One: Letter from Steve Cooney to the Universal House of Justice
In the June 13 press release from the Bahai World News Service about
the
Summons of the Lord of Hosts is an attempt to quantify the size
of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation:
"The collected volume represents only a fraction of Bahá'u'lláh's output
during his 40-year ministry, when He revealed thousands of tablets
which altogether represent a volume more than 70 times the size of the
Qur'an and more than 15 times the size of the Old and New Testaments of
the Bible." www.bahaiworldnews.org/story.cfm?storyid=163.
Some time ago I wrote the Department of Secretariat:
Over the years there has been periodic reporting of the collection and
classification of the Sacred Texts. In 1983 the "Seven Year Plan 1979-1986
Statistical Report" published at Ridvan 1983 reported that:
The original letters and tablets housed at the World Centre numbered
15,000 documents. The authenticated copies for which no originals had yet
been received constituted 46,000 items.
Together these 60,000 plus documents were broken down into 15,000 Tablets
of Bahá'u'lláh, 27,000 Tablets of Abdu'l-Bahá and over 17,500 letters of
Shoghi Effendi.
In 1994 David Ruhe mentioned in the preface of his book 'The Robe of
Light' that there are now more than 21,000 Tablets and letters of
Bahá'u'lláh held in the Bahá'í Archives.
I would very much like to know the comparable figures as of 2001 and if
possible the ratio or proportions of originals to authenticated copies.
Also if there are any statistics regarding the Tablets and Writings of the
Bab that would be useful. Failing that, the last published figures would
be appreciated."
Yesterday I received this reply by electronic mail. I thought you would be
interested. It shows that since 1983 the number of documents bearing on
the Revelation has more than doubled from 60,000 to approx 138,000. Also
the classification system has become more sophisticated. It is difficult
to compare the 1983 and 2002 figures directly but in the nearly two decade
time frame a lot more documents have been acquired. And clearly a lot more
authentication work remains to be done.
Two: Response from the Universal House of Justice to Steve Cooney:
Your email letter dated 18 June 2001, requesting statistical information
relating to the collection and classification of the Sacred Texts, which
are housed in the Bahá'í World Centre Archival collection, was received,
and we are to reply as follows. We apologize for the lengthy
delay in responding to you.
The Bahá'í International Archives holds significantly more Tablets and
Bahá'í Holy Writings in its collection now than it did in 1983. For your
ease of reference, we provide the following information as an explanation
to the data presented in this document. The Archival collection held at
the World Centre is divided into three categories, and between these three
groups there are varying degrees of overlap. They are as follows:
- Authenticated items: Originals or reproductions of Tablets and letters as
dispatched to or received by their addressees.
- Transcribed items: Secondary copies of Tablets or letters, copied by
scribes of varying degrees of reliability, sometimes copied from an
authenticated item, sometimes copied from another transcribed item.
- Draft copies or Working copies: These include copies prepared by a
scribe/secretary for checking prior to preparing the final copy, copies
kept by the scribe/secretary or by Shoghi Effendi for later reference.
In light of the information provided above, we are able to inform you that
there are some 7,169 original and photocopies of original Tablets of
Bahá'u'lláh, 15,815 by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and 17,118 letters of Shoghi Effendi.
In addition, there are some 98,000 copies of other such Tablets and
letters, many of which have not as yet been authenticated.
With regard to the Writings of the Báb, the Archival collection holds
approximately 135 original Tablets, and 55 photocopies. We are unable to
provide you with any figures for transcribed copies of His Writings since
there is not yet a computer inventory of them.
With loving Bahá'í greetings,
Department of the Secretariat
