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History gives judgment on whether the "sun" rose or whether only a lamplighter was at work. The standard is "By their fruits ye shall know them." Jesus and Muhammad-- to name only these two-- transformed men and changed the world and so survived the "crackpots" of their age. Who today remembers Mani, who knows of Musaylimah the "Liar", the false prophet of Arabia, who proposed to Muhammad to share the world between them? (58:1) ..the Baha'is have never made any secret of the fact that their Faith, which has developed in the bright light of history, has gone through a series of the severest internal crises, "such as to exceed in gravity those from which the religions of the past have suffered." The plots to which Baha'u'llah was exposed by his step-brother, Mirza-Yahya, the succession disputes which shook the Faith, after the deaths of both Baha'u'llah and 'Abdul-Baha, are to be read in the standard work of the history of the Baha'i Faith, Shoghi Effendi's 'God Passes By'. These melancholy happenings are like illnesses, which shook and prostrated the young Faith and temporarily obscured its brightness; yet after they had been overcome, on each occasion it arose with new strength. (58:2) No religion has been spared similar experiences. The greatest and most dangerous adversaries to religions have grown up from within them and not outside them. Marcion, not Domitian, Diocletian or Julian, was the most dangerous threat to the unity of the young Christian community. Usually it was the nearest relatives, disciples or confidants who betrayed their Lord and master. Joseph was "sold into Egypt" by his blood-brothers, Jesus was betrayed to his enemies by one of his twelve chosen Apostles; Abu-Bakr, Muhammad's father-in-law, and 'Umar, his closest confidant, acted against the Prophet's express directions, opposed his chosen successor, 'Ali, and usurped the Caliph's office. Here the words apply: "For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh."(Matt 18:7). No human community, least of all a religious one, is immune from such "offences," from elements with a destructive urge, which aspire to leadership and rebel against authority, whether out of self-seeking ambition or from error..
(58:3)
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