And I believe that is where the Manifestations of God come in, as they are capable of revealing that Will to us from age to age and from place to place in an authoritative fashion, thus achieving increasing levels of unity where before there was progressive fragmentation.
As to God relating directly to each one, I am sure His Spirit inspires us common individuals, and we may feel that inspiration as having authority for our personal lives. But the problem arises when we claim our inspiration to be authoritative for others, as this creates divisions in society, which eventually can give rise to utter chaos.
The clergy has probably been most guilty of this, and that must be one reason why (we believe) God's Will for this age, as revealed by Baha'u'llah, is the total elimination of the institution of priesthood (there is no clergy in the Baha'i Faith) and the establishment of a new religious culture where each individual investigates truth for him/herself and then may share the results of that search with others (as in good Quaker tradition), but is forbidden to claim it as an authoritative interpretation.
I agree that the Manifestations of God have attempted to guide us in directions that are good for us and result in productive, happy, fulfilling lives. But if they are just "very wise people", then they are also very big liars, as they all have claimed that their words and deeds were not from them, but from God, who sent them.
Obviously, there have been many "very wise individuals" throughout history, who have had more or less impact on society, but their candles pale in comparison with the profound, revolutionary transformations in the fortune of humankind, brought about by these veritable Suns of Power and Might, whose vitalizing effect on the minds and hearts of millions is still strong even after several millennia. Why not say that this is all a logical process, AND the work of God? Or must we necessarily perceive God's work as illogical?
The same person said: To date, my primary difficulty with the Baha’i religion has been its middle-eastern orientation (hey, I'm Scottish). I answered: If the geographical cradle of a Religion gives it its orientation, then why are most Scottish people Christians? Or do they think Jesus taught around the Loch Ness? God's Messengers have to be from someplace, but I don't see why that should make their Messages any less universal.
Actually, they seem to have always been sent to the most degraded peoples (maybe that is why Baha'u'llah wasn't Scottish), and then to have raised these peoples up to the highest pinnacles of spiritual, cultural and material prosperity, as if to show through deeds -- not just words -- the tremendous power of God's Creative Word to transform individuals, nations, and the world.
Then that person asked the million-dollar question: "And if you believe that the prophets are messengers from God, then why do so many of them emanate from the Middle-East? What about the vast majority of the world's people who don't seem to be served by the prophets we frequently mention (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Baha'u'llah)? ... I believe you may acknowledge the existence of many prophets (major and minor) that are in China, or India, or Africa, but I wonder why they are seldom mentioned?"
Sorry, did I leave out Krishna and Buddha this time? As I have said, I am no authority on this or any other matter, but here's what I think:
(1) If I had to choose the one most strategic place on Earth for a message to reach the "four corners of the world" (Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific) as quickly as possible, I couldn't think of a better cross-roads than the Middle-East, at least until fairly recently in human history, like the heart that pumps life-blood to the rest of the body.
(2) Yes, the Baha'i Faith does "acknowledge the existence of many prophets (both major and minor) from China, India, Africa" and many other places, including the Americas, although not necessarily by name, but rather as a basic principle: that God has made a Great Covenant with the human race, whereby He promises never to leave us without divine guidance, and we promise to accept and obey that guidance whenever it comes. This, and the basic assumption that God would not be God if He were not a just God, implies that there was never a time or place on Earth that was fully devoid of the light of knowledge and the warmth of love shed upon the world by those dazzling Suns of Reality.
(3) One case in point is Viracocha (lit. "Emerged from the Lake"), who appeared to the area of Lake Titicaca (high in the Andes between Peru and Bolivia) roughly around the period of Muhammad, taught the Indians three commandments (do not lie, do not steal, do not be lazy), prophesied the coming of a Bringer of world unity, and became the starting point for the great Incan civilization, which united thousands of warring tribes throughout the continent, and at the time of the Conquest was far more highly specialized and developed than the more aggressive European civilization.
(4) As you know, many of the world's peoples and languages did not have a system of writing until fairly recently, so the teachings of their Prophets were passed from fathers to sons as oral traditions. The ones that eventually managed to get written down (mostly in the Middle-East, like "Genesis", and parts of Eastern Asia) have survived; the rest have all but disappeared.
(5) As you also know, the conquest of most of the world by various European nations included systematic efforts to obliterate all traces of native cultures, replacing them with the "Christian" European culture. The Holy Inquisition was in full swing when it infested what is now Latin America. North American Indian children saw their parents murdered and were then put into WASP schools to become "civilized". Slave traders repeatedly culled the cream of Africa's great civilizations, the strongest, the most intelligent, the religious and political leaders, and burned down their magnificent wooden structures, until there was no more civilization to speak of, and then justified their profitable business by pointing out that, after all, they were only infra-human savages. And so on. No wonder we now hear little or nothing of their Prophet-Founders!
If I may risk discussing scripture, hopefully to the dismay of none and to the delight of at least some, John 5 says "(46) For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me; for he wrote of me. (47) But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe my words?" Evidently, the only passage in the Hebrew Bible that could apply here (as corroborated by Luke in Acts 3:22-24) is in Deuteronomy 18, where Moses says:
"(15) The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren; him you shall heed... (17) And the Lord said to me... (18) I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. (19) And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him."
Here it appears that Moses is saying that Jesus would be a Prophet like Him, placing the two at the same level. This, of course, is contrary to current Christian doctrine, although Jesus confirms it by saying "for he wrote of me" and by referring to the coming of the following Prophet as His own Return.
Interestingly, Muhammad also confirms this principle of the oneness of the Prophets in Surah 2:130: "Say, 'We believe in God, and in that which has been sent down to us, and sent down to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the Tribes, and that which was given to Moses and Jesus and the Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to Him we submit'." I suppose you already know that one of the basic teachings of Bahá'u'lláh is "progressive revelation" whereby all the Prophets, both major and minor, represent varying stages in one single majestic process through which God educates and "civilizes" humankind, like the never-ending cycle of sun by day and moon by night.
Strangely enough, although it can be argued that both Moses and Jesus supported this principle of oneness, both Muhammad and Bahá'u'lláh are criticized by Christians for doing so. But continuing on down Deuteronomy 18, Moses says how to identify a true Prophet:
"(20)But the prophet that shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die." This quote was apparently used by the Jews to justify killing Jesus, and by Christians to reject Muhammad's "Allah", although in Jesus' native tongue, Aramaic, the word for God was also "Alá".)
Finally, Deuteronomy 18:22 says, "When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follows not nor comes to pass, the Lord has not spoken it, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, and you shall not be afraid of him." Combine this with Jesus' criterion "by their fruits you shall know them" and you have a powerful proof of the Missions of all the Prophets, one of Whose most obvious "fruits" is having raised up some (if not all) of the world's great civilizations on the solid foundation of their revealed words!
Mírzá Abú'l-Fadl, in “Letters & Essays 1886 - 1913", the chapter called "Did Moses Prophesy Muhammad?", defends a different thesis: that Deuteronomy actually refers to Muhammad, and does so very convincingly, as always. His main arguments are that:
(1) in biblical prophesy "Lord" refers to Jesus and "Prophet" to Muhammad;
(2) the Pentateuch is actually full of less obvious references to both;
(3) the questioning of John the Baptist (John 1:19-21) shows that the Jews were awaiting three persons: the return of Elijah (John), the advent of the Christ (Jesus), and the coming of "that Prophet" (Muhammad); and finally
(4) that Luke, a disciple of Paul, was not infallible, being actually a second-generation Christian who had never met Jesus.
One argument he does not use is the incredible similarities between Moses and Muhammad ("One like unto Me"); you could actually make a list longer than the one comparing Jesus and the Báb!
(June 21, 2003)
Note: The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of VirtualBahai or any institution of the Baha’i Faith.
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