An historical analysis of critical transformations
CHAPTER II STUDIES ON THE BABI-BAHA’I MOVEMENT
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| CHAPTER II
STUDIES ON THE BABI-BAHA’I MOVEMENT Various studies on the Babi-Baha’i movement will be referred to in the present work. Since these studies are written from differing standpoints and since their relative value to the subjects under discus- sion must be judged in part by the perspectives from which they are written, the reader from the outset should have some orientation to them.
extensively with the Persian Babi movement is Joseph Arthur Gobineau’s Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale, first published in 1855.1 Gobineau served in the French Legation in Tihran, the capital of Persia, from 1856 to 1858 as secretary, and from 1862 to 1863 as minister plenipotentiary.2 Count Gobineau while in Persia had taken a keen interest in the Babi movement, which was then in early stages of its development, and collected a number of early Babi manuscripts, of which some of the more significant were acquired after his death at auction by the British Museum and the National Library in Paris.3 Although Gobineau’s account of the Bab and his followers forms only part of a larger discussion, it occupies more than half of his volume. While having a significance in its own right, the book is also significant for being the volume which inspired Professor Edward G. Browne of Cambridge University to undertake his travels in Persia and to begin his extensive research into the Babi-Baha’i cause. Browne speaks of the volume as the work
and which contains what must still be regarded as one of the best, most picturesque and most original accounts of the Bab and his disciples yet written.4 Browne elsewhere says: I personally owe more to this book than to any other book about Persia, since to it, not less than to an equally fortunate and fortuitous meeting in Isfahan, I am indebted for that unravelling of Babi doctrine and history which first won for me a reputation in Oriental scholarship.5
conscious that the volume, which traces Babi history to A.D. 1852, needed to be supplemented by an appendix detailing more recent events.6 That observation is even more applicable today in the light of developments since Browne’s time, but rather than an appendix a major study is required to outline the major transformations in the religion since Gobineau’s work.
Babi religion, before Baha’u’llah declared his mission, and therefore reflects a situation which was radically changed even by the time Browne began his travels in Persia and which caused him no little distress in attempting to study the movement. Browse relates in the book which describes his travels in Persia in 1887-88: It was the Bab whom I had learned to regard as a hero, and whose works I desired to obtain and peruse, yet of him no account appeared to be taken. I questioned my friend about this, and learned (what I had already begun to suspect at Isfahan) that such had taken place amongst the Babis since those events of which Gobineau’s vivid and sympathetic record had so strangely moved me. That record was written while Mirza Yahya, Subh-i-Ezel (“the Morning of Eternity”) was undisputed vicegerent of the Bab, and before the great schism occurred which convulsed the Babi community.7 The significance of Gobineau’s work, therefore, is that it puts on record an account of the earliest phase of the Babi-Baha’i movement as that movement made its impression upon an objective non-Baha’i. Baha’is have some reservations regarding Gobineau’s account from the standpoint of what they believe was the actual state of affairs within the movement, but Gobineau’s work reveals how the religion was seen by an outsider in Persia at that early stage in its development.
bridge Orientalist Edward Granville Browne are in a class by themselves. Both Baha’is and non-Baha’is studying the faith acknowledge their debt to this distinguished scholar, who was the only Western historian to attain the presence of Baha’u’llah, founder of the Baha’i religion, and who in later years carried on a correspondence with Baha’u’llah’s son and successor in the religion, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, and with other leading Baha’is.
religion, refers to Browne as “the highest authority on the history of Babism and Baha’ism, and one who errs, if at all, only by a too sympathetic treatment of Baha.”8 Praise of Browne’s works is repeated in succeeding non-Baha’i studies of the religion, and dependence upon him is freely acknowledged and clearly evident in these studies.
Granville Browne in seeking and preserving for generations to come the story of the birth and the rise of a Faith which was destined, as he foresaw at the onset of his distinguished career, to have a significance comparable to that of the other great reli- gions of the world. The Comte de Gobineau’s classical work was gathering dust when Edward Browne took up his pen to write of a dawning Faith with zest and admiration. Many, there must have been, particularly in academic circles, on both sides of the Atlantic, who made their first acquaintance with that thrilling story in the writings of Edward Browne.
of gratitude. … Despite some mistaken views, his well-merited fame is enduring.9
and stringent criticisms of the Babi-Baha’i movement. Baha’is is are fond of quoting his words of praise and appreciation and Christian apologists his comments which put the faith in questionable light. Balyuzi’s study of Browne attempts from the Baha’i standpoint to deal with some of the problems raised in Browne’s works concerning the faith. Balyuzi thus introduced Baha’is who had not read widely in Browne’s works to some of Browne’s more critical statements and opinions regarding the faith. Farhang Jahanpur, in a review of Balyuzi’s book, comments that “there are few Baha’is is who have not heard” of Edward Browne but that “what is not widely realized [among Baha’is],10 however, is that some of Browne’s writings were uncomplimentary to the Baha’i Faith.”11 This statement reflects the previous Baha’i focus only on Browne’s favorable references to the faith. If Baha’is in the past have avoided Browne’s critical statements, non-Baha’is likewise have often avoided his tributes to the religion. Part of the reason for this mixture of praise and criticism in Browne’s
and fearless in recording all points of view which he felt were perti- nent to the subjects of his study.12 This aspect of Browne’s writings invests them with a special value for the objective student of the Baha’i religion.
G. Browne are called by him “the three chief histories composed in Persian by members of the sect.”13 They will be discussed in the order in which they were published by Browne. The Traveller’s Narrative The first Baha’i history published by Browne was A Traveller’s Narrative, which appeared in 1891 in two volumes. Volume I contains the Persian text and Volume II the English translation and notes. Browne was given a copy of the Traveller’s Narrative during his second journey to Persia in the spring of 1890 by the Baha’is at Bahji, where Browne had interviewed the founder of the faith, Baha’u’llah.14
many important Persian works remained unpublished, in the East as well as in Europe, and thus felt constrained to offer some explanation as to why he would publish so recent a Persian work, especially when the author was not even known. Browne felt that these reasons against the book’s publication were inherent in the book’s very nature and character. It was recent in origin because it dealt with an important new movement in Persia, and it was anonymous because of the persecution directed against the movement.15
various disciplines of study: Now it appears to me that the history of the Babi movement must be interesting in different ways to others besides those who are directly engaged in the study of Persian. To the student of religious thought it will afford no little matter for reflec- tion; for here he may contemplate such personalities as by lapse of time pass into heroes and demi-gods still unobscured by myth and fable; he may examine by the light of concurrent and indepen- dent testimony one of those strange outbursts of enthusiasm, faith, fervent devotion, and indomitable heroism---or fanaticism, if you will—which we are accustomed to associate with the earlier history of the human race; he may witness, in a word, the birth of a faith which may not impossibly win a place amidst the great religions of the world. To the ethnologist also it may yield food for thought as to the character of a people, who, stigmatized as they often have been as selfish, mercenary, avaricious, ego- tistical, sordid, and cowardly, are yet capable of exhibiting under the influence of a strong religious impulse a degree of devotion, disinterestedness, generosity, unselfishness, nobility, and courage which may be paralleled in history, but can scarcely be surpassed. To the politician, too, the matter is not devoid of importance; for what changes may not be effected in a country now reckoned almost as a cypher in the balance of national forces by a religion capable of evoking so mighty a spirit? Let those who know what Muhammad made the Arabs, consider well what the Bab may yet make the Persians.16
and which he thought would be true of most others, lies, he said, in this:
towards the amelioration of mankind or the reverse, which seems to many hundreds, if not thousands, of our fellow-creatures worth suffering and dying for, and which on this ground alone, must be accounted worthy of our most attentive study.17
time of its publication Browne did not know who the author was, but he learned later that the author was Baha’u’llah’s eldest son, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, who became Baha’u’llah’s successor after his death in 1892.18 Baha’is acknowledge that ‘Abdu’l-Baha is the author.19
nigh upon thirty-five years no action opposed to the government or prejudicial to the nation has .emanated from this sect,”20 Browne dates the work as having been written probably in the year 1886.21 Elsewhere, he gives the date of writing as “in or about the year A.D. 1886.”22 Browne counts thirty-five years from Shavval, A.H. 1268 (Muslim date corresponding to August, A.D. 1852), when a few Babis made a notorious and unsuccessful attempt on the life of the Persian shah, which action plunged the Babis into dire persecution. Thirty-five years from that date began in July, 1886.23 The year 1886 may be accepted as the approximate date for the writing of the Traveller’s Narrative.
prominence to Baha’u’llah and to the events connected with his dispen- sation as over against the Bab and his epoch, which are the focus of the earlier written Kitab-i Nuqtatu’l-Kaf and the New History, to be discussed below. Although the Traveller’s Narrative acknowledges that the Bab advanced the claim of being the the Mihdi (or Mahdi), the Muslim expected deliverer,24 it emphasizes his role as the Bab (“Gate”), the title he had earlier assumed and by which he is generally known today. It, moreover, presents his “Bab-hood” as meaning that “he was the channel of grace from some great Person still behind the veil of glory, who was the possessor of countless and boundless perfections,”25 evidently meant by the writer to refer to Baha’u’llah, though unnamed. The writer sees the Bab as having “laid no claim to revelation from an angel,”26 as Muhammad had received the Qur’an from the angel Gabriel. Whether intentional or not, no mention is made of the Bab’s Bayan, his book of laws to govern his dispensation as the Qur’an had governed Muhammad’s. The Bab is presented, therefore, as a kind of John the Baptist, a fore- runner preparing the way for the great revelation to come. Mirza Yahya, whom Gobineau had regarded as the Bab’s successor,27 and who became Baha’u’llah’s rival, is portrayed in contrast to Baha’u’- llah’s courage, judgment, and leadership ability.
who is exonerated from complicity in the persecutions against the Babis, and the Babi resistance to the government is explained on the basis of self-defense and ignorance of the Bab’s true teachings by his followsrs.28
Baha’is acknowledge is ‘Abdu’l-Baba, describes himself as a “traveller” (hence the title, A Traveller’s Narrative) in all parts of Persia, who has sought out from those within and without the movement, from friend and strangers, the facts of the case regarding the Bab and his religion and who proposes to set forth briefly those points of the story upon which the disputants are agreed.29 Actually, the history is a Baha’i apology setting out the new state of affairs in the Babi community after Baha’u’llah’s declaration, defending his claims, and presenting the present policy regarding the Persian government, as against the prevailing attitude toward the movement by the government and by those outside the Baha’i division. Baha’i and non-Baha’i estimates of the Traveller’s Narrative have varied. Baha’is, of course, highly esteem the Traveller’s Narra- tive since it is written by no less an authority in the Baha’i religion than Baha’u’llah’s own son and successor. Non-Baha’is have tended to approach the volume with some caution, taking into account its evident purpose of establishing the Baha’i claims as over against the original Babi position and against Mirza Yahya, the Bab’s own nominee for the leadership in the movement after his death. The importance of the Traveller’s Narrative, however, as reflecting Baha’i doctrine and outlook at the time of its composition by one at the forefront of the movement cannot be overstressed.
after Baha’u’llah’s declaration of his mission is the Tarikh-i-Jadid, or New History, of which Browne published an English translation in 1893. The New History, however, focuses on the Bab and his dispensa- tion rather than on Baha’u’llah, and this is one reason which necessi- tated the writing of the later Baha’i history, the Traveller’s Narra- tive. Author of the New History The work was written anonymously by one who describes himself as a traveller going to “all parts of Europe and India and observing the races and religions of those regions” and having “chanced to visit Persia,”30 where he met some members of the persecuted Babi sect. He denies being of the Persian nation31 and thanks God that be is not a Persian.32 He speaks of Europeans as “my compatriots”33 and refers to the French language as “my own language.”34 He portrays himself as being neither a Muslim nor a member of the Babi religion and in one place refers to some acquaintances who “invited me to exchange the Christian faith for the religion of Muhammad.”35 Having become “fully cognizant of the history and doctrines of the Babis,” during his travels in Persia, the author says he felt “impelled by sympathy and common humanity to compose this book”36 to dispel misconceptions about the Babis so that persecution of them might cease.37
in 1891:
forth is so detailed and so minute that it must have been derived for the most part from persons who had conversed with actual eye- witnesses of the events described, if not from eye-witnesses them- selves.38 During his first journey in Persia, Browne was told of the New History, and when he asked for the author’s name, Haji Mirza Hasan replied: “I know it but it is a secret which I am not entitled to divulge, though, as the writer is dead now, it could make little matter even were it generally known. I may tell you this much, that he was one of the secretaries of Manakji Sahib of Teheran. When he began to write he was quite impartial, but as he went on be became convinced by his investigations of the truth of the matter, and this change in his opinions is manifest in the later portion of the work. …”39 Browne was later given information on the authorship and production of the New History. In responding to a number of questions asked by Browne, Mirza Abu’l-Fadl composed a treatise entitled Risaliy-
named in honor of a long time friend to whom it is dedicated, Alexander Toumansky of the Russian Artillery, a noted Orientalist, author, and the translator of Baha’u’llah’s Kitab-i-Aqdas into Russian. Four copies were written in Abu’l-Fadl’s hand—one the author kept himself; one he sent to Toumansky; one to Baha’u’llah; and one to Browne. Abu’l-Fadl, in answering the question concerning the authorship of the New History, relates.
Huseyn of Hamadan. … The aforesaid author, in consequence of the calligraphic and epistolary skill which he showed in drafting letters, was at first secretary to one of the ministers of the Persian Government. At the time of His Majesty Nasiru’d-Din Shah’s first journey to Europe he too visited those countries in the Royal Suite. … After his return to Persia, he was amongst those imprisoned in consequence of the troubles of the year A.H. 1291 (A.D. 1874). … After his release from the prison of Teheran, he obtained employment in the office of Manakji the Zoroastrian, well known as an author and writer. Manakji treated him with great respect, for had he not become notorious an a Babi, he would never have engaged in this work.41
who were capable of writing books or treatises to compose works on suggested subjects. One night he, according to Abu’l-Fadl, “begged Mirza Huseyn to compile a history of the Babis.42 Abu’l-Fadl continues: Mirza Huseyn came to the writer [Abu’l-Fadl, the writer of the Tract] and asked his assistance, saying, ‘Since hitherto no full and correct history has been written treating of the events of this Theophany, to collect and compile the various episodes thereof in a fitting manner is a very difficult matter. …
history by the late Haji Mirza Jani of Kashan, who was one of the martyrs of Teheran, and one of the best men of that time. But he was a man engaged in business and without skill in historiography, neither did he record the dates of the years and months. At most he, being a God-fearing man. truthfully set down the record of events as he had seen and heard them. Obtain this book, and take the episodes from it, and the dates of the years and months from the Nasikhu’t-Tawarikh and the appendices of the Rawzatu’s- Safa; and, having incorporated these in your rough draft, read over each sheet to His Reverence Haji Seyyid Jawad of Kerbela (whose name has been repeatedly mentioned in these pages, for he, from the beginning of the Manifestation of the First Point [i.e. the Bab] until the arrival of His Holiness Baha’u’llah in Acre, accompanied the Friends everywhere in person, and is thoroughly informed and cognizant of all events. Thus diligently correct the history, in order that this book may, by the will of God, be well finished, and may win the approbation of the learned throughout the world.”43
tory preface and thus open for him the path of composition, so Abu’l- Fadl, agreeing to this, wrote two pages at the beginning of the work, containing exhortations to strive after the truth.44 Mirza Husayn intended to write two volumes, but his death in A.H. 1299 (A.D. 1881- 1882)45 prevented his writing the second volume. Mirza Husayn’s first volume, according to Abu’l-Fadl’s testimony, was not completed in the manner suggested by Abu’l-Fadl but was subjected to revision by Manakji:
and afterwards read the rough draft over to him. So first of all the secretary used to read over to him the rough draft which he had made in accordance with his own taste and agreeably to the canons of good style; and then, after Manakji had made additions Yüklə 2,06 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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