About Bahá’u’lláh--Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith
"I have never aspired after worldly leadership. My sole purpose hath been to hand down unto men that which I was bidden to deliver by God..." Bahá’u’lláh
Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892), whose name means "the Glory of God", was born into nobility in Persia (present day Iran). He was renowned for His generosity, compassion, keen intelligence, and excellent character. In the middle of the 19th century, Bahá’u’lláh was summoned by God to deliver a new revelation, thereby fulfilling prophecies and inaugurating an era that will culminate in universal peace. Bahá’u’lláh's teachings form the basis of the Bahá’í Faith.
As Bahá’u’lláh began to share the new teachings from God, He was rejected by the ruling elite, imprisoned, tortured, and banished from His homeland. A series of harsh exiles brought Bahá’u’lláh to Ottoman Palestine (modern-day Israel), where, although still a prisoner, He continued to reveal the Word of God until he passed away in 1892.
Bahá’u’lláh: The Glory of God--A beautiful video that tells the story of His life (22 minutes)
The Life of Bahá’u’lláh--A photographic essay
As Bahá’u’lláh began to share the new teachings from God, He was rejected by the ruling elite, imprisoned, tortured, and banished from His homeland. A series of harsh exiles brought Bahá’u’lláh to Ottoman Palestine (modern-day Israel), where, although still a prisoner, He continued to reveal the Word of God until he passed away in 1892.
Bahá’u’lláh: The Glory of God--A beautiful video that tells the story of His life (22 minutes)
The Life of Bahá’u’lláh--A photographic essay
"The Ancient Beauty hath consented to be bound with chains that mankind may be released from its bondage, and hath accepted to be made a prisoner within this most mighty Stronghold that the whole world may attain unto true liberty. He hath drained to its dregs the cup of sorrow, that all the peoples of the earth may attain unto abiding joy, and be filled with gladness." Bahá’u’lláh
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Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, Israel
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In 1992, a concise biography of Bahá’u’lláh's life was prepared by the Bahá’í International Community, Office of Public Information, New York. The entire 28-page document may be freely read and downloaded here. These are some of the opening paragraphs.
“May 29, 1992, marks the centenary of the passing of Bahá’u’lláh. His vision of humanity as one people and of the earth as a common homeland, dismissed out of hand by the world leaders to whom it was first enunciated over a hundred years ago, has today become the focus of human hope. Equally inescapable is the collapse of moral and social order, which this same declaration foresaw with awesome clarity.
The occasion has encouraged publication of this brief introduction to Bahá’u’lláh’s life and work. Prepared at the request of the Universal House of Justice, trustee of the global undertaking which the events of a century ago set in motion, it offers a perspective on the feeling of confidence with which Bahá’ís the world over contemplate the future of our planet and our race.
As the new millennium approaches, the crucial need of the human race is to find a unifying vision of the nature of man and society. For the past century humanity’s response to this impulse has driven a succession of ideological upheavals that have convulsed our world and that appear now to have exhausted themselves. The passion invested in the struggle, despite its disheartening results, testifies to the depth of the need. For, without a common conviction about the course and direction of human history, it is inconceivable that foundations can be laid for a global society to which the mass of humankind can commit themselves.
Such a vision unfolds in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the nineteenth century prophetic figure whose growing influence is the most remarkable development of contemporary religious history. Born in Persia, November 12, 1817, Bahá’u’lláh[1] began at age 27 an undertaking that has gradually captured the imagination and loyalty of several million people from virtually every race, culture, class, and nation on earth. The phenomenon is one that has no reference points in the contemporary world, but is associated rather with climactic changes of direction in the collective past of the human race. For Bahá’u’lláh claimed to be no less than the Messenger of God to the age of human maturity, the Bearer of a Divine Revelation that fulfills the promises made in earlier religions, and that will generate the spiritual nerves and sinews for the unification of the peoples of the world. If they were to do nothing else, the effects which Bahá’u’lláh’s life and writings have already had should command the earnest attention of anyone who believes that human nature is fundamentally spiritual and that the coming organization of our planet must be informed by this aspect of reality. The documentation lies open to general scrutiny. For the first time in history humanity has available a detailed and verifiable record of the birth of an independent religious system and of the life of its Founder. Equally accessible is the record of the response that the new faith has evoked, through the emergence of a global community which can already justly claim to represent a microcosm of the human race.[2]
During the earlier decades of this century, this development was relatively obscure. Bahá’u’lláh’s writings forbid the aggressive proselytism through which many religious messages have been widely promulgated. Further, the priority which the Bahá’í community gave to the establishment of groups at the local level throughout the entire planet militated against the early emergence of large concentrations of adherents in any one country or the mobilization of resources required for large-scale programs of public information. Arnold Toynbee, intrigued by phenomena that might represent the emergence of a new universal religion, noted in the 1950s that the Bahá’í Faith was then about as familiar to the average educated Westerner as Christianity had been to the corresponding class in the Roman empire during the second century A.D.[3]
In more recent years, as the Bahá’í community’s numbers have rapidly increased in many countries, the situation has changed dramatically. There is now virtually no area in the world where the pattern of life taught by Bahá’u’lláh is not taking root. The respect which the community’s social and economic development projects are beginning to win in governmental, academic, and United Nations circles further reinforces the argument for a detached and serious examination of the impulse behind a process of social transformation that is, in critical respects, unique in our world.
No uncertainty surrounds the nature of the generating impulse. Bahá’u’lláh’s writings cover an enormous range of subjects from social issues such as racial integration, the equality of the sexes, and disarmament, to those questions that affect the innermost life of the human soul. The original texts, many of them in His own hand, the others dictated and affirmed by their author, have been meticulously preserved. For several decades, a systematic program of translation and publication has made selections from Bahá’u’lláh’s writings accessible to people everywhere, in over eight hundred languages.
1. Bahá’u’lláh (“Glory of God”) was born Husayn-‘Alí. The authoritative work on the missions of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh is Shoghi Effendi’s God Passes By (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1987). For a biographical study see Hasan Balyuzi’s Bahá’u’lláh: The King of Glory (Oxford: George Ronald, 1980). Bahá’u’lláh’s writings are extensively reviewed in Adib Taherzadeh’s The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh (Oxford: George Ronald, 1975), four volumes.
2. Britannica Yearbook, 1988, indicates that, although the Bahá’í community numbers only about five million members, the Faith has already become the most widely diffused religion on earth, after Christianity. There are today 155 Bahá’í National Assemblies in independent countries and major territories of the globe, and more than 17,000 elected Assemblies functioning at the local level. It is estimated that 2,112 nationalities and tribes are represented.
3. Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. VIII (London: Oxford, 1954), p. 117.”
“May 29, 1992, marks the centenary of the passing of Bahá’u’lláh. His vision of humanity as one people and of the earth as a common homeland, dismissed out of hand by the world leaders to whom it was first enunciated over a hundred years ago, has today become the focus of human hope. Equally inescapable is the collapse of moral and social order, which this same declaration foresaw with awesome clarity.
The occasion has encouraged publication of this brief introduction to Bahá’u’lláh’s life and work. Prepared at the request of the Universal House of Justice, trustee of the global undertaking which the events of a century ago set in motion, it offers a perspective on the feeling of confidence with which Bahá’ís the world over contemplate the future of our planet and our race.
As the new millennium approaches, the crucial need of the human race is to find a unifying vision of the nature of man and society. For the past century humanity’s response to this impulse has driven a succession of ideological upheavals that have convulsed our world and that appear now to have exhausted themselves. The passion invested in the struggle, despite its disheartening results, testifies to the depth of the need. For, without a common conviction about the course and direction of human history, it is inconceivable that foundations can be laid for a global society to which the mass of humankind can commit themselves.
Such a vision unfolds in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the nineteenth century prophetic figure whose growing influence is the most remarkable development of contemporary religious history. Born in Persia, November 12, 1817, Bahá’u’lláh[1] began at age 27 an undertaking that has gradually captured the imagination and loyalty of several million people from virtually every race, culture, class, and nation on earth. The phenomenon is one that has no reference points in the contemporary world, but is associated rather with climactic changes of direction in the collective past of the human race. For Bahá’u’lláh claimed to be no less than the Messenger of God to the age of human maturity, the Bearer of a Divine Revelation that fulfills the promises made in earlier religions, and that will generate the spiritual nerves and sinews for the unification of the peoples of the world. If they were to do nothing else, the effects which Bahá’u’lláh’s life and writings have already had should command the earnest attention of anyone who believes that human nature is fundamentally spiritual and that the coming organization of our planet must be informed by this aspect of reality. The documentation lies open to general scrutiny. For the first time in history humanity has available a detailed and verifiable record of the birth of an independent religious system and of the life of its Founder. Equally accessible is the record of the response that the new faith has evoked, through the emergence of a global community which can already justly claim to represent a microcosm of the human race.[2]
During the earlier decades of this century, this development was relatively obscure. Bahá’u’lláh’s writings forbid the aggressive proselytism through which many religious messages have been widely promulgated. Further, the priority which the Bahá’í community gave to the establishment of groups at the local level throughout the entire planet militated against the early emergence of large concentrations of adherents in any one country or the mobilization of resources required for large-scale programs of public information. Arnold Toynbee, intrigued by phenomena that might represent the emergence of a new universal religion, noted in the 1950s that the Bahá’í Faith was then about as familiar to the average educated Westerner as Christianity had been to the corresponding class in the Roman empire during the second century A.D.[3]
In more recent years, as the Bahá’í community’s numbers have rapidly increased in many countries, the situation has changed dramatically. There is now virtually no area in the world where the pattern of life taught by Bahá’u’lláh is not taking root. The respect which the community’s social and economic development projects are beginning to win in governmental, academic, and United Nations circles further reinforces the argument for a detached and serious examination of the impulse behind a process of social transformation that is, in critical respects, unique in our world.
No uncertainty surrounds the nature of the generating impulse. Bahá’u’lláh’s writings cover an enormous range of subjects from social issues such as racial integration, the equality of the sexes, and disarmament, to those questions that affect the innermost life of the human soul. The original texts, many of them in His own hand, the others dictated and affirmed by their author, have been meticulously preserved. For several decades, a systematic program of translation and publication has made selections from Bahá’u’lláh’s writings accessible to people everywhere, in over eight hundred languages.
1. Bahá’u’lláh (“Glory of God”) was born Husayn-‘Alí. The authoritative work on the missions of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh is Shoghi Effendi’s God Passes By (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1987). For a biographical study see Hasan Balyuzi’s Bahá’u’lláh: The King of Glory (Oxford: George Ronald, 1980). Bahá’u’lláh’s writings are extensively reviewed in Adib Taherzadeh’s The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh (Oxford: George Ronald, 1975), four volumes.
2. Britannica Yearbook, 1988, indicates that, although the Bahá’í community numbers only about five million members, the Faith has already become the most widely diffused religion on earth, after Christianity. There are today 155 Bahá’í National Assemblies in independent countries and major territories of the globe, and more than 17,000 elected Assemblies functioning at the local level. It is estimated that 2,112 nationalities and tribes are represented.
3. Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. VIII (London: Oxford, 1954), p. 117.”