Our work is worship to God

It is incumbent upon each one of you to engage in some occupation - such as a craft, a trade or the like. We have exalted your engagement in such work to the rank of worship of the one true God. Reflect, O people, on the grace and blessings of your Lord, and yield Him thanks at eventide and dawn. Waste not your hours in idleness and sloth, but occupy yourselves with what will profit you and others. Thus hath it been decreed in this Tablet from whose horizon hath shone the day-star of wisdom and utterance.

Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 30


It is enjoined upon every one of you to engage in some form of occupation, such as crafts, trades and the like. We have graciously exalted your engagement in such work to the rank of worship unto God, the True One. Ponder ye in your hearts the grace and the blessings of God and render thanks unto Him at eventide and at dawn. Waste not your time in idleness and sloth. Occupy yourselves with that which profiteth yourselves and others. Thus hath it been decreed in this Tablet from whose horizon the day-star of wisdom and utterance shineth resplendent.

Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 26 [Tablet of Bisharat (Glad Tidings)]

South African film shows faith in action

A new documantary programme about the Bahá'í Faith aired today (19th August) on South African television. This is what the Bahá'í World News Service reported about it.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, 19 August 2007 (BWNS)

Two professional filmmakers have finished an hourlong documentary about three Bahá'ís and how they practice their faith, and the film is being aired on television in South Africa and neighboring countries.

"Bahá'í Faith: A Way Forward" was produced by Ryan and Leyla Haidarian at the request of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which has licensed rights to the documentary for two years.

"We created this film to show what the Bahá'í Faith has to offer on a practical level for the world," Mrs. Haidarian said.

The film gives an introduction to the Bahá'í Faith and focuses on three individuals in South Africa and how their faith is reflected in service to others:

- Eunice Mabaso turned her home into an orphanage after her brother and his wife died and she took in their four children. Over the years, hundreds of other orphans - many of them living in poverty in the streets - came to her home for shelter, love, and protection. "We can change the poverty and crime of this earth," she says. "The future of South Africa will become brighter."

- Iraj Abedian, an economist and policy adviser to the government, tries to address problems resulting from extremes of wealth and poverty. One of his projects is a collective home-financing program that helps low-income working people save money and invest, but he is careful to emphasize that his work is based on principles from what he believes is a divine plan. He says you can look at the world as a construction site, "full of dust and mud and rubbish, and yet see in it the (new)
edifice that is rising.... To be at work on the construction site - it's exciting."

- Tahirih Matthee helps provide training programs for people with no experience using computers and the Internet. Her course includes education about gender equality - she points out that equality of women and men is an explicit teaching of the Baha'i Faith - and also information about HIV/AIDS prevention. "For something to be successful, you need vision," she says. "Every person can be happy when things are ideal, but our true nobility lies in the journey of being happy precisely when
things are not ideal."

The new film includes historical photos of the Baha'i community of South Africa, including its founding during the time of apartheid.

"In those days, the Baha'is stuck to the letter of the law, but they didn't really stick to the spirit of the law," says the film. A fundamental principle of the Baha'i Faith is the unity of the races and the elimination of prejudice.

Great precaution was taken for the first election of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of South Africa. It was held in a farmhouse, and whites entered through the front door, black Africans through the back door.

"If the security police approached, the African Bahá'ís began cleaning and cooking. The white Bahá'í played cards and socialized," the narrator relates.

The Haidarians produced and financed the documentary through their company, Race Productions, in South Africa.

Ryan Haidarian heads up development and production at the National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa, the organization that produced the Academy Award-winning film "Tsotsi." A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin in the United States, Mr. Haidarian won numerous awards, including HBO's Peabody Award, for a documentary about famed American football coach Darrell Royal.

Leyla Haidarian has worked as a journalist, actress, and filmmaker in Europe, North America and Africa, and can currently be seen playing a supporting role in a South African drama series.


"Bahá'í Faith: A Way Forward" can be seen on the Web at www.doubletake.tv/cms/way-forward-english. The Web site also gives information for ordering a DVD.

A step in the right direction in Israel?

Israeli religious leaders establish an unprecedented joint council

On 27 June 2007, a new forum called the Council of Religious Community Leaders in Israel convened in Jerusalem. The conference was the culmination of months of work by a steering committee, set up at the initiative of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Interior, for the purpose of improving inter-religious dialogue and promoting issues of common interest to all the religions in Israel.

Representatives from the Jewish, Muslim, Druze, Greek Orthodox and other Christian denominations, Bahá'í, Ahmadiyya and Samaritan faiths attended the conference.

At the conference, the religious leaders adopted a covenant wherein they make a commitment to the sanctity of human life and denounced violence against the innocent, especially violence in the name of religion. They state also that children must be educated in this respect. Relgious and cultural heritages should be preserved and free access for all believers to their holy sites should be guaranteed.

The full text of this convenant can be read on the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' website.

Iranian Baha'i students shut out of vocational education

Another story about Iran's ongoing persecution of the Baha'i community of Iran. From the Bahai World News Service.

NEW YORK, 31 July 2007
Iranian Baha'is seeking to enter Iran's technical and vocational institutes have been effectively barred from admission for the coming academic year, since the application to sit for the entrance examinations leaves them with no option but to deny their faith, which Baha'is refuse to be coerced into doing.

The Baha'i International Community learned recently that the 2007 form for the entrance examination for undergraduate courses under the technical and vocational education system indicates that only one box may be marked for religion.

The applicant is given three choices - Zoroastrian, Jewish, or Christian - and if none of the boxes is marked, the form explains, the applicant will be considered Muslim. This is unacceptable to Baha'is.

"Under this system, Baha'is cannot fill out the application without a de facto denial of their faith, which is against their religious principles," said Bani Dugal, the Baha'i International Community's principal representative to the United Nations.

"Accordingly, Iranian Baha'is will not be able to take this entrance examination, and so they are effectively blocked this year from obtaining technical and vocational education in Iran.

"Such a denial of access to education violates the internationally established right to education, to which the government of Iran has agreed, and reflects yet another facet of Iran's continuing persecution of the Baha'i community of Iran," said Ms. Dugal.

The Baha'i International Community decries the government's actions not only against Baha'i students - who are deprived of higher education solely for their religious beliefs - but also against any other Iranian students who are being denied access to higher education on clearly insupportable grounds, such as for giving voice to beliefs or opinions that are not officially endorsed, Ms. Dugal said.

Last autumn, after more than 25 years during which Iranian Baha'is were outright banned from attending public and private universities, several hundred Baha'i students were admitted to various educational institutions around the country. This came about after the government stated its position that the reference to religion on entrance examination papers to nonspecialized universities and colleges did not identify university applicants by their religion, but only gave the religious studies subject on which they had been examined. This clarification was accepted by
the Universal House of Justice, the international governing body of the Baha'i Faith.

The acceptance of Baha'i students at Iranian universities has, however, been short-lived, Ms. Dugal said.

According to the latest figures from Iran, of the Baha'i students who took the national entrance examination last year, ultimately some 200 were admitted and enrolled. Over the course of the school year, however, over half that number - at most recent count, at least 128 - have been expelled as school officials discovered they were Baha'is. This has led observers to conclude that Iran's statements last year were nothing more than a ruse intended to quell international protest over the
denial to Baha'i students of access to higher education.

"This latest news about the registration form for technical and vocational education only serves to further confirm that Iran continues to play games with Baha'i students in their country, and that its promises of access to higher education for them are hollow," said Ms. Dugal.

For other stories about the Baha'i Faith visit the Baha'i World News Service website.