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THE JOURNAL OF BAHÁ’Í STUDIES La Revue des études bahá’íes/La Revista de estudios bahá’ís Volume 29, number 1-2 Spring-Summer 2019 A Publication of the Association for Bahá’í Studies–North America THE JOURNAL OF BAHÁ’Í STUDIES LA REVUE DES ÉTUDES BAHÁ’ÍES/LA REVISTA DE ESTUDIOS BAHÁ’ÍS Volume 29 Number 1 Spring-Summer 2019 Contents 3 JOHN S. HATCHER From the Editor’s Desk Still the Most Challenging Issue 7 DERIK SMITH Centering the “Pupil of the Eye”: Blackness, Modernity, and the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh 29 JOHN S. HATCHER Helen Elsie Austin 33 JOHN S. HATCHER Louis Gregory 37 CHRISTOPHER BUCK Alain Locke’s “Moral Imperatives for World Order” Revisited Poems 2 SHIRIN SABRI Pen and Ink 32 GARY HOGENSEN Viburnum Lantana - The Wayfarer Tree Illustrations 23 Helen Elsie Austin Copyright © Bahá’í International Community 33 Louis Gregory Copyright © Bahá’í International Community 65 Biographical Notes Cover: MICHÈLE JUBILEE On All Sides (watercolor and pen, 8.5” x 12”) 2 The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 29.1-2 2019 Pen and Ink SHIRIN SABRI The work begins with ink made of the lamp’s light, from dark smoke caked on glass, that clear-edged clarity drawn from bright flame; ink soot black, the paper, white. There are other tints—perhaps saffron, the sweet familiarity of her mother’s rice; henna breathed from scented hair; the tender walnut’s bitter skin (sorrow’s shade); swollen galls that blight a budding leaf—all these, ground down to prepare ink, to write. These, or heart’s blood, if there is nothing else. The pen is readied, hollowed; clogging debris reamed with a long flight feather. The pliant reed lies on the block, ready to be cut, smoothed, pared free of its old self, flexed strength revealed. The nib cries, trills across the sheet, tells of what is lost and sought, scribes upon the page a soaring line, a point, a dot. 3 pernicious attitudes were simply lying From the Editor’s low, temporarily cowed by public dis- Desk approval but just waiting for the right moment and some shift in political dis- course to re-emerge, to give voice to JOHN S. HATCHER their animus, and to demonstrate their bigotry through impassioned words and violent actions. STILL THE MOST CHALLENGING ISSUE It is reasonable to assume that what might seem to be the reawakening of When, in 1938, Shoghi Effendi em- racism is really the increased aware- phatically underscored the necessity ness of what was already extant but of resolving the problem of racism, he merely awaiting a forum—such as made it clear that he was not referring social media—to become reorganized, solely to American society, but even and a resurgent nationalism resulting more explicitly to the American Bahá’í from massive immigration to create a community: “As to racial prejudice, the wider audience for its message. In oth- corrosion of which, for well-nigh a er words, we can presume racism was century, has bitten into the fiber, and never really abolished but merely lying attacked the whole social structure low and waiting for a shift in public of American society, it should be re- sentiment. Consequently, it is clearer garded as constituting the most vital than ever that the solution to racism and challenging issue confronting the is not to ignore it—as if, starved of Bahá’í community at the present stage attention, it will go away when we of its evolution” (Advent 33–34). simply don’t talk about it and, instead, Of course, a decade or so ago we go about our lives as Bahá’ís and good might have thought that notable prog- citizens. Indeed, it becomes clear upon ress in race relations had been made, further consideration of Shoghi Effen- both among American Bahá’ís and in di’s discussion of this theme that all the wider society, and that this cau- races must give vital attention to this tion should no longer be of principal “issue of paramount importance” until concern. But in recent years with the substantive change occurs. He notes re-emergence of nationalism and rac- that “the sacrifices it must impose, ism—emboldened worldwide by con- the care and vigilance it demands, cerns about massive migrations from the moral courage and fortitude it re- countries in the grip of prolonged war quires, the tact and sympathy it neces- and chronic poverty—whatever prog- sitates, invest this problem, which the ress we might have thought we had American believers are still far from accomplished seems to have come un- having satisfactorily resolved, with an done. Or maybe much of that progress urgency and importance that cannot was merely a chimera. Perhaps these be overestimated” (Advent 34). 4 The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 29.1-2 2019 To appreciate fully his emphasis to spread about the world—thereby on this issue, we need to realize that acquiring various colors and features all other progress toward creating to adapt to Earth’s different climes— unified communities throughout the our present mandate from Bahá’u’lláh world is necessarily predicated on signifies that our coming together for the recognition that—even as con- a family reunion portends our simul- temporary science confirms—race is taneous re-emergence as a single race a distinction of perception—a social once again. construct not based on any essential And it is rather logical that this difference. It is, as it were, a virulent idea of the racial harmony of human- social fiction capable of undermining kind is not merely some poetic trope and dismantling the very fabric and symbolizing the unity derived from foundation of society. Every social mutual kindness and acceptance we and political experiment to the con- hope to attain as a global civilization. trary—whether as gross as slavery, It seems clear, rather, that as we com- as unjust as apartheid, or as subtle but mingle, intermarry, and, in time, scat- underhanded as prejudicial appropri- ter about the globe freely without the ations for healthcare, education, and present nationalistic, territorial, and other social programs—eventually tribal constraints, we will over time crumbles under the weight of its own quite literally obliterate the more ob- injustice. And why? Because spiritu- vious external distinctions that pres- al verities are not merely personal ently cause us to assign to those who and private axioms—they describe are distinct from ourselves the various the laws of reality, which, when epithets and euphemisms symbolizing violated, reap material and social “the other.” And quite possibly this consequences. blending is a beginning expression From a more encompassing per- of the apparent literalism with which spective, we can appreciate that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá prophesies that during Bahá’ís sincerely believe that this era the efflorescence of this age, “all men in human history—the Dispensation will adhere to one religion . will be of Bahá’u’lláh—will usher in the mat- blended into one race, and become a uration and subsequent unification of single people” (qtd. in Shoghi Effendi, humankind so long prophesied by pre- God Passes By 315). This same thought vious divine revelations. Consequently, is reiterated in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s prayer Bahá’ís are the vanguard tasked with that “the perilous darkness of igno- manifesting that maturity by rehears- rant prejudice may vanish through the ing the practices for establishing a light of the Sun of Truth, this drea- global framework at the personal and ry world may become illumined, this community levels. Or, in terms of the material realm may absorb the rays of anthropological theory of the human the world of spirit, these different col- race as having emerged out of Africa ors may merge into one color and the From the Editor’s Desk 5 melody of praise may rise to the king- Perhaps one of the most power- dom of Thy sanctity” (qtd. in Bahá’í ful statements about the impact of Prayers 114). racism is found in an image used by Of course, we would do well in our ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that is seemingly simple vision of this utopian prophecy to and easy to comprehend, but is packed appreciate that unity implies neither with meaning. In writing to an Afri- sameness nor, on the social level, a can-American Bahá’í, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, dystopian leveling of society where employing a metaphor He elsewhere there is no distinction of appearanc- attributes to Bahá’u’lláh, says the fol- es, capacities, skills, or other forms of lowing: “O thou who art pure in heart, differentiation, whether individually sanctified in spirit, peerless in charac- or collectively. On the contrary, there ter, beauteous in face! Thy photograph will always remain in society—howev- hath been received revealing thy phys- er spiritually advanced it may become, ical frame in the utmost grace and however intellectually enlightened and the best appearance. Thou art dark in similar in racial characteristics—the countenance and bright in character. need for an infinite variety of person- Thou art like unto the pupil of the eye alities, capacities, and interests, even if which is dark in colour, yet it is the we manage to eliminate the vast strat- fount of light and the revealer of the ification derived from circumstantial contingent world” (Selections 114). conditions of appearance, wealth, or As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá notes elsewhere, “the class. blackness of the pupil of the eye is due Even as the National Spiritual As- to its absorbing the rays of the sun, for sembly of the United States recog- if it were another colour—say, uniform- nizes that confronting racism—both ly white—it would not absorb these within and without the Bahá’í com- rays” (Some Answered Questions 49:5).

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