# Baha'i, I by Margit Warburg: Review

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-21 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Daniela Pinna, Baha'i, I by Margit Warburg: Review, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Bahá'í, I by Margit Warburg:
> 
> Review
> 
> Daniela Pinna
> 
> 2001-11
> 
> i baha'i
> 
> Author: Margit Warburg
> 
> Publisher: Elledici, Turin, Italy, 2001, in the series Religioni e Movimenti (seconda serie)
> 
> Edited by: Massimo Introvigne
> 
> Review by: Daniela Pinna
> 
> A religion suspended between globalization and fundamentalism, militant
> advocacy of human rights and censorship of its intellectuals. That's Danish
> sociologist Margit Warburg's portrayal of the Bahá'í Faith, as it emerges
> from her latest work i baha'i, recently published in Italy.
> 
> This is a tiny little book that may have a big impact on the image of the
> Bahá'í Faith in Italy, and on the way Italian Bahá'ís perceive themselves.
> 
> Dr. Warburg's is the first monographic work on the religion by a non-Bahá'í
> author to come out in Italy. It is number 25 in a series of slim,
> easy-to-read, low-priced volumes on minority religious movements authored by
> scholars and published by Elledici, a well-known Catholic publishing house
> with a widespread network of bookshops. The series is edited by Massimo
> Introvigne, a regular contributor to L'Avvenire, the Italian Bishop's
> daily newspaper, and founder of Turin-based Center for Studies on New
> Religions (CESNUR), Italy's most influential source of information on NRMs.
> 
> All those elements combined imply that Dr. Warburg's book will reach a wide
> public, ranging from ordinary readers to opinion makers and scholars. The
> book may certainly shape the way the Bahá'í Faith is seen in Italy, a country
> where Catholicism is still the de facto, if not the de jure, state religion
> and where very little is known about minority religions in general, and the
> Bahá'í Faith in particular.
> 
> Not only that. This 120-page volume may also reshape the way Italian Bahá'ís
> look at themselves and their own religious beliefs. For most of them, it will
> be the first time they have been confronted with a thorough survey of their
> Faith by an external author. An entire section of the book is devoted to the
> issue of conflicts between scholars and Bahá'í authorities on freedom of
> research, a topic about which little is known among Italy's rank-and-file
> believers.
> 
> Religions in Italy
> 
> Now to fully understand the possible impact of Margit Warburg's book on an
> Italian public, some basic background information may be useful.
> 
> According to the latest estimates — provided by CESNUR's Enciclopedia
> delle Religioni in Italia (Turin: Elledici, 2001) — 1.1 million
> Italians (1.9 per cent) belong to minority (i.e., non-Catholic) religions.
> The figure rises to approximately 2 million (3.5 per cent), if immigrants
> are included. Minority rights are protected under the 1948 Republican
> Constitution, but non-Catholics are in fact second-class citizens in Italy.
> That is because of the enduring influence that the Catholic Church has
> exerted on laws and lawmakers since the Italian state was
> conceived.
> 
> British historian Denis Mack Smith states that the destruction of the Pope's
> temporal power was one of the most significant achievements of the
> Risorgimento, the movement for the unification of Italy (Modern Italy, a
> Political History, London: Yale University Press, 1997). When in 1870 Italian
> troops conquered the Holy City, Pope Pius IX locked himself inside the
> Vatican, and Rome was made the Capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Shortly
> afterwards, the Vatican forbade Catholics to vote in national elections. The
> prohibition was largely ignored, despite the threat of excommunication.
> Relations between the Vatican and the Kingdom of Italy remained tense, with
> the Pope claiming temporal sovereignty over the city of Rome. The Vatican in
> typical fashion protested the abolition of anti-Jewish legislation and of the
> Ghetto, and it objected to the building of a Protestant church and a Free
> Masons temple in Rome. Still, the secular Kingdom of Italy did not grant
> non-Catholic religions full rights. They were instead guaranteed "tolerance,"
> provided they did not infringe "public order".
> 
> The situation changed for the worse in 1929, when Fascist dictator Benito
> Mussolini made his peace with the Church, signing the Concordat. Now
> Catholicism was the state religion, a compulsory subject taught in public
> schools. The Church was granted tax exemptions, state funds, and substantial
> independence. The Catholic laws concerning marriage were imposed on all
> Italians. A few months later, in June 1929, Law No. 1159 was passed
> regulating the rights and activities of "admitted cults." They could
> proselytize, were entitled to partial tax exemption, and could perform
> legally binding marriages. But, once again, they were not to infringe public
> order, and worse, public morality, a rather vague concept. In fact, this was
> a way to legalize persecution.
> 
> The 1948 Republican Constitution granted all citizens religious freedom, but
> not without ambiguities. The restrictions concerning public order were
> abolished, but not those concerning public morality. What's more, an
> alliance between the Communist Party and the Christian Democrats granted the
> Church full recognition in the Constitution of Mussolini's Concordat. That
> was to have lasting effects on Italian legislation on a number of issues. It
> was not until the 1970s that any non-Catholic-oriented legislation was
> passed, allowing for equal rights and responsibility between husband and
> wife (for example), legalizing the sale of contraceptives, permitting divorce
> and, later, abortion.
> 
> The Concordat was eventually revised in 1984 by the government led by
> socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi. Briefly, Catholicism is no longer
> the state religion, but its privileges (such as the teaching of Catholic religion
> in state schools at all levels by Church-appointed teachers paid for by the
> state) are guaranteed under Constitutional Law. The rights of minority
> religions are to be negotiated on a case by case basis, under lesser pacts
> called "Intese" (agreements). It is interesting to note that Law 1159 is
> still valid, although trimmed of its most undemocratic provisions by the
> Constitutional Court. An attempt at passing a new law to deal comprehensively
> with non-Catholic religions in a more democratic way failed during the
> 1996-2001 legislature.
> 
> To this day, only six minority religions have signed "Intese" granting tax
> exemptions, access to limited state funds, and the right to bring spiritual
> assistance to believers in hospitals and places of detention. The former
> leftist government headed by post-communist Massimo D'Alema approved draft
> "Intese" with the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Buddhist Union, but they were
> never ratified by Parliament because of vocal opposition from conservative
> circles and parties that now back Silvio Berlusconi's center-right
> government.
> 
> Suspicion against the rising number of immigrants (most of them Muslims),
> Catholic conservatism (still ingrained in powerful sectors of the Church),
> and fear caused by media reports of crimes perpetrated abroad by members of
> minority religions combine to produce a feeling of mistrust. Its most
> tangible expression is the rising number of organizations devoted to
> exposing the dangers inherent in minority religions, generally labelled as "cults."
> 
> Under Italian Law, the Bahá'í Faith ranks as an "Admitted Cult," the Bahá'í
> National Spiritual Assembly having obtained "recognition" as a Foundation in
> 1966. The National Assembly has started negotiations towards an "Intesa"
> that are still at an early stage. It must also be said that, in recent years, a
> clever, unrelenting, and consistent public relations strategy has managed to
> give the Bahá'í religion new visibility and credibility in the country.
> 
> Considering the socio-religious situation in Italy, and the political
> climate, no document, essay, or newspaper article published about the Bahá'í
> Faith could be without consequences. This is especially true of a monographic
> work by an academic sociologist who has extensively studied Bahá'í
> communities.
> 
> Theocratic reformers
> 
> The Bahá'ís are well integrated into a system they vow to change from its
> foundations. This is a contrast that Margit Warburg introduces from the
> book's first chapter, where she underlines the necessity of paying more
> attention to the Faith's programs and the way its believers try to pursue
> them. And this because — although the greater part of the personal and social
> teachings of their Faith reflects the mores of the Western middle class — the
> new world order they wish to install is a mix of religion and politics that
> is more Islamic than Western. Theocracy is a topic that the sociologist
> returns to later on in the book.
> 
> Warburg then proceeds to disclose the Islamic roots of a religion of Iranian
> origin that has come to Europe from the United States.
> 
> In the 26 pages that cover the period from the Bab's role in Shiite
> millenniarism to the 1990s, only a few main historical events are outlined.
> But the list of sources mentioned in the footnotes is an interesting key to
> Warburg's own interpretation of Bahá'í scholarship. Apart from the
> inescapable E. G. Browne (also via Moojan Momen) and Abbas Amanat, Warburg
> draws on Denis MacEoin, Peter Smith, and John Walbridge. Official Bahá'í
> history is represented by Stockman and Taherzadeh. Warburg's powerful
> portrayal of Bahá'u'lláh as an extraordinary religious reformer, aware of
> liberal and democratic tendencies at work in both the West and the Middle
> East, draws on Juan Cole's Modernity and the Millennium, repeatedly cited.
> 
> The core of the book is Chapter 3 (on doctrine and rituals) and Chapter 4
> (on the number and organization of Bahá'ís worldwide). Both are based on
> Warburg's own field research, as well as on official documents (though the
> "cultural" background for Bahá'í rituals is provided by John Walbridge).
> They give interesting insights into Bahá'í life as seen by an outsider. The
> sociologist underlines the existence in the religion of clearly distinct
> sub-cultures directly linked to national identities. That is evidenced, for
> instance, by the different attitude towards fasting and towards the
> obligatory prayer between Iranian Bahá'ís and native believers in Denmark:
> the Persian immigrants strictly observe what they see as a duty, while the
> Danish Bahá'ís (and, according to the author, Western Bahá'ís in general)
> tend to stress personal choice over obedience.
> 
> Margit Warburg has published extensively on the Danish community, with
> which she has established cordial links. Yet, the precious experience she
> has gained with Bahá'ís in her own country plays against her in her Italian
> book. And this points up the work's only major limitation: Denmark (as
> indeed the whole of Europe, with its overall 30,000 believers) cannot be
> taken to represent Bahá'í mentalities worldwide. The Italian Bahá'í
> community (of 2,800 members) — except for being occasionally mentioned
> here and there — is absent from a book written for the Italian public,
> as is Italy's major Bahá'í scholar, the late Orientalist Alessandro
> Bausani, none of whose works are referred to either in the footnotes or in
> the bibliography.
> 
> Warburg's reason for this absence is that she did not use Bausani's work in
> her research for i baha'i, and that her choices for a very concise
> bibliography (where no Italian authors are cited) show a sociological rather
> than historical bent. She also maintains that her silence "does not imply a
> judgment on the state of Bahá'í studies in Italy." However, she continues, "I
> do think that a country so important as Italy might have more scholars
> within the sociology of religion in general and studying Bahá'í in particular"
> (personal communication, October 2001).
> 
> A large section of Chapter 4 is devoted to the activities at the Bahá'í World
> Center, the Haifa (Israel) headquarters of the Bahá'í Faith, with which
> Warburg has direct experience, having sojourned and done research there,
> which she describes as an extraordinary religious metropolis, and which she
> compares to the Vatican, and to the Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City.
> 
> The Danish sociologist turns a sympathetic eye to the Bahá'í Faith's social
> projects and to its cooperation with international organizations on human
> rights and sustainable development issues. Drawing on her own research on
> Bahá'í approaches to globalization, Warburg emphasizes the unequivocally
> liberal content of the Bahá'í political messages to the United Nations. But
> then she goes on to stress that Bahá'ís do seem to focus on building a
> society that rejects one tenet of Western democracies: the separation of
> church and state. Warburg concedes that the issue is debated among
> intellectuals, and she again refers to Cole and Sen McGlinn as saying that
> Bahá'u'lláh's original teachings were in fact in favor of separation of
> church and state. But she points out that their position is a minority one.
> She concludes that, on this aspect, the Bahá'í Faith resembles the
> fundamentalist currents found today in its religious antecedents: Judaism,
> Christianity, and Islam.
> 
> Schism and excommunication as a means for maintaining a monolithic
> organization are a recurring theme in i baha'i. Warburg deals with
> them specifically in Chapter 5. The issue of covenant-breaking cannot be
> discussed at length in a slim book directed toward the general public. But
> Warburg's brief list of schismatic crises can modify a stereotype that is
> widespread in the Italian rank-and-file Bahá'í community: that of a
> cohesive, tight-knit religious community where dissidence has always been
> limited to consciously mischievous individuals. It is not uncommon, in
> public meetings or at members-only deepenings, to hear Bahá'í officials say
> that the Bahá'í Faith has generated no sects.
> 
> But the most innovative section will no doubt be the one concerning
> opposition, where Margit Warburg concisely relates the controversies between
> some eminent Bahá'í scholars and Bahá'í authorities concerning
> pre-publication censorship and research methodologies.
> 
> In Italy, this issue will come as a surprise to most Bahá'ís. Bahá'í studies
> in Italy are considerably less developed than in the United States and
> Canada, or in Britain. Although there are dedicated individual believers who
> have done valuable research and have written books on Bahá'í history and
> theology, none of their works could be classified as scholarly, or would be
> accepted in academic circles. (The only exception is the late Professor
> Alessandro Bausani, who unfortunately left no intellectual heirs of his
> stature). Translation of books from English is limited to the sacred
> scriptures, compilations on general matters, and the occasional novel.
> Italian Bahá'ís, then, unless they speak English or are extremely motivated
> to go beyond official literature and have access to the internet, can have no
> clue as to conflicts between Bahá'í administrators and scholars. Or, if they
> do, it is mainly through official channels.
> 
> Quoting from the 3 January 1979 letter from the Universal House of Justice to
> young Bahá'í scholars, Dr. Warburg draws her conclusion which — as she's not
> a Bahá'í and does not have to meander along a web of subtleties and
> contradictions — goes right to the core: If the Bahá'í scriptures are the
> parameter against which all knowledge should be measured, then freedom of
> research must submit to religious premises. Warburg relates how these
> conflicts emerged on the Internet and eventually made it onto academic
> publications, while eminent scholars (no names are mentioned) resigned from
> the Faith, and others toned their rhetoric down.
> 
> Ample reference to the official documents from the House of Justice is to be
> found in footnotes, as well as to MacEoin's "The Crisis in Babi and Bahá'í
> Studies" and Juan Cole's "Panopticon." But Warburg does more than just
> report on the issue, stating that the Bahá'í leadership, by adopting a policy
> that may look like a clear violation of freedom of research on the part of
> Bahá'í scholars, is incurring the risk of gaining a bad reputation — a
> statement whose negative tones are only slightly attenuated by an
> uncharacteristically elaborated syntax and fine chiselling of words.
> 
> No mention is made in this chapter of dissent regarding women's exclusion
> from the Universal House of Justice or the prohibition against homosexuality.
> Such topics, in the author's comment "do not cause any real friction within
> the Bahá'í community."
> 
> The issues of censorship and internal opposition were not raised at the May
> public meeting in Turin where i baha'i was presented to the press in
> the presence of the author and of Italian national Bahá'í authorities. Nor
> had they been the subject of discussion when the editor sent the book's
> typescript to the National Spiritual Assembly for its comments. It is
> possibly this step — which is not mentioned anywhere in the book
> — that led to speculation among some of the Bahá'ís in Italy that i
> baha'i had been, so to speak, approved by Italy's National Bahá'í
> Assembly.
> 
> According to Warburg herself, only two minor requests were made for
> editorial changes: one concerning the spelling of the word Bahá'í, the
> other the rephrasing of a sentence on abortion. The first she refused, but
> added a note explaining how she had adopted the international
> transliteration accepted by scholars, except when quoting from authors who
> had followed Bahá'í style; the second she accepted in part. Of course, this
> is a minor episode that would normally be of no interest in a book review.
> But it sheds light on the non-confrontational attitudes of the publisher,
> of the general editor of the series, and of the author who, although
> committed to scientific integrity, seek to respect the point of view of the
> religious minority group under scrutiny. It also speaks for the
> open-mindedness of Italy's National Spiritual Assembly, that they respected
> the author's independence, and did not try to interfere with content they
> must have found unpalatable — and that they accepted to take an active
> part in the book's public presentation.
> 
> The section of i baha'i concerning persecution is a brief but poignant
> indictment of Iran's theocracy. Discussing its deliberate attempt to destroy
> the Bahá'í community with a set of judiciary measures, Warburg does not
> hesitate to compare them to the infamous Nuremberg Laws. It is to be hoped
> that the Danish sociologist's denunciation of the persecution against Iranian
> Bahá'ís makes a positive impact on Italy's low level of awareness on the
> matter. In a country that is among Iran's foremost commercial partners, it
> is usually impossible for the non-political Italian Bahá'ís to make their
> voices heard in the national media, let alone in government quarters. Thus
> awareness of the Iranian persecution of the Bahá'í community is, in public opinion,
> limited to small circles, often at the local level, where individual Bahá'ís
> are personally well accepted and esteemed.
> 
> Now, can i baha'i change that? In the long run, the possibility should not
> to be excluded for a number of reasons.
> 
> A potentially far-reaching book
> 
> With 4000 copies printed, there is obviously little hope of i baha'i
> becoming a bestseller — not even at a time where interest in religious
> movements is on the rise, especially if a Muslim link can be found or even
> suspected. Neither CESNUR nor Elledici have as yet any figures concerning
> sales. As of September, the publisher's PR office could only say that
> "several copies" had been ordered by unspecified Bahá'í authorities, and by
> Turin-based bookshops specializing in "alternative" religiosity (personal
> communication).
> 
> Both publishers and editor cater to selected groups of opinion makers.
> Elledici is a publishing house founded in the nineteenth century by San
> Giovanni Bosco, a Catholic priest, a groundbreaking social worker, and an
> educator. The Salesiani run a host of quality private schools, from
> elementary to high schools, children's recreational centers, and parish
> youth clubs, as well as a widespread chain of bookshops that cater mostly to
> families, the clergy, and Catholic religion teachers.
> 
> The Religioni and Movimenti series reaches farther than that, however. It is
> the first attempt in Italy at giving the general public an academicallly
> reliable, non-judgmental account of minority religions. Although the
> best-selling books of the series are easily those devoted to Satanism or
> Spiritism, titles range from Islam to Orthodox Churches, and from Scientology
> to the Protestants. As in Warburg's case, the language is accessible but the
> treatment is scholarly.
> 
> The series editor, Massimo Introvigne, is a lawyer turned sociologist founder
> (in 1988) of the Turin-based non-profit association CESNUR. Its president is
> Luigi Berzano, ordinary professor of Sociology at the University of Turin,
> while British-based academic Eileen Barker is a member of its scientific
> committee.
> 
> With a lending library of 20,000 volumes in several languages, and a rich
> corpus of field research, CESNUR has become the Italian media's more
> reliable source of independent information on new religion movements. Their
> most notable work to date is the Enciclopedia delle Religioni in
> Italia, a 1048-page tome covering from the Catholic Church (dissenters
> and schismatics included) to UFO cult groups. Their website hosts a
> collection of articles on CESNUR's works published in prominent newspapers
> and magazines.
> 
> CESNUR and notably Introvigne have been under attack in recent years for
> allegedly being "cult apologists." It goes beyond the scope of this review
> to delve into a polemic that spread mainly, if not only, via the Internet.
> But it should be noted that CESNUR's works are increasingly being quoted in
> academic publications in Italy, and that CESNUR experts regularly give papers
> at conferences organized by respected academic institutions. It could be
> suggested that, considering the Italian situation as described above, the
> mere act of studying non-Catholic religions in a non-judgmental way becomes
> a political act, subjected to partisan evaluation that is not always fair, or
> even well documented.
> 
> In the end, it can be said that Margit Warburg's i baha'i is a groundbreaking
> work in the field of Bahá'í studies in Italy, and it is likely to have an
> influence that well exceeds the obvious limits of an introductory
> publication. Being the first and only comprehensive study of the religion by
> a non-Bahá'í scholar, it may easily become a reference book for a wide
> public, from ordinary readers to scholars. In short, it will be difficult for
> anyone in Italy writing on the Bahá'ís — or even just seeking information
> about them — to do without it.
> 
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> previous at archive.org.../pinella_warburg_i_bahai;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> — *Baha'i, I by Margit Warburg: Review (Used by permission of the curator)*