It is instructive to look at how official Baha'idom rendered another verse just following the marriage verse: the "virgin in service" verse. Here are the three versions by Haddad, Elder, and Wilmette-Haifa. Note that this is the close of Baha'u'llah's brief thousand-year guidance about marriage. Even a cursory look at these comparisons reveals more about the thoroughly modern values, perspectives, and agendas that infect the official neo-Baha'i organization:

Dump this talk of "virgins" -- Monkey Business in the Official Baha'i "Virgin in Service" verse

Earl Elder 1961: "...and one does no harm in taking a virgin into his service."

The simple rendering by the Arabic scholar Elder uses "virgin" and this value was the cultural reality.

His verse takes it as a given that this refers to domestic female servants -- cooks, maids, and the like. (See Haddad translation to the right which explicitly states that.) It could not have referred to female employees in business. Women did work outside the home in Baha'u'llah's time and it was not considered moral or proper for them to do so.

Anton Haddad  Circa 1900: "There is no objection to the one who employs a maid in his domestic service"

Haddad promoted Baha'i in America during the Victorian age. His "maid" was almost certainly a euphemism for the ears of his Victorian-age audience. "Virgin" was both too sexually frank, plus  evoked primitivism in western minds even then. Yet Baha'u'llah's culture was primitive and didspeak of "virgins."

See the word "domestic." This clearly referred to women hired in the home -- not to  any other type of employment.

"Authorized" version, 1992 (Wilmette-Haifa Sect ) 120 Years Late – 1992: "And he who would take into his service a maid

may do so with propriety."

Notice again that the "Authorized" version is longer that Elder's. Adding things again. Oddly, the Wilmette-Haifa crew used the same Victorian euphemism as Haddad 100 years ago! But it was certainly for very different reasons than Victorian sensibilities!

Now, one would think that in this era of sexual frankness it would be no problem to use "virgin" if that is the more correct word. Did Baha'u'llah use a euphemism for virgin? Doubtful! And not according to the Arabic scholar Earl Elder! Was virginity unimportant in Baha'u'llah's culture? No, it was very important. So there appears to be more monkey-business and obfuscation in this Authorized translation. 

My, how times change. Nowadays people are not offended with "virgin" because it's too sexual and the people too pure. Instead, they are offended with the thought that there's anything worthwhile about virginity! Baha'u'llah seemed to think so, but we can't have that! Obviously "virgin" would challenge and offend well-experienced women and especially feminists involved with the neo-Baha'i Aqdas translation. (Likely all the female committee members and faceless female bureaucrats on the Wilmette staff were very put out by this Aqdas verse!) And yet, "virgin" is probably exactly what Baha'u'llah said. (Independent Arabic-to-English translations are being arranged to verify this.) Why do I think women's sensibilities have been a force in the development of this translation? I just know. 120 years have gone by, women have dominated the Baha'i offices and the Baha'i Faith in general, flocking to a "feminist religion." And it's obvious from how the text came out.

Most interesting: Wilmette-Haifa seems to have added a line about "propriety" not even sketchily present in the others. There is no allusion, in the Haddad/Elder versions, that the male of the house might engage in hanky-panky with his female domestic. On the other hand, there is, you know, some sense of the possibility given the context. Men! You never know about men! Thus the modern feminist Wilmette translators took care to nip that possibility in the bud, performing a bit of Aqdas activism to keep men from flirting with hired females in the New Dawn though it wasn't a concern of Baha'u'llah's. Thus these ladies have revealed new Aqdas verses to us from the Dayspring of Propriety. The "Mother-May-I?" phrase of "may do so" -- not present in the other translations -- is all the more cringe-worthy when you realize it's just the voice of unhappy control-the-world feminists in Wilmette and Israel.

There is another very subtle alteration the neo-Baha'is have introduced into this verse. I wonder if you can see it? Its very subtle. It's in the phrase "he who would..."  The people who created this translation don't want men thinking they should hire women, whether as domestics or otherwise. They don't want them to think of anybody as "women" at all (even if they are). Especially in hiring. You know, "affirmative action" and all that. Plus the whole idea that women can be assumed to be the more appropriate maids and domestics is "sexist" in their eyes. (Even though it's true.) So these translators wanted to jettison the very assumptions implicit in the verse reflecting Islamic life around Baha'u'llah and traditional understanding. They simply don't want Baha'is to think this way; in the Old World way, or put it out there that this viewpoint should be normative. So the one taking in a female domestic is "called out" as exceptional by their phrase "He who would take into his service...". ('Only a few dumb men would hire a woman with the idea she's a woman, or because she's a woman!') It's a more complex phrasing not used by the others, and an interesting spin trick because they had to add words to the verse to do it, which they were probably trying to avoid.

Verily, there is a big difference between "virgin" and "maid." A "maid" can be a thrice-divorced, well-worn 50-something. 

And verily, the neo-Baha'is in their "Book of Laws" -- our only guidance for the next "Thousand Years" -- have purged the idea that virginity as something to be valued.

Was Baha'u'llah a brazen hypocrite?

Continuing on in my deconstruction of the Official Baha'i marriage translation:

Historians estimate that the Kitab-i-Aqdas was finished between 1873 and 1875. According to Miller & Elder Baha'u'llah had married a 3rd wife, Gohar, already in 1867. (She bore him a daughter, Furuqiyya. See scanned pages above.)  This means at the time Baha'is want us to believe Baha'u'llah was prohibiting 2+ wives he himself had three. (Then later a fourth, Jamaliyya, who he added to his harem in old age.) There was never any report in the literature about controversy or scandal, among the Baha'is or the Muslims, over Baha'u'llah making a change to Muslim custom and prohibiting 2+ wives. It does not exist in the literature. That must be because the native readers of Arabic knew that the language of the Aqdas does not make any such prohibition. Remember that simply dispensing with the veil rule for women was considered radical, even kill-worthy, in his time. Is it reasonable to think Baha'u'llah -- constantly dealing with challengers and critics -- would have banned the 3+ wife situation when he himself had three? Or when his movement, already heavily challenged and relying on the support of wife-ample sons of Islam, was new and fragile? 

It is more reasonable to believe that the Elder-Miller version -- which presents Baha'u'llah as simply giving a wisdom-warning to men with harem ambitions -- is the honest presentation of the Baha'i founder's words. Here is a handy chart showing how Baha'i officialdom appears to have twisted Baha'u'llah's statements in the Kitab-i-Aqdas:

Dumbing Down Their Text:

Mystical Language in the Kitab-i-Aqdas

One fascinating aspect of Baha'i writings is the Sufic mystical content, and the Kitab-i-Aqdas is loaded with that. After reading official Baha'i translations for a while it becomes very interesting to see how Elder & Miller translate certain mystic phrases compared to official versions. The Elder-Miller translation appears to be more direct with less attempt to fit Baha'u'llah's words into decorous English literary forms. I also perceive the official attempt to "dumb down" the language in the "authorized" version, as if trying to remove  'strangeness' and turn it into pabulum for a modern American demographic. Elder's evocative "Lote Tree of the Extremity" became just "Lote Tree." Under official hands it loses both its rigor and its metaphysical dimensions.

Here is one from by Elder-Miller from the Aqdas:  Elder-Miller version:

"O People, direct your steps with white faces and hearts full of light towards the Blessed Red Spot where the Lote Tree of the Extremity (sidratu l-muntaha) calls, "There is no god besides Me, the Self-Subsistent Overseer."

Here is the official Baha'i version:

"Turn, o people, with bright faces and illuminated hearts towards the blessed red spot in which the Sadrat-El-Muntaha (divine tree) crieth out, "Verily there is no God but Me, the protector, the self-Existent."

Is this a case where unimaginative and religiously uneducated Baha'is are complaining about Elder-Miller being "too literal"? Let's analyze it:

"White" has become "bright." What is wrong with "white"? An anti-White European phobia here? The stars are white. The sun is white, so is the moon, the light we encounter at death, and the light the Buddhists speak of. Things in a state of purity are often white. The official Baha'is wanted it as "bright" instead. But doesn't "white" say it better plus evoke the thought of purity? Is "white" not what the text said? Here is how Haddad translated the verse around 1900:

"Advance, O people, with snow-white faces and radiant hearts..."

Anton Haddad, 1901

Haddad not only used the color "white," but emphasized whiteness with "snow white." 

"Hearts full of light" has been turned into Hallmark greeting card copy: "illuminated hearts." Whereas the Elder-Miller had two distinct concepts -- white (a color) and light -- the Wilmette version has created redundancy by referring to "light" twice. ("Bright" plus "illuminated.") The Elder-Miller rendering is richer and hits you in more places of the mind.

I approach these words of Baha'u'llah with a prospect that they contain religious (and metaphysical) validity; that they have religious integrity. But modern Baha'is prefer to construe much of what Baha'u'llah says as mere poetic window dressing, something for atmospherics. They reduce his mystical language down to pretty metaphors devoid of metaphysical meaning.  The "white" probably conveys to us historical Islamic usage of the word "white" in spiritual and religious contexts. But the Baha'is, as usual, would like to cover up history and even ancient knowledge.  

The official "illuminated" is more timid and less active than Haddad's "radiant." Elder's "hearts full of light" is robust, dynamic. It implies power related to spiritual attainment. It implies a shining, like the sun. It is, for me, one of the lines that makes me think there was something to Baha'u'llah and his tradition. Let's dig deeper: 

As a yogi and one conversant with the Upanishads, I find "hearts full of light" is deeply evocative. The religions of both India and Buddhism teach that an actual light is seen, indeed, in the heart in meditation. (At two main points in the body. And I can vouch for it.) The light is blissful and is God. The Hindu and Buddhist scriptures speak of an inner sun -- aditya, jyoti, bindu -- that is perceivable to the devotee within the "heart" and which is the basis of the outer sun. In other words, there actually is light within, perceivable to the God-seeker and chanter, and it is seen in places referred to as the "heart" in mystical traditions. The Upanishads are laden with references to it. It is quite possible that the mystic traditions of Sufism, from which Baha'u'llah's seems to have evolved are also aware of the inner light. Thus Baha'u'llah's reference to "hearts full of light" probably had occult significance that resonated across other profound religious scriptures and practices. Yet the Baha'is jettisoned it for the vaguer "illuminated hearts" which reduces it to mere metaphorical value and evokes only inner attitude and not anything with esoteric meaning. Why would the Baha'is not wish to relate the "hearts full of light" to the loftiest spiritual lore and traditions of the religions they claim to supersede?

A sad thing about Baha'is is that they are terribly incurious about the contents of the other religions that they so avidly hope to supplant. Thus it's likely that both the Baha'i translators and the committees that breathed over their shoulder had no clue about the possible religious implications (for "hearts full of light") that I have just broached, or registered the simple, pithy beauty of the Elder-Miller rendering from a mystical point-of-view.

As I read the Kitab-i-Aqdas years later informed by Hinduism and yoga, I see that the Elder-Miller version likely broaches many secrets and esoteric references. The thought that Baha'u'llah and the Baha'i Faith might actually have some parallels to some of the most pristine knowledge of Hinduism/Buddhism adds more creditability to the Baha'i Faith and the Aqdas. But the officials, thinking it meant nothing and only thinking about "image" and "what will sell" to a particular demographic and time, are eager to dumb-down the real Aqdas content into stale and conventional cliches.

The  more evocative and instructive "Lote Tree of the Extremity" has been shortened to simply "Lote Tree." This is another truncation reflecting the anti-mystical attitudes of the Baha'i administration. I have to assume that "Lote Tree of the Extremity" or similar versions carries some kind of metaphysical information about reality, at least reality from the mystical point of view of the Baha'i founders. Why could the Baha'i officials not let the Baha'is nourish their minds on that thought and perhaps learn more about it? Must they be left now talking about a plain "Lote tree" in future without the esoteric context? So Baha'is will have goofy smiles in future as they apologetically refer to a "lote tree" concept they don't understand. Just as they stupidly grin now about their "Number Nine" business -- just a meaningless leftover from the Bab who was immersed in numerology. Both crying lote trees and numerology will be subjects Baha'is eschew and shrug their shoulders over, something too mystical that might embarrass them if they don't manage to drop it along the side of the road somehow.

Elder-Miller contains the word overseer. In Vedic/Hindu terms I immediately register this as a Sufic concept of Nirguna-Brahman, an all-seeing Pure Consciousness that is not necessarily concerned as contrasted to the caring, active, protecting aspect of God (Saguna Brahman). It's also evocative of "foreman" and "boss. A "self-subsistent overseer" is clearly a Nirguna-Brahman conceptualization of God resonant with a very important philosophical system in India, Non-Dualistic Vedanta. Yet the Wilmette/Haifa translation team, probably without the slightest bit of education about either Sufic or Hindu God-concepts, turned the overseer into a protector. This would be, in Hindu terms, the other form of God, the knowable, perceivable, Saguna-Brahman with functions and activities. How this reversal? 

"Subsistent," a term with a philosophical and mystical heritage, got dumbed-down to "existent." Maybe because modern westerners no longer know the word "subsistent"? Why not teach it to them? "Subsisting," as Elder-Miller used, used to occur frequently in Baha'i writings. It's not the same thing as "existent," and probably refers to the "sat" (beingness) of God as the must subtle, unmanifested essence or reality, whereas existent implies the more patent God. 

It is a noteworthy characteristic of the Baha'i Faith -- and I was an active member for 13 years -- that none of these curious mystical terms and statements, so abundant in their writings, are ever explained or discussed. In fact, Baha'is get uncomfortable if anybody -- including their own people -- tries to discuss or understand the highly mystical language of Baha'u'llah. But if Baha'is would study other religions better I think they would translate their own Aqdas more intelligently. But Baha'is do not study religion. They study their race-mixing and race-destruction agenda and ways to fund impressive buildings. So how could they be expected to understand the profound things Baha'u'llah says in the Kitab-i-Aqdas? This tendency of Baha'is to throw out their own gold, to do violence to their own texts, only thinking about "what's attractive" and 'what will sell to the masses' -- is disgusting.

Julian Curtis Lee Mickunas

March 2012, The Saint Francis

http://kitab-i-aqdas.info/