May 7. On this date in 1980, the Universal House of Justice wrote the NSA of Germany in response to their letter concerning a newspaper's publishing a letter from Swiss ex-Bahá'í Francesco Ficicchia. In 1995 Udo Schaefer, German Bahá'í author and lawyer who served on the NSA of Germany, authored Desinformation als Methode as a refutation to Francesco Ficicchia's Der Bahá'ismus — Weltreligion der Zukunft?. Although Der Bahá'ismus was never translated into English, Schaefer's Desinformation als Methode was published in 2001 in English as Making the Crooked Straight, which was reviewed by Denis MacEoin.

 

May 7. On this date in 1980, the Universal House of Justice wrote the NSA of Germany in response to their letter concerning a newspaper's publishing a letter from Swiss ex-Bahá'í Francesco Ficicchia. In 1995 Udo Schaefer, German Bahá'í author and lawyer who served on the NSA of Germany, authored Desinformation als Methode as a refutation to Francesco Ficicchia's Der Bahá'ismus — Weltreligion der Zukunft?. Although Der Bahá'ismus was never translated into English, Schaefer's Desinformation als Methode was published in 2001 in English as Making the Crooked Straight, which was reviewed by Denis MacEoin.

The Universal House of Justice

Department of the Secretariat

7 May 1980

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Germany

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

The Universal House of Justice has received your letter of 14 April 1980 enclosing the copy of that part of page 15 of the issue of the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung for 14 March 1980, on which the letter from Francesco Ficicchia was published.

The House of Justice feels that the best course is to ignore this disgraceful attack on the Faith, rather than to make any rebuttal. Your Assembly should, however, be prepared to answer any enquiries that you may receive as a result of this article, whether from Bahá’ís or non-Bahá’ís. To assist you in this, we enclose extracts from a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice, which touch on matters raised by Mr. Ficicchia. You are also, no doubt, aware that a Russian translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas by A. G. Tumansky was published in 1899. A translation of the complete text into English, made by two former Presbyterian missionaries in Iran, was published by The Royal Asiatic Society in 1961; it is accompanied by highly prejudiced and misleading footnotes and introduction, and the inadequacy of the translation itself is immediately apparent to anyone who compares passages with those that Shoghi Effendi translated. The exisence of these two published translations, however, demonstrates the falsity of Ficicchia’s statement that no complete translation exists. A far clearer understanding of the contents of the Most Holy Book, however, than given by either translation, is presented in the Synopsis and Codification of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas which gives not only the laws of the Aqdas themselves, but also includes the elucidations given by Bahá’u’lláh Himself in the “Questions and Answers,” and contains many explanatory annotation provided by the House of Justice.

With loving Bahá’í greetings,

Department of the Secretariat

27 May 1980

Extracts from a reply written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to questions about the Kitáb-i-Aqdas

The institution of the Covenant has a direct bearing on the implementation of the laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. This Book is the repository of the basic laws for the Dispensation to be implemented gradually in accordance with the guidance given by God through those infallible Institutions which lie at the heart of the Covenant. Indeed, one of those Institutions, the Universal House of Justice, has been given by Bahá’u’lláh the task not only of applying the laws but of supplementing them and of making laws on all matters not explicitly covered in the Sacred Text. An English translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas was made by Dr. Earl E. Elder and Dr. William McE. Miller, two men who were Presbyterian missionaries in Persia and have long been strongly antagonistic to the Faith. A great many of the statements that they make about its history are based on the assertions of Covenant-breakers or opponents of the Faith—rather like a history of Christianity based primarily on statements by enemies of Jesus Christ. Dr. Miller, for example, places great reliance on a document called the “Nuqṭatu’l-Káf,” which is, in fact, spurious, as is fully demonstrated by the Hand of the Cause Ḥasan Balyúzí in his book Edward Granville Browne and the Bahá’í Faith.