Translations of Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Texts, vol. 5, no. 1 (January 2001) |
`Abdu’l-Baha
“On
the House of Justice and Baha’i Jurisprudence”
Letter
of circa 1899
Text, Translation, Commentary
Juan R. I. Cole
University of Michigan
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I
will present in serial fashion a translation of and commentary on a letter
written by `Abdu'l-Baha circa 1899 about the house of justice, Baha'i
jurisprudence, and religion-state issues. It was excerpted in *Rahiq-i Makhtum*
but a complete copy is in INBA vol. 59, pp. 275-280, which is up at the H-Bahai
Web site under `Abdu'l-Baha's collected works: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~bahai/abtext.htm
The first passage follows beneath this message.
It
is my speculation that the writer of the inquiry to which `Abdu'l-Baha is
responding was concerned about the possible theocratic implications of the
legislative role of the house of justice. `Abdu'l-Baha's intent was to allay
entirely any such fears. Thus, he writes, "You asked about the wisdom of
putting the house of justice in charge of important ordinances. First of all,
this divine cycle is solely spiritual, full of godly compassion, and is a
matter of conscience (vujdani). It has no connection at all to physical,
[material]* (mulki) or worldly (nasuti) matters."
This
phraseology is similar to what `Abdu'l-Baha had written in the "Treatise
on Leadership" (for which see http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~bahai/trans/vol2/absiyasi.htm
)
What
is different is that there he tended to speak in generalities of the universal
principle of the separation of religion and state and non-intervention of
religious authorities in political and governmental affairs. Here, he is
speaking specifically of the Baha'i faith (its 'cycle' or 'dispensation') and
of the house of justice. And, confirming what he said in the "Treatise on
Leadership," he says that the Baha'i institutions have nothing to do with
the world of governmental and worldly/human matters.
He
is aware, of course, that different religions have had different relationships
to the worldly. The reputation of classical Judaism and of Islam were that they
were intimately involved in worldly affairs. The reputation of Christianity and
of Buddhism was that they were rather more unworldly. Many authors have
described the Baha'i faith as being like Islam in this regard. But here
`Abdu'l-Baha repudiates them. He says that it is much more like New Testament
Christianity. He writes that "In the same way, the Christian dispensation
was purely spiritual. In the entire New Testament, the only laws are the
prohibition on divorce and the allusion to the abrogation of the Sabbath."
He also quotes John 12:47 that Jesus "did not come to judge the world but
to save the world." That is, his religion was not a religion of the Law
but rather of spiritual salvation. And `Abdu'l-Baha says that the Baha'i
religion is of the same sort. Baha'u'llah did not come to judge the world by
putting humanity under the Law, but to save it with universal compassion and
teachings of spiritual betterment.
In
making this comparison, `Abdu'l-Baha was enunciating a vision of the Baha'i
faith as a religion of the spirit, with relatively few scriptural laws. He
says, "Now, this most great cycle is also purely spiritual, the bestowal
of eternal life." The Baha'i faith was devoted, not to practical theocracy
as with Muhammad in Medina or to Talmudic legal restrictions as with shari`ah
and halakhah, but rather to the betterment of morals and the improvement of
character. It was to be an ethical religion of salvation. We know that
Baha'u'llah frequently said, in a fashion recalling aspects of Sufism, that the
purpose of the faith of God is to acquire the divine perfections in one's own
character. That was the focus of the faith according to `Abdu'l-Baha, as well.
So,
he has attempted in this first passage to put to rest the questioner's fears
about the house of justice being a theocratic institution. It is not mulki or [material]
. . .
cheers Juan
------------
Source: Majmu`ih-'i Makatib-i Hadrat-i `Abdu'l-Baha ("Collected Letters of
`Abdu'l-Baha"). Volume 59. Iran National Baha'i Archives Private Printing:
Tehran, 1978. Reprinted, East Lansing, Mi.: H-Bahai, 2000, pp. 275-280.
*I originally rendered mulki as ‘governmental,’ a meaning given in Steingass. But on
reflection, I think it is probably here just a reference to the realm of mulk as opposed
to malakut, part of a triple parallelism with jasadi (lit. body) and nasuti (lit. human).
-JRIC 1/9/01
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Subject: Re: `Abdu'l-Baha on Jurisprudence 2
`Abdu'l-Baha
began by comparing the Baha'i faith to early Christianity in its focus on
spirituality rather than law. He is aware, of course, that there are more than
two religious laws in the Baha'i scriptures, unlike the New Testament. That is,
a Baha'i shari`ah or code of revealed law does exist. He explains, however,
that such laws are actually a form of spirituality and ethics: "they are
derivatives of certitude, faith, assurance and mystical insight."
Moreover,
these laws deal with personal status matters (marriage, inheritance, etc.) as
well as with some matters of what we would call criminal law (not all such
crimes were actually public in Muslim societies--murder, for instance, is
considered a private affair in which the family of the victim has the option of
accepting blood money or demanding that the state execute the perpetrator-- or
even of killing him themselves). In this, Baha'i law resembles that of the
Qur'an.
It
is often not realized how little actual law there is in the Qur'an. In his history
of Islamic law, Coulson notes of criminal law that aside from homicide,
"the doctrine was largely confined to the exposition of six specific
offenses." These were illicit sex, slander about the latter, theft, wine
bibbing, armed robbery and apostasy. In these, "the notion of man's
obligations towards God predominated and . . . because God himself had
'defined' the punishments therefore, were known as the hadd (pl. hudud)
offences."
Obviously,
Baha'u'llah's Most Holy Book also contains these h.udu:d or
scripturally-defined offenses. Despite the eternal principle of the
non-interference of religious institutions in state affairs, `Abdu'l-Baha
acknowledges that some Baha'i law does touch on the material world:
"Nevertheless, this blessed cycle is the greatest of divine dispensations,
and for this reason, it encompasses spiritual and physical aspects and is
perfect in its power and authority." Moreover, not only are there hudud or
specified offenses, but principles are also enunciated in the Most Holy Book
that can form the basis for further jurisprudence. He says, "Therefore,
the universal precepts that form the foundation of the religious law are
expressly stated in the text." (He means by "text" [nas.s.]
scripture revealed by Baha'u'llah.)
In
Islam, the authority to enact extra-scriptural "ordinances" (ah.ka:m)
based on scriptural principle tended to be invested in the ruler in early
centuries (or, for Shi`ites, the Imam). After the disappearance of the last
Imam and then the Usuli revolution in Shi`ite jurisprudence, some of this
function began to be exercised by the Shi`ite clergy.
`Abdu'l-Baha
says that in the Baha'i faith, such ordinances, which affect the ethical and
spiritual life or personal status, and which are not explicitly mentioned in
the writings of Baha'u'llah, are to be enacted by the house of justice. It can
use subsidiary regulations to keep the religion up to date, and is supposed to
act selflessly, not in accordance with narrow institutional aims, for the
welfare of Baha'is in their religious law.
- Juan
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Subject: `Abdu'l-Baha on Jurisprudence 3
`Abdu'l-Baha
now goes on to specify more clearly the purview of the house of justice. He
does emphasize, as Moojan said, that it has legitimate authority (in Weberian
terms, the expectation that its ordinances will be obeyed) that is rooted in
religious charisma, i.e., the divine.
But
he again emphasizes here that it is not a theocratic institution. "Its
dominion is heavenly and divine and its laws are inspirational and
spiritual."
We
have already discussed the concept of _h.add_ or scripturally defined offenses.
The other side of the coin is _ta`zi:r_ or offenses and punishments specified
by religious or civil authority that, while they do not contradict the revealed
law, cover areas that it did not address, based on general principles stated in
scripture.
Clearly,
six or seven laws derived from scripture, the hudud, were insufficient to the
needs of medieval Muslim government. Coulson says that Muslim scholars argued
that the caliph or later sovereign had the authority to determine what behavior
constituted an offense and to set the punishment for it. "Such
discretionary punishment is known as ta`zir or 'deterrence,' since its purpose
is to "deter" the offender himself or others from similar
conduct." Matters of personal status law were also under the purview of
the caliph (and later other authorities, whether sultan or religious
jurisprudent). (In Middle Eastern societies of the 19th century, personal
status law concerning marriage, inheritance, etc. was often not overseen by the
state but rather by the religious institutions of the believer. Catholics in
Ottoman Mt. Lebanon were regulated by canon law, not Sunni Ottoman codes, with
regard to personal status as well as some ta`zir. They could not marry more
than one wife, e.g.).
`Abdu'l-Baha
says that the house of justice is the body in the Baha'i faith that has
authority over personal status laws (ah.ka:m-i madaniyyih), as well as ta`zir.
He points out, as we saw above, that in the Qur'an there were only a small
numer of h.udu:d or specified criminal offenses. Further Islamic law (ta`zir)
was derived from general scriptural principles by jurisprudential reasoning on
the part of the Shi`ite jurists. In the Baha'i faith, such practical
jurisprudence is to be undertaken by the house of justice. Individual scholars
are not forbidden from writing abstract treatises on jurisprudence, but their
opinions have no force in positive law unless they are adopted by the house of
justice.
`Abdu'l-
Baha sees two advantages to this procedure. First, the house of justice as a
central, over-arching body, will be in a better position to create rationalized
legal codes that demonstrate some uniformity. Individual jurists all giving
their own rulings had in Shi`ite society created legal chaos. Second, the house
of justice, as a democratic, elected institution, would have more legitimacy
among believers than an individual, unelected scholar of jurisprudence.
`Abdu'l-Baha here specifies a further source of the house of justice's
legitimate authority in Weberian terms, its democratic character (he envisaged
it as a Baha'i "parliament" elected according to British
parliamentary norms). It would be interesting to discuss to what degree either
of these expectations has been met in reality.
Again,
note that what is forbidden to jurisprudents is to make idiosyncratic rulings
with legal force. The Baha'i muballighin or ulama in Qajar Iran made rulings
with normative effect as informal qadis during `Abdu'l-Baha's lifetime, when
there were few local spiritual assemblies and no house of justice existed.
`Abdu'l-Baha was dissatisfied with the differing practices that resulted and
put that authority under the house of justice. He appears to have foreseen the
sort of situation that now exists in the U.S. with regard to civil law, where
law professors write articles for law reviews that have absolutely no legal
force unless (as sometimes happens) the Supreme Court picks up their arguments
and implements them. There does not appear to me to be any warrant in anything `Abdu'l-Baha
says here for the folk Baha'i belief that it is illicit for Baha'i scholars of
jurisprudence to so much as state their individual views publicly. I would
suggest that a recent example of individual jurisprudential reasoning that has
no legal force is Udo Schaefer's essay in *Baha'i Studies Review* on
infallibility.
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With
regard to Xs posting of the duties laid on the house of justice, Y uggested
that these duties pertained solely to the local houses of justice and not the
international one.
I
do not understand the jurisprudential or analytical principle behind such a
statement. It seems to me that where Baha'u'llah is speaking generically of
duties of 'the house of justice,' then what he says applies equally to all of
them at all levels. The ideological subtext of this assertion--that the
universal house of justice is not intended when Baha'u'llah instructs members
to consult with the community--is that the body is an imperial organ, rather
like an absolute monarch. But we know that Baha'u'llah condemned absolute
monarchy and instead praised the excercise of "reason" (`aql) by 'the
people' (an-nas). So, it makes no sense that having come out for parliamentary
consultation on the political side of things, and having instructed the local
houses of justice that their very divine mandate would be withdrawn if they did
not employ shawr or democratic consultation, he should then turn around and
create a absolutist institution.
There
is no way of knowing whether the person to whom `Abdu'l-Baha was replying was
an Iranian or a Westerner, at present. That volume of his letters contains many
to Americans. And, Americans with their first amendment would most certainly
have been worried about theocracy. In the context of the secularizing Tehran of
the late 19th century that would explode into the Constitutional Revolution in
only a few years, the prospect of a new claim to theocratic authority might
also have been disturbing to Iranian intellectuals interested in the Baha'i
faith.
In
philology and jurisprudence, words do not mean just anything we would like them
to mean. They have a specific semantic field, and a specific disciplinary and
historical context. The word 'siyasi' has nowadays come to mean political in a
straightforward way. However, 'politics' as such did not exist in an absolute
monarchy such as Qajar Iran, and Iranian intellectuals who discovered European
politics of a popular nature referred to it in the 1890s as 'politik', using a
transliterated French loan word because it was an alien concept to them.
Siyasat in Qajar Persian can mean lots of things, but 'politics' in our
contemporary sense is not generally one of them.
Specifically
in the principles of jurisprudence, siyasa or umur-i siyasiyyih refers to the
enactment of ordinances by a post-revelational authority that are beneficial to
the Muslim community and that are based upon general principles in scripture.
Anyone who has read a single work of 19th century Islamic jurisprudence knows
this. It is the reason for which among the main connotations of siyasat in
Qajar Persian is actually _punishment_. A writer would say, "Hukumat an
shakhs-ra siyasat kard"--the government punished that person. It is
extremely dangerous and very poor scholarship to read 19th-century texts
through a 21st century lens, assuming that neologisms and words invested with a
hundred years of new meanings had their same sense then. Anyone who reads the
King James Bible knows that 'prevent' in Jacobean English meant, as with the
literal Latin, 'to go before', not to 'pose an obstacle'. If one reads the holy
spirit as preventing people, it results in an anachronistic blooper. Reading
siyasa in these 19th century Baha'i texts as 'politics' is the same sort of
error.
There
is an apparent contradiction in `Abdu'l-Baha's 1899 Tablet, where he begins by
saying that the Baha'i faith has nothing to do with the material world, but
then later comes back and says it does cover both the spiritual and the
physical because of its comprehensiveness. However, in the context this
apparent contradiction is easily resolved. He is saying that the faith is
generally concerned with spiritual issues. However, some ta`zir or
post-scriptural offenses and some personal status laws do overlap with material
concerns. He gives the example of marriage, which is a personal status matter
and so in some sense civil, but which is also spiritual and governed by Baha'i
law. It is only in this sense of a limited overlap in personal status and
ta`zir matters that the Baha'i faith in his view had any worldly or material
implications. (In the contemporary United States, Baha'i justices of the peace
who perform marriages are so designated by the civil state, illustrating the
sort of limited overlap of which `Abdu'l-Baha speaks.) This point will become
apparent as the translation proceeds.
If
the houses of justice are consultative institutions, then the whole body of
believers has a right to consult about the import of decisions, rulings and
enactments. The right flows from the 19th century concept of shawr, or
democratic consultation, which underlies Baha'u'llah's conception of the house
of justice. Besides, as I said, if no one has the right to point out that a
ruling of a religious authority is contrary to scripture or reason, then the
that authority could order us all to drink poison cool-aid 'and no one would
have the right to object.' This form of reasoning leads to absolutism, tyranny
and possibly even to the horrors of the cult. This is an extreme form of taqlid
or blind obedience. I would be interested in anyone finding anything but
condemnation of taqlid in Baha'u'llah's writings. There is a difference between
being law-abiding and being blindly obedient to any command issued by
authority.
In
my analogy to the U.S. Supreme Court, I pointed out that law professors
disagree with past rulings publicly every day. But their disagreements have no
practical import, and lie on dusty law library shelves unless some judge or
justice takes up their argument. On the very day that the U.S. Supreme Court
gave its judgment against the Florida recount, Professor Lawrence Tribe of the
Harvard Law School stood before television cameras and said he disagreed with
the judgment. Here is someone who argues cases in front of the Supreme Court.
He was not afraid to say he thought they were wrong. No one sent an FBI agent
to his house to interrogate him, and he was not threatened with any sanctions.
In a society based on democratic consultation, it is not treasonous publicly to
disagree with the decisions taken by the authorities. It is illegal to do
something practical to interfere with the law being implemented. If Professor
Tribe attempts to push George W. Bush off the podium at the inauguration, he
will be arrested. But speech is not criminal (outside libel and threats of
force) in a democracy. And I personally believe that it is obvious that
Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha were reacting against the tyranny of Shi`ite
'supreme exemplars' (maraji` at-taqlid) among the ayatollahs and attempting to
replace that with a spiritual democracy.
cheers Juan
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Subject: Re: `Abdu'l-Baha on Jurisprudence 4
The
final paragraphs of this key constitutional document make clear exactly what
`Abdu'l-Baha thought Baha'u'llah intended in Ishraq 8 by umur-i siyasiyyih.
Now, of course, the word siyasah has many meanings in premodern Islamic
thought. However, we can tell which of those meanings is intended by context.
The Greco-Islamic idea of 'leadership' (siyasa) at the family, city and
monarchical levels is sometimes referred to in the Baha'i writings, of course.
But
there is another sense of siyasa completely detached from the Greco-Islamic
sense of forms of leadership. Coulson notes that the jurists from the eleventh
century put in the hands of the ruler the authority to "take such steps as
he saw fit to implement and supplement the principles established by the
religious law. This system of government was known as 'government in accordance
with the revealed law' (siyasa shar`iyyah)." It might better be translated
as "administrative policy that is in accord with the revealed law."
That is, medieval Muslim jurists saw only revealed law as law, whereas what
government's decreed was mere regulations, which were licit only if they did
not contradict revealed law or its basic principles. Coulson adds that the
sovereign had the authority to determine what behavior constituted an offense
and to set the punishment for it. "Such discretionary punishment is known
as ta`zir or deterrence,' since its purpose is to "deter" the
offender himself or others from similar conduct."
Now,
how would we know in Ishraq 8 if the phrase umur-isiyasiyyih referred to the
Greco-Islamic concept of leadership a la Aristotle, or if it referred to the
Islamic juridical concept of as-siyasah ash-shar`iyyah (post-scriptural
ordinances enacted by the community's authorities)? Well, homonyms can be
distinguished by context, by looking at the other words used around them. In
Ishraq 8, Baha'u'llah contrasts siyasah to `ibadat. In Islamic jurisprudence,
as well, `iba:da:t (scripturally mandated duties to God), mu`amalat, (duties of
believers to one another such as contracts) and as-siyasah ash-shar`iyyah are
discussed together.
`Abdu'l-Baha's
letter, below, puts the final touches on this argument. He *explicitly* puts
ta`zi:r (post-scriptural offenses and punishments) and mu`amalat
(post-scriptural ordinances about contracts between believers) under the
authority of the general house of justice. He talks of marriage law (nikah is a
contract in Islamic law and so part of mu`amalat) and administrative
punishments. And, he *explicitly* identifies ta`zir or administrative
punishments as "the pivot of siyasah" in Islam! He defines for us
what siyasah means in Ishraq 8. It means things like ta`zir or specifiying
post-scriptural offenses in ordinances. He employs the precise words of this
juridical discipline. This has nothing to do with the Greco-Islamic conception
of leadership and certainly not with "affairs of state"! And that the
enactment of such ordinances is the 'pivot of siyasah' in the narrow sense of
administrative law explains why, elsewhere, he calls houses of justice
'siyasi'. It doesn't mean they are "political." It means they
administer religious law not specified in scripture.
Moreover,
he began the letter by insisting that the house of justice is a purely
spiritual institution that has little to do with the physical, material world.
(This would make it difficult for it to act as the civil government, to say the
least). When he speaks specifically and positively about its function, he
speaks of it enacting laws about whether you can marry your cousins or what the
punishment is for an extra-scriptural offense. This is as-siyasah
ash-shar`iyyah, to a "T". I realize that this argument may be
difficult to follow for those who have not formally studied Islamic law, and
apologize. However, there are good overviews of the subject, especially
Coulson's, and intellectuals should be able to grasp its essentials. I think
this letter and its technical terms settle the whole debate, for anyone who is
actually interested in what words mean or what Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha
meant to say.
cheers
Juan
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From: "Juan Cole, University of Michigan" <jrcole@UMICH.EDU>
Re: siyasa
To: H-BAHAI@H-NET.MSU.EDU
With regard to siyasa, . . . the objections to my characterization of the 1899 letter . . . fall into a number of categories: An argument from authority (which is always a fallacy); anachronism (using later concepts and thinking they are the same as earlier ones); and reading words that have various meanings in various contexts as somehow monochrome, as if semantic fields were static.
>>1. There is a statement written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi in which we
>>find: "In fact Baha'u'llah clearly states that affairs of state as well
>>as religious questions" are to be referred to the House of Justice.
I personally find this sort of thing irrelevant. This "statement" was written by Hossein Afnan. If you would like to enter as authoritative every statement ever written by Hossein Afnan, then that would at least be consistent. But Hossein Afnan did not know the slightest thing about the history of Islamic jurisprudence or the historical philology of such word use, and he was simply wrong. He was writing at a time when 'siyasa' had taken on its modern connotations of politics, and he misunderstood the passage. Ali Kuli Khan also translated the passage from Ishraq 8 (at `Abdu'l-Baha's instance), and he was an early 20th century Iranian intellectual much more steeped in tradition. He translated this phrase as "administrative affairs are all in the charge of the House of Justice" (Baha'i World Faith, p.200). Ali Kuli Khan understood siyasa here correctly, as 'administrative affairs.'
>>2. Again, Shoghi Effendi, in late 1921 or early 1922, translates >>"umoor-i-siyAsiyyih" in `Abdu'l-Baha's Will and Testament as "political >>affairs". Throughout his ministry, Shoghi Effendi consistently and >>without exception translates siyAsat, siyAsee, siyAsiyyih as >>"political"
Since the word had different meanings in different contexts, this point is also irrelevant, aside from being an argument from authority, which is a fallacy. Shoghi Effendi said that his translations were often not scholarly or technical in intent, and moreover allowed that they would be improved upon in the future. There are some venues in which people can be silenced by this sort of specious argument. This is not one of them.
>>3. For Islamic thinkers and philosophers, siyAsah meant the form of
>>government as well as politics. Farabi speaks of al-siyAsat
>>al-nabawiyyah the rule of the Prophet, l-siyAsat al mulookiyyah
>>monarchy, al-siyAsat al-`Amiyyah democracy, al-siyAsat l-khAs.s.iyyah >>aristocracy, al-siyAsat al-dhAtiyyah autocracy, and al-siyAsat
>>al-khis.s.ah Oligarchy.
This is one of the word's connotations. No one is disputing that. The word does not mean politics in the modern sense even then, but forms of governmental *leadership*. That is, that connotation was of 'political affairs' in the Aristotelian sense. So, your points through 8 are all true and well taken, but frankly irrelevant. For, siyasah had other connotations, and the question is which connotation is being referred to in the 1899 Tablet. There, `Abdu'l-Baha *explicitly* says that ta`zir (post-scriptural ethical offenses) and personal status laws were the pivot of siyasah in Islam, which demonstrates that the connotation there is as-siyasah ash-shar`iyyah or administrative regulations. Farabi did not conceive of leadership as the setting of regulations on whether you can marry your cousin or not.
>>9. When punishment or fine is intended in the Baha'i Sacred Writings,
>>the term h.add is used such as the h.add for theft or for adultery,
>>etc.
Yes, that is what I said. And `Abdu'l-Baha in the 1899 specifies the term ta`zir for the supplementary ordinances passed by the house of justice regarding moral offenses. And he further says that ta`zir is the pivot of siyasah/administration.
>>11. Al-siyAsah al-shar`iyyah does not mean politics within the
>>religious realm as opposed to politics within general society. It
>>basically means system of government in accordance with the laws of
>>religion, in accordance with shar`. Ibn-i Taymiyyah who wrote the book
>>on this topic discusses the ideal form of politics and state, a
>>political system and state which corresponds to the teachings of Islam.
This is what I have been saying for some time . . .
Where `Abdu'l-Baha's conception differs from classical jurists like Ibn Taymiyyah is that he was writing in late Ottoman times. At that time, a good deal of siyasah shar`iyyah as it affected religious minorities had been devolved from the state onto the councils and/or clergy of the millets (religious communities) themselves. Thus, the Maronite Catholic millet administered canon law to Catholics in what is now Lebanon, and was delegated to do so on behalf of the Ottoman state. [In Ishraq 8 Baha'u'llah also designates the scope of authority of the House of Justice as being over the "millet," i.e. the Baha'i religious community.] In the same way, `Abdu'l-Baha expected the civil state to delegate to Baha'i institutions the administration of Baha'i personal status law and of moral offenses within the community. He also expected that in a Baha'i-majority society, civil institutions might adopt some elements of Baha'i law (just as the U.S. congress has enacted most of the Ten Commandments from the Bible into civil law). In the Risalih-i Siyasiyyih or Treatise on Leadership, however, he made it clear that the civil sphere and the religious sphere would always remain completely separate; and that religious leaders were not to intervene in civil government except when they were actively asked for their views by politicians. He reinforces these instructions in the 1899 letter, where he makes it clear that the scope of the house of justice is purely spiritual, having to do only with personal status regulations and ethics within the Baha'i community, not with wider worldly affairs.
>>12. Ibn-i Khaldoun's discussion about siyAsh al-shar`iyyah (government
>>in accord with Islam) and siyAsah al-`aqliyyah (government in
>>accordance with reason) makes it clear that he is talking about the
>>form of state in general and not about leadership within the religious
>>organization.
Ibn Khaldun died in 1405, and was a Sunni. In Safavid and post-Safavid Iran (after 1501), in Shi`ite Islam the mujtahids or religious jurisprudents took over many of the functions of as-siyasah ash-shar`iyyah that earlier Sunnis had imputed to the civil state. `Abdu'l-Baha grew up both in the Sunni and the Shi`ite cultural spheres, and drew on institutions and terminology from both, applying them in an Ottoman context of millet administration. Citing a medieval Sunni authority of the Mamluk period for what `Abdu'l-Baha intended by a word in 1899, with no further nuancing, is not very helpful. If you want a contemporary successor to Ibn Khaldun, Rifa`ah at-Tahtawi (d. 1871) sed 'siyasah' to translate the French "loi" and "réglement," that is, law and regulations. That shows you what an informed Muslim reformer of the 19th century thought one of the word's primary connotations was.
>>15. In the 1899 Tablet under discussion , `Abdu'l-Baha gives authority
>>to the Universal House of Justice to rule upon *ALL* spiritual and
>>jismAnee physical matters. This qualifying word "all" [jAmi`-i >>jamee`-i...]
Actually, he begins the letter by saying that the scope of the house of justice is precisely *not* worldly or physical (it is not jasadi/physical, mulki/worldly, or nasuti/having to do with mundane human affairs). When he comes back to qualify this statement, he simply says that the Baha'i *faith* (not the house of justice) is so encompassing that it affects all elements of life, including jismani/bodily ones. And, his examples for this are personal status laws like marriage, which overlap slightly with civil authority. A theocratic reading of the second time he brings up bodily affairs can only be effected by completely ignoring his prologue, which is bad philology . . .
Sincerely,
Juan R. I. Cole Professor History, U of Michigan