What's the Bahá'í Faith?
The Bahá'í Faith is
an independent world religion with adherents in virtually every country.
The worldwide Bahá'í community, numbering more than five million,
includes almost all nationalities and classes. More than 2,100
ethnic groups and tribes are represented. There are 182 National or
Regional Spiritual Assemblies.
Bahá'u'lláh is the Messenger of God
for this millennium and the Founder of the Bahá'í Faith.
Bahá'u'lláh taught that there is one God Who progressively reveals His will to humanity. Each of the great religions brought by the Messengers of God -- Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad, Zoroaster -- represents a successive stage in the spiritual development of civilization. Bahá'u'lláh, the most recent Messenger in this line, has brought teachings that address the moral and spiritual challenges of the modern world.
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The central principles of our Faith are: We invite you to learn more about the Bahá'í Faith -- its perspective of the past, its understanding of the present, and its vision of the future. |
Video Introduction:
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The Bahá'í Faith . . . proclaims the necessity and the inevitability of the unification of mankind. . . . It, moreover, enjoins upon its followers the primary duty of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all manner of prejudice and superstition, declares the purpose of religion to be the promotion of amity and concord, proclaims its essential harmony with science, and recognizes it as the foremost agency for the pacification and the orderly progress of human society. It unequivocally maintains the principle of equal rights, opportunities and privileges for men and women, insists on compulsory education, eliminates extremes of poverty and wealth, abolishes the institution of priesthood, prohibits slavery, asceticism, mendicancy and monasticism, prescribes monogamy, discourages divorce, emphasizes the necessity of strict obedience to one's government, exalts any work performed in the spirit of service to the level of worship, urges either the creation or the adoption of an auxiliary international language, and delineates the outlines of those institutions that must establish and perpetuate the general peace of mankind.
Bahá'u'lláh's Writings can be found at the International Baha'i website.
How do Bahá'ís view other religions?
"This is the Day in which God's most excellent favors have been
poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been
infused into all created things." ~Bahá'u'lláh
With the coming of the millennium, the crucial need facing the human
race is to find a unifying vision of the nature of man and society.
Such a vision unfolds in the writings of Bahá'u'lláh.
The driving force behind the civilizing of human nature, Bahá'u'lláh
asserts, has been successive interventions of the Divine in history.
It has been through this influence that the innate moral and spiritual
faculties of humanity have been gradually developed and the advancement
of civilization made possible. Associated with the missions of
such transcendent figures as Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and
Muhammad, the phenomenon is an ever-recurring one; it is without
beginning or end because it is fundamental to the evolutionary order
itself.
Although nurtured by the process, humanity has never understood it.
Instead, people have constructed around each episode in their spiritual
experience a separate religious system. Throughout history the
religious impulse has been hobbled by the resulting contradictions and
bitter conflicts.
Bahá'u'lláh compares the maturation of the human race as a whole to the
experience of its individual members who struggle, successively, through
the stages of infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Today, humanity
has entered on its collective coming-of-age, endowed with the capacity
to see the entire panorama of its development as a single process.
The challenge of maturity is to accept that we are one people, to free
ourselves from the limited identities and creeds of the past, and to
build together the foundations of global civilization.
The power that is awakening this consciousness throughout the world is
the universal Revelation of God promised in all the scriptures of
mankind's past. Its spokesman is Bahá'u'lláh whose teachings
provide a blueprint for the social organization of the planet and whose
growing influence is the great untold story of our time.
"Compose your differences, and reduce your armaments, that the burden
of your expenditures may be lightened, and that your minds and hearts
may be tranquillized. Heal the dissentions that divide you, and ye will
no longer be in need of any armaments except what the protection of your
cities and territories demandeth."
~Bahá'u'lláh
When Bahá'ís say that the various religions are one, they do not mean
that the various religious creeds and organizations are the same.
Rather, they believe that there is only one religion and all of the
Messengers of God have progressively revealed its nature.
Together, the world's religions are expressions of a single unfolding
Divine plan.
If you'd like to compare your current beliefs to those
of seventeen major world religions, click
here.
The Beliefnet website is not associated with the Bahá'í Faith.
Judaism
For Bahá'ís of Jewish background, Bahá'u'lláh is the appearance of the promised "Lord of Hosts" come down "with ten thousand of saints." A descendent of Abraham and a "scion from the root of Jesse," Bahá'u'lláh has come to lead the way for nations to "beat their swords into plowshares." For a brief discussion of some Jewish prophecies, see the Prophecy Fulfilled website.
Buddhism
For Bahá'ís of Buddhist background, Bahá'u'lláh fulfils the prophecies
for the coming of "a Buddha named Maitreye, the Buddha of universal
fellowship" who will, according to Buddhist tradition, bring peace and
enlightenment for all humanity. They see the fulfillment of
numerous prophecies, such as the fact that the Buddha Maitreye is to
come from "the West," noting the fact that Iran is West of India.
For the relationship between Buddhist doctrine and the Baha'i Faith,
look
here. For a detailed discussion of Buddhist prophecies, see
the Prophecy
Fulfilled website.
Hinduism
For Bahá'ís of Hindu background, Bahá'u'lláh comes as the new
incarnation of Krishna, the "Tenth Avatar" and the "Most Great Spirit."
He is "the birthless, the deathless" the One who, "when goodness grows
weak," returns "in every age" to "establish righteousness" as promised
in the Bhagavad-Gita. For a detailed discussion of Hindu
prophecies, see the
Prophecy
Fulfilled website.
Christianity
For Bahá'ís of Christian background, Bahá'u'lláh fulfils the paradoxical
promises of Christ's return "in the Glory of the Father" and as a "thief
in the night." That the Faith was founded in 1844 relates to
numerous Christian prophecies. Bahá'ís note, for example, that
central Africa was finally opened to Christianity in the 1840s, and that
event was widely seen as fulfilling the promise that Christ would return
after "the Gospel had been preached 'to all nations.'" In
Bahá'u'lláh's teachings Bahá'ís see fulfillment of Christ's promise to
bring all people together so that "there shall be one fold, and one
shepherd." For a detailed discussion of Christian prophecies, see
the Prophecy Fulfilled
website.
Islam
For Bahá'ís of Muslim background, Bahá'u'lláh fulfils the promise of the
Qur'án for the "Day of God" and the "Great Announcement," when "God"
will come down "overshadowed with clouds." They see in the
dramatic events of Bábi and Bahá'í history the fulfillment of many
traditional statements of Muhammad, which have long been a puzzle.
For more detail, see Islam and the
Baha'i Faith website.
How Do Christians See the Baha'i Faith?
Read an article by a Baptist minister.
Another article by a Christian minister.
A section from a doctoral dissertation by a non-Bahá'í
