The Baha'i Studies Listserv > I don't believe he did say that only men could be on the House of > Justice. He used a word (rijal) which refers to men in Arabic, but in > Persian is an honorific, and can refer to women.
Except the Aqdas is in Arabic, not Persian. But the real issue is not what Baha'u'llah said, it is the authoritative interpretations of 'Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi. > > Abdu'l-Baha explains that the exclusion of women from the House of > Justice is a "hikmat" or "wisdom" - a tactic adopted as a strategy, > to protect the community, just as at one time some Bahai men adopted > long hair and other characteristics of the Sufis, so that the Bahai > community would fit into the Islamic context as a sufi order with > Baha'u'llah as its Shaykh. I wouldn't say He 'explains' this, in fact He clearly doesn't explain it. But it is certainly one way of understanding His reference to the wisdom (hikmat) being known in the future. > The third dimension is the social. The exclusion is a concession to > the social setting, since biology is obviously irrelevant to > membership of a House of Justice. I would share that perception. __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-537231-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu 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]
