Re: 1000 year no menif ???
gpoirier (gpoirier@kazak.NMSU.Edu)
Mon, Feb 6 1995 15:31:26 GMT
On Fri, 3 Feb 1995 our friend Saad Ahmad wrote:
> Greetings and Assalam-o-Alaikum
> As per Bahai religion no new manifestation of God may
> appear for 1000 years. Does this include prophets of smaller
> status than manifestations?
> for example, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Baha'u'llah are such manifestations
> but Haroon, Jonah, several Israelite prophets were also
> prophets, not with a new law but still prophets. Does that
> 1000 year verse suggest that no one who claims to be ANY kind of
> prophet can be true ?
Interesting question, Saad.
The greatest work of Abdu'l-Baha is His Will and Testament, described in
"God Passes By" by Shoghi Effendi as the "brightest emanation of His
mind." In that Text, which is supplemental to the Most Holy Book of
Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha directs the Baha'is to turn only to the Guardian
of the Cause of God, and to the Universal House of Justice, and whoever
turns anywhere else is "indeed in manifest error." So, Baha'u'llah and
Abdu'l-Baha have provided that the sources of divine guidance during this
Dispensation, until the appearance in not less than 1000 years of the
next Manifestation of God, are limited to the Institutions They have created.
Nor could a Minor Prophet come in the station of the Guardian of the Cause
of God, and thus be a valid source of guidance: First, because the
Guardian needs to be appointed by his predecessor. Second, because there
is a Tablet from Abdu'l-Baha published in a letter of the House of Justice
in one of its two published books of letters, in which He states that
prior to the appearance of the next Manifestation of God in not less than
1,000 years, no one has the right to claim even the Station of
Guardianship.
One other point. In the letter "The Dispensation of Baha'u'llah" Shoghi
Effendi wrote, he quotes from a Tablet by 'Abdu'l-Baha in which
Abdu'l-Baha states that the station the "true believer" can attain in this
Dispensation is the same as the station of the "Prophets not endowed with
constancy," that is, the very Minor Prophets to which you refer. I
understand that to refer to spiritual station, not that they will reveal
Scriptures or have followers or judge others, as did the Minor Prophets
of the House of Israel.