----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 'Abdu'l-Baha & other faiths
From: stephenf@jove.acs.unt.edu (Stephen
Andrew Fuqua)
Date: 29 May 1995 09:19:58 -0400
Message-ID: <3qchlu$ie0@virgo.cs.cornell.edu>
Alla-u-abha friends!
I have had an interesting question posed
by a seeker. Maybe one of you
can help...
He said he has figured out that 'Abdu'l-Baha
*is* supposed to be
infallible as regards the interpretation,
etc of Baha'i Scripture, but is
he infallible as regards interpretation
of the scripture of other
faiths?
Any responses would be most kind!
Peace,
Stpehen A. Fuqua
stephenf@jove.acs.unt.edu
To: PayamA@aol.com
Cc: talisman@indiana.edu
Bcc:
From: ahriazati@ccgate.hac.com
Subject: Re: any answers?
Date: Tuesday, May 30, 1995 20:23:41
EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
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Dear Payam; Allah'u'abha
Concerning your question about the station
of the beloved Master
in regards to the scriptures of the pervious
revelations; By
reading the Tablets such as " Tablet of
Branch" and the stations
that His holiness Baha'u'llah confers upon
Him on one hand and
also by going through the Commentaries
that He has revealed on
the various Islamic and Christian subjects
we can by absolute
certainty conclude that whatever was revealed
from His pen was
infallible.
To cite one example: When He (* The Master
*) still very young.
One of the none-Baha'is asked His holiness
Baha'u'llah to reveal
a commentary on a famous tradition; and
He (* Baha'u'llah *)
passed the request to the Master and then
Baha'u'llah exalted be
His Name, glorified the commentary and
the station of the beloved
Master.
Another yet more powerful example is the
book called " Secret of
Divine Civilization" in which the Master
explains some of the
sayings of the old. After this book, His
holiness Baha'u'llah
exalted the work in a matchless language
.
Finally; in my very humble opinion by reading
:" Dispensation Of Baha'u'llah"
of the beloved Guardian, we instantly notice
that the station
of the beloved Master is uniquely MATCHLESS.
To consider Him to
be a Manifestation is WRONG and also to
look at Him to be a mere
interpreter in the SAME LIGHT as we have
been doing it before is
also according to the beloved guardian
is WRONG.
With my Warmest regards; Habib Riazati
______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: any answers?
Author: PayamA@aol.com at CCGATE
Date: 5/29/95 9:15 PM
Subject: 'Abdu'l-Baha & other faiths
From: stephenf@jove.acs.unt.edu (Stephen
Andrew Fuqua)
Date: 29 May 1995 09:19:58 -0400
Message-ID: <3qchlu$ie0@virgo.cs.cornell.edu>
Alla-u-abha friends!
I have had an interesting question posed
by a seeker. Maybe one of you
can help...
He said he has figured out that 'Abdu'l-Baha
*is* supposed to be
infallible as regards the interpretation,
etc of Baha'i Scripture, but is
he infallible as regards interpretation
of the scripture of other
faiths?
Any responses would be most kind!
Peace,
Stpehen A. Fuqua
stephenf@jove.acs.unt.edu
Perhaps something interesting for those
of you who need to produce
documents in Arabic or in transliteration.
Brent
From iskandar@tamu.edu Wed May 17 23:39:15
1995
Cc: Arabic script mailing list <reader@rama.poly.edu>
Subject: Re: Arabic software
On Wed, 17 May 1995, Crag Markwood wrote:
> Hello
> I am looking for Arabic language learning
software. Could you recommend
> any? Thank you,
The only two resources on the net I know
about are ~mac/Al-Jaleys which
is a manual [to be printed] and ~win3/naatiq
which is a pronunciation
teacher [demo]
The files are under ftp.u.washington.edu/public/reader
There might be others, but I don't know
them off hand, so I am cc:ing
my reply to the reader mailing list in
the hope that someone else will
know more.
alex
________
From DIL@jc.byu.ac.il Thu May 18 01:39:26
1995
From: "Dilworth B. Parkinson" <DIL@jc.byu.ac.il>
Subject: Arabic-L:LING:Query Responses
To: arabic-l@byu.edu
Organization: BYU Jerusalem Center
Date: 17 May 1995
From: Roberta L. Dougherty <rld@pobox.upenn.edu>
Subject: Indexes of Arabic Periodicals
Dear Mark,
The only indexes of Arabic periodicals I am aware of are:
_al-Fihrist_ (Beirut)
_Periodica Islamica_ (Kuala Lumpur)
[of course not really an index but sort
of an Arabic version of _Current
Contents_]
If anyone knows of any other general indexes
to Arabic periodicals, I
would be glad to hear about them.
--
Roberta L. Dougherty
Middle East Bibliographer &
Head, Middle East Technical Services
University of Pennsylvania Libraries
3420 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
telephone: (215) 898-3795
fax: (215) 898-0559
e-mail: rld@pobox.upenn.edu
______________________________________________________________
To: reader@rama.poly.edu
From: Bo.Isaksson@afro.uu.se (Bo Isaksson)
Subject: Short review of LeedsBit Fonts
The LeedsBit Fonts package is a shareware
utility to make accented (and
macroned, and dotted, etc.) characters
available in the MS Word for Windows
2 (and 6) environment. I got it from the
following address:
ftp://archive.orst.edu/pub/mirrors/ftp.cica.indiana.edu/win3/winword/leedsbi
t.zip
It must be said beforehand that I am looking
for a good transliteration font
utility for Semitic languages, which does
not seem to be the primary aim of
the package. This fact accounts for some
of my (modest) criticism below.
LeedsBit fonts were created by Alec McAllister
to enable users "to do
multilingual word-processing in any combination
of over 60 languages which
use the Latin Alphabet."
Nevertheless LeedsBit fonts is a very able
utility even for transliteration
purposes, the best sharheware package I
have tested, and with a few
additions it will fullfil such a task
satisfactorily.
Installation is easy. You just copy the
template leedsbit.dot to the
directory where the winword templates resides,
and then install the TrueType
fonts in the Windows control panel. The
allocation of the macros in
leedsbit.dot to the specified keys on the
Number Key Pad did not function
directly. To get the allocations of keys
to macros functioning I hade to use
the macro utility (contained in leedsbit.dot)
AutoAssignToKey for every
macro. Thanks for the introduction to Key
Codes in Appendix 1! When done,
all is functioning as described.
The process of getting an accented character
is this: first type the
"normal" character (without accent or dot),
then type the key that supplies
the specific accent needed. For example,
an "a" with macron obove is written
by typing "a" and then "7" on the numeric
key pad. In reality, the "7"
starts a macro called LeedsBitMacron which
performs the complex task of
determining which character was just written
("a"), deleting it, then
chosing the right font (the accented charachters
are supplied on five
LeedsBit Fonts), and chosen the correct
character (a with macron) in that
font. The function is very handy indeed.
In this way you get
Acute accent on many characters by typing
/ on the num key pad
Grave accent on many characters by typing
* on the num key pad
Circumflex on many characters by typing
- on the num key pad
Macron on many characters by
typing 7 on the num key pad
Superscript of many characters by typing
8 on the num key pad
Hachek on many characters by typing
9 on the num key pad
Breve over or under many characters by
typing 4 on the num key pad
Dot below many characters by typing
. on the num key pad
etc.
As a Semitist I'd like to have g (and G)
with hachek (Arabic "jim"), s (and
S) with accent grave (konsonant in Ugaritic),
t (and T) with macron below
(Arabic "tha"), e E i I o O v V and y Y
with breve, and special characters
for Arabic hamza and 'ayn. In the present
fonts you have to use variants of
the question mark (?) without dot for hamza
and 'ayn, a solution I do not
like very much.
A more general criticism of the package
concerns its basic technical
approach: It is a MS Word for Windows
utililty relying on WordBasic macros.
This means that its functionality is not
available in other Windows
applications, although of course the fonts
are. Another drawback, is the
solution to use several fonts to account
for the great number of accented
characters needed. The approach to use
fixed charachters where the accent
(or dot och macron) and the basic character
form one character and take up
one position in the fontscheme (and one
ascii code) has the advantage that
it is easier to make the accents and dots
perfectly allign to the basic
characters. The drawback, however, is that
many fonts are needed, which
makes LeedsBit fonts hard to use in database
programs as Access, where only
one font may be used in a single field
(the only exception I know is
Filemaker Pro for Windows, which permits
shifting of fonts within the same
database field).
In my opinion the best but most laborious
solution is a carefully made
one-font alternative with "loose" accents
added to the basic letters in a
way that the composite characters become
perfectly aligned, in spite of the
font being proportionately spaced. This
is not an easy task, and calls for
professional skill in font making companies,
and will perhaps not be
available as shareware.
The final solution though, will be the
new two-byte standard, for fonts,
called Unicode, which will permit over
65.000 characters (as against 256
today) in the same font. I hope this will
function well in the new Windows
95. By the way, the Unicode standard is
used by Gamma Productions in their
Word Processor Gamma Universe and the font
utility Gamma Unitype. Gamma's
monospaced transliteration font, is, however,
awkward.
Bo Isaksson
__________________________________________________________________
Associate prof. Bo Isaksson
Uppsala University
Department of Asian and African Languages
P.O.Box 513, S-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Tel. +46-18-18 10 02, Fax. +46-18-18 10
94
E-mail: bo.isaksson@afro.uu.se
__________________________________________________________________
From: Frank Unlandherm <unlandhe@columbia.edu>
To: gpoirier <gpoirier@acca.nmsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Middle East Gopher
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 May
1995 21:13:36 -0600 (MDT)
If you want to see Columbia's Middle East
Gopher, and more especially
the Directory of Middle East Scholars,
the instructions are below. We
brought up the Directory yesterday and
its data base is small but
growing. For now, it will be indexed at
least once a week, so it may
take a few days for your entry to appear
publicly.
To get MEG, simply gopher to:<gopher.cc.columbia.edu.71>
and then
navigate down through the menus as follows:CLIO
Plus/Selected
Topics../MIDDLE EAST. (Be sure to use port
71) If you have a gopher
client software, use the following pointer
(Bookmark):
Type 1
Name=The Middle East Gopher
Host+gopher.cc.columbia.edu
Port=71
Path=1/clioplus/scholarly/MidEast
OR
Simply telnet to:<columbianet.columbia.edu>.
Once copnnected to
Columbianet, select the menu item marked
CLIO PLUS. Within that menu,
you will find and item labelled SLECTED
TOPICS:Internet Resources by
Subject. Select that one, and within it
you will find MEG.
OR
If you use MOSAIC or LYNX or other web-browser, use this URL:
gopher://gopher.cc.columbia.edu:71/11/clioplus/scholarly/MidEast
Frank
From: Alexandre Khalil <iskandar@eesun2.tamu.edu>
To: C R Pennell <hiscrp@leonis.nus.sg>
Cc: Arabic script mailing list <reader@rama.poly.edu>
Subject: Re: Arabic software
The FAQ says:
> - U.S. Customers are not eligble for
the upgrade. However, you can purchase
> Windows/Arabic from:
>
> Glyph Systems
> P.O. Box 134
> Andover, MA 01810
> Tel: (508) 470-1317
> Fax: (508) 474-8087
>
> The price is about twice as much as
the domestic version. Glyph also
> sells additional fonts such as Kufic
amd Rokaa.
Unfortunately, I do not know the prices,
and doubt that there are
academic discounts.
alex
Subject: Arabic Windows for Workgroups
(fwd)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Organization: Department of Electrical
Engineering, Texas A&M University
From: digitek326@aol.com (Digitek326)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Subject: Arabic Windows for Workgroups
Date: 19 May 1995 08:46:59 -0400
Sakhr Software's Arabic Operating System
(A)S) runs on either Windows 3.1
or Windows for Workgroups 3.11. This is
one program; no need to buy two
copies. The AOS also comes bundled with
Al-Moharrer, Sakhr's modest
(though more full-featured than Write)
built-in wordprocessor. For more
information contact Digitek at 7038830134
or fax 7038830137.
-------------------------------------
From: Brent Poirier
There were some questions about the buildings
on the Arc that
were posted at that time which I did not
reply to, and I wondered
if you would be kind enough to forward
this to Talisman.
Richard Hollinger asked where in the writings
there was a
reference to construction of a building
for the Guardian. Also,
there was a discussion of whether the construction
of these
buildings will not merely synchronize with,
but will have an
impact on, the Lesser Peace.
The building for the Guardian and the issue
of synchronizing are
both addressed in the following quote from
Shoghi Effendi:
The raising of this Edifice [International
Archives
building] will in turn herald the
construction, in the
course of successive epochs of the
Formative Age of the
Faith, of several other structures,
which will serve as the
administrative seats of such divinely
appointed institutions
as the Guardianship, the Hands of
the Cause, and the
Universal House of Justice. These
Edifices will, in the
shape of a far-flung arc, and following
a harmonizing style
of architecture, surround the resting-places
of thGreadest
Holy Leaf, ranking as foremost among
the members of her sex
in the Baha'i Dispensation, of her
Brother, offered up as a
ransom by Baha'u'llah for the quickening
of the world and
its unification, and of their Mother,
proclaimed by Him to
be His chosen "consort in all the
worlds of God." The
ultimate completion of this stupendous
undertaking will mark
the culmination of the development
of a world-wide
divinely-appointed Administrative
Order whose beginnings may
be traced as far back as the concluding
years of the Heroic
Age of the Faith.
This vast and irresistible process,
unexampled in the
spiritual history of mankind, and
which will synchronize
with two no less significant developments
- the
establishment of the Lesser Peace
and the evolution of
Baha'i national and local institutions
- the one outside and
the other within the Baha'i world
- will attain its final
consummation, in the Golden Age of
the Faith, through the
raising of the standard of the Most
Great Peace, and the
emergence, in the plenitude of its
power and glory, of the
focal Center of the agencies constituting
the World Order of
Baha'u'llah.
(Messages to the Baha'i World, pp.
74-75, and included in
the Compilations on Peace and on the
Establishment of the
Universal House of Justice)
I see support for the view that the construction
of Baha'i
edifices has an influence in the world.
The Guardian refers to
the impact on the world of other Baha'i
structures in these
passages:
Again I feel the urge to remind you
one and all of the
necessity of keeping ever in mind
this fundamental verity
that the efficacy of the spiritual
forces centering in, and
radiating from, the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkar
in the West will
in a great measure depend upon the
extent to which we, the
pioneer workers in that land will,
with clear vision,
unquenchable faith, and inflexible
determination, resolve to
voluntarily abnegate temporal advantages
in our support of
so meritorious an endeavor. The higher
the degree of our
renunciation and self-sacrifice, the
wider the range of the
contributing believers, the more apparent
will become the
vitalizing forces that are to emanate
from this unique and
sacred Edifice; and the greater, in
consequence, the
stimulating effect it will exert upon
the propagation of the
Faith in the days to come. (Baha'i
Administration, p. 154;
also see Ibid. pp. 181-182, and God
Passes By, p. 351)
The Guardian also comments on other examples
of synchronization
which he finds to be of "singular significance"
on p. 53 of
"Citadel of Faith." Also, in Messages
to America, p. 33, he
writes of the forces released in the Holy
Land because of the
entombment of the Master's family on Mount
Carmel.
However, the Guardian does not always use
the word "synchronize"
to imply a cause and effect relationship.
For example, he
distinguishes between "synchronize" and
"flow from" in the course
of his discussion of certain events during
the Adrianople period
of Baha'u'llah's ministry:
These notable developments, some synchronizing
with, and
others flowing from, the proclamation
of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah, and from the internal
convulsion which the
Cause had undergone, could not escape
the attention of the
external enemies of the Movement,
who were bent on
exploiting to the utmost every crisis
which the folly of its
friends or the perfidy of renegades
might at any time
precipitate. (God Passes By, pp.
177-178)
My own view is that the Guardian was implying
more than mere
contemporaneous events, when he spoke of
the construction of the
Arc synchronizing with the Lesser Peace.
The House of Justice
sees the synchronization as more than simultaneity.
It refers to
"dynamic synchronization" and to the "spiritual
energies"
released by the construction of the Seat
of the House of Justice:
That there are indications that the
Lesser Peace cannot be
too far distant, that the local and
national institutions of
the Administrative Order are growing
steadily in experience
and influence, that the plans for
the construction of the
remaining administrative edifices
on the Arc are in an
advanced stage -- that these hopeful
conditions make more
discernible the shaping of the dynamic
synchronization
envisaged by Shoghi Effendi, no honest
observer can deny.
(Ridvan 1990 letter from the Universal
House of Justice)
The great work of constructing the
terraces, landscaping
their surroundings, and erecting the
remaining buildings of
the Arc will bring into being a vastly
augmented World
Centre structure which will be capable
of meeting the
challenges of coming centuries and
of the tremendous growth
of the Baha'i community which the
beloved Guardian has told
us to expect. Already we see the
effect of the spiritual
energies which the completion of the
Seat of the Universal
House of Justice has released, and
the new impulse this has
given to the advancement of the Faith.
Who can gauge what
transformations will be effected as
a result of the
completion of each successive stage
of this great
enterprise?
(Letter from the Universal House of
Justice, "Completing the
Arc on Mount Carmel," 31 August 1987;
"Six Year Plan
Messages from the Universal House
of Justice," pp. 24-36)
I see the construction of the Arc
as an example of the "mysterious ways"
of the Cause, "ways" which
Shoghi Effendi states are "utterly at variance
with the standards
accepted by the generality of mankind":
That the Cause associated with the
name of Baha'u'llah feeds
itself upon those hidden springs of
celestial strength which
no force of human personality, whatever
its glamour, can
replace; that its reliance is solely
upon that mystic Source
with which no worldly advantage, be
it wealth, fame, or
learning can compare; that it propagates
itself by ways
mysterious and utterly at variance
with the standards
accepted by the generality of mankind,
will, if not already
apparent, become increasingly manifest
as it forges ahead
towards fresh conquests in its struggle
for the spiritual
regeneration of mankind.
(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of
Baha'u'llah, pp. 51-52)
Thanks, John.
Brent Poirier
gpoirier@acca.nmsu.edu
-------------------------------------
from: Juan Cole
Among those who discouraged a literalist approach to
scripture
interpretation was Baha'u'llah Himself. I am posting
my provisional
translation of Baha'u'llah's "Commentary on the Surah
of the Sun" along
with a brief introduction, in an effort to open up the
discussion. The
translation is only provisional; an earlier version
of it was kindly
published by the preeminent Baha'i scholar Stephen Lambden
in his *Baha'i
Studies Bulletin*, under the auspices of the NSA of
the UK; I think the
translation is good enough to form the basis of some
discussions here,
but the friends should please remember that it is provisional.
cheers Juan Cole, History, Univ. of Michigan
Baha'u'llah's "Commentary on the Surah of the Sun"
Introduction and Provisional Translation
by
Juan R.I. Cole
Qur'an commentary proved an important literary genre
in
Shaykhism, Babism, and the early Baha'i Faith, the three
religious traditions
that formed the matrix for the emergence of the modern
Baha'i community.
One perspicacious observer has already drawn attention
to the paradox
implicit in Babi scripture consisting in part of commentary
on previous
scripture. Although such commentary played a considerably
less
important role in Baha'u'llah's writings, some Qur'an
commentary (Tafsir)
does occur in them. Here I would like to bring attention
to a central text
for this issue, Baha'u'llah's commentary on Surah 91
of the Qur'an, "The
Sun" (ashShams). Obviously, where Baha'u'llah himself
says something
about how one should go about interpreting scripture,
the Baha'!
commentator must take it extremely seriously. Yet this
Arabic Tablet,
written during the `Akka period, has not to my knowledge
been discussed
in Baha'! literature. Muhyi'dDin Sabri, the KurdishEgyptian
intellectual
who undertook an important compilation of Baha'u'llah's
Tablets and
published them in Cairo in 1920, thought the commentary
so important that
he placed it first in the book. In this work, Baha'u'llah
sets out some
general guidelines for commenting on scripture, and
I offer a translation of
it in Appendix II below, with some brief comments here.
Before turning to the hermeneutical and exegetical principles
elaborated by Baha'u'llah in his brief commentary on
the Surah of the Sun,
written at the request of one of the Ottoman ulama,
some of this tablet's
general features should be mentioned. First, the reader
will be struck by
the eloquence of Baha'u'llah's Arabic. Unlike his Baghdad
and Edirne
works, this piece completely conforms to the conventions
of standard
nineteenthcentury Arabic, showing neither the Persian
grammatical
influences we find elsewhere nor the Dadaist, Babi disdain
for conventional
grammar apparent in some earlier works. Some of its
passages display a
fine literary flair, such as Baha'u'llah's satirical
description of how the
sciences of rhetoric and grammar cultivated in Muslim
polite society had
caused him so much grief.
My main interest in this tablet, however, derives from
the manner in
which Baha'u'llah expresses himself on how he thinks
scripture commentary
should be carried out. He shows himself altogether
opposed to literalism
and what we might now call fundamentalism. "Know thou,"
Baha'u'llah
writes in this Tablet, "that whoso clingeth to the outward
sense of the
words, leaving aside their esoteric significance, is
simply ignorant." One
has only to examine classical Qur'an commentaries such
as that of al
Baydawi, to see such an exoteric approach at work.
For alBaydawi, the
sun is the sun is the sun. On the other hand, Baha'u'llah
has equally little
patience with those mystics or sectarians who wholly
neglect the plain,
commonsense meaning of scripture in favor of wild, unanchored
flights of
speculation. "Only the one," he concludes, "who interpreteth
the verses
esoterically while harmonizing this reading with their
literal meaning
can be
said to be a complete scholar." The Muslim civilization
had developed an
elaborate apparatus for understanding the literal or
outward (azzahir)
meaning of a verse of scripture. It included the study
of Arabic grammar,
lexicology, and rhetoric so that the commentator could
be sure he
understood the structural place of the various elements
in the verse. That
is, the scholar had to take into account syntax and
morphology, as well as
seeking the meaning of obscure words in parallel usages
in preIslamic
poetry. The commentator also attempted to put the chapters
of the Qur'an
in chronological order and studied their context in
the biographies of the
Prophet and in a literature known as "occasions of revelation"
(asbab an
nuzul). Baha'u'llah clearly requires that commentators
attain such
linguistic
and historical competency, all of which is required
for an understanding of
the verse's outward meaning.
The outward sense of the verse must not be disregarded
in
Baha'u'llah's view. In his Most Holy Book, he castigated
those who
performed an esoteric exegesis (ta'wil) on revealed
verses, accusing them
of corrupting the word of God. An entire disregard
for the literal,
commonsense meaning of scripture would open the door,
after all, for
antinomianism. Baha'u'llah, weary of the endless parade
of Babi
manifestations of God, at one point in the Most Holy
Book declares
himself the last prophet who will arise for at least
1,000 years. Yet Babis
were nothing if not clever in matters of numerology,
and he felt it necessary
specifically to forbid believers to interpret this verse
in anything but
a literal
manner, excluding esoteric exegesis or ta'wil. He
feared that too
subjective an approach to hermeneutics could harm his
religion, especially
if applied to matters of law and authority.
On the other hand, an exegesis concerned wholly with
details of
grammar and items of lexicology could only deaden the
soul. In his
commentary on the Surah of the Sun, Baha'u'llah goes
beyond such dry
exercises in pedantry, advising exegetes to set up a
tension between the
outward and the manifold subjective meanings of scriptural
verses, and let
them play off one another. Here, it seems to me, the
cultural tradition in
which Baha'u'llah stood, of Persian mysticism and gnosticism,
resonates
rather nicely with aspects of contemporary postmodernism.
Baha'u'llah
completely rejected the primacy of commonsense or positivist
approaches
to meaning. A proposition, in his view, had many potential
meanings, tens
of them, not just a single literal one. Some might
prefer to think of this
stance as the positing of "polyvalence," or many levels
of meaning, in
scripture. Others may see it in postmodern terms as
semantic ambiguity or
instability. In either case, the multiple meanings
inscribed in statements
and texts derives from both the diversity of human perceptions
and from
the multiple nature of reality itself. Reality is not
exhausted by what
can be
experienced by senseperception, as a positivist would
maintain. Rather,
reality consists of a series of graded "planes" or "stations"
(rutbah,
maqam), which run the spectrum between pure Being and
pure
nothingness. At the pole of pure Being is the plane
of absolute unity,
which is the domain of God's preexistent essence. Below
this domain is the
plane of God's Word or Command, the domain of the Logos.
Then come
various lesser stations or planes of the created, contingent
world. Some of
these planes have to do with human psychology and the
attainment of
certain mystical states, and they are often metaphorically
called by
Baha'u'llah "cities" or "valleys," in Persian mystical
style. Thus, we have
the city or plane of rid, wherein the believer radiantly
acquiesces in
whatever God wills for him or her. All this is wellknown,
of course. But
the point I want to make here is that Baha'u'llah envisions
these various
planes or stations of reality, whether they be metaphysical
or psychological,
as sites of discourse. A person speaks from some plane
and understands
the discourse of others within the subjective context
of that particular
plane
or station which he or she inhabits at that moment.
A verse of
scripture, in
short, will carry a different meaning to different believers,
depending on
what plane they inhabit, or even depending upon what
plane they are
meditating on when considering the verse.
Any verse of scripture, then, carries an obvious literal
sense, along
with a myriad of metaphorical or subjective significations
which will differ
from believer to believer, and from station to station.
A proper exegesis
would take account of these several semantic dimensions.
Thus, when the
Qur'an represents God as taking an oath by the sun and
"by the moon when
it followeth it!" one may say on the prosaic plane that
the Qur'an is
appealing to the grandeur of nature in order to exalt
its Creator. But
according to Baha'u'llah, such terms as sun and moon
also carry a great
many subjective or metaphorical meanings for the believer
who meditates
upon them. In the station of absolute divine unity,
the sun refers to the
emanations of the Self or the Primal Will upon creation,
a reference to
Neoplatonic conceptions of metaphysics and theology
wherein a demiurge
emanates from God, from whom in turn emanates the contingent
world. In
other stations, on other planes, the sun can refer to
prophets, or to imams
and saints. The potential numbers of referents for
the word sun are
infinite,
depending upon the station in which the word is considered.
Unlike the
case in postmodernism, these contending significations
appear to war with
one another only if one neglects to take account their
various semantic
levels, which exist in a hierarchical arrangement.
Disputes among believers
about the metaphorical sense of a particular passage
might arise if the two
believers were speaking from, or in the context of,
different metaphysical
or psychological planes.
This polyvalence or semantic ambiguity is what makes
it impossible
for any believer to promulgate an authoritative interpretation
of
scripture.
Any individual's interpretation would be bounded by
his or her stage of
spiritual development, and readers dwelling on other
planes would interpret
in a wholly different manner the prooftexts of which
the exegete made
use.
The ability of `Abdu'lBaha and Shoghi Effendi to interpret
scripture
authoritatively for the community appears primarily
to have concerned the
legal or doctrinal implications of the verses' outward
meanings; neither
suggested that he had exhausted the verses' esoteric
meanings. Even this
central teaching authority is now absent in the Baha'i
Faith, leaving even
greater scope for a decentralization of theology. With
the passing of the
guardianship, the new leadership of the Baha'i Faith,
the Universal House
of Justice (elected in 1963), has the prerogative only
of legislating on
matters not covered by scripture. The authority to
interpret scripture was
confined solely to the Guardian, and the Universal House
of Justice, Shoghi
Effendi wrote, would never "infringe upon the sacred
and prescribed
domain" of interpretation.
The multiple meanings inscribed in texts, then, requires
that Baha'is
tolerate a wide variety of theologies within their faith,
recognizing the
subjective element in exegesis. I do not myself find
this prospect at all
problematic. All worldreligions have in fact been
very diverse, but their
ecclesiastical representatives have often attempted
to deny that diversity
and to play upon the community's anxieties about ambiguity
in order to
gain more power by persecuting those they branded heretics.
Islam, for
instance, encompasses persons in West Africa who have
essentially the
same mindset and basic beliefs as their neighbors who
follow indigenous
African religions, as well as encompassing Indian Muslim
villagers who, in
their illiterate ecumenism, often call upon Hindu deities
for help.
Admittedly, modern literacy, printing, and mass media
are making inroads
against this kind of localism and popular syncretism.
But for most of
history, the worldreligions have been little more than
umbrellas under
which all sorts of folk and local practices were pursued.
The Qur'an clearly
meant something different to the Gambian Muslims than
it did to those in
South India. A fundamentalist might argue that these
mostly illiterate
believers misunderstood their own religion. But that
would require the
absurd conclusion that the vast majority of Muslims
have been daily
misunderstanding Islam for 1400 years. The alternative
explanation, that a
worldreligion necessarily involves the subsuming under
a few broad
symbols of millions of localistic subjectivities, is
hateful to
fundamentalists
because it challenges their conviction that there is
only one, literalist
way to
read scripture.
In matters of theology, Baha'is have the magnificent
opportunity to
let a thousand flowers bloom. Many of the otherwise
admirable saintly
figures in human history, from St. Augustine to Sir
Thomas More, have
been guilty of having heretics burned to death. This
hypocrisy was forced
upon them by the vain belief that it was possible and
necessary to achieve
an absolute creedal consensus within their religious
community. Baha'u'llah
himself made this sort of ugly Inquisition wholly unnecessary
by
recognizing the ambiguity and semantic instability of
texts, even revealed
ones. His theory of exegesis deserves a more rigorous
investigation than I
can offer here. I think the idea of planespecific
semantic universes
offers a
fascinating area for the interplay of Baha'! ideas with
those of modern
philosophers of language such as Wittgenstein, Eco,
and Derrida. But the
most important and lasting contribution of Baha'u'llah's
exegetical
principles may be the creation, at last, of a selfconsciously
diverse world
religion, which achieves unity, not by Inquisition,
but by tolerance.
Appendix I
Qur'an 91, The Surah of the Sun
By the sun and its noonday brightness!
By the moon when it followeth it!
By the day when it revealeth its glory!
By the night when it enshroudeth it!
By the heaven and that which built it!
By the earth and that which spread it forth!
By a soul and Him who fashioned it!
And informed it of its wickedness and its piety;
Blessed now is he who hath kept it pure,
and undone is he who hath corrupted it!
Thamud in their insolence rejected their prophet,
When the greatest wretch among them rushed up:
Said the Apostle of God to them, "The Camel of God!
Let her drink."
But they treated him as an impostor and hamstrung her.
So their Lord destroyed them for their crime, and visited
all alike:
Nor feared He the issue thereof.
[Translation based on Rodwell, but modified by Cole,
sometimes with
reference to Arberry.]
Appendix II
Baha'u'llah's
Commentary on the Surah of the Sun
(Provisional Translation by
Juan R.I. Cole, University of Michigan
Revised 4 April 1994)
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Praise be to God, Who hath set the dove of eloquence,
perched
among the twigs of the tree of explanation, to weaving
her divers
melodies.
Her lyrics tell of how there is no God but God, Who
hath brought new
beings into existence, and created the contingent world
by means of His
Primal Will, whereby He hath caused to exist all that
was and yet shall
be.
May God be glorified, Who hath embellished the heavens
of reality with the
sun of metaphorical meanings and mystical insight, as
inscribed by the Pen
of the Most High. Sovereignty belongeth to God, the
Omnipotent, the
Help in Peril, the SelfSubsisting. He hath brought
forth the Most Great
Ocean, which uniteth in itself the waters flowing from
the spring of the
letter H, which flow into the Most Ancient Name (Baha),
from which the
Primal Point was separated off, and whereby the unifying
Word hath
become manifest and both spiritual truth and religious
law were revealed.
The upholders of the divine unity broke through its
surface and soared up
into the heavens of ecstasy and divine presence. The
sincere ones thus
attained the beatific vision of their Lord, the AllGlorious,
the Devoted
Friend.
Then peace and blessings be upon the DawningPlace of
the Most
Beautiful Names and the Most Exalted Attributes, in
every letter of Whose
appellation the Divine Names are treasured up, and whereby
existence
itself, whether visible or invisible, hath been adorned.
He was called
Muhammad in the realm of names, and Ahmad in the Kingdom
of eternity.
And peace be upon His House and His Companions, from
this day until
that upon which the Tongue of Grandeur shall speak forth.
Sovereignty
belongs to God, the One, the AllConquering.
Your letter reached Us, and We have perused it, with
all its
allusions. We beseech God to aid thee in doing that
which He loves, that
He might bring thee nigh unto the shores of that sea
from which rise up the
waves of the Name of thy Lord, the Most High. Every
drop thereof saith,
"There is no God but God, the Creator of all Names and
of the Heavens
above."
O questioner, if thou seekest the Sacred Fold and the
Sinai of divine
proximity, then cleanse thy heart of all else but Him.
Remove the sandals
of thy suppositions and idle fancies, that thou mightest
see with the eye of
thine heart the effulgences of God, the Lord of the
Throne and of the
Earth. For this is the day of unveiling and witnessing.
Separation hath
passed away, and union hath arrived. This is from the
bounty of thy Lord,
the Cherished, the Beloved. Leave posing questions
and seeking answers
to the people of this earth, and ascend by the wings
of abnegation into
those skies wherein thou shalt draw nigh to the clemency
of thy Lord, the
Merciful, the Compassionate.
Say: O people, the Primal Point hath been revealed,
the Universal
Word hath been brought to fruition, and the kingdom
of God, the Help in
Peril, the SelfSubsisting, hath been made manifest.
Say: O people, ye
disport yourselves in a puddle, oblivious to the sweet
sea that billoweth
before your faces. What aileth ye, that ye comprehend
not? Do ye speak
forth with the knowledge ye possess when He hath appeared,
Who knew
the Point of Knowledge that generated all things, and
to which they all
returned? From this Point did issue God's own words
of wisdom, and
sciences that yet remain concealed in the treasuries
of the purity of thy
Lord, the Exalted, the Almighty. Leave allusions to
those trapped in them,
and set out toward that station wherein ye shall perceive
the fragrances of
knowledge from His heavens. Thus counseleth ye this
Servant, every
member, every artery, of whose body testifieth that
there is no God save
He. He ever subsisted in the zenith of His might and
glory, and in the
heights of His honor and radiance. The Ones He sent
with truth and
guidance are the Dawningplaces of His revelation to
all creation, and the
Daysprings of His inspiration among His servants. Through
them were the
mysteries unveiled, and the divine Laws legislated,
and by Them was
realized the Cause of God, the AllPowerful, the Mighty,
the
Unconstrained. No God is there but He, the Omniscient,
the AllKnowing.
O questioner, know thou that the people pride themselves
upon
knowledge, and praise it, whereas this Servant complaineth
of it. For
without it Baha would not have been imprisoned in Akka
with extreme
abasement, nor would He have drunk from the cup of woes
proffered by
His enemies. Eloquence hath banished Me, and the science
of rhetoric
brought Me low. My mention of conjunction [union with
God] hath torn
Me limb from limb. My succinctness hath provoked a
longwinded
affliction, grammar hath deprived Me of all comfort,
and syntax hath
disordered the pleasures of My heart. My knowledge
of God's mysteries
hath become a chain about my neck. Given all this,
how can I respond to
your question concerning the verses revealed from the
heavens of majesty
and grandeur, especially since the hearts of the discerning
have failed to
comprehend them, and the minds of the sagacious never
soared into the
heavens of their meanings?
My pinions have been clipped by the shears of envy and
rancor.
Should this broken bird find wings, He would fly into
the sky of rhetoric
and exposition and warble on the twigs of the tree of
knowledge a song
that would lift up the hearts of the sincere ones into
the firmament of
longing and attraction. They would then witness the
effulgences of their
Lord, the Mighty, the Bestower. At this time, however,
I am forbidden to
uncover what was hidden, release what was repressed
or speak openly of
what was concealed. We must withhold it rather than
revealing it. Were
We to speak of what God hath taught Us by His grace,
the people would
back away from Us and flee, save for those who have
imbibed the elixir of
life from the chalice of the words of their Lord, the
AllMerciful.
For, every word sent down from the heavens of revelation
upon the
prophets and messengers hath been filled with the sacred
waters of
figurative meaning, explanation, wisdom and exposition.
Blessed are they
who drink thereof. Since We have perceived in thee
the fragrance of love,
We shall reply to thee briefly and with concision.
Thus mightest thou sever
thyself from those who interpret all scripture metaphorically,
who have
opposed the truth and its mystery and cling instead
to their own
conjectures and vain imaginings, even though aforetime
it was revealed that
"Conjecture availeth nothing against the truth" and
in another place
"Some conjecture is a sin."
Know that the sun mentioned in this blessed surah hath
divers
meanings. At the level of primacy and unity, and in
the city of preexistent
divinity, it is one of God's mysteries, one of his sanctuaries,
stored
away in
His treasure hold, concealed in His knowledge, and sealed
by God's own
seal. No one is informed thereof save the One, the
Unique, the
Omniscient.
For in this station the sun signifieth the Primal Will
and the
illumination of
divine oneness that by means of its Self sheddeth its
effulgence upon the
horizons. Whoever approached it was illumined thereby
just as, when the
sun riseth, its rays encompass the world, all save those
surfaces that remain
veiled from it by some obstacle. Consider the land
unencumbered by trellis
or wall: it is irradiated by the sun, whereas walls
cast a shadow that
prevents the earth from receiving this effulgence.
In the same way, behold
the sun of reality. It sheddeth the light of meanings
and explanation upon
beings. Whoso turneth toward it is rendered luminous
by its rays, and such
a one's heart gloweth with its light. Whoso turneth
away will never have
any portion therein, for the veil of self and passion
hath intervened, and
such a one remaineth far from the emanations of the
sun of reality that
flashed forth from the horizons of the heaven of heavens.
Then, in another station, it refereth to the prophets
and pure
ones of
God, for they are the suns of His names and attributes
amid his creation.
Were it not for them, no one would have been illumined
by the mystical
knowledge of God. As you see, every nation on earth
hath been
enlightened by one of these brightly shining suns.
Whoso denieth them
remaineth deprived. For instance, those of God's servants
who followed
the Christ were irradiated by the sun of his knowledge,
until the
luminary of
the horizons dawned over the Hijaz. Those who denied
him [Muhammad]
among the Christians and other communities were thereby
deprived of that
sun and its rays. Their very repudiation of him became
a wall that locked
out the light emanating from the horizon of the Cause
of their Lord, the
Omnipotent, the Succorer.
On yet another level of reality, it refereth to the
friends and lovers
of God, since they are the suns of authority among his
creatures. Without
them, gloom would have encompassed the entire earth,
save those thy Lord
willed to escape it. The word hath many other referents.
Were ten scribes
to come into Our presence and take down Our utterances
for a year, or
two years, they would in the end confess their inability
to keep pace. Were
it not for the denials of some ignoramuses, We would
have discoursed at
greater length, and the revered Pen of God would have
gone beyond the
mention of limitations.
Know assuredly that just as thou firmly believest that
the Word of
God, exalted be His glory, endureth for ever, thou must,
likewise, believe
with undoubting faith that its meaning can never be
exhausted. They
who are its appointed interpreters, they whose hearts
are the
repositories of
its secrets are, however, the only ones who can comprehend
its manifold
wisdom. Whoso, while reading the Sacred Scriptures,
is tempted to
choose therefrom whatever may suit him with which to
challenge the
authority of the Representative of God among men, is,
indeed, as one dead,
though to outward seeming he may walk and converse with
his neighbors,
and share with them their food and drink.
Oh, would that the world could believe Me! Were all
the things
that lie enshrined within the heart of Baha, and which
the Lord, His God,
the Lord of all names, hath taught Him, to be unveiled
to mankind, every
man on earth would be dumbfounded.
How great the multitude of truths which the garment
of words can
never contain! How vast the number of such verities
as no expression can
adequately describe, whose significance can never be
unfolded, and to
which not even the remotest allusion can be made! How
manifold are the
truths which must remain unuttered until the appointed
time is come! Even
as it hath been said: "Not everything that a man knoweth
can be disclosed,
nor can everything that he can disclose be regarded
as timely, nor can every
timely utterance be considered as suited to the capacity
of those who hear
it."
Of these truths some can be disclosed only to the extent
of the
capacity of the repositories of the light of Our knowledge,
and the
recipients of Our hidden grace. We beseech God to strengthen
thee with
His power, and enable thee to recognize Him Who is the
Source of all
knowledge, that thou mayest detach thyself from all
human learning, for
"what would it profit any man to strive after learning
when he hath already
found and recognized Him Who is the object of all knowledge?"
Cleave to
the Root of knowledge, and to Him Who is the Fountain
thereof, that thou
mayest find thyself independent of all who claim to
be well versed in human
learning, and whose claim no clear proof, nor the testimony
of any
enlightening book, can support.
In another station, it refereth to the most beautiful
names of God,
insofar as every one of His names constituteth a sun
shining above the
horizon. Consider the name of God, "the knowing."
It is a sun that
dawneth above the horizon of the will of thy Lord, the
AllMerciful, its
rays bathing the bodies of all things in the known universe.
Thou wilt find
every correct science among those persons of learning
who have not given
in to their passions and base desires, who have acknowledged
the path of
the divine decree and held fast to the firm handle of
faith. Know that such
a one is in the right, and that his knowledge is a ray
that emanated from the
light of this sun. We have, verily, interpreted the
names and elucidated
their mysteries, effulgences, and coruscations, their
externality and
internality, the secrets of their letters and the wisdom
of their composition
in an epistle that We penned for one of Our friends
who had inquired
concerning the names and what they contained.
Know that the Word of God, in the primal reality and
the first
station, compriseth those meanings that most of the
people have failed to
perceive. We bear witness that His words are complete,
and in every one
of these words lie concealed meanings apprehended by
no one but Himself,
and from Him is knowledge of the Book. No God is there
but Him, the
Almighty, the Omnipotent, the Bestower.
Those who wrote commentaries on the Qur'an fell into
two sorts.
The first neglected the literal sense in favor of an
esoteric exegesis. The
other interpreted literally and ignored its metaphorical
dimension. Were
We to review all their sayings and statements, thou
wouldst be overtaken
with fatigue and unable to read what We have written
for thee. Therefore,
We have declined to mention them here. Blessed are
they that cling both
to the literal and to the esoteric, for those are His
servants that have
believed in the universal Word.
Know that whoso clingeth to the outward sense of the
words,
leaving aside their esoteric significance, is simply
ignorant. And whoso
concentrateth on the metaphorical sense to the exclusion
of the prosaic
meaning is heedless. Only the one who intepreteth the
verses esoterically
while harmonizing this reading with the literal meaning
can be said to be a
complete scholar. This maxim hath dawned from the horizon
of
knowledge, so know thou its value and cherish its excellence.
Verily, we
mention Our object allusively in our words and intimations.
Blessed is the
one who graspeth Our intent and arriveth at the goal.
Say: O people, the nightingale warbleth upon the twigs,
the royal
cockerel crieth out with wisdom and utterance, and the
peacock spreadeth
its feathers in paradise. How long will ye sleep upon
the couch of
heedlessness and transgression? Rise from the bed of
selfish passion and
advance toward the dawningplace of the compassion of
thy Lord, the
Sovereign of Eternity, the Revealer of Names. Beware
lest ye oppose Him,
who calleth you to God and to His precepts. Fear ye
God and be not of
the negligent.
To: Saman,<S0a7254@tam2000.tamu.edu>
Cc: Talisman,<talisman@indiana.edu>
Bcc:
From: Habib Riazati <76101.3361@compuserve.com>
Subject: Blessed ... Source
Date: Thursday, May 4, 1995
4:27:22 EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
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Dear Saman, Allah'u'abha
You may find the original Arabic in the
Persian translation of the book
"Advent of Divine Justice " Page 171 lines
1 and 2 .
(* Published by Baha'i publishing trust
of USA in 1985 with 189 pages *)
With warmest regards, Habib Riazati
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc: bahai-discuss@bcca.org
Bcc:
From: Juan R Cole <jrcole@umich.edu>
Subject: collecting Baha'i materials
Date: Tuesday, May 30, 1995 19:23:07
EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
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Especially for the Iranian friends on this Net:
I am interested in trading Persian and
Arabic books and materials related
to Shaykhism and the Babi and Baha'i faiths.
I am *especially*
interested in handwritten manuscripts--collections
of Tablets, community
histories, biographies, autobiographies,
memoirs, and so forth. But
there are also a fair number of books published
by the Iranian
Publishing Trust that I have never managed
to get hold of. I
have a nine-page list of such materials,
mostly photocopies, that are in
my possession. I am willing to make one-for-one
trades. If you yourself
do not have a good library but know someone
who does, please pass my
message on. I fear those Iranian friends
with the best Baha'i
libraries are the least likely to be on
e-mail. I'd be glad to reward
persons who make such contacts with a photocopy
of one or two books of
their choice. My land mail address is
Juan Cole,
Department of History, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
Sorry to take up bandwidth with this request.
But the history of the
Faith in Iran has barely begun to be written,
and since the Islamic
Revolution in Iran Baha'i researchers are
hampered by lack of access
to the rich Baha'i archives and manuscript
repositories in that country
(which, indeed, are in danger of being
destroyed by the Government; and
therefore the history of our Faith is in
danger of being destroyed).
Only by spreading these materials around
among scholars can their
survival be ensured. And only by publishing
on the teachings and history
of our Faith in respected journals can
we win recognition for it from
persons of capacity.
warmest Baha'i regards, Juan Cole, History, Univ. of Michigan
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Ahang Rabbani <rabbana@a1.bmoa.umc.dupont.com>
Subject: RE: Prayer translation
Date: Sunday, May 14, 1995 19:03:31
EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
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[This message is converted from WPS-PLUS to ASCII]
Dear Shastri:
The prayer that you provided is not
the one chanted by the
believers at Fort Tabarsi as they greeted
Quddus.
The prayer that they used to welcome
Quddus is: "Subuhun
Quddusun, rabbana va rab-i mala'ikati-i
va ruh" (Praiseworthy
and the Most Sacred is our Lord, the
Lord of the angles and the
spirit.)
The prayer that you shared with us is
a translation of: "Alahuma
ya subuhun ya quddus, ya rahmanun ya
mannan. Faraj lana bil
fazil va'l-ihsan. Innaka rahmanun mannan."
Both of these prayers refer to Quddus.
lovingly, ahang.
In article: <01HQUZ1RUDLU000VKJ@RLMAT1.RULIMBURG.NL>
Sen.Mcglinn@rl.rulimburg.nl writes:
>
>
> I'm interested in the disks of texts
- especially the one apart from the main
> texts available by FTP. However send
me a full list because I know there are
> people here who are not on the net but
would use electronic texts.
>
> I'm steadily annotating my texts. When
that has gone a bit further - I meand
> in 5 years or so - it might be interesting
to make these available on disk.
> But I am annotating them with footnotes
etc in Word Perfect, so there may be
> a translation problem.
>
> Regards
>
> Sen
Whenever you are ready (g)
PLEASE READ INSTRUCTIONS _CAREFULLY_
Those in countries other than UK, USA and
Canada please forgive this but we
are unable to accept other currencies because
of the cost of cashing the
checks/cheques (Currently 7.50 pounds
per cheque) unless more is given to
cover this cost. Sorry!
Sterling travellers cheques can be bought if you wish.
{I will ask the National Treasurer if they
can accept credit card
donations.}
USA AND CANADIAN Checks accepted also.
Suggested donation is 17 dollars US
or more (g) PLUS International Reply
Coupons (available from your post
offices) enough to cover postage of the
Disks back to you. PLUS five Disks.
If you have a UK bank account.
These can be supplied on five Zipped or
ARJed 1.44mb disks for a suggested
donation of 10.00 Pounds or more.
Cheque/Check made payable to "National
Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is
of the UK."
Send the cheque/check, five formatted DSHD
disks: and Stamped, Self
Addressed envelope to:-
Graham Sorenson.
185 Meadow Rise,
Llanharan,
Mid Glamorgan,
CF7 9TL
Wales, UK.
E-Mail to graham@fragrant.demon.co.uk
[ (for Those with a UK bank account only)
Or alternatively add a cheque for 5 UK
Pounds, payable to G. Sorenson
and I will buy the disks and envelope and
postage.]
"THE FILES"
Filename size discription
ABL FN 142,656 'Abdu'l-Baha
in London
AGENDA21 TXT 32,895 BIC short version
of Agenda 21
AHW TXT 17,452 Arabic Hidden
Words
AQDAS TXT 434,223 Kitab-i-Aqdas
ASMA TXT 49,720 Part of Selected
Writings of the Bab
BAHAI EDU 169,904 Compilation
of Baha'i education
BAHA NEW 583,320 Baha'u'llah
and the New Era
BAHA TXT 4,303
BAHAI TXT 3,735 An Introduction
BAHAI ADM 455,343 Baha'i Administration
BAHAINTR TXT 15,122 Another Introduction
BAHAIQUE TXT 3,294 Summary of
persecutions of Baha'is in Iran
BAHAULAH TXT 105,763 Short Introduction
to Baha'u'llah
BAHBUD TXT 8,825 Baha'i and
Buddism
BALKANS TXT 2,244 Prayer for
the Balkans
BELIEF TXT 9,481 Thread From
the Internet
BHAGAVAD TXT The Bhagavad
Gita.
BIC92 TXT 4,077 Statement of
BIC to UN Conference on
Envirionment
and development
BISHARAT TXT 13,066 Tablet of Bisharat
BOOKHOPI TXT 23,681 Hopi Prophecies
BWF 542,338 Baha'i World
Faith, 'Abdu'l-Baha's section
CAMPLIST TXT 9,230 List of files
on Camphor Fountain
CARMEL TXT 4,644 Tablet of Carmel
CIT FAI 404,790 Citidels of
Faith
DAWN NEW 453,234 Dawn of a New
Day
DB-ENG DOS 1,680,817 Dawnbreakers
DB-FNS DOS 205,145 Dawnbreakers
footnotes translated from
the French
DELAHUNT TXT 12,547 Jaci Delahunt
article N American Indian
DG TXT Directives
from the Guardian.
DUSK GIF Picture.
ESW 273,137 Epistle to
the Son of the Wolf
FIRE! TXT 7,321 Fire Tablet
FOOD! TXT 3,242 Some Writings
on food and vegetarian diet
FWU FN 278,893 Foundations
of World Unity
GOD TXT 3,699 Some Writings
on God
GOD PAS 1,090,940 God Passes
By
GWB 511,088 Gleanings
HEALING1 TXT 8,621 Long Healing
Prayer
HOPI TXT 40,732 Lee Brown on
Hopi
HWPROPHY TXT 4,321 Prophecy on
Hidden Words
JINN TXT 4,583 About Jinn
in Quran (Genies)
KITABAHD TXT 8,077 Kitab-i-Ahd
(Book of the Covenant)
KITAIQAN TXT 315,267 Kitab-i-Iqan
(Book of Certitude)
LAWHIAQD TXT 16,237 Lawh-i-Aqdas
(Most Holy Tablet)
LDG1 FN Light of Divine
Guidance vol1
LDG2 FN "
" " vol2
MARINER TXT 8,406 Tablet of the
Holy Mariner
MEMORIZE TXT 8,168 Importance
of memorising Writings
MF FN 348,192 Memorials of
the Faithful
NATURE TXT 6,146 Baha'i Formal
Statement on Nature
NAWRUZ GIF Picture.
NEWNAME TXT 8,102 Bible on "New
Name"
PARADISE TXT 41,209 Kalimat-i-Firdawsiyyih(Words
of Paradise)
PB 123,212 Proclamation
of Baha'u'llah
PEACE 127,290 Compilation
on Peace
PHW TXT 32,209 Persian Hidden
Words
POVERTY TXT 4,886 Some Writings
on Poverty
PRAYKIDS TXT 23,441 Some Prayers
for unborn, Infants, etc
PRAYMEDI TXT 463,741 Prayers and
Meditations
PRAYWOMN TXT 18,281 Prayers revealed
by Baha'u'llah for Women
PROM DAY 322,222 The Promised
Day is Come
PROOFS TXT 20,034 Notes on Bible
Baha'i Proofs
PROPHECY TXT 10,112 Talk on Prophecy
PT FN 258,766 Paris Talks
PURITY TXT 8,974 Tablet of Purity
SAQ FN 494,599 Some Answered
Questions
SDC FN 179,447 The Secret
of Divine Civilization
SPTRUTH DOC 187,920 Lecture notes
Spirit of Truth
SUFFER TXT 10,019 Role and Purpose
of Suffering
SVFV FN 77,118 Seven Valleys
and Four Valleys
SWB FN 323,984 Selections
from the Writings of the Bab
TABAHMAD TXT 5,097 Tablet of Ahmad
TAB ABD 1,181,276 Tablets of
'Abdu'l-Bahai Abbas
TAF FN 31,207 Tablet to August
Forel
TAJALLI TXT 13,045 Effulgences
TARAZAT TXT 21,230 Ornaments
TB FN 394,559 Tablets of
Baha'u'llah Revealed after the
Kitab-i-Aqdas
TDP FN 119,927 Tablet of the
Divine Plan
TESTS TXT 5,053 Prayers for
Times of Tests
TN FN 192,563 A Travelers
Narrative
TRUESEEK TXT 9,840 Tablet of the
True Seeker
UD FN Unfolding Destiny
UNITY TXT 9,485 Building a
Unified World Community
WISDOM TXT 4,194 Words of Wisdom
WORLD ORD 468,431 World Order
of Baha'u'llah
WORLDPAX TXT 47,712 Peace Message
WT 53,608 Will and Testament
of 'Abdu'l-Baha
NEW!!!
1844.TXT Interesting message Originaly
posted to alt.religion.islam
ARO.TXT Letters from Shoghi Effendi
to New Zealand
BAHAI.ADM Bahai Administration, letters
from The Guardian 1922-1932
BAHAI.EDU Compilation on Education
1976
BK.TXT Bahiyyah Khanum
BREAKERS.TXT File about Covenant Breakers
from Mojan Momen
BUWBKLT.TXT Baha'i Youth Workshop Booklet
DEVELOP.TXT Towards a Developement
Paradigm for the 21st Century (BIC)
GLOBESTR.TXT A Global Strategy & Action-Plan
for Soc Dev.(BIC)
GRNAME.GIF A picture of the Greatest
Name
HE.FN High Endeavour, Messages
to Alaska
HOLMES.TXT Prize Winning Script of
a play from Ben Roskams
INDRIGHT.TXT Individual rights and freedoms,
Statement from UHJ
JWTA.TXT Japan Will Turn Ablaze
LGANZ Letters from the Guardian
to Australia and New Zealand
MA.TXT Messages to America
MBW.FN Messages to the Baha'i
World 1950 - 1057
MC.FN Messages to Canada
PIC56.JPG Jpeg Picture
PIC562.JPG jpeg picture
PROSPER TXT UHJ JAN 25 1995 Prosperity
of Mankind
QURAN.TXT The Quran
ROLEEDUC.TXT Role of Education, Media,
& Arts in Soc Dev (BIC)
ROLERELI.TXT Role of Religion in Soc
Dev (BIC)
RUHE.TXT Dr Ruhe, Talk Orlando Dec
1988
RIDVAN.145 M
RIDVAN.146 E R
RIDVAN.147 S F I
RIDVAN.148 S R U A D
RIDVAN.149 A O H T V
RIDVAN.150 G M J A
RIDVAN.151 E N
RIDVAN.152 S
SCHOLAR.TXT Statement on Scholarship
1995
STATMEN.BAH BIC Statement on Baha'u'llah
TAB.ABD Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Baha
Abbas 1908
WOMEN Compilation on Women, from
Research Dept UHJ
'Additional Programme,' Lookfor.com is
a programm which will search all
text files in a directory and up to five
subdirectories for occurences of
words or phrases. (just what we want to
look for quotes....)
Any text files that you have that are not
on this list please send them to
me so that all can benefit from there availability.
Thanks
Graham
>
>
>
>
--
Graham Sorenson Guide to
Aromatherapy URL
http://www.dircon.co.uk/home/philrees/fragrant/index.html
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: "Eric D. Pierce" <PIERCEED@sswdserver.sswd.csus.edu>
Subject: Re: From the List Owner
(brief? biography)
Date: Wednesday, May 31, 1995
22:13:08 EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Netizens,
I recently started exploring the Internet
resources related to the
Faith. First I got on the Usenet soc.religion.bahai
group, then I
was informed of talisman and the various
BCCA email list server
groups.
What a relief that there is a public forum
that has such depth of
discussion that it gets scary at times!
I have been a member of the community for
about 23 years, and
declared as a result of a tangent to the
mass teaching activities in
the south. I spent some time in the group
of youth in the Virginia
suburbs of D.C., especially at the homes
of the Huddlestons and
Stanwood Cobb. I grew up as a military
brat, and was blessed with
exposure to cultures and religions in Asia
and Europe as a child.
I came back to California in the mid-70's
and entered a period of non-
participation in the community. I needed
to examine my confused
feelings about the Faith. I more or less
decided to recommit after a
few years. I guess it helped a bit to grow
up!
I consider myself a somewhat reluctant
non-scholarly dissident in
the community. Having been brainwashed
by what I now label "Baha'i
Mythology" as a youth, I generally take
a antiestablishmentarian
stance on goings on in the community. I
have experienced a great
deal of social and administrative corruption
in various locales,
and am extremely skeptical about the feasibility
of reforms "within
the system" given the ingrained widespread
imposition of various
types of personal and group agendas on
the social and administrative
fabric that I feel are incompatible with
the teachings.
I first got a taste of the possibility
of overcoming the sense of
a prevalent exclusionary and dysfunctional
attitude that I experienced
for years in various communities when the
workshops on dealing with
racism started at Bosch. Wow, people were
actually trying to apply the
teachings to initiate a process of evolutionary
group change! The all
to brief Dialog Magazine era also raised
some hope for the beginning of
an open public process of consultation
and the resolution of the tension
between the progressive and conservative
elements of the community.
I personally feel most uncomfortable with
"traditionalist" or
"conservative" agendas that derive from
pre-Baha'i religious and/or
cultural backgrounds, but will readily
admit that there are plenty
of corrupt "left-wing/counterculture..."
agendas floating around too.
(yes I saw the "don't use labels" message,
I'll stop using them
when non-mainstream elements of the community
are no longer
being marginalized.)
My main interest is in emotional/mystical
expressions of the experience
of an inspired, prayerful and reflective
life, but I have a great deal
of respect for the deep, open and frank
discussions of all of the
scholarly experts out there. ;^)
I greatly appreciate the work done on this
list to encourage the
scholarly path as a way out of the widespread
ignorance, misdirection
and corruption that I see in the community.
Thanks for being the
kind of "virtual community" that I've always
wanted!
Before closing, my pet peeve about email
discussions: taking little
snippets of another person's message out
of context and twisting them
to another meaning (or making thinly veiled
insults) without even
addressing the larger issue in the original
message.
Lurk mode on, and thanks for the opportunity to: blah, blah, blah...
Eric D. Pierce
Database/Network Technician (and recently
certified Diapering Expert)
Student Services
California State University, Sacramento
preferred email (work): PierceED@csus.edu
(PS, does anyone have a private archive
of talisman messages that they
would be interested in sharing?, TIA)
> Date sent: Wed, 31 May 95 09:46:03
EWT
> From: JWALBRID@ucs.indiana.edu
> Originally to: PO%"talisman"
> Subject: From the List Owner
> To: talisman@indiana.edu
>
...snip
> 11. A custom has developed on this list--based,
it seems, on Maori
> etiquette--that new participants should
introduce themselves at some
> point with a brief biography.
>
>
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Juan R Cole <jrcole@umich.edu>
Subject: labelling
Date: Saturday, May 27, 1995
20:30:14 EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have come back from vacation to find a
number of interesting threads
on Talisman, from David Langness's (and
others') comments on US Baha'i
conventions, to ether and physicists, to
a rather desultory and dreary
continuation of the `science & religion'
debate.
Mark Foster in particular feels aggrieved
that his position has been
characterized as "fundamentalist", and
I feel sorry about his obvious
discomfort.
I don't think "fundamentalist" a very useful
word. It is applied to
Khomeinism, a Shi`ite movement that believes
Muslim clergy should rule
via scholastic reasoning; and to lay movements
in Algeria that are
radical and non-clerical; and to Jerry
Falwell's followers. It does not
seem to have core content except maybe
"religious revivalism."
But in the discussion of religion and science,
epistemological (how we
know what we know) issues are in play.
Many Baha'is hierarchize
propositions about the world so that propositions
drawn from an
acontextual reading of translations of
Writings of Baha'u'llah and
`Abdu'l-Baha have evidentiary primacy in
the domains of science and
history. John Walbridge, Tony, Safa, David
and I among others have put
forth an alternative position, which is
that propositions derived from
scientific and historical procedures of
knowing have epistemological
primacy over propositions derived from
scripture *in the domains of
science and history.*
Mark Foster a couple of weeks ago characterized
the second group as
"modernists" and appeared to suggest that
they had abandoned *the* Baha'i
paradigm. I disagreed with both characterizations.
I have attempted to show that the second
approach, of ceding science and
history primacy in their own domains, has
an honorable lineage in Baha'i
studies: Mirza Abu'l-Fadl advocated it,
basing himself on Averroes;
`Abdu'l-Baha very explicitly said over
and over again that religion is
mere superstition where it disagrees with
science; the beloved Guardian,
as the House noted, accepted the possibility
that an eyewitness account
of an event in Yazd was superior to one
given in a Tablet by the Master.
John Walbridge has pointed out that position
#1 above, which always
grants epistemological primacy to propositions
drawn from scripture,
produces so many anomalies that it would
have to be abandoned if pursued
in a thoroughgoing manner throughout the
entire scriptural corpus. Those
who doubt John's conclusion should do so
cautiously; it would help if
they had read as many of the Tablets as
he had, in the original, and had
his knowledge of their cultural and historical
context.
This issue is important, because it is
important whether the intellectual
tone of the Baha'i faith is open to science
and history or whether it is
tied tightly to a literalist set of scripturally
derived proposition. It
pains me that the intellectual agenda of
many Baha'is seems to be to
fight a rear-guard action against, the
Michaelson-Morley experiment,
evolutionary theory, and modern historiographical
findings about ancient
Greece. What to call this set of positions
seems to me the least of our
problems.
cheers Juan Cole, History, Univ. of Michigan
Back to my poorly timed postings on the
question of science and religion, and
the inerrancy of the Sacred Texts. Sorry.
I am surprised by the various postings
on Talisman which seem to assume
the inerrancy of the literal and obvious
meaning of the Baha'i Writings.
Such view seem to insist that all scientific
discovery and historical
inquiry must be subordinated to the Texts
of the Baha'i scriptures as we read
them in our contextless American living
rooms.
Of course, I disagree strongly with
this view. But, beyond that, I do not
think that this has been the traditional
Baha'i approach to our Scriptures.
Mirza Abu'l-Fadl rejected this approach
a hundred years ago, and both
'Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi have warned
against it. Yet, it seems to be
the dominant mode of approach to the Writings,
at least in the American
Baha'i community. In my view, this is
because most Baha'is here are from
fairly conservative and popular Christian
backgrounds and, coming into the
Faith, they have naturally transferred
the attitudes that fundamentalist
Christians hold toward the Bible to the
Baha'i Writings--regarding them in
the same way.
I feel this is a very serious error.
As we can see on Talisman, such an
approach quickly leads to statements and
assumptions that are anti-scientific
in content and purpose, and are really
quite absurd. It means that we are
obliged to reject the obvious and repeatedly
demonstrated results of
scientific research (as in insisting on
the existence of ether, based on a
statement of 'Abdu'l-Baha) and make nonsense
out of historical inquiry (a la
Socrates and the Jewish prophets). It
also renders religion impervious to
reason, since no amount of data marshalled
against a statement from scripture
will ever get the believer to reject the
literal meaning of the text. At
that point religion (as attested by 'Abdu'l-Baha--and,
yes, that includes the
Baha'i Faith) becomes superstition.
Anyway, my point is that such an approach
to the Baha'i Writings is
without precident in Baha'i history. The
greatest Baha'i scholars have
rejected such an attitude--as have the
interpreters of the Text. Abu'l-Fadl
states categorically:
. . . Therefore, given this situation,
it is impermissible for the
scholarly investigator to depend on the
verses of the Qur'an and the
traditions of the Prophet in historical
questions.
It is clear that the prophets and Manifestations
of the Cause of God were
sent to guide the nations, to improve their
characters, and to bring the
people nearer to their Source and ultimate
Goal. They were not sent as
hitorians, astronomers, philosophers, or
natural scientists. . . .
Therefore, the prophets have indulged the
people in regard to their
historical notions, folk stories, and scientific
principles, and have spoken
to them according to these. They conversed
as was appropriate to their
audience and hid certain realities behind
the curtain of allusion.
. . . Finally, it is well known that
neither the Prophet Muhammad nor the
rest of the prophets ever engaged in disputes
with the people about their
historical beliefs, but addressed them
according to their local traditions.
(From Miracles and Metaphors,
pp. 9-14)
So, Abu'l-Fadl was quite clear and direct
on the matter a hundred years
ago. Likewise, 'Abdu'l-Baha has repeatedly
affirmed that when religion
disagrees with science it is superstition.
Yes, I suppose that we could
render such categoric and repeated statements
by the Master a dead letter by
simply changing the defintion of science
or pretending that we don't know
"which" science he was talking about.
I think, however, that is a tremendous
disservice to a profound principle of our
Faith.
Whatever the dangers of rejecting scripture
when it turns out to be
scientifically or historically wrong--Whatever
the danger of admitting that
'Abdu'l-Baha was simply confused about
a particular Islamic tradition, for
example--those dangers pale to insignificance
in the face of the dangers
posed by demanding a literal reading of
scripture and insisting that all
science and history must conform to it.
The latter position would simply
bring science to a halt, as it has it the
past. It would have a similar
effect on historical reseach.
And that is why Shoghi Effendi, when
faced with precisely this question of
a Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Baha contradicting
the history of events in Yazd which
was known to be true from eyewitness accounts--when
faced with this question
the Guardian instructed the Baha'is to
unhesitatingly record the correct
accounts in their local histories (and
not the bring the local histories in
conformity to the Tablet of the Master).
A monumental victory for reason and
truth! Yes, we can contradict the Text
on the basis of historical evidence.
The beloved Guardian said so.
I only wish that were the ethos and
approach of the majority of the Baha'i
community. It isn't. We seem stuck in
a conservative Christian mode and
haven't even caught up to Abu'l-Fadl yet.
Too bad.
Warmest,
Tony
To: Talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Member1700@aol.com
Subject: Re: Fundamentalism, etc.
Date: Tuesday, May 30, 1995
7:18:21 EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dearest Mark:
I am afraid that I, too, fail to see
the relevance of the quotations from
the House of Justice that you have shared
with us to our present discussion.
I wonder what your correspondence with
the House of Justice was that would
elicit such a response. I see all parties
in this discussion seeking to
engage the opinions of others--not to label
them and dismiss them. I think
that your statements and opinions have
been taken seriously in this forum,
and have been discussed. If they have
been rejected and dismissed by some,
it was on their merits and not due to any
labels attached to them--either by
me or anyone else.
No one has attempted to divide the
Baha'i community or the community on
Talisman. You are just as free to express
your views as you ever have been.
And I am just as free to disagree with
them and reject them. That is the
essense of intellectual exhange, not the
end of it. I wish that the rest of
the Baha'i community were committed to
similar values.
As to the term "fundamentalist," I find
it much more useful than Juan
seems to. I think that it is a respectable
scholarly term, and I cannot
understand why you would be so offended
by it. There are lots of
fundamentalist in the world--some of them
are Baha'is. That does not make
them evil. The term does not make them
evil. I disagree with that approach
to religion, but you are certainly free
to embrace it if you wish.
The term is not just a label, but a
descriptive term which refers to
certain assumptions about the inerrancy
of scripture, the primacy of religion
over science, the rejection of modernism,
etc. Insofar as one's positions
fall into that category, they are fundamentalist
within the terms of
recognized scholarly discourse. We recognize
the term as useful in
describing some Christians and Muslims,
it has been used with value in the
study of Hinduism and Judaism. Why should
the Baha'i Faith be exempt from
such an analysis? Isn't that just special
pleading?
Of course, if I misunderstand your views,
I will be very happy to be
corrected. That is why Terry's remarks
gave me such hope. And I will accept
his statement that your views do not resemble
the fundamentalist stance found
in other religions. But, if you are just
objecting that you don't like the
term, because it it pejorative or something,
let me assure you that I don't
regard it as pejorative, but as descriptive.
I used it as a descriptive and
a comparative term--and nothing more.
(Haven't we discussed this before?)
Warmest,
Tony
To: Talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Member1700@aol.com
Subject: Re: Eighteenth-century
issues
Date: Tuesday, May 30, 1995
7:18:24 EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
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Dear Stephen:
I am sorry that I have taken so long
to respond to your kind remarks. I
have been having trouble (again) getting
my e-mail to work and so my remarks
always seem out of sync with our discussions.
Sorry.
I do not think that you were particularly
hard on me in your recent post,
and I am certainly not offended by anything
you said. I am very happy to
accept criticism, and I appreciate your
frankness. I am, however, distressed
that you seem to have completely misunderstood
some parts of my posting, and
to have attributed to them a meaning opposite
to what I intended.
In the context of our discussion on
science and religion, ether, and
Socrates and the Hebrew prophets, I do
not think that the objections which I
raised to some views were particularly
vague. But if you want specifics
about what I mean by eighteenth-century
issues suddenly brought to life on
Talisman, the long-discarded propositions
have to do with:
1. The assertion of the primacy of
scriptural statements about science
and history over the results of scholarly
inquiry and evidence--such as
dismissing all of the evidence that mades
it ridiculous to think that
Socrates studied with the Jewish prophets
with a wave of the hand and a
reference to a line from `Abdu'l-Baha;
2. The assumed inerrancy of scripture
with regard to scientific fact and
historical fact;
3. The assumption that God and all
matters spiritual can be studied in a
"scientific" manner, like any of the physical
and natural sciences--if only
we use the right "tools";
4. The assumption that one can prove
the existence of God by rational
argument;
and so forth. These are indeed issues
that were hot in the eighteenth
century, and the history of that intellectual
debate should be well known.
I certainly have no intention of returning
to the eighteenth century or
freezing the development of human thought
in a pre-modern mode. My point was
to reject such a stance, which would certainly
result from accepting the
above principles and assumptions.
The argument for the existence of God
as First Cause simply has no
rational or intellectual usefulness. It
was laid to rest two hundred years
ago, for reasons which have been clearly
discussed by others on Talisman--the
argument is circular and contradictory.
After asserting that every effect
must have a cause, it then postulates an
uncaused effect (God). If God can
be a first Cause, then the physical universe
can be a first cause too, and so
the proof fails. That is not to say that
the argument may not have some
poetic or spiritual value for meditation.
But, it most certainly has no
scientific value. This is not my personal
opinion! It has been the opinion
of the thinking world for centuries.
Anyway, my point is not that we would
not be allowed to argue, discuss or
debate. Quite the opposite. I am arguing
that a quotation from scripture
cannot bring an end to that debate--especially
in areas of science and
history. I was specifically arguing against
the establishment of a Baha'i
orthodoxy.
Such a position does not and cannot
establish a new orthodoxy, simply
because modern science will not offer up
an orthodoxy. Science and history
are in a constant state of flux and debate.
As you say, science is not
dogmatic--and I am fully comfortable with
this. I don't think that the
Baha'i Faith is dogmatic either.
When I say that the Baha'i Writings
give us no brief whatever to
challenge the results of scientific inquiry--I
mean to REJECT the results of
that inquiry just because they contradict
something that we read literally
from the Writings. I most emphatically
do not believe that once someone has
conducted a survey of Baha'i scripture
we are obliged to accept his
conclusions without discussion or debate.
Where did you get that idea? I am
arguing precisely the opposite. That debate
cannot be brought to a halt
based on scriptural quotations.
Anyway, enough for one posting.
Warmest, Tony
To: TALISMAN@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: quinn@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu
Subject: Genealogies
Date: Tuesday, May 9, 1995 23:55:37
EZT
Attach:
Certify: N
Forwarded by:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ohio University Electronic Communication
Date: 09-May-1995 05:46pm EST
To: Remote Addressee ( _MX%"talisman@indiana.edu" )
From: Sholeh Quinn
Dept: History
QUINN
Tel No:
Subject: Genealogies
Dear Talisman friends,
Our system was down for a while this afternoon
so I may have missed some
messages on this topic. The Safavid ruling
dynasty in Iran (ca. 16th-18th
centuries) went through great trouble to
hide their family origins; comparing
versions of their official family tree
shows that they later "extended" their
genealogy back several generations to indicate
descent from the 7th Imam, Musa
al-Kazim. Official Mongol genealogies
(Ilkhanid and Timurid--medieval Iran),
even those supposedly compiled by the same
person (Rashid al-Din) have lots of
discrepancies as well. I think, at least
in these two particular cases, they
should be used with caution; they tell
us more about legitimizing forces than
actual descent.
Best wishes,
Sholeh
Received: 09-May-1995 05:48pm
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Ahang Rabbani <rabbana@a1.bmoa.umc.dupont.com>
Subject: The genealogy of Baha'u'llah
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 1995
6:28:53 EZT
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[This message is converted from WPS-PLUS to ASCII]
Friends,
While we await Juan's learned posting
on this topic, allow me to
share a bit of "trivia":
1. I've been told by a reliable eyewitness
that a fine Persian rug
was discovered some years ago (the type
that is hang on the wall,
not the type that goes on the floor),
apparently commissioned by
Mirza Buzurg-i Nuri (Baha'u'llah's father),
which has a complete
and detailed genealogy tracing the family
back to Yazd-Kird III,
the last Sasaniad king, without a break.
2. Presumably, the same information
is captured by Malik-Khusravi
in his much expanded, unpublished, revised
"Iqlim-i Nur".
much love, ahang.
ps. In two weeks time, Drs. Iraj Ayman,
Nader Saeidi and myself
will be making a series of presentations
in Toronto on peace and
the future of the Faith. After this
conf, I'll post my 3
presentations which should address Chris
Buck's earlier query on
more data on distinction between the
3 peace terms in Baha'u'llah's
Writings.
Deepest condolences to the Banani family.
Mrs. Samieh Banani was a
most remarkable person; the Baha'i community
has suffered a great
loss. May Baha'u'llah's Grace continue
to surround her in all the
worlds beyond.
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
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From: "Stockman, Robert" <rstockman@usbnc.org>
Subject: Genealogies of the prophets
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 1995
9:42:24 EZT
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A quick note on the question of genealogy
of the prophets. I do not
think we should take references to
Manifestations of God coming from a
common genetic descent too seriously
as *historical* statements;
rather, they are theological statements
that stress the common source
of the teachings via genealogy. There
are two ways to tackle the
question of Baha'u'llah's genealogy,
to take a specific example.
1. Historical reliability of a genealogy.
Abraham lived
approximately 3800 years ago; He is
believed to have lived between
2000 and 1800 B.C.E. (Before the Common
Era; the same thing as B.C.,
"Before Christ"). Assuming three
generations per century, that's 114
genrations ago. What are the chances
of a genealogy being preserved
accurately and completely for 114
generations, especially considering
the Middle East was largely illiterate
until two or three generations
ago, and that for at least half that
time there were no censuses,
birth records, and other reliable
government statistics? Virtually
non-existent. This alone suggests
that the genealogy of Baha'u'llah
should be seen as symbolic, not as
literal.
2. One has two parents, four grandparents,
eight great grand parents,
etc. The number of ancestors doubles
each generation. Thus:
# generations ago # ancestors
1
2
2
4
3
8
4
16
10
1024 (c. 300 years ago)
20 1,000,000
(c. 600 years ago)
30 1,000,000,000
(c. 1000 years ago)
60 1 times 10
to the 18th power
100 1.26 x 10
30th power
114 2.08 x 10
34th power
Note that 600 years ago the number
of ancestors one has exceeds the
number of humans on the earth (which
reached 1 billion in the mid
nineteenth century). 3800 years ago
one had 10 million billion
billion billion ancestors, which is
10 million billion billion times
as many humans as lived; or another
way of looking at it, every person
on earth was your ancestor by 10 million
billion billion billion
different ways (assuming equal distribution
of genes, which is not
likely; so some humans were ancestors
more than others).
Conclusion: Baha'u'llah was descended
from Abraham, just like every
other person in Eurasia! Considering
the 1800 year gap between Jesus
and Abraham, we can be sure Jesus
was descended from Abraham as well.
We can also be equally sure Muhammad
had an infinitesimally small drop
of Abraham's bllod in his veins as
well, just like every other Arab of
His day.
Hence, clearly, the main point of
these genealogies is spiritual; the
genetic truth rapidly degenerates
to trivality.
-- Rob Stockman
5/8/95
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
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From: Juan R Cole <jrcole@umich.edu>
Subject: Baha'u'llah's genealogy
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 1995
17:53:33 EZT
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I have no doubt that Baha'u'llah was descended
from Yazdigird III. I
also have no doubt that everyone else in
Mazandaran was, too. Genealogy
is a sleight of hand, because it focuses
in on only one line of descent.
You have 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents,
16 great-great-grandparents;
by the time one traced Baha'u'llah's family
back to the Sasanians, as Rob
showed, he had millions of ancestors, one
of which of Yazdigird III. The
likelihood is that all child-bearing persons
alive in Sasanian times in
Eurasia contributed something to his genetic
inheritance.
I think it is very important that Baha'u'llah
was aware of his ancestry
in the royal family of Zoroastrian, pre-Islamic
Iran. I think this is
part of what led him to stress the truth
of Zoroastrianism as a religion;
and once you did that, it was such a different
discourse from the biblical-
qur'anic stream, that there was no real
difficulty about accepting the South
Asian avatars, as well (as Baha'u'llah
implicitly does in his letter to
Manakji via Mirza Abu'l-Fadl). As John
Walbridge notes, the provincial
service families (dabirs) of Qajar Iran
took a special interest in the
Iranian, Zoroastrian heritage. This cultural
tradition also has
implications for Baha'u'llah's recognition
of a separation of religion
and state, since Iranian monarchy since
ancient times had its own,
independent divine sanction (the hero's
halo, khvarena or farr-i izadi,
which Corbin thought the underlying idea
in the Islamic school of Ishraq
or illumination). Indeed, Mirza Abu'l-Fadl
thought that the author of
the "Mirrors for Princes" work, Qabusnameh,
was written by and ancester or
Baha'u'llah.
In his commentary on Baha'u'llah's family
tree, Mirza Abu'l-Fadl says that
the Nuri family of Takur was descended
from the Sasanian monarchs, whose
descendants after the Islamic conquest
of the 7th century settled as
provinical rulers in Mazandaran (Tabaristan).
After about 400 years,
Mirza Abu'l-Fadl says, Zaydi Shi`ite rulers
established themselves in
Daylam, and the conversion of Mazandaranis
to Islam accelerated. After
the Safavid conquest these local families
were displaced, and the
populace accepted Twelver Shi`ite Islam
(1500s). He establishes that a
number of Nuri families claimed Sasanian
descent in 19th-century Iran.
Baha'u'llah in his Lawh-i Shir-Mard confirmed
Mirza Abu'l-Fadl's findings.
In recent historical times, Malik Khusravi
tells us that
Baha'u'llah's great-grandfather (who was
likely born around 1700) was
Karbala'i `Abbas Khan. We are not told
anything about him; but his name
indicates that he was a notable ("Khan")
and that he was a pious Shi`ite
who went on pilgrimage at some point to
the shrine of Imam Husayn at
Karbala in Iraq.
He had two sons, Fath-`Ali and Rida Quli
Beg. Rida Quli Beg Takuri was
Mirza Buzurg's father. He had 5 wives
altogether, and 17 children. I
was very interested that one of his wives
was from an Isma`ili family of
Takur, and another of his wives was from
a Sufi darvish family of Takur.
While one cannot draw firm conclusions
from such information, that
Baha'u'llah had Sufi and Isma`ili co-grandmothers
strikes me as suggestive.
More anon.
cheers Juan Cole, History, Univ. of Michigan
P.S. Many thanks to John Walbridge and
Ahang Rabbani for sharing with me
the materials upon which these inadequate
observations are based.
To: Talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
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From: David Langness <72110.2126@compuserve.com>
Subject: Sen's Genius
Date: Friday, May 26, 1995 21:27:06
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Dear Talismanic/depressives,
Okay, I nominate Sen's "spinning technicolor
coats out of dhikr and bull's
wool" as Talisman phrase of the month.
Sen, your post struck me as pure
genius -- thank you.
Love,
David
To: talisman@indiana.edu,<talisman@indiana.edu>
Cc:
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From: Dariush Lamie <0007368608@mcimail.com>
Subject: Ref. Sura-i-Ghusn
Date: Saturday, May 6, 1995
4:27:59 EZT
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-- [ From: Dariush Lamie * EMC.Ver #2.3 ] --
Dear Payam,
You have requested in your posting about
the "Sura-i-Ghusn". I would like to
share a few points with you very humbly
and very briefly about this very
important tablet of Baha'u'llah.
"Sura-i-Ghusn" is one of the tablets of
Baha'u'llah which was revealed in
Adrianopple (Aderneh) addressed to "Mirza
Ali Reza, Mustufi Sabzevari" (who has
received from Baha'u'llah several other
tablets as well). Mirza Ali Reza, along
with his brother was one of the representatives
of the government of "Naseredin
Sha" in the province of Khurasan. Mirza
Ali Reza, and his brother recognized
the station of the Bab and then Baha'u'llah
through "Bab-al-bab" in Khurasan.
Mirza Ali Reza, entitled "Mu'e Tamen Al
Saltaneh", looked liked a lot to
Baha'u'llah and Baha'u'llah Himself refers
to this similarity in His tablet,
saying "Ya man tashbah be Haycali" (in
essence,Oh who look like me).
Basically, Baha'u'llah in "Sura-i-Ghus",
talks about the High Station of
Abdul'baha. You can find this tablet in
"Athar-i-Khalami-Ala" Vol.4, and also
in the book "Hayati-i-Hazrate Abdul'baha"
By: A.M. Faizi page 58-59 publication
of Germany.
The famous "Hagi Mirza Haydar Ali", has
asked Abdul'baha to comment on this
tablet and Abdul'baha has revealed a tablet
addressed to Haydar Ali explaining
the "Surai-i-Ghusn". You also can find
this tablet in the same book of Mr.
M.A.Faizi page 60.
With Baha'i Greetings,
Dariush
To: talisman@ucs.indiana.edu
Cc: vijay@rcvr30.es.hac.com
Bcc:
From: Wendi and Moojan Momen
<momen@northill.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: MAKING UP
Date: Saturday, May 13, 1995
18:23:48 EZT
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In article: <9505121748.AA18870@rcvr30.es.hac.com>
vijay@rcvr30.es.hac.com writes:
>
> Last night I went to Muslim Temple, Mosque
, and while I was
> there , I shared the fact that, I am
looking and enjoying looking
> into the Baha'i religion; having said
that, one of the Iranian
> friends, said that the Bahai people have
MADE UP some traditions
> about Islam, indicating that , there
shall come a day where the
> Moslem Temple becomes the CENTER for
ERROR rather than CENTER to
> GUIDE.
>
> Vijay Kutrapa
>
This is not something that Baha'is have
made up. There are many Traditions in both Sunni
and Shi`i collections of Traditions which
point to a decline in the religion of Islam
and a deterioration in the spiritual health
of Muslims. The numerous Sunni and Shi`i
traditions that state that the Mahdi will
fill the earth with justice after it has been
filled with injustice attest to the general
conditions and the lack of Islamic
standards that will prevail at the time
of the coming of the Mahdi. I do not have time
to compile for you a complete list of other
Traditions but the following will suffice
for now:
a. Sunni
Anas reported God's messenger (i.e. Muhammad)
as saying: "The last hour will not
come till the cry `God, God' is not uttered
in the earth." Tradition transmitted by
Abu Muslim; Mishkat al-Masabih, p. 1163.
The following was narrated by 'Abdullah
and Abu Musa: `The Prophet said, "Near the
establishment of the Hour there will be
days during which Religious ignorance will
spread, knowledge will be taken away (vanish)
and there will be much Al-Harj, and
Al-Harj means killing." Al- Bukhari 9:184
b. Shi`i
The Apostle of God (Muhammad) said: `There
will come a time for my people when there
will remain nothing of the Qur'an except
its outward form and nothing of Islam
except its name and they will call themselves
by this name even though they are the
people furthest from it. Their mosques
will be full of people but they will be empty
of right guidance. The religious leaders
(fuqaha) of that day will be the most evil
religious leaders under the heavens; sedition
and dissension will go out from them
and to them will it return'.
Ibn Babuya, Thawab al-A`mal, quoted in
Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar (old lithograph edition,
1301, vol. 13, p. 152).
Since your friend in the Mosque was Iranian, it is almost certainly this last tradition that he is referring to.
--
Wendi and Moojan Momen
momen@northill.demon.co.uk
Fax: (44) 1767 627626
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
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From: "Stockman, Robert" <rstockman@usbnc.org>
Subject: Greek Philosophers
Date: Tuesday, May 16, 1995
2:19:00 EZT
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Obviously, one cannot rule out any
contact between Greece and Israel.
Archaeologists have long noted that
Greek pottery became a major
import item into Palestine quite early;
I think 800 or 700 B.C.E. As
John notes, Ionia was a Persian province.
Asia Minor much later (1-2d
century BCE) became a major place
of settlement of Jews, and is
possible the diaspora settlement started
there under the Persians much
earlier.
The other question scholars haven't
begun to get a handle on is the
influence of Judaism on "popular"
culture or even on high culture at
various times in Mediteranean history.
For example, we know that by
about the time of Christ the idea
of a Sabbath had been adopted in the
Roman Empire; you work six days and
rest one. One must ask the
question, how widespread was knowledge
in the polytheistic
Mediterranean that the Jews were monotheistic?
What subtle influence
did this exert? The idea that very
general monotheistic ideas from
Judaism might have exerted an influence
on Greek philosophy cannot be
discounted. But unfortunately, the
more general the monotheistic
ideas, the harder influence is to
prove. Anyone can imagine the idea
of one God without a group of monotheists
nearby. If the Greek
philosophers were calling Him YHWH
influence would be indisputable.
Reconstructing, say, 7th century BCE
popular culture in a dozen
different sections of the eastern
Mediterranean may well prove
impossible. It is hard enough from
the Hellenistic and Roman periods,
when we have something like 30,000
inscriptions (graffiti, gravestone
texts, various dedications carved
in stone; even the hours of the
private library of Pantaenus in Athens,
carved in stone near the door
and recently found). For the later
period we also have tens of
thousands of coins, occasional personal
letters and receipts preserved
by the Sahara's sands, and the 500
or so works in the Loeb Classical
Library. But the earlier period has
vastly less written materials,
and the languages (like Ugaritic)
are not as well known. So we may
never be able to determine with precision
the potential influence of
Israelite and Yahwist (I hestitate
to say Jewish; tha term applies
after about 500 BCE) idea on the Greeks.
But this is very different than saying
specific Greek philosophers
visited specific Israelite prophets.
The Islamic historical
tradition, without any known historical
evidence, occasionally asserts
such contact (though it also asserts
the historical impossiblity of
such contact). Baha'u'llah clearly
quotes Islamic historians on this
matter; Juan's article on "Problems
of Chronology" makes this
abundantly clear. It is also clear
we cannot assert the impossibility
of such contact; we do not have access
to a time machine. But the
specific contacts mentioned by Baha'u'llah
appear to suffer grave
chronological problems--the people
meeting each other apparently were
not alive in the same century--hence
historians certainly are right to
assert the *extreme* unlikeliness
of contact. I think it is best to
say some sort of indirect cultural
influence between Greece and Israel
is possible and leave it at that.
Who knows what scholars will piece
together a century from now.
-- Rob Stockman
To: talisman@indiana.edu
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From: JWALBRID@ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: Greek philosophers travelling
to the Orient
Date: Tuesday, May 16, 1995
0:38:13 EZT
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The traditions that the Greek philosophers
studied with the Israelite
prophets are unsupportable on chronological
grounds. There is rather
better evidence of contacts of other sorts
with Persia, Babylonia, and
Egypt. Philosophy started in Ionia, which
was for much of that time
a Persian province. The sources all agree
that Pythagoras came from
a Greek family settled in Phoenicia and
that he studied in Egypt. Since
there were long-standing Greek contacts
with both Egypt and Syria,
this is not improbable. On the other hand,
there is really nothing like
Greek philosophy in these countries.
john walbridge
To: talisman@indiana.edu
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From: JWALBRID@ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: Re: Greek philosophers
travelling to the Orient
Date: Tuesday, May 16, 1995 19:32:21
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From: PO2::"friberg@will.brl.ntt.jp" "Stephen
R. Friberg" 15-MAY-1995 19:37:01.49
To: JWALBRID@ucs.indiana.edu
CC:
Subj: Re: Greek philosophers travelling
to the Orient
> The traditions that the Greek philosophers
studied with the Israelite
> prophets are unsupportable on chronological
grounds. There is rather
> better evidence of contacts of other
sorts with Persia, Babylonia, and
> Egypt. Philosophy started in Ionia,
which was for much of that time
> a Persian province. The sources all
agree that Pythagoras came from
> a Greek family settled in Phoenicia and
that he studied in Egypt. Since
> there were long-standing Greek contacts
with both Egypt and Syria,
> this is not improbable. On the other
hand, there is really nothing like
> Greek philosophy in these countries.
Dear Professor Walbridge:
For some time now, it has interested me
to know how Judaic thought came to
influence Greek philosophy. It seems to
me that this is what was meant by
Baha'u'llah in His Tablet about these matters.
What seems sensible to me is
the following. Perhaps you could comment
on it with a critical eye.
My understanding of Judaism is that Judaic
power peaked sometime around 1000
years before Christ, and that it was accompanied
by a magnificent outpowering
of clerical creativity: the compilation
of oral traditions into forms that
we see mirrored today in the Judaic bible.
This creativity, supported as
it was by a freely spending court, not
only gathered together the
monotheistic doctrines of the Judaic prophets,
but also much of the Wisdom
literature of the culture (or maybe I should
say, cultures). The latter part
is important. Judaism didn't exist in
a vacuum: Judaic culture was strongly
influenced by neigboring cultures, and
vice versa (if is indeed correct to say
that there was a distinct Judaic culture
at the time). In particular, the
Phoenicians (who, if I understand correctly,
were from the coastal areas of
northern Israel and southern Lebanon) were
a sea-faring people who
traveled widely through-out the Mediterranean
and the neighboring
seas, were merchants with a wide range
of contacts, and established
colonies and outposts through-out the range
of their travels. Through
the influence of courtly Judaic culture
on the Phoenicians and by
other means, I would expect Judaic monotheism
and its Wisdom
literature to be widely available (at least
by the standards of the
time) by the time that the Greek settlements
in modern Turkey started
producing lovers of wisdom (philosophers)
several hundred years later.
So, I find no difficulty at all in believing
that Judaic thinking
reached and affected the Greeks. Socratic
and Platonic thinking
clearly has monotheistic influences that
do not seem at all to be
derived from Greek traditions. I would
actually be surprised if the
influence was not there. The Greeks were
but one among many peoples who
migrated toward the cultural and economic
centers of the Ancient East,
modifying and advancing their culture in
the process, bringing new
vitality, capturing the governments, and
absorbing the local traditions.
(Of course, you can view the Greeks as
Europeans with a philosophical
bent. This seems to be the way Renaissance
folks dealt with the fact
that most of their learning and sciences
came from Islamic sources.
Rather than attribute it to Islam (even
poor Bruno got burned to death
at the stake for mentioning ancient Egypt
as a source of wisdom) which
was as sure a path to seeing St. Peter
as one could hope for, it was
much more politic to attribute anything
and everything to the ancient
Greeks. That way, you could avoid nasty
brushes with burning piles of
cordwood.
But by any other standard (for example,
see how students of Byzantium
consider the Greeks), Greece was but one
cog in the Ancient Eastern
cultural theater. Abdu'l Baha seems to
have seen it this way, and I
have found it a welcome relief from parochial
thinking.)
Yours sincerely,
Stephen R. Friberg
Kanagawa, Japan
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: JWALBRID@ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: Re: Greek philosophers
travelling to the Orient
Date: Tuesday, May 16, 1995 19:32:21
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From: PO2::"friberg@will.brl.ntt.jp" "Stephen
R. Friberg" 15-MAY-1995 19:37:01.49
To: JWALBRID@ucs.indiana.edu
CC:
Subj: Re: Greek philosophers travelling
to the Orient
> The traditions that the Greek philosophers
studied with the Israelite
> prophets are unsupportable on chronological
grounds. There is rather
> better evidence of contacts of other
sorts with Persia, Babylonia, and
> Egypt. Philosophy started in Ionia,
which was for much of that time
> a Persian province. The sources all
agree that Pythagoras came from
> a Greek family settled in Phoenicia and
that he studied in Egypt. Since
> there were long-standing Greek contacts
with both Egypt and Syria,
> this is not improbable. On the other
hand, there is really nothing like
> Greek philosophy in these countries.
Dear Professor Walbridge:
For some time now, it has interested me
to know how Judaic thought came to
influence Greek philosophy. It seems to
me that this is what was meant by
Baha'u'llah in His Tablet about these matters.
What seems sensible to me is
the following. Perhaps you could comment
on it with a critical eye.
My understanding of Judaism is that Judaic
power peaked sometime around 1000
years before Christ, and that it was accompanied
by a magnificent outpowering
of clerical creativity: the compilation
of oral traditions into forms that
we see mirrored today in the Judaic bible.
This creativity, supported as
it was by a freely spending court, not
only gathered together the
monotheistic doctrines of the Judaic prophets,
but also much of the Wisdom
literature of the culture (or maybe I should
say, cultures). The latter part
is important. Judaism didn't exist in
a vacuum: Judaic culture was strongly
influenced by neigboring cultures, and
vice versa (if is indeed correct to say
that there was a distinct Judaic culture
at the time). In particular, the
Phoenicians (who, if I understand correctly,
were from the coastal areas of
northern Israel and southern Lebanon) were
a sea-faring people who
traveled widely through-out the Mediterranean
and the neighboring
seas, were merchants with a wide range
of contacts, and established
colonies and outposts through-out the range
of their travels. Through
the influence of courtly Judaic culture
on the Phoenicians and by
other means, I would expect Judaic monotheism
and its Wisdom
literature to be widely available (at least
by the standards of the
time) by the time that the Greek settlements
in modern Turkey started
producing lovers of wisdom (philosophers)
several hundred years later.
So, I find no difficulty at all in believing
that Judaic thinking
reached and affected the Greeks. Socratic
and Platonic thinking
clearly has monotheistic influences that
do not seem at all to be
derived from Greek traditions. I would
actually be surprised if the
influence was not there. The Greeks were
but one among many peoples who
migrated toward the cultural and economic
centers of the Ancient East,
modifying and advancing their culture in
the process, bringing new
vitality, capturing the governments, and
absorbing the local traditions.
(Of course, you can view the Greeks as
Europeans with a philosophical
bent. This seems to be the way Renaissance
folks dealt with the fact
that most of their learning and sciences
came from Islamic sources.
Rather than attribute it to Islam (even
poor Bruno got burned to death
at the stake for mentioning ancient Egypt
as a source of wisdom) which
was as sure a path to seeing St. Peter
as one could hope for, it was
much more politic to attribute anything
and everything to the ancient
Greeks. That way, you could avoid nasty
brushes with burning piles of
cordwood.
But by any other standard (for example,
see how students of Byzantium
consider the Greeks), Greece was but one
cog in the Ancient Eastern
cultural theater. Abdu'l Baha seems to
have seen it this way, and I
have found it a welcome relief from parochial
thinking.)
Yours sincerely,
Stephen R. Friberg
Kanagawa, Japan
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Juan R Cole <jrcole@umich.edu>
Subject: Greeks and Jewish Prophets
Date: Tuesday, May 16, 1995 21:48:10
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I think the basic question is how we know
what we know. As a
professional historian, I am involved in
attempting to recover the human
past. How can I do that?
First, I need evidence originating in the
past. Like a detective, I
value eye-witnesses who give their statements
as soon as possible after
the event.
Please note: There are *no* early documents
indicating that any Greek
philosophers met with any Jewish prophets.
Nor is there any obvious
biblical influence on any ancient Greek
text.
The assertions to the contrary made by
Alexandrian Jews of the
Hellenistic period; by early Christians;
and then (in an even more
muddled form) by medieval Muslims, suffer
from being extremely late and
unattested by any ancient authority. I
conclude therefore that the
entire business is simple apologetic.
Unfortunately the Judaic tradition
had this conviction that all forms of propositional
truth should emanate
from revealed scripture. They therefore
had to bend over backwards to
justify studying secular philosophy. They
therefore invented the meeting
of Socrates with "X" (there weren't actually
any Jewish prophets *alive*
in the 300s B.C., to my recollection; it
was late for them).
We can extricate ourselves from this historical
morass by simply agreeing
that all forms of propositional truth do
not emanate from revealed
scriptures. That scriptures convey ethical
and spiritual truth, and that
in order to know things like what happened
in the distant past, we need
historians and contemporary documentation.
Indeed, only by giving up the
Judaic fallacy can we hope to have a religion
at peace with science.
Incidentally, there is no independent substantiation
for the biblical
accounts of 1) the Jewish Exodus or 2)
the early Jewish state under
"David" and "Solomon." Very large amounts
of the material in Exodus,
Joshua, and Kings is probably legendary.
The Assyrians kept rather good
chronicles and tended to notice things
like the growth of powerful states
in the neighborhood. One problem with
having Pythagoras learn from
"Solomon", aside from the fact that even
their putative dates are
hundreds of years apart, is that Solomon
himself may be more legend than
history.
Think! Question! Demand evidence! Blind
obedience has been abolished
in this religion.
Cheers Juan Cole, History, Univ. of Michigan
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: "Stockman, Robert" <rstockman@usbnc.org>
Subject: Greek Philosophers
Date: Tuesday, May 16, 1995
2:19:00 EZT
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Obviously, one cannot rule out any
contact between Greece and Israel.
Archaeologists have long noted that
Greek pottery became a major
import item into Palestine quite early;
I think 800 or 700 B.C.E. As
John notes, Ionia was a Persian province.
Asia Minor much later (1-2d
century BCE) became a major place
of settlement of Jews, and is
possible the diaspora settlement started
there under the Persians much
earlier.
The other question scholars haven't
begun to get a handle on is the
influence of Judaism on "popular"
culture or even on high culture at
various times in Mediteranean history.
For example, we know that by
about the time of Christ the idea
of a Sabbath had been adopted in the
Roman Empire; you work six days and
rest one. One must ask the
question, how widespread was knowledge
in the polytheistic
Mediterranean that the Jews were monotheistic?
What subtle influence
did this exert? The idea that very
general monotheistic ideas from
Judaism might have exerted an influence
on Greek philosophy cannot be
discounted. But unfortunately, the
more general the monotheistic
ideas, the harder influence is to
prove. Anyone can imagine the idea
of one God without a group of monotheists
nearby. If the Greek
philosophers were calling Him YHWH
influence would be indisputable.
Reconstructing, say, 7th century BCE
popular culture in a dozen
different sections of the eastern
Mediterranean may well prove
impossible. It is hard enough from
the Hellenistic and Roman periods,
when we have something like 30,000
inscriptions (graffiti, gravestone
texts, various dedications carved
in stone; even the hours of the
private library of Pantaenus in Athens,
carved in stone near the door
and recently found). For the later
period we also have tens of
thousands of coins, occasional personal
letters and receipts preserved
by the Sahara's sands, and the 500
or so works in the Loeb Classical
Library. But the earlier period has
vastly less written materials,
and the languages (like Ugaritic)
are not as well known. So we may
never be able to determine with precision
the potential influence of
Israelite and Yahwist (I hestitate
to say Jewish; tha term applies
after about 500 BCE) idea on the Greeks.
But this is very different than saying
specific Greek philosophers
visited specific Israelite prophets.
The Islamic historical
tradition, without any known historical
evidence, occasionally asserts
such contact (though it also asserts
the historical impossiblity of
such contact). Baha'u'llah clearly
quotes Islamic historians on this
matter; Juan's article on "Problems
of Chronology" makes this
abundantly clear. It is also clear
we cannot assert the impossibility
of such contact; we do not have access
to a time machine. But the
specific contacts mentioned by Baha'u'llah
appear to suffer grave
chronological problems--the people
meeting each other apparently were
not alive in the same century--hence
historians certainly are right to
assert the *extreme* unlikeliness
of contact. I think it is best to
say some sort of indirect cultural
influence between Greece and Israel
is possible and leave it at that.
Who knows what scholars will piece
together a century from now.
-- Rob Stockman
To: Robert,Johnston,<robert.johnston@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
Cc: talisman@indiana.edu
Bcc:
From: Juan R Cole <jrcole@umich.edu>
Subject: Re: history
Date: Saturday, May 20, 1995
7:11:25 EZT
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Robert: I think this discussion has gotten
to the point where at least
some of the sides cannot even understand
the other. Here, no doubt, the
fault lies with me; but I found your message
incomprehensible. What
could it possibly mean? We can only have
certainty in the Baha'i faith
if we believe in the inerrancy of all propositions
occuring in the
Writings of Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha?
Propositional inerrancy is,
philosophically speaking, impossible to
define satisfactorily, and almost
certainly cannot exist in the real world.
Why can't we have history as reason and
evidence knows it, and revealed
spirituality as the spirit knows that?
Why insist on history, astronomy,
etc. from revealed texts whose primary
purpose was not to teach the latter?
This entire discussion is simply a rehash
of reason versus revelation,
which has occurred in each of the Abrahamic
faiths; numbers of us on the
side of reason have been burned to death
(Giordano Bruno among them) or
intimidated into silence.
As for historians "in the know" or owning
the truth: all historians have
is a set of basic methods for determining
what happened in the past.
They are simple methods, but a graduate
education in their use certainly
does have advantages if one is seriously
interested in the subject.
Mainly, what is wanted is some kind of
evidence about what happened,
emanating from eye witnesses if possible,
and recorded as soon as
possible after the events. Now, of course,
even witnesses differ. And
why we should be interested in some events
rather than others has a
subjective element to it. But if something
is alleged to have happened
in the 400s B.C., but there is no evidence
for it, and not even any
allegations that it happened until 1400
years later; and if those
allegations are themselves shot through
with self-contradictions; then no
professional or even sound historian will
accept the allegation. This is
not skepticism, it is simple common sense.
Historians do not own the
truth; indeed, historical truth is constantly
evolving, as part of the
dialogue among historians about the meaning
of the existing evidence; or
about new evidence historians have dug
up. But they are custodians of
the past, and of the best methods they
can find for reliably knowing the
past. The public ignores their findings
to its peril, since history is
identity and bad history is false identity.
So you see, all you have to do to convince
me you are right is to show me
any evidence at all, beyond a mere unsupported
allegation, that you are.
If you cannot produce that evidence, but
resort simply to quoting
scripture and insisting on its inerrancy,
then I fail to see the
difference between your stance and that
of Christian fundamentalists.
I'm going off on vacation for a few days,
so someone else can have the
final word.
cheers Juan Cole, History, Univ. of Michigan
On Sat, 20 May 1995, Robert Johnston wrote:
> Dear Juan,
>
> If Baha'is are to maintain a position
of scepticism regarding portrayals
> of history (and what ever else other
than ethics) in the Baha'i Writings,
> then we might just as well forget history
altogether, because an aspect of
> this scepticism is not only a repudiation
of that which 'Abdu'l-Baha calls
> certainty, but also of what historians
themselves (apart from one or two
> "in the know") have decided. What is
left is the assumption that these one
> or two (or a handful) of contemporary
Baha'i historians "own the truth" on
> these matters. I'm afraid such a position
is not acceptable to me...
>
> Cheers,
>
> Robert.
>
>
>
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: JWALBRID@ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: History and Socrates
Date: Saturday, May 20, 1995
17:27:03 EZT
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Robert:
In this particular case we have several
sets of evidence:
1) Texts from the Baha'i writings that
say, among other things,
a) that Socrates visited Greece;
b) that historical records say that he
did.
These sources are from over 2,000 years
after the supposed
event.
2) Islamic sources from the 10th century
on that say exactly the same
thing about *Empedocles*. These are from
13 centuries or more after
the events.
3) Greek sources saying that Socrates spent
his life in Greece, almost
all of it in Athens. The earliest of these
come from Socrates' students.
The same sources give a good deal of information
about Socrates'
views, which do not seem to have anything
to do with the Jews.
4) A dense web of information on ancient
chronology indicating very
consistently that Socrates lived well after
the last Israelite prophets
rather than soon after Solomon.
A representative sample of these sources
is available in English for
anyone who cares to look at them.
As I wrote earlier, it is quite clear what
happened.
1. During the Hellenistic and Imperial
periods, the early figures of
Greek philosophy acquired enormous prestige.
2. Muslim scholars, commited to a theological
system in which knowledge
was supposed to come from prophets, devised
a sacred history in which
the early philosophers were students of
the Israelite prophets. In this,
they were aided by the general confusion
with which Islamic historians
approached pre-Islamic chronology. (I
suspect this approach was
borrowed from Christians, but I do not
have the texts to prove it.)
3. Several versions of this history were
repeatedly copied in Islamic
sources through the century.
4. `Abdu'l-Baha, being a cultured man within
the Islamic tradition and
without access to a good library, cited
this story from memory, attributing
a story that properly belonged to the relatively
obscure Empedocles to
the better known Socrates.
If you can give me some reason why I should
not accept this account
of events, I would be interested to hear
it. In any case, given the
preponderance of evidence, it seems to
me silly to insist on the literal
truth of `Abdu'l-Baha's account of events.
This is particularly so since
`Abdu'l-Baha himself says that he is quoting
historical sources.
On other matters, I remember reading *The
Comprehensive Deepening
Program* when it came out. I thought about
it and eventually concluded
that it was objectionable because it was
an attempt to make a behaviorist
theory of mysticism. Since mysticism is
ultimately about experience, not
behavior, I did not think it worked. It
has since gone on to what I therefore
consider deserved oblivion.
John Walbridge
Indiana University
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: JWALBRID@ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: "Islamic" science
Date: Wednesday, May 17, 1995
17:56:01 EZT
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We have a big history of science department
here. I have been arguing
lately with a friend who has just finished
a book on the relation between
medieval European and modern science.
The historians of science tend
to think that there is a fundamental gap
between medieval (Christian
or Islamic) and modern science. This sounds
suspiciously neat to me, but
they would know best.
As for "Islamic" science, the point that
I wish to make is not that there
were not (or are now, for that matter)
accomplished Muslim scientists, but
that Islamic civilization as Islamic was
not particularly welcoming
to this enterprise. Now, my above-mentioned
colleague believes that
the reception of Islamic science was an
essential precondition to the
rise of modern science in Europe in that
it saved the Europeans
centuries of work. However, he argues
that science was
always marginalized in Islam for theological
reasons. He points out
that Christianity arose in a Graeco-Roman
environment, came to
maturity in that environment, and thus
was always comfortable with
Greek modes of thought. Islam was different,
and indeed Christianity
did not have influential figures like Ash'ari,
Ghazali, and Ibn Taymiyya to
question the fundamental validity of the
whole natural scientific/
philosophical enterprise. Maragha, the
high point of Islamic
astronomy, was paid for by a pagan Mongol
ruler, for example.
Philosophy, likewise, was a marginal enterprise
in Islam, whereas
in Europe it was firmly integrated with
theology.
He also thinks that the curriculum of the
medieval European
universities, which included natural science,
was a critical precondition
for the rise of modern science. (I submitted
to him that the Islamic
reluctance to adopt printing played a critical
role, but that is another
story.)
In short, I continue to hold that, as remarkable
as the achievements
of individual Islamic astronomers were,
science and philosophy were
marginal enterprises in Islam and it was
thus not accidental that
modern science arose in Europe rather than
in the Islamic Middle East.
BTW, although I am prepared to admit the
likelihood of Pythagoras
visiting the Middle East (although not
consorting with the students of
Solomon, as the medieval sources claim),
Socrates certainly did not go
anywhere, other than on a military expedition
to northern Greece. There
are those who have revived the claim that
Plato visited Egypt, though,
although it seems less likely to me. Abdu'l-Baha
is quoting commonplaces
of Islamic culture. I can give you the
chain of Arabic sources, going back
to at least the 10th century. It is something
that everybody "knew" but that
was not true.
John Walbridge
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc: cbuck@ccs.carleton.ca,(Christopher
Buck)
Bcc:
From: cbuck@ccs.carleton.ca (Christopher
Buck)
Subject: The Problem with Kalki
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 1995
10:13:43 EZT
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Further to Mohan's posting, Robert Stockman's
distinction
between historical and theological statements
might be useful for
dealing with the Kalki (Tenth Avatar) prophecies.
*Kalki Vishnuyashas* ("The Destroyer, Fame
of Vishnu [= Glory
of God"] is the name of the Tenth Avatar
(there are many avatar lists
with more names, however).
Historically, it seems that the Kalki cycle,
as found in the
*Kalki Upapuranam*, is modelled on the
Gupta king Yasodharman
(5th-century) who drove the White Huns
out of the region of India that
is now Malwa.
Through a compression of Yasodharman's
two names (which
at the moment escape me), we get the messianic
title, *Visnuyashas*.
Thus, the Kalki *prophecies* are simply
*inverted history* (to use an
expression of Firuz Kazemzadeh's).
As Eddy points out in his classic study,
*The King Is Dead",
apocalyptic is a form of crisis literature
that projects a
*wish-image* onto the future. thus, the
Kalki cycle employs the
literary device I spoke of previously,
to wit: *vaticinia ex eventu*
(predictions from past events).
I wrote about all this in a manuscript
which *World Order*
magazine rejected a number of years ago:
*The Mystery of the Sworded
Warrior in Hindu Apocalypse: Was Kalki
Vishnuyashas Baha'u'llah?*.
Theologically, it appears that it was 'Abdu'l-Baha
who
officially linked Baha'u'llah with Kalki,
after he approved an essay
which a Baha'i submitted for approval.
The author might have been
somebody with "Roy" in his name (Roy C.
Amore comes to mind, but it's
been years since I've thought about any
of this). The article that the
Master approved was published in *Star
of the West*.
Basically, Kalki fights a big, bloody war
and the Brahmins get
their jobs back. The whole Kalki cycles
practically has to be negated,
or radically reinterpreted, for any authentic
fulfillment claim to be
credible.
Christopher Buck
**********************************************************************
* * * * * *
* * * Christopher Buck
Invenire ducere est.
* * * Carleton University
* * *
* * * Internet: CBuck@CCS.Carleton.CA
* * *
* * * P O Box 77077 * Ottawa, Ontario *
K1S 5N2 Canada * * *
* * * * * *
**********************************************************************
To: talisman@indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Juan R Cole <jrcole@umich.edu>
Subject: Aqdas
Date: Monday, May 29, 1995 16:11:29
EZT
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The thematic reading of the Aqdas that
I propose will begin with six
pillars of the Baha'i faith. Islam has
five pillars; we probably have
more than six, but I am proposing we begin
with six.
1. Recognition of God and of Baha'u'llah
as the Manifestation for this age.
2. Prayer (obligatory and otherwise)
3. Fasting
4. alms and other religious giving (zakat
and huququ'llah)
5. pilgrimage (hajj and ziyarah)
6. Covenant (`Abdu'l-Baha, houses of
justice, Aghsan)
After we finish these "pillars" (my term
only), we shall turn to a) laws
(ritual, personal status and criminal),
to b) principles, to c) historical
allusions. At least, this is how I propose
to do it, though I welcome
other possible schemas.
Although we have begun already discussing
the first pillar, attaining
mystical insight/recognition (`irfan) into
the Manifestation of God and
therefore into God, there are other theological
and theophanological
passages in the Most Holy Book, and I suggest
we discuss these before
going on to the second "pillar" (which
we have also started in on). I
think it should also be possible to speed
up the reading if we do it
thematically, since passages will be related
and feed into each other,
and so I will post more frequently. As
for the Arabic, maybe when
Shahrooz gets back from his travels he
can begin again posting the girdsuz
text.
cheers Juan Cole, History, Univ. of Michigan
To: Talisman,<talisman@indiana.edu>
Cc:
Bcc:
From: David M Simmons <dsimmons@lilac.esd101.wednet.edu>
Subject: Elections, Diversity, Spirituality,
Responsibility
Date: Tuesday, May 2, 1995
8:39:25 EZT
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Joyous Twelfth Day of Ridvan to All!
Elections
Our community had 82% participation, 18
out of 22 adults. This is
a rural/suburban community (Spokane Valley,
Washington), of about 80,000.
Diversity
Our community has Anglo, Persian, Black
(African-American) and
Chinese-American believers, men and women.
Three of the four ethnic
groups are represented on the assembly.
Five members are women.
Spirituality
The discussion I am reading about a lack
of spirituality in the
Baha'i communities is completely foreign.
Our community can't get enough
of eachother. We have wonderful firesides,
a brilliant teaching plan,
effective events, an intensive Baha'i Academy,
13 active children, 3
active youth, half of us play music and
the Feasts and Assembly meetings
are well attended and uplifting! We had
7 enrollments last year. We met
all our goals including our contribution
to the National Fund. It looks
like this year we will take on a unit of
the Arc as well as an extension
teaching goal on an Indian Reservation.
This is not a wealthy community
either.
Responsibility
When I became a Baha'i some of the members
told me "You don't do
anything in this Faith for anyone else
except Baha'u'llah. Don't ever
expect to get thanked for anything. Don't
ever expect anything from
anyone else." I thought that was pretty
cold but I have found it to be
true, at least for me. When I go to Feast
I don't expect it to uplift me,
or else; I am prepared to contribute because
that is what Baha'u'llah
expects of me. The same goes for Assembly
meetings. Sure, I enjoy
devotional events and get a high from music
and literature, but I am
responsible for my own spiritual high and
well-being. I figure we are all
damaged goods living in a decadent and
decaying society. We cannot expect
others to lift us up. I teach in a public
high school and deal with race
relations, refugee/immigrant issues, violence
and poverty every day and I
am in ecstacy. Perhaps I am just fortunte.
Here in Washington State we
have 80 assemblies, most of them functioning.
We just had a teaching
conference in a location that everyone
had to drive from 2 to 5 hours to
get to and 200 believers showed up. Considering
all the craziness in
today's world I think the friends are incredible.
I apologize for the length of this message
and the lack of
scholarliness.
David Simmons
Spokane Valley, Washington, USA
To: talisman@ucs.indiana.edu
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Wendi and Moojan Momen
<momen@northill.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Baha'u'llah and the Maiden
Date: Sunday, April 30, 1995
17:58:30 EZT
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In article: <93541272405991/5055244@BMOA>
rabbana@a1.bmoa.umc.dupont.com
writes:
>
> But I have always thought that existence
of a "second" voice
> in the Writings would tantamount to
duality which we oppose.
> Singularity of authority is a fundamental
principle.
>
> ...
>
> In fact, let me go a step further and
suggest that there is no
> voice in Aqdas except that of Baha'u'llah's.
I think the point that Terry is trying
to make, and one which I have long
believed, is that the Maiden is Baha'u'llah.
Therefore there is no "second
voice". The Maiden represents the Higher
Self of Baha'u'llah, the "divine
appearence" within Baha'u'llah, using Abdu'l-Baha's
classification of the
Three Stations of the Manifestations of
God (SAQ chap 38). In the Siyah-Chal,
we witness this Higher Self of Baha'u'llah
speaking to the lower self, the
rational soul of Baha'u'llah in Abdu'l-Baha's
classification. The Maiden's
announcement is addressed to "all who are
in heaven and all who are on earth"
(GPB 102) because of course Baha'u'llah
himself has no need of this
announcement--the Manifestations of God
are such right from birth and are
conscious of it (SAQ 155, 153). The event
in the Siyah-Chal is a
mytho-poetic way of marking Baha'u'llah
assumption of the Mantle of
Prophethood.
Thus in Baha'u'llah we have a Manifestation
of God whose Higher Self (his
Divine nature) is feminine while his lower
self (his human nature) is in a
male form. Could there be any more striking
way of demonstrating the radical
change that this Dispensation has brought
to human affairs?
I would then interpret the various passages
in which there appears to be a
conversation or interlocution as a conversation
between this Higher Self, the
Maiden, and the lower self, who is often
addressed as the Supreme Pen (in the
Ridvan Tablet and the Fire Tablet, for
example). This is a stunning metaphor.
The Divine Nature in Baha'u'llah uses the
human nature as a vehicle for its
expression to humanity--the Maiden holding
the Pen to write.
There is also the question of those passages
(mostly untranslated) in which
Baha'u'llah expresses an ecstatic (or as
John Walbridge would say erotic)
love for the Maiden. Here I think that
one way of viewing these passages
is to see them in the way that Abdu'l-Baha
explains the rebukes addressed by
God to the Prophets (SAQ chap. 44). In
the same way that the Manifestation of
God is standing for humanity in these passages
in which God appears to
address a rebuke to the Manifestation,
so also in these love passages, the
human aspect of Baha'u'llah is standing
in the place of humanity, indicating
to us how we humans, had we the capacity,
should love the Divine Nature in
Baha'u'llah.
Moojan
--
Wendi and Moojan Momen
momen@northill.demon.co.uk
Fax: (44) 1767 627626
To: talisman@indiana.edu,<talisman@indiana.edu>
Cc:
Bcc:
From: Dariush Lamie <0007368608@mcimail.com>
Subject: Re.Maiden
Date: Sunday, April 30, 1995
20:04:10 EZT
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-- [ From: Dariush Lamie * EMC.Ver #2.3 ] --
Dear Terry,
Basically, I think that "Maiden" is only
"metaphoric" . As, you said there may
be more references in other writings, I
refered AT LEAST to four major tablets
of Baha'u'llah in which He EXPLAINS DIRECTLY
the concept of the Maiden. In the
tablet "Law-i- Ruya", (which I do not know
if this has been translated yet or
not), Baha'u'llah explains very profoundly
about the concept of the "Maiden".
This tablet has been revealed in house
of "Udi Khammar" and is very
interesting. Mr. Adib Taherzadeh explains
this tablet and give a wonderful
summary of it in English in his book "Revelation
of Baha'u'llah" vol.3, page
223.
With love,
Dariush
to maiden2