These errors were penned down by `Abdu’l-Bahā who Shoghi describes as the Unerring Pen.[3] Both the Farsi and Arabic sections of this work contain these mistakes. Apparently, Bahā’u’llāh had linguistic problems not only in Arabic, but in his mother tongue too.

If today, a book is published with so many obvious stylistic, grammatical, and editing errors, the author, editor, and publisher (who are all prone to error) would be criticized in the harshest manner possible. But if a claimant to prophethood commits these mistakes, his followers act like it is no big deal.

In the following table we have put side by side the text of the current and original Īqān to show the errors that have been fixed.

Table 3: Comparison between original Īqān and current Īqān in which errors uttered by Bahā’u’llāh have been corrected

This is how the UHJ justifies Bahā’u’llāh’s act of correcting these errors:

In his Questions and Answers, supplemental to the Kitāb-i Aqdas, Bahā’u’llāh himself discloses the editing process and reasons for it: “Many Tablets were revealed and dispatched in their original form without being checked and reviewed. Consequently, as bidden, they were again read out in the Holy Presence, and brought into conformity with the grammatical conventions of the people in order to forestall the cavils of the opponents of the Cause.”[4]

What a careless Prophet! Utter words using inappropriate grammar and style, let them be inscribed under your nose, allow them to be distributed far and wide, and once the errors have been exposed bring them in conformity with the grammatical conventions of the people and use the excuse of forestalling the cavils of the opponents!

What the UHJ doesn’t tell us is that this reasoning fundamentally contradicts what Bahā’u’llāh had uttered when he was confronted with the grammatical errors in his writings and the writings of the Bāb:

Say, oh you ignorant man; look at the words of God using His Eyes so that you may realize they are free of the allusions and the grammatical conventions  of the people for He possesses the knowledge of the worlds. Say, if the words of God were revealed based on your grammatical conventions and (the laws) that are with you, then they would be like your words, oh group of people who are veiled (from the truth).[5]

You and your kind have said that the words of the Great Bāb and the Most Complete Remembrance are wrong and not in conformance with the grammatical conventions of the people. You still haven’t understood that the divine revealed words are the yardstick for all and what is lower than them cannot be a yardstick. Every grammatical convention that is not in accordance with the divine verses has no credibility.[6]

Bahā’u’llāh had stated in the clearest words that his writings are not and must not be[7] in accordance with the grammatical conventions of the people. He had stated that all grammatical conventions that are not in conformance with his writings are wrong and have no credibility. Suddenly he changes his mind and distorts all his writings and brings them in conformity with the grammatical conventions of the people, the same conventions that he had openly stated had no credibility and the words of God must not follow!

Bahā’u’llāh is probably the only Prophet ever who has revised and changed the errors in his own writings, and the only erring infallible. Unfortunately, some people fail to see why these errors must not be committed by a divine figure who carries God’s messages. Some people fail to realize that God’s words don’t need to be edited, proofread, and changed, especially if they have been penned by the “Unerring Pen.”

To make matters worse, the UHJ explicitly mentions that many of the changes were suggested to Bahā’u’llāh by an ordinary person:

It is important to note that the stylistic and grammatical changes mentioned above took place over time—often it was Zayn himself that suggested them—and therefore the various manuscripts differ somewhat, one from the other.[8]

These words show how helpless Bahā’u’llāh was in correcting his errors. Every time he fixed the errors some more were found and he was again forced to make changes in the book and give out a new revised version. He even needed a fallible person to point out these errors and give him suggestions. Thus, the book was not revised once but numerous times. If these changes were made to “to forestall the cavils of the opponents of the Cause” then why not change it accordingly once and shut the mouth of the opponents once and for all. Are the words of God some sort of joke that must be changed every time someone objects to them? The words of God are perfect they need not be changed for style and grammar.

These acts by Bahā’u’llāh are in direct contradiction with the claimed infallibility and divine knowledge attributed to him. What is the difference between this Baha’i prophet and all other ordinary men who make mistakes and correct them later on? What kind of an Omniscient God do Baha’is believe in that cannot foresee the troubling consequences of his revelations and changes them multiple times and gives out newer versions and editions?!

2- Errors in Citing the Quran

Bahā’u’llāh had made many errors in citing the verses of the Quran and was forced to correct these too in revisions of the Īqān. The closest version to the original undistorted book of Iqān that we found is a manuscript held at the National Library of Iran (Kitābkhaniyi Millī) with the book code 1613405.

Although missing some pages, this book retains the distorted verses of the Quran that were uttered by Bahā’u’llāh and the grammatical errors; including the ones we pointed to from the first page held at the Baha’i Archives. The manuscript can be accessed online from the digital section of the library.[9] For convenience, we have downloaded the images and uploaded them as a pdf file to archive.org.[10]

Refuting this manuscript is not an option for the Universal House of Justice. Any objections they make can only be validated if they show us the original Īqān which they claim they possess. It isn’t that hard to make available the original manuscript and relieve all researchers once and for all. If Bahā’u’llāh was justified in correcting that manuscript, then what harm will it do if it is shown to the world? What are the Baha’is afraid of? What are they trying to hide?

When a request was made for a copy of this Īqān the UHJ had answered:

It is not possible to provide photocopies of the entire volume of the lithographed editions for the purpose of research at this time.[11]

As usual, problematic matters have been postponed to a future time. We believe it is completely possible to provide copies but the UHJ simply does not want to make this manuscript available for research, for as we mentioned in chapter 1, all manuscripts at the Baha’i Archives have been digitized at least since 1993,[12] and all the effort needed to make them available to the public is simply a “copy and paste”.

Anyway, we have compared the verses of the Quran from the original and corrected versions and have created a table below which shows the distortions. The page numbers are in accordance with the pdf document at archive.org. The underlined words mark the distortions.

 The fact that Bahā’u’llāh has distorted some of the verses in the exact same manner in multiple places (for instance on p. 109 and 57 or on p. 16) shows that these verses were memorized by him incorrectly and his claimed Tablet of Wisdom[13] was malfunctioning. His malfunctioning Tablet of wisdom had also made grammatical mistakes in citing some of the verses.

Let us see what the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice say about these verses:

During His lifetime, Bahā’u’llāh Himself reviewed the book and indicated necessary changes so that, subsequently, a new, revised version of the book became available. In several Tablets of Bahā’u’llāh, indications are found that during 1305-1306 A.H. (1887–1889 A.D.), Bahā’u’llāh undertook the task of revising the book particularly in order to bring the Qur’anic quotations in line with the common standard.[14]

Since the invalid excuse of bringing the verses “into conformity with the grammatical conventions of the people” cannot be used here, a new excuse is put forward and it is claimed that Bahā’u’llāh revised the book and reached the conclusion that it was necessary to “to bring the Qur’anic quotations in line with the common standard.” Is the research department serious? Is this the attitude of an infallible Prophet from God? Just Imagine Moses and Jesus telling their followers that the Torah and Bible they had revealed had problems and need to be changed. The Research Department continues by Quoting Bahā’u’llāh saying:

A copy of a correct Īqān was given to Jināb-i-`Alī Akbar, My Glory be upon him. Existing copies should be brought into conformity with this copy, or new transcriptions made from it. The latter is better and more appropriate.[15]

So the original Īqān was not correct and a correct copy was reproduced by Bahā’u’llāh that was better and more appropriate?! The Research Department then claims:

A careful study of the changes that were made clearly shows that the verses of the Qur’an that were not quoted exactly in the first edition of the Īqān were brought into exact conformity in the new edition. As Mr. Buck is undoubtedly aware, when Bahā’u’llāh quotes His own Writings in a Tablet, He not infrequently quotes them in a form that, while conveying the essential meaning of the original, is not in exactly the same words. It would seem that in revealing the Kitāb-i Īqān, He followed the same practice in relation to passages He quoted from the Qur’an. The fact that He Himself had them later changed to be in accordance with the accepted text of the Qur’an makes it clear that He was fully aware of the matter and, moreover, that the change in wording had no effect on the purport of His argument.

What the Baha’i Research Department apparently fails to recognize is that they are speaking about a Prophet of God, not some ordinary fallible erring person. The words of the Books of God are perfect and need not be changed. These changes have been made by the same Bahā’u’llāh that had constantly claimed the words of God are different from the words and conventions of the people. Someone who utters such words cannot change them later on to “bring them in accordance with the accepted text”.

Furthermore, the justification that Bahā’u’llāh had a habit of quoting verses of the Quran in their unoriginal forms is totally unacceptable because whenever Bahā’u’llāh wants to quote a verse or narration he stops writing in Farsi and clearly quotes the verse or hadith in Arabic to show that he is quoting an exact text. This attitude was—and still—is customary in Persian religious Islamic writings and when a verse of the Quran or an Arabic narration is quoted in the midst of a Farsi text it is written in its exact Arabic form without any changes. The same manner is followed in Arabic works and verses of the Quran are cited in the exact from because they are held with utmost respect.

Regarding this matter, the UHJ is portraying a very annoying act of double-standards. When the UHJ is asked as to why Bahā’u’llāh had three wives when he himself forbade it, it is claimed:

He was following the Laws of the previous Dispensation and the customs of the people of His own land[16]

Why is it that Bahā’u’llāh adheres to the customs of the previous dispensations and people of his own land when it is related to worldly controversial matters like polygamy, but in spiritual matters like citing sacred texts he fails to recognize these customs?  Apparently, the only place that the conformity with the beliefs must be disregarded is in an unimportant subject like citing the Quran, but in very important matters like sex, Bahā’u’llāh must strictly follow the customs of a fairly small group[17] of people who engaged in polygamy.

Before making unreasonable justifications and to realize how important it is to clearly and correctly cite verses of the Quran, the UHJ should take a look at `Abdu’l-Bahā’s attitude when he received a text from Mīrzā Yaḥyā Ṣubḥ Azal in which he had—probably unintentionally—misplaced two adjacent letters in a word when citing a verse of the Quran. `Abdu’l-Bahā says:

He had written the blessed verse of the Quran “what are these statues/images that you are worshipping” (mā hādhihī l-tamāthīl al-latī antum `alayhā `ākifūn) [and had written the last word] as `āfikūn and the [text] is in the possesion of Mīrzā Yaḥyā Qazwīnī. Pay attention that the leader of this group cannot make a distinction between `ākif and `āfik and he distorts the evident verse of the Book of God in his own handwriting![18]

When only two adjacent letters are misplaced by Mīrzā Yaḥyā, he is labeled by `Abdu’l-Bahā as a distorter of the Book of God, but when Bahā’u’llāh completely distorts multiple verses from of the Quran, we are supposed to believe some unreasonable justification put forward by the UHJ. `Abdu’l-Bahā’s words show without doubt that his father was a distorter of the Book of God.

3-Distorting and Forging Shia narrations

Unlike the grammatical and Quranic errors that were revised and corrected in later versions, Bahā’u’llāh failed to fix the Shia narrations that he had mentioned in the Īqān. Some of these narrations have been made up and do not exist in the Shia corpus. Why didn’t Bahā’u’llāh fix these distortions and forgeries in the second version of the Īqān? Because the Quran was so widespread and known to the people and the linguistic errors so obvious that even the average Joe could point out the errors committed by Bahā’u’llāh. Thus, finding the specific verses and fixing the erroneous versions that Bahā’u’llāh had mentioned was fairly easy, just as it was fairly easy for non-Baha’is to point out these mistakes.

The same cannot be said about the narrations that he has mentioned in this book because of two reasons:

The first, is that he claims that some of the narrations he is citing are from the book Biḥār (al-anwār) without mentioning the volume or chapter he is referring to. The current printed version of this book consists of about 107 volumes and about 35000 pages. Since this book was not widely available, most of Bahā’u’llāh’s distortions from this book had remained unnoticed. With recent advances in digitizing these works, all this book and many other Shia sources have been typed and placed in searchable databases. Using these databases we have found and pinpointed the exact narrations that Bahā’u’llāh had distorted and had used in the Īqān.

Second, he had forged a number of concepts in these narrations to prove the Bāb’s creed. Correcting these forged concepts would have invalidated his arguments.

Just like the verses of the Quran, Bahā’u’llāh mentions these narrations in Arabic in the midst of writing in Farsi to show that he is making exact quotations. We will only refer to the narrations that have been mentioned in the last three pages of the Īqān for they are enough to show the purpose. We will go along with Shoghi’s translation although he has made some mistakes in translating them. The first narration:

Consider, that even the year in which that Quintessence of Light is to be made manifest hath been specifically recorded in the traditions, yet they still remain unmindful, nor do they for one moment cease to pursue their selfish desires. According to the tradition, Mufaḍḍal asked Ṣādiq saying: “What of the sign of His manifestation, O my master?” He made reply: “In the year sixty, His Cause shall be made manifest, and His Name shall be proclaimed.” How strange! Notwithstanding these explicit and manifest references these people have shunned the Truth.[19]

Pay attention to how Bahā’u’llāh labels the Shias as unmindful selfish shunners of truth because they do not believe in his forged and distorted narrations. He claims that in Shia narrations, even the year of the Bāb’s appearance has been mentioned and he quotes the year 60 referring to the year 1260 AH. The only hadith that is similar to this in the Shia scripture is the hadith in volume 53 of Biḥār al-anwār under the chapter titled: “What Occurs When he Appears According to What Mufaḍḍal ibn Umar Has Narrated.” The hadith starts by Mufaḍḍal asking Imam al-Ṣādiq that “Is there an apparent time (for the appearance) of the assigned awaiting Mahdi?” The Imam then gives a negative answer and in contrary to what Bahā’u’llāh claims, does not mention any date. 

In the following table we have compared the original and forged narration with each other. Since the original narration is fairly long, only the relevant section has been mentioned. We have underlined the two sections that are very similar to the original narration.

Do Baha’is expect non-Baha’is to have faith in someone who forges scripture? The next narration:

For instance, mention of the sorrows, the imprisonment and afflictions inflicted upon that Essence of divine virtue hath been made in the former traditions. In the “Bihār” it is recorded: “In our Qā’im there shall be four signs from four Prophets, Moses, Jesus, Joseph, and Muḥammad. The sign from Moses, is fear and expectation; from Jesus, that which was spoken of Him; from Joseph, imprisonment and dissimulation; from Muḥammad, the revelation of a Book similar to the Qur’ān.” Notwithstanding such a conclusive tradition, which in such unmistakable language hath foreshadowed the happenings of the present day, none hath been found to heed its prophecy, and methinks none will do so in the future.[21]

In this section Bahā’u’llāh explicitly mentions that he is narrating from the book Biḥār (al-anwār). In the book of Biḥār, there are a number of narrations that show a meaning similar to the above tradition. We have mentioned and compared them all in the table below:

What Bahā’u’llāh claims is a mixture of the aforementioned hadiths with many distortions. The most important false statement that Bahā’u’llāh puts forward is this: “from Muḥammad, the revelation of a Book similar to the Qur’ān.” In none of the aforementioned hadiths was there anything slightly similar to this claim and what the hadiths had mentioned was that he would demonstrate Muhammad’s teachings and would guide using his guidance. Why would Bahā’u’llāh make up such words and claim the Mahdi would reveal a book similar to the Quran? Because as we previously showed, the Bāb had used verses of the Quran to make up the Qayyūm al-Asmā’ and it would have been a very positive point if a narration existed that had said the Mahdī would reveal “a Book similar to the Qur’ān”! The next narration:

Thus hath Ṣādiq, son of Muḥammad, spoken: “God verily will test them and sift them.”[22]

The next narration:

What is amazing is that even though it is explicitly mentioned in this narration that when the Qa’im rises he will reveal all the remaining meanings, the Bāb died without this prophecy being fulfilled. What was Bahā’u’llāh thinking when he was citing this narration to prove the Bāb’s claims? In no way does he fit the criterion presented in this narration, even the distorted version. Next narration:

The distortions and Bahā’u’llāh’s forgeries are evident in these narrations. These were only narrations from the last three pages of the book.

Another important hadith that Bahā’u’llāh has distorted and deserves special attention is:

Have they not heard the well-known tradition: “When the Qā’im riseth, that day is the Day of Resurrection?”[26]

This narration has been forged to justify the claims made by the Bāb about the day of resurrection being the day of the appearance of the Bāb. Bahā’u’llāh claims this is a “well-known tradition” but it is completely made up and does not exist in the Shia hadith corpus.

These hadiths show that the UHJ’s justifications about why the numerous errors of the Īqān were corrected by Bahā’u’llāh are baseless and the only purpose they have is to hide the truth. Why did he correct verses of the Quran and the grammatical errors but left intact the forged narrations that no one knew exactly where he had cited from? Why did he only correct the obvious errors that anyone could point out? And we ask again, why did this supposedly infalible manifestation make these mistakes, errors, and deliberate forgeries in the first place? The answers are obvious.

As a side-note, this is what Shoghi says about the book of Īqān:

Foremost among the priceless treasures cast forth from the billowing ocean of Bahā’u’llāh’s Revelation ranks the Kitāb-i-Īqān (Book of Certitude), revealed within the space of two days and two nights, in the closing years of that period (1278 A.H.—1862 A.D.)[27]

Shoghi fixes the date the Īqān was written to the year 1278 AH. Here is the interesting part, Bahā’u’llāh refers to the year 1280 AH in the book of Īqān, p. 172:

Twelve hundred and eighty years have passed since the dawn of the Muḥammadan Dispensation.

How can Shoghi claim that the book of Īqān was written in 1278 whilst Bahā’u’llāh refers to 1280 in the book. Maybe—in contrary to what Baha’is preach—the book wasn’t finished in two days and two nights, and it was finished in two years (1278–1280)?

The answer to this question is not important because there is a greater fallacy on behalf of Bahā’u’llāh within these words. The Islamic calendar started 13 years[28] after the “the dawn of the Muḥammadan Dispensation” when Prophet Muḥammad migrated from the city of Mecca to Medina. Thus, when Bahā’u’llāh says 1280 years have passed since the dawn of the “Muḥammadan Dispensation” he is saying: the year I am writing these words in is: 1280 – 13 = 1267.

Shoghi says the book was written in 1278 AH, whilst Bahā’u’llāh mentions the year 1267. So, either Shoghi made a mistake in dating the Īqān, or Bahā’u’llāh didn’t know that the Islamic calendar didn’t start from the dawn of the Muḥammadan Dispensation. We’ll leave it up to the readers to figure out whose infallibility and knowledge we must question: Shoghi, Bahā’u’llāh, or both?

[1] Some researchers believe that this manuscript is not the original Īqān and is a second generation. They claim the audience of the original Īqān were the followers of Bayān (i.e. the Bābīs) but references to these people have been removed in the second generation versions. This theory is plausible because Asad-Allāh Fāḍil Māzandarānī mentions in Asrār al-āthār khuṣūṣī (Mu’assisiyi Millī Maṭbū`āt Amrī, 124 Badī`), vol. 1, pp. 279–280, that in some manuscripts the following sentence on the first page “Sanctify your souls, O ye peoples of the world,” has been written as “Sanctify your souls, O ye peoples of the Bayān.”

[2] The electronic version of his book holds another image, whilst the printed edition has the original image.

[3] Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahā’u’llāh, p. 75.

[4] Christopher buck, edited by Juan R. Cole and Moojan Momen, Symbol and Secret: Qur’an Commentary in Bahā’u’llāh’s Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 27.

[5] Bahā’u’llāh, Majmū`iy-i alwāḥ-i mubārak-ih, p. 71.

[6] Bahā’u’llāh, Majmū`iy-i alwāḥ-i mubārak-ih, p. 78.

[7] This can be deduced from his statement “then they would be like your words,” which was uttered by Bahā’u’llāh to state that there must be a difference between the words of God and the words of the people and this difference exists in the grammatical conventions.

[8] Christopher buck, edited by Juan R. Cole and Moojan Momen, Symbol and Secret: Qur’an Commentary in Bahā’u’llāh’s Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 27.

[9] http://dl.nlai.ir/UI/0703ce2c-183d-4267-bb7a-35498b51ecc6/LRRView.aspx?tocterm=&History=True&First=true

[10] https://archive.org/details/original_Iqan

[11] Christopher buck, edited by Juan R. Cole and Moojan Momen, Symbol and Secret: Qur’an Commentary in Bahā’u’llāh’s Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 27.

[12] “To assist the House of Justice in referring to the wealth of guidance and teachings contained in the Bahā’ī Writings, a computer database is used which contains descriptions of every Tablet and every letter of Shoghi Effendi, together with a typed copy of the text of each document. In the near future images of the original documents will also be stored in the computer, making it unnecessary to refer to the original items.” This is a section of a pamphlet inserted in `Andalīb magazine, 12:48 (Fall 1993).

[13] “Whenever We desire to quote the sayings of the learned and of the wise, presently there will appear before the face of thy Lord in the form of a tablet all that which hath appeared in the world and is revealed in the Holy Books and Scriptures,” Bahā’u’llāh, Tablets of Bahā’u’llāh Revealed After the Kitāb-i-Aqdas, p. 149.

[14] Christopher buck, edited by Juan R. Cole and Moojan Momen, Symbol and Secret: Qur’an Commentary in Bahā’u’llāh’s Kitab-i-Iqan (United States of America: Kalimat Press, 1995), p.26.

[15] Symbol and Secret: Qur’an Commentary in Bahā’u’llāh’s Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 26.

[16] Letter from Universal House of Justice to an individual believer dated 23/10/1995: http://bahai-library.com/uhj_wives_bahaullah (retrieved 1/6/2104)

[17] Even in a community where polygamy is accepted as a standard norm, only a percentage of the people can engage in polygamy before the community runs out of women; because the number of men and women are nearly equal. Furthermore, in Iran, polygamy was mostly practiced by the elite who had the financial or other means needed to support a polygamous lifestyle and it was not something compulsory or customary.

[18] `Abdu’l-Bahā, Muntakhabātī az makātīb Ḥaḍrat `Abdu’l-Bahā (Germany: Mu’assisiyi Maṭbū`āt Amrī Almān), vol. 6, no. 430.

[19] Bahā’u’llāh, The Kitāb-i-Īqān, pp. 253–254.

[20] Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār (Beirut: Mu’assisat al-Wafā, 1404 AH), vol. 53, p.1–3.

[21] Bahā’u’llāh, The Kitāb-i-Īqān, p. 254.

[22] Bahā’u’llāh, The Kitāb-i-Īqān, p. 255.

[23] Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, vol. 52, p. 114.

[24] Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, vol. 52, p. 336.

[25] Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, vol. 2, p. 198.

[26] Bahā’u’llāh, The Kitāb-i-Īqān, p. 144.

[27] Shoghi Effendi, God Passes by, p. 138.

[28] This number is some time erroneously said to be 10 instead of 13.