Choice Wine: The Kitab-i Aqdas and the Development of Baha'i Law
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Preface

First, I should begin by confessing that I speak neither  Persian nor Arabic,
and so this paper is not intended as a  scholarly analysis of the Kitab-i Aqdas
or its laws, which I  am certainly not qualified to undertake.  Rather, I am
proposing a "theory of the Kitab-i Aqdas," so to speak--a  tentative conceptual
framework within which we can understand  the Most Holy Book and the role that
it is intended to play  in the Bahá'í religion.   

In particular, I wish to investigate the attitude which  the Book takes toward
Bahá'í law by looking at the historical  development of the text itself, as
well as a few of the  central laws which were promulgated by that text.  My
intention is to demonstrate that the Kitab-i Aqdas was not  intended to estab
lish a new law code (shari'a) similar to the  one known to nineteenth-century
Muslim jurisprudence, but  rather to discard that approach to law in favor of a
more  organic promulgation of ethical principles.1

Choice Wine

Near the beginning of the Kitab-i Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh  issues this warning:  
Think not that We have revealed unto you a mere  code of laws.  Nay, rather, We
have unsealed the  choice Wine with the fingers of might and power.   To this
beareth witness that which the Pen of  Revelation hath revealed.  Meditate upon
this, O  men of insight!  (K5)

The metaphor that he chooses here is extremely instructive.   Bahá'u'lláh's
reference to a "mere code of laws" is most  certainly an allusion to the
shari'a, the holy law of Islam  which is the basis of orthodox faith and
practice.  With  astonishing brevity, Bahá'u'lláh appears to dismiss this
ancient and hoary tradition out of hand.  Instead, he  explains, he has
unsealed the "choice Wine."  

Wine is, of course, forbidden in Islam as it is in the   Bahá'í Faith.  In
Islam it is a symbol of violation of God's  law and, through Sufi usage, also a
symbol of mystical  communion with God--spiritual intoxication--before which
the  law is at best irrelevant.  That such a statement should  preface
Bahá'u'lláh's own Book of Laws is indeed astonishing.   But, it appears to me
to presage his attitude toward law  throughout the book.   

Nonetheless, it seems to me that very often Bahá'ís--and  especially Bahá'ís
from Muslim societies--have very naturally  understood the Kitab-i Aqdas to be
a simple update of the  Muslim code of laws, modernized and sanitized for
contemporary consumption.  In this view, we have a Bahá'í  shari'a which is to
last for a thousand years.  I believe  that is a mistaken assumption which
cannot withstand careful  inquiry, and which could not withstand the challenges
of  modernity--and now post-modernity.

The Revelation of the Kitab-i Aqdas

Almost nothing has been written in English about the  manner in which the
Kitab-i Aqdas was pr oduced by  Bahá'u'lláh.  However, it is suggested by
internal evidence  and the little that is known of the history of the book's
revelation that the Kitab-i Aqdas consists of an initial  Tablet of laws which
was supplemented over time with verses  written in response to questions put to
Bahá'u'lláh over a  period of three or four years.  

Ekbal has noted that Fadil-i Mazandarani's scholarship  suggests that
Bahá'u'lláh had begun to reveal some parts of  the Kitab-i Aqdas from the first
years of his arrival in  'Akka (1868), or perhaps even during his last year in
Edirne.2   It would appear that, after the initial composition, the  Aqdas was
increased in response to letters and petitions from  the believers which put
questions to Bahá'u'lláh which  required answers. In verse 98 of the Aqdas, he
explains: 

Various petitions have come before Our throne from the  believers, concerning
the laws of God, the Lord of the  seen and the unseen, the Lord of all worlds.
We have,  in consequence, revealed this Holy T ablet and arrayed it  with the
mantle of His Law that haply the people may  keep the commandments of their
Lord.  Similar requests  had been made of Us over several pervious years, but
We  had, in Our wisdom, withheld Our Pen until, in recent  days, letters
arrived from a number of the friends, and  We have therefore responded, through
the power of truth,  with that which shall quicken the hearts of men.3   

Walbridge4 has suggested that the initial passages of  the Kitab-i Aqdas come
to an end around verse 17, which  begins: "These are the ordinances of God that
have been set  down in the Books and Tablets by His Most Exalted Pen."5  And
while that verse does present a natural break in the text, it  appears to me
that the book remains integrated and coherent,  at least as a compilation of
laws, until Bahá'u'lláh  completes his apostrophes to various lands and peoples
around  verse 96.  After that, the discussion becomes quite choppy  and random,
and appears to consist of answers to various  questions, rev ealed in no
particular order.   

Of course, both of these positions remain mere  speculation.  The history of
the revelation of the Kitab-i  Aqdas has yet to be written.  But, it is
virtually certain  that it could easily be written by consulting the original
text of the book and the documents which are associated with  it.  Naturally,
this would have to be done in the original  language and by inspection of the
documents at the Bahá'í  World Center in Haifa.6 

By 1873, the text of the Aqdas was substantially  complete and copies were
circulated in Iran.  However, the  last verse of the modern text, verse 190
(the second  prohibition on the use of opium7), was not revealed along  with
the rest of the book.  Indeed, this last verse was not added  to the text until
1890, when Mirza Muhammad-'Ali arranged for  the first printing of the Kitab-i
Aqdas in Bombay.  Earlier  (hand-copied) versions of the Aqdas which had
circulated in  Iran did not include this final verse.8 

Beyond this addition of a final verse, however, the  Aqdas continued to be
amended and supplemented by Bahá'u'lláh  in the Questions and Answers, which is
virtually an integral  part of the Most Holy Book itself.  Indeed, a reading of
Bahá'u'lláh's answers (without the questions) gives the same  feel as a reading
of the latter parts of the Aqdas itself.   It seems to be that the Holy Book
itself was compiled in the  same method as were the Questions and Answers,
except that in  the text of the Aqdas, we are not given the questions! 

It seems to me, that in  Muslim context, with those  involved being familiar
with the Qur'an and the manner of its  revelation, this development of the
Aqdas would have seemed  perfectly normal.  After all, the Qur'an is not a
continuous  narrative, exhibits no organization, and was simply revealed  by
the Prophet as the occasion demanded.  For Bahá'u'lláh,  and for the early
believers, it probably seemed appropriate  that the Mother Book of the Bahá'í
revelation would also be  revealed in short pieces over years, and  that it
would  develop as a compilation of holy verses.   

In any case, Bahá'u'lláh continued to expand and  supplement the Kitab-i Aqdas
after 1873, not only with the  Questions and Answers, but with the revelation
of other  Tablets and supplementary texts bearing on Bahá'í law.  In  his
Tablet of Splendors (Ishraqat), for example, the eighth  Ishraq is explicitly
made a part of the Aqdas:   

This passage, now written by the Pen of Glory, is accounted as part of the Most Holy Book . . .9

Indeed, according to Shoghi Effendi, Bahá'u'lláh continued to  elaborate, to
elucidate, and to supplement the provisions of  the Most Holy Book "until the
last days of His earthly  life."10  It would seem that, according to the
Guardian, the  Aqdas was never regarded by Bahá'u'lláh as fixed or complete.

Beyond this, of course, the laws of the Kitab-i Aqdas  have continued to
develop in an organic manner through the  application and interpretation of
'Abdu'l-Bahá, and later, of  Shoghi Effendi.  Bahá'í laws continues to  be
modified and  expanded through the present-day legislation of the Universal
House of Justice.  

The Uncreated Qur'an vs. the Dynamic Aqdas 

It is a fundamental tenet of (at least Sunni) Islam that  the Qur'an is
"uncreated."  That is, the doctrine insists  that the Holy Book was not created
by God, but has existed  from all eternity (in Arabic) as a fixed and
unchanging guide  for human behavior.  As such, the laws of the Qur'an are
regarded as a rigid blueprint for human life.  As a  consequence, an elaborate
and detailed system of Muslim law  has developed which purports to provide a
guide to human  behavior in every possible situation.  

On the contrary, it is the thesis of this paper that  Bahá'u'lláh did not
intend his Holy Book to be understood in  this manner.  Indeed, the laws of the
Aqdas developed and  changed even in Bahá'u'lláh's lifetime, and certainly
afterward.  Rather, it is my contention that Bahá'u'lláh  intended by the
revelation of the Aqdas to offer the "choice  wine" of upright  and ethical
conduct embodied in general  principles and examples of beneficial law.  That
Bahá'u'lláh  himself regarded these laws as flexible can be demonstrated.
-- Choice Wine: The Kitab-i Aqdas and the Development of Baha'i Law (Used by permission of the curator)