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One Country Volume 7 Issue 4 - Jan-Mar, 1996

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ONE

Ianuary—March 1996

COUNTRY

Vol. 7, Issue 4 Newsletter of the Baha’i International Community

NGOs gear up for

Habitat II; final New York Prepcom sees high level of participation.

In Kenya, community health workers stir broad changes at the village level in many sectors.

.9

UN Report on religious intolerance calls for an end

to oppression against the Bahé’is of Iran.

Review: 7715 Style of the Kitéb-i-Aqdas— Suheil Bushrui examines the style and background of “The Most Holy Boo .”

Rural learning helps stem urban migration

An innovative approach, using a curriculum adapted for country life and delivered Via NGOs, provides new opportunities for 15,000 in rural Colombia

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A typical SAT class meets in Puerto Tejada, a small town near Cali.

JAMUNDI, Colombia — Educational District No. 034 starts somewhat to the west of where the Pan American Highway cuts across Colombia’s western flank and extends to the Pacific Ocean. Favored with ample mineral resources, good soil, abundant water and a temperate climate year-round, the district would seem to be blessed with all the prereq- uisites for prosperity.

Yet the region is poorer than Colombia as a whole and only sparsely developed. One of three rural districts administered by the municipal- ity of J amundi, it is settled partly by the descendants of former slaves, who survive with subsistence farming supplemented by jobs at coffee picking and sugar cane harvesting. Like in much of the countryside in Colombia, and, indeed, in many other places in Latin America and the South, opportunity has fled to the cities.

The problem is strongly related to education. In the first place, there aren’t enough secondary schools in the region — only 50 percent of eligible students are enrolled in high school — making a good education hard to obtain. To make matters worse, most of those who do manage to finish secondary school are unlikely to find a suitable job, and so they head to Jamundi, or over the horizon to Cali, the largest city in the region. At the same time, the lack of opportunity and develop- ment here make it hard to attract and keep the teachers that might make secondary education more available.

(Continued on page 10)

[Page 2]is published quarterly by the Office of Public Information of the Baha’i International Community, an international non-governmental organization which encom- passes and represents the worldwide membership of the Baha'i Faith.

For more information on the stories in this newsletter, or any aspect of the Baha’i International Community and its work, please contact:

ONE COUNTRY

Baha'i International Community - Suite 120 866 United Nations Plaza New York, New York 10017 U.S.A.

E—mail: 1country@bic.org

Executive Editor: Ann Boyles

Editor: Brad Pokorny

Associate Editors:

Nancy Ackerman (Moscow) Christine Samandari-Hakim (Paris)

Kong Siew Huat (Macau) Guilda Walker (London)

Production Assistant: Veronica Shoffstall

Subscription inquiries should be directed to the above address. All material is copyrighted by the Baha’i International Community and subject to all applicable international copyright laws. Stories from this newSletter may be republished by‘ any organization provided that they are attributed as follows: “Reprinted from ONE COUNTRY, the newsletter of the Baha'i International Community.”

© 1996 by The Baha’i International Community

ISSN 1018-9300

Printed on recycled paper ®

ONE COUNTRY / Ianunry-March 1996

Creating Sustainable Communities

Throughout history, urbanization has been associated with human progress. Humanity’s coming togetherin villages, towns and cities has fostered social, eco- nomic and cultural development. Many of our greatest religious, political, edu- cational and scientific institutions have been established in metropolitan areas. In short, to borrow a phrase from the Habitat II agenda, cities have been the “incubators of civilization."

Yet cities — and indeed human settlements on all scales —— are today under siege. Around the world, human settlements, especially the largest ones, seem instead to be incubators of crime, poverty, ill health, social alienation, and environmental pollution.

The situation is patently unsustainable. Trends in crime, poverty and pollution, as well as urban migra- tion, traf- fic con- g e s t i o n and infra- structure decay, are converging on chaos in many cities — with collateral effects in the countryside.

The main question before the up- coming United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), then, is this: how do we go about creating sustainable human settlements?

Too often in the past, solutions to the problems of urbanization have been seen principally in technical terms: better ur- ban planning, new technologies of trans- portation and energy production, and su- perior social service organizations. That was a common refrain at Habitat I, held in Vancouver 20 years ago.

Habitat II’s draft agenda shifts the focus to socio-cultural solutions, sug- gesting that only through a “partner- ship” involving the participation of ac- tors at all levels of society can human settlements be made sustainable. It also draws extensively on the agendas for sustainable development, social integra- tion, and gender equity set by recent United Nations world conferences.

Nevertheless, the scale and com-

Perspective

plexity of the problems facing human settlements require a deeper analysis. The real basis for creating sustainable com- munities lies first and foremost in the promotion of unity.

The quest for unity is the central im- pulse in human civilization. Gathering as families, tribes, cities, city-states and fi- nally nations, humanity has reached ever higher levels of social, economic and cul- tural development. Each stage reflects a certain level of unity, and progress to the next is possible only when the sense of unity is enlarged.

Unity, in this context, is not uniformity. Rather, unity in human society can be best understood by comparison to the human body: although composed of widely differ- entiated and highly specialized cells and organs, the body functions as one unit with a common purpose and an integrated exist- ence. True unity, then, is based on an appre- ciation of diversity, coupled with a shared sense of values and goals.

Such unity in society enables coop- eration, creates conditions for human de- velopment and promotes the group’s pros- perity. This has been the case for the tribe, the city, and, today, the nation. His- tory has also shown, however, that if a group fails to make the transition to the next level, its long term survival — its sustainability — is threatened.

According to this paradigm, the real source of urban problems stems from un- derlying disunities within modern soci- ety. Poverty comes from the disunity of classes within society and reflects a fail- ure of people to fulfill their moral obliga- tions towards one another. Crime is a manifestation of the extreme disunities between individuals and society at large. And environmental degradation also stems from a failure to apprehend the unity and interdependence between humans and the physical world, as well as a neglect of the sacred trust this underlying unity requires. The list can go on.

The real question, then, is this: how do we create such an ever—widening sense of unity in human settlements?

The first step is to understand where humanity’s central quest for unity is tak-

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[Page 4]Four members from the Turkish Host Committee for the Habitat || NGO Forum attended February's Preparatory Committee meeting in New York. Shown left to right are Emel Kurma, project coordinator for the Host Committee and a member of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly; Fulya Vekilogula, project coordinator for the Turkish Baha‘i Office for Habitat II; Cigden Turkoglu, of the Chamber of Architects; and Korhan GUmUs, of the

Istanbul Arts and Research Foundation.

ONE COUNTRY / Januarvaarch 1996

NGOS gear up for Habitat H

Prepcom for UN Conference on Human Settlements allows greater participation than in the past

NEW YO RK —— Non-governmental orga- nizations around the world are gearing up for the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, the last scheduled major UN conference of the decade, hop- ing it will further establish civil society as a key player in the creation of a peace- ful and sustainable world civilization.

The Conference, known as Habitat II, is scheduled to be held in Istanbul, Tur- key, from 3-14 June. As in previous UN conferences, specially accredited NGOs will be allowed to participate in the actual governmental conference. A parallel NGO Forum will also be held to facilitate a wider variety of NGO activities.

The Conference has two main themes: “sustainable human settlements in an ur- banizing world” and “adequate shelter for all.” Yet, despite the seemingly narrow focus, many expect that one important out— come of Habitat II will be a further accep- tance of NGOs as real partners in the pro- cess of global development fostered by recent UN conferences in Rio de Janeiro,

Vienna, Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing on the issues of environment, human rights, population, social development and women’s empowerment.

“Our hope is to build within the Habi- tat II process a common ground between NGOs and governments and local au- thorities,” said Emel Kurma, project co— ordinator of the Host Committee for the Habitat II NGO Forum and a member of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly. “Be- cause it is on that common ground that you can build everything else.”

Certainly the Conference organizers are giving encouragement to this idea of partnership. The Conference’s Secretariat has billed Habitat II as a “partners’ confer- ence,” issuing a series of guidelines that calls for non-governmental, community- based and international organizations, as well as local authorities, the private sec- tor, and others, to initiate activities that will contribute both to the understand- ing of human settlements issues and to national and global plans of action.

And at the Third Preparatory Com- mittee Meeting (Prepcom III) held Feb- ruary 5-16 in NewYork, NGOs were given more access to the government negotiat- ing process than at any similar previous UN conference. NGO representatives were granted easy access to all major working sessions of government nego-

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[Page 6]

At the Menu Baha'i Institute, a refresher course is offered for community health worker trainers.

Active in more than 200 communities, a project to promote vaccinations has also helped to build a new level of intersectoral and interfaith collaboration — collaboration that has paid off by stimulating the construction of latrines and helping create better access to clean water.

Community hetalh workers

ONE COUNTRY / January-March 1996

in Kenya stir broad Changes

MENU, Western Province, Kenya — As the mother of seven children, Judith Soita is well aware of what it means to worry over a sick child. One day they are out playing happily by the road with other children, the next they are lying down quietly inside, their eyes glazed with hurt. And in this remote village some 1,000 kilometers from Nairobi, there is always doubt overwhether they will get up to play another day.

“As a mother, I always have been worried: will my children survive?” the 35-year-old mother and vegetable farmer said in a recent interview. “And how about my neighbors’ children?”

There are many childhood diseases to which children here fall prey. From simple diarrhea, which takes so many infants in Africa, to tuberculosis and malaria, which threaten the young and the old, the day-to-day risks are high. Some 10 percent of the children in Kenya never see age five, according to recent statistics from the World Bank.

But Ms. Soita’s worries have been lightened considerably since she became a community health worker, a process she started nearly 10 years ago when she attended a training session at the nearby Menu Baha’i Institute.

“When I attended the first commu-

nity health worker training, I did not know that I would find my answer there,” she said. “But since the training pro- gram, I’ve been able to help my family, my neighbors, all the village and the surrounding villages to understand what is primary health care and how easily they can improve their health. I feel there is an answer to my question, that we all can do something to improve our health.”

Ms. Soita is one of some 98 commu- nity health workers trained at the Menu Institute as part of a primary health care project sponsored by the national Baha’i community of Kenya. Started in 1986, the project now reaches more than 200 vil- lages in Kenya's western provinces.

Designed in part to support the na- tional Kenya Expanded Programme on Immunization (KEPI), the project has a goal of 100 percent immunization in the districts it serves. These are the Bungoma, Kakamega and Vihiga Districts in Western Province; the Siaya, Kisumu, and Kisii Dis- trict in Nyanza Province; and the Transnzoia, Nandi and Uasin Gishu Dis- tricts of the Rift Valley Province.

While the project has made steady progress towards achieving its goal for immunization, many say that its real suc- cess has been the way it has helped to

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[Page 8]

Bounaventure Wafula, project administrator, shown on right, presents a package of information to Harold Kodo, KEPI Health Education Officer, during a visit by Mr. Kodo to the Menu Baha'i Institute.

“In some respects, Village Health Committees have become like an ’interdenominational councfl,because the various religions come together and talk about how problems in the community can be

solved.” — Dr. Ethel Martens

ONE COUNTRY / Ianuary-March 1996

effort to involve all sectors of the commu-

nity in decision-making about and the

implementation of local health programs. Village Health Committees

On the initiative of project leaders, local Baha’i governing councils in the re- gion have been asked to appoint three members to help found a Village Health Committee. By drawing in as many as a dozen other community leaders, including local government representatives from the ministries of health, agriculture and edu- cation as well as representatives from churches, these Committees have brought a new level of intersectoral and interreli- gious cooperation to many villages.

“In some respects, these Commit- tees have become like an interdenomina— tional council, because the various reli- gions come together and talk about how problems in the community can be solved,” said Dr. Martens ofCanada. The project is funded in part by the Canadian Public Health Association, which has provided about $110,000 to the project over the last three years.

Because of the cross-fertilization from different groups and sectors, the Commit- tees have expanded beyond simple health care to efforts involving sanitation, water supply and solid waste disposal.

The Committees have also acted as a focal point in helping to coordinate visits of mobile health clinics, which are run by the government. Coordination is needed be- cause sometimes the mobile clinics fail to show up on the appointed day, often for want of money for fuel or to pay the nurse. The Committees have occasionally worked to help raise the needed extra funds.

The fact that the Committees are composed of representatives of different religions has also helped to soothe eth- nic tensions. Tribal identity is intense throughout Kenya, sometimes leading to prejudice. Individual churches are usually populated by members of a single tribe, and sometimes members of other tribes are excluded from their activities.

Baha’i communities, however, are usu- ally quite diverse; the concept of unity in diversity is emphasized. Bringing various religious representatives together on one Committee has helped foster cooperation and cut down on exclusion.

“Because of the intersectoral team-

work through the Village Health Commit- tee initiated by the Baha’i health project, all the villagers are receptive to the free edu- cation about ways to better the health of their children and families,” said J epheneah Wanjala Wakhulumu, a member of the Vi]- lage Health Committee in Namwela, Bungoma District, Western Province.

So far, some 24 Village Health Commit- tees have been established, said Mr. Bounaventure Wafula, the project adminis— trator. “The establishment of Village Health Committees have been a source of unity in the villages,” said Mr. Wafula. “Chiefs and government officials are rec— ognizing this and they are very support- ive of this project.”

“Most of the people who are benefit- ing and participating in this project are women,” added Mr. Wafula. “They learn to take interest in their own family health care and actively participate in consulta- tion. This gives them self—confldence.”

Ms. Soita, who started with the pro- gram in 1986, has now become one of the project’s field supervisors. She has seen how the Baha’i emphasis on inclusion has contributed to the project’s success.

“I think that one of the reasons, people in the villages respect and support us, is the way the Baha’i community health work— ers serve the people," said Ms. Soita. “Dur- ing mobile clinic visits and one-day semi- nars, our community health workers help and serve everybody without any discrimi- nation. It doesn’t matter which tribe, reli- gion, young or old, we give them the same amount of care.”

“When I started with this project as a community health worker in 1986, most people in my village and nearby villages didn’t know the causes of diseases and how they could prevent them,” said Ms. Soita. “But today, after attending awareness—rais— ing seminars and through personal contact with the health workers, most of the villag- ers can and will prevent many sicknesses such as diarrhea and malaria.

“I am a good example,” Ms. Soita concluded. “The diet in our family has changed. I learned about nutrition and different food categories, such as carbo- hydrates, proteins, vegetables, fruits and grains. In my family , I make sure we eat enough of all of them." 0

— By Ladan Doorandish-Vance

—————————_

Page 8

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[Page 10]

Dora Alicia Otero, smiling, center, prepares to cross a busy street in Jamundi, Colombia. Municipal officials are hopeful that FUNDAEC’s System for Tutorial Learning (SAT) program, which is operated by Ms. Otero in one of Jamundi's three rural districts, will help to slow the influx of people into the city.

In Colombia, a rural

education mnovanon

(Continued from page one) The introduction into the district of an

innovative new system for rural education, however, has given municipal officials new hope that this cycle can be changed.

Known as the “System for Tutorial Learning” or “SAT” (the Spanish acronym for “Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial"), the program was brought to the district four years ago by Dora Alicia Otero, an ener- getic young woman from Cali who had recently received training in the system, which makes use of a curriculum that has been entirely written in consideration of the realities of rural life.

“Until two years ago, the desertion rate after primary school was very large,” said Hortensia Elena Aguirre, who is direc- tor of educational district No. 034. “The area is very poor, and the students leave because they have to go and find work.”

But more recently the desertion rate has fallen dramatically in Villacolombia, one of the small communities where Ms. Otero now offers the SAT program, said

anuary-March l9

96

Ms. Aguirre. Of 25 graduates from primary school last year, she said, 20 are enrolled in the program run by Ms. Otero.

“Without SAT, they would have gone, or like most other youth, they would sim- ply be picking coffee and working day to day,” said Ms. Aguirre. “It’s the only way to be able to continue secondary level educa- tion in these communities.”

Municipal officials are so pleased with the effort that they are backing Ms. Otero in an expansion of the project so that the SAT method can be offered in the other two rural districts of J amundi.

A Nationwide Success

All over Colombia the SAT project is showing bright promise. Developed by the Foundation for the Application and Teach- ing of the Sciences (FUNDAEC), a private development foundation based in Cali, the SAT method is currently being used in 13 of the 30 departments of Colombia, reach- ing more than 15,000 students. In Antioquia, the country’s largest department, the state government has backed the program in 60 percent of 124 rural municipalities and is seeking 100 percent coverage.

The program has even drawn atten—

l’age 10

[Page 11]

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[Page 12]Héder Carabali, Jamundi’s municipal secretary of education, who supports the introduction of the SAT program in rural communities within the city’s jurisdiction.

“SAT definitely redresses the problem of urban overcrowding, because it gives rural students the tools to create their own small enterprises within their own communities so they can earn a living in their communities.”

— Hortensia Elena Aguirre, director, educational district No. 034.

ONE COUNTRY / Ianuary«March 1996

rural students so energized,” said Fr. Mitchell. “They are activated because of the program. They are enterprising. They have no fear of speaking out. It’s notjust an education program by itself and isolated from everything else. It is part of a whole development process.”

Graduates of the SAT program do in- deed emerge with comprehensive knowl- edge in agriculture, animal husbandry, soil chemistry, and other fields traditionally associated with rural vocations. But they also come out with knowledge about how to create microenterprises and participate in community development.

Community development is in part stimulated by the organic manner in which the program expands. Because it is a tuto- rial system, based more on a series of workbooks than on open-ended curricu- lum planning done by an educator, it is possible for someone with a high school education who has taken a few special courses to become a tutor; indeed, one route to becoming a SAT tutor is to gradu- ate from the program.

Thus, with some additional training, it is possible for graduates to establish their own SAT tutorial programs, prefer- ably in their own communities. In this way, the program itself creates the possi- bility for employment as SAT graduates go on to establish their own private edu- cation enterprises. The program thus provides a shortcut in the creation of more secondary—level teachers, and it produces teachers who are by inclina- tion willing to remain in the rural areas.

The program’s positive impact on the development process is one reason that the state of Antioquia wants SAT to

be established in all of its rural munici- palities, said Clara Monica Zapata

J aramillo, former director of the Division

of Formal Education in Antioquia and now in the state education department’s Office of Special Projects.

“When the students finish, they are able to manage small agro—industrial en- terprises,” said Ms. Zapata. “It gives them enough technical knowledge for that.”

As well, said Ms. Zapata, the program’s emphasis on the importance of community participation in all its fac- ets “has greatly strengthened the pro- cess of participation and the cultural iden- tity of the community in those rural com- munities where it is offered.”

Municipal authorities in District 034 are similarly pleased.

“In Villacolombia, many of the SAT graduates have come to occupy some of the key public posts in the community,” said Ms. Aguirre. “They now work to run the public telephone office, the public library, the local pharmacy, the pre-kin- dergarten program.” Those were the types of positions for which, in the past, the municipality had to find people from outside the community, a task which was often difficult.

“In this way, SAT definitely redresses the problem of urban overcrowding,” Ms. Aguirre continued, “because it gives ru- ral students the tools to create their own small enterprises within their own com- munities so they can earn a living in their communities.

“50 what we are arriving at is the community starts managing itself,” she continued. “The time will come when the municipality of J amundi will not need to bring professionals from outside to fill those managerial jobs — they will be filled by the same communities."

This kind of empowerment is having a ripple effect throughout the district as students pass their new values to others.

“SAT helps because the students have a greater consciousness of living in their own community,” said Hader Carabali, Jamundi’s municipal secretary of educa- tion. “And that consciousness of the im- portance of remaining in the community has been exported to other communities with whom the students interact, with family members and neighbors."0

——-———-——_—_—— Page 12

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[Page 14]“The rural teacher really has to be a moral leader... If you tell even one lie, you’ve lost everything. The community won’t

trust you again.”

— Dora Alicia Otero, student at the Rural University

ONE COUNTRY/ Ianuary-March 1996

that means scientific knowledge in par- ticular, then you can have all of the ‘par- ticipatory’ meetings you want but you won’t really have participation. Because the people won’t really understand.

“And, second, they need access to sci- entific knowledge so as to be able to pro— duce new knowledge that is applicable to their own situation, knowledge that works within cultural and technological restric- tions that exist at the starting point of development,” said Dr. Correa.

In order to implement this idea, the founders of FUNDAEC came up with the concept of starting a “rural university.” In their minds, it was to be a new sort of institution of higher learning for Latin America that would generate and apply the kinds of knowledge needed by the rural people and which would also in- volve them in the gathering and produc- tion ofthat knowledge. It would do this in a framework of positive values aimed at resisting the forces of social disintegra- tion in the countryside.

“The idea of a rural university is not so much a physical place as a space of learning, a social place, where people can get together and produce and then distribute the kinds of knowledge needed for rural life," said Dr. Correa, noting that the SAT program was precisely the sort of new “knowledge” that FUNDAEC’s founders had intended for the rural university to generate.

Not limited to any location, FUN DAEC’s rural university over the years has had at various stages of development different campuses for different programs. Today, for example, the University Center for Rural Well-being (Centro Universitario Bienestar Rural) occupies a small campus in Puerto Tejada, a small town about 30 kilometers south of Cali. The University also has programs at two other sites, bring- ing to more than 460 the total enrollment.

The institution has been accredited by the Government to grant degrees in a single, unique field: “rural education.” The degree program at the university and the SAT program are intimately linked. Only graduates of the program are empowered to train tutors for the SAT program.

Ms. Otero a graduate

Ms. Dora Alicia Otero, for example,

who introduced the SAT program to Dis-

trict 034 in Jamundi (see main story), is a recent graduate of the university. And she believes that it is the university’s method —— which emphasizes the impottance of service to the community above all else and requires students to work in their own communities on development projects — that has enabled her to succeed as a woman working alone in a rural area.

“As a woman, I received education at the rural university that has enabled me to value myself much more,” said Ms. Otero, who is now in the process of form- ing a small NGO that will become the provider of SAT throughout the munici- pality 0f Jamundi. “For example, the whole moral leadership course was a cen- tral feature in my training.”

That course emphasizes the impor- tance of ethical values like trustworthi- ness, honesty and humility as essential components of development work.

“The rural teacher really has to be a moral leader,” said Ms. Otero. “You have to be very sincere with the people with whom you work, because rural communi- ties are very sensitive to the treatment that they receive. This is something I learned at the rural university. People are very tired of all the lies they have heard over the years . So when you promise something, and if you accomplish it, the community won’t let you down. But if you tell even one lie, you’ve lost everything. The community won’t trust you again.”

In addition to the SAT program. FUNDAEC’s new approach to rural de- velopment has spawned two other projects: a “Solidarity Production Sys- tem," which works to organize farmers into small credit groups, and a small agro- industrial training center, which seeks to apply FUNDAEC’s concept of knowledge generation and distribution to the small- scale processing of agricultural products.

Although it is not a religious institu- tion, most of FUNDAEC’s projects operate along Baha’i principles, said Dr. Correa, who, like some of FUNDAEC’S founders and its current directors, is a Baha’i. “We don’t teach the Baha’i Faith within the university,” said Dr. Correa. “But we do quote Baha’u’llah. And the concept of edu- cation, of development, of the identity of the human being — everything stems from the principles of the Faith.” 0

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[Page 16]A Close

reading of

“The Most Holy Book”

The Style of the Kitéb—i— Aqdas: Aspects of the Sublime

By Suheil Bushrui

University Press of Maryland

ONE COUNTRY / Ianuary-March 1996

“There are three basic characteristics which distinguish every Divine Revela- tion. Firstly, it explains truths such as the nature of God, the human condition and the world around us; secondly, it directs us towards right conduct and warns us to eschew evil; and thirdly, to those who have faith and accept its guid- ance, it imparts the good news offorgive- ness, purification and salvation, and pro- vides a fresh impetus to the march of human progress and civilization.”

Such is one example of the kind of clear-eyed explanations and incisive ob- servations that Dr. Suheil Bushrui offers in The Style of the Kitdb-i-Aqdas: Aspects of the Sublime, one of the first scholarly books to appear on the Kitdb-i— A q d a 5 since it was released in an official English trans- lation in 1993.

As Dr. Bushrui notes, the Kitdb-i- Aqdas holds a singular position in Baha’i literature. Revealed by Baha'u’llah some- time around 1873, its title translates into English as “The Most Holy Book." Al- though ostensibly a book of religious laws, Baha’is believe that it spells out nothing less than the Charter for a new civilization and offers to humanity “the highest means for the maintenance of order in the world and the security of its peoples,” as Baha’u’llah himself says.

In undertaking, then, to analyze the style of the Kitdb-z'—Aqdas, and, at the same time, to help Western readers un- derstand the underlying power and depth of its original Arabic, Dr. Bushrui has embarked on a rather daunting task.

Yet Dr. Bushrui, who holds the Baha’i Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland at College Park, has written a meticulous and eloquent work. His book makes accessible to the English-language reader the majestic qualities of the origi- nal Arabic of this most sacred of Baha’i texts. Its publication marks a seminal event in the understanding of the Kitdb- i-Aqdas and in Baha’i studies.

The Baha’i community has long hon- ored learning. However, it has only be- gun to cultivate the habit of objective scholarship about itself and its texts that

Review

is the modern counterpart of the higher criticism. Partly this is the result of rea- sons internal to its own development, partly of circumstances that it shares with other faiths whose historical origins lie in the nineteenth century. Dr. Bushrui correctly points out that “no other reli- gion has had its scriptural treasures trans- lated into a universal language, as has the Baha’i Faith, within so very short a period of time since the inception of the Dispensation.”

Translation, of course, relies heavily on what used to be called the lower criti- cism, an activity that is more commonly referred to now as textual criticism. It seeks to establish the original form or definitive form of a given text from the available variants. Dr. Bushrui provides a sure—footed introduction to these mat- ters, which are basic to any understand- ing of the Kitdb—i-Aqdas. He discusses

The Style of the

Kitéb-i-Aqdas

ASPECTS OF THE SUBLIME

Suheil Bushrui

the location ofthe work in the ministry of Baha’u’llah and sketches in its textual history since its revelation. The Baha’i Faith is unique in that the authenticity of its textual traditions cannot be ques- tioned. As Dr. Bushrui remarks, “among the unique features of the Baha’i Faith is that reliable transcriptions of its sacred

texts were produced under the supervi- (Continued on page 15)

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