What Is the Baha\'i Faith?

 

The Baha\'i Faith (with a capital \"F\") is a religious organization representing most Baha\'is around the world. This organization claims there are 6 million adherents of the Baha\'i religion, most of whom are found in Iran, India, and the United States, with others scattered among many other nations. The Baha\'i faith (the religion, not the organization), is also commonly spelled Baha’i and sometimes called Baha\'ism or Baha’ism, especially by non-Baha\'is and liberal Baha\'is. It was founded by Baha\'u\'llah (1817-1892), a Persian aristocrat in exile who in 1863 declared himself to be a new messenger of God. Baha\'u\'llah was born Mirza Hussein Ali Nuri, was raised a Shi\'ite Muslim, and in his young adulthood followed the radical millennarian movement of another contemporaneous Persian claimant to prophethood known as the Bab.

The Baha\'i faith is above all an attempt to build a more universal spiritual paradigm out of the foundation of Islam. Much in the way Christianity emerged as a Jewish reform movement and a project to spread the core principles of Judaism into the Greco-Roman world, Baha\'ism was born from an Islamic matrix as a project to modernize and spread the central ideas and practices of Islam to the whole world.

I would recommend to any Muslim, or anyone interested in new religious movements, to study the Baha\'i faith as an example of one possible way that people have attempted to update Islamic spirituality for a more progressive and globalized age. Based on my own study and on conversations I have had with Muslims who have looked into Baha\'ism, I can say it bears a striking resemblance to Shi\'ite Islam while going in somewhat of an esoteric Sufi direction, and it rejects the finality of Muhammad\'s prophethood as a way of introducing new ideas such as including followers of non-Abrahamic religions as \"people of the Book\" and expanding the rights of women.

Despite the liberalizing inclinations of Baha\'u\'llah, and of his son and successor Abdu\'l-Baha who spread Baha\'ism to Europe and America, these men nevertheless were firmly rooted in a 19th century Middle Eastern paradigm – as one would expect considering their upbringing in that time and society. They literally believed and taught ideas such as direct divine revelation of the Qur\'an and their own verses and books; strict obedience to prophets and religious law codes; and total opposition to \"vices\" such as alcoholic beverages and sex outside of marriage.

On the other hand, Baha\'u\'llah and his successors criticized the Islamic concept of military jihad or holy war; promoted the idea of peaceful cooperation among nations; advocated the use of one global auxiliary language to help people from different backgrounds communicate and understand each other; and made strides in the direction of gender equality – though in a noteworthy departure from this principle, Abdu\'l-Baha refused to allow women to serve on the highest leadership institution of the Baha\'i Faith organization, a prohibition which remains to this day.

Source: www.Bahai-Faith.com