# A Baha'i Pontiff in the Making

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: A. E. Suthers, A Baha'i Pontiff in the Making, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> A Baha'i Pontiff in the Making
> 
> A. E. Suthers
> 
> published in The Moslem World25, pp. 27-35
> 
> 1935-01
> 
> [page 27]
> 
> The coming of an Imam or Mahdi is the living hope of Islam. Ever since the fateful battle of
> Kerbela (680) which witnessed the defeat of the grandson of the Prophet by the hosts of the
> orthodox, and the annihilation of his gallant but ill-starred band, the febrile imagination of
> many sections of the Islamic world has kindled to the expectation of one to come, a sort of
> returning Elijah, under whose divine guidance the faith would be reformed toward a uniform and
> more or less primitive orthodoxy, and the world itself brought under the dominion of the
> Prophet. The hope has been more fervent among the Shiahs, the partisans of Ali, than among the
> Sunnis.
> 
> Just how or when the belief arose is not clear. The title appears to have been given to Ali's son
> Mohammed, but there is little ground for supposing that the prophet himself contemplated the
> appearance of a Mahdi, notwithstanding the fact that prophecies of such a personage were
> afterwards attributed to him. Unquestionably it is the expression of a deep-rooted desire of the
> human heart, not peculiar to Islam alone, but to be found among other religions of the world,
> breaking out in different ages and among different peoples, now as a Messianic hope, now as an
> Adventist doctrine, and anon as a theory of incantations or avatars. It must be
> remembered too, that this foundling faith with its infancy was rocked in the cradle of
> Christianity by the hand of Judaism, and in its adolescence it both wooed and fought with amazing
> audacity now one, now the other. Geographical propinquity meant constant commercial contacts,
> as the Persian Gulf-Palmyra-Tyre and the Red Sea-Mecca-Tyre caravan routes attest. "The
> history of earliest commerce is the history of incense, and the land of incense was Arabia." And
> commercial contact of any dura-
> 
> [page 28]
> 
> tion at all always means cultural contagion. It would be strange if this hope, which at times beat
> so ardently in the breasts of neighbor-Jew and neighbor-Christian, had not found a response in
> the heart of the Moslem. In the third place — and perhaps this is as significant a factor as
> any — the formative era of Islam was characterized by disorder, confusion, and civil war.
> Especially was that true in respect to Persia, whose people were more conquered by the new
> faith than converted to it, and into whose tragic history was written a new chapter when the
> Abbasids unfurled their black standard in Khorasan, and the surveillance of the Omayyads
> changed to bloody suppression. There could be but one issue to this, an issue psychologically
> predictable — an undaunted confidence, if somewhat unsound, in a Deliverer to come, an
> expectation which heightened with their own weakness. To the Jew in exile, more than a
> thousand years before, the vision was familiar, to which fancy the infant Church under the
> persecution of a Nero, a Domitian, a Decius, a Diocletian also fell heir. In an apocalyptic
> atmosphere, a Messiah becomes inevitable, imperative. Between Palestine and Persia,
> however, there was a difference: with the former, the moral implications of the forces at work
> were consistently clear, and one's ethical perspective as to truth and duty was never distorted
> either by fanaticism or fear. In the history of neither Judaism nor Christianity can one
> parallel taqiyya — that ethical toboggan slide — countenanced by the Shiahs,
> and to which all the sects which have sprung from that faith have had
> recourse.[1]
> 
> With Persia steeped in Imamism and the equally heady principles of Sufism[2] it
> was only to be anticipated that aspirants would be forthcoming, who would claim in themselves
> the fulfillment of the national expectancy. Such a one was the mystic dreamer, Mirza Ali
> Mohammed, who as a young man of four and twenty declared himself to be the
> 
> __________
> 1. A study of the life of Mary Baker Eddy and of the history of the
> Christian Science movement furnishes interesting data of the encroachment of this perversion
> upon the confines of Christianity, data which suggest too its fearful moral consequences.
> 
> Taqiyya = dissimulation
> 
> 2. It will be recalled that the Ahmadiya movement of the Punjab sprang from a soil impregnated
> with Mahdism and Sufism.
> 
> [page 29]
> 
> revelation of God, himself the Primal Will, the Bab or "door" to life eternal, who was to
> supercede all previous prophets, including Jesus and Mohammed, as Babism, of which he was
> the author, was destined to eclipse Islam. He was a pathetic figure whose life was quickly cut
> short by a firing squad, but whose delusion that act failed to frighten from the public mind.
> 
> Though he claimed to be God, Mirza Mohammed yet held no revelation was final, that another
> dispensation building upon him would yet be founded — salvo jure and
> apologia for the next saviour. And unerringly he came (by a delayed and circuitous route
> but ultimately arriving) in the person of Mirza Hussayn Ali of Teheran, alias Bahá'u'lláh who,
> from the day of his "issuing forth" until his death at Akka was accorded increasing recognition
> by Babists and others, particularly visionary enthusiasts and speculative mystics as the one
> foretold, "whom God will manifest." The principle of succession was not long in resolving itself,
> and the Elisha who seized the mantle of this departing Elijah was his eldest son 'Abdu'l-Bahá,
> accepted by the faithful as the Exemplar and Interpreter of the faith now founded.
> 
> "Bahá'u'lláh ascended (i.e., passed from this world) in 1892, leaving a
> Testament naming 'Abdu'l-Bahá as the Head of His Cause, the Interpreter of His Teachings
> and the Promulgator of His Faith. The providential spirit guiding and protecting the Bahá'í
> cause from its beginning, centered thereafter in 'Abdu'l-Bahá."
> 
> So runs the record.[3] This last-named leader "served as the witness and proof of
> Bahá'u'lláh," unifying the followers and organising the faith into a system, albeit not a very
> lucid or original one, and "exploring the fundamental problems of religion" before audiences in
> America and Europe in an accommodating and reconciliatory fashion. As for the Scriptures that
> wrote themselves off from his pen we are assured that
> 
> "no such source of education in the whole meaning of the word exists in the
> modern world outside the writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. In these writings the ideals of Christian,
> Jew, and other religionists,
> 
> __________
> 3. The Bahá'í World, 1926-1928, p. 5
> 
> [page 30]
> 
> of philosopher and scientist, of economist and reformer are abundantly
> realised."
> 
> Time passed, and with it 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who died November 28, 1921, after committing the
> future of the Cause to his eldest grandson Shoghi Effendi.[4]
> 
> It was Sunday noon when the automobile from Jerusalem halted its dusty trail in the heart of
> Haifa. A hotel, a bath, a lunch, and I was ready for a stroll. Knowing something of the
> significance of Haifa to the Bahá'ísts, my steps turned to the little Persian colony grouped near
> the home of the leader of the sect. The Guardian of the Cause was engaged, I was told, and would
> see me later, say, in an hour. In the meantime, would I like to visit some of the sacred places at
> hand? It was his secretary and cousin who was speaking. I would, and so together we set out up
> the slope of Carmel to the garden-tomb of the Bab (executed in Tabriz in 1850, but later
> exhumed and re-interred, so his followers asservate, at Haifa), and of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The place
> was undeniably beautiful, from the height of which one could view the long street stretching off
> across the German colony, glittering white in the Mediterranean sunlight, and beyond the blue
> waters of the Bay.
> 
> The conversation was casual, but a little sifting elicited the statement from my companion that
> he was a graduate of the American University of Beirut and had studied, principally Economics
> and Law, at the University of London.
> 
> The slow progress of the faith discouraged him.
> 
> "We find youth to be not interested at present in true religion (i.e., Bahá'ísm). It is a
> discouraging aspect of the age. Our youth today are making two blunders: they think it
> necessary to imitate the West in everything, and believing the West to be unspiritual they think
> it fitting to become irreligious to be in fashion."
> 
> __________
> 4. According to the will of Bahá'u'lláh, a younger son Mohammed Ali
> was to succeed 'Abdu'l-Bahá, but the last-named disregarded this provision and appointed his
> own grandson, then twenty-five years of age. Mohammed Ali did not appear to have the influence
> behind him to contest the nomination.
> 
> [page 31]
> 
> But there was nothing, I was assured, to prevent a man from being a Moslem and a Bahá'íst at the
> same time "provided he accepts the status of Bahá'u'lláh as the divine Son of God and the fullest
> and final revelation of God" - rather high for an initial hurdle, I thought. Evidently,
> notwithstanding profuse professions of catholicity and tolerance there was encysted in the faith
> the seed of bigotry.
> 
> He had said he had been in the United States, so I enquired of him what he found the attitude of the
> Christian West to be as he traveled through this land.
> 
> "I found the Unitarian Church, the Ethical Culture Society, and the liberal leaders of various
> denominations most appreciative, but the more orthodox bodies very unsympathetic. With the
> Roman Church of course we had no point of contact" — naturally, I reflected, since the
> leader of Bahá'ísm demanded of the Pope of Rome that the latter acknowledge his priority as the
> absolute and universal Lord of mankind. For Bahá'u'lláh, following, consciously or otherwise,
> the precedent of Mohammed, who in the flush of his success subpoenaed the potentates of Rome,
> Persia, Byzantium, and Egypt to accept his mission, issued. Likewise his mandamus to the
> Christian rulers of the earth.
> 
> We returned to the spacious home of Shoghi Effendi. He met us — a man of medium
> height, of quiet demeanor, and dressed in European attire. There seemed to be nothing markedly
> spiritual in that handsome face, and when he spoke one was more conscious of his courtesy and
> reserve than of any profundity in his utterances. To play the role of prophet, and much more to
> pose as God, is a sobering undertaking. Claim infallibility, and the dictates of discretion will
> prescribe a mystifying silence, and if to infallibility is added impeccability,[5] one
> can hardly afford to be original or enterprising.
> 
> After a few polite preliminaries, and attendant led us to a waiting automobile into which we
> entered.
> 
> __________
> 5. It is alleged by some that the Bahá'ísts of Syria are following in the
> footsteps of the Shiahs in their regard for Ali, and say that Shoghi Effendi is sinless.
> 
> [page 32]
> 
> A sea breeze laden with the odor of the ocean; ten miles of hard, smooth
> sand pounded by the white-reefed rollers to the firmness of macadam over
> which we rolled in a comfortable car — it is the road to Akka around
> the bay of Haifa. And at the end of the journey two miles beyond the
> town, the garden-tomb of Bahá'u'lláh, - red geraniums in quantity, red
> balsams by the hundreds, red coral plants (ruselia superba) and red paths
> of broken pottery set in a garden of green sward, relieved by white bushes
> of the fragrant jasmine, and the equally redolent oleander — it was a
> charming scene. Within, the tomb was a combination of hot-house and
> sanctuary. The grave of the leader, one which stood some golden-branched
> candlesticks, an urn of flowers, the gift of American adherents, and a few
> expensive and ornate vases, lay in a small chamber to the right. The main
> room was in the form of a square, perhaps thirty feet on the side with a
> large alcove at one end, adjoining the modest mausoleum designed with
> alter- effect. In one corner of the room, attached to the wall, was a
> lamp, the gift of Stuttgart believers. The centre of the room was a
> garden of green plants and trees, not flowers, about fifteen feet square,
> rendered extremely beautiful by a verdant column of trailing asparagus in
> heavy foliage which first reached to and then dropped from the roof.
> 
> From the shrine, where by this time a group of a dozen pilgrims had gathered, who bowed and
> bowed and bowed obsequiously to this youthful, western-educated, western-clad, English-
> speaking leader of the sect whenever he spoke to, looked at, or passed them by, we repaired to
> the garden of Bahá'u'lláh, where the dead promoter was wont to rest and meditate, read and
> write, after the ban of his incarceration was lifted. It too was not without its beauty, thanks to
> the assiduous care of a young Persian Zoroastrian. The garden, like the other, a blazing glory of
> red, was in reality a small island. From the central bed fifty yards in length, rose a half dozen
> giant trees like conifers, which, I was informed, had been brought as seeds from Egypt, in the
> days of Bahá'u'lláh.
> 
> [page 33]
> 
> Ultimately we returned to the car upon the beach, and speeding back to Haifa I put some
> questions to my kind host.
> 
> "You are a university man?"
> 
> "Yes, I am a graduate of the American University of Beirut, and I spent also a year and a half at
> Oxford studying political economy."
> 
> "Did you ever take up psychology?"
> 
> "No!"
> 
> "Or philosophy?"
> 
> "No! I am not interested in abstract thought."
> 
> An illuminating admission, I thought, explaining in part the paradox of his own person, that he
> could hold essentially abstract notions about divine effulgences to the extent of impersonating
> divinity without sensing either its futility or its humor. One would not expect specialization in
> political economy or, as in the case of his assistant and cousin, Ruhi Afnan, law, to be
> particularly pertinent in preparing one for a hypostalic role.[6] "Religion" he
> added, "is to be a social idea."
> 
> I asked if he did not think a full-rounded and efficacious religion should speak with confidence
> concerning sin, forgiveness, God, immortality, and was immediately assured that Bahá'ísm does
> all of that — that it differs from other faiths not in fundamental principles, for therein it
> agrees with all, but in its application of certain social laws, which were divinely revealed to
> Bahá'u'lláh, thereby placing him on a different and unique pedestal among God's prophets, as the
> last to come. This revelation he has sent down in a book in Arabic, not yet translated, "because
> the time is not yet ripe, the world is not yet ready to receive it. When it is translated, which
> will be after the economic and spiritual catastrophe foretold by Bahá'u'lláh to occur within a
> 
> __________
> 6. Not infrequently, writers on Indian affairs, brought into personal
> contact with Mahatma Gandhi confess surprise and regret that one who is presuming to
> prescribe for India's millions a new economic and political regime, should entertain a contempt
> for books, especially such as would inform him on the problems arising in those particular
> fields, and of the experience of the race in endeavoring to solve those problems. For example,
> one well-informed critic writing on M. K. Gandhi as a Factor in Indian Politics, (F.G.
> Pratt in Political India: Oxford University Press, 1932, pp.206-7), says: "His habit from
> quite an early period of his life has been to rely on what he describes as the inner light or the
> inner vision, for the solution of mental and spiritual problems€.and this manner of thinking
> has given him a supreme self-confidence which has sometimes been to him a tower of strength
> and sometimes a snare and a pitfall. He distrusted book-knowledge, so his friend Mrs. Polak
> tells us, and seemed to think that it 'obscured if it did not destroy the capacity to perceive the
> inner vision.' Of history and economics he has made no serious study. His ideas of history are
> such as might be derived from the school-books of fifty years ago."
> 
> [page 34]
> 
> hundred years, seventy of which have passed, it will revolutionize society. After that cataclysm
> Bahá'ísm will come into its own. [7]
> 
> He spoke with incredible seriousness, like one who sensed impending disaster. It was not that he
> anticipated the inevitable and evolutionary revolutions with every thoughtful student of history
> foresees, but an event more apocalyptic. Such changes as were under way he grasped at as the
> sign and seal of the soundness of Bahá'ísm. Indeed it was as if among the religions of the world,
> Bahá'ísm was the chanticleer whose crowing would cause the sun to rise upon universal ruin.
> 
> "How many Bahá'ísts would you say there are in the world?"
> 
> "We cannot say. We keep no records of membership, in the sense that the Christian Church
> does. The lines between Bahá'ísm and Christianity are not yet clearly demarked. It is sometimes
> difficult to tell who are and who are not Bahá'ísts, so much do they merge. We also find that
> many people assent to our teachings, even join our communion, but refrain from active loyalty
> to us."
> 
> "Do you ask your members to submit to any initiatory rite before you accept them?"
> 
> "No ceremony is necessary for recognition of membership,[8] nor do we observe
> any one day as peculiarly sacred. All that we insist on is the acceptance of the status of
> Bahá'u'lláh and of his infallible teachings in their entirety."
> 
> On this last point he was adamant and explicit. He reverted to it time and again.
> 
> "Is Bahá'u'lláh in your thought a divine being and as such to be worshipped?"
> 
> "We do not think of him as God, though he is divine. He is God in the sense that the mirror
> reflects the sun. We know that the sun is not in the mirror, but we know also that it is.
> Similarly Bahá'u'lláh said he was God, and as such we worship him."
> 
> "You mean you pray to him?"
> 
> "Yes. Our prayers are to him, for by him as our Mediator we come to God."
> 
> __________
> 7. The book referred to here is the Kitab-i-Aqdas (the "Most Holy
> Book") a small volume written by Bahá'u'lláh, a compendium of laws purporting to govern
> Bahá'ísm a world-empire to be. Those non-Bahá'ísts who have had the opportunity to study it
> — for the Bahá'ísts are jealous for its possession, as the conservative Muslim objects to
> the sale of the Koran to the infidel — point out its dogmatic insistence on unreserved
> acceptance of Bahá'u'lláh as the sole hope of salvation, and its Levitical character as being
> manifested, patterned, notwithstanding many changes, after the Koran, which work it abrogates
> — reason enough perhaps why they prefer it should remain untranslated.
> 
> 8. Any ceremony involving public confession of the faith would hardly be consonant with the
> practice of taqiyyah or dissimulation which Bahá'ísm endorses.
> 
> [page 35]
> 
> "Are you not afraid that with the passing years Bahá'ísm will degenerate into a cult of saint-
> worship, a form of homolatry?"
> 
> "We see the danger, and the education of our people is my great concern, to which I am devoting
> much thought."
> 
> "I wish you could dislodge from my mind the notion that Bahá'ísm at its best is but a fragment of
> the teachings of Jesus."
> 
> I said this because I was not unaware of the fact that the founder of this cult had been influenced
> by the Bible.
> 
> "It does not contradict Christianity. It only supersedes it, as a later revelation of a
> teaching more needed by this modern age," he answered impatiently.
> 
> "In what way?"
> 
> "Not in fundamentals, but in the laws to govern future society which it will promulgate"
> — hinting, I thought, at the mysterious Kitab-i-Aqdas.
> 
> I surrendered. there was not much one could say, for as far as he was concerned, the matter
> obviously was closed.
> 
> We left the beach, the beautiful beach still strewn with the prickly
> purple shells which made ancient Tyre famous for its dye, and re-entered
> the city. As we did so our conversation dropped to an exchange of
> commonplaces. what was the use of talk anyway? I was perplexed,
> depressed — at the seeming everlasting vitality of error; at the
> credulity of men. True, I reflected, it is a bubble religion, an
> evanescent phenomenon, but until it breaks, what waste of ideals, of hope,
> of faith, of precious qualities of the human spirit! Moreover its
> fraudulent character, not to mention its ill-balanced dogmatism, and its
> attenuated ethics,[9] covered o'er with the jargon of the
> social reformer, rasped my sense of decency and right. The Greek in me
> stumbled (was it, I wondered, thus with the Athenians and Paul?) as the
> unperverted pagan within fought for a hearing, blinding me momentarily to
> the pathos and - let us admit it — the beauty in Bahá'ísm's
> smouldering, questing passion.[10]
> 
> Ohio Wesleyan University A. E. SUTHERS
> 
> __________
> 9. Bahá'ísm sets its approval on polygamy. Indeed Bahá'u'lláh
> himself had two wives and a concubine. The history of the succession subsequent to his death is
> dark with conspiracy and violence. And in its sanction of the death penalty for enemies of the
> faith it goes beyond the limits of Islam.
> 
> 10. For further information see: "Bahá'ísm - its Origin, History, Teachings", by William
> McElwee Miller, New York, 1931.
> 
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> — *A Baha'i Pontiff in the Making (Used by permission of the curator)*