Night of Power (Laylatul Qadr) - How Baha’i faith is lacking
By:Â Alex Stewart
Today I\'m covering the discrepancies surrounding Laylatul Qadr or Night of Power. To understand this discrepancy, we have to first get the idea of what the Night of Power means. Islam has declared its existence in the Surah Qadr, as below:
Surah Al-Qadr (Quran 97:1-5)
1. Indeed, We sent the Qur\'an down during the Night of Decree.
2. And what can make you know what is the Night of Decree?
3. The Night of Decree is better than a thousand months.
4 The angels and the Spirit descend therein by permission of their Lord for every matter.
5.Peace it is until the emergence of dawn.
So, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught us, as we know from various hadith, that the last tens nights of Ramadhan holds this Night of Power. On that night, Angel Jibril (Gabriel) descends with his party of angels to implement on earth the records from the Guarded Tablet (lawhul mahfuz). We will cover this in detail in later articles, inshallah.
So the Night of Power has a few features to indicate its occurrence. The Quran says, \'Peace it is until the emergence of dawn.\' meaning that night is extraordinarily peaceful. From the hadith we also know that it would be extraordinarily cloudy and cold the next morning and there would not be barking of dogs.
So, the question is: What has happened to the Night of Power in the Baha’i \'revelation\'? Has it been abrogated?
Of course, being a former Baha’i for 25 years I can tell you off hand that the Baha’i faith is totally silent about this matter. But that\'s me. I did some more research and found that its true that this matter is not mentioned in Baha’i text:
Item 20 - - \'Night of Power\'
Reference is made to \'a Bahá\'à book about the Qur\'án, possibly Proofs from the Holy Qur\'án, where the Quranic \'Night of Power\' is discussed.7 Mr. ... wishes to know whether the interpretation provided in this work is correct. A discussion of this subject under the heading, \'The Night which is better than [a] Thousand Months\', is contained in Proofs from the Holy Qur\'án, pp. 145-146. A careful reading of this section will show that the author states that he is expressing his own view. The Research Department has not been able to locate any authoritative interpretation of this Quranic verse in the Bahá\'à Writings. Mr. ... should reach his own understanding of the matter.
taken from http://bahai-library.com/uhj_aspects_teaching#s13
Can you believe it? They actually admit there is nothing in the Baha’i text written on this matter. To me this is a problem. Why? Because if there is a faith allegedly from God, that has come to abrogate all previous laws, and let\'s say for the sake of argument we don\'t argue on that, then what about all the principles and unseen events mentioned in the Quran like the Night of Power or restrictions to worship a human being? Can you have a new religion that abrogates previous laws, but failed to either uphold or cancel all other concepts in the previous religion?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. In Islam we have so many concepts and unseen events which is alluded to by the Quran, are they all now abrogated?
You see, abrogating laws is one thing, but totally cancelling out or remaining silent on certain other truths which are not law related, is another. For example, is it right that if the Baha’i faith says only after a thousand years would another manifestation come, and then a guy calling himself Maitreya after only 150 years declares himself as the next manifestation, abrogates not only the laws of the Baha’i faith but also the truth that time frame of a thousand years gap between manifestations is also abrogated. Can you abrogate establish truth? It just doesn\'t make sense.
Many Baha’is do this to me, all the time! When Muslims attempt to explain that there are certain established truth that cannot be abrogated, Baha’is simply say that their religion abrogates Islam, totally! I hope you as the reader can discern well my point here.
My question to the Baha’i World is: What has happened to the Night of Power? Has it stopped from happening? Or is it still going on? I challenge the Baha’i \'scholars\' to give me textual answers from their books, if they can. Anyone can give their opinion, but I want to know if they can defend this issue on a professional level, bringing proof from their text.
http://bahainews9.blogspot.com/