Baha'ism

Beliefs

Progressive Revelation

Because God’s manifestations are essentially one – despite their outward, physical distinctions – they form part of a grand plan of progressive revelation. This is essentially the same as the Islamic concept of the oneness of religion, except that Baha’is do not finish the line of prophetic revelation with the Prophet Muhammad.28 Each manifestation brought his own book and had his own mission. Each brought laws suitable to the age in which he lived but also taught an eternal unchanging message of belief in God.29 Just as there were manifestations in the past, there will be more in the future who will bring teachings appropriate for future civilisations, however Baha’ Allah specifically stated in al-Kitab al-Aqdas that there will be no manifestation for at least one thousand years.30

According to Baha’i belief, each manifestation has also spurred on the civilisational development of humanity, from family, tribe, nation-state and now consciousness of the oneness of humanity: the special mission of Baha’ Allah. He wrote: “all men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.”31 This has meant Baha’is view the missions of Jesus and Muhammad as steps in a gradually unfolding plan.

In particular, the Prophet Muhammad is viewed as the “builder of nations”. Shoghi Effendi wrote:

The Faith of Islam, the succeeding link in the chain of Divine Revelation, introduced, as Bahá’u’lláh Himself testifies, the conception of the nation as a unit and a vital stage in the organization of human society, and embodied it in its teaching. … This principle was established and stressed by the Apostle of God, inasmuch as the evolution of human society required it at that time. Nor could any stage above and beyond it have been envisaged, as world conditions preliminary to the establishment of a superior form of organization were as yet unobtainable. The conception of nationality, the attainment to the state of nationhood, may, therefore, be said to be the distinguishing characteristics of the Muhammadan Dispensation…32

Needless to say, this is not how Muhammad or his followers have viewed the course of Islam. The Qur’an refers to the message of Muhammad belonging to humanity and the community of believers (who even at the time of Muhammad came from different tribes, races and countries) as one ummah.33 At the height of the Islamic empire, the faith spread across three continents, Arabic was the lingua franca of the day and a single dinar could be used all the way from Spain to China. The Islamic empire truly was a world civilization, not merely a ‘nation’. Of course all new faiths revise and revision perceptions of older religions: Christianity sees Judaism as the preparation ground for the coming of Jesus Christ and Islam remodels the Christian messiah by denying his divinity or death by crucifixion. In the case of the Baha’is, the role and scope of Islam is downsized to give room for Baha’ Allah’s message of world governance as the height of civilisational evolution.

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References

28Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán 213.

29Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi, (Wilmette, Illinois: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1952) 74.

30Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1992) 32. One of the arguments put forward by Baha’is against Muslim claims of the finality of the Islamic message is that the concept withholds God’s continuing grace from humanity. However, this very same argument could be turned around and applied to Baha’ Allah’s assertion that there would be no revelatory guidance from God for a thousand years: namely that this concept withholds God’s continuing grace for a thousand years. The Baha’i response to the argument ironically is exactly the same as the Islamic response, namely that the last revelation provided by God is designed to nourish humanity for the rest of the relevant time period (until the Day of Judgement for Muslims, and for the next thousand years for Baha’is) and does not withhold His grace despite the ‘lack’ of further prophets or messengers.

31Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh 214.

32Effendi, Shoghi, The Promised Day is Come (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1980) 120.

33See Qur’an 4:79; 7:158; 5:48.

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