Abstract:
Treatises of "the greatest and most learned of all Bahá'í scholars" about Alexander Tumansky; on meeting Abdu'l-Bahá; and on the meaning of angels, resurrection, civilization, tests, angels, holy spirit, and the saying "Knowledge is twenty-seven letters."
Notes:
Contributed by and posted with permission of publisher. Please support this online re-printing by ordering a copy of the book. A portion of this book scanned, with images, is available at books.google.com.
Crossreferences:
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[page ix]
ForewordIt is not easy for me to write a foreword to this book. I remember writing to Juan R. Cole some time ago that I did not think it was yet time to study the Bahá'í Faith historically and scientifically. It seemed as inconceivable to me as suggesting that Christians in the first century A.D. should have written on the Christian religion scientifically. I felt that we, as Bahá'ís, were too close, too interested, too emphatically involved in Bahá'í history to write about it objectively.The books of Bahá'í scholarship that have been published since that time have convinced me of the contrary. Young Bahá'í scholars, including Dr. Cole himself, have written on Bahá'í subjects as objectively as is possible for them. And I myself in a lecture on the occasion of the celebration of the Birth of Bahá'u'lláh (on November 12, 1983) made use of a concept first put forth by Cole: that of a science of "theophany" needed for an understanding of the Bahá'í Faith, almost as the Christians study their concept of incarnation. An old friend of mine, Sr. Panella, a Bahá'í of Rome, now unfortunately passed away, used to say that the Bahá'í Faith means primarily: Evoluzione nel tempo, e unita nell'ora [Evolution in time, and unity at the present hour]. Truly, the whole Bahá'í Faith is centered on this theophanical idea. Bearing in mind the Bahá'í principles of the inaccessibility of God and the evolution of the exterior forms of religion, all of the doctrines of the Faith can be encompassed by the
[page x] phrase "evolution in time." "Unity at the present hour" means that now the urgent aim of the Faith is the unity of mankind, in all its implications. This book is a translation of certain works written by Mirza Abu'l-Fadl on the history and the transcendent importance of the Bahá'í religion. Abu'l-Fadl is well known to Bahá'ís. He was the greatest Oriental expounder of their religion. Naturally, he approaches the Faith from an Eastern perspective, explaining some of its more esoteric aspects. Nonetheless, this book is of extreme importance for the Bahá'ís. It is a book each Bahá'í should possess and read to obtain a better knowledge of what the Bahá'í Faith really is. Alessandro Bausani Rome
[page xi] Editor's NoteDownload: gulpaygani_bausani_letters_essays_note.pdf.
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