Equality of Men and Women in the Bab's Writings

All research or scholarship questions
c3ponds
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2013 7:58 pm

Equality of Men and Women in the Bab's Writings

Postby c3ponds » Fri Dec 13, 2013 5:34 pm

Yes, third post. These issues have been percolating.

Equality of men and women: This, of course, is a basic tenet of the Faith. The Bayán, being the Mother Book, would logically include that concept. Does it? If so, where might it be found? Also, where does the Báb say for women to remove the veil? Were Tahiríh and Bahá'u'lláh foreshadowing the Bahá'í Faith with that? These were searched for in Ocean, but the author must be missing the best search words. Searching by 'women', 'female', and 'sex' were not helpful. Might they be in the original Bayán but have been left out of the "excerpt" version we have access to?

Thanks again! One more ...

iranpour
Posts: 74
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2013 2:52 pm

Re: Equality of Men and Women in the Bab's Writings

Postby iranpour » Sun Dec 15, 2013 5:06 am

Hello c3ponds
I couldn’t find the first question regarding the equality of sexes in the Babi Faith.
Concerning the second question regarding the words of the Bab on removing the veil of women I didn’t find His words too. But following is a document which reveals the motive of what happened in the Conference of Badasht:

In a Persian Baha’i Book whose title is Hadrat-i-Bab (His Holiness the Bab) on pages 386 and 388 has written that the plan for the removing the veils from the faces of women and the proclamation of the independence of the Babi Faith in the village of Badasht in the province of Khurasan was APPROVED, DESIGNED AND INNOVATED by Baha’u’llah, though Himself played as an impartial attendance expediently. TAHIRIH by her REVOLUTIONARY METHOD, her impetuously and heroic enterprise played an important role which was with complete agreement of QUDDUS who had played as THE REPRESENTATIVE OF CONSERVATIVE BELIEVERS who was apparently unsatisfied and angry by the Tahirih’s reckless method.

c3ponds
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2013 7:58 pm

Re: Equality of Men and Women in the Bab's Writings

Postby c3ponds » Sun Dec 15, 2013 1:33 pm

iranpour:
Wow! Thank you for the response! That is very helpful.

brettz9
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Re: Equality of Men and Women in the Bab's Writings

Postby brettz9 » Sun Dec 15, 2013 7:19 pm

As far as the Bayan, I looked through what I believe is a complete French translation of the Bayan at http://www.bahai-biblio.org/centre-doc/ ... arabe2.htm for all occurrences of "femme" (and then cross-checked with a Google translation of the passages of interest) and did not find anything related to equality per se. As a book of laws (which the Baha'i Writings explain were meant to be revolutionary and superseded), it seems more concerned with spiritual practices.

There is also some discussion you may be interested in as far as Tahirih not considering herself as a suffrage martyr, but her effectively being so (http://bahai-library.com/uhj_reconcilia ... ictions#s6 and the Promulgation of Universal Peace quote at http://bahai9.com/wiki/Veil (Qurratu'l-`Ayn being Tahirih)).

You may also be interested in the episode of the Conference of Badasht as narrated in the Dawn-Breakers (including its footnotes which provide additional background and references): pp. 292-298 and God Passes By, pp. 31-33 (and also pgs. 68, 74)


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