The religion of the Baha'is is often dismissed either as a "sect" or as a "syncretism". Are these reproaches well-founded? Since the background of the Baha'i Faith is to be found in Islamic culture, is it not simply an offshoot of Islam? (113:1)

The Baha'i Faith and Islam are closely related in their history, phenomenology and theology. Because of the common factors in their teachings and terminology, the superficial onlooker quickly comes to the conclusion that the Baha'i Faith is only a special school of thought of Islam. If he is ready to apply the religious-sociological notion of the "sect" to relatively small communities because they are small, and without considering their constituent elements, he will call the Baha'i Faith an Islamic sect without taking into account its self-interpretation and its sociological structure. Thus in earlier literature, especially in reference works and textbooks by Islamic scholars, the Baha'i Faith is more often than not described as a sect of Islam, and even-- in the case of Roemer, a Jesuit-- as an order of dervishes. But the more recent scholars have come to understand that the Baha'i Faith is an original and independent religion. Irrespective of the fact that the criteria of the sect-concept worked out by Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch and Gustav Mensching are without exception absent in the Baha'i Faith, its original character can be deduced from the fact that the 'Qur'an', the revealed book of Islam, is not for Baha'is the foundation of their faith or of their law (113:2)

Since the Badasht Conference of 1848, Islamic religious law has been considered by Baha'is as no longer valid. The Baha'i Faith, according to its own interpretation, does not aim to be a reform or an restoration of Islam, but rather claims its origin in a new act of God, in a new outpouring of the divine spirit and in a new divine covenant. The foundation of belief and of law is the new divine word revealed by Baha'u'llah. This is why the Baha'i is not a Muslim. For the law of the 'Qur'an' and the unalterable creed of orthodox Islam, such as the finality of Muhammad's revelation, have no validity for him. The Baha'i Faith has sprung from Islam in the same way as Christianity did from Judaism: Islam is the mother-religion of the Baha'i Faith. The old covenant established by Muhammad is replaced by the new divine covenant revealed by Baha'u'llah. Therefore the 'Qur'an' is to the Baha'i what the Old Testament is to the Christians: a document of the past history of the salvation of man which also points towards the future to the "appointed hour", the "great Announcement", which the Muslims are still expecting and which, for the Baha'i, has already made its appearance (114:1)

One cannot deny that the two religions present important similarities in their teachings, their ideas and their terminology. In view of their kinship, this is not surprising. Close relatives resemble one another. Religions do not appear in a religious or cultural vacuum, in a space free of a historical background. Each and every manifestation of God has taken up the prevailing social conditions, the existing doctrines, trends of thought and terminologies, and has sanctioned them, or thrown new light upon them, or changed, or rejected them. One cannot but agree with Goldziher's opinion: "Religion never confronts us in the form of a world of ideas detached from definite historical conditions; it lives in deeper and higher states and manifests itself in definite forms which differ from one another on account of the varying prevailing social conditions." Christianity, too, is inconceivable without the Jewish Faith. What the Church maintains to be her essential mystery is God's covenant which, in the history of Israel, was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. She feels herself "spiritually linked to the line of Abraham." Jesus is not the only figure to refer everywhere to Moses and the prophets; the apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, who "hellenized" the young Faith of God and implanted in it pagan beliefs derived from former syncretisms, based his whole argument on Jewish scripture. To the whole of ecclesiastical Christianity, which until the middle of the second century had no holy book of its own, the Book of the Jews was above all the decisive written authority. It is therefore astonishing to read what Rosenkranz writes: "Baha'ism is an Islamic movement, not only in its origin but also in its essence. This is proved for example by its concept of God, its belief in prophets, its veneration of the book...; it even shares with Islam, with all the objections which must be raised against it, the claim that it is a rational, scientific, social and anticlerical religion." "The one God it proclaims-- and all the word-plays and thought-plays which the Baha'is make about it cannot disguise this fact-- is the God of Islam: Allah. The Muslim teaching of the Tawhid, of the unity of Allah forms the basis of its concept of God." This peculiar statement reveals a regrettable lack of understanding of religious history and an obvious inability to acknowledge the analogies evident in the history of the Christian Faith. Moreover, it is not clear as to when the Baha'is ever tried to disguise with "word-plays" and "Thought-plays" the fact that the Islamic teaching of the unity of God and along with it the teaching of the equality of rank of His messengers are religious truths which were reaffirmed by Baha'u'llah and stated by him in great detail. They are unalterable constituents of the Baha'i Faith (114:2)

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