Talk:Baháʼí Faith/Archive History

Are Babists who didn't accept Bahaullah?

You know, it had never occurred to me - are there Babists who didn't accept Bahaullah? What grounds did he give for them to accept his revelation? What was the reaction in Islam?

I've examined the Bahá'í faith to some considerable extent, and as a personal opinion, if I was ever going to belong to an organised religion, this would be the one. A damn fine bunch of people.

As far as Babi's go, there was a small number who rejected Baha'u'llah, I don't remember their fate exactly, but they are written about in the book "God Passes By" by Shoghi Effendi. When Baha'u'llah died he specifically instructed that the Faith was to be led by his son "Abdul'Baha", but when Abdul'Baha passed away he left instructions for the Faith to be administered by his grandson Shoghi Effendi. When Shoghi Effendi died, he passed authority to an elected body called the "universal House of justice". A guy called Mason Remy declared in contrary that he was to be the ruler of the faith from then on, and he attracted a handful of followers, less than a few hundreds (compared to several million Bahá'ís). I considered including them in the article, but decided against it as they are such a tiny minority - it would also create a precedent for including every minute fringe group under every religion article.

His grounds for accepting his revelation were that he fulfilled prophecy in both the Bible and the Koran. The reaction by the Islamic faith was savage to say the least, the Bahá'ís have been persecuted and executed en masse ever since the 1860's. Over 100 000 Bahá'ís have fled Iran since the Islamic revolution, specifically to Canada and Australia (both countried passing resolutions condemning Iran for its treatment of the Bahai's).

You know, after all this comment, a lot of the above probably belongs in the article... some more research is needed (to validate some of my statements) before it goes in as "the facts". - MMGB

Manning, I'm afraid the precedent has been set and that we have the gnostics being presented as Christians, not to mention entries on every/some other group under the sun! Yep, the persecution does, explicitly (I remembered that, though not clearly), as does the architectural style (which is neat). I think you turned a sentence around - not his grounds for accepting his revelation, but theirs is what I was after. If the Bab was dead, who validated Bahaullah as the Promised One? --MichaelTinkler

He did I guess, and the Babi's accepted him. Apparently there was a fairly general consensus that he was the "one" even before he personally announced it in 1863. According to the Bahá'í history I have read, Baha'u'llah was in prison in a place called the "Siyah Shal" which was a sewer where they chained up dissendents and he was told of his destiny "by God" in the late 1840's. (The Bab was executed by firing squad in 1844).

I think there is a difference between the Gnostics (who have a fairly significant number of believers in the Middle East and an established literature) and a fringe group such as the "Orthodox Bahá'ís". A better comparison would be with the "Potters of God" who I sincerely hope are not included under the article for Christianity. The may deserve their own article (again, questionable due to their size, they only have two web pages,both by the same guy) (BTW - I have revised some of my statements above after doing a bit of research) - MMGB

(a huge discussion about Gnostics and Chrisitanity was cut out and moved to talk:Christianity)

Maybe the Orthodox Bahá'ís deserve a page as well, but frankly there is so little evidence of their existence. I've been searching the web pretty hard and I'm almost willing to revise my estimate of membership down - there is a "Society of Indian OB" which seems to have 2 members, another in Australia which seems to have 1, and an American "National council" which only mentions 3 names. Their webpages make them out to be much more significant, but close examination doesn't bear this out. - MMGB

Ain't web-presence a wonderful thing? You used to have to have people who would stand on corners and pass out brochures to have a decent cult! I agree that gnosticism should be an autonomous thing, not a subset of Christianity. It is needling to the Christians and condescending to the Gnostics to not take seriously their differences. --MichaelTinkler

I think Mason Remy should be mentioned. Sure, his following was small, but he seems to be reasonably well known (or at least, this isn't the first time I've ever heard his name mentioned). We have no shortage of space to write on religious groups. And its not as if the Remy was just some lone individual setting up his own religion in his backyard. -- SJK

Someone added what looks like a cut and paste job from a usenet FAQ. Did they have permission? Else it should be deleted. (And even if they have permission, it needs to be seriously reworked if we are to retain it...) -- SJK

Where on earth did that come from? Have you seen a usenet FAQ that this looks like it was cut from? Maybe someone just wrote a decent article. (Later - oops, ignore that, I checked past history and I see what you meant now - MMGB

---

Article said: "The Bahá'í Faith also holds a (non-voting) seat at the United Nations." What on earth is that talking about? It sounds to me like it is claiming they are permanent observers to the General Assembly, but they are not. If all it means is that they are in consultative status with the Economic and Social Committee, it should say that. (And that isn't that big a deal -- thousands of organizations have that status.) -- SJK

Well why don't you research it, find out the actual state of affairs and put that in, rather than deleting something and complaining about it here. And a side comment meant nicely, this "delete and whine" behaviour is quite out of character for you, Simon - having a bad day? :) Manning

Sorry... actually I've got a end-of-year exam tommorow for one of my uni courses, natural language processing... :) -- SJK

fair enough Simon - I was just a bit surprised, you're normally much more cheerful :) Good luck with the exam. - MMGB

I cut out the Orthodox stuff... again! There are barely a handful of OB's in the world, and it misrepresents this religion of 5 million members to give a fringe group of a few hundred equivalent coverage. The page acknowleges the orthodox group, and links to the relevant page. Little else is needed. I'm not a Baha'i and don't particularly care about the issues under dispute, but it's a bit like putting "Polesitters of Christ" and Catholicism on equal footing. - User:MMGB

---

The opening sentence read that "The Baha'i faith is the world's newest major religion". As the history and the number of followers is discussed extensively elsewhere, I edited it to something hopefully a little less potentially controversial . --User:Robert Merkel

Had to reintroduce (MMGB) had agreed I think that a link to the Orthodox Bahai article would be appropriate. now link has been removed. So reintroduced link for promotion of the NPOV.

---

The Bábí Faith has its own scriptures and religious teachings, but its duration was very short. Are there not still Bábísts who believe that their Messiah has not yet arrived? Or are they what we are calling the Orthodox Bahai? -- Zoe

There are not independent Babi's who have not accepted Baha'u'llah. The Babi religion was ruthlessley suppressed in Iran in the 1860's and the seat of growth and development moved to Israel with the expulsion of Baha'u'llah to Acca. That said, this probebly belongs in the artcle too. Baha'u'llah's half-brother Mirza-Yahya was appointed by the Bab during his lifetime to be the formal head of the Babi religion until "him whom God shall make manifest" appeared "in the year 9" even before the Bab's death, Baha'u'llah was commonly accepted as the successor and for all practical purposes the Babi religion "rolled over" into the Baha'i religion. If I could come up with a good way to say that, I would put it in the article itself. The whole section on beliefs needs serious editing and I'll try to get to that soon.

rboatright

---

I did a pretty substantial edit and re-write of the section on beliefs. It still needs a LOT of work, but I have reduced the repetativeness, imposed some order on the chaotic order of that section, edited for NPOV as much as I can in one evening, and am thinking about how to fix the rest.

I have a question tho. At what point in a long article like this do you break into either sub pages, or reffered pages? Is this one approaching "break it up" size? I don't have a sense of how long a "long" article is for the wikipedia. Rboatright 07:12 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

Nowadays, there is a notice when you open the edit box that says how long it is if it is over 32 kbs, the size at which some browsers have trouble editing. Above 20 kbs, it is worth considering if there is a convenient cut-off point but there is no hard and fast rule. If you want to see the warning when you click on edit this page, see Grammy Hall of Fame Award; this page doesn't have one, but a break-up may prove worthwhile if you can think of a good way of splitting up the information. Tuf-Kat

Ok, thanks - a break up is probebly in the offing then, 'cause this is confusing and unworkable. a one or two screen page with links to [bahai theology] and [bahai religious practice] and [bahai administration] and so forth, and moving the narrative from this page to the *EXISTING* pages for Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha with one paragraph summeries here would make an intro here far more useful and readable I think. Argh, now what have I said? As though I don't have anything USEFUL to do with my life.  :-) Rboatright

---

Um, I didn't do this, but the last "vandalism" brings up an important issue. Although it is not so prominent at this page, it is quite disproportionate I would say at other pages to give these miniscule splinter groups as was removed such prominent attention by allowing them to be listed everywhere. Would it be considered appropriate to have "See David Koreish" at every mention of Christianity? The numbers of such a group as just removed here are described by outside sources as being very small. This issue is particularly important given that the focal point of the Bahá'í Faith is unity and its clear Successorship which can deliver on that unity, at least for those who accept its provisions. The provisions are unambiguous, at least to the vast majority of those who either accept the (mainstream) Bahá'í Faith as is or those who might be inclined to leave or not join it. It is certainly not appropriate to suppress or vandalize the right of people to put up their own page in a proper venue (as on its own page if people want to create such a page), but I would say it is also not reasonable to have its references populated everywhere. - Brettz9 05:57 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

To give some examples of being populated disproportionately, see Bab, Bábís, Kitab-i-Aqdas, Bahaullah, Bab, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi to name a few

---

From User talk:AdamRaizen

I noticed your work on moving "Baha'i Faith" to "Baha'i faith". As I understand it, "faith" is part of the name of the religion in this case, and so should be capitalised. I've checked a couple of reference books, and the Baha'i web site and they use this format. Would you object to me changing it back again? Regards -- sannse 09:23 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

You're right. Sorry, I thought I was making it conform with the naming conventions. Go ahead and change it back. -- AdamRaizen

end of moved text

---

I added back "brief" for years (while removing the redundant "only") because "only" can have a negative connotation here, as if the short period of time was somehow inadequate. It is a common linguistic phenomenon, accepted by linguists, that adjectives might not apply to the noun to which it is attached in a literal, exact manner (e.g., "short temper" does not mean the temper itself is short, but its time to onset). Here "brief" is particularly significant because to Bahá'ís, the short ministry of the Báb, preceding the coming of Bahá'u'lláh, both considered independent "Twin" Manifestations of God, testifies to the potency of this new Age. - Brettz9 18:37 Apr 20, 2003 (UTC)

---

---

Independent religions

The Bahá'í Faith is the second most widespread of the world's independent religions

I don't understand this-- what's an independent religion? Marnanel 05:52, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

Baptists are a variety of christianity, not an independent religion. Ditto methodists &c. 12ver Islam, is a variety of Shia Islam, which is a peer to Sunni Islam which has a sub-sect of Wahabi Islam. But Islam is independent of Christianity or Judeism despite being decendent from them as Abrahamic religions. Similarly the Baha'i faith is not a sect of Islam as some persian clerics contend (a 12ver heresy), but is an independent religion. Rick Boatright 22:52, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Suggested new first paragraph

The original is straight out of Bahá'í literature and rather overplayed itself. I've tried to keep the facts. I would appreciate comments as I don't often contribute. So here it is, the suggested new paragraph:

"The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion, whose members follow the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh, their prophet founder. The Bahá'í Faith is established in 236 countries and territories throughout the world, leading some people to claim that it is the second most widespread religion in the world. The only place where it doesn't have a presence is in the State of the Vatican City. Many followers live in the Middle East, especially Iran and Iraq. Worldwide 6 million followers come from over 2,100 ethnic, racial, and tribal groups. Bahá'í Scriptures have been translated into 802 languages."

"leading some people to claim that it is the second most widespread religion in the world.", this is actually a fact and not just what some people claim. "Many followers live in the Middle East, especially Iran and Iraq. " well, the 3 countries with most Bahai´s are India, Iran and USA. i think we should keep the current first paragraph. or at most add a few things (like the countries with more followers) - --Cyprus2k1 06:45, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The claim that it is the most widespread religion is presented as fact without any evidence. It would be good to see some stats on the number of believers in each state/country. If this means that they are organised enough to have a postal address in every town, we should know about it. It would also be good to know where the majority of the believers lived.

as i said above, the majority of believers live in (by order) India, Iran and USA., "The claim that it is the most widespread religion is presented as fact without any evidence." it doesnt say its the most widespread religion, it say its the SECOND most widespread religion, it also says "The Bahá'í Faith is the SECOND most widespread of the world's independent religions IN TERMS OF COUNTRIES IN WICH IS REPRESNTED". - --Cyprus2k1 09:13, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Update: just checked www.adherents.com wich claims that the countries with most bahais are India, USA, Iran http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_bahai.html , about the number of bahais, the figure most provided in current Baha'i publications is 6.5 milion, however in 1998 Encyclopedia Britannica reports 7.67 million, the reason for this is that the Bahai World Center refuses to "play games" of artificialy inflacting the number of believers, also notice that no one is "born" bahai, one can only become a bahai at age 15 or older and if it so wishes to. --Cyprus2k1 09:26, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have read what you write and I have also had a quick look at the sources.

Before I continue this discussion I would like to ask what your relationship is with the Bahá'í Faith. It would also be good, although perhaps intrusive, to ask what your faith is.

For your information, by heritage I am protestant Christian. By belief, humanist atheist, (whatever that means!)

I´am , as you can see in my user page a Bahai, but i dont see how that has any relevance to the discussion (or maybe your just curious :) ). anyway, the Baha'i Faith is the SECOND most (and not THE most) widespread religion in the world acording to Encyclopedia Britanica (and also the Bahai World Center). so i guess we could change, "acording to Encyclopedia Britanica" - --Cyprus2k1 14:29, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

btw, plese leave your signature.. --Cyprus2k1 14:29, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Independent religion

The beginning section of this article says more than once that Baha'i is an "independent" religion. What does that mean? Also it says "according to some" it is the newest such religion. Who are those "some"? IbnRushd 04:44, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[[Talk:Bah%E1%27%ED_Faith#Independent_religions]] - --Cyprus2k1 08:18, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If the definition of independent religion is, as you said, inclusive of Christianity (admittedly more widespread than Bahai) and Islam (for population information, see http://islamicweb.com/begin/population.htm), why is Bahai not at least the third most widespread religion? As an aside, I do not know how much of an accomplishment it is to be widespread as it is to have a strong community of believers where the religion can thrive and believers can help each other grow. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.238.141.106 (talk • contribs).

which empire?

"The machinations of the Persian and Ottoman authorities took Bahá'u'lláh further and further into exile, from Baghdad to Istanbul (Constantinople), then to Edirne (formerly Adrianople, also within the Ottoman Empire), and finally, in 1868, to the penal colony of Acre (in present-day Israel), on the very edge of the Empire."

Ottoman or Persian? -Lethe | Talk 08:33, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Actually both. Bahá'u'lláh's first exile was from Tehran to Baghdad and that was solely due to the Persian authorities banishing him from Persia (he was free to choose his destination, and he chose Baghdad). But them his exile from Baghdad to Constantinople was due mostly to the Persian authorities, even though Bahá'u'lláh was in Baghdad. According to Baha'i sources, the Persian authorities through the ministers of the Shah and the Persian Ambassador wanted Bahá'u'lláh to be moved further from the Persian empire. They succeeded in convincing the Ottomon authorities, especially the Grand Vizier, to send Bahá'u'lláh to Constantinople. Even in Constantinople, the Persian Ambassador persisted in arousing the hostility of the Ottoman authorities against Bahá'u'lláh, which led to his exile to Adrianople. The exile from Adrianople to Akka, however, was mainly due to the Ottoman empires. Fadeaway919 16:10, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

And there is not a single shred of reliable historical evidence for this claim. Edward Browne, as you may well know, was very sympathetic to both the Babis and Bahais (particularly to the Babis). He was (and is) a highly respected scholar. He personally met both Bahaullah and Subh-i Azal. He also, justifiably in my opinion, hated the Qajars (the ruling dynaty of Persia at that time). Why didn't Edward Browne say anything about Iran pressuring the Ottoman empire to move the Bahais farther away from Iran? This claim only exists in the Bahai literature. The fact that so many inaccuracies, falsehoods, contradictions, speculations and slanted interpretations and claims exist in the Bahai culture should be enough to make any intelligent person to think about this movement. --Amir 19:01, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Claim from authoritative Western source: 1988 Encyclopedia Brittannica, article Baha'i Faith: "He was released in January 1853 and exiled to Bag had. There Bahá'u'lláh's leadership revived the Bábí community, and an alarmed Persian government urged the Ottoman government to move both Bahá'u'lláh and the growing number of his followers farther away from Persia's borders." -- Fadeaway919 19:31, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that is based on Bahai literature. Can you point out to any hard authentic historical evidence to support that claim? Without existence of reliable evidence, it will be speculation at best. --Amir 21:11, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Akká was the penal colony of the Ottoman Empire. --Jmenon 19:26, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)