# The Modes and Intentions of Biography

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Graham Hassall, The Modes and Intentions of Biography, bahai-library.com.
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> Methodology
> Baha’i Studies Review, Volume 14 © Intellect Ltd 2008
> Methodology. English language. doi: 10.1386/bsr.14.71/7
> 
> The Modes and Intentions of Biography
> Graham Hassall
> 
> Abstract                                                                                  Keywords
> This paper explores a range of modes, intentions and problems of Baha’i biogra-           Baha’i
> phy, in order to offer some initial observations on the ways in which biographical        biography and
> literatures frame understandings of the individual in the context of community. It           religion
> distinguishes between documentary, hagiological and critical modes of biography           documentary
> as these have emerged in the diverse literature of the world’s religious traditions, as      biography
> well as in the secular literature of the modern period. It suggests that much Baha’i      hagiography
> biography has continued the traditions of remembrance and exempla, although               exemplum and
> more critical works have also begun to appear. The quest to write ‘spiritual biogra-         anti-exemplum
> phies’ that explore a subject’s inner life and journey remains difficult, due mostly to   critical biography
> limitations on sources, since few subjects give adequate exposure to their inner
> thoughts. Rather than privilege one tradition above any other, Baha’i biographies
> have to date drawn on the skills of the craft elaborated across generations, reli-
> gions and cultures, while beginning to draw also on Baha’i scripture for inspiration
> productive of new insights into how lived lives can be depicted in literature.
> 
> This paper seeks to explore some of the ‘moral implications’ for writing                  1.   The author would like
> biography from a Baha’i perspective.1 It proceeds by searching out the                         to thank Katayoun
> Hassall, Will C. van
> modes, intentions and problems of Baha’i biography in order to ground its                      den Hoonaard, Jack
> theoretical observations empirically and to point to some issues of method                     McLean, and several
> associated with biographical practice. A related purpose is to offer some                      anonymous reviewers
> for their comments
> initial observations on the ways in which biographical literatures frame                       on earlier drafts of
> understandings of the individual in the context of community.                                  this paper. W. P.
> Biography, as distinguished from all other texts, places the life experience of            Collins’s Bibliography
> of English-Language
> an individual (or individuals) at the centre of investigation. The Encyclopaedia               Works on the Bābı̄
> Britannica describes a biography as a ‘narrative which seeks, consciously and                  and Baahā’ ı̄ Faiths
> artistically, to record the actions and recreate the personality of an individual life         1844–1985 (Oxford:
> George Ronald, 1990,
> …’2 Other works such as histories and other types of commentary may well                       505) has just over two
> consider the same person or people, but without placing them at the centre of                  hundred references to
> the investigation. There are, for instance, descriptions of Horace Holley in Gayle             ‘biography’ as a
> subject and advises
> Morrison’s study of Louis Gregory,3 but the latter is at the centre of focus.                  the reader to look
> Similarly, Robert Stockman’s survey of the Baha’i Faith in America describes a                 also under ‘history’.
> great number of individuals, without seeking to write a biography of any one of                This paper, even
> though examining a
> them.4 A further distinction can be made between biographies written about                     comparatively small
> oneself (autobiographies) rather than about others. The noblest goal of an auto-               and recently
> biography is to examine one’s life and to share the results of this examination                commenced tradition,
> 
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> can only refer in brief       with others. It requires the capacity to observe oneself at a distance.
> to the range of titles        Autobiographies may also be written for other purposes, whether for the
> available.
> instruction of others or simply to record the times one has lived through and
> 2.   Quoted in H. H. E.            the events one has witnessed or participated in.
> Loofs, ‘Biographies
> in Stone: The                      Not all biographies intend to explore their subject in similar depth.
> Significance of               Those that are essentially chronological and descriptive intend to document
> Changing Perceptions          a life ‘for the record’. They seek, that is, to preserve or to record information
> of the Buddha Image
> in Mainland Southeast         of interest about a person, and they seek remembrance (tadhkira) of a subject
> Asia for the                  without exploring the relationship between his or her values and actions,
> Understanding of              and without placing these actions in some specific historical or sociocultural
> the Individual’s Place
> in Some Buddhist              context. In the case of religious biographies, they offer an assurance that a
> Societies’, in Self and       subject possessed the qualities of the spiritual and the virtues of the holy,
> Biography: Essays on          but do not necessarily bring the reader any closer to an understanding of
> the Individual and
> Society in Asia               the struggles and achievements of their actual existence.
> (ed. Wang Gungwu,                  A more complex biographical exercise presents relevant events in some
> Sydney: Sydney                actual context, and examines the progression of the biographical subject
> University Press for
> the Australian                through the conditions of their life. It takes the step of seeking the significance
> Academy of the                of the subject’s existence, of extracting the essential from the myriad events
> Humanities, 1976), 9.         and happenings in their life. For example, biographies of George Townshend5
> 3.   G. Morrison, To Move          and Louis Gregory seek to position their subjects in the context of their times.
> the World: Louis G.
> Gregory and the
> Advancement of Racial         Biographic traditions
> Unity in America              Traditions of biography and autobiography have evolved in each of the world
> (Wilmette: Bahā’ı̄           religions. Devoted at first to depicting the life of the prophet and the lives of
> Publishing Trust, 1982).
> the first disciples, they have expanded to include accounts of martyrs, saints
> 4.   R. H. Stockman, The           and holy men and women. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines this
> Bah ā’ ı̄ Faith in America
> Vol. II: Early Expansion,     literature as ‘Hagiology’ – ‘literature that treats of the lives and legends of
> 1900–1912 (Oxford:            saints’. But this literature in its original form was not as concerned with the
> George Ronald, 1995).         details of an individualized life as with the generalized moral story that it
> 5.   D. Hofman, George             could be called on to tell. Such idealized biographies of saints that were the
> Townshend (Oxford:
> George Ronald, 1983).
> focus of medieval hagiographies, explain Averill and Nunley:
> 6. J. R. Averill and E. P.              … were little concerned with the idiosyncrasies of individual lives. Their
> Nunley, Voyages of the               purpose was to further Christian ideals, and medieval biographers felt free to
> Heart: Living an
> Emotionally Creative                 borrow anecdotes from one saint’s life to embellish the life of another. To the
> Life (New York: The                  extent that differences among people were accorded significance, such differ-
> Free Press, 1992), 12.               ences were based on pre-established regional, class, and gender expectations.
> 7.   Godzich continues:                 A person was born into a certain social station (a nobleman, say, or a serf),
> ‘The mechanism of
> and that station determined the meaning of his or her life.6
> exemplum is simple: a
> singular happenstance
> is related so that it can     The ‘exemplary’ purpose of such texts has recently been elaborated by
> serve as an instance of       studies of the ‘broad injunctions’ found in Christian texts, in contrast to the
> a universal principle,        ‘specific regulations’ found in Judaism:
> which can now be
> imposed as a moral
> imperative on the                  Inevitably, there arose a need to identify models of proper, and improper,
> recipient of the story.            behaviour to compensate for the excessive laconism of the New Testament on
> The universal principle
> may have been                      this topic. Lives of saints were written and accounts of the lives of famous
> explicitly stated in               pagans were scrutinized to extract from them the models that would guaran-
> revelation, but, more              tee the moral uplifting of righteous Christians. We know these models under
> often than not, it is
> enough that it be                  the name of exempla, narratives of others’ lives, or of events in others’ lives,
> derived from the                   admitting of a moral lesson.7
> 
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> The Buddhist tradition offers a slightly different approach to biography,                           exemplum in such a
> which yields a somewhat similar result. According to Gungwu, the practice                           way that it is consistent
> with the rest of
> of biography was inhibited by the attempt to limit the ‘aggrandizement of                           revelation. There
> the self’ through placing little emphasis on ‘any individual self’ at any par-                      occurred thus a subtle
> ticular point or place in time: ‘Self was knowable but specific selves were                         shift in authority from
> revelation itself,
> not worth knowing except where they might show a capacity to merge with                             though it remains
> the universal, with the infinite and the eternal. There was, therefore, no                          unchallenged, to
> meaningful biography except where it might demonstrate how a few extra-                             experience, the past
> experience of the
> ordinary men conquered their selves.’8                                                              exemplar. Moreover,
> China’s Confucian tradition elaborated Shih Chi, biographies exemplify-                         since the signifying
> ing a ‘Confucian moralism whose ultimate aim was to guide the conduct of                            economy of the
> exemplum follows
> statecraft’.9 In Japan such literary figures as Mori Ógai developed a ‘typol-                       the rule of logical
> ogy of virtue’ to describe a vast corpus of biographical literature.10 A similar                    abduction, in which a
> hagiographic intention also informs Islamic biography. Biographies of the                           law is derived from a
> singular instance to
> Prophet Muhammad were given the name sira, and the tradition of rijāl in                           then be generalized
> Shi‘a Islam focused on the study of the lives of the transmitters of the traditions                 to all instances, past
> of Islam.11 Eventually clergy and caliphs, saints and missionaries, were equally                    experience, as the law
> that is derived from it
> subject to written remembrance. In some parts of the Islamic world these are                        is given the status of
> known as tarjama, an Arabic term referring to both biography and autobiog-                          universal or general
> raphy.12 Tarjama marshalled the particulars of the lives of learned men into                        law (the distinction
> between universal
> settled categories:                                                                                 and general is not
> material in this case).’
> The components include a genealogy, an account of formal education and                           W. Godzich, ‘Figuring
> out what matters; or,
> Qur’anic memorization, a list of teachers (often including close relatives,                      the microphysics of
> which indicates family support for religious learning), the books and sub-                       history’, in Making
> jects studied, and selections from the subject’s poetry, aphorisms, or other                     Sense in Life and
> Literature (ed. H. U.
> contributions to learning. Dates are provided whenever possible, since the                       Gumbrecht,
> ability to date events distinguishes the traditionally educated from the                         Minneapolis: University
> unlearned.13                                                                                     of Minnesota Press,
> 1992), vii–xvi.
> 
> As explained by Renard, the significance of the depiction of religious heroes                  8.   Wang Gungwu,
> ‘Introduction’, in
> in literature lies in that they ‘live and move in a world ordered according to                      Wang (ed.), Self and
> a divine plan’, and that they exist ‘only to reflect and point out God’s signs                      Biography, 2.
> and presence in creation’:                                                                     9. ‘Indeed, the shiden
> project in its entirety
> When they conquer they do so by God’s leave and power; and even when they                      may be interpreted
> as a biographical
> lose in time, as rejected prophets or martyrs for justice, they win in eternity.               exploration of the
> Religious heroes function as custodians of hope against terrible odds, testify-                following exemplary
> ing to the virtual certainty of ultimate victory. Their life stories bear witness to           traits: self-sacrifice
> (kenshin); martial spirit
> the reality of a transcendent dimension in human experience. Most of all,                      (vuahi no awiahin); for-
> prophets and Friends of God represent the best of religious and cultural                       bearance, magnanimity,
> ideals in accessible form, perhaps too far away to attain fully but not so far as              and generosity (kekku
> no michi); learning
> to discourage an attempt.14                                                                    (gakumon) self-
> reliance and inner
> Religious biography, of course, exists within a larger practice of biography,                     strength (Zuchi ni
> tanomu tokoro); and
> which in the modern period has become dominated by studies from popular                           indifference to material
> culture – cinema, literature, music and war. In the twentieth century biograph-                   or utilitarian standards
> ical endeavour came to include accounts of previously silenced voices – of                        (muyó).’ M. Marcus,
> Paragons of the
> ‘common’ people, of women and of the oppressed and marginalized, who                              Ordinary: The
> are now ‘writing back’ to their oppressors. In finding these voices, the practice                 Biographical Literature
> 
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> of Mori Ógai (Honolulu:     of autobiography (i.e. writing one’s own story) has also burgeoned. With the
> University of Hawaii        emergence of secularism in western society, the hagiographic function elabo-
> Press 1993), 10.
> rated within the religious traditions has been modified rather than com-
> 10. ibid 178.
> pletely rejected. Modern biographies generally avoid questions of ‘ultimate
> 11. A. Amanat, Resurrection     purpose’,15 but proceed in the knowledge that ‘each human life recapitu-
> and Renewal: The
> Making of the Babi
> lates common human experience’.16
> Movement in Iran,
> 1844–1850 (Ithaca:          Biography in the Baha’i writings
> Cornell University
> Press, 1989), 35.
> There seems little need to defend the practice of either history or biography
> in Baha’i discourse. The writings of Baha’u’llah are replete with references
> 12. D. F. Eickelman,
> ‘Traditional Islamic
> to history; those of ‘Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi similarly draw on past
> Learning and Ideas of       events and persons when referring to present and even future concerns.
> the Person in the           Baha’u’llah immortalized the lives of those devoted to his cause and he
> Twentieth Century’, in
> Middle Eastern Lives:
> referred to the lives of the past prophets and sages as being lives worthy of
> The Practice of             emulation. Furthermore, Baha’u’llah described his own experiences in his
> Biography and Self-         Tablets.17 Autobiographical references by him point to the worth of his expe-
> Narrative (ed. M. S.
> Kramer, Syracuse, NY:
> rience, and allow the reader to compare the records of that experience with
> Syracuse University         those of the lives of previous prophets.18
> Press, 1991) 35–9.              ‘Abdu’l-Baha recalled the lives of kings, rulers and learned in The Secret
> 13. ibid 39. An exemplary       of Divine Civilization and extolled sincere Babi and Baha’i believers in
> study of the                Memorials of the Faithful.19 He suggested that contemplation of the lives of
> relationship between
> religious training and      heroic Baha’is in Persia would set an example that others might aspire to
> power is found in R.        follow, once advising that time be taken at the Nineteen Day Feast to:
> Mottahedeh, Mantle of
> the Prophet: Religion
> and Politics in Iran             … recount the high deeds and sacrifices of the lovers of God in Persia, and
> (New York: Simon &               tell of the martyrs’ detachment from the world, and their ecstasy, and of how
> Schuster, 1985).                 the believers there stood by one another and gave up everything they had.20
> 14. J. Renard, Seven Doors
> to Islam: Spirituality      Thus we see that the intention of a work such as Memorials of the Faithful
> and the Religious Life of
> Muslims (Berkeley:          is to depict ‘ordinary’ people who, through their faith, do extraordinary
> University of California    things. Such stories inspire because they show the effect of faith on ordi-
> Press, 1996), 77.           nary people.
> 15. Increasingly, for               Shoghi Effendi valued those who had served the Baha’i cause and referred
> instance, critical          to them in the most admiring and loving language. He frequently sent epi-
> studies are taking into
> account psychological       taphs when notified of the passing of individuals whose efforts to promote
> dimensions, as part of      the Baha’i cause he cherished, and he instigated an ‘In Memoriam’ section
> an exploration of the       from the fourth volume of The Bah ā’ ı̄ World, a tradition that continued through
> inner life.
> the remaining volumes of The Bahā’ı̄ World (vols. 4–20).21 The brief biogra-
> 16. R. B. Schwartz,             phies that appear in official records, however, were never intended to set lim-
> ‘Johnson’s Johnson’,
> in James Boswell’s          its as to the treatment of individual life stories. To the contrary, Shoghi
> Life of Samuel              Effendi on several occasions referred to the need for further elaboration, which
> Johnson: Modern             the pressure of his more compelling responsibilities as Guardian of the Baha’i
> Critical Interpretations
> (ed. H. Bloom, New          Faith prevented him from exploring.
> York: Chelsea House,            One feature that begins to emerge from a reading of Baha’i biographies
> 1986), 74.                  is the diversity of personalities depicted, and the seeming lack of limita-
> 17. A number of these           tions on culture or social class represented. In what may be an unconscious
> appear in Epistle to        evolution, the literature has, in the first 150 years of its tradition, produced
> the Son of the Wolf
> (Wilmette, IL: Bahā’ı̄     studies ranging from the twin ‘Great Souls’ (the Bab and Baha’u’llah) to
> Publishing Trust, 1988).    their followers of stations high and low alike, and even those who worked
> His Tablet of the           as servants and slaves.22
> Holy Mariner (Bahā’ ı̄
> 
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> The question as to whether accounts of the prophets are biographies or                       Prayers, Wilmette:
> some other form of literature is left aside in this essay – except to say that                   Bahā’ı̄ Publishing
> Trust, 1991, 220–8)
> any attempt to place them ‘outside’ risks dilution of scrutiny. The biographies                  can be regarded as
> of the central figures by Balyuzi combine the approaches of meticulous                           ‘metaphorical
> western scholarship and religious attachment to produce studies that are at                      autobiography’. David
> Ruhe has included
> once faithful to and somehow detached from their subjects.23 David S. Ruhe                       ‘every crumb of autobi-
> acknowledges the hagiographic element in his biography of Baha’u’llah,                           ographical material’ by
> Robe of Light, and suggests also that a cold objectivity is neither possible                     Baha’u’llah in Robe of
> Light: The Persian Years
> nor desirable:                                                                                   of the Supreme Prophet
> Bahā’u’llāh 1817–1853
> A natural tendency to reflect a feeling for Bahā’u’llāh well beyond hagiography             (Oxford: George
> Ronald, 1994).
> must be moderated through such objectivity as is possible so soon after the life-
> time of the Prophet. Nevertheless, the author’s subjective emotional conviction          18. This, for instance, was
> one of the devices used
> has been sustained by a steadily deepening appreciation of the Great Soul.24                 by the Bab to prove
> his own prophetic
> Ruhe points to a shift in perspective that is gaining ground in the ‘post-                      statement; see Amanat,
> Resurrection and
> modern period’. Consisting of many ungathered strands, it is a perspective                      Renewal, 193–8.
> that questions the certainties of much modern thought, particularly the                         Whatever difficulties
> idea that knowledge can be produced ‘objectively’, and in a way that deter-                     practitioners of Baha’i
> history may face, they
> mines some ‘absolute’ or ‘scientific’ truth. This new perspective is prepared                   do not equal those
> to admit its own boundaries, and to seek validity through disclosure of its                     facing anyone who
> own limited capacities to find meanings. Such a perspective finds many                          searches, for instance,
> for the ‘historical Jesus’.
> parallels that are useful in approaching Baha’i biographical literature.
> At this early stage in a new tradition, the lives of the central figures of             19. ‘Abdu’l-Baha, The
> Secret of Divine
> the Baha’i Faith have been presented anecdotally more than through com-                         Civilization (Wilmette,
> prehensive narrative.25 The life story of ‘Abdu’l-Baha has been told in such                    IL: Bahā’ ı̄ Publishing
> early studies as Myron Phelps’s The Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi (New                    Trust, 1990); ‘Abdu’l-
> Baha, Memorials of the
> York: G. P. Putnam’s Son, 1903), and more recently in Balyuzi’s ‘Abdu’l-                        Faithful (Wilmette, IL:
> Bahā: Centre of the Covenant of Bahā’u’llāh (1971). ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s sister,                   Bahā’ ı̄ Publishing
> Bahiyyih Khanum, has only recently become the subject of close biographi-                       Trust, 1971). This latter
> book contains short
> cal observation.26 Shoghi Effendi has been the subject of an initial biogra-                    sketches of the lives
> phy by his widow, Ruhiyyih Rabbani,27 and of numerous memoirs by early                          of 73 followers of
> Baha’is.                                                                                        Baha’u’llah, including
> two women. ‘Abdu’l-
> Of the more than 50 individuals appointed ‘Hands of the Cause’ by                           Baha’s essays were
> Baha’u’llah and Shoghi Effendi, only a handful have to date been the subject                    written in 1915 and
> of serious (English-language) biographies. Accounts of Rahmatu’llah Muhajir                     published in Persian
> in Haifa in 1924.
> and Zikrullah Khadem have been written by family members, primarily
> using personal notebooks and diaries, with later revision and supplementa-                  20. ‘Abdu’l-Baha, from a
> Tablet to an individual
> tion. Iran Muhajir considers the biography of her husband Rahmatu’llah                          Baha’i – translated
> Muhajir an incomplete record of the life of this man who ‘lived only to serve                   from the Persian,
> Bahā’u’llāh and who tried to carry out the instructions of the beloved                        Compilation of
> Compilations (Mona
> Guardian to the best of his ability’.28 The life story of Dorothy Baker has                     Vale: Bahā’ ı̄
> been written by her granddaughter, Dorothy Gilstrap,29 that of Leroy Ioas by                    Publications Australia,
> his insightful daughter A. Chapman.30 Other Hands of the Cause who have                         1991), vol. 1, 428.
> been the subject of biographical treatment include Martha Root,31 George                    21. The Bahā’ ı̄ World (vols.
> 1–12, 1925–54, rpt.
> Townshend,32 Louis Gregory,33 William Sears,34 and John Esslemont.35                            Wilmette, IL: Bahā’ ı̄
> Barron Harper has produced a volume of essays on all Hands of the Cause                         Publishing Trust, 1980;
> in Lights of Fortitude.36 The majority of other Baha’i biographies focus on the                 vols. 13–14, Haifa: The
> Universal House of
> first adherents of the Baha’i Faith in particular countries, and on pioneering                  Justice, 1970–74; vol.
> activities.37                                                                                   15–20, Haifa: Bahā’ ı̄
> 
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> 
> World Centre,                 Biography as exemplum
> 1976–98).                     The traditions of hagiography in both Islamic and Christian literature have
> 22. See for example,               undoubtedly and quite understandably influenced much of early Baha’i bio-
> A. Q. Afnan, Black             graphical literature. Elements of tarjama (Islamic hagiography) are clearly
> Pearls: Servants in the
> Households of the              evident, for instance, in Nabil-i-A‘zam’s account of the Babis, The Dawn-
> Bā b and Bahā’u’llāh        Breakers. So too is Mirza Abu’l-Fadl’s Short Sketch of the History and Lives of
> (Los Angeles: Kalimāt                                               ˙
> the Leaders of This Religion reflective of this style.38 Typical of scholarship in
> Press, 1988).
> both East and West at the time, Abu’l-Fadl does not detail his sources, but
> 23. H. M. Balyuzi,                 does show that he has considered the evidence  ˙        of writers who were sup-
> Baha’u’llah (London:
> Baha’i Publishing              portive of his subjects, as well as those who were not, and he supports only
> Trust, 1938);’Abdu’l-          those facts he is confident of.
> Bahā: The Centre of               More recent Baha’i literature also draws on the hagiographic and docu-
> the Covenant of
> Bahā’u’llāh (Oxford:         mentary Islamic and Christian traditions. This includes many biographies
> George Ronald, 1972);          that appear in the ‘In Memoriam’ section of volumes of The Bahā’ ı̄ World.
> The Bāb: Herald of the        These are mostly based on the recollections of relatives or acquaintances
> Day of Days (Oxford:
> George Ronald, 1973);          and seldom rely on extensive use of documentary sources. They intend to
> Bahā’u’llāh: a brief life,   honour the memory of their subjects and to acknowledge their contribution
> followed by an essay on        to the progress of the Baha’i Faith rather than to explore their individual con-
> the Manifestation of
> God entitled The Word          tribution in detail. In fulfilling these functions, they encourage and inspire
> Made Flesh (Oxford:            their readers and locate contemporary Baha’i activities against a background
> George Ronald, 1974);          of worthy tradition. Furthermore, they establish a record of the past, which
> Bahā’u’llāh, The King
> of Glory (Oxford:              acts as an essential collective memory – a consciousness of the past – that
> George Ronald, 1980).          strengthens individuals and communities as they operate in the present.39
> 24. Ruhe, Robe of Light:               Baha’i literature also includes several valuable collections of what might
> The Persian Years of the       be termed ‘biographical essays’. Some of these are by a single author, such
> Supreme Prophet
> Bahā’u’llāh 1817–1853
> as O. Z. Whitehead’s Some Early Bahā’¯ı s of the West, Some Bahā’¯ı s to Remember,
> (Oxford: George                and Portraits of Some Bahā’ ı̄ Women;40 and Dipchand Khianra’s Immortals.41
> Ronald, 1994), 180.            Multi-authored collections of this genre include And The Trees Clapped Their
> 25. Some of these are              Hands, edited by Claire Vreeland, Why They Became Bahā’ı̄ s, compiled by
> listed in G. Faizi,            Annamarie Honnold, and S. Sundrum’s portraits of Malaysian Baha’is in
> Stories about Baha’i
> Funds (New Delhi:
> Mystic Connections.42
> Bahā’ ı̄ Publishing               These volumes of biographical essays each cohere around a specific
> Trust, 1993).                  theme. Whitehead’s first volume (Some Early Bah ā’ ı̄ s) narrates the lives of
> 26. The life of Bahiyyih           23 individuals who met ‘Abdu’l-Baha.43 The volume edited by Vreeland
> Khanum is currently            includes both biographical and autobiographical accounts of pioneers,
> remembered in
> numerous histories
> while that compiled by Honnold presents 34 autobiographies and 101
> and in the compilation         biographies of ‘first generation Bahā’ı̄ s by 1963’. Khianra presents stories of
> of letters to and from         Baha’is from the Indian subcontinent. Numerous essays from among these
> her, Bahı̄ yyih Khānum,
> The Greatest Holy Leaf:
> four sets of biographical essays rely on existing secondary sources and on
> A Compilation from the         primary materials offered by subjects’ relatives and acquaintances; not one
> Bahā’ı̄ Sacred Texts and      among them suggests any reliance on formally archived materials.44
> Writings of the Guardian
> of the Faith and
> Baha’i biographical and autobiographical literature also includes an
> Bahı̄ yyih Khānum’s           increasing number of works privately printed, or otherwise printed in small
> Own Letters (Haifa:            numbers, by family members or Baha’i communities and institutions.45
> Bahā’ı̄ World Centre
> 1982). J. A. Khan,
> Some works written in Arabic and Persian have been published in English
> Prophet’s Daughter:            translation.46
> The Life and Legacy                For the most part these biographical essays are vehicles for exempla – for
> of Bahı̄ yyih Khānum:
> Outstanding Heroine
> inspiration and the consolidation of tradition. Such exemplary biogra-
> of the Bahā’ı̄ Faith          phies are not inherently problematic, but they may become so when
> (Wilmette, IL: Bahā’ı̄        tension results from differences between a writer’s intentions and readers’
> 
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> 
> expectations, or else through the selective (non-)use of biographical evidence,                  Publishing Trust,
> leading in some instances to ‘biographies of denial’.                                            2005); M. Momen,
> ‘The family and early
> The life story of Fatimah Zarin Taj Baraghani (also known as T ahirih =                     life of Tahirih Qurrat
> ˙ is one
> ‘The pure one’, and Quratu’l-‘Ayn = ‘Solace of the eyes’), for instance,                         al-‘Ayn’, Bahā’ ı̄ Studies
> still to be imagined from within its prism of both eastern and western bio-                      Review 11 (2003),
> 35–52.
> graphic traditions. Being female, her learning did not satisfy the criteria of
> tarjama, and only her individual brilliance has saved her from being                         27. R. Rabbani, The
> Priceless Pearl (London:
> silenced like so many of her sister believers, as lamented in Bahiyyih                           Bahā’ ı̄ Publishing
> Nakhjavani’s insightful Asking Questions:                                                        Trust, 1969).
> 28. I. F. Muhājir,
> The pages of Nabil’s Dawn-Breakers are filled with countless women. They ride                 Dr Muhā jir, Hand of the
> beside their husbands and sacrifice their children. They are humiliated, beaten               Cause of God, Knight of
> Bahā’u’llāh (London:
> and raped. They are paraded on horseback as the heads of their sons and                       Bahā’ı̄ Publishing
> husbands are held aloft on pikes. They carry stones and build forts; they cut off             Trust, 1992), xvi. This
> their hair and use it to bind together the fracturing guns at Nayriz. They were no            biography takes a
> straightforward
> doubt among those who helped grind the bones of dead horses and who rushed                    approach to the genre
> out under cannon fire to gather the new grass to eat at Fort Shaykh Tabarsi. But              of biography, and many
> they have no names and Nabil does not go out of his way to mention them …47                   details noted in haste
> by Dr Muhajir while on
> his travels appear to
> As a martyr for her Faith, her persona as ‘heroine’ is more familiar than her                    have been transferred
> individuality. An instance of difference between author’s intention and reader’s                 directly into the book
> without verification.
> expectation on the subject of T ahirih occurred in a critic’s response to Martha
> ˙
> Root’s biography, Tahirih the Pure:   Iran’s Greatest Woman.48 F. W. Ebner, who              29. D. F. Gilstrap, From
> Copper to Gold: The
> received a copy of Miss Root’s book at the time of her visit to China in 1938,                   Life of Dorothy Baker
> wrote in the North-China Daily News:                                                             (Wilmette, IL: Bahā’ ı̄
> Publishing Trust, 1999).
> Were this book written primarily to show the life and influence of a nineteenth-          30. A. I. Chapman, Leroy
> Ioas: Hand of the
> century Persian woman who suffered martyrdom in her attempt to emancipate
> Cause of God (Oxford:
> women, it would have resulted in a unique contribution to oriental biography.                 George Ronald, 1998).
> However, the author’s interest in her subject, Hadrat-i-Tahirih, Her Highness
> 31. M. Garis, Martha
> the Pure One, has been secondary to her interest in the promotion of the                      Root: Lioness at the
> Bahā’ı̄ Faith. The review does not take exception to the purpose of the book as              Threshold (Wilmette,
> IL: Bahā’ı̄ Publishing
> conceived by the author. He merely states that the ostensible purpose of the
> Trust, 1983).
> book seems to be of secondary concern.49
> 32. D. Hofman, George
> Townshend (Oxford:
> While Miss Root gathered much of her material first hand, in Iran, her treat-                    George Ronald, 1983).
> ment of the life story of Quratu’l-‘Ayn emphasized her role as champion of                   33. G. Morrison, To Move
> women’s emancipation and Babi heroine rather than her individuality.                             the World: Louis G.
> Ebner, on the other hand, was evidently more interested in T ahirih’s indi-                      Gregory and the
> viduality as poetess and religious reformer.50                     ˙                             Advancements of Racial
> Unity in America
> Another instance of tension between biography as exemplum and narra-                         (Wilmette, IL: Bahā’ ı̄
> tion of a unique life is related by anthropologist Michael Fischer. During                       Publishing Trust, 1982).
> extensive fieldwork in Yazd, Iran, Fischer befriended Nurū’llah Akhtar-Khāvar ı̄ ,         34. M. R. Sears, Bill: A
> a Baha’i employed to handle international affairs at the Kerakhshan wool-                        Biography of Hand of
> the Cause of God
> spinning and weaving mill. Akhtar-Khavari was a courageous advocate of his                       William Sears (Eloy,
> Faith, who was executed by the Khomeini government in 1980. In re-presenting                     AZ: Desert Rose
> the story of his life, Fischer recognized that ‘two stories’ could be told:                      Publishing, 2003).
> 35. M. Momen, Dr. J. E.
> The more powerful one is of the exemplary figure, the modern man who had                      Esslemont (London:
> Bahā’ ı̄ Publishing
> decided to operate in a very conservative society, not to badger or embarrass                 Trust, 1975).
> 
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> 
> 36. B. Harper, Lights of                   it, but to show a new and open mode of behaviour. The challenge here is to
> Fortitude: Glimpses                    show how one operates in such a society: it is almost an ethnographic chal-
> into the Lives of the
> Hands of the Cause of                  lenge, the kind of challenge that requires the eye of a novelist for local colour
> God (Oxford: George                    and knowledge of local detail. It is a challenge to describe how a society
> Ronald, 1997).                         changes, sometimes moving in reactionary self-destructive directions, but
> 37. See, for example,                      nonetheless irrevocably changes, in ways involving considerable internal conflict.
> R. Weinberg, Ethel                     The exemplary individual as well as all other individuals have to make choices,
> Jenner Rosenberg: The
> Life and Times of                      have to negotiate pragmatic as well as moral decisions.
> England’s Outstanding                       The other narrative that can be told – by far the weaker story, I think – is to
> Baha’i Pioneer Worker                  turn Akhtar-Khavari into a standard Bahā’ı̄ martyr. It is this that I fear will be
> (Oxford: George
> Ronald, 1995).                         his fate. I fear it not only because I will no longer recognize my friend, but also
> L. Rowden, Hidden                      because he was larger than such stereo-typing allows. His personality (like
> Bounties: Memories of                  every human being’s) was unique: it was also graceful, informed, and forceful,
> Pioneering on the
> Magdalen Archipelago                   and thus worth preserving.51
> (Ontario: Nine Pines
> Publishing, 1994).                Fischer’s understandable concern is that hagiographic treatment of Akhtar-
> 38. Abu’l-Fadl                        Khavari would have a moulding effect, which would ‘disembody’ the
> ˙
> [Gulpaygani],  The                authentic self. He sees the ‘typing’ of an individual as ‘martyr’ as a reduc-
> Baha’i Proofs (Hujaja’l-
> Bahiyyih) and A Short             tion of the subject, a shrinking of personhood into a brave but futile heroism.
> Sketch of the History             He regards the legacy of Nuru’llah Akhtar-Khavari not as ‘a dialogue of
> and Lives of the Leaders          martyrdom with Shi’ism’ but ‘the possibility of living in Yazd as if it were the
> of This Religion
> (Wilmette, IL: Baha’i             twentieth century, as if one could live without fear of religious fanaticism, as
> Publishing Trust, 1983).          if people could live and let live each by his or her own lights’.52 His purpose
> 39. Other examples                    is not to ‘denigrate the suffering or the heroism of Bahā’ı̄ martyrs’ but to
> include M. Gooljar,               ‘raise for discussion the possibilities for more effective ways of countering
> The Teachers of the
> Baha’i Faith: The World
> the genocidal atrocities of the Khomeini regime’.
> is One Country and                    A survey of Baha’i biographical literature suggests that Fischer’s fear
> Mankind its Citizens              has not been realized. In the first place, despite the many deaths of
> (New York: Vantage
> Press, 1986).
> Babis and Baha’is in the nineteenth century and the continued martyr-
> dom of Baha’is in both pre- and post-revolutionary Iran, these martyr-
> 40. O. Z. Whitehead,
> Some Early Bahā’ ı̄ s of
> doms have not necessarily led to biographies of hagiographic intent and
> the West (Oxford:                 ‘martyrdom’ trope.53 Second, the appearance of such literature, when it
> George Ronald, 1976);             does eventually emerge, need not betray the individuality of the subject
> Some Bahā’ ı̄ s to
> Remember (Oxford:
> in the way that Fischer fears. For sacrifice of self is regarded as hon-
> George Ronald, 1983);             ourable in the Baha’i tradition as in those of the past, and lives that have
> Portraits of Some                 been offered with the purest of motives will be remembered among the
> Bahā’ ı̄ Women
> (Oxford: George
> exemplary.
> Ronald, 1996).
> 41. Immortals (New Delhi:
> Anti-exemplum
> Baha’i Publishing Trust,          If there exists a ‘true path’ for human endeavour and the refinement of
> 1988) recounts the                character, there also exists a path of ‘waywardness’. Where one is a path of
> lives of 16 outstanding
> Indian Baha’is. Many
> faithfulness, the other is that of deceit, and one role of biography is to clar-
> of these brief                    ify the distinction between the two. Thus the central figures of the Baha’i
> biographies draw on               Faith exalted the character and actions of the praiseworthy and noted the
> the author’s personal
> acquaintance with the
> condition of its opponents for the purpose of instructing others in right
> subjects, in addition to          conduct.
> drawing on previously                 The extent to which accounts can vary in their evaluation of an individ-
> published sources.
> Some outstanding
> ual’s place in Babi and Baha’i history is illustrated in studies of the life of
> Baha’is, such as                  the Persian activist Jamālu’d-D ı̄ n ‘al-Afghā n ı̄ ’ (1838/9–1897). Afghani was
> Isfandı̄ yār Bakhtı̄ yār ı̄ ,   an Iranian of considerable intellectual and political capacity who wove
> 
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> 
> deception into every phase of his eventful life. Renowned Persianist Nikkie               Narayenrao Vakil and
> Keddie suggests that Afghani saw himself as a ‘kind of prophet or messiah,                Pritam Singh are to an
> extent already known
> destined to reform, reawaken, and reunite the Muslim world and free it                    outside India; accounts
> from its infidel conquerors’.54 While there is no doubt that Afghani knew                 of the lives of others,
> much about the teachings of the Bab, his association was with Azali Babis –               such as Knight of
> Baha’u’llah to Daman,
> principally Shaykh Ahmad Rūh ı̄ and Mı̄ rz ā Āqā Khān Kirmānı̄ .55 Kedourie         Ghulām-’Alı̄ Ibrāhı̄ mjı̄
> has suggested that during˙        ˙
> his last years in Istanbul Afghani associated with          Kurlawala, are a signifi-
> ‘Persian Bāb ı̄ s prominent in the dissemination of heterodoxy, and active in            cant contribution. As
> men were considerably
> subverting the authority of the Persian Government’,56 and suggests that an               freer than women in
> anti-Babi article attributed to Afghani in the fifth volume of Butrus al-                 Indian society, only four
> Bustānı̄ ’s encyclopaedia Dā’irat al-Ma‘ārif published in Beirut in 1881 was           women are described
> in Immortals, although
> written by Bustani himself.57 Shoghi Effendi, however, is clear in his assess-            several other chapters
> ment of Afghani’s relationship to the early Baha’is, and describes Afghani                include mention of
> as one of those ‘enemies who have sedulously sought to extinguish the                     work achieved by men
> in partnership with
> light of Bahā’u’llāh’s Covenant’:                                                       their wives.
> 42. C. Vreeland, And The
> The scheming Jamālu’d-Dı̄n Afghani, whose relentless hostility and powerful           Trees Clapped Their
> influence had been so gravely detrimental to the progress of the Faith in Near         Hands (Oxford:
> Eastern countries, was, after a chequered career filled with vicissitudes,             George Ronald, 1994);
> A. Honnold, Why They
> stricken with cancer, and having had a major part of his tongue cut away in an         Became Bahā’ ı̄ s (New
> unsuccessful operation perished in misery.58                                           Delhi: Bahā’ ı̄
> Publishing Trust,
> 1994); S. Sundrum,
> In this passage Shoghi Effendi combines judgement of character (‘the                      Mystic Connections:
> scheming Jamālu’d-D ı̄ n’) with matters of historical fact relating to his polit-        Stories of Some Early
> ical and physical decline. While few biographies have been written to date                Bahā’ ı̄ s of Malaysia
> (Kuala Lumpur: Bahā’ı̄
> about those who occupied themselves in active opposition to the central                   Publishing Trust of
> Baha’i figures and to the Baha’i community itself, the references to their                Malaysia, 2003.)
> actions in such works as Shoghi Effendi’s God Passes By suggests that such            43. The volume also
> studies will in time be required in the ongoing search for historical under-              includes the story of
> Queen Marie of
> standing of past events.59 Studies of the life of Mason Remey, for instance,              Romania.
> will be required to understand the positive contributions made in his earlier
> 44. I make this observation
> life and the circumstances leading to his tragic defection following the                  cautiously, for an essay
> passing of Shoghi Effendi, and also to correct the inaccuracies in both fact              by this writer about
> and interpretation offered in works such as that by Spataro.60                            Florence and Harold
> Fitzner that appears
> in And The Trees
> Partial biographies                                                                       Clapped Their Hands
> There are many individuals whose lives as Baha’is are only partially uncov-               relied greatly on
> archived materials, but
> ered in the biographical literature. These include the famous film actress                footnotes to the essay
> Carole Lombard, who did not live long after becoming a Baha’i; Queen                      were removed in
> Marie of Romania, whose allegiance to Baha’i principles is only marginally                keeping with the style
> and format of the
> explored in the otherwise masterful study by Pakula,61 even if more fully                 volume; other essays
> developed by Marcus;62 and August Forel, world-renowned Swiss scientist,                  in these works may
> whose life is partially explored by Vader.63                                              have followed a similar
> path from research
> Roy Wilhelm (1875–1951), the trusted servant of ‘Abdu’l-Baha designated              to publication.
> a ‘herald of Bahā’u’llāh’s Covenant’ and later a Hand of the Cause by
> 45. Some recent examples
> Shoghi Effendi, is known to Baha’is for his service on the Baha’i Temple                  include H. Falahi-
> Unity Board (from 1909) and the North American National Assembly (from                    Skuce, A Radiant Gem:
> its inception in 1922 until 1946, when he retired at the age of 71); and especially       A Biography of Jinab-i
> Fadil-i Shirazi (Victoria,
> for the property in New Jersey which became the East Coast Baha’i commu-                  BC: Trafford Publishing,
> nity’s first summer school. Less well known is the fact that Wilhelm rose                 2004); B. Fitzpatrick-
> 
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> 
> Moore, My African                from being a high-school drop-out to become one of the largest coffee
> Heart (Johannesburg:             brokers in North America, a story better told in the pages of the New York
> Bahā’ı̄ Publishing
> Trust, 1999); T. K.              Times.64 Perhaps even less well known are the troubled formative years that
> Foroughi (ed.), My               prepared Wilhelm for a life of service. As recalled by Wilhelm’s butler,
> Love is My Stronghold            Walter Blakely:
> (New Delhi: Bahā’ı̄
> Publishing Trust, 1995);
> F. Mayberry, The Great                Roy was born in Zainsville, Ohio. He went to school; when he got to high
> Adventure (Manotick,                  school he didn’t like it so he ran away. His people found him and brought him
> Ontario: Nine Pines
> Publishing, 1994);                    back, then he ran again the second time, and he told me he covered his tracks
> P. Matchett, Down                     thoroughly. He got a job as a pottery salesman on the road, what they called a
> Memory Lane: The                      ‘drummer’ in those days, and he used to go all over the US selling pottery,
> Autobiography of an
> Irish Baha’i (Bangor,                 and finally he told me he saved up $750. It was like $7,500 now, and a confi-
> Co. Down: privately                   dence man came and cheated him out of it, which he said was a good thing,
> published, 1999). B.                  because he never got cheated again.
> Sims, In the Light of the
> Rising Sun: Memoirs of                    Roy Wilhelm used to write to the Guardian every day. I used to mail them
> a Baha’i Pioneer to                   for him, and he used to get a letter back about once a week. He sent the
> Japan (Tokyo: Bahā’ı̄                Guardian an automobile, a brand new Buick, the best ever made. I picked it
> Publishing Trust, 2002).
> out, because Roy said ‘you pick it out Walter, and pick out all the parts he will
> 46. Haydar Ali, Stories                    need for a number of years, 10 years’.65
> from The Delight of
> Hearts: The Memoirs of
> Hā j ı̄ Mı̄ rzā Haydar-‘Al ı̄   Two valuable studies of recent times treat the lives of John Birks ‘Dizzie’
> (trans. A. Q. Faizı̄ , Los        Gillespie and Bernard Leach.66 Leach’s Baha’i affiliation is widely known,
> Angeles: Kalimāt
> Press, 1980); A.                  but his struggles with religious ideas and values are only revealed through
> ‘Al ı̄ zād, Years of             the meticulous scholarship of Cooper, an author principally concerned with
> Silence: The Bahā’ ı̄ s in       Leach as potter but aware of the significance of the potter’s Baha’i commit-
> the USSR, 1938–1946:
> The Memoirs of                    ments.67 While Shipton’s study of Gillespie similarly focuses his subject
> Asadu’llāh ‘Al ı̄ zād           from an artistic rather than religious point of view, his treatment of Gillespie’s
> (trans. B. R. Ma‘ani,             Baha’i commitments leaves the reader keen to know more.68
> Oxford: George
> Ronald, 1999).                        The black American philosopher Alain Locke (1886–1954) is another
> whose activities within the Baha’i community have only recently been
> 47. B. Nakhjavani, Asking
> Questions: A Challenge            assessed, with most biographies focusing on his achievements as philoso-
> to Fundamentalism                 pher and writer.69 The Baha’i literature, conversely, notes Locke’s involve-
> (Oxford: George                   ment in race amity conferences in the 1920s without examining in any detail
> Ronald, 1990).
> his work in philosophy.70 Will van den Hoonaard has recently explored the
> 48. M. Root, Tahirih the              notion of partial biography.71 In the Australian context, the life of ‘Burnam
> Pure: Iran’s Greatest
> Woman (New York:                  Burnam’, who gained fame for his upholding of Aboriginal rights (in 1988
> Bahā’ı̄ Publishing               he marked the bicentenary of Australia’s ‘founding’ by claiming the White
> Committee, 1938).                 Cliffs of Dover on behalf of Australia – mocking Captain Cook’s act two
> 49. North-China Daily                 hundred years earlier claiming the Australian continent on behalf of the
> News, 13 September
> 1938.
> British crown) and documentation of Aboriginal culture, as depicted by
> Norst,72 could almost be mistaken as the story of a person other than Harry
> 50. Ebner: ‘A modern
> biographer might well
> Penrith (1933?–1997), by which name this individual was known within the
> find in Tahirih all the           Baha’i community from the time of his first association with it in 1956 until
> qualities which build a           his passing.
> fascinating story. Miss
> Root has suggested
> Not all biographical subjects were in the public eye, and another source
> these – a medieval                of ‘partiality’ in accounts is the obscurity of the subject, generally through
> society in the                    lack of documentation. Thus Hellaby’s account of Sarah Ann Ridgway
> nineteenth century,
> the daughter of a
> admits after 90 pages exploring the life of the first Baha’i in the north of
> Mohammedan priest                 England that ‘We have really very little to go on in trying to find out what
> who has cast aside the            kind of a personality Sarah Ann Ridgway was and of what kind of character.
> 
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> 
> Until she became a Baha’i there is literally no information to be unearthed                    veil, one who contrary
> on the matter…’73                                                                              to custom carried on
> religious controversies
> Apart from the investigation of lives lived in loyalty to the Covenant of                 with men and publicly
> Baha’u’llah, there remains too the issue of lives lived outside it, or in wilful               took part in religious
> opposition to it. A small number of biographies focus on subjects who                          conferences. The
> author has described
> were not Baha’is, but whose lives intersected significantly with the Baha’i                    Tahirih as a “poetess
> revelation. These include Edward Granville Browne, the Cambridge orien-                        whose work is sought
> talist who devoted some three decades to the study of the Babi movement.                       by scholars in every
> land”, yet but two of
> Balyuzi’s study Edward Granville Browne and the Bahā’ı̄ Faith does not                        her poems are trans-
> explore all facets of the scholar’s life and work, but focuses, as the title                   lated in an appendix.
> suggests, on his activities and publications in relation to the religion and                   Oriental scholars of
> the character of Lord
> community of the Bab. More specifically, Balyuzi writes from the perspec-                      Curzon, Valentine
> tive of one who has examined Browne’s early and later writings and who is                      Chirol and Sir Francis
> puzzled at his increasingly contradictory and oftentimes disapproving con-                     Younghusband have
> written of Tahirih with
> clusions.74                                                                                    admiration. Abundant
> Biography, it seems, cannot aspire to full re-presentation of a subject’s                 testimony of her
> life. Its function and purpose is, rather, to select and present facets of that                remarkable personality
> and gifts exists. Yet
> life which the biographer finds important. In doing so, biography offers                       this book cannot
> commentary on the significance of that life, and on the uniqueness of that                     satisfy those who
> life. In contemporary terms, one commentator has suggested, ‘The biogra-                       want an unbiased
> interpretation of that
> pher imposes pattern on experience to declare the comprehensibility of                         personality.’ North-
> human existence. Learning of other people, we learn of ourselves.’75 To aid                    China Daily News,
> the task of finding and commenting on meaning, biography makes use of                          13 September 1938.
> such devices as metaphor and critique.                                                    51. M. M. J. Fischer and
> M. Abedi, Debating
> Muslims: Cultural
> Biography as metaphor                                                                         Dialogues in
> St Augustine wrote in his Confessions:                                                        Postmodernity and
> Tradition (Madison, WI:
> University of Wisconsin
> Many things … are done, which seem disallowable to men and yet are                         Press, 1990). See
> approved by thy testimony; and many things again are commended by men,                     chapter 4, ‘Social
> which by thy testimony are condemned. For the appearance of the act is often               Change and the
> Mirrors of Tradition:
> different from the intention of him that doth it; and the precise circumstances            Bahā’ı̄ s of Yazd’, 247–8.
> of the time, which are hidden from us, must often vary.76                                  Mr Nuru’llah Akhtar-
> Khavari was one of
> seven Iranian Baha’is
> The Christian tradition of biography developed metaphors with which to                        martyred in Yazd on
> describe the evolution of the religious life, and against which to compare the                8 September 1980, see
> specifics of the life of their subject. Vincent Brummer explains a three-stage                The Bahā’ı̄ World, vol.
> 18, 1979–1983, 291.
> growth process within the Christian tradition of mysticism, commencing
> with purification (or purgation), followed by illumination (or enlightenment)             52. ibid 249–50.
> and finally ecstasy (or union). In the stage of purification one learns repen-            53. One of the few
> tance, self-denial and humility.77 This first stage is one of self-knowledge, a               monographs in
> English focusing on
> stage in which the ‘spirit of God inflames our will with love. This is a love                 the theme is M. Labib,
> that is chaste, holy and ardent.’78 The third level, union, is not possible in the            The Seven Martyrs of
> mortal realm, although enlightened mystics may gain glimpses of it.                           Hurmuzak (trans.
> M. Momen, Oxford:
> If a metaphor such as Brummer’s is accepted, the biographical task                        George Ronald, 1981).
> becomes that of making evident the progress of the spirit as it becomes                   54. N. R. Keddie,
> refined through the tests it encounters and endures in the material world. The                ‘Sayyid Jamal ad-Din
> stages of search, love, knowledge, unity, contentment, wonderment, poverty                    “Al-Afghani”: A Case
> of Posthumous
> and absolute nothingness explored in Baha’u’llah’s mystical work The                          Charisma?’, in
> Seven Valleys refers to stages that souls traverse in life in varying degrees                 Philosophers and Kings:
> 
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> 
> Studies in Leadership        of intensity, which relate to varying degrees of capacity. This model has been
> (ed. D. A. Rustow,           explored in systematic theologies79 but has seldom provided the foundation
> New York: George
> Braziller, 1970) p. 170.     for biographical study. The literary subject might render the biographer’s
> task easy by depicting his or her spiritual state on paper, but few people
> 55. I am grateful to Dr
> Moojan Momen for             are so inclined, and the interpretation of their interior journey on the basis
> pointing out these           of their exterior one remains extremely difficult. The most accessible bio-
> associations to me:          graphical subjects are those who themselves engaged in literature. Thus
> email 20 May 2005.
> biographer Wendy Heller found Lidia Zamenhof a subject at once tragic
> 56. E. Kedourie, Afghani         and accessible.80 Zamenhof was the daughter of Ludwik Zamenhof, a
> and ‘Abduh: An Essay
> on Religious Unbelief        Polish Jew who created the language of Esperanto. She devoted herself to
> and Political Activism       propagation of the Baha’i teachings through the medium of Esperanto lan-
> in Modern Islam              guage and culture, until her life was terminated by the Nazis of Hitler’s
> (London: Frank Cass
> & Co., 1966), 20.            Germany. Heller’s treatment of Zamenhof’s restless life excels in narrating
> her life journey against the backdrop of pre-war Europe, when Baha’i com-
> 57. ‘All that connects it
> with Afghani is the last     munities laboured innocently in the context of a mounting maelstrom.
> sentence, which says:
> “This is what the well-      The life cycle
> known Sayyid Kamal
> al-Din al-Afghani and        More frequent use has been made of life cycles – the pilgrimage from child-
> others have related          hood, to adolescence, to adulthood. This physical progression provides a
> concerning them.” It         metaphor for the spiritual journey that gives meaning to the physical: it
> may, of course be true
> that, sceptic as he          offers a view on the quest for life – the conquering of self, the overcoming
> was, Afghani had little      of desire; it seeks to examine the ways in which periods of crisis and test
> use for the involved         contributed to the subject’s growth and development.
> and abstruse specula-
> tions of the Bāb, but           Various motifs recur in the depiction of the life cycle of an individual
> this would not prevent       believer in the Faith of Baha’u’llah. These include the process of conver-
> him from collaborating       sion/confirmation of faith, socialization (becoming familiar with the value
> with his followers in a
> political cause.’            system of the community), conversion encounters (acts of teaching the
> 58. Shoghi Effendi, God
> Faith to others), acts or episodes of service (e.g. participation in adminis-
> Passes By (Wilmette,         tration, propagation, scholarship and learning, defence of the Baha’i Faith).
> IL: Baha’i Publishing            Among the most successful biographies in exploring the life cycle are
> Committee, 1944), 317.
> those by Marzieh Gail. In Summon Up Remembrance81 and Arches of the
> 59. Biographies of those         Years82 Gail graciously introduces the reader to the world as lived in by her
> who opposed the
> Baha’i central figures
> parents, Ali Kuli Khan and Florence Breed, quite possibly the first
> include R. Hollinger,        Persian–American marital alliance and certainly a meeting of culture and
> ‘Ibrahim George              learning on both sides. As a child witness to much that she records, Gail
> Kheiralla and the Bahā’ı̄
> Faith in America’, in
> gives an account that benefits from her intimate association with her char-
> From Iran East and           acters, and permits the reader not merely an understanding of the involve-
> West, Studies in Babi        ment of Khan and Breed in the affairs of the Baha’i community – whether in
> and Baha’i History,
> vol. 2 (ed. J. R. Cole
> Persia, Palestine, Turkey, France or the United States – but insights into the
> and M. Momen, Los            influences that shaped the development of their characters, and the forces
> Angeles: Kalimāt Press,     in the world at large that shaped their destinies.
> 1984), 95–134. Much is
> known of the life of
> Gail describes the heroic without creating generic heroes or heroines,
> Mason Remey, a Hand          and in this she follows Ruhe in instinctively developing another of the
> of the Cause who broke       ‘ungathered strands’: the new framework for observation of lived lives does
> the Covenant following
> the death of Shoghi
> not seek to be prescriptive, does not set up ‘personas’ modelling or some-
> Effendi, although no         how defining a set of ‘ideal’ behaviours. That modernist effort to standardize
> scholarly treatment of       our every action, to stifle difference, to create categories which we can
> his life has appeared.
> clearly label as ‘the heroic’ teacher or defender of the faith, or the ‘stalwart’
> 60. F. C. Spataro, Charles       and tragic martyr or saint, has been dismissed. Here instead is an effort to
> Mason Remey and the
> see subjects in their individuality, to find qualities of humility, of love, of
> 
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> 
> brilliance, of courage, in their specific locations, rather than in some prede-               Baha’i Faith (New York:
> fined categories into which our infinitely diverse characters must somehow                    Carlton Press, 1987).
> be put. Instead is the project of finding heroic acts in the ordinary and                 61. H. Pakula, The Last
> everyday, of observing the saintly in the common believer, as in the extraor-                 Romantic: A Biography
> of Queen Marie of
> dinary person of some other time and place. Here is a biography of difference,                Roumania (London:
> of identification and examination of that sense of individuality that is to be                Weidenfeld &
> achieved in the context of community. Here is celebration of the subject’s                    Nicolson, 1985).
> consciousness of individual worth, of being at one with other believers and               62. D. L. Marcus, Her
> community rather than of being the same as all other believers.                               Eternal Crown: Queen
> Marie of Romania and
> the Baha’i Faith
> Reformulating the biographical framework                                                      (Oxford: George
> Most contemporary biography seeks to convey not merely the facts and                          Ronald, 2000).
> example of a subject’s life, but interpretation and even evaluation of it.                63. J. P. Vader, For the
> Most importantly, this critical approach has been encouraged by the pre-                      Good of Mankind:
> August Forel and the
> sumption that an author occupies some superior and objective vantage                          Baha’i Faith (Oxford:
> point from which to view, and judge, the subject. ‘In the recent past’, it has                George Ronald, 1984).
> been suggested,                                                                           64. 9 July 1921, 8:7 –
> criticizes arbitrary reg-
> ulations in new tariff
> the usefulness of a ‘critical biography’, one that purports to connect life and
> bill; 15 March 1925,
> work, was thought to consist mainly in giving the work a limiting context …                IX, 18:3 – praises
> Today, when the range of critical approaches has widened beyond the nar-                   commercial arbitration;
> 4 January 1936, 14:7 –
> row verities of formal criticism, we are permitted an ampler view of critical
> letter on calendar
> biography. To understand any literary work requires, to begin with, a grasp                charges; 21 November
> of its genre and of its historical context. Equally essential is a personal                1937, IV, 9:7 – letter
> on calendar;
> context … that biography provides to put the subject’s work in adequate
> 21 December 1951, 27:5.
> perspective. The work never provides sufficient information in itself for
> 65. Interview with Walter
> proper interpretations.83
> Blakely, 28 August 1984,
> Burbank, Los Angeles.
> Exponents of the critical mode of biography suggest its superiority over tra-             66. Mention of Leach
> ditional hagiography, and over mere chronologies and purely descriptive                       brings to mind
> works. It could be argued, however, that extreme practices of both critical                   Leach’s lifelong friend
> Mark Tobey, the Baha’i
> biography and hagiography are best avoided, and that the most satisfactory                    artist responsible for
> biography emerges from critical examination that constructs and contextu-                     introducing Leach to
> alizes more than it merely deconstructs a life story.                                         the Baha’i Faith.
> While Tobey’s Baha’i
> The Baha’i writings provide immense insight into the nature of man and                    affiliation is well
> the purpose of existence and can assist in formulating the criteria upon                      documented in work
> which sound biographical enquiry may proceed. They create, on the other                       examining his role in
> modern art, it cannot
> hand, a dilemma for the writer of biography. We know that humans are                          be said that his life
> imperfect; the Baha’i teachings also tell us not to dwell on the faults of oth-               has yet been given
> ers. Since we also know that in the discipline of biography the biographer is                 full biographical
> consideration. Recent
> challenged to reveal the life of the subject, how can such a life be revealed                 academic work
> without displaying imperfections, and at the same time avoiding simple                        includes E. R. Kelley,
> hagiography? If we are to reveal our subject – and we know subjects are                       ‘Mark Tobey and the
> Bahai Faith: New
> imperfect – then we will reveal blemishes of character. But if we are true to                 Perspectives on the
> the facts as we find them, and reveal blemishes of character, then we are                     Artist and His
> exposing the faults of others, and this appears to be contrary to the spirit of               Paintings’, Ph.D.
> thesis, University of
> the Baha’i teachings.84 If, furthermore, we sift the facts to present a partial               Texas at Austin, 1983.
> picture of our subject, dwelling only on those aspects that we think will                     The classic treatments
> show our subject in a positive light, we are in danger of distorting the real-                are W. C. Seitz, Mark
> Tobey (New York: The
> ity of ‘things as they are’: how might the biographer resolve this dilemma?                   Museum of Modern
> 
> The Modes and Intentions of Biography                                                83
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> 
> Art, 1962), and W.              First, I suggest, the intention of Baha’i biography is not to critique for
> Schmied, Mark Tobey        critique’s sake, but to explore the relationship between a subject’s con-
> (London: Thames &
> Hudson, 1966).             scious purpose and the fruit of the enactment of that purpose. Baha’i
> biographies are not stories of selves engaged in rational strategies towards
> 67. E. Cooper, Bernard
> Leach: Life and Work       fixed objectives, but voyages of beings through time and space, being
> (New Haven: Yale           tested as they approach stations of spirituality. Baha’i biography, in other
> University Press, 2003).   words, attempts the depiction of enlightened ontological states, in which
> 68. A. Shipton, Groovin’       life meanings constructed in unique and specific circumstances accord with
> High: The Life of Dizzy    universal theological foundations; each human being has a specific path to
> Gillespie (Oxford:
> Oxford University          tread, partly preordained, partly self-defined; each has a rational soul and a
> Press, 1999).              physical form, and possesses capacities of spirit, intellect and moral capac-
> 69. C. Buck, Alain Locke:      ity which the life journey presents with opportunities to either develop or
> Faith and Philosophy       ignore, through the voluntary application of will. Interactions with the
> (Los Angeles: Kalimāt     worlds of nature, of culture and of the spirit refine the soul for entry to a
> Press, 2005). Johnny
> Washington, A Journey      future (post-physical) life: such is the journey – should the biographer
> into the Philosophy of     attempt to depict it.
> Alain Locke (Westport,          Second, since we understand that the highest capacities inherent in the
> CT: Greenwood Press,
> 1994).                     person are to know (to seek knowledge of God), to love and to act, these
> 70. Locke, who taught at
> capacities should emerge in biography, through consideration of an individ-
> Howard University,         ual’s spiritual concerns, mental development, relationships with others and
> chaired sessions at        use of will. In writing about the mind of an individual, furthermore, such an
> the first ‘race amity’
> convention in
> approach would be informed by the relationship between the spirit and the
> Washington in May          intellect as this is explained in the Baha’i writings.
> 1921 and spoke at sub-          The juxtaposition of scriptural passages, which at one time stress indi-
> sequent conferences in
> New York and
> vidual ‘nothingness’ and at another celebrate individual worth suggests not
> Philadelphia (The          contradictory elements within the Baha’i writings but the range of levels
> Bahā’ı̄ World, vol. 2,    available for interpreting the worth of the self, and the individual life.
> 1926–28, 23, 283). His
> essay ‘impressions of
> Advocacy of self-effacement does not denote lessening of individual value,
> Haifa’ appeared in The     just as promotion of universal values does not deny the importance of par-
> Bahā’ı̄ Yearbook, 1925,   ticularity. Stories of the self thus find their importance at different levels. We
> 81–8, and was repeated
> in The Bahā’ı̄ World,
> must decide on some understanding of the self as the combined effects of
> vol. 2, 1926–28, 125–7     physical, spiritual and intellectual selves. A mature biographer may feel
> and The Bahā’ı̄ World,    confident to offer an evaluation of a subject’s life; but those who write
> vol. 3, 1928–30, 280–2.
> An ‘In Memoriam’
> within a Baha’i perspective will temper their evaluation of the worth of the
> article by Charlotte       life of another human being through consciousness of the biographer’s own
> Linfoot appeared in        limited access to a suitable plane from which to judge. Baha’u’llah’s admo-
> The Bahā’i World,
> vol. 13, 1954–63, 894–5.
> nitions to observe the good and to ignore the shortcomings of others dis-
> courage the hasty passing of judgement. The more we consider the
> 71. W. C. van den
> Hoonard, ‘Biographical
> immensity of the task, however, the less we feel inclined to assume the role
> Zoning and Bahai           of ‘judging observer’.
> Biographical Writing:           No biography can fully ‘represent’ a life story. It can, at best, provide a
> The Case of Rose
> Henderson’, Baha’i
> well-intentioned ‘re-presentation’ of that story. Furthermore, the qualities of
> Studies Review 12          such a re-presentation are determined by several factors, including the
> (2004), 50–66.             intentions of the author and the nature of the records disclosed.
> 72. M. J. Norst, Burnum        Biographies are ‘source-dependent’, in that the extent to which the life of
> Burnum: A Warrior for      another may be ‘re-presented’ depends much on the quality and quantity of
> Peace (East Roseville:
> Kangaroo Press, 1999).
> records – written or otherwise – that remain. To textualize lived experience
> is to theorize it, to place a grid on it. The tarjama and hagiography are
> 73. M. Hellaby, Sarah Ann
> Ridgway (Oxford:           examples of such grids. They provide conventions and criteria for appraising
> George Ronald, 2003).      a subject’s acts. Least accessible are ‘inner motives’, which are rarely exposed,
> 
> 84                                                                 Graham Hassall
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> 
> except perhaps in autobiographical accounts, which are in and of them-                  74. H. M. Balyuzi, Edward
> selves not a guarantee of authenticity.                                                     Granville Browne and
> the Bahā’ ı̄ Faith
> A well-crafted biography grounded in Baha’i texts would address the                     (London: George
> nature of the individual person, noting his or her elemental qualities and                  Ronald, 1970).
> underlying motivations. It would, furthermore, be informed by past tradi-                   Nineteenth- and
> twentieth-century Iran
> tions. Existing traditions of biography need not be rejected. To the contrary,              yielded a number of
> the positive functions of each must necessarily be drawn on in the quest for                individuals who were
> more encompassing approaches to life writing. Certain steps are required,                   not Baha’is but whose
> relationships with the
> however, to transform brief adulatory and uncritical accounts into more                     Baha’i community
> substantial biographies. These seek to position a subject in context and,                   await closer investiga-
> beyond that, seek to make a judgement, or an evaluation, of the subject’s                   tion. One thinks of the
> nationalists Malkam
> significance. I have suggested also that a biography should examine                         Khan and Jamalu’d-Din
> notions of public and private selves and distinguish between active and                     ‘Al-Afghani’.
> passive, or contemplative, facets of individual existence – between the capacity        75. Patricia Meyer Spacks,
> to reflect and the will to act. Such ‘spiritual biography’ – if it can be so called –       ‘Gossip’, in Bloom (ed.),
> James Boswell’s Life of
> must additionally be constructed on the bases of well-considered conceptions                Samuel Johnson, 144.
> of the terms ‘person’ and ‘society’. But all of these biographical objectives           76. St Augustine, The
> are subject to the availability of evidence and literary devices that can                   Confessions of St
> use this evidence to ‘re-present’ their subject. The self is always in some                 Augustine (London:
> Collins 1957), 84–5.
> relation to an order and biography is text that seeks to represent this
> 77. V. Brummer, The Model
> relationship.                                                                               of Love: A Study in
> On the foundation of the arguments laid out in brief above, Baha’i biog-                Philosophical Theology
> raphy is essentially the depiction in literature of moral heroism. Its expo-                (Cambridge:
> Cambridge University
> nents and readers must, therefore, consider deeply what concept of hero                     Press, 1993). It is
> they seek to establish. We are most familiar with the hero/heroine whose                    interesting to note that
> exploits are apparent in the physical world and in the ‘public’ arena, and                  these conditions are
> expressed in the Baha’i
> whose travels and exploits are well documented in the source literature. But                Long Obligatory Prayer.
> the concept of the heroic conveyed in Baha’i scriptures includes heroes and
> 78. ibid 62. ‘Chaste love’
> heroines whose arenas for victory are the ‘inner life’, or the life at home in              means, to Brummer,
> the family – lives far less accessible to the biographical process. The ‘hero’,             love for the sake of love
> thus, need not be famous, and what is ‘heroic’ need not be ‘public’.                        itself, not for some
> other interest. He gives
> Thornton Chase led a significant Baha’i life which examination shows to be                  the example of a
> one of daily and for the most part anonymous struggle.85 An integrating and                 servant who may love
> unifying personality may not be one that takes the lead, stands out, and                    his master for the
> wages he is paid, rather
> breaks new ground. Such an integrating personality may make no specific,                    than through any love
> outstanding contribution and hence not attract individual attention. But                    invoked by the master’s
> such a life is quite an achievement, an outstanding contribution in its own                 personal qualities.
> way, worthy of celebration, worthy of examination. In this category we can              79. See, particularly, J. Savi,
> The Eternal Quest For
> include such works as Douglas’s description of her parents’ mixed-race                      God: An Introduction to
> marriage,86 and Szepesi’s account of life as a migrant.87 The life of Thomas                the Divine Philosophy of
> Breakwell was short, undocumented, but spiritually potent.88                                ‘Abdu’l-Bahā (Oxford:
> George Ronald, 1989);
> In this essay I have suggested that the contexts in which Baha’i biogra-                and J. A. McLean,
> phy is written include each of the existing cultural and religious traditions.              Dimensions in
> The hagiographic traditions of Christianity and Islam have influenced Baha’i                Spirituality (Oxford:
> George Ronald, 1994).
> biographies toward depictions of subjects as exemplars, as heroes, saints
> 80. W. Heller, Lidia: The
> and martyrs. In the ‘modern’ biography the ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ orientation           Life of Lidia Zamenhof,
> of life stories has given way to more secular views of the origins, character               Daughter of Esperanto
> and motivation of the ‘human spirit’. The modernist tradition has also                      (Oxford: George
> Ronald, 1985).
> allowed for representations of ‘ordinary’ believers, and for critical accounts
> 81. M. Gail, Summon Up
> that value factual accuracy as much as representations of ‘ideal’ personas.                 Remembrance (Oxford:
> George Ronald, 1987).
> 
> The Modes and Intentions of Biography                                             85
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> 
> 82. M. Gail, Arches of the      Rather than privilege one of these traditions above any other, however, this
> Years (Oxford: George       paper has suggested that the Baha’i biographical project, in keeping with
> Ronald, 1991).
> the facility that underlies Baha’i theological and philosophical pursuits,
> 83. F. Brady, ‘James
> Boswell: Theory and         accommodates a range of biographical devices. This flexibility in approach
> Practice of Biography’,     will allow Baha’i authors to continue to draw on the skills of the craft elabo-
> in Bloom (ed.), James       rated across many generations, divergent cultures and traditions, yet draw
> Boswell’s Life of Samuel
> Johnson, 99–100.            on the Baha’i scriptures for inspiration productive of new insights into how
> 84. I am thinking here          lived lives can be depicted in literature.
> also of the seeming
> impossibility of            Suggested citation
> knowing the ‘real’
> person, as opposed to       Hassall, G. (2008), ‘The Modes and Intentions of Biography’, Baha’i Studies Review
> knowing the ‘façade’           14, pp. 71–86. doi: 10.1386/bsr. 14. 71/7
> that a subject presents
> to the world. In the
> context of Japanese         Contributor details
> culture, Takeo Doi, The     Dr Graham Hassall is Professor of Governance at the University of the South Pacific,
> Anatomy of Self: The        Suva, Fiji Islands. He is working on biographies of Effie Baker, and Clara and Hyde
> Individual in Japanese      Dunn. In 2005 his chapter ‘The Baha’i Faith in the Pacific’, appeared in Vision and
> Society (New York:
> Kodansha, 1986),
> Reality in Pacific Religion: Essays in Honour of Niel Gunson (Pandanus Press, Canberra).
> refers to the omote         E-mail: hassall_g@usp.ac.fj
> (the ‘face’, or the front
> of things) and the ura
> (that which is hidden,
> for instance, that
> which remains secret
> in the mind). The
> Baha’i writings warn of
> the error of cultivating
> a public persona that
> differs markedly from
> the ‘inner life and
> private character’
> which is only known
> to God; contemporary
> philosophers speak of
> ‘authenticity’ in the
> construction of
> identity.
> 85. R. H. Stockman,
> Thornton Chase: First
> American Bahā’ı̄
> (Wilmette, IL: Bahā’ı̄
> Publishing Trust, 2002).
> 86. D. Douglas and
> B. Douglas, Marriage,
> Beyond Black and
> White: An Interracial
> Family Portrait
> (Wilmette, IL: Bahā’ı̄
> Publishing Trust, 2002).
> 87. A. Szepesi, Dreams,
> Nightmares and
> Dreams Again (New
> Liskeard, Ontario:
> White Mountain
> Publications, 2000).
> 88. R. Lakshman-Lepain,
> The Life of Thomas
> Breakwell (London:
> Bahā’ı̄ Publishing
> Trust, 1998).
> 
> 86                                                                      Graham Hassall
>
> — *The Modes and Intentions of Biography (Used by permission of the curator)*