acts against their
victims--that action was initiated by the notary of the village, in his
capacity as a religious plaintiff authorized by the Ministry of Justice,
against three Baha'i residents of that village, demanding that their
Muslim wives be divorced from them on the grounds that their husbands had
abandoned Islam after their legal marriage as Muslims.

The Opinion and Judgment of the Appellate religious court of Beba,
delivered on May 10, 1925, subsequently sanctioned by the highest
ecclesiastical authorities in Cairo and upheld by them as final, printed
and circulated by the Muslim authorities themselves, annulled the
marriages contracted by the three Baha'i defendants and condemned the mass
heretics for having violated the laws and ordinances of Islam. It even
went so far as to make the positive, the startling and indeed the historic
assertion that the Faith embraced by these heretics is to be regarded as a
distinct religion, wholly independent of the religious systems that have
preceded it--an assertion which hitherto the enemies of the Faith, whether
in the East or in the West, had either disputed or deliberately ignored.

Having expounded the fundamental tenets and ordinances of Islam, and given
a detailed exposition of the Baha'i teachings, supported by various
quotations from the Kitab-i-Aqdas, from the writings of 'Abdu'l-Baha and
of Mirza Abu'l-Fadl, with special reference to certain Baha'i laws, and
demonstrated that the defendants had, in the light of these statements,
actually abjured the Faith of Muhammad, his formal verdict declares in the
most unequivocal terms: "The Baha'i Faith is a new religion, entirely
independent, with beliefs, principles and laws of its own, which differ
from, and are utterly in conflict with, the beliefs, principles and laws
of Islam. No Baha'i, therefore, can be regarded a Muslim or vice-versa,
even as no Buddhist, Brahmin, or Christian can be regarded a Muslim or
vice-versa." Ordering the dissolution of the contracts of marriage of the
parties on trial, and the "separation" of the husbands from their wives,
this official and memorable pronouncement concludes with the following
words: "If any one of them (husbands) repents, believes in, and
acknowledges whatsoever ... Muhammad, the Apostle of God ... has brought
from God ... and returns to the august Faith of Islam ... and testifies
that ... Muhammad ... is the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers, that no
religion will s