The Importance of Bahá'í Scholarship:

Over 50 years ago, the Guardian emphasised the need for development of the intellectual life of the Bahá'í community, in the statement:

From the passage of the Guardian's writings dealing with the attributesto which a Bahá'í scholar should aspire, it is evident thatBahá'í scholarship is an endeavour accessible to all membersof the Bahá'í community, without exception. All believerscan aspire to the attributes described by the Guardian, and can striveto relate the Bahá'í teachings to the thinking and concernsof the non-Bahá'í population around them. You can performa valuable service in bringing this potential role to the attention ofall the believers – including those who may lack formal education, andthose who dwell in remote areas, villages and islands – and to discourageany thought that Bahá'í scholarship is an activity open onlyto those who are highly educated or who are pursuing an academic career.

As the followers of the Blessed Beauty make efforts to correlate theBahá'í teachings, which impinge upon every aspect of humanlife, with the thoughts and problems of the people around them, they willinevitably discover new ways of presenting the teachings convincingly andwill also acquire an ever-increasing understanding of the Revelation ofBahá'u'lláh.

At the same time special encouragement should also be given to believersof unusual capacity, training or accomplishment to consecrate their abilitiesto the service of the Cause through the unique and distinctive contributionthey can make to Bahá'í scholarship. The Guardian repeatedlylinked the work of Bahá'í scholars to the expansion and consolidationof the Faith, as stated in the following:

The Bahá'í community can already point to the exampleof several believers who have become recognised widely for their scholarship,and whose intellectual pursuits were enriched by their abiding devotionto the Faith, and their compelling desire to teach the Cause. Within thiscompany is to be found Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl, who was describedby the Guardian as "very excellent and erudite", as well as the Hands ofthe Cause of God George Townshend, whose scholarship was praised by theGuardian, and Hasan Balyuzi, who was eulogised by the Universal House ofJustice for "his outstanding scholarly pursuits", as well as others whoare presently engaged in like service.

Promoting an Atmosphere of Tolerance:

We now consider "promoting within the Bahá'í communityan atmosphere of tolerance for others" and strengthening "the fundamentalcore of the believers' faith". The Universal House of Justice has statedthat:

On the need for tolerance the Universal House of Justice wrote:

Strengthening the Core of the Believers' Faith:

This need for Bahá'í scholars to become thoroughly deepenedin the spirit of the Cause, and well versed in its Teachings is emphasisedin the following passage:

With the Seven Year Plan calling for the fostering of the intellectuallife of the Bahá'í community, and with the closely-associateddevelopment of Bahá'í scholarship, the world-wide communityof the Greatest Name embarks upon an exciting phase in its development,which will widen the range of people attracted to its truths, greatly enhanceits prestige and influence, and broaden the foundation of the world civilizationto which the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh will ultimately giverise.



     On behalf of the Universal House of Justice, dated 3 January, 1979

To the Participants in the Bahá'í Studies Seminar heldin Cambridge on 30 September and 1 October 1978.

Dear Bahá'í Friends,

The Universal House of Justice has read with great interest the reportof your seminar. It regards Bahá'í scholarship as of greatpotential importance for the development and consolidation of the Bahá'ícommunity as it emerges from obscurity. It noted that there are a numberof problems with which you have been grappling, and while it feels thatit should, in general, leave the working out of solutions to Bahá'íscholars themselves, the House of Justice has the impression that it wouldbe helpful to provide you, at this relatively early stage of the developmentof Bahá'í scholarship, with a few thoughts on matters raisedduring your seminar. Reports of your seminar were therefore referred tothe Research Department, and the Universal House of Justice commends toyour study the enclosed memorandum which that Department has prepared.

The House of Justice also urges you not to feel constrained in any wayin consulting it about problems, whether theoretical or practical, thatyou meet in your work. It has noted, for example, the difficulties presentedby the current temporary requirement for the review of publications, andin this connection it asks us to inform you that it has already establishedthe policy that doctoral theses do not have to be reviewed unless thereis a proposal to publish them in larger quantities than is required bythe examining body.

You are still in the early stages of a very challenging and promisingdevelopment in the life of the Bahá'í community, and theUniversal House of Justice is eager to foster and assist your work in whateverways it can. We are to assure you of its prayers in the Sacred Shrineson behalf of you all and of the progress of Bahá'í scholarship.



     Comments by the Research Department at the Bahá'í World Centre

This seminar [The Bahá'í Studies Seminar held in Cambridge,England on 30 September and 1 October, 1978] seems to have provided a veryvaluable forum for the discussion of a number of aspects of Bahá'íscholarship, and the airing of certain problems which have been worryingsome of the friends in relationship to their work and to their fellow believers.We believe that many of the problems arise from an attempt by some Bahá'íscholars to make use of methodologies devised by non-Bahá'íswithout thinking through the implications of such a course and withoutworking out a methodology which would be in consonance with the spiritof the Faith. The seminar itself may well prove to be an initial step insuch a working out. The following remarks are intended merely to draw attentionto certain aspects which we believe can help to advance this process.

It has become customary in the West to think of science and religionas occupying two distinct–and even opposed–areas of human thought andactivity. This dichotomy can be characterized in the pairs of antithesesfaith and reason; value and fact. It is a dichotomy which is foreign toBahá'í thought and should, we feel, be regarded with suspicionby Bahá'í scholars in every field. The principle of the harmonyof science and religion means not only that religious teachings shouldbe studied with the light of reason and evidence as well as of faith andinspiration, but also that everything in this creation, all aspects ofhuman life and knowledge, should be studied in the light of revelationas well as in that of purely rational investigation. In other words, aBahá'í scholar, when studying a subject, should not lockout of his mind any aspect of truth that is known to him.

It has, for example, become commonplace to regard religion as the productof human striving after truth, as the outcome of certain climates of thoughtand conditions of society. This has been taken, by many non-Bahá'íthinkers, to the extreme of denying altogether the reality or even thepossibility of a specific revelation of the Will of God to mankind througha human Mouthpiece. A Bahá'í who has studied the Teachingsof Bahá'u'lláh, who has accepted His claim to be the Manifestationof God for this Age, and who has seen His Teachings at work in his dailylife, knows as the result of rational investigation, confirmed by actualexperience, that true religion, far from being the product solely of humanstriving after truth, is the fruit of the creative Word of God which, withdivine power, transforms human thought and action.

A Bahá'í, through this faith in, this "conscious knowledge"of, the reality of divine Revelation, can distinguish, for instance, betweenChristianity, which is the divine message given by Jesus of Nazareth, andthe development of Christendom, which is the history of what men did withthat message in subsequent centuries; a distinction which has become blurredif not entirely obscured in current Christian theology. A Bahá'íscholar conscious of this distinction will not make the mistake of regardingthe sayings and beliefs of certain Bahá'ís at any one timeas being the Bahá'í Faith. The Bahá'í Faithis the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh: His Own Words as interpretedby 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the Guardian. It is a revelation of such staggeringmagnitude that no Bahá'í at this early stage in Bahá'íhistory can rightly claim to have more than a partial and imperfect understandingof it. Thus, Bahá'í historians would see the overcoming ofearly misconceptions held by the Bahá'í community, or byparts of the Bahá'í community, not as "developments of theBahá'í Faith" - as a non-Bahá'í historianmight well regard them - but as growth of that community's understandingof the Bahá'í Revelation.

It has been suggested that the words of Bahá'u'lláh thata true seeker should "so cleanse his heart that no remnant of either loveor hate may linger therein, lest that love blindly incline him to erroror that hate repel him away from the truth", support the viewpoint of methodologicalagnosticism. But we believe that on deeper reflection it will be recognizedthat love and hate are emotional attachments or repulsions that can irrationallyinfluence the seeker; they are not aspects of the truth itself. Moreover,the whole passage concerns taking "the step of search in the path leadingto the knowledge of the Ancient of Days" and is summarized by Bahá'u'lláhin the words: "Our purpose in revealing these convincing and weighty utterancesis to impress upon the seeker that he should regard all else beside Godas transient, and count all things save Him, Who is the Object of all adoration,as utter nothingness." It is in this context that He says, near the beginningof the passage, that the seeker must, "before all else, cleanse and purifyhis heart . . . from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, andthe allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy." It is similar, we think,to Bahá'u'lláh's injunction to look upon the Manifestationwith His Own eyes. In scientific investigation when searching after thefacts of any matter a Bahá'í must, of course, be entirelyopen-minded, but in his interpretation of the facts and his evaluationo£ evidence we do not see by what logic he can ignore the truth ofthe Bahá'í Revelation which he has already accepted; to doso would, we feel, be both hypocritical and unscholarly.

Undoubtedly the fact that Bahá'í scholars of the historyand teachings of the Faith believe in the Faith that they are studyingwill be a grave flaw in the eyes of many non-Bahá'í academics,whose own dogmatic materialism passes without comment because it is fashionable;but this difficulty is one that Bahá'í scholars share withtheir fellow believers in many fields of human endeavour.

If Bahá'í scholars will try to avoid this snare of allowinga divorce between their faith and their reason, we are sure that they willalso avoid many of the occasions for tension arising between themselvesand their fellow believers.

The sundering of science and religion is but one example of the tendencyof the human mind (which is necessarily limited in its capacity) to concentrateon one virtue, one aspect of truth, one goal, to the exclusion of others.This leads, in extreme cases, to fanaticism and the utter distortion oftruth, and in all cases to some degree of imbalance and inaccuracy. A scholarwho is imbued with an understanding of the broad teachings of the Faithwill always remember that being a scholar does not exempt him from theprimal duties and purposes for which all human beings are created. Allmen, not scholars alone, are exhorted to seek out and uphold the truth,no matter how uncomfortable it may be. But they are also exhorted to bewise in their utterance, to be tolerant of the views of others, to be courteousin their behaviour and speech, not to sow the seeds of doubt in faithfulhearts, to look at the good rather than at the bad, to avoid conflict andcontention, to be reverent, to be faithful to the Covenant of God, to promoteHis Faith and safeguard its honour, and to educate their fellow-men, givingmilk to babes and meat to those who are stronger.

Scholarship has a high station in the Bahá'í teachings,and Bahá'í scholars have a great responsibility. We believethat they would do well to concentrate upon the ascertainment of truth- of a fuller understanding of the subject of their scholarship, whateverits field - not upon exposing and attacking the errors of others, whetherthey be of non-Bahá'ís or of their fellow believers. Inevitablythe demonstration of truth exposes the falsity of error, but the emphasisand motive are important. We refer to these words of Bahá'u'lláh:

We feel that by following such avenues of approach as those describedin this memorandum Bahá'í scholars will find that many ofthe "fears, doubts and anxieties" which were aired at the seminar, willbe dispelled.



     On behalf of the Universal House of Justice, enclosed to a letter to an individual dated 5 October 1993

With regard to the current policy of advance review, all Bahá'ís,whatever their professions, are challenged to reflect on the implicationsof our common struggle to achieve Bahá'u'lláh's purpose forthe human race, including the use of our intellectual resources to gaindeeper understanding of that Revelation and to apply its principles. Inpursuing this course that has been set for it so explicitly and emphaticallyby its Founder, the Bahá'í community acts through the institutionsthat He has provided.

Scholarly endeavors are not an activity apart from this organic processanswering to standards and operating on authority outside it. The Houseof Justice believes that part of the difficulty that some Bahá'íacademics are having with the question of prepublication review may arisefrom the fact that, in their scholarly work, such believers do not seethemselves as full participants in this process, free to act with the spiritualautonomy they exercise in other aspects of their lives. What the Bahá'ícommunity is engaged in bringing into visible expression is a new creation.In this, the Cause has urgent need of the unfettered and wholehearted assistanceof its scholars. The House of Justice has sought to point out that, asin every other field of Bahá'í endeavor, there are certainconditions under which this assistance may be rendered, conditions implicitin the nature of the process and made explicit in the Divine Text.

These requirements are of course not reflected in the standards currentlyprevailing in Western academic institutions. Rather, both Bahá'íinstitutions and Bahá'í scholars are called on to exert avery great effort, of heart, mind, and will, in order to forge the newmodels of scholarly activity and guidance that Bahá'u'lláh'swork requires. The House of Justice believes that you will serve the interestsof the Faith best if you will direct your thoughts to this end. Merelyto reiterate the conventions and requirements of systems which, whetheracademic, political, social, or economic, have been shown not to have adequateanswers to the anarchy now engulfing human society, or any willingnessto come to grips with the implications of their impotence, is of littlepractical help. We do a grave disservice to both ourselves and the Faithwhen we simply submit to the authority of academic practices that appealfor their claim of objectivity to theories which themselves are being increasinglycalled into question by major thinkers. While non-Bahá'íacademics may slip carelessly into regarding the institutions founded byBahá'u'lláh as simply another form of "religious establishment"and avoid serious examination of the truths of His Revelation in this fashion,it is clearly impossible for anyone who is a Bahá'í to followthem down this empty track.

The House of Justice is aware that the continuation of the policy ofreview can cast a shadow on the good name of the Faith in the eyes of certainnon-Bahá'í academics. In an environment where publicationis vital to advancement and recognition, any requirement that delays orinhibits this activity must be a matter of grave consideration, not onlyby the individual scholar but by the governing institutions of the communitythat eagerly watches his rise and counts anxiously on his effective assistance.But is that not precisely the kind of spiritual dilemma being faced bymany Bahá'ís in their efforts to serve Bahá'u'lláhs purpose? On many occasions, in developing lands particularly, believersof capacity have had to forgo opportunities for promising political careers,careers whose value they could easily have justified on the basis of publicservice, because such a choice was not in conformity with Bahá'u'lláh'steaching and purpose. There are, likewise, many examples of believers whohave had to set aside both a professional life and legitimate family concernsin order to pioneer in inhospitable regions of the globe.

It is apparent that the crisis of contemporary civilization is impellingthinkers in many lands to explore new scholarly methodologies capable ofcoming to grips with spiritual, moral, cultural, and social phenomena nothitherto encountered. No segment of humanity is so well equipped as theBahá'í community to take a leading role in this effort. Asa body of people who are being steadily freed by the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláhfrom the "gravitational pull", so to speak, of the cultures in which theirhabits of mind have been formed, the community already has a unique approachto the exploration of reality. This approach needs to be sharply honedas an ever more effective instrument of social transformation. The devisingof the new scholarly paradigm called for by this circumstance offers apriceless opportunity of service and achievement to those Bahá'íswho enjoy the dual gifts of spiritual faith and intellectual facultiestrained in the best that contemporary society has to offer.

The Universal House of Justice can only invite Bahá'íscholars, as it invites all other believers, to respond to this historicchallenge, in whatever way and to whatever extent each person considerspossible. It is confident that, in Bahá'í scholarship asin all other areas of Bahá'í service, the essential resourceswill gradually be forthcoming and the required models of research and studywill be refined through the process of consultation. It is this achievement,the House of Justice believes, that in the long run will best protect thereputation of the Cause from whatever immediate misunderstandings and criticismsit may encounter. Indeed it is greatly encouraged by the response thatBahá'í scholars in many fields are already making.



     From a letter on behalf of the Universal House of Justice, dated 19 October 1993

The House of Justice suggests that the issues raised in your lettermight best be considered in light of the statements in the Bahá'íWritings which disclose the relationship between the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláhand the knowledge which is acquired as a result of scholarly endeavours.Bahá'u'lláh asserts that:

Those believers with the capacity and opportunity to do so have repeatedlybeen encouraged in their pursuit of academic studies by which they arenot only equipped to render much needed services to the Faith, but arealso provided with the means to acquire a profound insight into the meaningand the implications of the Bahá'í Teachings. They discoveralso that the perceptions gained from a deeper understanding of the Revelationof Bahá'u'lláh clarify the subjects of their academic inquiry.

It is useful to review a number of statements written by Shoghi Effendion this subject. To a believer who had completed advanced academic studiesin a subject related to the Teachings the Guardian stated, in a letterwritten on his behalf:

Since you have raised the question of whether physics is more than tangentiallyrelated to Bahá'í issues, you might consider the followingcomments of a well-known scientific thinker, who is not a Bahá'í,about the correlation between the Bahá'í Teachings and recentdevelopments in the physical sciences: