Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Bahai


A picture I took of the Bahai temple in Haifa, Israel when I visited this past summer (famous for its amazing gardens).

A new religion comes about when a person, such as Sayyid 'Ali Muhammad the Bab, makes a change in an already established religion or puts forth a new belief system. Bab "dared to put forward religious claims" basically saying that, "he was the Gate to the Hidden Imam, the Messianic figure that all of Iran's Shi'i Muslims were expecting" (pg 11). This caused a lot of stirring among Iranians and people either opposed him (such as religious leaders and authority figures) or joined the new religion, like Baha'u'llah. 
One element that goes into founding a new religion such as Bahai, is having a leader who creates the ideas that cause the new thoughts or change in thought. Bab and then Baha were these leaders for the Bahai faith. Other elements in founding a religion and its process include: followers (otherwise the religion will die out quickly), good reasons for the change or creation of the religion, and most likely persecution of the followers. The reason I included the last point (persecution of the followers) is not because a religion couldn't occur without this aspect, but because most religions in history have experienced it. The Bahais were persecuted (jailed, tortured, killed) because that was how the Iranian government decided to deal with a group of people who broke from the norm and developed their own religion. I think persecution is part of the process of many religions before they are fully accepted, which also shows that the founding/creation of a religion is usually a long and painful process. It is also interesting to note that the persecution to the Bahais was committed by the religion that they originally came from, Islam. 
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2 comments:

  1. SMKMay 27, 2009 at 8:29 AM

    The gardens are styled after the idea of "paradise garden". A nice understanding of the role of history in a religion. Indeed each Founder of a religion was opposed mostly by the leadership of the prior religion and then by the people incited to oppose. Imagining such opposition would work like other cases of man-made projects, in the case of God's plan such opposition just becomes another means of spreading the religion. Thus it is that now the Baha'i Faith is some 10 million people in most every of the 200 odd countries of the world.

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  2. SMKMay 27, 2009 at 11:43 AM

    Well I see I tripped across a class reading the book. I've tried to leave a helpful comment everywhere the student addressed the religion. I hope the exploration of both the Baha'i Faith and religion in general gather spiritual import to each of you.

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