Talk:Baha'i Faith

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 Bahai 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 Baha'is). 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 Baha'is have been persecuted and executed en masse ever since the 1860's. Over 100 000 Baha'is 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 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 Baha'i 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 Baha'is". 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 Baha'is 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

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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. - MMGB

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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 . --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.

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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

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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

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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

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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 (http://www.bahai.org/) 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

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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)