 QUINTES-SENCE
OF PASSION," "0 REBELLIOUS ONES," "0 CHILDREN OF
FANCY," or "0 WEED THAT SPRINGETH OUT OF THE DUST."52
The existential moment is a moment of high realism, the epiphan-ic
moment. It catapults the believer into the realm of the real. It
makes theoretical concerns comparatively unreal by the imposition of
its unavoidable stark realism. This note of profound realism in rela-tion
to spiritual development was also struck by Shoghi Effendi when
he pointed to the difference between character and faith:
There is a difference between character and faith; it is often very hard to
accept this fact and put up with it, but the fact remains that a person may
believe in and love the Cause-even to being ready to die for itand yet not
have a good personal character, or possess traits at variance with the teach-ings.
We should try to change, to let the power of God help recreate us and
make us true Baha'is in deed as well as in belief. But sometimes the process
is slow, sometimes it never happens because the individual does not try
hard enough. But these things cause us suffering and are a test to us.53
Instead of making an ideal preachment, instead of encouraging
the believer to rise to new heights of spirituality and moral excellence,
Shoghi Effendi strikes a chord of profound and open realism. He
acknowledges, moreover, that the believer does not always attain the
hoped for end, a condition that produces suffering and trial.
The reverse side of the existential moment is the epiphanic
moment. Also of sudden onset, and by contrast with the weight of the
existential moment, the epiphanic moment is a moment of exaltation,
of great illumination or triumph when we are, in the phrase of C. S.
Lewis, "surprised by joy. "54 This epiphanic moment is a numinous dis-closure
of glory, an experience of awe or reverence, triumph or cele-bration,
a hierophany that looms large with promise and exaltation. It

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is Baha'u'llah in the garden of Ridvan,55 and all the lesser reflections
of that spiritual event. It is the believer winning the desires of the
heart. It may be a divine healing, a mystical encounter, or the certi-tude
that our lesser will has become one with the greater Will of God.
THOUGHTS ON EXISTENTIAL MEANING IN BAFLkf
HISTORY AND SACRED SCRIPTURE
The patterns of existential experience lie not only in the life of the
ordinary believer but also in sacred history and in scripture. For sacred
history is not merely the documented, detached, and detailed recon-struction
of events, but it also allows for a more profound and personal
interpretation of the record, since sacred history is also salvation histo-ry
(Heilsgeschichte). Salvation history cannot be reduced merely to an
"objective" study of events, but may also be interpreted as both unfold-ing
drama and divine dialectic. The tragic and triumphant events of
sacred history disclose a depth of meaning both for spirituality and for
human values. Salvation history is profoundly human because it
revolves around the lives of sacred figures and their followers who have
become models of soteriology and the transformed spiritual life.
The acts and events in the lives of the prophets and spiritual
teachers have profound meaning for the spirituality of the believer, for
their missions were carried out amidst continual persecution and
hardship, both real and threatened. The spirituality exemplified in
the lives of the Manifestations of God is consequently not merely the-oretical
but profoundly authentic. The forty-year period of
Baha'u'llah's imprisonment and exile, for example, is ripe with mani-fold
meanings that shed light on a life devoted to God and divine
truth, a life consecrated to the unity of humanity, and lived out in the
face of the severest of adversities. Baha'u'llah's imprisonment and
successive banishments (l&53-1892), whether by the imposition of the
sovereign's decree, or resulting from his own voluntary exile into the
.mountains of Sulaymaniyyih in Kurdistan (1854-1856), affords an
opportunity for believers to consider how they also might face feelings
of exile, alienation, loneliness, and hardship in their own lives.
The references from the Baha'i writings chosen here as pertinent
to the existential condition are conveyed through two micro-narra-tives
in The Seven Valleys (Haft u&C) and The Four Valleys (Chhir
u&i). Both narratives are concerned with the theme of the loss and

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recovery of true self and the nature of faith. The renowned literary
critic Northrop Frye has written that the theme of estrangement from
self and its recovery is the grand theme of all literature: "The story of
the loss and regaining of identity, is, I think, the framework of all lit-erature."
56 Following Frye's statement, one would expect to find this
theme in sacred literature, and certainly one can find it in Baha'i
sacred literature.
The first story features the personae of the mystic and the gram-marian
who find themselves in the unnamed first valley of The Four
Valleys. Both travelers come to the "Sea of Grandeur," a metonymic
and metaphorical phrase for God. The station of the self in this valley
is the self as soul, the personal self. This is indicated by the highly
evocative, transpersonal language Baha'u'llah employs. Baha'u'llah
writes: "One must, then, read the book of his own self, rather than
some treatise on rhetoric. Wherefore He [God] hath said: ÔRead thy
Book: There needeth none but thyself to make out an account against
thee this day'."57
The quranic quotation cited by Baha'u'llah raises the question of
individual responsibility in attempting the challenging pursuit of self-knowledge.
One must begin to read one's own self as one would read
a book. One should begin to find meaning and understanding in the
pages of one's own life. This theme of taking responsibility for finding
personal meaning is moreover one of the cherished themes of existen-tialist
writers, philosophers, and psychologists. Viktor Frankl, for
example, has emphasized that taking responsibility for one's own
mental and spiritual health, rather than submitting passively to the
outrages of fortune, is one of the precipitators of healing.58
The brevity of Baha'u'llah's fragmentary story is more than com-pensated
for by the impact of its message:
The story is told of a mystic knower, who went on a journey with a
learned grammarian as his companion. They came to the shore of the Sea
of Grandeur. The knower straightway flung himself into the waves, but
the grammarian stood lost in his reasonings, which were as words that
are written on water. The knower called out to him, "Why dost thou not
follow?" The grammarian answered, "0 Brother, I dare not advance. I
must needs go back again." Then the knower cried, "Forget what thou
didst read in the books of Sibavayh and Qawlavayh, of Ibn-i-Hajib and
Ibn-i-Malik. and cross the water."59

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Baha'u'llah then quotes from Rumi's Mathnavi: "The death of self
is needed here, not rhetoric/Be nothing, then, and walk upon the
waves."60 Although this mini-tale could easily lend itself to lengthy
commentary, there are three bare elements that link it to existential
concerns. First, there is the wholehearted commitment to the life of
faith exemplified by the mystic knower who is very reminiscent of
Kierkegaard's Abraham as the "knight of faith,"61 the one who makes
that supreme act of will, the "leap of faith" (Spinget), and sum-moning
up courage, walks across the water. He stands in marked con-trast
to the hesitant grammarian. One of the symbolic meanings of
walking on water is the death of self, or overcoming nature, for to walk
upon water is not only to defy nature but to overcome it. Second, the
story puts some definite limitations on the abilities of reason to under-stand
God. Baha'u'llah's tale is an inferred strong critique of the pow-ers
of reason to put us in touch with divine reality. The grammarian's
desire to return to his books was in reality a desire to return to the
logical forms of knowledge on which he relied. The mystic knower's
experience of God is clearly in the realm of Ze U&XL, that transcendent
direct experience which transports the seeker into some larger, more
synthetic and all-encompassing experience of the divine, an experi-ence
that is based on more intuitive, non-discursive forms of knowing.
For the existential perspective does not involve primarily analysis,
that is the breaking down of a thing into its constituent parts, but
rather a holistic interpretation of life experience. When believing exis-tentialism
interprets a part of life, it does so in order to interpret it as
a constituent of the whole. This holistic view of reality can be found in
such writers as Jaspers, Heidegger, and Kierkegaard, all of whom aim
at some unified vision of the self with the world.63
In the story of the mystic and the grammarian, it is the heroic self
of the true believer that emerges when the mystic knower casts behind
him the despair and doubt that is left in reason's wake and leaps into
the Sea of Reality. By taking this "leap of faith," the seeker finds the
courage to defy the violence of logic and the dictates of reason that com-mand
the protection and preservation of self. But instead of sinking
beneath the waves and drowning, the mystic knower defies gravity,
rises above and walks on water. One notes also in passing the quick
turnabout of events, the sudden "great reversal."@ Instead of falling
into the sea, as humanity's original parents fell from primordial grace,
the mystic knower rises. The spatial metaphor speaks abundantly of

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the powers of the "leap of faith," of the concerted will to trust in the
powers of God and the search, instead of a capitulation to the doubting
Thomas within. The spatial metaphor of walking upon the water is par-ticularly
effective in this context, for the leap of faith has the double
effect of creating not only a sense of empowerment but also an illusion
of space, that is, accentuating the feeling that the spiritual traveler has
been freed up and released from the gravitational weight of self.
The Christian parallel to Baha'u'llah's text is the Gospel account
of Peter's attempt, in a sorry imitation of Christ, to walk upon the
water when Jesus came to the disciples in "the fourth watch of the
night . . . walking on the sea." (Matt. 14:25) Like the mystic knower
who can be interpreted as a veiled illusion to Baha'u'llah himself,
Christ bids the disciple to walk upon the water, but Peter "when he
saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he
cried, saying, Lord, save me." (Matt. 14:301 The rest of the story is
familiar: Jesus stretches out his hand and catches Peter as he is about
to sink into the waves and saves him. But Christ's pointed remark to
Peter is significant, for it provides the moral meaning to the tale: "0
thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Matt. 14:31) The dis-pelling
of doubt is also one of the object lessons of Baha'u'llah's micro-tale.
Although the grammarian was a learned man and Peter an
unschooled fisherman, both individuals were summoned to leave
behind "the baser stages of doubt,"65 and to throw themselves into
that dimension of faith that is not characterized by philosophic rea-soning,
but essentially by faith defined as belief and implicit trust in
the divine Power that is greater than ourselves.
Baha'u'llah clearly has in mind to dispel such states of doubt and
despair not only in the mystical treatise of the valleys but also in the
Kitab-i Iqan (Book of Certitude). In this doctrinal magnum opus,
Baha'u'llah sets out "the essential prerequisites for the attainment by
every true seeker of the object of his quest."66 These spiritual requi-sites
are accomplished by the practice of ardent search, spiritual pas-sion,
ethical discipline, and a spirituality of detachment.
The realism of the gospel narrative is also noteworthy. Matthew
does not hide the fact that Peter failed his test of faith, as he will fail
later another test of faith when he is accused of being the Nazarene's
companion during Christ's trial, (Matt. 26:69-75) Because he feared
the annihilation of his own being, Peter denied the One that he loved
more than everything in the world, everything except his own life.
Peter's test was resolved, as ÔAbdu'l-Baha tells us, with untold

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remorse,67 after which he became the petros, the "rock" that Christ
had named him. The tests of Peter, which appeared on the surface as
massive failures, proved to be ultimately the means of attaining his
predestined station as the rock of faith. Also present in Peter's exis-tential
moment is the paradoxical indication that failure participates
profoundly in the means of ultimate success.
The other story, borrowed by Baha'u'llah from Rumi's
Muthnaui,68 is a brief but bright gem of spiritual literature. It is the
story of the lost lover refound, the story of the bereaved Majnun who
finds his beloved Layli once again in a hidden garden. This little story
is the ultimate allegory in the banishment of despair when the seeker
is suddenly surprised by the joy of the soul's reunion with God:
There was once a lover who had sighed for long years in separation
from his beloved, and wasted in the fire of remoteness. From the rule of
love, his heart was empty of patience, and his body weary of his spirit; he
reckoned life without her as a mockery, and time consumed him away.
How many a day he found no rest in longing for her; how many a night
the pain of her kept him from sleep; his body was worn to a sigh, his
heart's wound had turned him to a cry of sorrow. He had given a thou-sand
lives for one taste of the cup of her presence, but it availed him not.
The doctors knew no cure for him, and companions avoided his company;
yea, physicians have no medicine for one sick of love, unless the favor of
the beloved one deliver him.
At last, the tree of his longing yielded the fruit of despair, and the fire
of his hope fell to ashes. Then one night he could live no more, and he
went out of his house and made for the market-place. On a sudden, a
watchman followed after him. He broke into a run, with the watchman
following; than other watchmen came together, and barred every passage
to the weary one. And the wretched one cried from his heart, and ran here
and there, and moaned to himself: "Surely this watchman is ÔIzrB'il, my
angel of death, following so fast upon me; or he is a tyrant of men, seek-ing
to harm me." His feet carried him on, the one bleeding with the arrow
of love, and his heart lamented. Then he came to a garden wall, and with
untold pain he scaled it, for it proved very high; and forgetting his life, he
threw himself down to the garden.
And there he beheld his beloved with a lamp in her hand, searching
for a ring she had lost. When the heart-surrendered lover looked on his
ravishing love, he drew a great breath and raised up his hands in prayer,
crying: "0 God! Give Thou glory to the watchman, and riches and long
life. For the watchman was Gabriel, guiding this poor one; or he was
Israfil, bringing life to this wretched one!"sg

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This spiritual allegory can be viewed as providing both fulfilment
and closure to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, which ÔAbdu'l-Baha
tells us is really a story about the bondage and liberation of the soul.70
Moreover, the spiritual allegory of the tale of Majndn and Layli can be
viewed as having larger implications for the collective spiritual des-tiny
of the human race. Salvation history, which began-at least in
the Abrahamic faiths-with the banishment of humanity's original
parents from a garden in the Middle East, is fulfilled in a garden by a
modern day Iranian Prophet who has commanded the cherubim to
withdraw their flaming swords and open the way once more to the
tree of life.71 Further, Baha'u'llah's mystical story of the loss and
regain of the beloved in the form of a triumphant theophany strikes a
resounding note of victory over despair through a recovery of the seek-er's
heart's desire and alludes to the fulfilment of humanity's spiritu-al
destiny as it finds its way back to the garden. With Baha'u'llah's
recasting of Rumi's story, we come full circle.
Baha'u'llah's narrative, like other scriptural discourse, is unspar-ing
in its realism. It does not avert the most distressing elements in
human existence: loneliness and alienation, loss, acute pain, the
thwarting of the desires of the heart, terror, and impending death.
Neither can other psychological implications of the story go unnoticed.
With Baha'u'llah's use of the word "despair" (Persian: Ya'czss), we
plummet with the bereaved Majnun to the nadir of his depression.
Majnun is driven even further beyond the limits of sanity to the very
edge of madness, where he contemplates self-destruction. The Persian
Prophet's allegory of the lost lover refound even contains Sartre's
notion of Huit Clos, of no exit, of the lover's being hemmed in on all
sides by the watchmen (Persian: assasshk) who are the symbols of all
the conspiring forces of evil. Majnun's is the overwhelming trauma
and drama of the lover who cannot live without love, and who lives
and dies for love alone. The implications for a theology of hope and
love are there as well in the final resolution of the story.
Baha'u'llah's purpose in laying bare such a momentarily abject
theme is to uphold the promise of healing and salvation for the dis-tressed
soul. He intimates that the experience of such distressing psy-chological
states can be the prelude to healing and joy and a fuller
integration with self. It is worth noting, moreover, that despair and
disillusion have a legitimate role to play in the search for love and
truth. Kierkegaard was to proclaim that "Every man who has not tast-ed
the bitterness of despair has missed the significance of life."72

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Baha'u'llah's phrase the "true seeker"73 also clearly implies that no
one would ever become a seeker if he or she were not in the first place
profoundly dissatisfied, disoriented, or disillusioned with the spiritu-al
status quo, the state of one's soul, or the condition of the world. By
contrast, both the self and characters in existentialist literature and
philosophy remain trapped in their own morass. For, if as Sartre has
said in L'Etre et le ne'ant (Being and Nothingness), "freedom is the
human being putting his past out of play by secreting his own noth-ingness,"
74 then the prospects are bleak indeed.
Baha'u'llah, however, does provide a way out. His allegory of the
soul's ultimate reunion with its Creator promises the brightest tokens of
God's love and mercy. For, the bereaved lover believed himself to be lost,
whereas he was in reality saved. His salvation was reunion with God.
NOTES
1. See John Macquarrie, Existentialism (London: Penguin Books, 1972).
For a more specifically theological focus of existentialism, see, for example,
John Macquarrie's An Existentialist Theology (1955) and An Existentialist
Theology: A Comparison of Heidegger and Bultmann (1960); Fritz Buri's
Theology of Existence (trans. 1965); Karl Jaspers in Philosophical Faith and
Revelation (trans. 1967); and Jaspers' Nietzsche and Christianity (trans.
1961); C. Michalson, ed. Christianity and the Existentialists (1956). See also
references below,
2. Although it was Kierkegaard who coined the term "existentialist,"
Walter Kaufmann sees Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground (1864) as the
overture to the voice of strident individuality that was to be heard later in
Kierkegaard. See Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism From Dostoevsky to
Sartre (New York: Meridian, 1975) pp. 12, 14-15.
3. John Macquarrie describes Jaspers and Heidegger as standing "some-where
between the confessed theists and the confessed atheists."
(Existentialism, p. 252)
4. Life's absurdity was made more pointedly by Camus in Le Mythe de
Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) but as John Passmore points out, at least
ÔCamus did not attempt to ontologize absurdity: "But Camus is not an existen-tialist;
he does not believe that absurdity can be ontologized" (John Passmore,
A Hundred Years of Philosophy [Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books,
19681 p. 491). Camus may not be an existentialist in the strict philosophical
sense, but his writings are nonetheless definitely existential in perspective.
5. See Heidegger's seminal work Being and Time, trans. by J.
Macquarrie and E. S. Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962); German
original Sein und Zeit, 1927. Like several existentialist thinkers, Heidegger

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was preoccupied with the meaning of anxiety. As for Jaspers and Marcel,
Heidegger rejected the existentialist label when applied to him. But this anti-labelling
tendency is itself typical of existentialist thinkers who were strong-ly
individualistic and resisted categorization.
6. See page 199 below.
7. See page 198 below.
8. Among their better-known works are Ludwig Binswanger's Being-in-the-
World (1963) and Medard Boss' Psychoanalysis and Dasein Analysis
(1963). For an informative shorter introduction to existential psychology, see
Calvin S. Hall and Gardner Lindzey, "Existential Psychology" in Theories of
Personality (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1957) pp. 552-81.
9. Hegel's absolute idealism was the reigning philosophy in the Denmark
of Kierkegaard's day. At the basis of Kierkegaard's disagreement with Hegel
was Kierkegaard's assertion that attaining happiness, or in philosophical
terms, the highest good, could not be secured through philosophizing alone. For
Kierkegaard, ideas alone were a paltry means in securing eternal happiness.
See Alistair Hannay, Kierkegaard (London and New York: Routledge, 1991)
pp. 19-20. Like Hegel, Kierkegaard employed dialectic, but unlike Hegel's log-ical
dialectic working within a closed system, Kierkegaard's dialectic expound-ed
upon the solitary individual working within the three spheres of the aes-thetic,
the ethical, and the religious. Kierkegaard attacked not only Hegelian
idealism, but Kantian moral idealism as well. He felt that all forms of rational
theology were inadequate for a true understanding of the human condition.
10. Kierkegaard, uncited source quoted by John Updike, "Soren
Kierkegaard" in Atlantic Brief Lives: A Biographical Companion to the Arts,
ed. by Louis Kronenberger (Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown and Company,
1965) p. 430.
11. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by David L.
Swenson and Walter Lowrie (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1941) p. 49.
12. One reads in the literature produced by Baha'i scholars the occasion-al
urging for the Baha'i systematic theologian to emerge. While such a grand
systematization of Baha'i theology would be a major tour de force, one has to
keep in mind that systematic theology is predicated on a certain view of final-ity
working within a closed system. Existence, however, unfolds precisely in
the opposite manner-through the revelation of new truths that are con-stantly
emerging. See Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p.
107. The universal scope of Baha'i sacred scripture, in any case, would seem
to defy any one theological system to do justice to the diversity of themes and
concepts treated in the Baha'i writings. It is rather more likely that a number
of differing theological and metaphysical thought systems will emerge in time
and coexist within the Baha'i writings.
13. For the expression Ôilm-i uzijtidi see, for example, ÔAbdu'l-Baha's dis-cussion
of "The Knowledge of the Divine Manifestations" in Some Answered.I

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Questions, camp. and trans. Laura Clifford Barney (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i
Publishing Trust, 1981) p. 157. Juan Ricardo Cole has alluded to a resem-blance
between ÔAbdu'l-Baha's Ô&n-i utijlidi with that of Plotinus' primal
intellection in the Enneads, V. 3,2 and a similar notion in Avicenna, De
Anima, 24849 ("The Concept of Manifestation in the Baha'i Writings"
[Ottawa: Association for Baha'i Studies, 19821 p. 35, n. 149.
14. The Divine Art of Liuing, camp. by Mabel Hyde Paine (Wilmette, Ill.:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1944) p. 25.
15. ÔAbdu'l-Baha in Baha'u'llah and ÔAbdu'l-Baha, The Reality of Man
(Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1956) p. 9. The complete quotation is:
"Thoughts may be divided into two classes: Thought that belongs to the world
of thought alone. Thought that expresses itself in action." Existential theo-logical
discourse is of course vehicled by words but carries the potential for a
more direct connection with the individual's life.
16. By the "real self," I mean both the experiences that the self has
gleaned in the world and reflections on objective questions in light of that
experience, rather than the mere analysis of abstract, objective questions in
which the subject is neither visible nor present.
17. I do not advocate that the experiences of the individual alone become
the sole locus of reflection. I mean rather that the creation of this discourse be
carried out in light of the meaning of Baha'i scripture, sacred history, and sub-jective
experience as it has contributed to the process of spiritual transforma-tion
or philosophical reflection.
18. Rudolf Bultmann, "Das Problem der Hermeneutik," in Zeitschrift fiir
Theologie und Kirche, vol. 47 (1950) p. 64, quoted by Bernard J. F. Lonergan
in Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990) p. 158.
19. The complete sentence reads: "In this Day, We can neither approve
the conduct of the fearful that seeketh to dissemble his faith, nor sanction the
behavior of the avowed believer that clamorously asserteth his allegiance to
this Cause." (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings From the Writings of Bah~Ôu'll~h, trans.
by Shoghi Effendi [Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 19761 p. 343)
20. From Jasper's essay "On My Philosophy" quoted in Kaufmann,
Existentialism, p. 232.
21. I am following some main themes raised by several existential the-ologians,
but I have made a conscious attempt to perceive their concerns 
through the filter of a Baha'i worldview. A more specifically Baha'i treatment
of such concerns can be found below in "Existential Meaning in Baha'i Sacred
History and Writings." Each of the six points that follow deserves a fuller
treatment than the limitations of space allow.
22. ÔAbdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace (Wilmette, Ill.:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1982) p. 62. It is perhaps the deceptive simplicity of
this teaching that has caused it to suffer a certain neglect in comparison with
the scholarly treatment of other Baha'i teachings. For a further discussion on

+P210

the search for truth, see "The Starting Point: The Search for Truth" in J. A.
McLean, Dimensions in Spirituality. Reflections on the Meaning of Spiritual
Life and Transformation in Light of the Baha'i Faith (Oxford: George Ronald,
1994) pp. l-40. See also Gary L. Matthews' instructive article "The Searching
Eye" (Bahk't' News, [September, 19891 pp. 2-9). In his talks in North America,
ÔAbdu'l-Baha consistently placed the search for truth first in his presentations
of Baha'i teachings. See, for example, his talks in Washington, Pittsburg,
Philadelphia, Boston, Montreal, Sacramento, and on two occasions in New
York, and also in his long expose of Baha'i teachings in Paris.
23. The complete quotation is: "It [the Baha'i Faith] moreover, enjoins
upon its followers the primary duty of an unfettered search after truth." ("A
World Religion: The Faith of Baha'u'llah," a summary statement of the origin,
teachings, and institutions of the Baha'i Faith prepared in 1947 by Shoghi
Effendi for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine [Wilmette, Ill.:
Bahfi'i Publishing Trust, 19501 p. 9, emphasis added) This quotation is par-ticularly
noteworthy because of the italicized words. The search for truth is
not just for those who are seeking truth in their pre-Bah8'i stage. The duty of
the search continues in the post-Bah8'i stage.
24. This phrase is from Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill to the men of Athens.
Luke reports Paul as saying in The Acts of the Apostles: "For in him we live,
and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For
we are also his offspring" (17:28).
25. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. 1 (London:
Nisbet and Company, 1941) p. 14.
26. Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, Vol. 1, trans. by David
F. Swenson, Lillian Marvin Swenson (London: Oxford University Press,
1946) p. 180.
27. Kierkegaard, quoted in Kaufmann, Existentialism, p. 18. I do not
think that Kierkegaard meant to exclude reason entirely in his promotion of
passion in the search for truth. The metaphysical dialectic that he created in
reaction to the systematizers of his day is, of course, rational insofar as it can
be subjected to analysis. Kierkegaard's sometimes immoderate railings
against the use of systematic reasoning were intended to shock the readers of
his day out of what he viewed to be the irrelevance of speculative philosophy
with respect to the human condition.
28. Baha'u'llah, The Kitcib-i-Zqcin, trans. Shoghi Effendi, 2d ed.
Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1950) pp. 195-96.
29. Momen cites E. G. Browne, "considered to be one of the greatest aca-demics
on Iran that there has ever been" as one who dedicated himself pas-sionately
to Iranian studies as well as the Constitutional Movement. ("Baha'i
Scholarship: Definitions and Perspectives," The Baha'i Studies Review, vol. 3,
no. 2 [19941 p. 55)
30. Nietzsche, The Joyful Wisdom, trans. by Thomas Common (Edinburgh:
T. N. Foules, 1910) p. 219.

+P211

31. Ibid.
32. "Being-in-the-world" is one translation of Dasein in Heidegger's Being
and Time and What is Metaphysics?
33. Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism, trans. by Philip
Mairet (London: Methuen and Company, 1948) p. 26.
34. Sartre declares: "Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a represen-tative.
. . ." (Existentialism is a Humanism, quoted in Kaufmann,
Existentialism, p. 349)
35. Existentialism and Humanism, trans. by Philip Mairet (London: Eyre
Methuen, 1975) p. 28.
36. Grundsatze der Philosophie der Zukunft (Zurich, 1843) p. 78; cited
in Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press,
1959) p. 89.
37. Martin Buber, Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between
Religion and Philosophy (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press
International, reprint 1988) pp. 37-38.
38. Heidegger has himself explained the meaning of Dasein in the intro-ductory
key sentence of Being and Time with this somewhat obscure state-ment:
"Das ÔWesen' des Daseins liegt in seiner Existenz. n ("The essence of being
there (Dasein) lies in its existence.") (p. 42). Dasein referred to typically human
existence and was the prelude to the greater discussion of Sein (Being).
39. James C. Livingstone, Modern Christian Thought From the
Enlightenment to Vatican 11 (New York: Macmillan, 1971) p. 355.
40. Jarsolav Pelikan comments in his introduction to Chesterton's extract
from Orthodoxy that although Chesterton "was not a scholar or a theologian
but a journalist and the author of the popular Father Brown detective sto-ries,"
nevertheless "in books on Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas, and in
two interconnected works entitled Heretics and Orthodoxy, he defended the
integrity of the theological tradition with a vigor that many professional the-ologians
and scholars could (and did) envy." (The World Treasury of Modern
Religious Thought [Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 19901, p. 385); quo-tation
from Chesterton is from pp. 389-90.
41. Paul Tillich, Perspectives On 19th and 20th Century Protestant
Theology (New York: Harper and Row, 1967) p. 245.
42. Tillich, Perspectives, p. 244.
43. Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope,
trans. by Emma Craufurd (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962) pp. 10-11.
For a further discussion of the metaphysic of hope, see Marcel's "Sketch of a
Phenomenology and a Metaphysic of Hope" in Homo Viator, pp. 29-67.
44. Buber, Eclipse of God, p. 37.
45. Z and Thou, 2d ed., Trans by Ronald Gregor Smith (New York:
Charles Scribners Sons, 1958) p. 11. Joseph Dabney Bettis makes this cogent
description of Begegnung in his forward to extracts from Buber's Z and Thou:

+P212

"There are times when the Ôother' breaks through our worlds and confronts us
as a being which exists in itself and apart from our interaction with it. In
these encounters there is no longer any question of our controlling and shap-ing
the being which confronts us: it presents itself to us as something real in
itself. This confrontation Buber calls the ÔI-Thou relationship'."
(Phenomenology of Religion: Eight Modern Descriptions of the Essence of
Religion [London: SCM Press, 19691 p. 220)
46. I and Thou, p. 6.
47. From the title of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and The Sickness
Unto Death. Kierkegaard considered these books from the aesthetic point of
view to be "the most perfect" books that he had ever written. (Translator's
note, p. 181 The prose of these texts is remarkably free of that strain and pas-sion
that is so characteristic of much of his other writing. Fear and Trembling
and The Sickness Unto Death are characterized by a simplicity and a philo-sophical
lucidity uncharacteristic of most of Kierkegaard's other writings
(Trans. by Walter Lowrie [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954).
48. The Sickness Unto Death remains to this day the preeminent study in
the psychology of despair and was very influential on the thinking of the exis-tentialists
who followed Kierkegaard such as Heidegger and Sartre.
Kierkegaard explains that the sickness unto death is despair. Since death
would mean the end of despair, he argues that ". . the torment of despair is
precisely this, not to be able to die. So it has much in common with the situa-tion
of the moribund when he lies and struggles with death, and cannot die.
So to be sick unto death is, not to be able to die-yet not as though there were
hope of life; no, the hopelessness in this case is that even the last hope, death,
is not available." (pp. 150-51)
49. I have explored this notion of "life test" in Dimensions in Spirituality:
Reflections on the Meaning of Spiritual Life and Transformation in Light of
the Baha'i Fuith (Oxford: George Ronald, 1994) pp. 128-58.
50. Shoghi Effendi makes a binary distinction in the Baha'i understand-ing
of the self. One is the divine self, the identity of the individual created God;
the other is the ego, ". .the dark, animalistic heritage each one of us has, the
lower nature that can develop into a monster of selfishness, brutality, lust and
so on." (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual,
December 10, 1947 in Lights of Guidance: A Baha'i Reference File, camp. by
Helen Hornby [New Delhi: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 19941 p. 113, n. 386)
51. Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys, trans. by M. Gail
with A. K. Khan, 3d ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1978) p. 50.
52. The epithets are from The Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah (Wilmette,
Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Committee, 1954), Persian nos. 50, 65, 67, and 68
respectively.
53. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, October 17, 1944,
quoted in Baha'i Marriage and Family Life: Selections from the Writings of the
Baha'i Faith (National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Canada, 1983) p. 20.

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54. Surprised by Joy (Glasgow: Collins Fount Paperbacks, 1986) is the title
of C. S. Lewis' spiritual autobiography in which he describes his conversion
from atheism to Christianity. The title, however, does not describe Lewis' actu-al
conversion experience, which was, as he has specified, "not to Christianity"
but to theism (p. 184) and which he has described as "strangely unemotional"
(p. 179), for it was a conversion to the realisation of free choice. Riding on top of
a bus in Oxford, "going up Headington Hill," Lewis felt himself to be entrapped
in a suit of armor or a kind of "corslet." Lewis became acutely conscious at that
moment that he had been given the free choice either to keep this armor on or
unbuckle it and go free. He was given the freedom to choose, but he did not seem
to be able to do otherwise than to choose God. "Then came the repercussion on
the imaginative level," says Lewis. "I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last
beginning to melt. . . .I rather disliked the feeling." (p. 179)
55. For a moving poetic envisioning of this unparalleled spiritual event,
see Robert Hayden's poem "Baha'u'llah in the Garden of Ridwan" in Selected
Poems (New York: October House, 1966).
56. Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination (Toronto: C.B.C.
Publications, 1970) p. 21.
57. The Four Valleys, p. 51. The quranic reference is from 17:15.
58. This is one of the main themes in Frankl's logotherapy, a psychologi-cal
technique that consists in the alleviation of suffering through the search
for meaning. Viktor Frank1 was more than a clinician and an armchair
philosopher, since as a death-camp inmate, he was subjected to all the rigors
and deprivations of concentration camp life, about which he wrote: ". . in the
final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of prisoner the prisoner became
was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences
alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circum-stances,
decide what shall become of him-mentally and spiritually." (Man's
Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy [New York: Pocket
Books, 19731 p. 105)
59. The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys, p. 51.
60. Ibid., p. 52.
61. Kierkegaard excogitates upon Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his
son Isaac. It contests the Hegelian notion of a system or science of universals
or absolutes by a juxtaposition and contrast of the individual, represented by
Abraham, who chooses to violate a universal ethical norm (infanticide) which
requires the sacrifice of his beloved offspring. Kierkegaard says: "The knight
of faith is obliged to rely upon himself alone, he feels the pain of not being able
to make himself intelligible to others, but he feels no vain desire to guide oth-ers."
(Fear and Trembling, p. 90) "The true knight of faith is always absolute
isolation, the false knight is sectarian." (p. 89)
62. Kierkegaard was quick to acknowledge his debt to Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing in his elaboration of the idea of the leap. See Kierkegaard's Papirer

+P214

V. B 1,3, p. 53. For both Lessing and Kierkegaard truth meant religious truth
and the gap that had to be overcome was the accidental or contingent nature
of historical truth with the "unconditional certainty required by religious
faith." (See Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard [London: Routledge, 19911 p. 98.)
63. For example, in Jaspers' three modes of "encompassing" (empirical exis-tence,
consciousness, and spirit) "spirit is the process of fusing and constructing
all totalities in a present which is never finished yet always fulfilled. It is
always on its way toward a possible completion of empirical existence where
universality, the whole, and every particular would all be members of a totali-ty."
(Karl Jaspers, Existenzphilosophie in Kaufmann, Existentialism, p. 216)
64. The idea of the "great reversal" has universal implications that tran-scend
its immediate Babi-Baha'i origins, but I put the phrase back into its
historical-scriptural context. The phrase "the great reversal," synonymous
with uau vu makouse' (the reversed uau) occurs in the writings of Shaykh
Ahmad al-Al-&i (1753-1826 CE) founder of the Shaykhi school of Islam. Al-AhsB'i
interpreted the inverted or reversed Arabic letter wow when written
out in full (waw-alif-waw) as a sign of the advent of the promised Qa'im. In a
tablet written to George David Hardegg (1812-1879) (Lawh-i Hirtik)
Baha'u'llah alludes to the great reversal:"0 Friend! Observe the Ômystery of
the Great Reversal in the sign of the Sovereign' . . Call thou to mind the fact
that when Jesus came he was rejected by the divines, the learned and the edu-cated
whilst he who was a mere fisherman entered the Kingdom." (Provisional
translation by Stephen N. Lambden) In the Kitab-i Aqdas, Baha'u'llah also
writes: "Behold, the Ômystery of the Great Reversal in the Sign of the
Sovereign' hath now been made manifest." (para. 157, p. 75) With these words,
Baha'u'llah alludes to his own coming as fulfilment of prophecy. The great
reversal refers more specifically to the eschatological phenomenon of the
inversion of spiritual status between clergy and laity at the advent of the
Prophet. The divines who reject Bah6'u'llah are cast down and the laity who
accept him are exalted to the position of spiritual eminence formerly enjoyed
by these same divines. I draw here upon Stephen Lambden's "The Translation
and Significance of a Shaykhi Phrase in the ÔMost Holy Book' (al-Kit&b al-aqdas):
ÔThe Mystery of the Great Reversal in the Sign of the Sovereign (sirr
al-tank& li-ramz al-ra'is)" a paper delivered at the Association for Baha'i
Studies-English-Speaking Europe Religious Studies Special Interest Group
Seminar, July 1993. See the Baha'i Studies Bulletin for further details.
65. The complete quotation is: "0 FLEETING SHADOW! Pass beyond
the baser stages of doubt and rise to the exalted heights of certainty. Open the
eye of truth, that thou mayest behold the veilless Beauty and exclaim:
Hallowed be the Lord, the most excellent of all creators!" (Baha'u'llah, The
Hidden Words, p. 9)
66. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing
Trust, 1965) p. 139. Shoghi Effendi refers to those passages of the Zq&n which
deal with the true seeker. (pp. 192-96)

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67. "Even the glorious Peter was not rescued from the flame of trials, and
wavered. Then he repented and mourned the mourning of a bereaved one and
his lamentation raised unto the Supreme Concourse." (ÔAbdu'l-Baha, from a
tablet to an American believer, December 23, 1902, in Star of the West, 819,
March 2, 1918)
68. See Jalalu'ddin Rumi, Mczthnazi in Reynold A. Nicholson's translation
(London: Luzac and Co., 1977). The original version of Baha'u'llah's elabora-tion
is found in "The Unworthy Lover," vol. 2, pp. 275-76, corresponding to the
end of the third and the beginning of the fourth Daftar.
69. Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys, pp. 13-14.
70. ÔAbdu'l-Baha says that the story of Adam and Eve "contains divine
mysteries and universal meanings and it is capable of marvellous explana-tions."
(Some Answered Questions, p. 123) ÔAbdu'l-Baha's strong critique of lit-eral
interpretations of the story suggests its pronounced mythical features.
He weaves a number of themes into his explanation while inviting the reader
to search for others. (p. 126) I vastly reduce one of ÔAbdu'l-Baha's thematic
explanations to this paraphrase: Adam and Eve are the symbols of spirit
(Adam) and soul (Eve). The serpent signifies Adam's attachment/bondage to
or love of the human world. Since the serpent continues to live in the midst of
Adam's descendants, the descendants persist in living in bondage, at enmity
with God and in strife with one another. The Tree of Life is symbolic of the
divine Word or the divine Manifestations of Christ and Baha'u'llah who offer
salvation and release from bondage by their sanctifying grace and the light of
divine knowledge. For ÔAbdu'l-Baha's fuller account, see "Adam and Eve" in
Some Answered Questions, pp. 122-26.
71. See Genesis 3:24. Baha'u'llah writes: "0 YE DWELLERS IN THE
HIGHEST PARADISE! Proclaim unto the children of assurance that within
the realms of holiness, nigh unto the celestial paradise, a new garden hath
appeared, round which circle the denizens of the realm on high and the immor-tal
dwellers of the exalted paradise. Strive, then, that ye may attain that sta-tion,
that ye may unravel the mysteries of love from its wind-flowers and learn
the secret of divine and consummate wisdom from its eternal fruits. Solaced
are the eyes of them that enter and abide therein!" (Hidden Words, p. 27)
72. EitherlOr, Vol. 2, p. 175.
73. Kit&i-ZqCin, p. 192.
74. Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on
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CONTRIBUTORS
Keven Brown is a PhD candidate in Near Eastern languages and cul-tures
at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has been the
editor of Naturegraph Publishers since 1986. His primary interest is in
the area of Islamic and Baha'i philosophical theology. An occasional
contributor to The Journal of Baha'i Studies, his noted article "A
Baha'i Perspective on the Origin of Matter" appeared in JBS (1990).
Juan R. I. Cole is professor of history at the University of Michigan
where he specializes in the Middle East and South Asia. He is the
author of Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East (Princeton
University Press, 1993) and Roots of North Indian Shi'ism in Iran and
Iraq (University of California Press, 1988). He has either edited or co-edited
several books, including Shi'ism and Social Protest (Yale
University Press, 1986, co-edited), Comparing Muslim Societies
(University of Michigan Press, 1992, edited), From Iran East and
West: Studies in Babi and Baha'i History, volume two (Kalimat Press,
1984, co-edited with Moojan Momen). He has also edited and trans-lated
a number of books by Mirza Abli'l-Fad1 and Kahlil Gibran.
Seena Faze1 is a research fellow in psychiatric ethics at the
University of Oxford, Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Faze1 is co-editor
of The Baha'i Studies Review (U.K.) and is a regular contributor to
The Journal of Baha'i Studies and The Baha'i Studies Review. His
most recent articles are "Is the Baha'i Faith a World Religion?" (JBS
1994) and "Inheritance" (BSR 1994), a study of the inheritance laws
of the K&b-i Aqdas. Dr. Faze1 has also co-authored with Khazeh
Fananpazir "A Baha'i Approach to the Claim of Finality in Islam"
(JBS 19931, "A Baha'i Approach to the Claim of Exclusivity and
Uniqueness in Christianity" (JBS 1990-91) and "Some Interpretive
Principles in the Baha'i Writings" (BSR 1992).
Anjam Khursheed is a scientist specializing in the field of computa-tional
electron optics and electromagnetic fields. He has a PhD from
the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (1983) and currently teaches at
the National University in Singapore. He has published over thirty-five
papers in his field. He also has a special interest in the area of
religion and philosophy and is author of three books in this field:

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Science and Religion: Towards the Restoration of an Ancient Harmony
(OneWorld, 1987), Seven Candles of Unity (U.K. Baha'i Publishing
Trust, 19911, and The Uniuerse Within (OneWorld, 1995).
Stephen N. Lambden is the founder and editor of The Baha'i
Studies Bulletin and Abha: A Journal of Babi-Baha'i Studies and has
written a number of in-depth articles in the field of Babi-Baha'i stud-ies.
Among his contributions to Baha'i studies are several provisional
translations of the works of the Bab and Baha'u'llah, articles in the
Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions series (Kalimat Press, ~01s.
3 and 5) and in the Baha'i Studies Review. He has also contributed to
the Encyclopedia Iranica and has published works in the field of the
Abrahamic religions. He is a doctoral candidate at the University of
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the field of Babi-Baha'i Studies.
Anthony A. Lee is a PhD candidate in African history at the
University of California, Los Angeles. He has been managing editor
and co-owner of Kalimat Press since it was founded in 1978. He is also
an adjunct professor of history at Cypress College and at El Camino
College in the Greater Los Angeles area. He edited the volumes Circle
of Unity: Baha'i Approaches to Current Social Issues and Circle of
Peace: Reflections on Baha'i Teachings and is the general editor of the
Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions series.
Dann J. May is an adjunct professor in philosophy and religious stud-ies
at Oklahoma City University where he teaches courses in world reli-gions,
Asian philosophy, and philosophy of religion. In addition to
Baha'i theology, his main interests are symbolism, pluralism, and inter-religious
dialogue. He has given numerous public lectures, seminars,
and classes in Baha'i communities across the United States. His essay
"A Preliminary Survey of Hermeneutical Principles Found Within the
Baha'i Writings" (The Journal of Baha'i Studies, 1989) opened the dis-cussion
of the implications of hermeneutics in Baha'i perspective.
J. A. (Jack) McLean is the editor of this volume and the author of
Dimensions in Spirituality: Reflections on the Meaning of Spirituality
and Transformation in Light of the Baha'i Faith (George Ronald,
19941, a theological interpretation of spirituality. He is also an occa-sional
contributor of theology articles and metaphysical poems to

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World Order and The Journal of Baha'i Studies. Current projects
include editing a second volume at Kalimat Press on the Baha'i Faith
and the world's great religions and completing two other books in
progress, Thoughts From Under the Sadrat Tree: Notebook Sketches
for the Beloved of God and a volume of essays on Baha'i theology. He
has an M.A. in world religions from the University of Ottawa (1972),
and teaches and writes in Hull, QuŽbec, Canada.