The Bāb, Bahā’u’llāh, and `Abdu’l-Bahā have all used a mixture of Arabic and Farsi in their writings and speeches. This makes no sense given that they were speaking to a group of people who were Persians not Arabs. What is the use in talking to a Persian in Arabic if he is not going to understand what you are saying and the message will not be conveyed?

Based on common-sense, the Quran says:

We sent no messenger but with the tongue of his people so that he may explain to them.[1]

If the purpose of a Messenger or Prophet is to explain and convey God’s words to the people, then it makes sense for him to speak their tongue, not some foreign language. The question is, why did these three figures perform such an unreasonable act in contrast to what is expected from a divine figure? And then on top of this, claim that they strive for a unified language? We will allow Adib Taherzadeh—a former member of the Universal House of Justice—to explain why:

In Persia in the nineteenth century most people were illiterate, under the domination of the clergy whom they blindly obeyed. There were two educated classes, divines and government officials, plus a small number of others. Only the religious leaders and divines, however, could be called learned. They used to spend decades of their lives applying themselves to theology, Islamic law, jurisprudence, philosophy, medicine, astronomy and, above all, the Arabic language and its literature. Since Arabic was the language of the Qur’ān, the divines attached great importance to its study. Many would spend a lifetime mastering the language because of its vast scope and wealth of expression. They considered no treatise worthy of perusal unless it was composed and written in Arabic, and no sermon from the pulpit as moving or eloquent unless the Mullā preaching it had used an abundance of difficult and often incomprehensible Arabic words. By this means they excited the imagination of their often illiterate audiences who were fascinated by the apparently learned discourse of their clergy, despite the fact that they might not understand a single word. The normal yardstick for determining the depth of a man’s learning was his knowledge of the Arabic language and the size of his turban![2]

What Adib Taherzadeh says boils down to this: The reason someone would speak Arabic to a Farsi audience, was to make them believe he was knowledgeable although the audience didn’t understand a word that he was uttering. The same attitude has been followed by the Baha’i figures. Truly, what purpose do the abundance of difficult and often incomprehensible Arabic words, put on top of the high amounts of esoteric, mystical, vague, and sometimes incomprehensible expressions in the works of the Bāb and Bahā’u’llāh serve, but to excite the imagination of their audiences and induce them into thinking they are knowledgeable?

[1] Quran, 14:4

[2] Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahā’u’llāh (Oxford, 1974), vol. 1, pp. 18–19.