Baha’i Treatment of Thieves and Some More...

IMRAN SHAYKH

One would think there is no punishment harsher than being banished or excommunicated. There is even a harsher punishment in Bahai law. One who has been banished or excommunicated can simply leave the Baha’i community and start a new life elsewhere. A thief, is not that lucky:

Exile and imprisonment are decreed for the thief, and, on the third offence, place ye a mark upon his brow so that, thus identified, he may not be accepted in the cities of God and His countries. 
Bahaullah, The Kitabi Aqdas, pp. 35-36

If a thief is caught for the third time a mark must be put on his brow so that he will not be accepted in any city or country. That wretched person must probably pursue a lonely life living as a hermit until his demise arrives. Is this the meaning of Oneness of Humanity?

Why Have the Bahais Created a New Calendar?

The Bahai calendar is defined like this:
The Bahai year consists of 19 months of 19 days each (i.e. 361 days), with the addition of certain \"Intercalary Days\" (four in ordinary and five in leap years) between the eighteenth and nineteenth months in order to adjust the calendar to the solar year. The Bab named the months after the attributes of God. The Bahai New Year, like the ancient Persian New Year, is astronomically fixed, commencing at the March equinox (usually March 21), and the Bahai era commences with the year of the Bab’s declaration (i.e. 1844 A.D., 1260 A.H.) . . . It seems, therefore, fitting that the new age of unity should have a new calendar free from the objections and associations which make each of the older calendar unacceptable to large sections of the world’s population, and it is difficult to see how any other arrangement could exceed in simplicity and convenience that proposed by the Bab. 
J. E. Esslemont, Bahaullah and the New Era, pp. 178-179

What advantage does this have over the Persian or Gregorian calendar? Or what problems or miseries did the adherents of the two aforementioned calendars have met that required a new \"simple\" and \"convenient\" calendar to be proposed. We will leave it to the readers to judge the justification and rationality behind this calendar, and see for themselves why the same flaws and objections attributed to non-Bahai calendars are equally applicable to the Bahai system.

Defending All Oppressed People or Only the Bahais
In one his Paris sermons, Abdul Baha expresses anger over the fact that in France the drowning of twenty French people in a river has caused a great deal of controversy, while a blind eye is turned to the thousands of non-French killed elsewhere:

I am filled with wonder and surprise to notice what interest and excitement has been aroused throughout the whole country on account of the death of twenty people, while they remain cold and indifferent to the fact that thousands of Italians, Turks, and Arabs are killed in Tripoli! The horror of this wholesale slaughter has not disturbed the Government at all! Yet these unfortunate people are human beings too. 
Abdul Baha, Paris Talks, pp. 114-115

Abdul Baha criticizes the French government for being concerned only about the French whilst being indifferent towards other peoples. Unfortunately, similar treatments can be seen in the actions of Bahais towards non-Bahais.

In Bahai culture there is usually silence regarding the oppression and death of the thousands and millions of people in wars worldwide and no government is criticized. On the other hand, if a Bahai is discriminated anywhere in the world, especially in countries hostile towards Bahaism, all means possible are used to persuade governments of other countries to exert pressure on those who infringe their rights.

Why does this discrimination exist towards different groups? Why do Bahais remain somewhat \"cold and indifferent to the fact that thousands of\" people are being killed and oppressed worldwide? After all non-Bahai \"people are human beings too,\" are they not? Is this the meaning of Oneness of Humanity?

Bahais usually put forward the excuse that we do not participate in political affairs. If that is really the case, then why isn’t this policy exercised when their fellow brethren need their help? Whatever the excuse, the fact remains that in contrary to the claim about the Oneness of Humanity, in equal circumstances, Bahais do not react the same way toward non-Bahais that they do toward Bahais.

Israeli’s Deprived of the Great Grace of Becoming Bahais
On one hand it is claimed that
He created everyone the same and gives all sustenance, nurtures all, protects all, and is kind to all. He has put no differences in any grace or mercy. 
`Abd al-Hamid Ishraq Khawari, Payam-i malakut, p. 42.

On the other hand - as we showed in chapter one - Israeli’s are deprived of this great grace and are not allowed to become Bahais.

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