Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
The Hidden Words
Bahá'u'lláh's aphoristic spiritual sayings
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Hidden Words (Early) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Singular |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Hidden Words
Composed 1858 in Baghdad during the long Ottoman exile; mid-Baghdad-period; pre-Garden-of-Riḍván declaration of 1863.
Space
The Hidden Words
Baghdad composition; subsequent diffusion across the Persian and Arab Bahá'í communities, then transnational with the global Bahá'í expansion under Shoghi Effendi (1921-57) and the Universal House of Justice (1963- ).
Matter
The Hidden Words
Essential spiritual truths claimed common to all the Manifestations — love of God, justice, detachment, self-knowledge, the warning against pride.
Observer
The Hidden Words
Mid-Baghdad Bahá'u'lláh as Manifestation-of-God claiming to restate the kernel of all prior revelations.
Energy
The Hidden Words
Aphoristic-devotional, prophetic-imperative, eschatological-universalising energies.
Information
The Hidden Words
153 short aphorisms in Arabic (71) and Persian (82); divine-first-person address; direct moral-spiritual imperatives; rhythmic-poetic prose.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Hidden Words is among the most widely read Bahá'í writings and the principal text by which Bahá'ís and outside readers first encounter the Bahá'í message. The work also illustrates the distinctive Bahá'í-prophetological claim of progressive revelation through successive Manifestations — a claim that distinguishes Bahá'í from both traditional Islamic finality-of-Muhammad theology and traditional Christian finality-of-Christ theology, and which structures the broader Bahá'í engagement with the world religions.