Ravian Bilani

Many years of questions yet to come, Adib

Adib, 

Firstly, I would suggest you consider the tone of your heading "here we go again...." as if these questions have been answered, and it is ridiculous to bring them up again. You face a lifetime of questions, the majority of which will be from intelligent (and yes, some will probably be more intelligent than you) rational people, who despite everything you say to them, every argument you make that you believe makes perfect sense, they will disagree with. And in some instances, they may actually be right, and you will not be able to put down their disagreement to

1) not being able to understand what you or the philosophies to which you subscribe are saying- many WILL understand them fully (again, no matter how much you believe in their infallibility, and believe that if understood properly, they are irrefutable)  and still not agree. They may even offer up their own points of view that you hadn't even thought of before. 

2) them not having all the facts at their disposal, or basing their opinions on incorrect material. 

 3) oversimplification of arguments/issues. 

To express calculated exasperation in the face of VERY serious questions such as these (and I notice you are not alone in the tone of your response)demonstrates a degree of arrogance which is not befitting of a young man of faith such as yourself.   No, people should not mock what they do not fully understand (though here has been quite a lot of that in this forum of late), and I think a young man such as yourself need remind himself of that fact when acknowledging that (at any age) there remain many things that are not properly understood. Follow my drift? 

Here we go again...

Objectively speaking, this was a man who preached the equality of men and women, as I just stated, in the 1860s. In Persia.
How do you think a country as backward (in the fullest sense of the
word; study the open Babi executions in the 1850s) as Persia at that
time reacted to someone overtly preaching this idea? Or the independent
investigation of truth: an ideal that would ultimately eliminate the
need for Shi'ah ecclesiastical authority? Furthermore, Baha'u'llah also
had a broad knowledge of philosophy and religious texts; again I
reiterate, he was not unlettered - he was an intellectual, to say the
least. And as is common knowledge, intelligent people generally do not
contradict themselves. Here was a man who preached some groundbreaking
ideas which made sense, perhaps not to Persians at large back then but
most certainly so in this era - at least on a greater scale than the
late 1800s.

Now then, this man called for an institution of nine individuals to
lead the Baha'i international community at a future point in time. He
did not have to preclude women - on the contrary, to the average person
today looking at this issue on the surface, there wouldn't really have
been a need for him to condition eligibility on that institution by any
means. What's more is that by doing so, he would be apparently
contradicting the aforementioned principle of equality of men and
women, one of the fundamental verities of the Baha'i Faith.

So why did he supposedly contradict himself? (Opinions of others, not mine)
Was it because he came from a religiously extreme country and was
therefore inherently opposed to any ideas outside the sphere of Islamic
fundamentalism? I wouldn't think so; otherwise he would not have been
so quick to dismiss the clergy with his idea of independent
investigation of truth, something not exactly prevalent in Persia
during that time, or even in this day and age.

Friends, would we be outright ridiculous in conjecturing that
perhaps some wisdom went into Baha'u'llah's decision of disallowing
women from joining the Universal House of Justice? Should we mock
something that we don't fully understand? What's more is
that this matter one of the few things that we really base
on faith and trust - and what is religion without some faith? Baha'u'llah's son, `Abdu'l-Baha, remarked that the reason behind this preclusion of women would eventually become as clear as the midday sun (roughly paraphrased). I have faith in `Abdu'l-Baha that this is the case, and I don't feel like I'm committing a gross injustice in doing so.

Lastly, regarding women in positions of leadership in the Baha'i Faith, consider how Bahiyyih Khanum, daughter of Baha'u'llah, led the Faith single-handedly for several months in 1922, and how the Custodians, composed of nine people who led the religion for 6 years, consisted of two women.

In light of all this, I strongly feel that boiling this issue down to misogyny or prejudice of sorts is a gross oversimplification of the issue at hand.

Best wishes,
Adib

And the whip comes down

David M: Didn't you get the brief assertion? No exchange need take place...don't you get it? This is organized religion, put your head down, say yes, don't think out loud and above all don't question anything (unless the frame work has already been provided). Don't claim to be anything. Someone else will define it for you! And they can even detect it. It's just oh so progressive.

Proud bideen, you are right.

David M - You claim to be a Baha'i and yet...

... your comment and perspective are at great odds with this claim.

Should you be a Baha'i, my brief assertion will be understood by you, clearly and unequivocally and no exchange need take place.

Alborz

Women on the House

To be very honest about the matter, this subject was something I reflected on a lot when I became a Baha'i.

The equality of men and women is a really important goal in the world, and it seemed fairly natural to me to anticipate it to be reflected in the way the House was composed. (I knew of the matter when I became a Baha'i.)
I explored quite a lot in favour of this being so, and looked at it in great detail.
In the end, I made a list of pros and cons to the matter, and how weighty they were, and found instead of supporting my persuasion, there were simply issues that are even more urgently critical than equality of men and women, and these critical issues are supported by a male-only House, although these reflections are more about what any supreme world body needs to be, rather than the Baha'i House.

There are many "inequalities" in the world, some real, some imaginary, and the question of men and women is one amongst many the world needs to deal with.
The primary motive in the issue of men and women, and anything similar, is more about equal opportunities than equal membership - the opportunity to strive for some goal. However this particular motive isn't consonant with the fact that one shouldn't strive to be on any institution with authority (Baha'i or otherwise), whether local, national, or international - you should be there because you are elected on it, not because you strived to be there or pursuaded people - so in this instance one has to seek different motives for women on the House, such as setting a useful precedent for the world (which it would be, and so that is a pro), or creating a balance of perspectives (which is possibly neutral, since if you are electing people onto an Assembly on the basis of their qualities as you should be, gender is not critical).

On the other hand, there are various things in favour of a House composed of men. Rightly or wrongly, the international political scene is somewhat of a man's world, and to operate in it fully (rather than partially), is much easier for men: if you wanted to release money from a bank vault, who will find it easiest, a customer, or a member of the bank with security clearance into the bank? and if you wanted to free slaves from servitude, who is going to be more influential at doing this, slaves or freedmen? So even in the case of women, through no fault of the women, in a male-dominated world it's easier for men to bring about their equality and opportunity than women. Probably as a result of nature's design of physique and mind, the biggest trouble-makers, fanatics and warmongers in the large-scale world are invariably men, and it takes men to interact and deal with them. In this respect, a supreme body is primarily there as a body of unity. Things that come to it are things that have failed to be resolved through negotiation, and any such case can only be resolved, once negotiation has been tried, by an imposed solution that is absolutely commanded and absolutely obeyed, otherwise the issue can fester and destroy the world. In this respect, through nature's arrangement and design, a male committee has a huge psychological edge in terms of people's obedience and submittance, and that is vital, because in the end, grassroots matters such as the progress of women is developed at grassroots levels, and things that disunite the world are dealt with at the international level; and really in a world whose progress of knowledge is daily finding simpler and simpler means of destruction, whether it be war, climate change, etc, such world unity, is of the primary importance - and a very prominent clock ticking away, if you look at the issues coming up on the horizon.

d

Proud bideen...

Bideen

from what i have seen and read; bahaees are the most progresiv.
i remember hearing my great grandmother went to a bahaee school in iran when moslem girls didnt even have proper educatiopn or school.
which religon gives girls as much equality in word and real world practise.

They are such hypocrits.

They are such hypocrits. They claim that their religion is right for our time, but that statement cannot be further from the truth. We have had so many women leaders all over the world for many decades already, from many belief systems, and now insisting on this obsolete and quite frankly insulting idea, is totally ludicrous. And to rebut, they say , ohhhh, there is a secret to that! Similarly, they make the outlandish ccmment, that Bahalola predicated wireless technology, or something to that effect! Such good humor they have! merci for the great laugh!

Since you are struggling with this, here is a hint!

Hint: The Guardian of the Faith, was the only authorized translator of the Writings of the Faith into English.  Translations made by other individuals are not used as the basis of interpreting the teachings of the Faith.

In this way the authenticity of the Writings in the Faith is preserved and the diversion, discord and division that has taken place amongst the followers of other Faiths is guarded against. 

Thanks for providing the opportunity to clarify this very important aspect of the Faith.

Alborz