The Bahai Faith and Al Qaeda

“John Ricardo I. “Juan” Cole (born October 1952) is an American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the United States Senate.

Cole became a member of the Bahá’í Faith in 1972 as an undergraduate at Northwestern, and the religion later became a focus of his academic research. He resigned from the faith in 1996 after disputes with Bahá’í leadership concerning the Bahá’í system of administration.”

The Baha’i faith stands for universal love, for tolerance, and for a separation of religion and state.  The need for religious leaders to let politicians do the ruling is a key value stated over and over again in Baha’i scripture.

Unfortunately, a weird Baha’i sub-cult has arisen.  It structurally resembles al-Qaeda, and differs from al-Qaeda only with regard to methods, not ideals.  It does not usually employ violence or terrorism (though persons with this mindset have beaten up friends of mind).

And, most frighteningly of all, it has taken over and subverted the main institutions of the Baha’i faith.
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