Teddy bears and racehorses - what’s in a name?
Photo by appaloosa
You can be imprisoned - or worse - in Sudan for naming your teddy bear “Muhammad”. But what happens when you name your racehorse “Baha’u'llah” (Baha’ullah is the Prophet or Manifestation of God who founded the Baha’i Faith)?
Ah, that could never happen, you say. Racehorses? Baha’u'llah?
Well, apparently, it did happen - and it happened as long ago as 1951. Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, wrote to the Baha’is of Australia and New Zealand:
The Guardian was very pleased to see the Racing Conference courteously changed the name of that horse which had been called Baha’u’llah.
You don’t wanna mix it with those Baha’is. They’ll be round with the Persian rice and fessenjoon.
Thanks to Steve Marshall for the reference to the racehorse incident.
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Baha’u'llah, Bahaullah, teddy bear, Muhammad, Sudan, racehorses
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2 comments
I remember reading about that. I don’t know whether it was just a coincidence or not.
To be fair, horse-racing is known as the sport of kings, and various manifestations have been known as the King of Kings.
This is not Shoghi Effendi at his most erudite (”…the name of that horse which had been called…”, but then I don’t think he expected his day-to-day correspondence to be published so widely, or for us to hang on his every word!
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