Papers delivered at the ‘Irfán Colloquium Session #136 ( فارسی )

Bosch Bahá'í School: Santa Cruz, CA

May 26–30, 2016.

Major themes of the Tablets of the World and Maqsud and their intrinsic relationships to the Secret of Divine Civilization of 'Abdu'l-Bahá     edit

by Habib Riazati

Among the tablets of Bahá'u'lláh addressing some of the major issues of our age are the Lawḥ-i-Dunyá and Lawḥ-i-Maqṣud. While in Adrianople, 'Abdu'l-Bahá was asked by Bahá'u'lláh to write a treatise dealing with the crisis of the world and offer some of His solutions which lead to the composition of the Secret of Divine Civilization.

The purpose of this presentation is to correlate the contents of these three Best-Known works by the revealer and the interpreter of the Cause; examine their common concepts/themes and most importantly their relevance to the current social issues.

The Tablet of Maqṣud and the Tablet of the World can be found in the compilation of "Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas". The electronic copies of these two tablets as well as the Secret of Divine Civilization can be found in the English section of Bahá'í Reference Library (www.reference.bahai.org)


Responses to Injustice     edit

by Mehran Bashiri

With the widespread oral history and written accounts of the persecution of Bahá'ís in Iran, significant attention and sympathy have been directed to the cause of the emancipation of the Iranian Bahá'ís. While there are qualitative descriptions, a detailed quantitative account of the injustices that records the atrocities comprehensively is missing. This response may be related to some Bahá'í Writings, where individual Bahá'ís are encouraged to "Pay ye no heed to aversion and rejection, to disdain, hostility, injustice: act ye in the opposite way." "If others ... poison your lives, sweeten their souls ..."

There are other responses, when in Súriy-i-Múlúk, addressing the inhabitants of Constantinople, the Blessed Beauty predicts, "The day is approaching when God will have raised up a people who will call to remembrance Our days, who will tell the tale of Our trials, who will demand the restitution of Our rights from them that, without a tittle of evidence, have treated Us with manifest injustice.