`Abdu’l-Baha began by comparing the Baha’i faith to early Christianity in its focus on spirituality rather than law. He is aware, of course, that there are more than two religious laws in the Baha’i scriptures, unlike the New Testament. That is, a Baha’i shari`ah or code of revealed law does exist. He explains, however, that such laws are actually a form of spirituality and ethics: “they are derivatives of certitude, faith, assurance and mystical insight.”
Moreover, these laws deal with personal status matters (marriage, inheritance, etc.) as well as with some matters of what we would call criminal law (not all such crimes were actually public in Muslim societies–murder, for instance, is considered a private affair in which the family of the victim has the option of accepting blood money or demanding that the state execute the perpetrator– or even of killing him themselves). In this, Baha’i law resembles that of the Qur’an.
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