Customer Reviews

A Concise Encyclopedia of the Baha'! Faith (Concise Encyclopedia of World Faiths)

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This book has a lot of information about the Baha'i religion, its founders, and basically anything related to Baha'i. With great photographs and descriptions, it is a must for anyone who wants to understand Baha'i better or who wants specific information.

Over the past year, for a project I've read a wide variety of encyclopedias on religious movements, religious issues, and religions in general. Out of more than 20, Smith's encyclopedia is certainly the best. Unlike some volumes of the "Concise Encyclopedia of X" series, Smith has reasonably detailed entries, ranging from a paragraph to several pages. The articles themselves are very clear and well-written, with suggestions for further reading. The articles cover an enormous range of personalities, doctrine, and history of Baha'i. Fascinating.

This is an extremely useful and handy reference book for students of comparative religion, the Baha'i Faith, Middle Eastern studies, Islamic studies, etc. The categories are excellent, the research excellent, and the topics are written extremely well. In addition to fine historical biograhies, this brief book covers a diverse array to topics associated with the history, theology, ethical and moral stances related to the Baha'i Faith. Contemporary issues, social and historical issues, theological controveries, all are in this book as well as the nature of Baha'i administration, social organization, scriptural descriptions, relations with other religions, etc. It is an excellent book and useful to academics and students of the Baha'i Faith. Objective and informative, respectful and accurate, and briefly written this book stands as a good beginning for a series of volumes on the Baha'i Faith. I strongly recommend it to everyone.

I have been impressed by the clarity and eloquence of the short essays under such difficult to describe topics as "the soul." The references to primary works where the reader can find more information are accurate and easy to use, although the Encyclopedia itself does an admirable job of answering most of the questions I've had. It is richly illustrated, with an easy to read type.

This is a must buy book for all Bahai's. When I first bought it I couldn't put it down. The missing link in any library. The information is accurate and concise. It would take you years to compile this information. Don't wait, get one as soon as possible. You will be overjoyed at the vast information included in this book. Should have had this book 30 yrs. ago.

This Encyclopedia covers a HUGE variety of topics. History of the faith, central characters, daily life practices, stances on topics from abortion to burial practices.

I have been attending several Bahai classes and also reading several Bahai books but I find that this book makes it a lot more easier to understand. Some of the other books uses "old & flowery" English :-) which usually takes me longer to understand.. but not this book. I am also one of those people that process information in point forms so this book definitely works for me.. Highly recommended reading for someone who is a seeker like me :-)