“Regarding the Bahá’í funeral service: It is extremely simple, as it
consists only of a congregational prayer to be read before burial. This
prayer will be made available to the friends when the Aqdas is translated
and published. In the meantime your N.S.A. should take great care lest any
uniform procedure or ritual in this matter be adopted or imposed upon the
friends. The danger in this, as in some other cases regarding Bahá’í
worship, is that a definite system of rigid rituals and practices be
developed among the believers. The utmost simplicity and flexibility
should be observed, and a selection from the Bahá’í Sacred Writing should
serve the purpose at the present time, provided this selection is not
rigidly and uniformly adopted on all such occasions.”
“There is no objection whatsoever to non-Bahá’ís being present when the
long prayer for the dead is read, as long as they respect our manner of
reading it by rising and standing as the Bahá’ís do on this occasion. Nor,
indeed, is there any objection to non-Bahá’ís being present during the
reading of any Bahá’í prayer for the departed.
“An official Bahá’í funeral service should only be given for a believer,
but there is no objection to the reading of Bahá’í prayers, or indeed, to
a Bahá’í conducting the funeral service of a non-Bahá’í if this has been
requested.”
86: GREATEST NAME (TRANSLATION OF SYMBOL OF)
“He also wishes me to inform you that the symbol of the Greatest Name
represents an invocation which can be translated either as ‘O Glory of
Glories’ or ‘O Glory of the All-Glorious’. The word Glory used in this
connection is a translation of the Arabic term ‘Bahá, the name of
Bahá’u’lláh.”
87: GROUP, BAHÁ’Í
“...next to an isolated believer, any number of confirmed Bahá’ís less
than nine persons should be considered as automatically constituting a
Bahá’í Group...”
88: GUARDIAN (INFALLIBILITY OF THE)
“The infallibility of the Guardian is confined to matters which are
related strictly to the Cause and interpretation of the teachings; he is
not an infallible authority on other subjects, such as economics, science,
etc. When he feels that a certain thing is essential for the protection of
the Cause, even if it is something that affects a person personally, he
must be obeyed, but when he gives advice, such as that he gave you in a
previous letter about your future, it is not binding; you are free to
follow it or not as you please.”
89: GUIDANCE, DIVINE (OF GUARDIAN)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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