Dr. A.K. Merchant
Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith, Baha’is believe has ushered in a religious system that takes into perspective the positive contributions of all the faith-based traditions and religions of the past. Born in Iran on 12th November 1817, He claimed to be the bearer of a divine revelation that would meet the spiritual and social needs of humankind for the next one thousand years. Both His parents were renowned for nobility and integrity and connected to royalty. From a tender age, Bahá’u’lláh distinguished Himself from other children by His wisdom and intelligence. Indeed, His mother was continually astonished by Her son, who was so different from others. He would converse on any subject and solve any problem presented to Him. In large gatherings He would discuss matters with the men of learning of His day and explain intricate religious questions.
At age 22 He declined the ministerial career opened to Him in the government, and chose instead to devote His energies to a range of philanthropies which had, by the early 1840s, earned Him widespread renown as “Father of the Poor.” This privileged existence swiftly eroded after 1844, when Bahá’u’lláh became one of the leading advocates of the Bábi movement that was to change the course of His country’s history.
For forty years, Bahá’u’lláh endured imprisonment and exile and by the time of His passing in May 1892 His message had spread all over the Middle East, India with some media reports in Russia and parts of Europe. Leo Tolstoy, the famous novelist, who first heard of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh in 1894 and read a number of His works in Russian translations at a time when the movement was hardly known in the West, is reported to have said: “Very profound, I know of no other so profound.” Edward Granville Browne, an orientalist from Cambridge University, perhaps, the only Westerner to have met Bahá’u’lláh, wrote: “…The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one’s very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow… A mild and dignified voice bade me be seated, and then continued: – “Praise be to God that thou hast attained!… Thou has come to see a prisoner and an exile… We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment… That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be annulled – what harm is there in this?… Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come…”
Bahá’u’lláh wrote to a number nawabs and dignitaries in India and also dispatched emissaries to spread His teachings and some of His mystical works, especially The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys gained wide circulation.
In 1912, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore met Bahá’u’lláh’s son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, during a chance visit to Chicago and was deeply impressed by what he heard of the Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings and later invited Bahá’ís to visit him in Shantiniketan, West Bengal. Likewise, Mahatma Gandhi had a number of encounters with Bahá’ís during the freedom struggle and opportunities to read some of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings. On the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the Bahá’í Faith in 1844-1944, he was quoted at a public function by the then Mayor of Mumbai, Shri Nagen Das, that “the Bahá’í Faith is a solace to mankind.”
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