Social and Ethical Teachings

In His Writings the Báb tells His followers that they must be distinguished by brotherly love and courtesy. Useful arts and crafts must be cultivated. Elementary education should be general. In the new and wondrous Dispensation now commencing, women are to have fuller freedom. The poor are to be provided for out of the common treasury, but begging is strictly forbidden, as is the use of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes.

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The guiding motive of the true Bábí must be pure love, without hope of reward or fear of punishment. Thus He says in the Bayán:—

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So worship God that if the recompense of thy worship of Him were to be the Fire, no alteration in thy worship of Him would be produced. If you worship from fear, that is unworthy of the threshold of the holiness of God.... So also, if your gaze is on Paradise, and if you worship in hope of that; for then you have made God’s creation a Partner with Him.—Bábís of Persia, II, Prof. E. G. Browne, J.R.A.S., vol. xxi, p. 931.

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