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The 29th Hasan M. Balyuzi Memorial Lecture
The Birth of the Human Being:
Beyond Religious Traditionalism
and Materialist Modernity
NADER SAIEDI
According to the worldview of the Bahá’í Faith we have arrived at a
turning point in the evolution of human history. This turning point is
primarily the moment of the
birth of the human being
. In this paper I will
first define what I mean by “the birth of the human being” and its oppo-
site concept, namely, the logic of dehumanization. Then I will trace the
development of this idea in the Writings of the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and
‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
T
HE
B
IRTH OF THE
H
UMAN
B
EING
Human history so far has been primarily a history of dehumanization. We
humans have perceived neither others nor ourselves as human beings and
therefore we have treated each other as objects and animals. Dehuman-
ization is the process through which human beings are reduced to the
level of nature, objects, and physical bodies. Humans as humans, however,
are defined by their consciousness, their reason, their spiritual powers and
perfections.
We can begin our discussion by referring to two symbols of the birth
of the human being. The first is the ancient symbol of Egyptian culture,
the sphinx. This enigmatic symbol has been interpreted in various ways.
But from a dialectical perspective, the sphinx represents the meaning and
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