نشریه بهائی شناسی
پیاپی 23 (پاییز 1401)

The selected book of Montkhab-ul  Al-Athar about  12th. Imam is one of the important books of Shia religious scholars in explaining and clarifying the doctrine of Shia Mahdism. What gives importance to this book is the author's method of showing the verbal or spiritual frequency of many Mahdavi traditions, which clearly shows their Shiite authenticity. The origin of the writing of this book was the confrontation of Ayatollah Haj Agha Hossein Tabatabayi Boroujerdi . Regarding  the religious propaganda of the Baha'is in Boroujerd, he requested the writing of this book by his prominent student, Ayatollah Sheikh Lotfollah Safi Golpaigani.

The population of Turkey is about 84 million people, of which non-Muslims make up only about 0.2%. According to official reports, fewer than 10,000 Baha’is live in Turkey. The Ottoman Empire, of which Turkey was a part, played an important role in Baha’i history. Mullah Ali Bastami and also Tahereh Qorrat Alein two of the first followers of Bab have a history of residing there and causing some tensions Turkey. After that, Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Bahá also lived in that country and pretended to be Muslims and following dissimulation( taqiyyah). During that time, the changes and social reforms of the Ottoman Empire took place, and there are evidences of their influence on Baha’i teachings and thoughts. In this article, the history of the presence of Baha’i leaders and Baha’is in the Ottoman Empire and their behaviors and deeds in that land is briefly discussed. At the end, a report on the current situation of Baha’is and the causes of Baha’i stagnation in Turkey is presented.

Michael Zargarov (b. 1960 in Texas, USA) joined the Baha’ism in 1980 and as a Baha’i missionary conducted many missionary meetings and made numerous missionary trips throughout the United States and as an international migrant missionary to Mexico, Central America, the Soviet Union and had been sent to other countries. As an intellectual, educated and Baha’i missionary, after about 20 years of membership and sincere missionary activity, he realized the problems, mistakes, conflicts and ach of the institutions and institutions does not have an authority, such as( the Guardian of the Faith ) Wali Amrallah and Bait al-Adl.( House of Justice).
He was convinced that the Bahá’í community is unable and doomed to fail in realizing its goals and teachings, such as establishing world peace, unity of the human beings, and a golden age for human society, etc. He does not believe in the infallibility of Baha’i leaders and considers accepting such a belief as a move towards dictatorship and tyranny within the Baha’i community. He is highly critical of the leadership of the House of Justice and considers the House of Justice and the current leadership of Baha’i in Israel to be illegitimate and believes that Baha’i has not brought any achievements to the world after more than 170 years of its existence. In his opinion, Baha’ism, like other human sects, is generally a tool in the hands of those governments who want to dominate and is ultimately doomed to failure. In this article, a conversation with him is presented.

Baha’is believe that all those whom they introduce as prophets, from Adam (peace be upon him) to Baha’u’llah, are all manifestations of God (the Cause), and the truth of religions is not more than one truth, and the manifestations of God (the Cause) are not more than one manifested from the beginning to the end. They say that the manifestations of God return toward the people and this matter is not reincarnation. Baha’is consider the truth of their leaders to be the same as the regression (resurrection) that has been proposed in the Shia school of thought. In this article, the issue of “manifestation” and its difference with the “prophecy” of Abrahamic religions and also the unity of the manifestations of God are examined. What they mean by regression is different from the Shia opinion, and Shia regression is another concept that is not compatible with what the Baha’is say, neither in the form and content, nor in the quality.

This article is written to complete the previous articles with the title of “Baha’i Scholarship Project”. The idea is that the Cambridge Baha’i Studies Seminar in 1978, and before that, seminars in 1977 and then 1980 at Lancaster University, provided a turning point in the transition from traditional Baha’i to the modern attitudes aligned with liberalism. The outcome of this movement has assembled an important infrastructure for the Baha’i idea of “world government”. The aforementioned series of those seminars were later used by social science researchers and raised a group of academic researchers in Baha’ism. Although some of these researchers were rejected by the House of Justice, a new generation of Baha’i scholars, who were also supported by the House of Justice, played a role in the synthesis of traditional Baha’i studies.

One of the separated sects from Islam is the Baha'i, which denies the holy existence and the birth of the Imam Mahdi, Hazrat Hojjat bin Al-Hassan(peace be upon him) and also considers Ali Muhammad Bab as the Imam of the time (Imam Mahdi). At the present time, the Baha'is are the most important promoters of the belief that they identify Hossein Ali Nouri, known as Baha'u'llah, as their prophet. He wrote the book Iqan to prove the validity of Mirza Ali Muhammad Bab as Imam Mahdi .The claims of this person and his followers are false for many reasons. In this article, three main reasons for rejecting their claims are discussed:

1. Mirza Ali Muhammad Bab's own testimony,
2. The incompatibility of the attributes of Bab with the attributes of the 12th. Imam of Shiites,
3. The incompatibility of the attributes of   Bab with the Mahdi of Muslims

An examination of the Baha’i Faith from the point of logic and content shows that its decline and end are imminent from the views of scholars and researchers of thought, because it has neither a new word for the contemporary world nor its promises have been fulfilled. It contains many contradictions and harsh rulings such as medieval rulings. To illustrate this point, the article provides examples of false claims, exaggerated statements, contradictions, former Baha’is, excommunicated Baha’is, divisions, distortion of history, denial of science and reason, and theft of personalities. It is also shown at the end that Baha'ism is a political party and not a religion.