Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas

The Laws and Teachings of the Bahá’í Faith

Author: Omid Ghaemmaghami and Shahin Vafai

The first comprehensive study of the Bahá’ís holy text, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, complete with extensive annotations

"This handbook is the first rigorous and comprehensive study of the Bahâa'âis holy text, the Kitâab-i-Aqdas (the "Most Holy Book"). The Kitâab-i-Aqdas was written by Bahâa'u'llâah in 1873 and covers the theology, laws and principles that guide the Bahâa'âi faith"--

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Summary

The first comprehensive study of the Bahá’ís holy text, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, complete with extensive annotations

Description

The Kitáb-i-Aqdas is considered the most important and sacred text of the Bahá’í Faith, a religion with some eight million adherents, found in nearly every country of the world. It sets out the laws, teachings, and institutions that shape and influence individual and collective life for members of the Bahá’í community. Despite the Kitáb-i-Aqdas’s significance, it has not been extensively researched. Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Laws and Teachings of the Bahá’í Faith now offers a comprehensive academic study of the text.

This important new publication explores and analyzes the significance and history of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas; its language, style, and translation; and its theological and spiritual foundations, including its conceptions of God, religion, and human beings. The book, moreover, examines the Kitáb-i-Aqdas’s provisions for succession, interpretation, and administration within the Bahá’í religion; its devotional and other personal laws; its ordinances for promoting unity; its perspectives on justice and law; and its addresses to the world’s political and religious leaders. Academically rigorous yet eminently clear and accessible, Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is an essential read for students of religion and Middle East studies.

Critic Reviews

A landmark, scholarly introduction and guide to the Baha’i faith’s holy book, Ghaemmaghami and Vafai’s impressively researched work contextualizes the sacred text within the corpus of its founder’s writings and those of his successors, explains and clarifies its language, elucidates and expands on each of its topics, and provides an overarching view of its contents. An indispensable resource for a deeper understanding of the Kitab-i-Aqdas and its place in the Baha’i religion. -- Ali Banuazizi, Professor of Political Science, Boston College, USA
This book is a valuable contribution to the fields of Bahá’í and religious studies. It gives a thorough and accessible overview of the history, contents and style of the Kitáb-i Aqdas, situating it within Bahá’í theology. This is all the more important because, despite being the central text of the Bahá’í faith, the Kitáb-i Aqdas has been woefully under-researched so far. -- Johanna Pink, Professor of Islamic Studies and the History of Islam, University of Freiburg, Germany

By exploring the history and contents of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Omid Ghaemmaghami and Shahin Vafai have expanded our knowledge of the laws and teachings of the Bahá’í Faith. Such a work, perfectly grounded in textual and intellectual history, is a major step in 19th century Near Eastern studies. With impressive skill it makes clear the complex formation of belief and law in a new-born religious community.

-- Roberto Tottoli, Professor, Università di Napoli L’Orientale, Italy

This is the most comprehensive academic study to date of the Kitab-i Aqdas, the core legal and doctrinal book of Baha’i scripture. The authors have succeeded in elucidating the intricacies of the original, tracing its relationship to earlier religious texts, and examining its place in the religious history of nineteenth-century Iran and beyond.

-- Dominic P Brookshaw, Professor of Persian Literature and Iranian Culture, University of Oxford, UK
The … silence about the developments of the Bahá’í Faith … is gladly dissipating. The publication of this study of the central text of the faith is a welcome step in filling that lacuna. -- Abbas Milani, Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies, Research Fellow/Hoover Institution, Stanford University, USA
Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, written by two meticulous and erudite scholars, provides a comprehensive, in-depth, and engaging analysis of the text. It presents the laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas in terms of Bahá’u’lláh’s mystical theology. On the one hand, laws become expressions of a theology of dialectical and progressive revelation. On the other hand, the main purpose of these laws, which is the unification of humankind, is seen as the objective realization of the theology of unity—establishing the kingdom of God on earth. Exploring the Kitab-i-Aqdas is a creative work of scholarship that is highly academic and yet genuinely accessible to all readers. It is a must-read for all students of society and religion. -- Nader Saiedi, retired Professor of Sociology (Carleton College) and Adjunct Professor of Bahá’í Studies (UCLA), USA
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the central authoritative scripture from Bahá’u’lláh (d. 1892), founder of the Bahá’í Faith. This excellent and much-needed exploration is the first in-depth scholarly study and analysis of such an important text—for Bahá’ís, the most important text. As such, it sets the tone and provides categories for further discussion, debate, and analysis. It is a long-awaited and most welcome addition to scholarship on the Bahá’í Faith and will remain a primary reference work for some time to come. -- Todd Lawson, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada
A systematic and meticulously detailed close reading of the most sacred text governing the life of Bahá’u’lláh’s devotees. Placed in its historical context and in relationship to other Bahá’í texts, this splendid reading, exhibiting a deep mastery of Arabic, Persian and English, reveals a text that is not just a code of laws, but an invitation to a lavish and jubilant feast that is life itself; a text animated by a linguistic play that intentionally flouts the rules of Arabic grammar, reflecting Bahá’u’lláh’s bold departure from societal conventions and the use of lexical couplets, double plurals, metaphor, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, personification, and a singular colloquialism that rhythmically imprint, at once, Bahá’u’lláh’s metaphysical teachings onto the human frame and underscore, with every pulsating beat, the ephemerality of each now, brimming as it is with infinite bounty. -- Negar Mottahedeh, Professor, Graduate Program in Literature, Duke University
Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is … a landmark achievement. For millions of followers of the Baha’i Faith around the globe, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the most sacred and important book written by Baha’u’llah, and yet it has received scant scholarly attention. Omid Ghaemmaghami and Shahin Vafai bring a formidable erudition to bear on explaining various dimensions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: its history and context, its theological foundations, its laws and principles, and its vision and message. This is a book that will be indispensable to anyone interested in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas itself, but also to anyone who wishes to better understand the book’s relationship with other Baha’i texts as well as the relationship between the Baha’i Faith and other world religions. -- Assef Ashraf, Associate Professor in the Eastern Islamic Lands and Persian-Speaking World, University of Cambridge, UK

Omid Ghaemmaghami and Shahin Vafai have offered us the first-ever comprehensive analysis of Bahá’ulláh’s Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the foundational text of the Bahá’í religion. This is a landmark contribution to Bahá’í Studies and a must-read for anyone interested in delving deeply into the history, theology, laws, and practices of the world’s youngest monotheistic faith.

-- Alexander Treiger, Professor of Religious Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada

About the Author

Omid Ghaemmaghami is Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton, USA. He is the author of works in Islamic, Bábí, and Bahá’í studies.

Shahin Vafai is an attorney with nearly three decades of experience in law. He is the co-author of a legal treatise on appellate practice and of works in Bahá’í studies.