REFERENCES TO THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH
Alphabetical List of Authors
Archduchess Anton of Austria
Charles Baudouin
Prof. Norman Bentwich, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Prof. E. G. Browne, M.A., M.B., Cambridge University
Dr. J. Estlin Carpenter, D.Litt., Manchester College, Oxford
General Renato Piola Caselli
Rev. T. K. Cheyne, D.Litt., D.D., Oxford University, Fellow of British Academy
Sir Valentine Chirol
Rev. K. T. Chung
Right Hon. the Earl Curzon of Keddleston
Prof. James Darmesteter, Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Rev. J. Tyssul Davis, B.A.
Dr. Auguste Forel, University of Zurich
Dr. Herbert Adams Gibbons
Dr. Henry H. Jessup, D.D.
Prof. Jowett, Oxford University
Prof. Dimiry Kazarov, University of Sofia
Miss Helen Keller
Harry Charles Lukach
Dowager Queen Marie of Rumania
Alfred W. Martin, Society for Ethical Culture, New York
President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia
Dr. Rokuichiro Masujima, Doyen of Jurisprudence of Japan
Mr. Millar
Prof. Herbert A. Miller, Bryn Mawr College
The Hon. Lilian Helen Montagu, J.P., D.H.L.
Rev. Frederick W. Oakes
Sir Flinders Petrie, Archaeologist
Charles H. Prist
Dr. Edmund Privat, University of Geneva
Herbert Putnam, Congressional Library, Washington, D. C.
Ernest Renan
Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert Samuel, G.C.B., M.P.
Emile Schreiber, Publicist
Prof. Hari Prasad Shastri, D.Litt.
Rev. Griffith J. Sparham
Shri Purohit Swami
Leo Tolstoy
Prof. Arminius Vambéry, Hungarian Academy of Pesth
Sir Francis Younghusband, K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E.
I. BY DOWAGER QUEEN MARIE OF RUMANIA.
1.
A WOMAN* brought me the other day a Book. I spell it with a capital letter because it is a glorious Book of love and goodness, strength and beauty.
She gave it to me because she had learned I was in grief and sadness and wanted to help. . . . She put it into my hands saying: "You seem to live up to His teachings.” And when I opened the Book I saw it was the word of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, prophet of love and kindness, and of his father the great teacher of international good—will and understanding—of a religion which links all creeds.
Their writings are a great cry toward peace, reaching beyond all limits of frontiers, above all dissension about rites and dogmas. It is a religion based upon the inner spirit of God, upon that great, not—to-beovercome verity that God is love, meaning just that. It teaches that all hatreds, intrigues, suspicions, evil words, all aggressive patriotism even, are outside the one essential law of God, and that special beliefs are but surface things whereas the heart that beats with divine love knows no tribe nor race.
It is a wondrous Message that Bahá’u’lláh and his son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have given us. They have not set it up aggressively knowing that the germ of eternal truth which lies at its core cannot but take root and spread.
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*Miss Martha L. Root.—Editor.
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There is only one great
verity in it: Love,
the mainspring of every energy, tolerance
towards each other, desire of understanding
each other, knowing each other, helping each
other, forgiving each other.
It is Christ’s Message taken up anew, in the same words almost, but adapted to the thousand years and more difference that lies between the year one and today. No man could fail to be better because of this Book.
I commend it to you all. If ever the name of Bahá’u’lláh or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá comes to your attention, do not put their Writings from you. Search out their Books, and let their glorious, peace-bringing, love-creating words and lessons sink into your hearts as they have into mine.
One’s busy day may seem too full for religion. Or one may have a religion that satisfies. But the teachings of these gentle, wise and kindly men are compatible with all religion, and with no religion.
Seek them, and be the happier.
(From the Toronto Daily Star, May 4, 1926.)
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2.
Of course, if you take the stand that creation has no aim, it is easy to dismiss life and death with a shrug and a “that ends it all; nothing comes after.”
But how dificult it is so to dismiss the universe, our world, the animal and vegetable world, and man. How clearly one sees a plan in everything. How unthinkable it is that the miraculous development that has brought man’s body, brain and spirit to what it is, should cease. Why should it cease? Why is it not logical that it goes on? Not the body, which is only an instrument, but the invisible spark or fire within the body which makes man one with the wider plan of creation.
My words are lame, and why should I grope for meanings when I can quote from one who has said it so much more plainly, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, whom I know would sanction the use of his words:
“The whole physical creation is perishable. Material bodies are composed of atoms. When these atoms begin to separate, decomposition sets in. Then comes what we call death.
“This composition of atoms which constitutes the body or mortal element of any created being, is temporary. When the power of attraction which holds these atoms together is withdrawn, the body as such ceases to exist.
“With the soul it is different. The soul is not a combination of elements, is not composed of many atoms, is of one indivisible substance and therefore eternal.
“It is entirely out of the order of physical creation; it is immortal! The soul, being an invisible, indivisible substance, can suffer neither disintegration nor destruction. Therefore there is no reason for its coming to an end.
“Consider the aim of creation: Is it possible that all is created to evolve and develop through countless ages with merely this small goal in view—a few years of man’s life on earth? Is it not unthinkable that this should be the final aim of existence? Does a man cease to exist when he leaves his body? If his life comes to an end. then all previous evolution is useless. All has been for nothing. All those eons of evolution for nothing! Can we imagine that creation had no greater aim than this?
“The very existence of man’s intelligence proves his immortality. His intelligence is the intermediary between his body and his spirit. When man allows his spirit, through his soul, to enlighten his understanding, then does he contain all creation; because man being the culmination of all that went before, and thus superior to all previous evolutions, contains all the lower already-evolved world within himself. Illumined by the spirit through the instrumentality of the soul, man’s radiant intelligence makes him the crowning—point of creation!”
Thus does ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explain to us the soul—the most convincing elucidation I know.
(From the Toronto Daily Star, September 28,1926.)
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3.
At first we all conceive of God as
something or somebody apart from ourselves. We
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think He is something or
somebody definite,
outside of us, whose quality, meaning and
so-to-say "personality” we can grasp with
our human, finite minds, and express in mere
words.
This is not so. We cannot, with our earthly faculties entirely grasp His meaning —no more than we can really understand the meaning of Eternity.
God is certainly not the old Fatherly gentleman with the long beard that in our childhood we saw pictured sitting amongst clouds on the throne of judgment, holding the lightning of vengeance in His hand.
God is something simpler, happier, and yet infinitely more tremendous. God is All, Everything. He is the Power behind all beginnings. He is the inexhaustible source of supply, of love, of good, of progress, of achievement. God is therefore Happiness.
His is the voice within us that shows us good and evil.
But mostly we ignore or misunderstand this voice. Therefore did He choose his Elect to come down amongst us upon earth to make clear His word, His real meaning. Therefore the Prophets; therefore Christ, Muḥammad, Bahá’u’lláh, for man needs from time to time a voice upon earth to bring God to him, to sharpen the realization of the existence of the true God. Those voices sent to us had to become flesh, so that with our earthly ears we should be able to hear and understand.
Those who read their Bible with “peeled eyes” will find in almost every line some revelation. But it takes long life, suffering or some sudden event to tear all at once the veil from our eyes, so that we can truly see. . . .
Sorrow and suffering are the surest and also the most common instructors, the straightest channel to’God—that is to say, to that inner something within each of us which is God.
Happiness beyond all understanding comes with this revelation that God is within us, if we will but listen to His voice. We need not seek Him in the clouds. He is the All-Father whence we came and to whom we shall return when, having done with this earthly body, we pass onward.
If I have repeated myself, forgive me. There are so many ways of saying things, but what is important is the truth which lies in all the many ways of expressing it.
(From the Philadelphia "Evening Bulletin,” Monday, September 27, 1926.)
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4.
“Lately a great hope has come to me from one, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. I have found in His and His Father, Bahá’u’lláh’s Message of Faith all my yearning for real religion satisfied. If you ever hear of Bahá’ís or of the Bahá’í Movement which is known in America, you will know what that is. What I mean: these Books have strengthened me beyond belief and I am now ready to die any day full of hope. But I pray God not to take me away yet for I still have a lot of work to do.”
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5.
“The Bahá’í teaching brings peace and understanding.
“It is like a wide embrace gathering together all those who have long searched for words of hope.
“It accepts all great prophets gone before, it destroys no other creeds and leaves all doors open.
“Saddened by the continual strife amongst believers of many confessions and wearied of their intolerance towards each other, I discovered in the Bahá’í teaching the real spirit of Christ so often denied and misunderstood:
“Unity instead of strife, hope instead of condemnation, love instead of hate, and a great reassurance for all men.”
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6.
“The Bahá’í teaching brings peace to the soul and hope to the heart.
“To those in search of assurance the words of the Father are as a fountain in the desert after long wandering.”
II. BY PROFESSOR E. G. BROWNE
1.
Introduction to Myron H. Phelps’ 'Abbás Effendi, pages xv-xx; 1903 rev. 1912–
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 Bábísm 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, which constitutes their strongest claim on his attention.
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2.
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
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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.” Every one
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.
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3.
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 Bábís religion no other claim to greatness, this were sufficient—that it produced a heroine like Qurratu’l-‘Ayn.
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4.
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 head-dress of the kind called taj 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 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.
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5.
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
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locks reaching almost
to the shoulder, broad powerful forehead,
indicating a stronge 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.
III. 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?
IV. BY THE REV. T. K. CHEYNE, D.LITT., D.D.
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†
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*Bahá’u’lláh.
†Báb.
combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place him in a line with super-normal men. . . . We learn that, at great points in his career after he had been in an ecstasy, 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 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 profond a introduire dans les moeurs publiques. . . . Il s’est sacrifié pour l’humanité; pour elle il a donné 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 Lutfulláh. . . .
During his stay in London he visited
Seventh Persian National Bahá’í Convention, 1933. (Keith Ransom-Kehler in the center.)
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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. . . .
V. BY PROFESSOR VAMBÉRY.
Testimony to the Religion of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. (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, 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 condition. I pray and supplicate this from the depths of my heart.
VI. 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 Shí’áhs, but including also many Sunnis from the Turkish Empire and North Africa, and not a few Brahmans, Buddhists, Taoist, 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.
VII. 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
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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 Atábak—i-A‘zam twice hold sway
as the Sháh’s all-powerful Vazir, 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 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.
VIII. BY PROFESSOR JOWETT of Oxford.
Quotation from Heroic Lives, pages 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 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?”
IX. 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
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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. 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 practised 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 the world-wide movement, the ideal germ of democracy in religion, the Universal Church of Mankind?
X. BY PROF. JAMES DARMESTETER.
Excerpt from Art in “Persia: A Historical and Literary Sketch” (translated by G. K. Nariman), and incorporated in Persia and Parsis, Part I, edited by G. K. Nariman. Published under patronage of the Írán League, Bombay, 1925. (The Market Literary Series for Persia, No. 2.)—
The political reprieve brought about by
the Súfis 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 Muḥarram,
when the son of ‘Alí breathed
his last at Karbilá—have
developed a popular theater
and produced 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
Súfism and the old sects of the Aliides
formed around the dogma of divine
incarnation. But the morality it
inculcates is a
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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.
XI. 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 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 Rabindranath 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 cannot 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.
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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 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 any one 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 Bahá’u’lláh in 1890, two years before his death.
While adopting and developing the Christian law of love, Bahá’u’lláh rejected the Christian principle of asceticism. 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 intellectual 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
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of Europe, must be rethought 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 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.
XII. 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.”
XIII. 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
Qazvin, Zarrin-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 Siyyíds, 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 Háji
Mírzá Ḥasan and Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥusayn, have
been renamed by the Bábís:
Sulṭánu‘sh-Shuhadá,
or King of Martyrs, and
Mahbúbu‘sh-Shuhadá’,
or Beloved of Martyrs
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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 Iṣfahán.” . . . 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 Íránian 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
ignominious 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. . . .
XIV. 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 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.
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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 are now 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.”
{{center|XV. 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 honor 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.
XVI. BY REV. J. TYSSUL DAVIS, B.A.
Quotation from A League of Religions. Excerpts from Chapter X: “Bahá’ísm—The Religion of Reconciliation.” (The Lindsey Press, London, England.)—
The Bahá’í religion has made its way . . . because it meets the needs of its day. It fits the larger outlook of our time better than the rigid exclusive older faiths. A characteristic is its unexpected liberality and toleration. It accepts all the great religions as true, and their scriptures as inspired. The Bahá’ísts bid the followers of these faiths disentangle from the windings of racial, particularist, local prejudices, the vital, immortal thread, the pure gospel of eternal worth, and to apply this essential element to life. Instances are quoted of people being recommended to work within the older faiths, to remain, vitalizing them upon the principles of the new faith. They cannot fear new facts, new truths as the Creed-defenders must. They believe in a progressive revelation. They admit the cogency of modern criticism and allow that God is in His nature incomprehensible, but is to be known through His manifestations. Their ethical ideal is very high and is of the type we Westerners have learnt to designate “Christlike.”
‘‘What does he do to his enemies that
he makes them his friends?” was asked concerning the late leader. What astonishes the student is not anything in the ethics or philosophy of this movement, but the extraordinary response its ideal has awakened in such numbers of people, the powerful influence this standard actually exerts on conduct. It is due to four things: (1) It makes a call on the Heroic Element in man.
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It offers no bribe. It bids men endure, give
up, carry the cross. It calls them to
sacrifice, to bear torture, to suffer martyrdom,
to brave death. (2) It offers liberty of
thought. Even upon such a vital question
as immortality it will not bind opinion. Its
atmosphere is one of trust and hope, not of
dogmatic chill. (3) It is a religion of love.
“Notwithstanding the interminable catalogue
of extreme and almost incredible sufferings
and privations which this heroic
band of men and women have endured more
terrible than many martyrdoms—there
is not a trace of resentment or bitterness to
be observed among them. One would suppose
that they were the most fortunate of
the people among whom they live, as indeed
they do certainly consider themselves, in
that they have been permitted to live near
their beloved Lord, beside which they count
their sufferings as nothing” (Phelps). Love
for the Master, love for the brethren, love
for the neighbors, love for the alien, love
for all humanity, love for all life, love for
God—the old, well-tried way trod once before
in Syria, trodden again. (4) It is a
religion in harmony with science. It has here
the advantage of being thirteen centuries
later than Islám. This new dispensation has
been tried in the furnace, and has not been
found wanting. It has been proved valid by
the lives of those who have endured all
things on its behalf. Here is something more
appealing than its logic and rational
philosophy. “To the Western observer” (writes
Prof. Browne), “it is the complete sincerity
of the Bábis, 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 toward mankind, especially toward
their fellow-believers, which constitute their
strongest claim on his attention.”
“By their fruits shall ye know them!” We cannot but address to this youthful religion an All Hail! of welcome. We cannot fail to see in its activity another proof of the living witness in our own day of the working of the sleepless spirit of God in the hearts of men, for He cannot rest, by the necessity of His nature, until He hath made in conscious reality, as in power, the whole world His own.
XVII. BY HERBERT PUTNAM.
Librarian of Congress.
The dominant impression that survives in my memory of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is that of an extraordinary nobility: physically, in the head so massive yet so finely poised, and the modeling of the features; but spiritually, in the serenity of expression, and the suggestion of grave and responsible meditation in the deeper lines of the face. But there was also, in his complexion, carriage, and expression, an assurance of the complete health which is a requisite of a sane judgment. And when, as in a lighter mood, his features relaxed into the playful, the assurance was added of a sense of humor without which there is no true sense of proportion. I have never met any one concerned with the philosophies of life whose judgment might seem so reliable in matters of practical conduct.
My regret is that my meetings with him were so few and that I could not benefit by a lengthier contact with a personality combining a dignity so impressive with human traits so engaging.
I wish that he could be multiplied!
XVIII. BY LEO TOLSTOY
Translated from a letter to Mme. Isabel
Grinevskaya, Oct. 22, 1903.
I am very glad that Mr. V. V. Stassov has told you of the good impression which your book has made on me, and I thank you for sending it.
I have known about the Bábís for a long time, and have always been interested in their teachings. It seems to me that these teachings, as well as all the rationalistic social religious teachings that have arisen lately out of the original teachings of Brahmanism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islám distorted by the priests, have a great future for this very reason that these teachings, discarding all these distorting incrustations that cause division, aspire to unite into one common religion of all mankind.
Therefore, the teachings of the Bábís,
inasmuch as they have rejected the old Mu-
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ḥammadan superstitions and
have not established new superstitions
which would divide them from other
new superstitions (unfortunately
something of the kind is noticed
in the exposition of the Teachings of the
Bab), and inasmuch as they keep to
the principal fundamental ideas
of brotherhood, equality and love,
have a great future before them.
In the Muḥammadan religion there has been lately going on an intensive spiritual movement. I know that one such movement is centered in the French colonies in Africa, and has its name (I do not remember it), and its prophet. Another movement exists in India, Lahore, and also has its prophet and publishes its paper “Review of Religions.”
Both these religious teachings contain nothing new, neither do they have for their principal object a changing of the outlook of the people and thus do not change the relationship between the people, as is the case with Bábíism, though not so much in its theory (Teachings of the Báb) as in the practice of life as far as I know it. I therefore sympathize with Bábíism with all my heart inasmuch as it teaches people brotherhood and equality and sacrifice of material life for service to God.
Translated from a letter to Frid ul Khan Wadelbekow.
(This communication is dated 1908 and is found among epistles written to Caucasian Muḥammadans.)
. . . In answer to your letter which questions how one should understand the term God. I send you a collection of writings from my literary and reading club, in which some thoughts upon the nature of God are included. In my opinion if we were to free ourselves from all false conception of God we should, whether as Christians or Muḥammadans free ourselves entirely from picturing God as a personality. The conception which then seems to me to be the best for meeting the requirements of reason and heart is found in 4th chap. St. John, 7-12-15 that means God is Love. It therefore follows that God lives in us according to the measure or capacity of each soul to express His nature. This thought is implicit more or less clearly in all religions, and therefore in Muḥammadanism.
Concerning your second question upon what awaits us after death I can only reply that on dying we return to God from whose Life we came. God, however, being Love we can on going over expect God only.
Concerning your third question, I answer that so far as I understand Islám, like all other religions, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc., it contains great basic truths but that these have become corrupted by superstition, and coarse interpretations and filled with unnecessary legendic descriptions. I have had much help in my researches to get clear upon Muḥammadanism by a splendid little book ‘The sayings of Muḥammad.’
The teachings of the Bábís which come to us out of Islám have through Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings been gradually developed and now present us with the highest and purest form of religious teaching.
XIX. BY DR. EDMUND PRIVAT.
The practical and spiritual understanding between nations, the realization of the unity of mankind above all barriers of language and religion, the feeling of responsibility towards all who suffer from grief or injustice, are only different branches of the same central teaching which gives the Bahá’í Movement such a faithful and active family of workers in so many countries.
XX. BY DR. AUGUSTE FOREL.
En 1920 seulement j’ai appris à connaître, à 'Karlsruhe, la religion supra-confessionelle et mondiale des Bahá’ís fondée en Orient par le persan Bahá’u’lláh il y a 70 ans. C’est la vraie religion du Bien social humain, sans dogmes, ni prêtres, reliant entre eux touts les hommes sur notre petit globe terreste. Je suits devenu Bahá’í.
XXI. BY GENERAL CASELLI.
Having been engaged all of his life in the
training of me, he does this (i.e., write on
the subject of religion) more as a “shepherd
of a flock” might do, in hope of persuading
[Page 339]
his friends and brothers to turn spontaneously to
the Illumined Path of the Great Revelation.
XXII. BY FREDERICK W. OAKES.
The Enlightener of human minds in respect to their religious foundations and privileges is of such vital importance that no one is safe who does not stop and listen for its quiet meaning, and is to the mind of men, as the cooling breeze that unseen passes its breath over the varying leaves of a tree. Watch it! And see how uniformly, like an unseen hand passing caressingly over all its leaves: Full of tender care and even in its gifts of love and greater life: Caresses each leaf. Such it is to one who has seated himself amid the flowers and fruit trees in the Garden Beautiful at ‘Akká, just within the circle of that Holy and Blessed shrine where rests the Mortal part of the Great Enlightener. His handiwork is there, you touch the fruit and flowers his hand gave new life’s hopes to, and kneeling as I did beside Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Marvelous Manifestation, felt the spirit’s immortal love of Him who rests there. While I could not speak the words of the Litany, my soul knew the wondrous meaning, for every word was a word of the soul’s language that speaks of the Eternal love and care of the Eternal Father. So softly and so living were the reflections from his beautiful personality, that one needed not spoken words to be interpreted. And this Pilgrim came away renewed and refreshed to such a degree, that the hard bands of formalism were replaced by the freedom of love and light that will ever make that sojourn there the prize memory and the Door of revelation never to be closed again, and never becloud the glorious Truth of Universal Brotherhood. A calm, and glorious influence that claims the heart and whispers to each of the pulsing leaves of the great family in all experiences of life, “Be not afraid, It is I!”—And makes us long to help all the world to know the meaning of those words spoken by The Great Revealer, “Let us strive with heart and soul that unity may dwell in the world.” And to catch the greatness of the word "Strive,” in quietness and reflection.
XXIII. BY MR. MILLAR.
Editor of John O’Groat Journal, Wick, Scotland.
I was in Chicago for only some ten days, yet it would take a hundred chapters to describe all the splendid sights and institutions I was privileged to see. No doubt Chicago has more than its fair share of alien gangsters and gunmen, and the despicable doings of this obnoxious class has badly vitiated its civic life and reputation. But for all that it is a magnificent city—in many respects probably the finest in America; a city of which its residents have innumerable reasons to be proud. . . .
Every day indeed was filled up ‘with sight-seeing and the enjoyment of lavish hospitality. One day, for example, I was entertained to lunch at the Illinois Athletic Club as the guest of Mr. Robert Black, a prosperous Scot belonging to Wigtonshire, who is in the building trade. He is an ex-president of the St. Andrew’s Society. Mr. Falconer and other Scots friends were present, and they were all exceedingly kind and complimentary. I could not, in short, have been treated with more distinction if I had been a prominent Minister of State instead of a humble Scottish journalist out on a mission of fraternity and good will.
On the same day I met by appointment
Mr. Albert R. Windust with whom I went
out to see the Bahá’í Temple which is in
course of being erected at Wilmette, a
suburb of Chicago on the shore of Lake
Michigan. It is about an hour’s ride out on
the elevated railway. Only the foundation
and basement have so far been constructed,
and the work was meanwhile stopped but,
we understand, is now shortly to be resumed.
I have no hesitation in saying that when
completed this Temple will be one of the
most beautiful pieces of architecture in the
world. I had the privilege of an introduction
to the architect, a Frenchman, M. Bourgeois,
who speaks English fluently. We spent a
considerable time with him in his beautiful
studio overlooking the Lake, and he did me
the honour of showing me the plans of the
Temple, drawings which cost him years of
toil, and they are far beyond anything I
could have imagined in beauty and spiritual
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significance. M. Bourgeois, who is well
advanced in years, is a genius and mystic—a
gentleman of charming personality. In all
that I had the pleasure of seeing in his studio
I had a privilege that is given to few. My
signature is in his personal book, which
contains the names of some of the great ones
of the earth! Mr. Windust, who is a leading
Bahá’í in the city, is a quiet and humble
man, but full of fine ideas and ideals. He
treated me with the utmost brotherly courtesy.
How is it, I kept asking myself, that
it should be mine to have all this privilege
and honour? There was no reason save that
they told me I had touched the chords of
truth and sincerity in referring to and
reviewing the Bahá’í writings and principles
in a few short articles in this Journal. The
Temple is designed to represent these
principles—universal religion, universal
brotherhood, universal education, and
the union of
science and religion. Meantime the Chicagoans
are seemingly indifferent to all its
spiritual significance; but some day they will
wake up to a realisation of the fact that its
symbolism will mark the city as one of destiny
in the world.
XXIV. BY CHARLES H. PRIST.
Editor, Pasadena Star News.
Humanity is the better, the nobler, for the Bahá’í Faith. It is a Faith that enriches the soul; that takes from life its dross.
I am prompted thus to express myself because of what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have read of the results of the Movement founded by the Reverend Bahá’u’lláh. Embodied within that Movement is the spirit of world brotherhood; that brotherhood that makes for unity of thought and action.
Though not a member of the Bahá’í Faith, I sense its tremendous potency for good. Ever is it helping to usher in the dawn of the day of “Peace on Earth Good Will to Men.” By the spread of its teachings, the Bahá’í Cause is slowly, yet steadily, making the Golden Rule a practical reality.
With the high idealism of Bahá’u’lláh as its guide, the Bahá’í Faith is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Countless are its good works. For example, to the pressing economic problems it gives a new interpretation, a new solution. But above all else it is causing peoples everywhere to realize they are as one, by heart and spirit divinely united. And so I find joy in paying this little tribute to a cause that is adding to the sweetness, the happiness, the cleanness of life.
XXV. BY PROF. HARI PRASAD SHASTRI, D. LITT.
My contact with the Bahá’í Movement and my acquaintance with its teachings, given by Ḥadrat—i-Bahá’u’lláh, have filled me with real joy, as I see that this Movement, so cosmopolitan in its appeal, and so spiritual in its advocacy of Truth, is sure to bring peace and joy to the hearts of millions.
Free from metaphysical subtleties, practical in its outlook, above all sectarianism, and based on God, the substratum of the human soul and the phenomenal world, the Bahá’í Movement carries peace and illumination with it.
As long as it is kept free from orthodoxy and church-spirit, and above personalities, it will continue to be a blessing to its followers.
XXVI. BY SHRI PUROHIT SWAMI.
I am in entire sympathy with all of the principles that the Bahá’í Movement stands for; there is nothing which is contrary to what I am preaching. I think at this stage of the world such teachings are needed more than anything else. I find the keynote of the Teachings is the spiritual regeneration of the world. The world is getting more and more spiritually bankrupt every day, and if it requires anything it requires spiritual life. The Bahá’í Movement stands above all caste, creed and color and is based on pure spiritual unity.
XXVII. BY SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND.
For many years I have been interested in the rise and progress of the Bahá’í Movement. Its roots go deep down into the past and yet it looks far forward into the future. It realizes and preaches the oneness of mankind.
Girl students at the Bahá’í Tarbiyat School, Ṭihrán, Persia.
[Page 342]
And I have noticed how ardently its
followers work for the furtherance of peace
and for the general welfare of mankind.
God must be with them and their success
therefore assured.
XXVIII. BY PROF. HERBERT A. MILLER
The central drive of the Bahá’í Movement is for human unity. It would secure this through unprejudiced search for truth, making religion conform to scientific discovery and insisting that fundamentally all religions are alike. For the coming of universal peace, there is great foresight and wisdom as to details. Among other things there should be a universal language; so the Bahá’ís take a great interest in Esperanto though they do not insist on it as the ultimate language. No other religious movement has put so much emphasis on the emancipation and education of women. Everyone should work whether rich or poor and poverty should be abolished. . . . What will be the course of the Bahá’í Movement no one can prophesy, but I think it is no exaggeration to claim that the program is the finest fruit of the religious contribution of Asia.
XXIX. BY DR. AUGUSTE FOREL.
“. . . J’avais écrit les lignes qui précèdent en 1912. Que dois-je ajouter aujourd’hui en août 1921, après les horribles guerres qui viennent de mettre l’humanité à feu et à sang, tout en dévoilant plus que jamais la terrible férocité de nos passions haineuses? Rien, sinon que nous devons demeurer d’autant plus fermes, d’autant plus inébranlables dans notre lutte pour le Bien social. Nos enfants ne doivent pas se décourager; ils doivent au contraire profiter du chaos mondial actuel pour aider à la pénible organisation supérieure et supranationale de L’humanité, a l’aide d’une fédération universelle des peuples.
“En 1920 seulement j’ai appris à connaître, à Karlsruhe, la religion supraconfessionnelle et mondiale des Bahá’ís fondée en Orient par le person Bahá’u’lláh il y a 70 ans. C’est la vraie religion du Bien social humain, sans dogmes, ni prêtres, reliant entre eux tous les hommes sur notre petit globe terrestre. Je suis devenu Bahá’í. Que cette religion vive et prospère pour le bien de L’humanité; c’est là mon voeu le plus ardent. . . .”
(Excerpt from Dr. Auguste Forel’s Will)
XXX. BY THE RT. HON. SIR HERBERT SAMUEL, G.C.B., M.P.
In John O’London’s Weekly,
March 25th, 1933.
“It is possible indeed to pick out points of fundamental agreement among all creeds. That is the essential purpose of the Bahá’í Religion, the foundation and growth of which is one of the most striking movements that have proceeded from the East in recent generations.”
XXXI. BY REV. K. T. CHUNG.
“Last summer upon my return from a visit to Japan, I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Keith Ransom-Kehler on the boat. It was learnt that this lady is a teacher of the Bahá’í Cause, so we conversed upon various subjects of human life very thoroughly. It was soon found that what the lady imparted to me came from the source of Truth as I have felt inwardly all along, so I at once realized that the Bahá’í Faith can offer numerous and profound benefits to mankind.
“My senior, Mr. Y. S. Tsao, is a well-read
man. His mental capacity and deep experience
are far above the average man. He
often said that during this period of our
country when old beliefs have lost their hold
upon the people, it is absolutely necessary to
seek a religion of all-embracing Truth which
may exert its powerful influence in saving
the situation. For the last ten years, he has
investigated indefatigably into the teachings
of the Bahá’í Cause. Recently, he has
completed his translations of the book on the
New Era and showed me a copy of the proof.
After carefully reading it, I came to the
full realization that the Truth as imparted
to me by Mrs. Ransom-Kehler is veritable
and unshakable. This Truth of great value
to mankind has been eminently translated
by Mr. Tsao and now the Chinese people
have the opportunity of reading it, and I
cannot but express my profound appreciation
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for the same. . . . Should the Truth
of the Bahá’í Faith be widely disseminated
among the Chinese people, it will naturally
lead to the coming of the Kingdom of
Heaven. Should everybody again exert his
efforts towards the extension of this
beneficent influence throughout the
world, it will
then bring about world peace and the
general welfare of humanity.”
(From Rev. K. T. Chung’s Preface to the
Chinese version of Dr. Esslemont’s Book.)
XXXII. BY PROF. DIMITRY KAZAROV.
University, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Une des causes principales de la situation actuelle du monde c’est que l’humanité est trop en arriére encore dans son developpement spirituel. Voila pourquoi tout enseignement qui a pour but
eveiller et
fortifier la conscience morale et religieuse des hommes est d’une importance capitale pour l’avenir de notre race. Le Bahaisme est un de ces enseignements. Il a ce merite qu’en portant des principes qui sont communs de toutes les grands réligions (et specialement du christianisme) cherche à les adapter aux conditions de la vie actuelle et à la psychologie de l’homme moderne. En outre il travail pour l’union des hommes de toute nationalité et race dans une conscience morale et réligieuse commune. Il n’a pas la prétention d’être autant une réligion nouvelle qu’un trait d’union entre les grandes réligions existants: ce sur quoi il insiste surtout ce n’est pas d’abandoner la religion à la quelle nous appartennons dejà pour en chercher une autre, mais à faire une effort pour trouver dans cette même réligion l’é'lément qui nous unit aux autres et d’en faire la force déterminante de notre conduite toute entiére. Cet élément (commun à toutes les grandes religions) c’est la conscience que nous sommes avant tout des êtres spirituels, unis dans une même entité spirituelle dont nous ne sommes que des parties-unies entre elles par l’attribut fondamental de cette entité spirituelle—à savoir l’amour. Manifester, realiser, devélopper chez nous et chez les autres (surtout ches les enfants) cette conscience de notre nature spirituelle et l’amour comme son attribut fondamental c’est la chose principale que nous devons poursuivre avant tout et par toutes les manifestations de notre activité. C’est en même temps le seule moyen par lequel nous pouvons esperer de réaliser une union toujours grandissant parmi les hommes.
Le Bahaisme est un des enseignement qui cherche a eveiller chez nous-n’importe à quelle réligion nous appartenons-justement cette conscience de notre nature spirituelle.
Il y a plus de 20 ans un groupe d’hommes et femmes de différentes nationalités et religions, animés par le désir de travailler pour l’union des peuples, ont commencé à publier un journal en esperanto sous le titre “Universala Unigo.” Le premier article du premier Numero de ce journal était consacré au Bahaisme et à son fondateur. Il me semble que ce fait est une preuve éclatante de ce que jé viens de dire sur le Bahaisme.
XXXIII. BY REV. GRIFFITH J. SPARNAM.
Highgate Hill Unitarian Christian Church,
London, England.
In his book “A League of Religions,” the Rev. J. Tyssul Davis, formerly minister of the Theistic Church in London, and at present minister of a Unitarian Church in Bristol, England, the writer sets out to demonstrate that each great religious movement in the world has contributed something of peculiar importance to the spiritual life of man. Thus, he says, the great contribution of Zoroastrianism has been the thought of Purity; of Brahmanism that of Justice; of Moḥammedanism that of Submission; of Christianity that of Service; and so on. In each instance he lays his finger on the one thing par excellence for which the particular religious culture seemed to him to stand, and tries to catch its special contribution in an epigrammatic phrase. Coming, in this way, to Bahá’ísm, he names it “the Religion of Reconciliation.” In his chapter on Bahá’ísm he says:
“The Bahá’í religion has made its way because it meets the need of the day. It fits the larger outlook of our time, better than the rigid older faiths. A characteristic is its unexpected liberality and tolerance. It accepts all the great religions as true and their scriptures as inspired.”
[Page 344]
This, then, as he sees
Bahá’ísm, is its essential features:
liberality, toleration, the
spirit of reconciliation; and that, not in the
sense, as Mr. H. G. Wells has it in his “Soul
of a Bishop,” of making a “collection” of
approved portions of the world’s varied and
differing creeds, but in the sense, as he also
puts it in the same book of achieving a great
"simplification.”
"Bahá’ísts,” says Dr. Davis, “bid the followers of these (that is, the world’s) faiths disentangle from the windings of racial, particularist, local prejudices, the vital, immortal thread of the pure gospel of eternal worth, and to apply this essential element to life.”
That is Dr. Davis’s interpretation of the genius of Bahi’ism, and that it is a true one, no one who has studied Bahá’ísm, even superficially, can question, least of all the outsider. Indeed one may go further and assert that no one who has studied Bahá’ísm, whether superficially or otherwise, would wish to question it; particularly if he approaches the subject from a liberal and unprejudiced point of view. In the last act of his “Wandering Jew,” Mr. Temple Thurston puts into the mouth of Matteos, the Wandering Jew, himself, the splendid line, “All men are Christians—all are Jews.” He might equally well have written, “All men are Christians—all are Bahá’ís.” For, if the sense of the Unity of Truth is a predominant characteristic of liberally-minded people, whatever may be their religious tradition, it is predominantly a characteristic of Bahá’ísm; since here is a religious system based, fundamentally, on the one, simple, profound, comprehensive doctrine of the unity of God, which carries with it, as its necessary corollary and consequence, the parallel doctrine of the unity of Man.
This, at all events, is the conviction of the present writer; and it is why, as a Unitarian, building his own faith on the same basic principles of divine and human unity, he has long felt sympathy with and good will toward a religious culture which stands on a foundation identical with that of the faith he holds. And a religion that affirms the unity of things must of necessity be a religion of reconciliation; the truth of which in the case of Bahá’ísm is clear.
XXXIV. ERNEST RENAN.
Passage tiré de Renan "Les Apôtres, P.” Edition Lévy, Paris, 1866.
NOTRE siècle a vu des mouvements religieux tout aussi extraordinaires que ceux d’autrefois, mouvements qui ont provoqué autant d’enthousiasme, qui ont eu déjà, proportion gardée, plus de martyrs, et dont l’avenir est encore incertain.
Je ne parle pas des Mormons, secte à quelques égards si sotte et si abjecte que l’on hésite à la prendre au sérieux.
Il est instructif, cependant, de voir en plein 19éme siècle des milliers d’hommes de notre race vivant dans le miracle, croyant avec une foi aveugle des merveilles qu’ils disent avoir vues et touchées. Il y a déjà toute une littérature pour montrer l’accord du mormonisme et de la science; ce qui vaut mieux, cette religion, fondée sur de niaises impostures, a su accomplir des prodiges de patience et d’abnégation; dans cinq cents ans des docteurs prouveront sa divinité par les merveilles de son établissement.
Le Babisme, en Perse, a été un phénomène autrement considérable. Un homme doux et sans aucune prétention, une sorte de Spinoza modeste et pieux, s’est vu, presque malgré lui, élevé au rang de thaumaturge d’incarnation divine, et est devenu le chef d’une secte nombreuse, ardente et fanatique, qui a failli amener une révolution comparable à celle de l’Islam. Des milliers de martyrs sont accourus pour lui avec l’allégresse au-devant de la mort. Un jour sans pareil peut-être dans l’historie du monde fut celui de la grande boucherie qui se fit des Bäbis, à Téhéran. “On vit ce jour-là dans les rues et les bazars de Téhéran, dit un narrateur qui a tout su d’original, un spectacle que la population semble devoir n'oublier jamais. Quand la conversation encore aujourd’hui se met sur cette matière, on peut juger l’admiration mêlée d’horreur que la foule éprouve et que les années n’ont pas diminuée. On vit s’avancer entre les bourreaux des enfants et des femmes les chairs ouvertes sur tout le corps, avec des mèches allumées, flambantes, fichées dans les blessures. On traînait les victimes par des cordes et on les faisait marcher à coups de fouet. Enfant et femmes s’avançaient en chantant un verset qui dit:
En vérité nous venons de Dieu et nous retournons à Lui. Leurs voix s’élevaient, éclatantes, au-dessus du silence profond de la foule. Quand un des suppliciés tombait et qu’on le faisait relever à coups de fouet ou de baïonnette, pour peu que la perte de son sang qui ruisselait sur tous ses membres lui laissit encore un peu de force, il se mettait à danser et criait avec un surcroît d’enthousiasme: “En vérité nous sommes à Dieu et nous retournons à lui.” Quelques-uns des enfants expirèrent pendant le trajet; les bourreaux jetèrent leurs corps sous les pieds de leurs pères et de leurs soeurs, qui marchèrent fièrement dessus et ne leur donnèrent pas deux regards. Quand on arriva au lieu d’exécution, on proposa encore aux victimes la vie pour leur abjuration. Un bourreau imagina de dire à un pére que, s’il ne cédait pas, il couperait la gorge à ses deux fils sur sa poitrine. C’étaient deux petits garçons dont l’aïné avait 14 ans et qui, rouges de leur sang, les chairs calcinéss, écoutaient froidement le dialogue; le pére répondit, en se couchant par terre, qu’il était prêt et l’aîné des enfants, réclamant avec emportement son droit de’aînesse, demanda à être égorgé le premier. (I) Enfin tout fut achevé. La nuit tomba sur un amas de chairs informes; les têtes étaient attachées en paquets au poteau justicier et les chiens des faubourgs se dirigeaient par troupes de ce côté.
Cela se passait en 1852. La secte de Mozdak sous Chosroès Nousch fut étouffée dans un pareil bain de sang. Le dévouement absolu est pour les nations naïves la plus exquise des jouissances et une sorte de besoin. Dans l’affaire des Babis, on vit des gens qui étaient à peine de la secte, venir se dénoncer euxmêmes afin qu’on les adjoignit aux patients. Il est si doux à l’homme de suffrir pour quelque chose, que dans bien des cas l’appât du martyre suffit pour faire croire.
Un disciple qui fut le compagnon de supplice du Bab, suspendu à côté de lui aux remparts de Tabríz et attendant la mort,
————————
(1) Un autre détail que je tiens de source première est celui-ci: Quelques sectaires, qu’on voulait amener à rétractation, furent attachés à la gueule de canons amorcés d’une mèche longue et brûlant lentement. On leur proposait de couper la mèche, s’ils reniaient le Báb. Eux, les bras tendus vers le feu, le suppliaient de se hâter et de venir bien vite consommer leuer bonheur.
n’avait qu’un mot à la bouche “Es-tu content de moi, maître?”.
XXXV. BY HON. LILIAN HELEN MONTAGUE, J.P., D.H.L.
As a Jewess I am interested in the Bahá’í Community. The teaching lays particular stress on the Unity of God and the Unity of Man, and incorporates the doctrine of the Hebrew Prophets that the Unity of God is revealed in the Unity of men. Also, we seem to share the conception of God’s messengers as being those people who in their deep reverence for the attributes of God, His beauty, His truth, His righteousness and His justice, seek to imitate Him in their imperfect human way. The light of God is reflected in the soul of him who seeks to be receptive. Like the members of the Bahá’í community, we Jews are scattered all over the world, but united in a spiritual brotherhood. The Peace ideal enumerated by the Hebrew Prophets is founded on faith in the ultimate triumph of God’s justice and righteousness.
XXXVI. BY NORMAN BENTWICH.
From "Palestine,” p. 235–
“Palestine may indeed be now regarded as the land not of three but of four faiths, because the Bahá’í creed, which has its center of faith and pilgrimage in Acre and Haifa, is attaining to the character of a world-religion. So far as its influence goes in the land, it is a factor making for international and interreligious understanding.” (From "Palestine,” by Norman Bentwich, p. 235.)
XXXVII. BY EMILE SCHREIBER.
1.
Trois prophétes.
Alors que le marxisme soviétique proclame le matérialisme historique, alors que les jeunes générations sionistes sont également de plus en plus indifférentes aux croyances établies, une nouvelle religion est née en Orient, et sa doctrine prend, dans les circonstances actuelles, un intérêt d’autant plus grand que, s’écartant du domaine purement philosophique, elle préconise en économie politique
Bahá’ís gathered at the laying of the corner-stone of the Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds (Bahá’í Headquarters), Ṭihrán, Persia.
[Page 347]
des solutions qui coïncident
curieusement avec les préoccupations
de notre époque.
Cette religion, de plus, est par essence antiraciste. Elle est née en Perse, vers 1840, et les trois prophètes successifs qui l’ont prêchée sont des Persans, c’est-à-dire des musulmans de naissance.
Le premier, le créateur, s’appelait le Bâb. Il prêcha vers 1850, et préconisa, outre la réconciliation des différents cultes qui divisent l’humanité, la libération de la femme, réduite aujourd’hui encore à un quasi esclavage dans tout l’Islam.
Une Persane d’une rare beauté, et qui, chose rare chez les musulmanes, était douée d’un grand talent oratoire, répondant au nom difficile à prononcer de Qourratou-’l’Aïn, l’accompagna dans ses réunions, n’hésitant pas, en donnant elle-même l’exemple, à préconiser la suppression du voile pour les femmes.
Le Bâb et elle réussirent à convaincre, à l’époque, des dizaines de milliers de Persans et le shah de Perse les emprisonna l’un et l’autre, ainsi que la plupart de leurs partisans. Le Bâb fut pendu. Sa belle collaboratrice fut étranglée dans sa prison. Leurs disciples furent exilés à Saint-Jean-d’Acre, devenue, aujourd’hui, ville palestinienne. C’est là que j’ai visité la maison du successeur du Bâb, Bahá’u’lláh, transformée aujourd’hui en temple du “Bahaïsme.” C’est ainsi que s’intitule cette religion, qui est plutôt une doctrine philosophique, car elle ne comporte ni culte défini, ni surtout de clergé. Les prêtres, disent les bahaïstes, sont tentés de fausser, dans un but de lucre, l’idéalisme désintéressé des créateurs de religions.
Bahá’u’lláh, le principal des trois prophètes, répandit sa doctrine non seulement en Orient, mais dans beaucoup de pays d’Europe, et surtout aux Etats—Unis où son influence fut telle que le nombre des bahaïstes attient aujourd’hui plusieurs millions. Il fut persécuté par les Perses et mourut en exil.
Son fils, Abdu’l-Bahá, lui succéda et formula, d’après les principes de son père, la doctrine économique du Bahaïsme; elle indique une prescience étonnante des événements qui se sont déroulés depuis: la guerre d’abord, la crise ensuite. Il mourut peu après la guerre, ayant vu la réalisation de la première partie de ses prophéties.
L’originalité du bahaïsme est de chercher à faire passer dans le domaine pratique, et plus particulièrement dans le domaine social, les principes essentiels du judaïsme, du catholicisme et de l’islamisme, en les combinant et en les adaptant aux besoins de notre èpoque.
Le Bahaïsme proclame que les rapports sociaux deviennent fatalement impossibles dans une société où l’idéalisme individuel ne donne pas une base certaine aux engagements qui lient les hommes entre eux.
L’individu se sent de plus en plus isolé au milieu d’une jungle sociale qui menace, à beaucoup d’égards, son bien-être et sa sécurité. La bonne volonté et l’honnêteté, ne produisant plus dans sa vie et dans son travail le résultat qu’il attend, tendent à perdre pour lui toute valeur pratique. De là naissent, selon les caractères, l’indiflérence et le découragement, ou l’audace, le manque de scrupules qui tendent à se procurer par tous les moyens, même les plus répréhensibles, les bénéfices matériels nécessaires à l’existence.
La société, n’étant plus soumise à aucum contrôle, ni politique ni moral, devient un vaisseau sans gouvernail où personne ne peut plus rien prévoir et qui est sujet à des crises de plus en plus fréquentes et de plus en plus violentes. L’époque actuelle, déclarent les prophètes persans, marque la fin d’une civilisation qui ne sert plus les intérêts de l’humanité.
Elle aboutit à la faillite complete des institutions morales et matérielles destinées à assurer le bien-être et la sécurité des hommes, c’est-à-dire l’Etat, l’Eglise, le Commerce et l’Industrie. Le principe fondamental d’où peut venir le salut de la civilisation engagée dans des voies qui conduisent à sa destruction est la solidarité des nations et des races. Car l’interpénétration des peuples est devenue telle qu’il leur est impossible de trouver isolément la voie de la prospérité.
Ces prophéties, qui pouvaient paraître excessives
et quelque peu pessimistes à
l’époque où elles ont été faites, vers 1890, ne
sont pas, les événements l’ont prouvé, de
simples jérémiades. Il reste à examiner comment,
partant de ces données, qui ne sont que
trop exactes, le Bahaïsme, conçu dans la
Perse lointaine et si arriérée à l’époque,
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aboutit aux mêmes conclusions que la plupart
des économistes modernes qui, dans les
différents pays de civilisation occidentalè,
proclament qu’en dehors d’une collaboration
internationale il n’y a pas d’issue possible à
la crise actuelle entraînant tous le peuples
à une misère toujours plus grande.
(From LES ECHOS, Paris, France, September 27,1933.)
2.
Une religion “économique.”
Les principes du bahaïsme, formulés par son principal prophète, Bahá’u’lláh, peuvent paraitre sérieusement compromis en un temps où la frénésie nationaliste, récemment aggravée de racisme, semble en éloigner de plus en plus l’application.
Toute la question est de savoir si ceux qui sont en faveur aujourd’hui, dans tant de pays, sont susceptibles de résoudre le probléme non pas de la prospérité, mais simplement du logement et de la faim, dans les differentes nations qui nient par leurs théories et tous leurs actes la solidarité des peuples et des races.
Une nouvelle guerre mondiale sera sans doute nécessaire pour que l’humanité, qui n’a pas encore compris la leçon de 1914, se rende enfin compte que les solutions de violence et de conquête ne peuvent engendrer que la ruine générale, sans profit pour aucun des belligérants.
Quoi qu’il en soit, les principales pensées économiques de Bahá’u’lláh, telles qu’elles ont été formulées il y a un demisiècle, prouvent que la sagesse et le simple bon sens ont cela de commun avec les écrevisses, c’est qu’il leur arrive fréquemment de marcher à reculons.
Voici les principaux préceptes de ce moderne Marc-Aurele:
“L’évolution humaine se divise en cycles organiques, correspondant à la durée d’une religion, laquelle est d’environ un millier d’années. Un cycle social nouveau commence toutes les fois qu’apparaît un prophète dont l’influence et les enseignements renouvellent la vie intérieure de l’homme et font déferler à travers le monde une nouvelle vague de progrés.
"Chaque nouveau cycle détruit les croyances et les institutions usées du cycle précédent et fonde sur d’autres croyances, en étroite conformité, celles-là, avec les besoins actuels de l’humanité, une civilisation nouvelle.
“L’influence de chaque prophète s’est, dans le passé, limitée à une race ou à une religion, en raison de l’isolement géographique des régions et des races, mais le siècle dans lequel nous entrons nécessite la création d’un ordre organique s’étendant au monde entier. Si le vieil esprit de tribu persiste, la science détruira le monde, ses forces destructrices ne pouvant être contrôlées que par une humanité unie travaillant pour la prospérité et le bien commun.
"La loi de la lutte pour la vie n’existe plus pour l’homme dès qu’il devient conscient de ses pouvoirs spirituels et moraux. Elle est alors remplacée par la loi plus haute de la coopération. Sous cette loi, l’individu jouira d’un statut beaucoup plus large que celui qui est accordé aux citoyens passifs du corps politique actuel. L’administration publique passera des mains de partisans politiques qui trahissent la cause du peuple aux mains d’hommes capables de considérer une charge publique comme une mission sacrée.
La stabilité économique ne dépend pas de l’application de tel plan socialiste ou communiste plus ou moïns théorique, mais du sentiment de la solidarité morale qui unit tous les hommes et de cette conception que les richesses ne sont pas la fin de la vie, mais seulement un moyen de vivre.
"L’important n’est pas en une aveugle soumission générale à tel système politique, à tel règlement, qui ont pour effet de supprimer chez l’individu tout sentiment de responsibilité morale, mais en un esprit d’entr’aide et de coopération. Ni le principe démocratique, ni le principe aristocratique ne peuvent fournir séparément à la société une base solide. La democratic est impuissante contre les querelles intestines et l’aristocratie ne subsiste que par la guerre. Une combinasion des deux principes est done nécessaire.
“En cette période de transition entre le
vieil âge de la concurrence et l’ère nouvelle
de la coopération, la vie même de l’humanité
est en péril. Les ambitions nationalistes,
la lutte des classes, la peur et les convoitises
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économiques sont autant de forces qui
poussent à une nouvelle guerre internationale.
Tous les Gouvernements du monde doivent
soutenir et organiser une assemblée dont les
membres soient élus par l’élite des nations.
Ceux-ci devront mettre au point, au-dessus
des égoïsmes particuliers, le nouveau statut
économique du monde en dehors duquel tous
les pays, mais surtout l’Europe, seront
conduits aux pires catastrophes.”
Abdu’l-Bahá, son successeur, reprenant la doctrine de son père, concluait dans un discours prononcé in New-York en 1912:
“La civilisation matérielle a atteint, en Occident, le plus haut degré de son développement. Mais c’est en Orient: qu’a a pris naissance et que s’est développée la civilisation spirituelle. Un lien s’établira entre ces deux forces, et leur union est la condition de l’immense progrés qui doit être accompli.
“Hors de là , la sécurité et la confiance feront de plus en plus défaut, les luttes et les dissensions s’accroîtront de jour en jour et les divergences entre nations s’accentueront davantage. Les pays augmenteront constamment leurs armements; la guerre, puis la certitude d’une autre guerre mondiale angoisseront de plus en plus les esprits. L’unité du genre humain est le premier fondement de toutes les vertus.”
Ainsi parla Abdu’l-Bahá en 1912, et tout se passa comme il l’avait prédit.
Mais ces paroles n’ent pas vieilli; elles pourraient, sans le moindre changement, être répétées en 1933. Aujourd’hui, comme il y a vingt ans, la menace de la guerre est de nouveau suspendue au-dessus de nos têtes et les causes de haines et de conflits s’accumulent à tel point que, s’il existe vraiment un flux et un reflux des idées, on peut presque conclure, avec une certaine dose d’optimisme, que nous n’avons jamais été si près de venir aux idées de coopération qui, seules, peuvent nous sauver.
(From LES ECHOS, Paris, France, September 23, 1933.)
XXXVIII. BY MR. ROKUICHIRO MASUJIMA.
“The Japanese race is of rational mind. No superstition can play with it. Japan is the only country in the world where religious tolerance has always existed. The Japanese Emperor is the patron of all religious teachings. The Bahá’í publications now form part of His Majesty’s Library as accepted by the Imperial House. . . .
“The search for truth and universal education inculcated by the Bahá’í Teachings, if soundly conducted, cannot fail to interest the Japanese mind. Bahá’ísm is bound to permeate the Japanese race in a short time.”
XXXIX. BY MISS HELEN KELLER.
The philosophy of Bahá’u’lláh deserves the best thought we can give it. I am returning the book so that other blind people who have more leisure than myself may be "shown a ray of Divinity” and their hearts be “bathed in an inundation of eternal love.” I take this opportunity to thank you for your kind thought of me, and for the inspiration which even the most cursory reading of Bahá’u’lláh’s life cannot fail to impart. What nobler theme than the “good of the world and the happiness of the nations” can occupy our lives? The message of universal peace will surely prevail. It is useless to combine or conspire against an idea which has in it potency to create a new earth and a new heaven and to quicken human beings with a holy passion of service. (In a personal letter written to an American Bahá’í after having read something from the Braille edition of “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era.”)
XL. BY SIR FLINDERS PETRIE.
The Bahá’í Movement of Persia should be a welcome adjunct to true Christianity; we must always remember how artificial the growth of Latin Christian ideas has been as compared with the wide and less defined beliefs native to early Christian faith.” (In a letter to the “Daily Sketch,” London, England, December 16, 1932.)
XLI. BY PRESIDENT MASARYK OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA.
Continue to do what you are doing,
spread these principles of humanity and do
not wait for the diplomats. Diplomats alone
cannot bring the peace, but it is a great
thing that official people begin to speak
about these universal peace principles. Take
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these principles to the
diplomats, to the universities and colleges
and other schools, and
also write about them. It is the people who
will bring the universal peace.
(In an audience with an American Bahá’í
journalist in Praha, in 1928.)
XLII. BY ARCHDUCHESS ANTON OF AUSTRIA.
Archduchess Anton of Austria, who before her marriage was Her Royal Highness Princess Ileana of Rumania, in an audience with Martha L. Root, June 19, 1934, in Vienna, gave the following statement for The Bahá’í World, Vol. V: “I like the Bahá’í Movement because it reconciles all Faiths, and teaches that science is from God as well as religion, and its ideal is peace.”
XLIII. BY DR. HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS.
American Historian.
I have had on my desk, and have read several times, the three extracts from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Message of Social Regeneration. Taken together, they form an unanswerable argument and plea for the only way that the world can be made over. If we could put into effect this program, we should indeed have a new world order.
“The morals of humanity must undergo change. New remedy and solution for human problems must be adopted. Human intellects themselves must change and be subject to the universal reformation.” In these three sentences we really have it all. (Excerpt from personal letter dated May 18,1934.)
