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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 December 2024
Angelology is in a renaissance. Yet the angels of new religious movements in general, and the Bahá’í Faith in particular, remain less examined. In response, I offer a typology of Bahá’í angels as avatars of the Holy Spirit, distinct celestial beings, spiritually evolved people, manifestations of God, and carriers and personifications of divine virtue. These five types respectively function to emphasize the authority of divinity, accentuate the mystery of spiritual reality, reconcile spirituality and materialism through the duality of human nature, position prophets as “manifestations” of God in the context of “progressive revelation,” and attempt to make the unknowable God knowable through the transformation of axiology to ontology. Collectively, Bahá’í angels illumine an understanding of religion as a dialogic relationship. Religion is reconceived as an interactional balance of divine will and human agential choice.
I would like to thank Kimberley C. Patton, Kythe Letitia Heller, and Menaka Kannan for comments on preliminary drafts, and the anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments, which helped to refine and improve the article.
1 “And He shall send His angels, with the inspiration of His command, upon whom He wills of His servants, [telling them], ‘Warn that there is no deity except Me; so fear Me’ ” (sūrah 16:2). Following Bahá’í convention, I have employed reverential capitalization for the pronouns of the Báb, Baháʼu’lláh, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. See: Universal House of Justice, “Mirza Mihdi, ‘Holy Family,’ capitalization of pronouns, Guardian’s use of English,” 14 October 1998, https://bahai-library.com/uhj_mihdi_pronouns_english.
2 Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1989) 78–79.
3 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections From the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre Publishing Trust, 1982) 28.
4 The terms “concourse on high” and “Abhá Kingdom” refer to the spiritual realm of Malakút (see n. 47 for their place in Bahá’í cosmology).
5 Shoghi Effendi, Messages to America (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1947) 90.
6 See n. 40.
7 Nader Saiedi, “The Reconstruction of the Concept of Religion in the Baha’i Writings,” JES 56 (2021) 76–100.
8 Gloria Schaab, “Feminist Theological Methodology: Toward a Kaleidoscopic Model,” TS 62 (2001) 341–65.
9 Translated from Persian (fereshteh) and Arabic (almalak) in Bahá’í holy writings, the word “angel” carries heterogenous denotations. Bahá’í theology is explicit on the polysemy of scripture: “We speak one word, and by it we intend one and seventy meanings; each one of these meanings we can explain”; Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 255.
10 Published by the Association for Bahá’í Studies—North America, an agency of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada.
11 Published by Intellect Books on behalf of the Association for Baháʼí Studies—United Kingdom, an agency of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United Kingdom.
12 Edward Denison Ross, “Browne, Edward Granville (1862–1926),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
13 The “Bahá’í Dispensation” refers to Bahá’í eschatology: Bahá’u’lláh fulfills prior religious prophecy (e.g., the return of Jesus Christ or the Twelfth Imám/Mahdi/al-Qá’im) and establishes a new religious era to last from the date of Bahá’u’lláh’s passing (1892) for one thousand years. See Shoghí Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991) 131–33.
14 Edward G. Browne, The Táríkh-i-Jadíd or New History of Mírzá ‘Ali Muhammad, the Báb, by Mírzá Huseyn of Hamadán, Translated from the Persian (Cambridge: Cambridge at the University Press, 1893) 422.
15 Ibid., 422 n. 1 (italics and brackets in original). The “Beyānic Dispensation” refers to the six-year ministry of the Báb (April 1844 to July 1850) that ran prior to the Bahá’í Dispensation. See Peter Smith, Studies in Bábí and Baháʼí History, vol. 1 (ed. Moojan Momen; Los Angeles: Kalimát, 1982).
16 Stephen Lambden, “Bābī and Bahā’ī Angelology: An Overview” (Hurqalya Publications: Center for Shaykhī and Bābī-Bahā’ī Studies, 2015 [1996]), https://hurqalya.ucmerced.edu/node/260.
17 E.g., The Apocalypse Unsealed: Based in Part Upon the Writings of the Báb, Bahá’ullah, ’Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghí Effendi (ed. Robert Riggs; New York: Philosophical Library, 1981).
18 Rick Johnson, “The Active Force and That Which Is Its Recipient: A Bahai View of Creativity,” Journal of Bahá’í Studies 27.4 (2017) 45.
19 Ian Kluge, “The Bahá’í Philosophy of Human Nature,” Journal of Bahá’í Studies 27.1–2 (2017) 31.
20 Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, “The Conversion of Zoroastrians to the Baha’i Faith,” in The Baha’is of Iran: Socio-Historical Studies (ed. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Seena B. Fazel; New York: Routledge, 2008) 40.
21 Valery Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer: A Cultural History of Angels (London: Tauris, 2013) 200.
22 Julio Savi, “Destiny and Freedom in the Bahá’í Writings,” Journal of Bahá’í Studies 20.1–4 (2010) 16; Sen McGlinn, “A Theology of the State from the Baha’i Teachings,” Journal of Church and State 41.4 (1999) 720.
23 John Hatcher, “Bahá’u’lláh’s Symbolic Use of the Veiled ḥúríyyih,” Journal of Bahá’í Studies 29.3 (2019) 9.
24 Juan Cole, “The World as Text: Cosmologies of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i,” SIs 80 (1994) 145–63.
25 Lambden, “Bābī and Bahā’ī Angelology.” See also idem, “Kaleidoscope: Some Aspects of Angelology, Light, the Divine Throne and Color Mysticism in Bábí and Bahá’í “Scripture,” in Lights of Irfan (ed. Iraj Ayman; Wilmette, IL: Irfan Colloquia, 2004) 5:163–82; idem, “Cherubim, Seraphim and Demythologization: Some Aspects of Babi-Bahá’i Angelology and the Mala’ al-a’la (Supreme Concourse)” (paper presented at the Irfan Colloquia, session 36, London School of Economics, London, 13–15 July 2001).
26 Bahá’í theology asserts that Baháʼu’lláh is the Sháh-Bahrám of Zoroastrianism, the tenth avatar of Hinduism, the fifth Buddha, the Jewish messiah, and the return of Christ. The best example of these claims is found in the Kitáb’i-Íqán (The Book of Certitude), written early in Baháʼu’lláh’s ministry.
27 Mírzá Abu’l-Fadl Gulpáygání, Miracles and Metaphors (trans. Juan Ricardo Cole; Los Angeles: Kalimát, 1981) 487.
28 Studies in Modern Religions, Religious Movements and the Bābī-Bahā’ī Faiths (ed. Moshe Sharon; Leiden: Brill, 2004).
29 Terry Culhane, I Beheld a Maiden: The Baha’i Faith and the Life of the Spirit (Los Angeles: Kalimát, 2001); Gregg A. Lahood, “In the Footsteps of the Prophets? A Two-Step Revelation from the Black Light to the Green Angel (with Transpersonal and Participatory Commentary),” The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 46.2 (2014) 208.
30 William P. Collins, Bibliography of English-language Works on the Bábí and Baháʼí Faiths, 1844–1985 (Oxford: George Ronald, 1990).
31 Peter Smith, An Introduction to the Baha’i Faith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
32 Peter Smith, “Universal House of Justice,” in A Concise Encyclopedia of the Baháʼí Faith (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2000) 348–50.
33 Of the 195 references returned, 18 are redundant (e.g., reprintings of the same text in both a primary text and a compilation).
34 Hatcher, “Bahá’u’lláh’s Symbolic Use of the Veiled ḥúríyyih,” 9.
35 See Tablet of the Maiden (Lawh-i-Húrí), Tablet of the Deathless Youth (Lawh-i-Ghulámu’l-Khuld), Tablet of the Wondrous Maiden (Húr-i-’Ujáb), Tablet of the Holy Mariner (Lawh-i-Malláhu’l-Quds), Súrih of the Pen (Súriy-i-Qalam), and Tablet of the Vision (Lawh-i-Ruʼyá).
36 Bahá’u’lláh, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 2002) 5. While mentioned only a dozen times, the “Maiden of Heaven” is well known due to her association with the revelatory moment of Bahá’u’lláh’s recognition as a divinely ordained messenger of God. This is somewhat parallel to the only three references to the angel Jibríl in the Qur’an (sūrahs 2:97, 2:98, 66:4), two of which relate to Muhammad’s first revelation during the Night of Power. See also Culhane, I Beheld a Maiden, 1–34; Christopher Buck, Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha’i Faith (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999) 251–54; Feminism and Religion: How Faiths View Women and Their Rights (ed. Michele A. Paludi and J. Harold Ellens; Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2016) 168; Brian D. Lepard, In the Glory of the Father: The Baha’i Faith and Christianity (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing, 2008) 32–34.
37 Effendi, Messages to America, 90 (italics in original).
38 Denis MacEoin, The Messiah of Shiraz: Studies in Early and Middle Babism (Leiden: Brill, 2009) 404. See also Lahood, “In the Footsteps of the Prophets?,” 208–39.
39 Lambden, “Bābī and Bahā’ī Angelology.”
40 Universal House of Justice, “Letter to an Individual,” 15 October 1992, https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-universal-house-of-justice/messages/19921015_001/1#724534654. Moreover, in “Baha’i terminology, the Manifestations of God—are the perfect realization of all divine attributes…. Since all prophets are embodiments of divine names and attributes, the truth of all prophets is one and the same reality. Therefore, all prophets are the same reality”; Saiedi, “The Reconstruction,” 83–84.
41 Shoghí Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1979) 102.
42 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Light of the World: Selected Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (Haifa: Baha’i World Centre, 2021).
43 Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baháʼu’lláh, vol. 1, Baghdad 1853–63 (Oxford: George Ronald, 1976) 96–99. “The Seven Valleys” echoes many of the themes in the 12th-cent. poem Maqāmāt-uṭ-Ṭuyūr (Conference of the Birds) by the Sufi poet Farid al-Din Attar and also uses the classic star-crossed love story of “Layla and Majnun,” also written in the 12th cent. by the gnostic poet Nizami Ganjavi.
44 Bahá’u’lláh, “The Seven Valleys,” in The Call of the Divine Beloved: Selected Mystical Works of Bahá’u’lláh (Haifa: Baha’i World Centre, 2019) 11–53.
45 Ibid., 24.
46 Ibid., 27.
47 Háhút is where God resides. Láhút is the realm of the names and attributes of God, as well as the abode of the Holy Spirit and its forms, such as the “Divine Dove,” “Angel Gabriel,” or “Maid of Heaven.” Jabarút is where the souls of the manifestations of God reside, such as Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, and Baháʼu’lláh. Malakút is the realm of departed human souls but is also referred to as the angelic realm. Násút is the physical world of the human, animal, vegetal, and mineral kingdoms. See Jean-Marc Lepain, “The Tablet of All Food: The Hierarchy of the Spiritual Worlds and the Metaphoric Nature of Physical Reality,” Bahaʼi Studies Review 16 (2010) 43–60; Moojan Momen, “The God of Baháʼu’lláh,” in The Bahaʼi Faith and the World’s Religions (Oxford: George Ronald, 2003) 1–38.
48 Baháʼu’lláh, Tablets of Baháʼu’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Wilmette, IL: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1994) 187.
49 See John Hatcher, “Baháʼí Faith,” in How Different Religions View Death and Afterlife (ed. Christopher J. Johnson and Marsha G. McGee; Philadelphia: Charles Press, 2009) 14–30.
50 The Báb, Selections From the Writings of the Báb (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre Publishing Trust, 1982) 50–51.
51 Bahá’u’lláh, Days of Remembrance (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 2016) 145.
52 Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1992) 246.
53 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections, 6.
54 Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh (trans. Shoghi Effendi; Wilmette, IL: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1976) 334–35.
55 Bahá’u’lláh, Days of Remembrance, 176. These quotations are merely examples of three forms of assistance. There appears no temporal pattern in Bahá’í scripture in relation to angels. Rather, there exist several references to angels bringing blessings to people in both the present and future.
56 The Báb, The Báyan, 4:11.
57 Saiedi, “The Reconstruction,” 90.
58 Ibid., 89. The only validated and scripturally authoritative excerpts from The Báyan are available in Selections from the Writings of the Báb (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre Publishing Trust, 1982).
59 Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’í Prayers (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991) 221.
60 Ibid., 224. This is the only reference to “guardian angels” in Bahá’í scripture, of which Shoghí Effendi remarked, “The Teachings do not contain any explanation of what is meant by Guardian Angel”; Shoghi Effendi, “Letter to an Individual,” 26 January 1939,” https://bahai-library.com/writings/shoghieffendi/uncompiled_letters/1930s/1939-01-26%20questions%20of%20Kaukab%20H.%20A.%20MacCutcheon.html.
61 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1984) 305.
62 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982) 470.
63 Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, 269.
64 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Memorials of the Faithful (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1971) 204 n. 3.
65 Ibid., 15.
66 Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, 269.
67 Effendi, God Passes By, 7–8 (emphases in original). Shoghí Effendi explained that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá clarified that these eighteen, along with the Báb (and five others), were the twenty-four elders depicted in the book of Revelation: “Regarding the four and twenty elders: The Master, in a Tablet, stated that they were the Báb, the eighteen Letters of the Living, and five others who would be known in the future. So far we do not know who these five others are”; Shoghí Effendi, Directives from the Guardian (New Delhi: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1973) 87.
68 Effendi, God Passes By, 6.
69 Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 163–64.
70 The prior reference to the “Bird of Heaven” (sometimes called the “dove of Heaven”) is a frequent symbol used by Bahá’u’lláh to refer to the “manifestations of God.” See Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 211, 254; idem, Tablets of Baháʼu’lláh, 261; idem, The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1985) 26.
71 The KJV is used in this article, following Bahá’í convention, which is referenced in a letter from Shoghí Effendi: “Shoghi Effendi himself uses the King James version of the Bible, both because it is an authoritative one and in beautiful English”; Shoghí Effendi, letter to an individual believer, 28 October 1949, published in Bahá’í News 228 (February 1950) 4.
72 Jean-Marc Lepain, “An Introduction to the Lawh-i Haqqu’n-Nas,” Online Journal of Bahá’í Studies 1 (2007) 402.
73 Lambden, “Bābī and Bahā’ī Angelology.”
74 Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 78.
75 Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1987) 339.
76 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of the Divine Plan (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1993) 107.
77 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections, 166.
78 Ibid., 81.
79 Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, 134.
80 Bahá’u’lláh, Days of Remembrance, 131–32.
81 Manifestations “unlike us, are pre-existent. The Soul of Christ existed in the spiritual world before His birth in this world”; Shoghí Effendi, “From a Letter Written on Behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an Individual Believer,” 9 October 1947,” in Lights of Guidance: A Bahá’í Reference File (ed. Helen Hornby; Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983) 505.
82 Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992) 4–9.
83 Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christologies: Antecedents and Early Evidence (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017) 73.
84 Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, 139.
85 Margaret Barker, “The Archangel Raphael in the Book of Tobit,” in Studies in the Book of Tobit: A Multidisciplinary Approach (ed. Mark Bredin; London: T&T Clark, 2006) 120.
86 The holy angels found in 1 Enoch “were clusters of divine powers, so all were one, even though perceived and named separately by people on earth” (Barker, 120). This simultaneous unity and division of angels perfectly reflects the Bahá’í concept of the “manifestation of God” (see n. 40).
87 “The Angel of the Presence was reckoned to have been the one who appeared in the Old Testament…. ‘He who addresses Moses with spoken words is that angel’ ”; Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, 138–39. See also Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christologies, 72.
88 Shoghi Effendi, Unfolding Destiny (London: UK Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1981) 448. This passage is found in a text not currently listed in the Bahá’í Reference Library.
89 Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, 145; Ileene Smith Sobel, Moses and the Angels (New York: Delacorte, 1999).
90 Lambden, “Bābī and Bahā’ī Angelology.”
91 On the angel Raphael’s claim to “reveal the works of God” (Tobit 12:11), Barker writes that “such wisdom sayings… were the angelic revelation which taught the secrets of the creation, and the balance and harmony of all things. Angels taught Wisdom”; Barker, “The Archangel Raphael,” 122 (italics in original).
92 Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 122.
93 “(You will be resurrected) on the Day when the shocking event (i.e. the first blowing of the trumpet) will shock (everything), followed by the next one (i.e. the second blowing of the trumpet)” (sūrah 79:6–7).
94 Lambden, “Bābī and Bahā’ī Angelology.”
95 Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, 138.
96 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections, 204.
97 Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words, 52.
98 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks (1912; Wilmette, IL: Bahai Publishing, 2011) 61.
99 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections, 242.
100 Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice (Wilmette, IL: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1990 [1938]) 26.
101 Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, 346.
102 Bahá’u’lláh, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, 272–73.
103 Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, 254.
104 Bahá’u’lláh, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, 125.
105 Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’í Prayers, 295.
106 Constance Classen, The Color of Angels: Cosmology, Gender, and the Aesthetic Imagination (New York: Routledge, 1998) 36.
107 Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) 32.
108 Ibid., 74.
109 Dylan David Potter, Angelology: Recovering Higher-Order Beings as Emblems of Transcendence, Immanence, and Imagination (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2016) 155.
110 Moojan Momen, “The Reading of Scripture: A Baha’i Approach,” in Reading the Sacred Scriptures: From Oral Tradition to Written Documents and Their Reception (ed. Fiachra Long and Siobhán Dowling Long; London: Routledge, 2017) 137.
111 Giorgio Agamben, “Angelology and Bureaucracy,” in idem, The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (trans. Lorenzo Chiesa with Matteo Mandarini; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011) 165.
112 Juan Cole, “Bahā’-Allāh,” in EIr III/4 (1988) 422–29.
113 See Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, 203–5.
114 For a corollary in Judaic angelology, see Rachel Elior, “Mysticism, Magic, and Angelology: The Perception of Angels in Hekhalot Literature,” JSQ 1 (1993/94) 3–53.
115 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections, 205.
116 Elior, “Mysticism, Magic, and Angelology,” 30.
117 Lawrence Osborn, “Entertaining Angels: Their Place in Contemporary Theology,” TynBul 45 (1994) 273–96.
118 Walter Wink, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 93.
119 For a discussion of angels in Paul’s writings, see, D. Francois Tolmie, “Angels as Arguments? The Rhetorical Function of References to Angels in the Main Letters of Paul,” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 67.1 (2011) 1–8.
120 Potter, Angelology, 180.
121 Andrea Piras, “Angels,” ER 2:343–49, at 344.
122 Negar Mottahedeh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey West: The Course of Human Solidarity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
123 Saiedi, “The Reconstruction,” 78
124 Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words, 1.
125 Effendi, God Passes By, 40.
126 Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words, 17.
127 Ibid., 4.
128 Todd Lawson, “Bahá’í Religious History,” JRHy 36 (2012) 462–70, at 463.
129 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, 116–17.
130 Khazeh Fananapazir, Seena Fazel, and Sen McGlinn, “Some Interpretive Principles in the Bahá’í Writings,” Bahá’í Studies Review 2.1 (1992); Oliver Scharbrodt, Reason and Revelation: New Directions in Bahá’í Thought (Los Angeles: Kalimát, 2003) 529–31. Cf., “the most widespread approach in the American Baha’i community to scriptural exegesis is literalism…. [I]n practice most U.S. Baha’is put a literalist interpretation of scripture above science”; Juan Cole, “The Baha’i Faith in America as Panopticon, 1963–1997,” JSSR 372 (1998) 234–48, at 244.
131 Saiedi, “The Reconstruction,” 81–82.
132 Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, 142.
133 Schaab, “Feminist Theological Methodology,” 365.