March 4. On this date in 1974, a group of Bahá'ís wrote the Universal House of Justice about "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."

 

March 4. On this date in 1974, a group of Bahá'ís wrote the Universal House of Justice about "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."

In 1973 a "Synopsis and Codification" of the Kitáb-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 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, such as one by the Royal Asiatic Society, 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.