The Bahai Faith: Its History and Teaching, by Miller

The Baha'i Faith: Its History and Teachings Introduction When in the year 1844 A.D. a young man in the city of Shiraz in Persia announced that he had a divine mission, who would have dreamed that his golden-domed Shrine in. Haifa would one day be visited by thousands of pilgrims from many lands? And who would have been so bold as to predict that Ali Muhammad was destined to he the initiator of a movement which would spread to all parts of the earth, and would claim the allegiance of millions of people? Perhaps the young prophet himself had a vision of a glorious future for his cause, but not many of his countrymen, and no one outside of Persia, shared his dreams. Yet Ali Muhammad, better known as the Bab,(1) is now revered round the world by all those who profess allegiance to the ”Baha’i World Faith.” This remarkable movement, which began when Ali Muhammad announced that he was the Bab (Gate), was continued and developed by another man from Persia known as Baha,(2) and later as Baha’u’llah. The followers of this Faith, known as Baha’is,(2) maintain that it is the true religion for all the people of the world for this age, and will unite all races and religions in one happy family. x Baha’is have produced much attractive literature, in which they tell the story of the founding and growth of their Faith and expound its teachings. In this Introduction I wish to explain why I have under- taken to write a history of the Babi-Baha’i Movement, and I will describe some of the sources on which I have depended for my information. If the reader is not interested in this discussion, he may omit the rest of the Introduction, and begin to read Chapter I. It was a fortunate day for oriental scholarship when young Edward Browne accidentally stumbled on a copy of a French book by the Comte de Gobineau. ”One day some seven years ago,” he wrote in 1890, ”I was searching amongst the books in the University Library of Cambridge for fresh materials for an essay on the Sufi philosophy..... when my eye was caught by the title of Count Gobineau’s Reliqions ei Philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale.(3) I took down the book, glanced through it to discover whether or not it contained any account of the Sufis.” It did, and Browne took the book home to read, and was much disappointed in what he learned from it of the Sufis. But when he began to read the account of the Babi(1) movement which constituted the major part of the volume, the effect was very different. He was at once captivated by Gobineau’s story of the Bab(1) and his followers. ”To anyone,” Browne continues, ”who has already read this masterpiece of historical composition, this most perfect presentation of accurate and critical research in the form of a narrative of thrilling and sustained interest, such as one may, indeed, hope to find in the drama or the romance, but can scarcely expect from, the historian, it is needless to describe the effect which it produced on me ..... Count Gabineau’s book, then, effected in a certain sense a complete revolution in my ideas and projects.”(4) As a result of reading this book, Edward Browne determined to go to Persia and meet some of the Babis (followers of the Bab) about whom Gobineau had written so brilliantly, in order to learn more about this Fascinating movement. He finally succeeded in 1887 xi in finding a way to travel to this land, which today is known by its true name Iran,(5) the land in which the Bab had lived and died, associating intimately with people who were able to give him the information and the books which he so eagerly sought. After a year he returned to Cambridge University where he became Lectures in Persian, and. there he wrote and published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society two lengthy articles on The Babis of Persia.(6) He also wrote the book, A Year Amongst the Persians,(7) which is a mine of most interesting and valuable information. Thus began Browne’s deep and sympathetic interest in the Babi movement, which continued to the end of his life, and which made him the outstanding authority on the movement among English scholars, if not among all western orientalists. Much of the history of this movement would have been irretrievably lost except for the painstaking and scholarly researches of Edward G. Browne. However, Professor Browne did not undertake to write a formal history of the movement, though no ane could have done this better than he. Instead, the results of his researches were recorded chiefly in his introductions to the books which he translated from Arabic and Persian into English, and in the copious footnotes and lengthy appendices full of most valuable information which he added to the translations, and in articles in the J.R.A.S. of which he contributed a number.(8) most of these writings are now out of print, or are unavailable to many readers. Hence, it is for the purpose of presenting in a concise and orderly fashion the facts which have been established by Browne and other trustworthy scholars that this book is being written. When the Cambridge scholar arrived in Iran in 1887 he soon discovered that the situation was quite different from what he had thought it to be. As he says, (9) ”My researches among the Babis....revealed to me the fact that since Count Gobineau composed his work great changes had taken place in their organization and attitude. I had expected to find Mirza(10) Yahya Subh-i-Azal …… universally acknowledged by them as the xii Bab’s successor and the sole head to whom they confessed allegiance. My surprise was great when I discovered that so far from this being the case, the majority of the Babis spoke only of Baha(2) as their chief and prophet; asserted that the Bah was merely his herald and forerunner...; and either entirely ignored or strangely disparaged Mirza Yahya. It took me some time fully to grasp this new and unexpected position of affairs...” These followers of Baha called themselves not Babis but Baha’is.(2) Browne’s admiration for Gobineau’s hook rightly remained unabated, for the Comte de Gobineau had a unique opportunity to give a correct account of the beginnings of the Babi movement. He was in the French diplomatic service in Teheran(11) from 1855 to 185B, and again from 1861 to 1863, first as a secretary and later as minister. He came to Iran only five years after the Bab had been put to death in Tabriz, and he was therefore able to secure much first-hand information regarding him and his followers. Added to a thorough knowledge of Persian and Arabic, the Comte de Gobineau possessed a remarkable understanding of the character and beliefs of the Iranians in general and of the Babis in particular. His sympathetic interest in the Bab led him to view the whole movement in the most favourable light possible. Gobineau’s book, as Browne says,(12) ”though largely based on the Lisanu’1-Nulk’s account of the Babi movement,(13) embodies also many statements derived from Babi sources....The work in question must ever remain a classic and indeed unapproached in the subject whereof it treats.” when Browne returned to England in 1888 he took with him a Babi book in manuscript entitled Tarikh-i-Jadid (The New History). This book, as he later discovered, was written in 1880 by Mirza Husayn of Hamadan with the assistance of several other Baha’i scholars. In the New History there were numerous references to an earlier work by Mirza Jani from which Mirza Husayn had derived much of his material. But when Browne made inguiries in Iran as to Mirza Jani’s history he was unable to find a copy or to xiii obtain any information whatever regarding this hook. It seemed that it had entirely disappeared and been forgotten. So he set to work to translate the New History in preparation for publication. He was surprised and puzzled, however, by the failure of the book to give any account of Subh-i-Azal, who, according to Gobineau, was the universally recognised successor to the Bab, and on the other hand by the importance accorded to Baha, the half-brother of Subh-i-Azal. When he made inquiries of the Baha’is they either professed total ignorance of Subh-i-Azal, or made derogatory remarks about him. Then a mast fortunate discovery made by Professor Browne in 1892 threw light on the problem. In the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris he found a copy of the lost history written by Mirza Jani, entitled the Nuqtatu’l-Kaf!’ This manuscript was one of the Babi books brought back from Iran by the Comte de Gobineau and sold at auction after his death. Browne eagerly compared this book with the New History, a nd discovered that while the New History embodied a great deal of what Mirza Jani had written in his history, a considerable amount of the material in the older history had been either changed or omitted by the authors of the New History. For example, while Mirza Jani gave a full account of the appointment of Subh-i-Azal by the Bab as his successor, and a detailed explanation of the exalted position which he occupied, one of equality with the Bab, the author of the New History omitted all this, and portrayed Baha as the greater person.(14) Hence, when Browne published his translation of the New History in 1893,(15) he included in it as an Appendix the most important passages of the Nuqtatu’l-Kaf which had been omitted or altered in the New History.(16) Why was this done? ”The earliest, fullest and most interesting history of the Bab and his immediate disciples....was almost completely suppressed,”(17) wrote Browne,(18) ”because it reflected the opinion which prevailed immediately after the Bab’s martyrdom that his successor was Mirza Yahya Subh-i-Azal, and thus came into conflict with the Baha’i contention which arose ten or fifteen year later, and a recension xiv of it was prepared (known as ’the New History! ..) in which all references to Subh-i-Azal were eliminated or altered, and other features regarded as undesirable were suppressed or modified.” For an explanation of the events which occasioned the suppression of Mirza Jani’s history the reader is referred to Chapters V and VI.

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