The aim of religion is to produce the strong, intangible bonds of unity. Bahá’u’lláh clarifies the historic development of religion as the evolution of one faith, serving different needs in each age. Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Krishna, Jesus, Muḥammad, the Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh have been successive Manifestations, through Whom God has progressively revealed the purpose of religion. Because of ignorance, the followers of these Manifestations may quarrel, but the open-minded individual can see the pattern of agreement and evolution in what these supreme Educators taught. Stripped of the many layers of theology and custom, the different faiths of the world assume an integrated relationship, each leading to the other in historic development, as links in a chain. And none of the great Founders of the world’s religions has ever taught that He was the only or the last Revealor of divine teachings. Instead, Each of them has praised the Prophet Who lived and taught before Him, and also has pointed to the future when another such Educator, or “Spirit of Truth” as Jesus taught, would live.

Bahá’u’lláh claimed to speak with the same divine authority as Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad. He taught that the time was now ripe for the coming of age of the human race and the beginning of its conscious unity.

To achieve this, He urged the abolition of racial, religious, political, and economic prejudices, the adoption of an international auxiliary language, equal opportunities and privileges for men and women, a universal system of education, the independent investigation of truth, the adoption of a world code of human rights