# Baha'i and Globalisation

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Margit Warburg, Baha'i and Globalisation, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2005, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> BAHA'I AND
> GLOBALISATION
> 
> Edited by Margit Warburg,
> Annika Hvithamar and Morten Warmind
> RENNER Studies on New Religions
> 
> General Editor
> Armin W. Geertz, Department of the Study of Religion, University
> of Aarhus
> 
> Editorial Board
> Dorthe Refslund Christensen, Institute of Philosophy and the Study
> of Religions, University of Southern Denmark
> Annika Hvithamar, Department of the History of Religions, University
> of Copenhagen
> Hans Raun Iversen, Department of Systematic Theology, University
> of Copenhagen
> Viggo Mortensen, Department of Systematic Theology, Centre for
> Multi-Religious Studies, University of Aarhus
> Mikael Rothstein, Department of the History of Religions, University
> of Copenhagen
> Margit Warburg, Department of the History of Religions, University
> of Copenhagen
> 
> RENNER Studies on New Religions is an initiative supported by the
> Danish Research Council for the Humanities. The series is established
> to publish books on new religions and alternative spiritual movements
> from a wide range of perspectives. It includes works of original theory,
> empirical research, and edited collections that address current topics,
> but will generally focus on the situation in Europe.
> 
> The books appeal to an international readership of scholars, students,
> and professionals in the study of religion, theology, the arts, and the
> social sciences. It is hoped that this series will provide a proper context
> for scientific exchange between these often competing disciplines.
> BAHA’I AND GLOBALISATION
> 
> Edited by Margit Warburg,
> Annika Hvithamar & Morten Warmind
> 
> AARHUS UNIVER SITY PRESS
> Copyright: Aarhus University Press, 2005
> 
> ISBN 87 7934 894 7
> 
> AARHUS UNIVERSITY PRESS
> Langelandsgade 177
> 8200 Aarhus N
> Denmark
> Fax (+ 45) 8942 5380
> 
> White Cross Mills
> Hightown
> Lancaster
> LA1 4XS
> Fax (+ 44) 1524 63232
> 
> Box 511
> Oakville, Conn. 06779
> USA
> Fax (+ 1) 860 945 9468
> 
> www.unipress.dk
> 
> Renner Studies on New Religions:
> Vol. 1: Robert Towler (ed.), New Religions and the New Europe, 1995
> Vol. 2: Michael Rothstein, Belief Transformations, 1996
> Vol. 3: Helle Meldgaard and Johannes Aagaard (eds.), New Religious
> Movements in Europe, 1997
> Vol. 4: Eileen Barker and Margit Warburg (eds.), New Religions and
> New Religiosity, 1998
> Vol. 5: Mikael Rothstein (ed.) New Age Religion and Globalization, 2001
> Vol. 6: Mikael Rothstein and Reender Kranenborg (eds.), New Religions in
> a Postmodern World, 2003
> Vol. 7: Margit Warburg, Annika Hvithamar, and Morten Warmind
> (eds.), Baha’i and Globalisation, 2005
> Contents
> 
> Introduction                                                  7
> Margit Warburg
> 
> Part I: Diachronic Perspectives
> 
> 1.   The Messianic Roots of Babi-Baha’i Globalism            17
> Stephen Lambden
> 
> 2.   Globalization and the Hidden Words                      35
> Todd Lawson
> 
> 3.   Globalization and Religion in the Thought of ‘Abdu’l-   55
> Baha
> Juan R. I. Cole
> 
> 4.   The Globalization of the Baha’i Community: 1892-1921    77
> Moojan Momen
> 
> 5.   The Baha’i Faith and Globalization 1900-1912            95
> Robert Stockman
> 
> 6.   Iranian Nationalism and Baha’i Globalism in Iranian     107
> Polemic Literature
> Fereydun Vahman
> 
> 7.   Global Claims, Global Aims: An Analysis of Shoghi       119
> Effendi’s The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh
> Zaid Lundberg
> 6                                                          Contents
> 
> 8.    Baha’i and Ahmadiyya: Globalisation and Images of        141
> Modernity
> Morten Warmind
> 
> 9.    The Dual Global Field: A Model for Transnational         153
> Religions and Globalisation
> Margit Warburg
> 
> Part II: Some Synchronic Themes
> 
> 10.   Globalization and Decentralization: The Concept of       175
> Subsidiarity in the Baha’i Faith
> Wendi Momen
> 
> 11.   The Globalization of Information: Baha’i Constructions   195
> of the Internet
> David Piff
> 
> 12.   The Canadian Baha’is 1938 –2000: Constructions of        221
> Oneness in Personal And Collective Identity
> Lynn Echevarria
> 
> 13.   Etching the Idea of ‘Unity in Diversity’ in the Baha’i 245
> Community: Popular Opinion and Organizing Principle
> Will van den Hoonaard
> 
> 14.   Baha’i Meets Globalisation: A New Synergy?               269
> Sen McGlinn
> 
> 15.   Baha’ism: Some Uncertainties about its Role as a         287
> Globalizing Religion
> Denis MacEoin
> 
> Contributors                                             307
> Introduction
> 
> The Danish RENNER project is a REsearch Network on the study of
> NEw Religions. This research network, which is supported by the
> Danish Research Council for the Humanities, has been active since
> 1992. In 1998, a new grant from the Research Council allowed us to
> conduct a specific study on new religions and globalisation, and we
> initiated the project with several separate studies of new age religion
> and globalisation. The present book, Baha’i and Globalisation, which is
> the seventh volume of the book series Renner Studies on New Religion,
> is the second of the case studies of the project. Another book, which
> emphasises the theoretical and methodological aspects of the study
> of new religions and globalisation, will be volume eight in the series,
> rounding off this special RENNER topic.
> Globalisation is the conventional term used to describe the present,
> rapid integration of the world economy facilitated by the innovations
> and growth in international electronic communications particularly
> during the last two decades. Globalisation carries with it an increasing
> political and cultural awareness that all of humanity is globally inter-
> dependent. However, the awareness of this global interdependency
> has been aired by philosophers and politicians much before the term
> globalisation was introduced. Thus, the founder of the Baha’i religion,
> the Iranian prophet, Husayn-Ali Nuri (1817-1892) called Baha’u’llah,
> claimed in the late 19th century that the central doctrine of the Baha’i
> religion is the realisation that the human race is one and that the world
> should be unified: ‘The utterance of God is a lamp, whose light is these
> words: Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch’. This
> is a goal that ‘excelleth every other goal’.1
> Present-day globalisation is a continuation of a historical process
> over several hundred years. This process gained momentum in a
> crucial period from around 1870 and the subsequent fifty years. It is
> notable that this period coincides with the period when the central
> doctrines of the Baha’i religion were formulated by Baha’u’llah and his
> son and successor, Abdu’l-Baha (1844-1921). The sociologist of religion,
> 
> 1   Both quotations are from Baha’u’llah (1988: 14).
> 8                                                           Introduction
> 
> James Beckford has noted that in some senses the faith of Baha’u’llah
> ‘foreshadowed globalization, with its emphasis on the interdepend-
> ence of all peoples and the need for international institutions of peace,
> justice and good governance’ (Beckford 2000: 175).
> The synchrony between the take-off of globalisation and the emer-
> gence of Baha’i on the world scene should not be dismissed as insig-
> nificant. Baha’u’llah’s message that the world should be unified would
> probably not have fallen on fertile soil much before the 1870s, because
> the impact of globalisation was not yet begun to be felt among potential
> proselytes. In the late nineteenth century and in the beginning of the
> twentieth century, the climate for this idea was more receptive.
> From the Baha’i point of view, the unification of the world is a
> consequence of the culmination of the spiritual development of hu-
> manity. This spiritual development has been achieved through the
> successive revelations of God’s will in the prophecies of the different
> religions since the time of Abraham, with the Baha’i religion as the
> latest of the divine revelations. The Baha’is also perceive themselves
> as the vanguard of this historical process, which is destined to result
> in a new world civilisation, called the World Order of Baha’u’llah.
> This golden age for humanity, the ‘Most Great Peace’ is believed to be
> preceded by the ‘Lesser Peace’ in which the nations of the world reach
> an agreement to abolish war and establish the political instruments
> to secure world peace and prosperity, consonant with the Baha’i call
> for the unification of the world.
> Thus, to study the Baha’is and their religion in the light of global-
> isation is to grasp an essential aspect of the Baha’i teachings, and it
> is with good reason that Baha’i and globalisation stands as a central
> case in the RENNER study of new religions and globalisation. Few
> other religions express so clearly in their doctrines the view that the
> world should be unified, politically and religiously. The Baha’is are
> also globalised in the sense that they live all over the world, and they
> deliberately aim at being present in as many locations as possible. In
> 2003, there were Baha’i communities in 190 countries and 46 territories
> of the world, and excerpts of Baha’u’llah’s writings had been translated
> into 802 languages (The Bahá’í World 2003: 311).
> Introduction                                                           9
> 
> The Baha’i Religion
> The different chapters of this book assumes a basic knowledge of the
> Baha’i religion and its historical development. A brief review will
> therefore be given in the following.
> The Baha’i religion has its origins in religious currents within Shi’i
> Islam in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1844, a millen-
> arian movement, called Babism, rose from these currents. The Babis
> provoked the Islamic establishment by insisting that their leader, Ali
> Muhammad Shirazi (1819-1850), called the Bab, was a new prophet
> and a source of divine revelations. This implied in principle that
> the age of Islam was over. The rapid growth of the Babi movement
> occurred in a general climate of public unrest, and from 1848 the
> Babis were engaged in a series of bloody fights with the Iranian
> government. By 1852, however, the movement seemed to have been
> crushed, and the surviving Babi leaders including Baha’u’llah were
> exiled to the neighbouring Ottoman Empire. After a break in 1866-67
> with a minority of the Babis who acknowledged Baha’u’llah’s half-
> brother Subh-i-Azal (ca. 1830-1912) as their leader, Baha’u’llah
> openly declared that he was a new source of divine revelation. The
> great majority of Babis soon recognised the theophanic claims of
> Baha’u’llah, and he gradually transformed Babism into the present
> Baha’i religion.
> Although Baha’u’llah abolished many Babi doctrines and practices,
> in particular the militancy and the harsh treatment of unbelievers,
> there is also a strong element of continuity between Babism and Baha’i.
> The Bab occupies a central and visible position in the Baha’i religion,
> and his remains are buried in a splendid golden-domed shrine on the
> slope of Mount Carmel in Haifa, adjacent to the Baha’i administrative
> headquarter, the Baha’i World Centre. The year 1844, when the Bab
> made his declaration, is the year one in the Baha’i calendar, which was
> devised by the Bab.
> Through systematic mission initiated by Baha’u’llah’s son and suc-
> cessor, Abdu’l-Baha (1844-1921), Baha’i gradually expanded outside
> its Muslim environment. Baha’i missionaries came to the USA and
> Canada in the 1890s and to West Europe around 1900. Effective growth
> in Europe did not occur, however, until after World War II, when
> Abdu’l-Baha’s grandson and successor, Shoghi Effendi (1897-1957)
> organised a Baha’i mission in Europe assisted by many American
> 10                                                           Introduction
> 
> Baha’is who came to Europe as Baha’i missionaries or ‘pioneers’ in
> the Baha’i terminology.
> 
> Chronology of Babi and Baha’i Leadership
> 
> The Bab (1819-1850)
> Declaration in Shiraz 1844
> 
> Babi movement crushed 1852
> Exile in Baghdad 1853-1863
> Baha’u’llah (1817-1892)
> Exile in Edirne 1863-1868
> Schism ca. 1866
> 
> Exile in Akko and Bahji 1868-1908
> Baha’i in the USA from 1894
> Abdu’l-Baha (1844-1921)
> Baha’i in Europe from 1899
> 
> Shoghi Effendi (1897-1957)
> Systematic mission begins
> after World War II
> Interim leadership (1957-1963)
> 
> Worldwide expansion
> Universal House of Justice (1963-)     from fewer than half a million
> to five million at present
> 
> The above figure gives a brief chronology of Babism and Baha’i, show-
> ing the names of the leaders and some major historical internal events
> in the Baha’i religion. Shoghi Effendi was the last individual to lead
> Baha’i. Abdu’l-Baha had appointed him as leader of the Baha’is with
> the title of ‘Guardian of the Cause of God’, and he was meant to be
> the first in a line of ‘Guardians’. However, when Shoghi Effendi died
> in 1957 without an appointed successor, an interim collective leader-
> ship established in 1963 the present supreme ruling body of the Baha’i
> religion, the Universal House of Justice.
> Introduction                                                          11
> 
> The writings of the Bab, of Baha’u’llah, and of Abdu’l-Baha make
> up the canon of Baha’i sacred texts. The writings of Shoghi Effendi
> are not considered sacred but they are still binding in doctrinal and
> legislative matters. The Baha’i leaders were prolific writers and left
> both books and a massive corpus of letters of doctrinal significance,
> called tablets. Some of the central Babi and Baha’i texts are introduced
> and analysed in the different chapters with a view of elucidating the
> globalisation aspect of the religion.
> 
> Diachronic Perspectives
> We have sought to study the relation between Baha’i and globalisation
> from its historical beginning in early Babism until today. To do so,
> RENNER and the University of Copenhagen invited an international
> group of scholars to participate in a three-day conference in August
> 2001. The scholars who represented different fields were asked to
> apply their specialisations in a study of Baha’i and globalisation. All
> contributions are original and are published here for the first time.
> The chapters of the first part of Baha’i and Globalisation roughly fol-
> low a chronological scheme and together they make up a diachronic
> sweep of the rise of the global orientation of the Babi and Baha’i re-
> ligions. The opening chapter by Stephen Lambden aims at showing
> that the Babi-Baha’is were not unprepared for Baha’u’llah globalist
> thoughts. In his paper, Lambden emphasises the continuity between
> the globalism in the Bab’s early major work, the Qayyum al-asma’, and
> Baha’u’llah’s globalism, but also the breaks, notably the abandoning of
> jihad as a means of promoting a globalisation process. Todd Lawson’s
> chapter is a philological analysis of Baha’u’llah’s important early work,
> the Hidden Words from the 1850s, and with this example Lawson elu-
> cidates the further development of the global orientation of the Babi-
> Baha’i religion in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Baghdad. Juan R. I.
> Cole shows in his chapter on Abdu’l-Baha that the globalist thinking
> in Baha’i was now far-reaching and truly international in character.
> Abdu’l-Baha embraced many of the ideas of liberal modernity, and
> he clearly perceived that the world had become a single place even in
> the early twentieth century.
> Abdu’l-Baha was a determined leader, and Moojan Momen’s chapter
> gives much substance to the tight connection between Abdu’l-Baha’s
> thinking and his practical directives in the exceptional global expan-
> 12                                                           Introduction
> 
> sion of the Baha’i religion in the first two decades of the twentieth
> century. In connection with this expansion Robert Stockman argues
> how Abdu’l-Baha’s thinking inspired much of the practice of the Baha’i
> proselytising, and he brings to attention the practical activism of the
> early American Baha’is and the mutual bonds of assistance between
> the Baha’i communities of North America and Iran. It was, however,
> precisely the international orientation of the Iranian Baha’is which
> gave rise to allegations of unpatriotism from nationalist circles in Iran.
> This is shown by Fereydun Vahman who analyses a broad selection of
> Iranian anti-Baha’i polemic literature before the Iranian revolution of
> 1979. The global ambitions of the Baha’is are furthermore illustrated in
> Zaid Lundberg’s chapter on Shoghi Effendi’s World Order of Baha’u’llah.
> Lundberg carefully describes Shoghi Effendi’s understanding of the
> Baha’i religion as part of a global evolution aiming at a world com-
> monwealth which were to be identical with a Baha’i commonwealth.
> Morten Warmind puts the Baha’i emphasis on globalisation and mod-
> ernity into perspective by comparing and contrasting it with another
> break-off movement from Islam in the 19th century, Ahmadiyya. Margit
> Warburg concludes the chronological section with a chapter that inte-
> grates a view of the historical development of the Baha’i religion into
> a general understanding of globalisation, based on a model originally
> proposed by the sociologist Roland Robertson. This model is further
> developed in the chapter and is used in an analysis of the changing
> attitudes of the Baha’i leadership in relation to international politics.
> 
> Some Synchcronic Themes
> The second part of the book gives a thematic, synchronic coverage of
> contemporary Baha’i and globalisation. Wendi Momen opens with a
> chapter on the globalisation thinking in Baha’i from a politologic ex-
> egesis of the Baha’i writings, in particular the writings of Abdu’l-Baha
> and Shoghi Effendi. With the Internet, the individual Baha’is’ reflec-
> tions on their religion can now be expressed in a truly global forum.
> David Piff treats the Baha’i discourse on the Internet and shows its
> potentials for creating a new transnational community feeling among
> the participants and for being a seedbed for diverging and sometimes
> controversial discourses on Baha’i doctrines.
> The ideas conveyed in the sacred texts are reflected and reinter-
> preted in the minds of the followers, and this is treated in several
> Introduction                                                         13
> 
> of the following chapters. Two chapters are based on interviews of
> Baha’is with regard to their understanding and conceptualisation of
> the global ideas of Baha’i. Lynn Echevarria has conducted interviews
> among 21 of the oldest living Canadian Baha’is, showing how ideas
> of the ‘oneness of mankind’ and of ‘world consciousness’ were salient
> in the early Baha’i mission. Will van den Hoonaard has interviewed
> 18 Baha’is world-wide and has also made extensive use of Baha’i
> secondary and core literature to elucidate the discourse of the idea
> of ‘unity in diversity’ in different Baha’i communities. Sen McGlinn
> continues the thread of interpretation and re-interpretation of texts
> and he brings to the surface a number of divergent Baha’i stances on
> issues following in the wake of modernisation and globalisation, such
> as the relation between state and church or the equality of the sexes.
> Finally, Denis MacEoin points to the triumphalist aspect of the Baha’is’
> self-understanding as representing the religion to unite all religions
> in the culmination of globalisation. However, on the path ahead lie
> issues of secularism, and MacEoin discusses the challenges which
> secular values present to a religion that – rooted in Islamic thinking
> – aims to fuse the spheres of religion and society.
> 
> Issues of Terminology
> Having completed the fifteen chapters of Baha’i and Globalisation, the
> observant reader may have noted certain inconsistencies with respect
> to spelling (British or American usage, as regards the central term
> globalisation/globalization!) and the use of diacriticals. There are
> (good?) reasons why inconstancies are hard to eradicate. Many Baha’i
> names and terms are of Persian or Arabic origin, and Baha’is usually
> transcribe these words with full diacritical marks in all official texts
> of the religion. However, their transcription does not always follow
> modern academic transcription systems; apart from some spelling
> particularities the most conspicuous difference is that the Baha’is have
> retained an earlier practice of using the acute accent instead of the
> horizontal stroke over the long vowels, a, i and u.
> Fortunately, for the convenience of most of the readers who have
> no particular interest in the details of transcription, also many schol-
> ars who are themselves Baha’is have now chosen to reduce the use of
> diacriticals to a minimum. This trend set by leading specialists in the
> Baha’i religion is a refreshing liberation from the spelling orthodoxy
> 14                                                           Introduction
> 
> of earlier Baha’i research, and we have not wished to interfere with
> this in the edition of the work. Nor have we wished to standardise the
> denotation of the Baha’i religion itself, whether it is called the Baha’i
> Faith (the official Baha’i term), Bahaism, or just Baha’i.
> Among the new religions of the modern age, Baha’i has indeed
> been one of the most successful. Today, the Baha’is claim that there
> are more than five million registered Baha’is world-wide and the re-
> ligion is represented in almost all countries in the world. Neverthe-
> less, the Baha’i religion has attracted less interest among students of
> new religions than it deserves, and the number of scholars who have
> Baha’i as their main research topic is limited. Most of them are, in fact,
> represented in this book, which is the first anthology in Baha’i studies
> that deals with globalisation. On behalf of RENNER and the authors
> I hope that it will catch the interest of students of new religions and
> globalisation as well as promoting the academic study of the Baha’i
> religion and its followers.
> 
> Margit Warburg
> Copenhagen, August 2005
> 
> References
> The Baha’i World 2001-2002 (2003). Haifa: Baha’i World Centre, 2003.
> Baha’u’llah (1988), Epistle to the Son of the Wolf. Wilmette: Baha’i Pub-
> lishing Trust.
> Beckford, James A. (2000), ‘Religious Movements and Globalization’.
> In Robin Cohen and Shirin M. Rai (eds.), Global Social Movements,
> 165-219. London: The Athlone Press.
>
> — *Baha'i and Globalisation (Used by permission of the curator)*