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Tag: "Slavery, Prohibition of"

tag name Slavery, Prohibition of type: Miscellaneous
web link bahai-library.com/tags/Slavery,_Prohibition_of
variations or
mis-spellings
slave trade; abolitionism
related tags Abrogated laws and practices; Civil rights movement (1954-1968)
referring tags Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Selected topics; Race inequality; Sarah Grimke; Tablet of Emancipation
Inventory subject Slavery
selected quotations
(authoritative sources)

These quotations reflect common presentations of Bahá’í views; the materials below may show a wider range of interpretations and contexts:

"... It is forbidden you to trade in slaves, be they men or women. It is not for him who is himself a servant to buy another of God’s servants, and this hath been prohibited in His Holy Tablet. Thus, by His mercy, hath the commandment been recorded by the Pen of justice. Let no man exalt himself above another; all are but bondslaves before the Lord, and all exemplify the truth that there is none other God but Him. He, verily, is the All-Wise, Whose wisdom encompasseth all things..."

– Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶72

references en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery; bahai9.com/wiki/Slavery; bahaiteachings.org/search/Slavery; www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/search#q=Slavery; www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/search#q=Slaves

"Slavery, Prohibition of" has been tagged in:

25 results from the Main Catalog

2 results from the Chronology

from the main catalog (25 results; collapse)

sorted by  
  1. 2025-11. Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Laws and Teachings of the Bahá'í Faith, by Omid Ghaemmaghami and Shahin Vafai: Review. Christopher Buck. Reviews.
  2. 2024. Amazing Grace: Stories of Personal Transformation from Slavery to the Present Day. Jaine Toth. A lengthy script, with accompanying slides, depicting real life stories of Americans, both black and white, who overcame issues of race, transforming their own lives, and in turn, the lives of others. Scripts.
  3. 2024. Bahá'u'lláh, The Liberator of the Oppressed. Mohammad Norozi, comp. and ed. Brief compilation of accounts of two Ethiopian slaves in Iran; African servants in Bahá'u'lláh's household; Tablets in honour of Mubarak (a servant of Bahá'u'lláh's father) and Mas'ud (a servant in Akká); prohibition of slavery in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Compilations-personal.
  4. 2020. Africanity, Womanism, and Constructive Resilience: Some Reflections. Layli Maparyan. The meanings of the metaphor "pupil of the eye;" experiences of growing up African-American in the West; overcoming cosmological negation; the African worldview on nature, humanity, and creation; gendered expressions of African culture. Articles.
  5. 2019. Centering the "Pupil of the Eye": Blackness, Modernity, and the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh. Derik Smith. The "pupil of the eye" metaphor is a deeply consequential, distinguishing feature of the transformative social and spiritual system laid out in Bahá’u’lláh's Revelation. Articles.
  6. 2019. Writings of the Báb: Lecture Series at the Norwegian Summer School. Nader Saiedi. On topics including the concept of God; Manifestations of God; Day of Resurrection, heaven and hell; the Imamate, the Hidden Imam; divine justice and free will; reason, independence; human rights, equality, women. Links to audio files, offsite. Audio.
  7. 2018/2020. Laws Abrogated by Bahá'u'lláh. Anonymous, comp. Laws abolished from previous religions and from the Bayán. Compilations-personal.
  8. 2018. Bahá'u'lláh and Peace: A Series of Four Talks. Nader Saiedi. Talks at the Santa Monica Baha’i Center in California on four areas within the context of Baha'u'llah's Revelation that relate to peace, and how Baha'u'llah reconstructs the concepts of victory, mystical poetry, interpretation, and the temple. Audio.
  9. 2017-2020. List of Articles by Nader Saiedi on BahaiTeachings.org. Nader Saiedi. Links to 40 essays about Baha'i teachings on spiritual unity, justice, freedom, democracy, and global peace, critiquing materialism, nationalism, and advocating societal reform. Essays.
  10. 2017. Ziba Khanum of Yazd: An Enslaved African Woman in Nineteenth-Century Iran. Anthony Lee. Issues of race, gender, slavery, and religion as experienced by an Afro-Iranian family in the 19th and 20th centuries; historiography of African women in Iran; the Herati-Khorasani family tree. Articles-unpublished.
  11. 2016. Recovering the Lives of Enslaved Africans in Nineteenth-Century Iran: A First Attempt. Anthony Lee. Reconstructing the lives of four slaves in the Middle East, including Haji Mubarak and Fezzeh Khanum, servants of The Bab. Articles.
  12. 2016. Recovering Biographies of Enslaved Africans In Nineteenth-Century Iran. Anthony Lee. On the history, and lack of scholarship about, the East-African slave trade to Iran; as many as 1-2 million Africans were brought to Persia as servants, eunuchs, and concubines. Articles.
  13. 2015. Half the Household Was African: Recovering the Histories of Two African Slaves in Iran. Anthony Lee. Biographies of two enslaved Africans in Iran, Haji Mubarak and Fezzeh Khanum, the servants of The Bab. A history of slavery in Iran can be written, not only at the level of statistics, laws, and politics, but also at the level of individual lives. Articles.
  14. 2014-09-02. Tablet of Emancipation, The. Bahá'u'lláh, Bahá'í World Centre, trans. . Authorized translation of a prayer in which Bahá'u'lláh frees a slave. Translations.
  15. 2014. Text and Context in the Bahá'í Heroic Age. Nader Saiedi. A series of 12 talks by Nader Saiedi exploring Bahá'í history, key writings, and the need for scholarly study, translation, and contextual analysis of Bahá'í texts. Audio.
  16. 2012-02. Enslaved African Women in Nineteenth-Century Iran: The Life of Fezzeh Khanom of Shiraz. Anthony Lee. Through an examination of the life of this servant of The Bab, this paper addresses the enormous gap in our knowledge of the experience of enslaved women in Iran. Articles.
  17. 2011. Ethiopian King, The. Nader Saiedi, Omid Ghaemmaghami, trans. . This article brings to light a number of hitherto unknown passages from the writings of the Báb about Haji Mubarak, the Báb’s Ethiopian servant. Articles.
  18. 2003-10. Black Pearls: The African Household Slaves of a Nineteenth Century Iranian Merchant Family. R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram. The African slave trade to Iran in the 1800s, and the lives of household slaves of one specific merchant family from Shiraz, that of The Báb, as described in the narrative of Abu'l-Qasim Afnan. Articles-unpublished.
  19. 2000-02-02. Servants in the Households of Baha'u'llah and the Bab. Universal House of Justice, Research Department. Whether or not the servants of the Bab and Bahá'u'lláh were slaves, and a list of relevant sources for further research. UHJ-letters.
  20. 2000. Fact and Fiction: Interrelationships between History and Imagination. Bahíyyih Nakhjavání. On the tension between "fact" and "fiction," between objective history and our relative and subjective stories, between art as the representation of reality and faith based on the Word of God. We inherited a responsibility to resolve this tension. Articles.
  21. 1997. Bahá'u'lláh and Liberation Theology. Juan Cole. The idea of liberation and equality is central to Bahá'í theology; the poor in the 19th century Middle East; Bahá'u'lláh and the poor; Tablet to the Kings on wealth and peace; laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and Huququ'lláh; state social welfare. Articles.
  22. 1991. Vision of Race Unity: America's Most Challenging Issue. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States. A formal statement from the US NSA on "the most challenging issue confronting America." NSA-letters.
  23. 1988/1999. Black Pearls: Notes on Slavery. Moojan Momen, Abu'l-Qasim Afnan, Anthony Lee. Editor's note, foreword, preface, and introduction to two editions of Black Pearls; brief overview of the institution of slavery. Essays.
  24. 1988. Black Pearls: Servants in the Households of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh. Abu'l-Qasim Afnan. Biographies of Haji Mubarak, Fiddih, Isfandiyar, Mas'ud, and Salih Aqa; slavery and Islamic history. Preface by Moojan Momen. Books.
  25. 1982-2023. Encyclopaedia Iranica: Selected articles related to Persian culture, religion, philosophy and history. Encyclopaedia Iranica. Sorted, categorized collection of links to over 170 articles. Encyclopedia.

from the Chronology (2 results; collapse)

  1. 1807-03-25
      The Bill to abolish the Atlantic slave trade received Royal Assent in the British Parliament. The Act took effect on 1 May 1807. [UK Parliament]
    • The night of 22 to 23 August 1791, in Santo Domingo (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) saw the beginning of the uprising that would play a crucial role in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. It is against this background that the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is commemorated on 23 August each year. [UNESCO]
  2. 1839-00-02 — As the eldest son, after the passing of Mírzá Buzurg, Bahá'u'lláh assumed His place as the head of the family. According to the custom He was expected to succeed to His father's position in the Ministry but He refused.

    One of His first acts as the head of the family was to free the slaves who were engaged in serving the household. All took the liberty to leave but Isfandíyár and one woman elected to remain in service. [SoW Vol IX, April 28, 1918 p38-39, CH41]

 
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