Baha'u'llah's Purpose of Religion

This is how I will be introducing discussion of the prayer's first passage in which the performer beseeches God to make of his or her prayer a fire that will burn away the veils that have shut me out from Thy beauty, and a light that will lead me unto the ocean of Thy Presence.



The performance of the Long Obligatory Prayer is not just about communication with God. This would assume that the one who communicates with God is a stable entity who remains a stable entity in the course of prayer. What will be seen though is that one of the prayer’s chief concerns is the cultivation of the performer’s spiritual power. And this involves a fair amount of personal transformation. It is not so much that the performer asks to have something as it is that he or she asks to become something. This becomes crucial when considering the role of the Long Obligatory Prayer not just as a private spiritual exercise but as a strategic feature of the Baha’i community’s public struggle in the name of God. The goal of this struggle is human unity, so as to fulfill the Qur’anic prophecy that the earth be illumined with the light of it Lord.[1] In one of His writings, the “Ishraqat,” Baha’u’llah makes clear His priorities for His newly founded faith.

The purpose of religion as revealed from the heaven of God’s holy Will is to establish unity and concord amongst the peoples of the world; make it not the cause of dissension and strife. The religion of God and His divine law are the most potent instruments and the surest of all means for the dawning of the light of unity amongst men. The progress of the world, the development of nations, the tranquillity of peoples, and the peace of all who dwell on earth are among the principles and ordinances of God.

Baha’u’llah offers many explanations of the purpose of religion, not all of which be easily summed up by one of them. But in almost every iteration, the reader finds an exhortation to human unity and an appeal to make it the organizing principle of Bahá’i community life. The other explanation that Bahá’u’lláh gives of the purpose of religion is that it facillitate creation’s relationship with its Creator. Either way, both of these explanations lead the spiritual seeker back to considerations of oneself and how he or she fits or might fit into human society, and the broader cosmos in general. With this in mind, consider the opening passage of the Long Obligatory Prayer.

O Thou Who art the Lord of all names and the Maker of the heavens! I beseech Thee by them Who are the Daysprings of Thine invisible Essence, the Most Exalted, the All-Glorious, to make of my prayer a fire that will burn away the veils which have shut me out from Thy beauty, and a light that will lead me unto the ocean of Thy Presence.

[1] 39.69