The Baha'i Studies Listserv > I think the 24 Guardians are different from the subject of 24 elders.
Shahram, If you know of any place where Abdu'l-Baha says anything about 'guardians' outside of his interpretation of the 24 Elders mentioned in the Book of Revelation please feel free to post the source here. >As one familiar with the subject may understand,the Imams came after the >Islam's Prophet(generation after generration) Are you admitting finally you are a Shi'ite Muslim and not a Baha'i? >.In the words of Master,in comparing the 24 Guardians with the Shia Imams, > I think that Guardians shoud have come after Bahaullah,and AbdulBaha . Except the same passage also compares the Twelve Imams to the Twelve Apostles. These were chosen during Jesus only lifetime, they did not come in succession like the Imams. They were more like the Letters of the Living. >In this way,He called Shoghi in his W&T as Guardian( wali amr ).Shoghi was >assumed as >the first one. The next were to come. There would have been more Guardians had Shoghi Effendi produced an heir. That doesn't mean they were supposed to be 24 of them. There is nothing in the Writings which indicates this. In fact, in the Kitab-i Aqdas Baha'u'llah explicitly refers to the possibility that His line might die out before the establishment of the Universal House of Justice. Surely He wasn't anticipating that it would take 24 generations for us to have a House of Justice! > But the 24 elders(19 of them Bab,and the Horuf-e- Hayy;and the next 5 to come > in the unknown future), can by no means be compared with the Shia Imams,with > their exactly >defined and explained responsibilities. I suppose you can argue that the 12 Imams can't be compared to the 12 Apostles, but Abdu'l-Baha does so, in that same passage. He also compares to them to the twelve sons of Jacob. Now, how does that fit if this passage carries the meaning you want to assign to it? > If one assumes that Shoghi was not one of those 24 Guardians- I do not see > this a sane theory-,then we should wait for those 24 Guardians;unless there > has been a bada'. If you want to look for evidence of bada', stick to the Will and Testament. Abdu'l-Baha never refers to the institution of the Guardianship outside of that document. I don't have any problem with the concept of bada' as it relates to the Guardianship. Abdu'l-Baha clearly anticipated future Guardians but He never said anything about 24. As I mentioned, while the Guardian is called Vali Amr, vali can just as easily refer to any saintly soul and it is obvious from the context that it in the passage from SAQ. Susan __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:[email protected] Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
