Category — Scholarship

How can a community as significant as the Baha’is in Iran be absent from histories of their own country? Prejudice on the part of Iranian scholars? Ignorance on the part of Iranian historians? An unwillingness in an Islamic country to acknowledge a faith community’s part in helping to develop a modernize Iran in the late 19th century and early 20th century just because that community’s religion is post-Islamic?

Last night the UK Baha’i community’s Office of External Affairs hosted the launch of a pioneering academic book that starts to set this omission right. The Baha’is of Iran: Socio-Historical Studies, edited by two UK Baha’is, Dr Dominic Brookshaw and Dr Seena Fazel and published by Routledge.

Central to this study is the pioneering character of the Baha’i community in the late 19th and early 20th century, with chapters examining the role of women in the Baha’i community; the impact of Baha’i-run schools on Iranian society, Baha’i contributions to public health initiatives; and the influence of Baha’i thought and the actions of individual Baha’is on the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911.

Conversion to the Baha’i Faith is another important theme, as contributors investigate the phenomenon of large scale conversion to the Baha’i Faith from the Jewish and Zoroastrian communities.

Finally, although persecution of the Baha’is has drawn the attention of the Western media, until now few scholars working in the field of Iranian studies have chosen to write on the history or details of this persecution. Here, five prominent figures in the field redress this balance and look at different aspects of this persecution, including its historical background, the attitude of secular Iranians, persecution before and after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and human rights perspectives.

This is an important volume, particularly at a time when the Iranian Baha’i community faces increasing persecution from the Iranian regime and threats of worse to come should the Iranian parliament pass a new law that will mandate the death penalty for those who convert from Islam to another religion, not to mention a slew of other gross human rights violations that would become legal, should this penal code become law.

You can read about Iran’s draft penal code here.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Middle East, Iran, persecution, apostasy, Brookshaw, Fazel, Routledge

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If you haven’t already read it, you should!

Moojan Momen’s Baha’u'llah: A Short Biography (published by Oneworld Publications) is an excellent account of Baha’u'llah’s life. As the publisher’s blurb says:

From his early life in Iran as the son of senior civil servant to his death in exile near Akka, in what is now Israel, this is a carefully constructed account of the eventful life of this influential nineteenth-century religious figure. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, some of which have never been used before, Momen offers a comprehensive survey of Baha’u'llah’s life, works and teachings…

Momen writes his account of Baha’u'llah’s life in a neutral style. In other words, he is not trying to persuade the reader of the veracity of the Baha’i Faith nor does he use Baha’i jargon - or if he does, he signposts terms such as “tablet” as language that Baha’is use. He writes as a scholar and a historian (although this is not an academic tome), avoids hyperbole, and tells the story with copious reference to a range of historical sources and the Baha’i scriptures.

Paradoxically, this approach brings out the drama of an extraordinary life and illustrates Baha’u'llah’s spiritual power and his relationships with his family and followers far more effectively than would a hagiography. In reading this book I could feel and see Baha’u'llah as a real person in a real historical context. Momen outlines the trajectory of Baha’u'llah’s life from wealth and respect through imprisonment and torture to perpetual exile. We see Baha’u'llah as a family man who becomes a leading figure in the Babi movement, is arrested, imprisoned, exiled; he loses almost all his worldly wealth; he spends time as a dervish in the Kurdistan mountains of Iraq; he declares his mission as the one the Bab had spoken of, ‘He whom God will make manifest’; he suffers further exiles and is sent, eventually, to Acre (Akka) in the the Ottoman province of Syria, in whose environs he passes away in 1892.

During all of this, despite grief and loss, despite caring for his family and followers, despite constant pressure from the Ottoman authorities and coping with the intrigues of those who opposed him (although he increasingly relies on ‘Abdu’l-Bah

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One of the great discoveries of our blogging weekend has been Bahaikipedia (hat-tip: Wendi Momen).

Bahaikipedia is a developing resource - there aren’t all that many articles on the wiki yet, but the potential is huge. Can you add anything? What topics do you think Bahaikipedia should cover? As with any wiki, you can create an account and edit or add to the wiki.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, wiki, Bahaikipedia, religion, scholarship