Bahá'u'lláh (Mírzá Ḥusayn-ʻAlí Núrí)

The school is his founding. The principles of progressive revelation, the oneness of humanity, the equality of women and men, the harmony of science and religion, the abolition of clergy, universal education, and the unity of races and nations are all systematically articulated in his writings.

"Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship." (Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, "Words of Paradise")

Bahá'u'lláh emerged from Shia Islamic Persia and absorbed the falsafa inheritance through the Bábí movement and his own Persian theological formation. The Bahá'í cosmology and theology preserve much of the Islamic philosophical substrate even as they transcend its confessional boundaries.

"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." (Lawḥ-i-Maqṣúd, c. 1882)

The Seven Valleys is structurally a Sufi text on the soul's seven-stage journey toward God, and Bahá'í theology preserves much of the Sufi metaphysics of divine unity and the soul's ascent.

"O Son of Spirit! My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting." (Hidden Words, Arabic 1)

A working pragmatism most visible in the institutional design of the Bahá'í administrative order — the consultative method, the rotation of elected assemblies, the explicit rejection of priesthood as an institutional form.

"The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established." (Tablet, c. 1875)