Of all the diverse issues which today are gradually tending to consolidate
and extend the bounds of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, the decision of
Egypt’s religious Tribunal regarding the Bahá’ís under its jurisdiction
appears at the present moment to be the most powerful in its challenge,
the most startling in its character, and the most perplexing in the
consequences it may entail. I have already alluded in my letter of January
10, 1926, addressed to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of
the United States and Canada, to a particular feature of this momentous
verdict, which after mature deliberation has obtained the sanction of
Egypt’s highest ecclesiastical authorities, has been communicated and
printed, and is regarded as final and binding. I have stressed in my last
reference to this far-reaching pronouncement the negative aspect of this
document which condemns in most unequivocal and emphatic language the
followers of Bahá’u’lláh as the believers in heresy, offensive and
injurious to Islám, and wholly incompatible with the accepted doctrines
and practice of its orthodox adherents.
Bahá’í Cause Recognized as Independent Religion
A closer study of the text of the decision will, however, reveal the fact
that coupled with this strong denunciation is the positive assertion of a
truth which the recognized opponents of the Bahá’í Faith in other
Muhammadan countries have up to the present time either sedulously ignored
or maliciously endeavored to disprove. Not content with this harsh and
unjustifiable repudiation of the so-called menacing and heretical
doctrines of the adherents of the Bahá’í Faith, they proceed in a formal
manner to declare in the text of that very decision their belief, that the
Bahá’í Faith is a “new religion,” “entirely independent” and, by reason of
the magnitude of its claim and the character of its “laws, principles and
beliefs,” worthy to be reckoned as one of the established religious
systems of the world. Quoting various passages judiciously gleaned from a
number of Bahá’í sacred Books as an evidence to their splendid testimony,
they proceed in a notable statement to deduce the fact that henceforth it
shall be regarded as impossible for the followers of such a Faith to be
designated as Muslim, just as it would be incorrect and erroneous to call
a Muhammadan either Christian or Jew.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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