People get converted to the Baha'i Faith so easily!

In Oakland, California the community had a Persian dinner Saturday night at a hall in a park. Six Persian families prepared dinner for eighty people, many of whom were guests, The group included American Indians as well as people of other than American backgrounds. A welcoming talk of explanation of the occasion, children’s recitation of verses from the Holy Prophets, music and fun combined with the delicious dinner to give everybody the true Bahá’í spirit of joy. One guest asked to sign a declaration card, others asked to be invited again.

(Baha'i News, Issue 410, p. 13)

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Persecution of Baha'is is a golden opportunity for teaching - The UHJ

In 1982, the Universal House of Justice wrote that 'the effect of these developments (i.e. the persecutions in Iran) is to offer such golden opportunities for teaching and further proclamation as can only lead, if vigorously and enthusiastically seized, to large scale conversion and increasing prestige'. Internal documents relating to the subject of the Iranian persecutions indicate that the dominant concern of the movement is not so much the issue of human rights as the possibility of further publicity. This is particularly evident in the latest development, namely the production of a rather tasteless pop video based on the arrest interrogation and execution of a teenage Baha'i girl hanged in Shiraz in 1983. The video has been put on the market in several countries, along with a single record and an L.P., as part of a 'major proclamation' known as the 'Mona Project', whose aim is to get the Baha'i message across to young people.

-Denis MacEoin

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537908608580587

The effect of these developments is to offer such golden opportunities for teaching and further proclamation as can only lead, if vigorously and enthusiastically seized, to large-scale conversion and an increasing prestige.

https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-universal-house-of-justice/messages/19820421_001/1#660965934

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The Bab's claims in the beginning of his mission

It is of particular value in helping us form a clear picture of the Bāb’s ideas at this juncture, especially since it seems to represent the first step taken to address himself to a wider audience than the Shaykhi ulama for whom his earlier works had been written. In the course of this work, he states that the Islamic legal system “shall not be abrogated”; speaks of his verses as “utter nothingness when compared with a single word of the book of God or the words of the people of the house of purity [i.e., the Imāms]”; praises Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī, but condemns his followers; refers to a vision of the head of the Imām Ḥusayn, which he appears to have regarded as instrumental in giving him his earliest inspiration; condemns the concept of the oneness of existence (waḥdat al-wujūd) as unbelief; lists the seven bases of mystical knowledge (maʿrifa) as divine oneness, concepts, the gates (abwāb), the imamate, the pillars (arkān), the nuqabāʾ, and the nujabāʾ; states that prayer through the Imām or others is unbelief, and denies that either al-Aḥsāʾī or Rashtī prayed through ʿAlī or thought him the Creator (a point on which, as we have seen, they had been attacked); regards the station of the Imāms as higher than that of the prophets; states that “most of the men and women of the Twelver Shiʿi sect, by virtue of their ignorance of this station [i.e., of the nuqabāʾ]”, shall go to hell; declares the enemies of al-Aḥsāʾī and Rashtī to be unbelievers like the Sunnis; speaks of the former as the “pure Shiʿi” (shīʿa khālis);̣ writes of the necessity of belief in a physical resurrection and the Prophet’s ascent to heaven (the miʿrāj), condemns the idea of spiritual resurrection and maintains that al-Aḥsāʾī did not speak of it; and, finally, speaks of obedience to himself, as the “servant” of the twelfth Imām, as obligatory. When compared with statements in earlier works, it is clear that the Bāb had opted for the use of taqiyya or concealment of one’s true beliefs, perhaps because this text was in Persian and more easily understood.

(The Messiah of Shiraz, p. 187)

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"Slay those who have joined partners with God, and leave not a single one of the unbelievers alive upon the earth"

More explicitly, the Bāb links the waging of holy war with the necessary preparations for the advent of the Qāʾim: “O armies of God!”, he writes, “when you wage war with the infidels (al-mushrikīn), do not fear their numbers. ...Slay those who have joined partners with God, and leave not a single one of the unbelievers (al-kafirīn) alive upon the earth, so that the earth and all that are on it may be purified for the Remnant of God (baqiyyat Allāh), the expected one [i.e., the twelfth Imām in his persona as the Mahdī].”

(The Messiah of Shiraz, p. 180)

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"...his dispatches concerning the Báb and the Bábís were 'laid before the Queen'."

The two British Foreign Secretaries who received news and dispatches regarding the Báb and the Bábís were the Earl of Aberdeen, who held office from September 1841 to July 1846, under Sir Robert Peel; and Viscount Palmerston, whose tenure of office extended from July 1846 to January 1852, under Lord John Russell. The British envoy chiefly involved in forwarding such reports to London was Lt.-Col. (later Sir Justin) Sheil, the Minister in Tihran. Lord Palmerston's letters to him (F.O. 248/134) state that his dispatches concerning the Báb and the Bábís were 'laid before the Queen'.

(H.M. Balyuzi, The Bab - The Herald of the Day of Days, p. xi)

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Qayyum al Asma and the Quran

Major Henry Rawlinson (1810–1895) (the British political agent in Baghdad) elsewhere speaks of Bastāmī’s “perverted copy of the Koran.” The text of the Qayyūm al-asmāʾ itself, however, indicates that this was a most superficial response and that the theory behind the tafsīr was much more complex than mere imitation of the Qurʾān.

(The Messiah of Shiraz, p. 176)

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Abdul Baha's contacts with British Military heads

It appears that General Allenby, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces, had called upon him at Haifa a week ago and at the Master's wish had driven with him to Acre and taken tea at Bahje, outside the city. The party included Lady Allenby, General Bols, Chief of the General Staff, and also Colonel Staunton, Military Governor of Haifa, who has become a firm friend and promises to do all possible for Abdul Baha and the Movement generally.

I cannot report the intensely interesting conversation between General Allenby and Abdul Baha, because it was of a private nature. Sufficient to say, that the Commander-in-Chief was deeply impressed, and asked for literature on the Baha'i Movement, with which I have since provided him.

Abdul Baha has now been visited by all the important military personages in Palestine, including the Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Arthur Money, Chief Administrator, General Ronald Storrs, Military Governor of Jerusalem, and many military heads of departments, to say nothing of a constant flow of officers and men who call upon him daily.

(Leroy Ioas Papers, 1919, p. 8 - The U.S. Bahá'í National Archives)

https://bahai-library.com/pdf/p/pilgrims_notes_us-archives_1919.pdf

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Introduction of Babism by Denis MacEoin

Babism was the precursor of Baha’ísm, but unlike its now very widespread successor it began as a highly chiliastic and militant affair during Iran’s Qajar dynastic period, even bent on waging holy war to secure the abrogation of the Islamic order and bring in a new messianic (Mahdist) dispensation. Centered on Sayyid ‘Alī Muhammad Shīrāzī, the Bāb (1819–1850) or the “Gate” foreshadowing the coming of “He whom God shall make manifest” (The Twelfth Imam), the original core group of converts in his new dispensation from Spring, 1844, were all middle- or low-ranking ‘ulamā (clerics) recruited exclusively from the ranks of the semi-heterodox Shaykhi school of Shi’ism, to which the Bāb himself was affiliated.

(Denis M. MacEoin, Gnosis in Babism and Gnostic Signs in Babi Talismans, 2018)

https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315561608-54

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Statistical Report Program

Two major computer programs launched by the Bahá’í World Center are in use worldwide:

SRP (Statistical Report Program), implemented in the United States in 2007, a repository of information about how many enrolled Bahá’ís live in each cluster and local community; how many institute courses have been completed; how many core activities, Feasts and Holy Day observances are held regularly in a cluster; and how participation is in each. In the words of the House of Justice, this is “the most essential information required to evaluate the progress of a cluster.”

The newer SRPi (Statistical Report Program for the Training Institute), which manages information on how many people—Bahá’ís and others—participate in institute courses, children’s classes and junior youth groups.

These are the only programs that “decentralize the collection and maintenance of statistical data” about local communities and pass it on to regional, national and global-level institutions.

https://www.bahai.us/9/community/news/2014/march-april/finally-the-truth-behind-the-numbers/

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"I personally hesitate to commit myself to the Baha'i faith"

Shua Ullah, the eldest grandson of Baha'u'llah said it best:

"I personally hesitate to commit myself [to the Baha'i faith] with the existing conditions amongst us, as today we observe only the differences of ideas, lack of cooperation, discord, enmity, selfishness, and hatred—while we should believe that smiles are better than frowns, kindness better than coldness, commendation better than criticism, sympathy better than deception, love better than hate, friendship better than enmity, unity better than discord, and peace better than chaos."

The hate against different opinions is impregnated in the roots of the Bahá’í Faith. This just came up very early after The Bab's death when followers of Bahá'u'lláh and Subh-i-Azal started to kill each other.

(A Lost History of the Baha'i Faith, by Eric Stetson)

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According to a prominent Baha'i historical figure, the formation of Israel was "a most remarkable bloodless revolution occurred, when 4,000,000 Moslems fled and 1,000,000 Jews marched in and began tilling their ancestral soil, and a new nation was born."

May 18. On this date in 1954, Ruhaniyyih Ruth Moffett arrived in Israel. She described the founding of that country six years previous as "a most remarkable bloodless revolution occurred, when 4,000,000 Moslems fled and 1,000,000 Jews marched in and began tilling their ancestral soil, and a new nation was born. Today the blue and white flag with the star of Bethlehem flutters proudly over the world'' youngest democracy --" "nation as eternally old as yesterday, as eternally young as tomorrow". Phonex-like, from the ashes have risen again to build a new homeland, to develop the most stupendous, life-salvaging operation ever undertaken in the whole history of mankind, and to fulfill the promise of the Ages!"

https://bahai-library.com/moffett_pilgrims_notes#1

Ruth J. Moffett was born on January 19, 1880 and met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on a train platform in Chicago in 1912. After attending one of his lectures, she became a Bahá'í and became active in service in 1919. Her teaching efforts took her throughout the Americas, Europe, Egypt and the Near East. The Greatest Holy Leaf (Bahiyyih Khanum) named her Ruhaniyyih, conoting spirituality, joy and beauty. Ruth J. Moffett died on July 5, 1978.

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The Russians, fearing the effect of Babi propaganda near their border

After having been protected at Isfahan, in 1847 the Bab was imprisoned in Sunni Kurdistan where he continued to spread his predictions of catastrophe via his disciples. The Russians, fearing the effect of Babi propaganda near their border – they already had faced two Messianic preachers in the Caucasus – demanded that the prisoner be moved away from their territories. The Bab was thus taken to the Ottoman border to the Chehriq fortress, but still numerous visitors came to see him. As the agitation continued, Mirza Aqasi decided to have him judged at Tabriz to humiliate him in front of his followers when he continued to claim to be the Twelfth Imam. Despite the determination of the ulama who interrogated him and judged him to be guilty of apostasy, he was declared insane and got away with a bastinado. At the same time, the Babis rose up in the north of the country, notably around the stronghold of Sheykh-Tabarsi in Mazandaran. After a ten-month siege they surrendered; the survivors were disemboweled and had their throats slit. But the Bab, although better supervised in the fort where he had been taken after his trial in Tabriz, continued to make himself heard by visitors to whom he spoke via his prison’s window. He was still there when the Shah died.

(Iran - A Social and Political History since the Qajars, Yann Richard, Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris, Cambridge University Press, p. 33)

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How Baha'is ask for money?

With two and one-half months still to be accounted for, we are far short of the target. Total receipts must amount to $144,232 monthly to achieve the intermediate goal set for November 12 or $108,298 monthly to reach the final goal of $1,060,000 by March 31.

Bahá’ís are privileged to contribute to the International Bahá’í Fund, the Continental Bahá’í Fund, the National Bahá’í Fund and the International Deputization Fund. To facilitate a contribution to the National Fund the National Spiritual Assembly has approved the enclosure of an envelope so addressed with this issue of Bahá’í News. You are urged to give prayerful consideration to the use of this envelope for a special contribution at this particular time to help wipe out the accumulated deficit and permit the National Program of proclamation to proceed unhindered in any material way.

(Baha'i News, No. 116, October 1967)

https://bahai.works/U.S._Supplement/Issue_116/Text

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The Bab appointed Mirza Yahya (known as Subh-i-Azal), to become the chief of the Babí community upon His passing.

Baha'i Scholar Peter Terry states,

The Báb appointed Mirzá Yahyá (known as Subh-i-Azal), to become the chief of the Bábí community upon His passing. Mirzá Yahyá assumed that position but did not exercise it in any systematic or constructive fashion, according to the Bahá'í reports of the period in question, from July 1850 until April 1863. Bahá'u'lláh became cognizant of His Mission, that He was "Him Whom God shall make manifest" promised by the Báb in many of His writings...

(Baha'u'llah In His Own Words by Peter Terry)

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Abdul Baha also met various diplomats & U.S. military officers

While in North America, 'Abdu'l-Bahá was treated as a dignitary and an eminent advocate for world peace. He met with many of the great American social, religious, and political leaders of the age. These included Jane Addams, founder of Hull House in Chicago; Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor; W. E. B. DuBois, the prominent African American leader; Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, a well-known philanthropist and the wife of Senator George F. Hearst; Admiral Peary, who traveled to the North Pole; and former president Theodore Roosevelt. 'Abdu'l-Bahá also met various diplomats, U.S. military officers, members of Congress, and Supreme Court justices.

(Prophet's Daughter, The Life and Legacy of Bahíyyih Khánum : Outstanding Heroine of the Baháʼí Faith By Janet A. Khan · 2005)

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