Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi/Introduction

Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi Introduction

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[Page xi]

INTRODUCTION

NOT by my own seeking, but only at the request of my old friend, Mr. G. H. Putnam, the publisher of this book, and, as Mr. Putnam informs me, by the wish of the author, Mr. Myron Phelps, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making in the early part of this year in Cairo, do I write these introductory words to a work which I have read with equal pleasure and satisfaction, and which I regard as a faithful and trustworthy exposition of the views of ‘Abbás Effendi, “the Master of ‘Akká,” and his followers. So faithfully, indeed, does it represent their standpoint that, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Phelps was not sufficiently conversant with Persian or Arabic to enable him to communicate directly with him whose life and teaching he here describes, but was dependent on the offices of interpreters, the whole book is to me full of familiar echoes of the voices to which I so eagerly listened when I visited ‘Akká thirteen years ago, in the days when [Page xii]Behá’u’lláh himself still dwelt amongst mankind.

To the study of the Bábí religion I was irresistibly attracted, even before I undertook my journey to Persia in 1887–88, by the vivid and masterly narrative of its birth and baptism of blood contained in the Comte de Gobineau’s Religions et Philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale—a narrative which no one interested in the Bábí (or, if the term be preferred, Behá’í) faith, or indeed in the history of religion in general, should on any account omit to read with careful attention. My enthusiasm was still further increased by what I saw of the Bábís in Persia, and by my subsequent visits to Behá’u’lláh at ‘Akká and to his rival, Subh-i-Ezel, at Famagusta in Cyprus. It was under the influence of this enthusiasm that I penned the Introduction (several times cited by Mr. Phelps in the following pages) to my translation of the Traveller’s Narrative, a book which has been much more eagerly and widely read in America than in this country, where, at the time of its publication, the very name of the Bábís, now grown familiar even to readers of the daily press, was hardly known to the general public. This enthusiasm, condoned, if not shared, by many kindly [Page xiii]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.”¹

¹ The review in question appeared in the Oxford Magazine of May 25, 1892, p. 394. Amongst many other egregious observations, the reviewer, “speaking candidly as a layman,” considers that “the history of a recent sect which has affected the least important part of the Moslem world (nor that part very deeply) and is founded on a personal claim which will not bear investigation for a moment” is “quite unworthy of the learning and labour which” (he was kind enough to say) “the author has brought to bear upon it”; while, in the closing sentence, he “records his belief that 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.”

I am well aware that it is generally considered undignified and improper for an author to take any notice of his critics, or even to admit that their strictures have caused him more than a momentary vexation; and towards the more irresponsible reviewers of journals which do not profess to represent the opinions of a cultivated circle such indifference is undoubtedly the correct attitude. But the Oxford Magazine—at any rate outside Oxford—is supposed to be a serious exponent of the ideas and judgments of that University; and one has the right to expect that a work treating of an Oriental religious movement shall not be judged by one who, however great an authority he may be on classical archæology, knows so little even of Islám that he can speak of the originator of the Wahhábí movement as “Wahháb” (and even this he incorrectly writes, “Waháb”); a blunder comparable to that of the Turkish journalist who, desirous of making display of his proficiency in French, employed the remarkable word “topjet” (hardly recognised as standing for “numéro d’objet”) in the sense of “catalogue number”; or [Page xiv]Increasing age and experience, (more’s the pity!) are apt enough, even without the assistance of the Oxford Magazine, to modify our enthusiasms ; but in this case at least time has so far vindicated my judgment against that of my Oxford reviewer that he could scarcely now maintain, as he formerly asserted, that the Bábí religion “had affected the least important part of the Moslem world, and that not deeply.” Every one who is in the slightest degree conversant with the actual state of things in Persia now recognises that the number and influence of the Bábís in that country is immensely greater than it was fifteen years ago, and the conviction which I heard continually expressed this year in Bábí circles at Cairo, that in the course of a very short time their religion would reign paramount in their own country, and break down once and for all the power of the Shí‘ite Muhammadan mujtahids and mullás, is seriously discussed as a possibility by European diplomatists and consular officers.

But without doubt the most remarkable tri-

of the English bard who talks of “Abdul the Damned.” The veriest tyro in Arabic would know that only God could be spoken of as al-Wahháb, “the All-Giver,” and that ‘Abd (servant) must stand before it to make it a possible name for a man—‘Abdu’l-Wahháb, “the Servant of the All-Giver.” [Page xv]umph of the Behá’í religion (for the older Bábí doctrine out of which this has grown, now preserved in its primitive form only amongst the followers of Subh-i-Ezel, has been little studied or appreciated across the Atlantic) is the marvellous success achieved in recent years by its missionaries in the United States of America, where, as I understand, the number of believers may now be counted by thousands, not confined to one State or city, but represented in almost all the more important towns. Once again in the world’s history has the East vindicated her claim to teach religion to the West, and to hold in the Spiritual World that pre-eminence which the Western nations hold in the Material.

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 noblest which the world has ever known, though supported by all the resources of Western civilisation, can only count its converts in Muhammadan lands by twos and threes, while Bábíism can reckon them by thousands?” The answer, to my mind, is plain as the sun at midday. Western [Page xvi]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 ? Nay, the “dominant race” was represented by Pontius Pilate, the governor, who was compelled to abandon his personal leanings towards clemency under constraint of “political necessities” arising out of Rome’s “imperial destiny.” Did Christ wish to encourage the racial pride of the Jews when He told them that God was “able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham”? or did He seek to emphasise the strength of blood-relationship when He declared that “whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother”? Who offered Him “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” and how was that offer received ? Was it the proud in spirit to whom He promised the kingdom of heaven ? or those who said unto Him : “Lord, Lord,” and [Page xvii]prophesied in His name? Or, to pass to the teachings of His apostles, did Paul declare that there was a wide difference between the Jew and the Greek? Was it he who proclaimed that “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”? Or did he assert with the Darwinians that “God hath chosen the mighty things of the world to confound the things which are weak”?

I am not here 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 of all things, including religions, mainly by material, or, to use the more popular term, “practical” standards. Mr. Phelps goes, perhaps, rather too far when he says (p. 252 infra) that “God and religion are but names and shadows to the Western world,” and I would even hesitate to assert that anything equal to the rare and beautiful types of Christian character occasionally met with can be produced by any other religion or philosophy; but that ideas about the Unseen Spiritual World count for much more, and material standards and qualities for much less, in Asia than in the West, [Page xviii]is to me quite certain. Even Muhammadanism, though in theory more exclusive than Christianity (since it is almost inextricably associated with a recognition of the superiority of the Arabian race and language over all other peoples and tongues) is in practice much less so. To give one instance only; the Asiatic, no less than the European or American, looks down on the African negro as vastly inferior to himself, and has the same aversion towards his physical attributes; yet the negro Muhammadan enjoys a far better social position amongst his co-religionists in the East than does his Christian kinsman in the West. He is not even debarred from intermarriage with his fellow-believers of the superior race, much less from sitting at meat with them or mixing in their society; whilst many even of the most excellent and earnest Christian missionaries—not to speak of laymen—whom Europe and America send to Asia and Africa would be far less shocked at the idea of receiving on terms of intimacy in their house or at their table a white-skinned atheist than a dark-skinned believer. The dark-skinned races to whom the Christian missionaries go are not fools, and have no object in practising that curious self-deception wherewith so many [Page xix]excellent and well-meaning European and American Christians blind themselves to the obvious fact that they attach much more importance to race than religion ; they clearly see the inconsistency of those who, while professing to believe that the God they worship incarnated Himself in the form of an Asiatic man,—for this is what it comes to,—do nevertheless habitually and almost instinctively express, both in speech and action, contempt for the “native” of Asia. Yet surely some sentiment surrounds, even to the least imaginative, the tenement, were it the humblest, which has been inhabited by one we love.

There is, of course, another factor in the success of the Bábí propagandist, as compared with the Christian missionary, in the conversion of Muhammadans to his faith : namely, that the former admits, while the latter rejects, the divine inspiration of the Qur’án and the prophetic function of Muhammad. 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 Muhammad [Page xx]and the Qur’án proclaim, and converts his Muslim antagonist not to Christianity but to Scepticism or Atheism. What indeed could be more illogical on the part of Christian missionaries to Muhammadan lands than to devote much time and labour to the composition of controversial works which endeavour 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 Muhammad 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 constitute their strongest claim on his attention. Their doctrine, as even Mr. Phelps [Page xxi]admits (p. 144 infra), is at most a new synthesis of old ideas; ideas with which the Eastern mind has for centuries been familiar, and which have ere now, as I think, been more clearly and logically systematised by older schools of thought, though perhaps without a certain tincture of modern Western notions (or more correctly, perhaps, of modern Western terminology) which is perceptible in these pages. At every turn we are face to face with some familiar echo of a past more or less remote: now of the Manichæans (as on p. 85), now of the Isma‘ílí propagandists (as on p. 154), now of the early Súfís (as on p. 233). Here we are reminded of a line of Sa‘di (p. 132), there, of Jalálu’d-Dín Rúmí (pp. 135 and 226), there, of Farídu’d-Dín ‘Attár (pp. 174 and 180), there, of Shams-i-Tabríz (pp. 224 and 255), there, of Háfiz (p. 227). Nothing more strongly testifies to the fidelity of Mr. Phelps’s presentation of his subject than the clearness of these echoes from a literature with which, to the best of my knowledge, he is unacquainted. Throughout his book the voice is Persian, though the words are English.

So far I am at one with the author as to the weakening hold of the Christian idea on the Western nations, the increasing materialism [Page xxii]of their ethical, social, and political standards, and the need of some fresh spiritual impulse amongst them. Such impulse, Mr. Phelps is disposed to think, if I understand him aright, may be supplied by the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and his son and spiritual successor, ‘Abbás Effendi. Here, I confess, so far, at least, as the West is concerned, I am much more doubtful. The system in question appears to me to contain enough of the mysterious and the transcendental to make its intellectual acceptance at least as difficult as the theology of most Christian churches to the European sceptic; and not enough assurance of personal immortality to satisfy such Western minds as are repelled by the barren and jejune ethical systems of agnostics, positivists, and humanitarians, who would give us rules to regulate a life which they have rendered meaningless. Mr. Phelps emphasises the high ethical standard inculcated by Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abbás Effendi on their followers, and admires, as all who have associated on terms of intimacy with the Bábís (or Bahá’ís) must admire, the strong influence which this standard actually exerts on their conduct. Here again I am entirely with him, for, though I do not admit that the Bahá’í or any other religion [Page xxiii]INTRODUCTION xxiii

can supply a rule of life higher than that which Christ has given us, I freely allow that the average Bábí or Behá’í is very much more consistent than the average Christian. But in making such comparison it must be remembered that the Behá’í religion enjoys two great advantages, so far as this point of view is concerned, over Christianity, Muhammadanism, or any other of the older world-religions : namely, its freedom from those lukewarm adherents who are born, or gravitate from mere indifference, into whatever established faith dominates their environment, and its freedom from the power, and hence from the temptation, to persecute. Almost every Bábí or Behá’í is in earnest because still, little more than half a century after the Báb’s martyrdom, the number of those born into this faith is less than the number of those who have voluntarily and deliberately adopted it ; while the great majority of Jews, Christians, and Muhammadans are what they are simply by reason of the circumstances of their birth. And though Mr. Phelps (pp. xxxvii and 154-155) insists strongly on the tolerance of the new faith as at present formulated (for the early Bábís were frankly intolerant, especially towards their Shí‘ite persecutors, as most abundantly appears from the Persian [Page xxiv]Bayán, written by the Báb, and from the history composed by Hájjí Mírzá Jání, his contemporary disciple), I cannot wholly share his confidence as to how the Bahá’ís would treat either the Shí‘ite Muhammadans, the Súfís, or the Ezelís (against all of whom they have, for different reasons, a special grudge) if they should one day, as is within the range of possibility, become paramount in Persia. Towards other religions, especially Christianity, they would, I believe, be more tolerant than are the Muhammadans, not because they are at all more disposed than the latter to be converted by them, but because they regard them as affording material more apt for their own endeavours to proselytise. But though, in the event of their succeeding in making their religion dominant in Persia, they might, as I think, prove scarcely more tolerant than the present mujtahids and mullás, especially in the particular cases above indicated, they would, I am convinced, prove infinitely more progressive, and Persia as a country might not improbably gain enormously both in wealth and power by the change.

There are many other points raised by Mr. Phelps’s interesting pages on which I should like to touch, but which the limits assigned [Page xxv]to me compel me to leave unnoticed. He has done more than collect, arrange, and interpret the philosophical and ethical ideas of the Behá’í Bábís; he has in many cases educed from their leaders, by his own patient enquiries, doctrines now probably for the first time formulated by them in writing. Three observations made amongst the Bábís in Persia caused me great surprise, being quite contrary to my preconceptions, though perhaps natural enough in the light of the comparative history of religions. The first was the generally prevailing uncertainty as to the authorship of many of their own religious books, especially those of the earlier period (from the Manifestation of the Báb in 1844 till the Manifestation of Behá’u’lláh about 1863), or, in other words, the complete absence of a Canon of Scripture. The second was the varying and unfixed character of their doctrine on many points (such as the Immortality of the Soul) which we should deem of capital importance. The third was their readiness to ignore or suppress facts, writings, or views (undoubtedly historical) which they regarded as useless or hurtful to their present aims.

The only essentials in Behá’í eyes are the love of Behá’u’lláh and his accredited successor, the belief in their Divine [Page xxvi]character, and the eager desire to hearken to the reading of their words, contained in countless epistles or “tablets” (alwáh), which are for the most part rhapsodies interspersed with ethical maxims, most rarely touching on questions of Metaphysics, Ontology, or Eschatology. This (which had also, as I found, struck Mr. Phelps, who, like myself, was chiefly anxious to learn how the new religion dealt with the subjects last mentioned) is, I fancy, part of a deliberate purpose on the part of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abbás Effendi to discourage that essentially Persian passion for speculative Metaphysics which threatened, especially during the two or three years succeeding the Báb’s martyrdom (1850–1853), to destroy all order and discipline in the young church by suffering each member to become a law unto himself, and by producing as many “Manifestations” as there were Bábís.

In the study of a religion we may, according to our standpoint, look chiefly either at the Process by which it was formed or the Result at which it arrives, and these two points of view differ as widely as Embryology differs from Ethics. Mr. Phelps has written chiefly from the latter point of view, while I have perhaps inclined to the former. Some time ago I had [Page xxvii]the pleasure of meeting an English diplomatist freshly returned from Persia, who had held repeated and intimate conversations with many of the Persian Bábís, and who possessed an insight into the Persian mind which I have hardly seen equalled in my experience, save, perhaps, by that displayed by the late Comte de Gobineau in his Religions et Philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale, to which I have already had occasion to refer in this Introduction. Three of his remarks, especially, have remained in my memory, and since they bear on matters discussed in this Introduction, I may perhaps be permitted to conclude with them, since to me they have afforded much food for reflection.

Speaking first of my own writings about the Bábís, especially my translation of the New History, he observed that several of his Bábí friends greatly disliked my attempts to trace the evolution of Bábí doctrine from that of the Shí‘a sect of Muhammadans, through that of the Shaykhí school (in which the Báb and many of his earliest disciples were educated), to the forms which it successively assumed in the hands of the Báb and his followers. “They regard you,” he concluded, “as one who, having before his eyes a beautiful flower, is not [Page xxviii]content to enjoy its beauty and fragrance, but must needs grub at its roots to ascertain from what foul manure it derived its sustenance. As for the History of Hájjí Mírzá Jání, which you regard as of such incomparable interest on account of the light which it throws on various conflicting tendencies and rash deeds and doctrines which agitated the young Bábí church, I do not doubt, from what they said, that they would, if possible, compass the destruction of the one surviving copy of the book, to which, unfortunately as they consider, you obtained access.”

Speaking next of my visits to Subh-i-Ezel, and my endeavours fairly to state and fully to discuss his version of the schism which first rent asunder the Bábí church (since Behá’u’lláh’s death again divided by another schism, to which Mr. Phelps briefly alludes on pp. 80–82 infra), he remarked: “The question here was not a mere question of historical rights or documentary evidence, but the much greater question as to whether Bábíism was to become an independent world-religion, or remain a mere sect of Islám. In the struggle between Subh-i-Ezel and Behá’u’lláh we see a repetition of the similar conflict which took place in the early Christian Church between Peter and [Page xxix]Paul. The former was in closer personal relations with Christ than the latter; but it is owing to the victory of the latter that Christianity is now the religion of the civilised West, instead of being an obscure sect of Judaism.”

Lastly, replying to an expression of wonder on my part that, with no fixed or prominent idea of personal immortality, or of rewards in a future life, the Bábís should, with hardly a single exception, meet the martyr’s death, when occasion arose, not merely with equanimity, but with exultation, he said: “Is it possible for you to wonder at this? If so, you must surely have lost touch with the Persian mind, and have forgotten what is meant in its language of metaphor by ‘the Loved One,’ ‘the Wine,’ ‘the Cup-bearer,’ and ‘Intoxication.’” And even as he spoke a dimness cleared, as it were, from my mental vision, nurtured latterly too much on dead Persian books and too little on the words of living Persian men, and I seemed to see (and to understand in the seeing) Sulaymán Khán, one of the Bábí martyrs of 1852, as, pierced with deep wounds, in each of which burned a lighted wick, he hastened, as a bridegroom to his bride, to the place of execution, singing with exultation: [Page xxx]:““Yak dast jám-i-báda, wa yak dast zulf-i-Yár—

Raqsí chunín miyána-i-maydánam árzúst!”

“Grasping in one hand the Wine-cup, clinging to my Darling’s hair,

Gaily dancing, thus would I confront the scaffold in the square.”

E. G. Browne.

Cambridge, Sept. 27, 1903.