How accurate is this?

Well, as a work of genaeological research, it seems a little optimistic at best. :)

However, what is particularly interesting is the claim that descent entirely decides who rules the Universal House of Justice for the Baha'i faith - which seems a much more overt political statement than I'd normally expect.

I guess it's a common problem with groups when they begin to form an identity for themselves - often the new needs to be justified by the old, and in the ancient world especially genaeology was everything - if you had no ancestors of worth, then you had no worth to speak of. That's why Julius Caesar decided on his own ancestry being of Venus, and possibly also why Christians claim that Jesus is both entirely the Son of God, and yet also happens to be a direct descend of David. Ancestors provide legitimacy, and as Baha'i is claiming to be the fulfillment of various world religions, I guess it's hardly too surprising that they are therefore claiming a direct descendency from key religious groups, as act of self-legitimisation.
 
Very Cynical Brian.. I like what you say :) It's like Alexander the great claimed to be an off spring of a God and also a descendant of an other infinitely famous Greek hero Archiles.

But you know. As I'm doing research on Christianity, they took texts out of the bible that were "mostly likely" words of Jesus and they found the odds pretty low of him thinking himself as the son of God. So as for Christ claiming to be anything he actually hardly did, he often left it up to people to figure that out and not only because he would have been considered a blasphemer. I suppose human corruption eventually makes its way into anything. Since the bible was originally written in Greek they might well had got the Son of God idea from Alexander the Great? And Hercules? But still I would never deny Christ’s divinity this I stand by, after all it is core to Christian belief.

 
Well, certainly individual instances require individual considerations - but as you astutely note, once people in the ancient world were successful, they had to attribute it to some form of Divine ancestry.

In this instance, you have the Baha'i organisation not simply trying to create a direct ancestry to any single major religious figure, but instead trying to attribute the Baha'u'llah's ancestry to *every* single major religious figure in the east. It's hard not to read this as an interpretation of their aspirations, rather than any actual genaeological relationship.
 
Also it occurs to me that Baha’is believe Bahá'u'lláh was a descendant of king David, just as the bible says Christ is.. Here is my conclusion of the Baha'i faith, it is an attempt for a reformation of Islam by well educated and very logical Persians and doing such thing is an act of God in my view anyway.
 
Hello all:

I was interested in several of these posts the past few days:

Brian wrote:

However, what is particularly interesting is the claim that descent entirely decides who rules the Universal House of Justice for the Baha'i faith - which seems a much more overt political statement than I'd normally expect.

Brian wrote:

In this instance, you have the Baha'i organisation not simply trying to create a direct ancestry to any single major religious figure, but instead trying to attribute the Baha'u'llah's ancestry to *every* single major religious figure in the east. It's hard not to read this as an interpretation of their aspirations, rather than any actual genaeological relationship.

Postmaster:

Also it occurs to me that Baha’is believe Bahá'u'lláh was a descendant of king David, just as the bible says Christ is.. Here is my conclusion of the Baha'i faith, it is an attempt for a reformation of Islam by well educated and very logical Persians and doing such thing is an act of God in my view anyway.

___________________________________

My own feeling is that perhaps some quotes or sources might have been appropriate here..... and maybe an effort on your parts to bring your concerns to the Baha'i boards or to me personally.

Nothing like asking a Baha'i, eh?

I also note that there is a schismatic group that has a web page entitled "UHJ" claiming Davidic ancestory for Baha'u'llah and so on... Baha'is are well aware of this site and it's mascarade.

So do Baha'is themselves place a lot of credence in the Davidic descent material?

Noted Baha'i scholar Robert Stockman wrote the following 8/24/2000

There is no physical genealogy of Baha'u'llah that goes all the way back to Abraham or even to the Sassanian kings. Mirza Abu'l-Fadl says he saw a piece of paper (I suppose in the family papers) about the family's genealogy. I have no idea how complete it was.

I read the genealogy as symbolically important. I rather doubt there was anyone, even in the nineteenth century, who could prove descent from Abraham. Now a days people reconstruct their genealogies using census, baptismal, and church records, and personal papers like diaries. No censuses and other records were even created systematically before the Roman Empire, and then not again until the Islamic flourishings of 800-1250 and the 1600s in Europe. The Roman records were lost long ago, as have been most Islamic records....

That's another reason I say the genealogy is probably symbolically important, not materially important.

Source:

http://bahai-library.com/wwwboard/messages00/561.html

Mirza Abul Fadl-i-Gulpagani was a scholar who reputedly traced the ancestry of Baha'u'llah to Yazdigird III the last Sassanid ruler of Persia. This geneology was confiscated and no one really has a copy of it that is extant after all these years. See Stockman's note above.

Baha'u'llah's ancestry was illustrious enough for His father Mirza Buzurg to be the "Vazir-i-Nuri" meaning he was a Governor of the province of Nur in the Mazindaran region. This region was known for having many holdouts to Moslem rule and ergo Zoroastrians were plentiful. Fath Ali Shah admired the calligraphy of Mirza Buzurg and favored him with presents and honors... This favor did not continue however under Muhammad Shah who reigned 1834-1848 due to the animosity of the Shah's grandvizir Haji Mirza Aqasi.

Details of this are available on pp. 11-12 of "Baha'u'llah King of Glory" by H.M. Balyuzi A text that is still in print.

Personally I feel a little let down that both Brian and Postmaster who knew full well about the Baha'i Board at CR did not bring this matter to my attention earlier.

- Art
 
Art, remember that CR is a general interfaith forum, and people post about various issues relating to faith across various boards. It isn't really fair to expect that members of various faiths should be alerted to postings in other boards, if they do not necessarily wish to engage in them. Some people much prefer to keep to individual faith boards, but this is entirely their choice - CR offers everybody a much wider scope for interfaith discussion, but only if they wish to engage in it.

As for the comments about the geneaology - I'm a little confused by them. Are you saying that the UHJ.net website has nothing to do with the actual mainstream Baha'i movement? Also, I'm not certain how a geneaology can be determined to be symbolic, when it attempts a high degree of detail??
 
Just to point out I was not aiming this discussion on the Baha'i faith but this genealogical diagram as a whole, there is no forum that would fit correctly since there are religious leaders of many eastern and Middle Eastern faiths in the diagram.
 
Brian wrote:

As for the comments about the geneaology - I'm a little confused by them. Are you saying that the UHJ.net website has nothing to do with the actual mainstream Baha'i movement? Also, I'm not certain how a geneaology can be determined to be symbolic, when it attempts a high degree of detail??
__________________

My reply:

Well Brian all i can say i was dissappointed these remarks were not brought to our attention earlier so confusion could be reduced...

Yes there are "knock-off" websites around that mascarade themselves ...this is a little like "identity theft" in other words, posing to be something they aren't and misleading people. Being a responsible administrator on CF you should know about this or at least ask me or another Baha'i if questions come up in the future.

There is a group that makes a great deal about Davidic descent and they have nothing to do with bona fide Baha'i Faith.

As above there is no extant geneological chart that is extant connecting Baha'u'llah to even Yazdigird III even though Mirza Abu Fadl reportedly had one...as to David there are allusions of prophecy made but no claims of connection...so please let's get our facts straight or do some research. I'd happy to assist in any way i can!

- Art
 
Thanks for the correction on the issue of IHJ.net, Art - much appreciated.

However, please also appreciate that with over 2,000 members here, as a matter of course I simply cannot start PM'ing people to go look at threads relating to their faith where their faith is known.

I have also never made it a policy to PM any moderators about topics relating to their faith, but posted outside of their faith board area.

It is entirely the responsibility of individual members here to make their own decisions as to which boards/threads/posts they wish to read, or even comment upon. I simply play host to the discussions - it is not for myself to ensure that discussions are answered in any specific way, or to any specific perspective - merely that discussions are approached in a relatively mature and civil manner.

I know there are a number of regular Baha'is read and discuss issues around CR in general, so it was always going to be simply a matter of time before a Baha'i perspective entered this thread and corrected any misperceptions. This is the way that threads develop at CR across all faiths.
 
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