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WORLD ORDER
THE BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE
October, 1947
The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh
Shoghi Effendi
Nicaragua
Robert Montgomery Hooker
A Charter Day Message
From the United Nations
Trygve Lie
A Bahá’í Statement
on the Rights of Women
In the High Sierras
Marzieh Gail
The Gates of Paradise, Poem
L. Khai
The Nature of Divinity
Duart Brown
The Disciple, Poem
N. D. B.
If You Are Not a Bahá’í, Editorial
Garreta Busey
Struggle for Bill of Rights
Book Review
Helen Interlied
The Mature Man
Bahá’í Words for Meditation
With Our Readers
20¢
World Order was founded March 21, 1910 as Bahá’í News, the first organ of the American Bahá’ís. In March, 1911, its title was changed to Star of the West. Beginning November, 1922 the magazine appeared under the name of The Bahá’í Magazine. The issue of April, 1935 carried the present title of World Order, combining The Bahá’í Magazine and World Unity, which had been founded October, 1927. The present number represents Volume XXXVIII of the continuous Bahá’í publication.
WORLD ORDER is published monthly in Wilmette, Ill., by the Publishing
Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United
States and Canada. Garreta Busey, Editor; Eleanor S. Hutchens, Mabel H.
Paine, Flora Hottes, Associate Editors.
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Order Magazine, 110 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois. Entered as second class
matter April 1, 1940, at the post office at Wilmette, Ill., under the Act of March
3, 1879. Content copyrighted 1947 by Bahá’í Publishing Committee. Title
registered at U. S. Patent Office.
ONE MONTH IN ADVANCE
THOUSANDS of city workers attended their own Armistice
Day service outside the Royal Exchange in the City of London,
November 11th, 1938. Will the peace now being made be
merely an armistice? Bahá’u’lláh proclaimed that universal and
lasting peace will soon be accomplished. Some of the prerequisites
for that peace appear on page 230.
Photo by Acme
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 thoroughly exposed.
The immense, complex, baffling task of unifying all peoples is set forth in its complete and utmost 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 . . . 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.
By GEORGE TOWNSHEND
From the Introduction to God Passes By
WORLD ORDER
The Bahá’í Magazine
VOLUME XIII OCTOBER, 1947 NUMBER 7
The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh
A World Religion
SHOGHI EFFENDI
This summary of the origin, teachings and institutions of the Bahá’í Faith was prepared for United Nations Special Committee on Palestine by Shoghi Effendi in his capacity of Guardian appointed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will and Testament.
THE Faith established by
Bahá’u’lláh was born in
Persia about the middle of the
nineteenth century and has, as a
result of the successive banishments
of its Founder, culminating
in His exile to the Turkish
penal colony of Acre, and His
subsequent death and burial in
its vicinity, fixed its permanent
spiritual center in the Holy
Land, and is now in the process
of laying the foundations of its
world administrative center in
the city of Haifa.
Alike in the claims unequivocally asserted by its Author and the general character of the growth of the Bahá’í community in every continent of the globe, it can be regarded in no other light than a world religion, destined to evolve in the course of time into a world-embracing commonwealth, whose advent must signalize the Golden Age of mankind, the age in which the unity of the human race will have been unassailably established, its maturity attained, and its glorious destiny unfolded through the birth and efflorescence of a world-encompassing civilization.
RESTATEMENT OF ETERNAL VERITIES
Though sprung from Shi’ah
Islám, and regarded, in the early
stages of its development, by the
followers of both the Muslim and
Christian Faiths, as an obscure
sect, an Asiatic cult or an offshoot
of the Muḥammadan religion,
this Faith is now increasingly
demonstrating its right to
be recognized, not as one more
religious system superimposed
on the conflicting creeds which
for so many generations have
[Page 220]
divided mankind and darkened
its fortunes, but rather as a restatement
of the eternal verities
underlying all the religions of
the past, as a unifying force instilling
into the adherents of
these religions a new spiritual
vigor, infusing them with a new
hope and love for mankind, firing
them with a new vision of the
fundamental unity of their religious
doctrines, and unfolding to
their eyes the glorious destiny
that awaits the human race.
The fundamental principle enunciated by Bahá’u’lláh, the followers of His Faith firmly believe, is that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the non-essential aspects of their doctrines, and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society.
TO RECONCILE CONFLICTING CREEDS
The aim of Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet of this new and great age which humanity has entered upon—He whose advent fulfils the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments as well as those of the Qur'án regarding the coming of the Promised One in the end of time, on the Day of Judgment —is not to destroy but to fulfil the Revelations of the past, to reconcile rather than accentuate the divergencies of the conflicting creeds which disrupt present-day society.
His purpose, far from belittling
the station of the Prophets
gone before Him or of whittling
down their teachings, is to restate
the basic truths which these
teachings enshrine in a manner
that would conform to the needs,
and be in consonance with the
capacity, and be applicable to
the problems, the ills and perplexities,
of the age in which we
live. His mission is to proclaim
that the ages of the infancy and
of the childhood of the human
race are past, that the convulsions
associated with the present
stage of its adolescence are slowly
and painfully preparing it to
attain the stage of manhood, and
are heralding the approach of
that Age of Ages when swords
will be beaten into plowshares,
when the Kingdom promised by
Jesus Christ will have been established,
and the peace of the
planet definitely and permanently
[Page 221]
ensured. Nor does Bahá’u’lláh
claim finality for His own
Revelation, but rather stipulates
that a fuller measure of the truth
He has been commissioned by
the Almighty to vouchsafe to humanity,
at so critical a juncture
in its fortunes, must needs be
disclosed at future stages in the
constant and limitless evolution
of mankind.
ONENESS OF THE HUMAN RACE
The Bahá’í Faith upholds the unity of God, recognizes the unity of His Prophets, and inculcates the principle of the oneness and wholeness of the entire human race. It proclaims the necessity and the inevitability of the unification of mankind, asserts that it is gradually approaching, and claims that nothing short of the transmuting spirit of God, working through His chosen Mouthpiece in this day, can ultimately succeed in bringing it about. It, moreover, enjoins upon its followers the primary duty of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all manner of prejudice and superstition, declares the purpose of religion to be the promotion of amity and concord, proclaims its essential harmony with science, and recognizes it as the foremost agency for the pacification and the orderly progress of human society. It unequivocally maintains the principle of equal rights, opportunities and privileges for men and women, insists on compulsory education, eliminates extremes of poverty and wealth, abolishes the institution of priesthood, prohibits slavery, asceticism, mendicancy and monasticism, prescribes monogamy, discourages divorce, emphasizes the necessity of strict obedience to one’s government, exalts any work performed in the spirit of service to the level of worship, urges either the creation or the selection of an auxiliary international language, and delineates the outlines of those institutions that must establish and perpetuate the general peace of mankind.
THE HERALD
The Bahá’í Faith revolves
around three central Figures,
the first of whom was a youth, a
native of Shíráz, named Mírzá
‘Ali-Muḥammad, known as the
Báb (Gate), who in May, 1844,
at the age of twenty-five, advanced
the claim of being the
Herald Who, according to the
sacred Scriptures of previous
Dispensations, must needs announce
and prepare the way for
the advent of One greater than
Himself, Whose mission would
be accroding to those same Scriptures,
[Page 222]
to inaugurate an era of
righteousness and peace, an era
that would be hailed as the consummation
of all previous Dispensations,
and initiate a new
cycle in the religious history of
mankind. Swift and severe persetion,
launched by the organized
forces of Church and State in His
native land, precipitated successively
His arrest, His exile to the
mountains of Adharbayjan, His
imprisonment in the fortresses
of Mah-Ku and Chihríq, and His
execution, in July 1850, by a
firing squad in the public square
of Tabríz. No less than twenty
thousand of his followers were
put to death with such barbarous
cruelty as to evoke the warm
sympathy and the unqualified
admiration of a number of Western
writers, diplomats, travelers
and scholars, some of whom
were witnesses of these abominable
outrages, and were moved
to record them in their books and
diaries.
BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
Mírzá Ḥusayn-’Ali, surnamed Bahá’u’lláh (the Glory of God), native of Mázindarán, Whose advent the Báb had foretold, was assailed by those same forces of ignorance and fanaticism, was imprisoned in Țihrán, was banished, in 1852, from His native land to Baghdád, and thence to Constantinople and Adrianople, and finally to the prison city of Acre, where He remained incarcerated for no less than twenty-four years, and in whose neighborhood He passed away in 1892. In the course of His banishment, and particularly in Adrianople and Acre, He formulated the laws and ordinances of His Dispensation, expounded, in over a hundred volumes, the principles of His Faith, proclaimed His Message to the kings and rulers of both the East and the West, both Christian and Muslim, addressed the Pope, the Caliph of Islám, the Chief Magistrates of the Republics of the American continent, the entire Christian sacerdotal order, the leaders of Shi’ah and Sunni Islám, and the high priests of the Zoroastrian religion. In these writings He proclaimed His Revelation, summoned those whom He addressed to heed His call and espouse His Faith, warned them of the consequences of their refusal, and denounced, in some cases, their arrogance and tyranny.
‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ
His eldest son, ‘Abbás Effendi,
known as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (the
Servant of Bahá), appointed by
Him as His lawful successor
and the authorized interpreter
[Page 223]
of His teachings, Who since
early childhood had been closely
associated with His Father, and
shared His exile and tribulations,
remained a prisoner until
1908, when, as a result of the
Young Turk Revolution, He was
released from His confinement.
Establishing His residence in
Haifa, He embarked soon after
on His three-year journey to
Egypt, Europe and North America,
in the course of which He
expounded before vast audiences,
the teachings of His
Father and predicted the approach
of that catastrophe that
was soon to befall mankind. He
returned to His home on the eve
of the first World War, in the
course of which He was exposed
to constant danger, until the liberation
of Palestine by the forces
under the command of General
Allenby, who extended the utmost
consideration to Him and
to the small band of His fellow-exiles
in Acre and Haifa. In
1921 He passed away, and was
buried in a vault in the mausoleum
erected on Mount Carmel,
at the express instruction
of Bahá’u’lláh, for the remains
of the Báb, which had previously
been transferred from Tabríz to
the Holy Land after having been
preserved and concealed for no
less than sixty years.
ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER
The passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá marked the termination of the first and Heroic Age of the Bahá’í Faith and signalized the opening of the Formative Age destined to witness the gradual emergence of its Administrative Order, whose establishment had been foretold by the Báb, whose laws were revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, whose outlines were delineated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will and Testament, and whose foundations are now being laid by the national and local councils which are elected by the professed adherents of the Faith, and which are paving the way for the constitution of the World Council, to be designated as the Universal House of Justice, which, in conjunction with me, as its appointed Head and the authorized interpreter of the Bahá’í teachings, must coordinate and direct the affairs of the Bahá’í community, and whose seat will be permanently established in the Holy Land, in close proximity to its world spiritual center, the resting-places of its Founders.
The Administrative Order of
the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, which
is destined to evolve into the
Bahá’í World Commonwealth,
and has already survived the assaults
launched against its institutions
[Page 224]
by such formidable
foes as the kings of the Qájár
dynasty, the Caliphs of Islám,
the ecclesiastical leaders of
Egypt, and the Nazi regime in
Germany, has already extended
its ramifications to every continent
of the globe, stretching from
Iceland to the extremity of Chile,
has been established in no less
than eighty-eight countries of the
world, has gathered within its
pale representatives of no less
than thirty-one races, numbers
among its supporters Christians
of various denominations, Muslims
of Both Sunní and Shi’ah
sects, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians
and Buddhists. It has
published and disseminated,
through its appointed agencies,
Bahá’í literature in forty-eight
languages; has already consolidated
its structure through the
incorporation of five National
Assemblies and seventy-seven local
Assemblies, in lands as far
apart as South America, India
and the Antipodes—incorporations
that legally empower its
elected representatives to hold
property as trustees of the Bahá’í
community. It disposes of international,
national and local
endowments, estimated at several
million pounds, and spread
over every continent of the globe,
enjoys in several countries the
privilege of official recognition
by the civil authorities, enabling
it to secure exemption from taxation
for its endowments and to
solemnize Bahá’í marriage, and
numbers among its stately edifices,
two temples, the one erected
in Russian Turkistan and the
other on the shore of Lake Michigan
at Wilmette, on the outskirts
of Chicago.
This Administrative Order, unlike the systems evolved after the death of the Founders of the various religions, is divine in origin, rests securely on the laws, the precepts, the ordinances and institutions which the Founder of the Faith has Himself specifically laid down and unequivocally established, and functions in strict accordance with the interpretations of the authorized Interpreters of its holy scriptures. Though fiercely assailed, ever since its inception, it has, by virtue of its character, unique in the annals of the world’s religious history, succeeded in maintaining the unity of the diversified and far-flung body of its supporters, and enabled them to launch, unitedly and systematically, enterprises in both Hemispheres, designed to extend its limits and consolidate its administrative institutions.
The Faith which this order
serves, safeguards and promotes,
is, it should be noted in this connection,
[Page 225]
essentially supernatural,
supranational, entirely non-political,
non-partisan, and diametrically
opposed to any policy or
school of thought that seeks to
exalt any particular race, class
or nation. It is free from any
form of ecclesiasticism, has neither
priesthood nor rituals, and
is supported exclusively by voluntary
contributions made by its
avowed adherents. Though loyal
to their respective governments,
though imbued with the love of
their own country, and anxious
to promote, at all times, its best
interests, the followers of the
Bahá’í Faith, nevertheless, viewing
mankind as one entity, and
profoundly attached to its vital
interests, will not hesitate to subordinate
every particular interest,
be it personal, regional or
national, to the over-riding interests
of the generality of mankind,
knowing full well that in
a world of interdependent peoples
and nations the advantage
of the part is best to be reached
by the advantage of the whole,
and that no lasting result can be
achieved by any of the component
parts if the general interests
of the entity itself are neglected.
Nor should the fact be overlooked that the Faith has already asserted and demonstrated its independent religious character, has been emancipated from the fetters of orthodoxy in certain Islamic countries, has obtained in one of them an unsolicited testimony to its independent religious status, and succeeded in winning the allegiance of royalty to its cause.
TRIBUTES BY LEADERS
“It is like a wide embrace,”
is Queen Marie of Rumania’s
own tribute, “gathering together
all those who have searched for
words of hope. It accepts all
great Prophets gone before, it
destroys no other creeds and
leaves all doors open. . . . The
Bahá’í teaching brings peace to
the soul and hope to the heart.
To those in search of assurance
the words of the Father are as a
fountain in the desert after long
wandering. . . . It is a wondrous
message that Bahá’u’lláh and
His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have given
us. They have not set it up aggressively,
knowing that the
germ of eternal truth which lies
at its core cannot but take root
and spread. . . . It is Christ’s
Message taken up anew, in the
same words almost, but adapted
to the thousand years and more
difference that lies between the
year one and today . . . If ever
the name of Bahá’u’lláh or
‘Abdu’l-Bahá comes to your attention,
do not put their writings
from you. Search out their
[Page 226]
books, and let their glorious,
peace-bringing, love-creating
words and lessons sink into your
hearts as they have into mine.”
“The teachings of the Bábis,” wrote Leo Tolstoy, “. . . have a great future before them . . . I therefore sympathize with Bábism with all my heart, inasmuch as it teaches people brotherhood and equality and sacrifice of material life for service to God . . . The teachings of the Bábis which come to us out of Islám have through Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings been gradually developed, and now present us with the highest and purest form of religious teaching.”
“Take these principles to the diplomats,” is the late President Masaryk’s advice, “to the universities and colleges and other schools, and also write about them. It is the people who will bring the universal peace.” “The Bahá’í teaching,” is President Eduard Benes’ testimony, “is one of the great instruments for the final victory of the spirit and of humanity . . . The Bahá’í Cause is one of the great moral and social forces in all the world today. I am more convinced than ever, with the increasing moral and political crises in the world, we must have greater international coordination. Such a movement as the Bahá’í Cause which paves the way for universal organization of peace is necessary.”
“If there has been any Prophet in recent times,” asserts the Rev. T. K. Cheyne in his ‘The Reconciliation of Races and Religions’, “it is to Bahá’u’lláh that we must go. Character is the final judge. Bahá’u’lláh was a man of the highest class—that of Prophets.” “It is possible indeed,” declares Viscount Samuel of Carmel, “to pick out points of fundamental agreement among all creeds. That is the essential purpose of the Bahá’í religion, the foundation and growth of which is one of the most striking movements that have proceeded from the East in recent generations.”
“Palestine,” is Professor Norman Bentwich’s written testimony, “may indeed be now regarded as the land not of three but of four faiths, because the Bahá’í creed, which has its center of faith and pilgrimage in Acre and Haifa, is attaining to the character of a world religion. So far as its influence goes in the land, it is a factor making for international and inter-religious understanding.”
And, finally, is the judgment
passed by no less outstanding a
figure than the late Master of
Balliol, Professor Benjamin Jowett:
[Page 227]
“The Bábi movement may
not impossibly turn out to have
the promise of the future.” Professor
Lewis Campbell, an eminent
pupil of Dr. Jowett, has
confirmed this statement by quoting
him as saying: “This Bahá’í
Movement is the greatest light
that has come into the world
since the time of Jesus Christ.
You must watch it and never let
it out of your sight. It is too
great and too near for this generation
to comprehend. The future
alone can reveal its import.”
True Religion
True religion is the source of love and agreement amongst men, the cause of the development of praiseworthy qualities; but the people are holding to the counterfeit and imitation, negligent of the reality which unifies; so they are bereft and deprived of the radiance of religion. They follow superstitions inherited from their fathers and ancestors. To such an extent has this prevailed that they have taken away the heavenly light of divine truth and sit in the darkness of imitations and imaginations. That which was meant to be conducive to life has become the cause of death; that which should have been an evidence of knowledge is now a proof of ignorance; that which was a factor in the sublimity of human nature has proved to be its degradation. Therefore the realm of the religionist has gradually narrowed and darkened and the sphere of the materialist has widened and advanced; for the religionist has held to imitation and counterfeit, neglecting and discarding holiness and the sacred reality of religion. When the sun sets it is time for the bats to fly.
Religion is the outer expression of the divine reality. Therefore it must be living, vitalized moving and progressive. If it be without motion and non-progressive it is without the divine life; it is dead. The divine institutes are continuously active and evolutionary; therefore the revelation of them must be progressive and continuous. All things are subject to re-formation. This is a century of life and renewal. Sciences and arts, industry and invention have been reformed. Law and ethics have been reconstituted, reorganized. The world of thought has been regenerated.
Nicaragua
ROBERT MONTGOMERY HOOKER
NICARAGUA is part of the present world civilization,
and it is a vital part geographically. It will one day
in the future have a canal across its territory and will
therefore become a world thoroughfare much the same as
Panama and Suez. Here thousands of men will pass each
other; opinions will clash, East and West will meet, and
we shall realize that after all we are citizens of “one
world,” as a late American public man recently tried to
tell his countrymen. The Bahá’í Faith, then, has a brilliant
future in this land. Nicaragua is a land of contrasts.
Here one finds the aristocrat and the peon mingling, the
educated and the less fortunate man talk together, races
mingle without the slightest trace of difference, and this
motley crowd go on from day to day seeking something to
satisfy their spiritual wants. On the material side one also
sees the contrasts and and the various cultures through
which man has evolved. On the streets are seen the old
and crude ox-carts and beside them the modern American
automobile; trains run over railroad tracks some of which
were brought from North America; modern motor
launches run over the lakes and rivers and along with
them is seen the Indian in his canoe in which he plied the
placid waters of our rivers thousands of years before the
conquistadors came to these shores. Surely the Bahá’í
Faith has a future if I, a humble layman, grasp the potent
idea in Bahá’íism. My countrymen with whom I have
spoken are attracted to this faith because of its universality,
its basic theme of oneness of mankind, its central
theme of peace and harmony among the nations of the
world, its offer of concord in place of discord, love in
place of hate, education in place of ignorance.
A Charter Day Message
From the United Nations
TRYGVE LIE
Reprinted from the United Nations Weekly Bulletin, Special Issue for the Second Anniversary of the Signing of the Charter, June 24, 1947.
THE second anniversary of
the United Nations Charter
is an occasion on which the
world may well consider how
successfully the Member countries
of the United Nations have
been able to reconcile their own
sovereignty with the requirements
of international co-operation.
On the basis of our short experience, during a most difficult period in international relations, I think we can say that the nations are able to work effectively on the principle of individual sovereignty for the common good.
It was the decision at San Francisco, two years ago when the Charter was signed, and it is still the guiding idea, that the United Nations must be a democratic organization of sovereign nations in which decisions are taken freely, in accordance with the will of the majority.
Although the United Nations recognizes that coercion may be necessary in the case of aggression, it attempts at all times to reach decisions which are fair and acceptable to all of the individual nations which compose the organization.
Experience has taught the world that such democratic decisions are the only decisions which can be lasting and effective.
During the working life of the United Nations many decisions on different problems have been reached. Some of them have been achieved only after lengthy discussion and spirited argument. There have been many differences of opinion.
To those who have been discouraged by such differences of opinion I would like to say that our United Nations consists of 55 different nations, representing all corners of the earth, and with many different problems and many different interests. It is both healthy and helpful for these many nations to be able to explain their positions in open forum.
The last thing that we could wish would be for the Members of the United Nations to conceal their positions from one another.
Now, two years from the signing
of the Charter, the full machinery
[Page 230]
of the United Nations
exists. Parts of this machinery
do not yet run quite smoothly,
and the peoples of the world
must be prepared to convert it
to new needs as time goes on
and new problems arise. But
every one can take encouragement
from the fact that our organization
is now completed.
In future months and years, we must make every effort to use this machinery to the utmost and to use it skillfully. If we do so, many of our problems will be solved. Much of the energy which is now devoted to discussing differences will be absorbed by true teamwork between the nations, in settling these problems.
I ask all people to believe in this future and to maintain confidence in the ability of the United Nations to do its duty toward humanity.
THE PREREQUISITES OF PEACE
The Great Being, wishing to reveal the prerequisites of the peace and
tranquility of the world and the advancement of its peoples, hath written:
The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast,
an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers
and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations,
must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of
the world’s Great Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the
Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the tranquility of the peoples of
the earth, to be fully reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up
arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him. If this be
done, the nations of the world will no longer require any armaments, except
for the purpose of preserving the security of their realms and of maintaining
internal order within their territories. This will insure the peace and
composure of every people, government and nation. We fain would hope
that the kings and rulers of the earth, the mirrors of the gracious and almighty
name of God, may attain unto this station and shield mankind from
the onslaught of tyranny.
That one is indeed a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the whole human race. The Great Being saith: Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth. In another passage He hath proclaimed: It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
A Bahá’í Statement on the Rights of Women
Submitted to United Nations Commission On the Status of Women, August, 1947, by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, Wilmette, Illinois, U. S. A.
AMONG the members of the
Bahá’í religion who reside
in eighty-eight countries and constitute
a world community composed
of all types of human beings
there is agreement concerning
the status of women in this
new era. Bahá’ís adhere to the
following beliefs:
Sex equality is a basic Bahá’í principle. All previous religious systems place men above women.
The present imbalance in society, which results from the dominance of man over woman, is a dangerous phenomenon and may be considered as one cause of war. This condition accustoms man from his earliest years to the spectacle of aggression, resentment, and retaliation; it leads him to disparage woman’s opinions, including her antipathy to war. Bahá’ís believe that neither male nor female dominance is desirable; a status based on equality of value and worth and expressed in harmony of interest is the ideal.
Wars are made by men. International war is repugnant to women. The mass of women regard warfare as of men’s doing, and they derive from it no comparable psychological satisfactions. Sex equality is the safeguard of peace. Made socially effective, women’s repugnance to warfare can create a world block against aggression.
Sex equality connotes an organic change in the social structure. The Bahá’í teachings advocate for women an education equal to that received by men, since woman is the first educator of the child; and opportunity to pursue any career for which they are qualified, with special emphasis on their role as keepers of the peace.
Woman, according to the Bahá’í teachings, is not inherently the weaker sex, any more than is the female in animal and plant life. Lack of education and opportunity has prevented woman from manifesting her innate equality of value and this repression is responsible for her less-favored status as human being and citizen.
Bahá’ís uphold as essential to
the practice of sex equality: monogamous
marriage; abolition of
concubinage and prostitution;
employment on the basis of skill
alone; freedom to own and to
dispose of property; freedom of
the ballot; eligibility to public
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office; right to be honored by
husband and children; recognition
of the economic value of
child-raising and home-making;
removal from world opinion of
any sexual stigma attached to
womankind.
Of man and woman, the Bahá’í teachings state that “both belong to humankind” and “in the estimation of God they are equal, for each is the complement of the other in the divine creative plan. The only distinction between them in the sight of God is the purity and righteousness of their deeds and actions,” for that person “is preferred by God who is most nearly in the spiritual image and likeness of the Creator.”
The Bahá’ís of Iran, birthplace of the faith, form the largest non-Muslim religious community in that country. The high degree of social development achieved by them results in large measure from their observance of the principle of sex equality, together with the inculcation of the new moral standards revealed by Bahá’u’lláh as essential for the needs of this time.
This question of the status of women is to the Bahá’ís, for all its political and economic ramifications, primarily a spiritual matter pertaining to the order of truth and therefore interconnected with other universal matters such as world order, peace or spiritual unity of religions claiming the attention of mankind today. The first woman in history to die for the emancipation of women, it is pointed out, was the Persian poet, Țáhirih, executed in Teheran during 1852 because of her feminist activities undertaken in service to the religion of the new world faith she had ardently espoused.
SUFFERING
The mind and spirit of man advance when he is tried by suffering. The more the ground is ploughed the better the seed will grow; the better the harvest will be. Just as the plough furrows the earth deeply, purifying it of weeds and thistles, so suffering and tribulation free man from the the petty affairs of this worldly life until he arrives at a state of complete detachment. His attitude in this world will be that of divine happiness. Man is, so to speak, unripe: the heat of the fire of suffering will mature him. Look back to the times past and you will find that the greatest men have suffered most.
In the High Sierras
And they shall see the Son of Man Coming
MARZIEH GAIL
DAYTIMES the trout stream
was like a big trout, slippery,
dappled, now and then
flashing white, easing under the
watery aspens. At night it was
pale in the blackness. Sitting by
the campfire one could only hear
it and see a vagueness down
there under the bank where it
ran. One could not distinguish
between the moths brought into
the flame, and the sparks flying
out, and higher insects catching
the light as they passed, and
shooting stars, and stars. One
could not keep track of these
things.
Except that the stars were campfires again. This used to be Indian country, here under the incongruously Swiss-looking snow crags, along the trout stream; here you can still pick up Indian arrowheads of dark bottle-green obsidian, with the hairy chisel marks. When the white man drove the Indians away, they went up there in the sky, over our heads, and lit those campfires. So we have peace between the two again, with the red man up there the winner. His spirit is always seeping back into America, like the blood of the heart seeping back, and it never wipes away. (That time we saw Boulder Dam, the least Indian of all things, we found that Indian patterns had been worked into the massive floors; soft, moccasined, his spirit had come back.)
You would look into the redness of the campfire, and there, standing on its tail and watching you with white, piteously smoking eyes, was the ghost of the trout you had caught in the morning and fried at noon; fried it so fresh that it leapt in the pan.
That particular night something was going to happen, up there in the mountains. Everything was waiting for it. The wind had lowered, the hot ashes fell softly, the stream quieted and the aspens stilled. Now it was happening. We looked up out of our well of blackness to the ridge: the trees along the ridge were catching fire, they were burning, like hair in a nimbus on some old saint’s picture. Flaming hair of trees along the ridge. We waited not moving, and we saw the white fire growing, and then we saw it was the white moon burning and rising up there over the fall of the ridge. Then the night went on as before. It resumed.
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Later in the night we went over
to the little store on the lake for
a couple of bottles of milk. This
place is listed on the map as
“primitive area,” and it is safely
far away from any towns, but
even so we were only around the
corner to milk “from non-reactive
tuberculin tested cows.” That is
America.
No moon during the mile’s walk, only the black wind to lean against. The lake was rimmed with a beach piled with tree limbs twisted satiny-white wood that made good burning. We could have sworn the lake was an ocean with China just beyond it, its further shores were so lost and unattainable.
On our way back we punched the dark now and then with our flashlight. Everything was black and quiet. Something was going to happen. We looked up to the hilltop, above the road, and there suddenly was the moon, dawning again, with all the freshness and drama, the ceremony and pause, of its dawning an hour ago, over our campfire.
I had never known before that the moon has many dawnings in a single night. It comes up as many times as there are hills and valleys and eyes watching.
An idea in the world is the same—it has many risings, each authentic and new and especially for the people it shines on. When you describe it, the people do not only hear what you tell them, they get the idea at first hand. It rises for them as it did for you.
The great world ideas are like that. For instance, about the time Jesus rose over England—597— Buddha rose over Japan, 552. A new world idea comes, this time from Shíráz and Baghdád, and it is only begining to rise, say over the western seas.
“I do not see the new world idea coming out of the East as you describe it,” people comment. It is perfectly all right for them to say this; they are telling you the truth. But then other people, apparently no more brilliant or stupid than the first, do see it. It rises for them, a special dawning for them, and their faces begin to glow with it. It is not only your moon any more, it is theirs too. You don’t have to repeat any more, “See the moon coming up—” or “Wait a minute and you’ll see the moon coming—” They would only look at you and say, “Are you crazy? Of course I see it.”
Back at the campfire, the tamaracks
had turned to cypresses in
the moonlight. You had to force
yourself not to imagine an Eastern
palace there, piling lightly
into the sky, poised above seven
cloudy pools, tiled and terraced,
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one below the other, one spilling
into the other. You had to hang
on to yourself not to feel a nostalgia
for something long ago that
you never knew about; this is
much worse than missing something
that was once yours. Probably,
through a twisting of time,
it is a homesickness for what will
come later on, perhaps in the
world beyond this. Anyhow it
takes hold of you if you sit by a
trout stream in the summer moonlight.
The Gates of Paradise
L. KHAI
- If Paradise has gates
- (though I truly wonder why
- God would need them—
- His Own Word is the only gate,
- So for those who close themselves to His Word
- There is no entrance.
- This should suit most of them,
- Those who have long claimed
- There is nothing to enter into after death—)
- But, as I said
- If Paradise does have gates,
- I think they must be unlike
- Anything we know—
- So light, unlocked, they open at a touch,
- So heavy, the strength of ten thousand worlds
- Cannot even rattle them
- When their key is turned securely—
- So high, no ambitious climber could scale them
- Though he climbed for all eternity,
- So low, the smallest babe
- Could reach their handles—
- I think they would be made
- Of mirrors and transparent glass,
- That one might see his ugly faults
- Compared with the more perfect beauty beyond.
- So I believe would be heaven’s gates . . . .
- If it has any.
The Nature of Divinity
DUART BROWN
SO MANY have questioned the
Bahá’í concept of divinity
that it seems necessary to try
to clarify the matter. The question
has come from two sides:
first, from the very religious people
who wrap the idea of divinity
in such a sacred cloak of mystery
that it is difficult to get them
to talk clearly about it; second,
from the non-religious, atheistic
or agnostic people, who are skeptical
of the very word “divinity”
and tend to shy away from it as
if it were a rattlesnake.
Webster’s Dictionary defines divinity as “a celestial being, inferior to God, but superior to man;” also as “divine attribute; supernatural power or virtue.” The Bahá’ís say that each of the great Manifestations of God, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and Bahá’u’lláh, was divine. It is this divinity that allowed them to speak in such a way as no other man could speak without being at once evidently the worst kind of egotist. And it is this apparent egotism with its terrific apparent claims to power and glory that has driven many thinking agnostics and atheists out of religion. Modern man, as a result of education and science, is inclined to be much more skeptical of divine claims than his simpler predecessors. This is a healthy sign and becomes dangerous only if skepticism and doubt come to be worshipped for their own sakes without any relation to provable facts.
The Bahá’í concept of divinity is supported by observable facts rather than by dogmatic declarations. In order to grasp this concept it is first necessary to take the “super” out of supernatural. Superstition has no place in modern religion, and it must be realized that spiritual power produces observable phenomena in nature as clear to the eyes of the discerning as the phenomena of electricity and the atom. Just as by watching the power of electricity manifesting itself in the lightning, we judge the presence and nature of electricity in the atmosphere, so by observing the impact of spirit on the hearts of men do we judge the presence of spiritual power on earth and ascertain something of its nature.
Man by nature is a creature of
habit and instinct. His tendency,
constantly encouraged by the actions
of most of those around
him, is to satisfy his own selfish
instincts. Loyalty first to the family,
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then to the tribe and then the
nation, lifts him above this low
level of selfishness, but only in
that he comes to identify himself
with the larger body. In doing
this he has still reached no higher
than the wolf who submerges
himself in the pack, or the buffalo
who becomes one with the
herd. Individual selfishness now
becomes mass selfishness. The
spiritual power of God manifests
itself on earth when it reaches
into the hearts of men and lifts
large numbers of them out of the
power of self, and into a new and
greater power, that of the spirit.
When this happens to a man, he
becomes transformed; he is, as
Jesus said, “born again.” He is
no longer governed by the world
outside of himself, but has
reached that point where his spiritual
inner being, becomes the
captain of both instinct and
habit. He has become of “the
Kingdom,” which means essentially
that he is now, for the first
time in his life a “free” man.
We have only to recall the delicately reared partrician Roman women who faced a horrible death in the amphitheater in Rome because they had become Christian and yet were possessed of such spiritual power that they met their end with the calm courage of the most stout-hearted man, to realize how spirit gave them freedom. What Socrates reached after a life-time of self-discipline and thought, ignorant people reached through the emotional impact of a revealed religion. Twenty thousand Bahá’í martyrs died in Persia in the nineteenth century, singing the praises of Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb, without apparent pain even when tortured by fire. English consular observers actually witnessed this mass martyrdom in modern times.
Christianity swept the corrupt Roman world with a cleansing fire that prepared Europe for its modern surge of civilization. Muḥammadanism lifted hundreds of obscure tribes into a part of the most advanced civilization of the middle ages. Buddha’s wisdom and love mellowed China and India, and made at the time of Asoka the most cultural and gentle of all ancient civilizations. Moses made a slave people, the Jews, into one of the most dynamic forces in all human history. These are facts of history which no one can deny. They show the terrific impact of God’s will upon the earth, lifting man, inch by inch, out of his animal-like nature and into the new world of self-control, understanding, and unity.
But the skeptic still denies the
divinity of the great Manifestations,
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of Jesus and Zoroaster and
Bahá’u’lláh. He says they are
only great men. Hundreds of
people, he says, have made claim
of speaking direct from God.
The Christian, on the other hand,
says only Jesus spoke for God.
The Buddhist says Buddha. The
Muḥammadan says Muḥammad.
How pull the truth out of this
mixture of claims and counter
claims, of doubt and skepticism?
One way is to judge the impact
of these men on history. There
have been a thousand leaders
who laid claim to divinity while
still partaking liberally of the
luxuries of this earth. Their influence,
like that of a will-o-the-wisp,
is only fleeting, a generation
perhaps, at most two or
three, dying slowly away, incapable
of renewal. But Buddhism,
Muḥammadanism, Christianity,
Judaism have extended for century
on century, have been subject
again and again to great upsurges
of renewed spirit and reform.
They have entered deep
into the hearts of men and influenced
and transformed their
lives by the millions.
But the astonishing thing about the great Manifestations of God that separates them from all other men is their possession of a godlike wisdom without any apparent effort to attain it. Socrates, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Descartes, Kant, all these giant thinkers of human history reached their wisdom through years of struggle, of study, of trial and error. Muḥammad, without even learning to write, never studying a book (for books were practically non-existent in the Arabia of his time), produced on blades of camels’ bones the Qur’án a veritable pearl of human wisdom, flawless as a perfect gem. Eight hundred years before Copernicus, Muḥammad proclaimed that the earth circled the sun, a statement obscured and ignored by a people not yet ready for such an astounding change in the concept of the universe. Jesus, as we know, at the age of twelve confounded the wise men in the temple at Jerusalem, and confounded them again years later after an uneducated life as a simple carpenter. We have only to read the New Testament with unprejudiced eyes to see how He handled and answered the shrewdest of the priests and pharisees with the consummate skill of a master teacher dealing with unruly children.
Bahá’u’lláh, the latest Manifestation,
spoke of a United Nations
of the World as early as
1860, a time when such a
thought was regarded as sheer
fantasy. He told of the need for
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religion to cooperate with science
at a time when all organized
religions were furiously battling
with dogmatic statements the inroads
of science into faith. In
Haifa, when the famous English
orientalist, Dr. Edward G.
Browne, came to see Him, it was
the college professor, the holder
of many degrees, who, in his own
words, felt as a little child in the
presence of his master.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh, said:
“The Reality of Divinity may be compared to the sun, which from the heights of its magnificence shines upon all the horizons, and each horizon and each soul receives a share of its radiance. If this light and these rays did not exist, beings would not exist; all beings express something, and partake of some ray and portion of this light. The splendors of the perfections, bounties, and attributes of God shine forth and radiate from the reality of the perfect Man, that is to say, the Unique One, the Universal Manifestation of God. Other beings receive only one ray, but the Universal Manifestation is the Mirror for this Sun, which appears and becomes manifest in it, with all its perfections, attributes, signs, and wonders.”
The agnostic and the atheist rebel against this idea because their egos will not admit perfection in human form. It is the same unreasoning rebellion of the child against the authority of the father, often appearing to supposedly “logical argument”, not as a means of seeking truth, but as pure defense against the deflation of the ego. In the same way we would probably deny the existence of gravity if it hurt our little egos.
A dispassionate and scientific appraisal of any of the writings or sayings of the great Manifestations shows a sublime wisdom, penetration and understanding of human nature. They attack with direct though beautiful language the heart of all human problems of good and evil. The science of psychology is proving today how incredibly aware of human failings and their cure were these Great Ones. Consider this saying of Buddha, written in the seventh Century, B.C.:
“Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart: ‘It will not come nigh unto me.’ Even by the falling of water drops the water pot is filled, so the fool becomes filled with evil even though he gather it little by little.”
Only recently have psychologists
begun to understand the
law of habit outlined in this
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profound statement. Could a
mere man have foreseen this advance
in understanding in the
dark ages that prevailed twenty-five
hundred years ago?
These Manifestations one and all proclaimed themselves the Ordained Ones of God. They stated in no uncertain terms that they were God’s direct word on earth to man. Could such wise men, men whose entire lives were the perfect examples of living beyond human desire, have manufactured such statements for the purpose of self-aggrandizement? This is inconceivable! Either They were the word of God on earth, or They were the shallowest imposters. History and Their writings deny in every line the latter supposition.
If man would cast out the clouds of egotism and selfish desire, he would see these facts in their proper perspective. Divinity would appear no longer as the mysterious bug-a-boo of the superstitiously religious nor the nonsense that the atheist tries to call it. As one of the great, though mysterious, phenomena of the natural world, we could see it as God’s guiding light to us through the dark currents of human history.
THE PROPHETS ARE UNITED
The divine Prophets are conjoined in the perfect state of love. Each one has given the glad-tidings of His successor’s coming and each successor has sanctioned the One who proceeded Him. They were in the utmost unity but Their followers are in strife. For instance, Moses gave the message of the glad-tidings of Christ and Christ confirmed the prophethood of Moses. Therefore between Moses and Jesus there is no variation or conflict. They are in perfect unity but between the Jew and the Christian there is conflict. Now therefore if the Christian and Jewish peoples investigate the reality underlying their Prophets’ teachings they will become kind in their attitude toward each other and associate in the utmost love, for reality is one and not dual or multiple. If this invesigation of the reality becomes universal the divergent nations will ratify all the divine Prophets and confirm all the Holy Books. No strife or rancor will then remain and the world will become united.
Disciple
- Yes, it’s a long ride from town to town after a busy week;
- But I couldn’t resist it—I just rode down
- To look again at her blossom cheek,
- To hear her soft voice and the word of cheer,
- And have her drive away an old man’s fear.
- I am old and tired; the road was long,
- But I always felt somewhere there was a spring
- Where I could sit and hear an evensong,
- And be one among a mystic ring
- To blend my voice with others as they sing.
- I really think I’ve found the very thing!
- All my life I have been in travail
- But I don’t mind now how long and hard the way;
- She gives me answers from a wondrous tale
- And I feel stronger when we meditate and pray.
- I no longer fear what lies behind the day.
- Vistas of New Worlds and beauty unfold,
- Endless and holy—full of Light!
- She gives me the Prophet’s hand to hold,
- And I know now that morning follows night,
- And the great heavens of joy unfold
- And waft me upwards in colors bright.
- But I must take my way and say good-night.
- I don’t mind now if it is dark and cold,
- For now I have the prophet’s hand to hold.
If You Are Not a Bahá’í
Editorial
IF YOU are not a Bahá’í, those
of your friends who are must
seem to you a little irritating.
They know all the answers.
Problems that puzzle the most astute
minds and the wisest hearts
bother them not at all: they know
how they must eventually be
solved. Cataclysms that rock the
world and threaten to topple
civilization from its base leave
them unperturbed: they knew all
along that this was going to happen
and they are already laying
another foundation. Moreover,
they can tell you the plan on
which the new edifice will be
built. There is nothing on which
they do not have some pretty
definite ideas, from the theory
of evolution to the Day of Judgment.
They do not claim to know
these things by dint of their own
gigantic mental operations, but
through their religion, and, not
unnaturally, you are a bit doubtful
about that. Religion has
solved many a personal difficulty,
has changed many lives, but
is it so specific on such a variety
of subjects?
As a matter of fact, religion has sometimes been very specific about practical affairs. You have only to read the Old Testament to see how Moses laid down laws for society, which are still in force. If Christ’s Teachings were concerned primarily with the spiritual life of the individual, Muḥammad, at a later time, was very specific in the ordinances which lifted Arabia out of barbarism and resulted in the Islamic state.
Since Muḥammad’s time life has become steadily more complex, and knowledge has developed so rapidly that men have come to believe themselves quite self-sufficient and to feel emancipated from God. But the rapid industrialization of the world and the flinging together of its many peoples, with their diverse cultures, has created problems so complicated and so numerous that they stagger the human mind. And suddenly we are aware that these problems must be solved immediately. Perhaps after all religion can come to our aid. Your Bahá’í friends find that aid in the nineteenth century Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.
There is nothing meager or
fragmentary about the help provided
by God in this age. During
the better part of fifty years
the Bahá’í Revelation poured
[Page 243]
forth. During the twenty-nine
years which followed, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
its authorized interpreter,
explained it in terms of our specific
needs. Thus the Bahá’í
Teachings are in themselves a
broad education, touching upon
every subject important to modern
man. They extend from individual
generosity to economic
justice, from the fundamentals of
family relationships to those of
a world state, from explanations
of traditional theological doctrine
to the advancement of
science.
Not that Bahá’u’lláh gave us an engineering handbook on which to build our world, or revealed a mere code of laws. Rather He established a creative truth and so elaborated it that it can be applied to all aspects of human life: the unity of God and its correlary, the unity of men. This dynamic principle Bahá’u’lláh made available to us in terms which enable us to solve our problems. He set us on the proper road, turned us in the right direction, and provided us with the necessary equipment.
The human intellect is an important part of that equipment, and scientific knowledge is specified as a tool for our use. If, for example, we are engaged in rearing a child, there is much that we can learn directly from the Bahá’í Writings to help us, but we also learn there to use our own native intelligence and imagination and to employ all the means that the sciences can provide.
One of the most important aids given us by Bahá’u’lláh is a method. Bahá’í consultation stems directly from the principle of human unity and is the new democracy for our day. Full and frank discussion of any question, based on all obtainable knowledge, followed by a decision made with prayer and then loyally supported by all concerned —such a method of attacking our difficulties enables us to make use of all possible help, human and divine, and represents the action of the whole rather than any part. When it can be applied on an international scale, real peace will be assured.
Your Bahá’í friends really do have a great many of the answers, but they would be the last to lay claim to them all. For they have only begun to draw on this great source of enlightenment. It makes them humble, rather than complacent, and eager to share it with you.
Struggle for Bill of Rights
BOOK REVIEW BY HELEN INDERLIED
CONSIDERING the growing
interest today in the world
for an international Bill of
Rights, it seems timely to review
with Samuel S. Wyer[1] the history
of human rights from the
beginning up to the present day.
Investigation shows that man
from earliest recorded days has
always longed for his rights, and
that occasionally through the
ages he has voiced these longings.
The first instance given by
Mr. Wyer is the heartfelt plea of
an Egyptian peasant to his pharoah
in 2300 B. C. for the protection
of his personal rights.
Mr. Wyer comments, “The burning
eloquence of the speaker in
this ancient record moved the
translators to label it, ‘Tale of
the Eloquent Peasant’.”
From the plea of the Eloquent Peasant for his individual rights to the rising desire today for an international Bill of Rights, over four thousand years have elapsed. However Thomas Paine predicts that “man’s natural rights will win out and establish his civil rights.”
At this point Mr. Wyer stops to consider what have been the greatest driving forces behind this evolution to bring about more individual liberty. He states that after looking over the whole field of progress in this line, he regards Moses, when viewed from the standpoint of his contribution to man’s thinking, as the “most significant personality” of all time, second only to Jesus Christ.
It would seem that David de Sola Poole, author of Social Ideals of Judaism must agree with this idea of Mr. Wyer, for he writes that the social code defined by Moses hundreds of years before Plato’s Republic, “the first blue-print of an ideal Commonwealth,” seeks throughout to achieve social justice and human rights. He adds that, although Israel sometimes fell away from that standard, the prophets summoned them back to the social religious law.
Mr. Wyer’s pamphlet furnishes
good examples of the influence
of the prophets: Once the
prophet Elisha was asked by the
King of Israel if he should slay
some captives, and Elisha replied
decidedly, “Thou shalt not
smite them.” The prophet Oded
[Page 245]
ordered captives to be returned
to their homes, to their own land.
Jeremiah also urged “no wrong,
no violence to the stranger.” The
prophet Amos stressed social
justice and laid the ethical foundation
for the rights of man.
Ezekial, Zechariah, and Malachi
all warned of the punishments
of the Almighty that would come
upon such as disregarded His
Prophets.
Thus was Israel educated in social justice through the centuries until the appearance of Jesus, Who, with dynamic power, stimulated the consciousness and the conscience of mankind until a new civilization developed. Mr. Wyer says that Jesus motivated the greatest “living-together philosophy” up to that time, for he stressed the supreme worth of each individual; recognized man as the most meaningful thing in the universe; energized man with fortitude, faith in God, and faith in himself. He taught the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.
Jesus was crucified, but His influence permeated the great Roman Empire under whose rule He was born and lived. Although Christianity was persecuted for the first two centuries, H. G. Wells in his Outline of History, wrote of the great change that came when, in the first quarter of the fourth century, Emperor Constantine made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. It is often asked why Emperor Constantine took this step which must have been radical at the time. Mr. Wells made an interesting analysis on this point: The Emperor Constantine saw in this new Faith “the hope of moral solidarity” amid the narrowness and the self-seeking of his empire. This new religion, with its emphasis on the worth of the individual, may have influenced the tone of the Roman Law, for Roman Law decidedly stresses the recognition of human rights.
Rome, as ruler of the world,
Mr. Wyer indicates, had accumulated
“the cream of man’s law
thinking.” In 527 A.D. Justinian
by his codification of this law,
preserved it and gave it a form
fitted to descend to modern man.
In the twelfth century came a
marked revival of Roman Law,
and by the year twelve hundred
there were probably ten thousand
law students, chiefly in Italy.
Many of these students came
from what is now England, thus
showing that country’s early and
deep interest in human rights,
and perhaps explaining the later
liberal “Charters of Liberties” it
obtained. Also it is recorded
that teachers of Law were
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brought back from Rome to England,
and thus Roman laws were
widely diffused throughout that
country. In general the bishops
and the clergy supported Roman
law, and the nobility and the
laity opposed with the English
Common law. Thus two streams,
the Roman and the Common law,
met and influenced each other.
Mr. Wyer shows that for centuries in England the Pope held a sort of over-lordship of the kings of the Holy Roman Empire. However at the opening of the thirteenth century, the barons rebelled against both Pope and king, demanding their rights and liberties. They marched into London and forced King John to sign the “Charters of Liberties” afterwards known as the Magna Carta. To show that “the life of law is struggle” and also to show how very much determined the English barons were to enforce their rights, it is recorded that this Charter had to be confirmed, established, and commanded to be put into execution by thirty-two acts of Parliament before the kings of England would observe it as law. It was not until 1265, however, that representatives of the common people were included in Parliament through the efforts and leadership of Simon de Montfort.
From this time on England lived under and developed its constitutional form of government for three centuries and a half until a new struggle for individual liberties arose in connection with the English colonies in America. A deep desire for human rights came with these settlers from the mother country. Virginia, the first permanent settlement, from the beginning insisted on having in its charter with England a definition of its individual rights. Massachusetts Colony, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Carolina and Georgia followed suit.
Soon after Boston was founded in 1630, a clergyman and a poet raised their voices in defense of human liberties. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut delivered a great sermon inspiring his community to action. He said that the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people and closed with these well-known words, “As God has given us liberty, let us use it.” Three years later the blind English poet, Milton, challenged a recently made English law regulating printing in his “Areopagitica” which was an eloquent plea for freedom of the press.
Also William Penn showed
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his vision when he wrote in his
Preface to a Plan of Government
for Pennsylvania, “Any government
is free to the people under
it where laws rule and the people
are a party to these laws.”
John Locke, distinguished English
philosopher defended religious
liberty and the ultimate sovereignty
of the people.
Four years later in England there emerged one of the greatest documents in the history of human liberties. It was the English Declaration of Rights, in the year 1689—a date to remember! Our own “wisest American”, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once made the statement that it takes about one hundred years to get an idea over to a people. It took just that length of time for two great nations to bring forth in turn their declaration of rights, France just one hundred years later in 1789, and the United States of America in 1791.
Mr. Wyer in his article expressed the belief that a very great influence leading to the adoption of our Bill of Rights was the publication of Blackstone’s Commentaries in England. Blackstone, an English jurist, was regarded as the “outstanding legal scholar in the world.” He compiled the laws from the Anglo-Saxon heritage (as Justinian had compiled the Roman laws) and made them available to all who were interested in their legal rights. In Vol. II. of his Commentaries, one hundred and seventy-seven consecutive pages are devoted to the “rights” of persons.
Published in England in 1765, these Commentaries reached the American Colonies in 1771 and were very widely read. In 1775 Edmund Burke told the House of Commons of the deep and widespread interest in the study of Blackstone in the Colonies and warned England to beware of curtailing their liberties in any way. On the very next day Patrick Henry delivered his immortal “Liberty or Death” speech, showing the growing determination of the colonists to secure their rights. Affairs were moving irresistibly to a climax, writes Mr. Wyer.
On July Fourth came the
Declaration of Independence,
1775, followed by the ratification
of the Constitution of the
United States, 1789, the French
Declaration of Rights, 1789, and
the United States Bill of Rights,
1791. This Bill would have been
incorporated in the Constitution
in 1789 if Washington and Jefferson
had had their way. Still,
within one hundred years after
the Mother country had set the
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pace by adopting the Declaration
of Rights, her colonies overseas
had obtained their independence
and adopted a Bill of
Rights of their own, and, as Emeric
Sala in This Earth, One
Country points out, “performed
a political miracle by building a
federal system which increased
prodigiously the collective power
of the new nation . . . Canada,
Australia, the Union of South
Africa, and Switzerland have
since followed their example.”
The century and a quarter under the new Constitution witnessed the growth of the United States to become the most powerful country in the world. But in 1914 a great danger threatened; the beginning of a “rendezvous with destiny” awaited those countries who had bravely struggled to gain the free way of life. Reactionary adherents to government by absolutism lined up savagely against those who loved representative government. Two terrible wars followed. Again the freedom-loving people cried, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Millions met death. It was indeed Armageddon. Those who fought for human rights and the “ultimate sovereignty of the people” won, but they now face a darkened and chaotic world.
But just as the rain comes when the parched earth needs it, so the “significant man,” to use Mr. Wyer’s nomenclature, never fails to come, Bahá’ís believe, at a crisis in the evolution of human emancipation—just as Buddha came to the rescue of a priest- and caste-ridden India, as Moses came to lead His enslaved people out from Egypt, as Jesus came to save people from a demoralized Roman Empire, so now Bahá’u’lláh has come to revitalize and to organize the people of the entire world in the time of its greatest distress. He has given, with the power to establish it, a Plan for a new World Order in which human rights are safeguarded.
- ↑ Wyer, Samuel S., Struggle for Bill of Rights, “Better World Fund”, Columbus Ohio: 1945.
In the estimation of God there is no distinction of color; all are one in the color and beauty of servitude to Him. Color is not important; the heart is all-important.
All will become as one family, one people, and the same susceptibility to the divine bounty and education will be witnessed among mankind.
We are all servants of one Threshold, attendants at one Court, waves of one sea, drops of one stream, the dust before one door and plants of one garden.
The Mature Man
Bahá’í Words for Meditation
These selections are from Bahá’í World Faith.
Be not the cause of sorrow, how much less of sedition and strife!
(p. 201)
The development of the world, the training of nations, the tranquility of the servants and the security of the people of all lands have been due to the Divine precepts and ordinances. (p. 201)
[Religion] bestows the cup of vitality, confers immortal life and imparts eternal benefit to the people. (p. 201)
“Say, all are created by God.” This lofty utterance is like unto water for quenching the fire of hate and hostility which is hidden and stored in men’s hearts and minds. (p. 210)
Until love takes possession of the heart no other divine bounty can be revealed in it. (p. 218)
All the Prophets have striven to make love manifest in the hearts of men. (p. 218)
Religion is the outer expression of the Divine reality. Therefore it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive. (p. 224)
The fundamental reality of the Divine religions must be renewed, reformed, revoiced to mankind. (p. 226)
Material progress insures the happiness of the human world. Spiritual progress insures the happiness and eternal continuance of the soul. (p. 227)
The Prophets of God have founded the laws of Divine civilization. (p. 227)
The Prophets of God . . . have been the root and fundamental source of all knowledge. (p. 227)
This is the century . . . of human solidarity and altruistic service; the century of Universal Peace and the reality of the Divine Kingdom. (p. 228)
The powers of earth cannot withstand the privileges and bestowals which God has ordained for this great and glorious century. (p. 234)
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The child must not be oppressed or censured because it is undeveloped;
it must be patiently trained. (p. 239)
The sick must not be neglected because they are ailing; . . . we must have compassion upon them and bring them healing. (p. 239)
We must not look for truth in the deeds and actions of nations; we must investigate truth at its Divine source. (p. 251)
The friends of God must . . . look upon mankind as the leaves, blossoms and fruits of the tree of creation, and must always be thinking of doing good to someone, of love, consideration, affection and assistance to somebody. (p. 215)
Life in this mortal world will quickly come to an end, and this earthly glory, wealth, comfort and happiness will soon vanish and be no more. (p. 216)
Be a helper of every oppressed one, the protector of every destitute one, be ye ever mindful to serve any soul of mankind. (p. 216)
Be kind in truth, not only in appearance and outwardly. (p. 217)
Love is light in whatsoever house it may shine and enmity is darkness in whatsoever abode it dwell. (p. 217)
Unity is the expression of the loving power of God. (p. 217)
It is our duty in this radiant century to investigate the essentials of Divine religion, seek the realities underlying the oneness of the world of humanity and discover the source of fellowship and agreement which will unite mankind in the heavenly bond of love. (p. 229)
There is no doubt that this wonderful democracy [the United States] will be able to realize the oneness of humanity and the banner of international agreement will be unfurled here to spread onward and outward among all the nations of the world. (p. 234)
True religion is the source of love and agreement amongst men. (p. 238)
Prejudices of any kind are the destroyers of human happiness and welfare. (p. 240)
God 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. (p. 267)
WITH OUR READERS
SEVERAL of the World Order editors
were gathered in the new
headquarters at 503 West Elm in
Urbana. Before them were some of
your manuscripts that had been circulated
among them beforehand and
that the editors agreed should be
published. In another pile were
manuscripts for consultation, articles
that were too long, that discussed
political figures contrary to Bahá’í
policy, that duplicated material recently
published, that weren’t written
as well as they should be, or that
left an erroneous impression of the
Bahá’í Faith. Some of these, it was
decided, should be sent back for revision.
Others should be rejected.
“What have we for the next few issues?” asked one.
“We will continue the series on historical figures now that we have the articles about Shaykh Aḥmad and Siyyid Káẓim,” began another.
“And, of course, we will be continuing the meditation series, ‘The Mature Man’. Then there are those sketches Robert Gulick has sent us about his experiences in the Near East. Other than that, though, we seem to be as low on good manuscripts as we have ever been. We should send out a plea to our writers to furnish us with more material.”
It might be well to introduce you to the new editors of World Order. Garreta Busey, editor-in-chief, has been an associate editor in former years and has contributed many editorials and book reviews. For the past two years she has been the editor of Bahá’í News. She has her doctorate in English and is assistant professor on the faculty of the University of Illinois. She has written a novel on midwest pioneer life, The Windbreak. Mabel Hyde Paine has been on the staffs of The Bahá’í World and Bahá’í News. She has written for the magazine and edited the volume, The Divine Art of Living. Flora Hottes is back after five years of pioneer teaching in Bolivia. She was formerly children’s librarian in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Eleanor Sweney Hutchens served on the editorial staff last year and has her Master’s Degree in English from the University of Illinois. She served for two years on the Bahá’í News. All four of these editors are living in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. The pictorial editor is Clarence Ullrich, an engineer whose home is in Oak Park.
Since the National Spiritual Assembly
has found it advisable to relieve
its members of the additional
burden of work on national committees
and has advised that as far
as possible Bahá’ís should serve on
but one national committee, the composition
of the World Order staff
has changed radically. All of us
wish to show our appreciation for
the devotion that former editors gave
toward building the magazine to its
present high standard. Horace Holley,
who has been the Secretary of
the National Spiritual Assembly for
many years will give his full time
to that task, after having served the
magazine 12 years, ever since it
appeared as World Order. Bertha
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Hyde Kirkpatrick has been a long-time
editor. Seven years ago she established
this department that has
proved so popular, and we are still
using items that she gathered. She
is joining the Bahá’í News staff. Gertrude
K. Henning, who for the past
several years has acted as secretary
for the magazine writing many of
you friendly letters concerning your
manuscripts, leaves us to become a
member of the National Teaching
Committee. William Kenneth Christian,
who became an editor last year,
contributing many fresh ideas, is
devoting himself to his duties as a
member of the NSA.
* * *
The lead article for this issue is
the statement by Shoghi Effendi,
explaining the Bahá’í Faith to members
of the United Nations Special
Commission on Palestine. The chairman
of the commission, Emil Sandstrom,
had asked for a written statement
of the religious interests of the
Bahá’í community in Palestine. In
response, the Guardian stressed its
sacredness as the final resting place
of the Founders of the Bahá’í Faith,
assured the commission of the impartiality
of Bahá’ís in the present
conflict in Palestine, and wrote, “I
am enclosing with this letter, for
your information, a brief sketch of
the history, aims, and significance
of the Bahá’í Faith.” It is this sketch
that we are printing this month.
We recognize the second anniversary of the United Nations by reprinting the “Charter Day Message from the United Nations” written by the Secretary-General, Trygve Lie. The United Nations Weekly Bulletin for July 24th has permitted its use.
Those of you who are interested in last month’s article concerning women’s place in the world of tomorrow will be glad to see the official statement presented by the National Spiritual Assembly to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
The quotation from Bahá’u’lláh on the prerequisites of peace is especially appropriate for this issue.
Marzieh Gail shares with us thoughts inspired “In the High Sierras.” Mrs. Gail is well known among Bahá’ís as an author and a public speaker and frequently contributes to these pages.
“Nature of Divinity” by Duart Brown is a welcome contribution from an author who was introduced to our readers in this department in February, 1947.
The reviewer of the pamphlet, Struggle for Bill of Rights, Helen Interlied, is living in Binghamton, New York.
Robert Montgomery Hooker, whose one page article on Nicaragua is printed this month is not a Bahá’í but has acted as Malcolm King’s interpreter in Nicaragua and has rendered valuable assistance to the Faith there.
L. Khai is the pen name for a New York Bahá’í whose poetry has appeared before in World Order.
The work of N. D. B. is also familiar to our readers. Our poets are very modest this month.
Garreta Busey has written the editorial. Mabel Paine has selected the passages for “The Mature Man.”
Bahá’í Literature
Writings of Shoghi Effendi
Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith
Distributed by Bahá’í Publishing Committee
110 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois
BAHÁ’Í ADMINISTRATION
This work deals with the development of Bahá’í local and national institutions in North America during the years following the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It is an exposition of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in terms of the experience of the American Bahá’ís and the source of guidance and inspiration to believers entering a new stage in the evolution of the Faith.
THE WORLD ORDER OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
Here the Bahá’ís learned, between 1929 and 1936, of the role to be played by the Bahá’í world community and its institutions during the collapse of the old order and the rise of a new civilization. Here also they found for the first time the pattern of future society and an insight into the whole meaning of the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh.
THE ADVENT OF DIVINE JUSTICE
Shoghi Effendi in December, 1938, set in motion the first stages of the world mission conferred by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá upon the North American Bahá’í community—the Bahá’í answer to the destruction which had overtaken society.
THE PROMISED DAY IS COME
The history of the modern world set forth in terms of the Revelation proclaimed by the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh and its rejection by the civil, religious and educational leaders of the day. War and revolution understood as evidences of a process of Divine chastisement inflicted upon the entire human race to purify it for the blessings of the Kingdom.
GOD PASSES BY
A summary of the first hundred years of Bahá’í history, presenting the expectancy of the Promised One, the mission of the Báb, the mission of Bahá’u’lláh, their work and action, the ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the spread of the Faith to sixty-eight countries and the rise of the administrative order. Spiritual history of the World Religion, made possible by unique capacity of its first Guardian, presenting a union of Person with revealed Truth, and of truth with Event.
Words of Bahá’u’lláh
Inscribed Over the Nine Entrances of the
House of Worship, Wilmette, Illinois
- The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.
- The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me.
- My love is My stronghold; he that entereth therein is safe and secure.
- Breathe not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner.
- Thy heart is My home; sanctify it for My descent.
- I have made death a messenger of joy to thee; wherefore dost thou grieve?
- Make mention of Me on My earth that in My heaven I may remember thee.
- O rich ones on earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust.
- The source of all learnings is the knowledge of God, exalted be His glory.