Baha'i Faith

Welcome back! Today we will be talking about the Baha'i Faith. The Baha'i faith is one of the lesser known religions in the world but is one with very interesting values and teachings.

If you recall, the last post I did was about Abrahamic religions, which are simply religions that are said to have started with the prophet Abraham (or Ibraham). Thought Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are the 3 most known Abrahamic religions, the Baha'i Faith is also considered a Abrahamic Religion. The Baha'i Faith was first started in 1844 in Iran and grew out of the Shi'ite branch of the Muslim faith, much like how Christianity grew out from Judaism. The Baha'i faith was first formed by a young Iranian who called himself The Bab. He said that a messenger would soon arrive from God and that this messenger would be the latest in a line of prophets which already includes Moses, Muhammad, and Jesus. At the time, The Bab and his followers were persecuted by the Muslim hierarchy because the teachings contradicted the central point of Islamic faith - That Muhammad was the final prophet.

One of Bab's followers had a revelation while in prison in 1852. The man realized that the prophet that Bab had proclaimed was him. Once having this realization, the man called himself Baha'u'llah, which means the Glory of God. Baha'u'llah is known as the founder of the Baha'i Faith and his life as prophet was spent in a series of exiles. The man ended up writting the Kitab-i-Aqdas, one of the major Baha'i scriptures, as well as other spiritual works and letters.

The Baha'i believe that there is one God and that the universe and creation belong to him. God is believed to be omnipotent, perfect, and has complete knowledge of life. Baha'i also believe that there has only ever been one God and is simply called by a different name in different regions. The idea that God is too great to ever be understood by the finite human mind and that the only thing we can actually know about God is that God exists are also common ideas spread in the Baha'i Faith.

Unlike most other religions, Baha'i Faith is unique because it accepts a;; other faiths as true and valid. The divine nature of the missions of Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, The Buddha, Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad and others are believes to be a further stage in the revelation of God.

Similar to their sister religion, the Baha'i practice fasting as a disipline for their soul. The see abstaining from food as an outer symbol of a spiritual fast. This basically means that they fast to practice self- restraint. The practice this to distance themselves from human appetites and greed so they can concentrate on themselves as a spiritual being and become closer to God. This practice comes from Baha'u'llah who designated a 19 day period of fasting each year before the Baha'i New Year between the 2nd and 21st of March.

The Baha'i worships usually consist of prayer, fasting and meditation. The Baha'i faith has no clergy and virtually no rituals. The only rituals the Baha'i have is 1 ) Obligatory daily prayer, 2 ) Reciting the prayer for the dead at a funeral, and 3 ) The simple marriage rite (a simple wedding). The Baha'i avoid rituals because they easily degenerate and become meaningless so people usually forget the spiritual purpose behind them. The Baha'i also avoid rituals because they can form cultural imperialism, imposing the same rituals across different cultures and destroying their rich diversity.

Thank you for reading. The Baha'i faith was a very intriguing religion to research and I hope it was interesting to read about, hopefully enough to spark a conversation or something. Please comment any thoughts you had on the topic or any countries or religions you'd like me to learn about next.

If you'd like to learn more about the Baha'i Faith from a familiar face, click below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qQLkT9Q8yM

Until next time!

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/bahai/