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Mormons vs. Bahá'ís |
The Mormons and Bahá'ís are fun to compare because they appeared at about the same time in the nineteenth century. The founder of the Mormon religion, Joseph Smith, was murdered by a mob in the same year that the Bábí religion was born. The Báb didn't live much longer before he was executed.
The two faiths have been said to have much in common, though it can certainly be said that they have many differences. Bahá'í scriptures are more poetic, reflecting Islamic, Twelver Shiite, and Sufi traditions. Mormon scriptures, in contrast, are more prosaic, but much more creative. The Book of Mormon reads like a fantasy novel, clumsily written in an Old Testament style.
Successorship was a cause of division in both religions. The Bábís split between the Báb's successor Subh-i-Azal and esteemed follower Mirza Husayn `Alí, who adopted the title Bahá'u'lláh. Most Bábís eventually followed the latter. The Mormons split into several sects, the largest among them following Brigham Young. Bahá'u'lláh was exiled over and over, ending up in Palestine. Young led his Mormons to safety in Utah, and founded an independent colony there.
Both the Mormons and Bahá'ís began as polygynists, then later forbade the practice. The majority of Mormons changed their position in 1890, though some still practice polygyny, and the Bahá'ís embraced monogamy after Bahá'u'lláh died, as `Abdu'l-Bahá made several changes to westernize the religion. Bahá'u'lláh eventually limited Bahá'ís to bigamy, but he was himself a polgynist. Bahá'ís sometime make the comment that Bahá'u'lláh married his second and third wives out of a sense of charity and Islamic propriety, but regardless of his initial intentions he did manage to sleep with his second and third wives. The seven children he sired by them help to demonstrate that fact. Still, it must be admitted that polygyny for Bahá'u'lláh was a very deeply ingrained tradition. The same cannot be said for Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Also, Mormon polygyny is more akin to the type that was practiced by Solomon. Islamic polygyny is a good deal more circumspect.
To date, the Mormon religion has been somewhat more successful in drawing in converts. Adherents.com numbers the Bahá'ís of the world at six million, and the Mormons over eleven million. Still, it's easy to claim adherents. There are other ways to measure success.
Of course, what better measure of the success of a religion than the architectural treasures it can amass?
The Bahá'í Faith has three showcases, which include some administrative buildings, a shrine, and two houses of worship:
In addition, the Bahá'í Faith has five more houses of worship throughout the world, but they are architecturally uninteresting, other than the fact that they all have nine sides.
The Mormons have built much more throughout the world, including 129 temples and over 16,000 churches. Mormon temple vary widely in design. They are often rectangular, sometimes triangular, and occasionally incorporate cylinders. The temple at Washington DC is one of my favorites:
The temples at Oakland, San Diego, Sao Paulo, and Mexico City are also impressive. This is, of course, a very subjective topic, but what's important that we can establish that both the Mormons and Bahá'ís have constructed attractive buildings. That said, the Mormons have built much, much more.
