Posted by Nick Stone on May 13, 2101 at 20:17:45:

In Reply to: Baha'u'llah can't be a prophet of God. posted by David on April 24, 2101 at 16:01:49:

The greatest proofs I am currently aware of that Baha'u'llah was more than a great man are the following:

Firstly, where did his knowledge come from? There were very few books in Iran at the time of Baha'u'llah. Only a few hundred years before all the universities had been burned down being deemed as unislamic. Only clerics had books and they were religious ones. The writings of the West did not permeate into Iran's backward culture. Baha'u'llah did not associate or correspond with erudite scholars and writers. He himself confirms he never read any of their dissertations (though he later quotes them as well as other religious texts, flawlessly).

Secondly, the knowledge which Baha'u'llah imparted to the world is becoming more and more relevant by the day, not less and less relevant as one would think. His solutions to the world's problems represent the best way forward in all areas. No one in the history of the world has prophesised the future with such amazing clarity. No one in the world currently can even prophesy what is going to happen next year, let alone the events and requirements of the world in 150 years time. Which of the world's thinkers anticipated the ending of the Cold War? Who could have envisaged the loss of power of the monarchs of the world in the exact circumstances as Baha'u'llah did, writing as a prisoner in Akka?

The final proof I would like to mention now (as it is getting late!) is the nature of revelation in the Baha'i Faith. When Baha'u'llah was revealing tablets, he did it at such incredible speed that his secretary would be writing so fast that he completed an entire page before the ink of the first words was dry. Imagine you are writing an essay, or a book, or an article. What writer in the world can rattle the whole thing off, without pausing a single time, without going back and changing a single word or punctuation, without making a single mistake? Baha'u'llah's revelation lasted for 40 years, yet never in that time did he once contradict himself. In addition, Baha'u'llah mastered two languages, Persian and Arabic, which I am informed are totally different from one another. Baha'u'llah received but a token education, yet could compose verses of such eloquence and beauty that even his avowed enemies were astounded. Not only this, but Baha'u'llah mastered the art of calligraphy and his writing matched those of the greatest calligraphists of his time. All these skills which admittedly can be learned, Baha'u'llah possessed inately, was never taught them, yet scholars have to spend their entire lives learning them.

I will finish here, but I could mention other proofs as well. One may say, ah yes, Baha'u'llah could do these things, but that doesn't make him a prophet. This is correct. But how many miraculous things does someone have to do before one will acknowledge him as a prophet? There comes a time when repeated denial becomes suspicious and I feel that it is denial for the sake of denial. To take the entirety of Baha'u'llah's life, his perfect character, his endurance under tests, his sufferings, his writings, his prophecies and then to say he is not a prophet from God because a scientific statement he has made has not yet been verified by science seems to me to be bizarre in the extreme. Rather like saying, it looks like a tree, it has leaves which are green, bark, twigs and branches and roots, but here it has a caterpilla on it. Caterpillas are not part of trees therefore it cannot be a tree.

It's a bad analogy, but I am tired. I hope you get my drift.

Best wishes,

Nicholas

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