(From an earlier discussion)
Date: Sun, 7 May 95
From: John Walbridge
Subject: Poverty and wealth

...By my theory of the origin of the text of the Aqdas, K9 might be considered the first digression inserted into the text in answer to a specific question. Whether it is or not, it certainly is the case that Baha'u'llah is consciously distancing himself from the kind of concerns characteristic of the legal analysis of the Muslim clergy with their obsessive concern about ritual purity. In a typical concise Islamic lawbook, it would have taken us a hundred or so pages to cover these topics. John Walbridge