Charter of the future world civilization

Facsimile of the Kitab-i-Aqdas

Of the more than one hundred volumes comprising the sacred Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is of unique importance. “To build anew the whole world” is the claim and challenge of His Message, and the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the Charter of the future world civilization that Bahá’u’lláh has come to raise up. Its provisions rest squarely on the foundation established by past religions, for, in the words of Bahá’u’lláh, “This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future.”
 In this Revelation the concepts of the past are brought to a new level of understanding, and the social laws, changed to suit the age now dawning, are designed to carry humanity forward into a world civilization the splendours of which can as yet be scarcely imagined. In its affirmation of the validity of the great religions of the past, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas reiterates those eternal truths enunciated by all the Divine Messengers: the unity of God, love of one’s neighbour, and the moral purpose of earthly life. At the same time it removes those elements of past religious codes that now constitute obstacles to the emerging unification of the world and the reconstruction of human society.

The Universal House of Justice, ‘Introduction to Kitab-i-Aqdas’