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The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 26.1-2 2016
36
and needs of one set of people become
moral imperatives, whereas those of
others are ignored or suppressed. The
determining logic of social relations
becomes the struggle for existence,
coercion, and the politics of deception
and conquest.
In His Tablet to The Hague,
‘Abdu’l-Bahá draws a direct connection
between the natural law of struggle
for existence and various forms of
prejudice:
In every period war has been
waged in one country or anoth-
er and that war was due to reli-
gious prejudice, racial prejudice,
political prejudice or patriotic
prejudice. It has therefore been
ascertained and proved that all
prejudices are destructive of the
human edifice. As long as these
prejudices persist, the struggle
for existence must remain dom-
inant, and bloodthirstiness and
rapacity continue. Therefore,
even as was the case in the past,
the world of humanity cannot
be saved from the darkness of
nature and cannot attain illumi-
nation except through the aban-
donment of prejudices and the
acquisition of the morals of the
Kingdom. (
Selections
313)
In other words, for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, prej-
udice is the same as the dehumaniza-
tion of the self and others—or per-
ceiving and treating humans as if they
were animals.
divinity and servitude, or existence
and essence. They are as mirrors
which consist of two parts: a glass
that has the property of reflection
and an image that shows in the glass.
Our particularistic essences are what
differentiate us from each other. But
in those diverse mirrors, one and the
same image of God is reflected.
This second part is our aspect of
“divinity.” The difference in our es-
sences creates the illusion of separate-
ness and ego identity. Our existence,
or our divine aspect, however, affirms
our unity in that we are all reflections
of the attributes of God, Who is one.
Although the Bible affirms this con-
cept in the
imago dei
, “Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness” (Gen.
1:26), nevertheless throughout histo-
ry, human cultures have defined iden-
tity by material characteristics that
differentiate people from one another.
The Báb reaffirms that our true re-
ality as human beings is our common
spiritual unity, as mirrors and signs of
God. If we define ourselves in this way,
we see the oneness of God reflected in
the oneness of humanity—a unity that
is diverse in its reflections of the di-
vine attributes. But if we define iden-
tity in terms of difference—focusing
on distinctions of race, gender, social
class, nationality, language, religion,
and other particularistic aspects—we
can easily perceive others as strangers,
enemies, or even as sub-humans. Vio-
lence, conflict, and oppression then be-
come easy to justify. As Durkheim not-
ed, the limits of morality are defined
by group boundaries. The interests