The Baha’i FaithGroup 4 : Jeremy, Haslina, Cynthia & Sofea

Symbol of the Baha’i Faith

And the meaning…

History & Background • The Baha'i faith was founded in the mid-19th century in Iran.

• In 1844 Siyyid ‘Ali Mohammad, a Shiite Muslim, proclaimed that he was "the Bab," "the Gate," a special sort of interpreter of the Quran with special religious insight and prophetic abilities; he was the "Hidden Imam."

• The Bab's prophetic message spread in Iran, which angered both the government and the Shiite leadership. He was arrested and then executed.

• One of the Bab's disciples, Mirza Hoseyn ‘Ali Nuri, known as Baha'u'llah, spread the Bab's teachings; these teachings eventually evolved into the Baha'i faith, and it is Baha'u'llah who is most typically known as the founder of the tradition.

• Baha'i propounds that God is utterly transcendent and ultimately unknowable to humanity.

•God's manifestation is understood in Baha'i to come not just through the Bab and Baha'u'llah, but also through the world's religious prophets, including Abraham, Moses, the Buddha, Krishna, and Muhammad. 

The Nature of Human Being According to The Baha’i Faith

•Human beings are seen in the Baha'i scriptures as having two aspects to their nature: a spiritual aspect, which will survive death and is thus eternal, and a physical aspect, which human beings share with animals and which ends with death.

• The spiritual is the true reality of human beings and what distinguishes them from animals, but while on earth, this is concealed from humans by the fact that the demands of the human body seem more pressing and divert their attention from the spiritual.

•Human beings natural tendencies - inclined to concentrate on the physical, becoming full of greed, lust, arrogance, and other vices.

• The Manifestations of God, the founders of the world's religions, are sent to guide humanity away from this concentration on their animal nature and to educate human beings on how to develop their spiritual aspect.

Baha’is Beliefs About Human Nature and The Soul

What do Baha’is believe about the soul?According to Bahai teachings:

•Human is fundamentally spiritual and the essential identity of each person is defined by an invisible, rational, and everlasting soul.

• The soul shows itself through the qualities of character that we associate with each person.

• The soul is the focal point for love and compassion, for faith and courage, and for other such "human" qualities that cannot be explained solely by thinking of a human being as an animal or as a sophisticated organic machine.

• The soul animates the body and distinguishes human beings from the animals.

• It grows and develops only through the individual's relationship with God

• The relationship is fostered through prayer, knowledge of the scriptures revealed by these Teachers, love for God, moral self-discipline, and service to humanity. This process is what gives meaning to life.

Besides the emphasis on the soul, the Bahá'í Faith also does not encourage a negative view of the body.

Since the body is the vehicle of the rational soul in this life

on earth, it is important to maintain and care for it. Bahá'u'lláh

strongly discouraged any form of extreme self-denial. His

emphasis was on healthy discipline. Therefore the Bahá'í writings

contain a number of practical laws relating to the care of the

human body: proper nutrition, regular bathing, and so forth.

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