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[Page i]Winter 1999–2000

World Order

AMATU’L-BAHÁ RÚḤÍYYIH KHÁNUM (1910–2000) EDITORIAL

THE PATH OF BEAUTY: THE LITERARY LIFE OF AMATU’L-BAHÁ RÚḤÍYYIH KHÁNUM SANDRA HUTCHISON

RELIGIOUS PLURALISM: A BAHÁ’Í PERSPECTIVE JULIO SAVI

“THE BAHÁ’Í PROBLEM”: A REPORT TO THE SHAH, 1901 TRANSLATED BY AHANG RABBANI [Page ii]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: BETTY J. FISHER ARASH ABIZADEH MONIREH KAZEMZADEH

Consultant in Poetry: HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN KEVIN A. MORRISON ROBERT H. STOCKMAN JIM STOKES

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 536 Sheridan Road, Wilmette, IL 60091-1811. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher or of the Editorial Board.

Manuscripts and editorial correspondence: Manuscripts can be typewritten or computer generated. They should be double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end and not attached electronically to the text. The contributor should retain a copy. Return postage should be included. Send editorial correspondence to WORLD ORDER, 4516 Randolph Road, Apt. 99, Charlotte, NC 28211; E-mail: <worldorder@usbnc.org>.

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WORLD ORDER is protected through trademark registration in the U.S. Patent Office. Copyright 2000, 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

Amatu’l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum (1910-2000) Editorial

Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

The Path of Beauty: The Literary Life of Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum by Sandra Hutchison

Naming Ceremony poem by Druzelle Cederquist

Religious Pluralism: A Bahá’í Perspective by Julio Savi

The Truth poem by Peter Murphy

"The Bahá’í Problem": A Report to the Shah, 1901 translated by Ahang Rabbani

Anyone, From Any Direction, Is Welcome Here poem by Michael Fitzgerald

The Madness of Love poem by S. K. Dapoz

Authors & Artists in This Issue ‘Z‘z'h'

MIT.

“,WH’I‘ .“f "" '

[Page 2]

Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, 1910–2000

AMATU’L-BAHÁ Rúḥíyyih Khánum passed away in the early hours of the morning of 19 January 2000. Millions of Bahá’ís mourn the loss of the “beloved consort of Shoghi Effendi and the Bahá’í world’s last remaining link with the Family of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.” Her life was too full, her dedication to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh too great, her services to humanity too diverse to be properly acknowledged by this generation. Decades, perhaps centuries, will have to pass before the full significance of her contributions to the preservation of the unity of the Bahá’í community and to the global spread of the Faith is properly understood.

Born in New York of distinguished Bahá’í parents, Mary Sutherland Maxwell, as she was known before her marriage to Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Cause (Head of the Bahá’í Faith), was raised in Canada and from childhood participated in the life of the Bahá’í communities of Canada and the United States. Growing up among the early Bahá’ís whose lives had been shaped by their encounters with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Mary Maxwell already as a youth dedicated herself to the service of the Faith, which was, and would continue to be, the very heart of her life.

For two decades Mary Maxwell, now known as Rúḥíyyih Khánum, the name given to her by Shoghi Effendi, was his secretary and, in his own words, his “tireless collaborator,” his “helpmate,” and his “shield.” In recognition of her outstanding service he bestowed upon her the title of Amatu’l-Bahá (Handmaiden of Bahá’u’lláh) and elevated her to the high rank of a Hand of the Cause, making her part of a small group of the most outstanding Bahá’ís entrusted with the propagation and the protection of the Faith.

As a Hand of the Cause, Rúḥíyyih Khánum played a principal role in rallying the Bahá’ís after the untimely death of the Guardian in 1957. Through the next perilous five and a half years preceding the establishment of the Universal House of Justice, the elective supreme governing body of the Bahá’í world community, she was the source of strength and assurance to her fellow believers in every country on every continent. Later, freed of heavy duties at the Bahá’í World Center, the international headquarters of the Faith, she undertook a series of journeys that took her to virtually every country of the world. She became the great proponent of teaching the indigenous peoples [Page 3]

EDITORIAL

of Africa, the Americas, and the islands of the Pacific. She promoted the protection of the environment. She met heads of state, tribal leaders, the strong and the weak, the proud and the humble, carrying to all her spirit of universality, reconciliation, and love.

The moving tribute paid Rúhíyyih Khánum by the Universal House of Justice and by millions of grieving Bahá’ís was echoed outside the Bahá’í community as well, when the President of the United States, among others, acknowledged her role in "the integration of that [Bahá’í] faith in the global community," her contributions "to racial reconciliation and the cause of women's rights," and her "wide-ranging interests in literature, the environment, the arts, and other pursuits" that make it possible "to understand in small part what her loss means not only to your [Bahá’í] community, but also to the world." [Page 4]

Interchange

LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

How does one come to write? Philosophers and poets of yesteryear, and feminist theorists and postcolonial critics of today, among others, have all grappled with this question. In classical mythology it was the Muses, divine singers whose serenades stimulated and inspired poets and gratified the gods. It might be said that in contemporary times we still have our Muses those individuals who, or situations and experiences that, inspire and stimulate us but why we write, the act of writing itself, remains as elusive and mysterious today as it did to those of antiquity.

"Writing for anyone who really writes is a tremendous impulse," Rúḥíyyih Rabbani explained to Sandra Hutchison, whose article on Madame Rabbani’s literary life appears in this issue of World Order. "You don't deny it. You give it priority.... I write because I have to write," Madame Rabbani continued, "because I have something to say." Dr. Hutchison’s article explores the literary aspect of Rúḥíyyih Rabbani’s life, an aspect that has often been relegated to the background in light of her extraordinary contributions to the development of the Bahá’í Faith and her custodial responsibilities in the years of transition from hereditary to elected leadership at the highest level of Bahá’í administration. As Hutchison notes, Madame Rabbani, known to Bahá’ís as Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, had little time to devote to a life of writing, and yet, whenever or wherever she could, she did just that: she wrote. Her literary legacy includes poems, plays, expository and inspirational prose, letters, film scripts, literary criticism, history, and biography that can be appreciated as much by those who share Amatu’l-Bahá’s faith as by those who do not.

The act of writing cannot be considered apart from the act of reading, and it is, perhaps, at the intersection between the two that this issue of World Order finds itself. "Writing has its own kind of action, its own dreams, its own restrictions-all doubtless acquired, all doubtless intimately connected to a psychological, social, and historical context. The same is true of reading," notes literary critic Edward Said. It is significant that to each religious dispensation there is a text (or several texts) from which adherents and seekers shape their religious understanding and thereby their worldview. In his "Religious Pluralism: A Bahá’í Perspective," Julio Savi considers how religious texts "lend themselves to comparative study and a pluralistic approach," which has profound implications for the concept of religious pluralism. In his discussion of Bahá’í scripture, Dr. Savi notes that "the most productive way to see the underlying unity of religions is to complement study of the social teachings" with the study of fundamentally spiritual concepts, or human virtues. What religious pluralism ultimately relies on is dialogue-a dialogue informed by the process of reading (the sacred texts) and the process of writing (coming to understand one's religion through creative and scholarly writing).

Ahang Rabbani’s translation of a 1901 report to the Shah of Iran outlining a surveillance plan of Bahá’í activities in that country and in Palestine illustrates the challenges to religious pluralism manifested in the perse- [Page 5]

INTERCHANGE

cution of one community of faith by an- other. While Rabbani's translation does not directly consider the deprivation of both reading and writing, it is significant, in the context of this issue of World Order, that Bahá’ís were virtually forbidden to read or to write about their Faith except in the most underground of ways, and Muslims in Iran were unable to read or to write about the Bahá’í Faith, surveillance being a means by which this rule was enforced on both. Nearly a hundred years later conditions have changed very little, suggesting how much further we must go in understanding the contributions that a pluralistic approach to religion may make to increasing understanding, coopera- tion, and the restoration of human rights.

The Summer 1999 issue of World Order considered another manifestation of how little has changed for the Bahá’ís in Iran. Included was a review of the effort to close the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) in Iran and the response by North American academics who defended the right of all members of a nation to receive an equal education. Since the publication of that is- sue, four Bahá’ís with connections to the BIHE, who were also connected to the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Studies (which offered advanced classes on Bahá’í subjects, such as history, teachings, and scripture), were sen- tenced to prison for terms ranging from three to ten years. One of them, Mr. Ziaullah Mirzapanah, was released some months later because of deteriorating health but is consid- ered to be under house arrest in his home. His status remains unchanged. In December 1999 the other three, Dr. Sina Hakiman, Mr. Farzad Khajeh Sharifabadi, and Mr. Habibu- llah Ferdosian Najafabadi, were released from prison early and are now free. Efforts protesting the suppression of Bahá’í edu- cation continue, with letters being sent to the Iranian Ministry of Education and UNESCO's new Director-General, Koichiro Matsuura.

The situation of other Bahá’ís impris- oned in Iran (Bahá’ís who had no connec- tion with the BIHE) has become quite serious. Two (Mr. Sirus Zabihi-Moghad- dam and Mr. Hedeyat Kashefi-Najafabad) have, on appeal, had their death sentences upheld. Their crime: conducting Bahá’í religious programs in their homes. Their situation was the subject of an 11 Febru- ary 2000 White House press release that noted that President Bill Clinton "was deeply troubled to learn that [the] death sentences have been reaffirmed." The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom urged immediate action to pro- tect Iran's Bahá’ís and on 24 February 2000 held a joint press conference with Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas at which they demanded "nullification of the death sentences" and spelled out a series of protective steps the American government could take.

With any anniversary one feels a familiar, internal call to remembrance. The year 2000 marks the twentieth anniversary of the passing of Robert Hayden (1913-1980). For the members of the World Order Edi- torial Board that call is particularly acute. [Page 6]Robert Hayden, the first African-American to hold the Consultantship in Poetry at the Library of Congress, served as World Order's Poetry Editor from 1968 until his death in 1980, gracing Editorial Board meetings with his wit, his insight, his breadth of knowledge and compassion, his passion for all things aesthetic, and his dedication to nurturing budding and seasoned poets. He has often been recognized and awarded for his universal poetry, perhaps more frequently since his death than when he was alive. Hayden himself once observed that those who influenced his direction in poetry believed that a poet's "most clearly defined task is to create with honesty and sincerity poems that will illuminate the human experience." It comes as no surprise, then, that Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" has been included in an anthology published this past November by W. W. Norton called Americans' Favorite Poems, coedited by Maggie Dietz and the Poet Laureate of the United States, Robert Pinsky. The anthology is one manifestation of Pinsky's Favorite Poems Project: an opportunity for thousands of Americans to submit their favorite poems for publication in the anthology, to record for posterity their favorites on audiotapes, which are now housed in the Library of Congress, and to discuss Americans' favorite poems on a Website dedicated to that purpose <http://www.favoritepoem.org/index.html>.

It is a testament to his ability to touch the heart and the spirit that Robert Hayden and "Those Winter Sundays" were singled out in, of all places, a recent Lands' End catalog that found its way into the inbox of one of our editors. One of Hayden's poems was selected as an example of the Favorite Poems Project by the editors of the Lands' End catalog, who devoted a two-page article to the subject. That Hayden would appear in both the Americans' Favorite Poems anthology and in an article about the project in a clothing catalog is indicative of the extent to which, twenty years after his passing, Robert Hayden's poetry continues to have a profound effect on readers of all strata of society who encounter his poems.

To the Editors

WIT REWARDED WITH WIT Catching up on my reading, I uncovered the Fall 1999 issue of World Order: an issue on humor, every piece so lighthearted and cleanly written—what a special treat and what a joy to read. Since I loved the film, I went straight to Naqvi-Peters' review of La vita è bella and found my appreciation of the movie enhanced, as well as my vocabulary. With pleasure I will search out "mise-en-scène" and "cimmerian foil." Then there was Stokes illuminating Shakespeare's wit in the most engaging way, reminding me that one of the trickier tasks we have as Bahá’ís in building a new society is to retain our sense of humor. Without humor, we slowly sink into sadness, yet wit's knife must be so carefully used. In Herrmann's piece, the accuracy of the Kansas newspapers' 1897 reports on the Bahá’í Faith evoked Mark Twain's tall tales in the Territorial Enterprise, except Twain knew he was joking. And Hariman on Erasmus and the editors on Magnolia? Good grief! Here I was getting caught up, and now I have to rent Magnolia and Pulp Fiction and add Erasmus to my reading list. What is World Order doing making readers smile and stimulating minds? Well done, authors, and bravo, editors!

JANE J. RUSSELL Royal Oak, Michigan

[Page 9]

The Path of Beauty: The Literary Life of Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum

BY SANDRA HUTCHISON

I

"I AM going to meet a great lady. Would you like to come?" I asked Wu Ye as our plane flew high over the rice paddies of rural Anhui Province, headed for Shanghai.

"Yes, I would like to meet that great lady, too," she answered.

In this way, Wu Ye and I became members of the party of Amatu’l-Bahá Rúbiyyih Khánum, traveling in China with more suitcases than anyone could hope to carry.

The next day, the anniversary of the Declaration of the Báb (the Prophet-Herald of the Bahá’í Faith), found us dodging the crowds of student protesters that thronged Shanghai's main river front street, the Bund, as we made our way to the Peace Hotel.

"Democracy and Freedom! Down with Nepotism! Stamp out Corruption!" shouted the thousands who packed the streets, stopping traffic, even public buses.

"We must be careful not to associate with the demonstrators," I told our group, echoing the warning of my university's Foreign Affairs' Office to outsiders who would involve themselves in China's internal politics.

"We aren't associating with anyone!" Amatu’l-Bahá laughed. "We are just going for lunch."

Lunch on the top floor of the Peace Hotel afforded us an unforgettable view of the students surging through the streets below and of the Huangpu River flowing beside them, witness to the many uprisings that have marked and made modern China. As I listened to the cries of the students shouting their slogans, I wondered how anyone could remain so unaffected by the political turmoil around us. Yet Amatu’l-Bahá appeared to move in the world but live beyond it, always conscious of a higher purpose.

The schedule we kept during the next five days was, I later learned, typical of Amatu’l-Bahá’s travels in China: a blend of dinners with prominent people, lunches with friends, meetings with Bahá’ís, shopping for unique works of art to adorn the Bahá’í Holy Places in Israel, and trips to sites of social and historical significance, such as the mansion of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founder and first president of the Republic of China, in the hope of finding opportunities to share the Bahá’í teachings on unity and peace.

As we moved through Dr. Sun's mansion, noting this artifact and that book or painting, Amatu’l-Bahá, always a center of attraction because of her dignity and natural charisma, drew various other visitors to our group. Several professors from provincial universities joined our party, and, while we huddled together to read an ancient Chinese saying that hung framed on Dr. Sun's sitting room wall—"Between the four seas, all men are brothers"—she told them of

Copyright ©2000 by Sandra Hutchison. I wish to thank Mrs. Violette Nakhjavani and Miss Nell Golden for their help as literary executors of The Estate of Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum and Miss Golden for her personal assistance in answering numerous questions about Amatu’l-Bahá. [Page 10]the Bahá’í teaching on the oneness of humanity. After we left the mansion, I asked her if she had found the visit interesting. "Everything I do," she replied simply, "is for the good of the Cause."

Amatu’l-Bahá’s assertion was certainly true of all the other activities scheduled during the five brief days I spent with her in Shanghai. But even in the midst of a life of such vigorous action there emerged, like bubbles rising to the surface of turbulent waters, moments for contemplation. During one such moment, the only time I was completely alone with her during the days in Shanghai, she called me into her room at the New Asia Hotel, where we stayed, to show me a book on Chinese art entitled The Path of Beauty. Patiently, she turned the pages of the book, working her way through the various works of art pictured there and explaining to me the artistic significance of each. I may have commented on the simple grace of a porcelain vase or on the austere purity of a Chinese brush-stroke painting. I may have even ventured to express the hope that someday I would write about Chinese art. I scarcely recall. Looking back on that moment, I remember only being transfixed by the stillness of some beauty that was completely perceived and as fully absorbed, a beauty that could only have been conveyed to me by a mind capable of deep communion with the spirit of the art itself.

1. See T. S. Eliot, The Metaphysical Poets (1921). 2. Not only did Amatu’l-Bahá assist Shoghi Effendi with his correspondence, she also helped him with larger projects, such as editing and preparing The Bahá’í World volumes, comprehensive international records of the Bahá’í Faith's expansion and activities. 3. Bahá’u’lláh appointed eminent Bahá’ís as Hands of the Cause to stimulate the propagation and ensure the protection of the Bahá’í Faith. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in His Will and Testament, conferred authority on Shoghi Effendi to appoint Hands of the Cause. 4. Amatu’l-Bahá, personal interview, Haifa, Israel, 17 February 1995. Further references to this interview are included in the text as "(SH, Feb. 1995)."

II

IT IS rare in the modern age to find the spirit of action and that of contemplation married in one human being, let alone in a writer. Indeed, typically, twentieth-century writers have been defined by their social alienation and characterized by the sense of anxiety and absurdity such isolation can generate. Living in a world in which thought is divorced from feeling what T. S. Eliot described as the "dissociation of sensibility"-modern poets have become increasingly divorced from their traditional social function.' Writers who have followed contemporary prescriptions for uniting these two somewhat opposite dimensions of human experience have often been described as "propagandists." But in the life of Amatu’l-Bahá action and contemplation were harmoniously wed, and in her literary work the fruit of that marriage is manifest: the weaving together of inner and outer worlds into a rich fabric of history that is, at once, personal, social, and spiritual.

In the course of a very public life replete with obligations and duties, Amatu’l-Bahá (née Mary Maxwell) had little time to devote to a "literary life" as such. Serving for sixteen years as the principal secretary of her husband, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian and hereditary head of the Bahá’í Faith, she shared his rigorous schedule of administrative work for the burgeoning faith.² Appointed by Shoghi Effendi in 1952 to serve as a Hand of the Cause, a designation requiring her assumption of special duties for the propagation and protection of the Bahá’í Faith, she shouldered additional responsibilities.3 Still she found time for writing that was, she explained when I interviewed her at her home in Haifa, "more inspirational," including a great deal of poetry.4

Despite his own pressing needs for her assistance, Shoghi Effendi valued her creative work sufficiently to encourage her to pursue it. Once, she recalls, when he saw her copying some of her own poems into a book, he [Page 11]asked if he could read them. The next morning he told her that some of the poems had "made him weep" (SH, Feb. 1995). Although, according to her long-time secretary, Nell Golden, she had little inclination for cultivating a literary circle—the prerequisite for ongoing literary production for many writers—Amatu’l-Bahá did entertain writers and artists of distinction in her home on Haparsim Street in Haifa. Through such contacts, her reading, and her travels, she evolved her own aesthetic views, which included a conviction that cultural expression, whatever its form, cannot be "dictate [d]," but rather must "flower" naturally from a "deep root" (SH, Feb. 1995).

For Amatu’l-Bahá, the need to write was a lifelong "urge," expressed anytime, anywhere, during travels, even while in flight. When I asked her to elaborate, she explained: "Writing for anyone who really writes is a tremendous impulse. You don't deny it. You give it priority. . . . I write because I have to write, because I have something to say.... I can't get the paper and pencil fast enough" (SH, Feb. 1995). Originally an aspiring dramatist, Amatu’l-Bahá began to write plays at the age of sixteen and continued into her forties. But over the years she expanded her literary repertoire as her themes required, working in a wide variety of genres, from poetry and didactic prose to literary criticism, history, biography, the epistle, and even film scripts, such as the four-part Green Light Expedition of Rúhiyyih Rabbani (1976) and The Pilgrimage (1980).

Lively and instructive, plays such as A Spiritual Assembly's Growing Pains (c. 1956) and "Heard On High," which was begun in 1971 during her extended safari in Africa (NG, 11 May 2000), have been performed for audiences around the world. In the first play the characters are caricatures, "types" as the narrator puts it in his introductory comments, of people who might sit on a Bahá’í spiritual assembly gathered to consult on community matters. Harriet Wisely, Elizabeth Brisk, Oscar J. Boom, Jane and Jack Smith, Clarence Friend, Martha Jones, Adelaide Cosmos, George Penhold, and Mary Lou Fervor—each character plays a predictable role in the very ordinary but engaging drama that unfolds as individual personalities clash in the course of a group discussion. Her later play, "Heard on High," gently critiques commonly held views of the afterlife as articulated by lost souls who come before "a fluoroscopic soul assessor" when they pass on to the next world. Perhaps best described as morality plays with a sense of humor, both dramas achieve their aim of inviting reflection on the spectacle of human folly at play in both individual and community life.

5. Information gleaned from e-mail correspondence with Amatu’l-Bahá’s secretary, Nell Golden, Thursday, 11 May 2000. Further references to correspondence with Nell Golden are included in parentheses in the text as "(NG, 11 May 2000.)" Romanian poet and translator Hana Zantovska, for example, dined at Amatu’l-Bahá’s home, and renowned artist Mark Tobey was feted there (NG, 11 May 2000).

6. The plays she wrote in her thirties and forties were mostly "character studies," to use her own term, and generally not on Bahá’í themes, except for one entitled "The Persian Wife," which dramatizes the experience of the wife of a man who was martyred for his belief in the Bahá’í Faith. These plays have never been circulated (SH, Jan. 1995).

7. Although A Spiritual Assembly's Growing Pains has no date of publication, an inscribed copy was found in Amatu’l-Bahá’s papers dated December 1956 (NG, 11 May 2000). It was first published by the Bahá’í Publishing Trust in Delhi, India, n.d., and later by the Bahá’í Publishing Trust in Mona Vale, Australia, in 1976 and by Publications Australia in 1985. It has been performed in Haifa, Israel, and Africa. In February 1999 Amatu’l-Bahá gave the Bahá’ís of Honduras permission to translate the play into Spanish. "Heard on High" was performed in Haifa, Israel, on 15 April 1977 and again in 1991 and 1995. It has also been performed at Landegg Academy in Switzerland and in Kazakstan and Peru. It has been translated into Spanish and Russian (NG, 11 May 2000). [Page 12]Amatu’l-Bahá began to write poetry at a very young age—thirteen—and was encouraged to continue doing so by winning a poetry prize (SH, Feb. 1995). Unfortunately, the majority of her lyric poetry has never appeared in print, remaining a subterranean layer of private emotion in a very public life. The unearthing of that hidden layer of her literary expression will be essential to the full comprehension of Amatu’l-Bahá’s life and contribution as a writer. For the time being, however, Poems of the Passing stands as solitary testimony to the emotional intensity of a necessarily very private inner life. A collection of elegiac lyrics that, Amatu’l-Bahá recalls, "came out of the bottom of my sorrow" at the passing of Shoghi Effendi, the poems were published in the hope that the Bahá’í teachings on immortality might be conveyed in so doing. In the words of the editor: "It is the author's ardent hope that in sharing [the poems] with others they may echo the grief of separation in this world from our loved ones and the confident hope of reunion with them in an eternal realm of spiritual progress and mercy."

8. London: George Ronald, 1996. In addition to the one volume of poetry, at least two other short lyrics by Amatu’l-Bahá have appeared in print: "On Hearing of Enoch's Murder," which was written in Limassol, Cyprus, on 17 September 1979 (NG, 22 May 2000) and published in The Bahá’í World: An International Record, Volume XVIII, 1979-1983, comp. The Universal House of Justice (Haifa, Isr.: Bahá’í World Centre, 1986] 983, and "This Is Faith," which was written on 4 April 1954 (NG, 22 May 2000) and published most recently in Violette Nakhjavani's "A Tribute to Hand of the Cause Amatu’l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khanum: Part 2" Bahá’t Canada May 2000: 8.

9. This quotation is drawn from the editor's description on the back cover, which Amatu’l-Bahá approved.

10. "What Is the Use," Rúhíyyih Rabbani, Poems of the Passing (London: George Ronald, 1996) 24.

11. William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, 2nd. ed. (1800), preface.

A remarkably candid portrayal of personal grief, Amatu’l-Bahá’s Poems of the Passing presents a panoramic view of the landscape of grief and loss. Traversing that shadowy terrain between steadfast faith and crippling despair, a land where "The airs are cleft / The seas are dry, / Day is dark / And night burns," the poems articulate the conflict between the human heart and soul as they confront the existential questions posed by death and loss. Permeated by a "strange music" the poet herself "dare[s] not... name"—the dissonant music of the spheres as they hobble off their rightful course, a music made of the agonized refrains of the mind near snapping from the burden of grief—the poems offer no easy answers.10 Rather, they mark stages in a journey from desolation to consolation, from halting denial to the heartfelt acceptance of loss. Through their ultimate affirmation of the enduring life of the soul, the lyrics assert the triumph of the bereft human heart over the darkness of loss, attesting to the power of faith to transform the failures of human love into spiritual victory.

"Poetry," Amatu’l-Bahá has said, is a "marvelous emotional medium" and "can express things nothing else can express" (SH, Feb. 1995). Judging from her one volume of published poems, it seems clear that she taps "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" Wordsworth defined as the origin of poetry. But unlike so many of her contemporaries, confessional poets who write in a style forged from inner anguish candidly expressed, her literary work has not characteristically found its subject in searing self-scrutiny or even in self-reflection. From the beginning, her literary gifts have been wed to the dominating purpose of her life: service to her faith. Anchored in conscience and a strong sense of public duty, the themes of her published work reflect her ongoing preoccupation with what she viewed as the central drama of our time: the emergence of the Bahá’í Faith; its rising fortunes; its heroes [Page 13]

THE PATH OF BEAUTY

and heroines; the lives of its Central Figures, the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá;¹² and the narrative of hope and transformation found in its sacred scripture.

Curiously, Amatu’l-Bahá did not start off by apprenticing herself to the art of writing but rather to that of portrait painting. Raised in a family the interests of which were shaped by the professional life of her father, the then well-known Canadian architect William Sutherland Maxwell, the young Mary found it natural to express her creativity through the visual arts. She studied with one of Canada's foremost portrait painters,¹³ until the Great Depression set in and her parents could no longer afford the lessons. Had she been, she reflected, "a brilliant, top-flight, compulsive artist," it would have been "worth it" to pursue her art, but Amatu’l-Bahá felt that even had she become "a fairly well-known Canadian portrait painter," she would not have done "mankind much good" (SH, Feb. 1995). Consequently, she turned her attention to her other beloved art: writing. "As a writer," she asserted, "I can do a little more for my fellow man. Through writing, I can reach a great many more people" (SH, Feb. 1995).

The impulse to "do a little more for . . . [her] fellow man" lends much of Amatu’l-Bahá’s work a strong sense of purpose, even urgency, rooted as it often is not so much in the moralist's need to teach others how to live as in the concerned writer's response to a specific "need perceived at the time" (SH, Feb. 1995). Clearly, an article such as "The Fragrance of Letters," a commentary on excerpts from "letters from the Guardian's mail bag," was written to inspire the then small and struggling Bahá’í community by providing news of achievements the world over.¹⁴

Written for a wider audience, her first published book, Prescription for Living,¹⁵ attempts to answer the existential quandaries of the postwar generation in its search for values to live by. In the foreword to her book, Amatu’l-Bahá explains:

The thoughts advanced in these pages. . . . make no claim to be exhaustive, to even begin to cover the tremendous questions touched upon. They are offered by the writer because of a keen conviction that in spite of the apparent hopelessness of our present situation on this planet... in spite of our black horizons, there is yet hope that we can, if we will, turn the tide of evil threatening to engulf us. (p. 9)

The most practical of all her books, A Manual for Pioneering,¹⁶ serves as a primer for prospective Bahá’í traveling teachers on how to live in and adapt to foreign cultures. Touching upon a wide range of topics, from depression and culture shock to tribal customs and recipes for lamb stew and rice pudding, this book offers "A Short Course on How to Love Your Fellow Man" and practical advice on "How to Speak" and "How to Furnish a Nice Place to Hold Meetings." In progress at the time of her death, another work in this genre reflects Amatu’l-Bahá’s recent concern with presenting the Bahá’í teachings to Chinese speakers. Written by Amatu’l-Bahá for "the average middle-aged, middle-class, literate Chinese housewife," "The Wondrous Tale" aims to tell the story of the lives of the Central Figures of the Bahá’í Faith in a simple, accessible way and to relate the Bahá’í concept of the immortality of the soul to the Chinese tradition of ancestor worship (SH, Feb. 1995).

Like A Manual for Pioneering, short essays such as Teaching Problems address, in the same encouraging and down-to-earth fashion, the

12. Bahá’u’lláh is the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith; He appointed His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to be the designated Interpreter of His writings. 13. A "Mrs. Newton." 14. Herald of the South 1st ser. (Jan. 1946): 6-15. 15. Oxford: George Ronald, 1950. 16. New Delhi: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1974. [Page 14]central concern of Amatu’l-Bahá’s life: sharing the Bahá’í teachings with others. A practical tool for achieving this goal, The Good Message, her simplified rendering of Shoghi Effendi’s translation Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, has been used with success in countries such as Samoa and in Africa. 18 Finally, the numerous talks and lectures Amatu’l-Bahá delivered throughout the world, as well as various epistles, such as her 1948 circular letter to Bahá’í youth, 19 form a whole other corpus of work on teaching the Bahá’í Faith and related subjects, the detailed examination of which will undoubtedly shed light on the breadth and scope of her life’s work.

17. Originally published by the Bahá’í Publishing Trust in Manchester, Eng., 1949, it was later published as Success in Teaching: An Intimate Talk with Bahá’ís Who Long To Serve the Faith (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, n.d.). 18. Amatu’l-Bahá’s correspondence suggests 1960 or 1961 as the date of publication of the English version of The Good Message by the Bahá’í Publishing Trust of India. The booklet was begun in 1958 when Amatu’l-Bahá was in Kampala, Uganda, for the dedication of the Bahá’í House of Worship and was completed in Haifa. It has since been translated into Samoan as well as the African languages of Swahili, Ateso, and Luganda (NG, 11 May 2000) 19. See "What It is To Be a Bahá’í," www.Bahai-Library.org/letters/Khanum.letters. 1948.html. 20. Toronto: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada, 1969. Over the decades since her husband’s death in 1957 until shortly before her own death, Amatu’l-Bahá traveled extensively, meeting with indigenous peoples in a wide variety of settings, from the snow-covered Andes in Peru to the desert dwellings of the Navajo in the Southwest of the United States of America to the plains of Western Canada.

Of special note is her moving epistle A Message to the Indian and Eskimo Bahá’ís of the Western Hemisphere. 20 The intimate tone of the letter and Amatu’l-Bahá’s ability in it to find a voice so well suited to her audience reflects her lifelong concern with the fate of indigenous peoples as well as her broad knowledge of their cultures, a knowledge gained by years of experience as a traveling teacher. Of their past cultural greatness, she writes:

You are a great race, your people in the New World, before the white man came, built mighty cities, beautiful cities and temples. You made with your hands wonderful statues and vessels of pottery, of gold, of silver and of jewels, as well as dresses and head-dresses of bead work and feathers, of woven wool and other materials. So beautiful were the ornaments you made of all these materials, that the white man has collected them in special houses where thousands of people pay to enter and look at them. . . . (p. 2)

But the bulk of the epistle deals not with the past achievements of the Indians and Eskimos of the Western Hemisphere but with the important role they will play in the transformation of the world community. Amatu’l-Bahá invokes the promise of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as proof of the great destiny awaiting them:

What ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote was this: “You must attach great importance to the Indians, the original inhabitants of America” and this was followed by His sure promise to you: “should these Indians be educated and properly guided, there can be no doubt that through the Divine teachings they will become so enlightened that the whole world will be illumined.” (p. 4)

For the true poet, the writing of literary criticism may well be an anomaly, embodying as it so often does an analytic process foreign to the spontaneous acts of creative synthesis characteristic of the imagination. However, Amatu’l-Bahá’s commentary is far from the coldly analytical deconstruction of literary works practiced by some contemporary critics. Rather, by bringing her poetic sensitivity to bear on texts from Bahá’í history and scripture, she transforms literary criticism into meditation, appreciation, and, [Page 15]ultimately, celebration. Published in the 1930s, her first piece of literary commentary, "The Re-Florescence of Historical Romance in Nabíl," offers insight not only into Nabíl’s tale about the heroes and heroines of the Bábí movement, The Dawn-Breakers, but into the temperament of the young Mary Maxwell herself, whose passionate intensity attracted her to the courage and self-abnegation their lives exemplified.²¹

For the young Mary, however, The Dawn-Breakers was not only morally instructive: in addition to providing a practical "key to a 'way' of living and being," it laid before her a rich mythological landscape through which her burgeoning literary imagination could roam—in her own words, "a stage which was a nation and an epoch in history, on which a pageant of romance, of adventure and heroism unequalled by any crusade plays itself before us" (p. 595). In her view, the ultimate meaning of the narrative could not be discerned by reading it as "a fascinating historical document" or as "great literature" but only by looking with the inner "eye," the soul itself: "Only those who have through some experience in life touched to their lips the cup of divine love, will fully grasp the purport of this mighty pageant" (p. 599).

The product of a more mature understanding, later works of literary commentary, such as "The Prayers of Bahá’u’lláh,"²² reveal little of their author's opinions of or response to the texts at hand, in this case the Bahá’í scriptures. Instead, they demonstrate Amatu’l-Bahá’s growing self-effacement before the sacred word. In a spirit of humility and concomitant tentativeness, she thus begins her commentary: "If one could be so presumptuous as to try and comment on a subject so vast..., one might say that one of His [Bahá’u’lláh’s] masterpieces is the long prayer for the Nineteen Day Fast" (p. 792). In this piece of commentary the passionate enthusiasm she expressed for the sacrificial lives of the heroes and heroines of The Dawn-Breakers is replaced by an awareness that behind the glittering veil of heroism lies the face of suffering. She concludes with a poignant vignette drawn from the days of Bahá’u’lláh’s exile in Baghdad. Of His reluctant return from a self-imposed isolation among the dervishes in the remote mountain region of Sulamáníyyih, she writes:

Now He headed back into the inky blackness of an implacable hatred and jealousy, where attempts against His very life were to be plotted and even prove partially successful. As He tramped along through the wilderness, beautiful in its dress of spring, the messenger that had gone to fetch Him back testified that He chanted over and over again this prayer. It rolled forth like thunder from His agonized heart:

"O God, my God! Be Thou not far from me, for tribulation upon tribulation hath gathered about me. O God, my God! Leave me not to myself, for the extreme of adversity hath come upon me. Out of the pure milk, drawn from the breasts of Thy loving-kindness, give me to drink, for my thirst hath utterly consumed me. >> (p. 802)

In a compilation of her favorite prayers and passages from the Bahá’í writings, The Desire of the World: Materials for the contemplation of God and His Manifestation for this

21. "The Re-Florescence of Historical Romance in Nabíl" was published in The Bahá’í World: A Biennial International Record, Volume V, 1932-1934, comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1936) 595-99, a few years after the publication of Nabíl-i A’zam [Muḥammad-i Zarandí], The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation, trans. and ed. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1932).

22. Published in The Bahá’í World: A Biennial International Record, Volume IX, 1940-1944, comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1945) 792-801. [Page 16]Day, 23 Amatu’l-Bahá takes the impulse toward self-effacement even further, eschewing any real commentary for a simple presentation of the texts themselves. In the following passage, for example, she interjects only long enough to set the stage for the "words" that are "place[d] in our mouths" by a power beyond scrutiny, the power of the divine:

In innumerable prayers Bahá’u’lláh places in our mouths words supplicating for strength to be given in time of trial, for steadfastness in His path, for consecration to His Cause. "Cause me, O my Lord, to be reckoned among them who have been so stirred up by the sweet savours that have been wafted in Thy days that they have laid down their lives for Thee and hastened to the scene of their death in their longing to gaze on Thy beauty and in their yearning to attain Thy presence. And were any one to say unto them on their way, 'Whither go ye?' they would say, 'Unto God, the All-Possessing, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting." (p. 104)

It would be surprising if the range of Amatu’l-Bahá’s literary endeavors did not include forays into the writing of history. How rare are those who find themselves at the heart of an important historical moment, let alone at the very center of a religious movement struggling to be born. Rarer still are those who, finding themselves so positioned, are able to write about it. Such was the role of the illustrious Nabíl, and such was the role to which the young Mary Maxwell seemed born, even destined. Alive at the very vortex of such a moment and movement, and possessed of a rare talent for writing, had she not written history, that fact would have been more surprising than had she written copious volumes of it.

Amatu’l-Bahá knew many of the great figures of the first century of Bahá’í history, such as Bahíyyih Khanum, the daughter of Bahá’u’lláh and the foremost woman of the Bahá’í dispensation, and many of the prominent ones of its second century, such as Enoch Olinga, an African who was appointed by Shoghi Effendi to serve as a Hand of the Cause. Consequently, she was often asked to speak or write about them.24 But it was through her marriage that Amatu’l-Bahá would gain an intimate understanding of the foremost Bahá’í figure of her day: Shoghi Effendi. And from their life together she would draw the most important theme of her literary work: his role in shaping what was viewed in the early part of the twentieth century as an obscure sect of Islam into what is now recognized as an independent world religion.

For the task of chronicler, Amatu’l-Bahá was admirably well situated. Born at the beginning of a century so bursting with newness that it fairly exploded into time, she stepped into life on the very threshold of the modern period, just a few years after Einstein proposed the theory of relativity and in the very year the Post-Impressionist Exhibition, shown at the Grafton Galleries, shook the London art world and galvanized the small group of intellectuals later to be called "the Bloomsbury Group" into a prodigiously creative solidarity against conventional artistic as well as literary standards.25 Moreover, she had her beginnings in Canada, a country only a few decades away from Confederation when she was born and, therefore, still in the process of forming its national identity. It

23. Oxford: George Ronald, 1982.

24. See "Bahíyyih Khanúm, the Greatest Holy Leaf," Malawi, Bahá’í International Summer School, Malawi, 1982 (Lilongwe: Extension Aids Branch, Ministry of Agriculture) ix pp.; "The Hand of the Cause Enoch Olinga, In Memoriam," (Freetown: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Sierra Leone, n.d. [1984]) [3], 14 pp.; and "The Story of Enoch Olinga." ([Umtata]: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Transkei, Apr. 1984) 38pp.

25. See Quentin Bell, Bloomsbury (London: Futura Publications, 1974). [Page 17]was against this background of sociocultural flux and intellectual freshness that her disposition was shaped and her spirit prepared for her role in another remarkable drama, the stage of which had already been set by her parents' deep conviction about the truth of the Bahá’í teachings.

For many of Amatu’l-Bahá’s contemporaries, the time for commitment would come when the Great Depression and, a decade later, World War II dawned on the horizon of modern history, but for the young Mary, the moment of commitment arrived much earlier. The seeds had been sown as far back as 1899 when her mother, May Ellis Bolles Maxwell, made a pilgrimage to the Bahá’í Holy Places in Palestine and met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. In her published memoirs May writes:

Of that first meeting I can remember neither joy nor pain nor anything that I can name. I had been carried suddenly to too great a height; my soul had come in contact with the Divine Spirit; and this force so pure, so holy, so mighty, had overwhelmed me....

... We could not remove our eyes from His glorious face: we heard all He said; we drank tea with Him at His bidding; but existence seemed suspended, and when He arose and suddenly left us we came back with a start to life: but never again, thank God, to the same life on this earth! We had "beheld the King in His beauty. We had seen the land which is very far off."26

May Maxwell's awakening set into motion several decades of fervent activity aimed at expanding the communities of the nascent faith, culminating at the time of Mary's birth in the work of strengthening and enlarging the Bahá’í community in Canada. But the full impact of the spiritual commitment, passed from mother to daughter, would not become evident until several decades later. No outsider watching the young girl grow up in the vibrant world circumscribed by her parents' Pine Street home in downtown Montreal, a world alive with discussions of art as well as Bahá’í meetings and activities, could have predicted the remarkable destiny that lay before the young Mary Maxwell.

Even her intensely devout mother could scarcely have believed that her only child—the sheltered child of older parents and a child who had little formal schooling—would undergo the remarkable transformation from Mary Maxwell into Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, the title by which she was most often addressed after her marriage to Shoghi Effendi. 27 Nor would they have guessed that it would be she who would be privileged to witness firsthand and later document for posterity the practical plans, the thoughts, the achievements as well as the inner struggles of a man who stood as the hereditary head of a new world religion that claimed to have the power to bring about the long-awaited, much-promised millennium of peace foretold in all the world's scriptures. As May Maxwell herself has written:

There was a time that I agonized with a mother's weakness and instinctive protectiveness over the terrific deprivation in all her outer human ways, and the austere discipline of the life of my child. It is she herself (combined with a ray of common sense of my own), who taught me the spartan spirit of that Persian mother who threw back the head of her martyred son to his executioner. . . . And as I have witnessed, from year to year, the profound and mystic change in Rúhíyyih Khánum. ... I have marvelled at the grace of God

26. May Maxwell, An Early Pilgrimage (London: George Ronald, 1969) 12-13. 27. In Persian "Amatu’l-Bahá" means "Handmaiden of Bahá." "Rúḥiyyih" means "Spiritual" or "Spirit-Like" and "Khánum" means "Lady." [Page 18]and His delicate and perfect handiwork. 28

Yet, in her life with Shoghi Effendi, Amatu’l-Bahá’s passionate nature and adventurous spirit, the very qualities that had drawn her to the study of Nabíl’s Dawn-Breakers, would find consummation; and in their shared work, the work of expanding the Bahá’í community and building up the administrative structure to sustain it, her single-minded devotion to her faith would find its fullest expression. As she wrote in a letter to her mother less than one year after her marriage:

If any one asked me what was my theme in life, I should say, "Shoghi Effendi." - I not only feel absorbed in him! I do not mean for a moment as a wife in a husband, but feel that I want to be more absorbed in him, and that in this way he's all my Salvation. 29

It is, perhaps, not a mystery that a person of such sensibility and temperament, one who was so single-minded in her focus, so deeply committed to her beliefs, so tenacious in her engagement with each task before her, so keenly observant, and with such a rich imagination and gift for words, was destined to be the Guardian's intimate for the span of some of his most productive years. As Violette Nakhjavani, Amatu’l-Bahá’s assistant and constant companion for several decades, points out in her recent "A Tribute to Hand of the Cause of God Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum," it was Shoghi Effendi himself who oversaw her spiritual education and who, in a sense, cultivated her from the beginning of her maturity for her special role. 30

Embodying such an unusual blend of qualities and abilities, Mary Maxwell was, indeed, uniquely suited to serve both as Shoghi Effendi's coworker and as the chronicler of his life and work. Thus prepared for the challenging mission that awaited her when she married in 1937, the once aspiring portrait painter found before her her greatest subject: Shoghi Effendi. The skills of her literary art would become well honed through years of practice, and her powers of observation, developed and refined during her apprenticeship to portrait painting, would find a fresh and unforeseen application in the task of sketching, in all its fine detail, the life and work of the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith in her biography, The Priceless Pearl. 31

In 1946, less than ten years after her marriage to Shoghi Effendi, Amatu’l-Bahá published her first work about the Guardian: a booklet entitled Twenty-Five Years of the Guardianship. 32 In it she expounds upon the institution of the Guardianship and reflects, in a celebratory and optimistic fashion, on the many achievements of Shoghi Effendi:

As we look back over these twenty-five years, it is with feelings of profound contentment.... We have stood close to that tree which overshadowed all mankind, and come to realize how live and great it is, how dense its foliage, how heavy its yield

28. May Ellis Maxwell, quoted in Marion Holley, "In Memoriam: May Ellis Maxwell," The Bahá’í World: A Biennial International Record, Volume VIII, 1938-1940, comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1942) 641.

29. Rúhíyyih Khánum, letter to May Maxwell, 2 Mar. 1938 (U.S. National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Illinois).

30. From Part I published in Bahá’í Canada Apr. 2000: 6-7.

31. London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1969. The forerunner of The Priceless Pearl appeared in The Bahá’í World: An International Record, Volume XIII, 1954-1963, comp. The Universal House of Justice, (Haifa, Isr.: The Universal House of Justice, 1970) 59-206, as an article entitled "The Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith"; Amatu’l-Bahá wrote it in response to a request by the Universal House of Justice for an article "in connection with the passing of Shoghi Effendi" (information found in a talk given by Amatu’l-Bahá at the Bahá’í World Center, Haifa, Israel, 18 October 1991). Later she published a revised version of The Priceless Pearl, edited and streamlined for a wider audience, under the title The Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1988).

32. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1948. [Page 19]of fruits the tree of our first Guardian, our Shoghi Effendi." (p. 23)

Just over a decade later, in 1958, Amatu’l-Bahá would be called upon, unexpectedly, to write about Shoghi Effendi again. This time her tone was different, as was her theme: his sudden and expected passing.

Written in collaboration with fellow Hand of the Cause John Ferraby, The Passing of the Guardian" describes the events of the days immediately before and after the Guardian’s death. It is in this essay that Amatu’l-Bahá’s gifts as a documentarist begin to emerge. After a brief sketch of his thoughts, feelings, and activities on his final days, she sets down the time, place, and cause of his death, recording with remarkable courage and detail the moment of her own dawning awareness of his death:

She [Amatu’l-Bahá] saw the beloved Guardian lying on his left side facing her.... His eyes were three-quarters open and she thought he was drowsy.... She asked him how he had slept, and if he felt better. When he neither moved nor replied, and he seemed unnaturally still, a wave of agonizing terror swept over her; she leaned over him and seized his hand. He was ice-cold and absolutely rigid.... (p. 10)

She follows with an equally detailed account of the funeral arrangements and ceremony, then ends with a poignant description of Shoghi Effendi’s tomb:

Over his tomb, at his feet, like a shield of crimson and white, lay the fragrant sheath of blooms which had covered his casket, and heaped about was a rich carpet of exquisite flowers, symbols of the love, the suffering, of so many hearts, and no doubt the silent bearers of vows to make the Spirit of the Guardian happy now, to fulfil his plans, carry on his work, be worthy at last of the love and inspired self-sacrificing leadership he gave them for thirty-six years of his life." (p. 24)

It was not until some years later, in 1967, that Amatu’l-Bahá "plunged into" her research for and writing of The Priceless Pearl, which took two years to complete (SH, Feb. 1995). The idea for her biography of Shoghi Effendi, she jokingly recalled, arose from a description she once read of the Guardian’s "beautiful blue eyes." In fact, his eyes were hazel. In addition to the sense of obligation born of the tremendous privilege she felt at being married to the hereditary head of her faith, nothing more motivated her than the desire to "avoid misinterpretation and misstatements" (SH, Feb. 1995). Her method of research and writing was modeled after Shoghi Effendi’s own, as she had observed it in the course of his work on God Passes By (SH, Feb. 1995). First, she read everything she could find on her subject. As she did, she made copious notes, which she then drew upon as she wrote the book (SH, Feb. 1995). Her motive was to "put down what... [she] knew after twenty years of marriage about the head of the faith" and to share her "intimate knowledge" (SH, Feb. 1995).

What emerges from her interweaving of intimate perceptions, historical facts, and a firsthand knowledge of the man and his times is what Amatu’l-Bahá herself has described as a "living document" (SH, Feb. 1995). Born as if from the very matrix of the burgeoning new religion, Shoghi Effendi rises, starlike, to assume his role in the vibrant pageant of history:

Salutation and praise, blessing and glory rest upon that primal branch of the Divine and Sacred Lote-Tree, grown out, blest, tender, verdant and flourishing from the Twin Holy Trees; the most wondrous, unique and priceless pearl that doth gleam from out the Twin Surging Seas.

33. London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1958. 34. Amatu’l-Bahá, talk on Shoghi Effendi, Bahá’í World Center, Haifa, Israel, 18 October 1991. 35. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1944; rev. ed. 1974. [Page 20]Like a cloud-break in a stormy sky these words, even as a mighty shaft of sunlight, broke through the gloom and tempest of dangerous years and shone from on high upon a small boy, the grandson of a prisoner of the Sultan of Turkey, living in the prison-city of Akka in the Turkish province of Syria. The words were written by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the first part of His Will and Testament and referred to His eldest grandchild, Shoghi Effendi. (p. 1)

In substance, the book might be described as an "eyewitness account" of Shoghi Effendi’s life, work, and times. Many biographies are based on exhaustive and comprehensive research, but few enshrine memory itself. Yet drawn from daily details, The Priceless Pearl gives "Intimate Glimpses," as one chapter heading has it, of the Guardian's everyday life. To reconstruct the details that give sharp focus to these glimpses, Amatu’l-Bahá turns to her own diary. The following excerpt is dated January 30, 1943:

I am really worried over Shoghi Effendi. When he used to get so very distressed and upset in the past it affected him, but not as it does now. Sometimes I think it will lead to his premature death... he breathes so hard, almost like one who has been running, and he has such huge shadows under his eyes. He forces himself to go on and finish the letters he has had piled for days on his desk—but he reads a thing sometimes ten minutes over and over because he can’t concentrate! I think no suffering is worse than seeing someone you love suffer. And I can’t remedy it. All I wonder is how God can stand to see him suffer so. (p. 163)

But more often, such moments of insight are sketched on a larger canvas until there gradually emerges a compellingly lifelike portrait. Witness, for example, how Amatu’l-Bahá’s recollection of a story told her by Shoghi Effendi becomes the basis for an incisive analysis of one aspect of his character:

The other story surprised me—and enlightened me—very much; I heard it more than once: Shoghi Effendi said that one day he was driving back from Alexandria to Ramleh with the Master in a rented carriage, accompanied by a Pasha who was going to the Master’s house as His guest; when they arrived and got out and the Master asked the strapping big coachman how much He owed him the man asked an exorbitant price; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá refused to pay it, the man insisted and became abusive to such an extent that he grasped the Master by the sash around His waist and pulled Him roughly back and forth, insisting on this price. Shoghi Effendi said this scene in front of a distinguished guest embarrassed him terribly. He was too small to do anything himself to help the Master and felt horrified and humiliated. Not so ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who remained perfectly calm and refused to give in. When the man finally released his hold the Master paid him exactly what He owed him, told him his conduct had forfeited the good tip He had planned to give him, and walked off followed by Shoghi Effendi and the Pasha!

There is no doubt that such things left a lifelong imprint on the Guardian’s character, who never allowed himself to be brow-beaten or cheated, no matter whether or not this embarrassed or inconvenienced him, and those who were working for him. (p. 23)

The dialogue generated in the biography by Amatu’l-Bahá’s own voice and the voices of others, by personal memory and historical research, gives The Priceless Pearl value both as a primary and as a secondary source: not only is it the memoir of an eyewitness and the record of the impressions of one who knew Shoghi Effendi intimately, it also offers an informed and intelligent interpretation of the Guardian’s life and work. Through Amatu’l-Bahá’s eyes, the sharp eyes of the portrait painter, the penetrating eyes of the [Page 21]writer, eyes privileged to witness at close range his inner and outer life, we see Shoghi Effendi in all his complexity—emotionally sensitive yet leonine, intelligent yet vulnerable, visionary yet beset with worry about the future of the new-born Faith he was destined to shepherd through some of the most turbulent years of the twentieth century.

Without doubt, Amatu’l-Bahá’s vivid evocation of Shoghi Effendi’s life and detailed documentation of his work in The Priceless Pearl holds a special place in the current and the future scholarship on the life and work of the Guardian. Moreover, her intimate knowledge of him confers upon her a special role in the custodianship of his memory. Her interpretation of the events of his life as well as of his temperament and character has value beyond even biography: it creates the foundation upon and structure within which Shoghi Effendi’s life and work will be understood by others.

With the completion of her biography of Shoghi Effendi, Amatu’l-Bahá had satisfied the sense of obligation she felt to set down what she knew of the one who would be the last hereditary head of her faith, but her work as documentarist of the Bahá’í Faith was still not complete. The Universal House of Justice, the administrative body that heads the Bahá’í Faith, requested her and her fellow Hands of the Cause to come together and comment upon the multitude of important documents from the interregnum period between the passing of Shoghi Effendi in 1957 and the formation of the Universal House of Justice in 1963.36 Thus, in the final decade of her life, Amatu’l-Bahá produced one more historical work: The Ministry of the Custodians, 1957-1963: An Account of the Stewardship of the Hands of the Cause." A compilation of documents that record the events of a critical period in the history of the Bahá’í Faith, the book clearly stems from the same impulse behind so much of Amatu’l-Bahá’s later writing: to set down for future generations her firsthand knowledge of key events in Bahá’í history. In the same spirit, one final book-length manuscript, in progress at the time of her death, “The Maxwells of Montreal,” documents her own early life and the lives of her parents.

Throughout the many decades of her writing life, Amatu’l-Bahá walked the path of beauty with a rare combination of poetic sensitivity and practical good sense. A self-described “doer” and “extrovert,” she, nevertheless, found time in a busy public life for pursuing a broad range of literary projects, some requiring vigorous research (SH, Feb. 1995). Moreover, in a supremely secular age in which writers of faith have so often struggled and failed to harmonize their religious commitments with their creative impulses, she has achieved in her literary work a natural and seamless integration of art and belief. Faith has served as the wellspring of her creative inspiration and conscience as its channel for expression in literature. Her prose work is born of a deep sense of commitment to her beliefs and written in a spirit of unwavering dedication to the one cause that served as the unifying thread in her life: the Bahá’í Faith.

Similarly, her few published poems reflect an inner life in which even the most private emotions of the heart orbit around the concerns of the soul. The result is a literature shaped by that rare incarnation of conscience: a life of spiritual integrity. What stands at last is a body of work devoted to transmuting the base alloys of human experience into spiritual riches, doubt into certitude, and idle hope into a luminous and enduring joy.

36. The Hands of the Cause whom Shoghi Effendi appointed arose, on his passing, to set in motion the processes leading to the formation of the Universal House of Justice. 37. Introd., Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum (Haifa, Isr.: Bahá’í World Centre, 1992). [Page 22]

Naming Ceremony

In our household, when we hear the words, "Those people..." brought out like a rough, knotted rope- phrases coiled in lynching tones, when we hear the words, "They all..." spoken in the hooded, nameless way of fire licking wood-the burnt smell of fear all around- we do not stand aside and let them pass unnoticed anymore. We have learned a new ceremony- how to sweeten the air with the fragrance of names the common names of those, like salt, whose company adds savor to our days; whose uncommon characters add deep, rich flavors to our lives; whose friendships, like honey distilled from a thousand petaled hours, sweeten our bitter edges. When we hear the words of those who do not know the pleasure of this pure, clear taste, who do not know the names of their own sisters and brothers, we do not let their poison slip easily into the streams [Page 23]

NAMING CEREMONY

from which we drink. We speak the names of those we know. So many names billow and surge in the ocean of being, ready to rise into one great tidal wave of truth, to sweep over the landscape of dry hearts, washing away evil. It will be the beginning of a new blessing way, to speak the names of those whose lives we draw upon like breath, those cherished ones who are the honorable ancestors of a new race, and must never be nameless again.

-Druzelle Cederquist Copyright 2000 by Druzelle Cederquist

[Page 25]

Religious Pluralism: A Bahá’í Perspective

BY JULIO SAVI

Introduction

HE "problem of the conflicting truth ditions" is considered by most modern schol- ars to be "a major topic demanding a promi- nent place on the agenda of the philosophy of religion." Skepticism and exclusivism have been described as the most natural solutions to this problem. On the one hand, as John H. Hick, a leading philosopher of religion and interfaith dialogue, remarks: "it is a short step from the thought that the different re- ligions cannot all be true, although they each claim to be, to the thought that in all prob- ability none of them is true." On the other, as William L. Rowe, professor of philosophy at Purdue University, observes: "Perhaps the most natural position for a believer in a partic- ular religion to take is that the truth lies with his or her own religion and that any religion holding opposing views is, therefore, false."

Copyright ©2000 by Julio Savi. I wish to thank the World Order editors, especially Dr. Jim Stokes, for help in bringing this essay to a conclusion. 1. John H. Hick, Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1990) 109. 2. Hick, Philosophy of Religion 100. 3. William L. Rowe, Philosophy of Religion: An In- troduction, 2nd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1993) 175. 4. Rowe, Philosophy of Religion 177, 178.

The position of religious exclusivism was softened within the Catholic Church in the 1960s into a position that Rowe defines as "inclusivism." He explains the change in the light of a pronouncement made during the Second Vatican Council of 1963-65:

Whatever goodness or truth is found among them ["Those... who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do His Will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience"] is looked upon by the Church as a prepa- ration for the Gospel.

Rowe considers this statement to be "an attempt... to address the practical difficulties that confront exclusivism." "Thus," he says, "while denying the ultimate validity of other religions, the inclusivistic Christian may still allow that the adherents of... other religions may attain salvation by following the paths to salvation laid down by those religions."

In the same vein Paolo Brezzi, an Italian his- torian of Christianity, writes about non- Christian religions:

it is better to consider all of them as authentic but as evolving towards the one true [Christian] religion, and as realizing, in different degrees, the unique essence of religion. Each will contribute to the gen- eral enrichment, bringing something that is its own, but not antithetical to others. In this inclusiveness a convergence is re- alized which orientates towards the one [Page 26]true religion, like the multicolored rays of a lamp which emanate from a pure ray of white light.

Hick suggests pluralism as "a possible, and indeed attractive, hypothesis-as an alternative to total skepticism-that the great religious traditions of the world represent different human perceptions of and response to the same infinite divine Reality." Hans Küng, an eminent Catholic theologian, agrees that pluralism, when it is compared to inclusivism, is an improvement on the way toward a fruitful interreligious dialogue:

As Martin Kämpchen, a Catholic theologian living in India, has phrased it: "Up till now theology has taken as its point of departure a mock pluralism.... Genuine pluralism, however, recognizes not only the existence of other religions, but their intrinsic equal value."

Pluralism cannot be considered as a totally new idea in the field of religious studies. Since 1870, when Max Müller, the founder of the modern field of comparative religious studies, discussed religious pluralism in a talk at the Royal Institution in London-a talk that "one might reasonably identify as the foundation document of comparative religion in the English-speaking world"-scholars of comparative religion have been trying to discover the "essence of religion." In fact, as Gerrit C. Berkouwer, a Dutch theologian, says: "It is now a common conviction that the religions of the world do not present a disconnected and chaotic variety in which there is no perceivable unity... but it has proven exceedingly difficult to arrive at a further pin-pointing of that regularity."

At the present time those who, like Berkouwer, acknowledge the merits of a pluralistic view of religions seem unable to move beyond a passive acceptance in principle to an active exploration of pluralism and its implications. What is needed is a set of principles and concepts by which the pluralistic approach to religion may be developed so that it can open a viable way toward deeper and more fruitful interreligious dialogue. It can be said that the many theological and philosophical concepts contained in the Bahá’í scriptures, together with those from other sources, can contribute to establishing a foundation principle that is capable of moving the advocacy of pluralism from passive support to rigorous and productive intellectual engagement. That process could, in turn, foster the development of what might be called a new methodology of pluralism, the first genuine intellectual tool for the systematic study of the underlying unity of religions.

What Is Religion?

THE obvious first step is to develop a fundamental definition of religion that most if not all participants in the dialogue might accept to the extent that it can become a launching point for discussion. In making such a definition, Bahá’ís suggest the need to distinguish between the way in which religions come into existence (events during the life of the founder) and the ways in which the long histories of religions evolve. The second of these might be called the sociology of religion, but it is the first of these two stages-in the view of the Bahá’í scriptures-from which an initial definition of the essential

5. Paolo Brezzi, "La problematica religiosa del nostro tempo," in IPropilei: Grande Storia Universale Mondadori, ed. Golo Mann and Alfred Heuss, 2nd ed., vol. 10 (Milano [Milan]: Mondadori, 1968) 904. 6. Hick, Philosophy of Religion 119. 7. Hans Küng, Christianity and World Religions: Paths of Dialogue with Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, trans. P. Heinegg, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993) 180-81. 8. E. J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A History, 2nd ed. (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986) xi. 9. Gerrit C. Berkouwer, General Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1955) 160-61. [Page 27]nature of religion can be derived. Thus it is the one that should be pursued first in a comparative study.

Whatever the course of its later history, every religion begins with the emergence of a great spiritual figure within a given social and religious culture who enunciates teachings so spiritually galvanic that they cause new adherents to leave their traditional religion, commit themselves to the new teachings, and through their fervor and sacrifice become the founding core of a new religious community. In time that group fixes upon a text representing and codifying the teachings of their new religious leader.

Each of the founding figures makes similar claims to be the bearer of knowledge from the divine realm—that is, from God." They are able to attract and unify their followers, to inspire new standards of behavior, to generate visionary goals, and to unleash the energy and motivation to build entirely new ideas of community. The connection between the founding figure and the divine and between that figure and his followers is essentially mystical. Thus those who would study this process as scholars of pluralism have an extraordinary body of evidence with which to begin.

The Bahá’í scriptures give many definitions of religion that may prove useful in creating an understanding of the nature of religion. On the one hand, they define religion as the "science of reality" and "the truest philosophy." It is a reference to the body of the teachings of the founders of religions, considered as a priceless source of knowledge that is comparable to and complementary with other sources based in nature and that cannot be contrary to "true science" that "is reason and reality."12 On the other, they define religion as "the revelation of the will of God" and "the outer expression of the divine reality." In other words, the founders of religions explain what God wants human beings to do on the earth to fulfill His will—that is, that they live together in peace and reciprocal love. In this respect, the essential message of religion is always love, and thus it is also defined as "the science of the love of God" and "the world of celestial attributes."13 Therefore, religion is in many respects even more important than the other sciences in that it is a fundamental motivating force for the gradual promotion of the oneness of

10. As to fixing upon a text, the pattern is best seen among the religions founded in urban societies with writing systems (the Bábí and Bahá’í Faiths, Islam, and Christianity). In the case of the religions of Moses, the Buddha, and perhaps Zarathustra, the texts existed in urban, literate societies within a few hundred years of the lives of the founders. Religions that arose in preliterate societies (the religion of Abraham, Hinduism, and the primal religions of tribal peoples) do not display this pattern.

11. Scholars of world religions have noted a wide range of concepts of the divine, ranging from a personal God in Judaism and Christianity to an impersonal spiritual power pervading the universe in some forms of Hinduism and another form of reality that the enlightened can experience in Buddhism. Sufism and Shia Islam, partially through interreligious contact and unconscious borrowing from other traditions, possess a wide range of speculations about the divine. The Bahá’í scriptures, arising in dialogue with Shia and Sufi concepts, conceive of God as a "wholly other" divine force that can also be understood as a personal God. Thus it partially bridges the many concepts found in the world's religions. In this essay phrases like the "divine" will be used to denote this broad concept of a divine force, and phrases such as "the divine realm" will be used to include such concepts as the Holy Spirit, the Logos, Gabriel, and some types of angels. The term "God" in the passages from Bahá’í scripture should not be understood in the Judeo-Christian sense.

12. Cf. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during His visit to the United States and Canada in 1912, comp. Howard MacNutt, 2nd ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982) 297; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks: Addresses Given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Paris in 1911, 12th ed. (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1995) 7.4; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 107.

13. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 315, 140, 277; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Abdul Baha on Divine Philosophy (Boston: Tudor Press, 1918) 176. [Page 28]humankind through the instrumentality of love, the supreme unifying power. In this perspective, the Bahá’í scriptures also define religion as "the essential connection which proceeds from the realities of things" and a power that can "effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself both outwardly and inwardly, that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions."14 For all these characteristics religion is described as "[t]he greatest bestowal of God in the world of humanity."15

Because religions have, from a Bahá’í perspective, a common divine source and share a fundamental commitment to spiritual principles such as love, justice, and a host of divine attributes, they can fairly be described as the phenomenal expression of the same archetype, even though their subsequent historical development is intricately bound up with human projections and contingent human needs and is subject to all the idiosyncrasies reflective of their particular circumstances and human frailties.

The revealing of the nature and purpose of the divine—Bahá’ís call it revelation—constitutes the fundamental characteristic of religion. As Alessandro Bausani, a renowned Italian Iranist and Islamist, writes: "to define religion in itself experimentally using the declining facts of the present day dying religions is quite unfair." Moreover, each religion has its own mission and should be judged only in the light of that mission. In Bausani's words:

Obviously, should we think that the mission of Christ was to establish unity and peace in the world, we ought to conclude that, after almost two thousands years of continuous wars and schisms, his results can be considered as disastrous. But should we take the point of view of what I would call "sacred historicism" and uphold the concept. . . that the mission of Christ was above all the realization of a personal sanctity, the sanctification of the individual, then we could well say that the existence of but one person, St. Francis, is enough to demonstrate the full success of Christianity. 16

With a definition of religion thus freed from historical accidents, the common foundation of all religions becomes more readily apparent. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844-1921), the son and appointed successor of Bahá’u’lláh (1817-92), the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, says: "The foundation of the religion of God is one" because "[t]he divine religion is reality, and reality is not multiple; it is one."17

14. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, trans. Laura Clifford-Barney, 3rd ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1981) 158; Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-fgán: The Book of Certitude, trans. Shoghi Effendi. 2nd ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1970) 240. 15. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 361. 16. Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í (Roma: Casa Editrice Bahá’í, 1991) 28, 349. 17. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Abdul Baha on Divine Philosophy 150; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 198.

What Are the Manifestations or Founders of Religion?

IF ONE accepts that the origins of religions have many common features, it seems logical that scholars might next profitably discuss and compare the founders of the religions—those mysterious figures who stand at the center of the process. A number of ancillary questions suggest themselves: Who are these founding figures? What authority justifies their speaking in the name of the divine, their critiquing of older religions, their mandating of changes in those religions, and their even going so far as to call for new spiritual allegiances? Are these great figures substantially different not only from one another but also different as a group from the great philosophers and spiritual leaders who do not found religions? What enables them and their [Page 29]teachings to take hold in the face of massive societal and religious opposition? Western scholars have yet to undertake a genuinely objective and thorough comparative study of these great personalities in those terms.

Terminology itself presents a problem in trying to define the founders of religions. One has to acknowledge the essential duality of nature traditionally ascribed to them—that they have both a typically human and mortal nature and a revelatory capacity. The founders of religions present themselves as mediators between the divine and humankind, claiming to "mirror" the reality of the higher world and to reflect or manifest "the attributes of God" through their revelation of new guidance for humanity. 18 While the term "prophet" is traditionally used to describe them, it seems too restrictive, given the fact that the founders of religions do much more than deliver prophecies, and considering that prophet is used to refer to many figures who did not found religions. A more comprehensive term, used in the Bahá’í scriptures, is Manifestation. It will be the word used in this article.

Conflicts about the mysterious dual nature and the mission of the Manifestations lie at the heart of the often bloody disagreements over religion. Traditionally the question has been addressed by advocates of a particular religion who have sought to establish the uniqueness and supremacy of one Manifestation over another. But an objective, phased, comparative approach to the subject might be more productive. One might begin by dividing consideration of the Manifestation into three separate questions or areas of inquiry: their lives, their teachings, and the effect of their life and teachings on the world.

For most of the Manifestations, especially the earlier ones, very little if any verifiable biographical information survives. Pictures of them come from a pastiche of contemporary reports, traditions, legends, historical accretions, and other nondocumentable sources. Still, it is quite possible, using what is available, to arrive at a picture of their perceived lives. From that one may compare the aspects of their perceived lives that are cherished by their followers, ranging from precocious incidents in their childhood and youth, to the sacrificial nature of their lives, to their unique spiritual and rhetorical powers, and more.

But any study of their lives must also acknowledge and address the almost universally accepted perception that the Manifestations, while human, also have the aforementioned aspect of their nature that is superhuman in its capacities, insofar as they have an oracular capacity and a perspicacity of vision that transcends the usual limits of time, space, human experience, and the typical processes of reason as they are normally understood. Religions describe that power in various ways, but that variety itself can form a basis for pluralistic discussion.

In the Bahá’í view, for example, the Manifestations have a threefold reality. The first is their physical or material reality—that is, their body, like that of any other human being. The second is their human reality, in the strict sense of the word—that is, their rational soul, a power that they also share with other human beings but that in them is different in that their power of rational perception seems not "a power of investigation and research," like that of ordinary human beings, but "a conscious power," "a knowl-

18. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks 5.15. Many will object that this concept is ill-suited to Buddhism, considered by some as a philosophy, and not a religion (William Donald Hudson, 1974), by others as an atheistic (Gerardus van der Leeuw, 1956, Helmuth von Glasenapp, 1966) or non-theistic religion (David Keown), and by still others as a religion of the "silence of God" (cf. Adriano Alessi, Filosofia della religione [Rome: Libreria Ateneo Salesiano, 1991] 68 ff)]. For further comments on this issue, see note 62. [Page 30]edge of being," a kind of innate understanding of the essence of things that is quite similar in nature to "the cognizance and consciousness that man has of himself." In other words, the Manifestations are aware of the essence of things, in the same way that human beings are aware of all their physical sensations, powers, feelings, and spiritual conditions.

The third aspect of their reality is what some call their divine reality—a relationship to the divine realm that is qualitatively and fundamentally different from that possessed by human beings. That is, they reflect attributes and perfections (as opposed to emanations) that are traditionally used to describe the divine, and they reflect those qualities with a constancy and power that is apparent to people and that gives them the spiritual power required to change things as they will.²⁰ This power is defined in some of the Holy Books as the Holy Spirit. Bahá’í scriptures describe it as a universal power through which the Manifestations can influence each individual human being on the earth. There is much similarity in the mysterious and powerful nature of the Manifestations that scholars of pluralism might profitably explore, not the least of which is whether Manifestations partake of the Essence of the divine (an aspect of incarnation) or whether they are "as mirrors" in which the attributes or emanations of the divine are perfectly reflected.

If it were concluded that the Manifestations were more alike than different and that there were divine truth in the teachings of each, other questions would lend themselves to discussion: Why do their teachings so often reflect apparent contradictions? What is the source of the apparent contradictions? Can the claims of the followers of each that their teachings are foundational—even infallible in some cases—be reconciled?

In the Bahá’í view the Manifestations have two stations—that of unity and that of distinction. In their station of unity, all the Manifestations partake equally of the divine realm and reaffirm the same eternal and revivifying spiritual truths of the divine. But in their station of distinction "each [of them] hath been the Bearer of a specific Message, ... each hath been entrusted with a divinely-revealed Book."²³ That is, each brings a set of social teachings uniquely suited to a specific historical time and place and, therefore, necessarily different from all others. Comparative study of both sets of teachings across cultures and religions could prove fruitful ground for scholars. Indeed, a foundation for the study of the nature of Manifestations already exists within several religious traditions, notably Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which have evolved a series of "proofs" on the basis of which they try to demonstrate that their founder is a true Prophet, centered in the fulfillment of former prophecies, the deeds of the Prophet, and the influence of

19. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions 218, 157. 20. Usually each religion ascribes a special meaning to its own founder, whom it considers as totally different from, and superior to, the founders of the other religions. For example, Christians regard Jesus as a true incarnation of the Divinity, whereas, although Muslims honor Muhammad, they would consider it blasphemy even to think in the same way about him as Christians think about Jesus. Jews consider Abraham and Moses as human beings to whom God directly revealed His will. Buddhists say that the Buddha is a human being who attained enlightenment through his own unaided efforts. Zoroastrians view Zarathustra as "a righteous mortal man who was appointed to prophethood and say that his appointment "resulted as much from his righteousness, divine wisdom, and love for Truth as from Ahura Mazda’s benevolent choice" (Farhang Mehr, The Zoroastrian Tradition [Rockport, Ma: Element, 1991] 55). 21. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 114. 22. Cf. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-fgán 152-53, 176–81. 23. Bahá’u’lláh, Súratu’l-Ibád (Tablet of the People), Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi, rev. ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1952) 74. [Page 31]his teachings. These traditions deserve greater exploration.

What Are The Texts and Their Problems?

THE HOLY texts of the great religions also lend themselves to comparative study and a pluralistic approach, though to establish the meaning of "text" is no less complex than is the study of the Manifestations themselves. Many of the surviving religious texts are at least 1,300 years old, and none of those before the Báb, the Founder of the Bábí Faith (1819-50), and Bahá’u’lláh were written in the Manifestation's own hand. Holy books or scripture, for comparative purposes, must be taken to mean a body of literature that conveys the fundamentals of the religious experience of that religion, has religious authority, and is, therefore, considered as sacred (that is, revealed, whether the words are considered as having been spoken, dictated, or written down by the founder of that religion, or are words presented as a true and accurate representation of the Manifestation's teachings, while not necessarily being his actual words).

In Hinduism, for example, the four Vedas, Rg Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, and Atharva Veda are the spoken words considered to be sacred by the vast majority of Hindus. The earliest nucleus of the Vedas was revealed "by indefinable prophets (rsis, etc.)" and dates "at most... to the second millennium BC."25 Some add to them the epic poem entitled the Mahabharata, elaborated in the fifth century A.D. by a legendary personage whose name is Vyasa, and often defined as the Fifth Veda. This poem includes the Bhagavad-gitä, the only text that may be ascribed to Krsna beside "the hymn 74 of the 8th mandala of Rg Veda."26

In Buddhism, the sacred text is called buddhavacana, the word of the Buddha—that is, "that which is understood to have been preached by Buddha Sakyamuni in his ordinary human form." The criteria for a sacred text in Buddhism are comparatively quite loose, but still the first of the "four great authorities" from which one may reliably receive a text as buddhavacana is a monk who says, "I have heard and learned this, myself, from the mouth of the Blessed One himself.27 The oldest Buddhist texts "must have already been in existence a hundred years after the death of the Buddha."28

In Judaism the Torah in its restricted sense (the five books of Moses that make up the Pentateuch) is the primary Holy Book and Judaism's holiest text. Most scholars agree with Jonathan Rosenbaum, director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies, that "[t]he final collecting, fixing, and preservation of the Pentateuch took place in the Babylonian Exile (Ezra 7:14, 25)" and that "the Hebrew Bible... was not fully defined and limited until more than two and a half centuries after its latest component part (Daniel) was completed."29

In Zoroastrianism, the Avesta is the most ancient scripture, and the Yasna is considered to be its heart. It contains seventeen hymns, the Gathas, written in an older dialect and "handed down, it is not known how and how

24. Cf. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, trans. Marzieh Gail (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1978) 56; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions 37-38, 100-02; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 341, 364, 411; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Abdul Baha on Divine Philosophy 39-40. 25. Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í 21, 371. 26. "Introductory Essay," in Bhagavadgitä, With an Introductory Essay, Sanskrit Text, English Translation and Notes: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (New Delhi: Indus, Harper Collins, 1993) 28, n7. 27. R. A. Ray, "Buddhism: Sacred Text Written and Realized," in Frederick M. Denny and Rodney L. Taylor, ed., Holy Book in Comparative Perspective (Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina P, 1993) 150, 155. 28. Küng, Christianity and the World Religions 333. 29. Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Judaism: Torah and Tradition," in Denny and Taylor, ed., Holy Book in Comparative Perspective 13-16. [Page 32]"faithfully," which are thought to have been composed by Zarathustra himself and to "present the opinions of the Reformer."30 Reform Zoroastrians think that the Gathas "should serve as the norm for what the tradition teaches and believes."31 But "the time of its [the Avesta] composition, . . . [or] . . . the date of the written record of this fundamental text—probably not earlier than the fourth century C.E.—is not known."

In Christianity, the Christian scripture, developed over five centuries, is "the 'words of the lord' (i.e., the teachings of Jesus preserved mainly in oral tradition) and the 'testimony of the apostles' (i.e., the teachings of qualified messengers). . . ."32 Although the Christian canon cannot be identified with the precise words spoken by Jesus, it is the record of his words and of the earliest response of his followers to his revelation. As Harry Y. Gamble Jr., associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, puts it: "The propriety of the canon's limits was defended on the basis that only these documents derive from the apostles, so that their authority rests on historical proximity to the events of revelation."33 The letters of St. Paul were considered to represent "the most ancient stratum of the canon (50–60 circa)," but recent studies seem to have ascertained that the Gospel according to Mark was written about 50 C.E.34 The debate about what to include in the canonical Christian scripture began in the second century and was completed only in the fifth century.35

In Islam, "Muslims consider their Koran to contain the verbatim record of God's special revelation to the Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel," and the Koran seems to be the holy text most closely linked with a Manifestation up to that time.36 The Koran was transcribed by various amanuenses as Muhammad recited it, between 609 and 632 C.E. The canonical text was fixed during the reign of the third Caliph, ‘Uthmán (644–656 C.E.), and only a "few minor refinements of a purely grammatical and orthographic nature were made in the tenth century."37

The holy writings of the Bábí Faith and of the Bahá’í Faith, being composed in the nineteenth century, are the written and authenticated texts revealed by the founders of those faiths. They were either written by the Manifestation himself or dictated to a secretary and then proofread and corrected by the Manifestation for accuracy. Thus their reliability as literary sources is much greater than that of other scriptures.

Though the authenticity of most holy texts is problematic, as this brief survey illustrates, yet the content of the various texts may be compared (their themes, teachings, cosmological and moral world views, uses of figurative language, literary techniques, claims to truth, and universality) to great benefit. They are more like each other than like any other kind of text, as scholars of pluralism increasingly see.

30. Alessandro Bausani, Persia religiosa da Zaratustra a Bahá’u’lláh (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1959) 24-25; English trans.: Religion in Iran: From Zoroaster to Bahá’u’lláh, trans. J. M. Marchesi (New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press, 2000) 14. 31. J. W. Boyd, "Zoroastrianism: Avestan Scripture and Rite," in Denny and Taylor, ed., Holy Book in Comparative Perspective 111; Bausani, Persia religiosa 21, 24; English trans.: Religion in Iran 11, 13. 32. H. Y. Gamble Jr., "Christianity: Scripture and Canon," in Denny and Taylor, ed., Holy Book in Comparative Perspective 37. 33. Gamble Jr., "Christianity: Scripture and Canon," in Denny and Taylor, ed., Holy Book in Comparative Perspective 48. 34. Dictionaires des religions (Paris: Editions Plon, 1990); Italian trans.: "Cristianesimo," Religioni, ed. I. P. Couliano and M. Eliade (Milan: JACA Book, 1992) 222. 35. Cf. Gamble Jr., "Christianity: Scripture and Canon," in Denny and Taylor, ed., Holy Book in Comparative Perspective 45-49. 36. Denny and Taylor, "Introduction," in Denny and Taylor, ed., Holy Book in Comparative Perspective 2. 37. Majid Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1983) xvi. [Page 33]

The Historical Sequence

AN especially rich area for pluralistic study is the consideration of religions as historical phenomena, which can be approached from several promising perspectives. The first is to consider the historicity of the Manifestations themselves. Except for the founders of religions in the nineteenth century (the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh), the lives of the great central figures of the earlier religions are not recorded in historical documents. Yet their historicity is generally accepted.

Of Abraham, the Bible mentions only that he lived in Sumerian Ur. Küng notes that "[w]e have hardly any certain knowledge about him as a person; it is impossible to write a biography of Abraham." And yet "critical exegetes no longer maintain today that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are . . . purely mythical figures... they seem to have been historical figures." No evidence of Moses survives outside the Bible, and he left no literary work; but today there is little dispute that he was an historical figure. 38 Zarathustra is recognized as "an actual character on the plane of earth in the first millennium B.C.," though he "may not be accurately represented in the meager notices of his life that have come down to us."39 For Hinduism, it is impossible to identify a single founder in "the divers belief systems and lifestyles that constitute Hinduism." One of the authors of the Vedas was "Krishna Dvaipayana... also known as Veda-vyasa, 'Veda-divider.'"40 Küng writes that he was "a historic person, even though...various layers of tradition have left their deposits on this real figure."41 The historical existence of the Buddha "was proved near the end of the nineteenth century by E. Senart and H. Kern."42 The biblical Jesus' historical existence was questioned in the late nineteenth century by some scholars such as the German philosopher Arthur Drews but has been accepted with little question since, and in the last few decades considerable progress has been made in determining some basic facts of his life and teachings.

More significant than questions of their historicity is the great opportunity for pluralistic study that exists in the reported patterns of their lives and ministries. Traditionally each religion has ascribed a unique importance to its founder, whom it usually considers to be qualitatively different (in terms of spiritual capacities and station) from the founders of the other religions. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s explanations on this issue seemingly imply that one may gain major insights into their common meaning if, instead, one looks for historical patterns rather than attempting to establish the uniqueness of any one Manifestation. He points out that at the beginning of most religions one sees its founder living among a people "enmeshed in superstition and blind imitation" of the past, oblivious of the divine and heedless of his commandments, divided into sects and creeds, torn by discord, strife and bloody wars. 43

Abraham was born in polytheist Ur, ruled by cruel Nimrod. Moses lived among the tribes of Israel, humiliated under the yoke of the Pharaoh. When Zarathustra was born, the people of his country "sought refuge in fortified oases and fortress-castles among the mountains" from "the exploits of plunderer-no-

38. Hans Küng, Judaism: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, trans. J. Bowden (New York: Crossroad, 1992) 7, 48. 39. Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology (New York: Arkana, 1991) 209. 40. Robert C. Lester, "Hinduism: Veda and Sacred Text," in Denny and Taylor, ed., Holy Book in Comparative Perspective 126, 113, 140. 41. Küng, Christianity and World Religions 278. 42. Küng, Christianity and World Religions 317. Emile Senart was a French Indianist (1847-1928); Hendrik Kern, a Dutch Sanskrit scholar (1833-1917). 43. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 55. [Page 34]mads and male bands of fanatics that spread violence in the Indo-Iranic world."⁴⁴ Zarathustra himself "speaks often of raiding, ruthlessness and bloodshed, and gives a pic- ture of a society rent and in turmoil."⁴⁵ Krsna was born in a time when chaos prevailed.⁴⁶ At the time of the Buddha, "Indian society was already immersed in a grievous feudal conservatism... Religion was reduced to a ritualism dominated by the Brahmin sacer- dotal caste.... The coalition between throne and altar... the rigorous division in castes [and] the principle of the karma and reincarnation, formed a powerful reactionary net."⁴⁷ Jesus was surrounded by a Jewish nation that had fallen from the heights of the glory of Solomon to a condition of bondage under the Roman Empire. Muhammad preached among the nomadic tribes of the Arabian desert, who were so savage that they encour- aged the burying of their newborn daughters alive. The Báb and Bahá’u’lláh lived in the decaying Persia of the Qajar age. Invariably the Manifestations appear in such dire social situations as powerful regenerative moral voices.

One might also compare and contrast the lineage of the Manifestations. Kṛṣṇa, the Buddha, and Bahá’u’lláh were of royal blood. Zarathustra was a priest. Muhammad and the Báb were merchants. Jesus was a carpen- ter; Moses, an exile "slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."⁴⁸ More to the point, none of them held (or continued to hold) any earthly power. Rather, each presents himself not in his own name but as a divine messenger; reaffirms the greatness of the divine; and summons humanity to draw nearer to it.⁴⁹

The various descriptions of the Manifes- tations' encounters with the divine realm also lend themselves to comparative study. Moses heard the voice of the divine coming out from a burning bush on Mount Sinai.⁵⁰ Zarathustra had seven "visions of the Angel Bahman (vohu-manah-'Good Thought')," after which he emerged aware of his pro- phetic mission.⁵¹ The Buddha was illumined under the tree of Bodhi (a word meaning enlightenment). When Jesus came out from the Jordan's waters where he had been bap- tized by John the Baptist, "he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. And lo a voice from heaven, say- ing, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."⁵² Muhammad heard, in a cave of Mount Hirá', the voice of the angel Gabriel saying to him, "Recite: In the name of thy Lord who created, created Man from a blood- clot...." When he came out of the cave, he heard the same voice saying, "Muhammad! You are the Messenger of God and I am Gabriel!"⁵³ Bahá’u’lláh mentions "a Maiden" who "[p]ointing with her finger unto [his] head, . . . addressed all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, saying: "By God!... This is the Mystery of God and His Treasure, the Cause of God and His glory unto all who are in the kingdoms of Revelation and of creation, if ye be of them

44. Paul du Breuil, Le zoroastrisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982); Italian trans.: Lo zoroastrismo, trans. Silvana Brusati (Genova: Il melangolo, 1993) 17. 45. Mary Boyce, Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism, ed. and trans. Mary Boyce (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990) 11. 46. Cf. Bhagavad-gītā 4:7. 47. Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í 23-24. 48. Exod. 4:10. 49. For the relationship between Buddhism and revelation, see note 62 below. 50. Cf. Exod. 3:1 ff. 51. Bausani, Persia religiosa 38; English trans.: Religion in Iran 26. Cf. Alessandro Bausani, Buddha (Chiasso, Switz.: Elvetica, 1973) 24-33. 52. Matt. 3:16-17. 53. Koran 96:1-4; Alessandro Bausani, "Introduzione," Il Corano, Introduzione, traduzione e commento di Alessandro Bausani (Firenze [Florence]: Sansoni, 1961) XXV. [Page 35]that perceive."

54 When these descriptions are given a literal interpretation, their differences are stressed. But when their spiritual purport is understood, their common features become evident. It is the same theopathic experience set forth in different words.

No less productively, the Manifestations may be comparatively studied both as metaphysicians and as social reformers, the two being interrelated. Whatever its source, revelation invariably redefines the world as part of a spiritual reality. Revelation "tells us . . . what we should do, in order to sanctify ourselves and society."55 In other words, each Manifestation calls on human beings to follow his teachings, because through such a behavior human beings will come closer to the divine. In the course of the process of their approaching the divine, human beings are gradually released from the inferior level of their existence, the material level, that is sometimes defined as "evil," and gradually acquire divine qualities, that are defined as "good." Christians call this spiritual process "salvation." It constitutes a spiritual agreement or Covenant between the divine and humankind that occurs in all religions. In Christianity and Buddhism it is a personal sanctification; in Islam it is both the individual and the community (the ummah) that is saved or sanctified. In the Bible the first germ of the Covenant may be found in Genesis when Adam and Eve were requested not to eat "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."57 Similar covenants were made with Noah, Abraham, and Moses. 58 Jesus renewed the Covenant, saying that he had come to confirm the Law of the Prophets but also announced a new law, obedience to which would disclose the gates of the Kingdom."9 Zarathustra appears "as a prophet-reformer ..appointed by a supreme god Ahura Mazdâ ('wise lord' [or 'lord of wisdom'], to speak to men through revelation" and "[t]he first good step to take is to follow the word of the Wise Lord (Ahura Mazda) and his laws as revealed by Zarathustra...."60 Hinduism teaches that "[m]an's faith is awakened by the word of revelation, as set down in the holy scriptures."61

Although the question of the Buddha's teaching on the divine is complicated and needs much further study, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá numbers the Buddha among "[t]he holy Manifestations Who have been the Sources or Founders of the various religious systems."62

54. Quoted in Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1957) 101-02. 55. Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í 491. 56. Koran 24:54; 33:7-8. 57. Gen. 2:15-17. 58. Gen. 6:5-22; 7-9; 12:1-3; 15; 17; 22; and Exod. 19:3-5. 59. Cf. Matt. 5:17 and Acts 3:21-22. 60. Bausani, Persia religiosa 28; English trans.: Religion in Iran 17. Cf. Yasna 29:8, in The Hymns of Zarathustra: Being a translation of the Gâthâs together with introduction and commentary by Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, Translated from the French by Mrs. M. Henning (Boston, MA.: Tuttle, 1992) 61. 61. Küng, Christianity and World Religions 229. These are the words of the Bhagavad-gitä: "Whenever there is a decline of righteousness and rise of unrighteousness, O Bhārata (Arjuna), then I send forth (create incarnate) Myself. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age" (Bhagavad-gītā 4:7-8). 62. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 197; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions 165. As to the Buddha's teachings on the divine, he refuses to answer a number of questions regarding metaphysical issues "that he stigmatizes as pointless, and he turns to silence (which in India does not necessarily mean 'no') or denies one by one the different possible answers" (Mario Piantelli, "Il buddhismo indiano," in Storia delle religioni a cura di Giovanni Filoramo, vol. 4., Religioni dell'India e dell'Estremo Oriente [Bari: Laterza, 1996] 294). The reasons for this silence is explained differently by various scholars: to avoid "a dangerous confusion with quasi-idolatrous henotheisms" (Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í 374) and "to make a clear distinction between this religion of ethics and the corrupt superstitions of the prevailing religion, so as to prevent the former being eventually subsumed by the latter" (John Huddleston, The Search for a Just Society [Oxford: George [Page 36]Bahá’u’lláh writes in one of his prayers:

“I testify, O my God, that this is the Day whereon.... Thou didst manifest Him Who is the Revealer of Thyself and the Treasury of Thy wisdom and the Dawning-Place of Thy majesty and power. Thou didst establish His covenant with every one who hath been created in the kingdoms of earth and heaven and in the realms of revelation and of creation.”63

Perhaps most significant of all in understanding humankind’s shared, but essentially hidden, common spiritual heritage, is the comprehensive study of the moral principles and laws that form the core of each religion. Numerous scholars agree with C. Lynn Stephens and Gregory Pence, professors in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alabama, that “there is no simple, one-size-fits-all story to tell about the relation between religion and morality throughout all the world’s religions.”64 However, the idea of love is undeniably a part of all religions, whatever meaning they ascribe to their own morality. The Rg Veda says:

Like the enlightened ones of the past who used to acquire their share in unity, live ye all in harmony with one another, consort in loving sweetness with all, be one in thought and knowledge. . . . Be united in your purpose, let your hearts be as one heart, minds of all as one mind, so that your affairs may be co-operatively well organized.65

Zarathustra speaks of Vohu Manah, “the Good Mind, which is God turned towards man, God revealing himself to man and helping man” (that is, the divine as love) and of Armaiti, translated as “piety, devotion, love” (that is, human love for God). Zarathustra writes that

When, O Wise One, shall Devotion come with Righteousness? The future redeemers of the peoples Are they who through Good Mind strive in their deeds To carry out the judgment which thou hast decreed, O Wise One, as Righteousness.66

Ronald, 1989] 26) or “to defend the absolute transcendence of the divinity” (Raimundo Panikkar, Il silenzio di Dio: Una rielaborazione a cura dell’Autore de El Silencio del Dios [Madrid: Guadiana de Publicaciones, 1970]; Italian trans.: Uma Marina Vesci and Gian Paolo Violi, 2nd ed. [Roma: Borla, 1992] 61). Other scholars suggest, on the one hand, that if only the doctrine of nirvana is emphasized, “it becomes quite similar to the doctrines of pure monotheism” (Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í 374) and that “[t]he disputes about the nature of Suchness in Buddhism reflect disputes within Christianity about the nature of God” (Keith Ward, Images of Eternity [Oxford: Oneworld, 1993] 75) and, on the other, that “the Buddhas have assured us that behind this impermanent world and its illusions there is a reality, the Absolute Reality; and because of this it is possible for us to escape from the sorrow caused by the chances and changes of this world” (Moojan Momen, Buddhism and the Bahá’í Faith [Oxford: George Ronald, 1995] 23; see Udana 8:3, quoted in Momen, Buddhism and the Bahá’í Faith 23). As to the relation between Buddhism and revelation, a number of scholars maintain that since the Buddha is “the only one who is enlightened,” Buddhism is similar to revealed religions, “founded on the authority of a particular person who claims to know what is ultimately true” (Ward, Images of Eternity 68). Bausani writes that any “revelation is . . . not the revelation of a physical and transcendent science, but the revelation of the divine will. God does not tell us what we must believe about him. . ., but what he wants us to do. Is it not substantially the same thing that the antimetaphysical original Buddhism had said in a different linguistic and expressive structure?” (Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í 26). The issue will remain a topic of discussion, also because, in the opinion of many scholars, “the so-called primitive Buddhism continues to be puzzling,... [and] the authentic doctrine of the Buddha is very far from being identified” (Panikkar, Il silenzio di Dio 26).

63. Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations, comp. and trans. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1957) 35-36. 64. C. Lynn Stephens and Gregory Pence, Seven Dilemmas in World Religions (New York: Paragon, 1994) 141. 65. Rg Veda VIII, 7 (quoted in Jamshed K. Fozdar, The God of Buddha [Ariccia, Rome: Casa Editrice Bahá’í, 1995] 57). 66. The Hymns of Zarathustra 15 (Yasna 48:11, 12) [Page 37]The Buddhist Sutta-nipäta says: Just as with her own life a mother shields from hurt her own, her only, child, let all embracing thoughts for all that live be thine an all-embracing love for all the universe in all its heights and depths and breadth, unstinted love, unmarred by hate within, not rousing enemy.67

The Torah prescribes: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." It also admonishes: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord."68 These two Mosaic commandments were confirmed by Jesus as the "two commandments" on which "hang all the law and the prophets."69

The Koran encourages one to love human beings for love of God: he is pious who believeth in God, and the last day, and the angels, and the Scriptures, and the prophets; who for the love of God disburseth his wealth to his kindred, and to the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and those who ask, and for ransoming; who observeth prayer, and payeth the legal alms, and who is of those who are faithful to their engagements when they have engaged in them, and patient under ills and hardships, and in time of trouble: these are they who are just, and these are they who fear the Lord.70

Bahá’u’lláh writes: "Be most loving one to another. Burn away, wholly for the sake of the Well-Beloved, the veil of self with the flame of the undying Fire, and with faces joyous and beaming with light, associate with your neighbor." He also writes: "Of old it hath been revealed: 'Love of one's country is an element of the Faith of God.' The Tongue of Grandeur hath, however, in the day of His manifestation proclaimed: 'It is not his to boast who loveth his country, but it is his who loveth the world.'"71

Each religion also has a prophetic dimension that can be studied comparatively. The Bahá’í writings observe that each Manifestation fulfills the promise of a previous one, whose spiritual teachings he reconfirms and fulfills. At the same time he announces the advent of a following Manifestation, who will arise after many centuries. Therefore, all of them are connected with one another in a chain of prophetic promises that show them as all united in utmost harmony and perfect love.72

The people among whom the Manifestation appears are therefore "expecting the coming of a promised one" ( ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Abdul Baha on Divine Philosophy.

Notes

67. "The Sutta Nipata, translated from the Pali by V. Fausboll," in The Sacred Books of the East, Part II, vol. 10, (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsiddas, 1882) 149-50. 68. Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18. 69. Cf. Matt. 22:35-40. 70. Koran 1:172. 71. Bahá’u’lláh, "Lawh-i-Laylatu’l-Quds" (Tablet of the Holy Night), Gleanings 316; "Lawh-i-Dunya" (Tablet of the World), Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, trans. Habib Taherzadeh (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1978) 87-88. 72. The episode of the sacrifice of Isaac is followed by a divine promise to Abraham, which is a prophecy of future Manifestations (Gen. 22:16-18). Moses and Jesus present themselves as confirming and fulfilling God's allegiance with His people (Ex. 3:16; 6:2-8; Matt. 5:17) and promise the advent of future Manifestations (Deut. 18:15; John 14:15, 26, 28). Muhammad confirms previous Manifestations (Koran 4:150-52) and promises a future one who will arise in the Judgment Day (Shia Qa’im and Sunni Imam Mahdi). Zarathustra prophesies the advent of his spiritual son Saoshyant. The Vaisnavas, the adherents of one of the three major forms of Hindu devotion that accepts Visņu as the super-God, say that Vişnu has become incarnate in the world nine times and at the end of times will become once again incarnate as Kalki Viṣṇuyas'as. Buddhist scriptures mention a number of Enlightened Ones who appeared before Buddha and the Buddha Maitreya-Amitabha who will appear at the end of time. The Báb presents himself as the Qa’im of Islam and the Herald of a Manifestation who will appear after him. Bahá’u’lláh says that he fulfills the Báb's as well as all past religions' eschatological prophecies, and announces that other Manifestations will come after him. [Page 38]The reaction to the Manifestation within his own culture also lends itself to comparative study. Inevitably, his iconoclastic qualities, with his sometimes implicit, but often quite explicit, criticism of the present order and its moral decline, causes conflict between him and his followers and between him and the culture and its religious and secular leaders. Though he reaffirms the spiritual laws that form the timeless underpinnings of all religions (harmony, love, and unity), he also rejects traditions that have calcified into literal and reductive interpretations of scriptures and deadening rituals. Moreover, he abrogates a number of the practical or material teachings inculcated by his predecessor, teachings grown by then obsolete, antiquated, and unfit to meet the exigencies of a people that in the meantime has changed. He also broadens the spiritual teachings of former religions. For example, Abraham fought against Sumerian polytheism and proclaimed monotheism. Moses struggled against idolatry, restating monotheism and the value of morality in daily life. Jesus confirmed some laws of the Prophets, but he also disregarded the laws of the Sabbath and abrogated the law of divorce. Muhammad opposed idolaters, as well as certain Jewish and Christian doctrines that had arisen after the deaths of those traditions' founders. Zarathustra denounced "the cruelties of the Karapans [the priest-sorcerers] and... the kavis [the lord-despots], because of the former's sorcery... and of the latter's injustice and protection they afforded to the priests." "An iconoclast, he overthrew all anthropomorphic and zoomorphic idols and replaced them with a universal ethos wherein all former rites were stigmatized in the same way as the mistakes of the drujevant, the thugs of Druj, the Deceit."73 Krsna was "opposed to the sacerdotalism of the Vedic religion."74 The Buddha was the reformer of previous Indian religions, "turned into rituals and magic."75

The obvious resistance to the Manifestation's reforms also follows a pattern that lends itself to comparative study. Typically, the Manifestation's calls for reform and innovation cause fear and bewilderment among many, especially those misled by people in positions of power and authority. Many reject him, and persecution develops, as history copiously records. The sufferings of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus at the hands of their contemporaries are described in the Bible and the Koran. Muhammad's preaching provoked such animosity that he was obliged to leave Mecca and to repair to Medina. Zarathustra faced "the opposition of priests and scholars who tried to discredit him, by introducing in his room relics connected with the cult of necromancy."76 Echoes of his anguish come from the Gathas, wherein he "complains of the persecutions he suffers at the hands of certain priestly castes... the typical figure of a prophet fighting against a hostile environment, in defense of a divine revelation and moral concepts."77 Finally, he was stabbed in his back, "at the age of seventy-seven, while praying in his oratory," by a priest of the old order.78

The Gathās have references to those who complain about Kṛṣṇa's teaching and express their lack of faith in him. MB [The Mahābhārata] has indications that the supremacy of Krsna was not accepted without

170). But their messianic waits are inspired by literal interpretations of the Holy Book, implying the expectation of unlikely portents and material cataclysms. Thus many of them deny the new messiah, in spite of any clear spiritual evidence of his truth. 73. du Breuil, Lo zoroastrismo 21, 39-40. 74. Radhakrishnan, Bhagavadgītā 29. 75. Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í 22. 76. du Breuil, Lo zoroastrismo 25. 77. Bausani, Persia religiosa 29; English trans.: Religion in Iran 18. 78. Mehr, Zoroastrian Tradition 48; cf. du Breuil, Lo zoroastrismo 27. [Page 39]challenge. Even the Buddha "was not spared jealousies of rivals and absurd disputes among monks. We learn from a number of sources that his cousin Devadatta tried to kill him, so that he might succeed him."80 The Báb was persecuted, imprisoned, and finally executed. Bahá’u’lláh was deprived of all his wealth, repeatedly exiled, and imprisoned for almost forty years. The followers of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh were so bitterly persecuted that Ernest Renan, the well-known French philosopher, historian, and scholar of religions, describes the butchery perpetrated against them in a single day in August 1852 in Tehran as "a scene perhaps unparalleled in history." Yet through their staunchness, the opposition of the old world fails. The new teachings become established; the diffusion of the new teachings renews spirituality and morality, brings unity among people and races formerly divided, and creates the conditions wherein a new civilization may flourish. Surely that recurring pattern merits comparative study.

79. Radhakrishnan, Bhagavadgītā 29. Cf. Bhagavad-gita 3:32; 9:11; 18:67. 80. "Buddhismo," Religioni, 202. 81. Ernest Renan, The Apostles (London, 1869) 283. 82. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization, trans. Marzieh Gail with Ali-Kuli Khan (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1952) 80. Bahá’u’lláh describes these leaders as "they that worship no God but their own desire, who bear allegiance to naught but gold, who are rapt in the densest veils of learning, and who, enmeshed by its obscurities, are lost in the wilds of error" (Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-lgán 214). 83. Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’í 438. 84. Bausani, Saggi sulla Fede Bahá’t 74.

It could prove no less fruitful to study the ways in which religions fall into decline, the way in which human interpretations and rituals gradually adhere to the original teachings, whose splendor is thus obscured. The Bahá’í scriptures seem to suggest that a religion declines "when it falls into the hands of religious leaders who are foolish and fanatical," who divert it "to the wrong ends, until this greatest of splendors turns into blackest night."82 A spiritual decline starts, whereby love for the reality of the spiritual teachings is replaced by attachment to the forms and externalisms of tradition. Spiritual law, once alive and fruitful, is substituted by "what has been called a 'paper pope.'"83 Typically religion, which was born as a revolutionizing agent, becomes a conservative force in the hands of the establishment. Love, harmony, and unity decline while prejudice and intolerance prevail. That is, as phenomenal entities, religions have a life cycle like everything else. They are born, they grow, they yield their fruits, and they eventually decline. They need to be studied from that phenomenological perspective. By using pluralistic historical scholarship to study religious truth, a reconciliation may be attained that many consider as impossible, "a reconciliation and a solution of the eternal dilemma between historicism, whereby nothing is fixed, and religiosity, whereby whatever does not pertain to a certain age, person, Church or community is mistaken."84

The Current State of Religion

PERHAPS the most compelling topic that scholars of pluralism might address is the state of religion in the modern world. Any objective observer would agree that, in comparison to ages past, the influence and the reputation of religion have declined. A considerable segment of the world's population, while identifying itself as believers, would also readily acknowledge concerns about the condition of their faith and its ability to address the world's many problems. In a materialistic and scientific age there are many who would not consider religion as a necessary element in their lives or a significant instrument by which to investigate reality, or even a guide by which to choose patterns of behavior. Scholars of pluralism might usefully do more to assess [Page 40]the actual state of religion in the minds of people and to study both the causes of decline and the effects if it continues. On a philosophical level, valuable studies could be made of the answers contained within every religion to the materialistic philosophies that consider them irrelevant. Equally, a rigorous critique of science, which itself has taken on the status of a religion for many, could prove useful in challenging the unconsciously held assumptions present in the modern world, especially as they relate to "the artificial barriers erected between faith and reason, science and religion."85

But just as important is the need to investigate the self-imposed damage inflicted by religions upon themselves, starting with the unswerving belief that their religion is the only depository of truth, whereas other religions are either wholly false or at best minor manifestations of truth, thereby creating deadly levels of intolerance.

In the Bahá’í view, the exclusivism predominating in most religions is a dangerously toxic mindset. In 1912 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá described "the differences among the religions" as follows: "In past centuries the nations of the world have imagined that the law of God demanded blind imitation of ancestral forms of belief and worship. . . . By reason of this it has been impossible for the followers of religions to meet together in complete fellowship and agreement." He also observed that

Most regrettable of all is the state of difference and divergence we have created between each other in the name of religion, imagining that a paramount duty in our religious belief is that of alienation and estrangement, that we should shun each other and consider each other contaminated with error and infidelity. 86

The Bahá’í scriptures suggest that the most productive way to see the underlying unity of religions is to complement study of the social teachings (which necessarily differ for historical reasons) with study of fundamental concepts having to do with the spiritual life of humankind such as the knowledge of God, faith in God, spiritual perception, love for humanity in other words, with all those human virtues that religions describe as reflections of the attributes of the divine kingdom. In this respect, all religions recommend that all human beings acquire the virtues characterizing moral excellence and maintain that only a person who manifests such virtues in the form of thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds has fulfilled the purpose of his or her life.

In doing so, pluralist scholars would be concentrating on the power that belongs uniquely to religion as the instrument whereby the divine educates humankind. The purpose of every religion appears to be to bring forth human potentialities and to realize a transformation in human beings. As Bahá’u’lláh writes: "if the character of mankind be not changed, the futility of God's universal Manifestation would be apparent." This transformation, as gradual as it may be, is radical, and affects thought, feeling, words, and deeds.

Collective transformation is a natural consequence of individual transformation. Spiritually transformed individuals possess a high level of morality, a sense of unity with other human beings, faith in life and progress, courage, and loyalty to principles, making those people—whatever their religion—powerful instruments of civilization. As Ervin Laszlo, the foremost exponent of systems philosophy and general evolution theory, writes:

85. The Universal House of Justice, To the Peoples of the World: A Bahá’í Statement on Peace by the Universal House of Justice (Canada: Association for Bahá’í Studies, 1986) 6.

86. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 161, 443, 403.

87. Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-lgán 240-41. [Page 41]In the language of the new sciences of evolution, they [the earliest followers of a prophet] can be the small, initially peripheral fluctuation which can be suddenly amplified in a complex dynamical system when that system becomes critically unstable, and which, amplified and spreading, can determine the course of the coming bifurcation. Acting with sound knowledge, sound faith and firm determination, men and women of good will can load the dice of social change, bias the statistics of evolutionary transformation, and achieve a humanistic end that is consistent with the great patterns and modalities of evolution that hold good on Earth as in the vast reaches of the cosmos. 88

88. Ervin Laszlo, "Introduction," in The Universal House of Justice, To the Peoples of the World xiv.

This capacity for transforming individuals and creating civilization is demonstrated through history for all world religions. Bahá’ís earnestly believe (and their scriptures teach) that all religions are equally authentic, true, and vital to the well-being of humanity. [Page 42]

The Truth

after Idries Shah

1. Everything I say is a lie, I tell my students. Do you believe me? Of course, they reply.

2. He was willing to sell you the truth, his sign said, but you had to be willing to pay a million dollars a word- How can you charge so much? the king protested. Haven't you noticed, Nasrudin replied, the scarcity of an item determines its cost?

3. My computer pauses to tell me it is "Saving Truth'." Aren't we all, I say aloud. No one is using it. [Page 43]

THE TRUTH

The night the king decreed that liars must be hanged Nasrudin left the city to return when the first rooster flew into the rosy dawn, and the sun cockled above the blossoming lemon tree.

Where are you going? the soldiers asked the darting madman, whose screams awoke the sleeping guard within them.

I am going to be hanged!

That can't be true said the king, he's lying. But, said an underling, if we hang him he'd be telling the truth.

And so they quibbled on that bridge while Nasrudin danced around the gallows urging them to hurry up, urging them to take their time, to be careful to merge all the right distinctions.

-Peter Murphy Copyright 2000 by Peter Murphy [Page 44]

"The Bahá’í Problem": A Report to the Shah, 1901

TRANSLATED BY AHANG RABBANI

Introduction

THE 1901 dispatch written by Maḥmúd Khán 'Alá'u'l-Mulk, the Iranian ambassador to the Sublime Port, and addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran (here translated by Dr. Ahang Rabbani) is yet another document revealing the attitude of the Iranian government toward the Bahá’ís.' The ambassador, like most Iranians at that time, refers to the Bahá’ís as Bábís and expresses anxiety over the improvement of their "condition" in Acre. He is especially disturbed by the flow of visitors from Iran who are returning to Iran and spreading throughout the country the influence of the Head of the Faith, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who is not named in the text. The ambassador suggests the means of counteracting that influence. It is noteworthy that he does not trust Muslim agents to infiltrate the Bahá’í community since they may themselves succumb to the influence of the Bahá’ís. Neither does he trust the ability of learned seminarians to convert Bahá’ís to Islam, in the end placing more reliance on police measures.

The remark by the Shah, penned in the margin of the document, refers to advice given to him by Mírzá 'Alí Asghar Khán Amín'u's-Sultán, long-time prime minister, who was well aware that Bahá’ís posed no threat to the state and that persecution would only add to the grave problems Iran was experiencing at the time.

-THE EDITORS

WRITTEN in Shavvál 1318 A.H. [between 22 January and 19 February 1901] Report of 'Alá'u'l-Mulk, the Iranian Ambassador in Istanbul, to the Foreign Ministry.2 Confidential.

Copyright 2000 by Ahang Rabbani

1. The original text was published in Guzidih-yi Asnád Siyásy-i Írán va 'Uthmání (Selections from the Political Correspondences of Iran and the Ottoman Government), Qajar Period, vol. 5 (Tehran: 1370Sh), published by Váhid-i Nashr-i Asnád and reprinted in Payám-i Bahá’í 187 (June 1995): 31-32. 2. The text reprinted in Payám-i Bahá’í incorrectly translates Shavvál 1318 A.H. as April 1901. [Page 45]

A REPORT TO THE SHAH, 1901

The condition of the Bábís in Acre, where their leader [‘Abdu’l-Bahá] resides, is improving significantly each day, and from all corners of Iran people come to visit him and bring with them the collected funds. In a similar manner, on behalf of the same leader, representatives are sent to all towns of Iran. To consider this situation unworthy of attention [by the Iranian government] and not exert appropriate influence is unwise, and gradually this problem will become intractable. The solution is not in imprisoning, beating, or slaying them, as an increase in application of such remedies would worsen the situation.

What comes to the mind of this servant is that first the exalted government should appoint a Christian agent with a salary, as a Muslim agent of any kind will attract attention, or, because of greed, will become one of them and a propagator of their thoughts. This agent should be instructed to attract their interest and to infiltrate their confidential activities. He should report the names and details and, where possible, a picture of anyone from Iran who arrives there [Acre] to the Foreign Ministry and the Embassy [in Istanbul]. And, in like manner, the Embassy should follow in secret those returning from Acre by using Russian agents until they reach the border, and from there by using the border agents and governors who should determine the whereabouts of the emissaries of the leader of Bábís and other details about them.

After they are identified, a few of the learned tulláb [seminary students] should find ways to engage them in conversation and, without showing that they are aware of their beliefs, through wise and informed exhortations, rescue them from the false path [that is, convert them to Islam]. In certain instances, when necessary, police and authorities are to stop their activities.

At any rate, such persons [the Bahá’ís], should, wherever they are, be identified and be known to the general population. In addition, should other measures also be necessary, the government authorities should issue appropriate instructions to governors, as otherwise one does not know with what sort of people one is associating.

As their number increases day by day, surely in time this will result in great mischief.

[signed] Maḥmúd.

[Written on the back of the envelope] From the Office of the Foreign Minister: This report is to be presented to the most holy threshold of the King of Kings.

[In the hand of Muzaffari’d-Dín Sháh]: By the reasons known to his honor Atábak-i A’azam [the Prime Minister] we should not pursue this matter and to the degree possible must remain silent. [Page 46]

Anyone, From Any Direction, Is Welcome Here

Bahá’í House of Worship Wilmette, Illinois

The House of Worship outside Chicago stands aloft, an instructor, a professor, exemplar of how to be. This structure, lattice-work, rising dome, buttresses, bulwarks, steadily lifted staircase in a continuous circle, all around this saint in stone, this, hails a continent to the ways of God. Mostly the work of early Bahá’ís in the West, stories of their numbers during the Depression skipping lunch, and sending those dimes and quarters to the building fund. Prayers said under the breath in this space soar with accurate wings to a most perfect, lighted curve of ceiling, or out to the gardens, nine walkways, nine portals, anyone, from any direction, is welcome here. -Michael Fitzgerald Copyright 2000 by Michael Fitzgerald [Page 47]

The Madness of Love

A fever in the bones is how it begins... soft and slow and secret. Building in the tissues and joints, working its way down the long bones, small bones, heart stones, into the breath and the sweet sweat, rising in the blush on the cheek: a song carries us outward and brings us back at last- boats on the ocean of love, candles on the table of love, food for the feast of love, kindling for the flames of love. When the fire comes... breathe it in. -S. K. Dapoz

Copyright 2000 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States

[Page 49]

Authors & Artists

DRUZELLE CEDERQUIST is a published poet who has taught linguistics at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria.

S. K. DAPOZ, a distance-education specialist, is the editor and publisher and an author for Purple Rose Press.

MICHAEL FITZGERALD has published twelve books of poetry as well as nonfiction, children's literature, and many shorter works.

SANDRA HUTCHISON was awarded a Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship to complete research for her book "The Betrayed Generation: The Literary Leftwing in Canada in the 1930s." A collection of nonfiction stories about her experiences in Anhui Province, China, entitled Chinese Brushstrokes: Stories of China, is available from Turnston Press.

PETER MURPHY has published poems and essays in numerous journals. In 1991 and 1995 he was designated a distinguished teacher by the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars.

AHANG RABBANI, a technical manager with DuPont and the editor of a mathematical-statistics journal, has translated into English a number of key documents in early Iranian Bahá’í history.

JULIO SAVI publishes regularly on issues related to the spiritual development of individuals and society. His book, The Eternal Quest for God, was published by George Ronald in 1989. Dr. Savi is completing another work, a study of Bahá’u’lláh’s Seven Valleys and Four Valleys, to be published in 2001.

ART CREDITS: Cover design by John Solarz, cover photograph by Michael Winger-Bearskin; p. 1, photograph by Steve Garrigues; p. 3, photograph courtesy of the National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Illinois: pp. 7, 8, 24, photographs by Steve Garrigues; p. 41, photograph by Darius Himes; p. 48, photograph by Steve Garrigues.

FORTHCOMING

■ A tribute to the Báb on the 150th anniversary of His martyrdom.

Nine authors, in two issues, weigh in on why the twentieth century, arguably the darkest century in recorded history, is also the century of light: Stephen R. Friberg on science and religion, Geoffry W. Marks on Chaim Potok, Gary L. Morrison on the dynamics of cultural change, Jim Stokes on humanity's family album, Milan Voykovic on the transmission and consumption of culture and ideas, Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis on African-American women writers, Dorothy Marcic on changes in organization management styles, Gayle Morrison on slave history, and Michael L. Penn on Oedipus in the twentieth century.