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Spring 1996

World Order

THE U.S. BAHÁ’Í COMMUNITY—
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND CHALLENGES
EDITORIAL

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT: AN
ALTERNATIVE PATH
BRAD POKORNY

THE WISDOM AND WONDER OF LIFE
ON EARTH
CYRUS VARAN

THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH IN ENGLAND
AND GERMANY, 1900-1913
ROBERT H. STOCKMAN

A REVIEW OF OUR GLOBAL
NEIGHBORHOOD
FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

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World Order

VOLUME 27, NUMBER 3

WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE, INSPIRE, AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN
THEIR SEARCH TO FIND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND CONTEMPORARY
RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board:
FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH
BETTY J. FISHER
HOWARD GAREY
ROBERT H. STOCKMAN
JAMES D. STOKES

Consultant in Poetry:
HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN

Subscriber Service:
LISA CORTES

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD ORDER Subscriber Service, Bahá’í National Center, Wilmette, IL 60091. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts can be typewritten or computer generated. They should be double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should send four copies—an original and three legible copies—and should keep a copy. Return postage should be included. Send manuscripts and other editorial correspondence to WORLD ORDER, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091.

Subscription rates: U.S.A., 1 year, $15.00; 2 years, $28.00; single copies, $3.75. Surface mail to all other countries, 1 year, $15.00; 2 years, $28.00; single copies, $3.75. Airmail to all other countries, 1 year, $20.00; 2 years, $38.00.

WORLD ORDER is protected through trademark registration in the U.S. Patent Office.

Copyright © 1996, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
ISSN 0043-8804

IN THIS ISSUE

2   The U.S. Bahá’í Community—Accomplishments

and Challenges

Editorial

4   Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

7   Population and Development: An Alternative Path

by Brad Pokorny

19   Consumer Products

poem by J. A. McLean

21   The Wisdom and Wonder of Life on Earth

by Cyrus Varan

29   A Sober Alcoholic Thought

poem by Christine Boldt

31   The Bahá’í Faith in England and Germany, 1900-1913

by Robert H. Stockman

43   Our Global Community

book review by Firuz Kazemzadeh

47   Holy Land

poem by Sheila Banani

Inside back cover: Authors & Artists in This Issue

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The U.S. Bahá’í Community—
Accomplishments and
Challenges

AT THE time when its Founder, Bahá’u’lláh, passed away in Akka in 1892, the Bahá’í Faith was regarded by outside observers as an obscure offshoot of Shiite Islam. A hundred years later it was recognized as a world religion second only to Christianity in its global spread. Although compared to other major religious communities the Bahá’í Faith is still small, it is rapidly gaining adherents and extending its influence for racial unity, equality of women and men, human rights, and universal peace.

The expansion, both numerical and geographic, of the Bahá’í Faith is not fortuitous. It is rather the result of the belief that the Faith contains verities and spirit that humanity needs to survive, to progress, and to build a world civilization. No conscientious person can possess beneficial truths and not wish to share them with others.

From the inception of the Bahá’í Faith, Bahá’ís, individually, have offered their beliefs, ideas, and practices to those around them. For almost sixty years, beginning in 1937, they have also done so through a series of global plans. As a result, they have increased their numbers tenfold, built their administrative institutions, raised houses of worship on every continent, created networks of philanthropic organizations, published books and magazines, held conferences, educated children, and contributed to various social enterprises that promote peace, understanding, and unity.

This spring marks the end of a three year world-embracing plan during the course of which the Bahá’í Faith took another long step forward. The American Bahá’í community has had its share in furthering the goals of the Three Year Plan. While the numerical expansion of the American Bahá’í community was modest, its accomplishments are remarkable. More than 4,500 men and women left the United States for longer or shorter stays abroad. Contributions to the various funds of the Faith doubled. Large-scale improvements and repairs were carried out at the world-renowned House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, and at Bahá’í retreats and conference centers in Maine and California. Youth took part in 250 teaching and service projects, a tenfold increase in three years. A National Teacher Training Center was established in Davison, Michigan, and has [Page 3] already produced teachers who are active in 500 Bahá’í “Sunday schools.” A Bahá’í Family Unity Center was founded in Atlanta, Georgia. Bahá’í communities throughout the country organized more than 3,000 race unity projects and activities involving the participation of local residents, schools, social institutions, and city governments. Bahá’í national institutions collaborated with other nongovernmental organizations, participating in the activities aimed at the ratification by the United States Senate of a number of United Nations Conventions. Bahá’í representatives and hundreds of individual Bahá’ís attended a number of UN-sponsored world conferences such as the one on women in Beijing.

This brief catalogue only scratches the surface. While the achievements of the Bahá’í community are great, the challenges it faces are far greater. This year, in April, a new Plan will be unveiled, a Plan that will carry the Bahá’í world community forward to the end of the century when, we are certain, the fruits of the efforts of this century will be reaped.

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Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

THE NEED to reassess appears to be one of the defining characteristics of the present historical moment. Practitioners in many fields and disciplines are finding it useful to test prevailing methods and paradigms and to ask whether the present way of doing something, or thinking about it, is any longer sufficient. Perhaps this tendency has something to do with the approaching end of the century. More likely it is the naturally accelerating momentum of a century-long process. While such change is not without its terrors, it can also be an affirming source of hope and optimism. Received perceptions or existing structures and methods are found inadequate, but new solutions also emerge from the inexhaustible spring of human thought, in itself a proof that change need not be catastrophic; it can also be a kind of awakening.

Each of the four selections in this issue of World Order reflects in its own way an effort to expand our vision by asking us, in a spirit of reassessment, to look at something in a fresh, more comprehensive way. Each considers a different aspect of life and disciplines and speaks to a variety of audiences.

The essay by Brad Pokorny was originally presented at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994. Addressing people who are seeking answers to the global problems of over-population, poverty, and human suffering, his essay asks them to begin by focusing on a more fundamental question: What is the purpose of human life? It asks them to frame solutions within a set of ennobling principles that begin by asserting the spiritual nature and inherent worth of humanity. It asks that problem-solvers rise above mere technical and expedient schemes to seek a higher definition of the purpose and character of civilization itself. It raises the problem from a need for mere crisis intervention to an opportunity for global renewal.

No less transcendent in vision, though utterly different in subject and focus, is the essay by Cyrus Varan. It is essentially a meditation asking us to develop a larger vision of the greatness of the world of being. The author does so by comparing the stunning achievements of this century in human engineering with the sublime, infinitely more complex “engineering” that can be seen in nature if one brings to bear the full range of human ability in considering the awe-inspiring degree of order and design operating there.

The article by Robert H. Stockman, known for his historical research into the origins of the American Bahá’í community, offers a long-overdue study of the origins of the Bahá’í Faith in Europe. Though that development in some ways parallels the growth of the Faith in America, the pattern of emergence in Europe was made more complex by the problem of [Page 5] national boundaries and identities, diverse tongues, and the inherent resistance of ancient embedded cultures. His article, which points the way toward further research on this topic, focuses on the formative years, 1900-13, showing the part that members of the fledgling North American Bahá’í community played in planting the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in European soil and hearts and the difficulties that those new communities faced. Like the two previous articles, Dr. Stockman’s asks us to develop a more comprehensive vision, in this case in our understanding of the development of the Faith in the West.

The book review by Firuz Kazemzadeh reports on a reassessment currently taking place among leaders at the global level. The Commission on Global Governance, a group of former and current high officials working independently of their governments and supported by the United Nations, recently undertook to study the nature and needs of the new world that is emerging fifty years after World War II and the end of the cold war. The results of this work are detailed in the recently published book, Our Global Neighborhood, the subject of Dr. Kazemzadeh’s review. Particularly stunning, he observes, is the Committee’s bold assertion that the future governance of the world will require that it develop and commit to a common set of values, “a collaborative ethos” that fosters “global citizenship” while replacing “the rule of arbitrary power” with “the rule of law.”

Collectively, these four articles explore the most exciting, fundamental, and hope-inspiring of human activities—the use of unfettered intelligence to bring fresh light and new perspective to diverse areas of human concern. We invite you to take pen in hand (or typewriter or computer— WorldOrder@usbnc.org), and share your thoughts and reactions with us.

* * *

The Spring 1995 issue of World Order, containing Hoda Mahmoudi’s “The Role of Men in Establishing the Equality of Women” and Michael L. Penn’s “Violence Against Women and Girls,” continues to be well received. The issue is required reading in a course in the Peace Education Program at the Teachers College at Columbia University. In addition, Dr. Penn’s article was reprinted in a large compilation used in the program on “Public Right, Private Injustice: Internationally Sanctioned Violence Against Women” at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in Chicago in August 1995. The Summer 1995 issue has also been noticed: The Michigan Chronicle reprinted, in two installments, Mark Perry’s “Robert S. Abbott and the Chicago Defender.”

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Population and Development:
An Alternative Path

BY BRAD POKORNY

Copyright © 1996 by Brad Pokorny. This paper is a revision of one prepared for a seminar on “Religion, Population, and Development: Multi-Religious Contributions” held under the auspices of the World Conference on Religions and Peace at the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5-13 September 1994. The opinions expressed in this paper are his own and do not represent any “official” position of the Bahá’í Faith.

ANY penetrating discussion of the moral, ethical, and spiritual implications of development and population policy must begin with consideration of the purpose of human life, for only by considering its purpose can one meaningfully discuss the values by which both individuals and society might ponder not only the whens and whys of procreation but also the kind of world into which new lives are to come.

In such a context the entire contemporary debate concerning population policy, sustainable development, human rights, and morality comes down to this question: What is the ultimate goal of human civilization? Is it the erection of a smoothly functioning but otherwise essentially mechanistic and agnostic system of political cooperation, cultural freedom, and economic methodology that might, one day, be expected to satisfy the basic material and social needs of all of the world’s citizens? Is it the re-creation of some bucolic past in which the interdependence of humanity and nature is exalted to the point that technological development—except the “appropriate” kind—is all but halted and a new, albeit peaceful and enlightened, form of tribalism brings sovereignty back to the local level? Or is it, as the underlying theology of some religious groups implies, the altruistic but essentially static maintenance of human society until some unspecified “end of time” when prophetic fulfillment will transform the heavens and earth, and control will be assumed directly by the Creator?

In the Bahá’í view, human destiny lies not merely in the creation of a prosperous material civilization but also in the construction of a cooperative and united global society in which individuals are encouraged to act as moral beings who understand their true spirituality and are able to progress toward a transcendental fulfillment that no degree of material bounty—even if rendered into an ecological paradise—can provide. Perhaps, more important, the purpose of life for Bahá’ís is to be acted out not only through individual moral action but also through participation in a system of collective activity that has as its goal the unification of the entire human race—a point that becomes especially significant in an age in which humanity’s interdependence and essential oneness are increasingly recognized as the driving force behind virtually every major social change and movement.

In general terms, of course, all of the world’s great religions share some of the Bahá’í concepts. Most world religions teach of God the Creator; they tell of humanity’s inherently spiritual nature; and they provide the means [Page 8] through such tools as prayer, meditation, good deeds, and worship—for spiritual advancement. Yet, as suggested by the hypothetical questions above, there is a wide range of conflicting worldviews, ranging from humanistic to millennial and encompassing both religious and nonreligious ideologies, which, in turn, give rise to seemingly irreconcilable differences on population issues.

The main challenges in the fields of population and development cannot be properly discussed without considering the power of religious belief. Whether one is exploring new methods of contraception or considering how to promote solid primary health care practices in a rural area, the moral teachings, traditions, and cultural practices that are associated with religion must be squarely addressed.

As the youngest of the world religions, the Bahá’í Faith brings into the discussion a new way of looking at the world as a whole—a new “worldview”—on the great challenges posed by population pressures and global poverty. And in this new worldview is an alternative path, a new way of looking at these problems that offers new models for action instead of endless arguments.

The Bahá’í worldview starts with a foundation that is shared with the world’s other major religions. Like most other religions, the Bahá’í teachings encompass an underlying belief that human beings are inherently spiritual beings, created by an all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing God. At the same time, however, the Bahá’í teachings promote a distinctive new worldview that, among other things, offers an integrated moral framework for approaching the challenges posed by population pressures and global poverty. It promotes a series of progressive principles (such as the equality of women and men and the need to eliminate poverty) as spiritual ideals and thus gives them a motivational imperative otherwise largely missing from humankind’s moral framework. It addresses quite specifically questions associated with personal morality, such as balancing individual freedom against the rights of society as a whole and how to understand the vitality of the unborn. And it suggests new models for personal transformation and global action in the quest to build a sustainable world civilization.

Ultimately, the worldview found in the Bahá’í teachings offers a new alternative to integrating many of the elements of these disparate mind-sets by combining a deep comprehension of human spirituality and the highest ideals for social progress. In so doing, it points the way toward new paths for cooperation and unity.

The Purpose of Life
in the Bahá’í Teachings

THE Founder of the Bahá’í Faith was Bahá’u’lláh, Who gave up a princely existence of comfort and security for a life of persecution and deprivation. Bahá’u’lláh claimed to be a new and independent Messenger from God. His life, work, and influence parallel that of Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Christ, and Muḥammad. Bahá’ís view Bahá’u’lláh as the most recent in a succession of Divine Messengers.

Bahá’u’lláh taught that there is only one God, that there is only one human race, and that all the world’s religions have been stages in the revelation of God’s will and purpose for humanity. In this day, Bahá’u’lláh said, humanity has collectively come of age. As foretold in all of the world’s scriptures, the time has arrived for uniting all peoples into a peaceful and prosperous global society. “The earth is but one country,” He wrote, “and mankind its citizens.” He also taught that [Page 9] the purpose of life for individuals is to know, to love, and to worship God. As noted, virtually every faith has espoused this eternal truth. Bahá’u’lláh also gave to humanity an overall purpose for itself as a collective organism: to “carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.”

The terms of reference for the new civilization, gleaned from the Bahá’í writings, include the following: its governors should above all else seek the good of the whole over the good of any particular subgroups or constituencies while at the same time taking specific steps to ensure the protection of minority interests and rights; this prevailing quest for justice should be marked by efforts to promote harmony, unity, and cooperation instead of partisanship and adversarial dialectic; individuals should above all else prize the pursuit of knowledge, service to others, moral rectitude, and strong family bonds; and the highest standards for trustworthiness, honesty, and courtesy should be their primary adornments.

Without doubt, the cardinal principle in the Bahá’í conception of civilization is the oneness of humanity. As an isolated phrase the term belies its great depth of meaning. For when fully understood, the concept of the oneness of humanity means that all prejudices and conflicts over race, nation, class, sex, and ethnicity must be swept away if humanity is to achieve its long-promised era of peace and plenty. Likewise, all notions of individual, tribal, provincial, or national superiority must be discarded. Conveying the words of God, Bahá’u’lláh explains:

Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest.

When translated into a program of social action, the oneness of humanity implies a global society based on the following principles:

• the elimination of extremes of poverty and wealth;
• full equality between the sexes;
• universal education;
• the elimination of all forms of prejudice;
• the harmony of science and religion;
• the right for individuals to investigate truth on their own;
• the establishment of a universal auxiliary language;
• recognition of the essential oneness of the world’s great religions; and
• the establishment of a democratic world federal system, based on collective security and the oneness of humanity.

Enumerated many times and in many ways in the Bahá’í Faith’s literature, these principles form the basis for a future social contract [Page 10] and at the same time provide guidelines for fruitful social development today. Accordingly, as Bahá’ís seek to fulfill their larger social purpose of establishing an ever-advancing civilization, it is to these principles that they look as guide posts.

On an individual level, then, the understanding that the purpose of life is to know, love, and worship God provides an underlying motivation to live a moral life—that is to say, to live a life defined by deeds and actions that aim at the highest good and that seeks harmony with the Universal Will. At the same time, the highest good is found not only in living by such eternal moral commandments as honesty, trustworthiness, respect for life, and faithfulness but also in carrying the Golden Rule to the global level. “Let your vision be world-embracing, rather than confined to your own selves,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh. “Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth.”

Purpose in Bahá’í Family Life

LIKE the Divine Messengers who have come before Him, Bahá’u’lláh brought a series of laws that govern the kinds of personal and family relationships that Bahá’ís are expected to follow. These laws do not constrain the human spirit but rather provide guide posts along the path to the greatest spiritual progress and social good.

Many of the laws stem from fundamental aspects of human reality and do not change from age to age. Virtually all of the world’s religions, for example, have taught of the divine and sacred nature of marriage between man and woman. The Bahá’í Faith is no different. The Bahá’í teachings state that monogamous marriage will remain the cornerstone for the creation of a family and that sexual activity outside of marriage is detrimental to spiritual progress and, accordingly, contrary to the laws of God.

The Bahá’í writings also say that one of the primary purposes of marriage is to raise children who will, in their turn, come to know and love the Creator and will themselves contribute to the construction of an ever-advancing civilization. The family is thus seen as the foundation of society itself, inasmuch [Page 11] as it is the primary place for socializing the individual and for transmitting moral values. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh and His appointed successor, wrote that

the importance of marriage lieth in the bringing up of a richly blessed family, so that with entire gladness they may, even as candles, illuminate the world. For the enlightenment of the world dependeth upon the existence of man. If man did not exist in this world, it would have been like a tree without fruit.

The teachings and laws for individual and family life, when coupled with the overall social principles outlined by Bahá’u’lláh, point to the creation of a new kind of family: the unity-based family. As opposed to the traditional male-led, authoritarian family, or the more modern, humanistic, “permissive”-based family found commonly in the West, the unity-based family is firmly founded on the equality of the two marriage partners, on their constant consultation in all aspects of family decision-making, and on respect for children and their rights (as well as respect by children for the authority and wisdom vested in their parents). All forms of violence or coercion in family relationships are forbidden.

In summary, like the world’s other major religions, the Bahá’í teachings create a coherent moral framework for defining life’s meaning and purpose, both for individuals and for humanity as a whole. What is new, however, is the degree to which this framework gives meaning and purpose for the individual and family in a global context. That, coupled with the emphasis on spiritual values in combination with progressive social principles, suggest new models for individual action, family relationships, and community process in the context of addressing population and development issues.

The Bahá’í Worldview and the
Population/Development Debate

IN virtually every area of concern to international policy-makers, it has become increasingly clear that narrow, sector-by-sector and/or [Page 12] national or regional approaches to the major problems of our increasingly interdependent world can no longer succeed. Whether the concern is peace, environment, or health, the interrelationships and cross-sector influences cause one crisis to affect others.

The mere fact that the United Nations General Assembly chose to discuss population and sustainable development simultaneously at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 reflects the increasing recognition that most aspects of the world problématique are deeply interrelated. The Program of Action that resulted from the Conference further reflects this sense of interrelation: subtopics discussed at the Cairo meeting included women’s empowerment, family structures, primary health care, international migration and refugees, education, technology transfer, and development communication.

As might be expected in an arena that touches such a wide range of sub-issues and concerns, the disagreements and fault lines over the formulation of policies concerning population and development are equally numerous. Not only are there strong divisions between poor countries in the Southern Hemisphere and wealthy countries in the Northern Hemisphere but also across various sectors, as business interests take issue with environmentalism, as women’s organizations seek change from their own governments, and as religious leaders confront secularists.

The Bahá’í worldview comprises an alternative path, one that suggests a coherent global social policy and offers an underlying moral framework for justly balancing competing ethical concerns while at the same time supplying to individuals a spiritual motivation to participate in the changes needed to create a sustainable world civilization.

At the level of social policy the Bahá’í approach can be said to land squarely within the broad consensus that is currently emerging in issues of population and sustainable development. Specifically, the Bahá’í Faith’s major social principles mandate greater efforts to eliminate poverty, they consider sex bias to be a major injustice, and they promote education in general and the education of women in particular as key components of any overall strategy for sustainable development. The Bahá’í worldview also treats these issues in a global context and not merely as the concerns of a few nations, regional groupings, or social classes.

At the level of family and community the Bahá’í Faith’s worldview offers a universal moral and ethical approach to abortion, contraception, and the like.

At the individual level the Bahá’í Faith’s spiritual worldview offers tools that will help motivate and facilitate the kinds of personal transformations and lifestyle changes that will be necessary if the earth’s “carrying capacity” is not to be breached.

Social Policy

THE DEEP interconnection between poverty, population, and environment has steadily moved to the forefront of the agenda addressed by the Cairo Conference. Whereas population specialists once thought that birth control measures by themselves were enough to stabilize population and, ultimately, to help stem poverty, there is now a widespread realization that poverty itself contributes to high population growth by maintaining a demand for high fertility as parents seek to find wealth through the few means available to them—greater numbers of offspring— and to make up for high infant mortality. Yet larger populations often contribute to environmental [Page 13] stress, which contributes in turn to increased poverty. This circular relationship has been called the Poverty-Population-Environment (PPE) spiral.

In considering any overall social policy for stabilizing population and advancing development, efforts to eliminate poverty must be a primary focus. Indeed, as has been widely shown by demographic statistics that correlate fertility rates with development and economic well-being, prosperity itself appears to be among the best methods of stabilizing population and, therefore, of interrupting the so-called PPE spiral.

Many of the social and spiritual principles of the Bahá’í Faith seek quite specifically to eliminate poverty and to promote an era of global prosperity. These range from spiritual ideals that equate work with worship, emphasize profit sharing in economic endeavors, and encourage Bahá’ís to share their wealth and work to eliminate poverty and establish justice.

More specifically, Bahá’ís have launched many deliberate projects in recent years to promote sustainable social and economic development. Since 1983, for example, Bahá’í communities around the world have started more than 1,300 small-scale educational and development projects.

Against the failure of large-scale, institutional-based development projects in recent decades, a debate has arisen over the nature and context of development. The contemporary Bahá’í approach to development, however, can be characterized by its small-scale, participatory approach; the emphasis on self-reliance; and the encouragement of moral leadership. Most Bahá’í projects make extensive use of the principle of consultation, a nonadversarial form of decision making, in an effort to seek input from and to empower those whom they attempt to serve.

Bahá’í development projects also strive to incorporate the social and spiritual principles outlined above. Directly or indirectly, nearly all such projects promote the oneness of humanity; many seek to serve minority populations that have been discriminated against; and most specifically incorporate an emphasis on uplifting the status of women.

Efforts to promote the advancement of women, of course, have also been identified as a critical means of stabilizing population and furthering development. The final documents from the International Conference on Population and Development, for example, establish that “Advancing gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence against women, and ensuring women’s ability to control their own fertility, are cornerstones of population and development-related programs.”

Alone among the world’s major independent religions, the Bahá’í Faith explicitly upholds in its sacred scriptures the equality of women and men. “All should know, and in this regard attain the splendours of the sun of certitude, and be illumined thereby: Women and men have been and will always be equal in the sight of God,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh. The importance of such a statement in the transformation of attitudes and behaviors cannot [Page 14] be overestimated. The understanding that such equality is a spiritual principle, one of the underlying themes of our age, goes much further than simply the intellectual acceptance of equality as a modern and progressive idea. For more than one hundred years Bahá’ís have sought to translate this principle into reality, both in their personal lives and as a necessary element in society at large. They have done this through a process and discourse that promote a genuine partnership between the sexes, instead of an atmosphere of conflict.

Moreover, Bahá’ís have long championed the education of women and girls. The Bahá’í teachings specifically state that, where limited assets force a choice between educating girls or boys, preference should be given to the daughters. As the primary trainers of the next generation, they are to be granted a “prior right to education over sons.” In recent years this idea has been increasingly echoed by development and population specialists. “Education is perhaps the single strongest influence on women’s control of their own future,” writes Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund. “Every large-scale survey in developing countries has discovered that the education women receive is one of the most universal and reliable predictors of both their own fertility and their children’s health.”

Of course, education for all has also been found among the key tools both for reducing population growth and for improving overall social and economic well-being. The Bahá’í teachings see education as among the primary tools for personal and social transformation. “Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh. “Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.” Roughly half of the more than 1,300 Bahá’í social and economic development projects involve education.

Other basic principles of the Bahá’í worldview can also make significant contributions to any overall program to stabilize population and advance development. The understanding that science and religion are twin reflections of one reality opens doors to new lines of research, communication, and activity. The idea that all individuals have the right to investigate truth independently for themselves serves not only as a foundation for human rights but also as a directive to promote greater options for women and others who have been oppressed and cut out of the decision-making process. Establishing a universal auxiliary language, which would do much to improve international understanding, is also an element of promoting global prosperity.

Above all else, the recognition that the entire human race is interconnected and interdependent is a basic feature of the Bahá’í worldview. “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh. Widespread acceptance of the ideal of the oneness of humanity—an ideal that can also be defined as the ethic of “world citizenship”—would serve to release new international resources, including financial, human, and natural capital, to serve the needs of development.

Family Planning Issues

AS NOTED, the Bahá’í Faith presents the purpose of life in terms of a holistic system of moral values and beliefs. This system comes with the understanding that the ordinances and laws revealed by Bahá’u’lláh stem from [Page 15] an All-Loving Creator’s desire to increase human happiness and spiritual growth.

Even if policy-makers are not ready to accept the dimensions of Bahá’u’lláh’s claim, the Bahá’í positions on the often divisive topics of family planning, birth control, and abortion are worth examining precisely for their special location in a middle ground between religious traditionalism and the modern social reality.

The Bahá’í teachings clearly say that life begins at conception, which is when the individual soul is created. This sense of distinctive identity is backed up by modern science. Even as a single cell in the mother’s womb, the zygote possesses the complete DNA to identify it as an individual human. Inasmuch as the Bahá’í teachings hold that human life is sacred and is to be protected, population programs that rely on abortion as a means of birth control are contrary to the Bahá’í worldview.

At the same time, however, the Bahá’í teachings recognize that respect for the sanctity and dignity of human life can lead to competing concerns as one approaches the general issue of abortion. Such concerns, for example, might arise when an abortion is needed to protect the health of the mother and/or in cases of rape or incest. In such cases, a person or family confronted with the difficult decision as to whether to seek an abortion is to be guided by the Bahá’í moral teachings about life, the best available medical advice, and “their own consciences” at this point in the evolution of Bahá’í religious law. Once such a decision is made, other Bahá’ís have no right to second-guess or judge that action. At present, Bahá’ís take no position about whether abortion should be legalized for the population at large.

Other questions of family planning and birth control are essentially left up to the individual in the Bahá’í teachings. Inasmuch as children are a key purpose of marriage, the use of birth control to avoid having any children is unacceptable. Beyond that, however, the question of how many children to have is left up to the husband and wife. As to the choice of family planning methods, any measure that might cause permanent sterility is to be avoided, unless there are special health concerns to be considered. Birth control technologies that might cause the abortion of a fertilized ovum, even before implantation, are not permitted.

Of special concern to population specialists is the problem of adolescent sexual activity and out-of-wedlock births. The moral framework provided by the Bahá’í view not only takes a firm stand in promoting chastity before marriage (and absolute fidelity within), it also places this stand within a decidedly modern spiritual context that goes beyond simply saying, “Don’t do it because we say so.” Because high standards of personal morality are understood as part of an overall program for promoting social progress, the call to chastity before marriage is seen as an essential element of spirituality and a means for contributing to the advancement of civilization, ideals that appeal distinctly to youth.

Because Bahá’ís believe that the Bahá’í teachings conform to God’s will, they are highly motivated to apply these teachings in their daily lives and not to regard them as simply political aspirations or slogans. Accordingly, one finds, for example, that the principle of equality for women and men is not merely advocated by women; the men in Bahá’í communities are making conscientious efforts themselves to transform their own thinking and to treat their partners as equals in all respects. In terms of population policy this means that Bahá’í men feel a moral [Page 16] imperative to take a greater responsibility to transform their own behavior, to be involved in family life, and to be concerned with family-planning issues. Ultimately the Bahá’í worldview demands that men share responsibility for all aspects of the lives of their children, including their physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development.

While some of the Bahá’í prescriptions may seem contrary to the liberal spirit that has so captured the modern age, they, nevertheless, suggest a moderate and principled position that could be of great help in the formulation of policy on these questions. It is worth noting, for example, that population programs that have promoted permanent sterilization are now widely seen as dangerously prone to coercion and decidedly threatening to the health of women and to family stability.

In any event, it can be understood that family planning programs that provide women with a variety of choices, seek to involve men, and uphold basic human dignity fit into the Bahá’í worldview—as long as such programs use nonpermanent, noncoercive measures for birth control and rely on technologies that prevent conception rather than those that promote termination of the fertilized ovum.

Given the wide array of birth control technologies that are available and under development, the wide range of proven techniques for communicating new ideas to marginalized and underserved groups, and the wide avenues for future research, the measures that conform to Bahá’í principles can hardly be seen as restrictions in any comprehensive program of action. Indeed, careful reflection will show that they provide valuable guidance about how such programs can be structured so that human dignity remains a foremost concern.

Further, the Bahá’í worldview encompasses the understanding that programs for family planning cannot be divorced from an overall effort to provide moral, values-based education to both women and men. Nor can such programs be divorced from an integrated and principled policy to promote social and economic development that seeks to eradicate poverty on a global scale.

Ultimately, as policy-makers, specialists, and agencies dealing with issues related to poverty, population, and environment ponder how best to motivate the changes in attitudes and activities that will be necessary to create a sustainable human civilization, they would also do well to turn to the realm of spirituality and religion—something that is already beginning. U.S. Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., in his best selling book, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, wrote that “The more deeply I search for the roots of the global environmental crisis, the more I am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis that is, for lack of a better word, spiritual. . . . As a politician, I know full well the special hazards of using ‘spiritual’ to describe a problem like this one. But what other word describes the collection of values and assumptions that determine our basic understanding of how we fit into the universe?”

Throughout history the power of religious belief has provided the underlying will to love others and to sacrifice self that has made possible the social cohesion that has enabled the world’s great civilizations to flourish. Indeed, it is the spiritual world that is the source of those human qualities that engender unity and harmony, that lead to insight and understanding, and that make possible cooperative undertakings. Among such qualities are love, courage, vision, self-sacrifice, and humility. Essentially spiritual in nature, these qualities form the invisible yet essential [Page 17] foundation of human society.

By combining elements of personal morality and sacrificial spirit common to all the world’s religions with modern social principles and a new framework for humanity’s collective purpose and capacity, the Bahá’í worldview offers a distinctive vision for how to walk the spiritual path with practical feet in an era of global interdependence.

Malthusians or Cornucopians?

IN THE long run, one of the key issues in the population and development debate centers around the earth’s ultimate capacity to support human life. Commonly referred to as the earth’s “carrying capacity,” the quantity represented by this value defines the parameters of what is truly sustainable. How much energy do we have? How much can we use? How much food can we grow? At what expense to the natural environment and future generations? Such are the questions inherent in this term.

In the shorthand of the population debate, those who believe that humanity has almost reached the earth’s carrying capacity are identified as Malthusians. Those who believe that new technologies and a smarter and more efficient use of resources, including natural, capital, and human, can allow for continued growth well into the foreseeable future are known as Cornucopians. Both sides have been able to marshal credible evidence to support their views. Malthusians point to converging trend lines that forecast shortages of oil, water, food, arable soil, forest products, and marine stocks as evidence that the earth’s carrying capacity is close to overload. Cornucopians, however, argue that such trend lines have in the past failed to converge in an apocalyptic crisis, in large part because new social and technological advances have historically increased available resources.

The issue is made all the more divisive because of the degree to which countries in the Northern Hemisphere find themselves on opposite sides of the fence against countries in the Southern Hemisphere. It is frequently pointed out that, although developed nations include only 25 percent of the world’s population, they consume some 75 percent of the world’s resources. In view of that statistic, many say, it is clear that the world cannot afford to follow the development path of the North. And if they cannot, it is said, it would certainly be unjust if the North did not make some sacrifices so that the South could progress materially.

While the sacred writings of the Bahá’í Faith do not take a definite position in the Malthusian/Cornucopian debate, Bahá’u’lláh did promise that humanity’s ultimate destiny would be an era of peace and plenty for all. More specifically, Bahá’u’lláh suggested a series of steps that could be taken to hasten the establishment of such an era. These steps include the creation of a unified world commonwealth, operating on the principle of collective security and guided by the major social principles of the age (which were [Page 18] outlined by Bahá’u’lláh but are also today reflected in such documents as the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights). Such a cooperative and unified world civilization would be capable of unleashing the latent resources available to it. Shoghi Effendi, the Bahá’í Faith’s leader from 1921 to 1957, painted this picture of such a future:

National rivalries, hatreds, and intrigues will cease, and racial animosity and prejudice will be replaced by racial amity, understanding and cooperation. The causes of religious strife will be permanently removed, economic barriers and restrictions will be completely abolished, and the inordinate distinction between classes will be obliterated. Destitution on the one hand, and gross accumulation of ownership on the other, will disappear. The enormous energy dissipated and wasted on war, whether economic or political, will be consecrated to such ends as will extend the range of human inventions and technical development, to the increase of the productivity of mankind, to the extermination of disease, to the extension of scientific research, to the raising of the standard of physical health, to the sharpening and refinement of the human brain, to the exploitation of the unused and unsuspected resources of the planet, to the prolongation of human life, and to the furtherance of any other agency that can stimulate the intellectual, the moral, and spiritual life of the entire human race.”

While Shoghi Effendi’s vision suggests the availability of “unused and unsuspected resources,” it also implies a degree of world unity, coordination, and cooperation that can hardly be imagined—and has clearly not yet been realized—in the world today. Without this degree of unity, sustainable development, and, indeed, sustainable civilization, is impossible.

Whether one considers the trends that show increasing levels of family and communal violence, declining education levels, rising political corruption, the spread of new global pandemics (not to mention the general state of public health overall), and the widespread disillusionment and alienation of young people around the world, it is clear that things cannot continue as they are.

Ultimately, then, the worldview offered by the Bahá’í Faith transcends the debate between the Cornucopians and the Malthusians. It suggests that the promise of material bounty seen in the ultimately grand resources available to humanity on earth and perhaps beyond will be made available only when humanity recognizes its oneness and unites to form a global commonwealth based on spiritual principles. Only then, as all humans become educated, empowered, and organized, can the latent power in our collective minds be unlocked and focused on the great problems of the present age.

Conclusion AS IT relates to the issues of population and development, the Bahá’í worldview implies that it is not specific programs of family planning or economic development that alone will succeed in stabilizing population and building a sustainable and prosperous future. Rather, such benefits will come only as humanity arises to meet the challenge of building a unified, peaceful, just, and cooperative world civilization based on spiritual principles —a civilization in which all citizens will be educated and empowered so that they are free and able to develop their own enlightened perspectives on these issues and where choices about family planning will be based on a foundation that combines a high moral integrity with a lofty sense of the Divine.

[Page 19]

Consumer Products

The morning is still small.

I play radio to find

a lingering piano bar in

nostalgic, asia-minor key.

America in the late ’40s.

The keys tinkle.

I gaze into the pantry.

It is almost one.

The white grained rice

preserved in a large Mason’s jar,

the sugar, blême in its stainless steel bowl,

the red tomato sauce encased in glass,

take on a hint of life,

a kind of solitary almost-knowing

as the melody plays past.

I see them now,

these products to be consumed,

as visions of delight.

From out of the night of nothingness,

into the first green morning

of the primal garden,

I hear their far-off names being called.

—J. A. McLean

Copyright © 1996 by J. A. McLean

[Page 20]

[Page 21]

The Wisdom and Wonder
of Life on Earth

BY CYRUS VARAN

Copyright © 1996 by Cyrus Varan. The editing of Dr. David S. Ruhe is gratefully acknowledged.

THE CREATIVE ingenuity and logical gifts of humankind have never been more richly demonstrated than in our age, epitomized in the marvels of engineering that have transformed our lives and expectations. But in comparison to the infinitely complex order that operates within the “engineering” of nature, the achievements of human intelligence pale to nothing. Appreciating the true complexity of the world, in comparison to human achievements, inspires a sense of wonder, making it possible to accept the presence of an infinitely subtle and intelligent Creator.

In the field of robotics, for example, a major task confronting the design of a specialized robot is to create a mechanism that can differentiate between an egg and a cotton ball, a robot that can handle different objects without crushing them. In contrast, medical researchers have estimated that in each square inch of human skin there are approximately 160 to 165 sensors for pressure, 80 sensors for heat, 13 sensors for cold, 1,300 nerve endings, 650 sweat glands, 100 sebaceous glands, and 19,500 interrelated, coherent, and functional cells among the blood and lymph vessels, muscles, connective tissue, and hairs, each of which serves a specific function, creating a “mechanism” infinitely more complex than a robot.

As opposed to engineering construction, natural growth joins two germinal cells to initiate the formation of different organs—the arms, fingers, eyes, brain—until a miniature prototype model is realized. This prototype is then reared by nursing from two fountains of pure milk made available by the mother with precise timing, and reinforced with the necessary elements of nourishment, then loved and guarded with affectionate eyes in spite of the numerous shortcomings of the newborn until the organs are grown into their full-scale model. Viewed as a process of construction, natural growth seems to require a supreme command over the very soul and essence of every particle. It is generative in nature.

[Page 22] A similar contrast can be seen in language. Dictionaries consisting of words and their meanings, as well as sequential memories of a lifetime, and knowledge of complex mathematical fields, among others, are all stored and filed in a small piece of flesh in the brain. Any portion of these billion bits of stored information can be retrieved in a flash of a second many decades later. The ability to speak shows a higher level of creativity. One can store the knowledge of dictionaries in a computer. However, it is beyond a computer’s capability to compose and utter an original humorous speech or think of a story line for a best-selling novel. The varied and numerous neuron constellations serve different functions in the brain. The information stored within each neuron is readily available to a few billion members of other constellations. This mean there exist some tens of millions of interconnections for each cubic centimeter of the brain—all of which are provided with blood lines for oxygen and nourishment.

Moreover, the capability of the brain to see in color and respond to other senses and its ability to control bodily dynamic stability during motion and other bodily functions are all very complex. The concept of designing a small mass of flesh that, for many decades, without a direct source of electricity, is capable of creating, inventing, and discovering the material composition and the course of distant planets, or the concept of designing a brain wherein the early removal of one-half of its mass could result in the adaptation of the balance to carry on the necessary complex functions of the missing half, are concepts that grip the most brilliant minds with awe.

For its creative order, the human brain is the most phenomenally inexplicable mass of communication and control systems in that part of the entire universe that is known to us. That many trillions of these “systems” have been produced shows an incredible creative order at work in nature. The magnitude of this order is particularly apparent if one considers the fact that the blueprint and the characteristics of these systems are inscribed inside microsized genes. Yet no skilled hand is visible to create and assemble a brain’s intricate trillions of interconnections without flaws.

However, behind such natural systems lies a greater mystery. Even though rain and sunshine are necessary for the evolution and realization of a tree, the structure of the seed itself contains not only the blueprint for that particular tree but for the generations of trees to follow. Similarly, the blueprint not only for an individual person but for successive generations of people is potentially contained within two particles of dust, a sperm and an ovum. The bodies of a male and a female are structured to produce potent sperms and ovums that are the right key and lock combination, mechanically, chemically, and biologically to initiate a mysterious chain of humans for thousands of years, even though they are produced independently by separate male and females of a species. While defective engineering facilities will inevitably produce defective products, defective parents can have children free of defects, and the delicate chain of production may continue indefinitely. No less mysterious is the appearance [Page 23] of a feeding apparatus consisting of a placenta within the womb of a mother, with a blood-supplying cord providing nourishment to the developing embryo.

Similar inscribed order can be found in the billions of heart cells in the body. Unlike other cells, each heart cell is provided with a separate generator for pulsation. When such cells are isolated from each other, the individual cells beat at slightly different frequencies, but when in contact with each other, heart cells harmonize and beat with the same frequency. This is a phenomenon as complex as designing billions of watches synchronized to strike seconds at the same time for one hundred years. It is surprising that we continue to live since our life depends on harmony between billions of cells striking at the same frequency for decades. In spite of their intricate complexity, similar structures exist in billions of humans, all constructed from essentially the same blueprint. All have identical nerve systems, follow the same mode of bodily operation, and operate at the same bodily temperature. Further, the same creative order is found in many other millions of living species on earth. This chain of analogous structures reflects a designing intelligence of the highest “creative order” in existence.

The same sublime engineering can be perceived in our eyes, which funnel visual stimuli into some two million fibers of the optic nerves, a system far more complex than a television instrument. To communicate the sharp images of people, motions, colors, far and near in a football stadium, the gemlike eye involves a visual system that makes billions of calculations every second. The iris of the human eye and the pupil of many living creatures are crystal clear lenses made as perfect circles, the ideal optical form. This is a wonder since it is “impossible” to produce a single perfect circle using a random process.

A single ray of ultraviolet light recorded by the eye of a pigeon is presumed to help a pigeon to see objects through and beyond clouds. The compound eyes of common male houseflies (Diptera) are designed so that they can detect light in multiple directions. They are composed of approximately three thousand microsized lenses, each of which contains light sensitive cells, all set in absolutely perfect architectural rows and columns on two small spherical surfaces. The same perfection and order is noted in the eyes of dragonflies (Hymenoptera). Within every such fly there is a microfactory created to produce another fly with similarly miraculous perfection.

The brain neuron constellation for vision and the light sensors in the eyes (as well as other physical systems) are developed during prenatal growth in the womb, where there is no light and no need for sight, in preparation for an unknown future world that is totally dependent on light. The fetus and eggs of a million other creatures on the earth and in the sea, independently, generation after generation, create crystal clear, autofocus lenses precisely shaped and properly located.

Similarly, every other cell in our body, and every organ, is a deep and complex mystery. Under normal conditions, the production of symmetry requires precise instruments and intelligent labor. Yet the wings, legs, and [Page 24] structure of most all mobile creatures are symmetrical, which is essential to mobility. Further precise engineering and intelligent labor are required for the alignment of engineering parts, yet the mobile eyes in the animal kingdom are created with perfect alignment and remain so without the need for realignment. The transformation of the inner soft flesh of the fetus into a few hundred pieces of the bones of the infant, their growth into curvilinear sculptures with precise symmetrical shapes and dimensions to form numerous masterly designed joints and levers for muscles, the transformation of the cells of a fetus into a beating heart, a seeing eye, an intelligent brain, and a multitude of other organs all demonstrate the working of a high creative order.

However, a greater wonder is that, just as creating a functional computer from different parts requires more wisdom than the creating of the individual chips alone, the technical stability and coordination among the organs—the ability of life to regenerate itself perpetually—is a far greater engineering mystery than is the wisdom and wonder of each of the different organs or individuals independently.

* * *

THE GENERATIVE and self-perpetuating capacity within existence seems to operate in contrast to and independent of the laws that govern nature. Nor can the mere combining of elements be thought of as sufficient to “cause” the continuous generation that we see in life. Evolution and mutation are the process of effulgence of a pre-existing potency. Consider the fact that a tree seed contains the tree within it, potentially, though the seed needs the sun, the rain, and enduring favorable environmental conditions for the evolution of its potential to be realized in a tree. The sun, the rain, and the environmental conditions are simply the means for bring forth the potential reality latent within the seed. Billions of years before the beginning of the biological evolution, when the earth was still a molten mass of matter, it was already the “matrix” for “life-to-be” on earth, its potential to sustain the seed already present. Evolution is itself not an entity with logic. It cannot transform an impotent piece of rock into an intelligent human being solely on its own. Evolution is not a rational and intelligent entity capable of the design of eyes, of other sensors, and of functional organs. A single feather of a single bird cannot come to exist by mere coincidence.

The second law of thermodynamics, which is concerned with the natural law of the behavior of physical processes, states that systems composed of elements transform in the direction of least resistance, which is to say that things will go downhill if left on their own. Accordingly, all watches will eventually come to a halt, and no watch with missing chips will ever transform into a precise timekeeping machine on its own. Pursuant to the same law, magma and rock cannot transform into billions of humans on its own. The death and decay of a sperm and an ovum after fertilization is an easier path [Page 25] than their growth and transformation into a human being. The only way we can accept the evolution of the molten mass of matter into an entity capable of creative thinking and seeing is to accept the influence of a force external to the body of the masses of matter. The orderly and diversely functional multiplication of cells until a human being is fashioned appears to be the evidence of the work of a designing intelligence of a different nature and scope than our human intelligence, vaunted as the latter deserves to be. Even it is mute as to the Mystic “cause” of the transformation of a particle of dust into a human being who has a soul.

As indicated in the Bahá’í writings and other sacred scriptures, the earth’s potency is evidence of the existence of a divine intelligence. The material elements constituting the human body cannot be credited with the causation of life, since, to be the cause, the composition should endure as long as the properties of the composing elements endure unless forced into separation by external means; yet no living creature left to its nature is everlasting. When cremated, the mineral content of human bodies amounts to no more than a few ounces of ash, mostly the residue of the bones. A few ounces of ash and a few liters of hot gases reflect the physical substance and identity of every human being. Could these be thought to embody the essence of a human being, an intelligence and speaker of complex languages, the discoverer of the binding force between massive planets? The formation of an intelligent human being capable of determining the path of distant planets is not among the properties of the gas and ashes that form humans.

Pursuant to the second law of thermodynamics, given only the material composition of living creatures, as sure as water will flow downhill, all forms of life on earth, both animal and vegetable kingdoms, should perish and transform into dust within a limited time. The continuance of life is a greater miracle than is the wisdom of existing life.

* * *

THE EVIDENCES of a divine engineering impulse in the universe are visible in many additional interrelated aspects of the finite world. The stupendous volume of energy confined and securely sealed within a submicroscopic atom is no less awesome and mysterious than is the formation of an infant within a womb. That many billions of cells within each tree receive their daily nourishment from the soil and the air is no less complex a wonder than the tree that yields thousands of miraculously potent seeds, or the joints in the legs of a flea, or the mysterious symmetry of the wings of a bee, or the bird, designed for flight, yet patiently willing to seek confinement for long periods to ensure that its nested eggs are hatched and the extinction of its species is avoided.

Yet all these perfections are negligible compared with the potency of an egg to hatch into a chicken equipped to see and fly. From our present engineering point of view, it is impracticable to design a flight mechanism the size of an [Page 26] insect and impossible to design one that could operate using raw material for energy; seek and find the source of that energy; differentiate between a poisonous substance, a nourishing food, and a rock; seek and find its own shelter; avoid dangers through a system of highly developed sensors; and, above all, be equipped to reproduce itself. All of these complex perfections are found confined within the microsized body of an insect.

A massive leopard can leap and land at high speeds almost without a sound, with joints that work for a lifetime without lubrication, with stunning engineering dynamic stability while in motion in spite of the presence of many flexible joints and a body that heals without external adhesive when cut. A legion of different self-perpetuating species of creatures (genera) in the sea, in the air, and on the earth have been created to meet harsh survival needs, be it in the salt-water depths of the ocean or in the heat of desert sand.

How all-encompassing are the wonders of His boundless grace! Behold how they have pervaded the whole of creation. Such is their virtue that not a single atom in the entire universe can be found which doth not declare the evidences of His might, which doth not glorify His holy Name, or is not expressive of the effulgent light of His unity. So perfect and comprehensive is His creation that no mind nor heart, however keen or pure, can ever grasp the nature of the most insignificant of His creatures. . . .

* * *

THE DIFFICULTY in seeing the wonders of the world arises from humankind’s quite reasonable inclination to evaluate experience in terms of its own standards and capacities. But humans, however gifted as a species, are bound within a certain frame of limitations. Recognizing and transcending these limits is the key to understanding the great barrier and the wide gap that exist between them and the mystic power, the Supreme Being.

Humanity is bound by the finite limitations of its senses, which respond only to a limited spectrum of material phenomena. But just as many realities are beyond the perception of the blind, many unseen realities would be within human beings reach if they possessed additional senses. The air on which they rely for survival of every moment of their lives, is invisible. Electromagnetic waves (that is, radio and television sounds and pictures), radar waves, X-rays, and a score of other invisible phenomena require additional aids to the senses if human beings are to perceive them. It is difficult for humans even to know their own selves. They had no control over the process of their own formation [Page 27] and little understand the mechanism of their physical growth even as they experience it. If existence extends beyond material entities, that higher existence is eternally concealed from their limited perceptions.

The communication gap between a worm and a human being is narrower than the gap between a human being and the universal Cause of order, since the worm and the human being are both made of the same material substances, exist in the same material realm, and presumably are created by the same finger of Might. Thus it is more realistic for a worm to apprehend human knowledge and experiences than it is for a human being to comprehend the Unknowable Essence. This quantum and infinite order of separation keeps human beings eternally apart from the Creator, Whom Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, calls “the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden.”

Immeasurably exalted is He above the strivings of human mind to grasp His Essence, or of human tongue to describe His mystery.

In addition to the senses, humanity also has powers of logic, intelligence, and intuition to aid it. Human beings’ vision of the inner structure of an atom is based on that logic, not on sight; similarly, logical reasoning enables them to determine the moment when there will be an eclipse of the sun one hundred years from now. Mathematical theories are based on logic, not on the senses. Intellectual power is a human’s keenest sense, for it can reach where other senses fail. Indeed, one of the distinctions between humans and animals is that animals seem to be bound by their sense-perceptible world, as evidenced by the invariance of life in the animal kingdom.

Appreciating the grandeur of the created world begins with accepting that the perceptible is only a partial and incomplete picture of reality. As indicated in the Bahá’í writings, human beings are subject to laws of which they are not even aware. There is far more to existence than meets the eyes. Humans perceive the tip of a creational iceberg in an incomprehensible sea. The oceans, lands, and air with their creatures, the cosmos with its stars, are but a reflection of the fountainhead of all beauty:

Every created thing in the whole universe is but a door leading into His knowledge, a sign of His sovereignty, a revelation of His names, a symbol of His majesty, a token of His power. . . .

The particle of dust known as a human being, who in the universal scale of time was born a microsecond ago, cannot be the highest peak of wisdom and apprehension in existence. Those who are touched by a higher sensibility [Page 28] see a world of wisdom in the “identical” beauty of the eyes of the one they love. They perceive a ladder of being in the created world, an ascending order that begins with the mineral kingdom and extends to the vegetable kingdom, animal kingdom, and human kingdom, the pattern suggesting that the progression does not end with human beings. The visible signs of the wisdom and intelligent order in the universe, reflected in this ascending order, indicate the existence of a higher all-encompassing wisdom beyond human wisdom and the human senses. In the words of Albert Einstein:

But [for] the scientist . . . his religious feelings take the form of a rapturous amazement of the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

It is reasonable to conclude that scientific reasoning and human faith operate in essential harmony. However, logic alone cannot lead human beings to sense the presence of their Maker. Only parallel search from within the heart and the soul, reflecting the inborn yearning to connect with a higher reality, can enable them to know their true selves and feel the presence of God. Certitude deriving from discovery of evidence of the Beloved One in the created world, and coming after a long quest, brings a deep sense of joy, comfort, and healing. The gift of such certitude is the ultimate in human experience and understanding.

Humanity’s station is great, as the crown gem and noblest fruit of a few billion years of evolutionary construction of living and thinking forms. But individuals who have not also perceived the presence of the Beloved One in this world and in themselves, have failed to fulfill their full human potential; the flower of their existence will have withered prematurely.

[Page 29]29

A Sober Alcoholic Thought

Red wine is poured into crystal

The rich liquid curls to caress

The curved walls of its fragile container

The martyrs’ blood caressed their

Cherished bodies for a time

Before it spilled to quicken the world

The small sacrifice one makes

In these latter days for love of God

Is like one drop of that precious fluid

One drink not taken, for His Glory

Is one draught from the everlasting chalice

A taste of purest vintage, sip of immortality

—Christine Boldt

Copyright © 1996 by Christine Boldt

[Page 30]

[Page 31]

The Bahá’í Faith in England and
Germany, 1900-1913

BY ROBERT H. STOCKMAN

Copyright © 1996 by Robert H. Stockman.

WHILE many books and articles have been published about the spread of the Bahá’í Faith in North America, the development of the European Bahá’í communities remains comparatively obscure. The first two decades of the spread of the Bahá’í Faith in the Occident saw a much more rapid growth in North America than in Europe; on the eve of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visits to the West between 1911 and 1913, North America had between fifteen hundred and two thousand Bahá’ís, while Western Europe had about one hundred. The European Bahá’ís were concentrated in four localities (Paris, London, Manchester, and Stuttgart) and three countries (France, England, and Germany) and maintained ties through correspondence and travel in spite of formidable barriers of language and culture.

Because the Paris Bahá’í community was made up largely of expatriate Americans, its story has been told elsewhere. Many parallels exist between the growth of the Bahá’í Faith in Germany and England and that in North America. A shared Protestant cultural background and American influence through traveling American Bahá’í teachers—often from Paris, which served as the hub of much Bahá’í activity in Europe—are two reasons. However, several factors caused European development to differ from that in North America. One was national and social class influences within each local community. Another was the more frequent contact with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Middle Eastern Bahá’ís; because of Europe’s proximity, a larger percentage of the active European Bahá’ís went on pilgrimage to pray at Bahá’u’lláh’s tomb and visit ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

Early Bahá’í History in England

THE FIRST individual to accept Bahá’u’lláh on English soil was Marian Brown, the aunt of the wife of Ibrahim Kheiralla, a Bahá’í of Lebanese Christian background who introduced the Bahá’í Faith to the Occident. Brown became a Bahá’í in 1895 but did not remain active. Hence England, like Hawaii and Quebec, traces its first Bahá’í community to Bahá’í teaching in Paris. When Phoebe Hearst, an early American Bahá’í, visited Paris on her way to Palestine to go on pilgrimage in the fall of 1898, Mrs. Mary Thornburgh-Cropper, an American friend of Hearst’s living [Page 32] in England, heard about the Bahá’í Faith. Thornburgh-Cropper joined the pilgrimage and became a confirmed believer. Upon her return to England she told a friend, Ethel Rosenberg (1858-1930) about the religion, and she also became a Bahá’í. In 1901 and again in 1904 Thornburgh-Cropper went on pilgrimage. Soon Thornburgh-Cropper and Rosenberg told a Mrs. Scaramucci about the Faith, and the English Bahá’í community had three members.

Primarily through the efforts of Ethel Rosenberg, a Bahá’í group gradually grew in London. The first man to become a Bahá’í on English soil was Arthur Cuthbert. Little is known about his life or attitudes toward the Bahá’í Faith, partly because he did not remain a member. In 1906 he wrote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and asked a series of questions, one of which may have been how the Bahá’í Faith could expect to supplant the other religions of the world. The tablet (letter) he received in reply stressed the power of the Manifestations of God, especially Bahá’u’lláh, to transform the world:

The differences among the religions of the world are due to the varying types of minds. So long as the powers of the mind are various, it is certain that men’s judgements and opinions will differ one from another. If, however, one single, universal perceptive power be introduced—a power encompassing the rest—those differing opinions will merge, and a spiritual harmony and oneness will become apparent. For example, when the Christ was made manifest, the minds of the various contemporary peoples . . . were at variance with one another. But once His universal power was brought to bear, it gradually succeeded, after the lapse of three hundred years, in gathering together all those divergent minds under the protection, and within the governance, of one central Point, all sharing the same spiritual emotions in their hearts. . . .

. . . Such in particular is the case with the divine reality of the Most Great Name, the Abhá Beauty [Bahá’u’lláh]. When once He standeth revealed unto the assembled peoples of the world and appeareth with such comeliness, such enchantments—alluring as a Joseph in the Egypt of the spirit—He enslaveth all the lovers on earth.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá also explained that the power of the Manifestations of God was not revealed to its greatest extent until after their deaths. He sought to encourage Cuthbert, who apparently was disheartened by the Bahá’í Faith’s slow growth:

Grieve thou not over the slow advance of the Bahá’í Cause in that land. This is but the early dawn. Consider how, with the Cause of Christ, three hundred years had to go by, before its great influence was made manifest. Today, not sixty years after its birth, the light of this Faith hath been shed around the planet.

Indeed, slowness seems to have characterized the growth of the Faith in London. Most of the converts apparently were from the upper classes, and this may have made it more difficult to attract Londoners.

Another reason for the slow growth of the Faith was the social attitude toward religion, which made mentioning the Faith to people a “delicate and difficult process.” At the turn of the century Protestant belief was less influential on people’s everyday thinking in England than in the United States, but Protestantism in the form of the Church of England remained the center of the religious identity of most of the English. Hence assuming another identity was virtually unthinkable. A certain fraction of the population [Page 33] was “evangelical” Protestant (Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Presbyterians), but no early English Bahá’ís are known to have come from those religions, which were a common background for Bahá’ís in some American cities. Because of their roots in the more liberal Church of England, British Bahá’ís showed relatively less interest in the fulfillment of biblical prophecy than the American Bahá’ís.

A third reason for the slow growth of the Bahá’í Faith in Britain may have been the early Bahá’ís’ strong interest in Theosophy. In America a Theosophical background often brought an interest in religious speculation and an insistence on individual interpretation of the Bahá’í Faith. In contrast, a biblically grounded evangelical background tended to stress acceptance of scripture and obedience to divine law. The latter values helped to give individuals a strong Bahá’í identity and shared beliefs and thus produced stronger Bahá’í communities. The greater individualism of the Theosophists may explain why English Bahá’í community life was weaker than that in the United States.

Sir Wellesley Tudor-Poole, a prominent English Bahá’í or Bahá’í sympathizer—it is difficult to say which—epitomizes the link between Theosophical beliefs and an individualistic approach to the Bahá’í Faith. He first heard about the Faith in Constantinople before the Turkish Revolution in 1908 and was impressed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s influence in spite of His imprisonment for His beliefs. In late 1907 Sidney Sprague, an American who had become a Bahá’í in Paris, visited Tudor-Pole in England, answered many of his questions about the Bahá’í Faith and provided him with literature to give away, for Tudor-Pole wanted to tell others about the new religious tradition. He had many contacts in the British government that during World War I proved instrumental in informing government ministers about the dangers ‘Abdu’l-Bahá faced during the British invasion of Palestine. In 1911 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asked Tudor-Pole to read to the Universal Races Congress a paper He had prepared, for He was unable to attend the conference. Tudor-Pole saw the Bahá’í Faith not as a new religion as much as a spiritual leaven. In addition to Theosophy, he also had considerable interest in psychic research.

Also among those to become Bahá’ís in London during the first decade of the twentieth century were George Palgrave Simpson, Eric Hammond, Alice Buckton, Annie Gamble, and Elizabeth Herrick. In 1910 a Bahá’í reading room was established in the “Higher Thought Center.” By 1911 the London Bahá’ís had established a “Bahai Press” to maintain a good supply of literature. Tudor-Pole’s presentation of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s paper on the Faith at the Universal Races Congress greatly increased exposure of and interest in the Faith.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Visits to London in 1911 and 1913 provided many opportunities to publicize the Faith and resulted in an increase in interest. After His departure, London may have had as many as forty-five Bahá’ís. Inspired by His visit, and by the ideals of Honoré Joseph Jaxon, a North American Bahá’í interested in socialism who visited London in 1911, the Bahá’ís began an effort to reach out to and materially assist the East Indians residing in Britain’s capital. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá also called for the London Bahá’ís to elect a Council to collect funds, coordinate publications and rent public meeting space. It first met during 1914. The Council, however, lapsed in 1916 and was not revived until 1920.

London was the hub of Bahá’í activities in England, but it did not long remain the only Bahá’í community there. In 1906 the Bahá’í Faith reached Manchester. In contrast to London, the community was largely composed of lower- and middle-class English women and men. It was started by Sarah Ann Ridgeway, who was born in Manchester in [Page 34] 1848 and at an early age learned silk weaving, a skill that provided her with a livelihood for the rest of her life. While a young woman she moved to the United States and in 1899 studied Kheiralla’s lessons in Baltimore. When she returned to Manchester in mid-1906, she began to share the new religion by trying to live an exemplary life at the silk factory, although she did not intend to establish a community.

In October 1910 Edward Theodore Hall of Manchester read an article about the Bahá’í Faith by Sir Wellesley Tudor-Pole in the Christian Commonwealth. A traveling salesman of Quaker background, Hall was an omnivorous reader and was interested in religion. At the time he felt no pressing spiritual need; he was thirty years old, happily married, the father of two children, and was more prosperous than he ever had been. Nevertheless, he wrote Tudor-Pole for more information. Tudor-Pole forwarded Hall’s letter to Ethel Rosenberg, who sent Hall literature and put him in touch with Sarah Ridgeway. Edward and Rebecca Hall soon became confirmed believers. They told John Craven—Rebecca’s brother and Edward’s best friend—and his wife, Hester, about the Bahá’í Faith, and they also accepted Bahá’u’lláh. In January 1911 Ethel Rosenberg visited Manchester to speak to the five Bahá’ís and to address the city’s Theosophical societies. By 1914 Mr. and Mrs. James Chessel and a Mr. Treuber had joined the Manchester community, and interest was being expressed by Theosophists, Esperantists, and a few church goers. By 1920 the city had a community of about twenty Bahá’ís.

The growth of the Bahá’í Faith elsewhere in the British Isles is at the present time poorly known. In October and November 1907 Sidney Sprague embarked on one of the first traveling teaching trips for the Bahá’í Faith in England. His itinerary included a Tolstoi colony in Gloucestershire, where he spoke about the Faith informally and gave two lectures; Sheltenham; Bath, where he spoke to the Theosophists and obtained newspaper coverage; Bristol, where he gave two lectures and stayed with Mr. Fisher, a Bahá’í; Exeter; Plymouth, where he gave lectures and was mentioned in the papers; Birmingham, where he delivered two extremely successful addresses; Oxford, where he met professors; Southampton; Bournemouth, where he rested and stayed with two Bahá’ís, a Mr. Jenner and a Miss Jenner; and Reading, where he spoke to a few persons and made an appointment to speak to the literary society at a later date. Sprague planned to repeat the tour the next year. Such traveling teaching trips were a significant means for strengthening the Bahá’í Faith in England.

Early Bahá’í History in Germany

IN Germany the growth of the Bahá’í Faith was much more rapid than in England and France. Coincidentally, German Bahá’í history repeats the early years of the American Bahá’í community between 1894 and 1900: Both communities were established by a charismatic but egotistical “doctor”; individuals interested in “metaphysical” movements were attracted to the Bahá’í Faith through interpretation of biblical prophecy; efforts to introduce correct teachings undermined the authority of the first teachers, and eventually some Bahá’ís who resisted the correct Bahá’í teachings became Covenant-breakers.

Dr. Karl Edwin Fisher introduced the Bahá’í Faith to Germany. Born into a Lutheran family in Ludwigsburg, Germany, he became a dentist in the United States, but he is not known to have practiced dentistry. He accepted [Page 35] Bahá’u’lláh in 1903 in New York. In 1905 he went on pilgrimage; apparently ‘Abdu’l-Bahá urged him to return to Germany to establish the Faith there. Fisher arrived in Stuttgart in the latter part of April 1905. He seems to have experienced modest success, for when Carl Scheffler, an American Bahá’í of German background, visited Stuttgart in mid-1907 he found six or seven Bahá’ís.

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ALMA KNOBLOCH

the leading Bahá’í teacher in Germany
from 1907 to 1920.

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Fisher probably wrote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for assistance, for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sent a tablet to Ahmad Sohrab, a Persian Bahá’í residing in Washington, D.C., requesting that an additional teacher go to Germany. Alma Knobloch (1864-1943) responded. Like Dr. Fisher, she had been born in Germany, but she had moved to the United States with her parents as a child. In 1903 she and her family had accepted the Bahá’í Faith in Washington, D.C.; one of her sisters was Pauline Hannen, wife of Joseph Hannen and teacher of Louis G. Gregory, the most prominent African-American Bahá’í in the twentieth century. Knobloch set out for Germany on 17 July 1907 and arrived in Stuttgart on 9 August, after stops in Leipzig and Bremen. She found Fisher to be ill, earning little money, and spending almost all of it on his Bahá’í efforts. She noted in one letter that sometimes he had so little money left that he had to live on “bread & tea.”

Knobloch gave the first public address on the Bahá’í Faith in Germany at the Frauenclub (women’s club) in Stuttgart on Tuesday, 29 October 1907. “It was a great success,” noted Knobloch, in a letter to her family in Washington. “The Spirit simply filled the rooms & every one felt it, my it is wonderful. . . . there were a great many present the large room was filled & [in] the adjoining room were some.”

Knobloch was a deepened and dedicated Bahá’í teacher. Bahá’í meetings were held in homes in Stuttgart nearly every night, and the weekly meetings usually had about nineteen attendees. Soon the number of Bahá’ís in Stuttgart had increased to thirty. In January 1908 Sidney Sprague, who had undertaken the first teaching trip in England in late 1907, and Hippolyte Dreyfus, the first French Bahá’í, visited to give talks. In February 1908 the Stuttgart Bahá’ís organized a community and chose Mr. A. Eckstein as its chairman. Apparently they also selected a four-member working committee: Eckstein, the librarian; Wilhelm Herrigel, the treasurer; Mr. Reiger Vorstand; and Alma Knobloch. Although the committee did not last, it was the first Bahá’í consultative body in Europe. In March Knobloch informally celebrated Naw-Rúz (Bahá’í New Year), the first Bahá’í Holy Day known to be commemorated in Germany.

Regular Friday evening community meetings, with a structure similar to those held in the United States, were begun at the Bürger Museum on 9 March 1908. The meetings began with a prayer, which was followed by a reading from the Bible, a reading from a Bahá’í tablet, a talk, another reading of a second tablet, and a closing prayer. In at least [Page 36] one case, a hymn was sung.

Knobloch soon discovered that “Dr. F. aims for people of rank & position, others tire him & he has no time for them.” In other letters Knobloch said that most of the converts resulting from Fisher’s efforts were individuals of “education & culture” and that many had “government positions.” She mentioned specifically a school principal and a “noted lawyer” among the new Bahá’ís. Most of the converts had been members of the Stuttgart Christian Science church; Knobloch observed that “we have almost all of the Gentlemen” of the Church, and “their Reader is not very much pleased after having worked so hard for a number of years & now we come along & swipe their best members.” Possibly other churches lost members to the Bahá’í Faith as well; Knobloch reported that at least one church denounced the Bahá’í Faith in its Easter sermon in 1908. One exception to the church converts was A. Eckstein, who became one of the most prominent Bahá’ís in Stuttgart; he had been the “head” of the city’s United Swedenborgian group. The upper middle- to upper-class status and the often aristocratic background of the Stuttgart Bahá’í community concerned Knobloch. She felt that the other classes “make the best believers, & do not take it [the Bahá’í Faith] up as a fad.” She apparently concentrated her effort on middle-class people; although she was not successful in reaching the “laboring or working class,” she believed it was potentially very receptive. Her teaching of individuals of various social classes created a problem, because in Stuttgart, she explained, the classes usually didn’t mix socially.

According to Knobloch, Edwin Fisher was not a particularly effective teacher: “he can’t teach at all, he takes to [sic] much for granted; I mean [he assumes] that others know as much as he about the Truth [Bahá’í Faith] & tells them at once that God has appeared on Earth, but can’t prove it in a way that they can understand, & is apt to get himself into trouble.” Because Knobloch was apparently able to explain biblical prophecies much more persuasively than Fisher, the large number of seekers Fisher had been teaching became Bahá’ís after she arrived. Knobloch’s articulate explanation of the Bahá’í teachings, coupled with her deep faith, her loving personality, and her great likableness, quickly made her the center of the Stuttgart Bahá’í community. “It would be a terriable [sic] test if I would get sick,” she noted, “for the people think I am to [sic] spiritual that nothing could harm me, being in the service of God. They have such a high opinion of me. . . .”

Knobloch was extremely uncomfortable being the center of attention; she wanted to strengthen the Stuttgart Bahá’ís enough to be able to leave them and establish a Bahá’í community in another German city. Dr. Fisher was even less happy about her popularity, for it had caused a decrease in his status. As a result the relationship between Knobloch and Fisher deteriorated. When Knobloch first arrived, Fisher, like everyone else in the Stuttgart Bahá’í community, instantly liked her. In fact, he became so attracted to her that he asked her repeatedly to marry him. Knobloch noted that Fisher, though liked by many of the women in the Bahá’í community, wanted to marry an American and considered her arrival a providential response to his wish. Later she ascribed his request to marry her partly to a desire to control her and make her subservient to his opinions: “he can’t bare [sic] to give in to a girl.” In 1908 Fisher left Stuttgart for the resort of Homburg for several months. When he returned, Knobloch noted that “his feeling towards me is anything but pleasent [sic] & is hard to bear, he likes me & hates me at [Page 37] the same time.” As months passed, the latter feeling intensified.

In late 1909 Fisher began to work actively against Knobloch. He tried twice to organize a committee of men to govern the Stuttgart community; the committee that Knobloch had organized was probably functioning informally at most. The community was not interested in organization, and Fisher’s efforts failed. He then asked Herrigel to write to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá about organization; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s reply, according to Knobloch, was that the time had not yet come for the German Bahá’ís to establish a consultative body of men. Fisher and Herrigel then organized a Friday meeting to compete against the Friday community meeting, held in a rented room, at which Knobloch spoke. The Friday community meeting continued; to minimize the disunity and encourage the Stuttgart Bahá’ís to become more independent of her, Knobloch stopped giving the talk and took as low a profile as possible.

On 30 January 1910 Fisher brought a Mr. Schnabel to the regular Monday evening gathering at the home of Emil Ruoff and told the Bahá’ís that Schnabel was a medium who was in psychic communication with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Knobloch protested that the Bahá’ís did not have mediums, but no one listened. The medium proceeded to receive questions from the Bahá’ís and write out answers “from” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, much to the Bahá’ís’ interest and enjoyment. Through the entire evening Knobloch prayed silently to herself and received a psychic scolding that “it was not right for a soul to be uneasy & annoyed when He wishes to speak to us.” She refused to ask any questions but the medium reported that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had a message for her: she was a “precious pearl” and would be “blessed,” but there was “other work” for her—bringing “the pure Word of God in another Country.”

Knobloch did not accept the “divine” guidance that she should leave Stuttgart and attempted—with little success-to dissuade the Bahá’ís that Schnabel could receive messages from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The Stuttgart believers became extremely uneasy about the disagreement between their two teachers. Schnabel began to “reveal” “ugly things” about Knobloch and wrote that Fisher would marry one of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s daughters, whom Fisher had met while on pilgrimage. Knobloch wrote, then telegraphed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá requesting advice. In early April she received two tablets promising ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s “help and assistance.”

Meanwhile, Schnabel had attempted, and failed, to heal Mrs. Herrigel, who was ill. This proved to be a serious blow to his prestige because most of the Bahá’ís, who were former Christian Scientists, believed strongly in psychic healing. He left Stuttgart in early April 1910, much to Fisher’s disappointment. The Bahá’ís continued to correspond with him, and for some time Knobloch’s reputation continued to be clouded. But apparently Fisher ceased to attack her directly.

Despite the disunity, the Bahá’í Faith continued to grow in Stuttgart. The visits of other Bahá’ís gradually strengthened the Bahá’í community. Marion Jack, an active American Bahá’í teacher, visited in the fall of 1908 and Ahmad Yazdi, a prominent Persian Bahá’í, in September 1909.

The lack of Bahá’í literature in German, which was a severe problem, began to be remedied when Fanny Knobloch, one of Alma Knobloch’s sisters in Washington, D.C., translated many tablets, and some of the German converts who knew English began to translate Bahá’u’lláh’s Hidden Words, a significant Bahá’í scriptural work containing the eternal mystical and ethical truths of religion, and [Page 38] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Some Answered Questions, an important summary of many basic Bahá’í teachings and the Bahá’í understanding of many Christian beliefs. Translations were first read at community meetings and then circulated in typed form. In the fall of 1909, two years before the English Bahá’ís established a Bahai Press, Wilhelm Herrigel organized a Bahá’í publishing organ. By 1911 it had printed German translations of The Hidden Words, Words of Wisdom and Communes; seven tablets by Bahá’u’lláh; two books by Sidney Sprague—The Story of the Bahai Movement and A Year Among the Bahais of India and Burma; one work by Isabella Brittingham— The Revelation of Bahäulläh; a pamphlet by Thornton Chase—Before Abraham Was I Am. It also published a pamphlet by Herrigel written in German—Universal Peace, Universal Religion: The Bahai Movement.

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FANNY AND ALMA KNOBLOCH
Fanny (left), one of Alma’s sisters, helped
translate many of the Bahá’í writings
into German.

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In the spring of 1909 several persons in Esslingen, six miles east of Stuttgart, became interested in the Bahá’í Faith. Knobloch visited, and by the fall a small community had formed. By 1911 Alma Knobloch had also taught the Bahá’í Faith in Switzerland and Austria through contacts made in Stuttgart.

In 1911, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was in Paris, many Stuttgart Bahá’ís went to meet Him. Because He was unable to visit Germany, He sent two Persians who had been traveling with Him—Ahmad Sohrab, a young and capable speaker, and Mírzá Asadu’lláh, a knowledgeable, senior Persian Bahá’í—and Lady Blomfield, one of England’s most experienced Bahá’ís, to meet with the German Bahá’ís. They arrived on 2 December 1911 and stayed several days. The meetings were well attended by Bahá’ís from Stuttgart, Esslingen, Zuffenhausen, Aalen, Felbach, and other places. At a dinner meeting, Knobloch and the visitors sat at one table, Fisher and the Herrigels at another, suggesting that the breach between the parties in Stuttgart had not completely healed and that Knobloch still held the place of honor. In April and May 1913 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited Stuttgart. The meetings were crowded, one being attended by 250 persons. The Stuttgart Bahá’ís later wrote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to thank Him for His visit; sixty-three signed the letter, which probably represented the entire community.

By 1913 Germany had more Bahá’ís than England and France combined. The greater growth in Germany probably resulted from three factors. First, Alma Knobloch was an effective teacher. Second, the converts were natives. In contrast, all the Bahá’ís in Paris, except one family, were expatriates from America and England; even in London some of the Bahá’ís were American-born. Third, many of the new German Bahá’ís were middle class. Knobloch noted that upper middle- and upper-class individuals often became Bahá’ís because it was a “fad”; otherwise, they would be unlikely to convert to a strange and little-known religion. This may have been [Page 39] a reason why the Bahá’í Faith grew slowly in London, for the Bahá’ís there were upper class.

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THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF STUTTGART, ZUFFENHAUSEN, ESSLINGEN, AND STRASBOURG, 1912
Alma Knobloch is in the front row, fourth from the right.

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In 1914 Edwin Fisher left Germany for the United States where he remained until his death in Los Angeles in 1936. Alma Knobloch stayed in Germany until 1920, establishing communities in Leipzig and Hamburg as well as Stuttgart and teaching the Faith in Berlin, Chemnitz, Degenloch, Gera, Gotha, Munich, and many small towns. The German Bahá’ís had many trials ahead of them. In the 1920s Wilhelm Herrigel denied the authenticity of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will and Testament—one of His most important writings and a basic work of Bahá’í scripture in which He appointed His successor—and was expelled from the Bahá’í community. In the 1930s and 1940s the Nazis severely persecuted and nearly destroyed the community. Nevertheless, the Bahá’í Faith had been permanently established on German soil and was to grow to such an extent that in 1964 the first Bahá’í House of Worship on the European continent would be erected in Langenhain, near Frankfurt am Main.

Conclusion

DETERMINING the number of Bahá’ís in Europe at the time of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit between 1911 and 1913 is difficult because records often do not exist. The number of Bahá’í in Paris can be roughly calculated by adding up all the names of persons who are known to have converted there. The community had acquired about two dozen members between 1899 and 1902, but many of them subsequently moved away; another dozen had joined the Faith by 1913. Most likely by 1913 the number of Bahá’ís in Paris had stayed about constant at two dozen or had declined. London is an enigma. A 1912 photograph of the Bahá’ís shows fifteen individuals; a 1913 photograph, forty-five. No statistics of its membership have been found in archival records. Manchester had about a half dozen Bahá’ís, and possibly as many as another half dozen were scattered across the rest of the British Isles. In Stuttgart sixty-three signed a letter to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in April 1913. It probably included Bahá’ís living in nearby cities, such as Esslingen and Zuffenhausen. Perhaps a half dozen or dozen Bahá’ís lived elsewhere [Page 40] in cities scattered across Germany. One or two German-speaking Bahá’ís who heard about the Faith through friends and relatives in Stuttgart resided in Austria and Switzerland. American Bahá’ís occasionally resided in Italy; no other Bahá’ís are known to have been permanent residents of any other European countries in 1913. Adding up all of these very approximate numbers suggests that western Europe had about one hundred Bahá’ís at the beginning of 1913.

Much research is still needed, in archives in Europe and North America, to recover basic information about the early European Bahá’í community. More biographies of prominent early believers need to be written; local and national community histories need to be assembled; relations between the Bahá’í communities’ growth and the intellectual and political trends of the times must be explored. Such work will illuminate the early roots of a community that, two generations later, embraces more than ten thousand western Europeans.

[Page 41] [Page 42] [Page 43]

Our Global Neighborhood

A REVIEW OF THE COMMISSION ON GLOBAL GOVERNANCE’S Our Global Neighborhood
(OXFORD: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1995, 357 PAGES, ANNEXES)

BY FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

Copyright © 1996 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States.

THE INTEGRATION of the world is an uneven process. At times it is so slow as to be virtually imperceptible. At other times it races forward with a speed that delights its friends and frightens its enemies. The twentieth century, in spite of the seeming primacy of nationalism, has made greater strides toward the unification of the world than had all the millennia that have preceded it.

Two world wars fought by nation states for their own narrow purposes have made the need for an international peacekeeping organization so palpable that today only the lunatic fringe advocates the abolition of the United Nations and the return to unfettered national sovereignty as it existed in 1900.

The prevention of war, however, is not the only task facing the United Nations. Many issues and problems that either had not existed in the past or had been dealt with domestically have emerged as international problems far too vast and too complex for nation states to solve. These include, among others, the pollution of the environment, global warming, the spread of epidemics, drug trafficking, and organized crime. No less significant are problems of international trade and finance, electronic communication networks, and transportation.

Of course, to acknowledge a need is not the same as to fulfill it. The United Nations has had some signal successes in peacekeeping but has also suffered a number of serious failures to stop both minor military conflicts and major wars. Nevertheless, efforts to create effective instruments for establishing and preserving world peace have continued in spite of widespread apathy and occasional opposition. Major advances have also been made, through the UN’s specialized agencies, in other areas of international concern. Yet every success and every failure serves only to underline the need for more integration, which implies global governance.

Efforts to create structures of global governance have been made within the United Nations, among governments, and among nongovernmental organizations that collectively have been assuming a new and significant role in setting goals and defining policies for the international community. The work of the Commission on Global Governance is an example of concern on the part of a group of political leaders, acting outside restrictive requirements of national governments, to come to grips with the pressing needs confronting humanity in the closing years of the twentieth century.

The Commission came into being in 1992 at the initiative of the former Chancellor of West Germany, Willy Brandt. After a number of meetings among prominent political leaders, Brandt, having consulted Gro Harlem Bruntland of Norway and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, invited Ingvar Carlsson, former Prime Minister of Sweden, and Shridath Ramphal, former Minister of Foreign Affairs [Page 44] of Guyana, to co-chair a Commission on Global Governance. The co-chairmen then met with the newly appointed Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, explained to him the purpose of the Commission, and were assured of his full support. Next they invited twenty-six individuals from twenty-four countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas to serve as members. The members, all prominent men and women, including former and current high officials, were to act independently of the governments of their countries.

The Commission’s “terms of reference” declared that fifty years after World War II and at the end of the Cold War a new world was taking shape. The new global order “could give new meaning to the common rights and responsibilities of nations, peoples, and individuals. It could bring greater peace, freedom, and prosperity. The Commission has been established to contribute to the emergence of such a global order.” The work of the Commission was to be concluded by June 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the United Nations’ Charter.

In the foreword to Our Global Neighborhood, the Report of the Commission on Global Governance, the co-chairmen boldly proclaim the importance, if not the primacy, of values: “Ultimately”, they state, “no organization will work and no law [law] upheld unless they rest on a foundation made strong by shared values.” These must include the “values of internationalism, the primacy of the rule of law world-wide, and institutional reforms that secure and sustain them.”

The Report consists of seven chapters. The first, “A New World,” deals broadly with the phenomenon of change that itself requires a new and multifaceted strategy for global governance. This strategy must involve such concepts as collaboration of governments with private and independent groups, “the articulation of a collaborative ethos based on principles of consultation, transparency, and accountability.” It must “foster global citizenship,” include the poorer and marginalized segments of society, “seek peace and progress for all people,” and “strive to subject the rule of arbitrary power . . . to the rule of law within global society.”

In some thirty-five pages the Report outlines changes that are transforming the world. The end of colonialism has brought about the establishment of many new nations, almost tripling the number of members of the United Nations and changing the configurations of power within that organization. Environmental problems have been globalized, the military situation has altered, the arms trade has assumed enormous proportions, and civil conflicts have grown in scope and severity. Violence has increased both between and within ethnic and religious groups. It inflicts permanent damage on children and, when practiced in the home, darkens the existence of millions of women throughout the world. In this respect the prognosis for the world is poor unless strong measures are taken to change conditions that produce violent behavior in individuals and groups.

The Report presents cheerless statistics on poverty. While it is true that a few Asian counties have broken out of poverty and Western Europe and North America enjoy unprecedented prosperity, more than a billion people are “absolutely poor,” a category established by the World Bank for those who do not even have a nearby source of safe drinking water. “In all,” the Report says, “about 800 million people do not have sufficient and regular supplies of food.”

In spite, or perhaps because, of poverty the world’s population continues to grow. With its growth goes increasing urbanization that results in ungovernable megalopolises unable to provide employment and decent living conditions for the rural masses that seek a better life. “This is the road to urban squalor, with social tensions, crime, and other problems to follow.”

[Page 45] Population growth and urbanization have coincided with the revolution in communications. First radio, then television, the fax, and computer networks have made virtually all people aware of the world. Exposure to words and images originating in foreign cultures can have both a broadening and a destabilizing influence on previously isolated societies. Moreover, the fare offered by commercial radio and television networks and by governments is frequently biased and self-serving. The explosion of information, however, has not affected all nations equally. Some two billion people have no access to electricity. In 1990, the Report points out, “Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria together had fewer telephone connections than Canada, which has only 27 million people.”

Rapid change has awakened hopes and brought disappointments. The flow of information and misinformation has led to widespread skepticism about the capacity of governing institutions to solve some of the most pressing problems of the age. As a result, the influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has grown, and they have become prominent players on the international scene, particularly in the areas of development and human rights.

In chapter 2, turning its attention to values, the Report points out that in a crowded world it is impossible to avoid constant contact among people of various cultures and mores. Such contacts more often than not lead to misunderstanding and antagonism. Groups feel threatened by the intrusion of alien ideas and lifestyles. Tensions increase and frequently break into violence. The Report approvingly quotes Barbara Ward, who wrote twenty-five years ago:

The most important change that people can make is to change their way of looking at the world. We can change studies, jobs, neighbourhoods, even countries and continents and still remain much as we always were. But change our fundamental angle of vision and everything changes—our priorities, our values, our judgments, our pursuits. Again and again in the history of religion, this total upheaval in the imagination has marked the beginning of a new life . . . a turning of the heart, a ‘metanoia’, by which men see with new eyes and understand with new minds and turn their energies to new ways of living.

Values, the Report continues, provide the standards and restraints without which no effective global governance is possible. Yet, paradoxically, “values are often most in doubt when they are most needed.”

Among the values that must form the basis of global society the Report lists the traditional Lockean life and liberty but omits property, adding instead justice, mutual respect, caring, and integrity. One could easily add other values to the list but would not want to omit any.

The Report envisages global governance based on democracy, a form of government of which the election of the leaders is a necessary but not a sufficient condition, with freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association being equally indispensable. It notes that corruption frequently afflicts political parties that have become a feature of the democratic process yet considers them “a critical part of national civil society” and of the future global society as well. In discussing political arrangements the Report cleaves most closely to the contemporary Western approach. Thus when the Report states that “Sovereignty ultimately derives from the people. It is a power to be exercised by, for, and on behalf of the people of a state,” it expresses a modern ideal, not a historical fact.

The concept of national sovereignty is hard to deal with in a report that is ultimately addressed to nation states. National sovereignty, the notion that there is no authority higher than the nation state, that the constitution [Page 46] of a given country is its ultimate charter, is ingrained in the thinking of most people throughout the world. While definitions of sovereignty, or of the state, or even the nation, may vary, every government jealously guards its prerogatives. In fact, the trend of the last several decades has been toward the multiplication of national sovereignties, which accounts for the tripling of the membership of the United Nations.

The Report describes the growing interdependence of countries and the difficulty in separating actions that have only local consequences from those that have an impact on other countries. It points out that changes in the interest rate policies in Germany, Japan, or the United States can have a worldwide effect on the national debt and employment prospects and that U.S. environmental policies can affect pollution levels in Rio de Janeiro. It then raises the question of “humanitarian intervention,” when the suffering of a population on a mass scale leads to demands for international intervention in the internal affairs of a country in violation of its sovereignty as established traditionally in international law. The Report advocates a looser interpretation of the doctrine of national sovereignty but does it gingerly, either because the authors do not wish to antagonize the governments who are their audience or because they themselves are unready for a radical reevaluation of the doctrine.

Chapter 3 treats matters of security, setting forth principles and discussing prevention of crises, responses to crises, ending the threat of mass destruction, and demilitarizing international society. Unlike many proposals for world security that confine themselves to technicalities, the Report pays attention to the spreading culture of violence, “as vivid in daily life, particularly against women and children, as it is on television screens. . . .” It recommends community initiatives to protect individual life, encourages the disarming of civilians, and points

out that the task of establishing global security would be “immeasurably harder if in societies around the world a culture of violence is on the rise and personal insecurity is pervasive.”

The economy is dealt with in global terms in chapter 4. Once again facts and figures are adduced, showing the interdependence of national economies, the disparity between the rich and the poor countries, the growth of poverty, and the threat to the natural environment. The Report offers a substantive analysis of world trade and finance, discusses international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and makes a number of proposals, including one for the formation of an Economic Security Council within the United Nations.

The reform of the United Nations is taken up in chapter 5, which advocates a thorough, but not a radical, revision of the UN Charter, changes in the composition and procedures of the Security Council, revitalization of the General Assembly, and the establishment of better financial controls. The Report specifically mentions the role nongovernmental organizations should play in relation to the United Nations and its specialized agencies. The Commission on Global Governance met representatives of many NGOs and came to the conclusion that “their wider involvement could benefit global governance.” In spite of their “imperfections,” The Report says, “they bring expertise, commitment, and grassroots perceptions that should be mobilized in the interests of better governance.”

The Report points out that the UN General Assembly is made up of representatives of states and that the people of the world have no direct representation at the United Nations. It is desirable eventually to create within the UN a parliamentary body directly elected by the people of the world. Meanwhile, the Commission proposes that a Forum of Civil Society be convened annually. Such a Forum, made up of representatives of [Page 47] civil society, would not have the power to make decisions for the General Assembly but would discuss items on the General Assembly’s agenda and make recommendations that would influence that body’s deliberations and decisions.

The penultimate chapter of the Report discusses the fundamental issue of the rule of law throughout the world and recommends, among other things, that the United Nation’s member states accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court. The Report strongly advocates establishing an international criminal court and proposes that, “Failing voluntary compliance, Security Council enforcement of World Court decisions and other international legal obligations should be pursued.”

The last chapter, “A Call to Action,” summarizes the Commission’s proposals and calls for their systematic implementation.

The Commission’s Report is a most impressive document. It is detailed, thorough, and idealistic without being impractical. Were the reforms proposed by the Commission to be realized, the world would take a long step toward world government, for that is precisely what the Commission advocates without admitting it. Indeed, in today’s political and ideological climate prominent political figures would risk their standing were they to utter the words “world government.” One cannot begrudge them the innocent cover of “world governance,” a phrase that makes a distinction without a difference.

Those who are committed to the ideal of the unity of humanity and who welcome the establishment of a universal federal union can only welcome the work of the Commission and its timely and eloquent Report.

Holy Land

the earth spins

caught in the breath of God

on this blessed Spot

carm-EL, mountain of God

one day is a thousand years

one Life fills a thousand souls

a place

moving in God’s time

—Sheila Banani

Copyright © 1996 by Sheila Banani

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Authors & Artists

SHEILA W. BANANI, a published poet and public policy planner, is a member of the Executive Committee for the Association for Bahá’í Studies, North America.

CHRISTINE BOLDT, whose poems have appeared in World Order and other journals, is publications manager for H. M. Gousha, Co., a division of Simon and Schuster.

FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH is professor of history emeritus at Yale University and Editor of World Order.

J. A. MCLEAN, a frequent contributor to World Order, is completing a Ph.D. in religious studies at the University of Ottawa. His interests include philosophy, poetry, and world religions.

BRAD POKORNY, a journalist by profession, worked as a staff reporter for The Boston Globe from 1980 to 1987. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and a master of liberal arts in government from Harvard University. He currently lives in Amherst, New Hampshire, where he writes about issues related to peace, sustainable development, moral education, and the advancement of women.

ROBERT H. STOCKMAN is an assistant professor of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago and a member of the editorial board of A Short Encyclopedia of the Bahá’í Faith. He has published a number of articles and reviews and two books about the history of the Bahá’í Faith in North America—The Bahá’í Faith in America: Origins, 1892-1900, Volume 1 and The Bahá’í Faith in America: Early Expansion, 1900-1912, Volume 2.

CYRUS VARAN, who makes a first appearance in World Order, is professor emeritus of engineering at the University of New Mexico. He has published a number of scientific papers in national and international journals and holds several patents from the U.S. Patent Office.

ART CREDITS: Cover design by John Solarz; cover photograph, Mark Sadan; p. 1, photograph, David Trautmann; pp. 6, 20, photographs, Steve Garrigues; p. 30, photograph, courtesy, Bahá’í International News Service; pp. 35, 38, 39, photographs, courtesy, National Bahá’í Archives; p. 42, photograph, Darius Himes; p. 48, photograph, Steve Garrigues.

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