Bahá'u'lláh as `World Reformer'
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The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 3 ISLAM, 23-70Abstract: Vindicating the mission of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh's Book of Certitude (1862) focused on spiritual authority from an Islamic prspective. In this work, a subtext may be discerned in which Bahá'u'lláh intimates his own mission in the same terms of reference. Later, in his epistles to monarchs, Bahá'u'lláh exercised that authority and spoke of world reform. This article places Bahá'u'lláh in the context of Islamic reform, with particular reference to the advocacy of constitutional democracy by prominent Iranian secularists. In an ideological ether pervaded by "occidentalism" Bahá'u'lláh sought to reverse the direction of Western influence. Bahá'u'lláh prosecuted his own reforms in 3 stages: Bábí reform, Persian reform, and world reform. In this sequence, Bahá'u'lláh bypassed Islamic reform altogether in his professed rol as "World Reformer."
Vindicating the mission of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh's Book of Certitude (1862) focused on spiritual authority from an Islamic prspective. In this work, a subtext may be discerned in which Bahá'u'lláh intimates his own mission in the same terms of reference. Later, in his epistles to monarchs, Bahá'u'lláh exercised that authority and spoke of world reform. This article places Bahá'u'lláh in the context of Islamic reform, with particular reference to the advocacy of constitutional democracy by prominent Iranian secularists. In an ideological ether pervaded by "occidentalism" Bahá'u'lláh sought to reverse the direction of Western influence. Bahá'u'lláh prosecuted his own reforms in 3 stages: Bábí reform, Persian reform, and world reform. In this sequence, Bahá'u'lláh bypassed Islamic reform altogether in his professed rol as "World Reformer."