The Baha'i Studies Listserv Here is the first part of my paper. Baha’u’llah’s letters to Manakji Limji Hataria as found in the Tabernacle of Unity1 represents a particularly significant work in the Baha’i scriptures for a number of reasons. They represent one of the few texts addressed to someone outside the Abrahamic religious tradition. While addressed to a Zoroastrian, these texts deal with the questions of religious pluralism in general. It is one of the few places where Baha’u’llah discusses the claims of Indic religions. Manakji’s questions were largely formulated, not against the background of mainstream Zoroastrian beliefs, but that of a peculiar school of Zoroastrianism founded by Azar Kaivan that was heavily influenced by Ishraqi philosophy. This school that flourished in India during the 16th and 17th centuries produced the Dasatir, a supposedly ancient scripture written in the style of the Qur’an, which was said to contain the revelations of pre-Zoroastrian Iranian prophets. Manakji’s questions regarding the Prophets of Mahábád, as well as many of his other theological preconceptions are based on the beliefs promulgated in the Dasatir rather than from any authentic Zoroastrian scripture. The propose of this paper is to examine the context of the Manakji’s questions and Baha’u’llah’s answers against the background of Ishraqi philosophy. It is my thesis that Baha’u’llah is not simply addressing questions which arose out of the background of South Asian religious pluralism, but a philosophical school which arose within the context of medieval Islamicate culture in the Middle East. Baha’u’llah’s answers, then reveal not only a good deal about his approach to non-Abrahamic religions but to the perennialist approach to pluralism found within Islam itself.
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