Word: bahai
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According to the 19-month calendar followed by the worldwide religion known as Bahai, the first day of this week was the 13th of Jalal, in the year 120. It was a red-letter day in the lives of Bahai's 2,000,000 followers. In Haifa, Israel, 504 leaders of the sect gathered to elect by secret ballot nine of their members who will form a Universal House of Justice. After the results are announced to the first world congress of Bahai in London next week, the House will have infallible powers to legislate for the faithful...
...House has plenty of sacred scripture to guide its decisions. Each of Bahai's chief prophets, the 19th century Islamic heretics known as Bab and Baha'u'llah, wrote his own five-foot shelf of divine revelations. In addition, Bahai (Persian for "follower of Baha'u'llah") broad-mindedly welcomes the wisdom of all the great religious teachers, from Moses to Christ to Mohammed to Buddha. "We love all religions," says Canadian-born Ruhiyyih Rabbani, widow of Baha'u'llah's great-grandson...
Founder Baha'u'llah ("the manifestation of God") had appointed his son ("the perfect man") to succeed him, and the son in turn appointed Shoghi Effendi Rabbani ("a man under divine guidance"). When Asian flu carried off 61-year-old Shoghi Effendi in London last month. Bahais from Illinois to Iran speculated on whom he had appointed to carry on as Guardian. At Bahai world headquarters in Haifa last week 26 of the 27 "Hands of the Cause of God," chief stewards of the faith, gathered to find the answer in Shoghi Effendi's will. But where...
...Everything would certainly have been much simpler if Shoghi Effendi had made a will," said a Hand from Paris when the meeting was over. But Bahais have hopes that they will not remain without scriptural interpretation too long. Founder Baha'u'llah decreed that when Bahaism was established in 57 countries, the world's Bahais were to elect a Universal House of Justice with power to make the faith's laws and interpret its teachings. The liberal, world-brotherhood Bahai religion is already rooted in 26 countries and, say its devotees, is spreading fast...
...Iran, Bahai proselytizing has been a lot more real than in the State Department. Orthodox Moslems have long resented the inroads made by Bahaism among young intellectuals and government leaders-even including some Army generals, such as General Abdulkarim Ayadi, the Shah's own physician. Thi month's suppression of Bahai in Iran came after a steady campaign of anti-Bahai polemics by Moslem leaders during the month-long fast of Ramadan, tradtionally a time for political preaching in Islam. The Moslems forced the government to take over Bahai headquarter with troops, are hoping to close Bahai schools...