Abdu'l-baha

The Universal Principles of the Reform Bahai Faith Abdu'l-baha

The Universal Principles of the Reform Bahai Faith collects many of the early writings of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha, published in the West, seeking to restore and preserve their vision of the oneness of God, humanity, and all religions.

In addition to all of the 1912 Universal Principles of the Bahai Movement, the book includes Baha'u'llah's Arabic Hidden Words, selections known as the Spirit of the Age, an address by Abdul-Baha at the Friends' Meeting House in London in 1913, and many Bahai prayers for community and individual worship and meditation.

Though beginning in 2004, the Reform Bahai Faith traces its origin to the early Bahais Ruth White, Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, and Julie Chanler, who sought to preserve the teachings of Abdul-Baha after his passing in 1921. They and other early American Bahais understood the Bahai Faith was being turned into an oppressive organization, under what the British Museum document expert Dr. C. Ainsworth Mitchell judged to be a fraudulent will and testament, as discussed in the book Letters from the American Desert (ISBN-13: 978-0967042114).

Baha'u'llah, the Founder of the Bahai Faith, as interpreted by his son Abdul-Baha for the modern world, believed in and taught a moderate, universal religion, grounded in a separation of church and state, not a theocracy, and members of the Reform Bahai Faith seek to recover and renew that universal, pluralistic vision for all humanity.