TABLE OF CONTENTS¶i. Some Prefatory Notes and Considerations
¶ii. Format of this section
¶1. 'Abdu'l-Bahá
¶1.1. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Journeys in America and Europe
¶2. Administrative Order: History and Institutions
¶2.1. Establishment of the Administrative Order, 1921-37
¶2.2. The Guardianship
¶2.3. Rulers and Learned
¶2.4. The Interregnum and Election of the House of Justice (1957-63)
¶2.5. Houses of Justice
¶3. Afterlife
¶4. Agriculture
¶5. Art, Literature, Music, Architecture
¶6. The Báb and the Bábí Movement, 1844-62
¶6.1. The Báb: Early Life and Prophetic Career
¶6.2. The Báb's Teachings: Sources and Historical Context
¶6.3. The Bábí Community
¶7. Background of the Bahá'í Faith: Islam, Shaykhism, and Iran
¶7.1. Background: Islam and Shí'ism
¶7.2. Background: Nineteenth-Century Iran and Shaykhism
¶8. Bahá'í Communities of the World
¶8.1. The Bahá'í Faith in Africa, Latin America, and Oceania
¶8.2. The Bahá'í Faith in Europe
¶8.3. The Bahá'í Faith in Iran
¶8.4. The Bahá'í Faith in North America
¶8.5. The Bahá'í Faith in the Former Soviet Union
¶8.6. The Bahá'í Faith in South and East Asia
¶9. Bahá'í Faith, Introduction to
¶10. Bahá'í History
¶10.1. Bahá'í History, 1863-92
¶10.2. Bahá'í History, 1921-1953
¶10.3. Bahá'í History, 1953-63
¶10.4. Bahá'í History, 1963-79
¶10.5. Bahá'í History, 1979-Present
¶11. Bahá'u'lláh
¶11.1. Bahá'u'lláh's Life and Mission
¶11.2. Bahá'u'lláh's Writings
¶12. Community
¶13. Consultation
¶14. Conversion
¶15. Covenant
¶16. Creation: Its Origin and Purpose
¶17. Economics
¶18. Education
¶19. Environment
¶20. Epistemology: The Bahá'í Theory and Sources of Knowledge
¶21. Ethics
¶22. Family Life: Marriage, Divorce, and Sexuality
¶23. Fasting
¶24. Feasts, Holy Days, and the Calendar
¶25. Female Imagery / Maid of Heaven
¶26. Funds and the Huqúqu'lláh
¶27. Gender Issues and Equality
¶28. God, Concept of
¶29. Health, Healing, and Medicine
¶30. Hermeneutics and Interpretation
¶31. History and Historiography
¶32. Holy Places, Bahá'í (World Centre and the Arc)
¶33. Houses of Worship
¶34. Humanity: Its Nature and Purpose
¶35. Justice / Divine Justice
¶36. Law and Personal Conduct
¶37. Manifestations of God
¶38. Mysticism
¶39. New World Order
¶40. Peace and War
¶41. Persecution and Martyrdom
¶42. Philosophy
¶43. Pilgrimage
¶44. Pioneering
¶45. Politics
¶46. Prayer and Meditation
¶47. Principles, Bahá'í
¶48. Prophecy
¶48.1. Biblical and Islamic Prophecies
¶48.2. Prophecies in Hinduism and Buddhism
¶48.3. Native American Prophecies
¶48.4. Other Prophecies
¶49. Psychic Phenomena and the Occult
¶50. Psychology
¶51. Racial Diversity and Race Relations
¶52. Religion: Definition of
¶53. Religious Dialogue and Pluralism
¶53.1. Ahmadíyya
¶53.2. Buddhism
¶53.3. Christianity
¶53.4. Confucianism and Taoism
¶53.5. Hinduism
¶53.6. Islam and Sufism
¶53.7. Jainism
¶53.8. Judaism
¶53.9. Manichaeism
¶53.10. Mormonism
¶53.11. Native and "Primal" Religions
¶53.12. New Age Movements
¶53.13. Sabaeanism
¶53.14. Sikhism
¶53.15. Zoroastrianism
¶54. Revelation
¶55. Ritual Practices and Ceremonies
¶56. Sacred History: Progressive Revelation
¶57. Sacred Story (Mythology)
¶58. Scholarship and the Academy
¶59. Science and Religion
¶60. Scripture
¶61. Shoghi Effendi
¶62. Sin, Evil, and Satan
¶63. Social Order
¶64. The Spiritual Life
¶65. Tests, and Growth
¶66. Theology
¶67. Unity / Unity in Diversity
¶68. Work
¶i. Some Prefatory Notes and Considerations:
This guide is the product of years of work by a variety of people, and may
display consequent inconsistencies. We are gradually making it more
uniform as we revise it, but the sheer volume of articles and our attempt
to link all parts of the guide into one uniform presentation make it
unavoidable that there will be gaps. Below are the gaps we are aware
of.
* Where the writings of the primary figures are included in multiple books, as they usually are, we have included some of the more common sources but have made no attempt to be exhaustive. The exception is the volume Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, which, containing all of Bahá'u'lláh's translated writings--save parts of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, The Proclamation of Bahá'u'lláh, and Bahá'í Prayers--is the most complete single collection of Bahá'u'lláh's texts in English. Since some instructors might wish to assign this one book and others use individual texts instead (and since Writings of Bahá'u'lláh neither contains an index nor is in REFER), we have cross-referenced all of these citations.* We have given some of the main scriptural citations for every topic, but these are not and could not be complete: not only are the writings too vast to cite every relevant quote, and not only are new translations, both authoritative (done under the auspices of the Universal House of Justice) and provisional (done by individuals) continually being produced, but not all of the extant writings have even been archived yet.
* There are many academic and semi-academic journals which are both of quite limited circulation and are somewhat obscure. We have not included articles found in some of these partly because we sometimes could not find them and partly because only the professional researcher will have access to them. Indeed, even the most thorough of all bibliographies on the Bahá'í Faith, William Collins' Bibliography of English-Language Works on the Bábí and Bahá'í Faiths 1844-1985, does not cite every article ever published.
* Many unpublished translations, articles, historical documents, bibliographies, pilgrims' notes, and book reviews are available on the internet. These have not been cited here. Please see "Description of Bahá'í Internet Resources," below.
* Since this Guide has an index we have not extensively cross-referenced topics. The index should be consulted because sometimes more than one subject heading will include relevant information for any particular topic. For ideas on what related topics to look up, one can consult the sections given in the curriculum guides, above, or the cross-referencing provided in the index.
* The guide is thorough, but not exhaustive. There are doubtless numerous books which deserve to be listed that we either do not know of or have overlooked. Recommendations for additions are encouraged.
The format of entries in this section will, for the most part, follow the following pattern. The presentation of certain subjects may depart slightly from the following, for some entries will not feature all four of these elements.
¶X. Subject Heading
¶X.1. Subject sub-heading (if applicable)
1- Brief definition of subject (if applicable).
2- Primary source writings: i.e., works of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, or the Universal House of Justice pertaining to the subject.*
3- References to the subject in the basic Bahá'í textbooks. Books cited here are J. E. Esslemont's Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era (5th ed.), Gloria Faizi's The Bahá'í Faith, John Ferraby's All Things Made New, William S. Hatcher and J. Douglas Martin's The Bahá'í Faith, John Huddleston's The Earth is But One Country, Moojan Momen's A Short Introduction to the Bahá'í Faith, and Peter Smith's A Short History of the Bahá'í Faith, (cited as Smith 1996) and The Bábí and Bahá'í Religions (cited as Smith 1987). Pages cited here supplement but are not identical with the page numbers offered in the indices of these books. Wendi Momen's A Basic Bahá'í Dictionary and Glenn Cameron and Wendi Momen's A Basic Bahá'í Chronology would also be useful to an instructor or researcher.
4- Bibliographic notes of modern scholarship on the subject. This latter section will, of course, be more temporally limited than the above. That is, while the references in the above textbooks will remain useful (indeed, Esslemont's book is now over s even decades old), the journal and book entries of contemporary scholarship will only be as current as the latest edition of this guide.
* It should be noted that the edition of Lights of Guidance cited here, 2d revised and enlarged edition 1988, differs in page and citation numbering from the 1st, 3d, and 4th editions. This edition was chosen to cite because it seems to be the most commonly-owned one.