REFERENCES TO THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH
Excerpts from Books and other Publications
1. By PROFESSOR E. G. BROWNE.
I have often heard wonder expressed by Christian ministers at the extraordinary success of Bábí missionaries, as contrasted with the almost complete failure of their own. “How is it,” they say, “that the Christian doctrine, the highest and the noblest which the world has ever known, though supported by all the resources of Western civilization, can only count its converts in Muḥammadan lands by twos and threes, while Bábíism can reckon them by thousands?” The answer, to my mind, is plain as the sun at midday. Western Christianity, save in the rarest cases, is more Western than Christian, more racial than religious; and by dallying with doctrines plainly incompatible with the obvious meaning of its Founder’s words, such as the theories of “racial supremacy,” “imperial destiny,” “survival of the fittest,” and the like, grows steadily more rather than less material. Did Christ belong to a “dominant race,” or even to a European or “white race?” . . . I am not arguing that the Christian religion is true, but merely that it is in manifest conflict with several other theories of life which practically regulate the conduct of all States and most individuals in the Western world, a world which, on the whole, judges all things, including religions, mainly by material, or to use the more popular term, “practical,” standards. . . . There is, of course, another factor in the success of the Bábí propagandist, as compared with the Christian missionary, in the conversion of Muḥammadans to his faith: namely, that the former admits, while the latter rejects, the Divine inspiration of the Qur’án and the prophetic function of Muḥammad. The Christian missionary must begin by attacking, explicitly or by implication, both these beliefs; too often forgetting that if (as happens but rarely) he succeeds in destroying them, he destroys with them that recognition of former prophetic dispensations (including the Jewish and the Christian) which Muḥammad and the Qur’án proclaim, and converts his Muslim antagonist not to Christianity, but to Skepticism or Atheism. What, indeed, could be more illogical on the part of Christian missionaries to Muḥammadan lands than to devote much time and labor to the composition of controversial works which endeavor to prove, in one and the same breath, first, that the Qur’án is a lying imposture, and, secondly, that it bears witness to the truth of Christ’s mission, as though any value attached to the testimony of one proved a liar! The Bábí (or Bahá’í) propagandist, on the other hand, admits that Muḥammad was the prophet of God and that the Qur’án is the Word of God, denies nothing but their finality, and does not discredit his own witness when he draws from that source arguments to prove his faith. To the Western observer, however, it is the complete sincerity of the Bábís, their fearless disregard of death and torture undergone for the sake of their religion, their certain conviction as to the truth of their faith, their generally admirable conduct towards mankind and especially towards their fellow-believers, [Page 160]
which constitute their strongest claim on his attention.
Introduction to Myron H. Phelps’ ‘Abbás Effendi, pages xii-xiv—
It was under the influence of this enthusiasm that I penned the introduction to my translation of the Traveller’s Narrative. . . . This enthusiasm, condoned, if not shared, by many kindly critics and reviewers, exposed me to a somewhat savage attack in the Oxford Magazine, an attack concluding with the assertion that my Introduction displayed “a personal attitude almost inconceivable in a rational European, and a style unpardonable in a university teacher.” (The review in question appeared in the Oxford Magazine of May 25, 1892, page 394. . . . “the prominence given to the Báb in this book is an absurd violation of historical perspective; and the translation of the Traveller’s Narrative a waste of the powers and opportunities of a Persian Scholar.”) Increasing age and experience (more's the pity!) are apt enough, even without the assistance of the Oxford Magazine, to modify our enthusiasms; but in this case, at least, time has so far vindicated my judgment against that of my Oxford reviewer that he could scarcely now maintain, as he formerly asserted, that the Bábí religion “had affected the least important part of the Muslim World, and that not deeply.” Everyone who is in the slightest degree conversant with the actual state of things (September 27, 1903), in Persia now recognizes that the number and influence of the Bábís in that country is immensely greater than it was fifteen years ago. . .
A Traveller’s Narrative, page 309—
The appearance of such a woman as Qurratu’l-‘Ayn is in any country and any age a rare phenomenon, but in such a country as Persia it is a prodigy—nay, almost a miracle. Alike in virtue of her marvelous beauty, her rare intellectual gifts, her fervid eloquence, her fearless devotion and her glorious martyrdom, she stands forth incomparable and immortal amidst her countrywomen. Had the Bábí religion no other claim to greatness, this were sufficient—that it produced a heroine like Qurratu’l-‘Ayn.
Introduction to A Traveller’s Narrative, pages ix, x—
Though I dimly suspected whither I was going and whom I was to behold (for no distinct intimation had been given to me), a second or two elapsed ere, with a throb of wonder and awe, I became definitely conscious that the room was not untenanted. In the corner where the divan met the wall sat a wondrous and venerable figure, crowned with a felt headdress of the kind called táj by dervishes (but of unusual height and make), round the base of which was wound a small white turban. The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one’s very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow; while the deep lines on the forehead and face implied an age which the jet-black hair and beard flowing down in indistinguishable luxuriance almost to the waist seemed to belie. No need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain.
A mild, dignified voice bade me be seated, and then continued: “Praise be to God, that thou hast attained! . . . Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an exile . . . We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer-up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment . . . That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be annulled—what harm is there in this? . . . Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars [Page 161]
shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come . . . Do not you in Europe need this also? Is not this that which Christ foretold? . . . Yet do we see your kings and rulers lavishing their treasures more freely on means for the destruction of the human race than on that which would conduce to the happiness of mankind . . . These strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family . . . Let not a man glory in this that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind. . . . ”
Such, so far as I can recall them, were the words which, besides many others, I heard from Bahá. Let those who read them consider well with themselves whether such doctrines merit death and bonds, and whether the world is more likely to gain or lose by their diffusion.
Introduction to A Traveller’s Narrative, pages xxxv, xxxvi—
Seldom have I seen one whose appearance impressed me more. A tall, strongly-built man holding himself straight as an arrow, with white turban and raiment, long black locks reaching almost to the shoulder, broad powerful forehead, indicating a strong intellect, combined with an unswerving will, eyes keen as a hawk’s, and strongly marked but pleasing features—such was my first impression of ‘Abbás Effendi, “The Master” (Aghá) as he par excellence is called by the Bábís. Subsequent conversation with him served only to heighten the respect with which his appearance had from the first inspired me. One more eloquent of speech, more ready of argument, more apt of illustration, more intimately acquainted with the sacred books of the Jews, the Christians and the Muḥammadans, could, I should think, be scarcely found even amongst the eloquent, ready and subtle race to which he belongs. These qualities combined with a bearing at once majestic and genial, made me cease to wonder at the influence and esteem which he enjoyed even beyond the circle of his father’s followers. About the greatness of this man and his power no one who had seen him could entertain a doubt.
II. By DR. J. ESTLIN CARPENTER.
Excerpts from Comparative Religion, pages 70, 71—
From that subtle race issues the most remarkable movement which modern Muḥammadanism has produced. . . . Disciples gathered round him, and the movement was not checked by his arrest, his imprisonment for nearly six years and his final execution in 1850. . . . It, too, claims to be a universal teaching; it has already its noble army of martyrs and its holy books; has Persia, in the midst of her miseries, given birth to a religion which will go round the world?
III. By T. K. CHEYNE.
Excerpts from The Reconciliation of Races and Religions, (1914)—
There was living quite lately a human being* of such consummate excellence that many think it is both permissible and inevitable even to identify him mystically with the invisible Godhead. . . . His† combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place him in a line with supernormal men. . . . We learn that, at great points in his career after he had been in an ecstacy, such radiance of might and majesty streamed from his countenance that none could bear to look upon the effulgence of his glory and beauty. Nor was it an uncommon occurrence for unbelievers involuntarily to bow down in lowly obeisance on beholding His Holiness.
The gentle spirit of the Báb is surely high up in the cycles of eternity. Who can fail, as Professor Browne says, to be attracted by him? “His sorrowful and persecuted
*Bahá’u’lláh.
†Báb.
[Page 162]
life; his purity of conduct and youth; his courage and uncomplaining patience under misfortune; his complete self-negation; the dim ideal of a better state of things which can be discerned through the obscure mystic utterances of the Bayán; but most of all, his tragic death, all serve to enlist our sympathies on behalf of the young prophet of Shíráz.”
“Il sentait le besoin d’une reforme profonde a introduire dans les moeurs publiques. . . . Il s’est sacrifie pour l’humanitie; pour elle il a donne son corps et son ame, pour elle il a subi les privations, les affronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre.” (Mons. Nicolas.)
If there has been any prophet in recent times, it is to Bahá’u’lláh that we must go. Character is the final judge. Bahá’u’lláh was a man of the highest class—that of prophets. But he was free from the last infirmity of noble minds, and would certainly not have separated himself from others. He would have understood the saying: “Would God all the Lord’s people were prophets!” What he does say, however, is just as fine: “I do not desire lordship over others; I desire all men to be even as I am.”
The day is not far off when the details of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s missionary journeys will be admitted to be of historical importance. How gentle and wise he was, hundreds could testify from personal knowledge, and I, too, could perhaps say something. . . . I will only, however, give here the outward framework of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s life, and of his apostolic journeys, with the help of my friend Lotfulláh . . . .
During his stay in London he visited Oxford (where he and his party—of Persians mainly—were the guests of Professor and Mrs. Cheyne), Edinburgh, Clifton and Woking. It is fitting to notice here that the audience at Oxford, though highly academic, seemed to be deeply interested, and that Dr. Carpenter made an admirable speech. . . .
IV. By PROFESSOR VAMBERY.
Testimony to the Religion of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. (Translated from the Persian by Mírzá Aḥmad Sohrab. Published in Egyptian Gazette, Sept. 24, 1913, by Mrs. J. Stannard.)—
I forward this humble petition to the sanctified and holy presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá ‘Abbás, who is the center of knowledge, famous throughout the world, and loved by all mankind. O thou noble friend who art conferring guidance upon humanity—May my life be a ransom to thee!
The loving epistle which you have condescended to write to this servant, and the rug which you have forwarded, came safely to hand. The time of the meeting with your Excellency, and the memory of the benediction of your presence, recurred to the memory of this servant, and I am longing for the time when I shall meet you again. Although I have traveled through many countries and cities of Islám, yet have I never met so lofty a character and so exalted a personage as your Excellency, and I can bear witness that it is not possible to find such another. On this account, I am hoping that the ideals and accomplishments of your Excellency may be crowned with success and yield results under all conditions; because behind these ideals and deeds I easily discern the eternal welfare and prosperity of the world of humanity.
This servant, in order to gain first-hand information and experience, entered into the ranks of various religions, that is, outwardly, I became a Jew, Christian, Muḥammadan and Zoroastrian. I discovered that the devotees of these various religions do nothing else but hate and anathematize each other, that all their religions have become the instruments of tyranny and oppression in the hands of rulers and governors, and that they are the causes of the destruction of the world of humanity.
Considering those evil results, every person is forced by necessity to enlist himself on the side of your Excellency,[Page 163]
and accept with joy the prospect of a fundamental basis for a universal religion of God, being laid through your efforts.
I have seen the father of your Excellency from afar. I have realized the self-sacrifice and noble courage of his son, and I am lost in admiration.
For the principles and aims of your Excellency, I express the utmost respect and devotion, and if God, the Most High, confers long life, I will be able to serve you under all conditions. I pray and supplicate this from the depths of my heart.
- Your servant,
- (Mamhenyn.)
- Vambery.
V. BY HARRY CHARLES LUKACH.
Quotation from The Fringe of the East, (Macmillan & Co., London, 1913.)—
Bahá’ísm is now estimated to count more than two million adherents, mostly composed of Persian and Indian Shi’ihs, but including also many Sunnís from the Turkish Empire and North Africa, and not a few Brahmans, Buddhists, Taoists, Shintoists and Jews. It possesses even European converts, and has made some headway in the United States. Of all the religions which have been encountered in the course of this journey—the stagnant pools of Oriental Christianity, the strange survivals of sun-worship, and idolatry tinged with Muḥammadanism, the immutable relic of the Sumerians—it is the only one which is alive, which is aggressive, which is extending its frontiers, instead of secluding itself within its ancient haunts. It is a thing which may revivify Islám, and make great changes on the face of the Asiatic world.
VI. BY VALENTINE CHIROL.
Quotations from The Middle Eastern Question or Some Political Problems of Indian Defense, chapter XI, page 116 (The Revival of Bábíism)—
When one has been like Sa’di, a great personage, and then a common soldier, and then a prisoner of a Christian feudal chief; when one has worked as a navvy on the fortifications of the Count of Antioch, and wandered back afoot to Shíráz after infinite pain and labor, he may well be disposed to think that nothing that exists is real, or, at least, has any substantial reality worth clinging to. Today the public peace of Persia is no longer subject to such violent perturbations. At least, as far as we are concerned, the appearances of peace prevail, and few of us care or have occasion to look beyond the appearances. But for the Persians themselves, have the conditions very much changed? Do they not witness one day the sudden rise of this or that favorite of fortune and the next day his sudden fall? Have they not seen the Atabeg-Azam twice hold sway as the Sháh’s all-powerful Vazír. and twice hurled down from that pinnacle by a bolt from the blue? How many other ministers and governors have sat for a time on the seats of the mighty and been swept away by some intrigue as sordid as that to which they owed their own exaltation? And how many in humbler stations have been in the meantime the recipients of their unworthy favors or the victims of their arbitrary oppression? A village ,which but yesterday was fairly prosperous is beggared today by some neighboring landlord higher up the valley, who, having duly propitiated those in authority, diverts for the benefit of his own estates the whole of its slender supply of water. The progress of a governor or royal prince, with all his customary retinue of ravenous hangers-on, eats out the countryside through which it passes more effectually than a flight of locusts. The visitation is as ruinous and as unaccountable. Is it not the absence of all visible moral correlation of cause and effect in these phenomena of daily life that has gone far to produce the stolid fatalism of the masses, the scoffing skepticism of the more educated classes" and from time to time the revolt of some nobler minds? Of such the most recent and perhaps the[Page 164]
noblest of all became the founder of Bábíism.
Chapter XI, page 120—
The Báb was dead, but not Bábíism. He was not the first, and still less the last, of a long line of martyrs who have testified that even in a country gangrened with corruption and atrophied with indifferentism like Persia, the soul of a nation survives, inarticulate, perhaps, and in a way helpless, but still capable of sudden spasms of vitality.
Chapter XI, page 124—
Socially one of the most interesting features of Bábíism is the raising of woman to a much higher plane than she is usually admitted to in the East. The Báb himself had no more devoted a disciple than the beautiful and gifted lady, known as Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, the “Consolation of the Eyes,” who, having shared all the dangers of the first apostolic missions in the north, challenged and suffered death with virile fortitude, as one of the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán. No memory is more deeply venerated or kindles greater enthusiasm than hers, and the influence which she yielded in her lifetime still inures to her sex.
VII. BY ALBERT VAIL.
Quotation from Heroic Lives, page 305—
Prof. Jowett of Oxford, Master of Balliol, the translator of Plato, studied the movement and was so impressed thereby that he said: “The Bábite (Bahá’í) movement may not impossibly turn out to have the promise of the future." Dr. J. Estlin Carpenter quotes Prof. Edward Caird, Prof. Jowett’s successor as Master of Balliol, as saying, “He thought Bábíism (as the Bahá’í movement was then called) might prove the most important religious movement since the foundation of Christianity.“ Prof. Carpenter himself gives a sketch of the Bahá’í movement in his recent book on Comparative Religion and asks, “Has Persia, in the midst of her miseries, given birth to a religion that will go around the world?”
VIII. BY ALFRED W. MARTIN.
Excerpts from Comparative Religion and the Religion of the Future, pages 81-91—
Inasmuch as a fellowship of faiths is at once the dearest hope and ultimate goal of the Bahá’í movement, it behooves us to take cognizance of it and its mission .... Today this religious movement has a million and more adherents, including people from all parts of the globe and representing a remarkable variety of race, color, class and creed. It has been given literary expression in a veritable library of Asiatic, European, and American works to which additions are annually made as the movement grows and grapples with the great problems that grow out of its cardinal teachings. It has a long roll of martyrs for the cause for which it stands, twenty thousand in Persia alone, proving it to be a movement worth dying for as well as worth living by.
From its inception it has been identified with Bahá’u’lláh, who paid the price of prolonged exile, imprisonment, bodily suffering, and mental anguish for the faith he cherished — a man of imposing personality as revealed in his writings characterized by intense moral earnestness and profound spirituality, gifted with the selfsame power so conspicuous in the character of Jesus, the power to appreciate people ideally, that is, to see them at the level of their best and to make even the lowest types think well of themselves because of potentialities within them to which he pointed, but of which they were wholly unaware; a prophet whose greatest contribution was not any specific doctrine he proclaimed, but an informing spiritual power breathed into the world through the example of his life and thereby quickening souls into new spiritual activity. [Page 165]
Surely a movement of which all this can be said deserves—nay, compels—our respectful recognition and sincere appreciation.
. . . Taking precedence over all else in its gospel is the message of unity in religion. . . . It is the crowning glory of the Bahá’í movement that, while deprecating sectarianism in its preaching, it has faithfully practiced what it preached by refraining from becoming itself a sect. . . . Its representatives do not attempt to impose any beliefs upon others, whether by argument or bribery; rather do they seek to put beliefs that have illumined their own lives within the reach of those who feel they need illumination. No, not a sect, not a part of humanity cut off from all the rest, living for itself and aiming to convert all the rest into material for its own growth; no, not that, but a leaven, causing spiritual fermentation in all religions, quickening them with the spirit of catholicity and fraternalism.
. . . Who shall say but that just as the little company of the Mayflower, landing on Plymouth Rock, proved to be the small beginning of a mighty nation, the ideal germ of a democracy which, if true to its principles, shall yet overspread the habitable globe, so the little company of Bahá’ís exiled from their Persian home may yet prove to be the small beginning of a world-wide movement, the ideal germ of democracy in religion, the Universal Church of Mankind?
IX. BY PROF. JAMES DARMESTER.
Excerpt from Art in “Persia: A Historical and Literary Sketch” (translated by G. K. Nariman), and incorporated in Persia and Parsís, Part I, edited by G. K. Nariman. Published under patronage of the Irán League, Bombay, 1925. (The Marker Literary Series for Persia, No. 2)—
The political reprieve brought about by the Súfís did not result in the regeneration of thought. But the last century which marks the end of Persia has had its revival and twofold revival, literary and religious. The funeral ceremonies by which Persia celebrates every year for centuries—the fatal day of the 10th of Mohorrum, when the son of ‘Alí breathed his last at Karbilá—have developed a popular theatre and produce a sincere poetry, dramatic and human, which is worth all the rhetoric of the poets. During the same times an attempt at religious renovation was made, the religion of Bábíism. Demoralized for centuries by ten foreign conquests, by the yoke of a composite religion in which she believed just enough to persecute, by the enervating influence of a mystical philosophy which disabled men for action and divested life of all aim and objects, Persia has been making unexpected efforts for the last fifty-five years to re-make for herself a virile ideal. Bábíism has little of originality in its dogmas and mythology. Its mystic doctrine takes its rise from Súfísm and the old sects of the Aliides formed around the dogma of divine incarnation. But the morality it inculcates is a revolution. It has the ethics of the West. It suppresses lawful impurities which are a great barrier dividing Islám from Christendom. It denounces polygamy, the fruitful source of Oriental degeneration. It seeks to reconstitute the family and it elevates man and in elevating him exalts woman up to his level. Bábíism, which diffused itself in less than five years from one end of Persia to another, which was bathed in 1852 in the blood of its martyrs, has been silently progressing and propagating itself. If Persia is to be at all regenerate it will be through this new faith.
X. BY CHARLES BAUDOUIN.
Excerpts from Contemporary Studies, Part III, page 131. (Allan & Unwin, London, 1924.)—
We Westerners are too apt to imagine that the huge continent of Asia is sleeping as soundly as a mummy. We smile at the vanity of the ancient Hebrews, who believed
[Page 167]
themselves to be the chosen people. We are amazed at the intolerance of the Greeks and the Romans, who looked upon the members of all races as barbarians. Nevertheless, we ourselves are like the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Romans. As Europeans we believe Europe to be the only world that matters, though from time to time we may turn a paternal eye towards America, regarding our offspring in the New World with mingled feelings of condescension and pride.
Nevertheless, the great cataclysm of 1914 is leading some of us to undertake a critical examination of the inviolable dogma that the European nations are the elect. Has there not been of late years a demonstration of the nullity of modern civilization-the nullity which had already been proclaimed by Rousseau, Carlyle. Ruskin, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche? We are now inclined to listen more attentively to whispers from the East. Our self-complacency has been disturbed by such utterances as that of Rabandrinath Tagore. who, lecturing at the Imperial University of Tokio on June 18, 1916, foretold a great future for Asia. The political civilization of Europe was “carnivorous and cannibalistic in its tendencies.” The East was patient, and could afford to wait till the West, “hurry after the expedient.” had to halt for want of breath. “Europe, while busily speeding to her engagements, disdainfully casts her glance from her carriage window at the reaper reaping his harvest in the field, and in her intoxication of speed, cannot but think him as slow and ever receding backwards. But the speed comes to its end, the engagement loses its meaning, and the hungry heart clamors for food, till at last she comes to the lonely reaper reaping his harvest in the sun. For if the office can not wait, or the buying and selling, or the craving for excitement—love waits, and beauty, and the wisdom of suffering and the fruits of patient devotion and reverent meekness of simple faith. And thus shall wait the East till her time comes.”
Being thus led to turn our eyes towards Asia, we are astonished to find how much we have misunderstood it; and we blush when we realize our previous ignorance of the fact that, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, Asia gave birth to a great religious movement — a movement signalized for its spiritual purity, one which has had thousands of martyrs, one which Tolstoy has described. H. Dreyfus, the French historian of this movement, says that it is not “a new religion,” but “religion renewed,” and that it provides “the only possible basis for a mutual understanding between religion and free thought.” Above all, we are impressed by the fact that, in our own time, such a manifestation can occur, and that the new faith should have undergone a development far more extensive than that undergone in the same space of time nearly two thousand years ago, by budding Christianity.
. . . At the present time, the majority of the inhabitants of Persia have, to a varying extent, accepted the Bábíist faith. In the great towns of Europe, America, and Asia, there are active centers for the propaganda of the liberal ideas and the doctrine of human community, which form the foundations of Bahá’íst teaching.
We shall not grasp the full significance of this tendency until we pass from the description of Bahá’ísm as a theory to that of Bahá’ísm as a practice, for the core of religion is not metaphysics, but morality.
The Bahá’íst ethical code is dominated by the law of love taught by Jesus and by all the prophets. In the thousand and one details of practical life, this law is subject to manifold interpretations. That of Bahá’u’lláh is unquestionably one of the most comprehensive of these, one of the most exalted, one of the most satisfactory to the modern mind. . . .
That is why Bahá’u’lláh is a severe critic of the patriotism which plays so large a part in the national life of our day. Love of our native land is legitimate, but this love must not be exclusive. A man should love his country more than he loves his house (this is the dogma held [Page 168]
by every patriot); but Bahá’u’lláh adds that he should love the divine world more than he loves his country. From this standpoint, patriotism is seen to be an intermediate stage on the road of renunciation, an incomplete and hybrid religion, something we have to get beyond. Throughout his life Bahá’u’lláh regarded the ideal universal peace as one of the most important of his aims. . . .
. . . Bahá’u’lláh is in this respect enunciating a novel and fruitful idea. There is a better way of dealing with social evils than by trying to cure them after they have come to pass. We should try to prevent them by removing their causes, which act on the individual, and especially on the child. Nothing can be more plastic than the nature of the child. The government’s first duty must be to provide for the careful and efficient education of children, remembering that education is something more than instruction. This will be an enormous step towards the solution of the social problem, and to take such a step will be the first task of the Baytu’l‘Ad’l (House of Justice). “It is ordained upon every father to rear his son or his daughter by means of the sciences, the arts, and all the commandments; and if anyone should neglect to do so, then the members of the council, should the offender be a wealthy man, must levy from him the sum necessary for the education of his child. When the neglectful parent is poor, the cost of the necessary education must be borne by the council, which will provide a refuge for the unfortunate.”
The Baytu’l‘Ad’l, likewise, must prepare the way for the establishment of universal peace, doing this by organizing courts of arbitration and by influencing the governments. Long before the Esperantists had begun their campaign, and more than twenty years before Nicholas II had summoned the first Hague congress, Bahá’u’lláh was insisting on the need for a universal language and courts of arbitration. He returns to these matters again and again: “Let all the nations become one in faith, and let all men be brothers, in order that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men may be strengthened. . . . What harm can there be in that? . . . It is going to happen. There will be an end to sterile conflicts, to ruinous wars; and the Great Peace will come!” Such were the words of Baha'u'llah in 1890, two years before his death.
While adopting and developing the Christian law of love, Bahá’u’lláh rejected the Christian principle of ascetism. He discountenanced the macerations which were a nightmare of the Middle Ages, and whose evil effects persist even in our own days . . . .
Bahá’ísm, then, is an ethical system, a system of social morality. But it would be a mistake to regard Bahá’íst teaching as a collection of abstract rules imposed from without. Bahá’ísm is permeated with a sane and noble mysticism; nothing could be more firmly rooted in the inner life, more benignly spiritual; nothing could speak more intimately to the soul, in low tones, and as if from within. . . .
Such is the new voice that sounds to us from Asia; such is the new dawn in the East. We should give them our close attention; we should abandon our customary mood of disdainful superiority. Doubtless, Bahá’u’lláh’s teaching is not definitive. The Persian prophet does not offer it to us as such. Nor can we Europeans assimilate all of it; for modern science leads us to make certain claims in matters of thought — claims we cannot relinquish, claims we should not try to forego. But , even though Bahá’u’lláh’s precepts (like those of the Gospels) may not fully satisfy all these inteIlectual demands; they are rarely in conflict with our scientific outlooks. If they are to become our own spiritual food, they must be supplemented, they must be re-lived by the religious spirits of Europe, must be re-thought by minds schooled in the Western mode of thought. But, in its existing form, Bahá’íst teaching may serve, amid our present chaos, to open for us a road leading to solace and to comfort; may restore our confidence in the spiritual destiny of man. It reveals to us how the [Page 169]
human mind is in travail; it gives us an inkling of the fact that the greatest happenings of the day are not the ones we were inclined to regard as the most momentous, not the ones which are making the loudest noise.
XI. DR. HENRY H. JESSUP, D.D.
From the World’s Parliament of Religions; Volume II, 13th Day, under Criticism and Discussion of Missionary Methods, page 1122. At the Columbian Exposition of 1893, at Chicago. Edited by the Rev. John Henry Barrows, D. D. (The Parliament Publishing Company, Chicago, 1893.)—
This, then, is our mission: that we who are made in the image of God should remember that all men are made in God’s image. To this divine knowledge we owe all we are, all we hope for. We are rising gradually toward that image, and we owe to our fellowmen to aid them in returning to it in the Glory of God and the Beauty of Holiness. It is a celestial privilege and with it comes a high responsibility, from which there is no escape.
In the Palace of Bahjí, or Delight, just outside the Fortress of ‘Akká, on the Syrian coast, there died a few months since, a famous Persian sage, the Bábí Saint, named Bahá’u’lláh—the “Glory of God”—the head of that vast reform party of Persian Muslims, who accept the New Testament as the Word of God and Christ as the Deliverer of men, who regard all nations as one, and all men as brothers. Three years ago he was visited by a Cambridge scholar and gave utterance to sentiments so noble, so Christlike, that we repeat them as our closing words:
“That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religions should cease and differences of race be annulled. What harm is there in this? Yet so it shall be. These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come. Do not you in Europe need this also? Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.”
XII. BY THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL CURZON.
Excerpts from Persia, Vol. I, pages 496-504. (Written in 1892.)—
Beauty and the female sex also lent their consecration to the new creed and the heroism of the lovely but ill-fated poetess of Qazvín, Zerin-Taj (Crown of Gold) or Qurratu’l-‘Ayn (Solace of the Eyes), who, throwing off the veil, carried the missionary torch far and wide, is one of the most affecting episodes in modern history. . . . The lowest estimate places the present number of Bábís in Persia at half a million. I am disposed to think, from conversations with persons well qualified to judge, that the total is nearer one million. They are to be found in every walk of life, from the ministers and nobles of the Court to the scavenger or the groom, not the least arena of their activity being the Mussulman priesthood itself. It will have been noticed that the movement was initiated by Siyyids, Hájís and Mullás, i. e., persons who, either by descent, from pious inclination, or by profession, were intimately concerned with the Muḥammadan creed; and it is among even the professed votaries of the faith that they continue to make their converts. . . . Quite recently the Bábís have had great success in the camp of another enemy, having secured many proselytes among the Jewish populations of the Persian towns. I hear that during the past year (1891) they are reported to have made 150 Jewish converts in Ṭihrán, 100 in Hamadán, 50 in Káshán, and 75 per cent of the Jews at Gulpáyigán. . . . The two victims, whose names were Hájí Mírzá Hassan and Hájí Mírzá Ḥusayn, have been renamed by the Bábís: Sulṭánu’sh-Shuhadá’, or King of Martyrs, and Maḥbúbu’sh-Shuhadá’, or Beloved of
[Page 171]
Martyrs—and their naked graves in the cemetery have become places of pilgrimage where many a tear is shed over the fate of the “Martyrs of Iṣfáhán.” . . . It is these little incidents, protruding from time to time their ugly features, that prove Persia to be not as yet quite redeemed, and that somewhat staggers the tall-talkers about Iranian civilization. If one conclusion more than another has been forced upon our notice by the retrospect in which I have indulged, it is that a sublime and murmuring [?] devotion has been inculcated by this new faith, whatever it be. There is, I believe, but one instance of a Bábí having recanted under pressure of menace of suffering, and he reverted to the faith and was executed within two years. Tales of magnificent heroism illumine the bloodstained pages of Bábí history. Ignorant and unlettered as many of its votaries are, and have been, they are yet prepared to die for their religion, and fires of Smithfield did not kindle a nobler courage than has met and defied the more refined torture-mongers of Ṭihrán. Of no small account, then, must be the tenets of a creed that can awaken in its followers so rare and beautiful a spirit of self-sacrifice. From the facts that Bábíism in its earliest years found itself in conflict with the civil powers and that an attempt was made by Bábís upon the life of the Sháh, it has been wrongly inferred that the movement was political in origin and Nihilist in character. It does not appear from a study of the writings either of the Báb or his successors, that there is any foundation for such a suspicion. . . . The charge of immorality seems to have arisen partly from the malignant inventions of opponents, partly from the much greater freedom claimed for women by the Báb, which in the oriental mind is scarcely dissociable from profligacy of conduct. . . . If Bábíism continues to grow at its present rate of progression, a time may conceivably come when it will oust Muḥammadanism from the field in Persia. . . . Since its recruits are won from the best soldiers of the garrison whom it is attacking, there is greater reason to believe that it may ultimately prevail. . . . The pure and suffering life of the Báb, his ignominous death, the heroism and martyrdom of his followers, will appeal to many others who can find no similar phenomena in the contemporaneous records of Islám. . . .
XIII. BY SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND.
Excerpts from The Gleam. (1923.)—
The story of the Báb, as Mírzá ‘Alí Muḥammad called himself, was the story of spiritual heroism unsurpassed in Svabhava’s experience; and his own adventurous soul was fired by it. That a youth of no social influence and no education should, by the simple power of insight, be able to pierce into the heart of things and see the real truth, and then hold on to it with such firmness of conviction and present it with such suasion that he was able to convince men that he was the Messiah and get them to follow him to death itself, was one of those splendid facts in human history that Svabhava loved to meditate on. This was a true hero whom he would wish to emulate and whose experiences he would profit by. The Báb’s passionate sincerity could not be doubted, for he had given his life for his faith. And that there must be something in his message that appealed to men and satisfied their souls, was witnessed to by the fact that thousands gave their lives in his cause and millions now follow him.
If a young man could, in only six years of ministry, by the sincerity of his purpose and the attraction of his personality, so inspire rich and poor, cultured and illiterate, alike, with belief in himself and his doctrines that they would remain staunch, though hunted down and without trial sentenced to death, sawn asunder, strangled, shot, blown from guns; and if men of high position and culture in Persia, Turkey and Egypt in numbers to this [Page 172]
day adhere to his doctrines, his life must be one of those events in the last hundred years which is really worth study. And that study fortunately has been made by the Frenchman Gobineau and by Professor E. G. Browne, so that we are able to have a faithful representation of its main features . . . .
Thus, in only his thirtieth year, in the year 1850, ended the heroic career of a true God-man. Of the sincerity of his conviction that he was God-appointed, the manner of his death is the amplest possible proof. In the belief that he would thereby save others from the error of their present beliefs he willingly sacrificed his life. And of his power of attaching men to him, the passionate devotion of hundreds and even thousands of men who gave their lives in his cause, is convincing testimony. . . .
He himself was but “a letter out of that most mighty book, a dewdrop from that limitless ocean.” The One to come would reveal all mysteries and all riddles. This was the humility of true insight. And it has had its effect. His movement has grown and expanded, and it has yet a great future before it.
During his six years of ministry, four of which were spent in captivity, he had permeated all Persia with his ideas. And since his death the movement has spread to Turkey, Egypt, India and even into Europe and America. His adherents aren ow numbered by millions. The spirit which pervades them, says Professor Browne, “is such that it cannot fail to affect most powerfully all subject to its influence.”
XIV. Excerpt from The Christian Commonwealth, January 22, 1913: “ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Oxford”—
‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed a large and deeply interested audience at Manchester College, Oxford, on December 31. The Persian leader spoke in his native tongue, Mírzá Aḥmad Sohrab interpreting. Principal Estlin Carpenter presided, and introduced the speaker by saying that they owed the honour and pleasure of meeting ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to their revered friend, Dr. Cheyne, who was deeply interested in the Bahá’í teaching. The movement sprung up during the middle of the last century in Persia, with the advent of a young Muḥammadan who took to himself the title of the Báb (meaning door or gate, through which men could arrive at the knowledge or truth of God), and who commenced teaching in Persia in the year 1844. The purity of his character, the nobility of his words, aroused great enthusiasm. He was, however, subjected to great hostility by the authorities, who secured his arrest and imprisonment, and he was finally executed in 1850. But the movement went on, and the writings of the Báb, which had been copious, were widely read. The movement has been brought into India, Europe, and the United States. It does not seek to create a new sect, but to inspire all sects with a deep fundamental love. The late Dr. Jowett once said to him that he had been so deeply impressed with the teachings and character of the Báb that he thought Bábíism, as the present movement was then known, might become the greatest religious movement since the birth of Christ.
