A Concise Encyclopedia of the Baha'i Faith

Peter Smith

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781780744803
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian Religions

Written by a well-known author in the field of Baha'i studies, this is a comprehensive and accessible encyclopedia to the youngest of the world religions. Regarded as the second most widespread faith after Christianity, with adherents in almost every country around the globe, the Baha'i faith is nevertheless unfamiliar to many. here Dr Smith traces the origins and development of the religion from 19th century Iran to the modern day, introducing its central figures and major historical events. combining breadth with a readable yet concise style, he provides a balanced overview of Baha'i scriptures, doctrines and practices, social teachings and organization. This reference work presents a clear and knowledgeable view of a fascinating new religion.

A

‘Abbás Núrí, Mírzá Buzurg (d. 1839)

The father of Bahá’u’lláh. ‘Abbás came from an eminent family in the Iranian province of Mázandarán which traced its ancestry back to the last pre-Islamic Sassanian king of Iran, Yazdigird III. The family’s ancestral lands were around the village of Tákur in the district of Núr. ‘Abbás served as minister (vaztr) to one of the sons of Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh (reg. 1797–1834) and later as a provincial governor for Burújird and Lunstán. The enmity of the new chief minister, Ḥájí Mírzá ÁQÁSÍ (‘Abbás had been a friend of Áqásí’s rival and predecessor), led to the loss of his political power in 1835 and to severe financial problems. BKG 11–12. (See also NÚRÍ FAMILY.)

‘Abbás Núrí (Mírzá Buzurg), father of Bahá’u’lláh

‘Abbúd, llyás (d. 1878)

Christian merchant of Akka. Owner of the larger (seaward facing) part of what is now termed the house of ‘Abbúd occupied by Bahá’u’lláh. (See also AKKA.)

‘Abduh, Shaykh Muḥammad (d. 1905)

Leading Muslim reformer whose ideas were influential throughout much of the Islamic world. Grand mufti of Egypt, 1889–1905. He met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Beirut in 1878 and became his fervent admirer. AB 38; EGBBF 5; GPB 193

Abdulaziz (1830–76)

‘Abdu’l-‘AZÍZ, OTTOMAN sultan, 1861–76, who advanced the Tanzimat reforms, but opposed liberalism; the first sultan to visit Western Europe. He was deposed in 1876 (30 May), and shortly after either committed suicide or was murdered. It was during his reign that the successive exiles of Bahá’u’lláh within the Ottoman empire took place. After receiving the order of banishment to Edirne, Bahá’u’lláh sent him a strongly worded tablet in which the sultan’s ministers were censured (see ÂLI PAṢA; FUAT PAṢA). He later addressed the sultan in the Súra of the KINGS, calling upon him not to entrust the affairs of state into the hands of corrupt and godless ministers, but himself to rule with justice and fear God. He was God’s ‘shadow on earth’ (a traditional royal title), and as such should be detached from the world and ensure the well-being of his subjects. Bahá’u’lláh also deplored the extremes of wealth and poverty he witnessed in ISTANBUL, and protested his own innocence of any wrongdoing that would have merited his banishment. The sultan’s downfall was prophesied in Bahá’u’lláh’s tablet to Fuat Paşa. GPB 158–60, 172–3, 195–6; PDC 11, 37–40, 61–3, 66, 71; RB2: 312–15.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá (Ar., ‘Servant of Bahá’) (1844–1921)

Title of Bahá’u’lláh’s eldest son and successor.

‘Abdu’l Bahá as a young man in Edirne

TITLES AND APPOINTMENT

His given name was ‘Abbás, but his father also referred to him as the ‘Master’ (Áqá) and the ‘Most Great (or Mighty) Branch’ (ghuṣn-i-a’ẓam), the ‘Mystery of God’ (sirru’lláh), the ‘Limb of the Law of God’ who ‘encompassed the whole of creation’, and the apple of his eye. During the period of his leadership (1892–1921), he preferred to be known as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and it is by this title that he is now generally known. Bahá’u’lláh explicitly named him as his successor in his will, the Book of the COVENANT, but prior to this had implicitly directed that after his own death, his followers should turn to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as their leader and as the interpreter of his writings (KA 63 k121, 82 k174). In the Tablet of the BRANCH, a letter to an individual Bahá’í, composed in the 1860s when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was only in his twenties, Bahá’u’lláh had also stated that those who had turned towards ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had turned towards God, and that those who rejected him had repudiated Bahá’u’lláh and transgressed against him (WOB 135).

EARLY LIFE

According to tradition ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was born on the very night of the BÁB’S declaration (23 May 1844). His mother was Bahá’u’lláh’s first wife, NAVVÁB. As a boy he experienced the shocks of his father’s arrest in 1852, the subsequent exile to Iraq (he himself suffered from frost-bite during the journey in the bitter cold), and Bahá’u’lláh’s withdrawal to the mountains of Kurdistan (1854–6). Greatly attached to his father, he began to assist him whilst still in his teens, increasingly taking responsibility for the practical affairs of the family and acting as one of his father’s secretaries. By the time of the move to Akka (1868) he had become effectively responsible for the whole exile community (Bahá’u’lláh’s family and disciples) and its relations with Ottoman officialdom. Although never attending any school he evidently read widely and became well known and respected amongst Ottoman officials and reformers, including several of the provincial governors in their various places of exile and figures such as Midhat Pasha and the Egyptian Shaykh Muḥammad ‘ABDUH. After his father moved out of Akka (1877) he continued to live in the city, increasingly gaining acceptance as a local notable despite continuing to live under the government’s order of banishment. Giving alms to the poor and regularly attending the local mosque, he came to be seen by the local population as a pious, albeit heterodox Muslim leader rather than as the son of the founder of a new religion. In 1873, he married MUNÍRIH Nahrí (1847–1938), a girl from a prominent Iṣfáhání Bahá’í merchant family. The couple had four daughters who survived to adulthood, in addition to two sons and three daughters who died in childhood (see NÚRÍ FAMILY). Unlike his father, grandfather and uncles, all of whom followed the contemporary upper-class Muslim practice of having several wives, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá remained monogamous.

MINISTRY (1892–1921)

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ministry can be divided into three phases:

(1) 1892–1908

The first phase was one of persistent difficulty and danger. Although most of the Bahá’ís readily accepted Bahá’u’lláh’s clear appointment of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and gave him their devotion, members of Bahá’u’lláh’s extended family, led by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s half-brother, MUḤAMMAD-‘ALÍ, rejected his authority, and began an at first covert and then open campaign to discredit him (see COVENANT-BREAKERS). Of the family, only his sister (BAHIYYIH KHÁNUM), wife and daughters, together with a surviving uncle and his family, remained loyal. Unable to shake the allegiance of the mass of the Bahá’ís, this campaign led to recurrent problems for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with the Turkish authorities, including the reimposition of confinement in Akka (1901) and the appointment of two official commissions of enquiry, the second of which (1907–8) was expected to cause his exile to North Africa. This prolonged opposition caused ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to give great emphasis to the doctrine that there was a sacred COVENANT which ensured the preservation of Bahá’í unity through obedience to the properly appointed leaders of the Faith. Those who broke this covenant, such as Muḥammad-’Alí and his associates, were denounced as ‘Covenant-breakers’ and were ultimately excommunicated.

During this period ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sought to ensure that the Faith would remain co-ordinated and protected from his opponents even if something were to happen to him, writing his WILL AND TESTAMENT, in which he appointed his eldest grandson, SHOGHI EFFENDI – then still a child – to be the Guardian of the Faith after him; outlining the system to be employed for the election of the UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE referred to by Bahá’u’lláh; and excluding Muḥammad-‘Alí from succession on account of his Covenant-breaking. He also began to encourage the formation of locally elected Bahá’í councils (ASSEMBLIES) in various parts of the Bahá’í world, as well as of several ‘national’ bodies.

Other developments of this period were the composition of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Treatise on POLITICS (1892–3), written as a guide for the Iranian Bahá’ís at a time of growing political instability; the emergence of Bahá’í groups in North America and Europe, and the first pilgrimage visit from Western Bahá’ís to Akka (1898–9); ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s encouragement of educational, medical and economic development among the Eastern Bahá’ís; the beginning of the construction of the first Bahá’í house of worship in the city of ASHKHABAD in Russian Turkestan; and the construction of the SHRINE OF THE BÁB on Mount Carmel.

(2) 1908–14

In 1908 the Young Turk revolution led to the freeing of Ottoman political prisoners, and the dangers that had faced ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Akka came to an end. In 1910 he moved across the bay from Akka to the newly developing city of HAIFA, which thenceforth was to remain the headquarters of the Faith. The Báb’s remains were interred in the completed Shrine there on 21 March 1909, giving Haifa additional spiritual importance for Bahá’ís.

Taking advantage of his new freedom of movement ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, now in his late sixties and far from well, moved to Egypt in 1910, and then embarked on a three-month journey to visit the new Bahá’ís of England and France (September-December 1911) (see p. 17). Resting for the winter in Egypt, he made a longer second journey to visit the Western Bahá’ís (March 1912–June 1913). After fourteen months of extensive travelling in the United States and Canada, during which he visited thirty-eight cities, he returned to Europe, where he visited Britain, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. He returned to Egypt (June 1913) and to Haifa (December) in a state of exhaustion.

‘Abdu’l Bahá in Paris

The journeys were of major importance: (1) they contributed to the consolidation of the fledgling Western Bahá’í communities, giving the Bahá’ís a wider vision of their faith and encouraging them to greater action; (2) they attracted considerable public attention – including extensive sympathetic newspaper coverage – so that many people heard of the Bahá’í teachings for the first time; (3) ‘Abdu’l-Bahá met many eminent people (including churchmen such as Archdeacon Wilberforce and T.K. Cheyne in England; academics such as the comparat...