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The ascendancy achieved by Baha'u'llah was nowhere better demonstrated than in His ability to broaden the outlook and transform the character of the community to which He belonged. Though Himself nominally a Babi, though the provisions of the Bayan were still regarded as binding and inviolable, He was able to inculcate a standard which, while not incompatible with its tenets, was ethically superior to the loftiest principles which the Babi Dispensation had established. The salutary and fundamental truths advocated by the Bab, that had either been obscured, neglected or misrepresented, were moreover elucidated by Baha'u'llah, reaffirmed and instilled afresh into the corporate life of the community, and into the souls of the individuals who comprised it. The dissociation of the Babi Faith from every form of political activity and from all secret associations and factions; the emphasis placed on the principle of non- violence; the necessity of strict obedience to established authority; the ban imposed on all forms of sedition, on back- biting, retaliation, and dispute; the stress laid on godliness, kindliness, humility and piety, on honesty and truthfulness, chastity and fidelity, on justice, toleration, sociability, amity and concord, on the acquisition of arts and sciences, on self- sacrifice and detachment, on patience, steadfastness and resignation to the will of God-- all these constitute the salient features of a code of ethical conduct to which the books, treatises and epistles, revealed during those years, by the indefatigable pen of Baha'u'llah, unmistakably bear witness.
(132:2)
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