Unification of Mankind: Baha'i

(The author is a junior living in Lowell House. She is a member of the Baha'i Faith and secretary of the Baha'i Association at Harvard and Radcliffe.)

"...Yes, a new voice calling. You can hear it if you try.

And it's growing stronger, every day that passes by.

There's a brand new morning rising clear and sweet and free.

There's a new day dawning that belongs to you and me.

There's a new world coming, the one we've had visions of.

Coming in peace, coming in joy, coming in love." --Mama Cass

The Baha'i Faith began 128 years ago in Iran when a young Persian, called the Bab proclaimed that his mission was to herald the coming of one whose advent would fulfill the prophecies of all the great religions and usher in a new age. The Muslim clergy looked upon the Bab and his growing body of followers as heretics and began to persecute them; within six years, thousands of the Bab's followers had been killed and the Bab himself was martyred in public in 1850.

Among the followers of the Bab was the son of a government minister, Mirza Husayn 'Ali. He became the Bab's staunchest adherent and was subsequently imprisoned. Exiled from Persia, he announced in Baghdad in 1863 that he was the one foretold by the Bab. He was called Baha'u'llah, meaning, the "Glory of God"; most of the Bab's known as Baha'is. Further exile took Baha'u'llah to Constantinople, Adrianople, and finally to the Turkish penal colony of Akka (in present day Israel) where he remained a prisoner until his death in 1892.

'Abdul'l-Baha, the son of Baha'u'llah, shared his father's exile and imprisonment but was finally released in 1908. During 1911-12, he traveled throughout Europe and across America, proclaiming the message of Baha'u'llah and elucidating its fundamental principles, a task which had been assigned to him alone in Baha'u'llah's will. One of the points stressed many times in his talks in America was that the black race and the American Indians would eventually arise to become the spiritual leaders of America. The "most challenging issue" facing America, he said, was that of racial unity. "If this matter remaineth without change, enmity will be increased day by day, and the final result will be hardship and may end in bloodshed."

Baha'u'llah claims--and Baha'is believe--that he is the Messenger or Prophet of God for this age. The Essence of God is unknowable, but his will is made known periodically through his chosen "Manifestations". Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, Muhammad, The Bab, and Baha'u'llah are the ones most known about in history. Baha'u'llah also claims to be the Promised One, fulfilling the prophecy of all past religions and inaugurating a new era of civilization concerned with developing mankind to spiritual maturity. In a thousand years, according to his writings, there will be another Manifestation.

Since the time of Baha'u'llah, the Baha'i Faith has spread over the globe. In the United States, the name of Baha'u'llah was first mentioned in Chicago in 1893. The first Baha'i group was formed there in 1894. Today the national center is in Wilmette, Illinois; there stands the only American Baha'i House of Worship, dedicated to the oneness of mankind, and open to all.

People hear about the Baha'i Faith in many different ways. One way that a person can investigate it is by attending "firesides"--informal gatherings held by Baha'is wherever they live. In this area, for example, firesides are held each week in Cambridge, Boston, Somerville, Brookline, and in many surrounding towns. A short talk by a Baha'i is always followed by informal discussions, sometimes lasting well into the night.

The Baha'is in this area come from many different backgrounds. Some were Protestants or Catholics; others were Jews, Hindus, or Muslims. There are high school and college students, housewives, retired people, and many who work at a variety of jobs, professional and non-professional; there is a lady in Cambridge who knew 'Abdu'l-Baha when he came to this country. Some come originally from other parts of the United States or the world--Iran, India, Thailand, and Samoa. Many of them were Baha'is in their native countries but a few first heard about the faith when they came to this country.

The differences among the Baha'is here reflect the growing diversity of the faith on a national and world level. In recent years, rapid expansion has occurred in many parts of the world. The United States community has doubled itself in the last year; this growth has come significantly among youth and among numerous minorities, including blacks, Chicanos and American Indians.

Baha'i teachings rest on a foundation of unity: the oneness of God, though He is called by many names, and the essential unity of all religions. Baha'u'llah wrote: "All the Prophets of God abide in the same tabernacle, soar in the same heaven, are seated upon the same throne, utter the same speech, and proclaim the same Faith." The animating purpose of all the original teachings as they were lived and ennunciated by the Prophets was to promote the unity, harmony, and understanding oF mankind. To this end, all the Messages contain both spiritual and social parts. According to Baha'u'llah, the spiritual principles and laws are eternal and progressively unfolded; the social laws are changed according to the capacities and needs of mankind in that age. For example, our knowledge of the spiritual reality of man has evolved continuously, but the social laws applying to the unity of the Israelites at the time of Moses were replaced by new ones directed toward the unity of many tribes at the time of Muhammad.

During Baha'u'llah's forty years' imprisonment, he wrote over a hundred volumes and tablets setting forth his spiritual and social teachings. These included tablets sent to the principle political and ecclesiastical rulers of the time: Queen Victoria, Napoleon III, Kaiser Wilhelm I, Czar Alexander II, Kaiser Francis Joseph of Austria, President Grant, Pope Pius IX, Sultan 'Abdu'l-Aziz of Turkey, and Nasir'd-Din Shah of Iran. In these letters, he proclaimed the coming of a new Manifestation of God and exhorted them to lay down their arms and take hold of that which would be conducive to the unity of mankind. Some were warned of impending convulsions in the lands they ruled.

Above all, he urged them to investigate his claims and writings for themselves. A fundamental principle of the Baha'i Faith is the independent search for truth, unfettered by tradition or superstition. There are no clergy in the Faith; implicit is the principle that all of humanity must be given the power of literacy and the gift of further education.

Many of the cardinal social principles of Baha'u'llah's teachings are astonishingly familiar to 20th century man. To facilitate the establishment of unity, prejudices of any kind must be abolished, beginning with a change in the thoughts and actions of the individual. True science and true religion are identified as being in essential harmony. The equality of men and women is enjoined. Other social teachings include the adoption of a universal auxiliary language, the solution to economic problems through a fundamental change in individual attitudes regarding material life, the abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty, the exaltation of work (performed in the spirit of service to humanity) to the rank of worship, and the establishment of a world tribunal to settle disputes between nations.

But these solutions to the problems of division in political, social, economic, and religious realms rest on a fundamental re-ordering of individual human life. All the writings of Baha'u'llah are directed toward raising the sights and standards of men to new levels of wisdom and understanding.

In order to channel the new energies and apply his social teachings, an administrative order has been created by Baha'u'llah. It is unique in human history, providing for governing institutions on a local, national, and international level. In essence he wrote the constitution for a new political system which is being raised by the Baha'is in each of the 317 nations and territories where they now reside. The legitimacy and authority of this new system rest upon his words.

The world center of this new order is on Mt. Carmel in Haifa, Israel, as designated by Baha'u'llah himself. It is the seat of the supreme administrative body, the Universal House of Justice, whose nine members are elected without nominations and by secret ballot by delegates from the entire Baha'i world. Similar institutions exist on a national level in some 101 countries and territories and on a local level in thousands of communities, including Cambridge. Baha'is believe that as present-day institutions prove to be outgrown by man's evolving needs and crumble of their own unbalanced weight, these new institutions of a divinely revealed order will form the pattern for the unification of the planet.

The Baha'i writings describe the era in which we live as an age of transition. Numerous crises are now accompanying the change and will continue to do so, as mankind struggles towards its own unification. The great grandson of Baha'u'llah once wrote: "Leaders of religion, exponents of political theories, governors of human institutions, who at present are witnessing with perplexity and dismay the bankruptcy of their ideas, and the disintegration of their handiwork, would do well to turn their gaze to the revelation of Baha'u'llah, and to meditate upon the World Order which, lying enshrined in his teachings, is slowly and imperceptibly rising amidst the welter and chaos of present-day civilization."