Being Human Book

i
Being
Human
Being Human FM_X-Final.indd 1 10/3/19 12:08 PM

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Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’í Religions

Anthony A. Lee, General Editor
Studies in Bábí and Bahá’í History, Volume One,

edited by Moojan Momen (1982).
From Iran East and West, Volume Two, edited by Juan R. Cole and
Moojan Momen (1984).
In Iran, Volume Three, edited by Peter Smith (1986).
Music, Devotions and Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, Volume Four,
by R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram (1987).
Studies in Honor of the Late H. M. Balyuzi, Volume Five,
edited by Moojan Momen (1989).
Community Histories, Volume Six,
edited by Richard Hollinger (1992).
Symbol and Secret: Qur’an Commentary in Bahá’u’lláh’s Kitáb-i
Íqán, Volume Seven, by Christopher Buck (1995).
Revisioning the Sacred: New Perspectives on Bahá’í Theology,
Volume Eight, edited by Jack McLean (1997).
Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha’i Faith
in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East, distributed as Volume
Nineteen, by Juan R. I. Cole, Columbia University Press (1999).
Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the
Bahá’í Faith, distributed as Volume Ten, by Christopher Buck, State
University of New York Press (1999).
Religion in Iran: From Zoroaster to Bahá’u’lláh, distributed as
Volume Eleven, by Alessandro Bausani,
Bibliotheca Persica Press (2000).
Evolution and Bahá’í Belief: ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Response to Nineteenth-
Century Darwinism, Volume Twelve, edited by Keven Brown (2001).
Reason and Revelation: New Directions in Bahá’í Thought, Volume
Thirteen, edited by Seena Fazel and John Danesh (2002).
Bahá’ís in the West, Volume Fourteen, edited by Peter Smith (2004).

iii
Search for Values: Ethics in Bahá’í Thought, Volume Fifteen, edited by

John Danesh and Seena Fazel (2004).
Táhirih in History: Perspectives on Qurratu’l-‘Ayn from East and West,
Volume Sixteen, edited by Sabir Afaqi (2004).
Táhirih: A Portrait in Poetry, Volume Seventeen, trans. and edited by
Amin Banani, Joshua Kessler, and Anthony A. Lee (2004).
Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy, Volume Eighteen,
by Christopher Buck, (2005).
Church and State: A Postmodern Political Theology, Book One,
distributed as Volume Nineteen, by Sen McGlinn, Leiden University
(2005).
Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement, 1844-
1850, Paperback Edition, distributed as Volume Twenty, by Abbas
Amanat, Cornell University Press (2005).
The Baha’i Faith in America, by William Garlington, distributed as
Volume Twenty-One, Praeger Publishers (2005).
Baha’i and Globalization, distributed as Volume Twenty-Two, edited
by Margit Warburg, et al., Aarhus University Press (2005).
The Baha’i Faith in Africa: Establishing a New Religious Movement,
1952-1962, by Anthony A. Lee, Brill (2011).
Religion and Relevance: The Bahá’ís in Britain, 1899-1930, Volume
Twenty-Four, by Lil Osborn, (2014).

iv The Centre of the Baha’i Covenant
‘Abdu’l-Baha, “Servant of the Glory,” son of the founder of the Baha’i Faith, Baha’u’llah
‘Abdu’l-Baha (Servant of the Glory), 1844–1921
(d.1892), and its leader — “Center of the Covenant” — from 1892 until his death in 1921.
This portrait wasthe
the son of madefounder ofhistoric
during his the Baha’i
visit to Faith, Baha’u’llah
North America (1817–1892)
(April to December 1912)
after release from prison in Ottoman Palestine by the Young Turks. (Jacob Schloss Studio,
Head of the Baha’i Faith and known as the “Center of the Covenant” from 1892
New York, 2 December 1912. First published in Star of the West, 10, no. 9 (20 August 1919).)
until his passing in 1921. This portrait was made during his historic visit to
North America (April to December 1912) after His release from prison in
Ottoman Palestine by the Young Turks. (Jacob Schloss Studio, New York,
2 December 1912. First published in Star of the West, 10:9 (20 August 1919).

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Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’í Religions

Volume Twenty-Five
Being
Human
Baha’i Perspectives on
Islam, Modernity and Peace
Todd Lawson
Emeritus Professor of Islamic Thought
University of Toronto
Kalimat Press
Los Angeles

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Copyright © 2020 by Todd Lawson
All Rights Reserved
Kalimát Press
1600 Sawtelle Boulevard
Suite 310
Los Angeles, CA 90025
www.kalimat.com
orders@kalimat.com
Editorial : member1700@gmail.com
Library of Congress
Cataloguing in Publication Data on file
ISBN 978-0-578-22546-3
Photographs and drawings:

Cover, SOJOURN © 2019 by Lorraine Pritchard
Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36”. Photo of painting by Guy L’Heureux
Frontispiece, Abdu’l-Baha in New York City, courtesy of
the National Baha’i Archives, United States.
P. 10, Joseph sold by his brothers into Egypt. Illustration by Gustave Doré.
P. 36, ‘Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i, 1753-1826
founder of the Shaykhiyya school
P. 54, Ahmad-i Yazdi, to whom the Tablet of Ahmad was addressed
P. 106, The preamble and first five Hidden Words in Arabic

vii
In Remembrance
UDO SCHAEFER
1926-2019
Preeminent Baha’i scholar and dear friend

viii
The paths to Truth are as numerous as the breaths of the creatures.

– The Báb

ix
Contents
Note on Style xi
Preface xiii
Introduction
The Baha’i Faith: From Heresy to World Religion 1
Chapter One
The Return of Joseph and the Peaceable Imagination 11
The return of Joseph 20
The Tablet of the True Seeker 25
Conclusion 31
Chapter Two
Being Human: From Shaykh Ahmad to Baha’u’llah 37
Humanism in the Qur’an and in Islam 38
Humanism in Classical Shi‘ism 41
Shaykhiyya and Theomorphic Humanism 42
The Bab’s Humanism 46
Being Human 52
Man is the Supreme Talisman 53
Chapter Three
Seeing Double: The Covenant and the Tablet of Ahmad 55
Covenant in Islam 58
Covenant in the Baha’i Faith 66
Covenant in the Tablet of Ahmad 69
The Tree of Eternity 70
The Tree in the Qur’an 73
Rejection of Baha’u’llah is rejection of all Messengers 77
Day of Resurrection (yawm al-qiyama) 77
Thus doth the Nightingale utter his call unto you 80
The path to his Lord 81
Signs 82

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Service in both worlds (ath-thaqalan) 85

Reading as Sacrament 90
Amphiboly 94
Nightingale of Paradise singeth upon the twigs
of the Tree of Eternity 98
Conclusion 100
The Tablet of Ahmad 103
Chapter Four
Globalization and the Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah 107
From Tehran to Baghdad 107
The Enchantment of Globalization 108
Enchanted Ontology 101
The Hidden Words 114
Acknowledgments/Postscript 121
Notes 123
Glossary 149
Bibliography 157

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Note on Style
T ransliteration of Arabic and Persian terms has been kept to a

minimum. There are very few accents or macrons. A Glossary
has been provided to clarify ambiguities. In general, those who
understand and read correctly accents in transliterated words
do not really need them. Those who do not understand them or
read them correctly will not benefit by their use. Those words that
appear Anglicised in English dictionarys bear no transliteration
at all. Others are italicised. The sign for the ‘ayn is ‘; the sign for
hamza is ’. Underdots are not used. Baha’i names and terms are
presented without transliteration. Thus, Iqan, not Kitáb-i-Íqán.
Capitalization has been kept to a minimum. All references in the
Endnotes are kept to a minimum: last name of author, short title
of work referred to, page number. In the case of a multi-volume
work, the volume number followed by a colon precedes the page
number. Thus Taherzadeh, Revelation, 2:107-36 is a reference to
the second volume of Adib Taherzadeh’s 4-volume The Revelation
of Baha’u’llah, published by George Ronald in Oxford U.K. 1974-
1987. Full bibliographical details for each reference in the Endnotes
may be found in the Bibliography.
References to the Baha’i Writings sometimes give two page
numbers e.g. Gleanings, 215/140. In this case, the first number
refers to the English translation and the second number refers to
the original Arabic or Persian. In some instances slight adjustments
have been made to the standard translation, affecting capitalization
and the use of more archaic diction to conform to the editorial style
familiar to a broad readership. Qur’an references in the text appear
as Q2:34, in the Notes as Qur’an 2:34.
xi

xii Note on Style
Works of Bahai Scripture in book form are not in italics in
keeping with convention, e.g. The Bible, Baghdvad Gita, Qur’an.
Thus: Aqdas, Gleanings, Iqan, Hidden Words all remain unitalicised
in the text, the notes and the bibliography. When these titles appear
in Arabic or Persian transliteration, however, they are italicised.
Articles by me on which the chapters of this book are based are re-
produce here in slightly revised form by permission of the original
publishers.
Baha’i religious history, in JRH: Baha’i history special issue, guest

editor Todd Lawson, 36.4 (2012), 463-470.
The Bahá’i tradition: The return of Joseph and the peaceable imag-
ination, in J. Renard, ed., Fighting words: Religion, violence,
and the interpretation of sacred texts, Berkeley 2012, 135–57.
Being human: The Shaykhiyya, in BSR 18 (2012), 83-94. Reprinted
(and slightly revised) from Baha’i Studies Review, Volume
i8 (2012) © Intellect Ltd. doi: io.1386/bsr.18.83/1
Seeing double: The covenant and the Tablet of Ahmad, in M.
Momen, ed., The Bahai faith and the world religions, Oxford
2003, 39–87.
Globalisation and The Hidden Words, in M. Warburg, A.
Hvithamar, and M. Warmind, eds., Baha’i and globalisation,
Aarhus 2005, 32–49.

xiii
Preface
T here are many ways of being human. This is one of the

insights that education, formal or informal, brings. The
Baha’i teachings insist that such a realization is enlightenment, an
enlightenment that, sadly, remains to be fully digested, assimilated,
institutionalized, and realized in the world. From this perspective,
the history of religion represents precisely the various ways of being
human that have prevailed and either vanished or endured, over
time. In this way, the history of humanity is punctuated by the ap-
pearance of “new” religions. The Baha’i view is that each of these re-
ligions (a troublesome term, granted) articulates and fosters unities
of ever-increasing complexity. The challenge and promise for today
is the realization of the biological, physical, and spiritual kinship of
all humans across the globe. Attunement to this challenge and this
promise represents, in turn, yet another way of being human. There
are no chosen people. Humanity has been chosen to carry forward
“an ever-advancing civilization” in which the markers of civilized
society are largely spiritual, as distinct from but not exclusive of
so-called material civilization.
The articles revised and gathered here as chapters were written
over the last twenty-five years. All have as their common theme the
growth and development of the Baha’i Faith from its parent reli-
gion, Islam, and its profound and enduring kinship with Islam—a
kinship that continues to characterize Baha’i faith, practice, and
thought. According to Baha’i belief, had there been no Islam there
would have been no Baha’i Faith. The basic teachings of Islam are
xiii

xiv Preface
identical with those of the Baha’i religion: One God, One Humanity,
One Religion. The Baha’i Faith owes a great debt to Islam and its
Prophet, Muhammad—upon whom be God’s blessing and peace.
Baha’is, and the whole world, are indebted, as well, to those count-
less devout, exemplary Muslims who sought to embody and perfect
the life-affirming and civilizing teachings of Islam in their persons,
families and societies, whether through individual “anonymous”
piety—or more publicly as administrators, teachers, scholars, and
intellectuals whose work has left a lasting contribution to the ad-
vancement of civilization on the planet and the history of human
achievement. This is especially but certainly not exclusively true of
the Islam which had developed at the time and in the place of the
birth of the Baha’i religion.
According to Baha’i teaching, the Baha’i era or cycle began
with the Bab, Sayyid ‘Ali-Muhammad Shirazi (1819-1850), who
as a young Shi‘i Muslim felt within himself the stirrings of a new
consciousness and a new historical epoch. As the Guardian of the
Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi Rabbani (1897-1957), has emphasized,
it is important to recognize that the Faith must certainly be seen
as an independent world religion rather than as a sect of Islam.
Simultaneously, he insisted that its Islamic “source and background”
must be studied, valued and, indeed, celebrated. This, if we are to
understand more perfectly the vision of Baha’u’llah (1817-1892)
of a united world for which the statement “Ye are all the fruits of
one tree and the leaves of one branch” may become a social and
historical reality beyond its truth as a timeless spiritual reality and
desideratum. As early as 1938, the Guardian instructed the Baha’is
as follows,
They must strive to obtain, from sources that are authoritative

and unbiased, a sound knowledge of the history and tenets of
Islám—the source and background of their Faith—and ap-
proach reverently and with a mind purged from preconceived
ideas the study of the Qur’án which, apart from the sacred
scriptures of the Bábí and Bahá’í Revelations, constitutes the
only Book which can be regarded as an absolutely authenticated

Preface xv
Repository of the Word of God. They must devote special atten-
tion to the investigation of those institutions and circumstances
that are directly connected with the origin and birth of their
Faith, with the station claimed by its Forerunner [the Bab],
and with the laws revealed by its Author [Baha’u’llah]. (Shoghi
Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, 49.)
The kinship between the Baha’i Faith and its parent religion, Islam,
is much like the kinship of the child with its parents. Perhaps this
is why the story of Joseph looms so large in Baha’i thought. As it
happens, the birth of the Baha’i era occurred when the Bab com-
posed a commentary on the Qur’an’s Chapter (or Sura) of Joseph.
Briefly, the Sura of Joseph, widely considered the most beautiful
of the Qur’an’s 114 chapters, recounts the epic heroism of Joseph,
a prophet and messenger of God according to Islam and a divine
manifestation according to the Baha’i Faith. On this epic path
Joseph’s journey, struggle and ultimate establishment of peace is
bestrewn with betrayal, exile, what would today be seen as racial
and cultural prejudice and discrimination, and heartbreak, through
which the ultimate peaceful reunion of Joseph with his original
family is firmly established and “Israel” rescued from disintegra-
tion. The key element in re-establishing and indeed illuminating
the original unity is, at bottom, an act of the spiritual imagination
which refuses to succumb to the temptation of revenge for betrayal,
jealousy and hatred—offering, instead, patience, love, generosity,
and forgiveness. Such besepeaks what the Bible refers to as “iron
in the soul” to distinguish it from the iron for instruments of war.
Though Joseph stolen away from his father Jacob, his mother Rachel,
and his mainly perfidious brothers, and though he spends most of
his life in forlorn and painful separation from his beloved father,
the powerful message of the Qur’anic telling of the story is that the
eventual reunion with his parents and his brothers in forgiveness,
gratitude, and recognition of the deep kinship that they all share is
the result of spiritual knowledge revealed by God to Joseph.
Today, in a sense, the Baha’i Faith sees its message as a Josephian
call that has the power to reunite a fractured and riven humanity

xvi Preface
in peace, mutual love and respect. Reunite because the Baha’i Faith,
like Islam, holds that there was a time and a place in a spiritual
realm beyond time and place when all humanity was united in the
presence of God. This was the Day of the Covenant mentioned in
the Qur’an (Q7:172), observed as an annual holy day by Baha’is
and many times referred to in the pages that follow. This powerful
mythic image insists that however much skeptics and other “rea-
sonable people” may chortle and cavil that such unity and harmony
is impossible—not to say foolish merely to contemplate—if it can
take place in the mind and the soul then it can happen in what the
uninitiated refer to as “reality.”
The book opens with a brief Introduction which speaks in broad
terms about the Baha’i debt to Islamic religious and intellectual cul-
ture, including the Baha’i elaboration of what might be considered
an originally Qur’anic outline of “progressive revelation.” Chapter
1, “The Return of Joseph,” focuses on the holy figure of Joseph
who, as a Divine Manifestation (mazhar ilahi), belongs as much to
the process of progressive revelation as any other. And, given the
particular challenges facing humanity today, belongs there more
than most as a shining exemplar of patience and divinely inspired
refusal to engage in conflict in the service of his message. Again,
the Josephian message is one of forgiveness and reconciliation.
The emphasis on this in the Writings of the Bab and Baha’u’llah
would have had a great impact on their respective audiences who
were suffering spiritually and culturally for reasons analagous to
those behind the suffering Joseph and his family. Exhausted by the
debilitations brought on by mutual animosity and hatred flaring up
with dismal regularity between Shi‘i and Sunni Muslims, they were
all, in Josephian terms, estranged brothers. The message here is one
of hope, love, and future. Its saliency, urgency, and healing potential
would not have been lost on that early audience of the founders of
the Baha’i Faith. Rather, it was this hope-filled message that inspired
them to those dramatic and powerful acts of heroism, even unto
martyrdom, that fill the pages of Baha’i history.
Chapter 2, “Being Human,” is a brief discussion of the unlimited
potential of human beings, and the inexhaustible spiritual resources

Preface xvii
for human development and education, identified and cultivated by

Islam. This lofty vision of the nobility of the human being (there
is in Islam, for example, no such thing as original sin) is carried
forward, elaborated, and universalized in the Baha’i message. This
chapter locates a particular concern with this teaching in the writ-
ings of Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa’i and Sayyid Kazim Rashti who are
understood by Baha’is as two forerunners of the Baha’i revelation.
It is argued that such a noble and demanding view of the human
being is at the heart of Baha’i humanism. Such humanism, deeply
dependent upon the absolute unknowability of God, is also at the
heart of the central Baha’i teaching that religious truth is relative
and not absolute. The Baha’i Faith, in a magnanimous philosophical
gesture, foretells its own obsolescence as a necessary process in the
ever-expanding growth of human potential, social or individual.
Chapter 3, “Seeing Double,” focuses on the importance of the
mythic and highly creative theme of the above-mentioned covenant
and its centrality in Islam and in the Baha’i Faith through a study
of one of Baha’u’llah’s most important and best-loved prayers, the
Tablet of Ahmad. Such an exploration discloses the eternal and
intimate connection between the Baha’i Faith and Islam. It also
highlights the power inherent in the spiritual or existential concept
of the covenant, especially the primordial one referred to in the
Qur’an in the Sura 7, “The Heights,” at verse 172. Here is where the
vision of the spiritually timeless and peaceful unity of humanity is
presented as an ideal as the scene of the birth of both history and
consciousness.
Chapter 4, “Globalization and The Hidden Words,” is a detailed
look at the mystical content of one of Baha’u’llah’s most beautiful
compositions, The Hidden Words. By showing the way in which
The Hidden Words is in loving, respectful, and generative conver-
sation with Islamic sacred sources, the analogy of Joseph’s reunion
with his father Jacob may once again be seen to arise. In this case,
the father is represented by the sacred words of Islamic tradition
(hadith) and Qur’anic allusions, while the son is represented by
the new interpretation that comes about through those earlier
words being contemplated and reconstrued through the mind of

xviii Preface
Baha’u’llah. The “reunion” is illuminating, inspiring, and full of

hope and possibility for a community and individuals beset by
the hellish conditions of contemporary life. The Hidden Words,
especially through their translation into countless languages, cir-
culates the distinctive energy of an originally Islamic spirituality to
a hitherto unsuspecting and spiritually deprived readership. In the
process, this spirituality may be thought of as having adapted to the
universal needs of a new historic cycle of human creativity beyond
the expectations and imaginative horizons of an original Islamicate
audience.
With the mention of “historic cycle,” the topic of what is fre-
quently called “modernity” arises. Any Baha’i philosophy of history
and attendant theory of modernity is deeply connected with the
distinctive Baha’i idea of progressive revelation. A new divine rev-
elation, entrusted to a prophetic figure, is seen to arise periodically,
rendering the past problematic, giving hope to those who had none
or who had been deprived of it by their society, charting a new course
to a new future and refining what it means to be human through
new expectations and responsibilities for the individual and society.
The transition or transformation demanded by such an event is
rarely smooth or without resistance, whether at the individual or
community levels. Thus, the Baha’i Faith is, in addition to being a
vision of and prescription for the good life, also offers an outline for
a philosophy of history and especially the process or processes of
modernity. The nature of modernity makes it difficult sometimes to
speak of progress. However, the Baha’i Faith is confident that prog-
ress, (Arabic islah: improvement, reformation, to make wholesome,
peaceful) does occur. Today, modernity speaks not necessarily of the
soul but of the “self ” as the gravitational center of consciousness and
being. However, the word for self and the word for soul in Arabic, in
Islam, and in the Baha’i Faith is the same: nafs. This word, with all of
the descriptive and therapeutic insights it generates, comes from the
Qur’an. Of the countless passages which mention the soul, none is
more instructive or characteristic than Qur’an 51:43 which may be
thought a concise blueprint for a Quranic theory of consciousness,
perception, and cognition. The centerpiece of this verse is not the

Preface xix
soul or the self but rather the divine sign, the basic unit of true
knowledge. The Arabic word is aya. This theory says that while God
is infinitely and eternally unknowable, the universe is nonetheless
actually composed of divine signs which are readable by human
beings and which indicate and relay knowledge of the Transcendent.
The verse in question runs as follows:
We will show them Our signs in the outer world and in their own
souls so that they will know this is the Truth.
It should be remembered that the word for sign, aya, is also the
word for the basic unit of scriptural knowledge, the Qur’anic verse.
Thus we have here a sign speaking about the nature and function
of signs—all traces and glimmerings of the divine—that are to be
contemplated in the cosmos and the soul. Through such contem-
plation, the formerly “material” world is revealed as a holy land
by virtue of being drawn through the sensorium of the human
soul in the act of perception, whether individual or communal,
a soul formed of divine signs. A divinized and divinizing human
consciousness is a process begun in the spiritual realm. Baha’u’llah,
in his Long Healing Prayer speaks of the primordial Day of the
Covenant mentioned above. Even though to all appearances, it was
those numberless essences of all souls who would ever exist that
responded “Yea, verily!” to God’s question “Am I not your Lord?”,
in reality it was the voice of the otherwise unknowable God who,
through compassion and grace, spoke the all-important response
through a spiritually enlivened humanity.
Sanctified art Thou, O my God! I beseech Thee by Thy generos-

ity, whereby the portals of Thy bounty and grace were opened
wide, whereby the Temple of Thy Holiness was established
upon the throne of eternity; and by Thy mercy whereby Thou
didst invite all created things unto the table of Thy bounties and
bestowals; and by Thy grace whereby Thou didst respond, in
Thine own Self with Thy word “Yea!” on behalf of all in heaven
and earth, at the hour when Thy sovereignty and Thy grandeur

xx Preface
stood revealed, at the dawn-time when the might of Thy do-

minion was made manifest. (Bahá’í Prayers, 98)
The idea of cycles arises in the Baha’i Writings especially when

speaking about the connection between Islam and the Baha’i Faith.
Baha’u’llah refers to Muhammad as “the Seal of the Prophets” be-
cause his message is understood as the last and most complete one
prophesying, not the end of the world, but rather the end of a period
or cycle of preparation for the eventual and complete unifcation of
humanity: the end of a world and the beginning of new cycle of ful-
fillment. The term anticipates in some ways what would eventually
become identified, in a quite different cultural setting, with the ideas
of modernity, modernism, and “the modern.”
Just as there are many ways of being human, there have been
many ways of speaking about the types of social and cultural trans-
formations that the sometimes inadequate notion of modernity
seeks to track. The Baha’i teachings insist that these changes and
the ensuing relationship between what is deemed modern and
what is deemed traditional may be understood through the lens of
religious history. Each new religion or revelation is seen as having
challenged the status quo of its audience and rendered familiar
and cherished tradition and “orthodoxy” highly problematic. The
Baha’i teachings resonate quite harmoniously with the truism that
every great idea or movement began life as heresy. Again, what
Baha’is call progressive revelation may be thought an outline for
a theory of modernity. In this theory, the entire world is destined
to be recognized as a shared holy land through the distinctive
processes of revelation and the working out of the divine/human
relationship envisioned by Baha’i teachings. Paradoxically, this the-
ory says that the more human (as distinct from natural) the world
becomes, the more divine it will be. As for nature, while not to be
dismissed or abused, its deepest significance is as a metaphorical
shrine, if you will, for those divine signs that circulate through
it. Nature in itself is brutal, dumb, and frequently violent. As one
celebrated and perspicacious reader of signs, Northrop Frye, has
so powerfully observed,

Preface xxi
[H]umanity’s primary duty is not to be natural but to be hu-
man. The reason why idolatry is dangerous is that it suggests the
attractiveness and the ease with which we may collapse into the
preconscious state from which we have been trying to emerge. . . .
Nearly all human history shows one society after another sinking
back into the order of nature as thus conceived, setting up regimes
of tyranny and anarchy in which mere survival is all that is left of
human life for the great majority. Human beings get along as best
they can in such a world, but the human spir-it knows that it is
living in hell. (Northrop Frye, The Double Vision, 27.)
Such a concept of the theomorphic human is not new with the Baha’i
teachings. It may be discerned in Attar’s timeless story of that mot-
ley raggle-taggle of birds who set out to find God only to discover
that the ones who persevered were, in the aggregate, the Object of
their own quest. The Baha’i Faith carries this healing and ennobling
message to the entire world, speaks it to a new audience, in the sure
knowledge that this ancient message will cast forth new truths, new
signs of guidance, through what seems, at the moment, a very un-
prepossessing and otherwise unpromising global predicament.
I hope that this book will be of interest to members of the Baha’i
community who contemplate the unique and instructive relation-
ship between their Faith and Islam, especially during these days so
frequently darkened with conflict, savagery, and cruel propaganda
against Islam. I also hope that it will be of interest to professional
scholars interested in the same topic.
A distinctive feature of the Baha’i religion is that it sees itself as
a work in progress. The study of its relationship to Islam is also very
much such a work in progress. However, as the Guardian insisted,
it is not one that Baha’is can afford to ignore. That in a longed-for
reunion, Joseph may be rescued from exile, Jacob recover his son
and his sight, and the human family abide in loving harmony is a
hope shared, surely, by us all.
Todd Lawson
14 September 2019
Montreal

xxii Preface

1
INTRODUCTION
The Baha’i Faith

From Heresy to World Religion1
. . . those momentous happenings which have insensibly, re-

lentlessly, and under the very eyes of successive generations,
perverse, indifferent or hostile, transformed a heterodox and
seemingly negligible offshoot of the Shaykhí school of the
Ithna-‘Asharíyyih sect of Shí‘ah Islám into a world religion
whose unnumbered followers are organically and indissolu-
bly united.
–Shoghi Effendi2
[The Baha’is] must strive to obtain, from sources that are au-
thoritative and unbiased, a sound knowledge of the history and
tenets of Islám—the source and background of their Faith—and
approach reverently and with a mind purged from preconceived
ideas the study of the Qur’án . . .
–Shoghi Effendi3
T he Baha’i Faith is heir to the distinctive Abrahamic cluster

of myths and religious grammars or styles of piety so famil-
iar to scholars and students of religion. This inheritance has a
pronounced Islamicate tonality because of the time and place in
Being Human_Introduction-Final.indd 1 10/3/19 11:51 AM

2 Being Human
which the Baha’i Faith arose as an identifiably Iranian version of the
venerable Abrahamic religious spirit. Of course, this means that it
also displays certain features suggestive of more purely Iranian re-
ligious phenomena, such as Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism. The
earliest extended doctrinal work by the founder of the Baha’i Faith,
Baha’u’llah, is a commentary on the Qur’an and Hadith having to
do with the end of time and the return of the Hidden Imam of Shi‘i
Islam. Perhaps the single most striking and defining element of the
Baha’i Faith, and its precursor, the Babi religion, is the conviction
that God has spoken to the world again—and will continue to
speak to the world as long as it lasts—through a specifically chosen
individual, just as he had spoken to the world in the past, through
Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, to name only three. Such a prophetic
history—what Baha’is term “progressive revelation”—is also Islamic
in form. However, by going beyond the confines of usual Islamic
belief, which states that there will be no prophets after Muhammad,
the Baha’i Faith casts itself in the unique and problematic position
of being inherently Islamic in structure while being beyond the pale
of Islam in actuality. So a question could arise: Is the Baha’i Faith
a legitimate or an illegitimate heir to Islamicate Abrahamic ethical
monotheism?
The record of the lives of prophets and their claims and com-
munities found in the Qur’an is considered divine revelation by
Baha’is for whom the most recent recipient of the revelation bears
the title Baha’u’llah, an Arabic combination of two words. The first
one, baha, means splendor or glory; the second is the usual word for
God, Allah, slightly transformed here, due to the laws of grammat-
ical liaison, into the above ligature which then may be translated as
“the Splendor of God” or “the Glory of God.” The semantic sub-
strate need not detain us, except to notice that in the extra-Qur’anic
Arabic word baha we should also hear references to beauty, light,
and precious treasure. We should understand thereby that, through
the linguistic algebra inherent in the poetics of the epithet, it also
connotes knowledge and wisdom of the highest value. The religious
teachings, books, doctrines, and institutions identified with this
name date from after 1853. However, the Baha’i era or cycle of

The Baha’i Faith: From Heresey to World Religion 3
history—an elemental feature of what may be thought of as a Baha’i

philosophy of history or Heilsgeschichte—is held to have begun on
22 May 1844, when a young merchant laid claim to direct contact
with the Hidden Imam of Ithna-‘Ashari (i.e., Twelver) Shi‘ism. This
young man, who is most widely known today as “the Bab” (Arabic:
gate or door), was the founder of a short-lived religion whose chief
purpose, Baha’is believe, was to prepare the way for the coming of
Baha’u’llah. However, Baha’is also recognize that the religion of
the Bab was a distinct, freestanding system of beliefs and values
articulated in the specially charged atmosphere of Shi‘i messianic
expectation.
The Twelfth or Hidden Imam of the Shi‘a had gone into oc-
cultation (into hiding) a thousand years earlier, according to Shi‘i
tradition. A large part of Twelver Shi‘i piety, belief, and practice
developed around the religious problems connected with the
identification and validation of true spiritual (and, as it happens,
temporal) authority in the absence of the leader whose return is ex-
pected to inaugurate that glad day when injustice will be changed to
justice throughout the world. During the first half of the nineteenth
century, Shi‘i messianic expectation ran very high, particularly in
Iran. The success of the Bab’s claims to be simultaneously the repre-
sentative of the Hidden Imam and the return of the Imam himself,
was due in part to the intensity of this expectation. The expectation
had acquired a unique technical and discursive language in the
writings of a particular sect of Twelver Shi‘ism, known to history as
the Shaykhiyya or “the Shakyhis.” All of the Bab’s earliest disciples
and followers were either Shaykhis, or were sympathetic to their
philosophical and rationally based discussions of the otherwise
supra-rational tenets of Twelver Shi‘ism. A chief tenet was, in this
instance, the unnaturally prolonged life of the Hidden Imam from
the year of his disappearance (874 C.E./260 A.H.)—and, for follow-
ers of the Bab, his eventual reappearance or advent (zuhur) in 1844
C.E. or 1260 in the Hijri calendar.
For Baha’is, history has both a horizontal and vertical di-
mension: it is both problem and sacrament. It is through what
the uninitiated call “history” that the will of God becomes more

4 Being Human
accurately known and participated in by humanity. According to
Baha’i teachings, 1844 marks the beginning of a new cycle or era in
this history, one that is destined to be characterized by the spiritual
maturation of the human race (perhaps a variation on the well-
known Islamic mystical doctrine of the “Perfect Man” or “Perfect
Humanity,” al-insan al-kamil).
This is frequently expressed in Baha’i literature with reference
to the fact that the days of prophecy are complete and that we are
now living in the long-awaited days of fulfillment. Muhammad can
therefore retain the title “Seal of the Prophets.” Whereas formerly,
humankind was expected to wait for perfect guidance, Baha’is be-
lieve that this perfect guidance has now come. It remains only for
this guidance to be properly followed, realized, and embodied.
In typical Baha’i discourse, Baha’u’llah is not called a prophet or
a messenger or even an Imam, as one might expect given the Shi‘i
Islamic context of his teachings and his claims. Rather, the operative
term used to describe his status and to indicate the nature of his
religious authority is one taken from the mystico-philosophical
lexicon of Islamic intellectual culture, namely “manifestation of
God,” or more accurately, “divine manifestation” or “manifestation
of divinity” (Arabic: mazhar ilahi). The most proximate source,
apart from the Qur’an and the Hadith, for such terminology and
the style its use would ultimately assume is the characteristic, not to
say poetic, Shi‘i mystical and philosophical theology, developed over
several centuries, to be bequeathed to the Baha’i tradition through
the numerous dense and influential works of the first two masters
of the above-mentioned Shaykhiyya, Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i (d.
1826) and his successor, Sayyid Kazim Rashti (d. 1843 or 1844). To
a greater or lesser degree, this process was heir to the vast “ocean
without shore” of one whom current scholarship has come to re-
gard as possibly the greatest mystic of any tradition, Muhyiddin ibn
al-‘Arabi, Ibn Arabi (d. 1240). Ibn Arabi’s prolific writings, including
his seminal theorizing on the topic of divine manifestation, would
influence all later Islamic spiritual and philosophico-theological
discourse.
The manifestation in question here is, in reality, the place where

something appears, not the thing that appears. A mirror is the place
of manifestation for the reflection we see in it. Because the rela-
tionship between the reflection and its medium is so close—beyond
contiguity, as it were—there is thus frequent confusion about who
is who and what is what. This has been a fecund and generative
trope in Islamicate mystical poetry from the very beginning. Ibn
Arabi’s achievement was to provide conceptual and terminological
tools for a refinement of the discourse, a contribution of the first
water to the ongoing and perhaps impossible task of making love
reasonable.
In the Baha’i writings, those who were formerly known as
prophets and messengers (for instance, all of the twenty-five figures
explicitly named in the Qur’an, from Adam to Muhammad, and,
presumably, the 124,000 others theorized by the extra-Qur’anic
learned tradition) are now best understood as having been divine
manifestations, or places where the divine appeared most perfectly
to the world in their time and place. The number 124,000 may sound
odd: both too precise and not precise enough. It should be remem-
bered, however, that such doctrines were developed at the height of
Islamic cosmopolitanism. During this period, the religious sciences
began consolidating and elaborating the basic religious spirit and
identity indicated in the Qur’an, which insists that historically there
has been no human community without a divine messenger.4 Each
messenger spoke or revealed the will of God in the language of his
(or her) community,5 and the racial, linguistic, and cultural differ-
ences which seem to separate the members of the human family
are, in reality, designed so that all may share the mutually enriching
experience of getting to know one another—not to despise each
other.6
The Baha’i Faith is interesting to historians of religion because it
provides an example of how heresy becomes orthodoxy. It began in
the middle of the nineteenth century in Iran (Persia), emerging from
within the bosom of its parent religion, Ithna-‘Ashari Shi‘ism. Using
terms such as “heresy” and “orthodoxy” in the study of Islam and
its various interpretations is quite problematic and should usually
be avoided. Nevertheless, in the case of the Baha’i Faith, it is useful

6 Being Human
at least to think of its genesis and development within Islam as he-
retical, or at least heterodox. Yet from its very beginning, during the
Babi phase of what is referred to in the literature as the Baha’i era,
it is quite clear that such heresy or heterodoxy was not the function
of a lack of piety and devotion to the central teachings, symbols,
and figures of Islam, especially Shi‘i Islam. It is clear, however, that
from the beginning, the new religion espoused an uncompromising
anti-clericalism (as distinct from, and as opposed to, being anti-Is-
lam), even as many of its strongest intellectuals and preachers had
themselves been qualified at one degree or the other in the Shi‘i
clerical hierarchy. The two most important figures, the actual
founders of the new religious identity, however, were not members
of the priestly class: Sayyid ‘Ali-Muhammad Shirazi (1819–1850),
the Bab, founder of the Babi religion, and Mirza Husayn ‘Ali Nuri
(1817–1892), known chiefly as Baha’u’llah, founder of the Baha’i
Faith.
If the Baha’i Faith is anti-clerical, it is also fully committed to
a notion of religious authority that encompasses both the spiritual
and temporal realms. In the process of articulating the role and na-
ture of such authority, a number of central themes acquire absolute
importance. Not least of such “sacraments,” is history itself, under-
stood as a shared experience through which the particular ethical
monotheism of the Baha’i Faith acquires and produces meaning.
Thus when we speak of “religious history” in connection with the
Baha’i Faith, we are engaged in pleonasm because, in a sense, all
history is religious. As in the Qur’an and Islam, according to Baha’i
teaching, the experience of humanity on earth has been punctuated
over time by the appearance of prophets and messengers, all of
whom are implicated in the primordial divine covenant that the
Qur’an describes as having occurred at a mysterious time and in
a mysterious place before creation.7 In the case of Islam (and the
Baha’i Faith), this myth of the covenant is also a myth of the birth
of consciousness and history. The difference between Islam and the
Baha’i Faith here is quite simple: the latter teaches that two new,
post-Muhammad, divinely guided messengers have appeared with
new revelations and new religious laws, and that such messengers

will continue to appear in future centuries for the purpose of teach-

ing humanity how to carry on an “ever-advancing civilization.”
The Islamic teaching that Muhammad was the Seal of the
Prophets is well known. It is therefore important to point out that
Baha’u’llah himself refers to Muhammad with loving devotion as the
“Seal of the Prophets” and, as far as I know, never assumes for him-
self, the designation “Prophet” (nabi). There are rare appearances of
the word “Messenger” (rasul) in his writings, just as there are very
infrequent occurrences of these words in the writings of the Bab.
These seem to exist to draw attention to the terminological refine-
ment theorized and put forth in the use of “Divine Manifestation,”
the preferred term mentioned above, for the cognate role of one
who receives divine revelation. The basic teachings of the Baha’i
Faith are an insistence on the oneness of humanity, the oneness
of God, and the oneness of religion through a universally appli-
cable historical narrative. Such a preoccupation with unity is also
obviously Islamic. But its centrality now seems to spring from two
sources. The first source is the timeless and eternal metaphysical,
“Abrahamic” oneness familiar to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
and explicated and theorized through, for example, Islamicate
Neoplatonism. The second, perhaps negative, source is a kind of
cultural and existential exhaustion with the disunity and mutual
animosity abroad in the greater Islamic world, especially during the
age of European colonialism and adventure, when the Baha’i Faith
was born. This second source may be compared, metaphorically,
with the Days of Ignorance—al-Jahiliyya—, out of which Islam itself
is seen to have been born. In such an understanding, the disunity
and other depredations besetting the cultural milieu are not seen
as “causes” of the divine teaching of unity. Rather, such disunity
and disarray are seen as providing the “occasion” (sabab) in which
such unity may be distinguished, identified and contemplated more
deeply.
Other central teachings of the Baha’i Faith may have an
Islamicate genesis, such as the commitment to the harmony of
“science and religion,” the primacy of education, the equality of
men and women, the centrality of community life, and so on. For

8 Being Human
the interested reader, there are numerous sources available that
outline the central tenets and history of the Baha’i Faith. The highly
interesting and extremely important problem of the doctrinal
and intellectual genesis of the Baha’i Faith that catapulted it “out
of Islam” may be thought to be one of its central concerns. After
all, each of its most important “theoreticians” was Muslim and its
earliest literature was cast in the form of scriptural, that is Qur’anic,
commentary. There is thus much to attract interested scholars with
the necessary languages (Arabic, Persian, sometimes Turkish) and
specific historical and cultural knowledge.
For whatever reason(s), the Baha’i Faith has not captured the
attention of the academy to the extent one might have predicted
when, at the beginning of the twentieth century, its ideas were em-
braced in the West as not only exotic and refreshing spiritual truth
from the more spiritual and mysterious East, but also remarkably
in tune with the challenges and concerns of contemporary global
society. When ‘Abdu’l-Baha, the eldest son of Baha’u’llah, visited
Europe and North America in 1911, 1912, and 1913, he was given
a reception befitting a true holy man and sage with meetings and
audiences in churches, synagogues, and lecture halls all along his
highly publicized itinerary. His central concern, on the eve of World
War I, was peace. His central conviction was that peace is impossi-
ble without social and religious harmony. This became the mantra
and desideratum of the small but growing Baha’i community—to
privilege social and political peace as a religious value and to work
for it with religious devotion. Here religious and social unity is an
icon or reflection of the divine unity that serves as the religion’s
central teaching and wellspring.
This same Baha’i community was equipped with numerous
ancillary teachings from its central figures: the Bab, Baha’u’llah,
and ‘Abdu’l-Baha (Baha’u’llah’s successor and the “Center of his
Covenant”). These teachings included new prayers, new religious
principles and laws, and what is considered a divinely ordained
new system of organization whose purpose was, in the first place,
to safeguard the unity of the Baha’i community itself so that it
might (in the second place) reflect an image and example of such

far flung and variegated unity to a world divided and at odds with
itself in every conceivable way. While Baha’i history and teachings
have interested and engaged individuals from all walks and strata
of life, they still have not become a major concern in the academic
world. The logical place for their scientific and systematic study
and analysis is in university departments and faculties of religious
studies. As perhaps the only Islamic movement of recent history to
have “escaped the gravitational pull of Islam”8 and to have acquired
a distinctive post-Islamic identity, it is clear that the Baha’i Faith
offers an important cluster of questions to scholars of religion.

10 Being Human
Joseph sold by his brothers into Egypt.

Illustration by Gustave Doré.
Being Human_Ch 1-Final.indd 10 10/3/19 11:14 AM

11
Chapter 1
The Return of Joseph

and the Peaceable Imagination1
I n the Baha’i tradition, non-violence is not an idea derived primar-

ily through interpretation, but a law given through Revelation (to
use the Baha’i technical term for its primary scripture). There can
be no dispute or discussion on this point by either a follower of
the Baha’i Faith or those who study and understand this relatively
recent religion. What may be a source of discussion is the question
of how in the context of the history of religion and religions, and
especially the history of the Baha’i Faith, this came to be. This
chapter offers a brief discussion of the role and status of violence
in the Baha’i tradition, based on a comparatively limited selection
of the most influential and characteristic statements from the vast
library of Baha’i writings and an examination of some possible reli-
gious, historical, and social conditions out of which these doctrines
emerged.
Baha’i teachings are unambiguous: the purpose of religion
is the promotion of harmony and unity among human beings.2
Baha’u’llah has taught that if religion becomes the cause of dis-
harmony, then it is better that there be no religion at all.3 Baha’i
teachings condemn violence as something to be avoided at all costs.4
The Baha’i tradition is perhaps too young to have generated much
in the way of exegesis as normally understood. However, exegesis
11

12 Being Human
is relevant in the sense that Baha’i writings may be thought of, in
some ways, as an interpretation of Islamic scripture. (Here scripture
would include both the Qur’an and the Hadith.) Baha’u’llah was
of course a son of Shi‘i Islamic culture. A careful reading of the
authoritative literature of the Baha’i Faith leaves little doubt that
its adherents are proud to acknowledge their tradition’s Shi‘i roots.5
The “grammar and syntax” of the piety and religious practices
of both traditions have much in common. However, with regard
to specific points of doctrine, there are dramatic and unbridgeable
differences. In some instances, these differences have been made
clear through a distinctive literary “event,” that elsewhere I have
called “interpretation as revelation.”6 It is clear that one of the two
most important works of Baha’u’llah, the Kitab-i Iqan (Book of
Certitude), is primarily a work of exegesis.7 It was written to ex-
plain how the messianic claims of Sayyid ‘Ali Muhammad Shirazi,
the Bab,8 may be understood in the light of certain Qur’anic verses
and Hadith. These are the holy traditions or statements traced
to the Prophet or, in this case, one of the other Pure Ones (sing.,
ma‘sum),9 namely the Prophet’s daughter Fatima, his son-in-law the
Imam ‘Ali, and the remaining eleven Imams acknowledged by Ithna
‘Ashariyya (or Twelver) Shi‘ism.10 Composed around 1862, the book
is relatively early in the time frame of Baha’u’llah’s writings.11
In this early major work, the problem of violence is mentioned
chiefly with regard to the violent response of humankind to all
the prophets and messengers of God, including the Bab. In sev-
eral passages, the author suggests that all previous prophets were
considered by their immediate audiences, or at least a segment of
them and sometimes the overwhelming majority, to be seditious
or heretical. Such concerns are particularly poignant in the case of
Shi‘ism and its expectation of the Last Day, the Day of Resurrection
(yawm al-qiyama). Traditionally, this “Day” is viewed as the time
when the heretofore hidden Imam would appear with his faithful
companions to “fill the earth with justice as it is now filled with
tyranny.”12 The hero of this event, the returned Twelfth Imam, is
known by numerous epithets, among which the most common
and perhaps most emblematic of a certain robust theme of Shi‘i

eschatology is the Qa’im, “the one who arises with the sword” (al-
Qa’im bi al-sayf).13
Baha’u’llah argues in the Book of Certitude that this divinely
guided hero had indeed arisen and that his message had indeed
been proclaimed. However, the vast majority of those who had
been in the peculiarly Shi‘i sacramental state of messianic expecta-
tion and hope (intizar), that is, the Shi‘a themselves, had failed to
recognize him. This, because they misinterpreted those traditions
and Qur’anic verses they had traditionally studied, memorized, and
commented on in the hope of preparing themselves for his glad
advent (zuhur).14 Thus, the same violent response to all previous
divinely sanctioned prophets and messengers had also greeted the
Bab, culminating in his execution in 1850 in Tabriz. Baha’u’llah
writes:
Why is it that the advent of every true Manifestation of God

hath been accompanied by such strife and tumult, by such
tyranny and upheaval? This notwithstanding the fact that
all the Prophets of God, whenever made manifest unto the
people of the world, have invariably foretold the coming of
yet another Prophet after them, and have established such
signs as would herald the advent of the future Dispensation.
To this the records of all sacred books bear witness. Why then
is it that despite the expectation of men in their quest of the
Manifestations of Holiness, and in spite of the signs recorded
in the sacred books, such acts of violence, of oppression and
cruelty, should have been perpetrated in every age and cycle
against all the Prophets and Chosen Ones of God? Even as
He hath revealed: “As oft as an Apostle cometh unto you with
that which your souls desire not, ye swell with pride, accusing
some of being impostors and slaying others [Q2:87].”15
An arguable subtext is that such persecution is indeed a most

compelling credential for the claims of such prophets. This is not
an exclusively Shi‘i attitude, since the Qur’an itself is replete with ex-
amples of the persecuted chosen one.16 It is, however, an orientation

14 Being Human
or theme taken to its most developed extent in Twelver Shi‘ism. With
regard to the specific expectation that the Qa’im would arise with an
actual sword and defeat all of the enemies of God in an apocalyptic
battle, the Book of Certitude suggests that such a sword is best un-
derstood as a metaphorical allusion to the sovereignty (saltanat) of
the Qa’im, a sovereignty with which all divine messengers have been
endowed and which “is inherently exercised by the Qa’im whether or
not He appear in the world clothed in the majesty of earthly domin-
ion” (Iqan, 107/80). Such sovereignty, also known in the wider Shi‘i
tradition by the cognate and near synonym walaya (Persian: valayat/
vilayat), is expressed, according to Baha’u’llah in this same work,
through revelation: the words of the one divinely chosen. This divine
word has the power both to separate—like a sword—and unite, as
a word unites otherwise disparate and perhaps even otherwise un-
congenial sounds and letters into a unit of meaning. In the following
quotation, Baha’u’llah expands on this distinctive feature of Baha’i
hermeneutics. Note also the reference in this passage to reunion and
unification and fragrance and garment (qamis). These “Josephian”
metaphors play a key role in signaling the “return of Joseph” and will
be discussed further in the second part this chapter.
The following is an evidence of the sovereignty exercised by

Muhammad, the Day-star of Truth. Hast thou not heard how
with one single verse He hath sundered light from darkness,
the righteous from the ungodly, and the believing from the
infidel? All the signs and allusions concerning the Day of
Judgment, which you have heard, such as the raising of the
dead, the Day of Reckoning, the Last Judgment, and others,
have been made manifest through the revelation of that verse.
These revealed words were a blessing to the righteous who on
hearing them exclaimed: “O God our Lord, we have heard,
and obeyed.” They were a curse to the people of iniquity who,
on hearing them affirmed: “We have heard and rebelled.”
Those words, sharp as the sword of God, have separated the
faithful from the infidel, and severed father from son. Thou
hast surely witnessed how they that have confessed their

faith in Him and they that rejected Him have warred against
each other, and sought one another’s property. How many
fathers have turned away from their sons; how many lovers
have shunned their beloved! So mercilessly trenchant was this
wondrous sword [in sayf-i badi‘] of God that it cleft asunder
every relationship! On the other hand, consider the welding
power of His Word. Observe, how those in whose midst the
Satan of self had for years sown the seeds of malice and hate
became so fused and blended through their allegiance to this
wondrous and transcendent Revelation [in amr-i badi‘ mani‘]
that it seemed as if they had sprung from the same loins.17
Such is the binding force of the Word of God, which uniteth
the hearts of them that have renounced all else but Him, who
have believed in His signs, and quaffed from the Hand of
glory the Kawthar of God’s holy grace.18 Furthermore, how
numerous are those peoples of divers beliefs, of conflicting
creeds, and opposing temperaments, who, through the re-
viving fragrance of the Divine springtime, blowing from the
Ridván of God, have been arrayed with the new robe (qamis-i
jadid) of divine Unity, and have drunk from the cup of His
singleness!”19 (Iqan, 111–112/84–85.)
Thus, the Bab, the Awaited Imam (al-imam al-muntazar), the Master
of the Age (sahib al-zaman), the One who arises by Divine right (al-
qa’im bi’l-haqq), had been murdered through an act of violence by
the very people who should have welcomed him with open hearts.
The condemnation of such violent opposition to God’s messengers
may be thought a major theme of this book. Its source, Baha’u’llah
says here, is selfishness, jealousy, egotism, and vested interest.
Though never stated explicitly, the conclusion is certainly difficult
to avoid that the author thought such violence was also caused by
an appalling, painful, and ultimately pathological lack of creativity.
The interpretations of Islamic scripture by Baha’u’llah found in the
Kitab-i Iqan offer imaginative and poetic ways of understanding
various predictions about the return (raj‘a) of the hidden or Twelfth
Imam, interpretations that are largely symbolic and metaphorical

16 Being Human
and, potentially, healing. As the answer to those who argue, for ex-
ample, that the Imam (here associated with the Son of Man’s return
in clouds of heaven in Matt. 24:29-31) is expected to return “in the
clouds” and have wrongly imagined them to be clouds of the mete-
orological variety, Baha’u’llah explains that in reality the word cloud
must be understood quite differently:
And now regarding His words, that the Son of man shall
“come in the clouds of heaven.” By the term “clouds” is meant
those things that are contrary to the ways and desires of
men. Even as He hath revealed in the verse already quoted:
“As oft as an Apostle cometh unto you with that which your
souls desire not, ye swell with pride, accusing some of being
impostors and slaying others.” [Q2:81] These “clouds” signify,
in one sense, the annulment of laws, the abrogation of for-
mer Dispensations, the repeal of rituals and customs current
amongst men, the exalting of the illiterate faithful above the
learned opposers of the faith. In another sense, they mean the
appearance of that immortal Beauty in the image of mortal
man, with such human limitations as eating and drinking,
poverty and riches, glory and abasement, sleeping and wak-
ing, and such other things as cast doubt in the minds of men,
and cause them to turn away. All such veils are symbolically
referred to as “clouds.” (Iqan, 71–72/55.)
Viewing such exegetical virtuosity in the context of the subsequent,

fully articulated Baha’i ethos, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion
that, accordingly, violence may indeed be thought to stem from a
general poverty of imagination.20 The Baha’i Faith and its teach-
ings would eventually develop a new rhetoric, or what has been
referred to as a distinctive “expressive style.”21 Distinctive, that is,
with regard to the major concerns and guiding spirit of its parent
religion, Twelver Shi‘ism. Baha’u’llah wrote the above words not
in Iran but in Baghdad, where he had been exiled as a result of a
general government crackdown on the Babis. Perhaps Baghdad, as a
much more cosmopolitan milieu than the comparatively provincial

and xenophobic Tehran, provided a congenial setting for the first

formulation of Baha’i universalism (as distinct from what could be
perceived as Babi parochialism).22
Baha’u’llah himself and his devoted and growing entourage
would be known, and in fact identify themselves, as Babis until
around 1868, when the adjective “Baha’i” started to be used more
categorically. Even now, though, the implication, at least ostensibly,
is that we are speaking of Baha’i “Babism” as distinct from Azali
“Babism.”23 Explanations of the transition from Babi to Baha’i
identities and orientations are spoken of in terms of “progressive
revelation.” This is a cardinal and distinctive Baha’i teaching that
explains both history and religion in one grand gesture by asserting
that all prophets have been sent by the same God from time to time
in order to promote and carry forward an “ever-advancing civiliza-
tion.”24 Thus “civilization” as such is a distinct and explicit religious
value in the Baha’i teachings. And, it may be thought to represent
a particular interpretation of basic Qur’anic pronouncements on
the “sacramental value” of community (umma), social justice, and
a searching contemplation of the cosmos, the self, and the holy
books. Such Islamic beliefs are, in the Baha’i Faith, universalized
beyond their formative Arabo-islamicate matrix, and beyond their
evolution and development in the more far-flung realms of later
islamicate civilization.25
Civilization, accordingly, in order to be true to itself must be
peaceful. Thus, aggressive violence is completely outlawed in the
Baha’i Faith and the idea and law of “religious warfare” or jihad is,
in conversation with and distinct from the Islamic tradition, com-
pletely, irrevocably, and unambiguously abrogated.26 The timeline
of this abolition is also not open to dispute. It was first unambig-
uously and publicly identified with the religion of Baha’u’llah in
1863, in Baghdad. And, it appears to have been part of the noetic
substance of a revelatory experience a year or so earlier.27 While the
spirit of this abolition is certainly prominent in Baha’u’llah’s Most
Holy Book, the Kitab-i Aqdas, composed in Ottoman Palestine in
1873, it is in a later composition that religiously sanctioned warfare
is again specifically outlawed in no uncertain terms.28

18 Being Human
In a brief work composed toward the end of his life, known as
the Tablet of Glad-Tidings (Lawh al-bisharat), Baha’u’llah listed the
major principles of his new religion.29 These fifteen distinct laws
or verities may be thought a precursor to the later, perhaps more
widely circulated, “Twelve Principles of the Baha’i Faith.”30 At this
earlier stage, they are, in this order:
1. the abolition of religiously mandated warfare or jihad;

2. lifting the ban on associating with followers of other
religions;
3. the promotion of a universal language;
4. the obligation to support any “king” who arises to protect
the beleaguered new religion;
5a enjoining obedience to the laws of the country in which any
of his followers reside;
5b enjoining the inhabitants of the world to aid his persecuted
followers so that the “light of unity and concord may shine
forth and shed its radiance upon the world”;
5c the hope that all weapons of war be converted “into
instruments of reconstruction and that strife and conflict
may be removed from the midst of men”;
6. the principle of the Lesser Peace;31
7. people are permitted to wear whatever clothing they wish
and to cut their hair anyway they wish but are warned not to
become “playthings of the ignorant”;
8. the abolition of celibacy and monasticism of all kinds so that
“monks and priests” may live in the world and enter into
wedlock to “bring forth [those] who will make mention of
God”;
9. one must seek forgiveness from God alone; confession
to fellow creatures is prohibited (followed by the text of a
prayer for forgiveness);
10. the prohibition of the destruction of books;
11. permission to study arts and sciences that are beneficial;
12. the obligation to acquire a trade or profession work and
trade are regarded as a form of worship.

The first principle or “good news” is expressed as follows:
O People of the World! The first Glad-Tidings (bishara)

which the Mother Book has, in this Most Great Revelation,
imparted unto all the peoples of the world is that the law of
jihad has been blotted out from the Book. Glorified be the
All-Merciful, the Lord of grace abounding, through Whom
the door of heavenly bounty has been flung open in the face
of all that are in heaven and on earth.32
The explicit mention here of the familiar, frequently vexing, original-

ly Qur’anic term jihad indicates that there is no ambiguity about this
law. Jihad is neither explained nor interpreted; it is simply abolished.
This bold proclamation should be seen as one of the chief means
whereby the founder of the Baha’i Faith sought to distinguish his
religion from traditional Islam. It may be, as is certainly the case
with the tenth principle (against the destruction of books), that
the first audience here were the Babis themselves. There had been
serious and prolonged disagreement, since the martyrdom of the
Bab, about precisely such matters as religiously mandated violence
and other distinctively and traditionally unexceptionable topics
found mentioned in the writings of the Bab.33 But it is also obvious
from the text that these “Glad Tidings” are addressed to humanity
in general. Furthermore, according to recent scholarship, this Tablet
(lawh) was first sent specifically to the leaders of thought and state
in Britain and Russia, probably as the result of a contemporary event
that called into question the Baha’i attitude toward violence.34 By
this time, Baha’u’llah had successfully created a peaceful, law-abiding
community out of the rather roiling welter of Babi disarray in which
there had been, for example, obvious and dramatic controversy over
the role and status (if any) of jihad in what we saw referred to above
in the quotation from the Book of Certitude as the “new Revelation”
(amr-i badi‘).35 To the extent that this was achieved, the resulting
community ultimately came to be known as the Baha’i community.

20 Being Human
The return of Joseph

The Baha’i era is understood to have begun in Shiraz on the evening
of 22 May 1844 C.E., or 5 Jumada al-Ula 1260 A.H., the onset of
the Twelver eschaton. This is when the young merchant, Sayyid ‘Ali-
Muhammad, the Bab, began the composition of a unique Qur’an
commentary (tafsir), itself cast in the form of the Qur’an—com-
plete with separate suras (with titles), ayas (verses), the number
and place of revelation indicated, and in the oldest manuscripts,
marginal indications where prostration should occur. All of this
is, of course, in blatant, and in the context, heretical imitation of
the Qur’an. The medium was the message: a new Qur’an had been
written, a new revelation had occurred.36 This unusual Qur’an
commentary, presented as a “new” Qur’an—or more accurately as
the “original” uncorrupted Qur’an, which until now had been in
the keeping of the hidden Imam—was restricted to commentary
on one Qur’anic chapter, the Sura of Joseph.37 Later Baha’i readers
would see this as an allusion to and prophecy of Baha’u’llah’s advent
(zuhur), a return of the True Joseph.38
Without going into great detail, I would like now simply to em-
phasize that of all the Qur’anic prophets and messengers, Joseph is
distinguished by his moral and physical beauty, a major component
of which is his willingness to forgive his faithless brothers their
evil betrayal. In an act of world-changing tolerance, wisdom, and
forbearance, he summons the hitherto scattered forces of his holy
lineage to become the salvation and preservation of Israel and, from
the point of view of Islam, better stated as God’s very connection
with the world. In Arabic, such tolerance, wisdom, and forbearance
are combined in the word hilm. Hilm is a frequent word in the
Qur’an, where it appears in the divine attribute al-halim, indicating
God as the model and source of long-suffering, patience, control of
anger, tolerance, slowness to punish, gentleness, and wisdom.39 Its
meaning and moral scope are exemplified in numerous instances
in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, the stories of the Prophets, and in the
overall literary and poetic heritage of Islamicate culture.
In line with the Qur’anic logic of prophecy, all prophets are
endowed with this and every other noble moral virtue, but some

are more exemplary of this or that virtue than others.40 Of the many
examples of hilm that have been celebrated and admired in Islam,
whether Sunni, Shi‘i, Sufi of whatever specific identity, or even at the
“non-aligned” level of the folktale, none is more characteristic, com-
pelling, or universally admired than the way in which the prophet
Joseph, son of Jacob, exemplified this all-important religious virtue
in his dealings with those who had so cruelly betrayed him.
According to the Qur’anic telling of his life in the Sura of
Joseph, his betrayers are his brothers, the unamed wife of a powerful
Egyptian (known to tradition as Zulaykha) into whose household
he had been sold as a slave, her husband the powerful Egyptian
himself, and the fellow prisoner who broke his jailhouse promise.41
Certainly many other prophets—and indeed other heroic or pow-
erful figures in Islam or Islamic history, including the controversial
first Ummayad caliph, Mu‘awiya42—exemplify this distinctively
Islamic virtue of hilm. But Joseph is arguably the prime example.
It is suggested here that the Baha’i elimination of religiously man-
dated violence, vengeance, and hatred is a reflection of the image or
spiritual reality of Joseph, his epic struggle and peaceful triumph.
Furthermore, such a reflection is in perfect harmony with the tragic
history of the Baha’i tradition. Such unites the various streams of
influence and discourse flowing from the Qur’an, its exegesis, and
its contemplation within both Sunni and more particularly Shi‘i
contexts. It also unites in conversation the whole range of islamicate
moralia and pedagogy (adab/akhlaq), poetry (mystical and pro-
fane), specific tonalities of Twelver Shi‘i piety and eschatology that,
by the time of the genesis and rise of the Baha’i Faith, had become
seamlessly joined to the greater mystical and spiritual tradition of
Islam.
The word bishara, “glad-tidings,” from the title of Baha’u’llah’s
tablet summarized above, is not Qur’anic. But the basic root idea is
frequent in the Qur’an in the form of bashir, “bearer of good-tid-
ings.”43 As such, it often occurs with a companion term, warner (na-
dhir), as one-half of the prophetic office, as it were. Muhammad is
described as such in Q2:119, 5:19, 7:188, 11:2, 34:28, 35:24, 41, and
4:42.44 The remaining instance of bashir occurs in the famous scene

22 Being Human
in the Sura of Joseph (Q12:96) when after long years in painful and
blinding separation from his beloved son, Jacob miraculously de-
tects—and at great distance—the presence of Joseph from the scent
of his remarkable, spiritually charged shirt (qamis). The joy of such
a perception is indescribable, and this is probably why the Qur’an
presents it in such a striking scene. If it were a film, it would function
as a dramatic cutaway. Joseph’s brothers are crossing “the border”
separating Egypt and Canaan. The scene shifts instantly to the aged
Jacob, languishing a great distance from this border (presumably in
the family pasturage in north Canaan) and sensitized through his
deep abiding and prophetic love, he immediately detects from the
remote but extraordinary shirt which the brothers are bringing to
him, that his beloved and previously bitterly lamented son Joseph
lives:
And as soon as the caravan [with which Jacob’s sons were

traveling] was on its way (falamma fasalat al-‘ir), their father
said [to the people around him]: “Behold, were it not that you
might consider me a dotard, [I would say that] I truly feel the
breath of Joseph [in the air]!” (Q12:94)
In the verse immediately preceding, the previously hidden and now

manifest Joseph had instructed his brothers to take this shirt back to
their home and to lay it on the eyes of their blinded-by-grief father
so that his sight would be renewed:
Go with this my shirt, and cast it over the face of my father: he

will come to see [clearly]. Then return [here] to me together
with all your family. (Q12:93)
These preliminaries set the stage for the great moment of recog-
nition in verse 96 in which the idea of glad-tidings (bisharat) is
carried explicitly by the word bashir:
Then, when the bearer of good news (bashir) came and placed
the shirt on to Jacob’s face, his eyesight returned and he said,

“Did I not tell you that I have knowledge from God that you
do not have.” (Q12:96)
With such background, we gain important insight into the choice of

Baha’u’llah’s title for his “Glad-tidings” which are thus figuratively
identified with the shirt of Joseph and its divine, healing qualities,
a healing which a sorely afflicted and heart-broken humanity (per-
sonified by Jacob) will soon receive. It is of some interest to note
that another form of the same root, B-SH-R, occurs early in this
same sura at Q12:19, precisely when Joseph is discovered in the well
by the traveling caravan that would then purchase him from his
perfidious brothers and remove him to Egypt, thus beginning the
crushing separation from Jacob. In the present context, the subtle
irony is unmistakable:
Some travelers came by. They sent someone to draw water

and he let down his bucket. “Good news (ya bushra)!” he
exclaimed. “Here is a boy!” They hid him like a piece of mer-
chandise—God was well aware of what they did.45
The prophetic career of Joseph had long been of special interest and
importance to the Twelver Shi‘a for a number of reasons. In the Shi‘i
understanding of the Qur’anic account, Joseph is distinguished as
an embodiment of the mystery and confluence of divine selection,
occultation, and pious dissimulation (walaya, ghayba, and taqiyya),
three very important Shi‘i religious “sacramental institutions.” In
addition, the entire story may be characterized as “an apocalypse
of reunion.”46 This is emblematic of the important and distinctive
Shi‘i prophecy of the “return” (raj‘a) of the hidden Imam, in which
this prophecy is prefigured in the Qur’anic reuniting of Joseph with
his family.47 There are several other interesting features of Sura 12
that were taken to the bosom of Shi‘ism. But, it may be the figure
of Joseph as a peacemaker—beautiful, benevolent, patient, chaste,
pious, and wise—that captured the imagination of the founders
of the Baha’i tradition.48 Joseph orders no war. On the contrary,
he forgives those who betrayed him. In this particular context, it

24 Being Human
is difficult to avoid the thought that both the Bab and Baha’u’llah
were teaching that it is through the powerful example of Joseph that
the Shi‘i community may be able to find the strength and courage
to forgive the Sunni community (and, of course, vice versa). Such
“iron in the soul” appears to be something highly important to the
Baha’i tradition.49
Joseph also qualifies as an example and a type of the Verus
Propheta, or ruling prophet (on the ancient model of Melchizedek),
in which both spiritual and worldly/political authority are clearly
vested and perfectly combined, as in the Shi‘i ideal of the Imam.50
The continuation of such veneration in the Baha’i Faith may be
thought a logical development from both the Shi‘i and the Sufi tra-
ditions, a veneration that begins in earnest with the Bab’s remark-
able tafsir on Sura 12, and continues through the many allusions
and references to the Joseph story scattered throughout the writings
of Baha’u’llah.51 For example, in the Most Holy Book (the Kitab-i
Aqdas), written in 1873 by Baha’u’llah after he had been further
exiled from Iran through Baghdad to Istanbul, Edirne, and finally
‘Akka in what was then Ottoman Palestine, we find the following
characteristic reference to the story of Joseph. Here, such Josephian
metaphors of beauty, scent, garment, blindness, heartbreak healed,
and family reunited are clearly combined with the idea of divine
messenger and “administrative or legislative wisdom.” Note also the
Qur’anic diction of this passage, beginning with the characteristic
imperative, “Say!” (qul):
Say: From My laws the sweet-smelling savor of My garment

(qamisi) can be smelled, and by their aid the standards of
Victory will be planted upon the highest peaks. The Tongue
of My power hath, from the heaven of My omnipotent glory,
addressed to My creation these words: “Observe My com-
mandments, for the love of My beauty [hubban li jamali].”
Happy is the lover that has inhaled the divine fragrance of
his Best-Beloved from these words, laden with the perfume
of a grace which no tongue can describe. By My life! He who
has drunk the choice wine of fairness from the hands of My

bountiful favor will circle around My commandments that

shine above the Dayspring of My creation.
Think not that We have revealed unto you a mere code of
laws. Nay, rather, We have unsealed the choice Wine (al-rahiq
al-makhtum) with the fingers of might and power. To this
bears witness that which the Pen of Revelation hath revealed.
Meditate upon this, O men of insight! (Aqdas, 20-21/K4-6)
The Tablet of the True Seeker

The question of “religiously mandated combat” (jihad)—or more
precisely the “religiously motivated warrior, one who struggles in
holy combat” (mujahid, a word directly derived from jihad),—had
arisen much earlier, in the Book of Certitude excerpted above.
Again, writing in Baghdad in the wake of several severely violent
clashes between the followers of the Bab and the forces of the shah
of Iran, Baha’u’llah, in what seems to be a parenthesis to his general
plan to elucidate the divine truth of the Bab’s mission, describes
such a “warrior” in a lengthy passage now known in the Baha’i com-
munity as the “Tablet of the True Seeker.” What follows is a brief
examination and explication of a few key passages containing the
theme of combat and those Josephian metaphors indicated above.
We will see that the ideas of jihad and warrior are drained of all
violence in this passage.
But, O my brother, when a true seeker (shakhs-i mujahid)

determines to take the step of search in the path leading to the
knowledge of the Ancient of Days,52 he must, before all else,
cleanse and purify his heart, which is the seat of the revelation
of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all
acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of
satanic fancy. (Iqan, 192/148-49. Italics added.)
Although a thorough analysis of the entire Tablet is not possible

here, suffice it to mention that neither here nor anywhere in the rest
of the Book of Certitude (or anywhere else in the Baha’i scriptures)
is there any suggestion that those engaged in the pursuit of truth and

26 Being Human
the quest for divine nearness in this the Day of Resurrection (yawm
al-qiyama: the fulfillment of the Shi‘i eschaton) are expected to bear
actual arms or engage in anything resembling armed or military ac-
tivity. On the contrary, the remainder of the Tablet of the True Seeker
is concerned with inculcating spiritual, moral, and ethical standards
reminiscent of the preaching of the earliest Sufi masters such as
Muhasibi (d. 857), Junayd (d. 910), Hallaj (d. 922), and Makki (d.
996), so definitively consolidated in the work of Ghazali (d. 1111).
The Tablet also echoes themes and insights developed in the later
Islamic spiritual and mystical traditions by such luminaries as Ibn
Arabi, Rumi (d. 1273), and Shabistari (d. 1340), to name only three
of the numerous Muslim spiritual virtuosos whose own mystical
and spiritual struggles, including literary composition, contributed
to the culture from which the Baha’i Faith emerged, a culture whose
study is necessary for a comprehensive understanding of the history
and development of Baha’i teachings.53 In the Tablet of the True
Seeker, any explicit Shi‘i references are confined—in addition to the
quoting of specifically Shi‘i Hadith mentioned earlier—to a general,
even generic, sense of expectation and fulfilment—a sense not out
of place within Sunni Islam.54
As the passages excerpted here show, the central, pervasive met-
aphors of scent, messenger of good news, separation and distance,
and knowledge and reunion represent a typological reiteration of
the story of Joseph in the Qur’an. Here is a Joseph who, through
the exemplification of forbearance, tolerance, and long-suffering,
transforms the earlier betrayal of his brothers into a spiritual event
that, devoid of violence and bitterness, serves to cause the reunion
and healing of the fractured family, a family which, in Baha’i
thought, is emblematic of humanity.
In the excerpts below, the reader experienced with Islamic
mystical works will see much that is familiar. Yet the combination
of the idea of jihad, “holy struggle,” with the Josephian imagery
and metaphors of beauty, lover and beloved (Jacob and Joseph,
Zulaykha and Joseph), attainment of spiritual knowledge, scent
and perfume as an emblem of or metaphor for spiritual knowledge,
and the related elements of the Qur’anic narrative seems to set the

tone of the Baha’i ethos in an original and creative way. The Tablet
continues:
He must purge his breast, which is the sanctuary of the abid-

ing love of the Beloved, of every defilement, and sanctify his
soul from all that pertains to water and clay, from all shadowy
and ephemeral attachments. He must so cleanse his heart that
no remnant of either love (hubb) or hate (bughd) may linger
therein, lest that love blindly incline him to error, or that hate
repel him away from the truth. Even as thou dost witness in
this day how most of the people, because of such love and
hate, are bereft of the immortal Face, have strayed far from the
embodiments of the divine mysteries, and, shepherdless, are
roaming through the wilderness of oblivion and error. That
seeker must, at all times, put his trust in God, must renounce
the peoples of the earth, must detach himself from the world of
dust, and cleave unto Him Who is the Lord of Lords. He must
never seek to exalt himself above any one, must wash away
from the tablet of his heart every trace of pride and vain-glo-
ry, must cling unto patience and resignation, observe silence
and refrain from idle talk. For the tongue is a smoldering fire,
and excess of speech a deadly poison. Material fire consumes
the body, whereas the fire of the tongue devours both heart
and soul. The force of the former lasts but for a time, while
the effects of the latter endure a century. (Iqan 192-3/149)
The following passage from the Tablet of the True Seeker offers again
explicit reference to a jihad restricted to the spiritual or existential
realm:
These are among the attributes of the exalted, and constitute

the hall-mark of the spiritually minded. They have already been
mentioned in connection with the requirements of the way-
farers (shara’it-i mujahidin wa mashy-i salikin) that tread the
Path of Positive Knowledge (dar manahij ‘ilm al-yaqin). When
the detached wayfarer and sincere seeker has fulfilled these

28 Being Human
essential conditions, then and only then can he be called a true
seeker (lafz mujahid dar barih-yi ’u sadiq mi’ayad). Whenever
he has fulfilled the conditions implied in the verse: “Those
who make efforts for Us (al-ladhina jahadu fina) [Q29:69],”
he shall enjoy the blessings conferred by the words: “In Our
Ways shall We assuredly guide him [Q29:69].” (Iqan 195/151)
In the following paragraph, we see a return to those traditional

ethical virtues and themes associated with Sufism. This is a prelude
to the dramatic reference by Baha’u’llah to precisely the Josephian
“messenger of joy” (bashir), translated here as “Mystic Herald,” who
brings the glad-tidings of the “return” of Joseph (something of an
apocalyptic reversal, since it is in reality the family, led by Jacob,
who “returns” to him). That the adjective apocalyptic is appropriate
is borne out by mention of, among other allusions, the Qur’anic
image of the trumpet blast (al-sur), immediately followed by ref-
erence to the new creation, another Qur’anic eschatological theme
(cf. khalq jadid), or new life that results from this spiritual event and
experience or, precisely, recognition (ma‘rifat):
Only when the lamp of search, of earnest striving (mujahada),

of longing desire, of passionate devotion, of fervid love, of
rapture, and ecstasy (dhawq, shawq, ‘ishq, walah, jadhb, hubb)
is kindled within the seeker’s heart (dar qalb rawshan shud),
and the breeze of His loving-kindness is wafted upon his soul,
will the darkness of error be dispelled, the mists of doubts
and misgivings be dissipated, and the lights of knowledge
and certitude envelop his being. At that hour will the mys-
tic Herald (dar an hin bashir-i ma‘navi), bearing the joyful
tidings of the Spirit (bi-bisharat-i ruhani), shine forth from
the City of God resplendent as the morn (az madinah-yi-ilahi
chun subh-i sadiq tali‘ shaved), and, through the trumpet-blast
of knowledge, will awaken the heart, the soul, and the spirit
from the slumber of heedlessness (wa qalb wa nafs wa ruh ra
bi-sur ma‘rifat az nawm-i ghaflat bidar namayad). Then will
the manifold favors and outpouring grace of the holy and

everlasting Spirit (ruh al-quds-i samadani) confer such new

life (hayat-i tazah-yi jadid) upon the seeker that he will find
himself endowed with a new eye (chashm-i jadid), a new ear
(qush-i badi‘), a new heart, and a new mind (qalb wa fu’ad-i
tazah). He will contemplate the manifest signs of the universe,
and will penetrate the hidden mysteries of the soul. Gazing with
the eye of God, he will perceive within every atom a door that
leads him to the stations of absolute certitude. He will discov-
er in all things the mysteries of divine revelation, and the ev-
idences of an everlasting manifestation. (Iqan 195-6/151-52)
Joseph and his story are present again in the following direct contin-
uation of the preceding excerpt, especially in speaking of detecting
the “fragrance of God” from a great distance, perfume, and breath:
I swear by God! Were he that treads the path of guidance and

seeks to scale the heights of righteousness to attain unto this
glorious and exalted station, he would inhale, at a distance of a
thousand leagues, the fragrance of God (ra’ihah-yi haqq ra az
farasangha-yi ba‘idih istinshaq namayad), and would perceive
the resplendent morn of a divine guidance rising above the
day spring of all things. Each and every thing, however small,
would be to him a revelation, leading him to his Beloved, the
Object of his quest. So great shall be the discernment of this
seeker that he will discriminate between truth and falsehood,
even as he doth distinguish the sun from shadow. If in the
uttermost corners of the East the sweet savors of God be
wafted, he will assuredly recognize and inhale their fragrance,
even though he be dwelling in the uttermost ends of the West
(mathalan agar nasim-i haqq az mashriq-i ibda‘ wazad wa ’u
dar maghrib-i ikhtira‘ bashad al-battah istishmam kunad) . . .
When the channel of the human soul is cleansed of all worldly
and impeding attachments, it will unfailingly perceive the
breath of the Beloved across immeasurable distances, and will,
led by its perfume, attain and enter the City of Certitude . . .
With both his inner and outer ear, he will hear from its dust the

30 Being Human
hymns of glory and praise ascending unto the Lord of Lords,
and with his inner eye will he discover the mysteries of “re-
turn” and “revival. . . . The attainment unto this City quenches
thirst without water, and kindles the love of God without fire.
Within every blade of grass are enshrined the mysteries of
an inscrutable Wisdom, and upon every rose-bush a myriad
nightingales pour out, in blissful rapture, their melody. Its
wondrous tulips unfold the mystery of the undying Fire in the
Burning Bush, and its sweet savors of holiness breathe the per-
fume of the Messianic Spirit. It bestows wealth without gold,
and confers immortality without death. In each one of its
leaves ineffable delights are treasured, and within every cham-
ber unnumbered mysteries lie hidden. (Iqan, 196-97/152-53)
The Tablet concludes with a reiteration of the true nature and, in

fact, the obligation of jihad. Baha’u’llah repeats here two separate
but related and by now familiar Arabic words for religiously moti-
vated warrior (mujahid), and religious struggle (juhd). The first was
translated above by Shoghi Effendi as “true seeker” while here, in its
plural form, he translates it as “They that valiantly labor in quest [of
God].” Shoghi Effendi translates the second word, juhd, as “highest
endeavor.” The agony of separation, as in Jacob’s separation from
Joseph, is evoked as well:
They that valiantly labor in quest of God (wa mujahidin fi

Allah), will, when once they have renounced all else but Him,
be so attached and wedded to that City, that a moment’s
separation from it would to them be unthinkable . . . Once
in about a thousand years shall this City be renewed and
readorned.
Wherefore, O my friend, it behooves Us to exert the high-
est endeavour to attain that City, and by the grace of God and
His loving-kindness, rend asunder the “veils of glory” (kashf-i
subuhat-i jalal); so that, with inflexible steadfastness, we may
sacrifice our drooping souls in the path of the New Beloved
(dar rah-i mahbub-i tazah) . . . That City is none other than

the Word of God revealed in every age and dispensation (an

madinah kutub-i ilahiyyah ast dar har ‘ahdi). In the days of
Moses it was the Pentateuch; in the days of Jesus, the Gospel;
in the days of Muhammad, the Messenger of God, the Qur’án;
in this day, the Bayan; and in the Dispensation of Him Whom
God will make manifest, His own Book—the Book unto which
all the Books of former Dispensations must needs be referred,
the Book which standeth amongst them all transcendent and
supreme. In these cities spiritual sustenance is bountifully
provided, and incorruptible delights have been ordained.
The food they bestow is the bread of heaven, and the Spirit
they impart is God’s imperishable blessing. Upon detached
souls they bestow the gift of Unity[.] (Iqan, 192-200/153-54)
Conclusion
Islam divides history into two main eras. One is characterized by
savagery, barbarity, brutality, ignorance, and violence and is desig-
nated by the Arabic word jahl or jahiliyyah. The other, characterized
by the Arabic word islam, comes to stand for everything opposite
to jahl. Jahl is represented in the Qur’an by those whose way of life
was marked by pride in bravery, conquest, vengeance, tempestuous
anger, and a fatalistic disdain for consequence. Islam is represented
in the lives of the prophets and messengers sent by God, since the
beginning of time, to every community (Q10:47). Violence has its
root meaning in impetuosity and vehemence, and there may be
some truth to the idea that Islam itself arose in response to such
human failings, in addition to the more theologically abstract ideas
of “polytheism” (shirk) and “ingratitude and faithlessness” (kufr), as
these were seen to color the pre-Islamic era known as the Time of
Ignorance (al-Jahiliyya).
But jahl, from a linguistic point of view, is not merely the
opposite of knowledge and the act of knowing (‘ilm), but rather
the opposite of hilm, the rich, multivocal Arabic word introduced
earlier that means patience, forbearance (bordering on forgiveness),
and a complete absence of flaring anger and violence. Further, it
emerges that hilm is, in some ways, synonymous with islam.55 It is

32 Being Human
therefore perhaps natural that the Baha’i teachings, as a distinct
interpretation and development of Islamicate moral, spiritual, and
social values and practices, outlaw not only jihad as such, but the
initiation of violence of any kind. This appears to be non-negotia-
ble. The one possible exception is in the case of defense, when force
(not violence) is not merely permissible but obligatory to exert
against aggression.56
One of the striking results of the Safavid “venture” (1501-1722),
when Shi‘ism for the first time in centuries became consolidated
as the official religion of a distinct polity, was the transposition of
Twelver Shi‘ism from the “key of Arabic” to the “key of Persian,”
so to speak. Joseph had always loomed especially important in
Persianate Islam,57 whether as a symbol of divine kingship (and
therefore “civilization” as such) or as an example of the kind of
moral and ethical restraint and wisdom in governance—indicated
in the term hilm—that lends a particular élan to his holy heroism.
As such, he is an exemplar for kings and shahs, Sufi shaykhs, their
disciples, and the common “average” Muslim, who, as this tradition
so wisely observes, is assaulted by the same passions as the king. The
halim is, in the final analysis, the civilized man whose soul is formed
by the energies and expectations of the last divine revelation: a true
Muslim. As such, he is the polar opposite of the jahil, the savage,
uncivilized inhabitant of a brutal world, unregenerated by and
ungrateful for revelation, the word of God.58
It was during the nineteenth century, perhaps with the pho-
tographed horrors of the American Civil War, that the glory asso-
ciated with military might and achievement began to diminish, a
process that seems to have ended in the abject brutality and carnage
of World War I, the Great War. The Baha’i teachings are therefore
very much in harmony with what might be thought a particular
Zeitgeist: the world was becoming smaller, a new globalization
was on the horizon. Baha’u’llah saw this, as is clear from his many
writings on the oneness of humanity, the oneness of the world, and
the oneness of God and religion. It is also clear that these freshly
articulated ideas had a history, especially in Islam, the parent re-
ligion and parent culture of the three central figures of the Baha’i

Faith: the Bab, Baha’u’llah, and ‘Abdu’l-Baha. To some extent,

Baha’i irenics may be seen as a response to, in the first place, the
violent and brutal animosity that had split and aggravated anew
the unity of the post-Muhammad Muslim world.59 With the rise
in the later medieval and pre-modern periods of the three mutu-
ally exclusive Islamicate imperial proto-nations: the Ottoman, the
Mughal, and the Safavid, such disunity and estrangement became
reified, certainly politicized, and frequently dramatized. Figuring
thereby a distinctive Islamicate modernity, these new alignments
and rivalries sought, through what might be thought more purely
religious emblems, to mobilize loyalties and enmities. The late
Henry Corbin’s designation of Twelver Shi‘ism as a “religion of love,
par excellence” accurately captures one arc of Shi‘i piety. That is,
the central and defining attitude and relationship of allegiance to
the charismatic absolute spiritual authority (walaya) of the Imams,
Fatima, and Muhammad.60 The other arc, one that completes the
circle of Twelver Shi‘i religious dynamism, has been characterized
as “sacred hatred.”61 The operative technical term here is tabarra, a
companion concept for tawalla (from W-L-Y, the basis for the word
walaya) built on the root verb bari’a (from B-R-’A). According to
Amir Moezzi:
barâ’a . . . is the indispensable complement to, and opposite

of, walâya . . . If we translate walâya . . . by “faithful, tender
love” of the Imam, then barâ’a . . . would be “wild, impla-
cable hatred” of the Enemy of the Imam. . . . According to
the imams, one cannot fully love the Imam and his Cause
without simultaneously hating the Enemy opposed to him
and to his Cause since the time of creation; the “believer” who
is faithful to the imams should pledge Love and Obedience
to the Master who initiates him into the divine Sciences,
and Hatred and Disobedience to him who stands for the
opposite of this Initiation. If the world is the way it is, in-
vaded by evil and darkness that will only increase until the
triumphal return of the Mahdi, it is because the Masters of
Injustice and the mass majority (‘âmma) that follows them

34 Being Human
are dominant, condemning the Sages and the chosen mi-
nority (khâssa) that follows them to isolation and suffering.
. . . [T]he imams have forbidden their faithful to show their
Hatred or their Disobedience in the form of revolt or open
insurrection; barâ’a should thus remain interiorized (just as
is the case for walâya, because of the danger of death for the
person who professes it) until the return of the hidden imam,
even if on the outside obedience to the unjust is forced; this
is one of the facets of the Battle that has forever opposed
the initiated and the counter initiated; sabb al-sahâba [in-
sulting or even damning members of the early community
seen as enemies of the Shi‘a] is one way of upholding it.62
The discipline known as “History of Religions,” including the

anthropology of religion and other related disciplines, tells us that
what we refer to as “religion” (or “religions”) includes a vast number
of “systems” for affirming identity, making sense of the world, and
pursuing happiness (for lack of a better term) and social order. It
also tells us that because it is a human activity, the contents of one
may be found in all. The particularity of the phenomenon exists
not in the utter novelty of its constituent forms and orientations,
nor in its rituals and doctrines. Rather, the distinctiveness of this or
that tradition resides in the degree and particular way in which it
emphasizes and prioritizes an otherwise commonly held element in
a creative or distinctive manner. Frequently, the difference between
traditions is subtle, at least at the borders. Perhaps it is a bit like
the light spectrum or a rainbow. It is not always easy to pinpoint
precisely where violet becomes blue, but we know it does, as it were,
after the fact. And once the two become distinct, they can never be
assimilated again.
It may well be that the founders of the Baha’i religion were ex-
pressing a general cultural exhaustion with such powerful spiritual
incongruities, non sequiturs, and contradictions as are implied in
such formulae as “sacred hatred.” The first audience of the earliest
Baha’i kerygma was, after all, Islam itself, an Islam that was not
only patently suffering as a result of its own internally generated

challenges, but had relatively recently fallen prey to a rather full

catalogue of ills as a result of imperial and colonial interests from
beyond the abode of Islam.63 The gospel of harmony, peace, and
nonviolence that has so characterized the Baha’i message from its
beginning until today was certainly first heard by Muslims, for
whom the tragedy of the first Fitnah (the apparently irreparable
breaking of the unity of the umma after the death of Muhammad)
was not really a thing of the past but an ever-present heartbreak,
embarrassment, and shame, drawing attention to the all-too-hu-
man failings of egoism, jealousy, envy, betrayal, and greed. That this
message came later to be addressed to and taken to heart by a wider
“constituency” beyond the traditional historical, religious, and
cultural borders of the realms of Islam simultaneously celebrates
and laments a common humanity. It also casts a warm light on the
inexhaustible spiritual resources of Islam, the parent religion of the
Baha’i Faith.

36 Being Human
‘Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i, 1753-1826,

founder of the Shaykhiyya school

37
Chapter 2
Being Human
From Shaykh Ahmad to Baha’u’llah1
“The human form is the greatest proof of God.”

–Ja‘far al-Sadiq2
T he word humanism can and does mean different things in dif-

ferent contexts. Secular humanism or materialistic humanism
is often the demon of religious fundamentalists who see it as the op-
posite of godliness. Such a simple-minded view is challenged by the
teachings of the Baha’i Faith, especially those teachings having their
roots in the philosophical theology of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i and
the Shaykhi school. Here the human being is a “site” of unbounded
potential and knowledge precisely because of the unutterably lofty
station of firstly, the divine Manifestations (who for Shaykh Ahmad
included the Imams) through whom, secondly, God himself is
“known” or, more precisely, “indicated.”
Whatever humanism may be in its ideal definition, it is worth
noting that the topic of humanism in the Islamic world is already
quite venerable and has been studied from a number of angles for
many centuries.3 Surely, there is a connection between interest in a
distinctive Islamicate humanism and the scriptural sources of the
37

38 Being Human
religion. Here it is important and perhaps even timely to observe

that amongst the various ways in which the Qur’an distinguishes it-
self amongst the holy books of the world is the degree to which it is
concerned with something it calls humankind or humanity (al-nas:
people; al-insan: man, human being, humanity). From these words
developed the Persian usage insaniyat as denotative of humanity,
courtesy, civility, politeness, and urbanity—what may be thought
indispensable features of any civilized society, whether Eastern or
Western. In the Qur’an, the first word occurs 240 times through-
out the text, the second sixty-five times. (Allah occurs 980 times.)
Humanism in the Qur’an and in Islam

The Qur’an and Islam, it has been argued, are more concerned with
revelation than they are with God, as such.4 The positive content
of the Qur’an seems focused on the prosperity and happiness of
human beings, humanity, and the human community. The attain-
ment of salvation in Islam is coordinated with the performance of
humans in the here and now in their attempts to live a good life in
harmony with nature and their species. It is not surprising, given
this emphasis, that God in fact seems to disappear altogether in
certain discussions and theological formulations. Islam is not the
only scriptural monotheism to reflect this development. The same
process and phenomenon are observable amongst the exponents of
German mysticism, Meister Eckhart (d. 1328) and Jakob Boehme
(d. 1624). The latter, for example, has written: “When I ponder what
God is, I then say: He is One in contrast to the creature, as an eternal
Nothing.”5
We see an analogous theological “erasure” in Islam, especially
in certain philosophies of Shi‘ism. The most splendid example may
be in the writings of that movement which arose during the first
half of the Qajar dynasty following the teachings of Shaykh Ahmad
al-Ahsa’i (d. 1826), and dubbed by its critics the “Shaykhiyya,” but
who recognized itself as the Kashfiyya (the followers of mystical
disclosure). We will return to the Shaykhiyya below.
Islam as such is uncompromisingly apophatic: it acknowledges
the existence of a God that cannot be described—a God sometimes

referred to as “beyond both being and non-being.” The classical

source for Islamic negative theology is Sura 112:1-4, the Sura of
Purity or Transcendence:
He is One, Eternal, He was not begotten nor does He beget.

Nothing is in any way comparable to Him.
In Shi‘ism, and especially but not exclusively, Imami Shi‘ism,

this supreme absence is countervailed by the incandescent and
frequently quasi-divine presence of the Imam.6 Particularly, but
certainly not exclusively, in the wake of the efflorescence of the cult
of the Perfect Man in both Sunni and Shi‘i Sufism, this particular
apotheosis was tracked and cultivated through what Henry Corbin
coined “Imamology.”
In the most intense expressions of Shi‘ism, the Imam is neither
a member of the human species nor is the Imam God, but an in-
ter-species of which he is the only example. This is analogous with
the role and status of the Qur’an in Islam; that is, it represents a
class or “species” of book for which it is itself the only example.
The “presence” of the Deus Absconditus—the Hidden or Absent
God—may be felt in Baha’i scripture in the following hymnodic
expression, penned by Baha’u’Ilah, writing from within an Iranian
Islamic religious context, around the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury, after the teachings of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i had permeated
much contemporary imamological discourse.
To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that

God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely
exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal ex-
istence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from
His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His
praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mys-
tery. He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity
of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly
hidden from the sight of men. “No vision taketh in Him, but
He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtile, the All-perceiving.”

40 Being Human
[Q6:103] No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him

to His creatures. He standeth exalted beyond and above all
separation and union, all proximity and remoteness. No sign
can indicate His presence or His absence; inasmuch as by a
word of His command all that are in heaven and on earth
have come to exist, and by His wish, which is the Primal Will
itself, all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm
of being, the world of the visible.
Gracious God! How could there be conceived any rela-
tionship or possible connection between His Word and they
that are created of it? The verse: God would have you beware of
Himself [Q3:28] unmistakably beareth witness to the reality
of Our argument, and the words: “God was alone; there was
none else beside Him” are a sure testimony of its truth. All
the Prophets of God and their chosen Ones, all the divines,
the sages, and the wise of every generation, unanimously
recognize their inability to attain unto the comprehension of
that Quintessence of all truth, and confess their incapacity to
grasp Him, Who is the inmost Reality of all things (jawhar
al-jawahir). (Iqan, 98-99/73-74, italics added.)
Such a rigorous, uncompromising, stark, yet somehow vibrant and

living, apophaticism is based on the direct teachings of the Imams,
following the Qur’an. Another good example, is this Tradition as-
cribed to the first Imam, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib:
‘Ali, in the Sermon of Divine Orphanhood (khutbat al-yat-

imiyya), said: “If you say: ‘Of what is He [made]?’ He has, as a
result, already transcended all created things. And if you say:
‘He is He,’ the ‘H’ and the ‘E’ are His own speech, and are only
an attribute that indicates Him, not an attribute that reveals
Him. And if you say: ‘He has a limit,’ the limit is automat-
ically other than He. And if you say: ‘He is like the air,’ the
air itself is his creation (san‘). And the whole discussion goes
from attribute to attribute. Blindness of heart is from faulty
understanding (fahm). And faulty understanding is the result

of insufficient awareness (idrak). Insufficient awareness is

from lack of penetrative vision (istinbat), while the kingdom
perdures in the kingdom and a created thing terminates in
its like. So [from the outset] the quest is destined to end in
that which resembles [the seeker, or his faculties]. To barge
ahead in such a search ends only in futility. So the meaning
is lost. And the struggle is in vain. And communication is
cut off. And the path is blocked. And the quest is frustrated.
His proofs are His signs, and His existence (wujud) is Its own
corroboration (ithbatu-hu). Thus that which is known in the
contingent world is only apparent existence (wujud), while
that existence of His which is His self—[as in the statement]
‘None but He knows Him, Exalted be He,’—none knows how
or what He is except Him.7
Humanism in Classical Shi‘ism

In Shi‘ism, it is not that God is anthropomorphic but that “man”
is theomorphic. Classical Shi‘i sacred lore (i.e., the teachings of the
Imams) is replete with such allusions and characterizations that
may be understood as casting the earthly, humanoid Imam in the
role of pontifex—bridge-builder between mankind/creation and
God. However, in the process, it may seem that the Imam becomes
both the bridge and its Destination.8 This is in line with their words:
“We are both the treasurers and the treasure,” the early statement
preserved and venerated by the Shi‘a as the direct teaching of the
Twelve Imams.
In order to accomplish this elevation of the spirit and form of
the “proof of God” (hujjatu’llah), i.e., the Imam, a certain amount
of theoretical scaffolding had to be elaborated. Key here is the sub-
ject of humanity itself. Since the Imam assumes human form, or
perhaps more accurately inhabits the human form,9 this form had
to be seen as worthy of the high calling to which it was being sum-
moned. Influenced by the veneration and elevation of humanity
found mentioned repeatedly in the Qur’an, and perhaps influenced
by the anthropology of other cultures foreign to the Arabic, Shi‘ism
came to concentrate on the beauty and nobility of the human form.

42 Being Human
Thus the hadith:

The human form is the supreme evidence by means of which
God testifies to his Creation. It is the Book he has written
with his own hand. It is the Temple he built with his wisdom.
It is the meeting place of all the forms of all the worlds. It is
the compendium of the disclosed knowledge of the Preserved
Tablet (lawh mahfuz). It is the visible witness, answering for all
that is invisible (ghayb). It is the guarantee, the proof opposed
to all who deny. It is the Straight Path (al-sirat al-mustaqim,
Q1:6) between paradise and hell.10
Naturally, as scripture such statements become the object and

subject of a wide variety of commentary and interpretation. Much
of this interpretation is directed towards the nature and role of
the Imam himself, as if Shi‘ism wishes to understand the nature
of humanity by seeing the Imam as a touchstone. Again, however,
attitudes vary. According to some views, the Imam is the embod-
iment of the station and vocation designated as the Perfect Man
(al-insan al-kamil). This seems to be the clear position of the in-
fluential Safavid scholar, Muhsin Fayz Kashani (d. 1680), and of his
immediate intellectual forebears and successors. One implication of
this view is that all humans are, ipso facto, less than perfect but may
aspire to perfection by emulating and obeying the Imam. The idea
of the Perfect Man would thus be understood as one who has com-
plete spiritual or gnostic understanding, as is indicated in the title of
the influential classic book on the topic by the later follower of Ibn
Arabi, the single most influential mystical writer in Islam, namely
‘Abd al-Karim al-Jili (d. 1424), The Man with Perfect Understanding
of First Things and Last Things.11 Thus knowledge is sacramental.
Shaykhiyya and Theomorphic Humanism

Another view, represented by the teachings of Shaykh Ahmad
al-Ahsa’i and his following is that the Imam may “occupy” a human
form, but cannot be considered human as a consequence. Rather
for the Shaykhiyya, the Perfect Man is the one who recognizes the
Imam. As such, the classic example of the Perfect Man is Salman the

Persian,12 not the Imam. It seems that this doctrine is a direct result
and pillar of the unrelenting negative theology—apophaticism—
taught by Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i. The intensely transcendental
theology of this school renders the vocable “God” nearly empty of
content, while the anthropology is simultaneously elevated to the
theomorphic. Man is now in the shape of the divine manifestation.
The result is both a divinized humanism and a humanized theolo-
gy: all knowledge is conditioned by and for the human “form” and
its faculties. Such an apperception is not new, especially in Islamic
intellectual culture. Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i has been referred to in
a recent substantial study as the greatest Muslim philosopher after
Mulla Sadra (d. 1640).13 Indeed, Shaykh Ahmad commented on and
criticized the dense and difficult philosophical writings of Sadra
and his intellectual and spiritual progeny. The apple of discord
may be described precisely with reference to theology. For Shaykh
Ahmad, the earlier Muslim philosophers had erred grievously in the
way in which they wrote and thought about God. His views may be
summarized from a commentary on a celebrated hadith found in
his “Commentary on the Most Great Tablet of Visitation” (Shahr zi-
yarat al-jami‘a al-kabira), which affirms the absolute transcendence
(tanzih) of God. It also points to the fundamental mystery of being.
According to Corbin, this goes beyond the ontological theories of
the highly influential Ishraqi tradition.14
Shaykhi ontology provides for the metaphysical pre-existence
of the Imams. Here, as in classical Ismaili metaphysics, God is quite
outside and beyond whatever may be considered under the category
of “being” (wujud). A person stands by virtue of the appearance
in him of the “quality” of standing. But this quality appears in the
person only as a result of the divine command, which brings to-
gether the two aspects (i.e., the person and standing) of the “being
event” known together as “stander” (qa’im). Without this com-
mand, the two would remain separate, and both elements would
remain unknown. This command (amr) comprises two aspects.
One is completely transcendent (i.e., the active command, amr fi‘li),
which proceeds from the unknowable God. The other aspect is a
passive command (i.e., amr maf‘uli), which is this same imperative

44 Being Human
as activated in the first creatures (i.e., the Imams). This command

appears in the world through the bearer of the divine quality, anal-
ogous to the person as “stander” (qa’im). The passive amr maf‘uli
is also designated by the Shaykhis as the nur al-anwar (light of
lights), the so-called “Muhammadan Reality” (haqiqat muhammad-
iyya), or the totality of the Twelve Imams, Fatima and the Prophet
Muhammad. The amr maf‘uli, as issuing from the active amr fi‘li,
or the unknowable divine Essence, is therefore a “secret veiled in a
secret.” The difference between the Shaykhis and, for example the
Ishraqis, is that the latter identify the nur al-anwar (light of lights)
directly with God while the Shaykhi’s identify nothing with God.15
The Shaykhi theory would appear to accomplish two distinct
but related tasks at once. First, an obvious exaltation of the station
of the Imams to the degree of bringing down upon their teaching
the condemnatory accusation of “extremism” (ghuluww).16 The
second is a virtual removal from the human mind of any positive
content for the word “God.” It is difficult to determine which of the
two results, if either, is more important. This first level of discourse
has as its aim the establishment of God’s utter transcendence, which
as has been seen, can only be spoken of by reference to Being (but
for that, such transcendence is not diminished). The Imams, as rep-
resentatives of this transcendence, are the focus for the believer, but
the believer must never lose sight of the “unseeable point” beyond
the Imams. This is why, says Shaykh Ahmad, it is towards the inac-
cessible Divine Essence that man is constantly turning, even though
he will never be able to actually find It. Nonetheless, he continues to
search for It while It remains forever inaccessible to him.17
The primordial existence that is brought into being by the divine
passive command (i.e., the amr maf‘uli) is the primordial Light of
Lights, also referred to as the Light of Fourteen Flames in reference
to the fourteen members of what the Bab refers to as “The Family of
God” (Al Allah).18 It is the ontic reality of the fourteen members of
the People of the House (ahl al-bayt), who are recognized as bear-
ers—and indeed embodiments—of divine authority and guardian-
ship (walaya). As mentioned, these are the Prophet Muhammad;
his daughter Fatima; and the Twelve Imams, beginning with ‘Ali

ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) and ending with the hidden Imam Mahdi,
Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-‘Askari(said to have disappeared 874).
This “pleroma” forms one sole primordial essence as the same light
from which proceeds the light of the Angelic Intellects or the “Angels
of the Veil,” and the light from which the prophets were created. The
light which constitutes the being of the prophets is that light from
which the faithful believers have also been created.19
Corbin’s translation of an important passage by Shaykh Ahmad
summarizes this idea:
No reality is created from the irradiation of an essence that

is inferior to it. Each inferior reality is created from another
reality that is superior to it. A superior reality is, for example,
the sun itself; an inferior reality, is its light shed on the surface
of the Earth. Each reality exists in its own true sense (haqiqat)
at a level that is proper to it and in relation to that which is
below it. It is therefore, in actuality, a symbol and a figure
(majaz) of that which is above it.20
The doctrine of the Perfect Shi‘i was inseparable from Shaykhi

apophatic theology and implied a virtual deification of the 14 Pure
Ones of orthodoxy: Muhammad, Fatima, ‘Ali, Hasan, Husayn and
the remaining Imams of Twelver Shi‘ism. This statement must be
tempered by reference to the innumerable assertions of the servi-
tude of Muhammad and the Imams to the essence of God. It would
be misleading in the extreme to suggest that this “Imam-apotheosis”
represents incarnationism.21
God here is eternally unknowable (rather than remote) and
makes His will known through various stages. Eternally crucial to
this process is the twofold institution of Prophethood/Imamate,
and whenever any positive statement about divinity is made, its
proper reference is to this institution which goes by the technical
name Guardianship (walaya). The Prophet and Imams are a differ-
ent order of creation as mediators between God and Man. They are
separated from the divine essence by a line of apparently infinite
tensile strength and flexibility. In Corbin’s terms they represent

46 Being Human
the Deus Revelatus: the Revealed God, as complementary to and

distinct from the Deus Absconditus, which is referred to as the
“unknowable essence” and by other terms, and for which a con-
venient but not perfectly coterminous word in Arabic is Allah.22
The Bab’s Humanism

The Perfect Shi‘i acts as mediator between the Imams (represented
by the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan) and humanity.
Therefore, when the Bab claimed to have received his Commentary
on the Sura of Joseph (Tafsir surat Yusuf) from the Imam—even
though he did not explicitly claim for himself the title of Perfect
Shi‘i —those Shaykhis (or better, Kashfis) who were his first readers
were already convinced of the necessity for such a link as bab (gate),
even if they were not agreed as to who was best qualified to act as
such, or less importantly, what the exact name or title for such a link
should be.23
E. G. Browne states the importance of the doctrine of the Perfect
Shi‘i for the success of Babism in its early stages:
He [the Bab] did not invent this term [bab], nor was he even
the first to revive it, for it was used in the same sense by
ash-Shalmaghání, a Messiah of the 10th century of our era,
and by others. So far as recent times are concerned, however, it
was the Shaykhi school . . . which revived the idea that among
the faithful followers of the Twelfth Imam there must always
exist one, whom they entitled Shí‘a-i Kámil [sic] . . . “the
Perfect Shi‘ite,” who was in direct spiritual communication
with him. Neither Shaykh Ahmad nor his successor Sayyid
Kázim . . . made use of the title “Báb,” but their conception
of “the Perfect Shí‘ite” was practically identical with the idea
connoted by that title. On the death of Sayyid Kázim his fol-
lowers were naturally impelled by their doctrine concerning
“the Perfect Shí’ite” to seek his successor.24
What Browne does not emphasize here is that it is important to

appreciate one of the more significant results of Shaykhi theology

in order to understand the eventual claim made by the Bab. The

holy group (the Bab refers to them as the “Family of God”) of the
Prophet, Fatima, and the Imams, had in one sense replaced God
(Deus Absconditus) for Shaykh Ahmad. As a result, the hierarchy of
God, Prophet, Imam, Bab, Shi‘i believer was sounded in a higher
register or “octave,” each element being “promoted,” as it were, to
fill the gap produced by the distinctively relentless Shaykhi view
of divine transcendence (tanzih). As a result, a claim to be the bab
of the Imam, may be seen as functionally identical to a claim to
imamhood (imama) as usually understood.
The modern study of the Shaykhiyya seems to be pursued by
two distinct types of humanists. In the first place, there are those
who wish to see in the Shaykhi vaunting or deifying of the Imam
a concomitant vaunting and elevation of the human being. While
the Imam is beyond species as such (cf. Boehme’s assertion that
Adam was neither male nor female) and therefore unqualifiable in
every way by the designation “Perfect Man,” there is an attendant
elevation of the “human” whose vocation is seeker and pursuer
of that which is higher, even if that which is higher is relatively
(and therefore paradoxically) non-existent (cf. Boehme’s state-
ment quoted at the beginning of this chapter). In this instance
it is Salman the Persian (Salman-i farsi) who is the Perfect Man,
perfection being expressed in the act of correctly recognizing that
which was superior to himself, namely his discovery/recognition of
the Prophet Muhammad.
The main problem facing the strictly humanist reading (in
what might be considered a Western or European sense) of the
Shaykhiyya is bound up with the essential hierarchical vision of the
cosmos. One of the achievements of European humanism was the
eventual disestablishment of the medieval metaphysical hierarchy
sometimes referred to as the Great Chain of Being. This hierarchy
served a number of sacerdotal and epistemic purposes, from pro-
viding a logical and structural basis for the authority of the Church
to an understanding of the way in which the universe came to be.
Thus, Copernicus’s theorizing of the heliocentric model (and most
importantly, the abandonment of the geocentric model) augurs

48 Being Human
eloquently for the eventual tenor and form of European/Western

humanism which will come to be emblematized in the center-less
universe of the post-Einstein age.
Islamicate humanism has a much different cultural context
and genesis, largely because in Islamic culture there was never a
serious divide between what we now call faith and reason, science
and religion. For example, the Qur’an itself is full of many obser-
vations on how God causes the natural world to develop. Rather
than having been taken as proof that there is no need of God (as
with nineteenth-century scientism), these natural processes and
developments are generally taken as signs of God’s overwhelming
“miraculous” power, signs that should be studied as deeply as
possible. How else could such polymaths as Avicenna, al-Biruni,
al-Ghazzali, and thousands of other less well-known daughters and
sons of Islamic culture have practiced their various “natural scienc-
es” and not been challenged as far as their faith was concerned? On
the contrary, they emerge as heroes of Islamic faith, rather than the
opposite.25
The distinguishing features of the Shaykhi school, as is the
case with most Muslim religious groups, are related to the manner
in which spiritual authority is to be defined and mediated.26 The
active controversy carried on by the partisans of the Usulis (“ratio-
nalists”) and the Akhbaris (“scripturalists”)—two vying groups of
Shi‘i scholars influential on the eve of the Bab’s advent—is a case
in point. The debate was based on the question of whether ijtihad,
that is, exerting individual effort to form an opinion, rather than
wholesale and uncritical acceptance of the guidance contained in
the preserved statements of the Prophet and the Imams (pl. akh-
bar), was the best way to resolve questions of religion, which would
of course include questions of law. Finally, the Usulis, those in favor
of ijtihad, won the day and for the past two hundred years this basic
attitude toward the written sources of the Islamic religion has held
sway over most of the Shi‘i world.
Shaykh Ahmad had grown up in one of the few bastions
of Akhbari Shi‘ism, and his synthesis may be seen, in part, as an
elaboration of this method. Through propounding a doctrine of

the natiq wahid (a single authoritative voice), another term for the
Perfect Shi‘i, an echo of the Sufi idea of the Perfect Man (al-insan
al-kamil), Shaykh Ahmad was able, at least in theory, to circumvent
the restrictions imposed by other methods and approaches and
arrive at what he considered a much less fettered and more inde-
pendent position vis-à-vis the reinterpretation of the raw material
of the Islamic religion—the Qur’an, the Sunna of the Prophet, and
the teachings of the Imams which were preserved in the Traditions
(akhbar). Shaykh Ahmad’s early exposure to the teachings of Ibn
‘Arabi and the Dhahabi Sufi order is in part responsible for the
growth of his ideas,27 and perhaps his elaboration of the idea of the
Perfect Shi‘i.
Much work remains to be done on the Sufism of Shaykh
Ahmad. But, an example of such intellectual freedom is exemplified
in Shaykh Ahmad’s response to those who charged him with relying
upon strange and unsound hadiths to support what they considered
his extremist (ghuluww) ideas. Shaykh Ahmad serenely responded
that he could distinguish a sound hadith from a weak one through
its “fragrance.”28 Such a response is, in fact, an adamantine critique
of taqlid which here is not merely “imitation” but “blind imitation”
in matters religious. So vehement was his repudiation of taqlid
that some have seen him as a precociously modern (not to say
post-modern) democrat and proponent of secular humanism. But
there are alternative characterizations. Bausani suggests:
Generally speaking, Shaikhism contains a stronger Shi‘ite

theological “impetus” and is more purely “religious” than
philosophers such as Mullá Sadrá were. Iqbál’s statement
. . . that Shaikh Ahmad was an enthusiastic reader of Mullá
Sadrá’s works is based on a misunderstanding: the Shaikhis
studied Mullá Sadrá but did not always approve of what
he said; in fact, on some points (for example, questions
concerning the knowledge of God) they returned to less
philosophical and more religious positions . . . If the complex
theological position of the Shaikhís could be summed up in
a few words I would say that it is based on two points, one

50 Being Human
deeply religious and the other with rational tendencies . . .

two symbolic explanations (which sometimes go beyond the
realistic symbolism of Sadrá) to enter into a truly rationalist
allegory of the miraculous aspect of traditional theological
legends. . . . Everything is easily resolved by transposing the
historical reality of the facts of revelation onto metahistorical
planes (Muhammad, ‘Alí, etc. = First Creature): it is here, and
not in a humanistic rationalism, that the secret of Shaikhí
symbolism lies.29
So, how do we understand the rejection of taqlid as the “key” to

Shaykhism? And what are the implications for such an Islamic hu-
manism? It seems, on the one hand, that the only one who is truly or
perfectly “human” is the Imam. All others fall short somehow. As a
paradox, such a teaching lends itself well to the mystical and literary
tastes of the time and place. Even if Shaykh Ahmad posits something
called a “Perfect Shi‘i,” this perfection is clearly predicated upon that
Shi‘i’s ability to recognize the superhuman Imam. But the nature of
knowledge and perception, according to not only the masters of the
Shaykhi school, but a general Islamicate epistemological premise, is
that one perceives and knows only according to what one is, or what
is already inside one. For Salman to recognize Muhammad, there
must have been something of Muhammad already alive inside of
him. This principle is fully endorsed in what may well be the Bab’s
oldest extant work, the Risalat al-suluk, mentioned above, as when
he says, speaking of the Imams: “They are in your soul and are your
soul.”30 It is the intellect of the Imam, not of the average believer,
which serves as a locus for the manifestation of God. In his advice
to a student, Shaykh Ahmad says:
[Y]ou should take [current] philosophical theology (hikmat)

and align it with the wisdom (hikmat) of the People Protected
from Error (‘isma) [the Imams], upon Them be peace. Then
the meaning will be sound. If you would make Their words
your guide, and become a divinely instructed follower, do
not disregard Their teaching by turning to the words of the

Philosophers (hukamá’) and the Theologians (mutakallimun)

and the Sufis (ahl al-tasawwuf). Do only what They desire,
upon them be peace. It is not as the Sufis and Philosophers
say, contrary to what Fayd Káshání would have us believe in
his books.31
The exhortation to his questioner is most interesting. Among other

things, he tells him that the Sufis, the philosophers, and the theo-
logians are not Proofs (hujjat) as the Imams are, that they are not
his Imams, and that the questioner must imitate the Imams direct-
ly.32 Not, however, the way some do through ignorance and error.
Rather, the questioner should practise such emulation (taqlid) of
the Imams with reason, so that he does not blindly follow. If the
questioner protests that their words do not conform to reason,
Shaykh Ahmad says:
I say to you: their words are a divine binding reality (haqq),

and your reason is a divine binding reality, as long as you
do not corrupt it with murky knowledge. Also, the correcting
principles are a divine binding reality because they are all of
the divine nature upon which He fashioned mankind (fitrat
allah al-lati fatara al-nas ‘alayha [Q 30:30]). So, I do not want
you to practice “pure” taqlid as some vainly imagine it should
be practiced. Rather, read their words as rational indications
of thought and action through your own powers of under-
standing, completely detached from the understanding of
others. If you understand my words and act according to my
directions, you will find that what I tell you is a useful tool
for solving abstruse problems. By God, this is my teaching
and that which should represent me [literally, “be my caliph
(khalifa),” i.e., my successor] after I am gone.33
Shaykh Ahmad, as we know, was not the only one preoccupied

with the identity of the true believer in divine unity (al-muwah-
hid) during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The
Wahhabi threat to Sufism and so-called extremist (ghuluww)

52 Being Human
Shi‘ism, and philosophy of all kinds, was not only a theological

issue, but also a matter of life and death in some regions. The
ironic development is, however, that in the process of Shaykh
Ahmad’s argument, the Imams become God revealed, taking His
place.34 The real but starkly apophatic God is removed further
from contemplation than one might have thought possible (un-
less of course one happens to be a classical Ismaili philosopher).
Being Human
One of the results of this elevation of the Imams, an elevation that
automatically raises Divinity immeasurably and ever higher, is that
the answer to the question, “What does it mean to be human?’ be-
comes in some ways more interesting than it was before. The Imams,
according to Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa’i—and Ismaili thought—are
neither human nor divine, but a different order of being, a separate
and distinct species. The Perfect Man, in Shaykhi thought is not the
Prophet, contrary to a traditional Sufi teaching rooted in the teach-
ings of Ibn ‘Arabi,35 nor is the idea of the Perfect Man represented by
the Prophet and the Imams, contrary to the common Twelver Shi‘i
adaption of this doctrine.
Rather, for Shaykh Ahmad, the Perfect Man is the one who
recognizes the spiritual and ontological dignity of these figures. It
is Salman—not Muhammad—who represents the prototype here.36
Shaykh Ahmad was held in high esteem by the clerical and the
political communities of Iran: Fath ‘Ali Shah tried unsuccessfully
to persuade him to live in Tehran nearer the court. And, the story
is told of how the governor of Kermanshah felt so honoured by
Shaykh Ahmad’s decision to visit his city that he traveled several
miles out from Kermanshah for the sole purpose of greeting the
famous scholar and escorting him into town. It may be that the
Arab Shaykh Ahmad was so warmly welcomed by the political and
religious leaders of Iran because his views offered a rationally sus-
tainable mystical interpretation of standard Twelver Shi‘ism. This
served as a powerful alternative to what was becoming a disturbing
interest in more purely Sufi doctrine, as propagated by the lead-
ers of, for example, the Ni‘matullahi order who in turn had very

cordial relations with the Imams of the Qasimi-Sháhi Nizari Ismaili

community.37 Shaykh Ahmad, as an accomplished and renowned
Twelver mujtahid would have served as an “orthodox” guarantor for
the type of profoundly mystical religion so at home and tradition-
ally celebrated in Iran, where mysticism is as much an expression of
the human as it is of the divine.
Man is the Supreme Talisman38

The Baha’i Faith teaches an extraordinary humanism in line with
the foregoing. Baha’u’llah is uncompromising about the supreme
role of the human being in the working out of the Plan of God. The
Islamicate insight is key here: Humanity is a reality that may exist
and appear as a community or group and as an individual in the
same way that light may appear as a wave or a particle. Humanity
itself is a sign of God, according to al-Sadiq, the sixth Imam of the
Shi‘a, “the greatest proof ” or evidence of the Divine Essence. The
responsibility and the potential for growth and what Jesus referred
to as “abundant life”39 are equally dazzling, humbling, inspiring, and
enlightening. By emphasizing the unparalleled role and potential
for the human family, whether separately or collectively, Baha’u’llah
pays homage to Islam, “the source and background of the Baha’i
Faith.” Simultaneously, he frees humanity from what has been de-
scribed as one of the chief diseases of nostalgia to be visited upon
it, the messianic hope for a magical salvation from something or
someone beyond itself.

54 Being Human
Ahmad-i Yazdi
to whom Baha’u’llah’s Tablet of Ahmad was addressed

55
Chapter 3
Seeing Double
The Covenant and the
Tablet of Ahmad1
For Bob Mather in memory of Kevin
The Messenger of God stood up amongst the people and praised

and glorified God as He deserved and then he mentioned the
Dajjal, saying, “I warn you of him, and there was no prophet
who did not warn his followers of him; but I will tell you some-
thing about him which no prophet has told his followers: the
Dajjal is one-eyed whereas God is not.”2
T he Tablet of Ahmad has been identified by the Guardian of the

Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi, as one of a number of prayers
invested by Baha’u’llah with a special potency.3 Baha’is and others
may reasonably ask what such a statement means. What is the po-
tency referred to? How is a particular prayer charged with such a
power? Upon what does such power act, and how can we tell if it
has acted? By what criteria are we able to determine that a particular
prayer has been so invested? Can we actually establish double-blind
55

56 Being Human
experiments by which to test the efficacy of particular prayers and
incantations?
These questions quickly begin to sound a bit strange—“pre-sci-
entific,” if you will. Are we therefore meant simply to accept that the
Tablet of Ahmad and the other prayers identified by Shoghi Effendi
(the Long Healing Prayer or the Fire Tablet, for example) are es-
pecially efficacious and powerful and then not trouble our brains
about what such a statement means? It would appear that this atti-
tude would border on the “blind imitation” (taqlid) so vehemently
denounced by Baha’u’llah.4 Shoghi Effendi himself underscores the
reasonableness of the God posited by this religion, a position fully
consonant with one of the more well-known Baha’i principles: the
harmony of science and religion.5
The proposition here to be tested is that at the heart of the
power of the Tablet of Ahmad is a concern with the Covenant
(mithaq/‘ahd). The Covenant here would be the primordial Greater
Covenant identified by the Baha’i teachings as having been re-en-
acted and invoked many times throughout history, most recently
through the proclamation of Baha’u’llah’s own mission.6 Each
Covenant renewal depends for its meaning on the one immediately
preceding it, as explained by ‘Abdu’l-Baha:
His Holiness Abraham, on Him be peace, made a covenant

concerning His Holiness Moses and gave the glad-tidings of
His coming. His Holiness Moses made a covenant concerning
the Promised One, i.e., His Holiness Christ, and announced
the good news of His Manifestation to the world. His
Holiness Christ made a covenant concerning the Paraclete
[i.e., Muhammad] and gave the tidings of His coming. His
Holiness the Prophet Muhammad made a covenant concern-
ing His Holiness the Báb and the Báb was the One promised
by Muhammad, for Muhammad gave the tidings of His com-
ing. The Báb made a Covenant concerning the Blessed Beauty
of Bahá’u’lláh and gave the glad-tidings of His coming for
the Blessed Beauty was the One promised by His Holiness
the Báb. Bahá’u’lláh made a covenant concerning a promised

One who will become manifest after one thousand or thou-

sands of years. He likewise, with His Supreme Pen, entered
into a great Covenant and Testament with all the Baha’is
whereby they were all commanded to follow the Center of
the Covenant after His departure, and turn not away even to
a hair’s breadth from obeying Him.7
Thus, Covenant also includes specific stipulations in the Baha’i

writings indicating how divine authority (Arabic: walaya/wilaya.
Persian: valayat/vilayat) is to be extended after the passing of
Baha’u’llah. This authority was vested first in ‘Abdu’l-Baha (minis-
try 1892-1921), the Center of the Covenant (markaz al-‘ahd), then
in Shoghi Effendi (ministry 1921-1957), the Guardian of the Cause
of God (wali amru’llah).8 Today, according to the teachings of the
Baha’i Faith, authority is vested in the institution of the Universal
House of Justice (first elected, 1963).
We will begin our investigation of this topic with the Covenant
in Islam. We will then proceed to the Covenant as it is referred to in
the Tablet of Ahmad and close with some remarks on the literary
qualities of the Tablet and the reading strategies used in order to
access them. Throughout the discussion, the idea of “seeing dou-
ble” is used to try to convey the basic structure of the reading act
so important in registering the power that is the subject of this
investigation. Basically, “seeing double” refers to being able to see
two things at once, a basic requirement of metaphorical thinking.
Metaphorical thinking is in fact anagogical perception, a perspective
whereby the world is seen as it truly is: an arena for the appearance
of the divine.9 In order to register this reality, the observer must
cultivate the ability to look at phenomena and at the same time
look beyond phenomena. It is in this process that the world and
all created things are discovered to be transparent, while the sacred
light of God shines through them.10 This same process, according
to Baha’i teachings, is involved in reading Holy Scripture. In the
case of scripture, “seeing double” means both looking at the words
and looking in the direction beyond the words indicated by their
context. Both the sacred writings of the Baha’i Faith (and sacred

58 Being Human
writings in general) and the phenomena of the world are “divine
signs” by means of which the reader/believer may encounter divine
truth.11
Covenant in Islam
The idea of, if not the word, Covenant is one of the oldest and most
enduring in religious history.12 It denotes a promise from God to
continue to guide, bless, and reward humanity as long as human-
ity conforms to God’s plan, law, and will. There is space here only
to discuss, very sketchily, the Covenant in Islam with particular
concentration on the Covenant in Shi‘i Islam.13 Further, focus will
be on those aspects of the Covenant in Shi‘i Islam that are seen to
be directly related to the spirit and form of the Baha’i teachings,
here represented by the Tablet of Ahmad, a relatively short prayer
revealed by Baha’u’llah for an Iranian follower sometime in 1865.14
The purpose of the Covenant, in the first instance, is to provide
spiritual strength to human beings who, while communicating
through some medium with an invisible God, suffer the various
challenges, tests, reversals, failures, and disappointments that occur
during ordinary earthly experience. The Covenant says to us: If
things go contrary to your plans here, continue to have faith and to
obey the law of God because by doing so you will be fulfilling your
part of the agreement or contract; and God, who never reneges, will
honor this agreement and reward you for your diligence, persever-
ance, and faith.
Of course, the nature of the reward may be construed in a
number of ways, and there is no space to discuss all of them or
even very many of them. Reward “in the next world” is the most
familiar. However, in Shi‘i Islam this eschatology is understood in
both a this-worldly and an otherworldly way. In Islam in general,
the Covenant is seen to have been instituted so that when, on the
Day of Judgment (yawm ad-din), or the Day of Resurrection (yawm
al-qiyama), the Children of Adam (that is to say, all humanity) are
gathered before the throne of God to receive his judgment, none
will be able to say that they were unaware of God’s command to
obedience and faith because they had not been told of it. None can

claim ignorance of the law, because God had sealed the Covenant
and all humanity’s assent to it on a special occasion recounted in
the Qur’an that took place “before” the actual creation of the world.
The Qur’anic passage runs as follows:
Remember when thy Lord drew forth

From the Children of Adam—
From their loins—
Their descendants, and made them
Testify concerning themselves, (saying):
“Am I not your Lord
(Who cherishes and sustains you)?”
They said: “Yea, verily!
We do testify!” (This), lest
Ye should say on the Day
Of Judgment: “Of this we
Were never mindful.”
Or lest ye should say:
“Our fathers before us
May have taken false gods,
But we are (their) descendants
After them: Wilt Thou then
Destroy us because of the deeds
Of Men who were futile?”
Thus do We explain
The Signs in detail;
And perchance they may turn
(Unto Us).
(Q7:172-4, Yusuf ‘Ali translation, adapted slightly.)
This passage touches on a basic Islamic philosophy of history:

communities and nations have flourished or failed according to
their obedience to God’s command and their faithfulness to His
Covenant. Not only will observance of the Covenant benefit one
on the Day of Judgment and in the next world, it will also benefit
the community here in this world. If humanity is faithful to the

60 Being Human
Covenant, God will continue to send guidance. Nations that have
prospered may be seen to have kept the law of God and followed
his messengers, while those that have failed or become extinct have
only their own heedlessness to blame. Just as the creation story
in Genesis begins time for the Judaeo-Christian tradition, it is of
utmost importance to note that this verse locates the beginning of
“Islamic time,” and therefore of religious authority, in an event that
takes place in a primordial realm of pre-existence.15
To the degree that the primordial founding event referred to in
the Qur’an is thus incalculably more ancient than the time depicted
in the biblical creation story, it may therefore also be thought to
be, by virtue of this more venerable provenance, just that much
more pure, accurate, and incumbent or imperative. The event as
recounted in Islamic scripture may be seen to be persuasive of the
proposition of the divine sanction and authority for the Islamic
dispensation on the historical plane. The Islamic dispensation
began functionally with the birth of the prophet Muhammad (c.
570) and his call to prophetic office (c. 610). The official date for the
reckoning of the Islamic period is the year 622, the year of the Hijra
(Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina). Muslims were able to
demonstrate the truth of Islam to the followers of other religions in
part by referring to this passage in the Qur’an and the various sup-
plemental teachings contained in the Hadith. The emerging image
of the Covenant is that, together with its other functions, it puts
the truth claims of Islam on a much more unassailable foundation
than, say, the Hebrew narrative telling of the world’s beginning. The
latter deals only with mundane creation. This view is exemplified in
the following two traditions from the sixth Imam, Ja‘far as-Sadiq:
One of the Quraysh said to the Messenger of God: “By what

thing do you claim precedence (as-sabiqa) over all the other
prophets, inasmuch as you came after them?” The Prophet
said: “I was the first to affirm faith (amana, to believe) in my
Lord and the first to answer when God took Covenant with
the prophets and made them testify against themselves (‘ala
anfusihim) with the words: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said,

‘Yea, verily! (bala)’ I was the first prophet to say ‘Yea, verily!’
(In this way I outstripped the others in offering allegiance to
God.”
The first to say “Yea, verily” was the Apostle of God and
that was because he, of all creation, was closest to God. He
was in the place where Gabriel spoke to him during the Night
Journey saying: “Approach, O Muhammad, and walk the path
no other has walked, neither angel nor sent prophet.” And
were it not that his spirit and his soul were in that place, he
would never have been able to attain. He was near God as
He has indicated: “The distance of two bows, or closer still”
[Q53:9], that is, he was “closer still.”16
With the Qur’anic story of the Day of the Covenant, we have the
assertion that the truth of Islam (and by possible association what-
ever government or worldly power has taken it upon itself to defend
and expand its territories in the name of Islam) transcends—“out-
strips”—the truth heretofore expressed in other earlier scriptures.
In addition, this new expression of the truth has implications for
the life of the individual and the community that will produce new
modes of religiosity and new emphases on what it means to be
religious. For it was not only the practitioners of private piety who
saw in it nourishment for the individual spiritual quest.
In addition to having implications for eschatology and other
purely religious considerations, the parable of the Covenant also
has implications for community life in that it establishes a standard
for agreements between human beings. Thus is life in the world
spiritualized by a “literary” connection with the spiritual world. The
Qur’anic parable or myth of the Covenant (mithaq/‘ahd) is seen
as the model for all agreements amongst and between Muslims.17
Such agreements play a large role in early Islamic history, such as
‘Aqaba, al-Hudaybiyah, Ghadir Khumm, and after the death of the
Prophet when the majority of the community gave their oath of
allegiance to Abu Bakr. It is this act of allegiance or oath-taking
(bay‘a)18 that is symbolic of obedience to Islam and God through
allegiance to God’s earthly representative (khalifatu’llah). A specific

62 Being Human
act of allegiance, whether it be primarily to a Sufi Shaykh, the Sunni
Caliph, or to a Shi‘i Imam is felt as symbolic and reiterative—perhaps
even as a performative recital—of the primordial act of allegiance
in Q7:172. Thus to recognize or offer allegiance to the spiritual au-
thority of one of these figures is referred to as tawallá, a word based
on the root W-L-Y, from which are derived such important words
as mawla (lord, master, protector, friend, client), wali (guardian,
friend, “saint”). The plural, awliya (friends), frequently construed
in the Qur’an as the “friends of God” (e.g., Q10:63), and the noun
walaya (guardianship, authority, “sainthood”) may be thought of as
one of the prime Qur’anic themes.19 This passage, Q7:172-4, is the
sacred paradigm for such oath-giving and taking. In a sense, any
time someone makes an agreement and swears to honor it, they are
participating in this primordial Covenant recounted in the Qur’an.
One of the most important of these occasions is the one that
occurred during the Prophet’s return to Medina after his last
pilgrimage to Mecca. Both Sunni and Shi‘i authorities record the
famous episode of Ghadir Khumm during which Muhammad is
understood by the Shi‘a to have nominated ‘Ali as his successor
(khalifa) and the Imam of the Muslim community (umma) with the
rank of Guardian of the Cause (wali al-amr). But, according to Sunni
Muslims, this episode merely establishes ‘Ali’s special status in the
community, without bestowing upon him any authority to govern
in a religio-political sense as the embodiment of divine guidance.
One of the more frequent derogatory slurs used by the Shi‘a against
the Sunnis is precisely the Qur’anic theme of covenant-breaking,
as in Q2:27:20 “Those who break the Covenant of God (al-ladhina
yanquduna ‘ahda’llah) after it is established and who violate what
God has commanded to be ordered and cause corruption in the
world. They are the losers.”
The Shi‘a relate this verse to breaking the Covenant established
by the Prophet between himself, his community, and ‘Ali as his suc-
cessor during this historic gathering at the famous Pool of Khumm
during the Prophet’s return from the Farewell pilgrimage. These
breakers (naqidin) of the Covenant are considered to have “turned
away from” (tabarra, the opposite of tawalla) divine guidance.

That gathering is known as the Event of Ghadir Khumm, and its

anniversary is one of the main holy days in the Shi‘i liturgical calen-
dar,21 where it is referred to as either the Day of al-Ghadir or, more
explicitly, the Day of the Covenant (yawm al-mithaq) and observed
all over the world wherever Shi‘i Muslims reside.
Here the all-important distinctions between the Sunnis and
Shi‘is are focused, not on a disagreement over the facts of the event,
but rather on the more “scholastic” question of the proper meaning
of one of the key words in the sermon, namely mawla (master). A
brief excerpt from the relevant Arabic source is:
The travelers all gathered before [Muhammad] . . . When they

had gathered, he climbed above the travelers so that he was
high above them and he summoned the Commander of the
Faithful [i.e., ‘Ali, see below], peace be upon him. He made
him come up with him so that he stood on his right. He then
began to address the people. He praised and glorified God and
preached most eloquently. He gave the community news of his
own death, saying: “I have been summoned, and it is nearly the
moment for me to answer. The time has come for me to depart
from you. I leave behind me among you two all-important
things (ath-thaqalayn) which, if you cleave to them, you will
never go astray—that is, the Book of God and my offspring
from my family (ahl al-bayt). They will never abandon you
until they lead you to me at the [sacred] waters [of Heaven].”
Then he called out at the top of his voice: “Am I not more
appropriate [to rule] you than yourselves?”
“By God, yes!” they answered [literally “Yea, verily!” Arabic:
bala, as in Q7:172].
He went on speaking continuously without any interrup-
tion and taking both arms of the Commander of the Faithful,
peace be upon him, and raising them so that the white of his
armpits could be seen, he said: “Whoever I am the master
(mawla) of, this man, ‘Alí, is his master. O God, befriend who-
ever befriends him, be hostile to whoever opposes him, support
whoever supports him, and desert whoever deserts him.”22

64 Being Human
Then he, peace be on him, went down. It was the time
of the mid-morning heat . . . He led them in the midday
prayer. Then he, peace be on him, [went to] sit in his tent.
He ordered ‘Alí, peace be on him, to sit in his tent opposite
him, and he ordered the Muslims to go in group after group
to congratulate him on his position and to acknowledge his
command over the faithful. All the people did that. Then he
ordered his wives and the rest of the wives of the faithful who
were with him to go to him and acknowledge his command
over the faithful. They did that. Among those who were
profuse in their congratulations on his position was ‘Umar
b. al-Khattáb. He gave a public appearance of great joy at it,
saying: “Bravo, bravo, ‘Alí! You have become my master and
the master of every believing man and woman.”23
Since the Shi‘a, those who accepted ‘Ali as Muhammad’s successor,

clearly seem to have failed in history and frequently suffered perse-
cution as a dissenting minority (that is, until the time of the Safavids
(1501-1722) and for a while during the time of the Fatimids, 909-
1171), the focus in Shi‘i piety concerning the Covenant was on
a future date. They awaited the return of the hidden Imam who
would, on the Day of Resurrection/Judgment (yawm al-qiyama/
din) rise up (qa’im) to restore justice to an unjust world. This justice
had vanished with the most recent breaking of the divine Covenant
by the perfidious followers of Muhammad who usurped ‘Ali’s
authority when his foster brother, cousin, father-in-law, protector,
and friend, Muhammad, the Prophet of God, died in 632, without
leaving a clearly written will and testament or Covenant. All those
who assented to the primordial Covenant mentioned in the Qur’an
would be tested once again as to the sincerity of their oath when the
hidden Imam returned.
A very strong theme in Shi‘i religious works, therefore, sees
the above Qur’anic passage as referring precisely to the special
Covenant between God and Muhammad and ‘Ali. I will quote only
a few passages from this material.24 In the course of explaining how
‘Ali acquired the title “Commander of the Faithful,” the following

tradition takes form: Muhammad al-Baqir [the fifth Imam] an-

swered the question from Jabir: “When did the Amir al-Mu’minin
[literally, Commander of the Believers or Commander of the
Faithful] get this name?” al-Baqir said: “God named him when he
first revealed the verse ‘Remember when God took a covenant.’ [The
part of this verse which says:] ‘Am I not your Lord?’ [Q7:172] was
originally extended with the following: ‘and is not Muhammad my
Apostle, and is not ‘Ali the Commander of the Faithful?’”
In the next tradition, on the authority of Da’ud al-Raqqi, a
disciple of the fifth Imam, Muhammad al-Baqir (d. 735), we have a
narrative explaining how the Imams acquired their authority:
When God wanted to create creation he scattered their

seeds (dharr25) before Him and said to them: “Who is your
Lord?” The first to speak (nataqa) were the Apostle of God,
the Commander of the Faithful, and the [rest of the] Imams.
They said: “Thou art our Lord.” So, he charged them with
knowledge and religion. Then he said to the angels: “These
are the bearers of my religion and my knowledge, and they
are my trustees (umana’) among my creation.”
Then He said to the Children of Adam: “Testify (iqrar) to
God’s lordship (rububiya) and submit to their guardianship
(walaya) and obedience.” They responded: “O our Lord, we
do submit!”
Then God said to the angels: “This [we imposed] lest you
should say in the future [sic: not al-qiyama], ‘Of this we were
never mindful. Our fathers before us took false gods. And we
are but their descendants after them. Wilt thou then destroy
us because of the deeds of men who followed falsehood?’”
[Cf. Q7:173]
[The fifth Imam Muhammad] al-Baqir said: “O Da’ud!
Our authority (walaya) was made incumbent upon [human-
ity] during the [primordial day of the] Covenant (mithaq).”26
In sum, the Covenant in Shi‘i Islam guarantees the Guardianship

(walaya) of the Imams as the rightful successors of Muhammad

66 Being Human
as well as guaranteeing Muhammad’s role as the renewer of the
divine and eternal Covenant for his time and place. As we saw, in
one tradition the assertion of the Prophet Muhammad’s authority
entailed also establishing his superiority over all other prophets
and messengers. It is hoped that the following exploration of the
theme of the Covenant in the Tablet of Ahmad will help us bet-
ter to appreciate the intimate relationship between Islam and the
Baha’i Faith by highlighting essential similarities and distinctions.
Covenant in the Baha’i Faith

We have noted how religious and spiritual authority (walaya) is seen
to be preserved by the Covenant so that it is really quite impossible
to think of the one without the other. They are inseparable in Islam
and inseparable in the Baha’i Faith. The Baha’i Faith was born in
an Islamic environment. The significance of this fact was expressed
on behalf of Shoghi Effendi by his secretary in the following words:
The Baha’i view on [the position and significance of Islam

in the history of civilization] is that the Dispensation of
Muhammad, like all other Divine Dispensations, has been
foreordained, and that as such forms an integral part of the
Divine plan for the spiritual, moral and social development
of mankind. It is not an isolated religious phenomenon, but is
closely and historically related to the Dispensation of Christ,
and those of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. It was intended by God
to succeed Christianity, and it was therefore the duty of the
Christians to accept it as firmly as they had adhered to the
religion of Christ.
Islam constitutes a fuller revelation of God’s purpose for
mankind. The so-called Christian civilization of which the
Renaissance is one of the most striking manifestations is
essentially Muslim in its origins and foundations. When me-
dieval Europe was plunged in darkest barbarism, the Arabs,
regenerated and transformed by the spirit released by the
religion of Muhammad, were busily engaged in establishing a
civilization the like of which their contemporary Christians in

Europe had never witnessed before. It was eventually through

Arabs that civilization was introduced to the West. It was
through them that the philosophy, science and culture which
the old Greeks had developed found their way to Europe . . .
It is wholly unfair to attribute the efflorescence of European
culture during the Renaissance period to the influence of
Christianity. It was mainly the product of the forces released
by the Muhammadan Dispensation.
From the standpoint of institutionalism Islám far sur-
passes true Christianity as we know it in the Gospels. There
are infinitely more laws and institutions in the Qur’an than
in the Gospel. While the latter’s emphasis is mainly, not to
say wholly, on individual and personal conduct, the Qur’an
stresses the importance of society. This social emphasis
acquires added importance and significance in the Baha’i
Revelation. When carefully and impartially compared, the
Qur’an marks a definite advancement on the Gospel, from
the standpoint of spiritual and humanitarian progress.
The Baha’is should try to study history anew, and to
base all their investigations first and foremost on the written
Scriptures of Islam and Christianity.27
And Shoghi Effendi himself wrote the following:
[The Baha’is] must strive to obtain, from sources that are

authoritative and unbiased, a sound knowledge of the history
and tenets of Islám—the source and background of their
Faith—and approach reverently and with a mind purged
from pre-conceived ideas the study of the Qur’án which, apart
from the sacred scriptures of the Bábí and Bahá’í Revelations,
constitutes the only Book which can be regarded as an ab-
solutely authenticated Repository of the Word of God. They
must devote special attention to the investigation of those in-
stitutions and circumstances that are directly connected with
the origin and birth of their Faith, with the station claimed
by its Forerunner, and with the laws revealed by its Author.28

68 Being Human
One of the ways in which the institution of the Covenant is
reinforced in Baha’i writings is through the many references to and
quotations from the Qur’an and the reported sayings of Muhammad
and the Imams, that is, the Holy Traditions (hadith). Such references
are far from being merely learned gestures or displays. As suggested
above in the citation of the tradition of Ghadir Khumm, where
the word ath-thaqalayn (“the two precious things”: the Qur’an
and the Imams) occurs, these two “literary” sources represent the
condensation in human language of divine authority, guidance and
Presence.29 Thus, when Baha’u’llah, the Bab, or ‘Abdu’l-Baha appear
to us to “quote” from them by using phrases, words, or symbols tak-
en from the Qur’an and Hadith, they are really invoking this same
divine authority and demonstrating the continuity of Muhammad’s
Covenant (which had already demonstrated continuity with Jesus’s
Covenant and all of the earlier prophets in the Abrahamic and
Arabian tradition). Quoting, in these instances, is a participation in,
and an affirmation, appropriation, celebration, invocation, “cantil-
lation,” deployment, reprise, and re-enacting of the divine authority
of the eternal Covenant.30 This in turn causes the divine Presence to
appear along the lines of the way in which sacraments function, as
mentioned earlier.
Words, according to the Baha’i teachings, are sources of
extraordinary power and influence. For example, such power is
acknowledged by ‘Abdu’l-Baha in his lament on the breaking of the
Islamic Covenant, in which he refers to the destructive power of the
words of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab. ‘Umar, the eventual second Caliph
of Islam, is reported to have ultimately rejected the station of ‘Ali
with the statement, “Verily, the Book of God is sufficient unto us.”
That is to say: We need not look to any specific person for guidance
as long as we have the Qur’an. Adib Taherzadeh has summarized
‘Abdu’l-Baha’s remarks as follows:
. . . these few words, embodying the forces of negation, were so

potent that they became the prime factor in precipitating all
the discord and bloodshed in the Islamic Dispensation. They
caused the martyrdom of the Imám ‘Alí and His illustrious

son, Imám Husayn. They gave rise to untold sufferings and

death for countless souls within the Islamic fold. The effect
of these words, according to ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s testimony, was so
far-reaching that a thousand years later it brought about the
martyrdom of the Báb and all the sufferings of Bahá’u’lláh.31
One of the sources of the extraordinary power said to reside in the

Tablet of Ahmad is precisely the degree to which the Covenant is
evoked, either through reference to previous scripture (the Qur’an
and Hadith) or by the generation of new images and symbols for
this most important of all agreements or contracts, which is given
such dramatic mythic form in Q7:172. What follows, then, is an
exploration of a few of these words and images in an attempt to
demonstrate this. The exercise will at the same time, it is hoped,
demonstrate some of the value of one of Shoghi Effendi’s stronger
exhortations to the Baha’is mentioned above: to learn about Islam.
Covenant in the Tablet of Ahmad

The Tablet of Ahmad contains numerous direct and oblique refer-
ences to the Covenant and the authority or guardianship (walaya)
associated with it. The first reference is in the form of an invocation
of divine names: “He is the King, the All-Knowing, the Wise!” The
first divine name, “King” (as-sultan), which could also be rendered
“the absolute ruler,” does not appear in the Qur’an in this form.
However, several instances of the indefinite sultan (absolute rule or
authority) do occur, and their contexts indicate there is no doubt
that such authority derives from God.32 The second and third
names—al-‘alim and al-hakim—are frequent Qur’anic names for
God. The name al-‘alim (the All-Knowing), occurs both in the defi-
nite and indefinite forms 140 times in the Qur’an as a name of God,
and al-hakim (the All-Wise) occurs 81 times. They occur in this
linked form together a total of 29 times, and thus this combination
of divine names may be considered one of the most characteristic
of Qur’anic compound divine attributes.33
The second reference to the Covenant is the image of the
“Nightingale of Paradise” singing “on the twigs of the Tree of

70 Being Human
Eternity” (‘ala afnani sidrati’ l-baqa’i). This “nightingale” is not a
literal nightingale (bulbul), but rather a dove (or pigeon), the Arabic
name for which—warqa’—is an onomatopoeic for the sound of its
cooing. It seems clear that the translator, Shoghi Effendi, is being
sensitive here to the literary and linguistic tastes of an audience who
may fail to find the necessary enchantment in a reference to the
“pigeon of paradise.” Another more interesting effect of this trans-
lation choice is that it removes the classical nightingale of Persian
literature from his typical rosebush habitat. Traditionally, because
of his attraction to the beauty and scent of the rose, the ill-fated
bird would thrust himself against its deadly thorns, so that the rose
is made redder by the blood of the nightingale shed sacrificing its
life for beauty. This beauty is expressed both visually and through
the sense of smell by the color and fragrance of the roses. This is
one of the most venerable images in the Persian poetic tradition.
It can be traced to the influential Ruzbihan Baqli of Shiraz (d.
1221), in whose commentary on the mystical “divine paradoxes,”
the famous statement from the Prophet is cited: “The beauty
of the rose is from (or part of) the glory of God (baha’u’llah).”34
But in the Tablet of Ahmad, the nightingale is singing from the
Tree of Eternity (sidrat al-baqa’). This is an image that deserves
special discussion, as it combines a number of themes and topics
redolent of the Covenant, revelation, authority, and seeing double.
The Tree of Eternity

There are two words for tree in Arabic that are relevant here. The
usual word is shajara, but in this passage Baha’u’llah uses sidrat. In the
Qur’an “the Lote-tree of the furthest boundary” (Q53:16) is not the
shajarat al-muntaha but the sidratu ‘l-muntaha. Sidrat is the name
of a species of tree and has been chosen here, one assumes, to evoke
such Qur’anic passages as Q34:16, Q56:28—and especially Q53:16,
which is concerned with the famous night journey of the Prophet
Muhammad. Although most such sacred narratives have numerous
variants—and this one is no exception—there is agreement on
the status of the Lote-tree: it is the point in Muhammad’s journey
towards God beyond which—according to tradition—either his

guide Moses or Muhammad himself was not permitted to go.35 The

“Nightingale” (a reference by Baha’u’llah to himself) is “placed” in
this entirely placeless and very lofty spiritual realm.36 Thus the short
phrase is a reference to and affirmation of Muhammad’s spiritual
authority and Baha’u’llah’s, and an evocation of the nearest possible
proximity to the divine. This sidratu’l-muntaha is called sidratu’l-
baqa’, perhaps to avoid scandalizing readers who might be oblivious
to the poetry of the spirit being sung here. However, baqa’ (eternity,
permanence, immortality) connotes the same spiritual reality as
muntaha’. That is, there is a limit to our understanding and percep-
tion of God. God is always beyond, hidden, unseen, absent, remote
(while at the same time remaining closer to us than our jugular
vein, as in Q50:16), sublime, transcendent, and permanent, unlike
all else which is precisely the opposite: visible, present, mundane,
ephemeral, and evanescent. An understanding of eternity depends
on experience of its opposite, an experience all human beings share.
Thus, “seeing double” is necessary. One cannot conceive of eternity
without a simultaneous conception of its opposite.
Baqa’ has other connotations as well, especially in the context
of Islamic mysticism. It is frequently yoked with its spiritual and
semantic opposite fana’ (extinction and annihilation). In the quest
of the mystic, as reiterated for example in the Seven Valleys, there
comes a time for utter annihilation of the self, in order that the
absolute permanence of the divine may be encountered.37 Thus
the baqa’, the“eternity,” of the “Tree” is evoked to draw attention to
God and to the impermanence of the “time-ridden” world that is
its opposite. In the context of Baha’i teachings, the Covenant is also
identified with the ‘Tree,” and this imagery has ramified throughout
the Baha’i texts. The first example to come to mind is the distinctive
terminology used by Baha’u’llah to refer to descendants of relatives
of the Bab and to His own offspring, Twigs (afnan) and Branches
(aghsan) respectively, who are in reality twigs and branches on the
Tree of the Covenant. Such twigs and branches are most properly
given life and adorned by female leaves (waraqa; note the phonic
similarity between “leaves” and “nightingale/warqa’” in the original
languages)—without which the tree would soon die—another

72 Being Human
distinctive Baha’i term used to refer to the women who are members
of the holy household.
‘Abdu’l-Baha explicitly refers to the “tree of the Covenant” in
the following passage:
Had the Covenant not come to pass, had it not been re-
vealed from the Supreme Pen and had not the Book of the
Covenant, like unto the ray of the Sun of Reality, illuminated
the world, the forces of the Cause of God would have been
utterly scattered and certain souls who were the prisoners
of their own passions and lusts would have taken into
their hands an axe, cutting the root of this Blessed Tree.38
The following passages from ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s last tablet to America

demonstrate the aptness of associating the “Tree of Eternity” with
the Covenant:
Through the power of the divine springtime, the downpour

of the celestial clouds and the heat of the Sun of Reality the
tree of life is just beginning to grow. Before long, it will pro-
duce buds, bring forth leaves and fruits, and cast its shade
over the East and the West. This Tree of Life is the Book of
the Covenant.
In America, in these days, severe winds have surrounded
the Lamp of the Covenant, hoping that this brilliant Light
may be extinguished, and this Tree of Life may be uprooted.39
O Lord of the Covenant! O luminous Star of the world! The

persecuted ‘Abdu’l-Baha has fallen into the hands of persons
who appear as sheep and in reality are ferocious wolves; they
exercise every sort of oppression, endeavor to destroy the foun-
dation of the Covenant,—and claim to be Baha’is. They strike
at the root of the Tree of the Covenant—and count themselves
persecuted—just as did the people of the Bayán who broke the
Covenant of His Holiness, the Báb, and from six directions
shot arrows of reproach and calumny at Thy Blessed Body.40

Finally, and so appropriately in this context, in a Tablet to

‘Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’u’llah refers to His son with these words: “O
God! This is a Branch which has sprung forth from the Tree of
Oneness, the Sadrat of Thy Unity.”41
The Tree in the Qur’an

Of course, the “Tree” enjoys great popularity in the mythology and
folklore of the world. Perhaps one of the most important features
of the tree, in this context, is that it represents both the visible
and invisible worlds. Its visible canopy of leaves and branches is
mirrored by its invisible root system; by its verticality it unites the
visible earth with the invisible heaven. It is a symbol of life itself. It
gives life: it is a source of food and shelter. The Qur’an is frequently
likened to a tree that offers its shade to the tired and weary.42 The
tree requires sun, water, and fertile soil to grow. And it transforms
potentially poisonous carbon dioxide into life-giving oxygen. All of
these aspects are readily transmuted into metaphors for the spiri-
tual life of humanity. However, we must limit ourselves here to the
Islamic background, and even that to only a very cursory discussion
of trees in the Qur’an as symbols of divine wrath and pleasure, of
bounty, sustenance, and shelter. Trees and the ancillary ideas of fruit
and shade are referred to in the Qur’an by a variety of words. We
will discuss only three of them here.
First, sidra: This tree is mentioned four times in the Qur’an. As
we have seen, it is the “Lote-tree beyond which there is no passing”
in Q53:14 and is “shrouded in mystery” in Q53:17. In the plural
form, it appears in both a positive and negative light in the Qur’an.
In Q34:16, the wild, thorny, fruitless, and shadeless lote-trees have
replaced the once flourishing pomegranates, dates, and grapes that
grew in Arabia Felix (Yemen) before God punished its inhabitants
for turning away from him and breaking his Covenant. However, in
Q56:28 the cultivated, shade-giving and fruit-producing lote-trees
are a symbol of heavenly bliss, akin to the sidra mentioned in Sura
53. They will provide comfort to the so-called “Companions of the
Right Hand” in Paradise.43 Hence, in addition to being a symbol of
divine transcendence and permanence, this tree is also a symbol of

74 Being Human
“free will”—through humanity’s knowledge and volition negatives
may be transformed into positives.
Second, shajara: The Qur’an speaks, for example, of a “goodly
tree,” to which a “goodly word” is likened (Q14:24), and an “evil tree,”
to which an “evil word” is likened (Q14:26). In Q17:60, mention is
made of the “accursed tree” or “Tree of Zaqqum,” whose roots are
sunk in the bowels of hell, producing bitterness for its inhabitants.44
(See also, Q37:62-65, Q44:43-46, and Q56:52.) As is so often the
case with the more apocalyptic concepts in the Qur’an, a good thing
is opposed by a similar bad thing, its polar opposite. Perceiving one
entails perceiving the other: seeing double. In Q16:67-68 reference
is made to the “trees” in which God has inspired the bees to build
their hives. In the esoteric exegetic tradition of Shi‘ism, the bees are
none other than the Imams themselves whose proper home is in the
Tree of the Covenant.45
In Q22:18, “trees” are returned to nature, as it were, and de-
scribed as being in a state of worship along with all of the other
natural phenomena created by God, such as “all things in heaven
and on earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the hills, the trees, the
animals, and a great number among mankind.” (See also Q55:6 for a
similar statement.) The Qur’an immediately (and characteristically)
adds: “But a great number are also fit for punishment.” In Q32:80,
the fact that fire can be brought forth from “green trees” (that is,
by rubbing two sticks together) is adduced as a miraculous sign of
God. Indeed, “nature” itself is seen in the Qur’an as a theater for the
manifestation of God’s creative power to humanity. Thus to observe
nature is in reality a double observation: one sees the visible natural
phenomena at the same time that one “sees” the invisible power of
God. See especially, in this connection, Q27:60: “Has He not created
the heavens and the earth, and does He not send down rain from
the sky? Yea, with it We cause to grow well-planted orchards full of
beauty and delight. It is not in your power to cause the growth of
the trees in them. Can there be another god besides God?” (See also
Q56:72 for a similar statement.)
The tree that Adam and Eve were instructed not to approach is
mentioned several times (Q2:35, Q7:19-20, 22). And Q20:120-21 is

particularly interesting: “But Satan whispered evil to him. He said:

‘O Adam! Shall I lead thee to the Tree of Eternity (shajara al-khuld)
and to a kingdom that never decays?’ So they both ate of the Tree
. . .”
The Burning Bush of Moses is represented in the Qur’an as the
“Tree growing upon Sinai” (Q23:20) or “the blessed Tree growing
on the right bank of the valley in the holy territory” (Q28:30).46
When Jonah was cast forth from the belly of the fish, God caused a
large tree to grow as shelter for him (Q37:146). In Q48:18, a partic-
ularly interesting passage is the direct reference to the oath sworn to
Muhammad at al-Hudaybiya, an agreement referred to by Muslims
as the “Oath of Ridwan” (bay‘at ar-ridwan) because of the language
in the following verse (Q48:18):
God’s good pleasure (radiya ’llahu) was with the believers

when they swore fealty [cf. bay‘a] to thee under the Tree. He
knew what was in their hearts, and He sent down His Divine
Tranquillity (as-sakina) to them and rewarded them with a
speedy victory.
The word ridvan (Arabic pronunciation: ridwan) is important as it

is the name Baha’u’llah gave to the garden that was the site of the
renewal of the ancient, primordial Covenant in 1863, transferring
its focus from the Bab to Himself. It is also the name of the series of
the most important holy days in the Baha’i Faith, commemorating
that sacred event. As such, the Ridvan holy days are analogous to
the Ghadir Khumm observances in Shi‘ism, however differently
they may be observed. The word ridwan derives from the above
Qur’anic verb radiya. The form ridwan occurs in a variety of con-
texts 13 times in the Qur’an (Q3:15, Q3:162, Q3:174, Q5:2, Q5:16,
Q9:21, Q9:72, Q9:109, Q47:28, Q48:29, Q57:20, Q57:27, Q59:8),
where it may always be translated as “the good pleasure of God.”
Its Baha’i usage and reading is an excellent example of the way tra-
ditional Islamic ideas and symbols are employed by Baha’u’llah to
simultaneously honor that tradition and to separate from it. Again,
seeing double.

76 Being Human
Finally, az-zaytuna: But perhaps the single most powerful image
of the tree in the Qur’an comes at the exquisitely beautiful Light
Verse (Q24:35):
God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth. The likeness
of his light is as if there were a niche and within it a lamp, the
lamp enclosed in a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star:
Lit from a Blessed Tree, an olive neither eastern nor western,
whose oil would almost shine forth by itself, even though no
fire touch it. Light upon light! God doth guide to his light
whom he will. And God strikes metaphors for mankind. And
God is Knower of all things.
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this verse in

Islamic thought and spirituality. Similarly, it would be impossible
to overestimate its significance for Baha’i scripture. An exhaustive
study of this significance would further elucidate the relationship
between the Baha’i Faith and Islam, the study of which, as we have
seen, was so strongly urged upon the Baha’is by Shoghi Effendi.
The verse is, of course, the subject of a vastly variegated exegetic
tradition. In the Shi‘i tradition, the oil is none other than the “oil” of
divine loving protection and authority (walaya) which “shines forth
even if no fire touches it.” In a tradition related on the authority
of Ja‘far as-Sadiq, the verse is explained as follows: The “niche” is
said to be Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad and wife of ‘Ali,
and considered the “Mother of all the Imams.” The lamp is said to
refer to Hasan and Husayn. “The glass as it were a glittering star” is
said to mean that Fatimah shines like a star amongst the women of
the world. “Lit from a blessed Tree” is said to mean begotten from
Abraham. “Neither eastern nor western” means neither Jewish nor
Christian. “Its oil would almost shine forth by itself ” means that di-
vine knowledge almost flows spontaneously from it. “Even though
no fire touched it. Light upon light” means Imam after Imam in
unbroken succession.47 The Bab himself refers to this tree, its light,
its oil, and its transcendence throughout his Qayyum al-asma in
innumerable passages.48

Rejection of Baha’u’llah is rejection of all Messengers

Perhaps the most powerful and uncompromising sentence in the
Tablet of Ahmad—with regard to the fulfilment of the Covenant—
is the following remarkably explicit statement:
Be thou assured in thyself that he who turns away from this

Beauty hath also turned away from the Messengers of the past
and showeth pride towards God from all eternity to all eternity.49
Here Baha’u’llah, with consummate certainty and poise, explicitly

identifies the Bab’s cause with all of the divine Messengers of the past.
That is, the one who turns away from this Cause has de facto broken
the Covenant instituted on the primordial Day of the Covenant
(described above), renewed and reiterated through every Prophet
and Messenger from that time to this. Here Baha’u’llah, without the
slightest hint of tentativeness or apology, asserts the divine and au-
thentic origin of his religion. The phrase “this Beauty” (hadha al-ja-
mal) in the above excerpt is a simultaneous reference to both the Bab
and Baha’u’llah. For Baha’is today, this may seem unexceptionable
or unremarkable, even obvious, because they have never questioned
the divine source of their religion. It is suggested here, however, that
those living at the time of Baha’u’llah had many pressures to deal
with, pressures that from time to time might have caused them to
ask whether or not this was the true Cause for which Muslims—and
especially Shi‘i Muslims—had been waiting and praying for so long.
Day of Resurrection (yawm al-qiyama)

The coda of the Tablet of Ahmad, familiar to those who know the
text in the original language, is not included in European-language
translations. However, since this brief passage also refers to the
Covenant, we will examine it here. The reference to the Covenant is
in the mention here of the Day of Resurrection. The Covenant taken
between God and humanity during that time before time when all
things existed only in potential (recounted in Q7:172, and referred
to many times in these pages), was taken so that souls would be able
to recognize the truth on the Day of Resurrection.50

78 Being Human
So, remember Us to all those dwelling in the City of God, the

King, the Mighty, the Beauteous—those who have had faith
in God and in Him Whom God doth raise up on the Day
of Resurrection. Verily, they are the true sojourners upon the
paths of Divine Truth and Reality.51
From the context of the tablet, it seems clear that Baha’u’llah is re-
ferring to the Bab as “Him Whom God doth raise up.” The tablet was
revealed in 1865,52 at a time when the Babi community was divided
and in disarray. Baha’u’llah wished to express his acknowledgment
of the Bab’s authority—his affirmation of the Bab’s Covenant—and
his recognition of him as the Promised One of the Islamic dispen-
sation. In recognizing this, Baha’u’llah also affirms the primordial,
pre-eternal, pre-creational Covenant. At the same time, Baha’u’llah
asserts His own authoritative relationship with the Covenant. The
phrase “those who have had faith in God and in Him Whom God
doth raise up on the Day of Resurrection” (al-ladhina hum amanu
bi’llahi wa bi’l-ladhi yaba‘thuhu allahu fi yawm al-qiyamati) refers
both to the past and the present, because of the grammatical tenses
used. The verb “to have faith” is in the perfect tense, a tense that
indicates an action has been completed. The verb “to raise up” is
in the imperfect tense, a tense that indicates that an action is in
process, continuous: it began in the past, it is certainly taking place
now, and it may continue in the future. Thus it can refer to the Bab,
whom God had already “raised up,” and it can refer to Baha’u’llah,
whom God is now “raising up.”
Baha’u’llah refers to the Bab earlier in this tablet in the sentence,
“And that the One Whom He hath sent forth by the name of ‘Ali was
the true One from God . . . He is the King of the Messengers and His
Book is the Mother Book (umm al-kitab) did ye but know (‘arifin).”53
In this passage, there are three direct references to the Covenant:
1) the phrase: “by the name of ‘Ali was the true One from God”
(huwa haqq min ‘ind allah); 2) the phrase: “King of the Messengers”;
and 3) the phrase: “His Book is the Mother Book.” ‘Ali is the name
of the Bab, or the name by which he was most frequently referred
at this stage in the history of the movement, that is, Hadrat-i A‘la

(His Holiness the Most Exalted). But it should never be lost sight
of that the identity of Islam, whether Sunni or Shi‘i, is formed in
large measure by the dispute over the succession to Muhammad, on
which one side claims that the Prophet appointed no one to succeed
him, and another side claims that ‘Ali was the true one from God.
Baha’u’llah further exalts the station of ‘Ali (the Bab) by calling
him the “King of the Messengers” (sultan ar-rusul). There are two
common words in Arabic for “king”: malik and sultan. While it might
be thought that the designation sultan represents a lower level of
sovereignty than malik, the fact that the Tablet of Ahmad opens with
an invocation in the name “the King, the All-Knowing, the Wise,”
where “king” here is also as-sultan, suggests that for Baha’u’llah the
word indicates the highest possible level of sovereignty. The word
rasul (plural: rusul) is interesting as it represents one of the few uses
of traditional Islamic terminology for what is usually referred to in
the Baha’i writings as the “divine Manifestation.” It is interesting
also in this regard to note that Baha’u’llah is not calling the Bab a
divine Messenger (rasul allah) but is rather calling him the “King
of the Messengers.” Here, the King may or may not be of the same
“species” as his subjects. However, we finally understand this epi-
thet, it is certainly clear that, as the “King of the Messengers,” the
Bab is deeply implicated in the propagation and preservation of the
divine Covenant that it is the main task of the divine Messengers to
reiterate and re-establish in their respective communities.
The station of the Bab is perceived on an even higher plane
when Baha’u’llah deems his revelation (“His Book”) to be not
“merely” divine revelation, but to be the actual “Mother Book”
referred to in the Qur’an (Q3:7, Q13:39, Q43:4) and frequently
associated in the commentaries with the “Preserved Tablet” (lawh
mahfuz) mentioned in Q85:22. While anything approaching a
complete discussion of this designation would take us far afield, it
is perhaps sufficient here to our purpose simply to characterize the
broadest possible consensus on the meaning of these designations
in Islam. The Mother Book, or the Preserved Tablet, is the heav-
enly archetype of all divine revelation. The books of the Prophets
(Torah, Gospels, and Qur’an) are but reflections of this sacred and

80 Being Human
transcendent divine message. Thus, when Baha’u’llah designates the
Bab’s revelation as the Mother Book, he is saying that it is qualita-
tively different from the previous scriptures in that the Bab’s book
is (paradoxically) the source of these earlier revelations rather than
the product of them. Such a dramatic and apparently illogical claim
by Baha’u’llah about the writings of one who, for all practical pur-
poses and to all appearances, was defeated by the world bespeaks an
adamantine commitment to the Covenant of his predecessor. That
this claim is done in the very language of the Qur’an identifies that
Covenant with the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad and the
Imams.
A number of other phrases in the Tablet of Ahmad also stand
out as signifiers of the Covenant:
Thus doth the Nightingale utter His call unto you from this
prison. He hath but to deliver this clear message. Whosoever
desireth, let him turn aside from this counsel and whosoever
desireth let him choose the path to his Lord.
O people, if ye deny these verses, by what proof have ye
believed in God? Produce it, O assemblage of false ones.
Nay, by the One in Whose hand is my soul, they are not,
and never shall be able to do this, even should they combine
to assist one another.
Thus doth the Nightingale utter his call unto you . . .

The English phrase “utter His call unto you” is the translation of
a single compound Arabic word: yudhakkarukum. This word is
derived from the basic root DH-K-R that also gives us the word
dhikr, usually translated as “remembrance.” Although Islam rec-
ognizes no original sin, it does recognize that human beings are
forgetful and need to be reminded. Such a statement is based on
the numerous and varied uses of this word dhikr (as it happens, one
of the chief titles by which the Bab was known) and its derivatives
in the Qur’an. It has been suggested that the word for human be-
ing, insan, is derived from the basic Arabic word nasiya, meaning
precisely, “to forget.”54 Whether or not this etymology is sound,

the theological position of Islam and the Qur’an is unmistakable:

mankind requires the periodic intervention of divine Messengers
who come to remind them about their Covenant or “contract” with
God.55 When the Nightingale utters his call, he is actually reminding
his listeners/readers of their obligations and duties. (Note also
the admonition elsewhere in the tablet to “forget not” (la tansa.)
The path to his Lord

There is probably no more pervasive metaphor in Islam than that of
“the path.” Here the Arabic word is sabil (this word occurs two other
times in this tablet). It is a frequent Qur’anic word, occurring there
in the singular form 112 times, often in contexts implying struggle
and hardship as in: “Say not of those who are killed in the path of
God that they are dead.” (Q2:154.) Other words in the Qur’an for or
indicating “path” or “way” are: manahij (Q5:48), manakib (Q67:15),
rashada (Q2:186), sirat/sirat al-mustaqim (passim), shari‘a (Q45:18),
sunna (passim), tariq/tariqa (Q4:168-69, Q46:30; Q20:63, 104), tariq
yabas (dry path in the sea, Q20:77). These words, together with their
companions “guidance” and “leading astray” form one of the central
distinctive religious motifs of the Islamic religion: To be faithful to
the Covenant means to be on the right path, and vice versa. It would
be impossible for a Muslim religious thinker to use such a word—or
for a Muslim audience to hear or read such a word—as sabil with-
out making a conscious association with the truth of Islam and the
Covenant that it entails. Baha’u’llah’s use of the word here is no
exception: the path of God is the same in this day as it was in the
past.56
The challenge to those who deny the verses to produce a proof
of their belief in God, and the assurance that they will fail in
this, is a variation on the Qur’anic theme of challenge (tahaddi)
in which the enemies of the Prophet are challenged to produce a
book or verses comparable to the Qur’an. That they cannot do so
is understood in this context as a proof of the divine source of
Muhammad’s revelation. In the Qur’an, for example, we find the
following:

82 Being Human
Say: If the whole of mankind and Jinn were to gather together
to produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the
like thereof; even if they backed up each other with help and
support (law kana ba‘duhum li-ba‘din zahiran). (Q17:90)
Say: Then bring ye a book from God which is a better guide

than either of them that I may follow it if ye are truthful.
(Q28:49, cf. also Q2:23-24)
Compare the first verse with Baha’u’llah’s “even should they

combine to assist one another” (law yakunu ba‘duhum li-ba‘din
zahiran) in the Tablet of Ahmad.
Signs
The motif of signs and verses is also an important feature of Islam
and one of the major thematic constants in the Qur’an.57 The
Arabic word aya (sign; pl.: ayat) means both “portent” and “verse of
divine revelation.” Verses of poetry are referred to as bayt/abyat to
differentiate scripture from other forms of literature. The Qur’an is
very specific about the nature and function of these ayat, whether
they are in the form of divinely revealed language (verses) or are in
the form of created phenomena (signs). When read correctly, they
indicate God and God’s Covenant with humanity. A few Qur’anic
quotations will illustrate this. The first is perhaps the most widely
cited verse in this connection. The Bab’s writings are full of refer-
ences to it and Baha’u’llah quotes it directly and refers to it indirectly
many times as well.
Soon will We show them Our Signs in the horizons and in

their own souls until it becomes manifest to them that this
is the Truth. Is it not enough that thy Lord is witness over all
created things? (Q41:53)
The Qur’an may be understood to say here that in addition to the

miraculous verses of scripture,58 which are portents or signs of God,
such signs are also deposited in nature and in the soul. Thus the

reading of signs is to be done on three levels or in three contexts

simultaneously: nature, self/soul, and revelation. The implication
is that such a triple reading will perceive the harmony that exists
throughout these various realms. The implication here is also that
the primary station of the human being is that of reader of the world.
In this act of reading, it is expected that one will view a sign as im-
portant in that it indicates something beyond itself. So the reading
of signs entails “seeing double.” One must pay close attention to the
given sign, which may be in nature, in the soul, or in the Book, i.e.,
the Revelation. At the very same time, one’s vision must be drawn
toward the “beyond-the-sign” (God) in order for the reading to be
sound.59 One may read the famous Qur’anic verse, said to have been
revealed on the occasion of the change in the direction of prayer
(qibla) from Jerusalem to Mecca, as corroborating this point:
To God belong the East and the West; whithersoever you turn,
there is the Face of God; God is All-embracing, All-knowing.
(Q2:115)
Here it is important to note that the Arabic word wajh (face) can
also mean direction. It has also been translated in this context as
“Presence”. When understood this way, and especially in connec-
tion with another important verse—“Supplicate no other god save
God. There is no god but He. Everything that exists is perishing
except His Face” (Q28:88)—the Qur’an implies that the way to God
is eternal while the various phenomena that indicate him are in a
process of change. His eternity is suggested in the very presence of
evanescence. Thus we have another species of seeing double, and
one that is very common to our modes of perception. A thing is
known by its opposite: heat through cold, left through right, and so
on.60 Perceiving heat entails also perceiving, or at least remembering
the perception of, cold. Elsewhere the Qur’an reiterates its ‘theory”
of signs:
On the earth are Signs for those of assured faith. As also in your
own souls, will ye not then perceive? And in heaven is your

84 Being Human
sustenance, as also that which ye are promised. Then, by the
Lord of heaven and earth, this is the very Truth as much as the
fact that ye can speak intelligently to each other. (Q51:20-23)
A final lengthier quotation is included because it represents a

powerful example of the relational and self-referential dynamics of
reading. Here the Qur’an, representing a distinct category of signs,
uses its signs to illuminate the signs of nature and the soul. The
lesson seems to be that the triple reading of nature, self, and Book
must be coordinated first by reference to the Book.
It is God Who causeth the seed-grain and the date-stone to

split and sprout. He causeth the living to issue from the dead
and He is the One to cause the dead to issue from the living.
That is God. Then how are ye deluded away from the Truth?
He it is that cleaveth the day-break [from the darkness]: He
makes the night for rest and tranquillity and the sun and
moon for the reckoning [of time]. Such is the judgment and
ordering of [Him], the Exalted in Power, the Omniscient.
It is He who maketh the stars as beacons for you, that you
may guide yourselves with their help through the dark spaces
of land and sea, We detail Our Signs for people who know.
It is He Who hath produced you from a single soul. Here is a
place of abiding and a place of departure: We detail Our Signs
for people who understand.
It is He who sendeth clouds to rain from the skies: With
it We produce vegetation of all kinds. From some We produce
green crops out of which We produce grain heaped up at
harvest. Out of the date-palm and its spathes come clusters
of dates hanging low and near. And then there are gardens
of grapes, and olives and pomegranates. Each similar in kind
yet different in variety When they begin to bear fruit feast
your eyes with the fruit and the ripeness thereof. Behold! In
these things are Signs for people who believe. (Q6:95-99)
The Covenant is established through revelation (that is, verses/

signs), and that which the signs indicate is none other than the
Divine and the Covenant implied thereby—the hermeneutic circle
transformed into a spiral by the new revelations of the Bab and
Baha’u’llah.61
Throughout the Tablet of Ahmad are numerous such references
and hints for the Covenant of Islam instituted by Muhammad and
guarded and protected by his progeny, the Imams. We have only
discussed a few of the more obvious ones. The important point
here is that these clues and hints are to be read in two registers at
once. One is the Islamic and the Baha’i, a historical or “horizontal”
reading. Second, each “sign” is also to be read doubly in a second
direction: “vertically,” as metaphor. Metaphor is not merely a verbal
or rhetorical device but a strategy through which divine Truth is
made known in the “sub-lunar” realm.62 In the mystical tradition,
metaphorical love (‘ishq majazi) is precisely the love between hu-
man beings. Real love (‘ishq haqiqi) is the love of God and God’s
love for humanity. Human love is a bridge (majaz) to the real goal
of divine love. Of course, these signs and verses may be read in only
one register, with one eye, as it were, which is the condition of Dajjal,
the “Islamic anti-Christ” as described by the prophet Muhammad
in the opening quotation above. However, if seeing is done with
one eye only, then the message of Baha’u’llah is either distorted or
negated altogether. This indicates that evil is implicated (either the
cause of, or caused) by a refusal or inability to see clearly with two
eyes—to see double. Baha’u’llah is quite unambiguous about how
to read in his Commentary on the Surat ash-Shams, for example:
Know ye that he who clings to the outer meaning and abandons

the inner meaning is an ignorant savage, and he who clings
to the inner meaning and abandons the outer meaning is a
negligent one. But he who takes the inner meaning in harmo-
ny with the outer meaning, that one has perfect awareness.63
Service in both worlds (ath-thaqalan)

Another reference to the Covenant is the phrase: “a service in both
worlds.” The Arabic is: ‘ibadat ath-thaqalan. The first word here is

86 Being Human
derived from the same word as ‘abd (servant/slave), as in ‘Abdu’l-
Baha (Servant of Baha). In this form in the Tablet of Ahmad, it is
an abstract noun: servitude/service. Thus, Shoghi Effendi’s choice
in translation of this first word is quite straightforward. His choice
in translating the second word, thaqalan, as “both worlds” is not
quite so transparent and invites serious study and meditation.
Interestingly enough for the present discussion, the word thaqalan is
in the dual plural.64 The singular noun thaqal means “burden/load/
baggage.” Cast in the dual form, it simply means two of these. (The
simple plural, athqal, refers to three or more.) The word mithqal is
derived from this root and means a weight for measuring—for ex-
ample, a quantity of gold or silver. The word thaqalan does appear
once in the Qur’an65 in the Sura of the Merciful (suratu ar-rahman):
Soon shall We settle your affairs, O both ye worlds (ayyuha

’th-thaqalan)! (Q55:31, Yusuf ‘Ali translation)
This chapter of the Qur’an, Sura 55, is distinguished by its rhyme,

predominantly in -an, which also happens to be the grammatical
suffix indicating the dual plural. Thus the word thaqalan fits per-
fectly into this rhyme scheme. The sura is also distinguished by the
frequent refrain: “Which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny?”
The verses have a highly incantatory form and their contents are
very poetic, musical, and mystical. This is supposed to be one of the
early Meccan suras. As Yusuf ‘Ali so astutely observes:
Here the special theme is indicated by the refrain. The rhyme in

most cases is in the Dual grammatical form, and the Argument
implies that though things are created in pairs, there is an
underlying Unity, through the Creator, in the favors which
He bestows, and in the goal to which they are marching.66
Nonetheless, the precise meaning of thaqalan is far from clear.67

The most frequent explanation is that it refers to the two burden-
some groups: mankind and jinn (spirits). As we see in Yusuf Ali’s
translation, the two groups are taken as symbolic of two worlds:

one visible, the other invisible. However, the world of jinn, as

understood by Muhammad’s audience, would not have been a
paradise. Rather, it was an inter-realm where virtuous, mischievous,
and even malevolent beings known as jinn, pursued their separate
destinies. There is no evidence that the world of jinn, just because it
was invisible to humans, was therefore also the hereafter or paradise
(or in Baha’i terms, the Abha Kingdom). Such an idea would be
unthinkable. Therefore, when Yusuf ‘Ali translates ath-thaqalayn
as “both worlds,” he is counting on his reader being familiar with
the immediate context that mentions specifically men and jinn
several times (Q55:14, 15, 33, 39, 56, 74) so that there can be no
doubt about what is intended by Yusuf ‘Ali’s “both worlds.” A short
excerpt from Sura 55, indicating the presence of the controlling
-an rhyme mentioned above, will further illuminate the matter:
26 All that is on earth

Will perish (fan)
27 But will abide (forever)
The face of thy Lord—
Full of majesty,
Bounty and Honor (al-ikram)
28 Then which of the favors
Of your Lord will ye deny? (tukadhdhiban)
29 Of Him seeks (its need)
Every creature in the heavens
And on earth:
Every day in (new) Splendor
Doth He (shine)! (sha’n)
3o Then which of the favors
31 Soon shall We
Settle your affairs,
O both ye worlds! (ath-thaqalan)
32 Then which of the favors
33 O ye assembly of Jinns

88 Being Human
And men! If it be
Ye can pass beyond
The zones of the heavens
And the earth, pass ye!
Not without authority
[Shall] Will ye be able to pass! (sultan)
34. Then which of the favors
The following is Yusuf ‘Ali’s note to Q55:31:
Thaqal: weight, something weighty, something weighed

with something else. The two thaqalas [Thaqalan] are {the
two worlds of} Jinns and men, {—the unseen world and
the world before our eyes} who are burdened with respon-
sibility or, as some commentators hold, with sin. They are
both before {God} Allah, and the affairs of both are con-
ducted under His Command. If there are inequalities or
apparent disturbances of balance, that is only for a season.
{God} Allah gives to both good and evil men a chance in
this period of probation; but this period will soon be over,
and judgment will be established. To give you this chance,
this probation, this warning, is itself a favour, by which you
should profit, and for which you should be grateful. (R)68
Another important occurrence of the dual of thaqal is in the

above-mentioned Sermon of Ghadir Khumm. The relevant passage
is quoted here. Note that the word appears in a different grammat-
ical case in this instance, giving a slightly different pronunciation:
[Muhammad] gave the community news of his own death,

saying: “I have been summoned and it is nearly the moment
for me to answer. The time has come for me to depart from
you. I leave behind me among you two all-important things
(ath-thaqalayn) which, if you cleave to them, you will never
go astray—that is the Book of God and my offspring from

my family (ahl al-bayt). They will never abandon you until

they lead you to me at the [sacred] waters [of Heaven].”69
Ath-thaqalayn here refers to the two things most valuable for main-
taining faithfulness to the Covenant: the Qur’an and the progeny
of the Prophet designated as the successive Guardians (awliya, sing.
wali) of the Cause of God and the Covenant.70 These two things,
moreover, are stipulated as “bequests” in the Shi‘i tradition, as
Muhammad’s own Covenant or testament (‘ahd). According to the
Shi‘a, Muhammad, on his deathbed, was prevented from commit-
ting his will and testament to paper by the covenant-breakers. It is
interesting to observe here that an alternate translation for thaqal
is “army.”71 Thus it may be possible to understand Muhammad’s
words in the Hadith ath-thaqalayn as designating the Qur’an and the
Imams as two armies protecting the community from the various
enemies of covenant-breaking and dissension. Such armies would
also aid the believers in their task of establishing the widest possible
area for the practice of Islam, known technically as the Abode of
Islam (dar al-islam), and also as the Abode of the Covenant (dar
al-‘ahd).72
The Shi‘i Qur’an commentaries consulted here all equate the
word thaqalan of Q55:31 with “the two precious things” mentioned
in the above prophetic Hadith, although Muhsin Fayd Kashani adds
his opinion that the word refers to the worlds of jinn and men.
Whether this means that it also refers to these “two worlds” is not
raised.73 That Baha’u’llah himself affirmed the significance of the
Hadith ath-thaqalayn is clear from his quoting it in the Kitab-i
Iqan. Here Shoghi Effendi has translated thaqalayn as “twin weighty
testimonies” in line with the usual Shi‘i understanding of this dual
noun.74
The nominative dual usage in Q55:31 is of special interest be-
cause of the great discrepancy between the interpretations of this
verse throughout Islamic history and the related phrase in the Tablet
of Ahmad, which Shoghi Effendi has translated as “a service in both
worlds.” Grammatically, Baha’u’llah’s ‘ibadat ath-thaqalayn could
be translated as “a service to both worlds” or “authorities”—the

90 Being Human
Book and the teacher/Imam—since the preposition “in” (fi) does
not occur here. Thus the meaning might also be: For the one who
chants this Tablet, God will give the reward of a hundred martyrs
and the rank of having served faithfully both of the “two precious
things.” That is, the one who sincerely believes that which is stated
in the Tablet of Ahmad has been true to the Qur’an, to the Prophet,
and to the Imams—to the Islamic Covenant, even if it appears
otherwise.
The purpose in drawing attention to this translation question is
to highlight another aspect of the relationship between the Baha’i
Faith and Islam. Shoghi Effendi’s enrichment of a standard symbol
of the Islamic Covenant, by departing from the traditional under-
standing of a single word, is characteristic of the way in which the
Baha’i Faith has become distinct and has acquired an identity that
may be best described as post-Islamic.
Reading as Sacrament
Over forty years ago, John Hatcher published a monograph in which
he discussed basic Baha’i presuppositions about what it means to be
in the world.75 From what has been said above about the theory
of signs, to suggest that Hatcher’s study is finally about the nature
of reading will not be surprising. The act of reading signs has
immediate existential implications.76 Essential here is what might
otherwise be thought a merely literary feature, the metaphorical
process. However, Hatcher demonstrates the profound connections
between being, spiritual growth, and reading that are assumed in
the Baha’i teachings.
In order to make his point as clear as possible, Hatcher pains-
takingly outlined the structure of a metaphor, which entails three
elements: 1) the tenor, that which is being described; 2) the vehicle,
that which is compared to the tenor; and” 3) “the meaning, that
area of similarity between the tenor and the vehicle.”77 So, in the
famous simile “My love is like a red red rose,” the tenor is “my love,”
the vehicle is the “red red rose,” and the meaning is what occurs
in the mind when the comparison is struck. It may be added here
that for all practical purposes the tenor in the metaphorical process

is like the “X” in an algebraic equation waiting to be discovered

through the process. In other words, it is unknown and to a large
extent unseen, unimagined, and unthought until the metaphor
is generated. Unlike the algebraic “X,” however, the value that is
discovered through the metaphorical process is not quantifiable.
The metaphorical “equation” yields a field of meaning rather than
a specific integer. The tenor, then, becomes known and seen in the
way the author of the metaphor wishes us to know and see it in such
a field of meaning. In his remarkable article, Hatcher explicates in a
masterful and engaging fashion how the Baha’i texts insist that the
author of creation, God, wishes his handiwork to be perceived in
and through the metaphorical process.
The reader or listener must be made to think, to be a bit

creative, because he must complete the final and most im-
portant part of the process himself. He is responsible for de-
termining in what way the tenor and the vehicle are similar.78
This basic proposition about the perception and reading of existence

and reality is “a safeguard against dogmatism”79 precisely because a
metaphor, by its very nature, is a living and changing entity, owing
to its utter dependence for its life on the active, creative imagination
of the human mind. Just as each mind is different, so each mind
imagines in a distinctive fashion. As Hatcher says, “My point is not
to assign one translation to this metaphorical event . . . to affix one
meaning violates the very nature of the metaphor.”80 Furthermore,
this individual reading act has profound (and it would seem irre-
versible) implications for society. It is not solely a private act, no
matter how metaphorical:
The point is that there is no final or complete perception of

the abstraction; it can always be more acutely perceived or
more exquisitely dramatized in the phenomenal world. Of
course, the idea of limitless growth is not confined to the
individual. Society itself can manifest a collective awareness
of authority, justice, honesty, and as its awareness of these

92 Being Human
attributes expands, society is capable of implementing that
understanding more completely in social action.81
The physical metaphor . . . functions on this plane as an

integral and inextricable part of man’s efforts to fulfill his
primary goal, spiritual development. It provides the means by
which he perceives spiritual qualities in the first place and it is
the means by which he may express and acquire that attribute
once it is understood. Even as the process of spiritual growth
attains higher levels of response, man never completely relin-
quishes on this plane the reciprocal relationship between the
conception of spirituality and the implementation through
metaphorical act.82
The source of this “theory of reading”—which is really a theory

of being—Hatcher locates in none other than ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s Some
Answered Questions:
. . . [H]uman knowledge is of two kinds. One is the knowledge

acquired through the senses. . . . The other kind of human
knowledge is that of intelligible things; that is, it consists of
intelligible realities which have no outward form or place and
which are not sensible. . . . Thus, when you wish to express
the reality of the spirit and its conditions and degrees, you
are obliged to describe them in terms of sensible things,
since outwardly there exists nothing but the sensible. For
example, grief and happiness are intelligible things, but when
you wish to express these spiritual conditions you say, “My
heart became heavy,” or “My heart was uplifted,” although
one’s heart is not literally made heavy or lifted up. Rather,
it is a spiritual or intelligible condition, the expression of
which requires the use of sensible terms. Another example
is when you say, “So-and-so has greatly advanced,” although
he has remained in the same place, or “So-and-so has a high
position,” whereas, like everyone else, he continues to walk
upon the earth. This elevation and advancement are spiritual

conditions and intelligible realities, but to express them you

must use sensible terms, since outwardly there is nothing be-
yond the sensible. To cite another example, knowledge
is figuratively described as light, and ignorance as darkness.
But reflect: Is knowledge sensible light or ignorance sensible
darkness? Certainly not.83
It is the “metaphorical act” or event that has been the central topic
of this chapter: the place where seeing double (or double vision)
occurs. In order for the metaphor to be “enacted” or initiated (and
in some sense to be embodied or enlivened), the subject must be
looking at two things at once, or almost at once—a difficult but
quintessentially human ability.84
The Muslim mystical tradition, out of which the Baha’i Faith
is born, has long recognized this as an axiom of epistemology
in the veneration of such Holy Traditions as: “The paths to God
are as numerous as the souls of the believers.” Thus each reader/
believer will engage with the text in a very personal and intimate
way. When double vision is in play, a certain degree of confusion,
or amphiboly, can occur. This means that the tenor and the vehicle
become confused.85 Amphiboly, as Corbin explained, is a cardinal
axiom of the mystical and poetic tradition; as such, it is relevant to
the Baha’i corpus. It may be understood through the example he
gives. Hafiz, whom many consider the greatest Persian mystic poet,
has generated much controversy over the problem of interpreting
his wine poetry, either as literal or as figurative. The question, as
Corbin points out, is badly conceived, since it is a matter of the
otherwise transcendent (or as ‘Abdu’l-Baha preferred, “spiritual or
intellectual”) truth having been clothed so that it might be visible,
accessible. And in this, the clothing also acquires something of the
Truth. However, the clothing—not only the Truth itself—is also
prone to being misunderstood and confused and confusing.86
Amphiboly
This is that which hath descended from the realm of glory,
uttered by the tongue of power and might, and revealed

94 Being Human
unto the Prophets of old. We have taken the inner essence
thereof and clothed it in the garment of brevity, as a token
of grace unto the righteous, that they may stand faithful
unto the Covenant of God, may fulfill in their lives His trust,
and in the realm of spirit obtain the gem of Divine virtue.87
In this well-known introduction to his Hidden Words, Baha’u’llah

employs the metaphor of clothing to illumine the status, function,
and purpose of his brief work. Whether or not there is any direct
connection or relationship, it will help explicate further the theme
of seeing double by referring to a similar metaphor used by the
famous and influential 13th-century Iranian mystic, Ruzbihan
Baqli Shirazi, in his attempts to elucidate the method by which the
Unknowable becomes known. In fact, Ruzbihan uses exactly the
same metaphor of clothing. But whereas Baha’u’llah uses a word
based on the root Q-M-S (from the Sura of Joseph, Qur’an 12), in
this case the metaphor is based on the root L-B-S. The operative
word is iltibas (disguised or veiled). Divine Truth is “disguised” in
phenomenal “signs.”88 In elucidating this metaphor, the renowned
scholar of Islamic mysticism Annemarie Schimmel has written:
Ruzbihan becomes enraptured when he speaks of his own

experiences, of his suffering, his yearning for beauty. The
iltibas, the concealment of pre-eternal beauty in created
forms, is the theme of his meditations; faithful to the classical
Sufi tradition, he sees in love the effort to break once more
through the limits of the created world in order to reach the
state of true [Divine Unity] as it existed at the [primordial]
Day of the Covenant.89
The scholar responsible for insisting on the importance of Ruzbihan

for an understanding of Islamic mysticism was the above-mentioned
Henry Corbin.90 Corbin uses the word amphiboly to translate ilti-
bas, and this choice is admirably suited to its purpose.91 Amphiboly
occurs in logic when a statement becomes susceptible of two
meanings, not because of the double meaning of the words used,

but because of the construction of the sentence. For example: “The

killing of the lions was swift and merciful.” (Were the lions killed?
Or, did they do the killing?) Thus, logical amphiboly depends not
on the double meanings of elements in the statement (ambiguity)
but on the structure of the statement itself.
Similarly, creation is susceptible of two “meanings” because of
the very structure of Being or Existence. This structure is related
to the Hadith Qudsi: “I desired to be known, therefore I created
creation in order to be known, and I was known.’92 The meaning of
this statement for Ruzbihan is that the material world is essential
as a means of knowing Truth or God or Absolute Being. It is also
essential for God to know humanity. This is much different from
saying that creation and God are the same. Such a confusion is quite
understandable, given the amphibolous nature of the cosmos.93
Indeed, one of the connotations of the word iltibas is precisely
“confusion.” God created the phenomenal world in order that he
might be known, but his transcendence is such that he can never
be truly known. His attributes, his energy, if you will, can be de-
tected through the “residue” of his creative act—that is to say “all
created things.” That this is so, elevates immeasurably mere material
phenomena to a status otherwise unanticipated and quite beyond
what we normally think of as “nature.” Each created thing becomes
a vehicle for the knowledge of God, an ‘embodiment’ of divine
virtue. Baha’u’llah himself says exactly the same thing in the Book
of Certitude (the Kitab-i Iqan):
[T]he light of divine knowledge and heavenly grace hath

illumined and inspired the essence of all created things, in
such wise that in each and every thing a door of knowledge
hath been opened, and within every atom traces of the sun
hath been made manifest.94
Prior to using, say, a tree to stand for proximity to God, the Covenant,
and the Guardianship,95 the tree is merely a tree. By using the tree
to stand for some aspect of the divine, the revelation transforms (or
transposes) nature from its worldly, mundane register. Through the

96 Being Human
process of divine manifestation (tajalli, zuhur), which paradoxically

depends upon the material realm and the human sensorium,96 this
material realm is transmuted by association, as if the divine energy
charging through it actually transfigures it. The tree, by virtue of its
participation in the Unknown, the Divine Hiddenness, the Invisible
Realm, the Holy Silence, becomes charged with the electricity of
this Other Realm. Hence, the phenomenal world is spiritualized
(which may be thought to be different from divinized) in the soul
or the imagination of the observer, reader, and/or believer. Nature
read in this manner becomes impossible to participate in without
being brought into contact—however tentatively—with holiness,
sacredness, and divinity, with that which is meant (elsewhere)
by the word Prresence. As one scholar explains, the phenomenal
realm—in the spiritualized consciousness—becomes transparent
and the divine light is now perceived as shining through all created
things.97 But this light needs to be seen by humans (because God
desired to be known). By human perception being “drawn through”
nature during the metaphorical process, nature is also humanized.
The world becomes a Holy Land by being humanized.98
Divine love requires a human reality. Divine unity requires a
divine reality. This situation gives rise to possible confusion, a
misreading of the world that sees either nothing beyond matter or
sees the essence of God in the material realm (which is a frequent
misinterpretation of mysticism).99 Double vision sees matter as
only matter, an invaluable and indispensable vehicle for the truth,
and detects also that transcendent Truth that actually enlivens mat-
ter. The experience of Ultimate Meaning or Truth must also occur
through symbols and images precisely because its abstract reality is
incommunicable and inaccessible otherwise. Ruzbihan frequently
referred to this inner Reality as the betrothed, or the bride. With
such a metaphor, he likened the intensity of the experience of the
perception of Meaning to the intensity of the experience of phys-
ical love in marriage.100 It would seem that Baha’u’llah himself is
speaking out of this tradition in those places in the Kitab-i Iqan
where he refers to the “brides of inner meaning.”101 In Arabic, the
idea of esoteric meaning is also etymologically associated with

the feminine, since the word batin (inner meaning, the esoteric
dimension) is derived from the word for womb (batn). Indeed, one
may see the presence of this tradition of associating the feminine
with true meaning in the several works devoted by Baha’u’llah to
the “Maid of Heaven” who, it will be recalled, was the agent of his
revelation in the first place.102 Thus Baha’u’llah’s encounter with the
Maid of Heaven may be intended to be understood as an encounter
with Absolute Meaning.103
The Manifestations of God—the Prophets and Messengers, and
perhaps Guardians (awliya)104—are the guides to this way of read-
ing/seeing. Ruzbihan says that it is through these beings, “ignored
by the mass of humanity,” that God sees the world and that they
are the eyes by which creation beholds God.105 They are ignored
because that which acts as the place of manifestation, the particular
phenomenon, can also act as a veil (multabis). Indeed, one of the
more remarkable qualities of a veil is that it reveals and conceals si-
multaneously: by its very presence it indicates a reality that is being
hidden. Sayyid Kazim Rashti (d. 1843 or 4), whom the Bab referred
to as “my beloved teacher,” in a passage very much in line with
the teachings of Baha’u’llah as found in the Tafsir surat ‘Wa’ash-
shams’ cited above, refers to a similar way of seeing in discussing
the process of manifestation and its veiling. He says that some
people are manifestations of divine unity, others are manifestations
of prophethood, and others are manifestations of guardianship in
the realm of nature. However, all are manifestations of both their
specific stations and the whole “process” simultaneously. Taking as
his authority a series of Qur’anic verses and the famous Hadith in
which Muhammad said, “I am the City (or House) of knowledge
and ‘Ali is its gate,” he further elaborates this idea:
And Our command (amruna) is but one (wahidatun)

[Q54:50] . . Thou can see no disharmony in the creation of
the Merciful [Q67:3] . . If it had been from any other than
God they would have therein much disharmony [Q4:72] . . .
So he who recognizes only one aspect is one-eyed and he who
recognizes [only] two aspects in one is cross-eyed. But he who

98 Being Human
recognizes them all in one aspect, and not in three, is a true
seer (basirun kamilun) . . . Know that the gates of the gate and
the aspects of the threshold are all one, when you consider
what is inside the House or the City. But if the sight is turned
only to the gates (ila nafs al-abwab), then the access [to the
House] will disappear and the way will become blocked.106
Singeth upon the twigs of the Tree of Eternity . . .

Such a beautiful image as the Nightingale’s song can indicate, in
addition to the time-bound Covenants of the Bab and Baha’u’llah,
the timeless Covenant of the marriage of Meaning with creation,
indicated in the Qur’anic verse Q7:172 discussed at the beginning
of this chapter. As the Bab says in the Qayyum al-asma, echoing this
Qur’anic language:
Verily We have taken a covenant from every created thing

upon its coming into being concerning the Remembrance
of God, and there shall be none to avert the binding
command of God for the purification of mankind . . .107
Thus, time and eternity are gathered together in the individual sign
or verse: seeing double. This seeing double is constantly reinforced
in our experience of duality in the world. Whether in the thought
of Heraclitus, or the moving lament on the binary nature of human
perception in the Phaedo, it has long been acknowledged that our
tendency to perceive polarities in our experience is one of the chief
distinguishing features of thought and perception.108 By virtue
of our experience of duality and opposition (unity/multiplicity,
whole/part, inner/outer, past/present, up/down, hot/cold, present/
absent, black/white, friend/enemy, good/bad, faith/reason, and so
on), we are conditioned to instinctively posit the “other half ” or
“other side” of each phenomenon we encounter. Indeed, the word
“symbol” stems from the Greek word symbolon, that broken object
the two halves of which, when rejoined, bear witness for those hold-
ing them, to old bonds between themselves or their families. But
it also signifies sign, contract, a signification that is indecipherable

without its counterpart.109 In a sense, the world itself is that broken

object. Its other half is the transcendent realm.
Such duality is another feature of seeing double because the ba-
sic binary mode of perception is constantly reinforced by our expe-
rience of the myriad dualities of existence. The reader “sees double”
when reading, but habitually does not register this all-important
perspective or approach at the conscious level. By discussing it here,
I wish to draw out the workings of the reading act to the realm of
awareness—not in order to “explain away” the inherent power of
the act—but to be more mindful and therefore to participate more
fully in the act: to understand reading as an experience akin to what
the Christian tradition calls a sacrament.
The term “seeing double,” frequently used to describe someone
who has become intoxicated, is a perfect trope in this context, al-
though the intoxication or inebriation is of a special kind. Baha’is
are familiar with the various instances of wine imagery throughout
the Baha’i scriptures (another legacy of the Islamicate literary tra-
dition). Indeed, the innumerable uses of the symbol by Baha’u’llah
calls out for a separate study.110 One example will suffice here. In his
biographical eulogy of Ustad Isma‘il, ‘Abdu’l-Baha cites the ode of
Rumi that Baha’u’llah had written down specifically for this early
staunch believer, an ode he further instructed Ustad Isma‘il to chant
while facing towards the resting-place of the Bab on Mt. Carmel.
The first two stanzas are:
I am lost, O Love, possessed and dazed,

Love’s fool am I, in all the earth.
They call me first among the crazed,
Though I once came first for wit and worth.
O Love, who sellest me this wine,
O Love, for whom I burn and bleed,
Love, for whom I cry and pine—
Thou the Piper, I the reed.111
The paradox of seeing double here is that this intoxication

enables one to see things as they are, rather than in the distorted

100 Being Human
way associated with “physical” drunkenness. The motto here would
then be: “In truth there is wine,” rather than the traditional, “In
wine there is truth” (in vino veritas). Paradoxically, also, such du-
ality and amphiboly produce certitude, so that duality somehow
becomes the antithesis of ambiguity in the sense of indeterminacy
and vagueness. By searching for the “brides of inner significance,”
the reader feels and declares belief in a Covenant that guarantees
meaning and purpose in the world, a reason for our suffering, and
a promise for the future. This future is, at the same time, the bride
of inner meaning.112
Conclusion
It is evident unto thee that the Birds of Heaven and Doves of
Eternity speak a twofold language. One language, the outward
language, is devoid of allusions, is unconcealed and unveiled;
that it may be a guiding lamp and a beaconing light whereby
wayfarers may attain the heights of holiness, and seekers
may advance into the realm of eternal reunion. Such are the
unveiled traditions and the evident verses already mentioned.
The other language is veiled and concealed, so that whatever
lieth hidden in the heart of the malevolent may be made mani-
fest and their innermost being be disclosed. (Iqan, 254-5/197)
It is important to close with a word of apology. This chapter—despite

possible appearances to the contrary—is not written to “expose” the
profound “Islamic-ness” of the Baha’i Faith. Such an exercise would
in any case be too redundant to waste time and effort on. Rather,
it is written to open up to those who might not have access to the
necessary sources the deep connection between the two religions,
and to establish this relationship as one among many in what must
remain the continuing and perhaps endless attempts to mine the
Baha’i scriptures for all their possible implications. This Islamic
substrate need not be privileged at the expense of all other possible
hermeneutic presuppositions—but it must be acknowledged and
taken into account in any serious attempt to approach a thorough
reading of the Baha’i scriptures.113

The Baha’i Faith has, despite its Islamic provenance and back-
ground, acquired a distinct identity independent of Islam through
a number of processes. It therefore can be described as an “inde-
pendent” world religion, although the terms “distinct” or “discrete”
are preferred by some. One may query then why it is necessary, or
even advisable, to spend so much effort in identifying the Qur’anic
and Hadith-sourced content of the writings of the founders of the
Baha’i Faith, since presumably one of the most important implica-
tions of the Baha’i message is that the Islamic dispensation has now
in some sense been superceded. Even if we did not have all of the
exhortations from or on behalf of Shoghi Effendi repeatedly urging
Baha’is to become knowledgeable about Islam, to study the Qur’an
and Islamic culture, we might be encouraged in such a project by the
results of recent developments in the study of literature in general.
Studies of the influence of the Bible on the western literary tra-
dition have opened up new vistas for the assessment of the relation-
ship between religion and culture. Specifically, I refer to the work
of the celebrated critic Northrop Frye (d. 1991). His last books, The
Great Code and Words of Power, were devoted to the very interesting
proposition that all literature and speech in the western world—the
cultural as distinct from the linguistic language—has been formed
and deeply influenced by the Bible.114 The proposition is that the
Bible is responsible for the terms of reference, the structure of
thought, and the vocabulary of much of so-called western civiliza-
tion. If such discoveries are valid, then their results do not only have
implications for the strictly academic problem of the formation of
a literary tradition. Since a literary tradition is also both a source
and result of moral and ethical or spiritual values and a guide to the
specific consciousness and conscience (or “soul”) of a society, these
discoveries provide concrete evidence for the influence on society
of what Baha’is call revelation.
Similar work on the influence of the Qur’an on the Islamic
tradition has not been done and is badly needed.115 Even though
scholars have spoken of such things as the “Quranization of con-
sciousness” and have recognized—indeed how could one not—the
unprecedented degree to which the book has influenced history

102 Being Human
and culture, there has been no Northrop Frye in Qur’an studies, as

yet, to demonstrate this influence in terms compatible with west-
ern, post-enlightenment, scholarly tastes.116 However, the kinds of
insights Frye offers about the relationship between the Bible and
“western” culture are very suggestive for the study of the Qur’an and
Islamic culture.117 This insistence upon reading the inner with the
outer has a long and venerable tradition in Islamic culture and may
be regarded as one of the most precious aspects of the Islamicate
legacy to the world, a legacy enshrined, preserved and universalized
by the Baha’i teachings.118
The Baha’i Faith is a bearer of the Qur’anic and Islamic influ-
ence to a much larger audience than that defined by the traditional
boundaries of the Muslim world—the traditional “Abode of the
Covenant.”119 In the process, the Baha’i Faith has also distinguished
itself from Islam more than any other contemporary Islamicate
community. The remarkable and distinctive “post-Islamic” features
of the Baha’i Faith—by virtue of their number and nature—merit
a separate study. It is thought, however, that by focusing upon the
similarities and the profound genetic relationship between Islam
and the Baha’i Faith we will be in a better position to recognize
those features when we see them. It is, in any case, quite under-
standable how the Baha’i Faith and Islam enjoy a kind of amphibo-
lous relationship and what is meant in the Hadith when the Prophet
Muhammad declared that “Dajjal is one-eyed, whereas God is not.”

The Tablet of Ahmad
He is the King, the All-Knowing, the Wise! Lo, the Nightingale

of Paradise singeth upon the twigs of the Tree of Eternity,
with holy and sweet melodies, proclaiming to the sincere
ones the glad tidings of the nearness of God, calling the be-
lievers in the Divine Unity to the court of the Presence of the
Generous One, informing the severed ones of the message
which hath been revealed by God, the King, the Glorious, the
Peerless, guiding the lovers to the seat of sanctity and to this
resplendent Beauty.
Verily this is that Most Great Beauty, foretold in the Books of
the Messengers, through Whom truth shall be distinguished
from error and the wisdom of every command shall be tested.
Verily He is the Tree of Life that bringeth forth the fruits of
God, the Exalted, the Powerful, the Great.
O Ahmad! Bear thou witness that verily He is God and there
is no God but Him, the King, the Protector, the Incomparable,
the Omnipotent. And that the One Whom He hath sent forth
by the name of ‘Ali (the Bab) was the true One from God, to
Whose commands we are all conforming.
Say: O people be obedient to the ordinances of God, which
have been enjoined in the Bayan by the Glorious, the Wise
One. Verily He is the King of the Messengers and His book is
the Mother Book did ye but know.
Thus doth the Nightingale utter His call unto you from this
prison. He hath but to deliver this clear message. Whosoever
desireth, let him turn aside from this counsel and whosoever
desireth let him choose the path to his Lord.

104 Being Human
O people, if ye deny these verses, by what proof have ye be-
lieved in God? Produce it, O assemblage of false ones.
Nay, by the One in Whose hand is my soul, they are not, and
never shall be able to do this, even should they combine to
assist one another.
O Ahmad! Forget not My bounties while I am absent.
Remember My days during thy days, and My distress and
banishment in this remote prison. And be thou so steadfast
in My love that thy heart shall not waver, even if the swords
of the enemies rain blows upon thee and all the heavens and
the earth arise against thee.
Be thou as a flame of fire to My enemies and a river of life
eternal to My loved ones, and be not of those who doubt.
And if thou art overtaken by affliction in My path, or degra-
dation for My sake, be not thou troubled thereby.
Rely upon God, thy God and the Lord of thy fathers. For the
people are wandering in the paths of delusion, bereft of dis-
cernment to see God with their own eyes, or hear His Melody
with their own ears. Thus have We found them, as thou also
dost witness.
Thus have their superstitions become veils between them and
their own hearts and kept them from the path of God, the
Exalted, the Great.
Be thou assured in thyself that verily, he who turns away from
this Beauty hath also turned away from the Messengers of the
past and showeth pride towards God from all eternity to all
eternity.
Learn well this Tablet, O Ahmad. Chant it during thy days and
withhold not thyself therefrom. For verily, God hath ordained
for the one who chants it, the reward of a hundred martyrs
and a service in both worlds. These favors have We bestowed
upon thee as a bounty on Our part and a mercy from Our

presence, that thou mayest be of those who are grateful.

By God! Should one who is in affliction or grief read this
Tablet with absolute sincerity, God will dispel his sadness,
solve his difficulties and remove his afflictions.
Verily, He is the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to
God, the Lord of all the worlds.
Baha’u’llah

106 Being Human
The preamble and first five Hidden Words in Arabic

107
Chapter 4
Globalization and the

Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah1
From Tehran to Baghdad
B aghdad (traditionally known as “the City of Peace”) is, we have

all recently come to learn, a very diverse place both ethnically and
religiously.2 As such, it is a faithful emblem of Islamicate culture and
history.3 There are residents who are Sunni Muslims, Shi‘i Muslims,
Sunni Kurds, Syriac Christians, and Jews, among others. Moreover,
it has been this way for a very long time indeed. Seventeenth cen-
tury travelers were “impressed with the great admixture of race,
the diversity of speech, the rare freedoms enjoyed by non-Muslims,
and the great toleration among the masses.”4 Contrasted with the
capital of its eastern neighbor Iran, Baghdad was infinitely more
cosmopolitan than the mainly Shi‘i population of Tehran. Tehran,
monochrome by comparison, has in fact been mainly Shi‘i for
several hundred years. The significance this fact might have for the
growth and development of the Baha’i Faith is the main question
treated here. The proposition is that the relatively communalistic
and parochial Shi‘i Babi movement was transformed as changes in
audience occurred. If the Baha’i prophet-founder Baha’u’llah had
not been exiled to Iraq (1853), and then Turkey (1863), and finally
to Ottoman Palestine (modern-day Israel, 1868), it is possible that
his writings would have remained more identifiably Shi‘i than
they did. In Baghdad, faced with an audience of widely divergent
107

108 Being Human
background and composition, Baha’u’llah was also faced with the
task of distilling the vast complex of arcana and esoterica that was
the revelation of the Bab into an essence that could move a much
broader spectrum of believers than the virtually all-Shi‘i audience
of the Bab. In the process, his message was being universalized for an
even wider audience than nineteenth-century Baghdad. In order to
demonstrate this proposition, we will analyze the opening passages
of Baha’u’llah’s Hidden Words with this factor of audience in mind.
The Enchantment of Globalization

How does such a discussion find its way into an essay devoted to the
problem of the Baha’i Faith and globalization? To begin with, the
doctrinal content of the Baha’i Faith is nothing if not universal. One
assumes that there is some kind of important connection between
the “universal” and the “global.” Traditionally, a universal truth or
feature is thought to be one that migrates across long-standing
boundaries or barriers of ethnicity, nationality, language, culture,
and geography to speak of something inherently, irreducibly, and
“universally” human. To speak of a universal idea is to speak of one
that is eminently susceptible of globalization—of being relevant or
pertinent, or even merely recognizable, to human beings wherever
they might be on planet Earth.
Here, a unique phenomenon that has occurred in the growth
and development of the Baha’i Faith will be examined, namely the
process by which a relatively marginal Islamic sect became a global
“World Religion” and in the process lost much of its original Islamic
identity. No other similar movement of the last two hundred years
has so completely “escaped” the gravitational pull of Islam, to forge
such a singular identity. This growth and development is no better
characterized anywhere than in the words of Shoghi Effendi Rabbani5
(1897–1957) when he spoke of this process as the transformation of
a “heterodox and seemingly negligible offshoot of the Shaykhí school
of the Ithná-Asharíyyih sect of Shi‘ah Islam into a world religion.”6
Briefly, this statement refers to an intellectual history little
studied in connection with the history of the Baha’i Faith, but
nonetheless necessary to understand it in its time and place. This

is a history in which the Shi‘i mystico-philosophical movement

begun by Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i (d. 1826) plays a crucial and
essential role. It was the activities and beliefs of this movement that
would lead ultimately to the dramatic events associated with the
chiliastic-cum-revolutionary activities of Sayyid ‘Ali-Muhammad
Shirazi (1819–1850). This young charismatic and messianic proph-
et, known to history as the Bab (Arabic: Gate), was executed by
Iranian state and religious authorities in 1850. Afterwards, many
of his followers, one of whom was Mirza Husayn ‘Ali Nuri (1817-
1892), Baha’u’llah (Arabic: Glory of God), would be dispersed
throughout the Middle East. The shift from the Bab to Baha’u’llah
includes a move away from the extremely arcane, esoteric, and
highly exclusivist worldview of a Shi‘i movement7 toward a world
religion with universal and global appeal.8 Some have characterized
this trajectory as a move from heterodoxy to orthodoxy.9 While it
may be reasonably argued and debated amongst scholars whether
the Baha’i Faith actually qualifies as a world religion,10 rather than,
say, a New Religious Movement (NRM),11 it is not debatable that
there are now Baha’i communities all over the world in regions
and localities as culturally diverse as they could possibly be. So,
whether as a bona fide World Religion or “merely” an NRM,12 the
Baha’i Faith is a global phenomenon in the process of constructing
a global identity with the aid of universal teachings that apply to the
human condition.13
Of interest here is the stark contrast that its early, extremely
parochial and exclusivist origins in the Shaykhi movement and the
Babi Faith provide to its current profile as promoter of the oneness
of humankind, unity in diversity, tolerance, the abolition of preju-
dices, and the honoring and valuing of the differences amongst the
human family. A more compelling interest is precisely the manner
in which this transformation occurred, what its stages were, and
how we measure the process.14
Baha’u’llah—who may be seen as a nineteenth-century Persian
theorist of modernity and globalization15—formulated his teachings
in the mid- to later nineteenth century, a crucial period in the rise
of globalization. So, what is sometimes solecistically referred to as

110 Being Human
“Baha’i” (when what is really meant is the Bahá’í Faith), has grown
concomitantly with globalization, and there is reason to believe
that there exists a close connection between the Baha’i Faith and
globalization from a historical as well as a sociological perspective.
This connection can be elucidated by consulting scholarship from
members of the Baha’i community today.16 However, it may be that
the relationship between Baha’i thought and globalization can also
be studied and appreciated by working with religious texts. Here,
another perspective may be illuminating, namely, the influence that
the philosophical mysticism of Islam has had on the “globalistic”
doctrinal content of the Baha’i Faith.
It is assumed that one of the chief factors facilitating the glo-
balization of the Baha’i Faith has been the relatively high degree to
which people around the world have recognized themselves—their
questions, problems, hopes, fears, sufferings, and joys—as being
addressed directly and in compelling ways by the Baha’i teachings.
This coupled with a dissatisfaction with their ‘native’ religions, has
caused many to see in the Baha’i Faith a fresh statement of what is
most essential to religion as such. One of the best loved and most
widely translated Baha’i books is Baha’u’llah’s Arabic and Persian
Hidden Words. This highly poetic and mystical composition may be
thought of as the earliest summary of Baha’i teachings. Quite apart
from their considerable literary beauty, a look at the circumstances
of composition and the doctrinal contents of Baha’u’llah’s Hidden
Words will, it is hoped, offer us an insight into the transformation
we are concerned with here. But before turning directly to this text,
a bit of background is required.
Enchanted Ontology
One of the more prominent features of later Islamicate spirituality
and mysticism is the degree to which it is concerned with ontology,
the nature of Being and/or Existence. Taking as a starting point
traditional hylomorphism, Muslim sages and mystics would evolve
a theory known as the Unity of Being, a kind of pantheism (or
panentheism) which resulted in the divine unity of God being
reflected and refracted, if not consubstantiated, in the resplendent

multiplicity of creation. This basic apperception or spiritual axiom

would be configured and articulated in a variety of ways. But the
main idea, that creation was a mysterious expression of divine uni-
ty, that between and amongst all created things (including human
beings) there was a living and sacred connection, would never be
challenged. This basic and profoundly mystical, even Sufi, orienta-
tion represents the manner in which the world according to Islamic
mystical philosophy remains, to borrow a current term, enchanted.
It is also the source and background of the teachings of Baha’u’llah.17
Of course, the mystics and philosophers, being also rational-
ists, sought authoritative, logical explanations for this enchanted
ontology, what they called “unity in diversity” (vahdat dar kathrat/
wahdat fi’l-kathrat), a frequent Baha’i watchword.18 According to
Islamic tradition, the Prophet was given the answer to this abstruse
question by God himself. The answer has become one of the most
important foci of meditation for Islamic spirituality and is preserved
in the literary form known as Hadith qudsi, extra-Quranic “Sacred
Sayings of God,” who informed the Prophet: “I was a Hidden
Treasure and yearned to be known. So, I created mankind (literally,
creation).”19 Thus the answer to the metaphysical question of “Why
is there something rather than nothing? Why are we here?” is linked
to God’s desire (literally, love) to be known. As a result, knowledge
and love are indissolubly bound in an experiential dynamic that
points to Being or Beyond.20
It should also be mentioned that a standard Hadith is composed
of two equally important parts, its text (matn, i.e., the part quoted
above) and its credentials or pedigree, known in Arabic as the isnad
(lit., chain [of authority]), a long list of the names of teachers, or
“spiritual ancestors,” who passed the knowledge from one to an-
other. In Islamic learned discourse, one reveals (or conceals) one’s
deepest religious allegiances according to the composition of the
isnad one uses for textual support. In the case of the kind of Hadith
represented here, namely Hadith Qudsi, there are isnads, but these
are frequently left out in published collections. This omission is
intended to indicate that the important aspect of these Hadith is
God speaking directly to Muhammad, presumably through Gabriel,

112 Being Human
the angel of revelation, or in a dream.21 Thus, such statements are

frequently unencumbered by the kind of sectarian sub-text afflict-
ing other Hadith. This type of Hadith found favor among an earlier
group of Islamic “universalists,” namely the Sufis.
This particular Hadith happens to be a favorite and may be seen
as providing the foundational scriptural basis for the doctrine of
the Unity of Being (wahdat al-wujud) associated with the greatest
mystic of them all, Ibn Arabi and embraced by the many genera-
tions of his followers (and critics) who populate the world of Islam.
Amongst such followers there are both Sunnis and Shi‘is. In time,
these followers would be criticized harshly for their “pantheistic”
beliefs. One of these opposing tendencies is referred to as Unity of
Seeing (wahdat al-shuhud). Apparently at stake in the controversy
is the transcendence of God.22 The “Wujudis” were seen by some
of their critics to have violated this principle in their teachings. At
times, the debate would become quite intense. One example of such
a heated controversy may be found in a work by the above-men-
tioned Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i himself. Here, Shaykh Ahmad takes
to task, in hostile terms, one of the pillars of later Twelver Shi‘ism,
Mulla Muhsin Fayz Kashani (d. 1680) and virtually accuses him of
unbelief (the most serious of crimes) for the doctrines he propa-
gates. As a spokesman against the Unity of Being “school,” Shaykh
Ahmad sought to elevate the Godhead beyond such terrestrial
notions as “being” and “existence.”23
This theological position was a key feature in the mysticism of
the Bab and continues to be a part of basic Baha’i belief.24 However,
attachment and assent to the actual Hadith Qudsi was not restricted
to so-called Wujudis, for the Shuhudis could easily find in it sup-
port for their opposing doctrine. Shaykh Ahmad himself comments
on it and ‘Abdu’l-Baha wrote an important, extensive commentary
on it.25 Indeed, one of the Baha’i obligatory prayers may be seen to
reflect it almost verbatim.26
The Hidden Words were composed in Baghdad during the year
1857.27 At that time, what we now call Iraq was governed by the
Sunni Ottomans, although there was a very large, if not majority,
Shi‘i population there. Not quite twenty-five years had passed

since the violent communal riots in the Shi‘i shrine city of Karbala,
during which the second leader of the Shaykhi community, Sayyid
Kazim Rashti had played an instrumental peacekeeping role. The
Ottoman government eventually intervened. But, thousands were
killed and Iran was nearly forced to declare war against the Turkish
authority.28
The proposition put forth here is that Baha’i universalism
finds its earliest impetus in works like the Hidden Words. These
were addressed to a previously unknown (i.e., to Babism), hetero-
geneous, and potentially explosive audience composed of Sunnis
and Shi‘is.29 At the time of the revelation of the Hidden Words,
Baha’u’llah’s audience would have been divided into at least four
major more or less mutually exclusive groups: the Sunnis, the Shi‘is,
the Wujudis, and the Shuhudis. In turn, each of these groups, like
the Shi‘is, would be further divided into opposing factions, such as
Akhbaris, the Usulis, and the Shaykhis. This does not begin to take
into account the stratified social variegation of nineteenth-century
Baghdad.30 Addressing such an audience, Baha’u’llah reduced the
spiritual teachings of his religion to their most essential elements
and thereby avoided placing unnecessary obstacles in the path of
seekers of truth in the form of communal cues and insignia so com-
mon to much of Islamic religious literature of the time.31 Indeed, he
himself says so in the brief opening prologue of the Hidden Words
(to which we will return).
What follows is simply a demonstration of some of the ways
in which the Hidden Words recasts traditional and contemporary
Islamic teachings in a form innocent of any discernible communal
provenance or allegiance, whether Shi‘i, Sunni, or sectarian Sufi.
What emerges is a kind of catholic Islamic breviary, destined to
appeal to a literary taste that had been cultivated in an Islamicate
milieu over the centuries and whose key reference points and inspi-
rations, from the perspective of literary history, are the Qur’an, the
Hadith, and distinctive Sufi religious and literary presuppositions.
But it is also a taste that is certainly not exclusively Muslim, let alone
Shi‘i. Obviously, it will not be possible to analyze the entire contents
of this work. Only a few key examples have been chosen.

114 Being Human
The Hidden Words

In the Hidden Words, no group or faction is preferred over another.
Certainly, Baha’u’llah would have been known as a “Babi.” But the
vast majority of Baghdad residents (along with a vast majority of
Babis themselves) would not have known what this meant as far as
doctrinal detail might be concerned, apart from the general messi-
anic mood of the movement. One indication of this mood is in the
original title of the work at hand: “The Hidden Book of Fatima.”
This explicitly points to the fulfillment of the Shi‘i Islamic eschaton.
These prophecies anticipated, among other things, that a number
of books that had heretofore been hidden with the occulted and
awaited Twelfth Imam would be published with his emergence from
hiding (zuhur).32 The title was changed to its current one at some
point, but we do not know exactly when.33 This change of title really
underlines the overall achievement of the Hidden Words, since it
erases a major sectarian and communalistic marker.
In the text at hand, functioning almost like musical notes and
phrases, brief quotations are taken from the Qur’an and the Hadith
and heard throughout the book in an improvised form.34 While the
composition may be full of traditional Sufi terminology, there is no
assumed allegiance to any one of the many existing Sufi sects. There
can be no question of plagiarism here. The reader or hearer would in-
stantly recognize these various cues and would deem it jarring, if not
insulting, for the author to have disrupted the flow of the “heavenly
performance” to cite a source. And, what is absent is just as import-
ant as what is there: Nowhere in the book is there any mention of a
proper name (not even Muhammad) that could signal an allegiance
to either Sunni, Shi‘i, or Sufi Islam. There are no isnads.35 There are no
legalistic doctrines or cultic pronouncements that could also be iden-
tified with any specific community. What remains then is something
that could easily appear to the mid-nineteenth-century cosmopolitan
Baghdadi reader, whether Sunni, Shi‘i, or Sufi, Christian or Jew, as
“pure religion.” A religion apparently unencumbered by the tragedies
of history, appearing as a restatement of basic truths through the
medium of a compelling religious literary art in both languages of
the city: Arabic (71 verses) and Persian (82 verses).

Let us now turn to the text itself in order to illustrate this com-
plex and seamless process. We will begin with the above-mentioned
prologue to the Hidden Words:
He is the Glory of Glories

This is that which hath descended from the realm of glory,
uttered by the tongue of power and might, and revealed
unto the Prophets of old. We have taken the inner essence
thereof and clothed it in the garment of brevity, as a token
of grace unto the righteous, that they may stand faithful
unto the Covenant of God, may fulfill in their lives His trust,
and in the realm of spirit obtain the gem of Divine virtue.36
With this statement, which is free of Shi‘i-specific references or cues,

the message is oneness, unity, social harmony, social justice, and
peace. The message may be seen as not merely emerging directly,
but literally escaping, from the cauldron of religious animosity that
had been exacerbated by the Safavid moment in history, that had
to some degree propelled the nineteenth-century socio-political
reality of the Middle East, and that has continued through time
until today.
What is more, Baha’u’llah addresses his audience with a some-
what unusual but quite telling designation. In the English text, the
word “righteous” translates the Arabic word ahbar, a Qur’anic term
meaning “priests” but which likely means here in the first instance
“learned ones.” Such “learned ones” are not identifiable as Muslims
of any particular stripe. Indeed, the dictionary definition of the word
is explicit: non-Muslim religious leaders. If Baha’u’llah had wanted
to designate Muslims specifically here, he could have chosen from a
whole lexicon of alternate terms: ulama (learned Muslim religious
scholars), urafa (gnostic Muslims), hukama (mystic philosophers),
not to mention the standard muslimun (Muslims), or mu’minun
(believers in Islam). Any of these other terms, including perhaps the
most inclusive (but still exclusive) Qur’anic designation, ahl al-kitab
(people of the Book), used here would have lent an entirely differ-
ent élan to this prologue.37 With such a form of address, Baha’u’llah

116 Being Human
seeks to circumvent the exceedingly vexing problem of a “correct”
Islam as such, and attempts to create a new audience.38 The mood
is the timeless, perennial truth of prophecy. But no prophets are
named, only God, as in “Covenant of God” (‘ahd Allah).
Allah is the word for God in Arabic and is used by Arabs, wheth-
er Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or members of any other group, to
indicate the highest cosmic power. Although the word is habitually
associated with Islam, there is nothing inherently Islamic about
it.39 The Hidden Words have “descended.” This translates the stan-
dard Arabic word for “having been revealed,” (nuzzila [nazala]).
The descent, or revelation, is from “the realm of glory” (jabarut
al-‘izza), an appropriately abstract religio-philosophical technical
term. “Uttered by the tongue of power and might” (bi-lisn al-qudra
wa’l-quwwa), namely, an anonymous angel of revelation (perhaps
the tenth intellect of the Muslim neo-platonists, or the faculty of the
“heart” of the Sufis, or any number of other Islamicate possibilities).
Finally, it is the same message that was revealed unto the “Prophets
of old” (al-nabiyyin min qablu). Now, Islamic prophetology recog-
nizes 124,000 prophets prior to Muhammad who were sent to all
human communities (cf. Q10:47). So we are not even restricted here
to thinking only of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad and those other
comparatively few such figures mentioned by name in the Qur’an.
The sweep is magisterial. The audience could not be more vast.
The next two passages are equally “anonymous” exhortations.
The vocabulary is evocative of Sufism and its moral, ethical, and
spiritual culture.40
O Son of Spirit!
My first counsel is this: Possess a pure kindly and radiant
heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable
and everlasting.41
O Son of Spirit!
The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not
away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that
I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine

own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know
of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of
thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behoveth thee
to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My
loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.42
Apart from the standard themes of ethical monotheism so

beautifully expressed here, there are one or two clues to the mys-
tic-philosophical tradition discussed above, and out of which the
Baha’i Faith was born. But these are not explicitly identified with
Shi‘ism, or mysticism, or philosophy. The reference to “Justice”
comes close to alluding to Shi‘ism, and no doubt did so for a Shi‘i
audience. It is one of the prime religious preoccupations of that
tradition, a tradition molded in marginalization and persecution.
One of the hallmarks of the return of the hidden Imam would be
that he “fill the earth with Justice as it is now filled with injustice.”43
But even here, Baha’u’llah makes a very deft adjustment. In Arabic,
there are two closely related words to express the idea of justice.
The one found most frequently in messianic texts of Shi‘ism is ‘adl.
The word used here is insaf which connotes distributive fairness or
equity more than justice. Thus, with a single word Baha’u’llah not
only orients the discourse away from explicit and exclusive mes-
sianic Shi‘ism, but also beyond the realm of Islamic law, whether
Sunni or Shi‘i. Insaf as equity implies a kind of Golden Rule in
which it is necessary first to be equitable to oneself and then to
others.44 Certainly, the word can mean “justice” but this concept, in
an Islamic milieu, is more accurately represented by the word ‘adl.
The topic of knowledge is also broached in this passage. The
Arabic word ma‘rifa refers to a specific kind of knowledge, name-
ly spiritual or mystical, as distinct from the word ‘ilm, which by
comparison means religious, sacerdotal, or legalistic knowledge.
The exhortation is to “know of thine own knowledge” (ta‘rif bi-
ma‘rifatika). This is quite a remarkable statement in the context
of nineteenth-century Shi‘ism, when the powerful office of the
marja’ taqlid—the so-called “Shi‘i pope,” who was supposed to
be imitated by all—was in the process of being consolidated and

118 Being Human
institutionalized.45 It is a direct continuation of the kind of anti-cler-
icalism taught by Shaykh Ahmad46 that would characterize much of
the Baha’i message and, no doubt, redound to its appeal. As such it
may be seen as something of an improvisation on an equally iconic
Hadith Qudsi: “He who has known himself has known his Lord
(man ‘arafa nafsahu faqad ‘arafa rabbahu).”47
This is another one of a number of core “verbal icons” whose
contemplation enlivens and gives shape to Islamic mysticism. Note
that the same words in “improvised” form appear here: “knowledge”
(ma‘rifa) a common derivation of the verb “to know” (‘arafa) and
“self ” by means of the pronominal suffix ka. As mentioned above,
it refers in this context to a mystical gnosis rather than a discursive
knowledge (‘ilm).48 It is a notion much loved and oft-repeated and
commented upon, because it ultimately points to the spiritual
autonomy of the individual, rather than to a sacerdotal order of
religious authorities. Baha’u’llah quotes it verbatim in numerous
places49 to support his spiritual argument.
The next three brief passages (The Hidden Words Arabic
#3–5)50 are analyzed here for the way they represent a restatement
and artistic improvisation on the Hadith Qudsi discussed earlier:
“I was a Hidden Treasure and yearned to be known. So, I created
mankind (or, creation).”51
The following verses from Baha’u’llah’s Hidden Words read like
a variation on this theme. For the convenience of the reader, the key
correspondences are in bold:
O Son of Man!
Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity
of My essence, I knew My love for thee: therefore I created
thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee
My beauty.
O Son of Man!
I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore, do
thou love Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with
the spirit of life.

O Son of Being!
Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My
love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant.52
It should be borne in mind that the literary culture of the audi-

ence was a “traditional” one. That is, as far as literary productions
were concerned, a good commentary might stand for, or replace,
what our contemporary tastes would consider an original compo-
sition. Indeed, it could be argued that the entire literary tradition
(and culture) with which we are concerned here is, in some ways,
an extended commentary on the Qur’an.53 In the above three ex-
cerpts from the Hidden Words there is embedded in Baha’u’llah’s
text enough explicit allusion to the original Hadith Qudsi to blur
the line between original composition and commentary. The same
literary method is at work in the Bab’s Qayyum al-Asma54 and in
numerous other works of Baha’u’llah.55
The differences between Baha’u’llah’s treatment of the themes
of love, knowledge, and creation, and those found in other works
by Shi‘i religious thinkers and writers, are characteristic and quite
illustrative of the point being made here. Ultimately, these differ-
ences are very revealing about the basic relationship between the
Baha’i Faith and Islam. In Baha’u’llah’s Hidden Words there is no
partisan polemic on the scholastic problems of the primacy of
Being over quiddity or vice versa. There is no petitioning of the
Qur’an or statements of the Imams to support the argument.56
Rather, Baha’u’llah’s Hidden Words are presented by him as being
completely their own authority. And of course, Baha’u’llah’s Hidden
Words manage to state what might be considered the essence of
the matter in a brief, and therefore, according to certain prevailing
literary standards, a more eloquent and masterful fashion than
lengthier scholastic discussions, through the irresistible power of
the aphorism. The Hidden Words, though not rhymed, lend them-
selves to memorization and as such can cross another barrier, that
between the literate and the non-literate.
Standard Shi‘i works seek to demonstrate the truth of a specific

120 Being Human
and controversial philosophical or religious position and, therefore,
of necessity must rely very heavily on discursive argumentation. As
such, they frequently entail the use of aphorism or brief quotation
of some pithy saying from the Qur’an, the statements of the Imams,
or poetry in supporting their arguments. While Baha’u’llah’s writ-
ings also reflects the words of the Qur’an and the Imams, they do so
in a much less explicit way. In the Hidden Words, there are no direct
quotations, beyond the “musical notes” mentioned above, from the
Qur’an or any other source. However, much of this book may be
considered a reiteration and confirmation of the sacred teachings
of Islam.
A symbol of the inner workings of the transformation under
discussion here may be found in the case of the Bab’s disciple Mulla
‘Ali Bastami, whose trial and conviction by a religious court com-
posed of both Shi‘i and Sunni judges in Baghdad in 1845, represents
an unusual example of agreement between the two communities.57
It may be that the new movement’s ability to attract such united
negative attention was paralleled by an ability to attract a similar
positive attention from the religiously diverse Baghdad audience.
Thus, Baha’u’llah’s composition is both timeless and “won-
drously new” (badi‘). And in its newness it has managed to divest
itself of communalistic baggage to become a neutral and transpar-
ent revelation in the social context of the mid-nineteenth century
Ottoman province of Baghdad. Of course, such would eventually
entail another allegiance. That is a subject for another study. Today,
this literary accomplishment, transposed onto a global scale with
its attendant and vastly more variegated audience, serves the idea of
the greater unity of the human race taught by the Baha’i commu-
nity.58 It was an accomplishment in part inspired by and fashioned
in response to the various dislocations attendant upon an earlier
Islamicate globalization.

121
Acknowledgements/Postscript
T he pioneer of modern studies of the relation between the Baha’i

Faith and Islam was the recently deceased brilliant and prolif-
ic German scholar, Udo Schaefer. Some of his work on this topic
has been translated in Schaefer, The Light (for this and other titles
mentioned here see Bibliography). His first book on the subject was
published in 1968: Schaefer, Die missverstandene Religion. This truly
groundbreaking work was followed by other studies by other Baha’i
scholars: Heshmat Moayyad, The Bahá’i Faith and Islam; Moojan
Momen, Islam and the Bahá’í Faith and numerous key articles on
various aspects of the Islamic factors and influences; Stephen N.
Lambden, whose numerous printed articles and website: https://
hurqalya.ucmerced.edu/ are required reading for an understanding
of the subject; Sholeh Quinn’s investigations are key for a just and
balanced historical perspective; Franklin Lewis’ numerous import-
ant articles on especially the Islamicate literary background for the
Baha’i writings are essential reading; Christopher Buck, Symbol and
Secret and now his many relevant articles posted on academia.edu
and at BahaiTeachings.org shed much light on the relationship. It is
not possible to list all the pertinent names here, but it would wrong
not to single out the substantial contributions of Denis MacEoin,
Juan R. I. Cole, Vahid Rafati, Habib Riazati, Robert Stockman, the
especially sensitive and profound work of Khazeh Fananapazir, and
Abbas Amanat for the light their works have shed on a fascinating
and intricate set of problems. A new generation of scholars ensures
that the study of the relationship between the Baha’i Faith and Islam
is in very good hands indeed: Omid Ghaemmaghami, Will McCants,
Vahid Brown, and especially Keven Brown. All this scholarship may
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122
be thought to have been anticipated by the uniquely and dazzlingly

gifted Italian scholar, Alessandro Bausani whose 1959, Persia religio-
sa (now available in English translation, see Bibliography) may be
thought to have anticipated and provided a firm scientific basis for
these later studies. Without these scholars and their important research
this book would not have been possible.
In the course of my life as a member of the Baha’i community
I have been deeply influenced, impressed and inspired by a great
number of fellow Baha’is. It will not be possible to mention them
all, but I would like name a few, without whose particular inter-
pretation of what it means to be a Bahá’í this book would not have
come to be, but for different kinds of reasons. I hasten to add, this
is most certainly not to suggest that these people would agree with
everything in this book. But, because they are in some way respon-
sible I would like to mention: David Barringer, Ali Nakhjavani,
John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, Udo and Sigrun Schaefer, Douglas and
Elizabeth Martin, Hossein Danesh, William S. Hatcher, Dhergham
and Milook Aqiqi, Franklin Lewis, Wendi and Moojan Momen,
Stephen N. Lambden, Sholeh Quinn, Grant Dowdell, Glen Eyford,
Steven Scholl, Mina Yazdani, Denis MacEoin, John T. Walbridge, III,
Will C. Van den Hoonard, Élizabeth Wright, and Rodney Konopaki.
Barbara Lawson, Curator Emerita of World Cultures, Redpath
Museum, McGill University, also read earlier drafts and made sev-
eral very helpful suggestions touching both content and style, for
which I am most grateful. But this is really nothing compared to her
true contribution. Finally, I would like to thank Kalimat Press and
its managing editor, Dr. Anthony Lee, for including this volume in
his groundbreaking and prestigious series Studies in the Bábí and
Bahá’í Religions; Steven Scholl for the glossary and formatting this
volume, and Michael Thomas for his design contributions. Their
interest and their considerable, invaluable contributions to the final
form of the book represent a debt impossible to repay. I am deeply
indebted to Ms. Lorraine Pritchard for allowing us to reproduce her
evocative painting “Sojourn” for the book’s cover.

123
Notes
Introduction
1. This article was originally published as “Baha’i Religious History” in a
special issue of Journal of Religious History 36:4 (December 2012) 463–70.
It is reprinted here with permission from the publisher.
2. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, xii.
3. Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, 49.
4. Q10:47.
5. Q14:4.
6. Q49:13.
7. Q7:172.
8. A phrase often used by the late Professor Amin Banani.
Chapter 1: The Return of Joseph and the Peaceable Imagination

1. This article was originally published as “The Bahá’í Tradition: The Return
of Joseph and the Peaceable Imagination” in Fighting Words: Religion, Vi-
olence, and the Interpretation of Sacred Texts, ed. John Renard (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2012) 135–157. It is reprinted here with
permission from the publisher.
2. The book by Donner, Muhammad, argues that this was in fact the driving
purpose of the original preaching of Muhammad.
3. Continuing this theme of nonviolence, Baha’u’llah’s son and successor,
‘Abdu’l-Baha (Servant of Baha), the title by which Abbas Effendi (1844–
1921) is most widely known, has left numerous, emphatic pronounce-
ments, such as the following: “True religion is based upon love and agree-
ment. Baha’u’llah has said, ‘If religion and faith are the causes of enmity
and sedition, it is far better to be nonreligious, and the absence of religion
would be preferable; for we desire religion to be the cause of amity and
fellowship. If enmity and hatred exist, irreligion is preferable.’ Therefore,
the removal of this dissension has been specialized in Baha’u’llah, for re-
ligion is the divine remedy for human antagonism and discord. But when
we make the remedy the cause of the disease, it would be better to do
without the remedy.” (‘Abdu’l-Baha, Promulgation, 232.)
4. The Baha’i teachings do allow for self-defense, and the defense of others,
as discussed below.
5. In his history of the first one-hundred years of the Baha’i Faith, published
in 1944, Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957), the first and only Guardian of the
Baha’i Faith (walí amr Alláh), wrote: “I shall seek to represent and cor-
relate, in however cursory a manner, those momentous happenings which
123

124 Notes
have insensibly, relentlessly, and under the very eyes of successive genera-
tions, perverse, indifferent or hostile, transformed a heterodox and seem-
ingly negligible offshoot of the Shaykhi school of the Ithná-‘Asharíyyah
sect of Shi‘ah Islam into a world religion . . . whose adherents are recruited
from the diversified races and chief religions of mankind.” (God Passes By,
xii.)
6. Lawson, “Interpretation as Revelation.” On the question of genre in Baha’i
scripture, see Lewis, “Scripture as Literature.”
7. Buck, Symbol and Secret.
8. The standard scholarly discussion of the rise of the Babi religion is
Amanat, Resurrection.
9. With the passive construction of the participle comes the idea that these
14 are not pure by their own efforts; it emphasizes rather, that they are
protected from sin and error by God.
10. By the ninth century C.E. (third century A.H.), various interpretations
of Islam had come to be known by the designations Sunni and Shi‘i.
Within Shi‘ism there were further subdivisions based on the number of
post-Muhammad religious authorities, namely Imams, who were recog-
nized. The group most pertinent to the study of the rise and development
of the beliefs and practices of the Baha’i Faith, the Imami or Ja‘fari Shi‘a,
is also known as the “Twelvers” (Arabic: ithna-‘ashariyya). Two other Shi‘i
groups are frequently, if erroneously, designated “Fivers,” the so-called
Zaydis and “Seveners,” the Ismailis, by analogy. Of these latter two nu-
merical designations, the first is not found in the medieval literature. See
Halm, Sab‘iyya.
11. Quinn and Lambden, Ketáb-e Iqán.
12. Momen, Shí‘ism, 45, 165–170; Madelung, Qá‘im.
13. I am unaware of any explicit commentary on this epithet by Baha’u’llah.
It is possible that such a commentary would employ the familiar (at least
in Baha’i writings) figure, or a variation thereon, of “the sword of good
character” found throughout Baha’u’llah’s writings.
14. There are, of course, no such things as sacraments in Islam, whether Shi‘i
or Sunni. I use the word here as an analogy—surely imperfect, as all good
analogies are—for structures, doctrines, and institutions in Islam that
function somewhat like sacraments, which according to Augustine of
Hippo are “visible signs of an invisible reality.” In Islamic sources a num-
ber of phenomena could thus qualify, from the ubiquitous and mightily
charged “with the grandeur of God” divine signs (áyát), to the more com-
plex, less automatic phenomena and functions such as the community
(umma) history, and revelation. It may be that “sacraments” also corre-
sponds, however obliquely, to those “doors” described and analyzed in
Renard, Seven.
15. Iqan, 12–13/10.

Notes 125
16. See Zwettler, “Mantic Manifesto.”

17. Persian: az yek sulb zahir shudeh: a clear, if mildly ironic, allusion to the
Day of the Covenant or Day of Alast tradition based on Q7:172.
18. This sentence is in quotation marks in the original. I do not know the
source. It is perhaps a Hadith. The comments in Ishraq-khavari, Qamús
(3:1294–1295) do not suggest a source. Kawthar (abundance) is generally
identified as either a pool or river in Paradise. It is also an allusion to the
Imams and their teachings.
19. Though it is not precisely clear which (if any) verse is being specified, in a
brief exegetical article dedicated to this very sentence (Qamús, 1:363–65),
the author suggests the possibility of Q7:158: “O humankind! I am sent
unto you all, as the Messenger of God, to Whom belongs the dominion
of the heavens and the earth.” (Thanks to Dr. Mina Yazdani for this refer-
ence). Other suggestions include Q54:1 and Q13:31 (Buck, Symbol, 210).
The point may be independent of which specific verse is referred to and
may be seen as descriptive of the virtues of the divine word in general. By
its very nature, it divides the world into those who believe and those who
reject. And, by its very nature, it unites those who believe. This is a stan-
dard Shi‘i orientation, though. As we see below, many of the more divisive
and convulsive energies of such an orientation are neutralized in such
distinctive Baha’i scriptural passages as the Tablet of the True Seeker (see
below), where the drama of the traditional Shi‘i apocalypse is transposed
to the realm of spiritual search and enlightenment, both individual and
communal.
20. An invaluable study of these literary and hermeneutical issues as they may
pertain to the Book of Certitude is, in addition to the above-mentioned
article by Lewis, the ground-breaking work of Buck, Symbol.
21. Bausani, “Some Aspects.”
22. See below, Ch. 4, pp. 106-107.
23. On the division of the Babis into Azalis and Baha’is, see Taherzadeh, Rev-
elation 2:161–170.
24. “All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civiliza-
tion.” Gleanings 215/140 (jamí‘ az bara’yi islah-i ‘alami khalq shudeh
and).
25. Though the order and even substance of these principles can appear dif-
ferently, one such list is: (1) unity of God; (2) unity of religion; (3) unity
of humanity; (4) equality of men and women; (5) elimination of all forms
of prejudice; (6) world peace; (7) harmony of science and religion; (8)
independent investigation of truth; (9) universal compulsory education;
(10) universal auxiliary language; (11) civil obedience and non-involve-
ment in partisan politics; (12) elimination of extremes of wealth and pov-
erty.
26. Such a position should not be mistaken for absolute pacifism. The Baha’i

126 Notes
teachings recognize the need for local police and national armies to main-
tain public order and defend society from aggression. This is distinct from
aggressive violence of any kind that pretends to be sanctioned by religion.
See, e.g., below, the quotation from ‘Abdu’l-Baha.
27. The Tablet of Ridván/Lawh-i Ridván in Baha’u’llah, Gleanings, XIV. On
the announcement of the abolition of jihad in this work, see Lambden,
Some Notes. For commentary, analysis, and further publication and
translation details, see Cole, Modernity, 115–116.
28. Aqdas, 76–77/K159: “It has been forbidden to you to carry arms unless
essential.”
29. Recent scholarship has illumined the composition and publication of this
work far beyond what was hitherto known. See Buck and Ioannesyan,
“Baha’u’llah’s Bisharat (Glad-Tidings).”
30. For example, those discussed in Momen, “Learning.”
31. Literally, al-sulh al-akbar. This distinctive Baha’i term is the companion
idea to The Most Great Peace (al-sulh al-a‘zam), which is understood as
the second stage of a process that began with the revelation of Baha’u’llah.
For details on this, see Karlberg, Beyond.
32. For the debate on the problem of whether the Bab invoked the law of jihad,
see the series of articles and responses by Afnan and Hatcher, “Western”;
Afnan and Hatcher, “Note”; MacEoin, “Baha’i”; and MacEoin, “Afnan.”
33. One of these was the command to destroy all other books but his. See
Amanat, Resurrection, 409. This may provide an interesting variation on
the distinctive Islamic hermeneutic device known as the “contexts for rev-
elation” (asbab al-nuzul). In this case, the Babi confusion would be the
context for the proclamation of a more categorical and universal message.
We may also see here a distinctive variation on the distinctive Twelver
Shi‘i hermeneutic mode ascribed to certain passages of the Qur’an that
might otherwise call into question the “sinlessness” of the Prophet Mu-
hammad (e.g., the passage in which he is upbraided by God for spurning
a needy petitioner—“he frowned” at Q80:4–10). The operative technical
formula in the tafsír literature is: iyyaki a‘ni wa‘sma’i yá jara (meaning:
Even though I appear to be addressing you directly, this message is really
for the one who is standing within earshot). On this formula, see Lawson,
“Akhbari,” 171, 187.
34. Buck and Ioannesyan, “Baha’u’llah’s Bisharat (Glad-Tidings),” especially
13–14.
35. But this does not mean that his exhortations are for Babis only. In subse-
quent writings, the same message is addressed explicitly to humanity as a
whole including “kings and rulers.”
36. The writing of this commentary was in response to a question from his
guest, the young Shaykhi, Mulla Husayn Bushru’i.
37. Lawson, Gnostic Apocalypse, 21–45.

Notes 127
38. Muhammad-Husayni, Yusuf-i Baha’.

39.. Pellat, Hilm.
40. This is exemplified in the Qur’an and the Tales of the Prophets literature
and is also the subject of the most popular work by Ibn al-‘Arabi, Fusús
al-hikam. A modern scholarly discussion of this distinctive Islamicate re-
ligious orientation is Zwettler, “Manifesto.” In brief, all divine virtues are,
according to the Qur’an as understood by Muslims and Baha’is, spiritu-
ally present in every prophet, but depending upon the specific details of
this or that prophet’s mission, various virtues may be emphasized while
various others may be deemphasized.
41. Joseph as model of hilm has not been stressed in the numerous studies
of either the Qur’anic story or the post Qur’anic treatment in count-
less poems, tales, religious performances, and commentaries. A valuable
summary of this material is John Renard, “Reprise: Joseph of the Seven
Doors”.
42. “[Mu‘awiya’s] was a style that involved indirect rule through the ashráf
[nobles], supplemented by his own personal touch with delegations
[wufúd] and, not least, by his ‘ilm [“knowledge” q.v.], ‘the patient and
tireless cunning in the manipulation of men through knowledge of their
interests and passions’ … which in his case included ‘the prudent mild-
ness by which he disarmed and shamed the opposition, slowness to anger,
and the most absolute self-command: … In one of those semi-apocryphal
stories with which Arabic literature is so rich, Mu‘awiya is quoted as hav-
ing said, ‘If there were but a single hair between myself and my people, it
would never be severed. . . . I would let it go slack if ever they tugged it, and
I would tug it myself if ever they slackened it.’” Hinds, Mu‘áwiya I.
43. B-SH-R is a frequent Qur’anic root. It is in the form bashar “(mortal,
appetitive, and fallible) man” 37 times. In a nearly equal number of pas-
sages, however, it is connected with a rather interesting semantic reversal
of those somewhat gloomy connotations of bashar in numerous words
for joy and glad-tidings. In addition to bashir, they are: bushr (3 times),
bushra (15 times), bashshara (33 times), istabshara (8 times), abshara (1
time). It is the word from which the title of Baha’u’llah’s above-cited work
Bisharat is derived.
44. Nadhir is said to be the opposite of bashir in Wensinck, Nadhír. Wensinck
does not comment on the interesting juxtaposition of these two opposites
as descriptive of the office of prophet, though he does remark that nadhir
is held by some to be a synonym for rasul, “messenger.”
45. The irony expressed by this specific lexically-conditioned allusion has, as
far as I know, not been explored. On the distinctive circular structure of
Sura 12, see Mir, “Joseph.” On recognition (anagnorisis) in Sura 12, see
Kennedy, Recognition, 1-186.
46. Lawson, “Typological.” The idea of an “apocalypse of reunion” was orig-

128 Notes
inally raised some 25 years ago in Lawson, “Reading Reading Itself,” now
published as Chapter 4 in Lawson, Gnostic Apocalypse.
47. It may be that this Josephian revelation through reunion is one of the
conceptual bases for the influential, powerful poem of the Persian master
Farid al-Dín ‘Attár (d. 1221) in whose Conference of the Birds the protag-
onists become aware of their true identity through reunion. The poem
contains numerous references to Joseph and his epic struggle. ‘Attar, Con-
ference.
48. Joseph’s popularity may also be connected to his functioning as an em-
blem of “irenic relief ” in an otherwise polemic-saturated milieu within
Shi‘ism. See below the remarks on sacred love and sacred hatred.
49. The Biblical figure, “Iron in the Soul” (Ps. 105:18) appears in the title of
the last book by Kenneth Cragg, The Iron. It examines the role and model
of Joseph, especially for the value it might have for coming to peaceful
terms in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. In a recent message to the belea-
guered Baha’i community of Iran, the Universal House of Justice coun-
seled the Baha’is as follows: “The proper response to oppression is neither
to succumb in resignation nor to take on the characteristics of the oppres-
sor. The victim of oppression can transcend it through an inner strength
that shields the soul from bitterness and hatred and which sustains con-
sistent, principled action.” Quoted in Karlberg, “Constructive Resilience,”
234.
50. Cf. Corbin, Temple, 331–333.
51. A complete study of the Joseph motif throughout the Baha’i writings
(including those of the Bab, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi, and even the
messages and decisions of the Universal House of Justice) would, one is
certain, confirm the general argument of this chapter.
52. The Persian original of the italicized portion is: Ay baradar-i man shakhs-i
mujahid kih iradih namud qadam-i talab wa suluk dar sabil-i ma‘rifat-i
sultan-i qidam gudharad …. (Iqan, 148)
53. “[The Baha’is] must strive to obtain, from sources that are authoritative
and unbiased, a sound knowledge of the history and tenets of Islám—the
source and background of their Faith—and approach reverently and with
a mind purged from preconceived ideas the study of the Qur’án.” Shoghi
Effendi, Advent, 49.
54. One exception is the reference to “rending the veils of glory” (kashf sub-
uhat al-jalal) toward the end of the Tablet. On this metaphor, which may
also be translated “be aware of delusions of grandeur,” see Lawson, “The
Bab’s Epistle,” especially 239. On the importance of the Mahdi to Sunni
Islam, see Madelung, al-Mahdi.
55. Izutsu, God, 198–229. See the rich discussion of hilm in Pellat, Hilm,
which accepts Iztusu’s analysis. See also a similar conclusion in Arkoun,
Violence.

Notes 129
56. For example, Baha’u’llah recommends an agreement of collective secu-
rity for all nations: “Be united, O kings of the earth, for thereby will the
tempest of discord be stilled amongst you, and your peoples find rest, if
ye be of them that comprehend. Should any one among you take up arms
against another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest
justice.” (Gleanings, 254.)
57. Schimmel, A Two-Colored, 64.
58. Quoted in Pellat, “Hilm.”
59. See below, Ch. 4.
60. Corbin, En Islam 1:301: “Shi‘i piety and spirituality culminate thus in this
walayat devoted to the Imam as the theophanic Form under which the
Unknowable God (Absconditum) is revealed to the human being and un-
der which the hidden God becomes the object of love . . . . And it is why
all love of God, to the degree that such a God is seen as an object of love,
is waláyat of the Imám.” (My translation.)
61. Amir-Moezzi, Guide, 87–88. See also the same author’s “Notes.”
62. Ibid., 88. Such a piety is far from Baha’i teachings and may indeed provide
the foil against which these teachings began to be distinguished for their
universality.
63. See Cole, Modernity. Although the notion of modernity at work here is
largely external to the Islamic world, the book is important for the thor-
oughness with which it tracks possible external or non-Islamic factors in
the rise of the Baha’i Faith. This is done to such a degree that it may be
thought to ignore quite robust and distinctive native Islamicate resources,
most notably the pervasive and powerful vahdat dar kathrat variety of an
especially Persianate Islamic “mystical” discourse, especially because this
fell heir to the wahdat al-wujud “theosophy” of the exponents, preach-
ers, and teachers of the vision of Ibn Arabi. The thorough examination
of the relationship between Baha’i scriptures and the wahdat al-wujud
and/or al-shuhud “schools” remains an especially interesting project for
understanding the formation of its doctrine and religious identity in the
modern period. We know, for example, that there are striking similari-
ties between the thought of the highly influential “shuhudi” ‘Ala al-Dawla
Simnani (d. 1336) and Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i, whose “Shaykhi move-
ment” was the precursor of the Babi-Baha’i religions. See Van Ess, ‘Alá’
al-Dawla, following Landolt, “Der Briefwechsel,” especially 62–63.
Chapter 2: Being Human

1. This article was originally published as “Being Human: The Shaykhiyya”
in Baha’i Studies Review 18 (2012): 83-94.
2. Kashani, Kalimat-i Maknuna (The Hidden Words), 125. Arabic: al-surat
al-insaniya akbar hujjat Allah ‘ala khalqihi, “The human form is the great-
est proof of God to His creation.”

130 Notes
3. The first example which comes to mind is Arkoun, Contribution.

4. Lawson, The Quran, 27–28.
5. “Wenn ich betrachte, was Gott ist, so sage ich: Er ist das Eine gegen der
Kreatur, als ein ewig Nichts; er hat weder Grund, Anfang noch Stätte;
und besitzet nicht, als nur sich selber: er ist der Wille des Ungrundes, er
ist in sich selber nur Eines: er bedarf keinen Raum noch Ort: er gebäret
von Ewigkeit in Ewigkeit sich selber in sich: er ist keinem Dinge gleich
oder ähnlich, und hat keinen sonderlichen Ort, da er wohne: die ewige
Weisheit oder Verstand ist seine Wohne: er ist der Wille der Weisheit, die
Weisheit ist seine Offenbarung.” (Jakob Böhme, Sämmtliche Werke, 7 vols,
herausgegeben von K. W. Schiebler, Leipzig, 1832–1860, bd. 5: Mysterium
Magnum, p. 7, translation is that found in N. A. Berdayev (Berdiaev),
“Studies Concerning Jacob Boehme Etude I, The Teaching about the Un-
grund and Freedom,” a translation by Fr. S. Janos, (2002) of the original
Russian article “Iz Etiudov O Ya. Beme. Etiud I. Uchenie Ob Ungrund‘e I
Svobode,” Journal Put’, No. 20 (Feb. 1930): 47–79, accessed 25 July 2009
at: http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/ berd_lib/1930_349.html#1. For a
deeply nuanced Baha’i view of the importance of such apophaticism, see
Lambden, The Background and now Faber, “My Faith,“ especially 162 ff.
6. On this phenomenon, see Amir-Moezzi, “Une absence.” See also by the
same author, “Only the man.”
7. Quoted in Lawson, Tafsir as Mystical Experience, 125-126.
8. See the valuable discussion of this in Amir-Moezzi, Guide, 171–172.
9. “We are the mysteries of God which have been deposited in human bod-
ies.” Arabic: nahnu asrar Allah al-muda‘a fi hayakil al-bashariyya. Kashaníi,
Kalimat-i Maknuna, 124.
10. Kashani, Kalimat, 125, on the authority of the sixth Imam, Ja‘far al-Sadiq
(d. 765). The opening words in Arabic are: al-surat al-insaniyya akbar
hujjat Allah ‘ala khalqihi wa hiya kitab al-ladhi katabahu bi-yadihi wa hiya
haykal al-ladhi bana’ahu bi-hikmatihi wa hiya majma‘a suwwar al-‘ala-
min.
11. Al-Insan al-kamil fi ma‘rifat al-awakhir wa al-awa’il (Cairo, 1949).
12. A companion of the Prophet Muhammad and the first Persian to convert
to Islam.
13. Morris, Wisdom of the Throne.
14. Corbin, En Islam, 1:192.
15. See Landolt, “Review of W. M. Thackston,” 475.
16. Rafati, The Development, 194–196.
17. Corbin, En Islam, 1:194.
18. Lawson, Tafsir, passim.
19. Cf. the frequently quoted statement: “The believers are the rays of the
prophets.”
20. Corbin, En Islam, 1:205. This passage is from Shaykh Ahmad’s Sharh

Notes 131
al-masha‘ir, a dense commentary on Mulla Sadra’s famous work, Kitáb

al-mashá‘ir “The Book of Metaphysical Apperceptions.”
21. See Bausani’s classic article on this subject, “Islam in the History of Reli-
gions.” See also the important study by Cole, Concept, which sheds much
light on the Baha’i interpretation of these teachings.
22. Corbin, En Islam, 1:300–301.
23. See Lawson, Chapter 2 of Gnostic for a more complete discussion.
24. Browne, “Báb, Bábís,” 300. It is important to note the “[sic]” here. If trans-
lated literally, the term would mean the Perfect Community of Believers
(shi‘a), and, as mentioned above in the Introduction (11–12), this may
indeed turn out to be the correct teaching of the Shaykhis. See Lawson,
“The Báb’s Epistle,” 231–247.
25. This is not to ignore the countless doctrinal battles amongst Muslims that
raged around and because of such an energetic and productive life of the
mind and of course the famous “destruction of philosophy” at the pen of
this same Ghazali. However, such philosophy only “died” in the Islamic
West. It remained very much alive in Iran and Irano-Islamicate regions
such as the Ottoman and Mughal Empires and their historical successors.
26. On this subject see Gleave, Scripturalist Islam.
27. Rafati, Shaykhí Thought, 39–40.
28. Corbin, En Islam, 4:259. Note the Josephian metaphor.
29. Bausani, Religion in Iran, 340–344.
30. Lawson, “The Báb’s Epistle.”
31. Shaykh Ahmad, Sharh Risala, 174.
32. Ibid., 151–152.
33. Ibid., 152. For a rich discussion of “reason as sovereign” and “reason as
vicegerent” in Islamic culture, see Walbridge, God and Logic.
34. Shaykh Ahmad, Sharh Risala, 152.
35. See, for example, Arnaldez, “al-Insán al-Kámil.”
36. Cf. Amir-Moezzi, “Aspects.”
37. See Daftary, The Ismá‘ílís, 502–507, for references to a discussion of the
dynamics of this relationship and insights into the religious views of Fath
‘Alí Sháh himself. See Sayyid Kazim Rashti,, Risalat al-suluk, passim for
distinctive interpretations of standard Sufi practices and topics such as
Remembrance/dhikr, Fellowship/suhba, and Quest or Comportment/ su-
luk.
38. Gleanings, CCXXII, 259/167: insan tilasm-i a‘zam ast.
39. John 10:10.
Chapter 3: Seeing Double

1. This article was originally published in The Bahá’í Faith and the World’s
Religions, ed. Moojan Momen (Oxford: George Ronald, 2005) 39–87.

132 Notes
2. Bukhari, Sahih, Book 88, Fitan, no. 241, vol. 9, 183.

3. “These daily obligatory prayers, together with a few other specific ones,
such as the [Long] Healing Prayer, the Tablet of Ahmad, have been in-
vested by Bahá’u’lláh with a special potency and significance, and should
therefore be accepted as such and be recited by the believers with unques-
tioning faith and confidence, that through them they may enter into a
much closer communion with God, and identify themselves more fully
with His laws and precepts.” (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi
Effendi, cited in Bahá’í Prayers, 209.)
4. Baha’u’llah, Gleanings LXXV, 143/97; LXXXIV, 166/111; Baha’u’llah, Seven
Valleys, 5/96, 24/116.
5. Shoghi Effendi, World Order, 112.
6. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, 27.
7. Baha’u’llah, in Bahá’í World Faith, 358.
8. The word walí (guardian, friend, saint) is derived from waláya (intimate
friendship, sainthood). More accurately, both words are derived from the
same basic Semitic root W-L-Y, from which all of the various related con-
notations and denotations of the two words, such as friendship, guard-
ianship, protection, sanctity, allegiance, love, loyalty, nearness, trust and
so on are derived. For more on this, see Lawson, “Friendship.”
9. On this topic, in connection with the Baha’i Faith, there is no better source
than the writings of John Hatcher, beginning with his The Metaphorical
Nature of Physical Reality, discussed in detail below.
10. For a particularly lucid and masterful discussion of this process as found
in Islamic mysticism, see Izutsu, “Paradox.”
11. This idea, coming directly from Q41:53, is elaborated further below.
12. See ERE and ER, s.v., Covenant. In the Hebrew Bible, God is often repre-
sented as making a covenant with individuals. (Genesis 9:9, 15:18; Exodus
6:4, 24:4ff; Numbers 25:13; Deuteronomy 5:2; Jeremiah 34:13.) Breaking
the covenant was followed by punishment: (Deuteronomy 17:2ff; Joshua
7:11ff, 23:16; Judges 2:20; IT Kings 18:9–12.) Blessing followed its being
observed. (Psalms 132:12: (“If your sons keep my covenant and my tes-
timonies which I shall teach them, their sons also for ever shall sit upon
your throne.”) Note that the New Testament is known in Arabic as the
New Covenant (al-‘Ahd al-Jadid) just as the so-called Old Testament is
known as the Former or Old Covenant (al-‘ahd al-qadim).
13. A summary of the Covenant in Islam is in Taherzadeh, Revelation, 1:125–
128. See also Qadi, Covenant.
14. On the recipient of the Tablet of Ahmad, see Faizi, A Flame. See also Ta-
herzadeh, Revelation, 2:107–136.
15. Baha’u’llah refers to this covenant in the Long Healing Prayer (Bahá’í
Prayers, p. 98) where he maintains that it was God who both posed and
answered the question. Readers of Baha’u’llah’s Hidden Words will also

Notes 133
be reminded of Persian no. 19, (although ‘Abdu’l-Baha has indicated that

this association is not the most important): “O My Friends! Have ye for-
gotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed
surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of
the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise? Awe-struck ye
listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends! Pre-
fer not your own will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired
for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly de-
sires and cravings. Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this pres-
ent hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth of My
utterance should be made evident unto all of you.” See also ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s
interpretation of this text in Taherzadeh, Revelation, 1:81. On the Day of
the Covenant and the Day of Resurrection as the defining moments of
“Islamic time,” see Böwering, “Ideas of Time.”
16. Huwayzí, Tafsír, 2:341–43, #’s 6 and 8.
17. On the Covenant in the Abrahamic tradition, see Firmage, et al., Religion
and Law.
18. For the commercial background of this term, see Schacht, “Bay‘,” EI2. See
the related usage of bay‘a in the Kitab-i Iqan, 241/187, quoting a Hadith
from Ja‘far al-Sadiq, the sixth Imam: “There shall appear a Youth from
Bani-Hashim, Who will bid the people pay fealty unto Him. His Book will
be a new Book, unto which He shall summon the people to pledge their
faith. Stern is His Revelation unto the Arab. If ye hear about Him, hasten
unto Him.” (Italics added.)
19. On walaya generally, see Landolt, “Walaya.” See Schimmel, Mystical, 149–
213 for a discussion of these terms as they are used in Sufism. See Lawson,
“Authority,” for a discussion of these terms in Shi‘ism and in the writings
of the Bab.
20. See also Q4:155, 5:13, 8:56, 13:20, 13:25, 16:91
21. Observed on 18th of Dhu’l-Hijja annually. It is an official public holiday
in Iran.
22. Note the similarity of the language here in a passage of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s Will
and Testament: “The sacred and youthful branch, the Guardian of the
Cause of God, as well as the Universal House of Justice to be universally
elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the
Abha Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of the Exalted One
(may my life be offered up for them both). Whatsoever they decide is of
God. Whoso obeyeth him not, neither obeyeth them, hath not obeyed God;
whoso rebelleth against him and against them hath rebelled against God;
whoso opposeth him hath opposed God; whoso contended with them hath
contended with God; whoso disputeth with him hath disputed with God;
whoso denieth him hath denied God; whoso disbelieveth in him hath disbe-
lieved in God; whoso deviateth, separateth himself and turneth aside from

134 Notes
him hath in truth deviated, separated himself and turned aside from God.
May the wrath, the fierce indignation, the vengeance of God rest upon
him!” (11, italics added.)
23. Mufid, Irshad, 124–125, translation slightly adapted. On ‘Umar’s eventual
breaking of the Covenant, see ‘Abdu’l-Baha summarized below.
24. The topic of Covenant acts as something of a pivot for other important
doctrinal disputes and questions: the corruption of the Qur’an, the no-
tion of fitra (human nature), and creation itself.
25. The scattering (Arabic dharr) is understood to be that of their seed. Dharr
figures very prominently in some of the more abstruse discussions of cre-
ational metaphysics in the writings of Shaykh Ahmad and the Bab. See
now the excellent article by Kazemi, “Mysteries.”
26. Huwayzi, Tafsir, 2:337, #2.
27. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual, 27
April 1936, in Lights of Guidance, no. 1664, 495–496.
28. Shoghi Effendi, Advent, 49.
29. The contemplation of the Holy Traditions, or Hadith, sometimes called
Akhbar, may be seen as the actual attainment of the presence of and
communion with the Imams, Muhammad’s progeny—the people of his
house. See Lawson, “Dangers,” 176–178. See now, Ghaemmaghami, An
Invented Tradition.
30. In the beginning of his mission, the Bab invoked the authority of the
Covenant through the very structure of his Qayyum al-asma, each chap-
ter of which contains 42 verses. Forty-two is the numerical equivalent of
the Quranic “Yea, verily [we do testify]!” (bala) found in Q7:172 quoted
above. This word symbolizes the Covenant for Muslims and Baha’is.
31. From the Lawh-i hizar-bayti—“Tablet of One Thousand verses”—by ‘Ab-
du’l-Baha, summarized in Taherzadeh, Revelation, 1:127.
32. Q3:151, 4:91, 4:153, 11:96, as examples. The word al-sultan was eventually
adopted by rulers who had effectively wrested power from the Caliphate.
It came, therefore, to stand for the bearer of political authority as distinct
from the bearer of spiritual authority.
33. Q2:32, 4:11, 4.17, 4:24, 4:26, 4:92, 4:104, 4:111, 4:170, 8:71, 9:15, 9:28, 9:60,
9:97, 9:106, 9:110, 12:6, 12:83, 12:100, 22:52, 24:18, 24:58, 24:59, 33:1, 48:4,
49:8, 60:10, 66:2, 76:30. Other frequent compound epithets are ‘the Mer-
ciful, the Compassionate’ (ar-rahman ar-rahim) and the Ever Living, the
Eternal (al-hayy al-qayyum).
34. Baqli, Sharh, 153, idem, Kitab ‘abhar al-‘ashiqin, 34; cf. also ibid., 3 for
a brief reference to the ‘niche’ mentioned in the famous Light Verse
(Q24:35), where Ruzbihan says that humanity has been made a ‘niche’
for the light of the glory of God (nur baha’i-hi). See the discussion of the
Light Verse below.
35. Remember also that it was beneath the Tree (sidratu’l-muntaha) that the

Notes 135
primordial Covenant was taken. See above the reference to Persian Hid-
den Word 19. A standard reference for both tree and bird imagery in an Is-
lamicate milieu is Wensinck, Tree and Bird. Cole, “World as Text” is largely
about tree and bird imagery in a work by Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i. See
also the recent anthropological study by Fernandez, Trees, for a discussion
of trees as symbolic of self-knowledge. In connection with the theme of
duality and “seeing double,” the motif of reversal (a sub-species of duali-
ty) is found expressed in a most evocative context in the universal image
of the inverted tree, suggested by Q69:23, by none other than Karim Khan
Kirmani (d. 1873), arch-critique of the Bab, who cites a tradition from
the Imam ‘Ali in explanation of the verse: “The trees of Paradise are the
inverse of the trees of this world. The trees of Paradise have their roots
above and their branches below.” Quoted in Corbin, Spiritual Body, 225–
226; see also Corbin, Spiritual Body, 327, n. 9, for reference to Carl Jung’s
study of the arbor inversa.
36. Cf. the use of the word warqa’ as a metaphor for the soul by Ibn Síná
in the recent article by Madelung, “An Ismá‘ílí Interpretation.” See also
Landolt, “Deux opuscules,” and the important discussion of bird imagery
in Buck, Symbol, 266–268. In this connection, the similarity between baqa’
and baha’ is to be taken seriously. Lewis, Review of Symbol, 79–80 offers
essential commentary on the trope.
37. Cf. Baha’u’llah, The Seven Valleys, 36–39/129–133: “The Valley of True
Poverty and Absolute Nothingness”/wadí fakri haqiqi wa fana’i asli.
38. ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Tablets of the Divine Plan, 49.
39. ‘Abdu’l-Baha, “The Master’s Last Tablet to America,” in Bahá’í World
Faith, 429.
40. Ibid., 433.
41. Ibid., 436.
42. Cf., for example, the title of Sayyid Qutb’s Qur’an commentary: Fi zilal
al-Qur’an (In the Shade of the Qur’an).
43. See Yusuf ‘Ali’s commentary on the respective verses.
44. In early Shi‘i exegesis this ‘accursed tree’ was read as standing for the
Umayyad dynasty. See Goldziher, Schools, 168–170/265–268.
45. Lawson citing Sayyid Kazim in Gnostic Apocalypse, 99-100 and notes.
46. See Stephen N. Lambden’s magisterial ‘The Sinaitic Mysteries.”
47. Qummí, Tafsír, 2:78–79. The richness and suppleness of Islamic piety al-
lows the following interpretation by Muhammad al-Baqir (the fifth Imam
and father of al-Sadiq) to stand side by side with this one. He writes that
the “niche” is the breast of the believers, and the first “lamp” is the heart,
the second “lamp” is the light that God put in the heart of the believer;
the “tree” is the believer (qala: ash-shajara al-mu’min). Note, in this con-
nection, ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s statement that the believers should become like
“trees.” (Tablets of the Divine Plan, passim) “. . . an olive neither eastern

136 Notes
nor western” means that it is growing on the peak of a mountain, having

thus no cardinal direction; “when the sun rises it rises upon it and when
it sets it sets upon it.” “… would almost shine forth” means that the light
that God has placed in his heart would almost shine forth even if he did
not say a single word.
48. See Lawson, Gnostic; see also, Lawson, “Interpretation.”
49. The Arabic reads: wa innaka anta ayqin fi dhatika bi-anna al-ladhí ‘a’rada
‘ani hadha al-jamali faqad ‘a’rada ‘an ar-rusuli min qablu thumma ‘stakba-
ra ‘ala ’llahi fi ‘azali’l-azali ilá ’abadi’l-abidín.
50. See above the translation of Q7:172–173.
51. Arabic: thumma dhakkir min ladunna kulla man sakana fí madinati ’lla-
hi’l-maliki’l-‘azízi’l-jamíli mina’l-ladhína hum amanu bi’llahi wa bi’l-ladhi
yab‘athuhu’llahu fí yawmi’l-qiyamati wa kanu ‘ala manahiji’l-haqq lamin
as-salikín. (Risalih-yi-tashbih wa tahlil, 218). It has remained untranslated
in Bahá’í prayer books, possibly because it speaks so directly and specifi-
cally to the Shi‘i eschaton which, as we have seen, was one of the primary
topics associated with the exegesis of the verse of the Covenant—the tone
and contents of which Shoghi Effendi perhaps considered too arcane and
parochial for a wider readership.
52. Taherzadeh, Revelation, 2:107. For a discussion of the divine “transfer-
ence” by means of which Baha’u’llah also intends himself when speaking
of the Bab, see Buck, Symbol, 233–247; see also Saiedi, Logos and Civiliza-
tion, 38, 123, 135 and especially 195. Note also the very important “trans-
ference” indicated in Baha’u’llah’s Long Healing Prayer where, in speaking
of the primordial Covenant, the Day of Bala, he indicates that God both
asked and answered the question with “Yea!” even though it may have
appeared that humanity gave this response. Bahá’í Prayers, 98.
53. This noun, translated here as a verbal phrase by Shoghi Effendi, is highly
significant, and there is no space here to discuss it in full. See below in the
discussion of amphiboly. It really deserves a separate study. Suffice it for
the moment to point out that it represents a mode of knowledge quite dif-
ferent from the knowledge (‘ilm) of the sacerdotal establishment and may
best be translated as “recognition,” possibly “intuition” and sometimes
even “gnosis.” It is the word for “to know” that God speaks in the Hadith
of the Hidden Treasure referred to more fully below. (cf. also the Hadith
man ‘arafa quoted or referred to many times in Baha’i writings: “He who
knows himself knows his Lord.”) The “recognition” of the true bearer of
walaya is essential for upholding the “Covenant.”
54. Razi, The Path, 125–126.
55. See Waley, Contemplative, 507–508.
56. Cf., for example, Q17:77: “Our way with the Messengers We sent before
thee is the same. No change wilt thou find in the way of God.” Cf. also
Q33:62, 35:43, 40:85, and 48:23.

Notes 137
57. Lawson, The Quran, 27–56.

58. The Quranic verses are considered miraculous for three basic reasons:
their sheer beauty and persuasive or rhetorical power, their “alchemical”
ability to transform the lead of human nature into the “gold” of human
spirituality, and the “fact” that Muhammad was supposedly illiterate, and
thus the appearance of such exquisite and remarkable language from such
a person is analogous to the birth of Jesus from a virgin. Here it is rarely
observed that the Qur’an is an oral composition, making the whole ques-
tion of literacy irrelevant.
59. In this connection, note the celebrated Hadith Kumayl, quoted in the Ki-
tab-i Iqan, 164/128. The first Imam was asked by one of his closest disci-
ples: “O Master! What is Reality?” ‘Alí eventually answered: “Piercing the
clouds of glory without reference to anything else (bi-la ishara).” See Law-
son, “The Bab’s Epistle,” for a fuller discussion of this Hadith.
60. Such oppositions are compellingly orchestrated in Baha’u’llah, The Fire
Tablet, in Bahá’í Prayers, 214–220.
61. Lawson, “Interpretation,” 253.
62. On the importance of this idea in the Baha’i writings, see, in addition to
the works of Hatcher, referred to at length below, those of Fananapazir,
Fazel, May, McGlinn and Woodman listed in Bibliography.
63. My provisional translation. See Baha’u’llah, Commentary, 11/15–16. Cf.
the similar idea in the writings of Sayyid Kazim Rashti, translated in Law-
son, “The Terms,” 34–35 and below.
64. Arabic has three grammatical numbers: singular, plural, and dual (indi-
cating only two).
65. Profound thanks to Dr Manuchihr Salmanpour for drawing my attention
to this during the conference where an earlier draft of this chapter was
presented.
66. Yusuf ‘Ali, Introduction to Sura 55 (the page number varies in different
editions). On the importance of pairing in the Qur’an, see Zwettler for an
extremely suggestive study of zawj (mate) in the Qur’an and the relevance
this may have for the typological argument (another form of seeing dou-
ble) in that Book for Muhammad’s authority.
67. Various other translations of this verse are listed here for comparison:
1) “We shall surely attend to you at leisure, you weight and you
weight!” (Arberry)
2) “Soon shall We apply Ourselves to you, O you two armies!”
(Maulana Muhammad Ali)
3) “We shall have leisure for you, O ye two burdensome companies.
(Bell. Bell’s note, vol. 2, 550: or “two races,” i.e. jinn and men.
Elsewhere Bell says: “[This verse] contains a threat that in spite of
His occupations Allah will have time to deal with men and jinn,
the thaqalán.”)

138 Notes
4) “We shall dispose of you, O ye two dependents (man and jinni).”

(Pickthall)
5) “We shall soon be free to turn to you, O weary caravans.” (Ahmed
Ali)
6) “Soon shall We attend to you, O ye two big groups.” (Maulvi Sher
Ali)
7) “O you burdens of the earth, we shall soon be getting free to call
you to account.” (Maududi. Maududi’s note (p. 878): “. . . Thaqal
is the burden loaded on a conveyance. Thaqalan (dual) therefore,
will mean: ‘two loaded burdens’. Here this word refers to jinn and
men, who are both loaded on the earth. As the addressees here
are those jinn and men who have turned away from the service
and obedience of their Lord, . . . they have been addressed as: ‘O
burdens of the earth.’ In other words, the Creator is warning these
two disobedient companies of His creation, saying: ‘O you who
have become a burden for My earth, I am soon getting free to take
you to task.’ This does not mean that Allah at this time is too busy
to call the disobedient servants to account, but it means that Allah
has arranged a special time-table according to which the time for
the final accountability and reckoning of the jinn and men has not
yet come.”
8) “Nous vaquerons un jour à votre jugement, ô hommes et génies!”
(Kasimirski)
68. Yusuf ‘Ali, 1401 (page number varies by edition). This note was revised
by later editors as indicated by the (R) at its end. (Text inside {} is from
the 1946 edn., and underscored text is used in the revised edns.) Thus, it
can be seen how Shoghi Effendi’s translation of the word in the Tablet of
Ahmad has much in common with the interpretation offered in this note
by Yusuf ‘Ali.
69. Mufid, Irshad, p. 124. Translation is slightly adapted.
70. Note that awliya, the plural of wali, is frequently used by Baha’u’llah and
is typically translated as “friends” by Shoghi Effendi, e.g., Baha’u’llah,
Epistle, 23.
71. See note 67 above, translation no. 2.
72 See the reference to Mohammed Djalili below, Chapter 3, note 98.
73. Kashani, Tafsir, 5:110. cf. Bahrani, Tafsir, 4:267 and Qummi, Tafsir, 2:323.
The first two works rely very heavily on the earliest stratum of Shi‘i
scriptural interpretation as found, for example, in the third work. A re-
cent study of this early material is Bar-Asher, Scripture, which see espe-
cially 93–98 for more on the meaning and interpretation of the Hadith
ath-thaqalayn.
74. Baha’u’llah, Kitab-i Iqan, 201/155. My thanks to Dr Moojan Momen for
drawing my attention to this passage.

Notes 139
75. Hatcher, Metaphorical.
76. Cf. also the quotation from the Kitab-i Iqan below, beginning, “It is evi-
dent. . . .”
77. Hatcher, Metaphorical, 8.
78. Ibid., 9.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., 17. See here the very interesting passages on the Manifestations’ use
of dramatic metaphor, exemplified in episodes from the life of Christ and
compared with episodes in Baha’i history, namely the conference at Ba-
dasht.
81. Ibid., 11.
82. Ibid., 12.
83. ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, 93–94.
84. Cf. “Ahmad became the embodiment of his own Tablet.” Faizi, A Flame, 2.
85. Cf. Hatcher, Metaphorical, 9: “To view the metaphor as having one mean-
ing is to miss the analogical equation, mistake the vehicle for the tenor,
and [in the instance cited here] to end up believing that Christ was actu-
ally a piece of bread.”
86. Cf. Kant’s use of the term, denoting an object of ‘pure understanding’
confused with appearance.
87. Baha’u’llah, The Hidden Words, Arabic, Introduction.
88. One of the more immediate implications of the root Q-M-S is the auto-
matic allusion to Joseph and his “shirt” (qamis) which Baha’u’llah refers
to so frequently throughout his writings, notably in the Kitab-i Aqdas
(K4/4) and in the Book of the Covenant (the Kitab-i ‘Ahd, 220/198). It
may be suggested that detecting the “fragrance” (‘arf) mentioned here in
the poetic figure is actually a metaphor for the recognition of spiritual au-
thority (walaya). Note that ‘arf is built on the same root as ‘irfan, the very
word used in the first line of the Aqdas mentioned below. From L-B-S, the
Arabic word libs (apparel, clothing) is formed, as is the word labs (con-
fusion, ambiguity), and lubs (putting on a garment), i.e., something is
clothed in such a way that its true identity is unrecognizable or veiled.
89. Schimmel, Mystical, 299. To ‘break through the limitations’ is very sugges-
tive of the theme of the Hadíth Kumayl and Baha’u’llah’s employment of
it in the Iqan mentioned above.
90. Corbin’s several studies of this author are essential reading for those inter-
ested in Iranian religion and Islamic spirituality.
91. Ernst, Ruzbihan Baqli, 104. It may be questioned whether the sustained
criticism of one of the greatest scholars of modern Islamic studies (found
passim) is on solid ground. See, for example, the serious mistranslation of
Corbin’s French, ibid., 105.
92. ‘Abdu’l-Baha has written a lengthy commentary on this very influential
Tradition. Serious students are directed to Momen (tr. and commentary),
‘‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Commentary.”

140 Notes
93. Cf. amphibole as a technical term in geology.

94. Iqan, 29–30/23; see also the similar passage quoted above in Chapter 2
from the Tablet of the True Seeker.
95. Walaya/wilaya, valayat/vilayat (spiritual authority/love/ guidance). Wa-
laya is mentioned by Baha’u’llah in the Kitab-i Aqdas: “Take heed lest the
word ‘Prophet’ withhold you from this Most Great Announcement, or any
reference to ‘Vicegerency’ debar you from the sovereignty of Him Who
is the Vicegerent of God, which overshadoweth all the worlds.” (Kitab-i
Aqdas, K167, 80) As stated in the notes to the Kitab-i Aqdas: “The word
here translated ‘Vicegerency’ is, in the original Arabic, ‘vilayat’, which has
a range of meanings including ‘vicegerency’, ‘guardianship’, ‘protectorship’
and ‘successorship’. It is used in relation to God Himself, to His Manifes-
tation, or to those who are the appointed Successors of a Manifestation.”
(ibid., note 181, 244) See also Gleanings, LXXXIX, 175–176/117: “Who-
so, while reading the Sacred Scriptures, is tempted to choose therefrom
whatever may suit him with which to challenge the authority of the Rep-
resentative of God (matla‘ al-walaya) among men, is, indeed, as one dead,
though to outward seeming he may walk and converse with his neigh-
bours, and share with them their food and their drink.” “Representative
of God” here is Shoghi Effendi’s translation of matla‘u’l-walayat. (Many
thanks to Dr. Moojan Momen for this reference.) It may also be translat-
ed as “the place where walaya appears” or “manifestation of walaya.” Cf.
the different translation of matla‘ (literally rising place, dawning place) in
Bahá’u’lláh, Kitab-i Aqdas, K1, 19/1. Matla‘ is a frequent near-synonym
for mazhar, “manifestation” in Baha’u’llah’s Writings.
96. “Seeing double” also applies to the other senses, so that reading is done
through hearing, tasting, touching, and feeling.
97. See Izutsu, ‘The Paradox of Light and Darkness.” Elsewhere, speaking of
the necessity of seeing double for progress along the spiritual path, Izutsu
has written: “He who has reached this stage is known in the tradition of
Islamic Philosophy as a “man of two eyes” dhu al-‘aynayn. He is a man
who, with his right eye sees Unity, i.e. Absolute Reality, and nothing but
Unity, while with his left eye he sees multiplicity, i.e. the world of phe-
nomenal things . . . in addition to the simultaneous vision of Unity and
Multiplicity, he knows that these two are ultimately one and the same
thing. Such being the case he recognizes in every one of the actually ex-
istent things two different aspects: the aspect of fana’ and the aspect of
baqa’.” (Izutsu, Basic Structure, 19). Cf. the above comments on the “Tree
of baqa’.” See also Chittick, Sufi, 356ff: “Seeing with Two Eyes.”
98. See above, Chapter 2, Being Human. The implications for ecology are ob-
vious. If poetic and metaphorical trees are allowed to die, then earthly
trees are also doomed. See also Sours, “Ecofeminist critique.” It is also
interesting, in the present context, to note that early Muslim scholars di-

Notes 141
vided the earth into two parts: the region where Islam had yet to be estab-
lished, known as the Abode of Strife (or War) (dar al-harb), and the re-
gion where Islam had been established, known as the Abode of Peace (or
Security). This region could be known either as dar al-Islam, the Abode of
Islam, or dar al-‘ahd, the Abode of the Covenant. (Djalili, “International
Law,” 214) One implication of this is that where the Covenant is estab-
lished, the physical environment is de facto protected as an instrumental-
ity for registering the divine and for the divine registering humanity or,
perhaps better, more fully humanizing humanity. Similarly, the Abode of
Strife entails not only political and social warfare, but also “environmental
warfare.” As Baha’u’llah warned “The leaves are yellowed by the poisoning
winds of sedition.” (Fire Tablet, in Bahá’í Prayers, 316).
100. Ibid., 3:59. Ruzbihan may be influenced here by the Arabic poetic tradi-
tion where a verse of poetry is called a “tent/bayt” in which the damsel of
meaning (ma‘na) resides protected, awaiting reunion with her lover. Rumi
later would refer to the Qur’an itself as a bride (precisely ‘arus). There can
be no question here of Rumi teaching that the Qur’an should submit to
anyone; rather the suggestion is that the reader/husband, through love,
should submit to his bride, the Qur’an. See Murata, Tao of Islam, 226.
Cf. also, Ghazali’s famous metaphor of sexual ecstasy for spiritual and
intellectual knowledge: that it cannot be explained or taught but must be
experienced directly. (Ghazali, Incoherence, 213–214)
101. “Behold how within all things the portals of the Ridván [the good plea-
sure] of God are opened, that seekers may attain the cities of understand-
ing and wisdom, and enter the gardens of knowledge and power. Within
every garden they will behold the mystic bride of inner meaning (‘arúsu’l
ma‘ani) enshrined within the chambers of utterance in the utmost grace
and fullest adornment.” (Kitab-i Iqan, 140/109) Similarly: “Let the future
disclose the hour when the Brides of inner meaning (‘arusa’l-ma‘ani) will,
as decreed by the Will of God, hasten forth, unveiled (bi hijab) out of their
mystic mansions, and manifest themselves in the ancient realm of being.”
(Kitab-i Iqan, 175–176/136) In this connection, see also Baha’u’llah’s
mention of the “húrís of inner meaning”/(huriyatu’l-ma‘ani). (Kitab-i
Iqan, 70/54) Also, the other similar usages and the astute comments on
these by Sours in his “The Maid of Heaven,” 49. On the importance of the
feminine generally in the Bahá’í writings, see Culhane, I Beheld a Maiden.
102. On the Zoroastrian background for the Maid of Heaven, see the excel-
lent article by Ekbal, “Daéná-Dén-Dín.” See also the important analysis in
Buck, Paradise and Paradigm, 195–198 and passim.
103. This is not to suggest that this powerful image be intellectualized or “san-
itized” and therefore rendered a mere allegory (an integer in a formula).
Rather, it is suggested that the idea of the encounter with Meaning be

142 Notes
read alongside other possible meanings—another form of seeing dou-

ble—perhaps privileging this reading over that for emphasis in various
contexts. In short, the Maid of Heaven must be allowed to remain a vi-
brant, multivocal and, therefore, living symbol.
104. Cf. Kitab-i Iqan, 181/140.
106. Rashti, Sharh al-qasidat al-lamiyya, 103. Cf. also, the discussion of al-
Dajjal above. (It may be of some incidental interest to note that Hajj
Karim Khan Kirmani, one of the most vociferous detractors of the Bab,
had only one eye.) The Bab expresses this idea in his commentary on Su-
rat al-Baqara: “The Greatest Name (al-ism al-a‘zam) is ‘He’ (huwa). It is
the gate of communion with God … in that it causes [the believer] to en-
ter unto God without looking to the gate (bab), because the gate is [mere-
ly] the pointer (al-ishara).” (provisional translation; Lawson, Tafsír, 12).
Cf. also, the Hadith of Kumayl, several times referred to here: “Remove
the veils of glory without pointing [to anything else]”/kashf subuhat al-
jalal min ghayr ishara. Note Baha’u’llah’s commentary on this statement
in Kitab-i Iqan, 164–166/128–129. See also Lawson, “The Báb’s Epistle.”
In his refutation of Shaykh Ahmad’s Sharh Risalat, the renowned nine-
teenth-century Iranian philosopher Mulla Hadi Sabzavari contends that
its author ultimately lacked “perspective” in his condemnation of wahdat
al-wujud (existential monism). He says that had Shaykh Ahmad been able
to see with “two eyes,” he would have understood that even though the
divine essence is, of course, utterly unknowable and “beyond being,” it
is still permissible and even necessary to speak about proximity to it, its
knowledge, and so on. (Sabzavari, Sharh, 667) On this work of Shaykh
Ahmad’s, see Lawson, “Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy.” Two traditions from
the Prophet Muhammad regarding the two eyes of the heart are ccited in
Amuli, Jami‘ al-Asrar, 581. One reads: “Verily, the heart has two eyes, just
like the body. With the physical eye the physical realm is seen, with the
eye of Reality, which is spiritual, the inner spiritual realm and the divine
realities are seen.”
107. The Bab, Selections, 65.
108. On duality in the Qur’an see Lawson, Quran, 76–93; for duality and its
apotheosis in the joining of opposites in the writings of the Bab, see Law-
son, Gnostic, 75–92.
109. Kristeva, Tales of Love, 70. She continues, “One should understand that
each sex is the ‘symbol’ of the other, its complement and support, its be-
stower of meaning. Love, as tendency toward synthesis, would be precisely
that which creates the recognition of signs, a reading of significations, and
would thus set itself up in opposition to the closed, egg-shaped world of
androgynes.” See also the lucid and stimulating discussion of symbols in
Buck, Paradise, passim and especially 12-13: “Symbols are the illustrations

Notes 143
of sacred ideas and ideals” in texts that would otherwise be without pic-
tures. And, of course, icons are subject to the double vision just like all
other phenomena.
110. A preliminary search turned up over 120 separate instances in the English
language works.
111. Abdu’l-Baha, Memorials, 30, and note where there is reference to the wine
being from the jar of “Yea, verily!,” an allusion to the primordial cove-
nant described in Q7:172 and discussed above. Note also the very apposite
verse from Rumi quoted here: “From every eye Thou hidest well,/And yet
in every eye dost dwell.” See also Memorials, 141, for a similar use of the
symbol of wine.
112. Surely it is of some interest here to observe that though one is, by necessi-
ty, most alone while reading, one is, perhaps, at the same time—and again
paradoxically—the least lonely. Such an observation has implications
for the category “Religions of the Book,” on which see Corbin, En Islam,
1:135–218.
113. Lewis, “Scripture” is a foundational and essential study of the relationship
between the Baha’i canon and the Persian and Islamicate literary tradi-
tion. “[T]he knowledge of [the Qur’an] is absolutely indispensable for ev-
ery believer who wishes to adequately understand, and intelligently read
the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.” (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi
Effendi to an individual, 2 December 1935, in Lights of Guidance, 561.
114. A kind of summary of these books is the short collection of lectures pub-
lished shortly after his death entitled The Double Vision: Language and
Meaning in Religion and which is partly responsible for the title of this es-
say. Cf. also the comments on Frye made in Woodman, “Metaphor,” 1–7,
24.
115. The “influence” of the Bible and other earlier scriptures on the Qur’an is
a controversial and sometimes vexatious topic and one that remains to
be studied properly. Earlier Western scholarship frequently sought to “ex-
pose” the Biblical provenance of much of the Qur’an’s contents. However,
the motive was to question Islam’s authenticity as a “true religion” (what-
ever that might mean). This naturally was taken as an insult by Muslims
and the effects of such motives can be felt as an impediment today in the
academic study of Islam and the Qur’an.
116. The work of Arkoun, (e.g. in his Lectures), and others have hinted at such
a project.
117. It is indicative of the kinds of problems and obstacles that still separate
Europe from the ‘Middle East’ that we cannot even think of cognate cat-
egories with which to describe ourselves. “Western/Islamic” is certainly
false, unless “Western” is made to stand for a value that is extra-geograph-
ic; “Enlightenment Territory” is cumbersome and stillborn. In any case,
Islam has been resident in the “West” for centuries. We cannot speak of

144 Notes
Christian culture precisely because of the allergy to religion that devel-

oped in the post-Enlightenment period. We cannot refer to Islamic cul-
ture as “Eastern,” and if we use the term “Middle-Eastern,” it still posits
Europe and her offspring as the point of primary orientation.
118. Of course, it is not a question of inventing metaphor or “spiritual reading
of scripture” (something usually credited to Philo in any case). However,
through a very happy coincidence of the virtual elevation of reading to
the level of sacrament at the same time that the technology of the book
was becoming improved and elaborated—leading to a more universal
spread of literacy than that which had obtained theretofore—the Islam-
icate world refined and cultivated such an approach to texts far beyond
that which had gone before, in both scale and intensity.
119. “By virtue of its diffusion in 205 or more sovereign and non-sovereign
countries and territories, the Kitab-i Iqan emerges as the most influential
work of Qur’anic exegesis outside of the Muslim world.” Buck, Kitab-i
Iqan.
Chapter 4: Globalization and the Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah

1. This article was originally published as “Globalization and the Hidden
Words” in Bahá’í and Globalisation, ed. Margit Warburg, et al. (Aarhus
University Press, 2005) 35–53. It is reprinted here with permission.
2. Note the prolonged difficulty the recently American-appointed Iraqi rul-
ing council had in choosing a leader from amongst twenty-five members,
finally settling on the Shi‘i Ja‘fari as the first president. Note also that
this office is meant to rotate on a monthly (!) basis in alphabetical order.
http://www.salon.com/news/ wire/2003/07/30/interim/
3. The term “Islamicate” may require some explanation. It was coined, on
the measure of the doubly adjectival “Italianate” by the historian Mar-
shal G. S. Hodgson, who thereby sought to avoid doctrinal and normative
complications raised by the use of “Islamic” in such contexts. (Hodgson,
Venture, 1:57–60.)
4. Durri, “Baghdad,” 934b.
5. He was the “Guardian of the Cause of God, Wali amri’llah” of the Baha’i
Faith from 1921 to 1957.
6. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, xii.
7. Amanat, Resurrection, 188–207.
8. Smith, Babi, 31–45; 136–156.
9. MacEoin, “Orthodoxy,” 329.
10. Fazel, “Is the Bahá’í.”
11. Internet discussion 1997.
12. Finally, it may be more helpful to speak of “New Religious Identities.”
13. Beyer, Religious, Ch. 6; McMullen, The Baha’i, passim, especially 109–125.
14. Smith, Babi, 2–3.

Notes 145
15. Cole, Modernity, 14–15; 32–47.

16. E.g., Van den Hoonaard, Origins; McMullen, The Baha’i.
17. Cf. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, 226.
18. Baha’i International Community, The Bahá’ís, 9; cf. Amuli, Jami‘ al-asrar,
310.
19. Arabic: kuntu kanzan makhfiyan ‘ahbabtu ‘an ‘urafu fakhalaqtu al-khalqa
(Amuli, Jami’ al-asrar, 102, 159, 162, 164, 601, 639, 662, 665, 682).
20. Note the Baha’i noonday prayer, ‘I bear witness, O my God, that Thou
hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee.’ (Arabic: ashhadu
ya ilahi bi-’annaka khalaqtani li ‘irfanika wa-‘ibadatika.) Here “worship”
may be considered a near synonym for love. (Risala-yi Tashbih, 21; En-
glish tr. Shoghi Effendi in Bahá’í Prayers, 4).
21. Robson, “Hadith Qudsi,” 28–29.
22. For a deeper reading of the terms of the debate, see Landolt, “Stages of
God-cognition.” Here, incidentally, it is pointed out that the term wahdat
al-wujud, does not appear in any of Ibn ‘Arabi’s known writings.
23. There is no space here to discuss this in detail. The interested reader is
referred to Lawson, “Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy.”
24. Lawson, Gnostic, 75–92.
25. Momen, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s commentary.
26. See above, note 20.
27. Taherzadeh, Revelation, 1:71–83.
28. Cole and Momen, “Mafia.”
29. This is not to suggest that religious and confessional tensions did not exist
in Iran. Note above the reference to the controversy surrounding wahdat
al-wujud as only one example. See below the reference to Akhbaris and
Usulis. And there are many other lines of fracture. It is true, however, that
the Baghdad context was significantly more sociologically diverse and
“multicultural.”
30. Batatu, The Old.
31. As just one example from among literally thousands, the work mentioned
above by the great scholar Mulla Muhsin Fayd Kashani, may be distin-
guished from Baha’u’llah’s composition of the same name, in part, by the
constant references in it to the authority of ‘Ali and the Imams. See Law-
son, “Hidden Words of Fayd.”
32. Lawson, “Hidden Words of Fayd”; Amir-Moezzi, “Fatema.”
33. Taherzadeh, The Revelation, 1:71.
34. Lawson, “Dangers,” 197–198; see also, Lewis, “Translating.”
35. See the similar phenomenon in the writings of the Bab, specifically his
first explicitly proclamatory book, the Qayyum al-asma on which now see
Lawson, Gnostic Apocalypse and “Joycean Modernism,” in Lawson, The
Quran, 132-168.
36. Al-Kalimat al-Maknuna/The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah was published

146 Notes
as a trilingual Arabic, Persian and English edition. Here it is referred to as

Hidden Words Arabic, Hidden Words Persian, or Hidden Words English
as appropriate. English translation by Shoghi Effendi “with the assistance
of some English friends.” (Hidden Words English, p. 1) Hidden Words
English, 4–5; Arabic: huwa‘l-baha’u’l-abha hadha ma nuzzila min jabaru-
ti‘l-‘izzati bilisani‘l-qudrati wa’l-quwwati ‘ala al-nabiyyin min qablu wa’in-
na ‘akhadhna jawahirahu wa’qmassnahu qamisa‘l-ikhtisar fadlan ‘ala‘l-ah-
bar liyufu bi’ahdi ‘llahi wa yu’addu ‘amanatihi fi anfusihim waliyakununna
bijawhari‘l-tuqa fi ‘ardi ‘r-ruh mina‘l-fa’izina (Hidden Words, Arabic, p.
3).
37. Note ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s remark that long-standing Qur’anic distinction “peo-
ple of the Book” has been expunged from Baha’i teachings. (Bahá’í World
Faith, 246.)
38. There are Shi‘i Hadiths identifying the Imams as ahbar. (Amili-Isfahani,
Tafsír, 125) It is unlikely, but of course possible, that the word carries this
meaning here. For a recent study of the relationship among scripture,
reader/audience, and exegesis, based on recent insights of literary criti-
cism, see McAuliffe, “Text.”
39. Gardet, “Allah.”
40. Schimmel, Mystical, 228–241.
41. Hidden Words English: 1, p. 5. Arabic: ya ‘bna r-ruhi fi awwali ‘l-qawli
‘malik qalba jayyidan hasanan muniran litamlika mulka da’iman baqiyan
azalan qadiman (Hidden Words Arabic: 1:4).
42. Hidden Words English 2, p.6; Arabic: ya ‘bna ‘r-ruh ahabbu al-ashya ‘indi
al-insafu. la targhab ‘anhu in takun ilaya raghiba wa la taghfal minhu
litakuna liy aminan wa anta tuwaffaqu bidhalika ’an tushahida al-ashya’
bi‘aynika la bi‘ayni ’l-’ibadi wata‘rifaha bima‘rifatika la bima‘rifati ahad fi
’l-bilad, fakkir fi dhalika kayfa yanbagha ’an takuna. dhalika min ‘atiyyati
‘alayka wa ‘inayati laka faj‘alhu imama ‘aynayka. (Hidden Words Arabic:
2, p. 4)
43. Amuli, Jami’ al-asrar, 102. Note that here the fifteenth-century author
connects this with the Hadith “I was a hidden treasure” discussed above.
44. Arkoun, “Insáf.”
45. Kazemi-Moussavi, Religious Authority.
46. Cole, “Shaykh Ahmad,” 88ff.
47. See above note 20; Arabic: man ‘arafa nafsahu faqad ‘arafa rabbahu (Am-
uli, Jami’ al-asrar, 270, 307, 308, 315, 464, 675).
48. Landolt, “Stages of God-cognition,” 31–32.
49 Kitab-i Iqan, 102.
50. See above, note 36.
51. kuntu kanzan makhfiyyan wa ahbabtu u‘rifa fa khalaqtu al-khalqa.
52. Hidden Words English: 3–5, pp. 7–8. Arabic: ya ‘bna ‘l-’insani kuntu fi
qidam dhati wa’zaliyyati kaynunati ‘araftu hubbi fika khalaqtuka wa’lqaytu

Notes 147
‘alayka mithali w’zhartu laka jamali; ya ’bna ‘l-insani ahbabtu khalqaka

fakhalqtuka fa’ahbibni kay adhkaraka wa fi ruhi ‘l-hayat uthabbituka; ya
’bna ’l-wujudi ahbibni li’uhibbaka ’in lam tuhibbaní lan ’uhibbaka abadan
fa‘rif ya ‘abdu (Hidden Words Arabic: 5, p. 5.)
53. Lecomte, Ibn Qutayba, 2.
54. Lawson, Gnostic Apocalypse, passim.
55. Lewis, “Poetry, and Scripture.”
56. Note, however, Amuli’s reading of this hadith as a clue to the understand-
ing of the return of the hidden Imam (Amuli, Jami al-asrar, 102.)
57. Momen, “The Trial.”
58 Naturally, the Hidden Words had to be translated out of the original Ara-
bic and Persian for this to happen. In the process of translation, much—
but not all—of the confessional Islamic context of the original has disap-
peared. See Malouf, Unveiling and Lewis, “Translating.”

148

149
Glossary
While transliteration has been mainly avoided in the interest
of readability it is provided here minimally in the interest of
accuracy.
afnán Branches, the maternal relatives of the Báb.

aghsán Twigs, the male descendants of Bahá’u’lláh.
ahl al-bayt People of the House, the family of Muhammad
through the marriage of Ali and Fatima, viz. the fourteen
immaculate ones of Twelver Shi’ism.
akhbár (sing. khabr) : technical term in Shi‘ism, reports of the
sayings or actions (Traditions) of the Fourteen Pure Ones
(see below, Chehardeh ma‘sumát) of Twelver Shi‘ism. Similar
to hadíth (q.v.).
amr cause/Cause, command, matter, thing.
amr Alláh the Cause of God.
amr fi‘lí; and amr maf‘úlí amr here is the divine command and is
considered in two aspects: amr fi‘ilí is the divine active aspect,
completely transcendent, the unknowable Essence of Deity
(Deus Absconditus), and the passive command (amr maf‘úlí)
which marks the breakthrough of divinity into being and
revelation (Deus Revelatus), the divine manifestation.
apophatic technical term for the absolute unknowableness of
God, who is beyond both Being and Nonbeing: utterly inef-
fable and indescribable, opposite of kataphatic, a word indi-
cating that positive knowledge of God is possible.
áya, (pl.: áyát) sign; means both “portent, divine signs” and “verse
of divine revelation.”
149

150 Glossary
Bahjí the Shrine of Baha’u’llah outside of Akka, Israel, the

qiblah of the Baha’i world.
bay‘a act of allegiance to covenant or oath-taking in Islam to the
Sunni Caliph, Shi‘i Imam, or Sufi Shaykh.
Bishárát Glad-Tidings. A tablet of Baha’u’llah’s written after the
Kitáb-i Aqdás (1873) that begins with the prohibition of re-
ligious war (jihad) in the Baha’i Faith.
Chehardeh ma‘súmát Fourteen Pure Ones, Muhammad, Fatima,

Ali and the remaining Twelver Shi‘i Imams, also known as
divine manifestations.
Covenant In Islam, the idea that God made a covenant with all
humanity at a spiritual time and place before creation. It is
mentioned at Q7:172. In the Bahai Faith, it is the word used
to define the spiritual contract between the believer and God
represented by Baha’u’llah, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi and
now the Universal House of Justice.
dhawq tasting, a term in Sufi and Shi‘i mysticism for direct, intu-
itive spiritual experience.
dhikr Frequent Quranic term meaning remembrance, in Sufism
the practice of chanting sacred phrases from the Qur’an. In
the Qayyum al-Asma’, the Bab takes this word as one of His
titles: The Remembrance, al-Dhikr, because he calls to mind
the absent Hidden Imam, the original Day of the Covenant
and, of course, God and the divine plan.
Fourteen Pure Ones (see above Chehardeh ma‘súmát)
ghayba occultation of the twelfth (hidden) Iman who according

to Shí‘í tradition, went into hiding “disappeared” in the year
260 A.H.
ghuluww extremism or “hyperbolism” a term of opprobrium
used against various mainly Shi‘i groups by both Sunnis and
Shi‘is for stressing supernatural aspects of the Fourteen Pure
Ones. It has been used by the Shi‘i establishment ot condemn
the Shaykhiyya, the Babis and the Baha’is. Its use continues.

Glossary 151
hadíth (pl. ahádíth) a report of an action or saying of the Prophet

Muhammad gathered in book form several generations after
his passing. The collections of hadith include many obvious
forgeries that reflect the later times and interests of Muslims.
Haft vádí (Seven Valleys) One of Baha’u’llah’s mystical writings
dating from the early Baghdad period (c. 1860). Described by
Shoghi Effendi as Baha’u’llah’s “greatest mystical composition.”
(God Passes By, p. 140.)
haqíqat muhammadiyya Muhammadan Reality” and in Shi’ism
it includes the Twelve Imams. It is comparable in some ways
to the Logos in John 1:1. . It is a pre-eternal reality indicating
God’s desire to be known by humanity. It precedes all other
aspects of creation or emanation. All prophets and messen-
gers prior to Muhammad were expressions of it.
hermeneutics the study or nature of interpretation, not to be
confused with hermetic.
hilm Frequent term in the Qur’an meaning long-suffering, pa-
tience, control of anger, tolerance, slowness to punish, gen-
tleness, and wisdom. It is the mark of a truly civilized human.
hujjatu’lláh proof of God, the Imams of Shi‘ism, especially the
twelfth Iman, the Imam Mahdi or Qa’im.
hylomorphism sometimes hylemorphism theory of Being as-
cribed to Aristotle. A version is present in Baha’i Writings,
especially those of ‘Abdul-Baha, discussing the way in which
the material and spiritual combine to form a living being.
al-imám al-muntazar the awaited Imam.

intizár messianic expectation and hope.
‘ishq desire, burning love, love. There are two types, (1) meta-
phorical love ‘ishq majází, that between humans; (2) real or
true love ‘ishq haqíqí, that between God and creation.
isláh improvement, welfare, progress, reform
Islamicate a term introduced by Marshall G. S. Hodgson in his
three-volume The Venture of Islam to refer to common char-
acteristics of regions dominated by Muslims and Muslim
rule but which were not necessarily religiously Muslim. For

152 Glossary
example, literary, diplomatic, and scientific developments

within the Muslim world that were the work of non-Muslims
working with and deeply influenced by the Qur’an, Islam
and Muslims. It is patterned on the doubly adectival and fre-
quently used “Italianate.”
Ithná ‘Ashariyya Twelver Shi‘ism.
jihad literally, “struggle.” It also means effort expended in the

path of God and Islam. It is frequently translated as “holy
war” but jihad may refer to all other religiously motivated
deeds, duties and aspirations. For example, the “True Seeker”
of Bahá’u’lláh’s famous Tablet is, in the original, precsiely one
who performs jihad, viz, shaks-i mujáhid. However, the jihad
described in this Tablet has nothing to do with warfare. Such
would have resonated quite powerfully with Bahá’u’lláh’s
earliest Muslim audience.
jadhb state of attraction, passion, ecstasy in the seeker after God.
Josephian an adjective that indicates word, images, metaphors
and values that are traced to the Qur’an’s Sura of Joseph. For
example, a Jospehian metaphor is one that uses the image of
garment or perfume and scent.
khalífa (Qur’anic) successor, Caliph.

khátam al-nabiyyín “Seal of the Prophets,” a very complex term
found once in the Qur’án (33.40 )largely understood to
mean Muhammad is the last of the prophets. Originally a
term identified with the prophet Mani.
lawh mahfúz Quranic term (85:22) meaning Preserved Tablet,

a reference to the heavenly archetype of divine revelation
manifested as holy books.
man yuzhiruhu Alláh “He Whom God will make Manifest” occurs
hundreds of times in the writings of the Bab. It is one of the titles
used to refer to the divine manifestation to come after the Bab.
mashriq al-adhkár dawning place of the remembrances (or
praises) of God, i.e. a Bahá’í house of worship.

Glossary 153
mazhar iláhí divine manifestation, a term that derives from

the wahdat al-wujúd (“oneness of being”) school associated
with Ibn al-‘Arabí (d. 1240).
mítháq/‘ahd the Covenant.
multivocal a word or phrase with multiple simultaneous mean-
ings.
nabí a prophet of God.

náqidín (sing. náqid) Covenant breakers. This is a term much
used in Shi‘ism to refer to their enemies who are seen to have
broken both the Primordial Covenant and the historical cove-
nant betwen the Muslims, Muhammad and God. It is derived
from a frequent phrase of opprobrium in the Qur’an: “those
who broke the covenant of God after committing to it.” Q2:27
nubuwwah revelatory prophecy.
núr al-anwár light of lights, a term for God in the Ishraqi philo-
sophical school. For the Shaykhis, a reference to God as man-
ifested in the Prophet and Imams, and for the Baha’is God as
manifested through the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh.
Perfect Shí‘í or Shí‘a A complicated term. For the Shaykhis and

presumably the Bab and Baha’u’lláh the Perfect Shí‘í is the
one who can recognize a Divine Manifestation. The Perfect
Shí‘a is a related but quite different idea emphasizing the
righteousness of the community of believers as a whole.
Qá’im “he who will arise,” the eschatologocial figure of the prom-
ised one of Islam.
al-qá’im bi al-sayf “the one who arises with a sword” viz, the re-
turn of Twelfth Imam.
al-qá’im bi ’l-haqq “the One who arises by Divine right” viz, the
return of Twelfth Imam.
raj‘a “return.” In Shi‘ism the return of the hidden Imam or oth-

er heroes from sacred history (Joseph, Jesus, Fatimah, the
Imams).

154 Glossary
rasúl Quranic term for Messenger of God who comes bearing a

new revelation and shari‘ah.
sáhib al-zamán the Master of the Age, the Awaited Imam.

saltánat sovereignty, e.g. of the Qa’im.
sharí‘ah (Q45:18), literally “path to the water source” eventually
used as a metaphor for the divine law.
sidratu ‘l-muntahá the Lote-tree of the furthest boundary men-
tioned in the Qur’an (53:16) and in the writings of Ba-
ha’u’llah.
sunna (Qur’anic), habit or practice of a person or a society.
tahaddí verses (Qur’anic): challenge to compose verses like those

in the Qur’an. There are 5: Q52:34; 17:88; 11:13; 10:38; 2:23.
taqiyya pious dissimulation of one’s true beliefs in times of threat
and persecution.
tawallá a word based on the root W-L-Y, from which are derived
such important words as mawlá (lord, master, protector,
friend, client), walí (guardian, friend, “saint”). The plural,
awliyá (friends), frequently construed in the Qur’an as the
“friends of God” (e.g., Q10:63). Also, waláya (guardianship,
authority, “sainthood.”
Tree of Zaqqúm Q17:60, the “accursed tree” whose roots are sunk
in the bowels of hell, producing bitterness for its inhabitants.
umma (Qur’anic) community, it, and the word imám, are derived
from the Arabic word for mother, umm.
wahdat dar kathrat unity in diversity or variety.
wahdat al-wujúd the oneness of Being.
waláya (Qur’anic) (Persian: valáyat/viláyat): loyalty, intimacy,
nearness, authority, love. In Shi‘ism the relationship of alle-
giance to the charismatic and absolute spiritual authority of
the Imams. In Baha’i teachings, the allegiance to the author-
ity of Baha’i central figures, Shoghi Effendi as the Guardian
of the Cause (walí amru’lláh), and the Universal House of
Justice.

Glossary 155
yawm ad-dín / yawm al-qiyáma Day of Judgment or the Day of

Resurrection.
zuhúr advent, appearance, dispensation

156

157
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Author names are last name first followed by first names except in
case of honorifics or titles such as Baha’u’llah and Shoghi Effendi.
Publication information is limited to publisher, place and year.
Capitalization of entries follows current practice in academic pub-
lishing. Multiple works by the same author are listed chronologically
according to date of publication with the most recent first. The K/k
. .
in EI articles has been changed to Q/q.
Abbreviations
BSB: Bahá’í Studies Bulletin

BSR Baha‘i Studies Review
EI1 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1st ed., Leiden 1913–38
EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Leiden 1954-2004
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed. Leiden 2007 –
EI3
EIr Encyclopaedia Iranica
ER Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed.
ERE Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
EQ The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’án
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JBS Journal of Bahá’í Studies
157

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173
About the Author
Todd Lawson is Emeritus Professor of

Islamic Thought at the University of
Toronto. He has published numerous books
and articles on the Qur’an, Islam, Shi‘ism,
and the Writings of the Bab, including Tafsir
as Mystical Experience: Intimacy and Ecstasy
in Quran Commentary (Brill, 2018); The
Quran: Epic and Apocalypse (OneWorld,
2017); Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam: Qur’an:
Exegesis, Messianism, and the Literary
Origins of the Babi Religion (Routledge, 2011); The Crucifixion and
the Qur’an: A Study in the History of Muslim Thought (OneWorld,
2009).
He has been a member of the Baha’i community since 1968.

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i

Being Human FM_X-Final.indd 1 10/3/19 12:08 PM

Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’í Religions

Studies in Bábí and Bahá’í History, Volume One,

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Search for Values: Ethics in Bahá’í Thought, Volume Fifteen, edited by

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Being Human FM_X-Final.indd 4 10/3/19 12:08 PM

Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’í Religions

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Copyright © 2020 by Todd Lawson

All Rights Reserved

Photographs and drawings:

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The paths to Truth are as numerous as the breaths of the creatures.

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Service in both worlds (ath-thaqalan) 85

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T ransliteration of Arabic and Persian terms has been kept to a

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Baha’i religious history, in JRH: Baha’i history special issue, guest

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T here are many ways of being human. This is one of the

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They must strive to obtain, from sources that are authoritative

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for human development and education, identified and cultivated by

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Baha’u’llah. The “reunion” is illuminating, inspiring, and full of

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Sanctified art Thou, O my God! I beseech Thee by Thy generos-

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stood revealed, at the dawn-time when the might of Thy do-

The idea of cycles arises in the Baha’i Writings especially when

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The Baha’i Faith

. . . those momentous happenings which have insensibly, re-

T he Baha’i Faith is heir to the distinctive Abrahamic cluster

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history—an elemental feature of what may be thought of as a Baha’i

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Being Human_Introduction-Final.indd 5 10/3/19 11:51 AM

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will continue to appear in future centuries for the purpose of teach-

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Joseph sold by his brothers into Egypt.

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The Return of Joseph

I n the Baha’i tradition, non-violence is not an idea derived primar-

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Why is it that the advent of every true Manifestation of God

An arguable subtext is that such persecution is indeed a most

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