published in Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies, Part 2: Mediaeval and Modern Persian Studies, pages 257-268 Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1999
About: The genesis of the Kitáb-i Aqdas is enveloped in obscurity. The exact circumstances under which it came into being are far from being clear. Bahá'í and non-Bahá'í sources give contradictory information regarding the date of its composition. These range from 1870 to 1875. Only few try to support their respective dates with evidence. It is the aim of this paper to demonstrate that the Kitáb-i Aqdas was not written on one and the same occasion, but constitutes a process which started at least in 1868 with the arrival of Bahá'u'lláh in the citadel of `Akká and continued over a period of five years or more and in different locations.