Bahá’í World/Volume 6/Denmark’s Oriental Scholar, by Martha L. Root
DENMARK’S ORIENTAL SCHOLAR
BY MARTHA L. ROOT
DENMARK, one of the oldest countries in Europe, with its beautiful capital, Copenhagen, the gateway from Western Europe to the great Northlands of the midnight sun, Scandinavia, is making unique contribution to the scholarly investigation of the Bahá’í Faith. It is significant that this ever unconquered nation of three and one-half millions of people with no illiterates and where almost every farmer has his own library and is an indefatigable reader, in the midst of this cultured, well—balanced race, the Bahá’í Teaching from Írán has been written about historically by one of Denmark’s most outstanding scholars, the first Danish savant to go to Írán.
Professor Arthur Christensen, Doctor of Letters, Professor of Íránian Philology in the University of Copenhagen, member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters of Denmark, has made three trips to Írán—in 1914, 1929, 1934, this last time as first vice-president of the International Firdawsi Congress in Ṭihrán to celebrate the millenary anniversary of the great poet of Írán. His purpose was to study Íránian dialects and civilization also, but just as in the case of the distinguished English scholar, Professor Edward Granville Browne of Cambridge University, England, he found an interesting subject opened for him by the literature of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh.
Visiting the Royal Library in Copenhagen in June, 1935, I found in its excellent collection of Bahá’í books an extraordinary Íránian manuscript containing Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh. The catalogue notes revealed that it had been bought in Ṭihrán in 1914, by Professor Arthur Christensen for this library. It contains one hundred and eighty-one short Tablets.
The same afternoon the writer visited Professor Christensen in his home, set in the centre of a charming Danish garden.
It was pleasant, too, to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s picture on the wall of his great library. When asked about the manuscript, this genial Professor said he had bought it from a Muslim book dealer in Ṭihrán, that it has no titles (Íránian manuscripts do not have titles), and contains some Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. One is the Tablet addressed to Sultan ‘Abdu’l-‘Aziz, Sulṭán of Turkey, the very Tablet that Professor E. G. Browne in the “Journal of the Asiatic Society,” 1889, said he was not able to procure in Írán.
Professor Christensen is not himself a Bahá’í because as he said: “From a religious point of view, in general all deeply religious feelings are alien to me, but there is in the Bahá’í Movement something with which I am in sympathy; it appeals to me because it is international and because there must be something in it which evokes good moral sentiments. I saw that all the Bahá’ís in Írán with whom I had anything to do possessed high morals and noble human qualities. No doubt it is a cultural movement.”
Continuing, he said: “Often I have
discussed the main Teachings, especially with
well known Bahá’ís in Írán, but I have had
difficulty in sharing with them their bright
outlook on the future which seemed to me
indicates an undervaluation of the slowness
in development due to the knottiness of all
human conditions and of the enormous
weighing down of the inferior element in
humanity. However, if one has a use for
divine Manifestations and prophethood and
such things, it seems to me that the Bahá’í
Movement in somewhat higher degree than
other so—called divine Revelations is purified
from absurdities of thought such as made
one of the ancient church fathers use the
expression: ‘I believe because it is incredible!’
and which in our days causes so many
religiously inclined people to feel homeless
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in the existing systems
of thousand-year-old
religions. You will not lack warmth of
faith in the enthusiastic, prophetical Words
of Bahá’u’lláh or in
the intensive, persuasive
speech of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá which bear witness
to His wide grasp of humanity. Here is a
religion which does not need theology
because its principles, that is to say,
its background of civilization and
individual and
social psychology, are those of our times.”
Professor Arthur Christensen of Copenhagen, Denmark.
“If a religion,” said the Danish Professor, “is to be judged by its influence on men, one should not forget that the Bahá’í community in the corrupt, sectarian, suppressed Írán of the Qajár dynasty was the germ from which grew a renaissance! Adherence to the Bahá’í Faith could at that time in Írán and probably still can be taken in Írán as a guarantee for personal honesty and unselfish helpfulness to a reasonable degree.”
When I spoke of his high tribute to the Bahá’ís of Írán in his book published in 1918, he replied: “Yes, I can endorse what I said then, for personally I have only good memories of the Bahá’ís I met in Írán. They were trustworthy, courageous, helpful people. They always met me with radiant, natural cordiality; they lived for their ideal, an ideal in which there was just as much of sound and practical morality as of religious tenets.”
Professor Christensen has written among his many books two in which the Bahá’í Cause is explained; one, “Hinsides det Kaspiske Hav” (“Beyond the Caspian Sea”), published in 1918, Gyldendalske Boghandel, Copenhagen, in which Chapter Ten is entitled “Together with Bahá’ís. This is an account of the Movement in its evolution to a World Religion; it also gives Professor Christensen’s meetings with leading Bahá’ís in Ṭihrán and their discussions about the new Faith. It contains an excellent reproduction of the Bahá’í Temple, Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, in Ishqábád, Turkistán, from a photograph taken in 1914. Another one of his volumes, "Det Gamle og det Nye Persien” (The Old and the New Persia”), 1930, I Kommission hos G. E. Gad, Copenhagen, in two places mentions the Bábí Movement which developed into the Bahá’í Cause.
The magazine, “Nordisk Tidskrift”
(“The Magazine of the North”), in 1911
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had an article by
Professor Christensen on
“A Modern Oriental Religion” which he
wrote before his first trip to Írán; it is an
historical sketch of the Báb and early Bahá’í
events. This magazine for science, art and
industry of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and
Finland contains articles by representative
writers of these four northern countries.
Professor Christensen said that the account
of the Bábí-Bahá’í Movement which he presented
in his book, “Beyond the Caspian
Sea” contains the main points that are in
this article.
Professor Christensen also has written about the Movement for some Danish encyclopaedias, the Salmonsens Konversationslexikon, last edition, and for the new Illustreret Dansk Konversationslexikon, 1933; also several Danish newspaper articles about the Bahá’í Teachings have appeared under his signature. “Berlingske Aften,” Copenhagen, November seventh, 1932, contains a special feature article by this celebrated Professor under the headlines “En Moderne Verdensreligion” and in it he also reviews the Danish translation of Dr. J. E. Esslemont’s book, “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era,” which had just been published by Nyt Nordisk Forlag, Arnold Busck, Copenhagen. No other Scandinavian scholar until now has written so fully about the Bahá’í Movement as has Professor Arthur Christensen of Copenhagen, whose works are well known among Oriental scholars of the Eastern as well as the Western world. His influence will continue to bear fruit.
