TY  - BOOK
AU  - Santesteban,Miguel Gil
TI  - An analysis of the concept of peace in the Baháí religion
N2  - The present work analyses the concept of peace in the writings of Bahá‘u‘lláh, ‗Abdu‘l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. The general outline of this dissertation is divided into two distinct areas of interest. The first area details Bahá‘u‘lláh, ‗Abdu‘l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi‘s main statements connected with peace. This provides a basic timeline, as well as more biographical sense of how the main sequence of Bahá‘í peace-related ideas evolved with each succeeding interpretive authority. Bahá‘u‘lláh‘s abolition of jihád is thus given a prominent place as a first expression of the overarching principle of peace, ramifications of which were the principle of collective security, which comprised arbitration, disarming and demilitarization. Peace was further broadened by ‗Abdu‘l-Bahá as to encompass a full array of attending principles, and then resituated by Shoghi Effendi in historical perspective. The second area tackles the question of peace from two major thematic angles: Bahá‘í anthropology, and the Bahá‘í ethos. Chapter five shows that the Bahá‘í conception of peace is anchored on a dynamic conception of human reality, one that reaffirms the dignity and perfectibility of man and postulates peace as a weaning out from atavistic forms of prejudice (taqlíd), vain imaginings (awḥam), and fanaticism (ta„aṣṣub). The repositioning of man in a middle point in the spiritual evolutionary scale is paired with a notion of true civilization as the recombination of materiality and spirituality. The resulting Bahá‘í ethos (chapter six) is then described as the creative tension between a maximum sense of autonomy and a full degree of responsiveness to societal needs. A number of privileged thematic expressions of this moderated ethos are examined, including the concepts of oneness of religion, organic unity and consultation. The open nature of the resulting approach is underlined by suggesting that the concept may move to a phase of increasing modellisation
ER  -