A Bahá'í Glossary

About A Bahá'í Glossary

Introduction
Kinda Interesting Stuff
Boring History
Contact

Introduction

Well, first of all, let's clear the air. When we mention "The ABG Staff" we are talking about a web site programmer named Ron and his wife, Donna. We use the term Staff ostensibly to sound more professional, but actually to make the allusion that there are a lot of people we can blame for mistakes. But no, just us two.

Ron does the computer work and Donna helps with the proofreading. We are trying to be detached and not overstress our involvement in the building of this site. All the information came from outside sources. We just put it together in one place. As Bahá'ís, we sincerely hope that this site may be of service to mankind.

We know that there are still some errors on the site. Donna had some health problems along the way so occasionally some pages did not get properly proofread. We have tried to make sure there are no errors, but please, if you find an error, Contact Us and let us know so we may fix it.

On Istiqlál 13 Núr 179 B.E. Donna passed peacefully in her sleep. She was a Bahá'í for 57 of her 83 years on earth. Now she supports Ron spiritually from the Abhá Kingdom.

So now the entire ABG Staff consists of a 70 year old, big bellied, bald-headed, bearded, bloke named Ron. Now you know why it is taking so long for this site to get updated.

Kinda Interesting Stuff

In the United States of America, some Bahá'ís have categorized themselves as either "Heart Bahá'ís" or "Head Bahá'ís" because "Americans" must label everything. Even labeling people is called "Profiling". Yep, we even label labels. Please bear in mind that these are not official labels, but rather colloquialisms.

A Heart Bahá'í will hear of the Bahá'í Faith and its founder Bahá'u'lláh who said that we should love everyone and the seeker will say, "I'm in.". The Head Bahá'í will hear of the Faith and say, "Who, what, when, where, why and how?" After learning the facts, the seeker will say, "I'm in.". Both are needed, and equally important, to make a well balanced organization like the Bahá'í Faith.

Donna has been a Heart Bahá'í since 122 (1965) and Ron has been a Head Bahá'í since 134 (1977) and have been boisterously married since 154 (1998). We have very interesting conversations about the Bahá'í Faith, as you might well imagine.

Along about 155 (1999) Ron went back to school to enhance his computer programming skills. As a class project he decided to develop a web site that displays Bahá'í quotes and the Daily Bahá'í Quote site was born. It displayed a quote from the writings of Báb, Bahá'u'lláh or 'Abdu'l-Bahá; a Hidden Word; and a prayer. Donna thought it was perfect. Ron said, "To whom was the Kitáb-i-íqán addressed?", "What is a Sadratu'l-Muntahá?", "When is Qurratu'l-'Ayn?", "Who is Síyáh-C̲h̲ál?", "Why is Bahá'u'lláh referred to by 111 different names?", and "How am I supposed to keep all the Ḥájí, Siyyid, Mírzá, Farrásh, Mullá, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ and Big people sorted out?". Hence the glossary!

Boring History

This site has a long history. It started as one tiny one page section of a small site developed by the webmaster as a project for his web design class in college back in 155 (1999). One thing lead to another and now this tiny section is its own site with nearly 1800 term definitions and will have over 2200 in the near future.

The original site was called Daily Bahá'í Quote and provided visitors with randomly selected quotes from the Bahá'í Writings. There was a one page Glossary which defined a dozen or so Bahá'í terms.

By 161 (2003) the glossary section had expanded into 26 pages defining 163 terms with 22 image pages. Bahá'í year 164 (2006) found the glossary had increased to 204 terms 24 image pages. Back then the Internet was so slow that the images were put on separate pages so the visitor didn't have to wait the two minutes for it to download unless they wanted to.

Shortly after this we ran out of money and could not afford the host for the site (this was pre-free hosting). So with the plethora of Bahá'í quote sites on the Internet, we decided to concentrate on the glossary. After receiving permission to quote from Bahá'í Glossary by Marzieh Gail and A Basic Bahá'í Dictionary by Wendy Momen, we dove into the monumental process of including all the common terms found in these works. Well, it turns out that almost all the terms in these works are common.

Between working full time as a carpenter and caring for his disabled wife, the webmaster worked on the site by fits and starts for many a year. After retirement, finishing A Bahá'í Glossary became a major goal. Two redesigns later, we found that excluding any terms from the above mentioned works would be negligence. We had already added all the glossaries from the other books in the bibliography so why not include everything. As long as we cite from whence the material originated, it isn't copyright infringement. Or so we are told.

So, for the last year and a quarter we have been scanning, copying, pasting, editing, proofreading, indexing, cross referencing and testing. At 02:28:12 CDT on Istijlál 1 Bahá 176 B.E. (Yawm al-Khamīs 14 Rajab A.H. 1440, Thursday 21 March A.D. 2019, Yom Chamishi 14 Adar II A.M. 5759) A Bahá'í Glossary was officially launched.

TOP

To Contact Us please use this email address for all issues: abahaiglossary@gmail.com

For those of you who want to know what the webmaster did when the proofreader was taking a nap, please check out the Feckless Statistics.

Thank you for visiting the A Bahá'í Glossary web site. — The ABG staff.

TOP

Last Update: