Sacred Text, Social Hierarchy, World Polity: The Journey of a Single Sentence That Shaped a World Religion
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Baha'i Studies Review 18 1, 107-126Abstract: Among the central tropes of Baha’i socio-political theology is a single sentence from the Persian Bayan which, alluded to in Baha’u’llah’s Kitab-i Aqdas became, in Shoghi Effendi’s interpretation, the ‘myth of origin’, in the sense of a starting point in sacred narrative, for the Baha’i Administrative Order structuring the Baha’i community, and for the Baha’i World Order envisaged as its culmination, ultimate purpose and eventual fruit. The passage in question states, in Shoghi Effendi’s translation, ‘well is it with him who fixeth his gaze on the Order of Baha’u’llah’. Shoghi Effendi’s interpretation of that passage as alluding to a sacred socio-political entity which is the hallmark of the Baha’i revelation and is anticipated as the embodiment and structure of the millennial promise of the unification of humankind, represents a radical interpretive leap, given that the passage in the Persian Bayan in its most intuitive reading refers, not to an institutional idea, but to the compilation and arrangement of sacred Babi texts. At the heart of this seemingly incompatible usage lies the single word nazm, which may be translated as both order and arrangement.
DOI: 10.1386/bsr.18.1.107_1
Among the central tropes of Baha’i socio-political theology is a single sentence from the Persian Bayan which, alluded to in Baha’u’llah’s Kitab-i Aqdas became, in Shoghi Effendi’s interpretation, the ‘myth of origin’, in the sense of a starting point in sacred narrative, for the Baha’i Administrative Order structuring the Baha’i community, and for the Baha’i World Order envisaged as its culmination, ultimate purpose and eventual fruit. The passage in question states, in Shoghi Effendi’s translation, ‘well is it with him who fixeth his gaze on the Order of Baha’u’llah’. Shoghi Effendi’s interpretation of that passage as alluding to a sacred socio-political entity which is the hallmark of the Baha’i revelation and is anticipated as the embodiment and structure of the millennial promise of the unification of humankind, represents a radical interpretive leap, given that the passage in the Persian Bayan in its most intuitive reading refers, not to an institutional idea, but to the compilation and arrangement of sacred Babi texts. At the heart of this seemingly incompatible usage lies the single word nazm, which may be translated as both order and arrangement.