Although `Abdu’l-Bahā announces that an auxiliary language is needed and will be “one of the great factors in the unification of man,”[1] Baha’i scriptures have been authored in at least three different languages. Shoghi Effendi’s book, God Passes By, was written in English as are most letters and announcements from the Universal House of Justice. The books written by the Bāb, Bahā’u’llāh, and `Abdu’l-Bahā have been written in a mixture of both Arabic and Farsi, thus rendering them useless for a great range of audiences. Furthermore, there are even Turkish Poems written by `Abdu’l-Bahā.[2]

Bahā’u’llāh insists that although only two languages are needed—the mother tongue and the auxiliary language—much effort must be put to limit the languages of the world to one, that is the auxiliary language:

We have decreed before that it has been destined to speak with two tongues and a great effort must be put to limit this to one [tongue] and the same [applies] to the handwriting. So that the lives of the people will not be wasted and nullified in learning different languages.[3]

One becomes speechless when reading these words. How can someone who has revealed his own words in two different languages, and whose successors have added a third and fourth language in their writings, give the order to make as much effort possible to limit the world’s languages to one? Why does a person that claims to be the Manifestation of God not practice what he preaches?

With this attitude, instead of kick starting the Auxiliary Language by revealing their words in a single unified language, Baha’i leaders have significantly retarded its creation by revealing texts in multiple languages.

[1] `Abdu’l-Bahā, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 182.

[2] `Abdu’l-Bahā, Majmū`iy-i munājāt-hāyi ḥaḍrat `Abdu’l-Bahā (Germany: Lajniyi Millī Nashr Āthār Amrī), pp. 396–397

[3] `Abd al-Ḥamīd Ishrāq Khāwarī, Payām-i malakūt, p. 33.