# A Love of Iran

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

---

> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Iraj Ghanooni, A Love of Iran, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> A Love of Iran
> 
> Iraj Ghanooni1
> Translated by Naeem Nabiliakbar and Adib Masumian 2
> 
> What is a homeland? Our homeland is the first predetermined fact of our reality—a purely
> involuntary aspect of our existence that serves nonetheless as the basis of our voluntary and
> intentional actions. It is from our homeland that we turn to every other place in the world,
> from which we reach out to every realm of conceptual significance, and beyond it to the
> hidden dimension of inner meaning.
> 
> Where is our homeland? It is not only the place, but also the time of our birth and those of our
> ancestors, and thus our historical beginning. In both this “time” and this “place,” the world
> takes shape in our presence, and even prior to our presence, yet in connection to us. It orders
> our experience and is our initial establishment in the world through language, as well as the
> sphere of language itself and the conceptual connections it makes.
> 
> The world is thus divided: the world without us, meaning history; and the world with us,
> meaning the shape our homeland takes for us—the beginning of one’s closeness and kinship
> with the spirit of a country. Our homeland itself, however, was still a homeland—that of our
> ancestors—even without us. Hence, it is the place where our presence and absence intersect,
> and it contains the two within itself. How many are the difficult problems that have been
> brought about without our presence—indeed, our origination—affecting our existence with
> the shadows they cast! Our homeland immerses us in itself and its problems. Even at critical
> moments in history, it often puts our existence in danger. In those instances, what was once
> a refuge becomes a hazard, making clear who is loyal to it and who is a traitor. Our homeland,
> therefore, precedes us and predominates us. Our homeland is our first shelter and refuge. The
> spirits of our contemporaries and our ancestors dwell there in various forms—in language,
> culture, sights and sounds, ethnic perspectives, taboos and mores, sensibilities, historical
> emphases, involuntary metamorphoses—in a single phrase, the sui generis world that is one’s
> country.
> 
> Author’s note: Iraj Ghanooni is a translator, researcher of philosophy, and the author of Kalamih va Chíz-há
> [“Words and Things”] and Nivishtih-í baráy-i-Khudam [“A Writing for Myself”]. He has rendered works from
> Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Bertrand Russell into Persian.
> This article was originally published with the title “Mihr-i-Írán” in Ayda Haghtalab (ed.), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá dar
> Anjuman-i-‘Álam (Taslimi Foundation: Santa Monica, California, 1400 Shamsí [2021]), pp. 53–60.
> 
> In leaving our homeland, and in changing our surroundings in the process, our homeland
> stays within us, in proportion to our capacity, and comes along with us side by side, in our
> linguistic sphere, for a long time—right through to the end. And yet, despite all this, people
> always leave something of themselves behind, something noble, in their native homeland. Our
> homeland is a place that we can never fully leave, or find again with everything intact, for it
> touches every place where we come to reside. Wherever in the world we may be, we will
> inevitably see it and understand it through the prism of our homeland. Our attachment to our
> homeland is our link to the beginning—to that which predates us, and whose preexistence and
> priority to us is inevitable. Although it has begun with us, it has also preceded us. Our
> homeland, then, is a necessary and inescapable link. How can one be oblivious of one’s starting
> point and not neglect oneself in so doing?
> 
> Since the concept of “homeland” is linked with “the beginning of all beginnings” and the
> presence of “self,” it takes on a connection with the concept of negligence. We can be
> unconscious of our homeland, and thus not be preoccupied with it from the outset—to neither
> speak of it nor hear of it—but in such a case, we will have lost a determining link with the
> world of our lives and grown apart from our own selves. Our connection with our homeland
> is a connection to a place in the world, but not just any place. It is to a place in the world that
> breaks the sameness and uniformity of all its other places. It is the most “otherly,” the most
> dearly cherished place on earth. Even if we take up residence somewhere better in the world,
> it is in comparison to our homeland that that place is “better.” Hence, our homeland is the
> standard. We do ourselves a disservice by being unmindful of attachment to our homeland. It
> is this very attachment that is always with us. Wherever in the world we may be, it does not
> leave us to ourselves; it calls us to itself.
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was Iranian; He remained Iranian, and, accompanied by a group of Iranian exiles
> in His place of banishment, He was always preoccupied with Iran. Negligence of the state of
> His homeland had no place for Him. He wrote and said many things about Iran, including a
> few specific treatises. He once affirmed, “Although I left Iran sixty years ago, I am still not
> content to renounce even the smallest of Iranian customs. The Baháʼís adore Iran. They do not
> just speak idly!”3 He speaks of His loving attachment to His homeland—and in a prayer that
> illustrates His native Iran, He writes of its natural landscape with the utmost enthusiasm and
> captivation:
> 
> Passage from a Tablet of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, published in Má’idiy-i-Ásmání, vol. 5, p. 45. Provisional rendering by the
> present translators.
> 
> O sanctified God! From the beginning, Thou didst make the earth of Iran to be fragrant
> with musk; her soil Thou hast caused to stir all things, yielding forth great knowledge
> and gleaming pearls. From her East hath Thy sun ever shed its splendor, and in her
> West could the shining moon always be readily discerned. Her land reareth with love,
> and her celestially tranquil fields are filled with invigorating flowers and foliage. Her
> hills are bedecked with fresh and luscious fruit, and her meadows rouse even the
> garden of Paradise to jealousy. Her wisdom stemmeth from her heavenly message and
> supernal summons, and she surgeth with the force of a billowing, fathomless ocean.4
> 
> Then, using the figurative language of nature, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speaks of the political and social
> landscape of Iran, as well as its worldly affairs and their degeneration. The prayer adopts the
> metaphor of nature as its touchstone and standard; the juxtaposition of “the fire of [Iran’s]
> knowledge” and “the star of her grandeur,” mentioned in the next sentence, with the splendid
> sun in the East of Iran and the visibly shining moon in her West, mentioned in the preceding
> lines, seems to depict the inward and outward compatibility and harmony of Iran and
> illustrate its glory. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes:
> 
> There was a time when the fire of her knowledge was extinguished, and the star of her
> grandeur concealed and covered. Her vernal breezes were changed into the winds of
> autumn, and her ravishing rose-garden into a thicket of thorns. Her sweet spring
> turned brackish; her precious personages were made to wander, cast away to countless
> distant lands. Her ray of light was darkened, and her flowing stream straitened. Yet in
> time, the ocean of Thy grace surged, and the sun of Thy bounty dawned; the fresh
> springtime arrived, and the soul-stirring winds were wafted; the clouds let loose their
> copious rain, and the light of that nurturing Sun shone forth. The country was stirred;
> the heap of dust was changed into a bed of roses, and soil once barren became the envy
> of every garden. The world was made anew, and the fame of Iran spread far and wide.
> Her mountainous plains grew lush and verdant, and the birds of the meadows warbled
> their melodies.5
> 
> Passage from a prayer of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, published in Makátíb-i-Ḥaḍrat-i-‘Abdu’l-Bahá, vol. 2, p. 82. Provisional
> rendering by the present translators.
> ibid., pp. 82–83. Provisional rendering by the present translators.
> 
> Through the metaphor of nature, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speaks of changes unfolding in Iran and its
> evident decline, along with spiritual developments and occurrences that, through the grace
> and bounty of God, have taken place and are still at work in the country’s core. This is a
> spiritual power which, in His view, is a breed apart from any other historical, political, or
> social awarenesses that might have gradually come about, and which are necessarily
> restricted by their own confining circumstances and attending limitations. This power is a
> source of real influence. It is not a reaction to political defeats; rather, its purpose is to
> manifest, in the atmosphere of Iran, the concealed “star of her grandeur.” It is a spiritual
> power that has emerged in lockstep with nature. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s language about nature here
> is so interwoven with His language about this spiritual power that it is difficult, at first, to tell
> them apart in what He is saying. He employs a style of expression which indicates that they
> both share a single source—that both the natural landscape of Iran and this spiritual power, a
> gift from God, are derived from the same Origin—and also demonstrates that this spiritual
> power, like nature itself, grows naturally and automatically, and that it cannot be resisted. It
> cannot be reduced to mere awareness; rather, it is the “subject”6 of awareness itself. It is not
> just expressing new meaning; rather, it is breathing “a new breath of inner significance”7 into
> the lifeless bodies of the spiritual conditions of Iran and the world at large. Hence, it is a life-
> giving breath, a different breath—different from what contemporary Iranians modeling the
> West (probably much to their humiliation!) speak of and write books and disquisitions about,
> seeking the path to their salvation in it. That potency, that potentiality, consists of world-
> embracing ideas, this forgotten capital of all Iranian intellectuals, first expressed in the mold
> of the Persian language, and later expounded by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His travels to the West.8 In
> other words, these ideas have taken on a modern form—and in spite of this, Iranian
> intellectuals vie with one another in ignoring it.
> 
> These ideas have been formulated and neatly arranged in the manner of current disciplines;
> they are readily accessible even to any adolescent student, and are yet met with unmitigated
> disregard by the most erudite Iranians. At any rate, this spiritual power transcends the
> concept of awareness. It is a being, a spark that first flashed across the inner reality of Iran,
> prompting a humanitarian movement in which only a few of its peoples [the Bahá’ís], who
> have been treated most unkindly, have participated until now. It is with reference to that
> spark that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes, in the above quote, of the illumination of that “inner Iran”:
> 
> “A being that undergoes personal conscious or unconscious experience of itself and of the world” (The
> American Heritage Dictionary).
> The original phrase, rúḥ-i-jadíd-i-ma‘ání, is a direct quote from a passage published in Gleanings from the
> Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, no. XLIII, where it has been translated less literally by Shoghi Effendi as “a fresh
> potency.” The phrase “lifeless bodies” (kálbud-i-afsurdih), which occurs immediately afterwards in this sentence
> of the essay, is a paraphrase of ajsád-i-alfáẓ (literally, “the bodies of words”) from that same passage in
> Gleanings, where Shoghi Effendi appears to have rendered it into two separate phrases: “every human frame”
> and “every word.”
> Author’s note: And thus, the path to reaching the source itself—the source of awareness of it, in its pure
> form—will always be in Persian.
> 
> . . . the fresh springtime arrived, and the soul-stirring winds were wafted; the clouds
> let loose their copious rain, and the light of that nurturing Sun shone forth. The
> country was stirred; the heap of dust was changed into a bed of roses, and soil once
> barren became the envy of every garden. The world was made anew, and the fame of
> Iran spread far and wide. Her mountainous plains grew lush and verdant, and the birds
> of the meadows warbled their melodies.”9
> 
> This refers to the “inner Iran” and the enhancement of its capacity and potential—latent, yet
> apparent to the eyes of its discerning denizens. Otherwise, its plains and foothills were the
> same as they had always been. The outer natural landscape of Iran and its climate had not
> changed. In reality, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was writing of the inner landscape of Iran using the language
> of its outer landscape. With the paintbrush of natural features, He depicts the inner nature of
> Iran, unprecedented and newly founded. It is none other than this “inner Iran” that will
> ultimately influence its outer being. The Iran of the future is inextricably bound with this
> “inner Iran,” its actualized capacity and power to effloresce, and in the end it is in that outer
> mirror that such inner actuality will be brilliantly reflected. What is of absolute importance is
> the spiritual event unfolding in the inner reality of Iran. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s is a description of that
> inner reality, an aspect of Iran hidden within itself, yet an Iran still neglected, and at the same
> time the future Iran that must be built.
> 
> This, indeed, is how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá described His Iran with His own pen. Notwithstanding that,
> apart from His earliest years, He spent all His life in exile and later in Ottoman lands (Turkey
> and present-day Israel), and although Turkey has beautiful nature of its own, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
> never wrote anything like this about that place. In His letters and Writings, He refers to
> Himself in one sense as “this vagrant” in relation to this Iran, along with its “musk-laden
> earth” and “celestially tranquil fields”—a Vagrant Who writes and speaks Persian most
> eloquently, and Who in fact always carried that language, a treasured part of His homeland,
> with Him, taking it with Him to the most far-flung places. Yet only one who has fixed one’s
> heart on Iran can feel displaced from it—and this is an unusual attachment of the heart. It was
> only as a boy of seven that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá ceased to have a life in His homeland and faced the
> cruelest injustices. His Father was consigned to the Síyáh-Chál of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, and He
> Himself suffered intense hardship in order to secure the bare necessities of life. Eventually, at
> the age of eight, He was forcibly driven out of His homeland, accompanied by His family and
> a number of other Bábís, through the snow-covered mountain passes of Asadábád in
> Hamadán—this under escort during an unbearably cold winter without the proper overcoats
> to provide sufficient warmth.
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Makátíb, vol. 2, pp. 82–83. Provisional rendering by the present translators.
> 
> Had it been anyone else subjected to such blatant oppression, they would not even mention
> the name of Iran, let alone cherish a lifelong love of Iran in their heart. This was Someone Who,
> as He traveled in America sixty years later, spoke with His friends about His love of Iran,
> bitterly lamenting the ruin into which it had fallen and the sorry state into which its people
> had sunk, and Who, during that same journey in America, and through His presence at
> scientific, cultural, and religious gatherings and addresses at centers of scholarly learning, as
> well as churches and synagogues, gained a reputation as “a Persian” wishing to elevate the
> name of Iran; bring about “the establishment of ancient glory for Iran and Iranians in the
> countries and provinces of Europe and America”;10 and instill a firmly-rooted love of Iran in
> the hearts of the Bahá’ís of the world, first and foremost in His own family, such that His own
> grandson, Shoghi Effendi, who had never visited Iran, should have had as his greatest desire—
> which was in fact the desire of his grandfather, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—not only to see Iran, but to make
> pilgrimage to it as a holy land, as he himself wrote:
> 
> My highest aspiration, my heart’s most ardent desire, is to make pilgrimage to that
> repository of light . . . to have the honor of treading the radiant soil, and traversing the
> hallowed valleys, mountains, and hills of that most exalted clime; to inhale the sweet
> savors of holiness wafting from that land; and to drink the living waters from the rivers
> that flow in those regions.11
> 
> This is an indelible attachment to one’s fatherland, formed at a distance from it, without
> having ever been in it. It is a tale that tells of that attachment, formed in its framework, which
> one harbors in one’s soul, rejoicing at the very thought of it. This is not about just any land; it
> is a most exalted land, a piece of heaven. It is, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has mentioned, a “collective
> center,” an all-unifying agency, that gathers people around itself, even as a spirit, which is the
> all-unifying agency of the human body. And since, as we have discussed, one’s homeland is
> “the place where our presence and absence intersect . . . [containing] the two within itself”—
> and because it binds us, with the passage of time, to its wide expanse—it thus connects its
> people to one another, near and far alike. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá refers to this matter in the following
> way:
> 
> Passage from a Tablet of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá published in Muntakhabátí az Makátíb-i-Ḥaḍrat-i-‘Abdu’l-Bahá, vol. 6, p.
> 58 (selection no. 80). Provisional rendering by the present translators.
> Passage from a letter of Shoghi Effendi, published in Tawqíʻ át-i-Mubárakih (1922–1926), p. 72. Provisional
> rendering by the present translators.
> 
> . . . patriotism is a collective center; nationalism is a collective center . . . political
> alliance is a collective center; the union of ideals is a collective center, and the
> prosperity of the world of humanity is dependent upon the organization and
> promotion of the collective centers.12
> 
> “The prosperity of the world of humanity” thus consists in our attempt to utilize the all-
> unifying agency, as well as our best efforts to extend the sphere of its influence.
> 
> It must not be forgotten, however, that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s loving attachment to His homeland of
> Iran is, in His view, a particular matter, not a universal one. Hence, it cannot contain any
> element contradictory to that which is universal and pertains to all humanity. Patriotism must
> not lead to nationalistic prejudices, which lay the foundation for war. There is always the
> possibility of conflict between the particular and the universal. It was, therefore, in
> consideration of this danger that, in His Western travels, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá argued against this sort
> of [particularistic] element. In a talk given before two hundred people in Paris on 21 October
> 1911, delivered close before World War I and precisely because of the existence of these very
> prejudices still justified by the people of today, He says:
> 
> We wish for love among humanity to come about. Love requires connections. In one
> case, connections may be familial; in another, the means of love may be national
> connections; and in yet another, the means of love may consist in a single language . .
> . all these means are particular. Universal love will not come about [through them].
> Love among the inhabitants of the same country may be effected, but the denizens of
> other nations will be deprived thereof . . . These connections will not result in universal
> love . . . inasmuch as those connections are material, and material connections are
> limited.13
> 
> A national bond is, in itself, imperfect and incomplete. Without being abandoned, it must be
> expanded and augmented. The principle here is to proceed from the limited to the unlimited.
> In order to protect and maintain the limited, we must connect with the unlimited. A love of
> one’s country must be joined to a love of the world, so that both the country and the interests
> of the country persist. National interests should be thought of in a universal mindset. This is
> the argument on which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s solution is based. According to His special usage of the
> word “matter,” which is only distantly related to the word “materialism,” it can be said that
> whatever is limited is material—but our opportunities are not solely confined to material
> ones. To limit someone to their physical or material dimension and that which results from it
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of the Divine Plan, no. 14 (“Tablet to the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada,” dated 8
> March 1917): http://www.bahai.org/r/328609053
> Passage from a talk given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Scott, published in Khiṭábát-i-Ḥaḍrat-i-
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, vol. 1, p. 65. Provisional rendering by the present translators.
> 
> is to impose the greatest restriction on them in the way of their ability to solve their own
> problems, in that it takes away from them both openness and open-mindedness. In
> spirituality, we have an opportunity forgotten by the people of today. We, therefore, using all
> the spiritual and material means at our disposal, must expand, with every passing day, the
> sphere of our philanthropy.14 Continuing His talk, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains how—namely, by
> what means—we can access the spiritual reserves that lie latent within us:
> 
> The greatest means for the unification of humanity is spiritual power, for it is not
> limited by any constraint. It is religion that can bring about the unity of all who dwell
> on earth. It is the act of turning to God that conduces to the oneness of the world. What
> is meant by “religion,” however, is not the blind imitations that prevail among
> mankind today. These are the cause of enmity and hatred; they lead to war and strife.15
> 
> Indeed, it is these imitations that caused the appearance of ISIS and the recurrence of the
> Crusades. Nowadays, people dread such tendencies as these. The very fact that Americans and
> Europeans took to the streets a few years ago to protest the ban against Iranians and the
> citizens of some other countries from traveling to America transcended personal interests,
> and even Islam and Christianity, and thus rose above divisive “blind imitations.” This is a
> transcending of borders and a demonstration of the potential for patriotism to be transformed
> from a particular matter into a universal one. It is the expansion of the concept of a homeland
> into a positive sense, one that has caused nations in this part of the world and that to reach
> each other, unaffected by the conflicts of their governments.
> 
> Hence, given that He was Iranian, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá loved the land of Iran and its peoples, its
> languages and its religions, with a love underlying an indelible connection to them, but this
> connection was compatible with ideals that are universal and applicable to all humanity as
> such. Yet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá went beyond that. When He began His travels to the West, He presented
> Himself as an Iranian who belonged to the entire human race. This is reflected in everything
> He discussed, giving a universal dimension to His message—a quality never evinced by any
> other Iranian before Him—and it is for this very reason that no Iranian could have had as
> much ability as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to speak to Westerners and captivate their minds. The unique
> effect He had stemmed from the extent of His love. His way of being Iranian and His love for
> His homeland represent a “universal patriotism,” presentable in today’s progressive discourse
> of human rights.
> 
> “Philanthropy” in its literal sense, “love of humankind in general” (The American Heritage Dictionary), as a
> translation of the author’s use of insán-dústí here.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Khiṭábát, vol. 1, p. 66. Provisional rendering by the present translators.
> 
> This issue may be better understood with the help of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own explanation of Iran
> and its relationship to the message of the Bahá’í Faith, where He says: “Spiritual power hath
> gushed out of Iran. This is a sure decree, ‘a promise that will not prove untrue.’”16 The
> wellspring of this power, and the place of its initial appearance, is Iran. At present, this
> spiritual power introduces Iran in a way that makes an especially favorable impression on the
> whole world. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Iran is a distinctly different one, a peace-seeking Iran that takes
> on a connection with the world—a connection by virtue of its being the wellspring of that
> “spiritual power”—through which Iran becomes a part of the world that looks out onto the
> rest of the planet, a part that is present in the earth’s entirety and linked to it, without denying
> and renouncing that “parthood.”
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Iran represents a love of that country, a part of the globe that has acquired a
> universal belonging to the whole world. It is a particular love that has become universal, and
> it is the sole strategy for eliminating every kind of war and hostility among the nations of the
> earth. So long as that strategy becomes a model for nations and governments to follow, it can
> lay the foundation for the unity of mankind; that is, lasting peace. It is with this outlook that
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá viewed the world in the talks He gave to audiences from all walks of life while
> traveling in the West—an approach that was welcomed by all those who heard it.
> 
> Passage from a Tablet of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, published in Makátíb, vol. 2, p. 260, and provisionally rendered by the
> present translators. The quotation in the second sentence comes from Qur’án 11:65.
>
> — *A Love of Iran (Used by permission of the curator)*