Attacks by intellectuals... The effort is to sow seeds of doubt among believers about the Faith's teachings and institutions

In general, the strategy being pursued has been to avoid direct attacks on the Faith's Central Figures. The effort, rather, has been to sow the seeds of doubt among believers about the Faith's teachings and institutions by appealing to unexamined prejudices that Bahá'ís may have unconsciously absorbed from non-Bahá'í society. In defiance of the clear interpretation of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the Guardian, for example, Bahá'u'lláh's limiting of membership on the Universal House of Justice to men is misrepresented as merely a "temporary measure" subject to eventual revision if sufficient pressure is brought to bear. Similarly, Shoghi Effendi's explanation of Bahá'u'lláh's vision of the future Bahá'í World Commonwealth that will unite spiritual and civil authority is dismissed in favour of the assertion that the modern political concept of "separation of church and state" is somehow one that Bahá'u'lláh intended as a basic principle of the World Order He has founded. Particularly subtle is an attempt to suggest that the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar should evolve into a seat of quasi-doctrinal authority, parallel to and essentially independent of the Local House of Justice, which would permit various interests to insinuate themselves into the direction of the life processes of the Cause.

(Issues Related to the Study of the Bahá'í Faith, Universal House of Justice, Bahá'í Publishing Trust of the United States, 1998-05)

https://bahai-library.com/compilation_issues_study_bahai

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19 reasons to hate Baha'u'llah

1. He hijacked the Báb’s movement.
   He dumped the rightful successor of the Báb and hijacked the whole movement for himself like a power-hungry opportunist.
2. He was abusive, foul-mouthed, and dangerous.
   This guy was a narcissist and a compulsive liar with a God complex. He cursed people out, abused Muslims, and even ordered hits on those who challenged him like the Azalis.
3. He lived like royalty but cried “prisoner.”
   While whining about being a “prisoner,” he lived in giant mansions with private gardens—one had around 30 rooms! Pure hypocrisy.
4. He claimed to be God.
   He didn’t just claim divine inspiration—he straight-up said there is no God but him. Full-blown delusion.
5. Failed family man with multiple wives.
   He married at least three times and completely failed at raising his kids. After he died, they went to war with each other—cursing and slandering like enemies.
6. His family was a disaster.
   The so-called “holy family” was the most fractured, toxic, and disunited mess imaginable.
7. Pretended to be Muslim his whole life.
   He kept up the act till the end—posing as a Muslim, performing Saum and Salah, and even getting buried the Muslim way. Fake to the core.
8. Faked divine knowledge.
   He studied Arabic, trained with Sufis, and had a big personal library—but had the nerve to claim his knowledge was “innate” and “divine.” Give me a break.
9. Ran away and left his family behind.
   When things got rough, he bailed. Fled to the mountains and left the women in his family to fend for themselves.
10. His cult contributed nothing to the world.
    His entire so-called religion gave zero value to humanity. Just empty words and cultish nonsense.
11. Started his movement after an erotic hallucination.
    He kicked off his “divine mission” after what sounds like a spiritualized wet dream about a “maiden of heaven.” Total creep vibes.
12. Let people worship him.
    His followers bowed to him, walked around him like he was the Kaaba, and he just soaked it up like a wannabe god.
13. Pimped out “believing women” to his brother.
    Yeah, he gave women from his cult to his brother. That’s not just twisted—it’s predatory.
14. Wrote long-winded trash.
    His writings are bloated with over-the-top hype and barely any real meaning. All noise, no depth.
15. Polluted a river with his garbage writings.
    He dumped thousands of his own writings into the Tigris River. People say the water actually changed color from the mess.
16. Let people kiss his hands and feet.
    He acted like a king, letting followers kiss his hands and feet—then called them “servants of God.” What a joke.
17. Claimed to be God but begged colonial powers for help.
    He preached he was divine, yet ran to imperialists and even The Times newspaper, begging for backup. So much for being all-powerful.
18. Wrote a law book full of holes.
    His so-called “book of laws” is a contradictory mess—flawed, inconsistent, and practically unusable.
19. Talked about religious unity while cursing everyone else.
    He preached unity, but anyone who didn’t worship him was called an infidel, a polytheist, or worse. Classic cult hypocrisy.

19 facts about Baha'u'llah

1. He dumped the rightful successor of the Báb and hijacked the whole movement for himself like a power-hungry opportunist.

2. This guy was a narcissist and a compulsive liar with a God complex. He cursed people out, abused Azalis and Muslims, and even ordered hits on those who challenged him like the Azalis.

3. While whining about being a "prisoner," he lived in giant mansions with private gardens, one had around 30 rooms! 

4. He didn't just claim divine inspiration. He straight-up said there is no God but him!

5. He married at least three times and completely failed at raising his children. After he died, they went to war with each other, cursing and slandering like enemies.

6. The so-called "holy family" was the most fractured, toxic, and disunited mess imaginable.

7. He lived his life as a Muslim, performing *Saum* and *Salah*, and even getting buried the Muslim way.

8. He studied Arabic, trained with Sufis, and had a big personal library, but had the nerve to claim his knowledge was "innate" and "divine."

9. When things got rough, he fled to mountains leaving the women in his family to fend for themselves.

10. His entire so-called religion gave zero value to humanity. Just empty words and cultish nonsense.

11. He kicked off his "divine mission" after what sounds like a spiritualized wet dream about a "maiden of heaven."

12. His followers bowed to him, walked around him like he was the *Kaaba*, and he just soaked it up like a wannabe god.

13. He gave "believing women" from his cult to his brother Subh-i-Azal so that he could enjoy intimacy with them and abide in conspicuous comfort!

14. His writings are bloated with over-the-top hype and barely any real meaning. All noise, no depth. (I have posted a link today)

15. He dumped thousands of his own writings into the Tigris River. Then claimed "they were beyond what any person could understand." lol.

16. He acted like a king, letting followers kiss his hands and feet then called them "servants of God."

17. He claimed he is God, yet ran to imperialists and even The Times newspaper, begging for help!

18. His so-called "book of laws" is a contradictory mess, flawed, inconsistent, and practically unusable.

19. He preached unity, but anyone who didn’t worship him was called an infidel, a polytheist, or worse.

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Use of dark psychology and manipulations by Baha'i leaders.

It's all documented in books and online by Bahá'u'lláh's family:
• "The Religion Of The Bayan And The Claims Of The Baha'is" is an analysis of the manipulations of Bahá'u'lláh and some of his sons, by Jalal Azal, grandson of Bahá'u'lláh's brother Subh-i-Azal and husband of Bahá'u'lláh's granddaughter Ismat.
• "A Lost History of the Bahá'í Faith" is about the manipulations of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, based on the work on Bahá'u'lláh's grandson Shua'u'llah.
• 'Abdu'l-Bahá's family is a website documenting the madness of Shoghi Effendi.

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In the West, Baha'ism had established itself as a moderately-successful middle-class cult, but it remained too peripheral to attract serious attention within the academic world.

In the West, Baha'ism had established itself as a moderately-successful middle-class cult, but it remained too peripheral to attract serious attention within the academic world. It had become far too Westernized in its modern phase to hold much appeal for orientalists; its pretensions to the status of a 'new world religion' carried little weight with scholars in religious studies working within the major traditions; and sociologists of religion had not yet developed a serious interest in non-Christian sects or what are now termed 'new religious movements'. The religion's adherents wrote plenty of books and pamphlets, of course, but these contributed next to nothing to a real understanding of the subject, being directed almost exclusively to apologetic, devotional, didactic, or organizational ends.

-Denis MacEoin

Source: Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies), Vol. 13, No. 1 (1986), pp. 85- 91
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/194982

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Some scholarly and academic sources against the Baha'i faith

Books:

1) What is the Baha'i faith? by William Miller

2) Making the invisible visible by Denis MacEoin

3) Religion and Cyberspace by Morten T. Hojsgaard, Margit Warburg

4) Citizens of the World by Margit Warburg

5) The sources for early Babi doctrine and history by Denis MacEoin

6) The Messiah of Shiraz by Denis MacEoin

7) The Baha'i Faith in America by William Garlington

8) Resurrection and Renewal - The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 844-850 by Abbas Amanat

9) Nuqtat'ul-Kaf by Edward Browne

10) New History of Ali Mohammed The Bab by Edward Browne

11) Materials for the study of the Babi religion by Edward Browne

12) Baha'is in Exile by Vernon Elvin Johnson

13) The Religion of the Bayan and the claims of the Baha'is by Jalal S. Azal

14) A lost history of the Baha'i faith by Shua'u'llah Behai

15) Broken Silence - The story of today's struggle for religious freedom by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab

16) The Bahai Religion and its Enemy the Bahai Organization by Ruth White

17) The Complete Call to the Heaven of the Bayan by August J. Stenstrand

18) Twelve Principles: A Comprehensive Investigation on the Baha'i Teachings by Masoud Basiti, Zahra Moradi, Hossein Akhoondali

19) A Fraudulent Testament Devalues the Bahai Religion into Political Shoghism by Hermann Zimmer

20) History and Doctrines of the Babi Movement by Maulana Muhammad Ali of the Ahmadiyya Movement

21) Abdul Baha's grandson - Story of a twentieth century Excommunication by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab

22) Abdul Baha's Questioned Will and Testament by Ruth White

23) Modernity and the Millennium by Juan R. I. Cole

24) Baha'i Leads Out of the Labyrinth by Ruth White

25) Baha'i: A Christian Response to Baha'ism by Francis Beckwith, 1985

Articles:

1) Baha’ism: Some Uncertainties about its Role as a Globalizing Religion by Denis MacEoin

2) The Baha'i Faith in America, 1893-1900: A Diffusion of the American Religious Zeitgeist by Joshua Rager

3) The Baha’i minority in the State of Israel, 1948–1957 by Randall S. Geller

4) The Baha'is of Iran - The Roots of Controversy by Denis MacEoin

5) The Babi concept of Holy War by Denis MacEoin

6) Challenging apostasy: Responses to Moojan Momen’s ‘Marginality and Apostasy in the Baha’i Community’ by M. Stausberg

7) Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in Nineteenth-Century Shi'ism - The Cases of Shaykhism and Babism by Denis MacEoin

8) Fundamentalism in the contemporary U.S. Baha'i community by Juan R. I. Cole

9) The Baha'i Community of Acre by Erik Cohen

10) The Azali-Baha'i crisis of September, 1867 by Juan R. I. Cole

11) Half the Household Was African: Recovering the Histories of Two Enslaved Africans in Iran, Haji Mubarak and Fezzeh Khanum by Anthony A. Lee

12) The illegitimacy and fraud of the bogus UHJ is exposed through Ali Nakhjavan's blatant perversion of the truth by Nosrat Bahremand

13) An Examination of Suppression and Distortion in 20th Century Baha'i Literature by Vance Salisbury

14) Race, Immorality and Money in the American Baha’i Community by Juan R. I. Cole

15) The Baha'i Faith in America as Panopticon, 1963-1997 by Juan R. I. Cole

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By so doing, the Hands will be setting up a new category of Covenant-breakers, for which they have no authority, as far as I can see it.

MAY 12, 1960

STRONGLY DISAPPROVE BEG NO ACTION UNTIL RECEIVE MY LETTER.

Mason's claim is laughable, preposterous, abominable. It shows that his mind has deteriorated.... The action of those who uphold this ridiculous claim is indeed abominable. But I cannot bring myself to accept the thesis that the Hands have the authority to expel anyone for this reason. Where do the Hands obtain their authority to expel anyone from the Community? From the Will and the Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá These are the exact words of the Master, which I have read and read, and which I quote: "My object is to show that the Hands of the Cause of God must be ever watchful and so soon as they find anyone beginning to oppose and protest against the Guardian of the Cause of God, cast him out from the congregation of the people of Baha) and in no wise accept any excuse from him. How often hath grievous error been disguised in the garb of truth, that it might sow the seeds of doubt in the hearts of men!" Perhaps I'm mistaken, but nowhere else have I found the express authority given to the Hands of the Cause to expel people for any reason other than opposition to the Guardian. The Hands can and must expel anyone who associates with Covenant-breakers, old and new. They can and must expel anyone who disregards a definite injunction of the beloved Guardian. Such acts constitute opposition to Shoghi Effendi But I'm convinced (and perfectly ready and willing at the same time to believe otherwise, if conclusive proofs are shown to me) that the Hands have no authority to expel anyone for any other reason, albeit they are exercising their indubitable right to protect the Faith. By so doing, the Hands will be setting up a new category of Covenant-breakers, for which they have no authority, as far as I can see it. Now if the majority of the Hands agree in a Conclave that they are knowingly taking upon themselves powers, not given them by the Sacred Text, because it is forced upon them through circumstances beyond their control, I will have to submit to the majority decision, although under protest, and then I shall know where I stand. But at the present time unless you convince me to the contrary, I cannot accept this thesis as resting upon the sanction of the Sacred Text.

Hasan M. Balyuzi

(Ministry of the Custodians: An Account of the Stewardship of the Hands of the Cause 1957-1963)

https://bahai-library.com/uhj_ministry_custodians&chapter=4

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they should be placed immediately before the Universal House of Justice.

In matters related to the Covenant, the friends must be firm and steadfast; they should be wary, lest the arguments put forward by those who sow seeds of doubt become the cause for confusion or lead to disputation and disunity. Should questions arise that cannot be resolved, they should be placed immediately before the Universal House of Justice. The friends must be especially careful to avoid being enticed by the whisperings of the remnants of the Covenant-breakers and their supporters, who seek to shake the believers’ faith. Whereas in the past the violators of the Covenant sought to undermine the authority of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, today they challenge the Universal House of Justice. Of particular concern are those who, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá warns, “assert their firmness and steadfastness in the Covenant but when they come across responsive ears they secretly sow the seeds of suspicion.”

(THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE, 18 February 2008)

https://www.payamha-iran.org/sites/payamha-iran.org/files/sites/adefault/files/2008-02-18%20-%20English.pdf

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Major Tudor Pole served during the war in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, and then in the Directorate of Military Intelligence in the Middle East

Prophecies also swirled around the conflict in the Near East. In November 1914, the spiritualist Wellesley Tudor Pole (1884-1968), who served during the war as a Major in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, and then in the Directorate of Military Intelligence in the Middle East, surveyed what he knew of relevant prophecies circulating in relation to the Ottoman Empire. One was that when a European king called Constantine married a Sophie, then a new dawn of Christianity would begin in Constantinople. Constantine I ascended to the throne of Greece in 1913, and his wife was called Sophie. The Persian prophet Baha’u’llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha’i movement who believed he was chosen as the ‘promised one’ of a universal Faith, was reported to have predicted the rise of German hegemony and the downfall of the French and Ottoman Empires. The Rhine would ultimately run red with German blood, he apparently foretold, and then there would come ‘The Most Great Peace’. Tudor Pole was a promoter of the Baha’i movement in Britain, and believed the war would run as Baha’u’llah prophesied. When, in September 1918, the Ottoman army was defeated at the ancient city of Megiddo, the leader of the Baha’i movement at the time, Abdu'l-Bahá, declared that this was the Armageddon of the New Testament and welcomed the beginning of the end times. Such biblical prophecies will be discussed in more detail later, but for the moment let us survey the gallery of First World War prophets, ancient and recent, real and legendary, beginning with the most famous non-biblical prophet of them all, Nostradamus.

(A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith during the First World War. By Owen Davies. Oxford University Press, 2018.)

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-supernatural-war-9780198794554

What attracted him to the Baha'i faith?

Mr. Wellesley Tudor Pole, who has just returned from the East, where he has been studying the movement at first hand.

“How did you come to be interested in the Bahá’í movement?” he said.

“I first heard of the movement when on a visit to Constantinople prior to the Turkish revolution in 1908, and I was very much impressed by the fact that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá could exert such an influence from within prison walls. When I returned to London I found that very little was known of the movement, and I determined to visit ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, known to the outside world by the name of ‘Abbás Effendi, on the first available opportunity and discover for myself the secret of his power.”

“And it is most extraordinary,” Mr. Pole continued, “that so little should be known of this movement in England. There are said to be between two and three million Bahá’ís at least in Persia alone, and many more in India, the Middle East, America, France, Russia, and elsewhere. There is no religious freedom in Persia; if there were it would be found that very great numbers of men would declare themselves disciples. No less than thirty thousand men and women in Persia alone are reported to have sacrificed everything for the movement.

(‘Abdul-Baha in Egypt, A Compilation of Eyewitnesses, Compiled and Edited by Ahang Rabbani, 2008)

https://bahai-library.com/pdf/r/rabbani_abdul-baha_egypt_eyewitnesses.pdf

Tudor-Pole was a point of contact between Abdul Baha and the Baha'is of Russia

The First World War undoubtedly disrupted communication between ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Bahá’ís in Russia, as it did with his correspondence elsewhere. When British forces were entering Palestine in 1917, Wellesley Tudor-Pole, the British Major and admirer of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, received inquiries from Russia concerning ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s safety (Momen, Bábí and Bahá’í Religions 333). In late 1921, ‘Ishqábád remained so isolated by geographical and political circumstances that news of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s death was only telegraphed to the Bahá’ís with the assistance of the American Red Cross and the British Trade Mission at Moscow (Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá 454).

(Notes on the Bábí and Bahá'í Religions in Russia and its Territories, G Hassall - The Journal of Bahá'í Studies, 1993)

https://journal.bahaistudies.ca/online/article/download/74/67

Tudor-Pole informing about Jamal Pasha's plan and saving 'Abdul-Baha

That the war years, during which Shoghi Effendi was studying in Beirut to obtain his Bachelor of Arts degree at the American University, cast a deep shadow of anxiety upon him, in spite of his naturally buoyant and joyous nature, is evinced in a passage of one of his letters written in April 1919, in which he refers to the “long and dismal years of war, bloodshed, famine, and pestilence, when the Holy Land was isolated from the different regions of the world and was undergoing the utmost and severest degree of repression, tyranny and devastation . . .” They were years of ever-increasing danger for his beloved grandfather, years of dire starvation for much of the population, of privations shared by all, including his own family. As the world struggle approached its end the threat of a bombardment of Haifa by the Allies reached such proportions that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá removed His family to a village at the foot of the hills on the other side of the Bay of Akka where they lived for some months and where He, too, spent some of His time. But the greatest threat to the Master’s life and to His family came at the moment when the Turkish Commander-in-Chief, “the brutal, the all-powerful and unscrupulous Jamal Pasha, an inveterate enemy of the Faith”, as Shoghi Effendi described him, contemplated crucifying the Master and His whole family, according to Major Tudor Pole, who was an officer in General Allenby’s victorious army which entered Haifa in August 1918, and who states this hideous act was due to take place two days before their entry, but was frustrated by the rapidity of the British advance and the consequent hasty retreat of the Turkish forces.

(The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih Rabbani)

https://bahai-library.com/khanum_priceless_pearl

He (Shoghi Effendi) was received there (England) by the many devoted friends of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with genuine warmth and affection. Some of them he already knew personally, such as Dr J. E. Esslemont, who had recently been in Haifa and collaborated with him and other friends in the translation of an important Tablet of the Master; Major W. Tudor Pole, who had met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during His stay in London and had been in Palestine with the British Army of Occupation, rendering the believers every assistance within his power; and Lord Lamington.

(The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih Rabbani)

https://bahai-library.com/khanum_priceless_pearl

The address of Major Tudor Pole, in London, was often used as the distributing point for cables and letters to the Bahá’ís. Shoghi Effendi himself, whenever he went up to London, usually called there.

(The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih Rabbani)

https://bahai-library.com/khanum_priceless_pearl

After the completion of his mission (helping the Baha'is) Tudor-Pole distanced himself from Baha'i activities.

Prominent early British Bahá'í. He first heard of Bahá'í in 1908, and visited 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Egypt in 1910. 'Abdu'l-Bahá stayed at his guest house in Clifton during his visits to Bristol in 1911 and 1913. During World War I Tudor-Pole joined British military intelligence in Egypt, and was responsible for initiating British moves to secure 'Abdu'l-Bahá's safety during the invasion of Palestine. He was one of those called to meet Shoghi Effendi to discuss the future of the Faith early in 1922, but subsequently distanced himself from Bahá'í activities, evidently retaining a view of Bahá'í as an inclusive spiritual movement which was incompatible with the more organized form then emerging.

(A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith by Peter Smith, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2000)

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Concise-Encyclopedia-of-the-Bahai-Faith/Peter-Smith/Concise-Encyclopedias/9781851681846

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American University of Beirut and the Baha'i students. High number of these students left the Baha’i religion or were expelled from it.

In the early twentieth-century there were roughly 300 Iranian students in AUB.

Iranian students at AUB constituted an eclectic mix of Iranians from Palestine, Iran and other parts of the Ottoman Empire and post-Ottoman Arab states although most coalesced around their Baha’i identity through student clubs. Muslim Iranians formed a small minority at AUB but they partook in Iranian student clubs and receptions of visiting Iranian dignitaries. In this article, the category of Iranian has been employed instead of Iranian Baha’i since not all Iranian Baha’is who entered AUB identified as such later in life.*

*A number of these graduates were expelled on the grounds that they disobeyed the Baha’i leadership while others became agnostic or nominal Muslims.

Iranian AUB students’ experiences shed light on the formation of the middle class in the modern Middle East. Many felt an elective affinity with SPC/AUB because of the institution’s moral educational vision, its proximity to Baha’i leaders in Palestine and its non-sectarian and practical orientation.

Why AUB?

Many Iranians chose to study at AUB instead of alternative institutions in other parts of the Ottoman Empire, Europe or America. The most immediate reason for this was because AUB was located in near proximity to the Baha’i leadership in Palestine.

‘Abdu’l-Baha feared Iranian Baha’is studying in secular institutions in Europe might lose their spiritual bearings in such potentially alienating and corrupting settings.

‘Abdu’l-Baha sent several young Iranians from his own family and the circle of Baha’i followers in Haifa to the university, sometimes at his own expense. He often made specific recommendations on what students should study, including topics like medicine and agriculture,...

Sons were preferred by the Afnan family

The over-representation of Iranian Baha’i students at AUB from Shiraz, and especially from the Afnan family, provides a clue to the broader patterns of class formation in the Middle East. (The main member of the Afnan family who lived in Beirut and who sent many of his children [sons] to AUB was Sayyid ‘Ali Afnan.) The Afnans were involved in transnational commercial activities spanning Iran, India and the Persian Gulf. Merchant families sending their children, particularly their sons, into higher education indicates an awareness of the shifting nature of the modern economy, and the perceived need for command over new forms of knowledge in order to thrive in it.

Zia Baghdadi left the AUB because he was forced to attend the church.

Zia Baghdadi, an Arab Baha’i medical student attending SPC at the time, wrote of the college’s heavy-handed policies, most notably when the American Presbyterian missionaries ‘without making any exceptions, gave the students a choice of attending the church or of being expelled’. Baghdadi cited ‘this controversy’ as being ‘one of the causes’ for his leaving the college and ‘completing his studies in a Chicago university’.

Abdul Baha wanted the college to be non-denominational in character

‘Abdu’l-Baha further solidified his relationship with the college when he met with its president, Howard Bliss, and outlined his vision for the college. He believed it should be non-denominational in character, teach moral education and service to humanity, and offer courses that would eliminate ignorance and solve pressing social problems.

Some Baha'i students abandoned their faith

Just as Iranian students founded multiple clubs, they also learned to write for multiple audiences. When they wrote for Baha’i publications, they spoke as committed believers who nevertheless drew on modern thinkers. But when they wrote for a college audience, they adopted an academic tone. In fact, the students’ Masters theses and published articles constituted some of the earliest examples of Iranian Baha’is writing academically about social, cultural and political issues. This was a departure from devotional, hagiographical and apologetical literature that was the mainstay of much of Baha’i publishing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through their exposure to the disciplines of history, political science and economics in classes at AUB, these students grappled with the question of how to simultaneously be a religious believer and an academic. This underlying tension between religious and academic modes of reasoning—one that is commonly found in contemporary Jewish, Christian and Muslim writers as well—left an indelible mark on the lives of many students beyond AUB. Some abandoned their faith and wrote only academic works. Others abandoned aspirations for academic careers and instead wrote hagiographies...

Criticizing West and European civilization

In the 1930s, Iranian students such as Ruhi Afnan and Balyuzi sharply criticized Western modernity, perhaps in part because the ‘barbarism’ of the war itself called into question the ‘civilized’ status of European civilization.

Marriage Patterns

Husayn Afnan, for instance, married Badi‘ah al-Husri, the orphaned niece of the prominent Iraqi nationalist Sati’ al-Husri. That Sati‘ al-Husri, an ardent Arab nationalist, should allow his niece to marry an Iranian Baha’i stands out as an irony of the early 1920s.

A number of Iranian Baha’i graduates from AUB married European and North American women, perhaps because of their religion’s emphasis on inter-racial harmony. In many ways, their marriage patterns also match those of Iranian intellectuals from Muslim backgrounds, such as Muhammad Qazvini and Hasan Taqizadah, who similarly took European brides after years of travelling or living outside of their native country. Within Iran, Iranian feminists like Sadiqah Dawlatabadi lambasted Iranian men for taking European wives since this constituted a demographic threat to national unity.88 Iranian graduates of AUB may have been motivated by any number of these factors, but clearly having lived (and often been born) abroad shaped their thinking. Shoghi Effendi was a prime example of this: he married the Canadian May Maxwell. His brother Husayn Rabbani similarly married a German woman. Hasan Balyuzi married Mary Molly Brown while residing in England. The notices in Al-Kulliyah demonstrate that many Iranians married European or American women. Aflatun Mirza was engaged to Miss Annie Joseph while he was in Iraq. ‘Ali Yazdi, who moved to America after his studies, married Marion Carpenter. Zeine Zeine married Miss Mary Howie, a fellow graduate of AUB. Finally, ‘Abd al-Husayn Iqbal married Miss Francine-Jeanne Simonot of France in Nanterre, France.

AUB graduates in the service of the Baha'i leadership

Among the most difficult category to classify were the AUB graduates who entered the service of the Baha’i leadership in Haifa as secretaries and assistants. Their day-to-day tasks included corresponding with the Baha’i international community (usually in English), translating texts, acting as informal ambassadors to Baha’i communities through tours and trips abroad, and serving as liaisons for visiting pilgrims. Several AUB graduates went on to pen literary and scholarly works in the form of histories, biographies, philosophical texts and lexicons, and works of fiction.

Graduates did not help Iran

Iranian students returning to Iran sometimes served in government and bureaucratic positions and public education. Discriminatory hiring practices against religious minorities, coupled with resentment against a Baha’i holding a position instead of a Shi‘i Muslim, hampered some graduates from entering into the public sector as teachers, doctors, nurses and lawyers. Since many of these graduates had been born and raised in Palestine, they appear to have preferred jobs in post-Ottoman Arab states rather than in Iran. Graduates who did return to Iran gravitated towards the Iranian private sector. The situation in Iran might explain why many graduates sought public sector employment in newly established secular Arab countries where there were fewer barriers than in their homeland, while still others left the Middle East altogether.

School for Baha'i children in Palestine

Bushrui, who held both a BA and a MA from AUB, established a school for local Baha’i children in addition to assisting Habibullah Khan, who was understaffed, when performing medical procedures.

AUB graduates in Government positions and politics

AUB graduates worked in official government positions in Iran during the first half of the twentieth century. Among the earliest Iranian graduates of SPC to have reached a level of prominence in the Iranian bureaucracy was Habibullah ‘Ayn al-Mulk Huvayda [father of Amir-Abbas Hoveyda]. ‘Ayn al-Mulk was the son of Mirza Riza, one of the personal secretaries of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. A notice in 1921 mentions he had attended AUB as a student nearly 30 years ago, suggesting he began his studies there around 1891. From Beirut, Habibullah left for Paris where he entered the service of the Bakhtiyari tribal chief Sardar Asad as a tutor for his children. Sardar Asad rose to prominence as a national leader during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1906–1911). Sardar Asad requested that the Shah of Iran, Ahmad Shah, grant Habibullah the title ‘Ayn al-Mulk, which apparently launched his diplomatic career. In 1921, he was appointed as the Iranian consul in Damascus. Later he became the Iranian Consul General in Beirut. Throughout the 1920s, ‘Ayn al-Mulk repeatedly visited his alma mater, including when he received the body of the late Muhammad ‘Ali Shah and attended the 1928 commencement. Occasionally Iranian graduates obtained government posts. Several graduates served in governmental posts in their hometown of Abadah in the mid-1920s. A much more high-profile case was Qasim Ghani, who became a member of Iranian parliament in the mid-1930s as a representative of Mashhad. Mirza Malidi Maraki found employment in the Customs Administration in Iran in Bandar Abbas. A holder of a BA, ‘Ali Allah’ Ali Akbar Nakhjavani worked for the Imperial Bank of Iran.

Most Iranian humanities graduates rose to prominence in British mandatory states such as Palestine, Iraq and Egypt. The Iranian graduates’ fluency in both English and Arabic, their higher education in a modern school and the persistence of intermittent discrimination in Iran all contributed to their desire to seek positions within the Arabic-speaking Middle East. Many had been born and raised in Ottoman Palestine and hence they probably felt more at home in the post-Ottoman Arab states than in Iran. Badi‘ Bushrui was a case in point. After his stint as a teacher in Abu Sinan, Badi‘ Bushrui gained several governmental positions in mandatory Palestine as the private secretary to the governor of Phoenicia, the secretary of the local Food Commission, district officer in Tiberius, and the mayor of Nablus.

A prominent political figure to emerge from the circle of AUB Iranian graduates was Husayn Afnan. Afnan initially taught at the government secondary school in Shebin el-Kom in Egypt in 1912. During the war, he was given charge of a prisoners’ camp in British India. Shortly after the war, he appears to have travelled to Syria from where he accompanied Faisal to Iraq. Having settled in Iraq, Afnan co-founded the newspaper Al-Sharq and a moderate political party along with Sayyid Talib al-Naqib. The newspaper was one of the few Iraqi newspapers critical of the 1920 revolt; it published the petitions of tribes in favour of a British mandate. Afnan became the Secretary of the Council of State in King Faisal’s Iraq. He famously read a proclamation during Faisal’s coronation stating the popular support for the king among the Iraqi population. As part of his duties, he was charged with translating texts from English into Arabic. He later held posts as an Iraqi diplomat in London and Ankara and the Secretary of Western Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

House of Baha'u'llah in Baghdad and expulsion of Husayn Afnan

Afnan’s Baha’i affiliation made him the target of Shi‘i clerics who resented Baha’is owning property in the environs of Baghdad. Baha’i ownership of the house of the Baha’u’llah in Baghdad led to protestations by Shi‘i mujtahids that they were heretics without property rights. By 1924, the case was taken to the Iraqi Court of First Instance; the court ruled in favour of the Baha’is. It did not take long for King Faisal—with the full support of the Council of Ministers—to overturn the ruling...

This time Shoghi Effendi asked Afnan to resign from his government post ‘so that he would not be placed in the position of endorsing that government’s actions in the case’. When Afnan refused, he was expelled from the Baha’i religion.

The Role of AUB

In the religious sphere, many Iranian graduates played a pivotal role in the leadership and administration of the Baha’i Faith. The most prominent Iranian Baha’i graduate of AUB was Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith (1921–1957). Shoghi Effendi elaborated on Baha’i history, administrative structures and procedural guidelines for institutions in his large corpus of mostly English-language books. He also was responsible for translating Baha’u’llah’s central texts into English, thereby further canonizing and making readily available these works to a broader reading Baha’i audience. His own English-language education at AUB and later Oxford undoubtedly factored into English becoming the de facto language of official communications within the Baha’i world community. He elaborated on the Baha’i administration system, which was democratic and non-clerical in nature, having benefited from studies of European and American institutions. Over the course of the early twentieth century, many Iranian graduates of AUB became part of a growing cadre of secretaries in the service of the Baha’i leadership. Before becoming the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi served as a secretary to ‘Abdu’l-Baha. Similarly, Azizullah Bahadur, his fellow graduate from SPC, was also ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s secretary and later a Persian secretary of Shoghi Effendi. Once Shoghi Effendi became the Guardian, this tradition continued. Many of his male relatives graduated from AUB, such as his own brother Husayn Rabbani in addition to his cousins Soheil and Ruhi Afnan, both of whom served as secretaries in the 1920s and 1930s.

Qasim Ghani 

Qasim Ghani, who distanced himself from any Baha’i connection shortly after graduation, wrote on a diverse range of literary and scholarly topics. Among his earliest published works were translations of the French novels of Anatole France.

Ruhi Afnan 

Ruhi Afnan composed both religious and academic works. Earlier in his life, Afnan co-authored an introductory English book on the Baha’i Faith with Horace Holley. In the mid-1930s, he authored a book on mysticism and the Baha’i Faith. After his expulsion from the Baha’i community, Ruhi’s scholarship dealt with broader academic themes and more philosophically oriented studies of the Babi and Baha’i religions.

Balyuzi

From among the group of graduates who remained a part of the Baha’i community, Hasan Balyuzi became the most prominent semi-official historian of the Baha’i Faith. His biographies of the central figures of the Babi and Baha’i religions were semi-hagiographical...

Conclusion

Iranian Baha’i graduates from AUB became the core intermediaries between a more established Baha’i community in the Middle East and a growing community in English-speaking countries. Methodologically, Iranian Baha’i historians affiliated with AUB incorporated a measure of critical textual analysis and citations into their community-oriented histories and biographies, signalling a departure from earlier Persian chronicles and hagiographies. Given the high number of Iranian graduates who either left the Baha’i religion or were expelled from it, the exposure to these new modes of thinking may have altered their attitude towards religious authority and paved the way for a more secular sensibility

(Farzin Vejdani, The Iranians of AUB and Middle Class Formation in the Early Twentieth-Century Middle East)

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Another tablet that Baha'is are ashamed to translate and distribute.

Another terrible Tablet of Baha'u'llah I wish to nominate is the Lawh-i Istintáq, also known as the Tablet of Inquisition. The reasons are more serious and macabre than for other tablets discussed.

The tablet deals with the murder of 3 Azali's (Sayyid Muhammad Isfahani, Aqa Jan Kaj-Kulah and Mirza Rida-Quli Tafrishi) in Akka by a gang of 7 Baha'is -- the intimate companions of Baha'u'llah -- shortly after their arrival in Akka.

What's striking about this Tablet is that despite all the posturing by Baha'is about this situation, and the suggestion that the 7 Baha'is were not under Baha'u'llah's explicit or implied instruction to commit a triple homicide, Baha'u'llah actually outed himself with this verse: -

"Verily the Mute [al-akhras, Isfahani] called himself 'Quddus' and hath claimed what the Evil Whisperer (al-khannas) claimed for himself. The other one [Aqá Ján] called himself the 'Sword of Truth' (sayfu'l-haqq);; he said: 'I, verily, am the conqueror of the cities'. God hath sent the one who hath smitten upon his mouth, so that all may firmly believe that through this Satan's tail hath been cut off by the sword of the Merciful (sayfu'r-rahmán)." - Baha'u'llah, Lawh-i Istintáq

Clearly, Baha'u'llah was pleased and believed they got what they deserved. This is further evidence that Baha'u'llah was at the very least complicit in serious criminal behaviour throughout his life. He deserved every minute of his jail time and exile and deserved far worse treatment than he actually received.

This is another tablet that Baha'is are ashamed to translate and distribute.

About Lawh-i Istintáq

http://irfancolloquia.org/138/alkan_istintaq

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It's all marketing.

It's all marketing.

"Equality of men and women" is marketing. No women on the UHJ.

"Unity of religions" is marketing. You reject core tenets of other religions and claim that the good deeds of non-believers are worth nil (Check first verse of Kitab-i-Aqdas).

"Unity of mankind" is marketing. You wish to establish a global theocracy where Baha'is rule the planet. You are also deeply homophobic and wish to remove the voting rights of LGBQT people if they are openly LGBQT. That's at least 3-4% of the population.

"Harmony of science and religion" is marketing. "Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you..." - Kitab-i-Aqdas)

"The abolition of racial, class, and religious prejudices" is marketing. The Guardian labelled his brother's wife a "low brow Christian", demonstrating a terrible classist attitude. Abdu'l-Baha made inappropriate comments on Africans. The Bab had slaves.

"Independent investigation of truth" is marketing. The Baha'i faith censors materials, sanctions and evicts independent scholars, discourages the establishment of University of Baha'i studies, etc. They really mean "you can independently investigate our carefully curated materials".

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Baha'i faith or Bahaism as a religion had as its background two earlier and much different movements in nineteenth-century Shi'ite Shaikhism

Baha'i faith or Bahaism as a religion had as its background two earlier and much different movements in nineteenth-century Shiʿite Shaikhism (following Shaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾī) and Babism. Shaikhism centered on theosophical doctrines and believed that a perfect Shiʿite existed on earth at all times, and many Shaikhis (as well as other Shiʿites) expected the return of the hidden Twelfth Imam in 1260/1844. Shaikhis in particular joined the messianic Babi movement of the 1840s, which shook Iran as Sayyed ʿAlī-Moḥammad Šīrāzī proclaimed himself, first the bāb or “gate” of the Twelfth Imam, and then the return of the imam himself. As the new creed spread, violence broke out between Shiʿites and Babis, ending when Qajar government troops intervened to besiege and massacre the Babis. The government executed the Bāb in 1850. Some Babi leaders in Tehran plotted, in revenge, the death of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah, but the assassination failed and large numbers of suspected Babis were tortured and killed.

(Encyclopaedia Iranica Online)

https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-iranica-online/bahai-faith-or-bahaism-COM_6391

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Jamal Effendi had to depart from Bombay for giving a talk on Aga Khan

During his stay in Bombay, Jamal Effendi delivered a great many talks concerning the claims and principles of the Baha'i Movement. One such talk was directed towards the head of the Khoja community in that city, the Aga Khan. However, his discourses, rather than bringing converts to the Baha’i Faith, aroused’ the animosity of numerous religious leaders in Bombay and consequently, the two teachers, on the advice of their friends, departed the city.

(Page 18, Baha'i News, March 1975)

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Independent investigation of the truth gives us the means to apply Baha’u’llah’s teachings creatively.

Independent investigation of the truth gives us the means to apply Baha’u’llah’s teachings creatively. It means that we have to the obligation to recognize when the conditions of society change and modify our response.

And it is in this capacity, in keeping with my responsibility as a believer to apply the principles of Baha’u’llah to our current situation that I want to make a suggestion. With all respect for the other members of the faith who may feel differently, I would like to indicate a few places where, at this early point in our development, we are allowing the truth to get away from us. Like the sun that is always moving westward through the sky, God’s truth has not been still since Baha’u’llah’s lifetime. In several crucial areas, I believe we need to catch up. If we hang on too hard to the truth that was revealed, we will end up clutching at nothing.

One example of how I believe conditions have changed significantly since Baha’u’llah’s day concerns sexual morality. In the nineteenth century, homosexuality was not simply condemned, homosexuality in the sense we know it today was not understood at all. It was not even an issue. In this situation, Baha’u’llah could no more be expected to write in favor of same-sex marriage than Mohammed could have been expected to endorse women’s suffrage in seventh-century Arabia. It would be simply inconceivable. And yet what responsible Muslim claims that because the Koran does not say women should have the right to vote, they should be shut out from democratic elections? It is not so much that Mohammed is against women voting as that universal suffrage, for either gender, is something that never occurs to him. Discerning Muslims understand that it is not the letter of the teachings that applies here, but the principle. The Koran never says that women should have all the rights men do, but it does say that women should be valued and cherished, that their souls are of full importance to God. In considering this question, they look past the precise wording to the spirit that dwells within the words, looking not at what Mohammed said specifically about women, but at the general dignity he accorded them in his revelation.

In the same way, I think Baha’is must not stop with the strict and uncompromising definition Baha’u’llah presents of marriage — two people of the opposite sex — and instead we must see this issue in terms of the spirit of the faith. Baha’u’llah certainly never endorses gay marriage, but he also insists that religion must keep up with science and remain in harmony with new discoveries. And it is here that the matter becomes more complicated. This is because there is less and less question what position science takes on this issue. As more evidence emerges, it is becoming clear that sexual orientation is something natural, the product of a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and not a sin or vice as was universally believed one hundred years ago. This is a classic example, I think, of how we must decide between the strict letter of the Baha’i teachings and their life-giving spirit. On the one hand, Baha’u’llah is very clear about marriage being for a man and a woman only. On the other hand, he is equally emphatic that religion be reconciled to science. This is a case where there is no simple answer, where no Ruhi response will do. It is necessary here to think. It is necessary to make a choice.

And who should make this choice? Two hundred years ago it would have fallen to the priests, and individual believers would still have had someone else to rule for them. That was the right way in the past, but it is not the right way today. This revelation calls for independent investigation of the truth, and this means all of us must decide independently. If we are moral absolutists like the current president and pope, if we have one correct answer for all times and all places then this choice will be easy. But if we take the moral relativist view, which I believe is a more appropriate Baha’i view; there is not a simple solution. We cannot accept anything Baha’u’llah prescribes blindly, but must test it to be sure that it really applies to our particular situation. This goes for what the faith teaches on same-sex marriage, on capital punishment, on reproductive rights, and even on the prohibition of political involvement. This does not mean the literal teachings on any of these issues are wrong, but it does mean that they are not automatically right, either. Not only may they be right in one time and not in another, they may be right for one person but be utterly inappropriate for someone else. God’s truth never changes, but the human condition is relative, and even the best rules need to be applied creatively and flexibly in relation to the problems of each human being.

And it goes without saying that the same applies to what I have said here. I do not presume to deal in the absolute truth, which is too big for any human being to see all at once. I am only offering suggestions which may or may not prove useful to other people in their individual situations. I am not even sure about the specific recommendations I have made. Perhaps this is not the best time for the faith to endorse same-sex marriage; perhaps the world as a whole is still not ready. I wrote this essay not so much to suggest that the literal teaching is wrong on a specific issue, as to challenge the idea that it cannot be wrong on any issue. More than single out any particular commandment, I wanted to ask whether we need to swallow everything whole. It is not this teaching of the faith or that which I object to, it is an attitude which is often implied towards the teachings generally. We see this attitude whenever someone tells us ‘Baha’u’llah says’ as if it were an unanswerable response to any question, whenever someone uses the phrase ‘a fundamental principle of the faith’ as if here all difference, all discussion, all thought must stop. It is the attitude that treats life like a Ruhi lesson where every question has a ready-made answer waiting for it, an answer that is the same for every person, short or tall, male or female, black or white. It is a one-size-fits-all approach to the difficult choices life puts to us. With an attitude like this, there is no room for personal difference, for an individual solution to fit you and me in our individual needs; there is no allowance that truth, so often, is relative to each of us. Another great principle of the faith is unity in diversity, and it is to remind the believers, myself included, of the value of diversity that I have written this. We need to recognize that just as God has a unique and incomparable destiny for each age and for every individual, so the answers to the difficult moral questions we face have not one but many answers, depending on time and place and person. As human beings we often want the choices we make to be simple, but God, who thankfully is much wiser, always ensures that they never are.

-Moral Relativism and the Bahá'í Faith, Brendan Cook (2006)

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Baha'i progressive revelation debunked

Up until this point, I think most Baha’is would be in agreement. This seems to be a fairly common understanding of progressive revelation: that while previous manifestations were appropriate for the conditions they spoke to, it is not necessary or even wise to follow all of their commandments indiscriminately here and now. They are not useless or irrelevant, but we have to examine them carefully to decide what still applies to our situation and what does not. Now, what fewer Baha’is would agree to is the claim that this same sort of caution is also required, to a lesser extent, in following the teachings of Baha’u’llah himself. Many Baha’is seem to feel that because Baha’u’llah is the most recent manifestation of God, the one whose teachings are most relevant to our current needs, they can be followed to the letter, without any discrimination whatsoever. This is something I have heard many times among believers. On any issue, big or small, from deciding the age to hold children responsible for crimes to the rules for contracting a marriage, Baha’u’llah’s word is considered decisive. In less than two hundred years, the sacred writings have become what the Torah has been for more than two thousand, an infallible guide to the needs of every person and every community.

-Moral Relativism and the Bahá'í Faith, Brendan Cook (2006)

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Introduction of the Baha'i faith by historian Arnold J. Toynbee

The Baha'i Sect is a derivative of the Babi Sect, whose founder Sayyid 'Ali Muhammad of Shiraz declared himself to be 'the Bab' (i.e 'the Gate' of the Twelfth Imam Mahdi of the Imami Shi'ah) in A.D. 1844, and eventually claimed to be the inaugurator of a new dispensation, and a manifestation or incarnation of God. The Babi movement was promptly denounced by the Imami Mujtahids and persecuted by the Persian Government; and the Bab himself, after being thrown into prison at Maku, was put to death at Tabriz in 1850. After the persecution had become intensified as a result of an attempt to assassinate Nasir-ad-Din Shah which was made by Babi fanatics in 1852, a band of Babis was led into exile by the Bab's at that time generally acknowledged successor, the Subh-i-Azal - Mirza Yahya. Their first asylum was Baghdad, and here the party was joined by Mirza Yahya's elder half-brother, Mirza Husayn 'Ali. In 1864 the exiles were transferred from Baghdad to Constantinople, and thence to Adrianople, by the Ottoman authorities. At Adrianople, in 1866-7, Mirza Husayn 'Ali, who had long since been the leader of the exiles de facto, declared himself to be 'Him whom God shall make Manifest': the greater prophet of whom the Bab had professed himself - at least in one phase of his teaching - to be the forerunner. This declaration may be taken as the genesis of the Baha'i Sect; since Mirza Husayn 'Ali, under the title of Baha'u'llah ('the Manifestation of the Beauty of God'), captured from his brother the allegiance of all but an insignificant minority of the Babis, in Persia as well as abroad, and was thenceforth regarded by his followers as the founder of their religion, while the figure of the Bab tended to diminish in stature and to recede into the background (compare the progressive eclipse of Marx by Lenin in the Communist Church of the Soviet Union). In 1868 the Ottoman Government banished Subh-i-Azal to Famagusta in Cyprus and Baha'u'llah to 'Akka on the Syrian coast, where Baha'u'llah continued to reside until his death in 1892. The rigorous internment to which the head of the Baha'i community was at first subjected at 'Akka was gradually relaxed, but it was re-imposed upon Baha'u'llah's son and successor 'Abdul-Baha from 1901 until the Ottoman Revolution of 1908. These physical restrictions, however, did not prevent the propagation of the new religion into Europe and America; and after his liberation in 1908 'Abdul-Baha went in person on a missionary journey which lasted from 1911 to 1913 and carried him as far afield as the Pacific coast of the United States. (For the history and doctrines of Babism see Browne, E. G.: 'The Babis of Persia' in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xxi [new series] (London 1889), pp. 485-526 and 881-1009; eundem: A Traveller's Narrative written to illustrate the Episode of the Bab, edited and translated (Cambridge 1891, University Press, 2 vols.); eundem: Mirza Huseyn's New History of the Bab translated (Cambridge 1893, University Press); eundem: 'Personal Reminiscences of the Babi Insurrection at Zanjan in 1850, translated from the Persian' in J.R A.S. vol. xxix [new series), (London 1897); eundem: Kitab-i-Nuqtatu'l-Kaf, being the earliest history of the Babis, compiled by Haji Mirza Jani of Kashan - E J W. Gibb Memorial Series, vol. xv (London 1910, Luzac), eundem: Materials for the Study of the Babi Religion (Cambridge 1918, University Press), eundem: A Literary History of Persia, vol iv (Cambridge 1928, University Press). For an account of Bahaism from the Baha'i standpoint see Esslemont, J. E.: Baha'u'llah and the New Era (London 1923, Allen and Unwin).

-Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History: Volume V (Royal Institute of International Affairs) Oxford University Press.

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Baha'i scholarship

The other issue emerges from the fact that—with a few prominent exceptions—the study of Baha’i is dominated by scholars who are Baha’is themselves. A scholar’s personal belief in Baha’u’llah as a manifestation of God, in principle, should be irrelevant to the quality and impartiality of his or her research. However, it is not irrelevant to the study of Baha’i that scholars who are also Baha’is are obliged to submit their work for preview. This problem and its possible academic consequences are worth discussing.

-Margit Warburg, Citizens of the World - A History and Sociology of the Baha'is from a Globalisation Perspective

https://brill.com/display/book/9789047407461/BP000003.xml

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if it was not for Him, no divine Messenger would have been raised

 ...it all comes from Baha'u'llah, from the soul of Baha'u'llah. Besides, as He Himself says that, if it was not for Him, no divine Messenger would have been raised up in this whole universal cycle on this planet.

-Hooper Dunbar

https://youtu.be/QS0mcaFGpKE?t=202

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the Bahá'í distribution services stopped carrying titles by this publisher

While Bahá'ís are free to purchase and own books by Kalimat Press, the Bahá'í distribution services stopped carrying titles by this publisher.

https://bahai-library.com/kalimat_distribution_bahai_agencies#1999

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"Anti-Baha'i" works by different groups

From the early decades of this century, this stream of Muslim anti-Bahá'í polemic has been joined a rising amount of Christian anti-Bahá'í polemic. This was initiated by Christian missionaries in Iran such as S.G. Wilson and J.R. Richards, but has been extended in recent years to Christian theologians especially those from a Protestant fundamentalist background. Polemic from other religious groups against the Bahá'í Faith has not thus far been of major importance although it is anticipated that this may increase in the future.

In addition, there have been attacks on the Bahá'í Faith made by secular opponents. The largest volume of such material was generated in the Soviet Union as part of the communist anti-religion drive.

Also to be included in this category are the works of "Covenant-Breaker" (q.v.) groups. These begin with Azali polemic in the 19th century such as the Hasht Bihisht of Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani. For other examples see Ahmad Sohrab, Broken Silence (1942); and Herman Zimmer, A Fraudulent Testament devalues the Bahai Religion into Political Shoghism (1973).

Lastly, there remain a number of works written by apostates. 'Abdu'l-Husayn Avarih, for example, was a Bahá'í who wrote an important history of the Bahá'í Faith, the Kavakibu'd-Durriyyih. He later left the Bahá'í Faith and wrote the Kashfu'l-Hiyal. Other examples include the works of Subhi and Niku.

-Moojan Momen (Baha'i scholar loyal to the Haifa based Administrative order)

https://bahai-library.com/momen_encyclopedia_scholarship_survey

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