Reading List
- Baha'i Reading ListRecommended books and films on Baha'i from McKee Library's collection.
Baha’i
- The Bahá'í Faith: United Religions InitiativeBahá'í believe that all religions are divine and that the great prophets were servants of the same God and preached the same message.
- The Bahá’í FaithBahá’ís believe the crucial need facing humanity is to find a unifying vision of the future of society and of the nature and purpose of life. Such a vision unfolds in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh
- Bahāʾī Faith: BritannicaBahāʾī Faith, religion founded in Iraq in the mid-19th century by Mīrzā Ḥosayn ʿAlī Nūrī, who is known as Bahāʾ Allāh (Arabic: “Glory of God”).
Research & Reference
- Baha'i: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page covering the Baha'i faith. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
- World Religion Profile: Baha’i FaithThe article discusses the Baha'i religion. Baha'i is practiced in the Middle East and North America and emphasizes monotheism, unity and social justice. The Baha'i suggest that other religious faiths are valid and that religious figures are representations of God in various forms. Mirza Hoseyn 'Ali Nuri, a member of the Persian gentry, was designated as Baha'u'llah, a prophet foretold by the Bab Siyyad 'Ali Muhammad, and is considered the founder of Baha'i.
Perspectives
Modernity and the Millennium
Modernity and the Millennium is the first book to chart responses in the Muslim Middle East to modernity through an examination of the evolution of the Baha'i faith--a millenarian movement led by the nineteenth-century Iranian prophet Baha'u'llah ("the Glory of God"). This volume illuminates the complexity and ambiguity that characterized the changing relationship of Baha'u'llah and his followers to modernity, considered as a transnational and fluid political and cultural field of contestation. The insights presented here into these responses to modernity illuminate not only the genesis of a new world-religion but also important facets of Middle Eastern-particularly Iranian-social and cultural shifts in the nineteenth century. Drawing on the work of Habermas, Giddens, Touraine and Bryan Turner, among others, Juan R. I. Cole considers some of the ways in which Middle Eastern society was affected by five developments central to modernity: the lessening entanglement of the state with religion, the move from absolutism to democracy, the rise of sovereign nation-states, the advent of nationalism, and the women's movement. He explores the Baha'is' positive response to religious toleration, democracy, and greater rights for women and their "utopian realist" critique of nationalism, militant Jacobin secularization, industrialized warfare, and genocide, oppression of the poor and working classes, and xenophobia.
Bahai
A clear, biblical response to this multifaceted religious movement which aims toward one world government and one common faith.
Understanding Sectarian Groups in America: The New Age Movement, the Occult, Mormonism, Hare Krishna, Zen Buddhism, Baha'i and Islam in America
The U.S. has become a nations of many religions, some of which have had their origins in Christianity and others which have come from other major world religions. In this book, Dr. Braswell describes the history, teachings, and practices of these groups, including the occult and the New Age Movement.
Streaming Media
- Related Traditions - Baha'i ScripturesTrace the 19th-century emergence of Baha'i, a distinctive faith with origins in Iran. Learn about the tenets of the religion and the huge canon of scriptures written by the faith's founders. Read from foundational Baha'i texts as they speak to the oneness of God, the oneness of humanity, and the unity of religions.
- The Baha'i FaithIn this program, Dennis Wholey has a conversation about the Bahá’í Faith with Randolph Dobbs, director of the Los Angeles Bahá’í Center in Los Angeles, California. Topics of discussion include the meaning of Bahá’í; the history of the Faith and its founder, the divine messenger Bahaullah; the concept of religion as an ongoing revelation, with the prophet of each age bringing an additional piece of God’s message to the world; unity—the oneness of God, of humankind, and of religion—as the primary principle of the Faith; and spiritual growth as a matter of individual responsibility. Images of a Bahá’í house of worship and a variety of Bahá’í meetings are also included.