Bahai Faith; Peace -- Religious aspects -- Bahai Faith
become believers although our fathers and ancestors were not believers,
and we are proud of them. Tell us what is going to become of them?”
Muḥammad replied, “I declare unto you that they occupy the lowest stratum
of hell because they did not believe in Moses and Christ and because they
did not accept the Bible; and although they are my own ancestors, yet they
are in despair in hell.” This is an explicit text of the Qur’án; it is not
a story or tradition but from the Qur’án itself, which is in the hands of
the people. Therefore, it is evident that ignorance and misunderstanding
have caused so much warfare and strife between Christians and Muslims. If
both should investigate the underlying truth of their religious beliefs,
the outcome would be unity and agreement; strife and bitterness would pass
away forever and the world of humanity find peace and composure. Consider
that there are two hundred and fifty million Christians and three hundred
million Muslims. How much blood has flowed in their wars; how many nations
have been destroyed; how many children have been made fatherless; how many
fathers and mothers have mourned the loss of children and dear ones! All
this has been due to prejudice, misunderstanding and imitations of
ancestral beliefs without investigation of reality. If the Holy Books were
rightly understood, none of this discord and distress would have existed,
but love and fellowship would have prevailed instead. This is true with
all the other religions as well. The conditions I have named will apply
equally to all. The essential purpose of the religion of God is to
establish unity among mankind. The divine Manifestations were Founders of
the means of fellowship and love. They did not come to create discord,
strife and hatred in the world. The religion of God is the cause of love,
but if it is made to be the source of enmity and bloodshed, surely its
absence is preferable to its existence; for then it becomes satanic,
detrimental and an obstacle to the human world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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