Response

by Bahíyyih Nakhjavání

The author explores in the Bahá’í Writings, the dual nature of human relationships and their utter dependence upon the response of one partner to another. This response concerns out relationships to God, to Bahá’u’lláh, to other people and to Bahá’í communities. The author suggests that ‘the fundamental premise of the Bahá’í Faith’ is the ‘integration and resolution’ of the conflicts and obstacles which limit our response, and which are ‘the result of a partial vision which at best shows us a fragment of the mighty patterns at work in the universe.’

She develops her themes through consideration of the lives of three significant women in the history of the Bahá’í Faith – Bahíyyih Khánum, Navváb and Táhirih, and of the ‘new language’ which must be learned to ‘decipher the harmonies’ within ourselves and the world, and she discloses enthralling vistas of significance in the Bahá’í Writings.