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WOBLD GBDEB
The Bahá’í Magazine
VotUME X
FEBRUARY, 1945
NUMBER 11
Divine Security
‘ABDU’L-BAHA
ITHIN the last few days a
terrible event has happened in the world; an event saddening to every heart and grieving every spirit. I refer to the “Titanic” disaster in which many of our fellow human beings were drowned, a number of beautiful souls passed beyond this earthly life. Although such an event is indeed regrettable, we must realize that everything which happens is due to some wisdom and that nothing happens without a reason. Therein is a mystery; but whatever the reason and mystery it was a very sad occurrence, one which brought tears to many eyes and distress to many souls. I was greatly affected by this disaster. Some of those who were lost voyaged on the “Cedric” with us as far as Naples and
afterwards sailed upon the other ship. When I think of them I
From a talk by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá given April 23rd, 1912, at the time of the Titanic disaster. '
am very sad indeed. But when I consider this calamity in another aspect, I am consoled by the realization that the worlds of God are infinite; that though they were deprived of this existence they have other opportunities in the life beyond, even as His Holiness Christ has said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” They were called away from the temporary and transferred to the eternal; they abandoned this material existence and entered the portals of the spiritual world. Foregoing the pleasures and comforts of the earthly, they now partake of a joy and happiness far more abiding and real; for they have hastened to the kingdom of God. The mercy of God is infinite and it is our duty to remember these departed souls in our prayers and supplications that they may draw nearer and nearer to the Source
Itself.
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These human conditions may be likened to the matrix of the mother from which a child is to be born into the spacious outer world. At first the infant finds it very difficult to reconcile itself to its new existence. It cries as if not wishing to be separated from its narrow abode and imagining that life is restricted to that limited space. It is reluctant to leave its home but nature forces it into this world. Having come into its new conditions it finds that it has passed from darkness into a sphere of radiance; from gloomy and restricted surroundings it has been transferred to an environment spacious and delightful. Its nourishment was the blood of the mother; now it finds delicious food to enjoy. Its new life is filled with brightness and beauty; it looks with wonder and delight upon the mountains, meadows and fields of green, the rivers and fountains, the wonderful stars; it breathes the life-quickening atmosphere; and then it praises God for its release from the confinement of its former condition and attainment to the freedom of a new realm. This analogy expresses the relation of the temporal world to the life hereafter; the transition of the soul of man from darkness and
uncertainty to the light and real WORLD ORDER
ity of the eternal kingdom. At first it is very difficult to welcome death, but after attaining its new condition the soul is grateful for it has been released from the bondage of the limited, to enjoy the liberties of the unlimited. It has been freed from a World of sorrow, grief and trials to live in a world of unending bliss and joy. The phenomenal and physical have been abandoned in order that it may attain the opportunities of the ideal and spiritual. Therefore the souls of those who have passed from earth and completed their span of mortal pilgrimage in the “Titanic” disaster have hastened to a world superior to this. They have soared away from these conditions of darkness and dim vision into the realm of light. These are the only considerations which can comfort and console those whom
they have left behind.
Furthermore, these events have deeper reasons. Their object and purpose is to teach man certain lessons. We are living in a day of reliance upon material conditions. Men imagine that the great size and strength of a ship, perfection of machinery or the skill of a navigator will insure safety, but these disasters sometimes take place that men may know that God is the real protector. If it be the will of God to protect
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DIVINE SECURITY
man, a little ship may escape destruction whereas the greatest and most perfectly constructed vessel with the best and most skilful navigator may not survive a danger such as was present upon the ocean. The purpose is that the people of the world may turn to God the one protector; that human souls may rely upon His preservation and know that He is the real safety. These events happen in order that men’s faith may be increased and strengthened. Therefore, although we feel sad and disheartened, we must supplicate God to turn our hearts to the Kingdom, and pray for these departed souls with faith in His infinite mercy, so that although they may have been deprived of this earthly life,
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they may enjoy a new existence in the supreme mansions of the heavenly Father.
Let no one imagine that these words imply that man should not be thorough and careful in his undertakings. God has endowed man with intelligence so that he may safeguard and protect himself with all that scientific skill can produce. He must be deliberate, thoughtful and thorough in his purposes, build the best ship and provide the most experienced captain, yet withal let him rely upon God and consider God as the one keeper. If God protects, nothing can imperil man’s safety; and if it be not His will to safeguard, no amount of preparation and precaution will avail.
In the spiritual world, the divine bestowals are infinite, for in that realm there is neither separation nor disintegration which characterize the world of material existence. Spiritual existence is absolute immortality, completeness and unchangeable being. Therefore we must thank God that He has created for us both material blessings and spiritual bestowals. He has given us material gifts and spiritual graces, outer sight to view the lights of the sun and inner vision by which we may perceive the glory of God. He has designed the outer ear to enjoy the melodies of sound and the inner hearing wherewith we may hear the voice of our creator.
——‘ABDU’L-BAHA
The Mission of Bahá’u’lláh
G. TOWNSHEND
0 PROPHET has ever come into the world with greater proofs of His identity than Bahá’u’lláh: nor in the first century of its activity has any older Faith achieved so much or spread so far across the globe as this.
The mightiest proof of a Prophet has ever been found in Himself and in the elficacy of His word. Bahá’u’lláh rekindled the fires of faith and of happiness in the hearts of men. His knowledge was innate and spontaneous, not acquired in any school. None could gainsay or resist His wisdom and even His worst enemies admitted His greatness. A11 human perfections were embodied in Him. His strength was infinite. Trials and suflerings increased His firmness and power. As a divine physician He diagnosed the malady of the Age and prescribed the remedy. His teachings were universal and conferred illumination on all mankind. His power has been poured forth more abundantly since His death. In His prescience He stood alone and events have proved and are still proving its accuracy.
A second proof which every Prophet has brought with Him has been the witness of the past: the evidence of Ancient Prophecy.
The fulfillment in this Day of the prophecies contained in the Qur’án and in Muslim tradition has not prevented Islam from persecuting the Bahá’í Faith but it has been startling and notorious.
The fulfillment of the prophecies
From George Townshend’s introduction to God Passes By, by Shoghi Effendi.
of Christ and of the Bible has been over a period of a hundred years or more matter of common knowledge and remark in the West. But the full extent of that fulfillment is only seen in Bahá’u’lláh. The proclamation of His Faith was made in 1844, the year when the strict exclusion of the Jews from their own land enforced by the Muslims for some twelve centuries was at last relaxed by the Edict of Toleration and “the times of the Gentiles” were “fulfilled.” The Advent has been long delayed and has fallen in a time of oppression and iniquity, of religious unreality and disbelief, when love for God and man had grown cold, when men were immersed in material business and pleasure. The Prophet came like a thief in the night and was here in our midst while people were wrapped in deep spiritual slumber. He tried and tested souls, separated the spiritual from the unspiritual, true from false believers, the sheep from the goats; and the people taken unawares were caught as in a snare and knew not their danger till the retributive justice of God closed in upon them. Yet the appearance of the Faith and the rapidity and direction of its extension was as the lightning which flashes from the East to the West. Christianity in contrast to the Revelation of Muhammad had spread from the East to the West and has been predominantly a Western Faith. The Bahá’í Faith likewise has moved westward but with even greater speed and momentum than Christianity.
From the beginning of the Era,
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MISSION OF Bahá’u’lláh
from the days of the Herald of the Faith, the Báb, the chronicles show a conscious sympathy of Christians with the New Teaching, which was in marked contrast with the attitude of their Muslim neighbors. The earliest instance of this perhaps is the kindly tribute of Dr. Cormick, an English Physician resident in Ṭihrán, to the Bill) whom he attended in prison when suffering from the effects of torture, and his record of the prevalent opinion that the Teaching of the B231) resembled Christianity. The first Western historian of the Movement, Count Cobineau, a French diplomat, wrote (1865) with enthusiasm of the Béh’s saintliness, of the loftiness of His ideals, of His charm, His eloquence, and of the astonishing power of His words over both friend and foe: Ernest Renan in “Les Apotres” (1866), Lord Curzon in “Persia,” Professor Browne of Cambridge in several works, and many Christian men of letters of later date have written in a similar strain.
But among the many instances of this instinctive sympathy, the most spectacular is that which marked the execution of the Báb in the market square of Tabríz on July 9th, 1850. The officer in charge of the firing party was a Christian. He approached the B511) and prayed Him that on this account and because he had no enmity towards Him in his heart he might be spared the guilt of perpetrating so heinous a crime. The Bab replied that if his prayer were sincere God was able to fulfill his desire. The remarkable miracle by which this prayer was granted, and the martyrdom of the Báb carried out by another regiment under a
Muslim officer, is a part of history. The Christian West, though far
333 from the scene of the Prophet’s ministry, felt and responded practically to the divine World Impulse decades before the East. Poets, major and minor, Shelley and Wordsworth and many another, sang of a new Dawn. A new missionary effort spread the Christian Gospel through the earth: spiritual men and women sought to revive reality in religion; reformers arose to redress long standing evils; novelists used their art for a social purpose. How different all this from the action of the corrupt, fanatical, persecuting East!
The Báb Himself identified His Teaching in spirit and purpose with that of Christ which was a preparation for His own: and He quoted some of Christ’s Instructions to His disciples as part of His own Ordination Address to the “Letters of the Living.”
Bahá’u’lláh from the beginning seems to have realized the special capacity of the progressive and em terprising West. He took the most vigorous steps possible to bring the Truth of the Age to the knowledge of the West and its leaders. Debarred from delivering His message to Europe in person, He wrote from a Turkish prison a general Tablet to the Christians, and another Tablet to the Sovereigns and leading men of the world but especially to the rulers of Christendom: and He also addressed five personal Tablets, one to the Czar, another to the Pope, another to Queen Victoria and two to Napoleon III. In these, in ringing tones of power and majesty such as would become the King of Kings imposing commands upon His vassals, He declared this Age the Supreme Day of God and Himself the Lord of Lords, the Father Who had come in His most great glory. All that had
334 WORLD ORDER
been mentioned in the Gospel had been fulfilled. Jesus had announced this Light and His signs had been spread in the West, that His followers might in this Day set their faces towards Bahá’u’lláh.
These letters are indeed pronouncements of a far-sighted Providence: and the catastrophe of the West which has occurred since they were written gives to them now a tragic and terrible interest. They are of some length but their drift may be generally indicated in a few paragraphs.
In His Tablet to Queen Victoria He commends Her Majesty for ending the slave trade and for “entrusting the reins of counsel into the hands of the representatives of the people.” But they who entered the Assembly should do so in a spirit of prayer to God and of trusteeship for the best interests of all mankind. The human race was one whole and should be regarded as the human body which though created perfect had become afflicted with grave disorders. It lay at the mercy of rulers so drunk with pride that they could not see their own best advantage. much less recognize this mighty Revelation. The one real remedy for the world’s ills was the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This could be brought to pass only through the Divine Physician. He called on the Queen to insure peace, to be just and considerate to her subjects, to avoid excessive taxation, to effect an international union for the reduction of armaments and the joint resistance of all nations to any aggressor Power.
His Tablet to the Pope contains an impassioned, loving appeal to Christians that they will recognize this,
the Promised Day of God, that they will come forth into its light and acclaim their Lord, and enter the Kingdom in His name. They were created for the light and He likes not to see them in the darkness. Christ purified the World with Love and with the Spirit that in this Day it might be able to receive Life at the hands of the Merciful. This is the coming of the Father of whom Isaiah spoke: the teaching which He now reveals is that which Christ withheld when He said, “other things I have to say unto you but ye cannot hear them now.” He bids the Pontifi take the Cup of Life and drink therefrom and “ofler it then to such as turn towards it amongst the peoples of all Faiths.”
The Tablet to Alexander 11 is in answer to a prayer addressed by the Czar to His Lord and in recognition of a kindness shown to Bahá’u’lláh when in prison and in chains by an ambassador of the Czar. He impresses on the Czar the supreme greatness of this Manifestation, tells him how the Prophet has subjected Himself to a thousand calamities for the salvation of the world and, having brought life to men, is threatened by them with death. He bids him expose this injustice, and in love for God and God’s Kingdom offer himself as a ransom in God’s path: no harm will come to him but a reward in this world and the next. Great, great the blessing in store for the king who gives his heart to his Lord.
In His two Tablets to Napoleon III, Bahá’u’lláh impresses on the Emperor the oneness of mankind whose many maladies will not be cured unless the nations, abandoning the pursuit of their several interests, agree together and unite in common obedience to the plan of
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MISSION OF Bahá’u’lláh 335
God. The human race should be as one body and one soul. A far higher degree of faith than the world has ever reached before is demanded by God of every man in this Era. All are commanded to teach the truth and to work for God’s cause: but no one will produce good results in this service unless he first purify and ennoble his own character.
Bahá’u’lláh bids the clergy give up their seclusion, mingle in the life of the people and marry. God is calling men to Him in this Age and any theology which takes its own theses as a standard of truth and turns away from Him is deprived of value and efficacy.
He has come to regenerate and unite all mankind in every deed and truth and He will gather them at the one table of His bounty. Let the Emperor call on His name and declare His truth to the people.
Grave warnings and open or implicit threats if the kings do not acknowledge the Manifestation and obey His commands are contained in all these Tablets, especially in this to Napoleon III. The collective Tablet addressed to all the kings is however stern and minatory beyond the rest. Bahá’u’lláh warns the rulers that if they do not treat the poor amongst them as a trust from God; if they do not observe the strictest justice; if they do not compose their differences, heal the dissensions that estrange them and reduce their armaments, and follow the other counsels now given them by the Prophet, “Divine chastisement shall assail you from every direction and the sentence of His justice shall be pronounced against you. On that day ye shall have no power to resist Him and shall recognize your own
impotence. Have mercy on yourselves and on those beneath you.”
Christ long centuries before had wept over the city whose children had ignored His visitation and refused His protection. Now at His second coming the same event recurred. But they who brought down the wrath of God on themselves were not the members of a nation but of an entire world.
Before He passed away Bahá’u’lláh proclaimed: “The hour is approaching when the most great convulsion will have appeared.” And again, “The time for the destruction of the world and its people hath arrived.”
More than forty years after the dispatch of these Tablets ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of the Prophet and the appointed Exemplar of His Faith, being freed at last from prison by the Young Turks, made a three years’ tour of Europe and America. Saddened by many things He saw, and knowing the doom to which the heedlessness of the nations was hurrying them, He was sparing of denunciation, reproach or criticism; instead, with words of cheer and undiscriminating love He summoned His hearers to high, heroic action. He spoke much of the spiritual and social goal set by God for this enlightened Age: “The Most Great Peace.” He Himself in His joy, in His serenity, in His love for all, in His wisdom, His strength and resolution and utter submissiveness to God, seemed the incarnation of the Spirit of that Peace. His very presence brought receptive souls into touch with a state of being of which they might have heard but which none of them had ever known. Through many months of missionary work He explained the moral and spiritual conditions which would
u Atgflks;fl=rw¢absa — ‘
336
make possible the Most Great Peace, and developed in many addresses the practical means by which it could be approached. In the United States, at Wilmette On the shores of Lake Michigan, He laid the foundation stone of the first Bahá’í Temple of the West, round which are to be grouped buildings devoted to social, humanitarian, educational and scientific purposes, the whole to be dedicated as one scheme to the glory of God and the service of man. He also saw in America the first beginnings of the building of the Administrative Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
But the general response of the public was not sufficient to stem the tides flowing towards war. Before He left the United States, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá foretold the outbreak of hostilities in two years’ time.
When at last peace was made, He declared that the League of Nations as constituted could not prevent war; and before He passed away in 1921 He announced to His followers the outbreak of another war fiercer than the last.
To many, at the opening of the second Bahá’í century, mankind seems to be drifting in a helmless barque upon a stormy and uncharted sea. But to the Bahá’ís another vision is revealed. The barriers by which men blocked their path to progress are torn down. Human pride is abased, human wisdom stultified. The anarchy of nationalism and the insufficiency of secularism are thor-, oughly exposed.
Slowly the veil lifts from the future. Along whatever road thoughtful men look out they see before them some guiding truth, some leading principle, which Bahá’u’lláh gave long ago and which men rejected. The sum and essence of
WORLD ORDER
the best hopes of the best minds today is garnered in such a simple statement as that of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s “Twelve Points.” 1. Unfettered search after truth. 2. The oneness of mankind. 3. Religion a cause of love and harmony. 4. Religion hand in hand with science. 5. Universal peace. 6. An international language. 7. Education for all. 8. Equal opportunities for both sexes. 9. Justice for all. 10. Work for all. 11. Abolition of extremes of poverty and wealth. 12. The Holy Spirit to be the prime motive power in life.
The immense, complex, bafiling task of unifying all peoples is set forth in its complete and inmost simplicity by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in seven pregnant phrases. 1. Unity in the political realm. 2. Unity of thought in world undertakings. 3. Unity of freedom. 4. Unity in religion. 5. Unity of nations. 6. Unity of races. 7. Unity of language.
Already the Bahá’ís have begun in deed and in fact to build the instrument destined to be the model and the nucleus of the Most Great Peace. The Administrative Order is as simple as it is profoundly conceived, and it can only be conducted by those
.whose lives are animated by love and
fear of God. It is a system in which such opposites as unity and universality, the practical and the spiritual, the rights of the individual and the rights of society, are perfectly balanced not through arranging a compromise but through the revelation of an inner harmony. Those who have the experience of operating the Order testify that it seems to them like a human body which is made to express the soul within.
On the lake shore at Wilmette stands the completed Temple of Praise, a sign of the Spirit of the
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MISSION OF Bahá’u’lláh
Most Great Peace and of the Splendor of God that has come down to dwell among men. The walls of the Temple are transparent, made of an open tracery cut as in sculptured stone, and lined with glass. All imaginable symbols of light are woven together into the pattern, the lights of the sun and the moon and the constellations, the lights of the spiritual heavens unfolded by the great Revealers of today and yester‘ day, the Cross in various forms, the Crescent and the nine pointed Star (emblem of the Bahá’í Faith). No darkness invades the Temple at any time; by day it is lighted by the sun whose rays flood in from every side through the exquisitely perforated walls, and by night it is artificially illuminated and its ornamented shape is etched with light against the dark. From whatever side the visitor approaches, the aspiring form of the Temple appears as the spirit of
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adoration; and seen from the air above it has the likeness of a NinePointed Star come down from heaven to find its resting place on the earth. But for the leading Of the peoples into the Promised Land, for the spiritualizing of mankind, for the attainment of the Most Great Peace the world awaits the arising of those whom the King of Kings has summoned to the task—the Christians and the Churches of the West. “Verily Christ said ‘Come that I may make you fishers of men’ and today We say ‘C‘ome, that We may make you quickeners of the world’ . L0! This is the Day of Grace! Come ye that I may make you kings of the realm of My Kingdom. If ye obey Me you will see that which We have promised you, and I will make you the friends of My Soul in the realm of My Greatness and the Com panions of My Beauty in the heaven of My Might for ever.”
The Bahá’í Faith recognizes the unity of God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand-in-hand with science, and that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful,
an ordered and progressive society.
—SHOGHI EFFENDI
5
Islam
EMERIC SALA
Part One
HE Prophet of Arabia, the
founder of a great civilization, emerges, if we will but investigate, as one of our greatest moral educators. The rapid and phenomenal rise of the Arabs to nationhood and the efiloreseence of civilization which followed wherever the Voice of Allah was heard is now history, but the force that was Islam still baffles our historians.
ARABIA BEFORE MUHAMMAD
Arabia was for the most part a waterless wilderness, too sparsely populated to send forth an overwhelming force to subdue and settle the more fertile surrounding countries. The Arabs Of the 6th century were divided into innumerable tribes, each with its own god or fetish, and often at war amongst themselves. “And even where united by blood or by interest they were ever ready on some insignificant cause to separate and abandon themselves to an implacable hostility. Thus at the era of Islam the retrospect of Arabian history‘exhibits an ever varying state of combination and repulsion such as had hitherto rendered abortive any attempt at a general union.”
Traces have been preserved of human sacrifices and even cannibalism. There are records of women biting the liver or drinking out of the skull of a fallen foe. “To the taking of human life it is clear that no moral guilt was thought to attach; and between accidental homicide and intentional murder the Arabs seem to have been quite unable to distinguish.” It was common practice to bury superfluous daughters alive and to divide the wives amongst the sons at the death of a father. Pagan Arabia showed no respect for women, property, or honor.
LIFE OF MUHAMMAD
At the mature age of forty Muhammad received His First Call to arise and proclaim the Will of God. We are told of His inner conflicts, His doubts and hopes, which alternately wrung His heart and which almost drove him to self-destruction, before He had realized His duty to mankind. His life was not that of a mystic communing with God in solitude. His was a continuous struggle for the liberation of man from bondage and ignorance. Khadija, His wife, was His
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iSLAM
first follower. Within two years Muhammad decided to invite forty of His kindred to a sectet meeting and told them of the new Faith. Only ‘Ali, who was then sixteen years old, responded. To those present the sight of this middle-aged, probably unlettered man, supported by his wife and this young lad, embarking on an enterprise against the whole world, must have appeared hopeless if not ridiculous. And yet the movement this unlearned man initiated was to astound the world.
Muhammad’s third believer was Zaid, His slave, to whom He gave his freedom. Ever since it has been a spiritual virtue amongst Muslims to liberate slaves. More than a thousand years before the British Parliament, Islém dealt an efiective blow at the age-old institution of slavery. Muhammad ruled that slaves could purchase their liberty by the wages of their service, otherwise public funds were to provide the means; and that fugitives fleeing to the territory of Islém should at once become free. A slave could marry his master’s daughter, and many ruled kingdoms and founded dynasties. It is now history that when Lloyd Garrison launched his anti-slavery campaign in 1830 no religious institution of Boston allowed him to use its
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hall. Islém has never made a distinction between white, black and yellow races.
The twenty-three years of Muhammad’s mission are usually divided into two almost equal periods, the first of which occurs in Mecca. The Mecca episode appeals to Christian historians, for here, not unlike Christ, we find a despised and persecuted Messenger of God, hiding in caves, homeless, preaching a simple faith and a good life at the continual risk of His own. The most bitter opposition came from those with vested interest in the old Kaaba and the idols. Muhammad and His early followers were outlawed and their means of livelihood taken away. It is during the second period, after His flight to Medina, that we are to witness during the last ten years of Muhammad’s life the creation of an integrated community. It is precisely in this period in Medina, when Muhammad assumed temporal as well as spiritual power and approved defensive warfare for the protection of the new community, that Christian criticism has been heaped upon Him. In this same period the work of Muhammad was most fruitful; for He united the Arabs into a nation and sub ordinated temporal to spiritual authority.
He proclaimed the law not
340 WORLD ORDER
only for the individual but also for a new social unit, the nation, composed of people of various ethnical origins. The strict measures He enforced for the preservation of 'this new nation-state were as foreign to the Christian ideal as they were foreign to the kindliness and love associated with Muhammad’s personal life. “There must be a law” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “to prevent wolves from destroying the lambs at such a period of religious his tory. That is why the Shepherd sanctioned such Vigorous protection for the sheep. Behind such laws of a Manifestation there is always a supreme wisdom.” It was to this new nation-state that the believers had to offer their allegiance as a part of their obedience to God, and it was this unifying force from within the state which explains the almost miraculous spread and sudden flowering of Islam.
MUHAMMAD BUILDS A NATION OF MANY RACES
The first recorded charter for freedom of conscience reads: “In the name of the most merciful and compassionate God given by Muhammad, the Prophet, to the Believers, and all these shall constitute one nation. . . . The Jews who attach themselves to
our commonwealth shall be protected from all insults and vexa tions; they shall have an equal right with our own people, to our assistance and good offices; the Jews . . . shall form with the Moslems one composite nation; they shall practice their religion as freely as the Moslems.”
The Prophet of Mecca not only united the warring tribes of Arabia in a common faith in one God, but he also overthrew the old system of tribal rule by assuming spiritual as well as political authority. Hitherto disunited, Arabia discovers itself suddenly with a common faith and allegiance, swearing obedience to a common ruler, the Prophet.
Mediaeval Europe, in contrast, still consisted of city-states and self-sufficient manors. In Europe “the fifteenth century was still a time when nations were forming rather than formed. The mediaeval system of Europe was not a system. of States in our sense or in the Greek sense. It was a collection of groups held together by ties of personal dependence and allegiance, and connected among themselves by personal relations of the same kind on a magnified scale. Lordship and homage, from the Emperor down to the humblest feudal tenant, were the links in the chain of steel which saved the world from being dissolved
ISLAM
into a chaos of jarring fragments.”
Many historians of Catholic Spain have admitted that their country was never as prosperous, its wealth never as equitably distributed, as during the seven hundred years of Muhhammadan rule. With irrigation and new agricultural methods the Moors transformed southern Spain into a garden. Large estates were divided amongst a prosperous class of small farmers. Trade flourished in the towns and their products were exchanged with those of Africa, Persia and India on highways which were safe for travel.
The first university of Europe was founded in Cordova. It had thousands of students from Asia, Africa and even Christian Europe. Many Catholic nobles were known to have come to the Muslims for medical treatment. Learning was encouraged. The people could read and write. Caliph Chakam collected a library of four hundred thousand manuscripts.
“In truth, the northern inhabitants of Europe, living as they did in gloomy city alleys or miserable village hovels clustered around the castles of rude, uncultured nobility, would have thought themselves in fairyland could they have been transported to this joyous, brilliant world.
341
But that which would have especially surprised them, which would have brought a flush of shame to the cheeks of any one with a spark of Christian feeling in his heart, was the noble spirit of toleration and of intellectual freedom which breathed over the happy plains of Andalusia. They would have been forced to admit that the religion of love might receive from the followers of the hated Muhammad instruction in that generous toleration of creeds with which the F ounder of their faith had sought to inspire them by word and example. Herein lies the fascination which today impels us to look back with yearning and regret upon the too rapid flight of that happy period when Cordova and Toledo guarded the sacred fire of civilization upon European ground, a fascination which still throws its glamour around the halls of the Alcazar of Seville or the pinnacles of the Alhambra.”
It was not an accident that the Jews enjoyed under the Moors their greatest freedom in Europe, when their mediaeval literature reached its highest distinction. Muslim jurists taught that the fundamental rule of law is liberty by recognizing that all are equal before God and therefore equal among themselves. Equality before the law is a fundamental principle of their political
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34-2 WORLD ORDER
and civil system. “The white is not above the black nor the black above the yellow; all men are equal before their Maker” was read out of the Qur’án throughout the Muslim world.
THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM
Within one century Islam surpassed the Roman Empire and became the largest continuous domain in the world, stretching over three continents, from Spain to India. ‘
Islam brought to the people it conquered a code based on equal rights and duties, limited taxation and equality before the law. The established custom of absolute rule and merciless exploitation was mitigated by the executive authority of a State which was subordinated to the Qur’án with its religious sanctions and moral obligations.
Muhammad never claimed that His way was the only one. “Verily” says the Qur’án, “those who believe (the Muslims), and those who are Jews, Christians, or Sabaeans, whoever had faith in God and the last day, and worked that is right and good,———for them shall be the reward with their Lord; there will come no fear on them; neither shall they be grieved.”
Islam was not the only religion which had used force for the propagation of its faith. It
seized the sword in self-defence, and once the sword is drawn it is not easy to distinguish defensive from aggressive action. In the second half of His ministry of twenty-three years, when He reached the mature age of fiftytwo and saw His community threatened with extinction, Muhammad declared: “Defend yourself against your enemies, but attack them not first. Goé hateth the aggressor.” Muhammad did not draw the sword for His own defense nor for the safety of His followers. He approved the use of force in defense of the community, a law to which incidentally every Christian community had to adhere or perish. To fight for the spread of the faith is not once mentioned in the Qur’án. “Let there be no compulsion in religion,” and “What wilt thou force men to believe when belief can come only from God?” testify to Muhammad’s tolerance. And this at a time when Christianity was not averse to a forcible extension of its faith. The massacres of Justinian and the frightful wars of Christian Clovis were in consonance with the spirit of those days.
Islam on the whole was generous to the vanquished and unexpectedly tolerant in an intolerant world. Historians recognize
that Muslim treatment of con
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ISLAM
quered Christians and Jews compares favorably with the general habit of the time. Emperor Heraclius massacred the Jews after capturing J erusalem, while, when Omar took the city in 637, he rode into Jerusalem at the side of the Patriarch, and prayed on the steps of the Church of Constantine. He left shrines and churches untouched in possession of the Christians. But when the Christian crusaders stormed Jerusalem an eyewitness says that “in the temple and porch of Solomon the horses waded in blood up to their knees” and according to another historian: “the brains of young children were dashed out against the walls; Muslims were roasted at fires; the Jews were driven into their synagogue by the Christians, and there burnt; a massacre of nearly 70,000 persons took place; and the pope’s legate was seen partaking in the triumph.” But when Saladin took the city from the Crusaders he shamed the Western world by allowing the clergy to take away
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their sacred vessels and treasure, “rewarded with gifts the virtue and piety of his enemies” and left the Holy Sepulchre to the Christians. The Muslims were, of course, also guilty of unnecessary bloodshed and fiendish cruelties but to condemn Muhammad for their misdeeds would be just as unfair as to accuse Christ for the atrocities committed by His followers.
The secret of the sudden spread and rise of Islamic civilization lies perhaps in the treatment of subject races, a lesson which the ruling powers of the twentieth century could, to their advantage, emulate. They accepted the vanquished, free or slave, as their equals, for very little in return. Muslims did not stand aloof as a superior race, nor was their empire colonial in purpose or intent. They assimilated their adopted comrades, black or white, Gentile or Jew.
Part two will conclude this article in the March issue.
His Holiness Muhammad declares Christ to be the Spirit of God. This is an explicit text of the Qur’án. He declares Christ to be the word of God. He has eulogized the disciples of Christ to the utmost. He has bestowed upon Her Grace Mary, the Mother of Christ, the highest praise. Likewise
His Holiness Christ has extolled Moses . .
. the prophets themselves have
manifested the utmost love toward each other but the nations who believe and follow them are hostile and antagonistic among themselves.
-—‘ABDU’L-BAHA
flih’itoria/
SOMEONE has asked: Do Bahá’ís need the Bible? The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is complete in itself. It contains all the beauty and assurance to attract men’s hearts, all the precepts and instructions to guide man’s daily life, all the spiritual dynamic to recreate man’s spiritual life and the plan and instructions needed to reconstruct our broken down and dying civilization. Both its history and its effects show that the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is indeed a new and independent revelation from
God. _
But the Bible is definitely linked with the Bahá’í Revelation. There are repeated references to the Bible in Bahá’í scriptures and a knowledge of the Bible helps to a fuller understanding of the Bahá’í Revelation. On the other hand the Bahá’í Revelation gives a deeper and fuller understanding of parts of the Bible than can he obtained in any other way. Just as Christ came not to destroy but to fulfill the Old Testament scriptures, so Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation fulfills and completes both Old and New Testament prophecies and writ Understanding the Bible
ings. And just as we understand much of the Old Testament better in the light of the New Testament, so we understand the Bible better in the light of Bahá’í scriptures. Moreover just as the Gospel of Jesus Christ, wherever it went, carried with it the Jewish scriptures or Old Testament, so the Gospel of Christ is carried wherever the Bahá’í message is carried.
Interest in the study and reading of the Bible has waned during the last fifty or more years here in America. The causes are without doubt many. During the early and middle parts of the nineteenth century there was a good deal of interest in Bible study. Bible classes were largely attended and revival meetings were popular. Today there is evidence of real ignorance of the Bible. The twentieth century has seen many attempts to revive interest in and knowledge of the Bible and to make the Bible understandable. S e v e r a 1 new translations rendering the Bible into modern English have been made. Editions have been printed with modern paragraphing and headings to emphasize the Bible
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UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE
as great literature. Several shorter Bibles have been published. All these are in addition to innumerable commentaries and other helps which have long been available for Bible study. And yet in spite of these valuable helps and scholarly treatises evidence such as that obtained in Bible tests in schools and cold leges indicates an appalling ignorance of the Bible.
The root of this condition surely lies deep and cannot be remedied by new translations of the Bible alone. The great wave of materialism that has engulfed America has wiped out desire for spiritual truth or for the development of the inner life. A recent poll on religious questions revealed that the vast majority of people in America believe in God and in a life after death. But this is quite different from a desire to understand spiritual truth and develop the spiritual nature of man. Such a desire is the real incentive for Bible study. People today are in a similar state to that in which Christ found the people of His time. The Jews of His time were religious in the outer sense. They observed forms of worship, sacrifice and tithing. But Christ found only a handful who in the least understood the spiritual truths which it was His mission to teach. Even one of the greatest
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teachers of the Jews did not understand what Christ meant when He spoke of spiritual rebirth. To most of those to whom J esus spoke the Bread of Heaven and Water of Life had no meaning beyond a literal one. Christ accused those people of being spiritually dead. Is it not similarly true that the people today, in the large, have no understanding of and no desire for spiritual truth? Is not this the deep reason for lack of interest in the Bible? And is not the real remedy a resurgence of Spiritual life?
And this is what Bahá’u’lláh has brought. He recreates man’s spiritual life. His mission to this modern world is in this sense the same as Christ’s mission for the world of His day—worlds in both cases given over to materialism. The followers of Bahá’u’lláh find new life and beauty and meaning in the Bible.
Besides giving spiritual comprehension, both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá give definite interpretation to passages and chapters in the Bible which were formerly obscure~passages found in the prophecies, in the words of Jesus and in the Book of Revelation. And since for the most part the Bible is not to be taken literally certain symbolisms are explained.
It is partly because of this too literal interpretation of the
346 Bible and partly through indif ference to spiritual matters that the mass of Christians fail to understand that the Bible very definitely points to further and fuller revelation from God. The truth in the Bible is eternal but because God has now sent a fuller revelation through Bahá’u’lláh the Bible is not the great source of spiritual regeneration for the world today. It contains no pattern for organic world civilization. “The vitality of men’s belief in God is dying
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out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the Vitals of human society; what else but the elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it?” We think that those who truly understand the Bible know that “His wholesome medicine” and “potent Revelation” is none other than the Revelation
which has come through Bahá’u’lláh. B.H.K.
DREAMERS WE WANT Silvia Margolis
Dreamers we want, dreamers with soaring desire! Dreamers we want, dreamers with breasts afireWho halt not for logic and wait not on reason, But burst thru all trammels of time and season, Take loathing, if need he, take censure, take scorn, Yet dream for the dreary and dare for the lom!
Dreamers we want, dreamers with dreams for our time! Dreamers we want, dreamers with daring sublime! Who stand where the bars of the world interpose And legions are ready to slay and oppose——Take rancor, if need be, take malice, take slight But plead on for Justice and strive on for Right!
Dreamers we want, dreamers, defiers of bars! Dreamers we want, dreamers, outsoarers of stars! Who bend not for glory and bow not for gain, But break thru all ranges and reaches a-mainTake burning, take branding, take blame evermore But lead forth the nations from bondage of war!
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Introductions t0 the Bahá’í Faith
ELIZABETH HACKLEY
ARE fortunate in having
in the Bahá’í literature sev eral books which are especially
helpful to people who know little
of the Bahá’í teachings. These
books are good introductions to
the Bahá’í Faith. Each one has
a diflerent approach to the teach ings and so each can appeal to a different type of mind.
The one volume from which we can gain the most comprehensive understanding of the Bahá’í teachings is “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” by J. E. Esslemont. This book is remarkable because it gives all the basic Bahá’í teachings and also many of those “inner spiritual significances” which every sincere seeker longs to grasp, and yet accomplishes this objective in a small volume. Dr. Esslemont has a genius for putting great spiritual truths into simple clear language without losing any of the depth of thought. Many of the spiritual problems which some of us spend a great deal of time explaining, Dr. Esslemont covers adequately in a few brief sentences. And we realize as we read one of his explanations that he has given us the heart of the problem. The chapters entitled, “What is a Bahá’í?”, “Prayer”, “Religious
Unity” and “Science and Religion,” are outstanding presentations of the subjects discussed. The chapter on “What is a Bahá’í?” has become a classic in Bahá’í literature. And the discussion of science and religion is considered by many people to be the best summary of that subject which has been written by a Bahá’í up to date. “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” might be called our best Bahá’í text book; yet one hesitates to call it a text book because it is easy to read and has much popular appeal. Every person who wishes to become a Bahá’í should read this book.
Since “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” is a kind of summary or compendium of the teachings, it is well to supplement it with a book which gives the history of the Faith and also some human interest stories. Such a supplement is to be found in Lady Blomfield’s delightful and moving book, “The Chosen Highway”. Here Lady Blomfield gives much historical material but gives it through the medium of stories and incidents told to her largely by the members of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s family while she
was visiting in Haifa. Two beau 347
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tiful chapters are devoted to her experiences with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when He was in London and Paris. This book is written in an easy popular style, and has considerable emotional appeal. One of the most precious things to be found in “The Chosen Highway” is the material about Bahá’u’lláh. Here for the first time we are given a glimpse of Bahá’u’lláh as a person, a divinely attractive human being. Some of this material can not be found in any other book.
A very different approach to the Bahá’í Faith is given by Stanwood Cobb in his book, “Security for a Failing World.” The author starts out by discussing certain social problems which most people are talking about today, and then goes on to show how these problems can be solved by religion. Because Mr. Cobb is a student of history, he is able to make it very clear that religion has always been the most efficient means for solving the great social problems of the past. He reviews the history of all great revealed religions and especially the history of Christianity and Islam. His chapter on Islam is of especial interest to the sociologist and to the student of religion, for he points out that Muhammadanism is a striking example of the way in which religion lays the foundations of civilization. He also
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gives us a new understanding of the beauty and spiritual efficacy of the teachings of Muhammad. After showing the practical results of religion from a historical point of view, Mr. Cobb makes us realize the need of a spiritual renaissance today. This new birth of religion‘is to be found in the Bahá’í Faith because it solves the problems of our age. The author discusses the Bahá’í program at length. Many people following his logical presentation through to the end have been helped by this book to accept the Bahá’í Faith.
For the liberal religious thinker, “Portals to Freedom” by Howard Colby Ives is an excellent introduction. Mr. Ives was a Unitarian minister when he met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in New York in 1912. He describes the powerful impact of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s personality, spirit, and ideas upon the mind and soul of a liberal clergyman who had never before realized the meaning of the love of God. We see the author’s religious philosophy gradually changing under the Master’s spiritual influence and a new humility taking possession of him. This is the story of a man’s struggle for assurance and spiritual freedom, and since most of us are going through the same struggle it is very helpful to us.
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A very valuable part of the book is the panorama of events in the life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in America presented here. We value it because we see how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá met all kinds of experiences in our western world. Mr. Ives depicts ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as the personification of divine love—the perfect example of the Bahá’í life. These pictures of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
are so beautiful that the reader is filled with the deep desire to rise to the heights where the Master dwells and to which He beckons
us. This book gives us some knowledge of the Bahá’í teachings, but it does much more, for
'it gives the deep spiritual signifi cance of many of those teachings, and above all, it touches the heart.
THE DAY OF GOD
Beatrice I rwin
“In that day, the limbs of the five continents shall tremble.”
”Bahá’u’lláh
There is a Power that rules the tide of stars,
And guides their foam across the deep of space. There is a Power that breaks man’s puny bars
Of time and hate, and turns a planet’s face
Into a mirror for the Sun of Truth!
But when that Light selects its chosen ray
The people tremble at the dawning day!
There is a Power brings nations to their knees
And scatters men like sand, before a breeze
Of everlasting Justice, that repeals
Mercy, whose outraged form lies prone on earth:Our planet stands at this transcendent hour Stemming the whirlwind, to bring forth love’s flower.
THE PREDICAMENT OF MODERN MAN
Book Review ARTHUR DAHL
THIS little book has an importance
all out of proportion to its size. It is one of the most eloquent and closely reasoned defenses of divine revelation to be published in recent years. And it comes at a time when widespread circulation for such a defense is urgently needed.
Dr. Trueblood, who is professor of Philosophy and Religion and Chaplain at Stanford University, and is prominent in the activities of the friends, opens his argument by comparing the present age to the time of the fall of Rome in 410 AD. The war today, he says, is merely an outward manifestation of a profound spiritual disintegration, just as the sacking of Rome by Alaric and his Goths was the symptom, not the cause, of the decay of Roman culture.
Though Dr. Trueblood thinks this spiritual crisis originates in Christian civilization, in actual practice it affects the entire world, both because the world is now technically unified and integrated, and because “Christian culture has penetrated other cultures much more than they have penetrated ours,” and therefore the whole world is involved in our predicament.
This decay has been understood and described by observers with various points of view, such as Henry Adams, Oswald Spengler, theologians Albert Schweitzer and Nikolai Berdyaev, and even by Adolph Hitler. Yet only since the present war have
The Predicament of Modern Man, by D. Elton Trueblood. Harper & Bros" 1944.
people at large finally begun to realize the vast discrepancy between the promise of our age and its accomplishments. And they still do not realize that the problem is fundamentally a spiritual one, requiring a sound moral base for using the universalizing techniques that science has given us. They do not understand that this is not a problem that will take care of itself if the economic and political questions are solved. It must be attacked directly and positively, and be given first priority.
People still think they are living in the Christian era, but Dr. Trueblood is not at all sure. “We do not really know whether it is the twentieth century or the first.”
The trouble is that while we still follow, or think we follow, the ethics of the Christian religion, we have cut ourselves ofic from their source, the words of Jesus and the organized vehicles of applied Christianity, the churches. The present large church memberships are deceptive. Many. if not most, of these members merely give lip service to the principles and practices of the church, their inner spiritual selves remaining untouched. So long as this condition continues, we will be living in a “cut-flower” civilization, with the flower separated from its roots and source of strength, and deemed ultimately to die.
And so, thinks'Dr. Trueblood, just as we cannot expect a progressive civilization from the cult of brute power espoused by the fascist countries today, so we cannot expect
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MODERN MAN
much more from an ethical standard detached from its divinely revealed source. He analyzes the position of several of the outstanding humanists and quite convincingly exposa their insufliciencies. Today, as a people with an ethic but no religion, we are just as lost as the millions who oppose us who have a religion but no ethic.
Dr. Truehlood then faces squarely the weaknesses of organized Christianity today, and offers a key to the correction of the problem. The weakness lies in the tendency for most people to absorb in a negative way the benefits of Christian teachings without accepting any of the positive responsibility of maintaining organized Christianity in the face of its enemies. The steadying influence of active and regular participation in church activities and contact with the word'of God, which used to be passed from one generation to the next, has been lost, and is becoming progressively weaker with each succeeding generation. The problem is to re- verse this trend.
Dr. Truehlood frankly admits the faults and frailties of the Christian churches, which have largely led to their loss of influence today. But he feels that the following important elements of strength still make them the best alternative facing the people of the world today: 1. The Church at all times has taught equality before God; 2. The Church has always testified for peace, in the sense that it regards war “as a necessary evil, and never something in which to glory;” 3. Fundamentally the Church has tended toward universality, since “it has never lost sight of the fact that it is a body, namely, the body of Christ;” 4. The gospel has consistently renounced worldly pride, and
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although the churches have failed to be true to Christ’s teachings in this respect, the gospel continues to he the chief antidote to the cult of power in the world today.
The problem is to redraw the church lines, eliminating the weak messes, and then inculcating a new spirit which will turn favor toward the Church. To do this Dr. Trueblood openly draws a leaf from Hitler’s book. A movement is spread first by a relatively small group of people who wholeheartedly, passionately believe in the principles of the movement, and who can count on one another. Propaganda carried on by this group wins new people for the organization which in turn uses its growing strength to continue and increase the propaganda. These principles, thinks Dr. Trueblood, can he used to form and develop a new Church and a new spirit, which he does not describe in detail, but which will bring into its fold all the religiously minded people of the world, whether they are presently church members or not. He cites the initial success of many new religions and cults, such as the Franciscans, Children of Light, and Quakers in the past, the Oxford Group and Jehovah’s Witnesses contemporaneously. Yet such unorthodox groups ultimately have become conventional, or have failed of their highest purpose because of insufficiently rigorous
thought.
To this point Bahá’ís will be in general agreement with Dr. Trueblood, will feel that he has given a splendid exposition of their own views. With one statement in his concluding section, however, they will take issue: “The kind of organized movement that the need of the hour suggests does not at present
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exist.” Bahá’ís believe that their community, their membership, meets all the qualifications laid down by Dr. Trueblood, and goes far beyond them. For while he is urging men to unite, to create among themselves a new organization and a new spirit, resurrecting ties with the original Christianity that has weakened, in efiect joining the cut flower to its roots, Bahá’ís believe their Faith was actually founded by a new Prophet of God, who implanted directly within the Faith the same spirit which Christ gave to Christianity and Muhammad to Islam, at the time of their founding and their greatest glory. Surely, if this be true, the Bahá’í Faith has a more dynamic impetus and a greater chance to bring the world back to religion than any new variation of a weakened Christian
Church. All of the spiritual princi WORLD ORDER
plea, and of the basic virtues of Christianity are to be found in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, but in addition, through Him the Lord has spoken to our own day, showing us how to solve the vast and intricate problems peculiar to this age, in a way not found in any past dispensation. The Bahá’í Faith, 3 dynamic, active, vital organization, is looked upon by Bahá’ís as the most direct road to world order through religion. and they are working toward that end with a fervor and devotion ap propriate for such a goal.
Dr. Trueblood’s book should be read and pondered by all Bahá’ís. It will give us an added sense of the seriousness and urgency of the need the Bahá’í Faith has set itself to fill, and will strengthen our conviction that the Faith will ultimately succeed in its challenging task.
The revelation, of which Bahá’u’lláh is the source and center, abrogates
none of the religions which have preceded it, nor does it attempt, in the slightest degree, to distort their features or to belittle their value. It disclaims any intention of dwarfing any of the Prophets of the past, or of whittling down the eternal verity of Their teachings. It can, in no wise, conflict with the spirit that animates Their claims, nor does it seek to undermine the basis of any man’s allegiance to Their cause. Its declared, its primary purpose, is to enable every adherent of these Faiths to obtain a fuller understanding of the religion with which he stands identified, and to acquire a clearer apprehension of its purpose. It is neither eclectic in the presentation of its truths, nor arrogant in the affirmation of its claims. lts teachings revolve around the fundamental principle that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is progressive, not final. Unequivocally and without the least reservation it proclaims all established religions to be divine in origin, identical in their aims, complementary in their functions, continuous in their purpose, indispensable in their value to mankind. . . .
—SHOGHI EFFENDI
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Tests
REGINALD KING
NE of the most common things in school are the recurrent examinations or tests. These tests are devised in order that the students’ knowledge of a given subject may be proven. Who has not heard a young person of school age exclaim many times, “We had a test today and I passed!” or has seen the silent unhappiness of that one who failed. All the joy of successful mastery of a difficult problem is with the one who passed, and equally all the woe or failure shows in the face of the one who has not passed. How apt the latter is to blame the failure on aught but his lack of knowledge. These tests or examinations are not given once or twice a year during the schooling of the child and youth; true, there are major ones that mark the passing from from one grade to another, yet it is the little tests that come as a surprise every day or so that try the mettle of the student and keep him on his toes. If all these tests are passed, one happy day the student emerges into the world of adult endeavor. With a whoop of joy he bids exultant goodbye to school days and to tests! How short lived is that joy for he soon finds that all of
living is made up of tests. Not only of his knowledge and array of facts, but tests of his physical endurance and ability.
Muhammad said in the Qur’án: “Do men think when they say ‘We believe’ they shall be let alone and not put to the proof?” Indeed, all material tests can be traced to the spiritual source. “Blessed is the soul who is firm in the path!” Of what value is lip service to a faith, a service that is paraded on suitable occasions, and in the time of testing goes unheeded before the darkness of egotism.
It is an indisputable fact that men have fallen from the high place ordained for them by God and on every hand fail His tests and have failed them before, else the world would not have come to such a pass. To such desperate straits has mankind brought himself that on every side we see the twin pillars of righteousnes and justice toppling into the dust of self and unawareness. Yet in the midst of that very chaos the majestic standard of the Glory of God calls all to live within the tent of unity and awareness. “Many are called but few are chosen” said Jesus, “How severe, therefore,” says
353
E a a
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Bahá’u’lláh, “the test to which they who join partners with God must needs be subjected!”
This is the day of the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth and we live in the formative stage of that glorious day; the school days during which we learn the great God-given lessons of the unity of mankind and of God and the new subject, justice. The Divine Teacher bids us first accept Him then His teachings, bids us then to be of those who are aware. That is the first great test but only the first. Each day brings new evident and hidden trials to test the faith of the he} liever and his steadfastness in the Cause of God. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, “The necessity and the particularity of the assured and
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believing ones is to be firm in the Cause of God and withstand the hidden and evident tests.” Only those who have met tests and have triumphed through the knowledge of the Cause can testify to the matchless joy of the conquest of self. To be happy in the time of trouble, says ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is the proof of nobility. “To the sincere ones, tests are as a gift from God,” they remove “the rust of egotism from the mirror of the heart until the Sun of Truth may shine therein.” To the believers tests should be a constant reminder that the Glory of God is with them, making them ready and worthy for the right of citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
SEVERANCE Gretchen Westervelt
Let me be
As a clear pool,
Free from all
Stagnant veils, Unblurred by
Transient breeze.
50 may there be
Within my inmost heart A mirror clear Reflecting Thee.
The Beginnings of Bahá’í Activity in America
MARIAM HANEY
HE first time the Name of
Bahá’u’lláh was mentioned on this Continent was during the Parliament of Religions held at the time of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The history of the proceedings of this gathering records the fact that a missionary of the Christian Faith, Dr. Henry H. Jessup, mentioned the Bahá’í religion in his address before the Parliament. Commenting on his very brief statement,
Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, writes that “He (the missionary) did not suspect the magnitude of the forces which so cursory a mention was destined to release.” The fact that he mentioned the Faith at all is one of the miracles of God.
A year passed before the Bahá’í Message was brought directly to the attention of an American who later became a Bahá’í. This gentleman who wished to find a teacher of Sanskrit so that he might further pursue his study of ancient religious teachings, just by accident (or was it one of those unusual happenings in the Bahá’í Cause) met a Syrian who had recently arrived in Chicago from
Egypt and who told him about the Bahá’í Faith. The gentleman
who. heard the Bahá’í Teachings that day was Thornton Chase and many years later he was pronounced by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to be the first Bahá’í in America. He had been a Bible student for years, and his great joy in life was constantly to add to his knowledge of religious systems. Thus he was well informed on the Word of God in the Holy Books of the ages, and as soon as he heard the Bahá’í Message he felt the statements agreed with the prophecies he had so often studied. Therefore he was thrilled with the prospect of added knowledge and told other seekers for Truth about what he had heard,‘ with the result that he and four other persons accepted the Bahá’í Message during the year 1894-. Soon there was expansion. Classes were formed and in 1895 many became believers. From this small and amazing beginning the Bahá’í Teachings were spread from Chicago—from what we may call the heart of the Cause in this country.
Day after day it became more evident that a Mysterious Power was working; a new Revelation from God had come down out of heaven to revivify the souls of men.
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Those who called themselves Bahá’ís were anxious to share the New Light, their new found spiritual joy with others. They did not call themselves teachers, however; they simply had an intense urge to offer the Water of Life to thirsty souls everywhere, so it happened that these earnest souls went forth as heralds of the New Age. Classes were started in Kenosha and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in suburban towns near Chicago. And, again, in unusual ways, individuals from New York, Cincinnati, Columbus, 0., Washington, D. C., Baltimore, and elsewhere, heard the Message in Chicago, and returned to their respective homes full of enthusiasm to share, always share, with others the great glad-tidings. In 1898 classes were organized in New York and nearby Eastern cities which attracted earnest seekers. Especially was the Message spread from New York City to Brooklyn, and then to towns in New Jersey until soon there were little groups in Newark, Orange, Morristown, Hoboken, Montclair and other centers.
The most important teaching at this time was accomplished through personal contacts, by word of mouth one to another, as seekers were found, though there were, as indicated, a few small classes. The Bahá’ís were
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not, in the usual sense, seeking to propagandize the Cause nor to proselytize or convert; indeed they were taught not to force their views on others, but when they came in contact with a real seeker, to offer the Message to that person as if “offering a gift to a king.” And that was the way teaching was accomplished very successfully even if at that time the Bahá’ís themselves had only a limited knowledge of the Faith, that is, outer historical data; however, the gift of the Holy Spirit had given them an inner conviction which was strong, and deep, and real. To pass on as much as they could of the Message to others was certainly felt by all to be the first obligation, and those who lived through that period will never forget how intense was the longing to find seekers.
One of the most precious memories of those first years of pioneering was the longing of the few Bahá’ís themselves to gather together in little groups and discuss the mercy and bounty of God and the Glory of the New Day. Spiritual happiness was intense, and the difference between spiritual happiness and material happiness was so fully demonstrated that this joyous spirit was felt by attracted souls.
The friends believed so devoutly, so implicitly in God’s
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BEGINNINGS OF ACTIVITY
Revealed Word that they felt every one in the world who heard the Message should instantly accept the glorious teachings for they were as clear to them as the sun shining at midday. It never occurred to any one to question anything about the Manifestation; and it is not recorded either that any one ever thought it was a strange idea for God to send an authoritative Divine Prophet to the world again; He had done so many times through the ages; why should He not do so again, especially when the world so sorely needed a renewal of Faith, when humanity needed revivification? To quote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “The Prophets of God have ever appeared in the ages of the past and will continue to appear throughout the ages of the future. . . . If we limit the number of His Appearances through His Prophets, then it is equal to limiting God Himself.”
One thing was certain: these heroic pioneers knew that many
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of the prophecies in all the Holy Books were fulfilled, and it was just as certain to them that many more prophecies would he fulfilled from time to time as the Cause progressed. , Soon new accessions to the Faith were almost a daily occurrence until the believers in and around Chicago were numbered by hundreds. Later many of these left the Faith, for when they found that the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh was a purely spiritual Cause, free from superstitions, imaginations and interpretations, they were disappointed. Some had imagined that they could retain their preconceived ideas, or perhaps they had a few fanciful thoughts, rather than factual and true spiritual interest; however, they soon found out that one must walk in the way of the Lord and that it was impossible to attain a spiritual victory in any other way.
Number one in a series of notations on Bahá’í activity in North America from 1893 to 1921.
O Son of Spirit!
With the joyful tidings of light I hail Thee: rejoice! To the court of holiness I summon thee; abide therein that thou Mayest live in peace for evermore.
—Bahá’u’lláh
WITH OUR READERS
E ARE always glad to receive
letters from our readers with favorable or unfavorable reactions to articles in World Order or with suggestions for improvement in the magazine. Several letters have come to us in regard to statements which seem confusing in the article by Artemus Lamb in our November issue entitled, “Fulfillment of Mormon Prophecy,” and which have given some a wrong impression in regard to Prophethood as understood by Bahá’ís. Since Mr. Lamb is now in South America and correspondence with him would be long delayed we take this means of making more clear the Bahá’í belief in regard to Propethood and the mission of the Báb which we feel sure Mr. Lamb understands and accepts.
According to the Bahá’í teaching there are three spiritual realms or degrees of being: God, the Manifestations of Universal Prophethood, and man. The Manifestations of God appear approximately once in a thousand years and are the founders of the great revealed religions such as Judaism and Christianity.
The Báb was the Forerunner Who announced the coming of Bahá’u’lláh but He was also an independent Prophet or Manifestation of God. The words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá printed at the end of the article in question make this clear: “The Manifestations of Universal Prophethood Who appeared independently are, for example, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh.” In the limitations of his brief article the Báb’s station as Forerunner was em phasized by the author rather than this greater station of independent Prophethood.
It would seem plain that Joseph Smith made no claim to the station of Universal Prophethood and nothing in Mr. Lamb’s article should be taken as indicating that Bahá’ís believe that Joseph Smith ranked 'with the B251) either as independent Prophet or as Forerunner. The purpose of Joseph Smith, as Mr. Lamb points out in the first part of his article, was, it would seem, to warn people that the Christian Dispensation was drawing to a close, that the prophecies of the Old Testament and some in the New Testament were about to be fulfilled, and the intention of Mr. Lamb, we think, was to remind Mormons of these wamings and to ask them to invmtigate the Revelation of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh as fulfillment of these propheales.
During the first part of the nineteenth century there were others in the Christian world who were looking for events of great religious significance. William Miller, looking earnestly for the miraculous return of Christ, had thousands of followers and there were groups of like faith in England and other places. The light of the early dawn of the rising suns of the Bath and Bahá’u’lláh was illuminating the horizon at that time. Is it strange that spiritually sensitive souls caught some of the rays of light and were inspired to speak, to tell others and to warn them? Because the events which these seers foresaw did not happen in just the manner or
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at the place expected their followers have ceased to look for the fulfillment of their prophecies. Mr. Lamb and all Bahá’ís would arouse the followers of Joseph Smith and all others to find in the lives and teachings of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh the fulfillment of their highest hopes and the answer to the crying needs of all humanity today. I ‘I' i
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s words concerning the meaning of Divine Security revealed on the occasion of the Titanic disaster come to us with renewed meaning in these days when all other security fails. This talk was given in Washington, DC, and may be found in the book entitled Promulgation of Universal Peace.
George Townshend whose article, “The Mission of Bahá’u’lláh,” appears in this issue is Canon of St. Patrick’s Cathedral of the Church of England in Dublin and Archdeacon of Clonfert. This article was written as an introduction to Shoghi Effendi’s recent book, God Passes By and emphasizes especially the appeal of Bahá’u’lláh and His Message to the Western mind and tells of the reception of His Message in the Christian world. Archdeacon Townshend has made other outstanding contributions to Bahá’í literature, notably two books, The Promise of All Ages and The Heart of the Gospel, besides short treatises and appreciations which have appeared in W orld Order, in several volumes of The Bahá’í World and in pamphlet form.
There is so much misinformation in the Christian world in regard to Muhammad and the teachings of Islam, the religion which He founded, that we are glad to print the article entitled, lslém. This is made up of
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selections from the chapter on Islém in a book which Emeric Sala has written. This article will be continued in our March issue. Mr. Sala has been active in Bahá’í work for a number of years and a few years ago visited Shoghi Effendi at the Bahá’í headquarters in Haifa, Palestine, and traveled in Europe. His article, “Transition in World Economy,” appeared in our May, 1939, issue, and an article on Venezuela in March, 1941. Mr. Sala’s home is in Montreal, Canada.
In her editorial Mrs. Kirkpatrick shows that study of the Bahá’í Revelation is necessary for a true understanding of the Christian Bible.
We are planing to print from time to time articles which will make the reader familiar with many of our Bahá’í books which present different aspects of the Bahá’í Faith. This will help those who are new in the Bahá’í Faith to choose which hooks to read and buy. The first in this series is “Introductions to the Bahá’í Faith” by Elizabeth Hackley who briefly surveys books Which are valuable as introduction to the Bahá’í teachings. Our readers will remember ,Miss Hackley as an occasional and always interesting contributor to these pages. Many have found her compilation of references suitable for Bahá’í Holy Days which ran through several numbers of volume IX helpful in arranging programs for these days. Her most recent article was “Unity Among Individuals” in the August, 1943 number. Miss Hackley is a member of the Urbana, Illinois, Spiritual Assembly.
Beatrice Irwin who contributes the
poem, “Day of God,” has traveled
and lectured widely on various subjects as well as on Bahá’í subjects.
Her contributions to W orld Order in
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elude both prose and poetry. In our, February, 1943, issue appeared her article, “Brazil in Renaissance.” Miss Irwin is now in California.
Arthur Dahl reviews the book, The Predicament of Modern Man, whose author, he points out, finds that mankind needs exactly what Bahá’u’lláh has brought to the world. Mr. Dahl has contributed several book reviews to our magazine and in our recent January number we printed an article by him entitled, “Steps Toward Post-War Cooperation,” the first in a series called, “F ormation of a World Society.” Mr. Dahl is active in the Bahá’í Cause in Palo Alto, California.
We are beginning in this issue a series of sketches or notations by Mariam Haney which tell of the teaching of the Bahá’í Faith in the pioneer days of the Cause in the United States. Mrs. Haney wrote this story as one long article whose purpose was, she writes “to review brieflfiiy few historic facts about teaching" the Bahá’í Faith in the pioneer days of the Cause in America, rather than to resort to exhaustive research.” The editors have separated this into thirteen brief stories which seem to be units in themselves. Mrs. Haney was herself among these pioneer teachers and one of the early pilgrims to ‘Akká. and was one who worked indefatigably in copying and distributing Bahá’í tablets and news items. For
WORLD ORDER
many years she was one. of the editors of the Bahá’í Magazine. Her home is in Washington, D. C.
In his article on tests Reginald King helps us to understand that our greatest development may often he a result of seeming calamity. Mr. King is known in the radio world as “The Vagabond Poet” and his poems have appeared in various magazines. One entitled “Virtuoso” appeared in World Order. He is a member of the Bahá’í National Radio Committee. Recently Mr. King has taken up his residence at Louhelen Ranch, Davison, Michigan.
- § I
Rounded Hours is a book of poems by Gertrude W. Robinson, a sometime contributor to World Order, which has recently come to the desk. The originality, freshness of expression and delicate appreciation of nature found in these poems will make their appeal to all lovers of poetry. Some, such as “Wind, “To a Friend,” “This Land of Ours,” “Out of the Self,” have an especial appeal to Bahá’ís, suggesting, as they do, the meaning of world conditions or the hope of their remedy. Others, such as “The Seeker” and “Search,” touch on the needs of the individual soul. Some of Mrs. Robinson’s contributions to W orld Order are to be found in this collection, but other
of her poems which the magazine 32 has printed are not in this collection.
-——THE EDITORS 3 I
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