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[Page 79]

WORLD ORDER

JUNE 1939

THE DESTINY OF AMERICA

Shoghi Effendi

REJOICE, O ISRAEL

Alice Simmons Cox

THE MOST MODERN MAN

Kenneth Christian

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH Joyce Lyon Dahl

THE BOOK OF GOD

Doris McKay

[Page 80]

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

JUNE 1939 VOLUME 5 NUMBER 3

FROM MAGIC TO LAW • Editorial .................................. 81

THE DESTINY OF AMERICA • SHOGHI EFFENDI ........................ 83

REJOICE, O ISRAEL • ALICE SIMMONS COX .......................... 87

THE MOST MODERN MAN • KENNETH CHRISTIAN ........................ 97

ISLAM, IX • ALI-KULI KHAN ..................................... 100

IS PACIFISM THE ANSWER TO WAR? • BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK ...... 104

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH • JOYCE LYON DAHL ................. 105

THE SEVEN VALLEYS, Poem • EVERETT TABOR GAMAGE ................ 112

THE ONENESS OF RELIGION, V • DORIS McKAY ...................... 115

VIEWING THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM

Change of address should be reported one month in advance.

WORLD ORDER is published monthly in New York, N. Y., by the Publishing Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. EDITORS: Stanwood Cobb and Horace Holley. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Alice Simmons Cox, Genevieve L. Coy, G. A. Shook, Dale S. Cole, Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick, Marzieh Carpenter, Hasan M. Balyusi, Shirin Fozdar, Inez Greeven. BUSINESS MANAGER: C. R. Wood. PUBLICATION OFFICE: 135 East 50th Street, New York, N. Y. EDITORIAL OFFICE: 119 Waverly Place, New York, N. Y.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: $2.00 per year, $1.75 to Public Libraries. Rate to addresses outside the United States, $2.25, foreign Library rate, $2.00, Single copies, 20 cents. Checks and money orders should be made payable to World Order Magazine, 135 East 50th Street, New York, N. Y. Entered as second class matter, May 1, 1935, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Contents copyrighted 1939 by BAHA’I PUBLISHING COMMITTEE. Title Registered at U.S. Patent Office.

June 1939, Volume 5, Number 3

[Page 81]

WORLD ORDER

June 1939 Volume 5 No. 3

FROM MAGIC TO LAW

MAN’S relations to nature have developed through organic stages, reflecting the upward march of a gradually maturing type of life. In their early stages, these relations were permeated with the practise of magic, the effort to substitute will for knowledge. Men beheld the universe, as it were, through the veils of their own concentration of energy to survive. They made terms with their environment indirectly, as part of an unconscious process compelling them to assert the dignity of the human type before its faculties were adequately developed.

In the child we see again the action of imagination and desire uncontrolled by knowledge of cause and effect in the outer world. Childhood is the projection of the inner life into the environment, and childhood endures as long as the problem of cause and effect can be evaded. Its wishes and hopes are its laws.

For those primitive wishes and hopes of the racial childhood we have the operation of laws and principles of impersonal character. Nature, no longer the theatre of imagination, has become the school of knowledge. In all things affecting nature modern man knows that physical laws cannot be evaded or ignored.

But our relations to the human world appear to be repeating that cycle from childhood to maturity. Nations and classes apparently believe that wishes and hopes, disguised as policy or legislation, can serve as social law. Once again we have the attempt to substitute will for knowledge. Once again, in vain effort to assure the survival of a stage of immaturity, forms of social pressure are organized to override cause and effect in human relations.

The modern approach to the essential problems of civilization is ignorant and blind. The fact that we actually live in a world society while our experience of civilization is limited to nation, race and class gives to that blind ignorance a fatality that can result only in disaster. We have invented motor cars and paved roads to leap the more swiftly over the cliff-edge to [Page 82] the bottomless sea.

The new and unprecedented condition that has emerged to falsify social experience is the enlargement of the area of cause and effect in human relations to include the entire world. The chief art of government in the past, to maintain a balance of power between rulers and ruled, has no connection with the problem of government today. To perpetuate that immature conception of social power and administration is to bring havoc upon the whole of mankind.

Our realms of political and economic action are fatally permeated with the arrogant blindness of hope and wish crystallized, by opposition, into a grim determination to succeed by force applied to groups of our fellow men. Angry and frantic children have seized upon the instrumentalities of science, evolved in the struggle against nature, and transformed them into weapons against each other and themselves.

The first duty of civilized man, and his highest privilege, is to withdraw heart and soul from the influence of so corrupt a social psychology. We gaze out over the earth and we behold a bewildering variety of peoples, each organized in a different culture and civilization, all locked within the confines of a social past that has been swept away. What can teach these desperate peoples the art of cooperation and peace? What can open their eyes to the overwhelming truth that they live in a new, an interdependent social world? What can rid their hearts of this obsession that their fellow men, by necessity, are their bitterest foes?

Withdrawal from the psychic influence of mass blindness is the first and highest duty. In the mysterious recesses of faith we must pray and ponder for light to see the reality of the human problem. That reality cannot but be the recognition that the problem is a mutual problem, and that every race, every nation and class, must be considered on a basis of justice in relation to the needs of the whole. That reality cannot but be the spiritual integrity of the human type, however crude and immature its present expression. That reality cannot but be a longing for organic laws capable of knitting together in one fabric the separate pieces of a humanity that has never attained the realization that the laws of man are nothing less than divine laws.

H. H.

[Page 83]

THE DESTINY OF AMERICA

SHOGHI EFFENDI

THE creative energies, mysteriously generated by the first stirrings of the embryonic World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, have, as soon as released within a nation destined to become its cradle and champion, endowed that nation with the worthiness, and invested it with the powers and capacities, and equipped it spiritually, to play the part foreshadowed in these prophetic words. The potencies which this God-given mission has infused into its people are, on the one hand, beginning to be manifested through the conscious efforts and the nation-wide accomplishments, in both the teaching and administrative spheres of Bahá’í activity, of the organized community of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh in the North American continent. These same potencies, apart from, yet collateral with these efforts and accomplishments, are, on the other hand, insensibly shaping, under the impact of world political and economic forces, the destiny of that nation, and are influencing the lives and actions of both its government and its people.

To the efforts and accomplishments of those who, aware of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, are now laboring in that continent, to their present and future course of activity, I have, in the foregoing pages sufficiently referred. A word, if the destiny of the American people, in its entirety, is to be correctly apprehended, should now be said regarding the orientation of that nation as a whole, and the trend of the affairs of its people. For no matter how ignorant of the Source from which those directing energies proceed, and however slow and laborious the process, it is becoming increasingly evident that the nation as a whole, whether through the agency of its government or otherwise, is gravitating, under the influence of forces that it can neither comprehend nor control, towards such associations and policies, wherein, as indicated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, her true destiny must lie. Both the community of the American believers, who are aware of that Source, and the great mass of their countrymen, who have not as [Page 84] yet recognized the Hand that directs their destiny, are contributing, each in its own way, to the realization of the hopes, and the fulfillment of the promises, voiced in the . . . words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

The world is moving on. Its events are unfolding ominously and with bewildering rapidity. The whirlwind of its passions is swift and alarmingly violent. The New World is being insensibly drawn into its vortex. The potential storm centers of the earth are already casting their shadows upon its shores. Dangers, undreamt of and unpredictable, threaten it both from within and from without. Its governments and peoples are being gradually enmeshed in the coils of the world’s recurrent crises and fierce controversies. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are, with every acceleration in the march of science, steadily shrinking into mere channels. The Great Republic of the West finds itself particularly and increasingly involved. Distant rumblings echo menacingly in the ebullitions of its people. On its flanks are ranged the potential storm centers of the European continent and of the Far East. On its southern horizon there looms what might conceivably develop into another center of agitation and danger. The world is contracting into a neighborhood. America, willingly or unwillingly, must face and grapple with this new situation. For purposes of national security, she must assume the obligations imposed by this newly created neighborhood. Paradoxical as it may seem, her only hope of extricating herself from the perils gathering around her is to become entangled in that very web of international association which the Hand of an inscrutable Providence is weaving. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s counsel to a highly placed official in its government comes to mind, with peculiar appropriateness and force. “You can best serve your country if you strive, in your capacity as a citizen of the world, to assist in the eventual application of the principle of federalism, underlying the government of your own country, to the relationships now existing between the peoples and nations of the world.” The ideals that fired the imagination of America’s tragically unappreciated President, whose high endeavors, however much nullified by a visionless generation, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, through His own pen, acclaimed as signalizing the dawn of the Most Great Peace, though now lying in the dust, bitterly reproach a heedless generation for having so cruelly abandoned them.

That the world is beset with perils, that dangers are now accumulating and are actually threatening the American nation, no clear-eyed observer can possibly deny. The earth is now transformed into an armed camp. As much as fifty million men are either under arms or in reserve. No less than the sum of three billion pounds is being spent, in one year, on its armaments. The light of religion is dimmed and moral authority disintegrating. The nations of the world have, for the most part, fallen a prey to battling [Page 85] ideologies that threaten to disrupt the very foundations of their dearly-won political unity. Agitated multitudes in these countries see them with discontent, are armed to the teeth, are stampeded with fear, and groan beneath the yoke of tribulations engendered by political strife, racial fanaticism, national hatreds, and religious animosities. “The winds of despair,” Bahá’u’lláh has unmistakably affirmed, “are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned. . . .” “The ills,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, writing as far back as two decades ago, has prophesied, “from which the world now suffers will multiply; the gloom which envelops it will deepen. The Balkans will remain discontented. Its restlessness will increase. The vanquished Powers will continue to agitate. They will resort to every measure that may rekindle the flame of war. Movements, newly-born and world-wide in their range, will exert their utmost for the advancement of their designs. The Movement of the Left will acquire great importance. Its influence will spread.” As to the American nation itself, the voice of its own President, emphatic and clear, warns his people that a possible attack upon their country has been brought infinitely closer by the development of aircraft and by other factors. Its Secretary of State, addressing at a recent Conference the assembled representatives of all the American Republics, utters no less ominous a warning. “These resurgent forces loom threateningly throughout the world—their ominous shadow falls athwart our own Hemisphere.” As to its Press, the same note of warning and of alarm at an approaching danger is struck. “We must be prepared to defend ourselves both from within and without. . . . Our defensive frontier is long. It reaches from Alaska’s Point Barrow to Cape Horn, and ranges the Atlantic and the Pacific. When or where Europe’s and Asia’s aggressors may strike at us no one can say. It could be anywhere, any time. . . . We have no option save to go armed ourselves. . . . We must mount vigilant guard over the Western Hemisphere.”

The distance that the American nation has traveled since its formal and categoric repudiation of the Wilsonian ideal, the changes that have unexpectedly overtaken it in recent years, the direction in which world events are moving, with their inevitable impact on the policies and the economy of that nation, are to every Bahá’í observer, viewing the developments in the international situation, in the light of the prophecies of both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, most significant, and highly instructive and encouraging. To trace the exact course which, in these troubled times and pregnant years, this nation will follow would be impossible. We can only, judging from the direction its affairs are now taking, anticipate the course she will most likely choose to pursue in her relationships with [Page 86] both the Republics of America and the countries of the remaining continents.

A closer association with these Republics, on the one hand, and an increased participation, in varying degrees, on the other, in the affairs of the whole world, as a result of recurrent international crises, appear as the most likely developments which the future has in store for that country. Delays must inevitably arise, setbacks must be suffered, in the course of that country’s evolution towards its ultimate destiny. Nothing, however, can alter eventually that course, ordained for it by the unerring pen of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Its federal unity having already been achieved and its internal institutions consolidated—a stage that marked its coming of age as a political entity—its further evolution, as a member of the family of nations, must, under circumstances that cannot at present be visualized, steadily continue. Such an evolution must persist until such time when that nation will, through the active and decisive part it will have played in the organization and the peaceful settlement of the affairs of mankind, have attained the plenitude of its powers and functions as an outstanding member, and component part, of a federated world.

The immediate future must, as a result of this steady, this gradual, and inevitable absorption in the manifold perplexities and problems afflicting humanity, be dark and oppressive for that nation. The world shaking ordeal which Bahá’u’lláh, as quoted in the foregoing pages, has so graphically prophesied, may find it swept, to an unprecedented degree, into its vortex. Out of it it will probably emerge, unlike its reactions to the last world conflict, consciously determined to seize its opportunity, to bring the full weight of its influence to bear upon the gigantic problems that such an ordeal must leave in its wake, and to exorcise forever, in conjunction with its sister nations of both the East and the West, the greatest curse which, from time immemorial, has afflicted and degraded the human race.

Then, and only then, will the American nation, molded and purified in the crucible of a common war, inured to its rigors, and disciplined by its lessons, be in a position to raise its voice in the councils of the nations, itself lay the corner-stone of a universal and enduring peace, proclaim the solidarity, the unity, and maturity of mankind, and assist in the establishment of the promised reign of righteousness on earth. Then, and only then, will the American nation, while the community of the American believers within its heart is consummating its divinely-appointed mission, be able to fulfill the unspeakably glorious destiny ordained for it by the Almighty, and immortally enshrined in the writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Then, and only then, will the American nation accomplish “that which will adorn the pages of history,” “become the envy of the world and be blest in both the East and the West.”

Reprinted from “The Advent of Divine Justice."

[Page 87]

REJOICE, O ISRAEL

ALICE SIMMONS COX

THERE is one ideal of human behavior which is destined to be of common interest and special appeal to many people of all races, classes and creeds in our present era. Even now, from the ranks of capitalist and laborer, Oriental and Occidental, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile are arising men and women aflame with new intent to establish upon earth a civilization conceived in the spirit of universal love and dedicated to the ideal that all men are created to live as brothers.

As this dream of spiritual world conquest calls to its banner an increasing number of heroes, the lines of the opposition accordingly tighten, to concentrate forces in desperate struggle to check the advance of human solidarity. Cries of the conflict go up from all parts of the globe,—a civil insurrection or augmented race persecution being signs in one area, an international feud or discontent with political or religious tyranny bearing testimony in another. It is a time of universal fermentation, and of reconsideration of fundamental values. “A titanic, a spiritual struggle, unparalleled in its magnitude yet unspeakably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is being waged,” states Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith. “We stand on the threshold of an age whose convulsions proclaim alike the death pangs of an old order and the birth-pangs of the new.” “The long ages of infancy and childhood, through which the human race had to pass, have receded into the background. . . . Unification of the whole of mankind is the hall-mark of the stage which society is now approaching.”

This Bahá’í vision is a magnificent one. So strangely reminiscent is it of the words of poets and prophets spoken long ago that the human mind might naturally pause to wonder if once again men are following a will-o-the-wisp of imagination and desire. Embracing as it does the assurance of universal peace, the reconciliation of science and religion, a just distribution of this world’s material goods, a common auxiliary language, higher education for both men and women in things of mind and spirit, a more nearly perfect expression of the inherent capacities of every human soul and international cooperation in world affairs according to divine plan, it seems in this hour an unattainable goal. Yet the message of Bahá’u’lláh to the people of this age is intrinsically this: that the day of which Isaiah sang and St. John [Page 88] dreamed on the Isle of Patmos, the day of the coming of the spirit of holiness to the earth, is at hand.

To the people of Israel Bahá’u’lláh, the new Prophet of world order, has given a special benediction and announced the reason for great rejoicing. Their long tribulations are nearing an end. The movement for the establishment of a national home in Palestine is an early sign of their return to that happy station of a chosen people, when by the manifestation of illumined lives, reflecting the Will, the Knowledge and the Love of the Supreme Creator, they will proclaim to all the world: “Behold your God!” Before long the children of Abraham shall be exalted, their dispersion changed into “blissful gathering together” and “those who are hated shall become the beloved of the world.”

“The time fore-ordained unto the peoples and kindreds of the earth is now come. The promises of God, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, have all been fulfilled,” Bahá’u’lláh testifies. Alike, for those modernists who have cast away faith in ancient prophecies of all kind, even to the central belief in a Messiah and restoration of Palestine, and for the orthodox hearts who, in the face of frustration, still cling to the scriptural word, He gives the glad message: “Call out to Zion, O Carmel, and announce the joyful tidings: He that was hidden from mortal eyes is come! His All-conquering sovereignty is manifest; His All-encompassing splendor is revealed. Beware lest ye hesitate or halt. Hasten forth and circumambulate the City of God.”

ISRAEL’S VISION OF PEACE

In order that we may see the picture in its proper perspective with historic background and modern setting, let us recall that vision of Isaiah, which in similar tone was revealed to other prophets: “He (the Lord) shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. . . .”

Long did Israel preserve this life-giving vision in its heart, finding therein not only comfort, but a conviction of purpose and of destiny. The sons and daughters of later Talmud years were taught also to turn to the same vitalizing ideal phrased in the challenging words: “In God’s eyes the man stands high who makes peace between men; between husband and wife, between father and children, between masters and servants, between neighbor and neighbor. But he stands highest who establishes peace among the nations.”

Our picture is not a complete one unless we push back further into the centuries, even to the days of Abraham, that we may view the magnificent sweep of the spiritual drama of Israel as it unfolded through forty centuries. According to the Biblical narrative, now so pregnant with meaning when seen in the light of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation, God spoke to Abraham, His Prophet: “Lift up thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward and westward: For all the land which thou seest, [Page 89] to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. . . . I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. . . . As for me, behold my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. . . . And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. . . . Thou shalt keep my covenant, therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee, in their generations.”

The Hebrew people are trying today to keep that Covenant. There is of this perhaps no greater evidence than the hope of resurrecting once more the spirit of an illustrious heritage, which at the zenith attracted to Jerusalem even the sages of Greece, but which after the division of the united kingdom and through centuries of separation on foreign soils found its pristine splendor dimmed. Whatever may have been the spiritual backslidings of this unusual and chosen people, in whatever way their faith may have felt the taint of that misinterpretation which in due time corrupts the pure message revealed to any people by a Prophet of God, however discouraged Jewry may have been at times, it has persistently refused on the whole to be entirely separated from the belief in special destiny and the age-long dream of righteousness, brotherly association and peace, the dawn of which Abraham foretold. So long as this ideal, born in their souls through the spirit of Abraham and brought into expression within narrow confines of the Holy Land by Moses and a succession of lesser prophets, so long as it remains short of complete realization,—will there be Jews who continue to look forward with undaunted faith to their final deliverance as a people?

EMANCIPATION FAILS

For that one hundred years prior to about 1875 enlightened Jews, those who had come in contact with western learning, believed that they had found their Messianic age in the great measure of emancipation accorded to them by nations of the Christian World. Tragic was their disappointment when experience revealed to them that they had not won freedom. Hatred and prejudice smouldered still. Assimilation and reformation both were but partially successful. The liberal Jew who had sacrificed nearly every vestige of his rich traditional culture and faith, found himself at the door of brotherhood with the door closed in his face. The way back home could not be found, for faith in what his forefathers cherished he had little by little denied, that he might sooner end his exile.

No man sees with more intelligent criticism the situation of Israel today than the thinking Jew himself. Perhaps this is, together with the hope of renaissance in Palestine, a sign of approaching victory. The wise men of the ages have counseled always, [Page 90] “Man, know thyself.” If out of humility, and by search, a deeply energizing vision may be born, the descendants of Abraham can find joy once more. It was with the vision of a future Messiah and a future national state at peace with the world that Israel survived, whether in the brilliance of liberal Muhammadan Spain or in the darkness of the Ghetto. Persecution could not dim her hope as long as a flame gave any life to ancient forms. But when corruption from a world losing faith in God and forgetful of His Plan for all men touched this point of the Torah, when assimilation and baptism and reform desecrated the historic Holy of Holies in the recent century, Israel joined some other nations in the march of quick disintegration. Not that baptism or longing for economic and social security, or even the influence of western thought should have corrupted the Hebrew soul had Christianity been able to give the full spirit of the Christ in return for priority of loyalty to traditional understanding of the Law and the Prophets, but the nations of the west have themselves too long forfeited a profound love for God to be able to offer true fellowship, not to say true spiritual compensation. The spirit that had moved upon the waters of human life in every renaissance of progress from the time of Abraham to that of Jesus, that voice which later spoke through Muhammad and inspired a civilization of great brilliance, has been stilled by waywardness in the majority of men. And so it was that many Israelites trying at last at the desperate hour to become one with other men through sacrifice of name and pride and traditional wealth found little reward for the soul.

If the remarkable efforts now centered in the rebuilding of Palestine do not succeed, due to hostility of neighbor peoples, lack of international justice, or failure within the heart of Israel itself, students of the Hebrew fold fear that Israel faces a strange form of living death. They do not yet know Bahá’u’lláh’s message of gladness in rebirth, whereby they could be certain of success. They have not yet heard that even now in Persia where Bahá’u’lláh first spoke there are communities of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Muhammadans living together in understanding, love and peace. They do not yet know that in the future without sacrifice of the eternal values of their rich past,— their literature, their language or their inspiration,—they may be one with a world community of nations, where unity rules the essentials of common intercourse and diversity gives beauty to the whole.

”The Jews are faced with something much worse than mere assimilation or race death,” believes one of their most erudite leaders, Maurice Samuel. “They are moving, precisely at a time when their lot threatens to become harder than ever before, toward the mass imbecility which characterizes the world spirit of our time.”

AT that precise time when a multitude of diverse opinions and little unity marked the mind of Israel and a passionate desire for a better life took hundreds of Jews into the [Page 91] Gentile world, where neither by faith or religious form, manner or wish, they could be definitely known from the Christian, persecution broke out anew and with special vehemence where assimilation had been most complete. It is this persecution which is awakening Jews everywhere to the hope that may lie in returning to the folk ethos of their own people. Therein they desire to win at last, in brave loyalty to Judaism, the admiration, if not the love, of liberal nations and what is even more important, hope to renew within themselves, through association with historic sources of land and literature, the spirit that made Israel of old a chosen people of God.

“The appearance of Zionism on the modern scene is half a miracle,” writes Milton Steinberg, seeming to sense in some measure the hand of Providence in the late-hour activity. “So far,” he continues, “it has worked surprisingly well. Should it fail in the end, the odds are that Israel is lost, its culture doomed, the personality of the individual Jew fated to protracted, if not permanent, maladjustment. . . . It infuses the drabness of Jewish existence with a spirit of adventure. It affords a dramatic purpose analogous to older dreams of a Messianic restoration. . . . It has opened new vistas of hope.” To the assiduous research and the illumined thinking of future historians must be left the last word concerning the detailed factors of causation in the continued existence of Israel as a people and the even more phenomenal rebirth which began at the close of the nineteenth century under the leadership of such heralds of change as Moses Hess, Leon Pinsker, Theodor Herzl, Aaron David Gordon and Aachad Ha’am. It is clear now, however, that if faithfulness to tradition and to ritualistic forms and to an indomitable conviction of a brilliant future kept Israel homogenous and lent some elements to the prolonged survival, so also, and perhaps with greater urgency, all anti-Semetic oppression influenced Jewry to remain one body. Recent persecution in middle Europe, on the basis of nationality and race rather than of religion, has served to renew Jewish solidarity when it was approaching final collapse. “It is not impossible that we might be wholly absorbed by the surrounding population if we were ever permitted to live in peace for the full space of two generations,” wrote Herzl. “We never are.”

“To what kind of a community do we bear witness when we call ourselves Jews? What means this journey of ours through abyss?” questioned the eloquent pen of Martin Buber. “Shall we fall into oblivion through the mist of the millennium or does some primal force bear us onward to a fulfillment? What does it mean that we will to persist, not only as human beings, human spirit and human seed, but in defiance of the ages, in defiance of time itself—as Jews?”

Bahá’u’lláh’s interpretation of past and present and His forecast of the future can perhaps be understood by consideration of the following four topics, which taken together reveal the cause of Jewish rebirth to [Page 92] be under the direction of God:

1) The return of the Jews to Palestine was actually foreseen by Biblical prophets.

It is of this, testifies Bahá’u’lláh, that Jeremiah wrote: “And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. . . . Behold I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the coasts of the earth. . . . Therefore they shall come and sing in the heart of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden. . . . And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, for thy children shall come again to their own border.”

In view of the present knowledge of historic events, the truth of the prophecies begins to clear, even to the conception of Israel being saved from complete spiritual dispersion by a new purification through God’s Will—a Will that ruled sanctification be a factor in the coming to birth of a spiritual order of maturity for mankind. In this light the sufferings of Jewish existence appear not too high a price to pay for ultimate spiritual attainment.

2) The remarkable restoration of the Holy Land is not motivated to any extent by desire to fulfill prophecies, or even by belief that prophecies would soon be fulfilled, but is propelled largely by forces beyond Jewish control. This suggests that the Unseen power of God may be working out an ancient plan.

Although the first attempts for colonization of Palestine by Jews began before the opening of the twentieth century they were not notably successful nor were they supported by the approval of the majority of enlightened Jews in the West. Furthermore, numerous Jewish colonies were established in other regions than Palestine. This is highly significant for it indicates that the motivation was chiefly the hope of bettering social and cultural and even economic conditions of living.

With the new tides set in motion by the World War three other forces appeared to hasten colonization and to concentrate Jewish capacities in the promising Holy Land venture, which is now literally making the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose and the wilderness and solitary place to be glad. One is the Balfour Declaration favoring “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . . . it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” From this hour, it is said, a new spirit came to animate the Jewish people. In 1922 the Council of the League of Nations ratified the selection of Great Britain, a powerful nation long experienced in dealing with minority peoples, as the holder of the mandate of this former part of the Turkish Empire. Third in time of influence have been the European governmental [Page 93] policies of expulsion, which not only force the most thoroughly assimilated Jews in the world to seek residence elsewhere, but unwittingly encourage fulfillment of Palestinian destiny. International attempts to help all refugees may have a similar effeCt with relation to the million or more Jews that the Holy Land may yet gradually provide for.

3) The recent re-invigoration Of the world Jewish community, with redirection of effort, which is in fact but one of the evidences of world-wide upheaval and change, is caused by a new spiritual impetus from God. The forces of disturbance appearing in the world in the eighteenth century and the new hopes offered by the nineteenth century included in their orbit of change the breaking of barriers between Jewish and Aryan people, destroying the old status quo and affecting the life of Israel as we have described. The Jewish emancipation, the subsequent disappointment and the dawn of revival within Israel, were thus part of the larger unrest and transformation of which Bahá’u’lláh wrote many years before humanity realized the nature or the tremendous extent of the change. “The world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, the new World Order,” He announced. “Mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.”

This new spirit in the world, as the rays of the eternal Sun of Life, is penetrating to the heart of Jew and Gentile alike. It brings the day of judgment, it encourages the hopes for peace, it relights the fires of spiritual life in souls that are begging for progress.

It is the Sun of the Word of God, revealed to the peoples of the centuries by such Manifestations of God’s Will as Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, and the Christ, that Word of Life which was before Abraham, in the beginning with God, the Creator, that effulgence of the attributes of divinity. This sun is again shining today. In the early days of the Christian dispensation its light assisted the Jews, though they knew it not, to retrieve a portion of their ancient glory in the environs of old Babylon, and in the days of Muhammadan ascendancy to achieve notable intellectual attainments in spiritual contact with the Moors of Spain just prior to the sweep of the Inquisition. And in such manner today it has touched the hearts and minds of many Jewish leaders with its radiance and, though the effect may still be in the realms of the unconscious, it is nevertheless productive of new hope, courage and inspiration.

This brings us to our fourth point:

THE KING OF GLORY COMES

Bahá’u’lláh (Glory of God), Himself claiming to be a Prophet of the Ancient Word of God, delegated to kindle the eternal fire in the souls of men, fulfilling the prophecies of all the scriptures, is reflecting the sun of God’s Will and Love to the world. He will unite by the power reflected through [Page 94] Him all streams of human progress in a great ocean of understanding and brotherly cooperation. It is He who will redeem Israel.

The follower of Bahá’u’lláh who is gladdened by His message, sees in His teachings a divine guidance suited to the needs of this age, a divine assistance for deliverance from selfishness and greed, ignorance and prejudice, poverty and contention. In this dispensation is the Covenant of Abraham fulfilled. God renewed that Covenant through a succession of prophets, expanding its domain of influence with the growth of social communication and the enlarging of the circle of spiritual consciousness in the human race. Specifically and primarily it was a Covenant with the Hebrew people, but in reality it was a compact whose participants were destined to increase until Abraham’s spiritual seed should become “as the dust of the earth.” It has been an everlasting Covenant with a chosen people; also it has been kept alive and fruitful for those nations brought into its horizon of influence through successive Revealers of God’s Word, such as Jesus and Muhammad, who in their turn proclaimed the validity of the Jewish dispensation and foretold its ultimate fulfillment in a universal brotherhood of men.

The Abraham of the spirit who left the idols of Chaldean materialism and imagination and tradition to sojourn and to teach in Palestine was a Divine Messenger. He became the father of a great physical race that was to enjoy a special mission in history; He likewise became the spiritual father from whom countless generations of Israelites of the spirit have come, for it is true that wherever men of whatever race have acted with love for God and man they have been one as keepers of God’s eternal Covenant. Abraham, in another and less understood manner, was forbear of a great line of prophets, their spiritual predecessor and their physical ancestor. Isaiah and Jeremiah were Jews. Jesus, whose supreme spiritual genius gave Him sovereignty in the entire western world, was born of a Jewish mother through the line of Isaac and David. Muhammad’s descent from Abraham can be traced to Ishmael, son of Abraham. The Báb, in whom Bahá’ís recognize the Herald (or the Elijah) of the Bahá’í era, was a direct heir of the House of Hashim and descendant thus of the Arabian Prophet and through Him; of Abraham. Bahá’u’lláh was heir of royal Persian blood coming from Zoroaster, ancient Prophet of Iran; and also through His mother was a descendant of Abraham through Katura and Jesse. Literally, by the seed of Abraham have the nations been blessed.

Through this seed of divine guidance will the dream of world brotherhood come true. Although practical commands of the Hebrew Covenant were intended for the Jews alone, and such peoples as might join them in the Mosaic dispensation, the inner reality of that Covenant, the specific spiritual teaching, was to remain the law [Page 95] forever because in its essence it is eternal, applicable to every age. Each new prophet renewed its potency, recalled for his special people its meaning and its promise. Each prophet, including Bahá’u’lláh who today as the Great Michael (Dan. 12) speaks for the whole of humanity, re-proclaimed Abraham’s revelation from God: “I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be thou perfect.” Each Prophet abrogated those ordinances of his predecessor which were no longer adequate or suitable to meet the needs of an evolving humanity.

ISRAEL’S MISSION

Under the guidance of this new universal Messenger, the “Desire of the nations”, the meaning of the service to be rendered by God’s peculiar people in uniting humanity assumes magnitude even beyond their vision. It is true that each great religious order of the world sees itself as a chosen vehicle not only for the most effective transmission of God’s spirit to men, but also God’s plan for universal salvation in an eventual establishment of world harmony, justice and peace. Although the faithful believers in each of these groups could not all be right in their understanding on this matter, the error may lie, not so much in their vision of a future civilization motivated by religion, as in the desire which would exalt any one specific institutional name, rather than proclaim the spirit of love which gave each birth under whatever name was appropriate to the time. Inasmuch as this spirit of love becomes renewed and re-lived by all peoples, all will become instruments of God’s purpose in building a Kingdom of Righteousness on earth, whether under a new name or an old. In this program Israel will do her part. The return to Palestine is already effecting her regeneration as a nation with a positive and dynamic attitude.

Seeing the importance of this function which Israel may serve in the world, Albert Einstein has written: “I am a national Jew in the sense that I demand the preservation of the Jewish nationality, as of every other. . . . But my Zionism does not exclude cosmopolitan views. . . . I believe that every Jew has duties toward his co-religionists. . . . Through the return of the Jews to Palestine, and so to a normal and healthy economic life, Zionism involves a creative function, which should enrich mankind at large.”

There seems, however, to be a more distinctive mission than this reserved for the Jews, which does not nullify, but enhances the significance of the present restoration and aids the cause of world regeneration. From Old Testament wisdom we may learn that the Jewish national home is to be the center of the new world civilization. Whatever of good Palestine will do for the Jews themselves as one aid to rebirth in this transition era before that civilization is firmly established, whatever of worth the Jews may give to the world as a creative nation once more, above all of this, [Page 96] and because of this perhaps, they are now laying the substructure of the world capital. When the federation of nations is achieved, as Bahá’u’lláh assures us it will be, this people, capable of great mental accomplishment, and of supreme love, self-sacrifice and forgiveness; will become the hosts of all the races and religions which were for so long inhospitable to them. For it is in Palestine that Occident and Orient find their natural meeting ground; it is in Palestine where from the growing Mt. Carmel, metropolis of Haifa-Acca today that the vitalizing forces of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation radiate to all the earth; it is in the Holy Land, indicates Shoghi Effendi, where will be established “the nerve center of a world civilization, the focus where the unifying forces of life will converge”; it is from this historic place that the Branch of guidance in this Day of Jehovah will be the standard of the nations, and the prophecies of princely authority, like unto that of David, be fulfilled.

Israel will complete the superstructure in Palestine when the universal impulse of creation, released through Bahá’u’lláh, becomes the conscious living core of her own unity throughout the world, when through it she is once again at one with the primordial motives of her being as a people illumined, when as Zion (at Jerusalem) rejoicing with Carmel (at Haifa) she may give of her talents to the service of mankind. Because of the fact that co-eval with this evolution will come the spiritual maturity of other peoples, Israel will find in the rising commonwealth of nations—the new Jerusalem—that her problems of how to live in a non-Jewish world has been solved, for her as a nation, or for all Jews who in foreign lands prefer to move the way of ultimate assimilation. This, because the age in which we live will recognize “its new and living Word”. Injustice and prejudice will vanish and the Jew, wherever he lives, will become known for his virtues. “Thou shalt no more be termed forsaken. . . . And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory. . . . Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.” Under the unclouded Sun of a new revelation, when religion once again directs the conscious efforts of men, the new Jew will be received into a joyous international citizenship. His folk religion will have been fully expanded to meet the radically changed needs of the time.

Then will there be singing on Mount Zion.

[Page 97]

THE MOST MODERN MAN

KENNETH CHRISTIAN

MOST individuals would feel insulted if they were not called modern. And yet this word “modern” is used glibly to mean any number of things, according to the point of view of the user. A conservative claims that his ideas are modern, that all others are radical and naturally pernicious. The liberal claims that his ideas are modern, that all conservatives are by nature mossbacks. Individuals even think they are modern if their clothes are the latest cut and their hats in the prevailing fashion. (And this regardless of the ideas entertained under the hat.) And so it goes. . . .

The “modern” would seem to be that which is abreast of the times. And, in a very real sense, that is modern which reflects the events of the times. Looked at in this later sense, the boast of modernity loses most of its significance. For to be modern means to reflect what is dominant at the moment. It does not necessarily mean to be progressive in any practical sense. Nor does it imply evaluation by any moral standard.

There is, to my mind, a subtler, truer modernity. I believe that the truly modern person is he who foresees and lends impetus to beneficial changes in the life of man. All history seems to uphold this view of the modern man as the man who served true progress. For, whom do we honor by statue and eulogy? Surely not the Babbitt of the Civil War period, but Lincoln the bewildered, uncouth dreamer who lived for the future and managed to endure the sarcasm and hatred which greeted his ideals. Has any nation ever given permanent honor to the fashionable? The heroes in statescraft, in literature, in art, in religion, in science, have been the men and women who broke the fashionable behavior-patterns of their time and established healthier, juster ways of living in their stead. The great people of history are those who have not been modern in the fashionable sense, but modern in the progressive sense.

And in the long, sloping hill of human progress, great monuments of love and devotion have been erected to a small group of the greatest moderns, to the Founders of the world’s great Religions. This small group of men, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, and Muhammad, have created a body of truth which is imperishable. Each of these, in His time, broke the pattern of human behavior of His day and projected forward in time a new way of life. Each fashioned an age of history. And during that age, consciously and unconsciously, life was [Page 98] measured by the standard of the Prophet.

More than this, the Founders of the great Religions have been modern in the additional sense that each saw His mission not as final, but as a step in the never-ending ascent of man. This view has found expression in the prophetic hope of a Kingdom of God, a hope which has been recurrent in all revelation.

Slowly the world is becoming aware that a Persian prisoner and exile, Bahá’u’lláh, who passed away in Akka, Palestine, over forty years ago, possessed such insight and knowledge as to compel recognition as the most modern man.

The ideals of Bahá’u’lláh are the finest expression of the progressive Spirit of the age. In fact, a knowledge of Bahá’u’lláh’s vision for mankind gives us an inkling of what true progress could be. Although we have farsighted statesmen, no one yet has evolved a plan for World Order comparable in simplicity and justice to the Plan for a world federation outlined by Bahá’u’lláh. No sociologist has yet discussed world social problems with the practical thoroughness of Bahá’u’lláh who advocated such far-reaching reforms as universal education, the adoption of a universal auxiliary language, and the recognition of the equality of men and women.

He saw clearly the decay of religion despite its outward triumph, for the glory and pomp of Victorian Christianity has proved to be the autumnal triumph of ecclesiasticism—followed now by the bleak winter of unfaith. So, Bahá’u’lláh (between 1863 and 1892, the years of His mission) wrote that the primary need of the age was the renewal of religion. Unless this should occur, only chaos and confusion would prevail. . . . And now, within the last few years, we are treated to the spectacle of world commentators discovering that we cannot have hopes for civilization unless we build again on the foundation of religion. . . . More and more, principles and ideas which constitute parts of Bahá’u’lláh’s Plan for World Order are being recognized as the fundamental needs of an age which must choose between barbarism and civilization.

Bahá’u’lláh saw all problems as part of a great integration—namely, the problem of human relationships. In His view, economics, politics, social action, and religion cannot be neatly separated one from the other, nor can these fundamental phases of life ever be successfully divorced from the day to day activities of human beings. . . . Yet how present-day leaders delight in forcing paper plans upon the multitude! And then how they scurry to create an enemy to blame for the failure of their theories! . . . In the view of Bahá’u’lláh, no stability and order is possible in society until society is regarded as a single world organism, and until the four fundamental phases of human life are regarded as differing phases of the same thing,— human activity.

But even to advance the right analysis and the right plan is not sufficient to produce the desired result. There must be a dynamic to action.

This dynamic Bahá’u’lláh has supplied in two ways. First, Bahá’u’lláh [Page 99] has exemplified in His life and writings (and His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá after Him) what the citizen of a new age would be like. From the numerous Bahá’í writings, emerges the concept of a new type of individual. . . . “Let your vision be world-embracing, rather than confined to your own self.”. . . “That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race.”

The thoughts and motives of men must no longer be sectional, but universal, and justice must be the ideal dominating all human relationships. However, Bahá’u’lláh goes farther than mere enunciation of a new attitude for individual man. He shows how justice may be specifically applied to all phases of human relationships, from the local community up to the world community.

Second, Bahá’u’lláh possessed that spiritual power which, exerted by the Founders of other religions in the past, is alone capable of changing men and society. Men and women awakened by Bahá’u’lláh accept their destiny as co-workers in a divine plan. They labor with assurance, knowing that the tides of God’s strength and love are flowing in their direction.

And while men continue to chase from one demagogue to another, while men continue to follow the will-o-the-wisps of hatred and fear, the ideals and words of Bahá’u’lláh will continue to penetrate more and more into the sick body of mankind, until by their increased motion and strength they will bring health and peace.

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IN this most mighty Revelation all the Dispensations of the past have attained their highest, their final consummation . . . That which hath been made manifest in this preeminent, this most exalted Revelation, stands unparalleled in the annals of the past, nor will future ages witness its like . . . The purpose underlying all creation is the revelation of this most sublime, this most holy Day, the Day known as the Day of God, in His Books and Scriptures—the Day which all the Prophets, and the Chosen Ones, and the holy ones, have wished to witness . . . The highest essence and most perfect expression of whatsoever the peoples of old have either said or written hath, through this most potent Revelation, been sent down from the heaven of the Will of the All-Possessing, the Ever-Abiding God . . . This is the Day in which God’s most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things.—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.

[Page 100]

ISLAM

ALI-KULI KHAN

IX.

IN the autumn, Muhammad planned the pilgrimage of Ka’ba according to the agreement entered into with Koreish in the preceding year. He left Medina with a cavalcade of pilgrims numbering 2,000 men. Each was armed with a sword only, as agreed.

Koreish, hearing of Muhammad’s advancing, evacuated the town as was agreed. Muhammad entered the Holy City and performed the circuit of Mecca. He offered the victims, and led the public prayer at the Ka’ba.

It was a singular sight, almost unique. The city evacuated, and the Moslems exiled from their homes returned to the scenes of their childhood, once again enjoying security. Islam alone could achieve such survival from the throes that gave it birth!

Muhammad tried to conciliate the city, and this was partially achieved. But the time was short, as He and His followers received warning to leave after the three stipulated days.

Khalid, Amr, and Othman, son of Talha, His three former antagonists and champions of Koreish, accepted Islam at that time. This, and similar incidents greatly improved Muhammad’s position at Mecca. This visit enabled Him to see the growth of His own influence and the waning power and spirit of Koreish. The Meccans were tiring of bloodshed and advocates of peace and compromise were increasing in number; while Koreish no longer had chiefs of commanding influence and marked ability. In these facts the Prophet saw the opportunity to plan bringing Mecca into His fold—an aim which was accomplished in a near future.

A. H. VII.

In the first eight months of A. H. VII (A. D. 629), when the Prophet was sixty-one years of age, several expeditions were undertaken, some of which ended disastrously. A party of fifty was sent to Beni Soleim to invite them to Islam. They were received with a cloud of arrows which killed most of them. The tribe, however, accepted Islam some time later.

Another party sent in the preceding winter towards Fadak had been cut to pieces by Beni Murra. Two hundred men were now sent to inflict chastisement upon them. One or two similar incidents occurred, which led to the grand attack which [Page 101] was soon after directed against the border districts of Syria. The cause of this invasion of Roman territory was the murder at Muta of the messenger carrying a letter from Muhammad to the Ghassnid Prince. Immediately, He sent a force of 3,000 soldiers under His adopted son, Zeid, to the place where His messenger had been murdered, with instructions to invite the inhabitants to embrace Islam. The Syrian tribes, having heard of the approach of the Moslems, made preparations for their repulse.

Zeid, on reaching Ma’an, heard the startling news and the rumor that the Kaiser himself was leading the Syrian forces.

A council of war was called, and some suggested opening negotiations, and others writing the Prophet for further instructions. But Abd’Allah urged them to advance and either win the battle or win the crown of the martyr.

The battle began, Abd’Allah and Jafar fell fighting, after their chief Zeid, who held the white flag of Islam, had fallen in the struggle. The leadership thus made vacant fell on Khalid, who saved the force; but seeing the danger of facing the greater enemy force, he returned with the army to Medina. As they approached the city, the people hooted at them, “As runaways who flee before the enemy when fighting for the Lord.” But Muhammad who had ridden out to meet them, carrying the little son of Jafar before Him, cried: “Nay, these are not runaways. They are men who will yet again return to battle, if the Lord will.”

Muhammad was deeply affected by the loss of Jafar, brother of Ali, and of Zeid, the faithful and beloved friend of thirty-five years. Hearing of their death, He had repaired to their homes and comforted their families.

Following the repulse at Mut’a, Amr and Abu Obeyda restored the prestige of Islam on the Syrian border. They were placed at the head of several hundred men to oppose the approach of new Syrian forces. Amr dispersed the hostile gatherings and confirmed the friendly tribes, and after sending back a messenger to announce to the Prophet the complete success of his important expedition, he returned to Medina.

One month after, the Prophet charged Abu Obeyda to march at the head of three hundred men to punish a refractory branch of the Joheina on the sea-coast. There was no fighting done, but the expedition became noted due to an unusual incident. The force was well-nigh famished by lack of provisions when a huge fish was cast on the shore by the storm. The fish proved sufficient to feed the whole force.

The Ghatafan branch in Nejd also surrendered and yielded a large plunder in camels, flocks, and prisoners.

Besides the Syrians, several other rebellious tribes also tendered their submission. These included Beni Abs, Murra, Dhubyan, and the Fezara with their chief Oyeina, who had so long caused alarm and anxiety [Page 102] to Medina, adhered to Islam. Such increase in His following, prepared the way for Muhammad to call, at need, a more considerable force for action than ever before.

The newly converted generals, Amr, Abu Obeyda, and Khalid who became famous in the Syrian expeditions, gained world-wide fame in the extension of the Moslem conquests following the death of the Prophet.

CONQUEST OF MECCA

We now come to the conquest of Mecca in Ramadan, A. H. VIII (January A. D. 630). The truce of Al-Hodeibiya which had lasted for two years now began to be violated. This furnished Muhammad ample reason to engage upon His grand object which was the conquest of Mecca.

The Beni’Bekr tribe, an ally of Koreish, attacked Bein Khoza’a and slew a number of them. The latter were the allies of Muhammad and sent word of their misfortune to Medina and sought the Prophet’s aid. He promised to assist them.

Mecca, hearing this report, was alarmed. Koreish sent Abu Sufyan to negotiate, but nothing was gained. When he informed Koreish of his failure, they perceived that they were in evil plight, but could not suspect the imminence of war.

The Moslems prepared to attack Mecca on a grand scale, but the design was kept secret as long as possible. Hatib, a trusted friend of Muhammad, secretly sent word through a female messenger to Mecca which intimated the intended assault. Muhammad, hearing of this, sent Ali and As-Zubeir to intercept the messenger and seize the letter which was hidden in her locks. Hatib pleaded his natural desire to save his family, who were in Mecca, and in view of his former services, his plea was accepted.

In A. H. VIII (January 630 A. D.), the army, which was the largest Moslem force, marched on Mecca. Muhammad was now at the head of some 10,000 men, who within a week, encamped at Marr Az-Zahran, a single stage from Mecca.

Al-Abbas, having been privately advised, now joined Muhammad. Hence, his followers hold that he had long been secretly a Moslem. Others say he was worldly wise and joined his nephew (Muhammad) only when he sensed his supremacy.

Abu Sufyan visited the camp of Muhammad and upon his return, presented the terms of surrender to the Meccans. He assured them that if they remained indoors or entered the Holy House they should be safe.

Certain writers disregard this tradition and believe the existence of previous understanding between the Prophet and Abu Sufyan. But, in any case, the latter saw the wisdom of assuring the safety of the City and its people by preventing an attack upon the forces of Islam. To him is given credit that the submission of Mecca was so peaceably secured.

[Page 103] The army now moved upon Mecca, Sa’d with his fiery temper shouted: “Today is the day of slaughter; there is no safety this day for Mecca.” Hearing these martial threats, Muhammad took the Medina banner from Sa’d’s hand and gave it to his son, Keis, a man of towering stature, but of a gentler disposition than his father.

The army descended into the valley, not far from where the tombs of Khadiza and Abu-Talib were situated. Having been assured that Mecca was now wholly at His will, Muhammad directed His tent of leather to be pitched in an open space to the north of the city. The great banner was planted at its entrance. The exiled Prophet had now returned home and realized His great dream.

After a brief repose, He worshipped at Ka’aba and had the idols destroyed. While this was done, He recited from the Qur’án: “Verily, truth hath come and falsehood gone; for falsehood verily vanisheth away.” (Sura XVII). He called Othman Abn Talha, appointing him the guardian of the temple, giving him the key and thus naming his decendants after him as guardians. He then called Al-Abbas and charged him to give water from Zam-Zam to the pilgrims.

He then sent a crier through the town to call upon all inhabitants to destroy any images which they might have in their homes. Thus He gave practical proof of His intention to establish the worship of the one God in Mecca and also keep the city as the great center of Moslem worship.

Abu-Bakr brought his aged father to visit the Prophet. His hair was “white as the flower of mountain grass”, as the poet said. (He lived to see his son Abu-Bakr made caliph and died at the age of 97.)

The Prophet treated Meccans with magnanimity and forbearance. In response, they at once gave their adhesion to His cause with alacrity and devotion.

(To be continued)

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THIS is the Day whereon the Ocean of God’s mercy hath been manifested unto men, the Day in which the Day Star of His loving-kindness hath shed its radiance upon them, the Day in which the clouds of His bountiful favor have overshadowed the whole of mankind . . . By the righteousness of Mine own Self! Great, immeasurably great is this Cause! Mighty, inconceivably mighty is this Day! . . . Every Prophet hath announced the coming of this Day, and every Messenger hath groaned in His yearning for this Revelation—a revelation which, no sooner had it been revealed than all created things cried out saying, “The earth is God’s, the Most Exalted, the Most Great!”—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.

[Page 104]

IS PACIFISM THE ANSWER TO WAR?

Answers to Questions

BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK

THE extreme pacifist or conscientious objector takes the position that war is never right under any circumstances and he therefore will refuse to fight even if his government commands it. He will suffer imprisonment or any punishment inflicted rather than disobey his conscience. Most of such pacifists base their decision and action on their interpretation of Christ’s teaching and are high-minded men and women. For example they say: “We believe that God is the Father of all mankind, that His will as revealed in Jesus Christ is universal love, and that Christ’s gospel involves the faith that evil can be overcome only with good.” (Quoted from Fellowship, March, 1939). They practice non-violent disobedience.

Other equally sincere followers of Jesus Christ believe that disobedience to government is not right and therefore not “good” and is inconsistent with the final aim of peace. Thus earnest followers of the Gospel disagree upon the interpretation of that Gospel.

In regard to this question Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian and interpreter of the Bahá’í Faith has written: “With reference to the absolute pacifists, or conscientious objectors to war; their attitude, judged from the Bahá’í standpoint, is quite anti-social and due to its exaltation of the individual conscience leads inevitably to disorder and chaos in society. Extreme pacifists are thus very close to the anarchists, in the sense that both of these groups lay an undue emphasis on the rights and merits of the individual. The Bahá’í conception of social life is essentially based on the subordination of the individual will to that of society. It neither suppresses the individual nor does it exalt him to the point of making him an antisocial creature, a menace to society. As in everything, it follows the ‘golden mean.’ The only way that society can function is for the minority to follow the will of the majority.”

The world community of Bahá’ís are agreed and united in accepting this belief and attitude.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá uttered these words: “According to an intrinsic law, all phenomena of being attain to a summit and degree of consummation, after which a new order and condition is established. As the instruments and science of war have reached the degree of thoroughness and proficiency, it is hoped that the transformation of the human world is at hand and that in the coming centuries all the energies and inventions of man will be utilized in promoting the interests of peace and brotherhood.”

[Page 105]

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH

JOYCE LYON DAHL

DURING the first three centuries of its existence, the Cause of Christ became firmly established on the three continents bordering the Mediterranean Sea. A world-changing force had sprung from one Person, whose teaching and example were the continuous source of dynamic motivation for His followers. The institution of the Church resulted from putting into practice a new way of living. In place of the former authorities, Roman State, Jewish tradition, mystery cults, etc., the Church became the custodian of the thoughts, acts, and ultimate salvation of its members. The development of this custodianship is the story of the establishment of the Church.

At the outset the Christians were a small Jewish sect differentiated by their joyous belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and their expectation of His speedy return. Within Christianity itself the belief was growing that Jesus’ teachings were for all men and that non-Jews could be Christians too. The twelve apostles had taken the first step in this direction, going separate ways to spread the Glad Tidings. The tie with the Jewish religion was further severed by the Roman destruction of Jerusalem of which the Christians had been warned by the Holy Spirit in ample time to allow them to escape. The opposition of the Jews themselves to the Christians and their persecution of them was effective in making the Roman government consider Christianity as an independent religion.

The new faith spread among the Greek and Jewish populations in the Greek cities along the seacoast. Many people had been prepared for the acceptance of Christianity by the spirit of change in religious forms prevalent at that time, and the willingness to investigate new ideas. Others, recently converted to Judaism, already believed in one almighty God and the prophets and prophecies of Israel.

The records that we have of this early period are very scanty. There were a few attempts at compiling the sayings of Jesus, but the earliest Gospel that we have today, that of Mark, was not written until forty or fifty years after the crucifixion. The faith was communicated chiefly by word of mouth, notably by the apostles or those who had known the apostles. We know most about Paul through his letters to the communities he helped to establish. Paul is generally considered to represent the Hellenizing of Christianity. In Asia Minor, Christianity amalgamated with Greek culture. By turning away from the simple faith of Peter whom Jesus had [Page 106] appointed as “the rock,” Paul made the infiltration of pagan theory more easy and laid the future Church open to many a rending theological dispute.

PAUL THE MISSIONARY

Paul was sent out as a missionary from Antioch, the leading city of Gentile Christianity in the East, to Greek-speaking communities bordering the Aegean Sea, and later to Rome. When Paul wrote from Corinth to Rome, the community there which had been founded by unknown missionaries at the beginning of the Apostolic Age already had several small churches and its faith was spoken of throughout all “the world.” By the time Paul himself reached Rome there was even a small church in Caesar’s household. Harnack estimates that at the time of Nero’s persecution, 64 A.D., the Christians must have been counted by the hundreds. Paul and Peter both fell in this or subsequent persecutions, but the community was not daunted and in 95 A.D. we find the Bishop Clement writing that it is “consolidated, active, and conscious of its obligation to care for all the church.”

Although the twelve apostles and those other apostles who had been directly associated with them were honored as speaking with authority, there was no special class of teachers of the Word. Any man or woman who felt commissioned by the Holy Spirit could preach. Beside the missionary “apostle,” there was the “prophet,” part of whose duties was to visit other communities, and the “teacher,” who seems to have been confined to one place. The traveling apostle or prophet was an important cause of unity between the isolated little groups. No two of these groups were alike, but certain generalities concerning them can be made. The early Christian community was closely knit. The members came together for meals, as guilds and clubs of the time were also wont to do. Their organization was simple, consisting of a group of elders (presbyters), to whom veneration or thanks were due, and a leader (bishop) chosen by them, with the consent of the whole community, to administer funds, care for the poor, and preside at the assembly for worship. The bishop was assisted in his duties by deacons and deaconesses, usually widows. The meal in common was considered to have special significance in commemoration of Jesus’ last supper. Inevitably the increase in numbers made this meal impractical, but the consuming of small portions of bread and wine was kept and became the nucleus for a definite service of worship. Individual baptism was the usual form of admission into the Church. As Christians they believed that they belonged to the Church as a whole. The word “church” at first was held to mean the body of believers, united as the Church of God or the People of God, and only later was applied to the institutions or the house of worship. They were inclined to consider the organization of the individual community unimportant and earthly. Government was by the Spirit, by the whole community of the elect, and by the inspired apostles, prophets, and teachers.

In the second century Christianity continued to gain converts chiefly to [Page 107] the north and west of Jerusalem, in the cities of Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. But by 180 A.D. there were thriving communities as far east as Odessa and Mesopotamia, on the southern shores of the Mediterranean in Egypt and Carthage, and west in Gaul and possibly in Spain. However, the Christians were still an obscure minority, attracting only occasional public notice.

THE MONARCHICAL BISHOP

It is known that the membership of the churches was made up from all classes, though the proportion is not certain. There were many poor, a large number of women, and not a few rich people. The proportion of rich varied greatly. Some communities in large cities such as Imperial Rome became influential through Christians in high positions.

This century saw the development of the monarchical bishop, the division between clergy and laity, and the consolidation of creed and canon.

In organization the trend was toward independence of the local community and centralization of its government in the hands of one person, the bishop. Harnack writes, “the functions of the apostles, prophets and teachers must have devolved to an increasing extent on the bishops (and deacons); this, indeed, was only natural since they had to officiate at the solemn assembly of the community, which more and more became an assembly for worship.” Thus the high regard for the former spiritual teachers was transferred to the bishops, who often merited such regard through their own virtues and high qualities. The authority of the bishops was held to be derived in direct succession from the apostles. When the communities had first been formed and the time came for the missionary apostle to move to another place, he often appointed, by laying on of hands, several officials to carry out anything that remained to be done after his departure. (This was the germ of the later ceremony of ordination.) As the bishops became prominent in the conduct of the community, sacraments administered by them were considered more efficacious and meaningful, finally were the only ones recognized as valid. In addition to his local responsibilities, the bishop was the official representative of his community in all relations with other communities.

There was a general change from groups united with the spiritual community as a whole to entities resting upon the necessity of the office of worship, the irremovability of the holder, as long as his conduct was blameless, and the obedience of the community. The rules advised by apostles such as Paul, and the edicts of the bishops, their successors, were the beginning of ecclesiastical law.

A SEPARATE CLERGY

By the end of the second century, the bishop appointed and promoted the presbyters (priests) and deacons, and these officials had become permanently separated from the rest of the members and were known as “clergy” (from clerus, a lot or portion). The functions of deaconesses, exorcists, and teachers were abandoned or superseded. The virtues which were [Page 108] particularly desired of the clergy were hospitality, gentleness, unselfishness, and sobriety. Withdrawal from the things of the world set them apart as a class. Marriage was not yet prohibited; it was, however, considered desirable for the bishop to be unmarried. Along with special duties, special rights developed for the clergy. Obedience and honor were due them; they were entitled to maintenance by the community; they had seats of honor at public worship (the others stood); accusations against them were made difficult.

The monarchical bishop was absolute ruler of his community, which might include several churches, and was answerable only to his fellow bishops. When differences of interpretation arose among bishops it was necessary to call councils to decide the issues. In each city there was only one episcopal community and these independent communities together formed the Church of Christ. Separate household communities disappeared, and any movement outside of the episcopal community was considered heresy.

Opposition, both within and without the Church, helped to mold the Church’s authority and dogma. During these first centuries the organized Church by no means included all those professing Christianity. The establishment of the Church corresponded to the triumph of organization and unity, both centralizing forces, against independence of belief and action and widely divergent religious points of view. Over the Roman world at that time religion was in a state of flux; strict traditional acceptance was giving way to allegorical interpretation showing that the religions ought to be taken figuratively, not literally. This “modernizing” of the old religions had the effect of making people do their own thinking, but led to the gamut of religious expression, from extreme ascetism to moral laxity. Prevalent were trust in magic, astrology, secret rites that that would insure purification from sin, as well as withdrawal from the world through the belief that the material order is essentially evil and that the pathway to God lies in ignoring it.

In contrast to the practical and simple teaching of selfless love for God and fellow man, many Christians, called Gnostics, claimed that those who had greater spiritual apprehension (gnosis) could understand mysteries that the majority of lesser capacity could not. For example, the Egyptian Valentinus made personalities of the abstract qualities in the Gospel of John. Marcion condemned the material world and, repudiating the harshness of the Old Testament, believed in a God of Love distinct from the Jews’ avenging Jehovah. He taught at Rome, was driven out of the Church, and founded his own church which lasted until the seventh century. He and his followers lived exemplary lives, even courting martyrdom.

THE HERESIES

Among the churchmen most active against such heresies were Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, and Tertullian of North Africa. Irenaeus claimed that the apostolical appointment of the bishops had given them grace to correctly [Page 109] interpret the minds of the apostles. By this the living person became the authority to judge heretical beliefs, in place of the Writings, which could be variously construed. Irenaeus and Tertullian appealed for a definite canon of accepted Writings, our New Testament, and each formulated a creed representing the points of dogma that the Church upheld:

The Church, thus equipped with canon, creed, and episcopal authority, emerged from the second century with the lines of its future growth well laid out.

The establishment of the Church was bound up with the political and social conditions of the time and no account would be complete without some mention of their effects upon each other. Up to the beginning of the fourth century the attitude of the Roman State toward Christianity was one of tolerance toward an illegal sect. In its infancy it shared the exemption from Caesar-worship which was accorded the Jews. Although a persecution of the Christians in Rome followed Nero’s malicious accusation that they set fire to the city since they were preaching an imminent judgment day and destruction of the world by fire, succeeding persecutions, such as those in the province of Bithynia on the Black Sea and at Lyons in Gaul, were instigated by an ignorant and superstitious populace ready to believe the wild rumors circulated against the Christians. When, in 110 A.D., Pliny, the Governor of Bithynia, inquired of the Emperor Trajan what course he should take against the Christians, Trajan replied that if they would sacrifice to the Emperor they would be acquitted, and that no organized search for Christians was to be made or anonymous accusations received against them. Though some joyfully chose martyrdom as the greatest proof of their devotion to Christ, Origen was able to write in 230 A.D., “Few and easy to count are those who have died for the Christian religion.”

The example of the martyrs and the feeling that the Christian ideals and principles were constantly on trial resulted only in good to the growing Church.

SOCIAL CRISIS

It was in the middle of the third century that the true test of the Church came. The political, economic, and religious worlds were in an upheaval. Speaking of the ruling class, the exclusive Roman aristocracy, the historian Guglielmo Ferrero says: “Already enfeebled by internal exhaustion and by the action of philosophies and universal religions, this aristocracy was at last taken by surprise by a political crisis which annihilated it.” This was the assassination of the Emperor Alexander Severus and his family, which marked the beginning of “an interminable series of Civil Wars, of wars against outside enemies, of divers kinds of plagues, pestilences, and famines, which lasted for half a century without intermission, and which depopulated and impoverished the Empire, destroying the elite by which it had been governed, pacified and civilized during the first two centuries . . .”

These disasters completed the disorganization which the cosmopolitanism [Page 110] of the Empire, the mingling of diverse peoples and religions, and the flow of commerce had begun. In the general breakdown, the Christian Church constituted a solid refuge representing a more universal, more impelling authority.

The Church made great progress, penetrating into all classes, until many districts were predominantly Christian. At the same time the clergy became more numerous, the power of the bishops increased, and lands and property given to the Church accumulated. In addition to the erection of many basilicas and churches and the support of the clergy, the Church undertook the care of widows, orphans, slaves, the sick, the old, and the unemployed. It buried the poor, bought back prisoners carried away by barbarians, extended hospitality to traveling Christians, and gave assistance to churches abroad.

The conflict between the Roman State and the Church was sharpening, and at the beginning of the fourth century a crisis was reached. The number of people was growing large who claimed that moral and spiritual perfecting of the individual through his own efforts was the purpose of life, and who held that in God was the authority to rule and to govern. A new community structure had emerged, sounder, more productive of well-being than the old one it was replacing. Old lines of cleavage which separated classes, races, villages, families were discarded and forgotten. The example of love and devotion and the hope of the intimate reception of the bounties of God were not to be overlooked by people who were being driven by calamity to look for a better way of life.

By the end of the third century the number of Christians were so considerable and the power of the Church so great that the Emperor Diocletian, in order to keep his dictatorial rule intact, was persuaded to take measures to stamp out Christianity. Under his rule the Roman became more properly an Asiatic Empire. To make his authority invincible he had declared himself an incarnation of divinity. He was too wise a ruler not to realize how dangerous to peace and unity a persecution of the Christians would be. However, after fifteen years another party in the court headed by Galerius prevailed against him. In the army where discipline was based upon Emperor worship, disobedience of Christians was most flagrant. In 302 A.D. the first edict was issued dismissing all Christians from the army. This was followed a year later by a decree ordering that Christian temples and books be destroyed and communities dissolved, goods confiscated and all Christians excluded from public office.

STATE PROTECTION

This sentence caused great commotion. There was a revolution in Syria, and in northern Asia Minor the Imperial Palace was burned down. There followed imprisonment of bishops, priests and deacons if they refused to give up their sacred books to be destroyed. But in 303 A.D. on the occasion of an Imperial anniversary came a new edict that all prisoners were to be freed if they would return openly to the old religion. Five [Page 111] years later Galerius assumed the post of Diocletian and inaugurated a merciless persecution of the Christians that continued for eight years. It was not, however, as violent as the Church Fathers later made out; and undoubtedly many of the martyrs joyfully and voluntarily chose their fate.

In 311 A.D. there were four legitimate Emperors each ruling a portion of the Empire, but having ambitions to be sole ruler. Ferrero states, “Christianity and Paganism became in the hands of the rival Emperors weapons for civil war.” Three of the Emperors, one of whom was Constantine, promulgated an edict which suspended the persecution of the Christians in the West. As a result, when Constantine marched on Rome to subdue it, the Christian population was on his side. In 323 A.D. Constantine had completed the conquest of the other Emperors and with him in sole authority, the Church came under the protection and guidance of the State.

Whereas the number of Christians at the time of Constantine is estimated from one-twentieth to one-eighth of the total population, the geographical spread of Christianity was very great, reaching from Persia in the East, to whose king Constantine was able to write, “I am delighted to learn that the finest districts in Persia also are adorned with the presence of Christians,” to Arabia, Egypt, North Africa in the south, the shores of the Danube and Black Sea in the north, and west to Spain and Gaul. In the middle east, Christianity was identified with Greek civilization, in the East with Syriac, in the West primarily with Latin-speaking peoples. The most widely Christianized area was Asia Minor (in the fourth century the first purely Christian country), and next to it, the province of North Africa around Carthage, which during the third century was so closely knit to Rome as to be a second Italy. The great theological centers were Asia Minor, Alexandria, Rome and Carthage. This three-way geographical division was accentuated by theological disputes and bids for supremacy.

Though by 325 A.D. the Christian Church was definitely established, the lines of cleavage between Western and Eastern churches were already discernible.

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The Day of the Promise is come, and He Who is the Promised One loudly proclaimeth before all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, “Verily there is none other God but He, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting!” I swear by God! That which had been enshrined from eternity in the knowledge of God, the Knower of the seen and unseen, is revealed. Happy is the eye that seeth, and the face that turneth towards, the Countenance of God, the Lord of all being.—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.

[Page 112]

THE SEVEN VALLEYS

EVERETT TABOR GAMAGE

EXORDIUM

He, who by varied names, in every clime

In diverse paths the wayworn wanderers seek;

Omnipotent, Who to the end of time

Shall bow the prideful and lift up the meek;

He, Who the sun in the high heaven lit

And gave of rarest fragrance to the rose,

Who patient, waiting, shall in judgment sit

To listen and forgive, because He knows

The fleshly weakness: grant to us this day

A single spark from His undying fire

To cheer and guide us up the darksome way

Lest we turn backward to the earthly mire;

Then draw us to His glory from our night—

Unveil His beauty to our groping sight.

THE VALLEY OF SEARCH

Walk here with patience. He Whom here you seek

Hides as a bird, within a bush to sleep;

And who would find must come with spirit meek

And, lest the bird be startled, softly creep.

The searcher as he mounts the upward way

Must cast aside his burdens, free his soul

Of what it gathered in the world of clay

If unencumbered, he would reach the goal.

For man must leave behind the world of men,

New climates must the soul exchange for old,

And bravely journey on, for not till then

Shall the first bud of the Friend’s vine unfold,

Releasing sweetness rarer than the rose

To tell the searcher He is near, and Knows.

THE VALLEY OF KNOWLEDGE

Illumination in this place shall burn

The dross of falsehood, leaving but the gold

Of truth; along this road each turn

Shall strange new beauty to the eyes unfold.

He who here enters, having left behind [Page 113]

The world of fancies, dark as moonless night,

Wherein he wandered, impotent and blind—

Shall know and worship, in the new-found light,

Him, Who without beginning, without end,

Awaits the traveler, loosed at last of earth,

Who naught seeks here but nearness to the Friend,

The perfect measure of all-perfect worth.

Here time shall cease; here death and life are one

As long as His swift stream of Being run.

THE VALLEY OF LOVE

This is a land of all consuming fire

Lit with a radiance brighter than noon sun

Where each must sacrifice upon love’s pyre

Forsworn ideals, and seek alone the One.

And he who would approach the Friend, must first

Find life in death, and glory in defeat;

Here must the soul its worldly fetters burst

Nor spurn the travail if it here would meet

The One, the matchless Friend of Ecstasy.

Here, earthly fancies must the seeking heart

Upon His altar as an offering lay

If it would learn that which He would impart;

And free at last of mortal passions move

On to the higher world of endless love.

THE VALLEY OF UNITY

Like as a stream returning to the sea

From whence it left in vapor, here the soul

At last, within itself, shall cease to be.

Who, seeking here, has set his final goal

Near to the sanctuary of the Friend

Shall lose himself in timeless unity

That no beginning had, and has no end.

Here shall man’s life, of every mortal hope

Set free, at last from out the earthly night

No longer feeble in the darkness grope,

But walk in paths of beauty, in the light

Of Oneness, through ages still to be,

Drawn to the Friend in endless ecstasy.

THE VALLEY OF CONTENTMENT

This is a garden where the rarest blooms

In full profusion grow, wet by the dew [Page 114]

Of blessed nearness to the Friend, that dooms

All want and sorrow. Here all things are new:

Here, freed at last, earth’s prisoner shall find

Beauty, where only ugliness before

He saw; when loosed from mortal loves that bind

He has passed through the open, waiting door

Into this place of peace. All truth, all power

Are his who enters here. Here shall he see

The mystery of eternity in an hour

And understand all secrets yet to be.

This is reality. Old wants are gone

As flies the morning star before the dawn.

THE VALLEY OF WONDERMENT

Here every hour is luminous as the dawn

After a night of storm, and here the soul

To glory after glory travels on,

And to the eyes new beauties do unroll,

So vast that every earthly sight would pale

Before this rapture. Mortal happiness

Takes flight, and from the heart the heavy veil

Of earth is lifted, and the air does bless.

Unwearied here, where neither day nor night

Shall be, the questing soul shall find at last

Life’s mystery unraveled, in the light

That shall shine on, when mortal days are past;

A guiding beam for ages yet to come

Sent by the Friend, to lead the wanderer home.

THE VALLEY OF TRUE POVERTY

Here lay aside the ragged robes of earth

And leave behind all worldly place and fame,

For Oneness here the measure is of worth.

Admitted only, those who speak His name

In true humility. The souls that here

Would walk for all eternity, must first

Seek but the Friend, to Him alone give ear,

And for His nectar, be their only thirst.

Not by the proud of mind is ever won

Admittance here, but by the poor in heart,

Stripped of past glory, at the set of sun.

Death here is not an ending, but the start

At last, of all the soul has hungered for:

Oneness with Him, till time shall be no more.

Adapted from “The Seven Valleys” of Bahá’u’lláh, translated by Ali-Kuli Khan.

[Page 115]

THE ONENESS OF RELIGION

DORIS McKAY

V.

THE BOOK OF GOD

THE chapters of the Book which God has written one by one have been chiseled on clay with cuneiform tools, written on papyrus, on palm leaves or the shoulder blades of camels, or etched in the retentive memories of the men of former times. The two latest revelations, those of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, were written in elegant Arabic or Persian characters on paper, at times with a reed pen that made a sound that Bahá’u’lláh called “the shrilling of the Supreme Pen.”

Directing our eyes backward in history Bahá’u’lláh has said: “Contemplate with thine inward eyes the chain of successive Revelations that hath linked the Manifestation of Adam with that of the Báb. I testify before God that each one of these Manifestations hath been sent down through the operation of the Divine Will and Purpose, that each hath been the bearer of a specific Message, that each hath been entrusted with a divinely inspired Book and been commissioned to unravel the mysteries of a mighty Tablet.”

Even in the cycle before the prophet known to story as Adam the introductory chapters of that same Book were being inscribed. Bahá’u’lláh said, “Regarding thy question, ‘How is it that no records are to be found concerning the prophets that preceded Adam, the Father of mankind, or the kings that lived in the days of those Prophets?’ Know thou that the absence of any reference to them is no proof that they did not actually exist. That no records concerning them are available, should be attributed to their extreme remoteness, as well as to the vast changes which the earth hath undergone since their time.”

When we venture into the obscure mazes of the source-world of religion two main objectives become the guides for our research: signs of the Author of the Book in the historical records, and the religious precepts common to all religions, such as, the belief in God; the belief in the Messenger, or Son; the belief that efforts in this life have a bearing on a life hereafter. Within the definition of these goals we welcome the broken clay tablets, the word of mouth tradition, the legendary lore of the priests and rabbis. In the Kitáb-i-Iqán, Bahá’u’lláh mentions the Fragrance of the True One which He says the traveler in the path of salvation will inhale from remote distances on his way to The City of the Book. Truly this Fragrance steals at times out of the dusty volumes of the archaeologist, or the [Page 116] historian, in a way that surprises us.

Bahá’u’lláh states, referring again to the antiquity of religion, that Manifestations of the Divine Glory have been “sent down from time immemorial and have been commissioned to summon mankind to the one true God.” He further explains: “That the names of some of them are forgotten and the records of their lives lost, is to be attributed to the disturbances and changes that have overtaken the world.”

He says that many cataclysms have occurred which have effaced the traces of the history of the remote past. The historic records available are fragmentary against the background of “the Deluge,” to which the ancient writings of many peoples refer. A culture was somehow lost by an obliterating world catastrophe; we can but conjecture as to its nature and search for some link with our religious past.

It would seem that whoever survived “the Deluge” carried the seed of Knowledge with him, as the story of Noah symbolizes. The elaborations of that root-knowledge are the basis of the Sumerian, Babylonian, Hebrew, and we know not how many other, legends and myths. The records that seem to come nearest to the lost Source are those on the clay tablets in the cuneiform characters of the Sumerians dating earlier than 3000 B.C. The Sumerians, known as Chaldeans, migrated perhaps as early as 6000 B.C. into the Euphrates delta and were the earliest civilizers of the region and most ancient builders of cities. Later they were inundated by migrating Semites who absorbed their culture and took over their cuneiform-inscribed literature. For example the Sumerian mythology is considered to be the source of the teachings concerning “Creation” and “the Deluge” that have been preserved for us in the Old Testament. The religion was known as Sabean.

Commentators assume that Abraham was a Chaldean and that the religion of His youth was Sabean. It is with mounting excitement that the Bahá’í students of the Oneness of Religion recognizes this link (Referred to by Muhammad, Surih VI, 77, in the Qur’án) in the prophetic sequence established by the forebears of the Sabean peoples of modern times, who attribute their ancestry to Abraham by way of Ishmael. No wonder Muhammad claimed Adam as the religious progenitor of His people. Before Muhammad, yes, before Christ, before Moses, before Abraham, the Sabeans had knowledge of Adam—and, more especially, of Seth, the son of Adam. Adam was called the “first Messenger,” but their religion was said to have been derived by way of Seth. They came to worship as the symbol of God, not the moon or the sun which have a setting, but the Pole Star which is fixed in the Arabian latitudes, the Saba, the Host of Heaven. Their study of the heavens made them skilled astronomers, and astrologers. It is noteworthy that we find among the legends of the Jews—an entirely different source— a statement such as this, “The children of Seth were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies and their order.”

From the Legends of the Jews, [Page 117] which in large part have their basis in the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, we mention, in a parenthetical relationship, the legend of the Book of Raziel (Raz, “secret”; el, “God”). The story is that God caused a Book to come to Adam through the angel Raziel by means of which he was able to master all the seventy-two kinds of wisdom, as well as the heavenly mysteries which were unknown even to the angels. When Adam died the Book came into the possession of Seth, and afterwards it was handed over to Noah and Abraham. In the Chaldean references we have mention of the Book of Thammus, the Hidden One, whose authorship was attributed to Adam. Could this have been that Word, in remembrance of which, later Sabeans were to call themselves Mandaites, “Sons of the Word of God?”

Before we leave the fertile field of the Chaldean and Babylonian myths we must include a reference to Marduk. Marduk, derived from a hierarchy of Gods, created the world and manifested Himself among His creation, says the Babylonian legend. The story is parallel throughout with the Genesis story—but it goes farther: He declared that His Word should be established and not forgotten in the mouths of the “black-headed ones” (the Sumerians) whom His hands had created. On a broken tablet are inscribed in cuneiform certain of His instructions:

“Toward thy God shalt thou be pure of heart,

“For that is the glory of the Godhead;

“Prayer and supplication and bowing low to the earth,

“Early in the morning shalt thou offer unto Him. . .”

“The fear of God begets mercy,

“Offerings increase life

“And prayer absolves from sin.

“He that fears the god shall not cry aloud in grief.

“Against friend and neighbor shalt thou not speak evil.

“When thou makest a promise, give and hold not back.”

Marduk, they say, was called by every name and title of honor—the “life of all the gods,” “the God of the pure life,” “the Bringer of purification,” “the God of the favoring breeze,” “The Lord of hearing and mercy,” “the Creator of abundance and mercy, who establishes plentiousness and increases all that is small.”

The Story of Marduk is, in the writer’s mind, an example of a fragrance “from a remote distance.”

Reference is made by Bahá’u’lláh to the use of certain languages as a medium of revelation, such as Syraic, Hebrew, Arabic. Among the Indu-Aryans (Hindus) Sanskrit was the only vehicle of theology, philosophy, mythology. The effect is that its more than two hundred million followers with their one hundred spoken dialects and widely diverse creeds and practices are still held together by a common language and literature. The sacred portions of the Sanskrit literature are:

a. S’ruti, that which is directly heard or revealed: it is equivalent to direct revelation and is believed to have no human author.

b. Smitri, that which is remembered and handed down by tradition. [Page 118] This is thought to be founded on revelation but delivered by human authors.

The part of the Zend-Avesta attributed to Zoroaster is distinguished by a language of revelation related to the earlier forms of Sanskrit. It is written in script of Semitic origin traced from left to right.

So emerges the Book of God from the realm of conjecture and dim half-focused lights, to the tender and moving chapter of Christianity which was preserved in the treasuries of men’s minds and later transcribed—then, to the words of the Prophet, Muhammad, which were accurately taken down by scribes. Within our own century—referring to Nabil’s Narrative of the revelation of the Báb—we are able, through the accounts of first-hand witnesses, to see the Book in the actual making. We are given a glimpse into sacred precincts, such is our inestimable privilege.

Muhammad said of the unbelievers of His day, “Is it not sufficient to them that We have sent down unto you the Book ?” Again He said, “His verses are His proof and His Being is His argument.” Following Muhammad’s precedent, in 1844, the Báb, Forerunner of Bahá’u’lláh, and appearance of the Ancient Truth in the guise of a celestially inspired Youth, offered His Revelation as Its own proof of authenticity. So had His ancestor Muhammad challenged the objectors: “Bring a verse like it, and call upon whom ye can beside God, if ye speak the truth!” The Báb did this. He dared to offer a new religious dispensation to a fanatically zealous populace.

To those who awaited His coming or approached His words with a pliant mind, the writing down of the Revealed Word before their very eyes was a sign of the Supreme Glad-Tidings. As they witnessed His Pen moving over the paper, they wept, trembled, swooned, were born into a new life. This writing of the Verses was accounted the supreme miracle, the one miracle claimed by Muhammad, by the Báb, or later by Bahá’u’lláh, Himself. The Holy Spirit animated the Pen, and the face of the Messenger became radiant with the Light from on High. They say that the word flowed with an incredible rapidity and that the Báb intoned as He wrote, creating ethereal, subtle harmonies. The manner of Revelation was described as a “sweeping force.” Siyyid-Yaḥyay-i-Darabi, illustrious representative of the Shah, attempted to reproduce his impressions of such an occasion:

“How am I to describe this scene of inexpressible majesty? Verses streamed from His pen with a rapidity that was truly astounding. The incredible swiftness of His writing, the soft and gentle murmur of His voice, and the stupendous force of His Style, amazed and bewildered me. . . . He did not pause until the entire commentary of the Surih was completed. He then laid down His pen and asked for tea. Soon after, He began to read aloud in my presence. My heart leaped madly as I heard Him pour out, in accents of unutterable sweetness, those treasures enshrined in that sublime commentary. I was so entranced by its beauty that three times I was on the verge of fainting. He sought to revive my failing strength [Page 119] with a few drops of rose-water which He caused to be sprinkled on my face. This restored my vigor and enabled me to follow His reading to the end.”

We are fortunate indeed to have been born in this Day when the final chapter in a Volume begun in the time of Adam has been inscribed in the Book, through the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, and a new religious cycle begun.

“All praise to the one true God,” chants Bahá’u’lláh, in the full exuberance of His transcendent Mission, “inasmuch as He hath, through the Pen of the Most High, unlocked the doors of men’s hearts. Every verse which this Pen hath revealed is a bright and shining portal that discloseth the glories of a saintly and pious life, of pure and stainless deeds . . . The whole earth is illuminated with the resplendent glory of God’s Revelation. In the year sixty (1844, 1260 of the Muhammadan calendar) He who heralded the light of Divine Guidance . . . (the Báb) arose to announce a fresh revelation of the Divine Spirit, and was followed, twenty years later, by Him through Whose coming the world was made the recipient of this promised glory, this wondrous favor. Behold how the generality of mankind hath been endued with the capacity to harken unto God’s most exalted Word—the Word upon which must depend the gathering together and spiritual resurrection of all men. . . .”

Bahá’u’lláh proclaims the universality of His Message, declaring: “The summons and the message which we gave were never intended to reach or to benefit one land only. Mankind in its entirety must firmly adhere to whatsoever hath been revealed and vouchsafed unto it. Then and only then will it attain unto true liberty.”

Why has no single one of these Revelations been sufficient to express God’s Will for His creation for all time? The answer involves the nature of religion, itself:

“Know thou,” the Voice of Bahá’u’lláh instructs us, “that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.”

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