# Sacred Time: Babi and Baha'i History and 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: John Walbridge, Sacred Time: Babi and Baha'i History and Biography, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Sacred Time:
> 
> Bábí and Bahá'í History and Biography
> 
> John Walbridge
> 
> 1999
> 
> Contents
> 
> Chapter One:
> Some Babi Martyrs
> 
> Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim-i-Qazvini, a secretary of the Bab
> 
> Two Babi Youth
> 
> Mirza `Abdu'l-Vahhab-i-Shirazi
> 
> Haydar Big-i-Zanjani
> 
> The Farhadis of Qazvin
> 
> The Seven Martyrs of Tehran
> 
> Chapter Two:
> The Baha'i Faith in Turkey
> 
> The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire
> 
> Ottoman attitudes towards the Babis
> 
> Istanbul, the Great City
> 
> The City's Name
> 
> History and description
> 
> History and description
> 
> Baha'i writings on Istanbul
> 
> Istanbul after Baha'u'llah
> 
> The Baha'i community of Istanbul
> 
> Edirne, the Land of Mystery
> 
> Name, History, and description
> 
> Baha'u'llah in Edirne
> 
> Sites associated with Baha'u'llah
> 
> Edirne after Baha'u'llah
> 
> The modern Baha'i community
> 
> Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz and his Ministers
> 
> Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz
> 
> `Âli Pasha
> 
> Fu'ad Pasha
> 
> The Last Years of the Ottoman Empire
> 
> Sultan `Abdu'l-Hamid II
> 
> Jamal Pasha and World War I
> 
> Ataturk and Modern Turkey
> 
> Shoghi Effendi on the fall of the Ottomans and the rise of modern Turkey
> 
> The Baha'i Community of Turkey
> 
> Early history
> 
> Persecutions of Baha'is in Turkey
> 
> Institutional Growth
> 
> Composition of the community
> 
> Growth of the Baha'i community
> 
> Other Turkish Baha'i Communities
> 
> Turks in Iran
> 
> Turks in the Central Asian Republics
> 
> Turks elsewhere
> 
> Baha'i literature in Turkish
> 
> `Abdu'llah Pasha
> 
> Chapter Three:
> The Baha'i Faith in Iran
> 
> An Introduction to the History and Culture of Iran
> 
> Geography
> 
> History
> 
> Culture
> 
> Three Clerics and a Prince of Isfahan:
> 
> Background to Baha'u'llah's Epistle to the Son of the Wolf
> 
> Lawh-i-Burhan
> 
> Mir Muhammad-Husayn-i-Khatunabadi, "the She-Serpent"
> 
> Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir-i-Isfahani, "the Wolf"
> 
> Aqa Najafi, "the Son of the Wolf"
> 
> Sultan-Mas`ud Mirza Zillu's-Sultan
> 
> Khomeini
> 
> Miscellaneous historical and doctrinal topics
> 
> Seven Proofs
> 
> Suratu'l-Haykal
> 
> Lawh-i-Aqdas
> 
> Philosophy
> 
> Islamic philosophy as background to Baha'i thought
> 
> The Bab and philosophy
> 
> Baha'u'llah and philosophy
> 
> `Abdu'l-Baha and philosophy
> 
> Shoghi Effendi and philosophy
> 
> Philosophical writings by Baha'is
> 
> The Greek philosophers and the Jews
> 
> Dreams
> 
> Evolution: a note
> 
> R.M.S. Titanic
> 
> Appendices
> 
> Personal Names
> 
> Baha'i laws and customs relating to personal names
> 
> Persian and Islamic names
> 
> Arabic
> 
> Arabic in the Baha'i writings
> 
> Other Arabic Baha'i Literature
> 
> Author’s
> Preface
> 
> The Babi and Baha'i religions
> are historical religions, born in the full light of
> history, situating themselves in history, and drawing
> justification and inspiration from their own histories.
> The following chapters collect a series of investigations,
> mostly biographical, of Babi and Baha'i history. In
> some cases, as in the chapters on Zanjan and Turkey,
> they form a collected whole. In others, there is a
> looser connection. The central theme here is a belief
> that cultural context and detail illuminates Baha'i
> history, a theme also explored in my earlier Sacred
> Acts, Sacred Space, Sacred Time (Oxford: George
> Ronald, 1996).
> 
> Chapter
> One
> 
> Some
> Babi Martyrs
> 
> The Babi religion may
> be understood as a transitional phase between Shi`ism
> and the Baha'i Faith, and a theme that unites them
> is martyrdom. Whereas for Sunni Muslims the formative
> events of their religion were the triumphant conquests
> of early Islam, the formative event in Shi`ism was
> the martyrdom of the Imam Husayn. Husayn perished
> with a small band of followers in the plain of Karbala
> in 680. His dignity in defeat and his dauntless faith
> have provided the model for Shi`ite piety ever since.
> The figure of Husayn also provides a link connecting
> Shi`ism, the Babi religion, and the Baha'i Faith.
> In a dream the Bab drank seven handfuls of blood from
> the severed head of the Imam Husayn, and in the Baha'i
> symbolic universe, it is Baha'u'llah who is the return
> of the Imam Husayn. No Babi of Shi`ite background,
> as they all were, could fail to foresee the possibility
> of joining the returned Imam on some new plain of Karbala.
> 
> Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim-i-Qazvini,
> a secretary of the Bab.
> 
> Also called Mirza Ahmad-i-Katib
> ("the Scribe") or Mirza Ahmad-i-Qazvini, he was a secretary
> of the Bab, the teacher of Nabil-i-Zarandi, the historian,
> and a friend of Baha'u'llah. Though of a merchant
> family, he studied law and theology in his home city
> of Qazvin with Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim-i-éravani. When
> his teacher proclaimed him a mujtahid, he doubted his
> worthiness. After a dream which the Shaykhi
> merchant Haji Allah-vardiy-i-Farhadi explained as being
> of Siyyid Kazim-i-Rashti, he went immediately
> to Karbala with his brother `Abdu'l-Hamid and spent
> the winter in Siyyid Kazim's classes. After Naw-Ruz
> Siyyid Kazim sent him back to Qazvin where he worked
> as a merchant for a number of years. He was apparently
> married and had children.
> 
> Hearing of the Bab's proclamation,
> he set out for Shiraz--immediately and on foot,
> according to one report. Hearing in Tehran that the
> Bab had instructed his followers to meet him in Karbila,
> he went there, only to find that the Bab had in fact
> gone to Bushihr and Shiraz. He joined
> the party of Shaykhis seeking the Bab,
> waited for a time in Isfahan, and finally met the Bab
> with the first group of believers allowed to enter
> Shiraz. There he became a confirmed believer.
> 
> When his followers caused
> disturbances in the city, the Bab sent most of the
> believers away but ordered Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim to stay
> and make fair copies of his writings as they were revealed,
> a task he shared with Shaykh Hasan-i-Zunuzi
> and Siyyid Husayn-i-Yazdi. Just before the Bab was
> sent to Isfahan, he sent these three ahead where they
> continued to act as his secretaries, receiving letters
> from believers and transcribing the replies. Later
> when the Bab was living secretly in the house of Manuchihr
> Khan, they continued this task and were the
> only believers allowed to see him. After the governor's
> death in 1847, he followed the Bab to Kashan,
> Qum, and Kulayn, where he probably remained for the
> two to three weeks until the Bab left. He did not
> see the Bab again.
> 
> Mirza Lutf-`Ali (Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr 2:232-33) reports that Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim
> tried to go to the fort of Shaykh Tabarsi
> with Aqa Muhammad-Ja`far-i-Tabrizi but that they were
> detained in Shir-Gah. Hearing this, Mulla Husayn
> sent out a party under Mirza Muhammad-Baqir-i-Hirati
> that brought them to the fort. A few days later Mulla
> Husayn sent him to Sari to attend Quddus who was detained
> there. Quddus in turn sent him away with instruction
> to personally serve the Bab. Another report states
> that he took part in the disturbances in Khurasan
> but did not reach the fort (ZH). Both versions
> are open to doubt since they are not mentioned in Nabil,
> who otherwise has full particulars on his activities.
> 
> Soon after, he settled in
> Tehran where he lived under the protection of Baha'u'llah
> and worked as a scribe, spending his evenings making
> copies of the works of the Bab, which he gave as gifts.
> In late 1848 a young Babi, Nabil-i-Zarandi, arrived
> in Tehran and settled at the Madrasiy-i-Daru'sh-Shifay-i-Masjid-i-Shah
> where Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim was then living. He befriended
> Nabil and introduced him to the leading Babis of Tehran,
> including Baha'u'llah and his family.
> 
> It was through Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim
> that Baha'u'llah corresponded with the Bab after his
> return from Mazandaran. With him Baha'u'llah originated
> the plan to proclaim Mirza Yahya as the Bab's successor
> while keeping him in hiding--this in order to deflect
> attention from Baha'u'llah, who was well known to the
> authorities and the people. (Traveller’s Narrative
> 37/67-68. MMA 174. RG 1:53-54, 2:247-48.)
> 
> During the persecutions of
> February 1850, Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim took refuge in the
> Masjid-i-Shah, the royal mosque adjacent to
> the madrasih in which he was living. Warned by Baha'u'llah
> that the Amir-Nizam had ordered the Imam-Jum`ih to
> arrest him in the sanctuary, he escaped in disguise
> to Qum. From about this time he was generally known
> as Mirza Ahmad-i-Katib "the scribe"--a name given him
> by Baha'u'llah, probably as an alias rather than as
> an honorific. In Qum, shortly before the Bab's martyrdom,
> he received a coffer from the Bab containing the last
> of his writings and his pen-case, seals, rings, and
> the famous pentacle tablet containing 350 derivatives
> of the word Baha. He left the same day for
> Tehran, explaining that the Bab's accompanying letter
> ordered him to deliver it to Baha'u'llah.
> 
> After the Bab's martyrdom
> he and Baha'u'llah brother, Mirza Musa Kalim, received
> the remains of the Bab and his disciple. These they
> hid first in the Imam-Zadih Hasan, then in the house
> of Haji Sulayman Khan in Tehran, and finally
> in the Imamzadih Ma`sum, where they remained hidden
> until 1284/1867-68 (DB 521, RB 3:424-25). In spring
> of 1851 Nabil found him living incognito in Kirmanshah.
> During Ramadan in the summer of 1851 Baha'u'llah visited
> them and sent them both back to Tehran. Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim
> spent the winter of 1851-52 living in a caravansary
> outside the New Gate of Tehran where he spent his time
> copying the Bab's works.
> 
> When he and Nabil fell under
> suspicion once more, he fled to Qum. By summer he
> was back in Tehran and was arrested at the time of
> the attempt on the life of the Shah. His brother
> `Abdu'l-Hamid, who had come to urge him to return to
> Qazvin, was arrested with him. The two brothers were
> imprisoned in the Siyah-Chal with Baha'u'llah
> until sometime between Aug. 22-26, when both were hacked
> to pieces with sword by the artillerymen of the royal
> bodyguard, probably in the present Maydan-i-Arg, adjacent
> to the artillerymen's camp and the passage to the Siyah-Chal.
> 
> Mirza Ahmad was important
> as an authority on the writings of the Bab. Several
> manuscripts in his hand of the Arabic and Persian Bayans
> survive. He handled the private correspondence of
> the Bab, Baha'u'llah, and Mirza Yahya with discretion.
> He was also one of Nabil's principal informants for
> the inner history of the early Babi period. Modern
> Baha'is know him best as the source through which Mulla
> Husayn's famous account of the Bab's declaration reached
> Nabil.
> 
> The sincerity of his spiritual
> search is apparent from his own account preserved in
> Nabil, from the trust placed in him by the Bab and
> Baha'u'llah, and from his own actions: his contentment
> with the modest stations of merchant and scribe when
> his learning and piety would have given him an honored
> place among the `ulama, his abrupt departures in search
> of Siyyid Kazim and the Bab, and his refusal to rejoin
> his family in Qazvin. He enjoyed the respect and affection
> of Baha'u'llah and his family and the obvious devotion
> of Nabil.
> 
> Sources: DB xxxvii,
> lxiii, 52, 159-69, 176, 189, 192, 212, 214, 227-28,
> 331, 439, 504-6, 587-88, 592, 654. Tarikh-i Shuhada-yi
> Amr 2:232-33, 3:295-309. BBR 142.
> 
> Two
> Babi Youth
> 
> Mirza `Abdu'l-Vahhab-i-Shirazi
> 
> In the summer of 1844,
> the Bab began dispatching his first believers, the
> Letters of the Living, on various missions, assigning
> Mulla `Aliy-i-Bastami to announce the advent of the
> Bab to the leading clerics in Najaf, the most prestigious
> center of Shi`ite learning. The young merchant, Mirza
> `Abdu'l-Vahhab, had had a dream in which the Imam `Ali
> was distributing indulgences in the market. When he
> went to his shop in the Vakil Bazar in Shiraz
> the next morning, he saw Mulla `Ali reenacting the
> scene he had dreamed. He followed Mulla `Ali, who
> was leaving that day for `Iraq, and with some difficulty
> persuaded him to allow him to come. They had only
> gone a short distance when Haji `Abdu'l-Majid, Mirza
> `Abdu'l-Vahhab's father, caught up with them. He severely
> beat Mulla `Ali, left him lying at the roadside, and
> took his son back to Shiraz. Nabil reports
> this story in the words of Haji `Abdu'l-Majid who was
> later a prominent Baha'i in `Iraq and told the story
> often (DB 87-90).
> 
> Haji `Abdu'l-Majid some time
> later moved his family to Baghdad and then to
> Kazimayn where Mirza `Abdu'l-Vahhab established a business.
> Apparently he had no further contact with Babis until
> 1267/1851 when Baha'u'llah visited Baghdad and persuaded
> both him and his father to become Babis. When Baha'u'llah
> returned to Tehran, he refused to allow Mirza `Abdu'l-Vahhab
> to accompany him since he was the only child of his
> parents and even gave him some money to expand his
> business.
> 
> Nevertheless, `Abdu'l-Vahhab
> soon received his parents' permission to go to Tehran.
> He arrived at the time of the assassination attempt
> on the Shah. When he asked the way to the house
> of Baha'u'llah, he was arrested, placed in the Siyah-Chal,
> and chained with four others to Baha'u'llah. Soon
> afterwards he was executed--wearing Baha'u'llah's shoes
> because he had none of his own. He was hacked to pieces
> by the brother and sons of the Grand Vizier and their
> servants. The executioner later returned to the dungeon
> and praised the spirit with which he had faced death.
> Baha'u'llah often told the story of his execution
> and the dream that foretold it (DB 633-34). `Abdu'l-Baha
> praised him in a Tablet and one of his American talks.
> 
> His death date is fixed between
> August 22 and 26 by two dispatches of Sheil and the
> report of the government newpaper (BBR 134-36, 141).
> 
> Sources: MAB 3:407-8.
> DB 594. Tarikh-i Shuhada-yi Amr 3:284-94.
> Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 68, 79, 94-98,
> 108. DJT 319-21 (cf. AB 221-22).
> 
> Haydar Big-i-Zanjani
> 
> He was the son of Din-Muhammad-i-Vazir,
> Hujjat's military commander at the siege of Zanjan.
> He was apparently in his late teens at the time of
> the siege and seems to have acted as a sort of aide-de-camp
> to his father. As the siege progressed, he took a
> more active role in the fighting. For example, he
> claims to have been the one who captured Farrukh
> Khan, an army officer who infiltrated the Babi
> lines in an ill-starred attempt to capture Hujjat.
> 
> When the Babis surrendered,
> Haydar Big was spared execution but was tortured to
> get him to reveal the location of a treasure the Babis
> were thought to have hidden. He was then sent to Tehran
> where he was spared execution at the last minute because
> of his youth. He was imprisoned for nearly two years.
> He spent some years in the service of an unnamed believer
> who was later martyred. He was reported to have been
> living in Tehran in the 1880s.
> 
> His lively first-person account
> of the siege is preserved in the London manuscript
> of the New History and was included in Browne's
> translation of that book.
> 
> Sources: TJ 151-68
> passim (in an interpolation added to the London MS
> by Haji Mirza Isma`il-i-Kashani). `Abdu'l-Ahad,
> "Pers. Narr." 769 in which Browne quotes Shaykh
> `Ali-Bakhsh-i-Zanjani as confirming several
> important particulars of Haydar Big's account of his
> adventures. Husayn Zanjani, Vaqayi` 74.
> 
> The Farhadis of Qazvin
> 
> Several members of
> this family are notable in Shaykhi and
> Babi history.
> 
> Haji Allah-vardi-(or virdi)-yi-Farhadi.
> ca. 1770-ca. 1830. Shaykhi merchant
> of Qazvin. Survived by sons Aqa Muhammad-Hadi, Muhammad-Mihdi,
> and Muhammad-Javad-i-Farhadi, and one other child.
> 
> Haji Asadu'llah-i-Farhadi,
> ca. 1775-1263/1847-48. Babi martyr and younger brother
> of Allah-vardi. His three daughters, Khatun
> Jan, Hajiyyih Khanum, and Shirin Khanum,
> were married to his nephews Hadi, Mihdi, and Javad
> respectively. A respected merchant, his house was
> a meeting place for Shaykhis, including
> Shaykh Ahmad himself when he visited
> Qazvin. When Letter of the Living Mulla Jalil-i-Urumiyyih
> came to Qazvin, Haji Asadu'llah became a Babi, paid
> Mulla Jalil's expenses, and gave him lodging in his
> house and one of his wives to marry. The Farhadi house
> became a Babi meeting place and was visited by Quddus,
> Mulla Husayn, Tahirih, and others.
> 
> When Mulla Jalil's classes
> attracted the jealousy of Tahirih's uncle Haji Mulla
> Taqi-yi-Baraghani, he ordered the Farhadi house
> attacked and Mulla Jalil kidnapped. After Mulla Taqi's
> murder, the house was again attacked and looted. Haji
> Asadu'llah was taken from his sickbed to prison and
> sent chained and on foot in midwinter to Tihran with
> four others to answer for the murder. Soon after his
> arrival he died, either because of the hardships of
> the journey or because he was secretly murdered by
> Mulla Taqi's family. After he was denied burial at
> the shrine of Shah `Abdu'l-`Azim, he was buried
> at the nearby shrine of Bibi Zubaydih .
> 
> Aqa Hadi-yi-Farhadi was
> the eldest son of Allah-vardi and the nephew and son-in-law
> of Asadu'llah. With his younger brother Javad, he
> led the Babi rescue of Mulla Jalil from the madrasih
> where he was being held and tortured. He made swords
> in the cellars of the Farhadi house intended for use
> at Shaykh Tabarsi. Suspected in the
> murder of Mulla Taqi, he fled to Tihran, and his wife
> and sisters-in-law and their children had to live in
> hiding in a ruined shrine in great hardship. Baha'u'llah
> sent him back to Qazvin to rescue Tahirih, which he
> did.
> 
> Sources: Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr 3:82-88, DB:281-82.
> 
> Husayn-i-Milani,
> who helped rescue the body of the Bab.
> 
> d. August 1852. Babi martyr.
> 
> One of the followers of the
> heretic Usku, among whom he was known as Imam Humam
> Aba-`Abdi'llahi'l-Husayn, he lived in Tabriz at the
> time of the Bab's execution and played a role in the
> rescue of the Bab's remains. Mu`inu's-Saltaniy-i-Tabrizi
> states that he removed the Bab's remains from the moat
> and conveyed them to the shop of Haji Muhammad-Taqiy-i-Milani,
> while ZH states that it was to Husayn-i-Milani's shop
> that the remains were brought. Baha’u’llah, King
> of Glory, :88 states that he claimed to be Him
> Whom God will make manifest and that he acquired a
> following.
> 
> In August1852 he was living
> in Tihran and was arrested after the attempted assassination
> of the Shah. ZH states he was executed in Niyavaran
> the same day as Haji Sulayman Khan, which would
> have made him one of the earlier martyrs of that month
> and thus presumably one of the better known Babi's
> of Tihran. A platoon of soldiers stipped him and killed
> him with bayonets.
> 
> Sources: Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr3:259. BBR:142.
> 
> The
> Seven Martyrs of Tehran
> 
> In February 1850 a number
> of prominent Babis were arrested in Tehran. Seven
> of those who were condemned refused to recant and were
> publicly exected. The incident was significant on
> several grounds in the moral history of the conflict
> between the Babis and the secular and religious authorities
> of Iran. Browne later wrote:
> 
> They were men representing
> all the more important classes in Persian divines, dervishes,
> merchants, shop-keepers, and government officials;
> they were men who had enjoyed the respect and consideration
> of all; they died fearlessly, willingly, almost eagerly,
> declining to purchase life by that mere lip-denial,
> which, under the name of ketman or takiya,
> is recognized by the Shi`ites as a perfectly justifiable
> subterfuge in case of peril; they were not driven to
> despair of mercy as were those who died at Sheykh Tabarsi
> and Zanjan; and they seal their faith with their blood
> in the public square of the Persian capital wherein
> is the abode of the foreign ambassadors accredited
> to the court of the Shah. (Traveller’s Narrative,
> p. 216, quoted in BBR 100)
> 
> The following are biographies
> of these seven martyrs.
> 
> Sources: The event is
> described in every major history of the Babi religion.
> Notable accounts include DB ???, BHD, ???, BBR 100Ð5,
> God Passes By, 46Ð47, RR??. [Sorry, Wendy. A student
> is using a number of my books at the moment.]
> 
> 2. Mirza Qurban-`Aliy-i-Barfurushi
> was a well-known mystical leader and the second of
> the Seven Martyrs of Tehran. Originally from Barfurush
> in Mazandaran or Astarabad in Gurgan, he was a widely
> travelled Sufi master, a shaykh of the
> Ni`matu'llahi order. He also had associations with
> the other mystical orders of the time. His followers
> and admirers were to be found in many parts of Iran--in
> Tehran, Khurasan, Hamadan, Kirmanshah,
> Mandalij, Mazandaran, and Astrarabad--and included
> members of the royal family, notably the Shah's
> mother. He was respected for his personal, moral,
> and spiritual qualities. He lived simply and always
> wore the simple garb and woolen cloak of the dervish.
> 
> Mirza Qurban-`Ali became a
> Babi in 1845 after a chance meeting with Mulla Husayn-i-Bushru'i
> while travelling from Karbila to Iran. In Tehran he
> studied with Vahid and was closely associated with
> the Babi community there. When the Bab was at Kulayn
> near Tehran, Mirza Qurban-`Ali and some other believers
> were able to visit him there.
> 
> According to Nabil and Fadil-i-Mazandarani,
> he was prevented by severe illness from going to join
> the Babis at Shaykh Tabarsi. However,
> Mirza Lutf-`Ali, a survivor of the siege, reports that
> he reached the government camp and, not being known
> as a Babi, was asked to serve as Mihdi-Quli Mirza's
> emissary to the Babis. At the fort he told Quddus
> of the situation in the government camp and then returned
> to Mihdi-Quli Mirza with samples of the writings of
> the Bab. Later, when Vahid went to Yazd and Nayriz,
> Mirza Qurban-`Ali intended to join him but was arrested
> before he left.
> 
> Having taught his faith openly,
> he was one of the prominent Babis arrested in February
> 1850. Since he firmly maintained his faith even under
> the interrogation of the prime minister himself, intervention
> on his behalf by many friends, including even the Shah's
> mother, was unable to save him. To the prime minister
> he said that his name, which means "sacrifice to `Ali,"
> proved that he was destined to be a martyr for `Ali-Muhammad,
> the Bab. He spent his last night chanting poems of
> mystical love in the prison.
> 
> He was brought to the Sabzih-Maydan
> after the execution of the Bab's uncle. After the
> executioner's first blow merely knocked off his turban,
> he recited the famous verse:
> 
> Happy he whom love's intoxication
> 
> So hath overcome that scarce
> he knows
> 
> Whether at the feet of the
> Beloved
> 
> It be head or turban he throws!
> 
> The second blow struck off
> his head.
> 
> Sources: Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr 3:98-104.
> 
> 4. Aqa Siyyid Husayn-i-Turshizi
> was Babi mujtahid, the fourth of the Seven Martyrs
> of Tehran. A native of Turshiz (Kashmar)
> in Khurasan, he did his initial studies in Khurasan
> then went to Najaf for advanced study. After he was
> accepted as a mujtahid there, it was decided that he
> would return to his native Khurasan to teach.
> On this journey he met a Babi acquaintance, the merchant
> Haji Muhammad-Taqiy-i-Kirmani, who was returning from
> Karbila to Tehran to wait permission to visit the Bab.
> On the journey the merchant was able to convince his
> friend of the truth of the new religion. In Tehran
> he met the Bab's uncle and other Babis and became a
> confirmed member of the Babi community of the capital.
> 
> He and Haji Muhammad-Taqi
> were arrested in February 1850. Under interrogation
> he defended the validity of the proofs given by the
> Bab. Asserting that his knowledge and competence to
> judge such matters had been certified by the mujtahids
> of Najaf and Karbila, he demanded to be allowed to
> debate the `ulama of Tehran. He had, however, already
> been sentenced to death as an unbeliever by seven eminent
> mujtahids of the city in judgments solicited by the
> prime minister.
> 
> He was the fourth of the seven
> martyrs brought to the Sabzih-Maydan for execution.
> Haji `Ali Khan, the Hajibu'd-Dawlih, who was
> there at the orders of the Shah, later reported
> that at the last moment, he was very struck by the
> youth, beauty, and demeanor of Siyyid Husayn and on
> impulse offered him a high post in the government and
> his daughter's hand if he would renounce his faith.
> Aqa Siyyid Husayn refused, saying he preferred to
> leve the world and its wealth to those who cared for
> it. Angered, Haji `Ali Khan struck him in the
> mouth and ordered his immediate execution. He died
> after Mulla Isma`il-i-Qumi and before his friend Haji
> Muhammad-Taqiy-i-Kirmani.
> 
> Sources: Tarikh-i Shuhada-yi
> Amr 3: 108-12.
> 
> Haji Mulla Isma`il-i-Qumi
> (or Farahani) was a Babi cleric, the third of the Seven
> Martyrs of Tehran. He was born and raised in Farahan
> in `Iraq-i-`Ajam but studied and lived in Qum for many
> years. Later he studied in Najaf and Karbila, where
> he became a distinguished and learned Shaykhi,
> greatly respected for his character. He became a Babi
> when Mulla `Aliy-i-Bastami came to Karbila. After
> participating in the disputes there with the `ulama,
> he went to Shiraz to meet the Bab. He then
> went to Khurasan and was involved in the disturbances
> there. He was present at Badasht where he received
> the title "Sirru'l-Vujud" (Mystery of Being). He accompanied
> Baha'u'llah, Tahirih, and Quddus as far as Niyala,
> where the party was dispersed, and then went to Tehran.
> He bitterly regretted the illness that prevented him
> from going to Shaykh Tabarsi. At this
> time he lived in the in the Madrasiy-i-Daru'sh-Shifa
> where several other Babis also lived, notably Nabil
> and Mulla `Abdu'l-Karim-i-Qazvini. Nabil praises his
> eloquence in expounding the Qur'an and traditions.
> He actively taught the Babi Faith, always carrying
> an indexed Qur'an in his pocket in case he met a receptive
> person.
> 
> When in February 1850 orders
> were issued to arrest the known Babis in the capital,
> he happened to be at the house of Mirza Shafi`,
> the vazir of Tehran, who warned him that his name was
> on the list and that those arrested would be tortured
> and killed. He went into hiding but was arrested when
> he was recognized in a public bath and was chained
> and imprisoned with the others. When brought to the
> Sabzih-Maydan, he was stoned and cursed by the spectators
> but replied with cheerful words. When he reached the
> execution site, he gave some money to the executioner
> to buy candy which he then shared with him. He then
> offered prayers and was executed.
> 
> Sources: Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr 3:104-7.
> 
> 5. Haji Muhammad-Taqiy-i-Kirmani,
> the fifth of the Seven Martyrs of Tehran, was a well-known
> Babi merchant.
> 
> In 1264/1847-48 he had set
> out from Kirman to make a pilgrimage to Karbila. In
> Shiraz he became a Babi through Haji Mirza Siyyid
> `Ali, the maternal uncle of the Bab. As the latter
> was about to visit the Bab in Chihriq, Haji
> Muhammad-Taqi asked permission to accompany him. Haji
> Mirza Siyyid `Ali told him to fulfill his original
> intention of making pilgrimage to Karbila and to wait
> there for the Bab's instructions. As it happened,
> the Bab considered conditions too dangerous, so Haji
> Mirza Siyyid `Ali wrote him to come to Tehran where
> they would wait together until conditions allowed them
> to go to Chihriq.
> 
> Haji Muhammad-Taqi set out
> for Tehran in the autumn of 1849. In Baghdad
> he fell in with a friend, Aqa Siyyid Husayn-i-Turshizi,
> who had become a mujtahid in `Iraq. During the journey
> to Iran Siyyid Husayn also became a Babi. All three
> were among those arrested and executed in Tehran in
> February 1850. Haji Muhammad-Taqi was the fifth to
> die, immediately after his friend, Siyyid Husayn-i-Turshizi.
> 
> Sources: Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr 3:108-12.
> 
> Aqa Siyyid Murtaday-i-Zanjani
> was the sixth of the Seven Martyrs of Tehran. He was
> a merchant of Zanjan and brother of the Siyyid Kazim-i-Zanjani
> who died at Shaykh Tabarsi. When brought
> to the execution place, he threw himself on the body
> of Haji Muhammad-Taqiy-i-Kirmani and insisted that
> being a Siyyid, his death would be more meritorious
> than that of his friend.
> 
> The New History and Nuqtatu'l-Kaf
> do not mention him.
> 
> Sources: DB 457-58.
> Tarikh-i Shuhada-yi Amr 3:112. cf. TJ 252,
> 216.
> 
> 6. Aqa Muhammad-Husayn-i-Maraghi'i
> (or Tabrizi) was a servant. A native of Aharbayjan,
> he became a Babi in Tehran through Haji Mulla Isma`il-i-Qumi,
> for who he had a deep affection. He was a servant
> of `Azim, a prominent Tehran Babi, and was severely
> tortured to induce him to implicate others. He would
> neither speak nor cry out, and the guards thought he
> was dumb until Mulla Isma`il-i-Qumi told them otherwise.
> When he would not recant, he was condemned to death
> with the others.
> 
> When he was brought to the
> Sabzih-Maydan and saw the body of his teacher, he hugged
> it and announced his unwillingness to be separated
> from his friend. He and the other two remaining prisoners
> each claimed the right to be executed first. Finally,
> all three were killed at the same moment.
> 
> Sources:Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr 3:113-14.
> 
> Shaykh Salih-i-Karimi the
> Arab
> 
> The first Babi martyr in Iran
> was a learned Arab cleric living in Karbila who had
> been converted by Mulla `Aliy-i-Bastami. A close disciple
> of Tahirih, he was one of those who accompanied her
> to Baghdad and Iran after her expulsion from
> Karbila. An older man, he was one of those who supported
> her in her disputations with her husband Mulla Muhammad-i-Baraghani
> in Qazvin.
> 
> When Tahirih's maternal uncle
> and father-in-law, Haji Mulla Taqiy-i-Baraghani,
> was murdered, his heirs--particularly Tahirih's husband
> Mulla Muhammad--accused her of instigating the crime.
> Seventy Babis were arrested in Qazvin, and Shaykh
> Salih was among those accused of the actual murder.
> While imprisoned in the governorate in Qazvin, he
> was severely bastinadoed. Since the governor did not
> have the authority to order executions, the government
> was persuaded to have the five prisoners still suspected
> of the crime sent in chains to Tehran. One prisoner
> died in route and another, who had confessed to the
> crime, escaped soon after arriving. The remaining
> three were imprisoned in Tehran. They were interrogated
> individually by Mulla Muhammad, a mujtahid with Babi
> sympathies, who exonerated them. Nonetheless, Mulla
> Muhammad-i-Baraqani was able to persuade the Shah
> to order the execution of Shaykh Salih.
> He faced his death steadfastly, reciting prayers and
> composing a couplet at the place of execution. He
> was blown from the mouth of a cannon in the Sabzih-Maydan
> in Tehran. The pieces of his body were collected and
> buried in the courtyard of the Imamzadih Zayd.
> 
> Shaykh Salih-i-Karimi
> was the first Babi to be executed for his faith in
> Iran, though the elderly Haji Asadu'llah-i-Farhadi,
> another of the Babis suspected in the murder, died
> of ill-treatment and exposure on the road to Tehran.
> 
> Sources: Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr 3:77-81.
> 
> \Shaykh Abu-Mansur Ahmad
> b. `Ali b. Abi-Talib Tabarsi was the twelfth century
> Shi`i scholar whose tomb near Barfurush
> was the scene of the most important battle between
> the Babis and government troops in 1848-49. Shaykh
> Tabarsi--not to be confused with his contemporary al-Fadl
> b. Hasan Tabarsi, the author of a famous commentary
> on the Qur'an--was one of the teachers of the Shi`i
> biographer, Ibn Shahrashub. He was best
> known for the Kitabu'l-Ihtijaj, a collection
> of the traditions in which the Prophet and the Imams
> used arguments.
> 
> Sources: Biharu'l-Anvar
> 0:140. Adh-Dhari`ah 1:281-82. A`yanu'sh-Shi`ah
> 3:29-30. The identification of the tomb with this
> man is made by the tablet of visitation in the tomb.
> See Brown, Year, p. 617.
> 
> Mulla `Abdu'l-Fattah
> (c. 1774-1852) was a native of Baha'u'llah's home village
> of Takur. He was arrested during the attack on that
> village in revenge for the attempted assassination
> of the Shah. His beard and part of his chin
> were cut off, and he was brought to the Siyah-Chal
> in Tihran, where he immediately died. He was praised
> by Baha'u'llah in a visiting tablet and by `Abdu'l-Baha
> in prayers.
> 
> Tarikh-i
> Shuhada-yi Amr 3:26_??, Baha’u’llah, King of
> Glory, 89-92, Iqlim-i-Nur??.
> 
> Chapter
> Two
> 
> The
> Baha'i Faith in Turkey
> 
> Turkey is a secular
> state with a largely ethnically Muslim population occupying
> the Anatolian peninsula and a small area of the southeastern
> part of the Balkan Peninsula. Modern Turkey is the
> successor state of the Ottoman Empire, which until
> the end of World War I also controlled parts of the
> Arab Near East and the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire
> played a major role in Baha'i history, for it was to
> Ottoman Iraq that Baha'u'llah went as an exile in 1853.
> Later he was exiled under Ottoman authority to Istanbul,
> Edirne, and `Akka. `Abdu'l-Baha also lived in the
> Ottoman Empire for most of his life, the greater part
> of the time as a prisoner.
> 
> Baha'is have lived in the
> territory of modern Turkey since the time of Baha'u'llah's
> exile to Istanbul. The contemporary Baha'i community
> consists of several thousand believers with about a
> hundred local spiritual assemblies. The National Spiritual
> Assembly of Turkey was formed in 1959.
> 
> In addition to those living
> in modern Turkey itself, there are large numbers of
> Turks elsewhere, particularly in northwestern Iran
> and Soviet Central Asia. There are a considerable
> number of Turkish-speaking Baha'is in Iran and an increasing
> number of Turkic-speaking Baha'is in the new republics
> of Central Asia.
> 
> The
> Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire
> 
> The Turks are among the many
> peoples who have overflowed from the steppes of Central
> Asia into the settled areas of the Middle East, Europe,
> and China. By the tenth century A.D. they had drifted
> into the eastern Islamic lands, at first as mercenaries
> but soon as rulers. The Ottoman Empire began in the
> thirteenth century as one of the petty Turkish principalities
> in the former Byzantine lands of western Anatolia.
> In a series of brilliant conquests over the next two
> centuries, the Ottomans built an empire covering most
> of Anatolia and the southern Balkans, capped in 1453
> with the capture of Constantinople itself. The Ottomans
> triumphantly moved the government from their old capital
> of Edirne (Adrianople) to Constantinople. At its height
> in the sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire stretched
> from Iraq to Algeria and from the Crimea to Aden and
> was one of the most powerful and advanced states in
> the world.
> 
> By the beginning of the nineteenth
> century, however, it was clear that the Ottomans had
> failed to keep pace with the technological, economic,
> and military advances of the European states. Moreover,
> the administrative structure of the empire had become
> corrupt and the Sultan's power diluted. A number of
> provinces had already been lost to European neighbors
> or insubordinant governors. Many expected the empire
> to collapse. Napoleon, for example, invaded Egypt
> and Syria as a way of striking at Britain's Eastern
> interests.
> 
> However, the Ottomans proved
> more resilient than expected. A series of reforming
> Sultans attempted to reorder the state, army, and economy
> after European models. Salim (Selim) III (1789-1807)
> attempted to establish a "New Order" in which the old
> Janissary Corps would be replaced by a modern army,
> modern schools established, and the people given a
> say in local administration. In the end, however,
> the old army and government establishment united against
> him, and he was overthrown in a mutiny of the Janissaries.
> 
> He was succeeded soon after
> by his cousin, Mahmud II (1808-39), who, after consolidating
> his own power, carried on the reforms. In 1826 he
> tricked the Janissaries into mutinying and massacred
> them. He also tried to reform education, mostly without
> success, though he did establish a modern medical school
> and language academies for training diplomats. The
> result was a professional diplomatic corps that furnished
> most of the reforming statesman of the next decades.
> 
> `Abdu'l-Majid I (`AbdŸlmecid,
> 1839-61), though young and susceptible to influence,
> was sympathetic to the reforms and issued a series
> of decrees known as the Tanzimat which, at least on
> paper, went far towards making Turkey a modern state.
> However, by about 1850 the impetus towards reform
> had largely petered out. It was during `Abdu'l-Majid's
> reign that the Crimean War (1853-56) took place, in
> which the European powers united against Russia in
> defense of Turkey. Baha'u'llah alludes to the destruction
> of a Turkish fleet by the Russians in his Tablet to
> Napoleon III, an incident that Napoleon had used to
> justify his entrance into the war.
> 
> The Tanzimat reforms had failed
> to transform the state fundamentally, although many
> improvements had resulted. Their flaw was that for
> the sake of reform, power had been concentrated in
> the hands of the Sultan in order to allow him to make
> necessary changes. However, once power passed into
> the hands of an incapable Sultan, there were no institutions
> capable of restraining him.
> 
> Sources: For the history
> of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, see Stanford
> J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
> 2 vol. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976-
> ); Lord Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries; EB (1985) "Turkey
> and Ancient Anatolia." For the religious situation
> in contemporary Turkey, see World Christian Encyclopedia
> "Turkey."
> 
> Ottoman attitudes towards
> the Babis
> 
> In the nineteenth century
> Ottoman Iraq was the temporary or permanent home to
> a large number of Iranians--pilgrims, clerics, students,
> refugees, merchants--most drawn by the Shi`i
> shrines there. The Babi religion first came to the
> attention of the Turkish authorities at the end of
> 1844 when one of the Letters of the Living, Mulla `Aliy-i-Bastami,
> was arrested in Iraq on the charges of circulating
> a blasphemous imitation of the Qur'an and disturbing
> the peace. Najib Pasha, the governor of Iraq
> under whose authority Bastami was tried, seems to have
> sincerely considered Bastami's Babi views objectionable.
> Nonetheless, the main concern of the Turkish authorities
> was apparently to avoid provoking disturbances between
> the Shi`i and Sunni communities in Iraq and
> complicating already strained relations with Iran.
> 
> Two years later when similar
> disturbances arose around the person of Tahirih, Najib
> Pasha, having learned from the commotions associated
> with the Bastami affair, simply took her quietly into
> custody and held her in the house of a leading Sunni
> cleric while he waited for instructions from Istanbul.
> A few months later she was deported to Iran.
> 
> By the 1850s there were many
> Babis among the Iranians in Iraq, most notably Baha'u'llah.
> The Turks had traditionally granted asylum to refugees
> of all sorts, and at that time were freely giving Ottoman
> nationality to Iranian refugees, to the irritation
> of the Iranian government. They protected the Babis
> as well, giving them citizenship when the Persian authorities
> tried to have them extradited. Baha'u'llah kept the
> Babis under careful control, so the Turks had few reasons
> to be apprehensive about them.
> 
> The Iranian government, seeing
> the recovery of the Babi community under Baha'u'llah's
> guidance, was very anxious that he should be removed
> from Baghdad. The Iranian ambassador in Istanbul steadily
> agitated for this end. Eventually, the Turks gave
> in and ordered Baha'u'llah to Istanbul as a guest of
> the government.
> 
> Sources: For the trial
> of Mulla `Aliy-i-Bastami, see Amanat 220-38, Momen,
> "Trial," BBR 83-90.
> 
> Istanbul,
> the Great City
> 
> From 16 August through 1 December
> 1863 Baha'u'llah was an exile in Istanbul or Constantinople,
> the former capital of the Byzantine empire and at that
> time the capital of Ottoman Turkey. In the nineteenth
> century it was the chief city of the Islamic world.
> 
> The City's Name
> 
> Istanbul was originally
> named Byzantium, perhaps after the legendary Byzas,
> supposed to be the leader of the first Greek colonists
> to settle the site. The emperor Constantine the Great
> renamed the city "New Rome" and "Constantinpolis" in
> 330 A.D. In English this became "Constantinople"--"Qustantiyyih"
> in the Islamic languages. This name remained in use
> until the adoption of the Roman alphabet in Turkey
> after World War I.
> 
> The modern name "Istanbul"--or
> "Stamboul" or "Astanih"--is an Arabic corruption of
> a Greek phrase meaning "in the City" and was in use
> as early as the tenth century A.D. A pun attributed
> to Sultan Muhammad II, the Ottoman conqueror of the
> city, made this "Islambul"--"where Islam abounds."
> This became the preferred spelling of educated Ottomans.
> 
> Islamic cities, like people,
> had titles. Those of Istanbul reflect its importance
> and prestige: "Seat of the Sultanate," "Home of the
> Caliphate," "Home of Victories," "Dome of Islam," and
> the like. Western diplomats referred to Istanbul and
> the Ottoman government as "the Sublime Porte," a French
> mistranslation of Bab-i-`Ali, "High Gate"--the name
> of the part of the palace where several ministries
> were located.
> 
> To Baha'u'llah Istanbul was
> simply "the City" or "the Great City" (al-madinih al-kabirih),
> reflecting its preeminence in the Islamic world.
> 
> History and description
> 
> Istanbul is strategically
> situated on the European bank of the waterway separating
> Europe from Asia, on a triangular peninsula formed
> by the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and a deep inlet
> called the Golden Horn. By its situation it controls
> sea traffic between the Mediterranean lands and the
> Black Sea and the land traffic between the Balkans
> and Asia. Moreover, the Golden Horn is a splendid
> natural harbor, and the peninsula lent itself to defense.
> Thus, the history of Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul
> may be read as a twenty-six-century-long struggle between
> those who would use the city to dominate the lands
> bordering the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean and
> those who found their ambitions limited by the rulers
> of the city.
> 
> The ancient and medieval
> city. According to legend, ancient Byzantium was
> founded about 657 B.C. by colonists from Megara and
> Argos during the great age of Greek colonization.
> The early history of the town is a complicated series
> of struggles, as various powers contended for the town
> with its control of the Black Sea grain trade, punctuated
> by sacks as irritated neighbors retaliated for the
> tolls the city placed on shipping. Byzantium eventually
> joined the Roman Empire as a free confederate city,
> but soon lost its privileges. It was destroyed in
> 196 and 268 A.D. during civil wars, but was rebuilt
> both times.
> 
> Ancient Byzantium occupied
> a much smaller area than the modern city, and none
> of its monuments survive.
> 
> In 330 A.D. Constantine I,
> the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, moved
> the capital to Byzantium. Now known as Constantinople,
> the city almost immediately became the leading city
> of the Western world and the capital of what was really
> a new eastern Greek Christian empire. Constantine
> tripled the size of the city. He and his successors
> filled the city with wonderful churches, palaces, and
> monuments, and girdled it with great walls that were
> to be breached only once in their history.
> 
> Within a century and a half,
> the last remnants of the Western Roman Empire had vanished,
> but the fortunes of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine
> Empire continued to rise, and by the sixth century
> it had attained a power and magnificence nearly equal
> to that of Rome at its height.
> 
> Constantinople was also the
> seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople, among Christian
> prelates second only to the Pope in Rome. After the
> split with Rome in the eleventh century, he became
> the titular head of the whole Orthodox Church, as he
> remains to this day. Thus, Constantinople became a
> sort of holy city to the Eastern Christians.
> 
> After the sixth century the
> empire slowly dwindled, but Constantinople remained
> one of the world's great cities. At its height it
> had a population of half a million. An Arab traveler
> of the twelfth century could still remark, "This city
> is even greater than its repute." By the fifteenth
> century, however, the Byzantine Empire had been reduced
> to some small, distant, and impoverished provinces
> and a few kilometers of land outside the city wall.
> The city was full of ruins and largely empty of people.
> The end came in 1453.
> 
> The Turkish city.
> Muslims besieged Constantinople for the first time
> in 669 A.D. During this campaign the elderly Abu-Ayyub
> al-Ansari, the standard-bearer of the Prophet Muhammad
> himself, died and was buried before the walls of Constantinople.
> The siege failed. Naval raids a few years later also
> failed. In 716-17 the caliph Sulayman b. `Abdu'l-Malik,
> encouraged by a tradition that Constantinople was to
> be conquered by a caliph bearing the name of a prophet,
> besieged the city, again without success. Seven centuries
> would pass before a Muslim army again stood before
> the Great City.
> 
> In 1355 the Ottoman Turks,
> having taken the last Byzantine territory in Asia Minor,
> crossed the Dardanelles and established themselves
> in Europe. For nine more decades the city maintained
> a fragile independence, protected mostly by larger
> dangers and opportunities that preoccupied the Turks.
> A Turkish siege in 1422 failed to take the city, but
> in April 1453 a larger army equipped with the finest
> siege artillery in the world appeared before the walls.
> The desperate pleas of the last Byzantine emperor
> for aid from the West brought only two thousand Genoese
> soldiers. Cheered by the miraculous rediscovery of
> the tomb of Abu-Ayyub, the Turks stormed the city on
> 29 May. The last Roman emperor died fighting on the
> walls.
> 
> Sultan Muhammad II--now called
> "Fatih", the "Conqueror"--made Constantinople his capital.
> Finding the city in ruins and depopulated, he filled
> it with people deported from other conquered areas.
> He ordered his nobles to build the mosques and other
> public buildings for the various quarters of the city.
> By the end of his reign the population was perhaps
> 70,000. Over the next century Istanbul rose steadily
> in wealth, population, and magnificence as the sultans
> strove to make their capital the greatest city in the
> world. The Byzantines had left the ancient domed church
> of Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom"). Taking this as their
> model, the Ottomans filled the city with great domed
> mosques. In the sixteenth century the great architect
> Sinan and his staff built more than three hundred public
> buildings, most in Istanbul. Though the highpoint
> of Ottoman architecture was the sixteenth century,
> the Sultans continued building right up to the end
> of the nineteenth century.
> 
> In various ways the Sultans
> attempted to make Istanbul a sacred city of Islam.
> 
> The Ottoman Empire was cosmopolitan,
> embracing dozens of nationalities--a diversity reflected
> in the capital. From the first the Sultans had brought
> Christians and Jews to live in Istanbul. Once the
> city was reestablished, people flocked in of their
> own accord: Arab, Turkish, and Persian Muslims; Greek
> and Armenian Christians; representatives of all the
> conquered Balkan provinces; Spanish Jews, refugees
> from the Inquisition seeking the relative freedom of
> Turkish rule; Western European traders, diplomats,
> and mercenaries. Typically, people of a particular
> ethnic group would settle in a quarter around a mosque,
> church, or synagogue. There they would be allowed
> to govern their own affairs and would be held collectively
> responsible for the taxes, good order, and public health
> of their neighborhood.
> 
> After the sixteenth century
> Istanbul began a slow decline, reflecting the decline
> of Ottoman power. The city had always been troubled
> by earthquakes, fires, plagues, and civil disorder.
> With the decline of the central authority, these grew
> worse. With the central authorities no longer able
> to strictly enforce building regulations, areas once
> burned over filled up with ramshackle wooden houses.
> Houses had long since encroached on the broad avenues
> of Byzantine Constantinople. The city had become a
> warren of narrow alleys. The rise of modern Europe
> slowly ruined Istanbul's traditional industries and
> trade. The government was no longer as rich or as
> efficient as it had been. Whereas the charitable endowments
> of wealthy noblemen had once built hospitals, hospices,
> public kitchens, and other such institutions requiring
> large annual expenses, they now built libraries and
> fountains.
> 
> Thus, when Baha'u'llah came
> to Istanbul in 1863, he found the Great City at perhaps
> its lowest point since the mid-fifteenth century, though
> still the greatest city of the Islamic world. It abounded
> with magnificent mosques and swarmed with people from
> many countries. It was the most European of Islamic
> cities, its harbors choked with shipping from all over
> the world and offering regular steamship service to
> Europe, Africa, and Asia. But Istanbul was run-down
> and ramshackle, like the empire it ruled, and none
> of the improvements in public services and facilities
> had yet been made that were later to transform Istanbul
> into a modern city.
> 
> Baha'u'llah in Istanbul
> 
> Baha'u'llah and his
> party reached Istanbul on Sunday, 16 August 1863/1
> Rabi` I 1280 after a two-and-a-half day journey by
> steamship from Samsun on the northern coast of Asia
> Minor. Shamsi Big, an official responsible
> for guests of the government, met them and had them
> driven in carriages to a government guest house near
> the Mosque of Khirqiy-i-Sharif. This
> was in the center of the city, not far from the huge
> Fatih Mosque built by Muhammad II. Shamsi Big
> assiduously attended to the needs of the exiles, though
> the large party--more than fifty people--overcrowded
> the house. He hired two servants to do errands and
> cooking. Various of Baha'u'llah's companions helped
> as well.
> 
> The next day a representative
> of the Persian embassy called on Baha'u'llah bearing
> the compliments of Haji Mirza Husayn Khan Mushiru'd-Dawlih
> and an apology for not being able to call in person.
> It was a courteous and carefully calibrated acknowledgement
> of Baha'u'llah's high social rank and his status as
> a political exile. Many other visitors came as well,
> including high Turkish officials such as Yusuf Kamal
> Pasha, a former prime minister with whom Baha'u'llah
> discussed the possibility of an international language.
> 
> Baha'u'llah Himself refused
> to return these visits or to make the customary calls
> on the Shaykhu'l-Islam, the foreign minister,
> and the prime minister to arrange an audience with
> the Sultan. Baha'u'llah turned aside the advice of
> friends with the words, "I have no wish to ask favors
> from them. I have come here at the Sultan's command.
> Whatsoever additional commands he may issue, I am
> ready to obey." Years later, the Persian ambassador,
> who had been shamed by the Persian princelings and
> schemers who swarmed in Istanbul looking for favors
> and pensions from the Sultan, confessed that he had
> felt pride in Baha'u'llah's "dignified aloofness."
> So it was left to Baha'u'llah's brother Mirza Musa
> to do such visiting as was necessary, accompanied by
> Aqa `Abdu'l-Ghaffar-i-Isfahani, the only one
> of Baha'u'llah's companions who spoke Turkish well.
> Baha'u'llah himself never went anywhere except to
> his brother's house and to the mosque and public baths.
> 
> Nonetheless, Baha'u'llah did
> not live in seclusion. Visitors crowded into the house,
> and he regularly received his companions. Other Babis
> began to appear in Istanbul--though Baha'u'llah, foreseeing
> that they would occasion trouble, sent them away as
> fast as he could.
> 
> Several major tablets were
> revealed during this period, notably Baha'u'llah's
> Mathnavi, a mystical poem in Persian; the Lawh-i-Naqus,
> known as Subhanaka ya Hu, revealed for the holy day
> of the Declaration of the Bab, which fell during Baha'u'llah's
> stay in Istanbul; and the tablet to Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz
> and his ministers.
> 
> It was also at Istanbul that
> Baha'u'llah's eighteen-month-old daughter Sahijiyyih
> died. The child was buried outside the Edirne Gate.
> She was the daughter of Mahd-i-`Ulya, Baha'u'llah's
> second wife.
> 
> The original house having
> proved too small, the party moved after about a month
> to the house of Visi Pasha, a much larger and
> more comfortable house a short distance away near the
> Fatih Mosque.
> 
> The Persian ambassador soon
> realized he had made a major mistake in having Baha'u'llah
> brought to Istanbul. Though he was now much farther
> from Iran, Istanbul was not an isolated provincial
> town like Baghdad but the chief capital of the Islamic
> world. The ambassador now urged the Turkish government
> to transfer Baha'u'llah to somewhere less conspicuous,
> either Bursa in Anatolia or Edirne in European Turkey.
> The Sultan and his ministers, though not personally
> hostile to Baha'u'llah, saw that Babi doctrines had
> the potential to undermine the basis of Ottoman government,
> as well as to complicate relations with Iran.
> 
> The news was first brought
> to Baha'u'llah by Shamsi Big. Baha'u'llah was
> furious. He had been brought to Istanbul as a guest
> and now was being made a prisoner. His first wish
> was to refuse to go, send the women and children to
> foreign embassies for safety, and let the Turkish government
> do what it could. At worst, the public martyrdom of
> the Babis in Istanbul would bring great glory to the
> Babi cause, but Baha'u'llah was confident the government
> would back down. However, Mirza Yahya, who had been
> living under an assumed name among the exiles, refused
> to take this risk. Faced with the possibility of a
> public rift among the Babi exiles, Baha'u'llah had
> to comply with the government's order. The official
> order was brought by a brother-in-law of the prime
> minister. Baha'u'llah replied with the stinging Lawh-i-`Abdu'l-`Aziz
> va-Vukala'--the "Tablet to `Abdu'l-`Aziz and His Ministers."
> 
> After less than four months
> in Istanbul, the exiles were ordered to proceed immediately
> to Edirne. On 1 December 1863 they set out for their
> new place of exile.
> 
> Sites associated with Baha'u'llah.
> 
> House of Shamsi
> Big, the first residence of Baha'u'llah and the
> Babi exiles in Istanbul. This was evidently a government
> guest house, not the personal residence of Shamsi
> Big. It was a two-story house of some size, though
> too small for the fifty-five exiles. Baha'u'llah and
> his family lived in the apartments upstairs, while
> the other Babis lived in rooms in the lower story.
> A pleasant reception room on the first floor provided
> a meeting-place for the Babis. This house was near
> the Mosque of Khirqiy-i-Sharif in the
> Sultan Muhammad Quarter in the center of Istanbul.
> The old house no longer exists.
> 
> House of Visi Pasha,
> the second residence, to which Baha'u'llah moved about
> a month after his arrival in Istanbul. This was a
> fine three-story house with its own bath and cistern,
> separate private apartments for the family (the famous
> Turkish Harem), and a large walled garden in the visitors'
> section of the house. The house was located in the
> same quarter as the house of Shamsi Beg near
> the Mosque of Sultan Muhammad II Fatih that gave the
> quarter its name. This house no longer exists. In
> 1952 Baha'is purchased part of the site of one of this
> house and in 1955 built a national haziratu'l-quds
> on the site. Conditions did not allow the building
> to be used for official Baha'i purposes so it was used
> as a residence.
> 
> The Fatih Mosque (Fatih
> Camii), built by Sultan Muhammad II Fatih "the Conqueror"
> as his contribution to the reconstruction of his new
> capital, is the largest mosque complex in Istanbul.
> Completed in 1471, in its original form it occupied
> a huge square, over 300 m. on a side. About half the
> area was an open court, in the midst of which sits
> the large domed structure of the mosque itself. Legend
> says that the Sultan cut off the architect's hand because
> the dome was smaller than that of the Church of Hagia
> Sofia. The cemetery behind the mosque contains the
> tombs of the Sultan and his queen. Around the courtyard
> were arranged an elementary school, library, hospital,
> public bath, dervish monastery, eight seminaries, and
> a public kitchen that once fed the thousands who lived
> or worked in the mosque complex, as well as the poor
> of the neighborhood. It was a particularly magnificent
> example of the mosques with their complexes of charitable
> institutions that once were the centers of life in
> Islamic cities. The mosque and most of the other buildings
> were destroyed in an earthquake in 1766. They were
> immediately rebuilt according to a new plan in a style
> influenced by European baroque architecture.
> 
> While he was in Istanbul,
> Baha'u'llah went to public noon prayers almost every
> day, usually in this mosque.
> 
> The Mosque of Khirqiy-i-Sharif
> (Hirka-i S÷erif Camii), the mosque of the Holy
> Mantle. Among the relics proving the legitimacy of
> the Ottoman Sultans' claim to the caliphate was the
> possession of the mantle of the Prophet. As it happened,
> they had two mantles, so in 1851 Sultan `Abdu'l-Majid
> built this charming mosque for the second, the first
> being kept in the treasury in the Topkapi Palace.
> It is built in the Neoclassical Empire style of the
> age of Napoleon I. It was very near the house of Shamsi
> Big, and Baha'u'llah came here for noon prayers. Both
> these mosques exist unchanged from Baha'u'llah's time.
> 
> Edirne Gate (Edirnekap'),
> in Baha'u'llah's time one of the two main gates to
> the city. The road to Adrianople started from this
> gate, so it is probably through it that Baha'u'llah
> left the city. Muhammad the Conqueror entered the
> city in triumph through the Edirne Gate. In ancient
> times there was a cemetery outside the gate. Perhaps
> it was still there in the nineteenth century, for it
> was outside this gate that Baha'u'llah buried his little
> daughter Sahijiyyih.
> 
> Baha'i writings on Istanbul
> 
> There are many references
> to Istanbul in Baha'i literature, usually either allusions
> to the Turkish government or to Baha'u'llah's exile
> there. The most important is the apostrophe to the
> city in the Kitab-i-Aqdas (SCKA 21 and quoted often
> elsewhere.) Baha'u'llah addresses the city as the
> "Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas"
> and says that "the throne of tyranny hath, verily,
> been established upon thee." There, Baha'u'llah says,
> he beheld "the foolish ruling over the wise, and darkness
> vaunting itself against the light." He prophesies
> that the "outward splendor" of the city would "soon
> perish, and thy daughters and thy widows and all the
> kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament." The
> Great City thus symbolizes the pride and corruption
> of the Ottoman Empire, and the literal abasement of
> the city becomes an example of the retribution of God.
> 
> The Suriy-i-Muluk addresses
> the Persian and French ambassadors in Istanbul and
> its clergy and wise men, criticizing the latter for
> their failure to investigate Baha'u'llah's claim.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi in The Promised
> Day is Come makes the decline of Istanbul a symbol
> and sign, not just of divine retribution upon the Ottoman
> Empire, but of the decline in influence of Islam.
> He cites the fall of the caliphate and the flight of
> the last Ottoman Sultan, the decision to make Ankara
> the capital of the new Republic of Turkey, and the
> secularization of the city and of some of the great
> mosques.
> 
> Istanbul after Baha'u'llah
> 
> Though the great domed
> mosques still dominate the skyline of central Istanbul,
> the city has changed much in the century since Baha'u'llah.
> In 1865 the Khwajih Pasha fire--said
> by Baha'u'llah in the Lawh-i-Ra'is to have been a divine
> warning--burned a large part of the city. This allowed
> the building of the first modern wide streets in the
> old city. Over the next half century modern city services
> were gradually constructed. In recent decades modern
> apartment blocks have largely replaced the wooden houses
> of old Istanbul, though the old city also holds the
> shanties of poor immigrants from the countryside.
> Istanbul is now a modern city covering several hundred
> square kilometers on both sides of the Bosphorus with
> a population of more than two million. A suspension
> bridge now connects Asia and Europe. The population
> has expanded enormously, particularly since the 1970s.
> 
> Politically, the last century
> has been less kind to the Great City. The Young Turks
> Revolution of 1908 humbled the Sultan. Five wars filled
> the city with Muslim refugees from the former Ottoman
> territories in Europe. After World War I the city
> was occupied for five years by the Allies. The Turkish
> Republic, idealizing the Turkish villages of Anatolia,
> spurned Istanbul and made its capital in Ankara, deep
> in Asia Minor. The Sultanate and Caliphate were abolished.
> The last Sultan fled to Europe, and the city lost
> its position as leading city of the Islamic world.
> 
> With the fall of the cosmopolitan
> Ottoman Empire and the rise of nationalistic Turkey
> and Greece, the Greek Christians who had lived in Istanbul
> for five centuries under Turkish rule began to leave.
> Istanbul has become steadily more Muslim and Turkish.
> 
> The Baha'i community of
> Istanbul
> 
> The first Babi to reach
> Istanbul was Mulla `Aliy-i-Bastami, the Letter of the
> Living who had gone to the Shi`i holy cities
> of Iraq to announce the coming of the Bab. He had
> been arrested, condemned, and sent as a prisoner to
> Istanbul. He was set to hard labor in the naval dockyards
> where apparently he died, for he was never heard from
> again.
> 
> When Baha'u'llah left for
> Edirne, he left behind Aqa Muhammad-`Ali Jilawdar (also
> known as Sabbagh-i-Yazdi) as a sort of Babi
> agent to assist pilgrims passing through the city.
> About two years later he joined Baha'u'llah in Edirne.
> Others--both Baha'i and Azali--came to the city.
> Nine were arrested in 1868 at the time of Baha'u'llah's
> exile to `Akka, interrogated, and either deported or
> sent along with the other exiles.
> 
> While Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha
> were at `Akka, most Baha'i pilgrims passed through
> Istanbul, preferring the convenience of Russian railroads
> and steamships to the arduous overland journey through
> Iraq and Syria. Some stayed on in Istanbul. The Baha'i
> Qajar prince Abu'l-Hasan Mirza Shaykhu'r-Ra'is
> spent several years there in the 1880s and 1890s, for
> example. In the early 1880s the Afnan family established
> a branch of their trading firm in Istanbul under the
> management of Nabil ibn Nabil, the brother of Samandar.
> Istanbul at this time was also a center of Azali activity,
> mainly directed against the Qajar regime but also against
> Baha'u'llah. The Azalis made a number of accusations
> against the honesty of the Afnans. The affair lasted
> ten years, drove Nabil ibn Nabil to suicide, and forced
> the Afnans to close their office in Istanbul.
> 
> The modern Baha'i community
> of Istanbul was established around the turn of the
> century. After the establishment of the Republic of
> Turkey, the new government attempted to suppress all
> the old religious institutions. When Baha'is were
> arrested in Smyrna on suspicion of being a secret religious
> society, the Istanbul Spiritual Assembly intervened
> on their behalf and were themselves arrested. However,
> they were soon cleared, having had the opportunity
> to publicly explain their beliefs. Shoghi Effendi
> reported the event as a triumphant vindication of the
> Faith that resulted in publicity all over the Middle
> East. Baha'is were arrested again on similar charges
> in 1933 and were held for about two months.
> 
> In 1951 a Baha'i delegation
> attended a United Nations conference for Middle Eastern
> non-governmental organizations in Istanbul. Shoghi
> Effendi told the Baha'i world of his pleasure at the
> degree of official recognition received by the Faith
> on this occasion.
> 
> In 1952 Baha'is were able
> to purchase part of the site of the house of Visi Pasha.
> 
> Since 1959 Istanbul has been
> the seat of the National Spiritual Assembly of Turkey.
> There is now a Baha'i center in Istanbul.
> 
> Sources: There is
> a vast literature on Istanbul, its history, and its
> monuments--even excluding works in Turkish. Popular
> works include Bernard Lewis, Istanbul and the Civilization
> of the Ottoman Empire(Norman, Oklahoma: 1972); Constantinople:
> City on the Golden Horn (New York: Horizon Caravel
> Books, 1969); and Istanbul (Time-Life Books). See
> also EB "Istanbul." Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the
> Roman Empire contains a classic account of Byzantine
> Constantinople. EI2 "Istanbul" contains detailed information
> with full bibliography on the development and workings
> of Turkish Istanbul. EI2 "Qustantiniyya" discusses
> the period before the conquest from the Islamic point
> of view. Guidebooks such as Hilary Sumner-Boyd and
> John Freely, Strolling through Istanbul (London: KPI,
> 1987) are a good source of information and monuments
> and the flavor of the city. Since modern tourism started
> about the time of Baha'u'llah, guidebooks exist from
> his time, such as Handbook for Travellers in Constantinople
> (London: John Murray, 1845, 1871).
> 
> For Baha'u'llah's stay in
> Istanbul, see God Passes By, 145, 157-61; Baha’u’llah,
> King of Glory, , 154-55, ch. 26; RB 2: 1-6, 55-61,
> 317-18, 325-32; Salmani 37-40, Phelps 42-47; Traveller’s
> Narrative 54-55, 65; BBR 34n, 199-200; SAQ 31;
> CH 59-60; ESW 68-69; MAs 8:27-28; MAB 2:177.
> 
> References to Istanbul and
> its affairs in Baha'i writings include PB 50, 102-4;
> ESW 106; AQA Muluk (Lawh-i-Ra'is) 234; MAB 1:381, 2:121-22,
> 299; WOB 173-74, PDC 38-39, 65-66, 100-1; Tawqi`at
> 3:61; EBB 3.
> 
> For the complicated affair
> of Nabil ibn Nabil and the Azalis in Istanbul referred
> to in ESW 33, 108-9, 123-24, see Baha’u’llah, King
> of Glory, ch.40, RB 3:172, 4:391-406; Muhadirat
> 275-77, 417.
> 
> On the Baha'i community of
> Istanbul, see Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 31n;
> RB 1:286-89; God Passes By, 303; BW 3:222-23,
> 4:317 (a photo of the community, c. 1930), 8:692, 9:659,
> 12: 66, 602, 605-7, 14:602; BN 28 (Nov. 1928) 2, 72
> (Ap. 1933) 4, 245 (July 1951) 7; BA 152, 167-69; Garis,
> Martha Root 295, 322-23, 326-27; EBB 147-48, 181-85,
> 259; AB 117, 399; BBR 89-90; Tawqi`at 3:33; PP 316-18.
> 
> Edirne,
> the Land of Mystery
> 
> Baha'u'llah's new place of
> exile was Edirne, the old capital of the Ottoman Empire.
> 
> Name, History, and description
> 
> Roman Edirne was called
> Hadrianopolis or Adrianople--the "city of Hadrian."
> In Turkish this became Adirnih--"Edirne" in modern
> Turkish spelling. Europeans--who learned classical
> Greek but not Turkish in their schools--continued to
> call the city "Adrianople" until Turkey adopted the
> Roman alphabet in the 1920s. Baha'i writings use "Edirne"
> in Persian and Arabic and generally use "Adrianople"
> in English. There are occasional references to "Rumelia,"
> the nineteenth-century name for the area around Edirne.
> Baha'u'llah, however, usually referred to Edirne as
> Ard-i-Sirr, "the Land of Mystery"--Sirr, "mystery,"
> and Adirnih both having the numerical value of 260
> in Abjad reckoning. Baha'u'llah sometimes associates
> the epithet "remote" (ba`id) with Edirne, as in the
> reference to "this remote prison" in the Arabic Tablet
> of Ahmad. He also calls it "the city We have made
> Our throne."
> 
> Edirne is located about 200
> km. northwest of Istanbul on the main road from Istanbul
> to Central Europe. It is strategically situated at
> the junction of several rivers in the gap between the
> Rhodope and Istranja mountain ranges and thus controls
> access from Europe to the Thracian plain and Istanbul
> itself. It is beautifully situated on a hill within
> a bend of the river Tunja.
> 
> The city was evidently founded
> by the Thracians who called it Uskadama. After its
> capture by the Macedonians in the fourth century B.C.,
> it was renamed Oresteia. The Emperor Hadrian rebuilt
> the city in the second century A.D. Adrianople was
> an important Byzantine fortress town for more than
> a thousand years, guarding Constantinople against threats
> from the northwest. Major battles were fought there
> against Goths, Avars, Bulgars, Peaenegs, Crusaders,
> Serbs, and Turks. In July 1362 the troops of the Ottoman
> Sultan Murad I defeated the last Byzantine governor
> of Adrianople. The Ottomans made it their capital
> for the next ninety years and the springboard for their
> conquests in the Balkans. After the fall of Constantinople
> to the Turks in 1453, Edirne was no longer the capital
> but remained a favored retreat for the Sultans of the
> sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The town prospered
> under the favor of Sultans who built fabulous palaces,
> mosques, and other buildings in the town.
> 
> In the eighteenth century
> Edirne began to decline with the general loss of Ottoman
> power in the Balkans. Several mutinies of the garrison,
> a catastrophic fire, and an earthquake all damaged
> the city. After an occupation by Russian troops in
> 1828-29, Muslims began moving from the city to be replaced
> by Christians coming from nearby villages. By the
> middle of the nineteenth century, the population of
> Edirne was very mixed, with Muslim Turks being a minority.
> The bulk of the population consisted of Christian
> Greeks and Bulgarians with a large Jewish minority,
> Gypsies, and the usual scattering of nationalities
> from all over the Balkans and Near East. The population
> was about 100,000.
> 
> Though many of the Ottoman
> monuments had already disappeared or were in ruins,
> a number of great buildings still stood, especially
> several great mosques. Madrasihs, bazars, and caravansaries
> served the needs of learning, commerce, and travellers.
> The city once contained many palaces and mansions,
> but these had suffered cruelly in the decline of the
> city.
> 
> Baha'u'llah in Edirne
> 
> Baha'u'llah's exile
> to Edirne marks his transformation from a guest of
> the Ottoman government to a political prisoner. Edirne,
> wrote Baha'u'llah, was "the place which none entereth
> except such as have rebelled against the authority
> of the sovereign." (God Passes By, 161) The
> journey there was made in the middle of winter without
> adequate preparations, and Baha'u'llah's party suffered
> severely. On their arrival they were placed in a series
> of temporary accomodations, vacant summer houses too
> small and too poorly built to hold a large number of
> people in winter. Among the tablets giving some details
> of life and events in Edirne is a very early letter
> of `Abdu'l-Baha written in 1864 complaining of their
> living conditions during this first winter. Eventually
> adequate housing was found, but Baha'u'llah nonetheless
> moved several more times during his stay in Edirne.
> The other Baha'is generally rented houses near Baha'u'llah's.
> Most of the Baha'is not serving in Baha'u'llah's household
> found work, usually keeping shops in the bazaar. This
> helped to ease the financial hardships that had afflicted
> them during the first months in Edirne.
> 
> Baha'u'llah's stay in Edirne
> marked a crucial stage in the development of the Baha'i
> Faith. Most important, it was from Edirne that Baha'u'llah
> first made public announcement of his claim to prophethood.
> Most of the Tablets to the Kings were written in Edirne.
> Many tablets also announced and defended his claim
> to the Babi community. Messengers such as Nabil, the
> historian, carried the news of this claim to the Babis
> and won the allegiance of most of the Babi community
> of Iran and Iraq. A steady flow of pilgrims came to
> Edirne and carried away the news of Baha'u'llah's claim.
> 
> The second major development
> of the Edirne period was the open break with Mirza
> Yahya, the appointed successor of the Bab. Mirza Yahya
> had grown increasingly jealous of Baha'u'llah's prestige.
> However, this had been concealed from the ordinary
> Babis and Mirza Yahya had remained part of Baha'u'llah's
> household. In Edirne, however, the dispute finally
> came into the open. After Baha'u'llah formally confronted
> Mirza Yahya with his claim to be him Whom God shall
> make manifest, the Promised One of the Bab, Mirza Yahya
> responded with a counterclaim to prophethood. Affairs
> reached such a state that Mirza Yahya made two attempts
> to kill Baha'u'llah, once by poison and once by suborning
> Baha'u'llah's bath attendant. On 22 Shavval
> 1282/10 March 1866 Baha'u'llah withdrew from the community
> to allow his followers to decide their allegiances
> for themselves. Most chose to follow Baha'u'llah.
> Baha'u'llah referred to this period as the Ayyam-i-Shidad
> (the "days of stress") and the "most great separation."
> 
> Finally, it was in Edirne
> that Baha'u'llah began to establish the laws of his
> own religion, composing, for example, the tablets containing
> the rituals to be followed during pilgrimage to the
> two Holy Houses of Shiraz and Baghdad, the prayers
> of fasting, and a summary of Baha'i law, as well as
> the Tablet of the Branch, which prefigured `Abdu'l-Baha's
> later appointment as his successor.
> 
> During these years the Baha'is
> maintained excellent relations with the authorities
> and townspeople. Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha were
> on visiting terms with several of the governors, as
> well as with consuls, missionaries, and the clergy,
> all of whom thought well of the character and piety
> of the Baha'is. Later some of these people came to
> visit in `Akka. It was also in Edirne that Baha'u'llah
> had his most extensive contact with Europeans.
> 
> In 1863-68 there were four
> governors of Edirne, at least three of whom are known
> to have been on good terms with the Baha'is:
> 
> Muhammad-Amin Pasha
> Qibrisi, 1861-Apr. 1864, a former prime minister.
> 
> Sulayman Pasha, Apr.
> 1864-Dec. 1864.
> 
> `Arif Pasha, Dec. 1864-Mar.
> 1866.
> 
> Muhammad-Khurshid
> Pasha, Mar. 1866- , whose deputy was `Aziz Pasha,
> later the governor of Beirut in 1889-92.
> 
> When accusations were first
> made against Baha'u'llah, Khurshid Pasha
> defended his innocence. Later, when the orders came
> to exile Baha'u'llah, the Pasha left the city
> in protest, leaving his deputy `Aziz Pasha to
> carry out the explusion.
> 
> `Aziz Pasha was a friend
> of `Abdu'l-Baha and later visited Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha
> in `Akka.
> 
> Two of Baha'u'llah's children
> were born in Edirne, Diya'u'llah in 1864 and Badi`u'llah
> in 1867.
> 
> Eventually, the dispute between
> the Baha'is and the Azalis came to the attention of
> the authorities. The decision was made to exile both
> parties to less sensitive areas. One morning in early
> August 1868, troops surrounded the house of Baha'u'llah.
> Despite the protests of the foreign consuls and the
> governor on their behalf, the Baha'is and Azalis were
> ordered to leave the city immediately. Baha'u'llah
> refused to leave until his steward could settle his
> debts. The property of the Baha'is was sold at auction
> at very low prices. Baha'u'llah and his companions
> left the city on 12 August 1868/22 Rabi` II 1285.
> 
> Sites associated with Baha'u'llah
> 
> During their stay in
> Edirne, the Baha'i exiles rented a considerable number
> of houses and gardens. In addition, several other
> sites are also associated with Baha'u'llah's stay.
> 
> The Khan-i-`Arab
> was the two-story caravansary where Baha'u'llah was
> lodged during his first three nights in Edirne. It
> seems to have been located near the house of `Izzat
> Pasha, evidently in the southeastern part of
> the city near the Istanbul road. The accomodations
> there were poor. Others in the party stayed there
> somewhat longer. The Khan-i-`Arab no longer
> exists.
> 
> The first house near the
> Takyiy-i-Mawlavi in the Muradiyyih Quarter. Baha'u'llah
> and his family moved here from the caravansary. It
> was too small for his family so they moved again after
> a week. Others of the party moved in from the caravansary
> after his departure.
> 
> The second house in that
> quarter. This was a larger house in the same area.
> Baha'u'llah's brothers, Yahya and Musa, lived with
> their families in a second house next door. These
> early residences in Edirne were all poorly built, draughty,
> and verminous. Since the winter was extremely cold
> and Baha'u'llah's family had spent the previous winter
> in sweltering Baghdad, they were unprepared for the
> cold and suffered severely, especially the children,
> who were frequently sick. The sites of these first
> two houses were identified by Martha Root during her
> visit in 1933.
> 
> The house of Amru'llah.
> After six months or so, Baha'u'llah was able to rent
> the house of Amru'llah, a very large house across the
> street from the north entrance to the Salimiyyih Mosque
> in the center of the city. This was a splendid three-story
> house covering a city block. The andaruni (inner
> family quarters) had thirty rooms. Baha'u'llah and
> his family occupied the top floor, Mirza Muhammad-Quli
> and his family the middle, and servants the bottom.
> The biruni (outer house) had four or five fine
> reception rooms on the top floor, as well as a kitchen.
> Other Baha'is occupied the middle floor. The house
> had a bath, cistern, and running water in the kitchen.
> Mirza Musa and Mirza Yahya occupied two other houses
> in the same quarter. Food for all three houses was
> prepared in the house of Amru'llah and was distributed
> to the poor as well. Meetings for prayer and to hear
> Baha'u'llah were regularly held in the reception rooms.
> Baha'u'llah lived in this house from 1864 until March
> 1866 and again later for a few months, probably during
> the first half of 1867. When the house was sold he
> moved to his final residence, the house of `Izzat Pasha.
> The house was apparently named for its owner, one
> Amru'll'ah Big, but coincidentally its name means "Cause"
> or "command of God."
> 
> The house of Rida Big.
> A the time of the open split with Mirza Yahya, Baha'u'llah
> moved to the house of Rida Big, where he lived with
> his family for a little less than a year, the first
> few months in total seclusion. It is now in Baha'i
> hands and has been rebuilt. Mirza Musa also had a
> house in the neighborhood, as did a number of Baha'u'llah's
> companions. Down the street is an orchard rented by
> Baha'u'llah, now also in Baha'i hands. The house of
> Rida Big had an andaruni and a small biruni,
> but the latter had a very large walled garden.
> 
> The house of `Izzat Aqa.
> After the sale of the house of Amru'llah, Baha'u'llah
> rented a house in the southeastern part of the city,
> not far from the Khan-i-`Arab. This was another
> large house with a fine view of the river and countryside.
> There were two large courtyards with flowers and trees.
> Baha'u'llah lived here for about eleven months. his
> companions had another house in the same area. Mishkin-Qalam,
> the calligrapher, and Mirza Musa also had houses in
> the area which Baha'u'llah visited on occasion.
> 
> The Muradiyyih mosque and
> Takyiy-i-Mawlavi. A fine fifteenth century mosque
> complex. Originally it was built for the Mawlavi dervishes,
> the mystical order founded by the poet Rumi and much
> patronized by the Ottoman Sultans. When the building
> became a mosque, a takyih--dervish monastery--was
> built next door. Subsidiary charitable foundations
> were added to the complex: baths, a hospital, a seminary,
> a bakery, and an almshouse. Several of the Baha'i
> houses were close to this mosque, and Baha'u'llah is
> known to have visited it. It still stands.
> 
> Salimiyyih Mosque.
> The great domed royal mosque of Edirne. Built for
> the cultured and dissolute Sultan Salim II, "the Sot,"
> this wonderful building was the masterwork of Sinan,
> the greatest architect of the Ottomans. Its dome and
> minarets dominate the city, as they have since 1575.
> It was in this mosque that Mirza Yahya challenged
> Baha'u'llah to meet him to publicly dispute their claims.
> Baha'u'llah came to the mosque at the appointed time,
> but Mirza Yahya failed to appear.
> 
> Edirne after Baha'u'llah
> 
> Edirne is mentioned
> often in the later writings of Baha'u'llah, usually
> as the "Land of Mystery." It is often associated with
> the open proclamation of his prophetic mission. The
> most important direct references to Edirne in Baha'u'llah's
> writings are the prophecies found in the Suriy-i-Ra'is
> and some other tablets of great destruction and political
> turmoil in the Edirne area and of Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz's
> impending loss of these territories. The fulfilment
> of these prophecies ten years later greatly raised
> Baha'u'llah's prestige and was a proof often cited
> by Baha'i teachers over then next several decades.
> 
> Another passage in the Suriy-i-Ra'is
> states that "this Youth hath departed out of this country
> and deposited beneath every tree and every stone a
> trust, which God will erelong bring forth through the
> power of truth." (God Passes By, 181)
> 
> Baha'u'llah's prophecies concerning
> Edirne were soon realized. War broke out with Russia
> and several Balkan Christian states soon after the
> fall of `Abdu'l-`Aziz in 1876. The war of 1877-78
> with Russia began with an initial success as the Turks
> heroically defended Plevna in Bulgaria against a Russian
> siege. However, when the Turks attempted to break
> out, they were defeated. The Russians poured south
> and the Muslim population of Bulgaria and Rumelia fled
> before them, dying in thousands from cold, hunger,
> disease, and Russian shells in that horrible winter.
> All the chief towns of European Turkey fell, Edirne
> included. The city and its population, particularly
> the Muslims, suffered greatly from that occupation.
> Most of the Turkish territory north of Edirne was
> lost to the new Christian state of Bulgaria.
> 
> After the Russians withdrew,
> the town recovered for a time, and in 1890 its population
> was still about 87,000. However, it was once more
> devastated in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. The Turkish
> defeats in October 1912 left Edirne besieged by the
> Bulgarians. The Turks held out there until March 1913.
> When the Bulgarians began fighting with their former
> allies over the spoils of the war, the Turks were able
> to reoccupy Edirne. After the establishment of modern
> Turkey in 1923, the Greek population abandoned the
> town as part of the population exchanges between the
> two countries. The population--65,000 in 1911--had
> dropped to 34,500 in 1927.
> 
> Today Edirne is a border town
> with a population of 72,000 (1980), the first stop
> for travellers entering Turkey by train from Western
> Europe. It is the capital of the province of the same
> name. The area grows various grains and fruits.
> 
> The modern Baha'i community
> 
> After Baha'u'llah's
> departure in 1868, no Baha'is lived in or visited Edirne
> for many decades. The first recorded Baha'i visit
> to the city was that of Martha Root and Marion Jack,
> 17 October-6 November 1933. Shoghi Effendi had supplied
> them with a list of the houses and sites associated
> with Baha'u'llah. In the course of their visit they
> were able to identify four houses--all then in ruins
> after five wars--in which Baha'u'llah had lived, as
> well as several other sites. Though sixty-five years
> had passed since Baha'u'llah's departure, they were
> able to find two old men who remembered "Baha'i Big"
> and "`Abbas Big" and who were able to supply them with
> information about the Baha'i households.
> 
> By 1963 with the aid of pioneers
> from Iran, a local spiritual assembly had been established
> in Edirne, and two sites associated with Baha'u'llah--the
> house of Rida Big and a nearby orchard--were in Baha'i
> hands. This house has been rebuilt though not fully
> restored and furnished. Pilgrims occasionally visit.
> Two major anniversaries of events in Baha'u'llah's
> life were observed in Edirne. On 11-12 December 1963
> some seventy Turkish Baha'is visited the city to observe
> the centenary of Baha'u'llah's arrival there. In 1967
> five Hands of the Cause came to commemorate the centenary
> of the revelation of the Suriy-i-Muluk.
> 
> Sources: For the history
> and description of Edrine, see EI2 and EB "Edirne."
> 
> For accounts of Baha'u'llah's
> time in Edirne, see God Passes By, 161-180,
> Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 217-59, 460-62,
> RB 2, BBR 185-200, 205-7, 234-35, 487, AB 19-26, Traveller’s
> Narrative 55-59, Phelps 47-69, CH 60-64, BA 189.
> 
> Persian sources on the Edirne
> period, mainly important for Baha'u'llah's prophecies
> concerning Edrine, are MAs 8:27-28, Amr va-Khalq 2:284-92,
> 4:453-58, Rahiq-i-Makhtum 1:55-56, 67-72, Qamus-i-Tawqi`
> 1:100-104, DM/IK 2:282, 283, 7:915. Other references
> to these prophecies and related subjects include PUP
> 398, WOB 178, PDC 62, 65, Iqt. 74, TAB 213, MAs 4:277,
> 7:194-95, ESW 132, AQA 4:336, MAB 2:213, Badayi` 1:357,
> 2:194.
> 
> For Martha Root's account
> of her visit to Edirne, see BW 5:581-93, reprinted
> in Martha Root, Herald of the Kingdom 179-96. This
> article contains photographs of most of the important
> Baha'i sites. See also Garis, Martha Root 393-97.
> 
> On the modern Baha'i community
> of Edirne and the house of Rida Big, see BW 14:3, BN
> 328 (6/1958) 14, 397 (4/1964) 3-4, 434 (5/1967) 2.
> 
> Sultan
> `Abdu'l-`Aziz and his Ministers
> 
> The period from Baha'u'llah's
> arrival in Istanbul in 1863 to his de facto release
> from confinement in `Akka in 1877 coincided with the
> important political developments that took place in
> the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz.
> He and his ministers `Ali Pasha and Fu'ad Pasha
> were the Ottoman officials responsible for Baha'u'llah's
> successive exiles, and each was the recipient of important
> tablets from Baha'u'llah. Ottoman officials were apparently
> impressed with Baha'u'llah personally, and `Ali Pasha
> praised his character and beliefs to foreign diplomats.
> However, the Ottomans were mainly interested in the
> Babis as a pawn in Turkish-Iranian relations. By favoring
> or suppressing the Babis, they could exercise some
> influence on the Persian government. Baha'u'llah,
> however, held himself aloof from such machinations,
> refusing even to return the visits of Turkish officials.
> This evidently irritated the Sultan, and the Ottoman
> government yielded to the Iranian entreaties to send
> Baha'u'llah away from Istanbul. They were also apparently
> becoming concerned about Babi views on theocratic government
> spreading and undermining Ottoman authority.
> 
> The reasons for Baha'u'llah's
> final exile, to `Akka, are not absolutely clear. Evidently,
> the agitation of the Azalis in Istanbul aroused the
> implausible fear that Baha'u'llah was conspiring with
> the Bulgarians (Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 254).
> Foreign diplomats were told that the Baha'is threatened
> to cause unrest by their efforts to convert Muslims.
> Although there do not seem to have been converts in
> Edirne, a number of Baha'is had drifted into the city.
> There also had been trouble in Baghdad occasioned
> by the conversion of an Ottoman officer of Sunni clerical
> background. Baha'u'llah Himself believed that the
> Persian government was at least partly responsible.
> In any case, the Baha'is were treated with noticeable
> harshness in their expulsion from Edirne and in their
> initial conditions of imprisonment in `Akka.
> 
> In the late 1860s a further
> concern began to trouble the Ottoman government. A
> group of young aristocratic intellectuals, the Young
> Ottomans, had started agitating for constitutional
> reform. Baha'u'llah's letters to the kings, written
> mostly during the Edirne period, also advocated constitutional
> monarchy. A number of the Young Ottomans were in touch
> with Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha, both because Baha'u'llah
> and `Abdu'l-Baha were perceived as belonging to corresponding
> social and intellectual circles in Iran and because
> some of the Young Ottomans were imprisoned in `Akka
> at the same time as Baha'u'llah. Thus during the last
> decades of Baha'u'llah's life, he was imprisoned not
> just because of old fears of Babi revolution but also
> because of the threat of liberal reform.
> 
> Baha'u'llah addressed the
> Ottoman government in a number of his works, especially
> during the period 1863-73. A number of tablets, notably
> the Suriy-i-Muluk and the lost Lawh-i-`Abdu'l-`Aziz
> va-Vukala, addressed the Sultan directly, sternly criticizing
> the quality of his government. Baha'u'llah also complained
> of the unjust treatment he had endured at the hands
> of the Ottoman government, especially after his exile
> to `Akka. The Persian Lawh-i-Ra'is, for example, catalogs
> the sufferings endured by the Baha'i exiles during
> the early months in the Barracks of `Akka. The Kitab-i-Aqdas,
> completed in 1873, also denounces the tyranny of the
> regime of `Abdu'l-`Aziz.
> 
> Several works of this period
> contained specific prophecies of the fall of `Abdu'l-`Aziz
> and his ministers and of disaster at Edirne. These
> were strikingly fulfilled soon after with the overthrow
> of Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz in 1876 and the disastrous
> war of 1877-78, which culminated in the occupation
> of Edirne. The predictions, which had been well known
> before the events, greatly raised Baha'u'llah's prestige.
> 
> Sources: For Baha'u'llah's
> relations with the Ottomans, see God Passes By,
> 146-47, 172-75, 179, 181, 225; BBR 182-200; as
> well as the sources cited in elsewhere in this chapter.
> 
> Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz
> 
> Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz ("AbdŸlaziz."
> b. 9 Feb. 1830. d. June 1876) was the thirty-second
> Ottoman Sultan. Baha'u'llah's exiles to Istanbul,
> Edirne, and `Akka all took place during his reign,
> and it was only after his overthrow and death the Baha'u'llah
> regained relative freedom
> 
> Life and reign. The
> third son of the reforming Sulan Mahmud II, `Abdu'l-`Aziz
> came to the throne after the early death of his brother
> `Abdu'l-Majid I on 25 June 1861. In the early years
> of his reign he was under the influence of his two
> great ministers `Âli and Fu'ad Pasha. Under
> their influence the Tanzimat reforms continued. For
> example, European-style reforms were made in such areas
> as provincial administration, education, civil law,
> and the treatment of minorities and foreigners. He
> himself toured Western Europe, the first Ottoman sultan
> to do so. On the other hand, unrest continued in the
> Balkans, much encouraged by Russia. There were revolts
> in Montenegro, Serbia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Crete,
> eventually leading to the loss of much territory in
> Europe.
> 
> After the deaths of Fu'ad
> and `Âli Pasha in 1869 and 1871, `Abdu'l-`Aziz
> became increasingly autocratic and reactionary. Though
> he aligned the Ottoman Empire with Russia, a traditional
> enemy, unrest continued in the Balkans, culminating
> in a bloody uprising in Bulgaria in 1875-76. Beginning
> in 1873 famine struck Anatolia. In one particularly
> severe winter wolves killed animals and people in the
> suburbs of Istanbul. The "Young Ottomans," a loose
> network of constitutionalist reformers, agitated against
> the regime. Finally, the government was forced in
> 1875 to default on the huge public debt accumulated
> through years of deficits, triggering a major financial
> crisis and panic.
> 
> Midhat Pasha, the president
> of the Council of State and a sympathizer with the
> Young Ottomans, obtained a fatva from the Mufti
> of Istanbul accusing the Sultan of madness, incompetence,
> and corruption, and with the support of other ministers,
> moved to depose him. Before dawn on 30 May 1876 warships
> and troops surrounded the palace. Another ship threatened
> the Russian embassy to prevent intervention from that
> quarter. At dawn a salute of 101 guns from the warships
> announced the fall of `Abdu'l-`Aziz. A few days later
> he was dead, though whether by suicide or murder is
> unclear.
> 
> Relations with Baha'u'llah.
> It was under the authority of `Abdu'l-`Aziz that Baha'u'llah
> suffered three exiles, under increasingly harsh conditions,
> first as a guest to Istanbul, then to Edirne as a political
> exile, and finally to outright imprisonment in `Akka.
> There is not much evidence of `Abdu'l-`Aziz's own
> attitude towards Baha'u'llah. Most likely he shared
> the fears of his chief ministers about possible Babi
> political ambitions. He did personally endorse Baha'u'llah's
> final exile to `Akka and most probably the two earlier
> exiles.
> 
> On his part Baha'u'llah bitterly
> resented his treatment at the hands of `Abdu'l-`Aziz.
> He had done nothing against the Ottoman government:
> there was no justification for the harsh manner in
> which he and his followers had been treated. Thus,
> he denounces `Abdu'l-`Aziz in a number of tablets.
> The injustice of `Abdu'l-`Aziz, he more than once
> told visiting pilgrims, was greater than that of Nasiri'd-Din
> Shah, for the latter had actually been the object
> of an attempted assassination by Babis, whereas `Abdu'l-`Aziz
> had no just cause for complaint against Baha'u'llah
> or the Babis.
> 
> Soon after the death of Fu'ad
> Pasha in 1869, Baha'u'llah prophesied the deaths
> of `Ali Pasha and of `Abdu'l-`Aziz in Suriy-i-Fu'ad
> and Lawh-i-Ra'is. This prediction was well known.
> Thus the dramatic fall of `Abdu'l-`Aziz greatly raised
> Baha'u'llah's prestige and was a factor in the conversions
> of at least two eminent Baha'is: `Azizu'llah Jadhdhab
> and Mirza Abu'l-Fadl-i-Gulpaygani.
> 
> Since it was in 1877 that
> Baha'u'llah was finally able to leave `Akka and move
> the Mazra`ih, it seems probable that his relative freedom
> was a byproduct of the brief period of constitutional
> government under Midhat Pasha and the Young
> Ottomans.
> 
> Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz in
> the Baha'i writings. `Abdu'l-`Aziz is addressed
> directly at least twice in the writings of Baha'u'llah.
> In addition, he is mentioned in several other tablets,
> as well as in the writings of Shoghi Effendi.
> 
> a. Lawh-i-`Abdu'l-`Aziz
> va-Vukala'. "Tablet to `Abdu'l-`Aziz and his Ministers,"
> the first of Baha'u'llah's letters to kings. This
> was Baha'u'llah's reply to the Sultan's order exiling
> him to Edirne. The order had been brought by the brother-in-law
> of the prime minister. Baha'u'llah refused to see
> this man, who was received instead by `Abdu'l-Baha
> and Mirza Musa, Baha'u'llah's brother. Baha'u'llah
> promised to send a reply within three days. The next
> day Shamsi Big, Baha'u'llah's host, took this
> tablet in a sealed envelope to the prime minister.
> Shamsi Big told the Baha'is that the prime
> minister turned pale on reading it and said, "It is
> as if the King of Kings were issuing his behest to
> his humblest vassal king and regulating his conduct."
> On seeing this reaction, Shamsi Big discreetly
> left.
> 
> The text of this tablet is
> lost, but Nabil reports that it was relatively long
> and that it began with an address to the Sultan and
> also included passages addressed to the ministers condemning
> their conduct and character. It would thus seem to
> have been similar in content to the passages addressed
> to the Sultan and his ministers in the slightly later
> Suratu'l-Muluk.
> 
> There is doubt as to the identity
> of the recipient. Shoghi Effendi identifies him as
> `Ali Pasha, the prime minister. However, `Ali
> Pasha was foreign minister at this time and
> Fu'ad Pasha prime minister.
> 
> b. Suratu'l-Muluk.
> The most important surviving passage addressed to
> Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz is contained in this tablet, which
> also addresses the kings of the earth as a group.
> Baha'u'llah tells the Sultan that the selflessness
> of his advice is shown by the fact that he did not
> ask the Sultan for anything. He warns him against
> corrupt ministers. He should surround himself with
> just ministers with whom he consults about the good
> of the people. He should not rely on those who do
> not believe in God or who disobey divine law, for such
> people are not trustworthy. He should not allow others
> to act for him but should personally attend to matters
> of state. He should act with justice, trust in God,
> and observe moderation. He should pay special attention
> to the needs of the poor and prevent his ministers
> from enriching themselves at the expense of the people,
> for in Istanbul Baha'u'llah saw that worthless people
> ruled over honorable people. (This is repeated in
> the apostrophe to Constantinople in the Kitab-i-Aqdas:
> "We behold in thee the foolish ruling over the wise,
> and darkness vaunting itself against the light.")
> The king is the shadow of God on earth and should behave
> accordingly. The passage ends with Baha'u'llah complaining
> of the unjust suffering he has had to endure but reaffirming
> his loyalty and praying for the well-being of the Sultan.
> 
> d. Shoghi Effendi's writings.
> In his work on the letters to the kings, The Promised
> Day Is Come, Shoghi Effendi quotes the passages
> of the Suratu'l-Muluk addressed to Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz,
> as well as the apostrophe to Constantinople from the
> Kitab-i-Aqdas. A major theme of this work is the destruction
> of the individuals, states, and religious institutions
> hostile to Baha'u'llah and his Faith. Shoghi Effendi
> pairs `Abdu'l-`Aziz with Nasiri'd-Din Shah but
> identifies him as more powerful than the Shah
> and more responsible for the sufferings of Baha'u'llah.
> He quotes the prophecies of the Lawh-i-Ra'is of the
> destruction and loss of the lands around Edirne and
> of the Lawh-i-Fu'ad of the death of `Ali Pasha
> and the Sultan himself.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi then traces
> the swift decline of Ottoman Turkey: the loss of European
> and African territory during the reign of `Abdu'l-Hamid
> II, the loss of the remaining Near Eastern and Balkan
> territories during and after World War I, along with
> the death of a large fraction of the empire's population
> due to war, disease, starvation, and massacre. Finally
> came the extinction of the six-hundred year old dynasty
> along with the title of caliph supposedly inherited
> from Muhammad Himself. Turkey was made a secular state
> and the capital was moved to Ankara. This, Shoghi
> Effendi states, was the retributive justice of God
> on `Abdu'l-`Aziz and his successors. Similar passages
> occur elsewhere in Shoghi Effendi's writings, notably
> in WOB 174-76.
> 
> Sources: EI2 "`Abd
> al-`Aziz." God Passes By, 146, 158-60, 172-73,
> 179, 181, 195, 208, 225. Baha’u’llah, King of Glory,
> 154, 199, 206-7, 260-62, 307, 359-61, 379, 411-13,
> 476; portraits, 209, 263. BBR 199, 311n., 485. EBB
> 183. Habib 217, 234. MH 4:227-28, 7:461. PDC 19,
> 61-66, 71. WOB 174-79. The text of the relevant parts
> of Suratu'l-Muluk is found in Alvah...bi-Muluk 35-49.
> The English translation is in GWB cxiv, PDC 37-40,
> PB 47-54. A facsimile of the Farman banishing Baha'u'llah
> to `Akka is found in BW 15:50 and Baha’u’llah, King
> of Glory, 284.
> 
> `Âli Pasha
> 
> Life and Career. Muhammad
> Amin `Âli Pasha (Mehmed Emin Ali Pasha; d. Bebek near
> Istanbul 7 Sept. 1871.) was the Ottoman statesman and
> diplomat who was foreign minister at the time of Baha'u'llah's
> exiles to Istanbul and Edirne and prime minister when
> he was exiled to `Akka. He was the "chief" addressed
> in the two tablets known as Lawh-i-Ra'is.
> 
> The son of an Istanbul shopkeeper,
> he was born in Istanbul in February 1815 and entered
> government service at the age of fourteen in the secretariat
> of the court. His nickname `Âli ("lofty") referred
> either to his abilities or to his short stature. Since
> he knew some French, he was appointed to the Translation
> Bureau in 1833. The Translation Bureau was one of
> the reforms of Mahmud II and served as a school of
> foreign languages and training institute for diplomats.
> As one of the few modern educational institutions
> in the country, it produced many of the reforming statemen
> of the middle of the century.
> 
> He rose rapidly in the diplomatic
> service and was sent to Vienna in 1836, St. Petersburg
> in 1837, and London in 1838 where he was the counsellor.
> In 1840 he was a deputy to the counsellor to the Ministry
> of Foreign Affairs and became ambassador to Great Britain
> the following year. In 1845 he was counsellor to the
> Foreign Ministry and became foreign minister for the
> first time the following year when his mentor Rashid
> Pasha was promoted to prime minister. He was
> dismissed for a few months in 1848 but soon restored.
> He continued in this post until 1852 when he became
> prime minister (Grand Vazir, Sadr-i-A`zam) for two
> months after the dismissal of Rashid Pasha.
> In the next two years he briefly held two minor governorships
> before returning to the Foreign Ministry. Thereafter
> he remained in high office most of the rest of his
> life, alternating as foreign minister and prime minister
> with his friend and fellow-reformer Fu'ad Pasha.
> He was foreign minister 1854-55, 1857-58, July 1861,
> Nov. 1861-67, and 1869-71. He was prime minister (Grand
> Vizier) five times: 1852, 1855-56, 1858-59, 1861, and
> 1867-71.
> 
> `Âli Pasha was greatly
> repected by Europe statesmen for his integrity, personal
> charm, diplomatic skill, and mastery of French. This
> served to protect him, since Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz would
> have been happy to be rid of him. As a diplomat he
> worked tirelessly to placate the European powers who
> threatened to dismember the empire. He was also able
> to settle peacefully the rebellion in Crete.
> 
> At home he was less popular.
> The sultan disliked him for his attempts to restrain
> the arbitrary exercise of royal power, to protect the
> prerogatives of ministers, and to strengthen the rule
> of law. The younger reformers, the so-called "Young
> Ottomans"--attacked him because he did not support
> the movement for a constitution. Nonetheless, under
> his ministry a number of important reforms of the government
> structure were carried out, railroads begun, and improvements
> made in education, the army, and the navy.
> 
> William Howard Russell, the
> British war correspondent, said of him in 1869,
> 
> Aali Pasha is a very small,
> slight, sallow-faced man, with two very penetrating
> honest-looking eyes. He has a delicate air, and looks
> timorous and nervous; and his standing attitude is
> one of rather imbecile deference to everybody, but
> in the presence of the Sultan this becomes almost prostration.
> Yet, he is courageous, bold, enlightened, honest,
> and just; full of zeal for the interests of his country,
> and unceasing in his efforts for its improvement. (A
> Diary in the East, p. 475, cited in BBR 491.)
> 
> Relations with Baha'u'llah.
> When Baha'u'llah came to Istanbul, `Ali Pasha
> was serving his fourth term as foreign minister and
> his ally Fu'ad Pasha was prime minister. He
> initially summoned Baha'u'llah to Istanbul at the urging
> of the Persian ambassador, who was anxious to have
> him removed from the vicinity of the Persian border
> and the Shi`i shrines. He seems to have been
> favorably impressed by Baha'u'llah. In 1866 the Austrian
> ambassador, Prokesch von Osten, reported:
> 
> `Âli Pasha has spoken
> to me with great veneration of the Bab, interned at
> Adrianople, who he says is a man of great distinction,
> exemplary conduct, great moderation, and a most dignified
> figure. He has spoken to me of Babism as a doctrine
> which is worthy of high esteem, and which destroys
> certain anomalies that Islam has taken from Jewish
> and Christian doctrines, for example this conflict
> between a God who is omnipotent and yet powerless against
> the principle of evil; eternal punishments, etc. etc.
> But politically he considers Babism unacceptable as
> much in Persia as in Turkey, because it only allows
> legal sovereignty in the Imamate, while the Osmanlis
> for example, he claims, separate temporal from spiritual
> power. The Bab, at Adrianople, is defrayed all expenses
> by the order of and to the charge of the Persian government.
> 
> Two years later, the dispute
> between the Azalis and the Baha'is led him to believe
> that Baha'u'llah and his followers had political ambitions
> and were attempting to spread their religion in Turkish
> territory, and that they were likely to cause disturbances.
> Thus Baha'u'llah was to be exiled to a less sensitive
> area. Baha'u'llah viewed this as a clear injustice,
> motivated by nothing more than political expediency,
> particularly in view of the harsh conditions of his
> imprisonment in `Akka. He prophesied the downfall
> of both Fu'ad and `Ali Pasha.
> 
> Lawh-i-Ra'is, "Tablet
> of the Chief," is the title of two tablets addressed
> to `Âli Pasha.
> 
> 1. The Arabic Lawh-i-Ra'is,
> also known as Lawh-i-Ra'is I or Suratu'r-Ra'is (or
> "Suriy-i-Ra'is") was composed during the journey from
> Edirne to Gallipoli. It was begun at Ke¦an (Kashanih),
> where the exiles spent the night of 14-15 August 1868,
> and was finished at Gyavur-Köy soon after. It is written
> in an elevated Arabic style and is some twenty pages
> in length. The opening pages are addressed to `Âli
> Pasha. Most of the tablet, however, is addressed
> to Haji Muhammad-Isma`il-i-Kashani, known as
> Dhabih--"sacrifice"--or Anis--"companion"--by
> which he is called in this tablet. Dhabih and
> some others had arrived in Edirne, only to find Baha'u'llah's
> house guarded by troops. Unable to meet Baha'u'llah,
> he had gone to Gallipoli. The portions of the Suratu'r-Ra'is
> addressed to him are intended to console him for his
> failure to meet Baha'u'llah. Baha'u'llah also answers
> a question about the nature of the soul that Dhabih
> had asked in a letter. Dhabih was able to meet
> Baha'u'llah in a public bath in Gallipoli a few days
> after the completion of this tablet. Dhabih
> died in Tabriz about 1880.
> 
> The opening pages of the Suratu'r-Ra'is
> are a stern denunciation of `Âli Pasha for his
> persecution of Baha'u'llah. Addressing him bluntly
> as "O chief," Baha'u'llah tells him that he has no
> power to hinder the Cause of God by his "grunting"
> or the "barking" of those around him. His deeds have
> caused Muhammad to mourn. He has allied himself with
> the "chief of Iran"--meaning either the Shah
> or the Persian ambassador in Turkey--to harm Baha'u'llah.
> (`Ali and Fu'ad Pasha both denied to foreign
> diplomats that the urgings of the Persian government
> had anything to do with Baha'u'llah's exile.) Baha'u'llah
> compares him to the rulers who had opposed Muhammad,
> Moses, and Abraham. The Shah of Iran had killed
> the Bab, but Baha'u'llah had nonetheless arisen to
> revive his religion. He prophesies that there will
> be great afflictions and turmoil in the region of Edirne
> and that it will pass out from under the authority
> of the Turkish Sultan. Finally, Baha'u'llah states
> that his only purpose is "to quicken the world and
> unite all its peoples."
> 
> Baha'u'llah then addresses
> Dhabih. He tells of how he and his family and
> followers awoke to find the house surrounded by soldiers
> barring all from coming or going, even keeping them
> from obtaining food the first night. The people of
> the town, hearing that they were to be sent away, gathered
> around the house weeping--but the grief of the Christians
> was greater than that of the Muslims. One of the Baha'is,
> Haji Ja`far-i-Tabrizi, thinking that he was to be separated
> from Baha'u'llah, cut his own throat. Another of Baha'u'llah's
> followers had done this in Baghdad. Though this was
> contrary to divine law, it showed the depth of their
> love. Such a thing had not been seen in past religions.
> 
> Baha'u'llah praises Dhabih
> and seeks to console him. This is a day the prophets
> of the past all longed to attain. His followers should
> thus not let afflictions discourage them. He prophesies
> that God will raise up a king to protect his followers.
> He prays for Dhabih's success in spreading
> his faith during his travels and compares Dhabih's
> happy state with that of those people who have rejected
> Baha'u'llah.
> 
> Baha'u'llah also replies to
> Dhabih's question about the soul, regretting
> that he could not have heard the answer from Baha'u'llah's
> own lips. Saying that he does not wish to dwell on
> what people have said in the past, he gives a brief
> account of the soul, explaining that "soul," "spirit,"
> "mind," "vision," and the like all represent the same
> entity, differentiated by the circumstances under which
> they are exercised. He refers Dhabih to another
> tablet where the matter is explained fully.
> 
> Baha'u'llah also mentions
> one "`Ali" who had been in Baghdad with Baha'u'llah
> and who had come to Edirne, only to find him a prisoner.
> The tablet closes with a prayer that Dhabih
> will not be hindered from meeting Baha'u'llah in Gallipoli.
> 
> 2. Persian Lawh-i-Ra'is,
> also known as Lawh-i-Ra'is II and occasionally Suriy-i-Ra'is,
> is a letter to `Âli Pasha written not long after
> Baha'u'llah's arrival in `Akka, probably before the
> end of 1868. It is a strong protest at the injustice
> of the imprisonment of Baha'u'llah, his companions,
> and their dependents. The title is by analogy to the
> earlier tablet to `Âli Pasha, for the prime
> minister is not addressed as "Ra'is" in this tablet.
> It is in Persian and is about twenty pages long.
> 
> Baha'u'llah begins by criticizing
> `Âli Pasha's presumption of lofty rank. The
> heading of the tablet--"He is the Master by right"--reminds
> him that God is the true ruler. Baha'u'llah then addresses
> him as "thou who reckons thyself the highest of men"--a
> pun on his name `Âli, "lofty." He reminds him that
> all the Prophets of God, though they came to reform
> the world, were, like Baha'u'llah, branded as trouble-makers
> by the rulers of their time. However, even if this
> accusation were true, the women and children who were
> imprisoned with Baha'u'llah had done nothing wrong.
> 
> Baha'u'llah then describes
> some episodes of his exile from Edirne to `Akka: how
> some companions who were not included in the order
> paid their own way to `Akka, the sufferings of the
> children forced to change from ship to ship, how two
> of his companions tried to kill themselves when faced
> with separation, how they were denied food and water
> during the first night in `Akka, the three loaves of
> inedible bread that was the daily food ration, and
> the death and disrespectful burial of two of the exiles.
> Such treatment was manifest injustice, since the people
> of Edirne could testify to the piety and detachment
> of Baha'u'llah and his companions. Baha'u'llah prophesies
> that as a result, the wrath of God would seize `Âli
> Pasha and his government. Warnings had come
> before--for example, when a large part of Istanbul
> burned--but they had not heeded. Now it is too late:
> the wrath of God is so great to allow him to repent.
> 
> Baha'u'llah reminds him that
> neither pomp nor abasement lasts forever. To illustrate
> this, Baha'u'llah tells of an incident from his youth.
> his older brother was getting married, and Baha'u'llah's
> father had arranged a puppet show as part of the festivities.
> Baha'u'llah watched in fascination as the puppet-king
> and the members of his court come on stage and take
> their places. A thief is executed and blood spurts
> from the severed neck. The king dispatches soldiers
> to fight a rebel, and from behind the curtain the sounds
> of cannon are heard. After the show, Baha'u'llah saw
> a man come out with a box under his arm. Baha'u'llah
> asked him where the king was and all the members of
> his court. The man said they were all in the box.
> From that day on, says Baha'u'llah, all the glory
> of the world has been like that puppet show in his
> eyes and of no value.
> 
> Any perceptive person, he
> says, knows that worldly glory will soon be placed
> in the box of the grave. Even if a man is not given
> to know God, he ought at least to pass his life with
> prudence and justice. Nevertheless, most people are
> asleep and infatuated with worldly things. They are
> like the drunken man who fell in love with a dog, only
> realizing what his lover was when morning came. `Âli
> Pasha himself is subject to the vilest ruler:
> his own self and passion. If he examined his own soul,
> he would realize his own abasement.
> 
> Baha'u'llah tells how, when
> he reached Gallipoli on his way to `Akka, he had asked
> a Turkish officer named `Umar escorting him to arrange
> a ten-minute interview with the Sultan at which the
> Sultan might ask him for whatever miracle or proof
> he thought sufficient to prove the truth of Baha'u'llah's
> revelation. If Baha'u'llah was able to produce it
> 
> , he and his companions should
> be freed and left to their own devices. But no word
> came from the Sultan or from the officer. Though it
> was not fitting for the Manifestation of God to go
> before another, Baha'u'llah made this offer out of
> consideration for the children and women who shared
> his imprisonment and exile.
> 
> The tablet closes with Baha'u'llah's
> advice to `Âli Pasha to ask God to let him see
> the good and evil of his own actions.
> 
> The importance of Lawh-i-Ra'is
> I and II. These two tablets and the related Lawh-i-Fu'ad,
> with their grim prophesies of affliction for the Ottoman
> Empire and its leaders were soon widely circulated
> among the Baha'is and were recognized as being of special
> importance. Baha'u'llah Himself in a later tablet
> said that "from the moment the Suriy-i-Ra'is was revealed
> until the present day, neither hath the world been
> tranquilized, nor have the hearts of its peoples been
> at rest." (GWB `16.3) They were in circulation by
> the mid-1870s and were included in early published
> collections of the works of Baha'u'llah. Their importance
> for early Baha'i teachings lies in the fact that their
> prophecies were well known before the dramatic fall
> of Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz in 1876.
> 
> Sources: For general
> accounts of his life see EI2 "`Âli Pasha Muhammad
> Amin," as well as EB "Ali Pasa, Mehmed Emin," BBR 491,
> Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 469. For information
> on his attitudes towards the Baha'is, see BBR 187,
> 191, 311n. Baha'u'llah's statements about him are
> summarized in God Passes By, 174, 208, 231-32.
> 
> On the Arabic Suratu'r-Ra'is,
> see RB 2:411-21; Muhadirat 602-6, 687, 964; Ganj 109-11;
> God Passes By, 172, 174, 179-80; PDC 48; DM/IK
> 13:2058. The Arabic text is found in AQA: Muluk 203-25,
> Majmu`ih (Eg.) 87-102, Suratu'l-Haykal 129-43. Translated
> excerpts are found in God Passes By, 174, 179-80,
> WOB 178, RB 2:414-16.
> 
> On the Persian Lawh-i-Ra'is,
> see RB 3:33-37, Ganj 121-23, Baha’u’llah, King of
> Glory, 173, DM/IK 13:2058. The text is found
> in AQA: Muluk 227-47, Majmu`ih (Eg.) 102-16. Translations
> of excerpts are found in God Passes By, 187,
> PDC 46, 62.
> 
> Fu'ad Pasha
> 
> Keeci-Zadih Muhammad Fu'ad
> Pasha was the Ottoman prime minister at the
> time of Baha'u'llah's exile to `Akka.
> 
> Life. Fu'ad Pasha
> was born in Istanbul in 1815. His father, `Izzat Mulla,
> was a religious judge and poet of some importance who
> lived an adventurous life in and out of royal favor.
> In 1829 `Izzat Mulla was exiled to Sivas, and Fu'ad
> left the theological seminary to study at the new modern
> medical school in Istanbul. He spent three years as
> an army doctor in Tripoli, Libya. Having learned French
> in medical school, he was able in 1837 to obtain an
> appointment to the Translation Bureau, which also served
> as a training school for the modern diplomatic corps.
> Over the next fifteen years he rose rapidly as a diplomat
> and protege of the reformer Rashid Pasha,
> serving in London (where he was translator and later
> first secretary when `Âli Pasha was ambassador),
> Spain, Rumania, and Russia, as well as holding various
> high offices and commissions in Istanbul.
> 
> In 1852 he was appointed foreign
> minister for the first time under his friend `Ali Pasha
> and dealt with crises over Montenegro and the Christian
> holy places in Jerusalem. He was again foreign minister
> in 1855-56, 1858-60, 1861, and 1867. He was also prime
> minister in 1861-63 and 1863-66, during which time
> `Ali Pasha served as foreign minister. During
> 1863-67 he was also minister of war. He held several
> other senior posts at various times and was sent on
> a number of special missions, notably the suppression
> of the Greek revolt in Thessaly and Epirus in 1854-55
> and the Lebanese civil war in 1860-61.
> 
> Fu'ad Pasha was one
> of the principal figures of the Tanzimat reforms of
> the middle of the nineteenth century. He was determined
> to reshape the Ottoman Empire in a more European mold.
> Nonethless, his efforts were necessarily less devoted
> to positive reforms than to fending off external threats
> to the empire and internal threats to the reforms by
> conservatives, notably from the Sultan himself. He
> was criticized by the younger reformers because of
> his lack of interest in representative government.
> He was also interested in linguistic reform and in
> 1850 wrote the first modern Ottoman Turkish grammar
> with Ahmad Jawdat, a liberal cleric who was another
> of Rashid Pasha's reformist proteges.
> 
> He accompanied the Sultan
> to Europe in 1867. Exhausted by overwork, he went
> to France to rest in 1868-69. He died of a heart attack
> in Nice 12 February 1869.
> 
> Relations with Baha'u'llah.
> Fu'ad Pasha was prime minister at the time
> of Baha'u'llah's arrival in Istanbul and foreign minister
> at the time of his exile to `Akka. As such he answered
> the inquiries of foreign diplomats made on Baha'u'llah's
> behalf. His policy is succinctly stated in his reply
> to the inquiries of the Austrian ambassador:
> 
> On representing to Fuad Pasha
> the intolerant acts of the Ottoman Government towards
> the Babee Sect, he was informed by His Highness that
> the Porte had ordered Mirza Hussein Ali and his adherents
> to be deported to Tripoli in Africa on account of their
> having tried to propagate religious dissensions in
> the Mahomedan Element in Roumelia; that the Porte was
> entirely responsible for this measure, the Persian
> Legation having taken to part in it; and that the subvention
> of 5000 piasters per month which was allowed to the
> Mirza by the Authorities at Adrianople would not be
> discontinued at Tripoli. (BBR 192)
> 
> The idea of exiling Baha'u'llah
> to Tripoli in Libya perhaps reflects Fu'ad Pasha's
> memory of three years as a young army officer in that
> desolate spot.
> 
> Baha'u'llah predicted the
> fall of Fu'ad Pasha in the Suratu'r-Ra'is.
> 
> .
> 
> The Suriy-i- or Lawh-i-Fu'ad
> is an Arabic tablet of Baha'u'llah commenting on Fu'ad
> Pasha's death. Written to Shaykh
> Kazim Samandar, probably soon after Fu'ad Pasha's
> death from heart disease on 12 February 1869. The
> latter had been prime minister at the time of Baha'u'llah's
> exile to Edirne and foreign minister when he was exiled
> to `Akka. Baha'u'llah had prophesied his fall in the
> Suriy-i-Ra'is, written about six months earlier. The
> Suriy-i-Fu'ad is written in the style of the passages
> about Hell in the Qur'an. It also contains many allusions
> to the Qur'anic narratives of the punishment of the
> ancient nations that persecuted the prophet. It was
> aptly described by Baron Rosen as "a sort of hymn of
> triumph on the occasion of the death of the most implacable
> enemies of the new religion." and was of some importance
> because of its accurate prophecies of the fall of `Âli
> Pasha and Sultan `Abdu'l-`Aziz. It was therefore
> widely circulated during the time of Baha'u'llah and
> was included in one of the collections of Baha'i scripture
> published in India during his lifetime.
> 
> This tablet is also known
> as "Lawh-i-Kaf-Za, "Tablet of K. Z." The tablet begins
> with these letters, which are an abbreviation of Kazim,
> the name of the recipient.
> 
> After counselling Samandar
> to be steadfast, Baha'u'llah announces the death of
> Fu'ad Pasha: "God has taken the greatest of
> those who issued the decree against us." Using the
> narrative style of the Qur'an, he describes how Fu'ad
> Pasha fled to France, seeking the help of physicians
> against the wrath of God. A dialogue then takes place
> in which Fu'ad Pasha pleads with the avenging
> angel for his life, citing his wealth and high position
> as reason to be spared. But there is no escape for
> him: the angels of hell summon him to the punishment
> prepared for him, reminding him of the great injustice
> he committed in making prisoners of the Holy Family.
> Baha'u'llah then prophesies the downfall of `Âli Pasha,
> the other minister involved in his exiles, and of Sultan
> `Abdu'l-`Aziz himself--"their Chief who ruleth the
> land."
> 
> Baha'u'llah once again exhorts
> Samandar to remain steadfast against the lies of the
> Azalis, for God has also taken Mirza Mihdi Gilani,
> the Azali in Istanbul. This man had written a treatise
> against Baha'u'llah, to which Baha'u'llah's Kitab-i-Badi`
> was a reply. A second narrative depicts Mirza Mihdi's
> pleadings with the angel of death. These stories,
> Baha'u'llah says, are told to console Samandar.
> 
> Sources: For his life
> and career, see EI2 "Fu'ad Pasha, Kece??k-zadeh
> Mehmed," Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 471-72,
> BBR 501. For his relations with Baha'is see BBR 187,
> 191, 311n; Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 154,
> 199, 206 (with photo); God Passes By, 146,
> 174, 208, 231-32.
> 
> The text of Lawh-i-Fu'ad is
> published in Mubin 210-14 and Rosen, Collections scientifiques
> 6:231-33. A sentence is translated in PDC 63. For
> further information on the tablet see RB 3:87, Ganj
> 192-93, DM/IK 13:1961, 2071, 2073-74.
> 
> The
> Last Years of the Ottoman Empire
> 
> In 1876 the loose group of
> reformist exiled intellectuals and politicians known
> as the Young Ottomans had succeeded in deposing `Abdu'l-`Aziz
> on grounds of misgovernment and madness. The result
> was a brief period of constitutional government--and,
> in distant `Akka, the release of Baha'u'llah from strict
> confinement within the city. `Abdu'l-`Aziz was succeeded
> by his nephew, the young Murad V, who was himself deposed
> three months later when he proved to be a drunkard
> and mentally incapable.
> 
> Sultan `Abdu'l-Hamid
> II
> 
> When Murad proved unsuitable
> as sultan, the reformers turned to his younger brother
> `Abdu'l-Hamid (AbdŸlhamid), who thus became the thirty-sixth
> Ottoman Sultan.
> 
> Life and reign. Born
> 21 Sept. 1842 in Istanbul, he was the fifth of thirty
> children of Sultan `Abdu'l-Majid and seems to have
> had an unhappy childhood after his mother died when
> he was seven. Midhat Pasha, the reformer who
> had led the plot that overthrew `Abdu'l-`Aziz, offered
> him the throne on condition that he accept a constitution
> and constituent assembly and that he rule through the
> reformist ministers.
> 
> Before the reformers could
> accomplish much, a disastrous war broke out--first,
> Christian uprisings in several Balkan provinces, then
> open war with Montenegro and Serbia (1875) and with
> Russia (1877-78). Despite heroic (and unexpected)
> Turkish resistance at Plevna in what is now Bulgaria,
> the Turks were totally defeated. The Russians occupied
> Edirne (Adrianople) and advanced to within a few miles
> of Istanbul, thousands of refugees pouring into the
> city ahead of them. In the end the Russians were stopped
> when the British navy moved to support Istanbul. Nonetheless,
> the Turks lost most of their remaining territory in
> Europe. The border of the newly-independent Bulgaria
> was only a few miles from Edirne. The finances of
> the Empire were placed under European control.
> 
> The failure of the Western
> European powers to support Turkey against Russia confirmed
> `Abdu'l-Hamid's suspicions of the Europeans. Thereafter,
> he pursued a passive policy of delay in foreign relations.
> Though his extreme suspicion of the European powers
> sometimes lost opportunities for Turkey--as when his
> failure to cooperate with England lost him the chance
> to reassert Turkish sovereignty in Egypt--it kept Turkey
> at peace for a generation and prevented further major
> losses of territory.
> 
> It quickly became clear that
> `Abdu'l-Hamid was an autocrat of the most absolute
> sort and did not share the liberal views of the reformers
> who had brought him to power. Once the war with Russia
> was over, he suspended the constitution and dissolved
> the irritating new Constituent Assembly. The reformers
> who had brought him to power were soon silenced, exiled,
> or killed. An attempted countercoup further fueled
> his fears. Unlike earlier sultans who had left much
> of the ordinary business of government to their ministers,
> `Abdu'l-Hamid created a centralized despotism of a
> quite modern sort. He was himself shrewd and energetic,
> and he created a palace bureaucracy that allowed him
> to control directly all the details of government.
> A horde of police, spies, and informers pervaded the
> empire. The building of railroads and a telegraph
> network allowed him to control the Empire far more
> tightly than any of his predecessors could have dreamed
> possible. Freedom of speech was suspended. Censorship
> was all-pervading and thorough. The palace was a virtual
> fortress, guarded by Albanian guards loyal only to
> the Sultan.
> 
> Apart from absolutism the
> distinguishing policy of his reign was Pan-Islamism.
> The Ottoman sultans had always claimed the title Caliph,
> supposedly bequeathed to them by the last `Abbasid
> caliph when the Ottomans conquered Egypt. Now, with
> many of the Christian provinces lost to the Empire,
> `Abdu'l-Hamid stressed his role as supreme Islamic
> leader: head of the leading Muslim state, protector
> of the Holy Cities, and successor to the Prophet Himself.
> This won him support from the Muslim masses in the
> Empire and won prestige for him and the Ottoman Empire
> in other Muslim countries, especially those controlled
> by Europeans, where he was able to make trouble for
> the European powers. The greatest achievement of this
> policy was the building of the Hijaz Railway, which
> was to carry pilgrims from Damascus to Mecca and Medina.
> It was paid for by contributions from the entire Muslim
> world and was completed as far as Medina, before being
> destroyed in World War I. (It has never been rebuilt.)
> 
> The other side of this policy
> was the persecution of the non-Muslim minorities, especially
> the Christians. This culminated in the civil disorders
> in Macedonia great massacres of Armenians in 1894-96
> (repeated on a much larger scale during World War I),
> carried out at the instigation and with the connivance
> of the authorities. Moreover, his partiality to his
> Muslim subjects did not in the end win their permanent
> loyalty, for his administration was sufficiently corrupt
> to alienate Muslims as well.
> 
> In some ways `Abdu'l-Hamid
> is to be seen as the full expression of the darker
> side of the Tanzimat reforms earlier in the nineteenth
> century. Like many of his reforming predecessors,
> he believed that reform could only be imposed from
> above, and in fact he carried out important reforms
> in several areas, notable education, communication,
> and law. However, absolute power was in the hands
> of a man gripped by exaggerated fears and for the most
> part blind to the actual needs of the people. Moreover,
> his insistence on dealing with everything himself greatly
> limited the effectiveness of government.
> 
> The Europeans were appalled
> by the oppressiveness and incompetence of his government,
> by the all-pervasive censorship, and especially by
> the brutal treatment of minorities. This won him the
> nicknames "Red Sultan" and "Abdul the Damned."
> 
> In the end the new educational
> institutions he had founded produced the reformers
> who overthrew him. A loose network of reform-minded
> exiles called the Young Turks formed the Committee
> of Union and Progress. In 1908 the commanders of the
> Turkish army in Macedonia mutinied in support of the
> Committee, marched on Istanbul, forced `Abdu'l-Hamid
> in July 1908 to reintroduce the constitution, and placed
> the leaders of the Committee in charge of the government.
> The following April a countercoup by the Istanbul
> garrison, probably instigated by `Abdu'l-Hamid, briefly
> overthrew the new government. The Macedonian troops
> returned, this time to depose `Abdu'l-Hamid. His brother,
> Muhammad V (r. 1909-18), became Sultan. `Abdu'l-Hamid
> lived out his life under house arrest, first in Salonika
> and then in Istanbul. He died in Istanbul on 10 Feb.
> 1918.
> 
> `Abdu'l-Hamid was in some
> respects an attractive figure--approachable, simple
> in dress, hard-working, and intelligent. Unlike some
> of his predecessors, he was not ruined by the temptations
> of the harem. But he was lonely, fearful, and unhappy,
> and these qualities expressed themselves in the paranoia,
> treachery, and absolutism of his government. Muslims,
> Christians, and Jews celebrated together in the streets
> when he was overthrown.
> 
> `Abdu'l-Hamid and the Baha'is.
> Baha'u'llah was the prisoner of `Abdu'l-Hamid from
> 1876 until his death in 1892, but there is no evidence
> that the Sultan was particularly concerned with the
> Baha'is in those years. Baha'u'llah was able to move
> out of the city of `Akka without interference the year
> after `Abdu'l-Hamid's accession. When Baha'u'llah
> died in 1892, `Abdu'l-Baha sent a cable to the Sultan,
> who gave permission for Baha'u'llah to be buried at
> Bahji--an interesting example of `Abdu'l-Hamid's concern
> for the minutiae of administration. This tolerance
> of the Baha'is lasted until the turn of the century.
> 
> After 1892 `Abdu'l-Baha remained
> a prisoner as his Father had been, theoretically in
> custody but in practice under few restrictions. It
> was the opposition of Mirza Muhammad-`Ali, the second
> surviving son of Baha'u'llah, to `Abdu'l-Baha that
> finally attracted Sultan `Abdu'l-Hamid's personal attention
> to the Baha'is. Mirza Muhammad-`Ali and his followers
> had approached the governor of Damascus, accusing `Abdu'l-Baha
> of plotting against the government. Several factors
> seem to have led the Sultan to give credence to these
> accusations. First was the increasing threat of nationalist
> movements in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
> Second was the arrival of Western pilgrims. The Sultan
> was well aware that various European powers had colonial
> ambitions in Ottoman territory, and he seems to have
> feared that the Americans visiting `Abdu'l-Baha were
> part of a plot to foment revolt. Finally, `Abdu'l-Baha
> had many friends--and possibly even followers--among
> reform-minded Turks. In August 1901 `Abdu'l-Hamid
> ordered that `Abdu'l-Baha, his brothers, and his cousin
> Majdi'd-Din once again be strictly confined within
> the wall of `Akka. Around 1905, Mirza Muhammad-`Ali
> and his supporters, aware of `Abdu'l-Hamid's alarm
> at the Constitutional Revolution in Iran, approached
> the authorities with fresh accusations. This time
> the Sultan responded with a Commission of Inquiry that
> spent some weeks investigating `Abdu'l-Baha and the
> Baha'is. However, when the Commission returned to
> Istanbul, they found the Sultan preoccupied with finding
> those responsible for his attempted assassination.
> Apparently, `Abdu'l-Hamid did not take up the matter
> for some time. A tablet from `Abdu'l-Baha of about
> this time tactfully praises `Abdu'l-Hamid for ignoring
> the slanderous accusations against him and instructs
> the Baha'is to pray for the Sultan (TAB 3:494-96).
> In about 1908 there was fear that the Commission's
> recommendations would finally be acted on and `Abdu'l-Baha
> would be exiled to Fezzan in the interior of Libya.
> However, the Young Turks' revolution in the summer
> of 1908 resulted in the release of all political prisoners,
> `Abdu'l-Baha included.
> 
> Naturally enough, `Abdu'l-Hamid's
> dramatic fall and imprisonment and the simultaneous
> liberation of `Abdu'l-Baha impressed the Baha'is as
> an example of the hand of God at work. `Abdu'l-Baha,
> for example, sometimes remarked on it in his talks:
> "God removed the chains from my neck and placed them
> around the neck of `Abdu'l-Hamid. It was done suddenly--not
> a long time, in a moment, as it were." (PUP 225) For
> Shoghi Effendi, `Abdu'l-Hamid was (quoting an unnamed
> historian) "the most mean, cunning, untrustworthy and
> cruel intriguer of the long dynasty of `Uthman."
> (PDC 272) His fall was "the beginning of a new era"
> (PDC 65), one of "the awful evidences of that retributive
> justice" (PDC 66), and was one part of the collapse
> of Islamic institutions as a result of their failure
> to accept the Bab and Baha'u'llah.
> 
> Sources: EI2 "`Abd
> al-Hamid II." Accounts of the reincareration of `Abdu'l-Baha,
> the Commission of Inquiry, and the release of `Abdu'l-Baha
> are found in God Passes By, 263-72, AB 94-95,
> 111-24, and BBR 320-23. These are largely based on
> information from Khatirat-i-Nuh-Salih and Khatirat-i-Habib.
> See also Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 420,
> 425-27; AB 47, 128-29, 374, 395; EBB 148, 259; PDC
> 13, 61, 64-65; WOB 174-75; PUP 36, 203, 225.
> 
> Jamal Pasha and
> World War I
> 
> After the revolution of 1908,
> the Committee of Union and Progress ruled in the name
> of the Sultan. New administrative, social, and economic
> reforms were imposed, including areas neglected by
> earlier reformers such as women's rights and industrial
> development. `Abdu'l-Baha took advantage of the new
> freedom to travel to Egypt, Europe, and America. `Abdu'l-Baha
> publicly stated his gratitude for the fall of the Sultan,
> but by the time of his return to Haifa in 1913, the
> Committee of Union and Progress had become a dictatorship,
> ruling in an authoritarian style reminiscent of `Abdu'l-Hamid's.
> Once again `Abdu'l-Baha feared for the Baha'i position
> in the Holy Land. Internal reforms were, however,
> overshadowed by military disasters. In 1911 Italy
> seized Libya, the last Ottoman province in Africa.
> The First and Second Balkan Wars of 1912-13 resulted
> in the lost of almost all the remaining Ottoman territory
> in Europe to an alliance of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia,
> and Montenegro.
> 
> The Ottoman Empire rashly
> entered World War I as an ally of Germany and Austria.
> Though Ottoman forces performed fairly well--inflicting
> a humiliating defeat on the British in the Dardanelles
> campaign of 1915, for example--the Ottoman economy
> eventually collapsed under the strain of modern war.
> Troops deserted in large numbers. The Arab provinces
> of the Near East fell to Allied troops. On 30 October
> 1918 Turkey signed an armistice. Battle, famine, and
> disease had devastated the population.
> 
> For Baha'i history, the most
> important Ottoman official during World War I was Ahmad
> Jamal Pasha (Cemal Pa¦a), the Turkish commander-in-chief
> in Syria, who threatened to execute `Abdu'l-Baha.
> 
> Jamal Pasha's Life
> and career. Born in Istanbul in 1872, he graduated
> from the Ottoman military college in 1895 and was commissioned
> a captain in the general staff. Stationed in Salonika,
> he joined the subversive Committee of Union and Progress,
> the "Young Turks." When the Committee seized power
> in 1908, he became a member of its executive committee.
> In the following years he was military governor of
> †skŸdar and civil governor of Adana and Baghdad. He
> commanded a division in the First Balkan War (1912).
> After the Committee of Union and Progress seized total
> power in January 1913, he became successively military
> governor of Istanbul (promoted to lieutenant-general),
> minister of public works, and minister of the navy.
> During this period he was one of the three Young Turk
> leaders who ruled as a dictatorial triumvirate.
> 
> Soon after war broke out,
> he was made commander of the Fourth Army in Damascus
> and military governor of the Syrian provinces--the
> area covering modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan,
> and northwestern Saudi Arabia. His efforts in 1915
> and 1916 to invade British-occupied Egypt were repulsed.
> Despite progressive tendencies--notably an interest
> in public works and archaeology--Jamal Pasha
> ruthlessly suppressed the Arab nationalists, hanging
> thirty-two prominent Arab leaders in 1915 and 1916.
> He also persecuted the Jewish settlers in Palestine.
> 
> In December 1915 Jamal Pasha
> contacted the Allies, offering to revolt against the
> Ottoman Government, stop the massacres of Armenians,
> and cede European Turkey to the Russians. In return
> he would become Sultan of the Ottoman provinces in
> Asia. The British rebuffed him. Since the Turkish
> government did not find out about these negotiations,
> he remained in command of the Syrian army.
> 
> In June 1916 the Sharif
> of Mecca--the hereditary ruler of the Hijaz--revolted
> against the Turks and began harrying their lines of
> communication. The British invaded Sinai in 1916 and
> Palestine in 1917, driving back Jamal Pasha's
> army. At the end of the year, he was relieved of his
> command, having lost Palestine as far north as Jaffa
> and Jerusalem.
> 
> When the Young Turk government
> fell at the end of 1918, he fled to Europe. He was
> tried in absentia and sentenced to death. Accepting
> an appointment in the Afghan army, he traveled to Russia,
> where he helped negotiate an agreement between the
> Bolsheviks and AtatŸrk's nationalists in Turkey. In
> Tiflis, Armenia, on 21 July 1922, while returning from
> another diplomatic mission to Moscow, he was assassinated
> by Armenians, the third victim of a campaign to avenge
> the Armenian massacres of World War I.
> 
> Jamal Pasha and `Abdu'l-Baha.
> After the outbreak of World War I, `Abdu'l-Baha came
> under renewed suspicion, probably for his Western connections.
> When Jamal Pasha first came to `Akka, probably
> about the beginning of 1915, he summoned `Abdu'l-Baha
> to his camp and told him bluntly that he had received
> reports that `Abdu'l-Baha was a religious mischief-maker.
> `Abdu'l-Baha saw that the Pasha was drunk and
> knew his reputation for hanging enemies real and imagined,
> so he turned the matter to a joke by comparing his
> own reputation to that of Jamal Pasha, who had
> been in the eyes of the Sultan a political mischief-maker.
> The two men parted on good terms.
> 
> Mirza Muhammad-`Ali and his
> followers began reporting to Jamal Pasha that
> `Abdu'l-Baha's religious activities and relations with
> people in other countries were of a political nature
> and that he was opposed to the Committee of Union and
> Progress. It was not long after that the German consul
> in Haifa brought `Abdu'l-Baha the news that Jamal Pasha
> had told a gathering of Muslim clergy in Jerusalem
> that he intended to crucify him after he returned from
> conquering Egypt and that he would destroy the Shrines
> of Baha'u'llah and the Bab. `Abdu'l-Baha reassured
> the distraught consul that none of these events were
> likely to happen.
> 
> After the failure of the first
> Turkish attack on the Suez Canal on 2-3 February 1915,
> Jamal Pasha and his German advisers began elaborate
> preparations for a larger attack. Jamal Pasha
> himself roamed Syria and Palestine trying and hanging
> Arab nationalists. "Gallows" occurs frequently in
> `Abdu'l-Baha's description's of the Pasha's
> character. `Abdu'l-Baha was sufficiently concerned
> that one day early in 1916 he went to Nazareth to meet
> Jamal Pasha. When a letter arrived asking about
> `Abdu'l-Baha's whereabouts, he replied, "Tell him,
> `In front of a cannon.'"
> 
> Jamal Pasha's attacks
> on the canal in April and July also failed. Thereafter,
> he was preoccupied with the British advance through
> Sinai and southern Palestine that began in August and
> lasted until December 1917. Before he could carry
> out his threats to `Abdu'l-Baha, he was recalled.
> 
> Nonetheless, in December 1917
> rumors of danger to `Abdu'l-Baha reached Major Tudor-Pole,
> a friend of `Abdu'l-Baha who was at that time an intelligence
> officer with the British army in Palestine. He alerted
> influential friends and followers of `Abdu'l-Baha,
> who persuaded the military authorities to pass word
> through the lines that `Abdu'l-Baha was not to be harmed.
> Haifa and `Akka fell to British and Indian cavalry
> on 23 September 1918. The British authorities immediately
> announced that `Abdu'l-Baha and his family were safe.
> 
> Jamal Pasha in Baha'i literature.
> Jamal Pasha appears several times in `Abdu'l-Baha's
> talks to local Baha'is. (Most of what we know about
> his dealings with the Pasha come from these
> talks.) Though he joked about the real danger that
> Jamal Pasha posed, he described him as "a mountain
> of arrogance" and said that he was bloodthirsty, rapacious,
> and drunken.
> 
> For Shoghi Effendi, Jamal
> Pasha was one of a series of threats to the
> Baha'i World Center--Sultan `Abdu'l-Hamid, Hitler,
> and the 1947-48 war--averted by the providence of God.
> Shoghi Effendi described his character as "bloodthirsty"
> and "suspicious and merciless" and referred to his
> "ruthless military dictatorship" and to his being "an
> inveterate enemy of the Faith."
> 
> Sources: For the life
> of Jamal Pasha, see EI2 "Djemal Pasha" and his
> own Memories of Turkish Statesman (London, n.d.),
> also available in Ottoman, modern Turkish, and German.
> 
> The main source for his relations
> with `Abdu'l-Baha is Khatirat-i-Habib, pp. 184-86,
> 290, 332-33, 443-47, from which are derived other accounts
> such as AB 409-14, God Passes By, 317, PP 26,
> AAK 3:42-45, Rahiq 1:370. See also CH 202-5. Note
> that the order of events given in the body of the present
> article is an educated guess.
> 
> On the capture of Haifa, see
> AB 425-30, CH 219-27, BBR 332-38.
> 
> For Shoghi Effendi on Jamal
> Pasha, see PP 189, PDC 13, 65, CF 54, 72, God
> Passes By, 317.
> 
> AtatŸrk and Modern Turkey
> 
> Peace, however, was
> not to come to Turkey for four more years after the
> end of World War I. It became clear that the Allies
> planned the dismemberment of Turkey. The British,
> French, and Italians occupied Istanbul, the Straits,
> Cilicia, and the old Arab provinces. The Armenians
> had been promised a state including most of eastern
> Anatolia, and the Italians had been allotted southwestern
> Anatolia. The Greeks had invaded western Anatolia,
> pushing eastwards from the ancient Greek territories
> of the Aegean coast, burning and killing as they went.
> The Sultan, a bitter enemy of the Young Turks, was
> in the hands of the Allies and was abetting their plans.
> 
> In the face of this disastrous
> situation, the Turks of Anatolia rallied to resist
> the various invaders. Mustafa Kemal, later known as
> AtatŸrk, the most successful of the wartime generals,
> organized a popular government in Ankara. The new
> regime defeated the Armenian Republic in 1921, regaining
> some territory lost to Russia forty years earlier and
> ending Armenian hopes for regaining their old lands
> in eastern Anatolia. In 1922 the Turks drove the Greeks
> back into the sea at Smyrna. The Treaty of Lausanne
> of 1923 confirmed the existence of the new Turkey.
> Huge population exchanges--Muslim Turks from Greece
> and Greek Christians from Turkey--and the loss of the
> non-Turkish Muslim provinces resulted in a new Turkish
> republic that was overwhelmingly Muslim and ethnically
> Turkish. The Sultanate was abolished and with it the
> Ottoman Empire. The last Sultan lingered a few months
> longer as caliph--now only a religious leader--but
> even this title was abolished in 1924.
> 
> AtatŸrk made himself a virtual
> dictator and set about reorganizing Turkey on the model
> of modern European nation-states. In the Ottoman Empire,
> the Turks had been the first of many nationalities
> of the empire; the Republic of Turkey became a Turkish
> national state. Islam was deinstitutionalized. Though
> mosques remained open, all the theological seminaries
> and monasteries of the mystical orders were closed.
> Almost all religious institutions were disbanded.
> A new civil law based on the Swiss code replaced Islamic
> law. Traditional headgear was prohibited, and men
> were required to wear Western hats. Under state sponsorship
> there was rapid economic development. AtatŸrk turned
> Turkey's back on the Islamic world and attempted to
> make it Western and European.
> 
> AtatŸrk was not entirely successful
> in eliminating Islam as a social and political force,
> particularly in the countryside. His attempts to abolish
> Arabic as a liturgical language were eventually abandoned.
> Even AtatŸrk's harsh anti-clerical measures could
> be seen by many pious Muslims as salutary reforms of
> corrupt religious institutions. Typical, perhaps,
> is the fact that Turks never ceased referring to AtatŸrk
> himself as "Ghazi"--"victor in the holy war."
> 
> Politically, Turkey has become
> generally democratic. After AtatŸrk's death in 1938
> Turkey enjoyed considerable periods of democratic rule,
> broken by military intervention in times of instability.
> Generally, Turkey has remained true to AtatŸrk's vision
> of a secular modern state--in recent years, for example,
> attempting to join the European Community. However,
> Islamic nationalism is also increasingly influential.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi on the fall
> of the Ottomans and the rise of modern Turkey
> 
> Five years after the
> end of World War I the Ottoman Empire was gone, replaced
> by AtatŸrk's secular Republic of Turkey. In several
> of his works, especially The Promised Day is Come,
> Shoghi Effendi points to this extraordinary transformation
> as evidence of the hand of God at work, sweeping away
> the obsolete forms of Islam and preparing the way for
> the eventual triumph of the Baha'i Faith, "a slow yet
> steady and relentless retribution." (PDC 61) He links
> it to the fall of the Qajar monarchy in Iran. For
> Shoghi Effendi the decline of Istanbul--no longer the
> capital even of the shrunken Turkish Republic--particularly
> symbolized this.
> 
> The Ottoman Empire also represented
> Sunni Islam's encounter with the revelation of Baha'u'llah,
> just as Iran and the Qajar regime represented Shi`ism.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi considered
> the Ottoman regime more culpable than the Iranian government
> in its treatment of the Baha'is. While in Iran the
> Babis had attempted to assassinate the Shah,
> the Ottomans had no just cause for complaint against
> the Baha'u'llah.
> 
> Sources: For Baha'i
> writings on the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, see Amr
> va-Khalq 4:453-58; PB 102-4; TB 213; PDC 19, 38-39,
> 61-66, 100-1; WOB 173-74; RB 2:312-23, as well as the
> bibliography on tablets mentioned above.
> 
> The
> Baha'i Community of Turkey
> 
> The modern Republic
> of Turkey has the second largest Baha'i community in
> the Middle East.
> 
> Early
> history:
> 
> The modern Baha'i community
> of Turkey was established by Iranian Baha'i traders,
> pilgrims, and refugees seeking the opportunities and
> relative freedom of cosmopolitan Istanbul. A local
> spiritual assembly was established there, and Baha'i
> communities eventually grew up in other towns in the
> area. A second area of Baha'i settlement was in the
> south, in partly Arab areas like Adana, Iskenderun
> (Alexandretta, held by France until 1937), and neighboring
> towns. The Baha'is here seem to have been Arabic-speaking
> descendants of early Baha'is in Iraq and the Holy Land.
> Baha'i communities also eventually grew up in other
> important towns such as Smyrna and Ankara.
> 
> Martha Root visited Turkey
> in 1927, 1929, and 1932.
> 
> Persecutions of Baha'is
> in Turkey
> 
> Like the Tanzimat and
> Young Turk reformers before him, AtatŸrk attempted
> to modernize Turkish society by authoritarian rule
> rather than by liberalization. He ruthlessly suppressed
> competing influences: most Islamic institutions, particularly
> the mystical orders, Freemasons, labor groups, Communists,
> and the like. In 1928 a number of Baha'is in Smyrna
> were arrested on the grounds that they were--as the
> Times of London correspondent put it--"a group of Turks,
> Americans, and Persians who had formed a secret society
> with the object of continuing the religious practices
> in vogue in the days of the Sultans." They were further
> suspected of having political contacts with royalist
> emigres. When the Istanbul spiritual assembly intervened,
> its members were also arrested. The Istanbul Baha'is
> used the trial as an opportunity to expound publicly
> the history and teachings of the Baha'i Faith, gaining
> considerable publicity in the Middle Eastern press.
> In the end they were cleared of the charge of being
> a subversive organization and convicted only of the
> minor charge of having failed to register as an association.
> 
> In 1932-33 many Baha'is were
> arrested in Istanbul and Adana on similar charges,
> although in Adana the prejudices of Muslims seem to
> have been a factor also. By March 1933 the Istanbul
> Baha'is had been acquitted, but fifty-three Baha'is
> remained in prison in Adana, prompting Shoghi Effendi
> to ask the American and Iranian Baha'is to appeal to
> the Turkish authorities in their behalf. All the Baha'is
> were released by the beginning of April.
> 
> In later decades Baha'is continued
> to face intermittent harassment from Turkish authorities
> concerned that they represented a foreign political
> or cultural influence, thus forcing the Turkish Baha'is
> to remain somewhat cautious in their public activities.
> As late as the 1960s a Baha'i election meeting was
> raided by police and those present briefly jailed.
> 
> Institutional Growth
> 
> The constitution of
> the modern Republic of Turkey guarantees freedom of
> worship and conscience but prohibits religious interference
> in politics. The criminal code prohibits proselytism.
> The establishment of the republic resulted in the
> deinstitutionalization of Islam but also the departure
> of almost all non-Muslims from the country. Islamic
> institutions now are entirely controlled by the state.
> Other religious communities are free of direct state
> control but must operate within narrow legal limits.
> 
> The development of the modern
> Turkish Baha'i community has been shaped by these paradoxical
> circumstances. Though in most ways freer than other
> Middle Eastern Baha'i communities, it has always had
> to exercise its freedom with caution for fear of triggering
> old religious or newer political prejudices. The Turkish
> Baha'i community, like Turkey itself, exists in a cultural
> borderland between Europe and the Middle East.
> 
> Systematic development of
> the Baha'i community began with the Ten Year Crusade
> (1953-63). With the aid of pioneers from Iraq and
> Iran, the community grew to twelve assemblies in 26
> localities. A national spiritual assembly was formed
> in 1959. The community built a national haziratu'l-quds
> in Istanbul and bought a temple site and three holy
> places. There were organized youth activities.
> 
> During the Nine Year Plan
> (1964-73) the community grew to 22 assemblies in 57
> localities, including groups on three islands near
> the Dardanelles: Imroz, Bozca Ada, and Marmara. There
> were also systematic efforts to establish communities
> in the towns and villages visited by Baha'u'llah and
> along the Black Sea coast. The number of assemblies
> and localities grew to 33 and 102 in 1979 but dropped
> to 29 and 98 by 1983. In 1986 there were 50 assemblies
> and 157 localities. Statistics on assembly activities
> such as feasts, assembly meetings, and children's classes
> show that the Turkish assemblies are relatively strong
> and active. Fairly large scale enrollments have occured
> in southwestern Turkey.
> 
> The peculiar political conditions
> of Turkey made goals involving official recognition
> much more difficult to obtain. The first national
> spiritual assembly had to be elected by mail. Though
> the national spiritual assembly has not been able to
> achieve incorporation, since 1980 it has had some exemption
> from taxation. Since 1966 authorities have also permitted
> believers to list their religion as "Baha'i" on their
> identity cards.
> 
> The Turkish community is financially
> self-sufficient.
> 
> The most significant accomplishment
> of the Turkish Baha'i community is the degree to which
> it has become assimilated into its country, an achievement
> only equalled in the Middle East by the Baha'i communities
> of Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Morocco.
> 
> The Turkish Baha'is have undertaken
> various efforts associated with Baha'u'llah's stay
> in Turkey. These include establishing communities
> in the areas visited by him, acquiring and restoring
> holy places, and commemorating events of his life in
> Turkey.
> 
> A Turkish Baha'i scholar,
> Sami Doktoroglu, discovered a number of important official
> Ottoman documents relating to Baha'i history.
> 
> Composition of the community
> 
> The earliest Baha'is
> in Turkey were Iranians. Some of their families have
> remained and have assimilated thoroughly into Turkish
> life, a process encouraged by strong Turkish nationalist
> pressures. Though Turkey still receives pioneers,
> it sends almost as many pioneers out to other countries.
> Over the years Baha'i teaching has brought many ethnic
> Turks into the community, especially since the 1970s.
> During the Nine Year Plan the Turkish community was
> successful in teaching in the `Alavi, or `Ashiq,
> community, a dissident Shi`i minority in Anatolia.
> By the 1970s the Turkish Baha'i community was culturally
> Turkish, rather than being an expatriate Iranian community
> as is the case in many other Middle Eastern countries.
> 
> Since the Iranian Revolution
> of 1979, many Baha'i refugees have crossed into Turkey,
> some of whom have had to stay for long periods while
> awaiting resettlement.
> 
> Growth of the Baha'i community
> (including Alexandretta/Hatay)
> 
> Year Baha'is LSAs Groups Isol. Local. Inc.
> LSAs
> 
> 1900 100?
> 
> 1921 1
> 
> 1930 2 8 10
> 
> 1937 6?
> 
> 1944 6?
> 
> 1953
> 
> 1963 12 9 5 26
> 
> 1973 22 35 57
> 
> 1979 33 69 102
> 
> 1986 44 58 55 157
> 
> Sources: For the history
> of the modern Turkish Baha'i community, see AB 399;
> BBR 474-75; DM/IK 7:972-74; Garis, Martha Root, pp.
> 294-95, 322-27, BW 1:101, 103; 2:183; 3:43, 45, 218,
> 222-23; 4:97, 274, 430-31; 5:432; 6:511; 7:560; 8:692;
> 9:658-59; 10:559; 11:524-25; 13:297-98, 356, 759, 951,
> 1035; 14:86, 161, 418; 15:173-74, 251; 16:267; 17:96,
> 185-86; BN 28 (Nov. 1928) 2; 72 (Ap. 1933) 4; 397 (Ap.
> 1964) 3-4; 434 (May 1967) 2; PP 316-18; God Passes
> By, 303.
> 
> See also the statistical and
> teaching plan summaries released by the Baha'i World
> Center: 1963: 26, 31, 36, 44, 119; 1964: 12-14, 35;
> 1968: 2, 27, 50, 67, 79, 94, 101-2; 1975: 11, 44, 67,
> 71, 76, 95; 1983: 98; 1986: 39, 45, 50-51, 56, 66,
> 72-74, 79, 88, 90-91, 152-53.
> 
> Some photographs of Turkish
> Baha'is are found in BW 3:321, 4:317, 319; 13:297,
> 525; 14:264; 15:251, 576; 16: 266.
> 
> Other
> Turkish Baha'i Communities.
> 
> The Turks are first known
> as the nomadic founders of a sixth-century empire stretching
> across Central Asia to the Black Sea. In later centuries
> they drifted into the Middle East as conquerors, nomadic
> tribes, and mercenary or slave soldiers. Their descendants
> today are scattered across Central and Southwest Asia.
> They are linked by history, language, and a common
> allegiance to Islam.
> 
> Though the largest modern
> Turkish community is in Turkey, large numbers of Turks
> live in Iran, the Soviet Union, and China, as well
> as elsewhere in the Middle East, Europe, and now even
> America and Australia. All speak Turkic dialects that
> are somewhat mutually intelligible.
> 
> Turks in Iran
> 
> Turks and Turkic peoples
> have lived in Iran for more than a thousand years,
> largely sharing the culture of the Persian-speaking
> majority. More often than not, Iran has been ruled
> by Turkish dynasties such as the Safavids (1499-1722)
> and the Qajars (1779-1924).
> 
> Most Turks in Iran are in
> Aharbayjan, now divided between Iran and the
> Soviet Union. These are the Azeri (Ahari) Turks,
> closely related by language and culture to the Turks
> of Turkey but thoroughly assimilated into Iranian life
> and sharing a common Shi`i faith.
> 
> The Babi and Baha'i religions
> spread among the Turks of Aharbayjan as it did
> among the Persians elsewhere in Iran. Most of the
> Babis at the battle of Zanjan, for example, must have
> been Turks.
> 
> A number of the nomadic tribes
> of Iran are also Turkic, but there have never been
> many Baha'is among them, though systematic efforts
> have been made to teach them.
> 
> Turks in the Central Asian
> Republics
> 
> Six of the new republics
> of the former Soviet Union are ethnically Turkish:
> Azerbaijan, Kirghizistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
> and Kazakhstan, although the latter is now only 40%
> Turkic due to immigration from other parts of the former
> Soviet Union. The area north of Iran and Afghanistan
> and east of the Caspian was formerly known as Russian
> Turkistan. There are also other Turkic groups elsewhere
> in the Soviet Union. Baha'i refugees from Iran established
> communities in Russian Turkistan and the Caucusus around
> the turn of the century. Until the early 1930s there
> were national spiritual assemblies in the Caucasus,
> which included Soviet Azerbaijan, and Turkistan. Some
> of these communities still exist after half a century
> of isolation from the rest of the Baha'i world. Few
> if any of the local Turkic peoples ever became Baha'is.
> 
> Since the collapse of the
> Soviet Union, there has been rapid growth in the Baha'i
> communities in the new republics, including the Turkish
> areas. New converts seem to include a significant
> number of Turks, but the sitatuation is changing rapidly
> as of this writing. [Wendy: If you actually have any
> numbers, please feel free to insert them.]
> 
> Turks elsewhere
> 
> Other Turkic communities
> exist in western China, Bulgaria, Syria, and Iraq.
> There are few if any Baha'is among these groups.
> 
> In the last three decades
> poverty has driven many Turks to emigrate to Western
> Europe, America, and Australia. The Five Year Plan
> called for collaboration among the national spiritual
> assemblies of Turkey, Germany, and Australia in teaching
> these emigrants.
> 
> Baha'i
> literature in Turkish
> 
> The Turkic languages
> belong to the Altaic family and are thus related to
> other Central Asian languages such as Mongolian. All
> the Turkic languages are characterized by vowel harmony,
> agglutinative morphology, and verb-final word order.
> They are thus very different in sound and structure
> from other Islamic languages such as Persian and Arabic.
> Almost all modern Turkic languages once used the Arabic
> alphabet, though it was not very suitable for their
> sounds. Early Turkic languages also used the ancient
> Uighur script, and modern Republican Turkish uses the
> Roman alphabet. Since about 1939 Soviet Turkic languages
> have used the Cyrilic script, but since the independence
> of the Turkish republics of the former Soviet Union
> there have been plans for adopting the Latin alphabet
> of modern Republican Turkish.
> 
> The Turkic language used in
> the nineteenth century Near East was Ottoman (Osmanli),
> a southwestern Turkic dialect heavily infused with
> Persian and Arabic words. It was the language of government
> and the ruling elite throughout the Ottoman Empire,
> though educated Ottomans usually knew Persian and Arabic
> as well. It was closely related to Azeri, the Turkic
> dialect of northwestern Iran.
> 
> In 1928 as part of his modernization
> program, AtatŸrk decreed that Turkish should be written
> in the Roman alphabet. In addition he tried to purify
> the language from Persian and Arabic loan words. The
> Arabic script was no longer to be taught. This had
> the effect of cutting modern Turks off from their old
> literary heritage; not only could they not read the
> old alphabet, they no longer knew many of the Arabic
> and Persian words that filled Ottoman Turkish. Modern
> Turkish is thus quite different now from other Turkic
> languages and from the Ottoman Turkish of a century
> ago.
> 
> It should be noted that Republican
> Turkish spelling of Arabic and Persian words and names
> is based on Turkish pronunciation and thus differs
> substantially from the common transliterations directly
> from Persian and Arabic. "Muhammad," for example,
> is "Mehmet" in modern Turkish.
> 
> `Abdu'l-Baha lived almost
> his entire life in the Ottoman Empire and spoke Ottoman
> Turkish well. He wrote a number of prayers in Turkish.
> These are heavily infused with Persian words and phrases,
> in accordance with the literary tastes of the time.
> They have been published.
> 
> Though a few items evidently
> were published in Ottoman Turkish, Baha'i publishing
> in Turkey did not begin in earnest until after the
> change to the Roman alphabet. In addition to expository
> works originally written in Turkish, many of the best
> known Baha'i books in Persian were translated, particularly
> works by Baha'u'llah, `Abdu'l-Baha, and Mirza Abu'l-Fadl-i-Gulpaygani.
> The early translators, such as Majdi énan, were educated
> before the reform and thus knew Persian and Arabic.
> These translations, though written in the Roman alphabet,
> were thoroughly Ottoman in style and became increasingly
> difficult for younger Turks educated in the new system.
> There have thus been attempts to rewrite the older
> translations in modern Republican Turkish to make them
> more accessible. Translation remains a problem since
> there are now few Turkish Baha'is who are fluent in
> Arabic and Persian. The enrichment of Turkish Baha'i
> literature has been a goal of teaching plans since
> 1964.
> 
> Though there are large Turkish-speaking
> Baha'i communities in Iran, the Iranian government
> prohibited the publication of literature in Turkish
> throughout most of this century. As a result there
> has been little Turkish Baha'i literature published
> in Iran, the Turkish prayers of `Abdu'l-Baha being
> a notable exception. A translation of the short obligatory
> prayer into Azeri is found in BW 16:601 and 17:520.
> 
> Sixty percent of the speakers
> of Turkic languages live outside Turkey, many of them
> in the Soviet Union: about one out of eight Soviet
> citizens speaks a Turkic language as his mother tongue.
> Most of the earliest published Baha'i literature in
> Turkish was printed by the large Baha'i communities
> in Baku in Russian Azerbaijan and Ashkhabad in Russian
> Turkistan. Beginning with the Nine Year Plan, the
> translation of Baha'i literature into the various dialects
> of Soviet Central Asia has been a goal, including Turkmen,
> Kazakh, Kirghiz, and Uzbek. Translations were made
> into at least the first two of these prior to the fall
> of the Soviet Union. It seems likely that with the
> independence of these states there will be a large
> increase in Baha'i literature in the languages of the
> Turkish republics.
> 
> Sources: For information
> on Turkish, see EB (1985) "Turkic Languages;" Bernard
> Comrie, The World's Major Languages (New York: Oxford,
> 1987) pp. 619-44. The most recent bibliographies of
> Baha'i literature in Turkish are BW 13:1108; 18:889.
> For other Turkic languages see BW 14:569; 15:714;
> 16:601, 612; 18:843, 857-58.
> 
> Excursus:
> 
> `Abdu'llah
> Pasha
> 
> This Turkish official was
> the governor of `Akka from 1819 to 1832 and was the
> owner of a number of buildings important in Baha'i
> history. He was the governor of `Akka after his father-in-law
> Sulayman Pasha. He sided with the Turkish Sultan
> against Muhammad-`Ali Pasha of Egypt when the
> latter sent his son Ibrahim Pasha to invade
> Turkish Syria in the summer of 1831. The Egyptian
> army besieged `Akka for six months. Eventually, he
> was forced to surrender the city after a bombardment
> that damaged almost every building in the city. He
> was exiled to Egypt but later returned to reclaim his
> properties in the `Akka area. He then moved to Istanbul
> and finally to Medina where he died and is buried.
> 
> Among the extensive properties
> he amassed were the mansion of Mazra`ih on land formerly
> owned by his father `Ali Pasha and in which
> Baha'u'llah later lived; the Governorate of `Akka,
> now known as the House of `Abdu'llah Pasha,
> where `Abdu'l-Baha lived from 1896 to 1910; and mansions
> adjacent to the Mansion of Bahji and on the promontory
> of Mt. Carmel. He also completed the Citadel of `Akka
> in which Baha'u'llah was imprisoned.
> 
> Sources: DH 205-6.
> 
> Chapter
> Three
> 
> The
> Baha'i Faith in Iran
> 
> An
> Introduction to the History and Culture of Iran
> 
> This article is intended to
> give background information useful for understanding
> the cultural and historical context of the rise of
> the Babi and Baha'i Faiths in Iran.
> 
> 1. Geography. The
> modern state of Iran is centered on the Iranian Plateau,
> a high arid plain surrounded on most sides by mountains.
> The center of the plateau contains several regions
> of almost impassable desert. Most of the population
> of the plateau lives in oases near the mountains where
> water is available, often conveyed to the irrigation
> works by long tunnels called qanats, an irrigation
> system that has been in use for several millenia.
> The bulk of the population of the plateau is Persian-speaking.
> In the past large parts of the population have been
> nomadic, with most of the rest of the population living
> in agricultural villages. In the twentieth century
> most of the nomadic population has become sedentary,
> and the proportion of the population living in cities
> has greatly increased.
> 
> Modern Iran also includes
> several adjacent geographical areas. In the northwest,
> Adharbayjan is a region of mountains and high plains.
> With more rainfall than in most areas of the country,
> it has traditionally been Iran's most important source
> of grain and meat. Its population, though Shi`ite
> in religion and Iranian in culture, is Turkish-speaking
> and thus is closely tied by language and experience
> to Turkey in the west and to the Republic of Azerbaijan
> to the north, an area that belonged to Iran until the
> early nineteenth century. North of the plateau are
> Mazandaran and Gilan along the south and southwestern
> shores of the Caspian. These areas, below sea-level,
> contain rain forests. Though the predominant language
> is Persian, these areas remain somewhat distinct from
> the rest of Iran. South and west of Adharbajan is
> Iranian Kurdistan, an area inhabited by the semi-nomadic
> Kurds and closely related by culture to the Kurdish
> areas of Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. Separatist movements
> have flourished in this area. The corner formed by
> the Iraqi border and the Persian Gulf is an ethnically-Arab
> lowland, geographically contiguous with Iraq, of which
> it has often been a part. Though Arabic remains the
> predominant language, there are large Persian settlements
> there and the region has become much more culturally
> integrated with the rest of Iran since the discovery
> of oil at the turn of the century. The extreme southeast
> of Iran is inhabited by the Baluch, a people also living
> in neighboring areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
> Finally, northeastern Iran is a continuation of the
> plains of Central Asia.
> 
> It should be noted that just
> as all Iranians are not Persian speakers, not all speakers
> of Persian live in Iran. Persian is one of the two
> main languages of Afghanistan, and Tajik, a closely
> related dialect, is spoken in Tajikistan and parts
> of Uzbekistan. Persian was also the lingua franca
> of Islamic India and survived in India and Pakistan
> as a literary language into the twentieth century.
> 
> A large country, the climate
> of Iran varies from region to region. On the Iranian
> Plateau, summers are hot and dry. In the northern
> areas and in the mountains winters can be quite severe.
> Even in Tehran, snow is common in the winter.
> 
> 2. History
> 
> Pre-Islamic Iran
> 
> The Aryans and their religion.
> The Iranians are part of the Indo-European people.
> Sometime, probably in the early second millenium B.C.,
> a people calling themselves Aryans migrated from north
> of the Black Sea southwest towards Iran and Afghanistan.
> These people worshipped a pantheon of gods preserved
> both in Hindu and Zoroastrian mythology. Their economy
> seems to have been based on cattle-raising. One group,
> the Indo-Aryans, went southeast into northwestern India,
> where they apparently conquered the native population.
> Their religion formed the nucleous of modern Hinduism.
> Another group, the Iranians, moved southwest into
> Iran, eventually settling a region including much of
> the area east of the Caspian, Afghanistan, and Iran.
> There is no direct evidence of the movements of the
> Aryans, but something can be deduced from comparing
> the languages and mythology of the Aryans of India
> and Iran. The Indo-Aryans, for example, used a word
> for "god' that the Iranians use to mean "devil." Likewise,
> the oldest myths of both peoples preserve something
> of their early culture. By the early first millenium
> B.C. various Iranian groups were dominant on the Iranian
> plateau and neighboring areas to the east and north.
> 
> At some time before or during
> the migrations of the Iranians, a prophet named Zarathushtra
> (Zoroaster, the usual English form, reflects the Greek
> form of his name) arose among them. He was a priest
> of the traditional religion. On the basis of visions
> of the supreme god Ahura Mazda (probably meaning "Lord
> Wisdom"), he denounced abuses and taught a religion
> in which believers were to carry out various rituals,
> particularly concerning purity, in order to aid Ahura
> Mazda in his battle against the devil, Ahriman. Zoroaster
> formulated his teachings in the form of a series of
> hymns known as the Gathas. These were commited to
> memory by his followers and passed down by them until
> they were finally written down, together with much
> additional traditional material, sometime around the
> fifth century A.D. This body of literature is the
> Avesta, the holy book of Zoroaster's religion. For
> his teachings Zoroaster was persecuted until he finally
> found refuge with King Vishtaspa, who established Zoroastrianism
> as the state religion of his kingdom and fought the
> enemies of the new faith.
> 
> Though there is no direct
> evidence about Zoroaster until much later, there cannot
> be much doubt that he lived and preached. There is
> great controversy about where and when he lived, the
> traditional date and placeÑ258 years before Alexander
> (570 B.C.) in AdharbayjanÑbeing clearly too late and
> too far west. Various modern authorities place him
> in Sistan (on the border between modern Iran and Afghanistan),
> Choresmia (south of the Aral Sea), and Kazakhstan.
> Dates range from the early second millenium to the
> early first millenium.
> 
> The Medes and the Persians.
> The Iranians come into written history with the rise
> of the Median empire, an Iranian dynasty, in western
> Iran in the ninth century B.C. In the seventh century
> one of the Iranian vassals of the Medes, Cyrus II the
> Great of Persis in southwestern Iran, overthrew his
> master and went on to conquer a vast empire, which
> eventually stretched from Libya to the gates of India
> and from the Bosphorus to the Indian Ocean. The Persian
> or Achaemenid Empire, as it is known, was the greatest
> state the world had yet seen, and its efficient administration
> set the pattern used throughout the Middle East for
> centuries to come. The Persian Empire plays a conspicuous
> role both in the BibleÑit is the Persian king who restores
> the temple in JerusalemÑand in classical Greek historyÑXerxes'
> famous and unsuccessful effort to conquer Greece.
> Through the Persian Empire Iranian culture and religious
> ideas were conveyed to the Mediterranean world.
> 
> The Persian Empire was unexpectedly
> and suddenly destroyed by Alexander's invasion in 334.
> Alexander himself died before he could establish his
> dynasty, and the empire was divided by his generals,
> Iran falling to the descendants of Seleucus, who also
> ruled Iraq, Syria, and the Holy Land. Though Greek
> culture heavily influenced the Iranians, there was
> still only a thin Greek veneer on what was still an
> Iranian nation. By the second century B.C. the Seleucids
> had been supplanted by an Iranian dynasty originating
> near the southeastern corner of the Caspian. This
> dynasty, known to the West as the Parthians and to
> themselves as the Arsacids, ruled a loose confedation
> controlling a territory from Iraq and the borders of
> Syria to Afghanistan and the Aral Sea. Their famous
> mounted archers were the most formidable opponents
> of the Roman legions. Though more Iranian than the
> Seleucids, they were still much under the influence
> of Greek culture.
> 
> In the third century A.D.
> the Sasanians, a local dynasty of Fars (the same region
> that was the homeland of the Achaemenids) overthrew
> the Parthians and formed the Sasanian empire. Occupying
> much the same territory as the Parthians, the Sasanians
> were militantly Zoroastrian in religion and continued
> the Parthian tradition of opposition to the Romans.
> The Sasanian empire was well-organized and centralized.
> At their high point in the early seventh century,
> the Sasanians were able to occupy much of the Byzantine
> Empire and besieged Constantinople itself. Whereas
> the Persians nearly forgot the Achaemenids and Parthians,
> the Sasanian kings have remained well-known figures
> in many aspects of Iranian culture: literature, statecraft,
> art, and folklore.
> 
> The Arab Invasion and Empires.
> In the years when Muhammad was preaching his new religion
> and establishing a Muslim state in Medina and eventually
> all of Arabia, the Sasanians were undergoing military
> defeat and civil unrest. Thus when the Arabs invaded
> Sasanian Iraq, resistence was ineffective. The provincial
> nobility failed to unite to support the central government
> against the invader. Thus, the Arabs were soon able
> to occupy both Iraq and Iran. Yazdegerd III, the fugitive
> Sasanian emperor, was killed in Marv, in the far northeastern
> corner of his empire. Thereafter, Iran was ruled first
> from Medina and then until 750 from Damascus.
> 
> Persians quickly came to play
> a key role in the Islamic state. The first Arab occupiers
> were depenedent on Persians to administer the old Sasanian
> provinces: Persian was the official language of administrative
> records in the eastern part of the Islamic world through
> the seventh century, and Persian officials carried
> on the routine of tax collection and administration
> under the eyes of their new Arab rulers. By the end
> of the century considerable numbers of Persians had
> become Muslims. In 750 a Shi`ite revolution in eastern
> Iran led to the overthrow of the Umayyad caliphs of
> Damascus. The Abbasids, the new caliphs, were descendants
> of an uncle of the Prophet. They moved the capital
> to Iraq, building the new city of Baghdad. Their chief
> powerbase was the eastern empire--Iraq and Iran, the
> Sasanian lands--and Persians played an ever-greater
> role in administration and cultural life. The administrative
> system and court rituals of the Sasanian empire were
> to a considerable extent resurrected by the Abbasids.
> During this period Iran gradually became overwhelmingly
> Muslim, mainly Sunni in this period, although there
> were always pockets of Shiite sympathy.
> 
> The Military Successor
> States. By the end of the ninth century the Abbasid
> caliphs in Baghdad could no longer exercise full control
> over their dominions. Governors of distant provinces
> became independent while still acknowledging the nominal
> authority of the prestigious but increasingly powerless
> caliphs in Baghdad. The example of independent provincial
> governors was soon followed by military adventurers
> who carved out ephemeral empires for themselves. Frequently
> drawing their strength from nomadic Turkic or Mongol
> tribes, such states characterize Iranian history into
> modern times. Often these rulers were little more
> than adventurous gangsters whose states prospered so
> long as the founder lived and fell apart under less
> ruthless heirs. Under such rulers life continued unchanged
> in the Persian cities, for a change of ruler often
> meant nothing more than a change of tax collector.
> Such cultural achievements as these military rulers
> could boast of tended to consist of subsidizing poets
> or scholars or of monumental architectureÑboth activities
> intended to legitimize the sovereign's rule. Only
> in a few cases did these states have lasting influences
> on Iranian life.
> 
> Iran as a political entity
> can scarcely said to have existed in this period.
> Political boundaries bore little relation to ethnic
> boundaries. Religious identities were often stronger
> than identies based on language or nation.
> 
> The Safavids. The
> modern state of Iran came into existence in 1500 through
> the conquests of Shah Isma`al Safavi, the hereditory
> head of an order of militant Shiite Sufis. Isma`il
> was a Turk from Ardabil in Azerbaijan, in the northwest
> of modern Iran. His state occupied the territory of
> modern Iran and some additional areas such as parts
> of Iraq, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan. Until this
> time Iran had been largely Sunni, though there was
> a long tradition of sympathy for radical Shi`ite groups.
> Isma`il forcibly converted his territories to Twelver
> Shi`ism, to the great irritation of neighboring Sunni
> states such as the Ottomans and the Uzbeks. Though
> under continual military pressure, particularly from
> the Ottomans, Isma`il and his successors were able
> to consolidate a regime that lasted for over 200 years.
> The cultural achievements of the Safavids were considerable.
> The Safavid kings and their courtiers were often lavish
> patrons of art, literature, and scholarship. Safavid
> architecture represents the highest achievement of
> Islamic architecture in Iran, notably Shah Abbas the
> Great's magnificent capital, Isfahan. Islamic philosophy
> reached its highest level of sophistication under the
> Safavids.
> 
> After a series of weak rulers
> the Safavid state collapsed in the early eighteenth
> century before an invasion from Afghanistan. This
> event triggered a half-century of instability in Iran.
> Two rulers in this period managed to gain control
> of the bulk of the old Safavid territories. The first,
> Nadir Shah, was a Sunni soldier from Khorasan, who
> in the classic pattern of military rulers in Iran,
> rose through his bravery, charisma, and luck to become
> a conquerer. His greatest achievement was his invasion
> of India in 1739, in which he sacked Delhi and brought
> a fabulous treasure, including the famous Peacock Throne,
> back to Iran. He was eventually assasinated by his
> own soldiers and his empire fell apart. The second
> strong ruler was Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751-79), who
> ruled much of Iran from Shiraz. Less ambitious than
> Nadir, he ruled under the unpretentious title of "regent"
> (vakil). Though typical of military adventurers
> in Iran throughout history, he won the affection of
> the Persians through his wise and moderate rule, his
> concern for commercial prosperity, and the magnificent
> buildings he erected in his beloved Shiraz.
> 
> The Qajars. Karim
> Khan's successor was immediately challenged by Aqa-Muhammad
> Khan (d. 1797), a eunuch of the Turkish Qajar tribe.
> He had been variously a rival and advisor of Karim
> Khan. After the latter's death he established himself
> as ruler of most of the old Safavid territories, first
> uniting the various branches of the Qajar tribe under
> his rule, then defeating and killing Karim Khan's son
> Lutf-`Ali, and finally recapturing the lost territories
> of Georgia and Khorasan. After Aqa Mohammad's murder
> in 1797, his nephew Fath-`Ali became the ruler. Fath-`Ali
> Shah was distinguished less for his statecraft than
> for his uxoriousness: his wives, concubines, and resulting
> children numbered in the hundreds. During his reign
> Iran faced its first serious challenge from Europeans.
> Blundering into two disastrous wars with Russia, Iran
> lost the northern half of the key province of Azerbaijan.
> Fath-`Ali Shah's heir apparent was his son `Abbas
> Mirza, who ruled Azerbaijan for more than thirty years
> and conducted Iran's foreign policy. `Abbas Mirza
> was an intelligent and forward-looking man, who sought
> to adopt European-style reforms in such areas as the
> military and fiscal administration, much as the Ottomans
> were doing at the same time. His European advisors
> hoped that under `Abbas's rule, Iran would develop
> into a strong and stable modern state. Unfortunately,
> he shared his family's tendency towards dissipation,
> and he died shortly before his father. The throne
> thus passed to `Abbas Mirza's son, Muhammad (r. 1834-48).
> Muhammad Shah showed little interest in continuing
> the reforms that his father had undertaken, and relied
> on an incompetent prime minister, the ignorant and
> superstitious Sufi Haji Mirza Aqasi.
> 
> Muhammad Shah's son and heir,
> Nasiru'd-Din (b. 1831, r. 1848-96), came to the throne
> as a teenager and ruled nearly half a century. Nasiru'd-Din
> Shah had been governor of Azerbaijan (the traditional
> post for the heir-apparent) under the supervision of
> Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Kabir, who then became prime minister.
> Amir Kabir was an ardent reformer, who sought to institute
> European-style reforms under an absolutist monarchy.
> He, for example, established the first modern institution
> of higher learning in Iran, the Daru'l-Funun ("Polytechnic").
> It was he who ordered the execution of the Bab, apparently
> because he saw a charismatic and revolutionary religious
> movement as a threat to the stability of the state.
> However, Naseri'd-Din Shah soon tired of his brilliant
> and overbearing prime minister, removed him from office,
> and had him killed in 1852. For the remainder of Nasiru'd-Din
> Shah's reign, Iran came under increasing pressure from
> the European powersÑpolitical, military, and economic.
> The Shah was himself interested in Western technology
> and methods, travelled in Europe, and periodically
> attempted to carry out reforms. However, he lacked
> the intelligence and will to follow through on these
> measures, not all of which were well-thought-out in
> any case. By the time of his assasination in 1896
> at the hands of a supporter of the Pan-Islamist Jamalul-Din
> Afghani, Iran was entering a crisis.
> 
> The Constitutional Period.
> Both Nasiru'd-Din Shah and his successor Muzaffari'd-Din
> Shah were perennially short of foreign currency to
> pay for imports of foreign goods and travel in Europe.
> They developed the practice of selling concessionsÑmonopolies
> on some part of the economyÑto raise funds. These
> concessions caused great resentment in the Iranian
> public, for not only did the resulting monopolies force
> Persians to pay unnecessarily high prices, but they
> often led to the ruin of sectors of the traditional
> economy. In 1890, the Shah sold a monopoly on the
> sale of tobacco to a British businessman. An outcry
> resulted, the clergy banned the use of tobacco, and
> the Shah was forced to withdraw the concession. A
> few years later the discontent crystalized in the form
> of a demand for a constitution. An alliance of modernist
> intellectuals (some of whom were secretly Azali Babis),
> bazaar merchants, and reformist clergy forced the dying
> Muzaffaru'd-Din Shah to agree to a constitution and
> a constituent assembly, the Majlis. When Muhammad-`Ali,
> the new Shah, tried to dissolve the Majlis, a civil
> war resulted in which the Constitutionalist forces
> eventually triumphed. Though the next decade was marked
> by unstable government and economic depression caused
> by World War I, the ideal of constitutional government
> became firmly rooted in Iran.
> 
> The Pahlavi Dynasty.
> In 1921 Reza Khan, the head of a Russian-trained cavalry
> regiment that was the most effective military force
> in the country, seized power in Tehran and was proclaimed
> prime minister. He was a resolutely secular and absolutist
> reformer who sought to modernize Iran from above on
> the model of AtatŸrk in Turkey and Mussolini in Italy.
> Though measures such as the forced unveiling of women
> and the curtailing of the authority of the clergy caused
> resentment, under his rule Iran rapidly developed a
> modern state apparatus and economy. He proclaimed
> himself Shah in 1925, deposing the powerless Ahmad
> Shah Qajar. The symbol of his achievements was a railroad
> he built going from the Persian Gulf through Tehran
> to the Russian border. It was this railroad, together
> with his fascist sympathies, that proved to be his
> undoing. When Germany invaded Russia, the Allies occupied
> Iran in order to be able to send supplies to Russia.
> Reza Shah was deposed and died in exile on the island
> of Mauritius.
> 
> His son, Muhammad-Reza came
> to the throne as a teen-ager and for some years was
> virtually powerless. During the 1940s political life
> flourished in Iran as the Majlis was freed from the
> heavy hand of Reza Shah. By the early 1950s the Shah
> was attempting to consolidate power. When Muhammad
> Mosaddeq, a nationalist politician, became prime minister
> and nationalized the Bristish-owned oil fields, the
> American Central Intelligence Agency engineered a coup
> that overthrew Mosaddeq and brought the Shah to power.
> Like his father, Muhammad-Reza Shah attempted to modernize
> Iran from above. Paid for by steadily increasing oil
> revenues, vast changes occured in Iranian life. Education
> became widely available, the country became firmly
> integrated into the world economy, and a large middle-class
> grew up. The clergy grew increasingly marginalized,
> particularly after 1963 when they were unable to prevent
> a land-reform program from stripping them of the lands
> that supported the religious institutions.
> 
> The Islamic Republic.
> Under the Pahlavis political reform failed to keep
> pace with economic and social change. When uncontrolled
> inflation began to wreak havoc in the economy in the
> mid-1970s, the Shah began to lose his popularity.
> In 1978 an alliance of Islamic, leftist, and bazaar
> groups, united by the prestige of the Ayatollah Khomeini,
> forced the Shah into exile. Khomeini's own Islamic
> supporters, the best organized of the revolutionary
> groups, seized power. Despite a bitter campaign of
> terrorism by leftist groups and a long war with Iraq,
> the Islamic regime was able to consolidate its power,
> uniting the country in hostility towards the Western
> powers, especially the United States. Despite a dismal
> human rights record and near economic collapse caused
> by war and mismanagement, the regime continued to enjoy
> wide support due to the reforms it was able to carry
> out and its genuine independence from foreign influence.
> Moreover, the fact that a modicum of democracy was
> maintained allowed the Islamic Republic to lay claim
> to both the nationalist and the consistituionalist
> political legacies.
> 
> 3. Culture
> 
> The following is a
> brief account of several important themes in Iranian
> culture and society
> 
> Iran and Islam
> 
> A continuing theme
> in Persian culture is whether Iran should be identified
> as primarily Iranian or primarily Islamic. As early
> as the eighth century Persian Muslims had begun to
> reassert their identity as Iranians against the prevailing
> Arabic chauvinism of the ruling Arabs. The greatest
> expression of this attitude is Firdawsi's Shah-Naiha,
> the "Book of Kings," an eleventh-century revised poetic
> translation of a pre-Islamic national history written
> in Sasanian times. Thus, Iranian rulers and officials
> through the last thousand years have tended to identify
> with the heritage of pre-Islamic Iran, an identity
> reinforced by the Persian language. This Iranian identity
> was closely linked with a cult of monarchy, in which
> pre-Islamic ideas about the divine right of kings,
> elaborate court ceremonials, and administrative traditions
> were resurrected. It was the administrative classes,
> the most permanent element of the government, who clung
> most tenaciously to the pre-Islamic Persian heritage.
> Thus, Baha'u'llah's family, which had a tradition
> of government service, proudly asserted their pure
> Persian descent from the last Sasanian king.
> 
> On the other hand, pre-modern
> Iranian Muslims saw themselves as citizens of the Islamic
> nation or as Shiites. Thus a Persian Shiite would
> be quite willing for his daughter to marry an Arab
> Shiite but would on no account allow her to marry a
> Zoroastrian Persian. In most cases these two identities
> co-existed. Sometimes they were fused, as when the
> mother of the Imam Husayn was identified as the daughter
> of Yazdegerd III, the last Sasanian emperor. The fact
> that Iran was the only Muslim state with Shiism as
> the state religion tended to smooth over potential
> conflicts between Iranian and Islamic identities.
> 
> In modern times the conflict
> between these two identities has sharpened. The Pahlavi
> Shahs, seeing Islam and the Shi`ite clergy as barriers
> to the modernization of Iran and to the consolidation
> of state power, appealed to a specifically Iranian
> nationalism. Outward symbols of Islamic allegiance
> such as traditional headgear were outlawed, and symbols
> of the glories of ancient Iran were brought forward
> to replace them. Thus, the Zoroastrian calendar replaced
> the Islamic calendar in official use. A campaign was
> launched to rid Persian of loan-words from ArabicÑa
> nearly hopeless task, since Arabic words are as prominent
> in Persian as French, Greek, and Latin loan-words are
> in English. Parents were encouraged to give their
> children names from the Shah-Namih. This effort
> reached a height in 1971 when Muhammad-Reza Shah held
> a lavish celebration (thirty-five years late) at Persepolis,
> the old Achaemenid capital, of the 2500th anniversary
> of the foundation of the Persian monarchy. At the
> same time he revised the calendar to date from that
> event.
> 
> The clergy naturally resisted
> such measures. Khomeini, for example, insisted on
> signing his name "al-Khomeini," a small act of rebellion
> that converted his name from Persian to Arabic. After
> the Islamic Revolution the new Islamic rulers appealed
> once again to symbols of pan-Islamic identity, replacing,
> for example, the Persian national symbol of the Lion-and-Sun
> with the Arabic name of God, Allah, on the Iranian
> flag. The study of Arabic, the language of Islam,
> was once again made manditory in Iranian schools.
> However, soon the country was locked in a desparate
> war with Iraq, and the Islamic leadership was forced
> to once again invoke the symbols of Iranian national
> unity to rally the nation to the fight.
> 
> Shiism and Islam.
> 
> Somewhat comparable to the
> conflict between Iranian and Islamic identity is the
> conflict between Shiite and Islamic identity. Shiites
> see themselves as both part of and separate from the
> larger Sunni Islamic world. Ancient resentments born
> of the persecution of the imams separate Shiites from
> other Muslims, but both parties see the Shiites as
> part of the larger Islamic nation. On the whole, the
> experience of Iran, often at war with neighboring Sunni
> states, has predisposed its people to see themselves
> primarily as a distinct community surrounded by nations
> hostitle to its faith. Thus, Shiism can be invoked
> to rally the Iranian nation against enemies, real or
> imagined. The propaganda of the Iran-Iraq war drew
> on ancient memories of the persecution of the Imams
> in Iraa, especially of the Imam Husayn. On the other
> hand, the official policy of the Islamic Republic has
> been to stress the commonalities between Shiite and
> Sunni Islam. In practice attitudes vary considerably
> among individuals. In the Shaykhi school, for example,
> and also in the writings of the Bab, Shiite particularism
> is predominant. On the other hand, Baha'u'llah had
> little interest in Shiite/Sunni differences.
> 
> Class structure of Iranian
> society.@
> 
> The fundamental class structure
> of Iranian society has its roots in pre-Islamic times.
> Although class lines were not rigid, there were distinct
> class patterns. The following are the major social
> divisions of traditional Iranian society.
> 
> Peasants: The largest
> portion of the Iranian population until very recent
> times consisted of peasants living in small agricultural
> villages. Their situations could vary considerably,
> depending mainly on whether they owned their own land.
> Typically villages and their agricultural land were
> the property of absentee landlords, usually civil or
> military officials. Villages also sometimes belonged
> to charitable foundationsÑin effect to the clergyÑor
> to wealthier merchants. The rent was paid in kind,
> and the crop was divided according to traditional formulae
> among the the landlord, the cultivator, and the individuals
> who supplied irrigation water, animals for cultivation,
> and seed. Due to a number of factors the economic
> situation of the peasants became steadily worse in
> the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading many
> peasants to migrate to the towns and cities.
> 
> Nomads: At one time
> nomadic tribes constituted nearly half the population
> of Iran. The nomadic peoples, or at least the chiefs
> of the major tribes, enjoyed considerable wealth and
> political power. Nomad soldiers were the backbone
> of the traditional Iranian army, and many of the Iranian
> dynasties of Islamic times, notably the Qajars, were
> of nomadic origin. Under the Pahlavis the power of
> the tribes was broken and most were forced to accept
> a sedentary life. Since the Islamic Revolution, some
> of the tribes have been able to resume a nomadic life.
> 
> The Bazar: Traditional
> economic life in Iran is based on the bazar, an amorphous
> physical, social, and economic entity that is at the
> heart of Iranian cities. The bazar as a social class
> included shopkeepers, apprentices, craftsmen, wealthy
> wholesale merchants, moneychangers, and other participants
> in the market, great and small. The bazar tended to
> be allied to the clergy against the government, whose
> taxes, exactions, and interference was usually the
> bazar's chief problem. In the twentieth century new
> sorts of economic activity based on Western models
> destroyed the bazar's monopoly on economic life, but
> the bazar still remains important, both economically
> and politically.
> 
> The Men of the Sword:
> Ruling was normally the prerogative of soldiers, who
> were often non-Persian invaders or tribesmen. The
> highest posts in government were normally occupied
> by members of this military ruling class.
> 
> The Men of the Pen:
> The continuing administration of government was the
> prerogative of an educated bureaucratic class, mainly
> Persian in origins. The bureaucratic families maintained
> specialized skills in such areas as accounting, tax
> collection, official correspondence, and record-keeping.
> Thus, while a provincial governor in Qajar times would
> most likely be a Qajar prince whose place was owed
> to his tribe's Turkish military traditions, his secretary
> and his chief accountant would most likely be Persians
> whose families had specialized in these skills for
> generations. Baha'u'llah was from such a family and
> would thus have been expected to assume his father's
> administrative position. The cultural and administrative
> traditions of these bureaucratic families went back
> far into Sasanian times, and this class was the most
> loyal supporter of pre-Islamic Persian traditions of
> nationalism and culture. Paradoxically, as an educated
> class they also tended in recent times to become Westernized.
> 
> The Clergy: The Shi`ite
> clergy constituted a small but important social class.
> To some extent, the profession of cleric was hereditary
> like most other occupations and crafts in pre-modern
> times. However, the class and professional boundaries
> were not rigid, and there was a steady flow of talented
> young men of other backgrounds entering the clergy,
> while the sons of clerics often took up other professions,
> usually as merchants. The clergy had very close links
> with the bazaar, and clerical families were and are
> often linked by marriage to bazaar families of comparable
> social station. For example, the Bab came from a merchant
> family, but he himself spent some time in the seminaries
> of Iraq, a cousin of his father became a leading cleric,
> and the family maintained close links with some of
> the Shaykhi clerics.
> 
> Few religious positions were
> directly controlled by the government, so the clergy
> frequently played roles as intermediaries between the
> government and other classes. The allegiances of the
> clergy varied considerably depending on their positions.
> SomeÑfor example, the Friday Prayer leaders, who were
> appointed by the governmentÑwere closely linked to
> the government.. Clerics supported by endowments and
> contributions were more likely to be alligned with
> the merchants, the main source of such revenues, whereas
> village mullas would be likely to occupy a position
> between the landlord and the peasants.
> 
> The New Class: The
> rise of Western-style education in the early twentieth
> century created a new middle class without strong links
> to traditional Iranian culture. The possessors of
> the new education rose rapidly in influence and wealth
> as the Pahlavi reforms created a demand for officials,
> technicians, and businessmen. The new class represented
> a discontinuity in Iranian society since their experiences
> and outlook were in many ways fundamentally different
> from those of the traditional classes. Their rise
> was bitterly resented by more traditional groups like
> the clergy and the bazaar.
> 
> Persian Language and Literature
> 
> Persian is an Indo-European
> language and is thus related by structure to most European
> languages, but its alphabet and much of its vocabulary
> are Arabic. The language underwent vast changes in
> the millenium between the fall of the Achaemenid empire
> to Alexander and the reemergence of New Persian in
> the early Islamic period. Unlike other areas conquered
> by the Arabs, the Iranian-speaking areas never adopted
> Arabic except as a learned language. When independent
> states with Persian-speaking courts emerged in Iran
> around the 10th century, Persian reemerged as a literary
> language. The preeminent literary form in New (Islamic)
> Persian has always been poetry, and almost every educated
> Persian has at least dabbled in writing poetry. A
> knowledge of poetry is one of the basic attainments
> of an educated Persian, both in medieval and modern
> times. The first great classic of New Persian literature
> was Firdawsi's Shah-namih, an adaptation of
> the Sasanian national history. This work served as
> a rallying point for the reviving Persian nationalism.
> The educated bureaucratic classes continued to cultivate
> such nationalistic literature, as well as Persian adaptations
> of Islamic scholarly works and dynastic histories glorifying
> their patrons.
> 
> The best known tradition in
> Persian literature is mystical poetry. The rise of
> New Persian coincided with the rise of organized mysticism
> in Islam. A huge and impressive literature of mystical
> poetry, both lyric and epic/didactic, soon arose in
> Persian. Mystical themes came to permeate even secular
> Persian poetry, so that it is usually almost impossible
> to distinguish a mystical poem from a secular love
> poem. Mystical poets like Rumi and `Attar developed
> Persian into a subtle and expressive medium for discussing
> spiritual matters.
> 
> There was also prose literature
> in Persian. As a scholarly medium, Persian was until
> recently subordinate to Arabic, so Persian works on
> scholarly and scientific topics tended to be popular
> adaptations of more serious Arabic works. Notable
> genres in Persian include literary letter-writing,
> history, and statecraft. In Baha'i literature these
> genres are represented by such works as Baha'u'llah's
> and `Abdu'l-Baha's tablets, Dawn-Breakers, and
> Secret of Divine Civilization respectively.
> 
> The Arts
> 
> Apart from literature,
> three arts in which Persians excelled may be mentioned:
> calligraphy, decoration, and miniature painting. Because
> Islam discouraged figurative art and stressed the importance
> of the sacred text, calligraphy became an important
> art in Islam. Calligraphy was highly cultivated in
> Iran, so that any educated Persian was expected to
> have a reasonable command of one or more calligraphic
> styles. The Bab's calligraphy was seen as a miracle
> by his followers, and the production of display calligraphs
> and fine manuscripts was one of the ways in which early
> Baha'is propagated and legitimized their religion.
> 
> Persian artists excelled at
> decorative arts of all sorts. Even architecture was
> often subordinated to the surface of the wall or ceiling
> with its elaborate tile or carved plaster ornamentation.
> Decoration with elaborate calligraphy and floral or
> geometrical elements is heavily used in all kinds of
> Persian arts and crafts.
> 
> MiniaturesÑpaintings illustrating
> booksÑwere a particular Persian specialty. The place
> filled in Western art by great oil paintings is in
> Iran occupied by the magnificent decorated books produced
> for discerning royal patrons.
> 
> Etiquette
> 
> A portrait of Iran
> would be incomplete without some reference to the role
> played by etiquette, in many ways the most distinctive
> feature of Persian life. Iran is a very old society,
> for much of its history ruled by outsiders and subject
> to unexpected upheavals. Thus, it seems that Persian
> society turned inward and lavished much of its creativity
> on private life. Thus, Persian society has developed
> an elaborate system of etiquette. Two features are
> particularly noteworthy. First is a stong emphasis
> on hospitality, sometimes referred to pejoratively
> by Persians as ta`aruf, "polite hypocrisy."
> The underlying assumption is that the guest honors
> the host by his presence, so that the host is obliged
> to reciprocate by unquestioning and unstinting hospitality
> and generosity. Second is an elaborate set of rules
> governing interactions among individuals with finally
> graduated nuance to reflect personal, social, and class
> rank distinctions. In language, oral or written, titles,
> style of speech and diction, and even pronouns reflect
> the relative status of the two parties. Though this
> system of etiquette gives Iranian society its characteristic
> graciousness, it is sometimes criticized by Iranians
> themselves as providing a mask for hypocrisy.
> 
> Sources:
> 
> A good introduction to many
> aspects of Iranian society, particularly in the twentieth
> century, is R. Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet.
> Two well-informed European views from the nineteenth
> century are G. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Problem,
> a detailed and profoundly well-informed study of Iran
> from a political standpoint, and Morier, Hajji Baba
> of Isfahan, a charming but unflattering novel about
> Persian life. The most thorough survey of all aspects
> of Iranian life and history is Cambridge History
> of Iran, 8 vols. In many respects the finest general
> account of Iranian culture is still E. G. Browne, The
> Literary History of the Persians.
> 
> Three
> Clerics and a Prince of Isfahan
> 
> Background
> to Baha'u'llah's Epistle to the Son of the Wolf
> 
> Among the defining events
> in the development of the Baha'i community of Iran
> in the time of Baha'u'llah was the murder of two wealthy
> and prominent Baha'i merchants in Isfahan early in
> 1879. Members of the respected Nahri family, the two
> brothers were entitled by Baha'u'llah "the King and
> Beloved of Martyrs." The incident itself is well known.
> The following sections discuss the Tablet that Baha'u'llah
> wrote in immediate reaction to the murders and four
> prominent opponents of the Baha'i Faith in Isfahan:
> three clerics and a prince-governor.
> 
> Lawh-i-Burhan
> 
> The Tablet of the Proof
> was revealed in 1879 as a rebuke to the two clerics--the
> "Wolf" and the "She-Serpent"--responsible for the martyrdoms
> of the King and Beloved of Martyrs in Isfahan. The
> Imam-Jum`ih of the city, Mir Muhammad-Husayn Khatunabadi,
> had owed the brothers a large sum of money. It was
> generally thought that their arrest as Baha'is was
> a pretext to void this debt and allow the governor,
> the Imam-Jum`ih, and Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir
> Isfahani, another leading cleric, to seize and divide
> the brothers' extensive properties. Though the governor
> had received orders to send the two brothers to Tehran,
> where they would most likely have been released, the
> two clerics were able to force him to permit their
> executions.
> 
> The killing of the two brothers--members
> of a prominent merchant family in Isfahan and among
> the leading Baha'is in Iran--shocked and angered the
> Baha'is and their many friends, both Iranian and European.
> Baha'u'llah immediately wrote the letter known as
> the Lawh-i-Burhan sharply rebuking the two clergymen.
> It reached Tehran only thirty-eight days after the
> killings. Mirza Abu'l-Fadl-i-Gulpaygani, on Baha'u'llah's
> instructions, sent a copy of the letter to each of
> the clergymen. There is no record of their reactions.
> 
> The principal theme of the
> Lawh-i-Burhan is contrast between the pretentions of
> the two clergymen to be exponents of the Law and faith
> of Islam and the injustice and cruelty of their killing
> two descendants of the Prophet himself. Most of the
> tablet is addressed to Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir,
> the more influential of the two.
> 
> Baha'u'llah denounces the
> injustice of sentencing the two brothers to death.
> Baha'u'llah says that there is no hatred in his own
> heart for the Shaykh, who has been deceived
> by his own folly. Had he realized what he had done,
> he would have cast himself into the fire.
> 
> Baha'u'llah compares the Shaykh
> to the Jewish priests who condemned Christ to death
> and to the leaders of the cult of idols in Mecca who
> opposed Muhammad. They could offer no proof to justify
> their actions, nor could the Shaykh for
> his. (This is the source of the title of the tablet.)
> In fact, the Shaykh followed his passions,
> not his Lord, and abandoned the Law of God--the knowledge
> of which is the source of the authority of the Muslim
> clergy--and followed the law of his lower self. True
> learning is to recognize the station of Baha'u'llah.
> If the Shaykh were to subdue his passions,
> he would understand the call of Baha'u'llah and his
> sins would be forgiven. Baha'u'llah and his followers,
> as their actions testified, had no fear of the Shaykh's
> cruelty.
> 
> Baha'u'llah says that leadership
> had made the Shaykh proud. But there
> is no honor in being followed by the worthless and
> ignorant: it was such people who supported the priests
> who put Christ to death. Baha'u'llah refers here to
> three of his own works: tablets to the Sultan and Napoleon
> III and the Kitab-i-éqan.
> 
> Baha'u'llah digresses to address
> the Muslim clergy in general, warning them that neither
> their wealth nor the religious sciences in which they
> prided themselves would profit them. The Shah,
> Baha'u'llah implied, feared to interfere with wolves
> such as the Shaykh. But the Shaykh
> is like the last sunlight on the mountaintop, soon
> to fade away like those who had opposed God in the
> past. Truly, Muhammad and Fatimih the Chaste wept
> at his deeds. The Muslim clergy had opposed everyone
> who had tried to improve the condition of Islam. Baha'u'llah
> points as a warning to the disastrous war of 1877 in
> which Turkey had lost much of her territory in the
> Balkans.
> 
> Now Baha'u'llah turns from
> the "Wolf" to the "She-Serpent"--Mir Muhammad-Husayn,
> the Imam-Jum`ih. His denunciation of this man is even
> sharper than that of the Shaykh. There
> is no hint that this man deceived himself about the
> injustice of his actions. Soon, Baha'u'llah promises,
> "the breaths of chastisement will seize thee. . . "
> He will not, Baha'u'llah prophesies, consume the wealth
> that he had pillaged.
> 
> When Edward Browne visited
> Isfahan a few years after the martyrdoms, he heard
> of "the terrible letter" threatening the two clergymen
> with divine chastisement. Most likely it immediately
> began circulating in manuscript among the Baha'is.
> It would have been convincing, for its prophecies
> of disgrace and death for the two clergymen were soon
> fulfilled. It was published in at least two early
> collections of the writings of Baha'u'llah, Aqdas-i-Buzurg
> (1314/1896) 200-208 and Majmu`ih (Cairo, 1920)
> 53-66. Baha'u'llah Himself quotes lengthy passages
> in Epistle to the Son of the Wolf--itself addressed
> to Aqa Najafi, the son of Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir:
> pp. 79-86, 97-103. The entire text is included in
> the Arabic and English editions of Tablets of Baha'u'llah,
> Sect. 14. Almost the entire text of the tablet was
> translated by Shoghi Effendi in ESW.
> 
> Baha'u'llah in ESW refers
> to the tablet as "Lawh-i-Burhan." It is also known
> as "Lawh-i-Raqsha'" ("Tablet of the She-Serpent").
> 
> See also: "Nahri family,"
> "Muhammad-Baqir-i-Isfahani, Shaykh,"
> "Muhammad-Husayn-i-Khatunabadi, Mir," "Isfahan."
> 
> Sources: For text and
> translation see TB, sect. 14. RB 4:91-102. Ganj 145-46.
> Baha’u’llah, King of Glory, 382. AAK 2:40-41.
> DM/IK 13:2021, 2057. Nurayn 245-53.
> 
> Mir Muhammad-Husayn-i-Khatunabadi,
> "the She-Serpent"
> 
> The cleric known in Baha'i
> tradition as "the She-Serpent" (Raqsha') was
> the Imam-Jum`ih of Isfahan and one of those responsible
> for the execution in 1879 of the Nahri brothers, the
> "King" and "Beloved of Martyrs." The Khatunabadis
> were the descendants of Mir Muhammad-Salih, a distinguished
> scholar of the early eighteenth century, and had held
> the position of Imam-Jum`ah of Isfahan for about a
> century. Mir Muhammad-Husayn was the brother of Mir
> Siyyid Muhammad Sultanu'l-`Ulama', the Bab's host in
> Isfahan in 1846. On his brother's death in 1874, he
> inherited the family office, thus making him one of
> the two or three highest ranked clergy in the city.
> (The Imam-Jum`ah was the leader of Friday prayers
> at the most important mosque in the city. The holders
> of this office were, at least nominally, appointed
> by the government, although here, as was often the
> case, the office was effectively hereditary.) He does
> not seem to have lent any particular distinction to
> his office.
> 
> Mir Muhammad-Husayn's earliest
> contact with the Babis was when his brother sent him
> out of the city to meet the Bab, who was coming from
> Shiraz. Since the Bab stayed for some time
> in his brother's house, Mir Muhammad-Husayn must have
> met him a number of times.
> 
> Mir Muhammad-Husayn's importance
> in Baha'i history arises from the curious fact that
> his bankers were Baha'is: the three Nahri brothers,
> a family of wealthy merchants who had become Babis
> at the time of the Bab's visits and who were now among
> the most important and well-known Baha'is of Iran.
> They would routinely pay the Imam-Jum`ih's debts as
> they came in. The account eventually reached the very
> large sum of 18,000 tomans. In early 1879 the brothers
> presented this bill for payment. Mir Muhammad-Husayn
> stalled, asking for an audit. Shaykh
> Muhammad-Baqir, the most powerful cleric in Isfahan
> and a bitter opponent of the Baha'is--proposed that
> the three Nahri brothers, well-known as Baha'is--be
> arrested as heretics. Their property would then be
> forfeit and could be divided among the two clerics
> and the governor, whose cooperation would be necessary.
> The three brothers were arrested, two of them while
> guests in the Imam-Jum`ih's house. The youngest recanted
> and was released. The two older brothers refused and
> were eventually executed at the insistence of the clergy.
> Mir Muhammad-Husayn and Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir
> personally delivered the death warrants to the prison.
> 
> After the executions of the
> two brothers, the Imam-Jum`ih sent his servants to
> seize their property and loot their houses, many of
> their possessions being extremely valuable. A few
> days later a dispute broke out between him and Zillu's-Sultan,
> the governor. Several weeks later Mir Muhammad-Husayn
> tried to force the issue by marching on the governorate
> with his supporters to demand a larger share of the
> plunder. When disorders continued, troops were sent
> from Tehran, the Imam-Jum`ih was exiled to Mashhad,
> and his property was plundered. He was allowed to
> return from his exile in Mashhad a year or so
> later. He died in Isfahan two years after his victims
> on 21 June 1881 of a repulsive tumor on his neck.
> He was buried in an unmarked grave by a few porters,
> no one else daring to risk the anger of the governor
> by attending his funeral. When the merchants closed
> the bazaar to mourn his death, the governor's attendants
> forced them to reopen their shops.
> 
> Baha'i tradition reports that
> when someone expressed doubts about the wisdom of killing
> the Nahri brothers, he had said, "Their blood be on
> my neck." Thus his gruesome death was interpreted
> as a punishment of his crime and the fulfillment of
> Baha'u'llah's prophecy of his downfall.
> 
> Sources: BBR 271-74.
> EBB 33-44. TB "Lawh-i-Burhan" `14, pp. 213-16. RB
> 4:73-102. God Passes By, 200-1, 232-33. DB
> 201. Browne, "Babis of Persia," p. 490-91.
> 
> Shaykh
> Muhammad-Baqir-i-Isfahani, "the Wolf"
> 
> "The Wolf" was a leading mujtahid
> of Isfahan responsible for a number of persecutions
> of Baha'is. He born in 1234/1818-19 and was the son
> of a prominent cleric in Isfahan. His mother was the
> daughter of Ja`far Kashifu'l-Ghita',
> one of the most important exponents of the Usuli legal
> school. Muhammad-Baqir went to Najaf, where he studied
> jurisprudence with the two greatest Shi`i legal
> scholars of the time, Muhammad-Hasan an-Najafi and
> Murtada al-Ansari. Having completed his studies, he
> returned to Isfahan to assume the position of leader
> of prayers in the Royal Mosque. About the same time,
> the old Imam-Jum`ih and several other important clerics
> in Isfahan died, abruptly making him the highest-ranking
> cleric in the city. He acquired many students and
> great religious authority in Isfahan and surrounding
> regions. He wrote several books, none especially important.
> Most of Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir's efforts
> went into building up his religious, political, and
> economic power. His political position was such that
> he was sometimes able to challenge the governor directly,
> doing such things as inflicting the death penalty against
> the wishes of the authorities. He also acquired great
> wealth, at least partly by hoarding grain in times
> of famine.
> 
> In 1876 he was forced by the
> authorities to leave Isfahan and retire to Mashhad.
> He then went to Tehran, was reconciled to Zillu's-Sultan,
> the governor, and returned to Isfahan on 16 April 1876.
> In 1883 he fell from grace once more, being forced
> to leave the city after the humiliation of having his
> wife seduced by the governor. He died in Safar 1301/December
> 1883, shortly after arriving at Najaf.
> 
> Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir
> had a number of children, several of them later prominent
> clerics in Isfahan. The most important was Muhammad-Taqi,
> better known as Aqa Najafi or to the Baha'is "the Son
> of the Wolf."
> 
> Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir
> was a relentless foe of heresy and waged a twenty-year
> battle against Shaykhis, Babis, and especially
> Baha'is. In 1864, he had several hundred Babis of
> Najafabad arrested and wanted to put them all to death.
> More moderate clerics prevented this, but four were
> eventually killed--two of whom were under the protection
> of the Shah--and many others beaten and robbed.
> 
> In 1874, shortly before the
> arrival of Zillu's-Sultan, the new governor, he instigated
> a major pogrom against the Baha'is of Isfahan. About
> twenty were arrested, while hundreds of others took
> refuge in the office of the British telegraph company
> and the houses of the Europeans in the city. Shaykh
> Muhammad-Baqir proclaimed from his pulpit that Muslims
> were free to kill Baha'is and to do as they wished
> with their property and women. The garrison intervened
> to restore order, and eventually the Shah stopped
> the persecutions.
> 
> In 1878 a Baha'i from the
> village of Talkhunchih, Mulla Kazim,
> was arrested there and delivered into the hands of
> Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir. When he refused
> to recant his faith, he was publicly beheaded in the
> Maydan-i-Shah. His body was abused by the mob.
> Two other Baha'is were also arrested. One was severely
> beaten and his ears were cut off. A number of Baha'i
> houses were also attacked.
> 
> In March 1879 Shaykh
> Muhammad-Baqir; Mir Muhammad-Husayn, the new Imam-Jum`ih;
> and Zillu's-Sultan plotted to kill three Baha'i Nahri
> brothers. Zillu's-Sultan tried to withdraw from the
> conspiracy when he was ordered to send two of the brothers
> to Tehran, but some fifty clergymen, accompanied by
> their supporters, closed the bazaar and marched to
> the governorate. Zillu's-Sultan agreed to endorse
> a death sentence issued by the clergy. Shaykh
> Muhammad-Baqir and the Imam-Jum`ih personally supervised
> the execution.
> 
> After this last incident Baha'u'llah
> gave Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir the title
> "Wolf" (Dhi'b) for his cruelty, denouncing him in the
> Lawh-i-Burhan ("Tablet of the Proof"). In another
> tablet (AQA 2:197-98, evidently written at the time
> of one of the Shaykh's exiles, he prophesies
> his final complete downfall.
> 
> After the Shaykh's
> death, his son Muhammad-Taqi--better known as Aqa Najafi
> or the "Son of the Wolf"--assumed his place as prayer
> leader in the Royal Mosque and carried on the crusade
> against the Baha'is.
> 
> Sources: A`yanu'sh-Shi`ih
> 9:186. BBR 243, 513, 268-74. EBB 33-40, 134, 259.
> TB 203-26. God Passes By, 201, 232. AQA
> 2:197-98. Brown, "Babis of Persia" 491.
> 
> Aqa Najafi, "the Son of
> the Wolf"
> 
> Shaykh Muhammad-Taqiy-i-NajafiÑusually
> called Aqa Najafi, and entitled by Baha'u'llah "Son
> of the Wolf"Ñwas a bitter opponent of the Baha'is.
> He was born on 17 Rabi` II 1262/14 April 1846, the
> son of Shaykh Muhammad-Baqir-i-Isfahani,
> who was the leader of prayers at the Royal Mosque in
> Isfahan. He was related by blood and marriage to many
> prominent `ulama. He studied under his father in Isfahan
> and then went to Najaf where he studied the usual subjects
> under Mirzay-i-Shirazi, the highest-ranking
> Shi`i cleric of the time, and others. Returning
> to Isfahan, he was associated with his father and assumed
> his father's position in the Royal Mosque on his death
> in 1883. His title "Aqa Najafi" stressed his claim
> to be regarded as one of the Najaf circle of religious
> scholars.
> 
> Building on the wealth and
> power accumulated by his father, Najafi became the
> most powerful cleric in Isfahan and one of the wealthiest
> men of the city. For over thirty years he waged a
> bitter struggle for control of Isfahan with Zillu's-Sultan,
> the Qajar prince-governor. In the process he accumulated
> vast wealth, which he distributed generously to students
> and other clerics. The rise of his power in Isfahan
> was aided by the fall of Zillu's-Sultan from royal
> favor in 1888.
> 
> Despite his hatred for the
> representatives of the Qajar dynasty and his early
> support for the nationalist revolt against the tobacco
> concession in 1891-92, his support for the constitutional
> revolution was ambiguous and inconsistent. He was
> criticized and mistrusted by many of the constitutionalist
> leaders, some of whom he had denounced as Babis and
> heretics.
> 
> Like his father before him,
> Aqa Najafi was a bitter and ruthless opponent of the
> Baha'is. Najafi was one of the clergy who had signed
> the death warrant of the two Nahri brothers and took
> an active role in forcing the governor to carry out
> the sentence.
> 
> After his father's death,
> Najafi assumed the leading role in the persecution
> of Baha'is in central Iran. He was largely responsible
> for the persecutions in Sidih in 1889, in Najafabad
> in 1889, 1899, and 1905, and in Isfahan and Yazd in
> 1903. In addition to his activities in Isfahan and
> its vicinity, he wrote to `ulama in other cities urging
> them to persecute the Baha'is. He also harassed the
> Muslims who attended the Christian missionary schools
> and the Jews. Such was Najafi's hatred of the Baha'is
> that he is said to have prohibited the recitation of
> the famous Ramadan dawn prayer, traditionally thought
> to contain the greatest name of God, because it contained
> the name "Baha."
> 
> Though the leading `ulama
> in Najaf did not usually openly endorse Najafi's pogroms,
> they did not repudiate him and helped prevent the government
> from acting against him.
> 
> Despite Najafi's thirty-year
> crusade against the Baha'is, he is best known among
> Baha'is for the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf. Baha'u'llah's
> last major work, this book is addressed to Aqa Najafi
> and contains Baha'u'llah's own summary of the history
> and teachings of his religion. The "Shaykh"
> addressed throughout the book is Najafi.
> 
> Aqa Najafi had fifteen children
> by three permanent and two temporary wives. Several
> of his children were of moderate prominence in clerical
> circles in Isfahan, as their descendants are still.
> 
> Najafi is variously said to
> have written forty or a hundred books. He published
> a number of them, but it is said that some of these
> were actually written by others.
> 
> His wealth is also a source
> of controversy. Though a clerical source speaks of
> his generosity, there seems little doubt that much
> of his wealth was ill-gotten. He cooperated with the
> governor to corner the market in wheat during a famine.
> On one occasion he had an official tortured and killed
> who had complained that Najafi had hoarded hundreds
> of tons of wheat while people starved. He threatened
> revenue officers to avoid paying taxes. The wealthy
> of Isfahan suspected that the Baha'is he attacked were
> chosen for the wealth that might be seized from them,
> and they feared him, even if they were not themselves
> Baha'is.
> 
> Aqa Najafi's character is
> a matter of disagreement. The clerical biographers
> generally praise him. "He was among the great scholars
> and clerics of Isfahan. . . He was almost without peer
> through the centuries in his political skill and ability
> to deal with the government." (Makarim) He has also
> been called a murderer, opportunist, hoarder, and plagiarist.
> He was hated in his day by the government, foreign
> diplomats, and missionaries, and feared above all others
> by the Baha'is. His fellow clergy admired him, then
> and now, as a zealous defender of their faith.
> 
> He died 11 Sha`ban
> 1332/5 July 1914 in Isfahan and was buried near the
> Maydan-i-Shah in Isfahan.
> 
> Sources: EIr "Aqa
> Najafi." Makarim 1662-67. A`yanu'sh-Shi`ih 9:196.
> BBR 280-88, 363, 376-85, 395-96, 426-36, 514. EBB
> 38, 132-33, 151-53, 259. Momen, Sh`i 133, 140-41.
> Algar, Religion 16, 102, 128, 173, 180-81, 209, 212,
> 220, 231-32. Ishr. 40. DM/IK1:46, 110.
> 
> Sultan-Mas`ud Mirza Zillu's-Sultan
> 
> Born on 5 Jan. 1850, Sultan-Mas`ud
> Mirza Zillu's-Sultan
> 
> was the eldest surviving son
> of Nasiri'd-Din Shah and long-time governor
> of Isfahan. An important political figure in late
> Qajar Iran, he is important in Baha'i history for his
> role in the persecutions of Baha'is in the Isfahan
> area. Though Zillu's-Sultan was the eldest of Nasiri'd-Din
> Shah's sons to survive to adulthood, he was
> passed over for the throne because his mother, `Iffatu's-Saltanih,
> was a temporary wife and not of noble blood, so the
> next son, Muzaffaru'd-Din Mirza, was designated heir-apparent.
> His original title was Yaminu'd-Dawlih, but in 1869
> he received the title Zillu's-Sultan, "shadow of the
> king."
> 
> He became governor of Mazandaran
> at age 11 and of Fars at 13. In 1874 he became governor
> of Isfahan. He ruled sternly, suppressed disorders,
> and paid taxes promptly to the central government.
> With these commendations, additional provinces were
> added to his government until by 1882 he governed about
> 40% of Iran, including such important areas as Yazd,
> Fars with its capital of Shiraz, and Kirmanshah.
> In addition, he built up an efficient provincial army
> containing 21,000 men, 6,000 horse, and ten batteries
> of artillery--a force that by Iranian standards was
> large, well-armed, and well-trained. He ruled regally
> in Isfahan, flattering English diplomats who supposed
> him to be enlightened and pro-British.
> 
> This situation abruptly ended
> in 1888. Nasiri'd-Din Shah, suspecting that
> Zillu's-Sultan planned to contest the throne with his
> gentler brother on his father's death, detained him
> while he was visiting Tehran and announced that Zillu's-Sultan
> had "resigned" all his offices except the governorship
> of Isfahan. His deputy-governors in the cities and
> provinces formerly under his rule were dismissed and
> the fine army disbanded. Zillu's-Sultan eventually
> returned to Isfahan, an embittered and much weakened
> man.
> 
> He remained governor of Isfahan
> for twenty more years. These years were dominated
> by a long struggle for control of Isfahan with the
> powerful and unscrupulous mujtahid Aqa Najafi. After
> the assassination of Nasiri'd-Din Shah, having
> lost his own power and without the support he had once
> hoped for from the English, he yielded to his younger
> brother's accession to the throne. He was finally
> dismissed from his governorship after the Constitutional
> Revolution and exiled to Europe. He was allowed to
> return during World War I and died not long after his
> return in Isfahan on 2 July 1918.
> 
> Zillu's-Sultan's relations
> with the Baha'is were complex and ambiguous. On his
> first arrival as governor in Isfahan, he was greeted
> with a persecution of Baha'is instigated by Shaykh
> Muhammd-Baqir. He sought to the prevent the news from
> reaching Tehran. In 1879 he consented to the arrest
> of the Nahri brothers, the "King' and "Beloved of Martyrs."
> It seems likely that his interest in the matter was
> the innocent extortion scarcely distinguishable from
> tax collection and that he did not particularly want
> them killed. Nonetheless, confronted on the one hand
> with the obstinate refusal of the two brothers to recant
> and on the other by a mob led by sixty clerics, he
> consented to their deaths. In this he disobeyed his
> orders from the Shah to send them to Tehran.
> After their deaths, he took such a large share of
> their plundered wealth that the Imam-Jum`ih, cheated
> in the transaction, raised another riot in protest.
> 
> In the various persecutions
> that took place in Isfahan and its vicinity through
> the rest of his governorship, Zillu's-Sultan generally
> played a passive role, pleading his inability to confront
> the clergy, especially the formidable Aqa Najafi.
> When possible he discouraged the pogroms but rarely
> took active measures to stop them. Zillu's-Sultan
> was not himself actively hostile to the Baha'is and
> in any case hated the clergy. It is said that Zillu's-Sultan
> did instigate the persecution of the Baha'is of Yazd
> in 1891 to divert attention from himself after he had
> been indirectly implicated in a plot against the Shah.
> 
> On at least one occasion Zillu's-Sultan
> attempted to enlist the Baha'is in his schemes to gain
> the throne for himself. He sent a messenger to Baha'u'llah,
> Haji Muhammad-`Aliy-i-Sayyah-i-Mahallati. Baha'u'llah
> rejected this overture politely but firmly and later
> remarked to his companions that had he sent Zillu's-Sultan's
> letter to Nasiri'd-Din Shah, it would surely
> have resulted in the prince's death.
> 
> In the fall of 1911 Zillu's-Sultan
> approached `Abdu'l-Baha in Paris, hoping for his help
> in securing his return to Iran and reacquiring certain
> properties of his that had come into the hands of Baha'is.
> `Abdu'l-Baha said that Zillu's-Sultan would return
> to Iran and that the property in question would be
> given to him without payment. Discovering that one
> of `Abdu'l-Baha's attendants was a son of one of the
> brothers he had put to death thirty years before, he
> muttered excuses. `Abdu'l-Baha said that he knew the
> part Zillu's-Sultan had played and what his motive
> had been.
> 
> Zillu's-Sultan married Hamdamu'l-Muluk,
> the daughter of Nasiri'd-Din Shah's sister and
> Mirza Taqi Khan, the former prime minister.
> His son Jalalu'd-Dawlih was governor of Yazd and played
> a large part in the persecutions of the Baha'is there.
> 
> Zillu's-Sultan tried to portray
> himself to foreigners as a progressive and pro-British
> reformer. The astute Curzon, however, saw him as driven
> by the single ambition to supplant his brother as heir
> apparent and believed that he had also made overtures
> to the Russians. In fact, although he was a vigorous
> and in many ways capable ruler, there was much less
> to him than his English admirers saw. His rule was
> marred by cruelties: persecutions of Baha'is, the treacherous
> killing of a Bakhtiyari leader, and persecutions
> of Jews and others, mostly instigated by the clergy
> but tolerated by the prince. Foreigners were appalled
> by the damage he inflicted to some of the great monuments
> of Isfahan, though in this he cannot be said to have
> been better or worse than his contemporaries.
> 
> His relations with the Baha'is
> were consistently duplicitous. He was willing to present
> himself as sympathetic to the Baha'is and even to solicit
> their aid, but he abandoned them when it suited his
> political purposes.
> 
> Sources: Curzon 1:416-21
> and passim. Browne, Year 114-15. BBR 268-90, 301-5,
> 376-85 passim, 524. EBB 33-44, 79-80. Baha’u’llah,
> King of Glory, 409-10, 431-34. AB 161-62. CH
> 186-87. Makarim 1814-15.
> 
> Khomeini
> 
> Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini--properly
> Imam Ayatu'llah Ruhu'llah al-Musavi al-Kumayni, the
> leader of the Iranian revolution of 1979, was bitterly
> hostile to the Baha'is and sanctioned the persecutions
> that took place under the Islamic revolutionary government
> of Iran.
> 
> Life. Khomeini was
> born in about 1900 in the impoverished oasis town of
> Khumayn, south of Tehran. His grandfather,
> a member of a Persian family living in Kashmir, had
> studied in Karbila and settled in Khumayn at
> the invitation of a local chief around 1840. While
> Khomeini was still an infant, his father was killed
> in a dispute with a local landlord, leaving Khomeini
> to be raised by a somewhat more prosperous uncle.
> His uncle and aunt wished him to become a traditional
> physician (hakim), but he showed talent for
> Islamic learning. World War I having made travel to
> the Shi`i centers in Iraq impractical, he chose
> to study in the nearby town of Arak, eventually becoming
> a favored student of Shaykh `Abdu'l-Karim
> Ha'iri Yazdi (1859-1937).
> 
> Khomeini followed his teacher
> to Qum in 1922, where the latter led the revival of
> the town as a center of Shi`i learning and became
> its chief religious authority. By the end of the 1930s
> Khomeini had begun teaching the slightly unorthodox
> disciplines of mysticism and philosophy. In 1930 he
> married Batul Saqafi, the daughter of a prominent cleric
> of Tehran, whom he adored and by whom he had five children.
> By 1937-38 he was prosperous enough to perform the
> pilgrimage to Mecca and spend several months in the
> shrine cities of Iraq.
> 
> During these years Khomeini
> had been so angered by the secular and anti-clerical
> policies of Rida Shah Pahlavi that in 1944 he
> published a vitriolic anti-government pamphlet called
> Kashfu'l-Asrar, a work that foreshadows his
> later ideas on Islamic government. He was also influenced
> by the antisemitic propaganda of the Nazis, which left
> him with an abiding belief in a Jewish conspiracy against
> Islam.
> 
> When Ayatu'llah Burujirdi
> (1875-1962) came to Qum at the beginning of 1945, Khomeini
> became a close advisor, carrying out religious and
> political missions on Bururjirdi's behalf that helped
> secure the latter's position as chief religious authority
> of the Shi`i world. Burujirdi firmly discouraged
> Khomeini's involvement in anti-government politics
> and terrorism.
> 
> During the 1950s Khomeini
> turned his attention to the problem of becoming a Grand
> Ayatu'llah--marja`u't-taqlid, a supreme authority
> on religious matters. He wrote a number of books,
> thus establishing his scholarly credentials. His increasing
> personal wealth allowed him to gather a large circle
> of students. After about 1958 his position as an Ayatu'llah
> of the second rank was secure. Nevertheless, his prospects
> were limited by the presence of a number of more senior
> Ayatu'llahs, all of whom he was not likely to outlive.
> Moreover, his interests lay in philosophy, mysticism,
> and even poetry--not the jurisprudence that was the
> chief interest of his class. Even three decades later
> an air of doubt still attached to his claim to be a
> Grand Ayatu'llah.
> 
> In 1962 and 1963 the government
> introduced a number of reforms: large-scale land reforms,
> women's sufferage, and the elimination of religious
> tests for local offices. The first struck at the independence
> of the religious institutions, which were dependent
> on their large endowments of rental farmland, while
> the latter two were seen by the clergy as anti-Islamic.
> Large demonstrations took place throughout the country.
> Khomeini took a leading role in agitating against
> the measures, speaking against the Shah in bold
> and abusive language. The protests reached their height
> in 1963 at `Ashura, the anniversary of the martyrdom
> of Husayn, which fell that year at the beginning of
> June. By the time troops had restored order, hundreds
> were dead. Khomeini, along with other clerical leaders
> of the protests, was arrested and brought to Tehran
> where he was held for ten months before being released
> in April 1964. His preaching remained defiant. That
> November he was arrested again for his opposition to
> a bill removing American military personnel from the
> jurisdiction of the Iranian courts. He was exiled
> to Turkey. The following year he settled in Najaf,
> the chief Shi`i scholarly center of Iraq, where
> he lived until 1978.
> 
> Thought and writings.
> Khomeini's chief intellectual importance is for his
> theory of Islamic government, a subject on which he
> held very different views from the majority of modern
> Shi`i clerics. Traditionally, Shi`is
> accepted the separation of church and state in the
> absence of the Hidden Imam. Khomeini argued that many
> of the fundamental laws of Islam presumed the existence
> of an Islamic government. Also, people are weak and,
> for the most part, will fall into sin without the influence
> of a government to enforce religious law. In our time
> Islamic states had fallen into the hands of those who
> served the purposes of non-Muslim imperialists. Khomeini
> painted a stark picture of the division of society
> into a tiny minority of rich and corrupt oppressors
> exploiting the mass of oppressed Muslims. The solution
> was to establish true Islamic governments. The proper
> leaders for such governments were the Islamic clergy
> because of their knowledge of divine law and their
> commitment to justice. This last is the famous doctrine
> of the "guardianship of the jurisconsult" (vilayat-i-faqih).
> Khomeini presented this message in books, pamphlets,
> and fiery sermons smuggled into Iran on casettes.
> 
> Though Khomeini's scholarly
> output was much less than that of other Grand Ayatu'llahs,
> he did write a number of books. These were:
> 
> Tahriru'l-Vasilah and
> Tawdihu'l-Masa'il, manuals on ritual obligations
> of the sort conventionally written by Grand Ayatu'llahs.
> 
> Kitabu'l-Bay`, a treatise
> on the law of contracts that provided a vehicle for
> his denial of the legitimacy of the secular state.
> 
> Islamic Government (Hukumat-i-Islami),
> a compilation of his lectures on government, his most
> influential work.
> 
> Misbahu'l-Hidayat,
> on mystical philosophy.
> 
> To this must now be added
> his Last Will and Testament, written in 1983 and constituting
> his political testament.
> 
> There are also a number of
> collections of speeches, letters, and the like.
> 
> Khomeini and the Iranian
> Revolution. While in Najaf he developed his theory
> of Islamic government and built up a loose revolutionary
> network within Iran. Eventually his uncompromising
> opposition to the Shah's regime won him support
> from other anti-government groups, who hoped to use
> him for their own purposes. Early in 1978 riots broke
> out in major Iranian cities, resulting in many deaths.
> Riots continued through the summer and fall, encouraged
> by Khomeini's network of supporters. Expelled from
> Iraq in October, Khomeini settled in Paris, by now
> the recognized leader of the revolution. After the
> Shah's departure from Iran, Khomeini returned
> to Iran in triumph on 31 January and within days was
> the unquestioned ruler of the country though he himself
> held no government post.
> 
> Khomeini moved quickly to
> consolidate his Islamic regime by executing many leaders
> of the old government. By consistently supporting
> the most radical elements of the revolution, he was
> able to maintain his own position and eliminate other
> elements of the revolutionary coalition, such as Marxists,
> secular nationalists, and even rival Ayatu'llahs.
> Though various political groups coalesced out of the
> clerical coalition that had brought him to power, Khomeini
> retained supreme control, able to frustrate policies
> that he objected to. Under his authority Iran pursued
> a xenophobic foreign policy, resulting in disasters
> such as American hostage crisis, the eight-year Iran-Iraq
> War, and the American economic blockade.
> 
> Since Khomeini's program was
> primarily religious and moral, devoted to the moral
> and spiritual reform of Islamic society, he had few
> concrete economic and political programs, apart from
> a generalized hostility towards the West.
> 
> In the last years of his life,
> he was rumored to be ill. In any case, he played little
> role in day-to-day affairs, living in seculsion in
> a heavily fortified village near Tehran. Nonetheless,
> he retained the capacity to intervene in affairs if
> he chose, as his condemnation of the British author
> Salman Rushdie in 1989 proved. He died of complications
> following surgery on 4 June 1989 in Tehran.
> 
> Khomeini and the Baha'is.
> Khomeini shared the distaste of many (though not
> all) Shi`i clerics for Baha'is. His first contact
> with Baha'is was evidently in Simnan in 1930, where
> he tried to organize an anti-Baha'i meeting. Later
> his hatred for Baha'is, Jews, and the Pahlavi regime
> coalesced, convincing him that the three groups were
> in league to destroy Islam. Thus Khomeini supported
> the anti-Baha'i pogroms of the 1950s and in 1963 accused
> the government of using local government reforms as
> a device to favor the Baha'is.
> 
> After his return to Iran in
> 1979 Khomeini refused to include Baha'is among the
> religious minorities protected by the Islamic regime.
> There can be little doubt that the persecutions of
> the Baha'is in Iran under the Islamic regime were conducted
> with the consent of Khomeini, though they were generally
> initiated by particular groups within the revolutionary
> coalition and carried out by lower-level officials.
> 
> Sources: Almost every
> book published about the Iranian Revolution deals with
> Khomeini at length. An imperfect and generally hostile
> biography is Amir Taheri, The Spirit of Allah
> (Bethesda: Adler ` Adler, 1986). A study of the development
> of his intellectual views is found in Hamid Dabashi,
> Theology of Discontent (New York: NYU Press,
> 1993), ch. 8 and passim. Khomeini's works have been
> zealously published in Iran since the revolution though
> some post hoc editing has taken place. A representative
> sample by a good scholar is Islam and Revolution:
> Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, trans.
> Hamid Algar (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981). There are
> many translations of varying quality produced by or
> on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
> 
> Miscellaneous
> historical and doctrinal topics
> 
> Seven Proofs
> 
> The Persian. Dala'il-i-Sab`ih
> is a major polemical work of the Bab in which he justifies
> his religion and his claims to prophethood to an unidentified
> and evidently sceptical inquirer who is said to have
> written and asked for proofs of the Bab's mission.
> There are actually two works with this title, a longer
> version in Persian and a shorter version in Arabic.
> The Persian text mentions that it being written in
> Maku and that four years of the revelation had elapsed,
> that is in late 1847 or early 1848. The individual
> for whom the work was written is not known, but the
> text mentions that he was a student of Siyyid Kazim
> and had met Mulla Husayn and the content indicates
> that he was not a confirmed believer. Azal claimed
> that the recipient was the Bab's secretary, Siyyid
> Husayn Yazdi, and Fadil-i-Mazandarani believed that
> the recipient was Mulla Muhammad-Taqi Harawi, a Shaykhi
> who was converted by Mulla Husayn in Isfahan but who
> later abandoned the religion and wrote a refutation
> of the Bab (Brown, Catalogue and Description,
> p. 448; AAK 4:109). Since the former remained a firm
> Babi and the latter is referred to as a third person
> in the text, the matter is still unsettled (the preceding
> is based on MacEoin, Sources, pp. 86Ð87).
> 
> The Seven Proofs seems to
> have been popular among the Babis; after the death
> of the Bab Mirza Ahmad Katib was able to earn a modest
> living copying it and the Persian Bayan for the Babis
> (DB 592), and at least thirteen manuscripts of the
> Persian text and three of the Arabic text exist in
> the hands of various Babi and Baha'i scribes.
> 
> The doctrines of the Seven
> Proofs closely resemble those of the Bayan, which was
> written about the same time. The chief theme of the
> work is the standard by which the Bab's claim to prophethood
> is to be evaluated. He argues that according to the
> Qur'an, a prophet is to be judged by his verses (ayat),
> a word that Muslims interpreted as meaning both "writings"
> and "evidentiary signs." Taking for granted that his
> own writings were comparable to the Qur'an, he argued
> that only God can reveal scripture and that the greatest
> miracle of Muhammad was that no one until the Bab had
> been able to compose anything comparable to the Qur'an.
> The verses of God must be greater than the miracles
> of the prophets of old, since the Qur'an, the only
> evidentiary miracle of Muhammad, abrogated their religions.
> Finally, whereas it took Muhammad twenty-three years
> to reveal the Qur'an, the Bab, who composed his works
> with extreme rapidity, had revealed works of comparable
> size in two days and nights, despite his not having
> had a conventional theological education.
> 
> The Bab, arguing against the
> usual Muslim reluctance to accept the possibility of
> revelation after Muhammad, points out that the Muslim
> belief that Islam abrodgated Judaism and Christianity
> implies the obligation to accept other prophets if
> they come with inimitable revealed writings. This
> obligations applies to the Babis as well, who were
> counselled to accept Him Whom God shall make manifest,
> the messiah of the Babis, whom Baha'is identify with
> Baha'u'llah.
> 
> The Persian Seven Proofs contains
> a number of passages of historical importance, the
> most important being the Bab's explanation of the gradual
> revelation of his station.
> 
> Sources: An edition
> has been published by the Azalis in Iran; Abu'l-Fadl
> Bayda'i, ed., Dala'il-i-Sab`ih (Tehran: Ism-i-A`zam,
> n.d.). Known MSS are listed in MacEoin, Sources,
> p. 185. I have used Cambridge Browne F.25 in the preparation
> of this article. I have not seen the Arabic version.
> A full French translation is A. L. M. Nicolas, Le
> Livre des Sept Preuves (Paris, 1902). English
> selections are found in SWB ??. See also AAK 4:108Ð15;
> Amanat, Resurrection 161, 193Ð94, 199, 375,
> 384; BBR 37, 39; MH 2:496; QI 202, 206, 1645Ð52; God
> Passes By, 26; Muhadarat 837-39.
> 
> Suratu'l-Haykal
> 
> The "Tablet of the
> Temple" is a major Arabic tablet of Baha'u'llah containing
> a mystical interpretation of the body (haykal)
> of the Manifestation of God. Surah, the term
> used for chapters of the Qur'an,.is used for many of
> Baha'u'llah's Arabic writings, especially those written
> in the style of the Qur'an. Haykal is a loan
> word in Arabic. Its Hebrew cognate hkal means
> "temple," particularly the Jerusalem temple. In Arabic,
> in addition to meaning a Jewish or Christian temple,
> it meant the body or form of something, particularly
> the human body, or something large. In the Bab's usage,
> a haykal is a talisman, particularly one in
> the form of a five-pointed star, which in many traditions
> represents the human body. In the Suratu'l-Haykal,
> the primary sense of haykal is the human body,
> particularly the body of the manifestation of God,
> but the meaning "temple" is also present.
> 
> Another tablet of Baha'u'llah
> states that the Suratu'l-Haykal was first written in
> Edirne but was revised in `Akka, probably in 1869 (UHJ
> memo). Thus it contains no obvious allusions to Baha'u'llah's
> exile to `Akka. The numerous passages criticizing
> the Azali Babis confirm its dating to the late Edirne
> or early `Akka periods. The existence of two editions
> probably explains the numerous variations between the
> two published texts. It was not written for a particular
> individual; when asked about the matter Baha'u'llah
> said that he himself was both the addresser and addressee
> (Asraru'l-Athar, 5:277).
> 
> It was one of the earliest
> works of Baha'u'llah to be translated into English.
> However, the translation was poor and its recondite
> mystical symbolism was difficult for Western Baha'is
> to comprehend. The translation went out of circulation
> and the tablet is today little known to Western Baha'is
> apart from some passages translated by Baha'u'llah.
> 
> Contents: The Suratu'l-Haykal
> begins with an invocation and a prayer in which Baha'u'llah
> praises God as the author of revelation and thanks
> Him for the afflication he has undergone for His sake.
> He describes how in his greatest afflication, the
> Maiden (huriyah) appeared to him calling joyfully,
> "This is the Best-Beloved of the worlds, and yet ye
> comprehend not." She then addresses the Babis who
> had not accepted Baha'u'llah, warning them that God
> would raise up another people in their place if they
> did not aid Baha'u'llah. The Babis, she says, are
> the blindest of people, since they deny the like of
> that by which they prove the truth of their own religionÑpresumably
> a reference to Baha'u'llah's claim that his own writings
> too are divinely inspired. She calls on "this temple"
> to arise since all contingent beings are resurrected
> by him. She addresses the eye, the ear, and the tongue
> of Baha'u'llah, calling on his eye, for example, to
> look only at the beauty of God, not at the heavens
> or the earth.
> 
> Baha'u'llah replies to the
> maiden, telling her how Azal, the brother whom he had
> raised, had tried to kill him. He tells her that when
> this act became known, Azal had written to the Babis
> saying that Baha'u'llah had tried to kill him.
> (The context suggests that Baha'u'llah's discovery
> of Azal's plot was the occasion of writing this table,
> but it is not certain.)
> 
> Baha'u'llah now moves to the
> central theme of the tablet, the exposition of the
> metaphysical significance of the haykal. The
> four Arabic letters of the word are each associated
> with an attribute of God whose Arabic name contains
> that letter and with an aspect of God's relation with
> the universe:
> 
> ha': huwiyih (essence):
> God's will
> 
> ya: qadir (power, which
> is spelled QDYR in Arabic): God's sovereignty
> 
> kaf: karam (generosity):
> God's bounteousness
> 
> lam: fadl (grace):
> God's grace
> 
> Elsewhere in the tablet he
> meditates on the spiritual significance of various
> parts of the body of the manifestation: the hem of
> his robe, which purifies by its touch; the foot, created
> from the steel of might to be steadfast in the path
> of God; his breast, which reflects the lights of God
> upon all things; and the heart, the repository of all
> knowledge and from which new and wondrous sciences
> will come forth. Baha'u'llah is told that his temple
> has been made the fountainhead of each of God's names
> and attributes. He has thus been given the power to
> recreate all things, bringing forth suns from motes
> of dust. He is called the "Self of God," for the saying
> "there is no God but I" applies to Baha'u'llah.
> 
> The tablet returns often to
> the theme of the disbelief of the Babis, criticizing
> Babi leaders for priding themselves on such titles
> as "mirror" and "letter," though it is Baha'u'llah
> who is the creator of the letters and mirrors. God's
> acceptance of their pious deeds is, he warns, dependent
> on their belief. He warns that their unbelief will
> lead the mass of believers astray. He criticizes those
> who accepted the new faith but came to him with questions
> about the Shi`ite Imams and Babs, in the end losing
> their faith. These, he warns, are like the Jewish
> leaders with Jesus. Finally, he insists that it was
> he who was prophesied by the Bab in his writings.
> He calls himself the Primal Point, a title of the Bab,
> thus identifying himself with the Bab.
> 
> The Suratu'l-Haykal defies
> easy summary, for it is a dense tapestry of mystical
> imagery drawn from esoteric Shi`ism, the Qur'an, the
> writings of the Bab, and even the Bible.
> 
> Relation to other texts.
> At Baha'u'llah's orders, the Suratu'l-Haykal was written
> as one point of a five-pointed star, with the tablets
> to the kings forming the other points. To judge by
> the first publication of this tablet, these other tables
> were those addressed to the Pope, Napoleon III, the
> Czar of Russia, Queen Victoria, and the Shah of Iran.
> Of this combined tablet he says, "Thus have We built
> the Temple with the hands of power and might, could
> ye but know it. This is the Temple promised unto you
> in the Book. . . " (PDC 47), evidently an allusion
> to Rev. 21:22Ð23, which in earlier Arabic translations
> of the Bible evidently said, "the glory of God [baha'u'llah]
> is its light," a passage quoted by Baha'u'llah elsewhere.
> Shoghi Effendi identifies an allusion to "the temple
> of the Lord" that will be built by "the man whose name
> is the Branch" foretold in Zachariah 6:12Ð13 (God
> Passes By, 213). In addition to the Bible there
> is the famous tradition of Kumayl, a well-known mystical
> tradition of Shi`ism, which identifies one of the five
> stages of reality as "a light that shines from the
> morn of eternity and illumines the temples of unity
> (hayakilu't-tawhid). Shi`ite commentators identify
> the "temples of unity" as the prophets and imams.
> Elsewhere the Imam Husayn is called "the temple of
> revelation" (haykalu'l-wahy wa't-tanzil; `Abbas
> Qummi, Muntaha'l-Amal, Tehran, 1371/1951, p.
> 286).
> 
> Sources. The text
> has been published at least three times: AQA 1:2Ð49;
> Kitab-i-Mubin, Tehran, 120 B.E./1963, pp. 2Ð38;
> and AQA 4:268Ð300. The early English translation made
> by Anton Haddad is Surat'ul-Hykl: Sura of the Temple
> (Chicago: Behais Supply and Publishing Board, 1900.
> Short quotations are translated by Shoghi Effendi
> in PDC 47Ð48, WOB 109Ð10, 138Ð39, 169; God Passes
> By, 102, 212. See also RB 3:133Ð46. Research
> Department, Baha'i World Center, "Questions about the
> Suratu'l-Haykal," unpublished memo, 5 September 1993.
> Khazeh Fananapazir, personal communication.
> 
> Lawh-i-Aqdas
> 
> The "Most Holy Tablet"
> is an Arabic letter addressed to a Baha'i, apparently
> of Christian background. He may have been Faris Effendi,
> the Syrian Christian converted by Nabil-i-Zarandi while
> they were jailed together in Alexandria in 1868. It
> was written in `Akka, but the exact date is unknown.
> Its Arabic uses many Christian terms and quotations
> from the New Testament. The title--properly al-Lawhu'l-Aqdas--is
> given by Baha'u'llah Himself in the heading of the
> tablet. It is sometimes referred to as the "Tablet"
> or "Message to the Christians." It is to be classed
> with the tablets to the kings and rulers revealed in
> the Edirne and early `Akka periods.
> 
> After the initial salutation
> addressed to the unnamed Christian Baha'i, the bulk
> of the tablet is addressed to the Christian community
> as a whole--the "followers of the Son," the priests,
> the bishops, and the monks.
> 
> Baha'u'llah begins by asking
> the Christians why they failed to recognize him as
> the return of Christ. He points to the Pharisees who
> had lived in expectation of the Messiah and had known
> the prophecies of the Old Testament yet had rejected
> Christ. The monks who fail to recognize Baha'u'llah
> are like these.
> 
> Baha'u'llah then eloquently
> announces his own claim to be the return of Christ,
> "come down from heaven, even as he came down from it
> the first time." This announcement is expressed in
> the prophetic language of the Bible and the Qur'an
> with allusions to the Kingdom of Heaven, the River
> Jordan, Sinai, the Father, the Hour, and the Face of
> God. He chides the Christians for not heeding the
> voice of the Bab, "the Crier. . . in the wilderness"--words
> that the New Testament applies to John the Baptist.
> 
> He calls the priests to leave
> their churches and their bells and not to be veiled
> by the name of Christ, for Baha'u'llah has glorified
> Christ. Now they should summon the people to the Most
> Great Name of Baha'u'llah. They should ponder the
> fact that although the light of his revelation appeared
> in the East, its effects were manifested in the West--perhaps
> an allusion to the extraordinary technical progress
> of Europe in the nineteenth century. As for the bishops,
> he says that they are the stars whose fall had been
> prophesied by Christ Himself. He promises the monks
> that if they follow him, he will make them his heirs,
> though if they fail to do so, he will endure this with
> patience. The tablet now becomes a dialogue between
> Baha'u'llah and Bethlehem and Sinai, in which these
> two holy places of Christianity and Judaism bear witness
> to Baha'u'llah's station.
> 
> Baha'u'llah addresses the
> recipient of the letter again, praising him for recognizing
> his Lord. The Muslims had persecuted Baha'u'llah without
> just cause, but such people are like the dead. He
> should not be disturbed by what they say and should
> remain steadfast.
> 
> Baha'u'llah asks the recipient
> to greet on his behalf another Baha'i, whom he praises
> with wordplay on the man's name, Murad, which means
> "desired."
> 
> The tablet closes with a set
> of beatitudes proclaiming the blessedness of those
> who have recognized Baha'u'llah and his station.
> 
> Sources: The Lawh-i-Aqdas
> was first published in Kitab-i-Mubin, a collection
> of Baha'u'llah's writings published in Bombay in 18__
> [and reprinted as AQA 1????] Shoghi Effendi translated
> several passages in PDC, along with similar passages
> addressed to the Christian priests. These are incorporated
> in the full translation found in TB.
> 
> The Arabic text is found in
> AQA 1:___ and TB/P, ch. 2. The full English text is
> in TB, ch. 2. Extracts translated by Shoghi Effendi
> are in PDC 42, 105-7, 110. Eric Bowes, "Baha'u'llah's
> Message to the Christians" (n.p.: Baha'i Publications
> Australia, 1986) is a brief commentary addressed to
> a Christian audience. It includes the full English
> translation. Information on the Lawh-i-Aqdas is found
> in Ganj-i-Shaygan 164-68, DM/IK 13:2011-14,
> and RB 4:227-35. Information on Faris Effendi, the
> probable recipient, is found in the sources mentioned
> and in RB 3:5-11 and Baha’u’llah, King of Glory,
> 267-68.
> 
> Philosophy
> 
> Philosophy (falsafah, from
> Gr. philosophia, "love of wisdom"; hikmat, lit. "wisdom.")
> is the investigation of the underlying principles of
> reality and knowledge by rational means. Philosophy
> is distinguished from religion by its reliance on rational
> investigation rather than revelation. Traditionally,
> the natural sciences were considered part of philosophy,
> but modern thought now confines philosophy to those
> subjects that cannot be investigated by empirical experiment.
> 
> The history of philosophy
> is complex, and it is not possible to explain here
> even the various conceptions of the meaning and content
> of philosophy. Moreover, little research has been
> done into the philosophical aspects and antecedants
> of Baha'i thought, and almost nothing has been done
> to integrate the ideas of the Baha'i writings with
> modern philosophy. Therefore, this article will mainly
> discuss philosophy as part of the historical background
> of Baha'i thought and the references to philosophy
> in the Baha'i writings.
> 
> Islamic philosophy as background
> to Baha'i thought
> 
> History of Islamic
> philosophy. Philosophy reached the Islamic world
> in the eighth century through the translation of a
> large number of Greek philosophic, scientific, and
> medical works. The Greek philosophical corpus in Arabic
> eventually included most of the works of Aristotle,
> extracts or summaries of the works of Plato, and various
> treatises and commentaries of later Hellenistic philosophers.
> By the ninth century there was an indigenous school
> of Islamic philosophy, the most important representatives
> of which were al-Kindi (9th cent.), al-Farabi (d. 950),
> and Ibn-Sina (980Ð1037), known in the West as Avicenna.
> These early Islamic philosophers expounded a system
> in which Aristotle's logic, physics, psychology, and
> ontology were combined with a neoplatonic metaphysics
> of emanation. Though later philosophers made many
> modifications, this system remains the basis of the
> Islamic tradition of philosophy up to the present.
> Thus, the reader should be aware that `philosophy'
> in Islam refers primarily to the Greek tradition of
> philosophy, although some strains of Islamic mystical
> theology came to be included in the philosophical curriculum.
> Other kinds of Islamic thought, notably dogmatic theology,
> might also be included as `Islamic philosophy', but
> following tradition they are not discussed here.
> 
> Philosophy, however, never
> completely overcame opposition from Islamic theologians
> and jurists who held that certain doctrines of philosophical
> metaphysics were contrary to Islam. As a result, many
> of the distinctive features of Islamic philosophy resulted
> from the philosophers' attempts to reconcile Greek
> philosophy with revealed religion and specifically
> Islam. Al-Farabi, the first great Islamic philosopher,
> taught that the doctrines of prophetic religion--particularly
> concepts such as heaven and hell that were most disputed
> between philosophers and theologians--were expressions
> of philosophical truths in language suitable for the
> masses of people incapable of grasping literal philosophic
> truth. Since both philosophers of the Platonic tradition
> and Muslim scholars considered religions to be primarily
> legal systems, religion thus became a branch of political
> philosophy. Philosophy and religion expressed the
> same truths on different levels. Al-Farabi's approach
> was carried on by Spanish Arab philosophers such as
> Ibn-Rushd (Averroes1126Ð1198) and greatly influenced
> both Jewish and Christian philosophy in the Middle
> Ages. In Islam, however, this approach to reconciling
> religion and philosophy died out after Averroes.
> 
> In the eastern lands of Islam
> Ibn-Sina was more influential. In contrast to al-Farabi,
> who like Plato made political philosophy central to
> his system, Ibn-Sina mainly confined himself to abstract
> issues and began to explore the philosophical implications
> of mysticism. As-Suhravardi (1154Ð91) systematically
> integrated mysticism and philosophy, producing a system
> reinterpreting Ibn-Sina's system on the basis of the
> concept of divine light.
> 
> The great mystical theologian
> Ibn-`Arabi (1165Ð1240) produced a wonderfully complex
> system of mystical theology that came to be called
> "the Unity of Being" (vahdatu'l-vujud). In
> his system all the creatures of the universe are the
> self-manifestations of God. His works encompassed
> all the lore of Islamic thought and mysticism and burst
> on the Islamic world like a bombshell. Even for thinkers
> bitterly opposed to him, his system was immensely influential.
> 
> Islamic philosophy reached
> its greatest heights in seventeenth century Iran in
> the so-called "School of Isfahan," whose greatest representative
> was Mulla Sadra. In Sadra's system the rationalism
> of Ibn-Sina and the mysticism of as-Suhravardi and
> Ibn-`Arabi were combined. Although philosophy was
> still a matter of suspicion to most Islamic clerics,
> a continuous tradition of philosophy has survived carried
> on by Shi`i clergy from Mulla Sadra and the
> School of Isfahan down to the present.
> 
> The Shaykhis
> were the most recent distinctive school to arise in
> Islamic philosophy. Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i,
> a Shi`i Arab from eastern Arabia, propounded
> an elaborate system in which an extreme reverence for
> the imams was combined with a philosophical system
> owing much to Mulla Sadra. His most distinctive contribution
> was the elaboration of an older idea in which a world
> of immaterial images intermediate between the physical
> world and the world of pure spirit served as the locale
> for heaven, hell, and the miraculous events of the
> last judgment. Like many Islamic philosophers before
> him, Shaykh Ahmad was bitterly attacked
> by orthodox clergy. After the death of his successor,
> Siyyid Kazim-i-Rashti, a large number of his
> followers became Babis. The remaining Shaykhis
> broke into several factions and emphasized the Shi`i
> orthodoxy of their views, modifying or concealing their
> most distinctive doctrines.
> 
> The philosophical tradition
> deriving from Ibn-Sina and Mulla Sadra has continued
> in the theological seminaries of Iran up to the present.
> Although it has never ceased to attract the suspicions
> of some of the clergy, in recent decades it has attracted
> considerable interest and respect in the West. A number
> of prominent figures in the 1979 Islamic revolution
> in Iran were philosophers of this tradition, including
> Khomeini himself.
> 
> Doctrines of Islamic philosophy.
> Though naturally there is immense variation in the
> views and approaches of Islamic philosophers over the
> last twelve centuries, some useful generalizations
> can be made. Islamic philosophy is based for the most
> part on the works of Aristotle, which Islamic philosophers
> understood as a systematic treatmentment of philosophy
> and science. Where appropriate works of Aristotle
> were not available, other classical works filled the
> gap, notably the substitution of Platonic works of
> political philosophy for the untranslated Politics
> of Aristotle and the addition of a late textbook of
> Neoplatonic metaphysics, misattributed in translation
> under the title of The Theology of Aristotle.
> After al-Farabi's abortive attempt to organize philosophy
> on the basis of Platonic political philosophy, almost
> every Islamic philosoper organized his works on the
> basis of some variation of a systematic division of
> the sciences worked out by Ibn-Sina:
> 
> Theoretical
> 
> Logic
> 
> Mathematics
> 
> Physics (Natural Science)
> 
> Metaphysics
> 
> First Philosophy (ntology)
> 
> Theology
> 
> Practical
> 
> Ethics
> 
> Economics (Household Management)
> 
> Politics
> 
> While logic, the sciences,
> and even ethics eventually were accepted as useful
> tools even in Islamic jurisprudence, metaphysical doctrines
> came into direct conflict with Islamic dogmatic theology.
> While there are innumerable variations, Islamic philosophers
> generally shared a view of the universe something like
> the following:
> 
> God is that one being whose
> existence is necessary in itself. God in His essence
> is absolutely one and simple. Since an absolutely
> simple cause cannot be the direct cause of the complexity
> of the world, God in His simplicity cannot be the direct
> cause of all the particulars of the world, so that
> the tradition Judeo-Christian-Islamic account of God
> created the world by simple fiat cannot be accepted.
> Instead, God creates directly one other being--an
> immaterial intellect or mind variously known as the
> primal intellect, the primal will, the first angel,
> and the proximate light. This immaterial intellect
> creates another, which in turn creates another of still
> lower rank. The Islamic philosophers accepted the
> Ptolemaic astronomy, in which the earth was at the
> center of a set of concentric spheres, each associated
> with a planet and each moved by an immaterial intellect.
> It is the very complex interrelationships among the
> planets and their motions that account for the complexities
> of the sublunar world in which we live. The world
> itself is eternal, without beginning or end in time.
> 
> This metaphysical system came
> into conflict with Islamic theology and its representatives
> on several grounds. First was the question of authority.
> The philosophers claimed to derive doctrines about
> God, the universe, and the soul from pure reason.
> Islamic philosophers worked prophecy into their systems
> and were for the most part sincere Muslims, but it
> was clear that prophecy was subordinate to philosophy.
> Second, there were several fundamental philosophical
> doctrines that directly conflicted with the usual interpretation
> of Islam: God did not create the universe from nothing
> at a particular moment of time. It was difficult to
> explain how God could know particulars or how His providence
> could care for the individual person. The night-journey
> of Muhammad, heaven and hell, and the last judgment
> could not be taken literally. Philosophers were accused
> of denying the immortality of the individual soul.
> 
> Earlier Islamic philosophers
> had attempted to defuse these criticisms, explaining
> prophecy and its symbolic elements by subsuming prophecy
> under political philosophy and explaining the contradictions
> between philosophy and religion in terms of the rhetorical
> difficulties of conveying philosophical truths to ordinary
> people. Later Islamic philosophy drew on mysticism
> and theories about the imagination to solve such difficulties.
> As it had in later Greek philosophy, philosophy became
> an ethical and mystical pursuit for the individual,
> not simply a subject of intellectual investigation.
> Thus, philosophical investigation was to some extent
> protected by the prestige of mysticism. In addition,
> new attempts were made explain religion in terms of
> philosophy. The most interesting was the doctrine
> of the World of Image. In the material world an image
> is normally a form subsisting in matter. The divine
> world of the intellects had no images, only pure intellect.
> The later philosophers, following Ibn-`Arabi--posited
> a world in which images could exist without matter.
> This explained a whole range of phenomena ranging
> from the images in mirrors, imagination, and dreams
> to the visions of mystics, heaven and hell, and the
> last judgment. The Shaykhis developed
> this idea to its highest degree, arguing that men lived
> both in this world and several levels of the world
> of image. The material body, for example, dies in
> this world but the image body in the world of image
> is resurrected as promised in the Qur'an.
> 
> The Bab and philosophy
> 
> The Bab in the Bayan
> prohibited the study of philosophy (qawa`id-i-hikmiya),
> along with logic, religious law and legal theory, philology,
> and grammar, except insofar as these disciplines might
> be necessary for reading his works. He did allow the
> study of dogmatic theology (`ilm-i-kalam).
> The volume of his writings and the fact that he Himself
> was devoid of these sciences made their study unnecessary
> (Persian Bayan 4:10). Though the Bab condemned the
> study of abstract sciences, many of his most influential
> followers were drawn from the Shaykhis
> and may be presumed to have had philosophical training
> and interests. However, in the few disturbed years
> before the suppression of the Babis, it is not likely
> that any of them had much time for philosophical activity.
> The Bab's writings show some trace of Shaykhi
> philosophy and certainly presuppose issues dealt with
> in Shaykhi and Islamic philosophy, but
> they do not deal directly with philosophical issues.
> The relationship of the thought of the Bab and his
> followers to Islamic philosophy needs much more study.
> 
> Baha'u'llah and philosophy
> 
> Though Baha'u'llah
> condemned "such sciences as begin in mere words and
> end in mere words," he did not renew the Bab's explicit
> condemnation of philosophy. He is not known to have
> made any particular study of philosophy, but his writings
> show an easy familiarity with the concepts and main
> issues of Islamic philosophy. Though none of his writings
> can be said to be philosophical in a technical sense,
> he often uses philosophical terminology and sometimes
> treats specifically philosophical questions. An example
> is the Tablet of Wisdom (or of philosophy: `Lawh-i-Hikmat'),
> written in reply to questions about the eternity of
> the universe submitted by the prominent Baha'i philosopher
> Aqa Muhammad-i-Qa'ini, Nabil-i-Akbar. In this tablet
> Baha'u'llah answers this classical philosophical question,
> though in a way that indicates that much of the dispute
> about it derives from the limitations of men's minds.
> He goes on to summarize the history of the ancient
> philosophers, citing the common Islamic belief that
> the Greek philosophers were in contact with the prophets
> of Israel as evidence that the deistic philosophers
> drew their fundamental inspiration from prophetic religion.
> `Abdu'l-Baha's Secret of Divine Civilization,
> written about the same time, also gives this account
> of the history of philosophy.
> 
> It should be noted that philosophers
> were one of the groups addressed in the Suriy-i-Muluk.
> 
> `Abdu'l-Baha and philosophy
> 
> `Abdu'l-Baha's writings
> also show familiarity with Islamic philosophy, in addition
> to those ideas of European philosophy and science that
> were becoming known in the Middle East. His earliest
> major work, the commentary on the famous Islamic tradition
> "I was a hidden treasure," is a philosophical and mystical
> refutation of Ibn-`Arabi's doctrine of the unity of
> being. The Secret of Divine Civilization touches
> many of the themes relating to philosophy that characterize
> `Abdu'l-Baha's later references to the subject: philosophy
> as a sign of civilization, that the fundamentals of
> philosophy derive from the prophets, the praise of
> the great ancient philosophers, and the comparison
> of the early believers in each religion to philosophers.
> These themes are expanded in `Abdu'l-Baha's talks
> in Europe and America, where he also criticizes modern
> materialistic philosophy, by which he means a naive
> faith in the universal applicability of the methods
> of physical science. This he distinguishes from the
> deistic philosophy of the ancients and of more reflective
> moderns.
> 
> In such works as Some Answered
> Questions, `Abdu'l-Baha frequently uses the concepts
> and arguments of Islamic philosophy when he discusses
> scientific, methaphysical, and theological topics.
> Often he cites the views of the ancient philosophers
> in confirmation of his own views. Among the philosophical
> subjects specifically addressed by `Abdu'l-Baha in
> his writings and talks are proofs for the existence
> of God, personal eschatology, epistemology, free will,
> the nature of religion and evil, and substantial motion.
> Insofar as they assume a philosophy, the writings
> of Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha employ the late Avicennan
> philosophy of illumination current in nineteenth century
> Iran. Whether this philosophy is integrally connected
> with the Baha'i teachings or whether it is a rhetorical
> device sometimes useful for conveying them remains
> to be answered.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi and philosophy
> 
> Shoghi Effendi, who
> was educated in Western schools and had studied political
> economy and philosophy in college, showed little direct
> interest in philosophy in his writings. Though he
> permitted the study of philosophy, he generally encouraged
> Baha'is to pursue more practical interests at this
> time. He makes little reference to contemporary philosophical
> schools other than to reiterate `Abdu'l-Baha's criticism
> of "materialistic philosophers" and to comment that
> this sort of philosophy was an intellectual fad that
> would one day pass. His most specific comment on philosophy
> is his sharp criticism of the contemporary schools
> of Hegelian political philosophy, particularly Communism,
> nationalism, and fascism.
> 
> Current Baha'i law allowing
> the study of philosophy is based on several interpretations
> of Shoghi Effendi in which he distinguished between
> "fruitless excursions into metaphysical hairsplitting"
> and "a sound branch of learning like philosophy" (UD
> 445).
> 
> Philosophical writings
> by Baha'is
> 
> Among the numerous
> clerics who became Baha'is during the lifetimes of
> the Bab and Baha'u'llah were a number of men trained
> in philosophy. In addition to the many former Shaykhis
> who may be presumed to have a greater or lesser training
> in philosophy, we may include Vahid, Siyyid Yahyay-i-Darabi,
> the Babi leader of Yazd and Nayriz. A number of prominent
> Baha'is of the time of Baha'u'llah were also trained
> as philosophers, the most notable being Aqa Muhammad-i-Qa'ini,
> known as Nabil-i-Akbar, and Mirza Abu'l-Fadl-i-Gulpaygani.
> Though both these men wrote on Baha'i subjects, not
> surprisingly they dealt mostly with theological subjects
> and the defense of their new religion.
> 
> It is interesting that the
> two greatest modern Iranian Baha'i scholars, Fadil-i-Mazandarani
> and `Abdu'l-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari, were
> both former `ulama trained in philosophy. Though both
> wrote mainly on historical and theological topics,
> Mazandarani's great compilation of Baha'i writings,
> Amr va-Khalq, shows his knowledge of philosophical
> issues.
> 
> Three other recent Baha'i
> authors have written specifically on philosophy. `Azizu'llah
> Sulaymani, better known for his Baha'i biographical
> dictionary, prepared a textbook of traditional Islamic
> philosophy for the use of Baha'i students. This work,
> Rashahat-i-Hikmat, is intended to familiarize
> the students with traditional philosophy for use in
> understanding Baha'i scripture and for teaching their
> faith to those trained in this philosophy. It makes
> no attempt to integrate modern Western philosophy or
> science. Dr. `Ali-Murad Davudi was chairman of the
> philosophy department at Tehran University until his
> disappearance shortly after the Islamic Revolution.
> He wrote a number of works on the history of Greek
> and Islamic philosophy, in addition to articles on
> Baha'i philosophical and theological themes. Ruhi
> Afnan, a cousin of Shoghi Effendi expelled as a covenant-breaker,
> wrote several works on the history of philosophy and
> its interrelationship with religion. These include
> an ambitious attempt to correlate Babi and Baha'i thought
> with the rationalist philosophies of Descartes and
> Spinoza.
> 
> Only recently have Western
> Baha'is begun to write on philosophical themes. Some
> examples are listed among the sources mentioned below.
> 
> The Greek philosophers
> and the Jews
> 
> Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha
> praise the "deistic" (ilahi, muta'allih) philosophers
> of the Greeks. In a famous tablet to the Swiss scientist
> A. H. Forel, `Abdu'l-Baha writes:
> 
> As to deistic philosophers,
> such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, they are indeed
> worthy of esteem and of the highest praise, for they
> have rendered distinguished services to mankind. (BW
> 15:37.)
> 
> Aristotle (384-322 B.C.),
> for example, is mentioned a number of times, usually
> favorably. Aristotle's works had been the primary
> influence on Islamic philosophy. Islamic philosophers
> defended Aristotle and the other pagan philosophers
> as sages of antiquity who through reason and mystical
> insight or through contact with the Hebrew prophets
> had attained knowledge of the unity of God. Various
> wise sayings were attributed to him. Baha'u'llah's
> reference to him in the Tablet of Wisdom (para. 47/TB
> 147) and many of `Abdu'l-Baha's references to him reflect
> this view of Aristotle. `Abdu'l-Baha thus contrasts
> him with the modern materialist philosophers and scientists
> (PUP 327, 356-57/KAB 2:299, BW 15:37) and compares
> the continued fame of his learning with the oblivion
> of the empires of his day (PUP 348/KAB 2:268).
> On the other hand, his learning was limited compared
> to that of the Prophets and of God (PT 19, SAQ 5:para.
> 6/p. 15). `Abdu'l-Baha attributes a type of pantheism
> to him (SAQ 82: para. 2/p. 290).
> 
> There has been considerable
> confusion about Baha'u'llah's account of the Greek
> philosophers, as elaborated by `Abdu'l-Baha. In his
> Tablet of Wisdom, Baha'u'llah had praised Hippocrates,
> Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Apollonius of Tyana, and
> Hermes Trismegistus. Empedocles, he said, had been
> a contemporary of David and Pythagoras a contemporary
> of Solomon. Thus, "the essence and fundamentals of
> philosophy have emanated from the Prophets" (TB 9,
> para. 26, pp. 145). Socrates is praised for having
> taught monotheism, an offence for which the ignorant
> put him to death.
> 
> With the circulation of Baha'i
> writings in the West further questions arose. Western
> Baha'is questioned why the chronology implicit in the
> Tablet of Wisdom differed from the Western histories.
> Forel had evidently written to question `Abdu'l-Baha's
> criticism of "materialist" philosophers. Other questions
> might have been asked had the Western Baha'is of `Abdu'l-Baha's
> time known more of classical history: why was Empedocles
> placed before Pythagoras? Why did Baha'u'llah seemingly
> accept the historicity of Hermes Trismegistus, given
> that Western scholars had known for three hundred years
> that the works attributed to him were spurious? Explaining
> that Baha'u'llah's "Tablet of Wisdom was written in
> accordance with certain histories of the East," `Abdu'l-Baha
> states that histories from the period before Alexander
> the Great had many discrepancies and that such discrepancies
> were to be found even in the various versions of the
> Bible (Research Department, p. 2). To Forel he explained
> that there had been two schools of ancient philosophers,
> one deistic and one materialistic. His condemnation
> of philosophers had applied only to the materialists
> (BW 15:40). The explanation for Socrates' monotheism
> is that he studied in the Holy Land, for the Greeks
> were polytheists and so Socrates' monotheism must have
> had another source. Hippocrates had also lived in
> Syria, in the city of Tyre (SAQ 14Ð15, 25.55; SDC 77;
> PUP 362Ð63, 406).
> 
> The difficulty with `Abdu'l-Baha's
> account is that it is not in accordance with what is
> known about the lives of Greek philosophers. Empedocles
> and Pythagoras were not contemporaries of David and
> Solomon. There is no evidence that Socrates went to
> Syria. Socrates did not teach monotheism. So why
> did `Abdu'l-Baha say and write these things? There
> are two kinds of answers: theological and historical.
> 
> The theological answer is
> simpler. In the time of `Abdu'l-Baha, Western science,
> and increasingly Western philosophy, were thoroughly
> positivistic, sometimes in a very simplistic way.
> `Abdu'l-Baha, as had many religious thinkers before
> him, cited the religiously-oriented Greek philosophers
> as evidence that reason did not necessarily imply irreligion.
> Pythagoras and Plato are old friends of monotheistic
> religion. Such statements are additional examples
> of Baha'u'llah's and `Abdu'l-Baha's habit of using
> their thorough command of high Islamic culture to explicate
> Baha'i teachings. But what are the materials that
> they drew on?
> 
> The key to understanding the
> historical origins of `Abdu'l-Baha's account is found
> in his statement that "the Tablet of Wisdom was written
> in accordance with certain histories of the East."
> The pre-modern Islamic world had a very imperfect
> knowledge of the history of Greece in general and of
> Greek philosophy in particular. `Abdu'l-Baha's account
> can be explained by his reliance on the Islamic accounts
> of the Greek philosophers. The details of his account
> can be explained in three stages:
> 
> 1. The two schools of Greek
> philosophy. On this point `Abdu'l-Baha is on solid
> ground. The later Greek historians of philosophy were
> fond of arranging philosophers in "schools" or "successions."
> Diogenes Leartius, the author of the most comprehensive
> surviving classical history of Greek philosophy, divides
> the philosophers into the Ionians and the Italians.
> The Ionians were the pre-Socratic physicists, or as
> it might be translated, "materialists." This succession
> included the atomists and those pre-Socratics who attempted
> to find a physical first principle of being. The Italians
> were the Pythagoreans and Empedocleans, whose interests
> were more theological and religious (Diogenes Laertius
> 1.13Ð14). The same notion is found in pseudo-Plutarch
> (Aetius), De placita philosophorum (1.3). Here
> we find Pythagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, and
> Aristotle listed among the Italians. This work was
> translated into Arabic, and this chapter was incorporated
> into various well known Arabic histories of philosophy
> (e.g., Shahrazuri [13th cent.], Nuzhat al-Arwah,
> ed. Ahmed [Haidarabad: Da'iratu'l-Ma`arifi'l-Osmania,
> 1396/1976], 1:20). The Italian school acquired added
> importance when it was identified by the Illuminationist
> school of Islamic philosophers with the "divine sages"
> of the Greeks. The Ionians were mostly forgotten by
> the Muslims. Thus to later Iranian intellectuals familiar
> with philosophy, the Greek philosophers of importance
> were the "divine" or "deistic" philosophers of the
> Italian school: Pythagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato,
> and Aristotle. This was a tradition that both Baha'u'llah
> and `Abdu'l-Baha know and cite.
> 
> 2. "Those properly called
> wise." Medieval Muslim scholars attempting to
> understand the history of Greek thought were confronted
> by a variety of fragmentary accounts, none of which
> were sufficiently detailed to serve as the basis of
> a coherent and comprehensive history. As a result
> a variety of independent short accounts were transmitted,
> most of which eventually dropped out of circulation.
> The most persistent such tradition, found in works
> written from the tenth century on, was a list of "those
> properly called wise": Luqman, Empedocles, Pythagoras,
> Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Accounts influenced
> by it can be recognized by the error of placing Empedocles
> before Pythagoras. According to this account, Luqman
> lived in Syria at the time of David and was the first
> to be called "wise" (or "a sage" or philosopher, hakim).
> Empedocles came to Syria and studied with Luqman.
> Pythagoras went to Egypt,where he studied with the
> disciples of Solomon. Socrates was a follower of Pythagoras,
> who was put to death for refuting polytheism with rational
> arguments. Finally, there was Plato, who was Socrates'
> student. This tradition would have been known to any
> well-educated nineteenth century Iranian.
> 
> This account can be traced
> back as far as the tenth century philosopher al-`Amiri
> and probably derives in whole or part from some Christian
> source. It was common for early Christian theologians
> to trace the origins of Greek philosophy to Jewish
> sources. They found it a useful strategy for undermining
> their most formidable pagan opponents, the Neoplatonic
> philosophers. Needless to say, there is no evidence
> of intellectual contact between the Greeks and Jews
> before the conquests of Alexander and little evidence
> of significant intellectual contact until even later.
> The identification of the Jews as the original source
> of philosophy was useful for medieval Muslims as well,
> since the Islamic version of the theory of progressive
> revelation did not provide an obvious explanation for
> pagan philosophy. That this particular account is
> the origin of Baha'u'llah's and `Abdu'l-Baha's versions
> of the history of Greek philosophy is obvious from
> a variety of large and small features.
> 
> 3. Oral simplification
> and quoting from memory. There is one major remaining
> incongruity: `Abdu'l-Baha's statement that Socrates
> studied in Syria. No such statement is known either
> in Greek or Islamic sources--or for that matter, in
> Baha'u'llah's writings. `Abdu'l-Baha writes the following:
> 
> It is recorded in eastern
> histories that Socrates journeyed to Palestine and
> Syria and there, from men learned in the things of
> God, acquired certain spiritual truths; that when he
> returned to Greece, he promulgated two beliefs: one,
> the unity of God, and the other, the immortality of
> the soul after its separation from the body; that these
> concepts, so foreign to their thought, raised a great
> commotion among the Greeks, until in the end they gave
> him poison and killed him. . . .Eastern histories also
> state that Hippocrates sojourned for a long time in
> the town of Tyre, and this is a city in Syria. (SWAB
> 25, p. 55)
> 
> This passage attributes two
> innovations to Socrates: the unity of God and the immortality
> of the soul. In the Islamic versions of the tradition
> we have been discussing, these doctrinal innovations
> are attributed to Empedocles, not Socrates. Hippocrates
> is not said to have lived in Tyre; Pythagoras was.
> In each of these cases a less familiar name in the
> Islamic tradition--Empedocles and Pythagoras--has been
> replaced by a more familiar name--Socrates and Hippocrates.
> In the absence of a textual source embodying the confusion,
> the probable explanation is simply that `Abdu'l-Baha
> read the story in some history and later retold it
> several times, having confused Socrates with Empedocles.
> 
> As for the larger question
> of whether the early Greek philosophers could have
> been influenced by Judaism, the answer is no. There
> is no surviving reference in Greek to the Jews dating
> earlier than the conquests of Alexander, which took
> place in Aristotle's lifetime. It is also quite certain
> that no such references were known in the first century
> A.D., since had they existed Jewish apologists such
> as Philo and Josephus would certainly have eagerly
> cited them, as would slightly later Christian writers.
> The reason why there was no such contact is simple
> enough; the Greeks and Jews had no common language.
> The Jews of that time used Aramaic as a lingua franca;
> the Greeks used Greek. There would have been nowhere
> they would have met with a common language. Plausible
> arguments can be made for a Zoroastrian influence,
> or even an Egyptian influence, on early Greek philosophy,
> but not for a Jewish influence.
> 
> Sources: The principle
> Baha'i scriptures dealing with philosophical subjects
> are the Tablet of Wisdom (TB 9:137Ð52), SAQ (especially
> parts 4 and 5), PUP (20Ð22, 87Ð91, 253Ð55, 326Ð27,
> 355Ð61), and Tablet to Dr. Forel (BWF 336Ð48). Baha'i
> writers on philosophy have include `A. M. Davudi, Insan
> dar @A'yin-i-Baha'i and Uluhiyat va Mazhariyat;
> William Hatcher, Logic and Logos; Julio
> Savi, The Eternal Quest for God; John Hatcher,
> The Purpose of Physical Reality; B. Hoff Conow,
> The Baha'i Teachings; Udo Schaefer, The Imperishable
> Dominion; M. Momen, "Relativism: a Basis for Baha'i
> Metaphysics," in SBBR 5:185Ð217; Robert Parry, "Philosophical
> Theology in Baha'i Scholarship," BSB Oct. 1992, 6/4Ð7/2:
> 66Ð91. Ruhi Afnan, the Revelation of Baha'u'llah
> and the Bab: Book 1: Descartes' Theory of Knowledge
> (New York: Philosophical Library, 1970); idem,
> Baha'u'llah and the Bab Confront Modern Thinkers:
> Book 2: Spinoza: Concerning God (New York: Philosophical
> Library, 1977). The text of the tradition of "the
> five properly called wise" is found, with thorough
> commentary, in Everett K. Rowson, A Muslim Philosopher
> on the Soul and its Fate (American Oriental Series
> 70; New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1988), 70Ð89,
> 203Ð63. On Socrates in Islamic sources, see Ilai Alon,
> Socrates in Mediaeval Arabic Literature (Islamic
> Philsophy, Theology, and Science, Texts and Studies
> X; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991). On texts relating
> to Socrates in the Baha'i writings, see Research Department,
> Baha'i World Center, Memorandum to Universal House
> of Justice, 22 October 1995, which was kindly shared
> with me by Robert Johnston. On the history of Greek
> philosophy in the Tablet of Wisdom, see Juan R. I.
> Cole, "Problems of chronology *****Wendy, you must
> have this reference.****
> 
> Dreams
> 
> The attitude towards dreams
> displayed in Babi and Baha'i history and literature
> is firmly rooted in Iranian tradition. Iranians have
> generally accepted the possibility of significant true
> dreams. Thus, the sophisticated philosophical tradition
> of which the Shaykhi school was a part explained dreams
> as a contact with the World of Image, an intermediary
> world between the material and purely spiritual realms.
> The authority of true dreams was unquestioned in the
> Iranian, the Islamic, and the Shi`ite traditions.
> The Shah-Namih, the Iranian national epic, reports
> a number of dreams foreshadowing the rise or fall of
> rulers and thus granting political legitimacy. The
> Qur'an itself was sometimes revealed to Muhammad in
> dreams. The Prophet Joseph was the archetype of dream-interpreters
> (Q 12:4, 36Ð49). The Shi`ite Imams received inspiration
> through true dreams.
> 
> The most important class of
> dream for the spiritual background of the Baha'i Faith
> is that in which a religious figure appears and initiates
> or gives knowledge to an individual. The tradition
> of receiving revelation in a dream goes back in Iran
> to Zoroaster. Throughout the history of Islamic Iran,
> claims to religious knowledge or authority have been
> made on the basis of dreams in which the Prophet, the
> Imams, angels, or other supernatural individuals appeared.
> Such dreams took on particular importance for Shi`ism,
> since it was believed that the Twelfth Imam was in
> concealment but still concerned with the affairs of
> his community. It was through dreams that he most
> commonly instructed his followers. For Shaykh Ahmad
> Ahsa'i, the founder of the Shaykhi school, such dreams
> were central. He saw the Imams and the Prophet many
> times in dreams and had received from them the authority
> to teach (Amanat, Resurrection 131-32, 168).
> During the period prior to his declaration of his
> mission to Mulla Husayn, the Bab had significant dreams.
> It was a dream in which he drank a drop of the blood
> of the Imam Husayn's severed head that begin his prophethood.
> Likewise, Baha'u'llah's prophethood first came to
> him during dreams in the Siyah-Chal.
> 
> True dreams may also be symbolic
> and require interpretationÑas the example of Joseph
> shows. In Baha'i history the most famous interpretation
> of a dream is that of Baha'u'llah's father. According
> to Nabil (DB 119) Baha'u'llah's father had dreamed
> of his son swimming in the ocean as fish clung to his
> hair. A dream interpreter had been summoned and explained
> this as a prophecy of the boy's future greatness.
> Likewise, a mujtahid's dreams warn him of Baha'u'llah's
> greatness (DB 111Ð12), and a dream tells a merchant
> to prepare to be the Bab's host (DB 217). Such dreams
> have continued to play a role in Baha'i piety ever
> since.
> 
> In Baha'i theology, dreams
> are significant only as evidence of the objective existence
> of the spiritual realm. Both Baha'u''llah and `Abdu'l-Baha
> say that true dreams, dreams in which problems are
> solved, and the power to travel beyond one's own body
> in dreams are evidence that man's soul is immaterial
> (SV 32Ð33; GWB 79:151Ð53; SAQ 61:227Ð28).
> 
> In the modern Baha'i community,
> dreams have no official authority (LoG 1739:513Ð14,
> 1745:515), but they often play a role in the spiritual
> lives of individuals. Two themes are particularly
> significant. Dreams in which `Abdu'l-Baha appears,
> often to give some spiritual advice or practical instruction,
> seem to be not uncommon and are generally viewed as
> spiritually significant. Second, dreams sometimes
> play a role in teaching successes. A Baha'i teacher
> might report being guided by a dream to a place or
> an individual. Sometimes, Baha'i teachers report being
> told that a dream, either of them , of `Abdu'l-Baha,
> or of some other recognizable Baha'i image, had presaged
> their coming. Though such reports have no canonical
> authority and perhaps properly belong to the realm
> of Baha'i folklore, they do play a role in modern Baha'i
> spirituality.
> 
> Sources: On dreams
> in Iran see H. Ziai, EIr, s.v. "Dreams and Dream
> Interpretation."
> 
> Evolution: a note
> 
> From the mid-nineteenth
> century to the present, the issue of conflict between
> science and religion has been preeminently identified
> with the dispute about evolution and human origins.
> The religious implications of Charles Darwin's theory
> of evolution by natural selection were recognized as
> soon as his The Origin of Species was published
> in 1859. Not only did Darwin's theory discredit traditional
> religious accounts of the origin of man, such as those
> found in Genesis and the Qur'an, it seemed to make
> man an animal like any other and thus cast into doubt
> any accout positing a supernatural aspect of human
> beings. The controversies concerning evolution in
> the Christian world are well known and still continue,
> especially among evangelical Protestants. Darwin's
> theory became well known in the Middle East with a
> few decades of its publication through popular accounts
> in Arabic and other Islamic languages. A Shi`i cleric
> in Najaf wrote a two volume refutation of Darwin soon
> after the publication of the first book on the subject
> in Arabic. Thus, by the time `Abdu'l-Baha came into
> contact with Westerners around the beginning of the
> twentieth century, evolution was a subject on which
> any serious religious thinker--Middle Eastern, American,
> or European--would be expected to take a position on.
> 
> `Abdu'l-Baha's best known
> statement on the subject is in Some Answered Questions
> (ch. 45Ð51). Though no detailed study of this
> text and its background has been made, it is usually
> understood to advance a theory that man evolved from
> a more primitive form to his present state but that
> he was always a distinct species, not directly related
> to other animals. Such a theory has no scientific
> support.
> 
> `Abdu'l-Baha's statements
> on evolution reflect the unease of many thoughtful
> religious people of the time at the use and misuse
> of Darwinist concepts. Evolution was being used as
> a justification for the abandonment of traditional
> religious and spiritual ideas, of standards of decency
> and kindness, and of the social solidarity that made
> the rich and powerful responsible for the well-being
> of the poorer and weaker members of society. The formulation
> given in this talk is clearly `Abdu'l-Baha''s attempt
> to offer a way out of this dilemma, using the philosophical
> and theological concepts of the sophisticated Iranian
> philosophical tradition, which since the work of the
> great philosopher Mulla Sadra in the 17th century,
> had seen the transformation of substance as a key to
> understanding the deepest nature of being and the godhead.
> Thus, his statements on evolution should be read not
> literally as corrections to a particular scientific
> theory but as affirmations that scientific truth must
> be understood in the context of a spiritual view of
> the universe.
> 
> R.M.S. Titanic
> 
> The biggest news story
> during the first few weeks of `Abdu'l-Baha's stay in
> America was the sinking of the British passenger steamship
> Titanic of the famous White Star Line. He had reached
> America on 11 April 1912, a few days before the disaster.
> 
> The largest and most luxurious
> liner built to that day, the Titanic sank after striking
> an iceberg on her maiden voyage from England to New
> York on 15 April 1912. Of the 2235 people aboard 1522
> drowned or froze, including many prominent English
> and Americans. News of the disaster reached America
> the next day and filled the papers for weeks to come.
> Following a speech to the Persian-American Association
> in Washington, D.C., on 20 April, he was asked about
> the disaster by reporters. He replied that Europeans
> and Americans seemed possessed by a desire for speed,
> that it was a pity if such a loss of life had indeed
> resulted from nothing more important than the desire
> to save a few hours (Ward, 239 Days, citing
> Washington Evening Star, 21 April 1912).
> 
> At a reception on 23 April,
> he returned to the topic of the disaster. `Abdu'l-Baha,
> who had chosen to come to America on the more modest
> Cedric of the same line, remarked that he had
> traveled as far as Naples with some of those who died--presumably
> some of the many Syrians among the immigrants in steerage,
> almost all of whom died. Explaining that in everything
> there is a divine wisdom, he then spoke of death as
> the gate to the other worlds of God and said that the
> disaster showed both the need for man's technical skill
> and his ultimate dependence on God (PUP 46Ð48). `Abdu'l-Baha's
> remarks are notable for avoiding both the most common
> reactions to the disaster: excessive sentimentality
> and intemperate criticism of society, the owners, crew,
> or survivors.
> 
> Appendices
> 
> Personal
> Names
> 
> A source of particular confusion
> for Westerners studying Baha'i history are the complex
> system of names used by Persians, particularly prior
> to the modernization of Persian names in the twentieth
> century. This appendix is intended as a guide to these
> names and the the Baha'i laws and customs governing
> personal names.
> 
> Baha'i laws and customs
> relating to personal names.
> 
> Islamic customs
> concerning personal names. Islamic given names
> were almost always Arabic religious names of one of
> the following classes:
> 
> forms of the name of the Prophet,
> such as Muhammad, Abu'l-Qasim, Ahmad, and Mustafa;
> 
> names of other holy persons,
> such as prophets, imams, and companions of the prophet;
> 
> names related to God, such
> as `Abdu'llah ("servant of God") and `Abdu'r-Rahman
> ("servant of the All-Merciful");
> 
> for women, names of the wives
> of the prophet and other holy women, such as Fatimih,
> `A'ishih, and Maryam.
> 
> Old Arabic names identified
> by Muhammad as unlucky or inappropriate or born by
> famous villains of Islamic history fell out of use.
> These naming practices were commended by piety and
> desire for good fortune and were not laws strictly
> speaking.
> 
> Babi laws governing names.
> In the Persian Bayan the Bab strongly recommended
> the use of names relating to God--attributes of God
> such as Baha'u'llah, "splendor of God;" Jalalu'llah,
> "glory of God;" and Jamalu'llah "beauty of God" or
> names of servitude such as `Abdu'llah and Dhikru'llah
> "mention of God"--or names of the Shi`i Holy Family--Muhammad,
> `Ali, Fatimih, Hasan, and Husayn. Thus the world would
> gradually be filled with the names of God (5:4). He
> specifically allowed the use of the name `Abdu'l-Bayan,
> bayan ("exposition") being in the eyes of the
> Bab a name of God (3:4).
> 
> Baha'i laws governing names.
> There are very few specific Baha'i laws governing
> personal names. `Abdu'l-Baha said that children are
> not to be named Baha'u'llah, Bab, or Primal Point (Nuqtiy-i-UUla,
> another common title of the Bab). Girls are not to
> be named Khayru'n-Nisa' ("best of women"), for
> this title is reserved for the mother and first wife
> of the Bab. The name `Abdu'l-Baha may, however, be
> used. Baha'u'llah, writing through his secretary,
> says that in this day the names Diya', Badi`, Husayn,
> and `Ali are particularly pleasing. In a letter through
> his secretary addressed to the Arab Baha'is he says
> that they should name their sons Husayn or `Ali (i.e.,
> Baha'u'llah's own names) and give them the title (laqab)
> `Abdu'l-Baha. Girls should be given the title Amatu'l-Baha
> and be named Dhikriyyih, Nuriyyih, Sahihiyyih,
> or `Izziyyih (Amr va-Khalq, 3:59-62). These last probably
> should be understood as recommendations rather than
> binding laws.
> 
> Baha'i practices relating
> to personal names. The Bab, Baha'u'llah, and `Abdu'l-Baha,
> as well as some of the Babi leaders, all were accustomed
> to give their followers religious names and titles.
> Similar practices existed among Muslims, especially
> the clergy, but it was carried much further among the
> Babis and the Baha'is. This seems to have served several
> purposes. First, a new name indicated a new spiritual
> identity. Thus, when Baha'u'llah gave the participants
> in the conference at Badasht new names, it symbolized
> their membership in a new and independent religion.
> Second, the titles given to Babi and Baha'i leaders
> indicated their rank. Thus, Mulla Husayn Bushru'i
> was given the titles "Babu'l-Bab" ("gate of the gate")
> and "Qa'im of the People of Khurasan," a messianic
> title. `Abdu'l-Baha was entitled Most Great Branch,
> hinting at his station as his father's successor.
> Third, religious names were used for security, to protect
> the identity of individual believers. Thus, letters
> were commonly addressed with names, letters, and numbers
> that were both religious symbols and codes.
> 
> The names and titles conferred
> by the Bab and Baha'u'llah were most commonly names
> and attributes of God numerically equivalent according
> to the Abjad reckoning to the individual's given name.
> Thus, Muhammads were commonly entitled Nabil, both
> being equivalent to 92 according to the sum of the
> numerical values of the individual letters. Yahya
> became Vahid (28). Second, names were sometimes given
> because of their meaning or for some reason no longer
> clear. For example, the Babi heroine Qurratu'l-`Ayn
> ("solace of the eyes," which name itself was a nickname
> given her by her teacher) was given the name Tahirih
> ("The Pure One") to indicate her unimpeachable status
> within the Faith. Third, a name or title might be
> a variation of the individual's previous name or title.
> Thus, the Babi leader in Zanjan, whose clerical rank
> prior to his conversion had been Hujjatu'l-Islam ("proof
> of Islam") was given the title Hujjat ("proof"), a
> title of the Hidden Imam previously born by the Bab
> Himself. Haji Mirza Muhammad-Taqi Afnan, the builder
> of the Baha'i temple in `Ishqabad, was called
> by `Abdu'l-Baha Vakilu'l-Haqq ("deputy of God") after
> his government title of Vakilu'd-Dawlih ("deputy of
> the state"). Fourth, names and titles were given because
> of the individual's activities. Thus, Mirza Aqa Jan
> Kashani was known as Khadimu'llah ("the
> attendant of God") because he was Baha'u'llah's private
> secretary. Fifth, sometimes religious names were given
> to children at the request of the parents.
> 
> When in 1925 Iranians were
> required to choose Western-style family names, forms
> of these religious names and titles were often used
> as surnames. Thus, the family of a Muhammad who had
> been addressed by Baha'u'llah as Nabil might chose
> to be known as Nabili ("of Nabil") or Nabilzadih ("son
> of Nabil"). In other cases, a striking word from a
> tablet addressed to the individual in a Tablet might
> be adopted as a surname. In other cases an arbitrary
> word of Baha'i religious significance might be chosen
> as a surname.
> 
> Modern Iranian Baha'i given
> names are of three sorts. First, names of Babi and
> Baha'i saints and heroes, virtues and spiritual qualities,
> and attributes of God. Second, and less common, the
> old Islamic names. Third, the common Iranian secular
> names drawn from Persian history, mythology, and poetic
> imagery.
> 
> Outside of Iran, names and
> titles given by the central figures were much less
> common, both because the Baha'i Faith did not spread
> outside the Islamic world until the time of `Abdu'l-Baha
> and because Western-style names are rarely changed.
> `Abdu'l-Baha did sometimes give "Persian"--i.e., Baha'i
> religious--names to Western believers, but though these
> were treasured, they were not often used in public.
> He also frequently named children. Shoghi Effendi
> does not seem to have named children nor, with a few
> exceptions, given personal titles. Modern Baha'is
> do frequently give their children Baha'i names, usually
> those of well-known heroes and heroines such as Tahirih,
> Vahid, Bahiyyih Khanum, and Hands of the Cause,
> but this is by no means universal or obligatory.
> 
> A related practice is the
> "naming ceremony," a meeting for prayers and celebration
> at which an infant is formally named. This was sanctioned
> by `Abdu'l-Baha as a substitute for the Christian baptismal
> ceremony. Shoghi Effendi, however, did not encourage
> this practice. (TAB 149-50; Lights of Guidance, `321;
> Amr va-Khalq, 3:262.
> 
> Persian and Islamic names
> 
> Until 1925 Iranians
> did not use modern-style names composed of a given
> name and a surname and in fact did not have a single
> fixed name at all. Instead, the names of individuals
> were built up from given names, nicknames, titles,
> and descriptions and varied considerably, depending
> on the context in which the individual was mentioned
> and his time of life. A single individual might be
> known by quite different names in different times and
> places. By examining the various parts of an individual's
> name it is sometimes possible to deduce a good deal
> about him. Most of what follows refers specifically
> to men's names. To the extent that women were known
> outside their families, their names were built up in
> similar ways. More will be said about women's names
> below.
> 
> It should be noted that titles
> of honor and respect tended to become devalued with
> time, both because of the Iranian taste for exaggerated
> courtesy and because of corruption within the government
> offices responsible for granting titles of nobility.
> Thus, Khan, originally a title of high officers
> of the state, became by the early twentieth century
> the equivalent of "Mister."
> 
> Each element of the ninteenth
> century Iranian name will be discussed in turn. After
> that there will be brief discussions of women's names,
> traditional Turkish and Arab names as they appear in
> Baha'i history, and modern Middle Eastern names.
> 
> a. The given name (ism)
> is the name given to a child at birth. In Iran
> it was usually the name of a prophet or imam such as
> Muhammad, `Ali, Husayn, or Ibrahim (Abraham), a variant
> form of the name of a prophet or imam such as Ahmad
> (an honorific form of Muhammad), Baqir, Sadiq (both
> titles of particular imams), or Kalb-`Ali ("dog of
> `Ali"), or a name relating to God such as `Abdu'llah,
> Allah-Yar ("friend of God), Nasiri'd-Din ("champion
> of the Faith"), or Fadlu'llah ("grace of God"). Sometimes
> compound forms are used such as Husayn-`Ali, Muhammad-Javad,
> or `Ali-Rida, each being a fuller form of the name
> of an imam. Sometimes only the last element of the
> compound is used, particularly if the second element
> is only used with one particular first element. When
> Muhammad or `Abd is the first element, it is particularly
> likely to be dropped. Examples are Muhammad-Hasan
> becoming Hasan, `Ali-Rida become Rida, and `Abdu'r-Rahim
> becoming Rahim. Occasionally, ancient Persian names
> such as Firuz and Farhad were used. These became very
> common in the twentieth century but were less used
> in the ninteenth. Turkish names such as Qilich
> are occasionally seen.
> 
> Although the given name was
> never changed, it is less useful than it might be for
> identifying individuals. First, there were a great
> many people with common names like Muhammad, `Ali,
> and Husayn. Second, because these names were so common,
> people were likely to be referred to be some nickname
> or title, rather than by their given name.
> 
> b. Titles used before the
> given name tended to show social or religious status.
> The following are the most common:
> 
> Akhund: A Shi`i
> clergyman. Roughly synonymous with mulla. In the
> twentieth century "akhund" acquired the pejorative
> sense of "ignorant priest."
> 
> Aqa: "sir" or "mister." Among
> Baha'is it usually applied to men of lower social status,
> such as servants. When it is used after the given
> name, it indicates affectionate respect. In modern
> Persian, it is the equivalent of "Mister." In Turkish
> Aqa indicates high rank, and it is sometimes used that
> way in Persian, as when `Abdu'l-Baha is referred to
> as Aqa, "the Master."
> 
> Darvish or dervish:
> a wandering mystic. The word usually has a slightly
> unsavory connotation, but when used as a title for
> a Muslim mystic, it indicates respect and that the
> individual was known as an ascetic and mystic.
> 
> Hadrat: "His Majesty" or "His
> Holiness," used in the form "Hadrat-i-so-and-so."
> A title of extreme deference, used only of prophets,
> kings, and people of the highest eminence. It is an
> honorific used in speaking about someone, not part
> of his name as such.
> 
> Haji, Hajj: "Pilgrim." Title
> acquired by a man who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
> Its female equivalent is Hajiyyah. It is most commonly
> born by clergy and merchants. A "Haji Mulla Muhammad"
> would be a cleric, while a "Haji Muhammad" would most
> likely be a pious merchant.
> 
> Imam: (1) One of the twelve
> descendants of the prophet Muhammad who were, according
> to the Shi`ites, his legiimate successors.
> (2) The leader of public prayers in a mosque. (3)
> In modern usage, a Shi`ite cleric of high rank.
> 
> Jinab: "Threshold." Used
> before a name in the form "Jinab-i-so-and-so." It
> is used in speaking about someone important, learned,
> or holy, but is less deferential than "Hadrat."
> 
> Karbila'i: Title acquired
> by one who has visited the Shrine of the Imam Husayn
> in Karbila. It is a less prestigious title than Haji.
> 
> Mashhadi: Title acquired
> by one who has visited the tomb of the Imam Rida in
> Mashhad in northwestern Iran. Because a visit
> to Mashhad was less expensive than a pilgrimage
> to Mecca or Karbila, this title tends to indicate a
> lower social class than Haji and Karbila'i.
> 
> Mir: a contraction of "Amir,"
> "prince," indicating descent from Muhammad. It is
> equivalent to "Siyyid."
> 
> Mirza: contraction of "Amirzadih,"
> "son of a prince." Prefixed to a name, it indicates
> that the person is roughly equivalent socially to a
> minor government official. As such it could indicate
> anyone from a person who simply was literate to a high
> government official who was not a member of one of
> the ruling tribes. However, after a name it means
> "prince." Thus, Mirza `Ali might be a clerk, whereas
> `Ali Mirza would be the son or grandson of the Shah.
> 
> Mulla: A Shi`i clergyman.
> Most mullas were professional clerics, but the title
> was also sometimes used by those who had some theological
> training but who earned a living some other way.
> 
> Pahlavan: a brave and athletic
> man. In the nineteenth century, it seems to be a polite
> title for lutis, the street toughs who played a major
> role in the towns, frequently in alliance with the
> clergy.
> 
> Shaykh: Elder.
> In Baha'i history this title is usually used for Arab
> clerics.
> 
> Siyyid: a descendant of Muhammad.
> Originally, the title meant "lord" or "chief." It
> is the modern Arabic word for "mister."
> 
> Sultan: King or sovereign.
> The usual title of the head of the Ottoman Empire.
> 
> Ustad: master craftsman.
> 
> c. Titles used after the
> given name--e.g., Muhammad Khan, Muhammad
> Big, etc.--usually indicate high social station.
> 
> `Ali-Shah: Title of
> certain mystical leaders in ninteenth century Iran.
> 
> Bagum: Lady, Dame. The female
> equivalent of Big. A title of respect for a woman.
> 
> Big: (pronounced "bay") In
> Iran a title of middle-ranking officials, especially
> military. In Turkey it was a title of nobility.
> 
> Jan: "Heart." It is sometimes
> used as a following title and indicates affection or
> affectionate respect.
> 
> Khan: A secular title
> of nobility. In ninteenth century Iran it was used
> by high government officials who were not members of
> the royal family, especially those from the Turkish
> tribes that formed much of the ruling class in Iran.
> In the early twentieth century, it was used by middle-class
> men.
> 
> Khanum: Title of respect
> or affection for women. In modern Persian, it precedes
> the name and means Miss or Mrs.
> 
> Mirza: When placed after the
> given name, a prince.
> 
> Pasha: Title given
> to high political or military officials in the Ottoman
> Empire.
> 
> Pur: Son of, placed after
> the name. It is a common element of modern surnames.
> 
> Shah: King. Placed
> after the given name, it is the title of the kings
> of Iran. Placed before a name, it indicates a saint
> or his shrine or a leader of mystics. Thus, Nasiri'd-Din
> Shah was the king of Iran, but Shah `Abdu'l-`Azim
> was the tomb of a descendant of an imam. See also
> "`Ali-Shah" above.
> 
> Vazir: Minister. Title of
> the holder of a high government post.
> 
> Zadih: Son of, placed after
> the name. It is a common element in modern surnames.
> 
> d. Names from places, tribes,
> and family. People with similar names were commonly
> distinguished by their place of origin, tribe, or some
> ancestor. Such names go at the end of the full name
> and usually end in -i, a suffix roughly meaning "of."
> Some examples are:
> 
> Shirazi, Isfahani,
> Rashti, Nuri--of Shiraz, Isfahan, Rasht,
> and Nur. Sometimes in Persian the -i is not used,
> as in Salih-i-`Arab (for `Arabi), meaning Salih the
> Arab. It should be noted that these names frequently
> refer to where the individual or his ancestor used
> to live, rather than where he currently is: Shaykh
> `Abdu'r-Rahman was known to the Babis in Baghdad
> as "Kirkuki," because he lived in Kirkuk, but in Kirkuk,
> where everyone was "Kirkuki," he was known as Talibani,
> the name of his family. Occasionally, such names are
> the proper names of families, such as Baha'u'llah's
> family, the Nuris.
> 
> e. Names from professions:
> People were frequently nicknamed according to
> their professions, such as Banna (builder), Mujtahid
> (jurisconsult), Mustawfi (accountant), Katib (copyist),
> Qahvih-Chi (coffee-maker), and Ashtchi
> (soup-maker).
> 
> f. Titles of nobility (laqab,
> alqab.) These took the form of two-word phrases,
> usually in Arabic, such as Mu`tamidu'd-Dawlih (Trust
> of the State, title of a governor), Maliku'sh-Shu`ara
> (King of Poets, title of a prominent poet), Ra'isu't-Tujjar
> (Chief of the Merchants, title of an important businessman),
> Amir-Nizam ("Chief of State," title of the Prime Minister).
> Under the Qajars such titles were granted by the Shah
> and were graded to indicate the bearer's occupation
> and importance. There were similar titles for noblewomen.
> New titles were often given with promotions. Titles
> were sometimes, but not always, inherited. In the
> time of the Bab such titles were restricted to people
> of considerable importance. By the beginning of the
> twentieth century, the system had been thoroughly corrupted,
> thousands of titles having been granted by dishonest
> clerks. The system was abolished by Rida Shah
> as part of his modernization of personal names in 1925
> but these titles sometimes continued in informal use
> or were adapted to form the newly required modern surnames.
> 
> These titles of nobility were
> either used after the proper name and titles or in
> place of it. Thus, the Iranian ambassador to Turkey
> might be known as Haji Mirza Husayn Khan Mushiru'd-Dawlih
> or just by his title of nobility, Mushiru'd-Dawlih.
> 
> Baha'i religious titles sometimes
> were formed on the model of these titles of nobility,
> as in Mahbubu'sh-Shuhada ("Beloved of
> Martyrs").
> 
> g. Women's names. These
> followed the same patterns as men's names. However,
> because women were seldom in contact with many people
> outside their own families, their names were generally
> simpler. Frequently, they were known by such titles
> as Khanum Jan or Bagum Khanum. These
> really meant no more than "Grandma" or "the Madam,"
> but in a society where women were not likely to be
> known outside their family, they were sufficient.
> In cases where women were known, they acquired names,
> titles, and nicknames in the same way men did.
> 
> h. Arab names. Occasionally
> classical Arabic names are found in Baha'i literature.
> These take the following form:
> 
> [given name] ibn (son of)
> [father's name] ibn [grandfather's name] etc. These
> may be preceded by an honorific title (laqab) such
> as Qutbu'd-Din (Axis of the Faith) or Nasiru'd-Din
> (Champion of the Faith). After this comes a name of
> the form "Abu Muhammad," meaning "Father of Muhammad,"
> where Muhammad is, usually, the name of the man's eldest
> son. Then comes the given name and chain of ancestors.
> Finally there are names ending in -i identifying the
> man's home city, tribe, or family.
> 
> Thus the thirteenth century
> scientist known as Qutb al-Din Abu'th-Thana'
> Mahmud ibn Mas`ud ibn al-Muslih al-Shirazi.
> His given name was Mahmud, his father's name was Mas`ud,
> and his grandfather's al-Muslih. Qutb al-Din was a
> respectful title meaning "Pole of the Faith." Abu'th-Thana'
> means "father of praise," a polite euphemism substituting
> for the patronymic he would have borne had he fathered
> a son. "Shirazi" indicates that he came from
> Shiraz; before he left Shiraz he had been known
> as "Kazaruni," from Kazarun, the family's ancestral
> home. In practice, he is most commonly known as Qutb
> al-Din Shirazi, a form of his name that his mother
> would not have recognized.
> 
> The full name is not usually
> used, and people are generally known by some distinctive
> portion of the name. Thus there are people famous
> in Islamic history known as Mu`awiyih (the given name),
> Khalil ibn Ahmad (given and father's name),
> Abu-Bakr (name of eldest son), Ibn-`Arabi (name of
> an ancestor), Nizamu'l-Mulk (honorific title), and
> al-Farabi (name of home city).
> 
> i. Turkish names. Such
> Turkish names as are found in Baha'i history are usually
> those of government officials and are rather similar
> to Iranian names, although the titles have different
> meanings. The reader should be aware, however, that
> because the modern Republic of Turkey has adopted the
> Roman alphabet, Ottoman Turkish names may be found
> spelled either according to the transliteration scheme
> for the Arabic alphabet or according to modern Turkish
> spelling. Thus, Muammad may also be spelled Mehmet,
> reflecting Turkish pronunciation. Modern Turks use
> western-style given and surnames.
> 
> j. Examples of Persian
> names. The following are few examples to aid the
> reader in interpreting ninteenth century Persian names.
> 
> Siyyid `Ali-Muhammad-i-Shirazi:
> the Bab. "Siyyid" indicates he was a descendant of
> the prophet Muhammad. "`Ali-Muhammad" was his given
> name and combines the names of the Prophet and his
> adopted son, the first imam. "Shirazi" indicates
> that he came from the town of Shiraz.
> 
> Mulla Husayn-i-Bushru'i,
> also known as Babu'l-Bab: "Mulla" indicates that he
> had had a religious education. "Husayn" was his given
> name, for the third imam, and is apparently a shortened
> form of his full name, which was Muhammad-Husayn.
> "Bushru'i" is from Bushruyih, the village
> he came from. "Babu'l-Bab" is a title meaning "Gate
> of the Gate," given him by the Bab in recognition of
> his having been the first believer.
> 
> Mulla Abu'l-Hasan-i-Ardikani,
> also known as Haji Amin and Amin-i-Ilahi: "Mulla"
> indicated that he had a religious education. "Abu'l-Hasan"
> is his given name; it means "Father of Hasan" and is
> a form of the name of an imam. He came from Ardikan.
> "Haji" means "pilgrim;" while it usually refers to
> someone who has been to Mecca, in this case it probably
> refers to his having been the first outside Baha'i
> to visit Baha'u'llah in `Akka. "Amin-i-Ilahi" means
> "trustee of God"; he was the trustee of the huququ'llah,
> the religious tax payable to Baha'u'llah.
> 
> Manuchihr Khan
> Mu`tamidu'd-Dawlih, the governor of Isfahan who befriended
> the Bab. "Manuchihr" was his given name, the
> name of a legendary hero of pre-Islamic Iran. "Khan"
> is the title of a high official, usually not of Persian
> origin. "Mu`tamidu'd-Dawlih" means "trust of the state"
> and was a title of nobility granted by the Shah.
> 
> Mulla Muhammad-i-Zarandi,
> also known as Nabil-i-A`zam or Nabil-i-Zarandi. His
> given name was Muhammad and he had a very modest religious
> education. He came from the village of Zarand. Baha'u'llah
> gave him the title of Nabil-i-A`zam, "the Most Great
> Nabil," "Nabil" being numerically equivalent to "Muhammad."
> He was called "Nabil-i-A`zam" or "Zarandi" to distinguish
> him from several other Muhammads also known as "Nabil."
> 
> Asiyih Khanum, also
> known as Navvabih Khanum, Navvab, Buyuk Khanum,
> and Varaqiy-i-`Ulya: the first wife of Baha'u'llah.
> Her given name was Asiyih. "Khanum," "lady,"
> is added for politeness, as it would be for any respectable
> lady. "Navvab," "Navvabih," and "Buyuk" all mean,
> roughly, "Madam" or "Lady." Within the household there
> would be no need for surnames or the like to tell who
> was meant. "Varaqiy-i-`Ulya" means "Most exalted leaf."
> Since the Manifestation of God is symbolized by a
> tree, a leaf is a female member of the holy family.
> Her daughter Bahiyyih Khanum bore this title
> after her death.
> 
> Arabic
> 
> The most important language
> of Baha'i scripture is Arabic. The following is intended
> as an introduction to the language for those who encounter
> Arabic words in Baha'i texts but who have no interest
> in learning the language.
> 
> History. Arabic (Arab.:
> al-`Arabiyyih, lughatu'l-`Arab, lisanu'l-`Arab; Pers.:
> Tazi) is the old language of Central Arabia. It is
> now spoken in the Arab countries and used as a liturgical
> language throughout the Islamic world. It was often
> used by the Bab, Baha'u'llah, and `Abdu'l-Baha, particularly
> for authoritative texts, prayers, and communications
> with Arab Baha'is./
> 
> Arabic is a member of the
> Semitic family. Thus it is closely related to many
> languages of the ancient Near East, notably Hebrew,
> and more distantly to ancient Egyptian and many languages
> of North and West Africa. It is attested in names
> and fragments as early as the ninth century B.C. and
> preseres, perhaps because of its long isolation, an
> elaborate Semitic grammar already largely lost in biblical
> Hebrew. The Classical Arabic now used evolved in the
> sixth century in the poetry of Central Arabia. It
> owes its importance to its use, with some elements
> of the Hijazi dialect, in the Qur'an.
> 
> After the Islamic conquests
> of the seventh century, Arabic gradually became the
> spoken language of the Islamic areas where other Semitic
> or Hamitic languages had formerly been spoken. Even
> in areas such as Iran and Turkey where other vernaculars
> remained in use, Arabic was the language of learning
> until the early twentieth century. In the Islamic
> world almost all works on religion or science were
> written in Arabic, and its vocabulary permeated the
> speech and writing of other Islamic languages. In
> Persian, for example, almost any Arabic word could
> be used; and a Persian text on religion, philosophy,
> or science would often be almost indistinguishable
> from Arabic.
> 
> The increasing importance
> of Arabic led to a vast development in its vocabulary;
> but largely because of the prestige of the Qur'an the
> structure of the written language has not changed greatly
> since the time of Muhammad. An educated Arab can still
> read even pre-Islamic poetry without much difficulty.
> The spoken dialects have, however, changed considerably
> in the various Arab countries; but they have rarely
> developed into independent written languages. Classical
> Arabic is still normally spoken in formal situations
> such as university lectures, political speeches, and
> broadcasting.
> 
> Structure. Like other
> Semitic languages Arabic is based on meaningful roots
> of three consonants. These roots can be combined with
> vowels and other consonants in several hundred forms,
> each of which has a particular meaning. The root K.T.B.,
> for example, has to do with writing; and when used
> with the simple active participle form c1ac2ic3,
> becomes katib, meaning "writer" or "scribe." C1ic2ac3
> is an infinitive form; hence kitab means "writing"
> or "book." Kataba means "he wrote," mukatabah "correspondence,"
> maktub "letter," and so on. Word forms commonly seen
> in English texts are usually nouns or adjectives (the
> two are not strictly distinguished in Arabic) and include:
> 
> c1ac2ic3:
> active participle: Nasir ("victorious") ??
> 
> mac1c2uc3:
> passive participle: Mahbub ("beloved"); Majnun ("possessed
> by jinn" or "mad"); Maqsud ("Desired One").
> 
> c1ac2c3:
> noun: `Abd ("servant" or "slave").
> 
> There are only two verb tenses
> in Arabic, perfect and imperfect, each of which may
> refer to past, present, or future. Thus time is not
> so precisely defined as in English (cf. KI:115).
> 
> Arabic has a set of consonants
> different from English, some of which are nearly impossible
> for an English speaker to pronounce. In Baha'i contexts
> Arabic words are usually pronounced with the Persian
> accent.
> 
> Arabic in the Baha'i writings.
> Many of the Bab's works are written in Arabic--works
> written in Qur'anic style, works on theology and law,
> commentaries on the Qur'an, and the like. The Bab's
> Arabic works pose many difficulties, not only because
> of their abstrusity, but also because of their vocabulary
> and complex sentence structure. The Bab's enemies
> criticized his grammar and accused him of ignorance
> of the most elementary rules of the language; he was
> supposedly asked to conjugate qala ("to say"),
> an exercise for a schoolchild, and to have been unable
> to do so. In fact, the difficulty was that the Bab
> was unwilling to accept the limitations of conventional
> Arabic grammar and style and frequently used nonstandard
> derived forms of words. While theoretically there
> are a large number of words derivable from any Arabic
> root, in fact only a small number are used. The Bab
> used many more unknown in Arabic (for example, most
> of the 360 words derived from baha' that he
> included in a famous tablet.) The effect is a style
> intense, unorthodox, challenging, and sometimes obscure.
> The Bab Himself claimed that his verses and their
> beauty were testimony to the truth of his revelation.
> (SB:45, 109; BHD:141; BYP 2:1, 7:2.)
> 
> Although most of Baha'u'llah's
> writings are in Persian, many of the most important
> are in Arabic, and Arabic passages are often found
> in tablets to educated Persians--the Arabic tending
> to be more formal, the Persian more intimate. Baha'u'llah
> often used Arabic when he was addressing the world
> or writing something of universal relevance: the Kitab-i-Aqdas
> is in Arabic, as are the tablets to the Kings, the
> obligatory prayers, the marriage vows, and the prayers
> of fasting and burial.
> 
> Baha'u'llah wrote a clean
> and elegant Arabic, relatively free of both the unorthodox
> elements of the Bab's style and the excessive decorativeness
> of his contemporaries' literary Arabic. (Much the
> same was true of his Persian style.) He generally
> wrote in rhymed prose (saj`) in a style reminiscent
> of the Qur'an, but somewhat simpler and without archaic
> elements. His style is austere, concise, and elevated--well
> translated by the King James English commonly used
> in Baha'i translations of his writings. Baha'u'llah's
> grammar and usage is sometimes influenced by Persian,
> as is usual in Arabic written by Iranians. For this
> reason Baha'u'llah was sometimes criticized for not
> writing pure Arabic. Late in his life he initiated
> a project to collect and edit his own writings; one
> of the things that was done was to eliminate some of
> the "Babi-ism" characteristic of his early Arabic writings.
> 
> Generally, Baha'u'llah expresses
> Himself in terms familiar to his reader, often using
> technical terms from the Islamic religious sciences,
> the Qur'an, and Islamic mystical philosophy.
> 
> Though `Abdu'l-Baha was completely
> fluent in Arabic (He spent most of his life in Arab
> countries) and wrote many tablets in Arabic, the bulk
> of his works are in Persian. His Arabic style was
> of a high order, but somewhat more complex and conventional
> than his Father's.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi also knew Arabic
> well and often used Arabic elements in his Persian
> writings, but he generally did not write in Arabic.
> 
> Other Arabic Baha'i Literature.
> A good deal of Baha'i literature has been published
> in the Arab countries, especially in Egypt: Arabic
> Baha'i sacred writings, translations of English and
> Persian works, and native Baha'i literature. Egypt
> was a principal center of Baha'i publishing in the
> early twentieth century. More recently, the Lebanese
> Baha'i community has published a number of books in
> Arabic. The Universal House of Justice uses English
> in its communications with the Arab communities.
> 
> Sources: For a general
> account of the Arabic language, see EI2, s.v.
> "al-`Arabiya." On Arabic in Iran see EIr, s.v.
> "Arabic." The classic popular introduction to Arabic
> literature is R. A. Nicolson, A Literary History
> of the Arabs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
> 1907).
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views3605 views since posted 2025-07-24; last edit 2025-10-30 07:44 UTC;
> 
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> Citation: ris/6987
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> — *Sacred Time: Babi and Baha'i History and Biography (Used by permission of the curator)*