Baha’ism from the viewpoint of the Baha’i scholars

Part 5: Denis Mac Eoin Denis Mac Eoin is a writer, scholar, and Baha’i critic, who after 15 years of active membership in the Baha’i community, as a result of his intellectual, liberal, and critical views toward the Baha’i administration, was criticized by the Baha’i authorities and had to resign and leave the Baha’i community. After careful study of the Babi-Baha’i history, Mac Eoin stated that the Baha’i leaders have been constantly changing (distorting) the early Babi history. He does not consider the Baha’i Faith as a divine revelation, and provides many doubts about it as a modern and global faith. He observes the Baha’i teachings as adaptions from other previous religions, and some criticizes. Mac Eoin considers the Babi history quite separate and in contradiction with the Baha’i history. He makes doubts about the assertions of Bahaullah, as the successor of Bab or being a divine Manifestation. He refuses the claims about the infallibility of Abdul-Baha, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice, and protests the prohibition of membership of women in the UHJ (the highest governing body of the Baha’i International Community). Mac Eoin observes the Baha’i teaching of non-involvement in politics in contradiction with the Baha’i teaching of Global Baha’i Government. He introduces the Babi movement as a political one that intended to seize the power and overthrow the Qajar Dynasty. He rejects the contents of the Baha’i books that Bab was killed because of his new religion, and the opposition of the Ulama with him.