The section should be of particular interest to followers of other (earlier) religions.
Note to Bahá'ís: This section on the Life of the Manifestations of God unto today is advised for Bahá'ís to cover as per the sequence of teaching to show the truth of the seeker's own religion and bring them up to the present. This follows the general sequence in the Kitáb-i-Íqán and Some Answered Questions, chapters 4-9.
Regarding those who might be contented to abide with their own religion, we can look at the principle repeatedly emphasized by 'Abdu'l-Bahá on the need for the Holy Spirit. One of the implications of this principle is that it is inadequate to choose and stay with a past Manifestation of God, as it is the Reality of the Holy Spirit (the current One) to which we should turn.
With the need for religion acknowledged and some criteria for search now elaborated and considered, both external and internal to ourselves, we can take a look at the degree to which existing religions meet this criteria of search.
Before we examine some of the specific Prophets Who founded great religions, we might note that there is some question as to the historicity of stories about some of Them.
"It can, therefore, be confidently stated that the teachings of the Faith name Krishna as a Manifestation of God. In light, however, of the other statements of the Guardian, in which he stresses the paucity of our information about the beginnings of Hinduism, we should be cautious not to assert the historical accuracy of specific stories related about Krishna. A similar case where allegorical statements and legends surround the figure of a known Manifestation of God is that of Adam."
The essential proof for each of the Manifestations of God is the following:
A true, Divine Educator faces enormous obstacles and overcomes them
This Personage faced enormous obstacles and overcame them
This Personage was a Divine Educator.
This is also evocative of the crisis and victory dialectic—a crisis leads to an even greater victory in the Faith of God, past as well as present, serving both as a proof and offer of reason for hope.
Other Figures, such as the following, deserve their own study, but we have limited ourselves above to those Manifestations of God whose impact was felt more in the Middle East and the West
