November 7. On this date in 1950, Shoghi Effendi cabled the National Spiritual Assembly of India "DO NOT ADVISE PRINT AQDAS."

 

November 7. On this date in 1950, Shoghi Effendi cabled the National Spiritual Assembly of India "DO NOT ADVISE PRINT AQDAS."

NOVEMBER 7, 1950

DO NOT ADVISE PRINT AQDAS.

SHOGHI

William McElwee Miller and Earl E. Elder's translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas was published by the Royal Asiatic Society with the title Al-kitab al-aqdas or The most holy book in 1961, some thirty years before the Bahá'í Administrative Order's authorized translation in 1992.

What I particularly like about Elder & Miller translation is that it uses contemporary English. The 1992 translation commissioned by Universal House of Justice unnecessarily uses words like "hath," "heareth," "thy," and "ye" in an attempt to mimic the tone of the King James Version of the Bible.

In 1973 a "Synopsis and Codification" of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas was published in English by the Universal House of Justice, with 21 passages of the 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 was only officially translated into English in 1992, by which time other translations were becoming increasingly available through dissemination via the internet. 

My personal opinion is that the material in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is so objectionable that the Bahá'í authoritieswished to shield Western believers from its contents, as they do from Bahá'u'lláh's other works by not providing translations.