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.
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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)