One of the foundational philosophical premises at the heart of Baha'i ontology is that the structure of 'being' (wujúd) is one of 'process' and 'becoming' rather then static and fixed. This dynamic ontology in the writings of Baha'u'llah is typified by the symbolism of Fire which via its attribute `heat', is the cause of motion and hence the...
From the earliest days of the advent of the Babi—Baha'i religions both polemical and scholarly sources have noted similarities between Ismai'ili thought and that of the Babi—Baha'i religions. In light of the apparent similarities and correspondences between these so called heterodoxies, however, very little has been done in a sustained lo...
One of the more obscure visionary landscapes in the spiritual topography of Islamic gnosis and mysticism, which has also found mention in the Babi-Baha'i scriptures, is a perfumed and redolent earth, called the land of Saffron/Za'faran, or ard-i-za'faran. This term in its current linguistic form (ard-i-zafaran), seems to first appear in the work of...
One of the more esoteric terms in Shi`i-Shaykhi thought that has found its way into the vast corpus of the Babi-Baha'i sacred scriptures is called `the realm of subtle entities' or `alam-i dharr (lit. world of particles). The source of inspiration for this term (dharr) in the early Shi'i cosmology and cosmogony lies in one of the more important and...
