The Bahá’í Faith is an independent world religion, last in a line of prophetic (manifested by God) religions.  It is the second most widespread religion in the world after Christianity with more than six million followers living in 235 countries and belonging to 2,112 nations and ethnic groups.  The central, core, idea of the Bahá’í Faith is a paradigm of unity which forms a three-level structure:  unity of God, unity of religions, and unity of humanity.  The entire system of ethical and social principles of the Bahá’í Faith is based on this paradigm.

Unity of God:  God is the original beginning and absolute primal cause, an eternal being which is beyond limited human understanding, the self-subsisting creator of the universe and of all the material world, who Himself exists outside the space-time frame of this world.  God dwells in so-called “spiritual worlds of God”, which have different space-causal relations than our world and which encompasses our world in its own dimensions as something finite and observable

Unity of Religions:  In creating this world, God had a certain goal which cannot be revealed to human sight in its entirety; however, for realization of His purpose, God, through His messengers, prophets, manifestations, periodically provides humanity with His guidance, revelations which slightly open before people the curtain of divine purpose in accordance with the capacity of humanity to perceive, which is limited by cultural and historical peculiarities.

As a matter of fact, all God’s revealed religions brought the same divine truth, and differences between them are determined by different levels of preparedness of human societies and different cultural traditions.  Bahá’ís recognize and deeply respect all the previous manifestations of divine revelation, great teachers: Moses, Krishna, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus Christ and Muhammad, as well as the holy scriptures brought by them.  However, Bahá’ís are far from the idea of eclectic unification of different religions as it is being ascribed to them by some ignorant people.  Bahá’ís view different religions as various partial perceptions of the same divine truth.  Bahá’ís also consider that with the coming of the Báb, the Adamic or Prophetic Cycle has terminated.  The cycle in which humanity has successfully accomplished certain stages of its evolution and the last Prophet of which was Muhammad.  With the coming of Bahá’u’lláh, a new epoch has started which was designated in previous scriptures as “The Day of Resurrection”, “The Day after which there will be no night”.  In this epoch, humanity has the destiny to realize its cumulative capacities and go through qualitative change equivalent to becoming mature and then to develop towards perfection, forgetting about wars and conflicts as diseases of a childhood.

Unity of Humankind:  For the realization of the possibilities mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is necessary to start to unify humanity into a single well-functioning organism.  The plan for achieving this purpose has been brought to humanity by the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.  Many details and guiding principles of that divine plan are presented in the holy writings of the Bahá’í Faith, written by Bahá’u’lláh’s hand and further elaborated through interpretations of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who was the only authorized interpreter of the writings.  Among them are the following:

• Relationship of love and friendly attitude towards all people.  Religion should be a source of love and in no way lead towards dislike, hatred and disagreement.

• Independent search after truth is the right and duty of every Bahá’í.  A Lie is many sided, but truth is one and indivisible.  Therefore, if people search for truth they will certainly achieve unity.  This principle is responsible for the abolition of priesthood as an institution in the Bahá’í dispensation.

• Accepting that all people from the moment of birth are equal and categorically denying racial, national, class, state, social, political, religious, and other prejudices which divide people into opposing groups.

• Acceptance of equality between men and women with regards to their rights and opportunities.

• Equalization/leveling of living allowances… All people have the right for a comfortable life at a certain minimum standard.  No one should live in luxury if another has no means for living.  Of course, it does not mean establishing wage leveling, but the reasonable reduction of the gap between the poor and the rich.

• Necessity of creating a world federation of nations for achieving world peace and unity on the planet

• Need for one international auxiliary language.

• Respect for the family as a sacred institution and a fundamental unit of civilization.  Bahá’í marriage and family life are distinguished by equality, partnership, mutual respect and faithfulness of spouses.

• Principle of the harmonious progress of science and religion.  Religion without science is mere superstition.  Science without religion is blindness, which instead of promoting unity and peace, leads to an abyss of peoples destruction of each other and waste of human potential in producing instruments for struggle and war.  Religion should not be stagnant but has to develop, maintaining a harmony with new achievements in science.

• Justice, individual (just, unprejudiced attitude towards oneself and others) and social, is the basic means for achieving the unity of humankind.  Obviously, the reason for any conflict is that the conflicting parties view each other’s position as being unjust.

• Consultation is a basic means for working out just decisions and solving conflicts.  Consensus, achieving universal agreement and a common point-of-view on any matter in contrast to a compromise that achieves a common decision by means of making mutual concessions, which in the final analysis, leaves everyone dissatisfied.

• Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues.  Only unswerving truthfulness brings forth trust, which is necessary for successful consultation.

• Need for and importance of a universal education as a main instrument for discovering and developing invaluable talents and capacities lying hidden within every individual man and in humanity as a whole.  The task of unifying the human race requires every individual to contribute to building the entire body of human knowledge and to become aware of his own abilities and rights.

• Non-involvement in politics.  Political activity always implies a struggle of some groups against others; that’s why involvement in politics inevitably leads to opposition and prevents the establishment of unity.

• Regarding backbiting, slander, these are the bitterest crimes which compare to murder and adultery.  Backbiting is a poison destroying unity; it is disguised as that same “good intention” by which the road to hell is paved.