I used to think that Baha'u'llah's ideas were revolutionary in the context of religious dispensations. But over the years, some ideas I thought were novel were almost word for word found in Persian poetry from famous "Sufi" poets.
I also used to think that it was novel that Baha'u'llah says in the Kitab-i Aqdas that no more than 2 wives are permitted in conjunction with Abdul-Baha's interpretation that only 2 wives are permissible provided justice and equity are observed, but since that is impossible, you can only have one wife.
https://bahai-library.com/provisionals/aqdas/aqdas147.notes.html
Any of you who have kids will also understand that it's impossible to be equitable to your children, especially if you have more than one. The 2nd and 3rd children are invariably always treated differently, and this is just natural part of being human. So why should people be allowed to have more than one child if you can't treat them the same?
I recently watched this YouTube video about some Bedouins in Israel and one of the leaders was asked specifically about Polygamy, and his response was surprising and demonstrated that this Baha'i idea is not novel at all.
https://youtu.be/_g3f1xVhPX4?si=PKJB0P2M3YObHFwW&t=907
In the video the Bedouin leader basically says that plurality of wives has to meet certain conditions, and you can't just take a new wife because you see a beautiful lady on the street. He says you have to be able to treat them equitably, especially by material means.
While I can see there could be some rebuttals of this, on the difference between equality and equity, material equity and feelings of love and affection for one wife or the other, etc. But the problem is that growing up in a Baha'i family you grow up being told that Muslims can take multiple wives willy nilly. But it's not true and there is more nuance to it. There is definitely some baggage Baha'i's have against Islam in this regard.
Not to mention that Baha'u'llah doesn't even appear to be adamantly against more wives than two, it sounds like it's just a warning, not a divine decree in the same way that he abrogated Jihad.
https://old.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/1bbx0xv/plurality_of_wives_islam_vs_bahai_faith/
No comments:
Post a Comment