Bahaullah's Writings
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Looking Good – The Ornaments
Dressing up – and decorating in various ways – is a universal human practice. Clothing isn’t just functional. It serves complex social functions; it is used to communicate mood, occasion, status, function and gender. It is sometimes religiously mandated, marking the boundaries of “appropriate” or “modest” clothing. Sometimes such constraints have been the vehicle of oppression, particularly when imposed on women. Bahá’u’lláh abolishes religious constraints on clothing. The choice of clothing and the cut of the beard and its dressing are left to the discretion of men. But beware, O people, lest ye make yourselves the playthings of the ignorant.[1] Instead Bahá’u’lláh has in mind a different kind of human decoration.…
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Solving Problems Beyond Solution – The Book of Certitude
The goal of Bahá’u’lláh’s entire life’s work, as he describes, is to foster unity among human beings. Of his writings, the Book of Certitude plays a particular role in this purpose. Accordingly, it has been said of the Book of Certitude that by sweeping away the age-long barriers that have so insurmountably separated the great religions of the world, [it] has laid down a broad and unassailable foundation for the complete and permanent reconciliation of their followers.[1] In works such as the Hidden Words, we primarily find guidance directed to the spiritual life of the individual. In Bahá’u’lláh’s later writings, such as those published in the Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, we find…
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Mystic Gems – the Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh
Among the most well-known works of Bahá’u’lláh are the Hidden Words. They are written in brief “gem-like utterances”,[1] 71 in Arabic and 82 in Persian. They are at once of crystalline clarity and yet impenetrable in their allusion to a spiritual reality beyond our day-to-day experience. The Hidden Words are among the works which Bahá’u’lláh wrote in the voice of the “truth-seeker and mystic”.[2] They were written in 1857–58 and were the fruit of Bahá’u’lláh’s meditations while walking the banks of the Tigris River in Baghdad. Bahá’u’lláh introduces them as follows: This is that which hath descended from the Realm of Glory, uttered by the tongue of power and might, and revealed unto the…
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Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings – An Introduction
At one time We spoke in the language of the lawgiver; at another in that of the truth-seeker and the mystic…. [1] This phrase was written by Bahá’u’lláh almost at the end of his life, in his own summation of his life’s work. If you are new to Bahá’u’lláh’s writings, it might not be obvious where to begin. Indeed, it is likely that where to begin is different for each individual. The aim of this article is to provide a broad description of some of Bahá’u’lláh’s key works which span a forty-year period from the 1850s to the 1890s. Also provided below are some online resources, including ebooks. If you haven’t read Bahá’u’lláh’s writings before, perhaps one…
