Dimensions of Baha'i Law

by Roshan Danesh

Overview

Roshan Danesh has devoted his career to the study of law and religion with a particular focus on the Bahá'í Faith and its central legal text, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. In this collection of essays--previously published in a variety of academic journals, including the prestigious Journal of Law and Religion--Danesh invites the reader into an exploration of largely unchartered waters. As he states in the introduction to this collection, "understanding Bahá'í law challenges us to question, and ultimately abandon, our taken-for-granted ways of thinking, talking about, and using law." Organized around four distinct areas-- Bahá'u'lláh's conception of law, the constitutional dimensions of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh's theory of social change, and scholarship and discourses concerning Bahá'í law--the essays collected here are expansive and illuminating, and they provide an invaluable contribution to discourse on the subject. With a foreword by Kiser Barnes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781618511683
Publisher:	Baha'i Publishing Trust, U.S.
Publication date:	04/16/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	882 KB

About the Author

Dr. Roshan Danesh is a lawyer, conflict resolution innovator, and educator whose areas of work, teaching, and writing include law and religion, constitutional law, Indigenous rights, international peace-building, and leadership and organizational change. Roshan completed his S.J.D. at Harvard Law School and L.L.B at the University of Victoria, and he has taught at many academic institutions around the world. For the last fifteen years Roshan has also worked extensively on advancing Indigenous rights and reconciliation, including advising Indigenous nations and political organizations, acting as a special counsel to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and acting as a special advisor to the Government of British Columbia. He currently lives in Victoria, Canada with his family.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Foreword xiii

Introduction xvii

Part 1 Foundations for Understanding Bahá'í Law 1

1 Some Reflections on the Concept of Law in the Bahá'í Faith 3

Bahá'u'lláh's Break with the Islamic Legal Imagination 5

Bahá'u'lláh's Legal Language 12

Bahá'u'lláh's Rationale for Obedience to the Law 17

Bahá'í Legal Imagination 23

Part 2 Reading the Kitáb-i-Aqdas 25

2 Some Reflections on the Structure of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas 27

The Arcs of Ascent and Descent 29

The Centrality of Paragraph 19 32

Conclusion 41

3 The Politics of Delay-Social Meanings and the Historical Treatment of Bahá'í Law 43

Dealing with Delay 44

Social and Political Dimensions of Bahá'í Law 48

The Political Dimensions of Bahá'í Law 49

The Social Dimensions of Bahá'í Law 51

Conclusion 55

Part 4 Bahá'í Law, Political Structures, and World Order 57

4 Hegemony and Revelation: A Bahá'í Perspective on World Order 59

Introduction 60

Dimensions of Bahá'u'lláh's New World Order 62

The Principle of Oneness and a New Form of Politics 70

A Hegemonic Bahá'í World Commonwealth in the New World Order? 73

Conclusion 77

5 Church and State in the Bahá'í Faith: An Epistemic Approach 79

The Current Secondary Literature on Church and State in the Bahá'í Faith 82

Questioning Essentialisms: An Epistemic Approach to the Question of Church and State 87

Temporal Legitimacy and Divine Sovereignty 88

Interaction of Religion and Politics 97

Maturation and Unity 109

An Open Vision of Church and State 122

6 Internationalism and Divine Law: A Bahá'í Perspective 125

A Brief Introduction to Bahá'í Law 127

Divine Law and Human Law-Making 135

Unity and Positive Law 143

Fragmentation, Integration, and World Order 149

Disintegration 149

Integration 154

Conclusion 160

Part 5 Bahá'í Law and Social Change 161

7 Some Reflections on Bahá'í Approaches to Social Change (coauthor Lex Musta) 163

Elements of a Bahá'í Approach to Social Change 166

Conclusion 187

Part 6 Discourses and the Study of Bahá'í Law 193

8 Imagining Bahá'í Law 195

Schaefer's Text-Centric Construction of Bahá'í Law 197

Questioning a Text-Centric Approach 200

Law as Text / Law in Practice 206

9 Themes in the Study of Bahá'u'lláh's Kitáb-i-Aqdas: Emerging Approaches to Scholarship on Bahá'í Law 209

Introduction 209

Themes in the Study of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas 210

Conclusion 227

Notes 229

Works Cited 271

Index 279