THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION:BAHAISM

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Uniform with this Volume

THEMYSTERIOUS FORCES

OFCIVILISATION

WRITTEN IN PERSIAN BY

AN EMINENT BAHAI PHILOSOPHER

AND NOW FIRST PUT INTO ENGLISH

BY

JOHANNA DAWUD

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THEUNIVERSAL RELIGION:

BAHAISM

ITS RISE AND SOCIAL IMPORT

BYHIPPOLYTE DREYFUS

DOCTEUR EN DROIT

“Religion should help union and harmony betweenpeople. Let it not become a cause of dissension and

hypocrisy.”—BAHĀ’U’LLĀH.

LONDONCOPE & FENWICK

16 CLIFFORD’S INN, E.C.MCMIX

All Rights Reserved

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CONTENTS

PAGEPREFACE 9

PART ITHE RISE OF BAHAISM

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 15

NECESSITY OF A RENEWAL OF RELIGIONS 20

BAHAISM—ITS CHARACTER 24

THE GREAT PROPHETS 30

BABISM 35

THE EXILE OF THE BABIS 42

BAHĀ’U’LLĀH 45

BAGH DĀD 50

THE DECLARATION OF THE RIZWĀN 64

CONSTANTINOPLE 73

ADRIANOPLE 75

‘AKKĀ 83

‘ABDU’L-BAHĀ 91

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PART IISOCIAL IMPORT OF BAHAISM

THE TRUE RELIGION 103

BAHAISM AND THE STATE 111

UNIVERSAL PEACE 117

BAHAISM AND SOCIETY—THE BAĪTU’L-‘ADL 126

BAHAISM AND THE INDIVIDUAL 152

PATRIOTISM 160

WORK 164

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PREFACE

A RECENT work, published simultaneouslyin French, English and Persian,1 againdraws the attention of those preoccupiedby religious studies and the spiritualevolution of humanity to the great move-ment of unification and union which to-day is Bahaism.

By this work, Laura Clifford Barneyhas powerfully contributed to placingwithin the reach of the public the teachingof the new religion, for she has given, inthe very simple form in which they were

1 Some Answered Questions, and also An-Nūru’l-Abhā Fi Mufāwadat ‘Abi’l-Bahā, collected by LauraClifford Barney (Kcgan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.Ltd., London, 1908), and Les Leçons de St-Jean-d’Acre(at Leroux, Paris, 1908).

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held, the conversations she had with the“Master of ‘Akkā.”. Till now, in fact, con-sidering the small number of workstranslated into any one of the Europeanlanguages, the knowledge of the philo-sophy and theology of Bahaism waslimited only to the Orientalists whocould read in the text the works ofBahā’u’llāh or of ‘Abdu’l-Bahā, and to theadepts among whom the Master’s Tabletsare in circulation. Some AnsweredQuestions, therefore, covers a deficiencyparticularly perceptible in the West.And likewise theories sometimes renderedmost complicated even for Eastern people,by the multiplicity of philosophical con-ceptions, can now be fixed in a simplemanner.

It seemed to us interesting to showwhat position such an important move-

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ment has in history, to examine, inde-pendently of any philosophical system,and solely from the point of view ofsocial institutions briefly sketched, whatcould be its influence in modern civilisa-tion.

Such is the origin of this book, whosesomewhat summary character I do notfail to acknowledge, but which, neverthe-less, may be the cause of inciting ablerpens to treat more fully of this vastsubject. The great spread of Bahaismin England and America has promptedme to publish also in English this essaythat I have just brought out in France,and which I offer to the intelligent inter-locutor of Some Answered Questions as amodest addition to her work.

DĀRU’S-SALĀM, VEVEY.August 1908.

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PART I

THE RISE OF BAHAISM

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SCIENCE AND RELIGION

ONE of the deepest thinkers of the endof last century, M. Guyau—struck bythe decay of dogmatic religions, seeingthe churches more and more desertedby those who formerly came there to pray,and seeking in the contemporary attitudeof mind to disentangle that portion of theold beliefs that could survive—shows ushow the idea of association, which is atthe bottom of each of them, and which,according to him, is the most lasting thingthey contain, will therefore remain theonly basis of the diverse organisationswhich, in the future, will replace theChurches. And in his interesting philo-sophical study, to which he gave the rather

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pessimistic title of “The Irreligion ofthe Future,”1 he prophesies the threespecial forms that this idea will assume.According as men will be associated onthe ground of their intelligence, of theirwill, or of their sensibility, societiesof research—scientific, philosophical orreligious—groupings in view of publicassistance and of moral culture, or simpleartistic associations will be formed; it isthus, he tells us, that the religions of thefuture will be exercised.

There is another form of associationthat Guyau and the Positivists do notseem to have foreseen, which still respondsto one of the most evident tendencies ofour epoch, and which is very certainly of

1 M. Guyau, L’Irréligion de l’Avenir (Félix Alcan,Paris, 1900).

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a much more general import than theparticular groupings indicated above,and consequently much more efficaciousfor the progress of society: I wish tospeak of the association of religions them-selves, apparent to-day in this vast move-ment towards the religious unity of allhumanity, known under the name ofBahaism, and which for some years hasbeen propagated with surprising rapidityin the most heterogeneous centres. Ifthis great philosopher had no knowledgeof a movement whose great importanceRenan,1 however, from the beginning hadforeseen; or else if, having known of it,he could have seen in it nothing else thana new sect, it is probable that he was notable to entirely rid himself of hereditary

1 Ernest Renan, Les Apôtres, p. 377.

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conceptions. In spite of everything,confounding religion with catechism,law with superstition, God with the priest,he could not imagine that any theismwhatever, however liberal it might be,could be reconcilable with the progressof human reason, nor agree with theexigencies of the modern scientific mind.And the pretended opposition of scienceand religion formed itself before him, asan insurmountable obstacle, as if eachof them had not its particular sphere, anddid not respond to distinct needs of ourmentality.

As long as there are people who will notbe content with the progressive discoveryof the “how” of things, and who—im-patient of advancing with the slow stepof scientific conquests in the relative order

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of human knowledge, curious to know the“why” of the universe, turn courage-ously towards the absolute, which is thedomain of metaphysical speculations,philosophy and religion will be for themfields of activity necessary to the demandsof their reason. The faith which, accord-ing to St Paul, is “the evidence of thingsunseen,” is likewise for them only “thecourage of reason which rushes forward”;and science, without going out of its owndomain, could not combat it. Muchrather will both, stronger and thus moreliberal, in the future lend one anothermutual co-operation in the ever-increasingardent research of the unknown.

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NECESSITY OF A RENEWAL OFRELIONS

IF, in our epoch of scientific progress, wheninstruction is no longer the privilege ofa minority, the greater part of thinkershave gone from the Churches, and loyaltyto oneself has forced so many people tobreak with the creeds whose traditionsand superannuated rites they could nolonger accept, it does not follow that thereligious mind should with time disappearfrom civilised nations: it suffices, inorder to get a clear idea of this, to under-stand the high religious import of manyexpressed doubts, and to look for whatthere is behind many scoffing scepticisms.

If it is thus, if a religious attitude is

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natural and necessary, if, as we think,it is an obligation for every thinking manto develop his spirituality and the forceit procures for him, it is of paramountimportance to reconcile all those whomthe barriers of religions have separated,and who, by conviction or imitation, havecome to despise and hate one another.And to attain this aim it will suffice, then,to show the one principle which is at thebottom of their beliefs, to free them fromthe constraint of the domineering clergy,and to explain to those who have rejectedthe religion of their fathers the profoundtruth and high moral import of religiousteaching which is in no wise opposed to thediscoveries of science or to the freeexercise of reason. Such is the taskwhose immediate necessity makes itself

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felt more and more, and which to-day isabout to be accomplished by Bahaismpresenting itself as the necessary outcomeof all religions.

I well hear the objection: Yet a newreligion, a sect, a flag, a name! IfBahaism refers to liberal principles, if itdoes not impose beliefs, if it leaves manto his reason and conscience—it onlyexpresses the thought of all those whoreflect, and there is no need at all to hoista new flag at the risk of further dividingup poor humanity! Alas! if thishumanity were already evolved enoughto understand instinctively the beautyof generous thoughts, to accept them in-tuitively, and to conform its acts to them,if man were divine to this point, thenevidently there would be no need of some-

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thing new. But if precisely thesegenerous ideas: the love of one’s neigh-bour, satisfaction in the accomplishmentof good, detachment from personal in-clinations, and the directing of all indi-vidual powers for the advancement ofhumanity—if these ideas have not yetexercised their influence on the earth, itis because those who share them, and whocombat for them, are already marked witha startling label: they are Catholics,Muhammadans, or Free Thinkers; what-ever they do, they only make an i mpressionon the limited group of their co-religionists,and they cannot directly exercise theleast influence on the enormous mass ofother men who are ever rendered moreor less sceptical by prejudices of race andeducation.

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BAHAISM—ITS CHARACTER

BAHAISM is not a new religion; it isReligion renewed. On the sharp edgesof the pyramid of religions, Protestants,Catholics, Muhammadans, Buddhists, etc.,are struggling against one another, tryingto bring over by force neighbouring peopleto their own side, saying: This aloneis the true religion, others are false.And for centuries, under pretence ofproselytism, they are exhausting them-selves to no purpose in the most criminalof struggles. If, instead of that, everyone,on his own side, from the standpoint of hisown religion, would simply try to lookto God and to advance in goodness, all

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would soon see that the summit of thepyramid is common to all sides, and thateach religion represents, not the AbsoluteTruth, which is unseizable, and of whichwe can only obtain a relative part, but isonly the result of a special effort towardsthe knowledge of God! And on this highsummit they would meet without diffi-culty! Then rivalries would disappearand reconciled humanity could worktogether, without intermission, at itsdevelopment and progress.

This, Bahaism has understood. Con-sequently it goes without saying that itdoes not demand its adepts to abjure theirold religion; it does not pretend to re-present alone the whole Truth; on thecontrary, it recognises Truth in funda-mental principles which are the basis of

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all former dispensations, and which forthat very reason form the standpoint ofconcord too long lost sight of. And ifit requires people to renounce ancientsuperstitions, to abandon the dead letterin order to be penetrated by the livingand vivifying spirit, then by that verymeans it confirms the original purity oftheir religion, whilst helping them to knowand love everything profoundly beautifulin the others.

Without wishing here to be meta-physical, nor to enter into the details ofwhat would constitute the Bahai theology,which would be overstepping the limitsof such a summary work, it will suffice forme to indicate that the Bahais believethat from all eternity God has raised upamong human creatures higher beings

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who have inculcated mankind with thegreat moral principles on which societiesare founded, and have thus been thesupreme guides of its evolution. In thefruitful earth of the garden of humanity,the delicate plants of generous virtues—the flowers of progress—would soon bestifled under the entangled bind-weeds ofour egoisms and passions if the DivineGardener did not tend them. Such isthe role of the Prophet, modest in appear-ance, colossal in reality; for, whateveridea one may have of his nature, howeverlittle one may reflect, one cannot helprecognising his preponderant influence.If humanity is what it is to-day; if somany glorious discoveries have up to thisextended the boundaries of our frail know-ledge; if societies have been formed; it is

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because souls like Moses, Jesus, Muham-mad, Buddha, and Confucius have mademan conscious of himself and thus shakeoff the state of original barbarity.

It is therefore important for each of usto be penetrated by this idea, and torecognise as brothers those who are led,by identical efforts in different centres, toa civilisation strange to ours. Thetendency that we have to consider ourown religion as the only divine one is soprofoundly rooted in our minds that eveneducation cannot completely eradicate it.Besides, those whom leisure or tastesincite to the study of comparativereligions are the smallest minority con-trasted with the legions who accept theready-made ideas given them. Andnothing less than the influence of such a

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vast religious movement is necessary toput an end to such a grave supersti-tion.

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THE GREAT PROPHETS

ALL these different Prophets whose teach-ings the Holy Scriptures have preservedfor us represent therefore one and thesame force, one and the same spirit, oneand the same intelligence, one and thesame Truth—God. And, under what-ever sky they may have appeared, inwhatever epoch they may have lived,they all have given to humanity the sameteaching, more and more perfect, moreand more complete, according to theevolution of humanity. And accordinglythe wonderful reciprocal influence of theProphet on his people, and of the people

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on their Prophet, appears natural to us inits divine signification; for the role of theProphet, in order to be understood, in nowise demands a belief in miracles, andlet us hasten to say that for a Bahai thereis nothing supernatural. Revelation isnot considered as something miraculous,supernatural in the vulgar sense of theword: the supernatural should only beunderstood as that which constitutes thehigher spheres of nature, the vast un-known domain, into which, however, bythe investigations of thought, and theresearches of science, we are permitted topenetrate more and more every day.Revelation is only the result of a mysticpenetration into this domain, the closercommunion of some privileged souls withthe Great Intelligence which presides over

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the advancement of worlds. This com-munion, this consciousness that man hasof his place in the world, this relationshipin which he feels himself with the rest ofcreatures, from his nearest to the mostdistant tribes, and to all beings of nature,is precisely what legitimates his place onthe summit of creation. And the greatestman, the Prophet, is a being who appearsfrom time to time, in whom this con-sciousness surpasses every other senti-ment, and who acquires thereby an in-fluence which the greatest conquerorsor the greatest scholars never had inhistory.

One of those, and the latest in date,was Bahā’u’llāh, whom millions ofindividuals, from the four corners of theearth—Hindoos, Zoroastrians, Buddhists,

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Christians, Jews, and Muhammadans re-cognise to-day as the greatest Manifesta-tion of God, and who thus groups aroundhim those who till now seemed irre-concilable. He was born in Persia, inthe luminous Orient whence have comeall the Prophets, by this mysterious lawwhich wills that, just as the sun rises inthe East, it should also be from thatquarter that the great leading Lightsof humanity appear. Perhaps a likephenomenon can be sufficiently explainedby the purer sky of those climates, or bythe larger part given to meditation andto introspection, in a life where the diffi-culties of existence seem less great thanelsewhere?

I should now like to show briefly how,among the fanatical Muhammadans

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of Persia, a movement has taken placewhich to-day appears in the world as alesson of liberalism.

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BABISM

AT the end of the year 1852 the Persianand Ottoman governments agreed to exileto Baghdād a certain number of familieswhose presence in Iran, according to whatthe chiefs of the orthodox religion said,constituted a scandal and a danger topublic peace.

As a matter of fact, for nearly eightyears Persia had been the theatre of oneof the bloodiest religious conflicts thatits history ever had to register since theday when the ancient Parsee civilisationhad given way before the sword of tri-umphant Islam. But neither the perse-cutions of the fanatised crowds nor the

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effort of the royal armies were able tosucceed in mastering those who had de-clared themselves disciples of the Bāb. Itis known how in 1844 the masses had beensuddenly raised by the young reformerannouncing that he was the Imām Mahdī,the Prophet of the pure lineage of Muham-mad, whose reappearance had been ex-pected for centuries by the pious,1 whomhe had now come to prepare for the ap-parition of “Him whom God wouldmanifest.”

If his movement had finished by aseeming revolt against the clergy and the

1 For all which concerns the history of the Bāb andthe early times of Bahaism sec the book by A. L. M.Nicolas, entitled Seyycd Ali Mohammed, dit le Bab(Dujarric, Paris, 1905); and also Religions et Sociétés(Alcan, Paris, 1905); and E. G. Browne, A Traveller’sNarrative, written to illustrate the Episode of the Bab(Cambridge, 1891).

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conservative orthodoxy of Persia, certainlyit was not one against Islam, for, on thecontrary, the Bāb claimed to accomplish inhis person all the prophecies of the Qur’ānand the Hadīths. Had not Muhammadreceived the assurance from Djibrā’īl that“God would bring religion from the sky tothe earth and that then it would reascendto Him in a day whose length was to be athousand years”?1 According to thepopular legend, just ten centuries hadpassed since the mysterious disappearanceof the last Imam, who had finished estab-lishing on earth the religion of the Prophetwhich for these ten centuries had beencorrupted by ignorant priests. What didthe divine word signify, if not that themoment had at last come for religion to

1 Qur’ān, xxxiii4i

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ascend to its original celestial purity?This was the reforming work to which theBāb had invited his compatriots, at thesame time showing them how to free them-selves from the material and intellectualmisery in which they were kept by agovernment helpless before the prevarica-tions of officials and by ignorant Mullāswhose only anxiety was to retain theirlucrative prestige. He had urgently ex-horted them to prepare for the coming of“Him whom God would manifest,”, theGreat Prophet whom all the Holy Scrip-tures had announced for the Last Days.

Although the Bāb had not meant topropagate his doctrine by sword and fire,but, on the contrary, had called everyoneto discuss with him the truth of his claim,yet it is easy to understand what hostilities

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such ideas would meet with from all thosewho for one reason or another held anypower. The whole country at once arosefor or against him, and ardent missionariesset out from north to south, and from eastto west, to spread the good news; one ofthem, and not the least famous, a woman,Qurratu’l-’‘Aiyn, is incontestably among thenumber of the most powerful personalitiesof our time.

The majority of these missionaries setout with such zeal to spread the Cause thatit even cost them their lives; but theblood of martyrs never flowed in vain underthe executioner’s axe: it filtered into thePersian soil; and, in spite of hostile fanati-cism, produced an abundant harvest ofgenerous ideas sustaining to humanity!The Bāb himself, who, since the day of his

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proclamation, had been dragged fromprison to prison, after a mock trial wasexecuted on one of the public places ofTabriz in 1850. Meanwhile the revoltwas gaining the whole country. His death,which followed that of his principal dis-ciples, did not stop the movement whichhe had started. Whole crowds were con-verted to Babism without even havingread his writings, without knowing any-thing of his doctrine but what had beentransmitted from ear to ear. They onlyknew that a new era of liberty and progresswas about to begin, for the triumph ofwhich thousands of Muhammadans hadnot hesitated to sacrifice life, and that anew Prophet was to be expected, theGreat Manifestation of God, whose an-nunciator had been the Bāb, as John the

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Baptist had been the annunciator andforerunner of Jesus.1

1 It must, however, be remembered that the role of theBāb is not limited to that of annunciator, and that thereform of Islam, to which his name is attached, and whichwas the point of departure of Bahaism, has caused him tobe considered as a great Prophet, the bearer of a newLaw, in the same way as Bahā’u’llāh. On the differentkinds of Prophets, cp. Some Answered Questions, p. 188.

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THE EXILE OF THE BABIS

For two years after the execution, whichtook place at Tabriz, the Persian govern-ment exiled numerous families, againstwhom no other charge could be broughtthan that of belonging to the new sect.From this moment probably half thePersian population would have beenbanished if the movement were to becompletely extirpated or even impededin its rapid progress.

Among those who thus arrived atBaghdād at the end of 1852, there arosea Babi who was to thoroughly transformthe character of the new doctrine, orrather to extract from it a true, universal

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religion destined to unite and develop allexisting religions. Looking closely intothe Bāb’s work, in spite of the height ofhis inspired views, we cannot fail to noticein it a certain sectarian particularismwhich would have confined to ShiiteIslam the benefits of a reform which,nevertheless, contained in potentiality amarvellous instrument for the progress ofhumanity. Bahā’u’llāh, one of the earliestdisciples, was the one to give to this move-ment the import which the Bāb himselfhad foretold, and, recognising the sacredcharacter of all former religions, unitedthem in one new form more suitable thanthe others to the human tendencies of thenineteenth century. He did more; bybreaking with ritualistic traditions, bysetting reason free from dogmatic fetters,

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he paved the way for the harmony ofreligions with free-thought, a fact till nowconsidered impossible.

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BAHĀ’U’LLĀH

MĪRZĀ HUSAĪ Y N ‘ALĪ NŪRĪ, revered to-dayby innumerable believers under the nameof Bahā’u’llāh, was born at Nūr in Māzan-dearān on the 12th of November 1817.He belonged to a very powerful and noblefamily from which the Qādjār sovereignsliked choosing their viziers and councillors.The life of a courtier, however, was little inaccordance with his tastes, and he wascompletely indifferent to the advantageshe could have gained from his father’sposition and wealth. Besides this, he waspossessed of a force of will and personalitywhich did not harmonise well with humanconstraint. So, while still young, he de-

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voted himself to a life of meditation, inwhich all his good qualities were soonmore fully developed.

Through the infinite gentleness of hisnature, combined with his indomitableenergy, he was drawn towards the miserywhich was about to degenerate the peoplewho were under the domination of a clergyas ignorant as it was corrupt. But thisattraction, far from rousing his pity, onlymade him feel the imperious need ofefficacious reforms.

Far beyond Islam, in whose midst hisactivity evolved, his higher thoughts flewtowards the world of human sufferings, andalready he conceived the remedy he wouldbring them: regeneration by work andlove, these were the two pillars of hissociology.

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He was nearly thirty when, through oneof those missionaries who was stirring upPersia, he became acquainted with the newdoctrine that the young Prophet of Shīrāzwas revealing to Muhammadans benumbedby secular apathy. Immediately hegrasped its deep value and its inspiredsource.

From that time he had but one object,which was to come into contact with allthose who took an active part in Babism,and, regardless of danger, to consecrateto the Cause all his ability and power. Al-though the Bāb never had an opportunityof meeting him, he soon recognised all thathe might expect from the new and ardentdisciple who, without the least hesitation,had immediately sacrificed his socialposition and quietude. Two beings so

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perfectly made to act in concert have noneed to see one another in order to bemutually attracted, and Bahā’u’llāh soonbecame entrusted with the most intimatethoughts of the young Prophet. A regularcorrespondence was immediately estab-lished between them; and thus, as earlyas the end of 1848, when at the famousCouncil of Bedesht the Babis—deprivedof their leader imprisoned at Mākū, uneasyabout their future—were trying to makefinal arrangements with regard to theorganisation of the movement, he it waswho the disciples looked upon as the mostauthorised representative of the Master.

In order to explain the preponderantpart immediately played by Bahā’u’llāhin the march of events, Persian historiansstate that when the Bāb arrived at the

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gates of the capital, in the hope of anaudience with the Shah, Bahā’u’llāh cameto visit him at the village of Khānlīq, somefarsakhs distant from Tihrān. But,besides their giving no details about aninterview which, however, could not buthave been famous, the fact is absolutelydenied by all those who have the bestopportunity of knowing the truth; andthe authorised writer of the “Traveller’sNarrative”1 nowhere makes any allusionto this supposed meeting.

1 Cp. K. G. Browne, A Travellers Narrative, writtento illustrate the Episode of the Baāb (Cambridge, 1891).

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Baghdād

ON his arrival at Baghdād at the end of1852, his role became affirmed.

He had just left the Āmbār prison atTihrān, where he had been shut up becauseof his notoriety in the new sect at the timeof the terrible persecutions which followedthe attempt upon the life of the Shah.1For, after some months of imprisonment,during which he was submitted to themost cruel treatment, as it was evidentthat he not more than the others had been

1 It is known how two fanatical Babis came to Tihrānwith the criminal purpose of killing the Shah Nāsiru’d-Dīn, in order to avenge the Bāb’s martyrdom. Fortun-ately he was hardly hurt; but this attempted assassinationagain drew the fury of the Shiite clergy and of the civilauthorities on the sect, and during the weeks whichfollowed the attempt hundreds of Babis perished.

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responsible for the criminal attempt ofthe two young fanatics, and also as theaccredited Ministers at Tihrān had trans-mitted to the Shah remonstrances fromtheir respective governments with refer-ence to the continual massacres which forsome time had been dishonouring Persia,a firman gave him his liberty and per-mitted him to live outside imperial terri-tory, in the holy places where themartyred Imāms repose, the tombs ofKarbala and Nadjaf.1

As soon as this news had become known,the Babis from all parts decided to placethemselves also safe from the hatred oftheir compatriots; and, going voluntarilyinto exile, whole families in long caravans

1 Karbala and Nadjaf, near Baghdād, where the tombsof Husayīn and ‘Aliī are to be found, are the most celebratedplaces of pilgrimage of Shiite Islam.

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preceded or followed Bahā’u’llāh on hisway to Baghdād.

The community thus assembled on thebanks of the Tigris was therefore com-posed of the most heterogeneous elements;some, full of good will and zeal, hoped bywork to remake for themselves the positionthey had lost in their own country; others,like beasts exhausted after a long pursuitwho take refuge in the midst of a densethicket, only thought of the possibility ofescape from the fury of the Mullās who werefanaticising the people against them. Allarrived, with their respective weaknesses,needs, disappointments, and ambitions,without any other bond between them,than that faith which had given them alike taste for sacrifice, as well as a commonhope of the near triumph of their ideas,

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which would be the reward for all theirsufferings. The relative security theyenjoyed in Turkey, following on the con-stant dangers which for so long had keptall their faculties on the watch, oughtnecessarily to have had a most depressinginfluence on such a community, especiallyif we call to mind that, with rare exceptions,none of them had known the Bāb, andthat only very few of them had been ableto fathom his teaching. They had de-voted themselves to him with that naïveenthusiasm which leads the crowds on theDeliverer’s steps, in the belief that all thatwas necessary was to be enrolled under hisflag and to be ready to shed one’s blood, inorder to revolutionise the world, when allmiseries would at once be suppressed.They did not know his doctrine; certain

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of them, even more simple than others,only thought that that which was for-bidden before the coming of the Bāb hadbecome lawful, since he had reformed thereligion of Muhammad. We can imaginewhat troubles such a condition of mindmust have caused among the little com-munity, arriving in an unknown country,where the problems of material lifeassumed a most urgent and gloomy aspect,and after the ruin that it had just ex-perienced in its own country.

It fell to Bahā’u’llāh’s lot to bring alittle order into the ideas and actions ofthe Babis of Baghdād. Immediately onhis arrival he set himself to the task, andup to the end of 1854 he entirely conse-crated himself to his organising work.Although nothing designated him officially

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as their leader, from the earliest days hesecretly confided to his most intimatefriends that he felt himself called to takefrom thence on the direction of the move-ment, and he led them to understand thatHe whom the Bāb had announced to themas being the Supreme Manifestation wasnone other than he himself, and that Godhad given him the mission to direct them.But he did not yet decide to make thenews known, as the friends were not yetprepared to understand it, and themoment had not come to change theaspect of the movement. On the contrary,it was necessary for them to be penetratedby the teachings of the Bāb, and put hisdoctrine into practice, before it wouldbecome possible to lead his disciplestowards new destinies. This was known

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as his first declaration—quite a secret one—which in no wise pointed him out to thesuspicions of the authorities, and whichleft to the uninitiated all their ideas aboutthe future evolution of the movement.The influence he at once assumed over hiscompanions in exile soon confirmed thoseto whom he had revealed his mission inthe belief that he was not mistaken as tothe extent of his powers.

He decided, however, to leave his com-panions to themselves for some time; and,probably desirous of seeking in the calmof peaceful seclusion the new strengthwhich would be necessary for the accom-plishment of his work, he hastily set outfrom Baghdād, to the great despair of hisfriends, without revealing to mortal theplace of his retreat. For two years he

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settled down in the mountains to the northof Sulaīmānyiah, living the life of ahermit, which frees man from all thefetters of society, leaving him entirely tothe source of inspirations, the great com-munion with God and nature. Who cantell the power of strength thus stored upby one whose sole object is to use it forthe good of his fellow-creatures?

In spite, however, of every precaution,Bahā’u’llāh could not long remain un-noticed. The news soon spread that ayoung Shaïkh , possessed of marvellousknowledge, had retired to Kurdistān, andfrom all sides people came to consult andconverse with him about those inexhaust-ible metaphysical and theological pro-blems in which the East is so much in-terested. Gradually the rumour spread

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to Baghdād; and his family and friendsfelt no doubt that it referred to him forwhose departure they were grieving. Inall haste emissaries were sent to describeto him the lamentable state in which hisabsence left the community deprived ofhis counsel, and to beseech him to return.He came back from Sulaīmānyiah, andset about giving to the Babis the moraldirection they so much needed. Hebrought back with him from his retreatthe conception, henceforth fixed, of thegreat principles which were to be the basisof the religion he wished to restore, as wellas a work entitled “The Book of Cer-tainty,”1 written by him in reply to arelative of the Bāb, who had asked him

1 Kitābu’l Iqān. Cp. the English translation by ‘Ali KuliKhan and H. Mac Nutt (New York: G. V. BlackburneCo., 1904).

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what was meant by the proclamation ofthe young Prophet who had just beenmartyred at Tabriz. In this work, ofwhich the interest is still increased by thefact that in it Bahā’u’llāh does not yetspeak from the standpoint of his newclaim as he does in subsequent writings,but only as a disciple of the Bāb, we seewhat constitutes the prophetic character.A curious interpretation of certain passagesof the Old and New Testament, of theQur’ān and of the Hadīths, shows us howall the Prophets can be considered as one,inasmuch as they all manifest to a specialdegree the Divine Spirit which animatesthem; and, more especially from theMusulman point of view, how the comingof the Bāb is clearly announced by all theapocalyptic prophecies of Islam. How-

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ever, in certain pages of the book, as forinstance in the concluding mystic lines,1the initiated could read that the time wasnear when Bahā’u’llāh himself wouldannounce to the world the mission withwhich he was charged.

Besides this, his return amongst his ownpeople quickly produced happy results.At first the Babis, having returned to alife of conformity, gradually began todevote themselves to a fruitful activitywhich was unknown to them for manyyears. Then, as is always the consequencein like cases, the courage which they hadshown in the moment of trial, and thegood fortune which now seemed to smile

1 “Revealed by the ‘Ba’ and the ‘Ha,’, and peace beupon those who hear the melody of the Holy Dove onthe Sadrati’l-Muntahā. Glory be to our Lord, the MostHigh!”

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on them, continually attracted, even fromthe most remote corners of Asia, newadepts, who formed, in the country, a mostimposing party around Bahā’u’llāh. TheShiite clergy was stirred up by it, and thegreat Mudjtahid of Karbala, Hādjī MīrzāDjawād, did not rest till he had persuadedthe Persian consul at Baghdād that thiscommunity was not only a peril to religion,but that, being so near the Iranian fron-tiers, it endangered the Empire itself, andthat is was his duty to apprise his govern-ment of it. Then a long correspondenceensued, from 1861 to 1862, between theconsul on the one side, the Governor ofKirmānshāh1 and the Minister of ForeignAffairs of Nāsiru’d-Dīn-Shaāh on the other;

1 The province of Kirmānshāh is the nearest to ‘Iraāq‘Arabi, in which Baghdād is situated.

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and soon the governments of Tihrān andof Constantinople were led to consider theremedies that such a situation required.

These were the two: that they wereeither to give up Bahā’u’llāh to theGovernor of Kirmānshāh—in which casePersia would be responsible for him—or else, by transferring him to a moredistant place, prevent him from anylonger disturbing the peace of Iran. TheShah’s government, of course, was in-clined to the first solution, which appearedmore radical. But the Sultan did notbelieve in giving up an exile who had theright of protection on Ottoman soil. Inspite of the good understanding existingbetween the two States, ‘Abdul ‘Azizfelt rather satisfied not to be obliged tosuppress too brutally a movement which

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he considered especially a peril to theabhorred Shiism; he decided to callBahā’u’llāh to Constantinople, where, itwas said, it would be easier to watch hisdoings. He therefore sent to inform theGovernor of Baghdād of the decisionwhich had just been taken with referenceto the notorious exile.

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THE DECLARATION OF THERIZWĀN

THUS, after a few years of relative peace,the Babis were again to know all kindsof trials brought about by this new exile:the hostility of the officials towards thoseno longer under royal protection;material losses caused by the hastyabandonment of various enterprises bymeans of which they were beginning torebuild their fortunes; the uncertaintyof the morrow, and the extenuatingfatigues of the journey painfully under-taken by women and children. The flit-ting ray of sunshine which had shone ontheir destiny was already veiled by

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gathering storm-clouds. Nevertheless,no one hesitated, and all those who hadcome from Tihrān with Bahā’u’llāh be-sought him not to leave them behind, asthey felt incapable of facing the depriva-tions they would incur by the absenceof his presence and sustaining influence.He then appointed to meet them somefarsakhs from Baghdād, on an estateknown under the name of the “Gardenof the Rizwān,”, belonging to NadjibPacha, former governor of the town, whohad invited the celebrated exile to staythere for some time before starting. Inthe East, the first stage of a journey isalways rendered very tedious by thenumerable preparationves that the settingout of a carvavran requires. Customdecrees that on the first day the travellers

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go but a short distance, stopping at thefirst resting-place, in order to give thelate-comers time to catch them up. Allthe Baghdād authorities came to thisgarden to visit Bahā’u’llāh, and to showhim, not only the high admiration inwhich he was held, but also that the freshmeasures taken against him in no wayalienated the sympathies which he hadinspired.

It was during the twelve days spent bythe Babis in the Garden of the Rizwān thatthe event was accomplished which wasto give to their Cause a new significationand an import that only some few of theinitiated had been able to anticipate. Itwas there, in fact, that Bahā’u’llāh an-nounced to all his adepts that which elevenyears previously he had revealed to those

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intimates on whose judgment andsincerity he so completely relied, that heit was whose mission the Bāb had cometo prophesy, pointing him out as theSupreme Manifestation of God, who wasto complete the work begun by himself,and towards whom all should turn if theywished to obey his will.

It was on the evening of the very daythey left Baghdād. The sun was aboutto set in the glowing sky of a warm springday. The last arrivals had in their turnreached the Pacha’s garden some hoursago, and, grouped around Bahā’u’llāh, theyevoked—in fear of the uncertain future—the remembrance of all the sufferings thatso many of them had borne for their faith,since the time that the glorified Bāb hadshown them the way of salvation. Would

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they all have strength to undergo the newtrials that God would send them? Whowould lead them? Who would protectthe Babis now that Turkey in its turn wasagainst them? So in face of his troubledcompanions, Bahā’u’llāh understood thathe ought no longer to delay the revelationof the role that he meant to assume underthe direction of the Divine Will. Stand-ing up in their midst, he told them thatthere was no time for looking backwards.With the same courage that they hadhitherto displayed they were to facethe veiled unknown, and think of stillmore glorious days, in the accomplish-ment of those laws which the Bāb hadforetold. Let them no longer be afraid,but trust in him! Henceforth there wereno Babis, for a new leader was before

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them to enroll them under his name; ifthey had the courage to follow him, it wasunder the title of Bahais that they wereto be ready to struggle and to suffer!And in order to make them understandwhither he was going to lead them, aswell as the progress signified by thischange of name, he immediately announcedto them that the legal uncleanliness ofinfidels was henceforth abolished. “God,he told them, has made all men the dropsof one sea, and the leaves of one tree, andall races pure.1 Let us have noble

1 Thus we find in the Kitābu’l-Aqdas, p. 28 (Bombayedition): “God has withdrawn the order of impurity fromall things and foreign peoples; it is a favour of God whois in reality the Pardoner, the Benevolent One. Every-thing was plunged in the Sea of Purity in the early daysof the Rizwān where we were transfigured above theuniverse by our glorified Names and our supreme Attri-butes. …”

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thoughts, healthy morals and hygienichabits! From this moment let us be theexample to guide all humanity towards itsregeneration!” Did they think that theBāb had been martyred at Tabriz solelythat a few million oppressed Persiansmight escape the tyranny of the Mullās?—or even that the whole of Islam mightrejoice in the coming of the Qā’im theannunciator of new times? Surely not;the Cause embraced by them was greater!Until now they had only accomplishedone stage, they must go further! Whatwas the use of all the religions in the worldif people did not see the common bondwhich was uniting them behind the differ-ences of dogmas and rites? The timeswere distant since Moses, Jesus orMuhammad had brought them special

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laws. God would speak again, and thistime, through His Supreme Manifesta-tion, he would lead reconciled men towardprogress, and regenerate them by love.Disdainful of the comforts of this world,they ought only to strive to develop theirspirituality. Thus, the work begun bythe Bāb would find in him its accomplish-ment and its end in the renovation andunification of all religions!

Some of them trembled hearing theseunexpected words and foreseeing theimport of the ideas therein contained, sofar above their own. They felt that theywould have to bid farewell to a past towhich they were still attached by all theyheld dear, and they questioned them-selves if they were really ready for thathuman society which was to be the object

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of their mission . But the love with whichBahā’u’llāh inspired his companions,especially the confidence they had in hisjudgment which they had always be-lieved to be inspired by God, overcamethe greater part of their hesitations; andwhen finally they left the neighbourhoodof Baghdād, but with few exceptions theBabis had become Bahais, and a freshpage of their history was about to beopened and given to the world.

They proceeded towards Constanti-nople by way of Mosul and Samsun.

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CONSTANTINOPLE

THE reception accorded to Bahā’u’llāhin the Ottoman capital was far morehospitable than that which could havebeen expected on account of the orderwhich had forced him to leave Baghdād,or from the Shiite clergy themselves,through whose hostility it had been in-spired. The government received himwith those marks of particular venerationwhich, in the East, are shown to all thosewho have devoted themselves to thespiritual life. Houses were placed at thedisposal of himself and his family, andsoon the majority of the importantpersons in the town came to visit him.

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His disciples found lucrative occupationsand trades in the bazaar: many of themeven became Ottoman subjects, hopingby this means to definitely escape theformidable ill-will of the Persianauthorities. Strong in their liberty, theycontinued to such an extent to makeconverts around them, that the Shaīkhu’l-Islam, uneasy at appearing to consenttacitly to the propagation of a movementwhich he could only consider as subversive,persuaded the Sultan to send Bahā’u’llāhstill farther away from his native country,and to let him live in Adrianople on thenorthern frontiers of the Empire.

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ADRIANOPLEBahā’u’llāh had only remained four

months at Constantinople, and at the endof 1864 he arrived at the capital ofEastern Rumelia, where he was to stayfor nearly five years. He profited by thissojourn in Europe to enter into closerelationship with the West, to which hismission had long been directed. Therehe drew up his famous Sūratu’l-Mulūk,containing letters to the sovereigns orministers of state of Europe and America,which has been described and analysedby Baron Rosen in the Bulletin del’Institut Oriental de Saint-Pétersbourg,

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and also by Professor E. G. Browne in theJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society.He wrote to the Pope, to Queen Victoria,to the King of Prussia, to Napoleon III.,etc., asking them for their co-operationin his effort to make his ideas of fraternityand universal peace triumph, by which thehappiness and progress of the world wereto be assured. This step was necessary:for it was time the ministers of stateshould abandon their negligence andtheir comfortable indolence, in order tothink a little about their unhappy sub-jects, who were vegetating in misery andsuffering. Kings, he said, are the re-presentatives of God on earth, in so faras in them are to be found the divineattributes of power, strength andauthority: consequently it is their duty

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to make known the attributes of mercy,goodness and of providence, by watchingover the moral education of the nations!Let them arise then to proclaim aloudtheir adherence to the Divine Manifesta-tion, which alone can assure the successof their reign and the prosperity of theircountries. History does not tell us howsome of these letters were received, butthe prophecies therein contained havemade them celebrated. Thus in 1868he announced to Napoleon III. the ap-proaching fall of his empire, and to thePope the loss of his temporal power.

Thus, the leader of those few hundredPersians—who for the past twenty yearshad borne with the opprobrium and per-secutions of the clergy and Governors ofIslam—feeling himself strong enough,

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and sufficiently imbued with the certaintyof being the instrument chosen by Godto spread His word, did not fear toaddress himself all at once, in the middleof the nineteenth century, to the Europeof Voltaire and of the Revolution.Events decided in his favour; not thatthe sovereigns whom he addressedanswered to his call by leading theirpeople to accept Bahaism, but becausethe ideas expressed by him respondedto the contemporary attitude of mind, andtherefore recruited adepts from amongstall those who were in any way interestedin the progress of humanity. Since then,on the boundless field that he opened upto their generous activity, people of allreligions—and even those who have neverbelonged to any Church—have been able

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to unite in common effort towardsupholding human fellowship.

Great encouragement, however, wasnot forthcoming from amongst thePersian community that had followedhim from Baghdād. We have mentionedhow, at the time of the proclamation ofthe Rizwān, a certain number of Babis—frightened at seeing their religion losingits purely Islamic character—hesitatedin following Bahā’u’llāh in his work ofunification. One of his stepbrothers,named Sobhi-Azal—who, in the Bāb’stime, had held certain authority in therising community, but who, since theirexile, had never taken the least initiative,urged on by ambition to claim also apreponderant part in the affairs—groupedaround himself a small number of con-

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servatives who could not follow theevolution caused by Bahā’u’llāh’s ideas.And in the very face of this ardentBahaism which was courageously attempt-ing the conquest of the world, he wishedto represent what he considered to bethe pure doctrine of the Bāb, and whichhe tried to spread by means of involvedcommentaries which more often obscuredthan elucidated the Master’s thought.

His attempt was beforehand doomedto failure, in consequence of that law ofnature which decrees that everythingmust progress, and that things only existby incessantly evolving and perfectingthemselves. Even amongst the ShiiteMusulmans—of whom alone his band offollowers was composed—he could notfind the co-operation on which he had

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counted, so greatly prolific had the seedof progressive aspiration become sownas it was by the Bāb himself in the mindsof his compatriots. The inanity of hispurpose soon became apparent. But hisfailure merely accentuated his hostility.Trying by a narrow interpretation of thewords of the Bāb to show that the comingof “Him whom God would manifest”was premature, he denounced Bahā’u’llāhto the Sultan, for pursuing a personalobject, and of fostering against the Otto-man Government designs imperilling itssafety. But he simply succeeded indrawing upon himself and his brother theseverity of the authorities, who up to nowhad been friendly; and the Sultan, with-out seeking to know the exact truth ofthe case, decided once more to change the

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place of residence of the exiles, and orderedthat Bahā’u’llāh should be imprisoned at‘Akkā, while Sobhi-Azal was to be super-vised at Famagusta in Cyprus.

There it was that the poor ambitiousman looked helplessly on the failure of hisplans. When Cyprus fell into the handsof the English he recovered his liberty,but the number of his followers did notconsequently increase. Up to the presentday, pensioned by England, which hasundertaken the support of the Sultan’sformer prisoner, he is no more than theleader of a few hundred conservativeBabis whose influence has never becomeappreciable in the world.

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The destiny of Bahā’u’llāh and of hisCause was to be quite otherwise. Hearrived in ‘Akkā in the month of August1868, after a journey of several months,which was only the beginning of the longmartyrdom he endured till his death.‘Akkā was then only a fortress of Syria,the headquarters of an army corps, andreputed for the insalubrity of its climate,whither the government sent those politi-cal prisoners of whom it wished to riditself. Everything led to the presumption,or rather the certainty, that Bahā’u’llāhand his faithful disciples, who could not bepersuaded to leave him, could not long

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resist the severity of the climate of thetown, and the sufferings in the dungeonsof the fortress, exhausted as they were bythe fatigues of the nomadic life they hadbeen leading for years. The instructionsgiven by the government to the officialscharged with their custody were, besides,most severe. All of them were locked uppell-mell in one or two rooms in thebarracks, and there they existed duringlong months, in the most painful andpromiscuous manner, feeding themselvesas best they could, and helplessly witness-ing the mortality which decimated theirranks. But their faith in Him whom theyhad been following from Tihrān; the joythey experienced in suffering for the Cause;the need they felt of dying in his servicewere so great, that those of them still

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living speak of those times as of the onlyreally happy days they have ever known.They lived constantly in Bahā’u’llāh’spresence; they heard his inspired words;they knew they were the lieutenants ofHim who was to conquer the world ofignorance and superstition; on the otherhand, what mattered the briny water thatwas given them to drink, the vermin whichdevoured them, the little ones who weredying of hunger! Not a single complaintdid they utter; so patient were they thattheir very keepers became less obdurate.Thus they could communicate a little withthe outside world and ameliorate theirsituation, till the day when the Sultan—remembering that these Persians wereguilty of no other crime than that of join-ing one of their compatriots in exile, who

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himself had done nothing against the lawsof the Empire—ordered them to be setfree, on condition however that theyshould not leave ‘Akkā.

Bahā’u’llāh settled down with hisfamily in the house assigned to him as aresidence, while the other liberated Per-sians, once more setting courageously towork, endeavoured to emerge from thematerial distress into which they had fallen.Thanks to their honesty, which gave to thelocal population the desire to have dealingswith them; thanks also to their faith,which did not allow them to doubt ofsuccess, their position soon improved;and the little Persian colony augmentedby new-comers from the East: Buddhists,Parsees or Musulmans, wishing to knowfor themselves the new Manifestation.

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whose renown was daily on the increase.One has not often, I think, had the oppor-tunity of observing an economic and socialphenomenon such as this little community,composed as it was of individuals belong-ing to the most diverse and equally fanati-cal religions, having up to this time livedin the most different surroundings, accus-tomed to conceptions of existence oftencontradictory; and who had now come tocarry into action the principles of detach-ment and of human fraternity, around theProphet himself, which until then they hadbeen powerless to realise in their nativeland. Their conduct was so perfect,their morality so high, their harmony socomplete, that, although they have beenthere for forty years, no judge has had yetto intervene for them in any legal disputes.

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The early Christian churches, in whichhowever some difference of opinion madetheir way, can alone give us an idea ofwhat the life of this Bahai community at‘Akkā has been since its commencement.And those who have had the good fortuneto be able to see it from near, will longretain the remembrance of the meetingsat which they have been present, and inwhich believers from all Asiatic countriesfraternise joyfully at their reconciliationwith their European and Americanbrothers, on the ground of the “creed”which till then had rendered them enemies.

The Cause indeed progressed rapidly.From 1869 to 1892, through periods ofalternative kindness and severity on thepart of the local authorities, and accordingto the often interested instructions of the

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Wali of Beirut, or the orders from Constan-tinople, Bahā’u’llāh employed all histime in writing the greater part of hisdoctrinal works. Up to this point, exceptthe Book of Iqān written by him atBaghdād, he had only spread his teachingby means of letters to his distant disciplesand to those who applied to him for thesolution of metaphysical or ethical pro-blems. Now, under the form of shorttreatises dictated to those around him,especially to his sons, he brought to lightthe principles of morals and of sociologywhich were to be the rules of the futurecity, and to lead man towards a newstage of progress. Amongst these areto be found The Most Holy Book, TheBook of the Testament, etc., and manyother writings. Thus sometimes in the

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language of orthodoxy—either Christianor Musulman—sometimes in that of theSufis or of the Free Thinkers, he edicts theprinciples which should serve to developthe individual to the profit of society.

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‘ABDU’L-BAHĀ

Bahā’u’llāh had no disciples morezealous, more helpful or more faithful inhis work, than his eldest son ‘Abdu’l-Bahā-‘Abbās. Born at Tihrān on the 23rd ofMay 1844, the same day that the Bāb haddeclared his mission, he had constantlybeen with his father, sharing his sufferingssince his earliest childhood, also profitingmore than all the others by the marvellouspower which emanated from Bahā’u’llāh’sperson. Endowed with a captivatingcharm, with an eloquence which made hisconversation sought after by even hismost irreducible adversaries, he joined tothe indomitable energy inherited from his

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father quite a personal gentleness, com-bined with that particular tact sometimespossessed by Orientals, and which straightaway makes them equal to any situation.With the son of Bahā’u’llāh these qualities,united to the power of self-mastery which,according to J. J. Rousseau, can alonerender us master of others, have made ofhim both one of the strongest and at thesame time most seductive mentalities thatcan be imagined. His unique intelligenceis capable of seizing at the first glance allthe aspects of a question, and withouthesitation seeing its solution; his heartattracts all the disinherited of life, whofeel themselves instinctively drawntowards him.

Without entering into the smallestdetails of the life of the Bahais since the

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days at Baghdād, it would be impossible toindicate the different circumstances inwhich he distinguished himself. Eitherit was necessary in the course of successiveexiles, in order to spare his father freshsuffering, to undertake opportune inter-ventions with the authorities; or elseduring the calmer life of the latter timesat ‘Akkā to write from dictation the longtreatises which he revealed to the world;or to clear up a difficulty existing with thefanatical Musulmans, recourse was had tohis diplomacy. His indefatigable energy,ever ready to be of service, as much to thesmall as to the great, to friends as tostrangers, was the living symbol of thename he had chosen, ‘Abdu’l-Bahā,the Servant of Bahā. Accordingly hewas designated in the Book of the Testa-

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ment1 to take the head of the movementon the death of Bahā’u’llāh.

This event took place on the 29th ofMay 1892. From that time on, ‘Abdu’l-Bahā has always been kept a prisonerwithin the walls of ‘Akkā until quiterecently, when the Sultan ‘Abdu’l-Hamīd,re-establishing for his people the constitu-tion of 1876, set free all the politicalprisoners of the Empire. But neverthelesshe has spread his father’s Cause to a mostunexpected extent, especially if we con-sider the absolute absence of any organisa-tion of propaganda properly so-called, andthe inadequate means of action given theposition of the Bahais in Syria.

Without it being always possible to re-

‘ One of the writings of Bahā’u’llāh in which he in-dicates what steps the Bahais should take after his death.

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trace the point of departure of the move-ment in each country, nevertheless, especi-ally since 1892, in almost all the largetowns of Europe and America, groups havebeen formed for the propagation of theideas of liberalism and religious unificationrepresented by Bahaism. Some of theirmembers have been at ‘Akkā to receivefrom the Master himself, and from thespectacle of life led around him by thelittle Bahai community, the great teachingwhich later on they wish others to profitby. Those who have been unable to makethe long pilgrimage have entered intocorrespondence with ‘Abdu’l-Bahā, andso to precisely collect his opinions on themost diverse circumstances of life. Thushe is effectively the centre of this greatmovement, which, having started from

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the Persian mountains, to-day reunitespeople from all corners of the earth inone unique aim—that of the progress ofhumanity.

The exile to ‘Akkā has certainly countedfor much in the rapid conquests made byBahaism during the last few years in theJudo-Christian world. Numerous indeedare the prophecies in the Old or New Tes-tament which point out the Holy Landas the place of future Manifestations, andthe Door of Hope for humanity. Sincethe day when the Sultan sent Bahā’u’llāhto reside in “The White City by theSea,”, in front of Mount Carmel, Bahaismwas no longer only presented to theChristians of the West as a reform ofChristianity, but as the unexpected accom-plishment of so many prophecies not

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understood till then.1 And from the penof the Manifestation flowed a new inter-pretation which, for the faithful, brokeaway the seals which till then had keptthe signification of the Holy Books hidden.

The new biblical exegesis, as also thequranic or avestic exegesis which thus isseen in the writings of Bahā’u’llāh andthe commentaries of ‘Abdu’l-Bahā, iscertainly one of the most curious sides ofBahaism. Besides, they have justified

1 The history of the German colonies of Jaffa, Jerusalemand Caifa is in this respect curious enough. They werefounded towards 1860 by people from Wuürttemberg whofollowed in voluntary exile their pastor, Ch. Hofmann.This latter had announced to them that the lime fixedby Christ for His return had arrived; that he found theproof of it in the words of Jesus reported in the Gospel,and that meanwhile it was necessary to found the Kingdomof God in the Holy Land. An analogous sect, that of theMillerites in America, since 1844 is expecting the secondcoming of Christ.

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the appearance of quite a special literaturewhose influence cannot be denied, andwhich merits profound study in itselfalone.

However, it is not with this aspect ofBahaism that we here wish to occupyourselves. We refer rather to specialworks1 for those who wish to investigatehow Bahaism presents itself as the accom-plishment of apocalyptical prophecies ofJews and of Christians; and, placingourselves on ground less high perhaps, butmore within the reach of all, and certainlyof a more immediate utility, try to showhow, from the social point of view, itappears as the synthesis of the most

1 See amongst others: The Bahai Proofs, by Mirza-Abu’l-Fazl (The J. W. Pratt Co., printers, New York,1902). The Book 0f IĪqān; Some Answered Questions,etc.

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elevated principles on which the futureevolution of humanity can be founded.

Thīs will be the object of the secondpart of this study.

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PART IISOCIAL IMPORT OF BAHAISM

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THE TRUE RELIGION

“To live the life is:

“To be no cause of grief to anyone, tolove each other truly.

“To be kind to all people, and to lovethem with a pure spirit.

“Should opposition or injury happen tous, we must bear it and be as kind as wecan be, and above all, we must love thepeople.

“Should the utmost calamity happen tous, we must rejoice, for these things arethe Gifts of God.

“To be silent concerning the faults ofothers, to pray for them, and help them,through kindness, to correct their faults,

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“To look always at goodness and not atevil. If a man has ten good qualities andone bad one, we must look at the ten andforget the one: and if a man has ten badqualities and one good one, we must lookat the one and forget the ten.

“To never allow ourselves to speak anunkind word about another, even thoughthat other be our enemy.

“To rebuke those who speak to us ofthe faults of others.

“All our deeds must be done to pro-mote the welfare and happiness of others.

“To be occupied in spreading the teach-ings, for only through obedience to thiscommand will we receive the power andconfirmation of the Spirit.

“To detach our hearts from ourselvesand from the world.

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“To be humble.

“To be the servants of each other, andto comprehend that we are less than ourfellow-creatures.

“To be as one soul in many bodies j forthe more we love each other the nearerwe will be to God; and our love, our unity,our obedience, must not be in word onlybut in reality.

“To act with cautiousness and wis-dom.

“To be truthful.

“To be hospitable.

“To respect the rights of others.

“To be a cause of healing for the sick;a comforter to the sorrowful; a heavenlytable for the hungry; a guide to theerring; rain for cultivation; a star forevery horizon; a light in darkness; a

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herald to all those waiting for theKingdom of God.”

These words in their imposing simplicitydispense with all commentary.

Thus ‘Abdu’l-Bahā expressed himselfwhen wishing to make known to one of hisdisciples what constituted the true religion.It has been said that Bahaism is less abelief than a manner of life. It is unques-tionably a religion, in the most exactsense of the word; we should be eventempted to add that it is pre-eminentlyThe Religion, for it is the most wonderfulmeans of international union known tous.

Let no one think that it is only at ‘Akkāthat these sentiments of real fraternity aremanifested among the believers, and that,once away from the Master’s influence.

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they return to their racial prejudices andhatreds. We have seen, in the very heartof Burma, Bahai communities composedof members of all sects and castes whichabound in India, to whom were joinedwithout mental reservation Europeansresiding in the country; and there existedbetween these people the most sincerefraternity who previously would not havesat down at the same table. Similarly inEurope, in our large towns, where snobbismand prejudice have raised up between thedifferent classes barriers as impassable asthose due to Indian customs, the Bahaicommunities endeavour to follow in allrespects the exhortations of ‘Abdu’l-Bahā.

One must admit that there is theremuch more than the expression of vague

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sentimentality or of convent morality;in those lines are to be found the principlesindispensable to the existence of societies,the recognition and putting into practiceof that fellowship which unites us to ourneighbour and which should make us lookupon him with the love we have for ourbrother. Is there any other remedy thanthis for the many evils from which wesurfer? Socialist politicians, who com-mend the general strike as the only meansof hastening the coming of the future city,which they are dreaming of, do not theyalso presuppose this love which alone canobtain from the working classes that de-tachment and disinterestedness requiredby such a manifestation? Now, whodoes not see that if such a fellowship, sucha love, existed on earth, none of the

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questions that socialism wishes to decidewould arise?

It is, then, this love that before all thingsshould prevail between the different classesof one society; between the hostile races ofone nation; between all people in theworld, in order that the greater part of theevils afflicting humanity may disappear.

This is the task Bahaism claims to fulfil.But in order to be able to judge its meritsand its efficacy, at least with reference toour Western world, it is important toexamine—by extracting from the writingsof Bahā’u’llāh and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahā theteachings they can give us—how religionacts on the life of a nation, and the in-fluence it can have on man taken individu-ally; on society; and on the state.

With the progress of the centuries,

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religion has seen its domain restricted,and philosophy, as well as a crowd ofsciences (in the order of nature, history,law, sociology, policy, etc.), which formerlywere taught in the churches, have nowtaken a specific form, leaving to revelationthe mere field—yet without limits—of therelations between God and man. In ourtime a religious system should be con-sidered, not only in its effects on themystic soul of the believer, but even asevery other social phenomena—in itseffects upon the general activity of anation. Let us then see from these dif-ferent points of view what Bahā’u’llāhteaches.

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BAHAISM AND THE STATE

THE separation of Church and State canonly be temporary—a momentary stagein the march of societies. If, at a timewhen the sovereign did not affiliate thespiritual and temporary power under hissway, history shows us that with the oldsectarian religions the State has seen theformidable power of the Church (withwhich it has had to reckon and sometimesto struggle) take shape in face of it, andoften against it, it could not be thus thenin the future city founded on Bahaiprinciples. The absence of all religiousceremonies, and consequently of theclergy and priestly hierarchy, does not

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admit of there ever being a question ofseparation of Church and State. In thesame way a government advocatingliberty, and careful to respect the creedsof all, will not, as now,1 have to take upan atheistical position nor confine itselfwithin the vaguer limits of non-religion.

In the presence of religious unity, theState will be religious; not that it mustgive to all its acts a mystical appearance,which could not be in keeping with theirmaterial object, nor even recall to itssubjects—by coining its gold or bystamping its banknotes—the specialprotection granted by God to their country.But, religion being put into practice inall acts of life, from the minister of Statedown to the humblest official, each one

1 In France.

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will be penetrated by the sacred characterof his responsibility and of his missionwhich he is bound to fulfil in conformitywith divine law. Thus each one, in hisown way, working at his own welfare, willbecome the instrument of the generaldevelopment of the whole.

But Bahaism is not merely an idealisttheory; it is also, as we have seen, apractical instrument, made for the presentage; and as such it has to be preoccupiedwith the relationship between the differentexisting religions and the State. Thegreat principle which, in these conditions,dominates the whole question is natur-ally that of the absolute separation ofthe two domains—the spiritual from thetemporal.

As long as the ancient religions and

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their clergy exist, the priest must neverunder any pretext be occupied in politics,and the State must never meddle withreligious questions.

“I swear to you before God! it is notof your kingdoms we wish to dispose, butwe have come to dispose of your hearts:most certainly this is the aim of Bahā,”1this is written in the Kitābu’l-Aqdas, theMost Holy Book, which is consideredas the principal work of Bahā’u’llāh.The governments, therefore, could in noway fear the influence of Bahaism, whichcannot, by its very principles, becomethe doctrine of a political party. In amore recent work entitled “Politics,”, andwritten specially for the East, ‘Abdu’l-Bahā, explaining the history of Turkey

1 Kitābu’l-AĀqdas, p. 30 (Bombay edition).

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and Persia, shows how all the misfortuneswhich, in the course of the last century,have weighed upon these two countries,have always had as the initiatory causethe unjustifiable interference of thepriests in the political affairs of thecountry. He points out how the ad-ministration of a government penetratedby a sense of its duties is as necessary fora country as the moral direction which itderives from the religious idea, and howthat the two authorities should under nopretext whatsoever encroach on oneanother’s prerogatives.

Kings and ministers of State have asupreme mission here below, entitlingthem to the respect and devotion of theirsubjects. They are the “Day-springs ofthe Power and Dawning-places of the

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Authority of God.”1 That is to say, thatin them is manifested to men one of theDivine Attributes—power. In virtueof this, as trustees of this attribute, theyhave a right to the obedience of theirsubjects; but this divine right, in someway, which justifies their high position,equally imposes upon them sacred duties.

In order to be obeyed they shouldgovern with equity: but it is especiallytheir mission to establish on earth theUniversal Peace, that Peace whichBahā’u’llāh came to give to the heart ofMan.

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Tablet of Ishrāqāt, p. 34 (Chicago, 1908).

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UNIVERSAL PEACE

THERE are two means of attaining this:by the adoption of an internationallanguage, and the creation of tribunalsof arbitration to regulate difficultiespending between nations.

In the Kitābu’l-AĀqdas as well as in anumber of his earlier and later writings,Bahā’u’llāh exhorts the ministers ofState to come to an agreement as to theemployment of a universal language andwriting, either by choosing one fromamongst those already existing, or else bycreating one artificially. By this means,international relations being facilitated,people will learn to know one another

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better, and consequently to love oneanother.

The institution of tribunals of arbitra-tion to suppress the causes which deter-minate war between nations, is con-nected with the prerogatives of a specialCouncil called Baītu’l-‘Adl, or House ofJustice, about which we shall speak lateron.

However, it is important to note that—long before these ideas had taken formamongst us, long before the protagonistsof the international auxiliary languagehad recruited adepts from amongst allcivilised nations, more than twenty yearsbefore the Czar had thought of assemblingthe first Hague Conference, at a time whenthe Bāb himself had sometimes excusedthe use of arms for the propagation of

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religion—Bahā’u’llāh had made thesehigh principles the one basis of his dis-pensation.

“We have commanded the Most GreatPeace, which is the greatest means forthe protection of mankind. The rulersof the world must, in one accord, adhereto this command which is the main causefor the tranquillity and security of theworld.”1

The Bahais have carried obedience tothis principle so far—remembering thattheir Prophet had said: “It is better foryou to be killed than to kill”—that thefanatical population of Persia, excited byits Mullās, has been able at different timesduring the last few years, to make odiousattacks against them, without their even

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Tablet of Ishrāqāt, p. 34.

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wishing to take up arms in self-defence,although often they had a numericaladvantage. It is alone this attitude ofthe Bahais which has put an end to theterrible religious wars which up to 1852stained Persia with blood.

This universal peace has besides beenthe aim of Bahā’u’llāh all his life; heincessantly returns to this point:

“… That all nations should becomeone in faith and all men as brothers;that the bonds of affection and unitybetween the sons of men should bestrengthened; … what harm is therein this? … Yet so it shall be; thesefruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shallpass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’shall come. …”1

1 Cp. E. G. Browne, A Traveller’s Narrative, p. 40.

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Thus he spoke in the month of April1890, two years before his death, toProfessor E. G. Browne of CambridgeUniversity, who had come to see him inprison at ‘Akkā.

This peace between the nations is notall. It should coincide with internalpeace and prosperity, when the strugglebetween classes will cease, and when Stateadministration will be confided to com-petent agents.

“The fifth Ishrāq (effulgence) is thatgovernments must be acquainted withthe conditions (or deserts) of the officials,and must confer upon them dignity andpositions in accord with (men’s) duemeasure and merit. To have regardfor this matter is obligatory and incum-bent on every chief and ruler. Thus

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perchance, traitors shall not usurp theplace of trustworthy men, or spoilersoccupy the seat of guardians.”1

Do we not see there the essential thoughoft disregarded rule which—to the exclu-sion of every other consideration—shouldpreside over the nomination of officials?

“O people of God!—exalted be HisGlory!—Ask God to guard the sourcesof power and authority [rulers et al.]against the evil of egotism and lust, andto illumine them with the lights ofjustice and guidance.”2

Although these principles can be putinto practice in all countries, and underall rules, it appears by the perusal of thesebooks that, in Bahā’u’llāh’s judgment

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Tablet of Ishrāqāt, p. 35.2 Words of Paradise, p. 50 (Chicago, 1906).

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the form of government best adaptedfor these conditions, to assure to nationsthe benefits of peace externally and ofprosperity internally, is a ConstitutionalMonarchy with a Representative Par-liament. Thus the advantages ofwise deliberation would be added tothose which result from responsibleauthority.

In a letter written to Queen Victoriain the early days of ‘Akkā, Bahā’u’llāhcongratulates her on her submission tothe decision of Parliament.

“Thereby the basis of the edifices ofaffairs is made firm, and the hearts ofthose who are under thy shadow (i.e.protection), both high and low, are madetranquil. But it behoves them1 to be

1 Alludes to the system of Representative Government,

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(as) trustees among the servants (ofGod), and to regard themselves asguardians over whomsoever is in all theearth.”

And farther on:

“We ask God that He will helpthe Kings to be at peace: verily He isable to do what He willeth. O assemblyof Kings! Verily we see you increasingyour expenditure every year, and placingthe burden (thereof) on your subjects:this is nought but manifest injustice.Fear ye the sighs of the oppressed and histears, and do not burden your subjectsabove that which they can bear, neitherruin them to build up your places.Choose for them that which ye choose foryourselves: thus do we expound unto

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you that which will profit you, if ye areof those who enquire.”1

1 Sūratu’l-Molūk. Cp. Journal of the Royal AsiaticSociety, vol. xxi. (New Series), pp. 969, etc.

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BAHAISM AND SOCIETY—THEBAĪTU’L-‘ADL

Those who have only known the historyof this movement through the ignorantor partial accounts of Musulman writers,have sometimes allowed it to be under-stood that the Bahai society—or ratherthe Babi society, which alone has at-tracted their investigation—has shownmarked tendencies towards communism,and, in short, is merely an anarchist sect.In the very face of the abnegation of themartyrs who, without calculation, sacrificedtheir worldly goods before shedding theirblood for the Cause; in the very face ofthe generous enthusiasm which made

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them treat as brothers those who enteredtheir ranks, calumny soon misrepresentedacts of most noble fellowship, and evenattributed to them motives that moralitycould no longer approve of.

Now, if Bahaism teaches us not to beattached to the things of this world, itinsists just as much on the legitimacyof individual property, which alone canassure the progress of societies. More-over, far from sympathising with anar-chical theories, it has always imposedupon believers, as a first duty, respect forthe laws and customs of each country.A better example of the way in whichthis essential principle is followed couldnot be given than by showing the attitudeadopted by the Bahai Musulman womenin the question of the veil. It is known

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that the Bāb himself—explaining to hisdisciples that in Muhammad’s judgmentonly the wives of the Prophet had receivedthe order to hide the face—had relievedthe believers from the painful restraint ofthe veil. Now, since Bahā’u’llāh has maderespect for customs an essential obligation,we see women in Persia, Egypt, Syria,continuing to follow a custom the suddenabandonment of which would profitlesslyrisk scandalising the population in whosemidst they live; and that, althoughpersonally they have no sympathy withan ancient custom which they find ex-ceedingly inconvenient. This detail, oflittle importance in itself, is, however,significant in as far as it denotes a spiritdiametrically opposed to anarchist ten-dencies.

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Besides, with regard to a governmentunderstanding its mission in the mannerwe have just explained, the first duty ofsubjects is the observation of the laws,and an avowed respect for establishedauthority. Thus well-regulated societiesare formed, in which executive andlegislative power combine to produceprogressively the necessary reforms;there will be no more need, then, to fearthe tyranny of autocracy, than theexcesses of demagogism.

“The third Ishrāq commands theexecuting of the laws, for this is theprimary means for the maintenance ofthe world. The Heaven of DivineWisdom is illumined and shining withtwo orbs—Consultation and Kindness.And the tent of the order of the World

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is hoisted and established on two pillars—Reward and Retribution.”1

The administration of the Bahai so-ciety is entrusted to an organ createdby Bahā’u’llāh and bearing the name ofBaītu’l-‘Adl, or House of Justice, whoseconstitution for each town is ordered bythe Kitābu’l-ĀAqdas. The rules fixingits province, the spirit which shouldpreside over its deliberations and its acts,make it the instrument essential for thepropagation of Bahai principles in theworld.

“God has imposed on every town theerection of a Baītu’l-‘Adl where men areto assemble according to the number ofBahā;2 (if they surpass this number it

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Tablet of Ishrāqāt, p. 34.2 The value of Bahā, according to the “Ābdjad” nota-tion, is 9.

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matters little). They should figure tothemselves that they are in God’spresence, and see what is invisible. Theyshould be divine agents in the casualworld, the representatives of God forthose who arc on earth, and defend forlove of God the interests of His servantsas they would defend their own.” Thusthe Kitābu’l-ĀAqdas1 expresses itself.

In each Bahai community the memberswill elect, then, a council of at least ninemembers chosen from among the worthiestof them, who will be entrusted to take inhand the social interests of the communityas well as those of individuals. Whetherit be a question of material difficultiesbetween the believers, or of interpretationon a point of doctrine, or else a question

1 Kitābu’l-ĀAqdās, loc. cit. p. 11.

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of protecting minors, and incapablepersons, it is on this council that theresponsibility will rest.

Passages regulating its prerogatives arevery numerous, and we shall see that thisterm of Baītu’l-‘Adl, in Bahā’u’llāh’sjudgment, is not only applicable to a kindof family council similar to the one ofwhich we have just spoken, but muchrather is it a generic name designatingespecially the sacred character which,in the Bahai society, all legislative andadministrative councils should assume.

“The Men of the House of Justice ofGod (Baītu’l-‘Adl) must, night and day,gaze toward that which hath been re-vealed from the horizon of the Heavenof the Supreme Pen for the training ofthe servants (people), for the upbuilding

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of countries, for the protection of menand for the preservation of (human)honour.”1

This passage, as we see, is very broad.It imposes on the Council, as its principaldepartment in the city, the care of super-intending education. The works ofBahā’u’llāh and the instructions of‘Abdu’l-Bahā cannot leave the least doubtin our minds as to the importanceattached by Bahaism to the educationquestion. Whilst religions, up to thepresent, have more or less deservedlybeen accused of being anti-educational;whilst none of them have entirelyliberated reason from the fetters of dogma,Bahaism, on the contrary, teaches thatman can only approach God, by first

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Tablet of Ishrāqāt, p. 33.

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developing his intellectual faculties,which will permit him to take his sharein the amount of knowledge acquired bypast centuries. Thus he will be able toread the “Book of Nature” and find—thanks not only to the teaching of theinspired Masters, but also to the effortof introspection—the great moral andspiritual truths which reveal the divine.Man has not justified his superior positionin the scale of nature, nor developed hisindividuality, till he has attained thisstage of his evolution. Therefore thefirst duty of parents is to give to theirchildren as complete an instruction aspossible: this duty is identical for boysor girls.

“A father is commanded to bring uphis son or daughter by science and

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letters, and all which the Tablet enjoins.Should anyone neglect what has beeninculcated, the agents of the Baītu’l-‘Adlorder him, if rich, to pay the amountnecessary for his education. Or else theexpenses devolve upon the Baītu’l-‘Adlwhich we have made a refuge for thepoor and homeless.”1

The importance attached by Bahā’u’l-lāh to the mission of educator is stillrecognised, in that the Kitābu’l-ĀAqdasranks the latter amongst the number ofthose called to receive the succession abintestato.2 He who gave us instructiongave us intellectual life: he has a right toa place in our affection and respect, a factup to the present too often disregarded;

1 Kitābu’l-ĀAqdas, loc. cit. p. 18.2 Iibid. p. 9.

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giving him hereditary rights, Bahaismcreates an innovation that future legisla-tion would do well to adopt.

‘Abdu’l-Bahā likewise constantly returnsto this point in his letters addressed to thebelievers of all countries. He especiallyinsists upon the necessity of teaching girls,not only because it is instruction alonethat will free the Eastern woman from herterrible inert condition in the Islamicharims or the Brahmanic zananas, butbecause—even in our Western countries,women too often receive an insufficientamount of instruction to be of any use inpreparing them to fulfil their duty in life.Is not the mother man’s first educator?Who will deny the influence of earlyprinciples impressed on a child’s soul lateron in life? How can we expect a more

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perfect civilisation if the half of mankindremains in the darkness of ignorance?

No one doubts, moreover, the consider-able influence that can in the future beexercised by women for the triumph ofideas which until now have come tonothing, but which are essential for theprogress of societies. The majority ofsociologists recognise the fact that thestruggle against war, alcoholism, indiffer-ent labour organisation, and in general allthe misfortunes which decimate humanity,will only bear fruit when women will beprepared for combat.

Is it necessary to state that it is not onlya question of instruction properly so-called,and that it could not suffice to inculcatethe child with the most diverse notions ofall sciences within his reach? We must

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especially form his morals, teach him toknow his own mind, to be conscious ofhimself and of his dignity, show him howthe development of society is intimatelybound up with his own personal develop-ment, for he is merely a link in the infinitechain of creation. Too often the shocksthat agitate humanity, hindering it in theway of progress, are only brought aboutby this want of moral education whichprevents man from turning to account theknowledge he has acquired without beingable to assimilate it correctly. Thus newscientific discoveries, modifying the condi-tions of existence, when mentalities haveremained at the same point, sometimesproduce painful social disturbances. Itwill specially be the religious side of in-struction—without which, it would risk

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being entirely corrupted—which willremedy this state of things.

“Schools must first train the childrenin the principles of Religion, so that thePromise and the Threat, recorded in theBooks of God, may prevent them fromthe things forbidden and adorn them withthe mantle of the commandments;: butthis in such a measure that it may notinjure the children by resulting in ignorantfanaticism and bigotry.”1

There is no fear of such a prescription,emanating from such an authority, everrunning the risk of being disregarded; orof generations instructed in Bahaism everfalling into fanatical excesses. Besides,

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Words of Paradise, p. 53. Childrenshould be taught the meaning of scriptural allegories sothat they should not become fanatics.

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the Bahai communities of the East havealready, on several occasions, given proofof their moderation and liberalism.

The principal function of the Baītu’l-‘Adl, after the superintendence of educa-tion, is the protection of minors and ofthe incapable, as well as the directing ofworks of assistance.

“We exhort the men [members] of theHouse of Justice, and command them toguard and protect the servants, maidservants and children. They must underall circumstances, have regard for theinterests of the servants. Blessed is theprince who succours a captive, the rich onewho favors the needy, the just man whosecures the rights of a wronged one fromthe oppressor!”1

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Words 0f Paradise, p. 55.

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This is certainly a most important pro-vince of the Baītu’l-‘Adl, and one whichperhaps shows most clearly to what extentBahā’u’llāh was conscious of the needs ofmodern society. The considerable de-velopment accomplished by humanityduring the last few centuries, from theintellectual and material standpoint, andthe almost stationary state in whichmorality has remained during the sametime, have as a first result placed thelower classes of society in a still moreprecarious condition. Hence the imperi-ous necessity of protecting, more efficaci-ously than is possible by the present laws,all categories of incapacitated people orminors.

One of the most urgent social problemsof the present day that our modern com-

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munities have to deal with, is to stem theever-increasing infantile criminality. Itwould seem that, at a time when precocitybecomes a necessity in the struggle forexistence, crime also has followed thegeneral law. Accordingly committees forpenal reform in the majority of civilisedStates are studying means for the remedyof such an order of things. The applica-tion, pure and simple, of the penal-ties of law not being recommendablein cases of criminal minors, weseem more and more to fall in withthe institution of certain councils oftutelage, charged with withdrawing thechild from the centre in which it hasbecome a criminal, in order to placeit in other surroundings, such as afamily, school, institution or patronage,

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where under the supervision of theseCouncils he will be educated and enduedwith the sense of restraint until the day heis capable of self-government and socialduties.

This role is imparted to the Baītu’l-‘Adl,agent of the society in its educativemission, responsible for the protection ofthe community against the enemies ofsociety. In order to satisfy justice it isnot sufficient, in fact, to absolve as irre-sponsible those individuals who have beenled to crime through youth, hereditarydefects, or the influence of surroundings.Evil must be prevented in every possibleway by quite a series of cautionary insti-tutions. This is what ‘Abdu’l-Bahāindicated so clearly in one of his conversa-tions collected by Laura Clifford Barney

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in the book we mentioned at the beginningof these pages.1

After what we have just seen, it isclear that in the future civilisation, whenBahai ideas will have been universallyaccepted, the function of the Baītu’l-‘Adl,which is a kind of family council in thecommunity, will have under its controlalmost the whole administration of thecity, and that naturally it will take theplace of our municipal councils. Wecannot doubt, as we said above, that suchhas indeed been Bahā’u’llāh’s intention.Further, in other passages of his works heclearly aims, not only at a municipalBaītu’l-‘Adl, but also at a legislativeBaītu’l-‘Adl sitting as a national parlia-ment, and especially at an international

1 Some Answered Questions, loc. cit. ch. lxxvii.

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Baītu’l-‘Adl acting as a tribunal ofarbitration. It is thus that in con-currence with the ministers of State theBaītu’l-‘Adl should be preoccupied withthe adoption of a universal language.

Further, “The affairs of the people arein charge of the Men of the Baītu’l-‘Adl.They are the trustees of God among Hisservants and the sources of command inHis countries. O people of God, the trainerof the world is Justice, for it consistsof two pillars, Reward and Retribution.These two pillars are two fountains for thelife of the people of the world. Inasmuchas for each day and time a particular decreeor order is expedient, affairs are thereforeentrusted to the Baītu’l-‘Adl so that itmay execute that which it deems advis-able at the time. Administrative affairs

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are all in charge of the Baītu’l-‘Adl, andreligious questions depend upon that whichhas been revealed in the Book.”1

The few passages we have just quotedserve to show all the importance that theBaītu’l-‘Adl will have in the Bahai city.The Kitābu’l-ĀAqdas likewise establisheswhat the financial resources will be whichwill permit it to accomplish its task.2Besides what voluntary donations it mayreceive, one of its revenues will consist inthe property of those that die intestateand have no legal inheritors. The Bahaisystem of succession is characterised by apartition of the inheritance amongst theheirs, descendants and collaterals, an-cestors and spouse, according to a fixed

1 Bahā’u’llāh. Tablet of Ishrāqāt, p. 37.2 Cp. Kitābu’l-ĀAqdas, loc. cit. p. 9;

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proportion. When the de cujus dies with-out leaving a successor in one of thehereditary categories, the share of themissing successor goes by right to theBaītu’l-‘Adl, which likewise receives suc-cessions by escheat. This will constitutean important part of the receipts, to whichwill be added—let us hope in a very modestproportion in a society founded on suchprinciples—the product of fines, as wellas a tax, paid once for all by each in-dividual, of one-ninth of his capital, as hispersonal contribution to the expensesof the society.1

There is another power, too, which,without assuming the official character ofthe power of the Government, or of theBaītu’l-‘Adl, has none the less acquired

1 Each increase of capital is naturally subject to this tax.

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considerable influence in almost all Easterncountries, and, until lately, completelyunsuspected. I wish to speak of the Press,which began by being merely a reflectionof public opinion, but which soon becameone of the most important factors of itsformation. Successive events for someyears in different Eastern countries bearwitness to its influence, it being the samein all latitudes. Bahā’u’llāh could not helpbeing preoccupied with such a power.At a glance he recognised all the harm thatthe Press could cause if not uniquely em-ployed in the service of truth. When themasses are more anxious to find ready-made opinions than to take the troubleof forming their own, they are nearlyalways incapable of distinguishing themark of sincerity. The Press—which gives

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to all the news of the whole world, whichspreads ideas and discoveries, which per-mits the interchange of thoughts betweensocieties which are not in contact—wouldbe a marvellous instrument of civilisationand union if its members could understandthe elevated character of their mission.

“But it behoveth the writers thereofto be sanctified from the prejudice ofegotism and desire and to be adorned withthe ornament of Equity and Justice; theymust inquire into matters as much aspossible, in order that they may be in-formed of the real facts, and commit thesame to writing.”1

A Press, following a similar method,would be the most active agent of theunion between nations. Far from exciting

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Tablet of Tarāzāt, p. 11.

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them against one another so as to servesome unknown obscure policy of privateinterests, it would contribute with all itsmight to the establishment of friendly in-ternational relations. It would adopt theexhortation of the Words of Paradise:

“Gaze unto Oneness, and hold fast untothe means which conduce to the tran-quillity and security of the people of thewhole world. This span-wide world is butone native land and one locality. … Tothe people of Bahā glory is in knowledge,good deeds, good morals and wisdom—notin native land or station.”1

When societies will have become imbuedwith these principles, Bahaism will tri-umph: its one aim being to bring such re-forms into the world. Not asking from its

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Words of Paradise, p. 52.

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adepts any solemn conversion, it can onlyprove the growth of its numbers by seeingits ideas spread more and more, and thatwhich was the Utopia of yesterday becomethe reality of to-morrow. Thus new rela-tions will be daily established between thenations; commercial interchange will bemultiplied; the savants of each countrywill truly collaborate with their colleaguesin other countries, and communicate morefreely their discoveries, and new inventionswill no longer be used to perfect instru-ments of destruction. A better distribu-tion of natural forces will allow each Stateto turn all its riches to account, and covet-ous and unfair competition will be replacedby fruitful emulation, under the protectionof a peace that will no longer be troubledby risk of war.

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BAHAISM AND THE INDIVIDUAL

LET us now examine the influence Ba-haism can have on the individual in hispersonal life: for it is only through indi-vidual progress that we can hope to seethe accomplishment of the progress ofsocieties.

First of all, what will be the religiousattitude of a Bahai? In order to replyfully to this question, perhaps it would benecessary to examine successively whatmight be the religious conceptions of aChristian, Muhammadan, Buddhist, etc.,of a Free-Thinker even, when an adeptof one of these different beliefs acceptsBahaism. But that would lead us to

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quite a series of theological digressionsoutside the restricted limits of this study.It will suffice to state that each of theseindividuals, penetrated by this broadspirit of tolerance which characterisesBahā’u’llāh’s doctrine, will see in it thecontemporary form of the religious idea.Keeping as much of his original belief aswill agree with his broadened conception,he will take exact account of the placereligion should fill in his life. No longerhaving the observance of liturgical ex-ercises to rouse his negligence, or tosatisfy his intimate aspirations, he willunderstand that all the acts of his lifeshould express his high conceptions of thedivine and tend to realise it in himself.Action will become his prayer; for thebest way to make the infinite which is

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in us rise to the Infinite which rules andsurrounds us, is to communicate with it,and still more to work, endeavouring toact in no way contrary to the physical andmoral harmony of the universe.

Bahaism, in fact, teaches us that, farfrom seeking to renounce this world andto withdraw into a spiritual domainwhere all material preoccupations areentirely suppressed, it is here below thatwe should develop, so as to attain to ahigher spiritual condition. Our subse-quent growth depends on the way we haveprofited by the time passed on this earth;and as on this material earth we arephysical beings as well as spiritual ones,it is by the appropriate use of all ourfaculties that we shall accomplish theperfecting of our soul. The mistake of

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Buddhists in their deceptive and depress-ing Nirvana; of Musulmans resigned tosterile fatalism; of Christians themselvesin their contempt for the comforts of thisworld; of all those, in short, that thehope of a happier future hinders from re-cognising the beauties of the present, is notto have seen what a wonderful instrumentof spiritual progress this material world is.Thus we have created arbitrary distinc-tions instead of realising that everythingis divine, that spirit and matter are onlyseparated from one another by our in-ability to seize simultaneously the twodifferent aspects of one and the same thing,and that by voluntarily depriving our-selves of quite a category of phenomena webut delay the progress of our develop-ment.

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Consequently, if it is well to beable to repress the demands of certainof our instincts; if it is sometimes use-ful in solitude to seek after conditionsfor the development of our mentaland spiritual faculties, it is dependenton our wish to place, in a practicalway, in this very world we live in, thestrength thus acquired in the service ofour own progress and that of our fellow-creatures. The mystic exaggerations ofthe yoghis, sufis, or monks are alikefatal.

“A solitary life and severe disciplinedo not meet (God’s) approval. The pos-sessors of perception and knowledge shouldlook unto the means which are conduciveto joy and fragrance. Such practicescome forth and proceed from the loins of

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superstition and the womb of fancy, andare not worthy the people of knowledge.… Deprive not yourself of that whichis created for you.”1

More recently, in this same order ofideas, ‘Abdu’l-Bahā, writing to a Westernbeliever, showed him that Bahaism is areligion of healthy and joyful life, amorality based on activity; and not adogma of contrition, a sterile doctrineof renouncement: “We were made to behappy and not sad; for joy, not forsorrow. Happiness is life; sadness isdeath; spiritual happiness is eternal life!It is a light that the night does notextinguish; it is an honour that shamedoes not follow, an existence which is notresolved into annihilation! For happi-

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Words of Paradise, p. 56.

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ness the worlds and contingent beingshave been created!”

To attain this happiness, it goes withoutsaying it is not sufficient to give satisfac-tion to the plenitude of one’s desires:man would too often risk being guided byhis less noble instincts. Into whateversphere his faculties, tastes, thoughts,reason lead him, he ought to be especiallyengrossed in placing his activity in theservice of what is high and generous inhis being, and so contribute with all hismight to the general harmony of theworld. That is the religious life whichgives happiness, not in the retreat of ahermitage, but in the fruitful agitationof the world. There is the life indicatedto us by reason, conscious of its place inthe universe!

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“Religion,” says Bahā’u’llāh, “is thegreatest instrument for the order of theworld and the tranquillity of all existentbeings.” And a little after he says:“The greatest gift and the highest bless-ing, is Wisdom. It is the protector ofExistence, and its support and helper.Wisdom is the Messenger of the MercifulOne, and the Manifestation of the (Divine)Name, the ‘All-Wise’,”1 thus indicatingthat our legitimate aspirations towardsthat which some call the Unknowableshould always remain under the controlof reason; in short, preventing man beingled by his faith into a domain where hisreason could no longer follow it.

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Words 0f Paradise, pp. 49 and 51.

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PATRIOTISM

WE said above that the two pillars onwhich Bahai sociology repose were Loveand Work. We have likewise seen howthis love is first manifested in the re-lations that the Bahai ought to maintainwith different people, to whatever raceor sect they may belong. This naturallyleads us to examine what place the ideaof fatherland holds in the doctrine ofBahā’u’llāh.

Up to now, few ideas have been morefruitful in generous acts, more sublimein self-sacrifice; but, I fear, few also areresponsible for so much blind fanaticismand fratricidal struggles. As, alas! too

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often is the case, generous ideas ofthe masses sometimes become, amongstunscrupulous individuals or interestedminorities, too easy an instrument for thesatisfaction of personal aims. So, in theTablet of Ishrāqāt we find: “The mostsplendid fruit of the Tree of Knowledgeis this exalted Word: Ye are all fruits ofone tree and leaves of one branch.Glory is not his who loves his owncountry, but glory is his who loves hiskind.”1

What does this mean, if not that it isnot sufficient to have this love of one’scountry, which is instinctively in the heartof every man? to feel imperiously theneed of defending one’s native land againstthe dangers that may menace it, and

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Tablet of Ishrāqāt, p. 36.

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which, in short, is but one of the in-stinctive forms of self-preservation?Man worthy of the name ought to gofurther: he should feel a similar lovefor the whole world. It does by nomeans follow that because of thatfeeling he should be treated as anunnatural son. Is there no distinctionbetween internationalism and anti-patriotism? To love your village morethan your home, your country more thanyour village, and the whole world morethan your country, does not mean thatyou do not love your home. But thislove of home, so natural that it can besaid to be common both to man and beast,should produce, with a respect for one’sneighbour’s home, as sincere a sympathyfor his fatherland. Ready to welcome

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all our brothers in our home, we shouldmutually lose those prejudices whichmake us feel as strangers with them.And we should arrive at considering thewhole world as our common fatherland,which has been submitted to temporaryand artificial divisions on account of thedifficulties arising from the means of com-munication, and the still more precariouscharacter of our particular civilisations.Thus the love of the fatherland will loseits violent and hostile character, and willonly tend to develop the possibilities ofeach nation, the integral part of the GreatUniversal Fatherland.

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WORK

If Bahaism gives a large share to thesentimental side of human nature, becauseof that it does not neglect the practicalside, and for this reason its kingdom isindeed of this world.

“O my servant! The lowest of men arethose who bear no fruit upon the earth;they are indeed counted as dead. …The best of people are they who gain bywork, and spend for themselves and theirkind in the Love of God, the Lord of thecreatures.”1

Besides, in the Kitābu’l-ĀAqdas, each

1 Cp. Bahā’u’llāh, Hidden Words, p. 56 (Chicago,1905)

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one is commanded to exercise a profession,an art, a trade, from which he will derivehis means of existence and which willpermit him to utilise all his faculties forhis own welfare and that of others. Idle-ness, in all classes of society and in alllatitudes, is the generator of miseries.

Bahaism does not permit the priesthoodto be classed amongst lucrative pro-fessions. Thus, the obligation of thepriest to exercise his activity in a practicalway, joined to the absolute interdictionto receive a salary for the practice orteaching of religion, is a radical obstacleto the eventual constitution of clergy inBahaism. It is known that the absenceof any sacerdotal hierarchy is one of thefundamental characteristics of Bahā’u’l-lāh’s religion; and this prohibition of a

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material order sanctions in a practicalway the numerous passages of his workwhere he warns his disciples against any-thing, far or near, that might resemble apriesthood.

“You are forbidden to mount thepulpit. He who wishes to sing for youthe verses of his Lord, let him be seatedin a place on the divan, and let himmention God, his Lord and the Lord ofbeings.”1

It is not necessary to urge, in order toshow to what extent this detail of organisa-tion, minimum in appearance, is im-portant through its consequences: Whatwould become of the influence of thepriests on crowds if they sat in theirranks, instead of admonishing them

1 Kitābu’l-ĀAqdas, loc. cit. p. 53.

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from the tops of their pulpits or mim-bars?

Therefore it is not only monastic lifeunder all its forms that is condemned,but also everything which, under pretextof religion, turns away man from theexercise of his natural activity. “OConcourse of priests!, lLeave the bells, thencome out from theyour Churches,” exclaimedBahā’u’llāh in the Lawhi ĀAqdas, anepistle which he wrote especially to theChristians, thus exhorting the membersof the Catholic clergy to mix more com-pletely in life, not to take refuge incelibacy, sheltered from the difficultiesand charges which are incumbent onother men. On this condition only theycan in verity be pastors, otherwise theywould prohibit to themselves for ever the

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most beautiful and the most efficaciouspredication, that of example.

We have just seen that Bahaism re-commends man to use his activity onlucrative work from which he will derivehis means of existence. Consequentlyit is clear that he proclaims as legitimateprivate property, acquired fortune.

“After man has realised his own beingand become mature, then for him wealthis needed. If this wealth is acquiredthrough a craft and profession, it isapprovable and worthy of praise to menof wisdom, especially to those servants(i.e. men) who arise to train the worldand beautify the souls of nations.”1

No place is there, then, for certain

1 Bahā’u’llāh, Tablet of Tarāzāt, p. 5 (Chicago1906),

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collectivist or communist theories, somuch the fashion in our day, which mayappear fascinating to Utopian minds butwhich are especially destructive of allindividual initiative, and consequentlyof all progress. It is always by favour-ing that which contributes to individualdevelopment that Bahaism intends toimprove society.

The tax of one-ninth on capital, ofwhich we have already spoken, andwhich represents the contributory part ofeach in the social charges, will alwayshinder a too large fortune from beingmade by private people, without profitfor the masses, for every increase ofcapital is submitted to it.

To decree the socialisation of instru-ments of production, to limit the profits

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of capital, to regulate the participationof work in these same profits, all thesedifferent measures can have their merit.But that does not suffice. Socialismcannot only be imposed by law, it mustcome from the heart. Otherwise, ifsociety as a whole is not ready to abandonancient ways, supposing even that suchmeasures could not be evaded by thosethat they inconvenience, who does notsee that those measures would risk endingin a dispossession of the minority withoutprofit for the whole, and in precipitatingsociety in disorder?

It is not from disorder that the Bahais—contrary to certain enlightenedtheorists—expect progress, but fromthe conscious and continued exercise oflove and brotherhood.

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“O children of Dust, Let the rich learnthe midnight sighing of the poor, lestnegligence destroy them and they be de-prived of their portion of the tree ofwealth.” “O ye who are wealthy onearth, the poor among ye are my trust,therefore guard my trust, and be notwholly occupied with your own ease.”1

For years ‘Abdu’l-Bahā has unceasinglyexhorted his compatriots to practise sucha philanthropy. Long before ideas ofliberty had assumed in Persia the solidform that has ended in the present evolu-tion, which, in spite of the difficulties andhesitations of the period of commence-ment, is about to regenerate the country,he indicated to his disciples all that theycould expect from the application of the

1 Cp: Bahā’u’llāh, Hidden Words, pp. 42 and 45.

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system of association. Dissuading themfrom mixing themselves up in politicalstruggles which should only attract thosewho through their professions or studieshave acquired the necessary competency,he persuaded them, on the contrary—by forming provident societies, societiesof scientific research, assemblies forethical culture—to group their effortstogether with a view to realising improve-ments depending solely on themselves;in short, to put their activity intoquestions where private initiative canand ought to show the way to the State.

Thus is explained the apparentlypassive role played by the Bahais in con-temporary events in Persia and Turkey.But if they have abstained from takingpart in the agitations which have

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troubled public order, who does not seethat the changes about to be accom-plished are due to the slow infiltration ofthe liberal and progressive ideas repre-sented by their doctrine?

A subject so vast as the one we havejust treated so cursorily, since it em-braces the whole field of human activity,would have required, we are aware, amore ample development. In this rapidsketch we have merely wished to indicatethe universal character of the Bahaireligion and morality, and to point outthat it is indeed a practical religion, amanner of life applicable to every en-vironment, and the best, we believe, for

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the development and progress of theindividual and of society.

The end of the reign of dogma opensup that of human reason. It is no longerin the secrecy of deserted sanctuariesthat man goes to sound the EternalMystery: every day science throws itstorch farther into the domain of nature,from which even the supernatural is notexcluded, and in this respect the laboratoryhas replaced the Church. But religionalways remains the most solid and mostnecessary basis of all social organisa-tions, and the only possible bond betweensocieties. In order to fulfil its aim itcannot remain stereotyped in its earliestform: it must evolve concurrently withthe progress of humanity, of which it is,moreover, the efficacious mainspring.

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If the different religious ceremonies, whichare nearly all that exist of the ancientreligions, then must fall into disuse; ifno creed can any longer be imposed, itis all the more important that our actions,by their morality, come more and moreup to the ideal of beauty about which weall agree. The more and more we under-stand that in order to really live, we mustendeavour with all our might to servethe divine work of the universe!

Bahaism shows each one the way hemust follow to attain this end. Thus isexplained its rapid progress accomplishedin the world, as well as the fact that, to allthose who study it closely, it appears asthe synthesis of their highest aspirations.

THE END

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