Bahá’í World/Volume 9/The “Bábi” Movement, Flowering from Islamic Soil
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THE “BÁBÍ” MOVEMENT, FLOWERING FROM ISLAMIC SOIL*
BY ERNEST G. DODGE
OUT of the ancient land of Persia in the nineteenth century came a significant religious movement which in its later developed form is known as the Bahá’í faith, or as its adherents prefer to call it, the Bahá’í revelation. The earlier or preparatory phases of that movement, 1844-63, were known at the time as Bábism, that is to say, the religion of the "Báb,” or “Gate.” In a general way, the Bahá’í religion is not a new subject for younger and older groups in All Souls Church School. In the course of graded lessons, the study book for boys and girls of the sixth grade has for many years been a volume called "Heroic Lives.” One chapter in the book is entitled ”A shining light from Persia.” As for adult groups, some of us who are here today may remember that some eight years ago the combined class as led by Mrs. Pierce was addressed on the Bahá’í faith by a native Persian, Dr. ‘Alí-Kuli Khán, who had been private secretary to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Also some two years ago, the first appearance made before this present class by our good friend, Professor Stanwood Cobb, was devoted to this religious movement. But it may be noted that both Dr. Khán and Professor Cobb are convinced disciples of Bahá’u’lláh. So this morning is perhaps the first time any adult group has been addressed on a topic within this general field by one who sees all these matters through Unitarian eyes.
Up until nine years ago my personal opportunities for any contact with people of that faith had been very few and incidental. But ever since I began to take an officially active part in the movement for spreading the use of Esperanto, the international auxiliary language, I have had occasion from time to time to cultivate the acquaintance of the Bahá’í believers in Washington and elsewhere, because of the fact that among the eleven formulated goals of their religion, one is for the furtherance of interhuman comprehension through a universal auxiliary language, belonging to no one nation or people.
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* A talk given to a class in Comparative Religion at All Souls Unitarian Church, Washington, D. C.
The special source from which I am gathering most of the facts in this morning’s paper is a very large and profusely illustrated book whose English title is “The Dawn-Breakers.” The body of its text consists of twenty-six chapters written in the Persian language in 1888, at ‘Akká on the coast of Palestine, by a man known by the title of Nabíl, who was a personal follower and disciple both of Bahá’u’lláh and his predecessor, the Báb. This Nabíl, being able to supplement current records by his own experiences and memory of conversations with many people who were actors in the stirring period of his youth, undertook to relate the whole story of the founding of the Bábi religious movement (which name applies to the earlier stage of the Bahá’í religion), tracing events from the anticipatory period in the late eighteenth century up to the expulsion of Bahá’u’lláh from Persia in January, 1853.
Now in 1932 an English translation of Nabíl’s work was prepared by Shoghi Effendi, a great-grandson of Bahá’u’lláh, who is now the recognized leader and guardian of the Bahá’í community throughout the world. Shoghi Effendi enriched the book by personally adding a long introduction and epilog, and by citing in footnotes numerous parallel accounts from French and English writers, including a description by Lord Curzon of the state of Persia in the middle of nineteenth century. And now I come to the point where the ways of Providence have gotten me somewhat tangled up in the matter. A Miss Roan Orloff of Boston, a good friend of mine, was asked by Shoghi Effendi to prepare a translation of “The Dawn-Breakers” out of the English and French, into the international language, Esperanto. In fulfillment of a promise I made to her some time ago, I was very busy much of last summer in carefully reading her manuscript translation, with a view to criticizing her Esperanto renderings and offering suggestions for final polishing of her text. And while I was doing this, it occurred to me that within this book lay an informative message which might interest our Class in Comparative Religions.
My first surprise when I started to read —and a shocking surprise it was—came from the long quotation in the introduction, from the writings of Lord Curzon. It seems that the general state of society and morals in Persia, or “Írán,” during the nineteenth century, was one of corruption and cruelty on a scale which is nauseating to the mind. With almost every judge, the acceptance of bribes took the place of salary or legitimate fees. Scarcely a civil office in the land, either high or low, was given out on any other basis than purchase and sale. Bribery and the purchase of office was not called by such open names, but were part of a system of society where everybody seeking preferment was enmeshed in a tangled web of so-called “gifts.” Everybody apparently was expected as a matter of course to keep giving presents to everybody of importance within the circle of his acquaintance. But in general every such gift accepted carried with it the social obligation to give a present of equal or greater value in return. Moreover, there sprang up a regular class of go-betweens, who made their living entirely by carrying gifts from one person to another, always expecting a fee or commission in proportion to the value of the presents carried. In theory the sháh was a sovereign of absolutely unlimited powers; and he was addressed in terms of the most exaggerated flattery by even the highest among his subjects. But to tell him the truth on any matter was not part of the custom; it simply wasn’t done. Often the only source to which the sháh could go to learn the truth would be the ministers of foreign governments.
Sexual indulgence had some strange manifestations
displayed under a cloak of religious sanction
which is impossible in the
West. The sháhs maintained harems which
sometimes rivaled that of King Solomon.
The most paternally prolific of the modern
sovereigns is variously reported as having
fathered from 105 to 260 children. (Apparently
no accurate census of his offspring
was ever taken.) Furthermore, the city of
Mashhad in the northeast corner of Persia,
which is the object of much pilgrimage
because it possesses the tomb of one of the
Imáms, or successors of Muḥammad, was
doing a flourishing business in furnishing to
the pious pilgrims the comfort of temporary
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wives. A regular population of professional
wives had arisen there, who were formally
married by the Muḥammadan clergy to the
visiting faithful, under contract for a
specified time, perhaps a month, perhaps
a fortnight or even much less, at the conclusion
of which time both parties were free. The
released wife must remain celibate for
fourteen days, after which she was ready to be
joined in marriage to the next pilgrim,
supposedly seeking after holiness.
The most terrible thing of all about that nineteenth century Persia was the habitual excessive cruelty meted out to those who were consigned to punishment. It was not uncommon to inflict upon the living human body such savageries as crucifixion, or burning at the stake, or burial alive, or skinning alive, or shoeing the human foot with iron like the hoof of horses and compelling him to run—not to mention floggings with as high as a thousand stripes. Verily the land was crying out to high heaven for the advent of a reformer!
In almost inconceivable contrast to the foregoing sordid picture is the fact that in some few among the best of the Muḥammadan doctors of the law, there survived a fervent devotion to the love of God and an earnest longing for the coming upon earth of a heavenly kingdom for which it is hard to find a parallel in the western modern world. Herein lay my second great surprise as I began to read "The Dawn-Breakers.” I am now convinced that the people of Christendom, even we of the liberal churches, are too prone to think of Christianity as an essentially spiritual religion, into which formalism and superstition have made their entrance only as an element alien to its true nature, while at the same time looking upon Islám as being, in its very essence, a religion of formalism and fatalism and credulity, practically destitute of spirituality in any deeper and truer sense. One value of the book under review is to set in high light the fact that Islám also has had its quota of spiritual and saintly souls.
As a preliminary to understanding the
story of Bábism and Bahá’íism, it is necessary
to learn something about the sects
which coexist within Islám, of which there
are several. The two principal sects in point
of numbers are the Sunní’s (who embrace
most of the Muslims in Turkey, the Arabian
countries and Egypt), and the Shí‘ihs (who
include most of the Persians). But the
Shiite believers are not confined to Persia,
for many of them are found in southern
‘Iráq, especially about Baghdád and their
chief holy city of Karbilá near the Euphrates.
These two sects differ in several ways.
But the difference most important for our
purpose relates to the successors of the
Prophet Muḥammad. The Sunní’s believe in
caliphs, who are not priests or revelators,
but purely temporal rulers raised up by
consent of the believers as chief defenders
of the faith. The Shí‘ihs, on the contrary,
believe in something having a vague general
likeness to what in Christendom is called
“the apostolic succession.” They believe
that after the death of the Prophet, God
provided a series of inspired and
authoritative successors, called
Imáms, who were
scarcely inferior in authority to
Muḥammad himself. The first of the Imáms was
a cousin of Muḥammad, who married
Muḥammad’s daughter Fátimih. Altogether
twelve Imáms followed one another in an
unbroken series. The latest of the twelve,
called ”Imám-Mihdi,” succeeded to the
Imámate in 874 A.D. This twelfth Imám
is reputed never to have died; but in old
age he disappeared into an underground
passage, in a mysterious and wholly mythical
city, where he became inaccessible to
the general mass of his followers. But he
could be reached in each generation by one
chosen or special follower, who reported to
the outer world the will and teachings of
the miraculously living twelfth Imám.
Those intermediaries, who kept the lost
Imám from complete severance from his
world, were called "Gates” (the Arabic
name for "gate” being “báb,” or in an
inflected form, “Abvab”). There arose four
of these “Gates” altogether, each being
appointed by his predecessor, shortly
before death. But when the fourth Gate
was nearing the end of his days, about 943
A.D., and when his disciples urged him to
name his successor, he refused to do this,
and gave no explanation except, “God hath
a purpose which he will accomplish.” So
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upon his death all communication with
the twelfth Imám came to an end. Yet
there lingered on, in the Shiite sector of
Islám, a deep belief that when the fulness
of time should come, and when the earth
should be filled with injustice, the twelfth
Imám would again come forth, to establish
a millennium of blessedness upon earth.
It was taught and believed among many of
the Shiites that the reappearance of the
twelfth Imám would be preceded and heralded
by the reappearance of Jesus Christ.
To a critical and scientific age like our own, nothing could seem more fantastic. Yet perhaps it was no stranger than the tradition lingering in early modern Germany, that their medieval emperor Barbarossa never died, and that even now he is sleeping in front of a table in the heart of a mountain, where his long red beard has grown downward clear through the stone table itself.
At any rate, such was the type of deep seated tradition and the type of messianic longing which prepared the Persian folk of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to believe that iniquity had indeed run its full course, and that a new revelator and deliverer of mankind was very soon to appear. Two devout and influential doctors of the Islámic law, founders of the so-called Shaykhi subsect of Shiite Islám, are described in particular for their share in spreading the belief that the time of a new Revelator was close at hand.
The first of these, known as Shaykh-Aḥmad, was a teacher of great renown born in 1753 just outside of Persia. He lived until 1826. In the latter half of his life a group of devoted disciples sat at his feet and listened. In his voluminous writings were many original ideas, novel to the fellow thinkers of his day. Particularly heretical was his interpretation of the resurrection of the dead, as well as of the reported ascent of the Prophet Muḥammad into heaven during his lifetime. Shaykh-Aḥmad held that the body of man is composed out of the four material elements combined with the nine heavens; and that only the heavenly body is subject to resurrection. This was a foretaste, so it might seem, of modern spiritualistic and theosophical views, as opposed to crass material literalism. Shaykh-Aḥmad kept always before his disciples the certainty of an early new revelation. A contemporary in speaking of him said that his influence was such that those who came in contact with him renounced the world and despised its riches. One day after morning prayer he was heard to say, "Ere long will the earth be turned into a paradise. Ere long will Persia be made the shrine round which will circle the peoples of the earth.” Then one morning at dawn, in the year 1817, a disciple found Shaykh-Aḥmad fallen on his face and repeating in an ecstasy the familiar words, “God is most great!” He turned to the disciple and said: “That which I have been announcing to you is now revealed. At this very hour the light of the promised one has broken and is shedding illumination upon the world.” Now the faithful of the Bahá’í household later identified that as the birth hour, not of the Báb or first prophet of theirs (who was not born till two years later) but of Bahá’u’lláh himself, whose mission the Báb was destined to herald.
Among the devoted disciples of Shaykh-Ahmad was one Siyyid Káẓim, who carried on the teachings and expectancy of Aḥmad, after him. Siyyid Káẓim declared in his teaching that the new light was not to appear from any such mythical city as that where the twelfth Imám was supposed according to superstition to be living still. In other words, the new messianic revelator was to be indeed a messenger of God, but his coming would not conform to the old fantastic tradition. Káẓim hinted that the Promised One, whom all were awaiting, was already alive in their midst, but unrecognized. He undertook to describe, in some detail, the Coming One, as to age, personal appearance, and family origin.
At the time of Siyyid Káẓim’s approaching
death, in January, 1844, he enjoined
upon his disciples that they travel
throughout the whole land, earnestly searching for
their "Beloved,” as the warm language of
the east called the expected One. They
were taught to believe that they could fix
the date of his appearing through interpretation
of prophecies, (even as certain types
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of Christian minds have persuaded themselves
that the key to coming events is
found in numbers in the book of Daniel).
They had fixed upon the "year sixty”'as
the year of the coming manifestation. By
this they understood the year 1260 of the
Islámic calendar, which was 1844 A.D.
This faith of theirs in prophecies is shown
in their quoting a saying uttered by a son
of the Prophet Muḥammad: “Verily in the
year sixty His Cause shall be revealed and
His name shall be noised abroad.” They
also quoted a saying ascribed to one of
the ancient Muḥammadan learned doctors,
to this effect: “The year of His Revelation
is identical with half of that number which
is divisible by nine.” To any one of us,
that cryptic saying must appear sufficiently
vague. But that band of believers figured
out that 2520 is a number divisible by nine,
and that half of that number is 1260, pointing
to the sixtieth year in the Muḥammadan
thirteenth century, or 1844 A.D., as already
noted. I have discovered by a little
computation that only once before in the
Muḥammadan centuries has the sixtieth
year of any century been one half of a
number divisible by nine. That was the
year 360 after the Hegira, or about 971
A.D. And since that time is long past, of
course the prophecy was construed as
referring to the instant year conforming
with the prediction or 1844 A.D.
Now in 1844 there was a young man, twenty-five years of age, living the life of a merchant in the Persian city of Shíráz. He was not educated for the clergy, and all his family had been devoted to mercantile pursuits. But he was a young man of extraordinary ability, and most exceptional piety and spirituality. He had never personally contacted either Shaykh-Aḥmad or Siyyid Káẓim, the two leading apostles of the idea that a new manifestation of God was close at hand, already at the gates. But through some of their disciples he had become familiar with their teachings. He shared intensely in their hopes; and finally he had come to look upon himself as the one called by God to play the role of inspired forerunner for a still greater one, already born but not yet revealed. This young man is known in history not by his personal name of ‘Alí-Muḥammad, but by the title he assumed, that of "Báb,” or the Gate. To show how completely a sense of spiritual dedication had taken possession of this young man, two facts may be related. It had long been his custom on Fridays, even under the heat of the summer sun, to go onto his house top for several hours, there to engage in intimate worship and communion with God. In his devotion, he appeared entirely oblivious to physical discomfort. Then again, he was married to a young woman, his cousin, toward whom he left an exalted attachment. The one babe born to their union died in infancy. But the future Báb did not mourn his personal grief. Instead, he is reported as uttering the following consecration: “O God, my God! Would that a thousand Ishmaels were given to me, this Abraham of thine, that I might have offered them, each and all, as a loving sacrifice to Thee. O my Beloved, my heart’s Desire! The sacrifice of this Aḥmad, whom thy servant ‘Alí-Muḥammad has offered up on the altar of Thy love, can never suffice to quench the flame of longing in his heart. Not until he immolates his own heart at Thy feet, not until his whole body falls a victim to the cruelest tyranny in Thy path, not until his breast is made a target for countless darts for Thy sake, will the tumult of his soul be stilled. O my God, my only Desire! Grant that the sacrifice of my son, my only son, may be acceptable unto Thee. Grant that it may be a prelude to the sacrifice of my own, my entire self, in the path of Thy good pleasure. Endue with Thy grace my life-blood which I yearn to shed in Thy path. Cause it to water and nourish the seed of Thy faith.”
The manner in which the Báb declared
to his first disciple the conviction of his
own mission is related on this wise. Among
the surviving followers of Siyyid Káẓim,
that band of earnest seekers for a Promised
One, the most gifted was a certain
Mullá Ḥusayn. Before his wanderings
brought him through the gates to enter
Shíráz in south-western Persia, he was met
by an unknown youth, who overwhelmed
him with expressions of affection. That
youth insisted on taking Mullá Ḥusayn to
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his home and entertaining him there. What
occurred after sunset is related by Mullá
Ḥusayn in the following words:
" ‘Whom, after Siyyid Káẓim,’ he asked me, ‘do you regard as his successor and your leader?’ ‘At the hour of his death,’ I replied, ‘our departed teacher insistently exhorted us to forsake our homes, to scatter far and wide, in quest of the promised Beloved. I have accordingly journeyed to Persia, have arisen to accomplish his will, and am still engaged in that quest.’ ‘Has your teacher,’ he further inquired, ‘given you any detailed indications as to the distinguishing features of the promised One?’ 'Yes,’ I replied, ‘he is of pure lineage, is of illustrious descent, _and of the seed of Fáṭimih. As to His age, he is more than twenty and less than thirty. He is endowed with innate knowledge. He is of medium height, abstains from smoking, and is free from bodily deficiency.’ He paused for a while, and then with vibrant voice declared, ‘Behold, all these signs are manifest in Me!’ ” Before their long interview was finished, the Báb declared himself in more confident terms. Mullá Ḥusayn put the Báb to a test which he claimed he had determined upon in advance, to be used when he found any person claiming to be the promised One. First, Mullá Ḥusayn presented to him a treatise he himself had composed, bearing upon the abstruse and hidden teachings of Shaykh-Aḥmad and Siyyid Káẓim. The Báb, after glancing briefly at the treatise, closed the book and began to explain the mysteries or difficult problems cited therein, doing this to the full satisfaction of Mullá Ḥusayn. Then Mullá Ḥusayn intended to ask the Báb to elucidate, in a new and unconventional manner, the obscure chapter of the Qur’án dealing with Joseph and His brethren, but the Báb outran his thoughts and, picking up a pen, he began to write fluently, with verbal comment, an illuminating commentary on the Joseph chapter, which fully satisfied Mullá Ḥusayn. Thereupon Mullá Ḥusayn became the first disciple of the new revelation.
Now this whole story is shot through with cabalistic interpretation of truths supposedly hidden in the Qur’án, and also with a sort of numerology. The Báb announced that he must have eighteen first disciples; but each of them must find his way to him independently and unaided, through dreams or visions, or by prayer and fasting, or some other special avenue of approach. The eighteen were in fact duly led to the Báb and enrolled in a sort of apostolic band. One out of the eighteen was a woman, a high born lady of very remarkable character. Then these eighteen, with the Báb himself as the nineteenth, were expected to go out in the world and make converts until each one should grow into a group of nineteen. Nineteen times nineteen is 361, a number having some mystical significance. (Also, 361 is very close to the number of days in a year. And I may add that Bahá’ís even now divide the year into 19 "months” of 19 days each, with four feast days added to finish the year; and once in every 19 days they hold a private service or love feast among themselves.)
But more significant for us than the recondite mysticisms of these details is the tone of exalted nobleness and messianic dedication running all through the long address by which the Báb sent the first apostles forth, into the world. He quoted or rather paraphrased, from the address by which Jesus sent out his disciples two by two; and he added many exhortations of his own. In loftiness of spiritual tone, that message of the Báb loses nothing by comparison with the New Testament.
Now that young man, the Báb, so intoxicated
with the thought of God and so
lifted above common earthly motives by
the sense of a divine mission, was destined
to live six years after his declaration of
himself as the ”Gate,” the one appointed
to open the way for a still greater one
already living in the midst of his people but
not yet made manifest. Some of his earliest
followers were very soon subjected to
persecution and to cruel tortures, which they
bore in the highest vein of martyrdom.
But soon the new religious movement, called
Bábism at the first, made notable headway
in that part of the East and it was more or
less tolerated for two or three years. The
then reigning Sháh, Muḥammad, a sort of
easy going free thinker, would have liked to
meet the Báb and talk things over. And
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the Báb was eager for such a meeting. But
the wily and jealous prime minister contrived
to make the Báb a prisoner of state
in one fortress after another. For the last
three years of his life the Báb languished
thus in confinement and was granted very
little contact with his followers. However,
the foremost leaders among his disciples
carried forward with conspicuous success
for a while. Out of Khurásán most
northeastern province of Persia, some 313
disciples marched forth, carrying a black
banner of prophetic significance and proclaiming
the advent of the new age. They
boldly applied to themselves an injunction
ascribed to Muḥammad, the Prophet, to this
effect: "If your eyes shall behold the black
standards moving forth from Khurásán,
hasten ye unto them, even if ye be forced to
crawl over the snow.”
Just at that moment the old Sháh died, leaving the scepter to an inexperienced youth of seventeen and the whole land was thrown into confusion for a while. The local rulers in the province of Mázindarán attacked the marching heralds of the new age, besieged them unavailingly in a fortress for several months; then finally, having disarmed them by very base treachery, cold bloodedly butchered them all most inhumanly. In two other parts of Persia there occurred two other more or less similar sieges, betrayals, and cruel butcheries. And in July, 1850, the Báb himself, brought forth from prison, was executed by a firing squad in a public square in Tabríz.
In the life of the Báb there is just one record of his being seen by any European. Dr. Cormick, an English physician in Tabríz, was at one time sent by the authorities, in company with two Persian doctors, to interview the Báb in prison and judge regarding his sanity. Dr. Cormick described him as a mild and delicate looking man, very fair of skin for a Persian. When Dr. Cormiek expressed an interest to learn of the Bábi religion, the Báb said that he had no doubt that all Europeans would come over to his religion. Soon after this the authorities subjected the Báb to the bastinado, and one blow, meant for his feet, struck him in the face. For the dressing of this latter wound the Báb requested the attention of Dr. Cormick rather than a Persian physician. Dr. Cormick was then told by some Armenian carpenters that they had seen the Báb reading the Christian Bible and taking no pains to conceal this. Dr. Cormick remarked that the Moslem fanaticism as against Christians did not exist in the religion of the Báb, nor the oriental restraint of females.
For two years after the death of the Báb, his surviving followers suffered only a limited persecution. But there came an attempt to assassinate the young Sháh, on the part of two irresponsible and half crazy young men belonging to the Bábi community (whose relatives had been martyred). After that a universal persecution blazed forth, marked by greater and fiercer savagery than anything previous. The total number who suffered cruel martyrdom for the Bábí faith had been variously estimated from 10,000 to 30,000.
Now during the life of the Báb, a certain Persian of high birth later called Bahá’u’lláh had been merely one out of the six most gifted leaders among the Báb’s disciples. But inasmuch as he was the only one of the six who outlived the era of persecution, it is not hard to imagine that he would soon come to ponder on the question whether he himself might not be the Promised One, called of God, that one whom the Báb had always declared would appear as his own greater successor. After the attack upon the Sháh, Bahá’u’lláh was falsely suspected as leader of the conspiracy and for four months he languished in a foul and vermin—infested dungeon, bound in the stocks, his neck loaded with galling chains. But after the true leader of the conspiracy confessed his own gilt and proclaimed Bahá’u’lláh’s entire innocence, the persecutions were called to an end, and Bahá’u’lláh was released. However, he and his family were forced out of Persia, as exiles to Baghdád.
Now there was one cryptic saying in the
writings of the Báb which the faithful have
interpreted to mean that nineteen years
must elapse—notice again that sacred number,
19—after the Báb’s own declaration
in 1844, before his greater successor would
become manifest to the world. At any rate
it was not till 1863 that Bahá’u’lláh, then
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in Baghdád, openly and unequivocally
proclaimed himself to be the Promised One.
Thereafter Bahá’u’lláh finished his days as
a state prisoner of the Turkish government,
five years at Adrianople in Europe, then
1868-92 at ‘Akká on the coast of Palestine.
During his latest years he enjoyed local
freedom under a merely nominal imprisonment
in the neighborhood of ‘Akká, had
leisure for study, and had many contacts
with visiting admirers, both from Europe
and from the East. Following his death in
1892, his teachings were interpreted and
clarified for western comprehension by his
son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who visited Europe and
America in 1912 and lived till 1921.
Under Bahá’u’lláh and his interpreter, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, what was originally the Bábí reformation of Islám has expanded its reach, has become more cosmopolitan and much less closely linked to the forms and traditions of Islám. It has grown, in short, into the Bahá’í religion now active in the world. This Bahá’í religion in its developed form emphasizes the idea that it is a fulfilment of the cause of Christ, no less than of the cause of Muḥammad. It champions many ideas which are very congenial to the progressive modern mind: such, for example, as the essential truth and unity of all the great historic religions (if rightly understood and uncorrupted); the equality and fraternity of all men of all races; the equality of man and woman; universal education for women; brotherly love and sacrifice for the good of others; abolition of poverty; a world court; lasting peace through a federal world government based on justice; and increased unity among men through adoption of an international auxiliary language. One looking at the matter with a Unitarian degree of skepticism or caution might suppose that the breadth and liberality in the final shaped teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá may have owed something to the eventual contact established between their own native liberality and the progressive traditions of the western world. The true Bahá’í, however, would scout any such suggestion as belittling to their undoubtedly great and lovable and very heroic prophet, Bahá’u’lláh. The Bahá’í would even turn the matter the other way round, and would assert that the progress toward intelligence and liberality in the western world in the past hundred years has resulted from the indirect rays of the same divine effulgence or new revelation, which in their directly visible and incarnate form entered the world through the Báb in 1844, and through Baha’u’llah at subsequent dates.
I may confess that in the main the advocacy of justice and a world federation does not sound very different to me when preached by Bahá’ís as a part of their religious revelations from the way these same ideals sound when advocated by plain citizens of the United Nations, as the dictates of common sense. Yet in one respect the Bahá’ís in the United States do practice what they preach, in a degree which most Christian churches do not. This point relates to the brotherhood of the races. Bahá’í lectures and Bahá’í picnics are always freely attended by the colored race, as well as by the white.
But let us turn backward in our story
and briefly summarize what the original
Bábi religion was like in those thrilling years
of first zeal and countless martyrdoms,
1844 to 1853. It was religion which accepted
the Qur’án as the unquestionable
book of God, and accepted a great mass
of Islámic tradition as well. It worshipped
according to Islámic forms, including the
call to prayer five times a day. The Báb
himself soon after his declaration of mission
performed a pilgrimage to Mecca. Bábism was
a religion to which God was an
intensely real person; and the future life
of the individual seemed as certain and
real as the present life. It was a religion
of intense emotional exaltation, rising to
heights of ecstatic devotion which our cooler
western blood might call fanaticism. Numerous
ones among the faithful looked forward
to their own martyrdom with an
exalted yearning, as being the most desirable
culmination possible for their lives. Not
only toward the invisible Alláh did the
hearts go out in yearning, but the greater
saints in the community were strangely
idolized by the lesser saints. There were
greetings by warm embraces, by prostrations,
by kissing even the stirrups of a beloved
one’s saddle, not to mention one
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incident when enthusiastic villagers carried
home every drop of the water used by
the holy one in a public bath, because it had
thus become holy water. In two conspicuous
instances, disciples attained to such an
ecstasy that they went with happy smiles
through the most fiendish tortures, actually
experiencing no sense of bodily pain.
But while a great deal of all this seems very foreign to our occidental mood, the religion of the Báb was deeply ethical at its core. Men were commanded to be honest and chaste and sober. They must perform their promises. They must avoid all oppression and cruelty toward their fellow men. They might, indeed, take up carnal weapons in self-defense, but never for aggression or revenge. Many in the moment of their cruel martyrdom voiced their forgiveness toward their persecutors, much as Jesus did in his day. On the social side, a strong beginning was made toward the emancipation of women, through discouraging both polygamy and the use of the veil.
Now the Báb is reported to have wrought several miracles of healing, just as striking as those found in New Testament pages. Yet he did not claim to validate his divine mission by miracle as a proof; and he is reputed to have disbelieved some of the miracles narrated in the traditions of Muḥammad. What the Báb did avow as the proofs of his revelation lay in three directions: first, that he fulfilled the prophecies of Islám; second, that his own ability to compose, rapidly and at great length, a satisfactory clarification of the most puzzling passages in the Qur’án—doing this in exalted language like the Qur’án itself was the most convincing of all possible miracles; and third, the exalted devotion and self—abnegation which the faith in him could inspire in his followers.
In the few minutes yet available, I should like to comment on the attitude which persons of the liberal or Unitarian tradition may most readily assume in their own mind, relative to the developed Bahá’ísm, of which the earlier or distinctly Bábí form represented the morning hours. According to Bahá’í belief, all human beings are divided sharply into two classes, between which there is a great gulf fixed. The one group contains all who are not prophets. The other group is made up of the prophets, who are illuminating intermediaries between God and man. Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Muḥammad and Bahá’u’lláh form an outstanding series among the greater prophets whom God sends upon earth, when older faiths have become corrupted and the world stands ripe for a new revelation. Also there have been other great prophets, Zoroaster, and Krishna and Buddha; and besides these, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once estimated there have been about one million prophets altogether in the earth’s long history.
Now I take it that to Unitarians in general the difference between the most exalted of spiritual leaders and the common man who catches only some glimpse of the divine gleam is felt to be only a difference of degree, and not an absolute difference in kind. The devoted Bahá’í reveres Bahá’u’lláh in very much the same way that the fundamental Christians of the old orthodoxy reveres Jesus Christ, though with the difference that there is no complication with any doctrine of a Trinity.
But to followers of our liberal traditions,
those same basic attitudes which have made
it impossible for us any longer to accept the
person of Jesus Christ in just the way he is
accepted by the old Christian fundamentalism,
serve equally as a barrier to our
accepting that modern mighty soul, Bahá’u’lláh,
in just the same way he is accepted
by the strictly orthodox Bahá’ís. The way
we would put the question to ourselves is
more like this: Is Bahá’u’lláh a spiritual
figure of such almost unapproachable stature
that we might accept him in somewhat
the same manner and degree that Jesus of
Nazareth is still enthroned in the reverence
of liberal but unorthodox hearts? I make no
attempt in this brief paper to answer that
question. Those who have known but
little of him would naturally say, let us
seek the answer by further examination of
the record and the evidence. But this at
least could be said, that such a measure of
reference for the most recent of the world’s
great souls claiming to be a revelation from
the Divine Center of the universe, would
involve no departure from the basic attitudes
which our manner of thought and
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belief has tended to develop and cherish.
And even those who are least impressed by
the Claims of a Bahá’í supernatural revelation
must surely be stirred to a wondering admiration
by a record of faith, endurance, and consecration
which rarely has had an equal.