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Basis for Christian concern: Since Baha'u'llah ("the Prince of Peace") promotes world peace and disarmament, there is fear that this might make Him the Beast/Anti-Christ (7:1) The followers of the Beast (rev 19:20) worship his image, and of course Baha'is do NOT worship the image of Baha'u'llah. (7:2) see The Beast in rev 19:19, who, with the kings of the earth and their armies are to make war on the Return of Christ, is nowhere in the Bible equated with the Anti-Christ and there is no basis for claiming that the Anti-Christ is the Beast. The "Beast" refers to the rising of an destructive element in Islam which would alter Islam to it's very core. (7:3) For the Beast with the ten horns, this represents the names of Umayyad rulers. The seven heads are the seven countries and dominions over which the Bani-Umayya had power.. (saq 79); Seria, Persia, Egypt, Arabia, North Africa, Spain, and Turkey. There were 15 Umayyad rulers, but some shared the same name (or the same horn), so there were only 10 names of rulers, or 10 horns. (7:4) For the Beast who kills Two Witnesses (rev 11:7), the Baha'i Writings say that the Two Witnesses were Muhammad and His son and son-in-law Ali, the 1st Imam. (7:5) see For the Beast who was, is not, shall ascend in Revelation 17:8. (Later translations render this as "The Beast that "was", "is", and is "yet to come"); the beast that "was" is the beasts in the past, which from John's perspective 2000 years ago, were the Empires that had occupied Jerusalem in the past. The beast who "is" is the beast who were occupying Jerusalem at the time of John, which was the Roman Empire. The beast that was "yet to come" was the beast of the future (from John's viewpoint 2000 years ago). This was the Islamic Empire, ruled by the Umayyad Dynasty and those dynasties that followed (since it is the only Empire that has occupied Jerusalem since the Roman Empire)
(7:6)
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