Sunday, June 10, 2018

June 9. On this date in 1974, the Universal House of Justice listed "those laws listed in the "Synopsis and Codification of the Kitab-i-Aqdas" which are not at present binding upon the friends in the western world."



June 9.  On this date in 1974,  a letter from the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of [Ísafjürdur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Dsafj%C3%B6r%C3%B0ur) [sic] listed "those laws listed in the ["Synopsis and Codification of the Kitab-i-Aqdas"](http://bahai-library.com/bahaullah_synopsis_codification) which are not at present binding upon the friends in the western world."  In 1973 a ["Synopsis and Codification"](http://bahai-library.com/bahaullah_synopsis_codification) of the *[Kitáb-i-Aqdas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit%C3%A1b-i-Aqdas)*, the central book of the Bahá'í Faith written by Bahá'u'lláh, was published in English by the Universal House of Justice, with 21 passages of the *[Aqdas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit%C3%A1b-i-Aqdas)* that had already been translated into English by Shoghi Effendi with additional terse lists of laws and ordinances contained in the book outside of any contextual prose.

The *[Aqdas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit%C3%A1b-i-Aqdas)* was only officially translated into English in 1992, by which time [other translations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit%C3%A1b-i-Aqdas#Translations), such as one by the [Royal Asiatic Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Asiatic_Society_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland), were becoming increasingly available through dissemination via the internet.  My personal opinion is that the material in the *[Kitáb-i-Aqdas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit%C3%A1b-i-Aqdas)* is so objectionable that the [Bahá'í authorities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_administration) wished to shield Western believers from its contents, as they do from Bahá'u'lláh's other works by not providing translations.

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