ISBN 1-890688-1 l-8 (pbk.) l. Bahai Faith--History. I. Smith, Peter, 1947 Nov. 27- II. Series. BP320.S78 vol. 14 [BP330] 297 .9 s-dc22 297.9/3/0918 2003023195

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Copyr g'1tedma 1al Contents Foreword Peter Smith • IX

Surveys The Baha.~iFaith in the West A Survey Peter Smith Esslemont's Survey of the Baha'i World. 1919-1920 Moojan Mon1en

Episodes •Abdu'I-Bahain Budapest GyorgyLederer 10.2 '"'ABit of ExtraneousMatter'': The 1910Bahai Temple Unity Convention and the Downfall of Henry ClaytonThompson Jackson Armstrong-[11grartl 1.22 The Plans of Unified Action Lani Bramson ill

Beginnings Outpost of a WorldReligion: The Baha'i Faith in Australia, 192()..1947 Graham Hassall The Circle, the Brotherhood,and the EcclesiasticalBody: The Baha'i Faith in Denmark, 1925-1987 Margit Warburg The Baha'i Communityin E<finburgh,1946-1950 Jsn1aelValesco

Copyrighted material Foreword ALL RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS emerge within a particular socio-cultural context. For the most part, they remain within the social environment of their birth. They grow or decline in proportion to their success in ar- ticulating the cultural concerns of the society in which they are situ- ated and in creating and channeling the enthusiasm of their adherents. Some religious movements, however, transcend their culture of origin, attracting followers from a variety of cultural backgrounds and per- haps eventually establishing ftrm roots in a number of societies. The resulting diversity entails a double existence for the religion in ques- tion. If it is truly multicultural, it exists in a number of distinct local cultural forms. At the same time, insofar as it retains its unity, it re- mains a single transcultural movement. The Baha'i Faith illustrates this multiple existence. Originating within the context of nineteenth-century Iranian Shi'is~ it has long since succeeded in transcending its culture of origin. Not only has it gained a worldwide following, but it has developed in culturally di- verse forms. Thus, in the most general terms, we may refer to Baba 'f expansion as having taken place in three cultural-historical ''worlds": the predominantly Iranian Shi'i world of the religion's origin; the Western world (the subject of the present volume); and the Baha'i ''Third World," from which most of its contemporary adherents are drawn. Eacb of these three worlds has had its own distinctive forms and chronologies of Baha'i expansion.

Copyr g'1tedma 1al x Foreword

n THERErsGOODREASONto see the multiform developmentof the Baha'i Faith in the West as a single process. The West, here defined as Europe and the culturally cognate territories of North America and the Pacific, is an area of considerable cultural and historical unity. This is grounded in part on the common inheritance of Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman culture and in part on more recent historical develop- ments, such as European imperialism, industrial capitalism, and con- sumer culture. Withinthis area, Baha'i expansionhas followed its own distinctive pattern. Western Baha'i communities have come to share many cultural characteristics with each other, both by dint of shared patterns of Baha'i activity and by their common participation in the Western-dominatedculture of modernity.

III

RECENT YEARS HAVE SEEN an impressive development in the academic study of the Babi and Baha'i religions.As much of this work has been by Western Baha'is, academic study itself represents an important as- pect of Western Baha'i development. Important though this work has been, there is still evidently much to be done in relation to the West. We now have several excellent studies of the early American Baha'i community. Apart from these studies, the period of 'Abdu'l-Baha's visits to the West, and some very specific topics-such as the cultural aspects of recent Baha'i conversions in the southern United States, there is very little materialon the history and culture of the Baha'i Faith in America. There are now detailed studies of only five other coun- tries: Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, and New Zealand.As with the American studies, much of this work remains unpublished. There is next to nothing written about any other Westerncountry. In addition to general historical studies, there are a number of biographies of prominent Western Baha'is, but only a few of these are scholarly in tone, and only a few leading WesternBaha'is have received serious at- tention. One general tendency in much of the work that has been produced so far has been a concentrationon Western Baha'i history and culture in its own context. This leaves a double lacunae. First, there is as yet

Copyr g te<l r a al Foreword xJ

little research on the relationship between the Baba' i movem.ent in the West and its environing societies and cultures. Nor is there any sys- tematic study comparing Baha'i formation with other religious devel- opments in the West. Second~ the relationship between the Baha 'is in the West and the Baha'i Faith as a whole bas yet to be adequately stud- ied. Clearly, Western Baha'is have played a major role in the diffusion of the Faith outside the West, in the development of Baha'i adminis- tration, and in the formulation of frameworks of belief and practice, but the details of this role have yet to be delineated.

Gooo SCHOLARSlirP INVOLVES both individual effort and a collective endeavor. The progress of any scholarly field depends upon these two elements. We are fortunate, then1 that both within the Baha'i commu- nity (through the activities of the Association of Baha'i Studies, origi- nally the Canadian Association for Studies on the Baha'i Faith [1974-1981]) and independently (through the work of those associated with the Lancaster (1977-1980], Cambridge (1978-1979), and Los An- geles [1983-1985] Baha'i Studies seminars and their successors), a growing network of scholarly communication and debate has devel- oped. The appearance of publications such as the Studies in the Babi and Baha'{ Religio,is series reflects this growth. This present volume is a further contribution to the ongoing process of communication and debate. As to the papers themselves, the first essay provides a general survey of Western Baha'i history as a whole (Peter Smith), and the sec- ond essay studiesthe Baha'i world from 1919-1920 (J.E. Esslemont's survey, edited by Moojan Momen). Studies of particular episodes in the history of the Baha'i Faith in the West follow: Gyorgy Lederer ex- amines the newspaper reports of 'Abdu'l-Baha's visit to Budapest in 19J 3; Jackson Armstrong-Ingram looks at the Henry Clayton Thomp- son episode of 19l O;and Loni Bramson studies the development of the American "Plans of Unified Action." The final essays in the volume investigate the beginnings of three national Baha'i communities: in Denmark (Margit Warburg), in Australia (Graham Hassell), and in Scotland (Ismael Valesco).

Copyr g te<l rna 1al xU Foreword

THE GESTATIONPERIOD of this book has been unduly long. Most of the essays in this book were prepared for publication in 1988, but the proj- ect was delayed. A few editorial changes have been made to the origi- nal essays, but they remain essentially unchanged. I hope that readers will find them relevant even after this lengthy passage of time. I would like to thank the authors for their patience and cooperation in the preparation of th.is work. My thanks are also due to the organizers of the Los Angeles Baha'i History Conferences, at which several of the following papers were ftrSt presented, and to K.alimat Press for its hard work on the production of this volume. My thanks to Anthony A. Lee for all his encouragement and perseverance during these years of wait• ing, and most particularly to Ismael Velasco for his help in preparing the book for final publication.

PETER SMITH Bangkok January 2004

PETER SMITH,PH.D. is chairman of the Social Science Division and former Deputy-Director for Academic Affairs at Mahidol University International College. He teaches courses in World History, Social Theory, and Anthropology. His publications include: The Babi and Baha'i Religions: From Messianic Shi 'ism to a World Religion (Cambridge University Press, 1987) and A Concise Encyclopedia of the Baha'i Faith (Oneworld, 2000). ' ' 'IS IN THE n ground-breaking essays. eight scholars probe the early I history of the Baha'i Faith in the West. In each case. this original research widens and changes our 11nderstandingof tl1osecrucial early years of development. Peter Smith, in his sociological survey of the con- ten1porary Baha'i ,vorld, undertakes an analysis of Baha'i growth and expansion in Western countries. Moojan Momen uncovers a similar analysis of the spread of the Faith written by John Esslemont in 1920. Together tl1e two surveys den1onstra1e the astonishing development of the Baha'i comn1unityin the twe11tiethcentury. Uncovering important episodes in early Baha'i history, Gy0rgy Lederer i11vestigates 'Abdu'I-Baha's visit to Budapest ( 1913). Jackson Armstro11g-lngraintakes a second look at '"extraneous'' events at an American 11ationalBal1a'i convention ( 1910), and Loni Bra111sondiscusses tl1e first plans of Unified Action undertaken in the Baha'i ,vorld ( 1926-1934). The first acade111ictreatments of tl1e begi11ningsof the Ba.ha'i Faith in three nations are also included: Graha,n !·Iassail writes on Australia ( 1920-1947), Margit Warburg researches the Denmark Baha' is ( I 925-1987), and lsn1ael Valesco discusses the first Baha'i community in Scotland ( 1946-1950). Together these scholarly investigations provide us witl1 new information and new visions to deepen our under- standing of Baha'i history.

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