`Abdu’l-Bahā claims:

Bahā’u’llāh declares that all mankind should attain knowledge and acquire an education. This is a necessary principle of religious belief and observance, characteristically new in this dispensation.[1]

Hundreds of years before Bahā’u’llāh was born, the necessity of education and it being compulsory, had been brought up by philosophers like Plato (427–348 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC). The first official movements in support of compulsory education were during the reforms of the sixteenth century Christian monk, Martin Luther.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and after the industrial revolution, European countries had come to the conclusion that education was fundamental to development and advancement. The modern schooling system was introduced in Germany during the eighteenth century and was soon adopted in other European countries. In the nineteenth century, non-European countries like Japan and the United States adopted a policy of compulsory primary school education.

Apart from philosophical recommendations and national constitutions, divine religions have been a source of promoting education and the acquirement of knowledge ever since antiquity. Education and seeking knowledge were greatly emphasized in the scripture of Shia Islam. Can we believe that Bahā’u’llāh had not seen these clear orders while he was in Persia?

The introductory chapters of many Shia narration collections like al-Kāfī and Biḥār al-anwār are related to the topics of acquiring knowledge and education. Seeking knowledge was advocated even if it resulted in travelling to faraway lands. The Prophet Muḥammad has stated:

Seek knowledge even if it is located in China.[2]

Education was so important in Islamic teachings that the Prophet of Islam had explicitly decreed:

Acquiring knowledge is compulsory for every man and woman.[3]

  With these clear narrations existing in the Shia corpus, why do Baha’is insist their principles are novel? As usual, `Abdu’l-Bahā contradicts himself and admits:

The honored prophets have come to nurture and educate mankind, to turn men into the manifestation of light, inform them about the truth of secrets, and to elevate the human world materialistically and spiritually.[4]

[1] `Abdu’l-Bahā, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 455.

[2] Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, vol. 1, p.180.

[3] Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, vol. 1, p.170.

[4] `Abdu’l-Bahā, Khaṭābāt (Egypt), vol. 1, p. 99.