one complete whole embracing the Faith of the Báb should be
emphasized... The Faith of the Báb should not be divorced from
that of Bahá’u’lláh. Though the teachings of the Bayán have been
abrogated and superseded by the laws of the Aqdas, yet due to the
fact that the Báb considered Himself as the Forerunner of
Bahá’u’lláh, we would regard His Dispensation together with that
of Bahá’u’lláh as forming one entity, the former being
introductory to the advent of the latter.

The Báb states that His laws are provisional and depend upon the
acceptance of the future Manifestation. This is why in the Book of
Aqdas Bahá’u’lláh sanctions some of the laws found in the Bayán,
modifies others and sets aside many.


Just as the Bayán had been revealed by the Báb at about the mid-point of
His Ministry, Bahá’u’lláh revealed the Kitáb-i-Aqdas around 1873, some
twenty years after He had received, in the Síyáh-C̱ẖál of Ṭihrán, the
intimation of His Revelation. In one of His Tablets He indicates that even
after its revelation the Aqdas was withheld by Him for some time before it
was sent to the friends in Iran. Thereafter, as Shoghi Effendi has
related:


The formulation by Bahá’u’lláh, in His Kitáb-i-Aqdas, of the
fundamental laws of His Dispensation was followed, as His Mission
drew to a close, by the enunciation of certain precepts and
principles which lie at the very core of His Faith, by the
reaffirmation of truths He had previously proclaimed, by the
elaboration and elucidation of some of the laws He had already