Baha'i Studies Review - Current Issue

One of the major innovations of Shoghi Effendi’s Guardianship was the development of a worldwide Bahá’í administrative system based on locally and nationally elected spiritual assemblies. This paper identifies the key elements of this system as laid out by Shoghi Effendi in 1922–23 (almost immediately after his accession as Guardian), and elaborated in some details over the next few years in letters he wrote to the American and Canadian Bahá’ís.

The origins of the Bahá’í concept of the equality of women and men lie in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá developed it further, first in his correspondence with western Bahá’ís and later during his travels in Europe and North America as he spoke to audiences about the social teachings of the Bahá’í Faith. While he was in London in September 1911, he met with suffragettes, among others. On one occasion he asked one visitor why she thought women should have the vote. Her response included a metaphor of humanity being a bird with two wings, male and female, both of which are required if the bird is to fly. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá incorporated this metaphor into his talks in the West and eventually into his writings and it has become an enduring description of gender equality found in many documents.

This essay explores how the concepts of the equality of women and men, the rights of women and the advancement of women have been articulated over time in the talks and writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the works of Shoghi Effendi, the writings of the Universal House of Justice and the statements of the Bahá’í International Community. It also considers how these concepts have been applied and developed by individual Bahá’ís and their families, within the Bahá’í community and in its institutions, and how this experience is being shared in public discourse.

This article presents an episode recounted by Cambridge orientalist, Edward Granville Browne (7 February 1862–5 January 1926), as narrated in his travel classic, A Year Amongst the Persians, first published in 1893 (second edition published by Cambridge in 1927). This may be characterized, with some poetic licence as the first recorded ‘fireside’ in Bahá’í history. That is; the first-hand account given in the course of his historic contacts with the Bahá’ís in Persia (present-day Iran), during his stay in Shíráz, from Thursday 22 March 1888 to Saturday 6 April 1888 – at which time Browne, at long last, succeeded in his quest to discover further information on the Bábí religion which, by this time, had evolved into what is today known as the ‘Bahá’í Faith’ now an independent world religion established in all countries except for North Korea and the Vatican. Special focus is devoted to a meeting that took place in Shíráz on ‘Friday, March 30th’, 1888 – and which here is characterized as ‘the first recorded Bahá’í fireside’. Browne’s account – loosely compared, in the present study, to his original diary entries, digital scans of which are now made available by Pembroke College, Cambridge, as part of the ‘Browne Archive Project’ – is energized by his intense curiosity, which may fairly be described as a ‘passion’ for his research interest as a scholar. To ascertain the degree to which Browne’s narrative is a composite, reworked account – and not strictly sequential and chronological – it makes sense to draw some correspondences between Browne’s diary entries, and the Shíráz narrative in Chapter XI in A Year Amongst the Persians, as to both topics and dates. Briefly, the present article highlights Browne’s diary entries, folio by folio (page by page), from Vols. II and III of Browne’s diary, and offers some observations on corresponding passages in A Year Amongst the Persians.

This paper is a distillation of the author’s dissertation submitted for the Degree of Master of Arts by Research in History of Art: Renaissance to Modernism to the School of Humanities at the University of Buckingham in September 2016. The dissertation sought to answer the question, ‘What were the artistic and thematic influences on the evolution of the “white writing” style of the American painter, Mark Tobey?’ Tobey’s distinctive approach to abstraction brought him great acclaim and considerable success in the middle decades of the 20th century but today barely receives a footnote or a few brief sentences in art history texts and courses. It is the intention of this author to argue for the originality and importance of Tobey’s contribution to modern painting, and explain how he arrived at this unique style.

This paper is divided into three parts. The first explores the artistic figures and movements that had an impact on Mark Tobey’s early development. The second focuses on the wide and varied range of thematic sources for Tobey’s painting throughout his life. The painter cited them as ‘the Orient, the Occident, science, religion [and] cities…’ In the third part, the years Tobey spent as a teacher at Dartington Hall in Devon will be examined, including the painter’s travels to the Far East with his friend, the potter Bernard Leach, and the particular circumstances and influences that resulted in the painter’s artistic breakthrough when he produced his first so-called ‘white writing’ paintings at Dartington.

Religious dialects like Judeo-Arabic and Christianese have become popular topics of study in recent years. First proposed in the world of academia, the mass media – including public radio stations like PRI (Public Radio International) – have now begun to cover these ‘religiolects’ in their programmes. The purpose of this paper is to offer an introductory look at the religiolect of the Bahá’í Faith, a relatively recent religion founded in 19th century Persia (present-day Iran). To that end, we will explore the origins of the Bahá’í religiolect; examine the most essential loanwords of the religiolect; discuss some of the phraseology, both contemporary and historical, which composes the religiolect; and review especially extensive efforts to codify the religiolect. In striving to achieve the aforementioned goals, it is hoped that this paper will serve as a stepping-stone that others may use in their endeavours to further a greater understanding of the Bahá’í religiolect.

Islam at the Crossroads, Lameh Fananapazir (2015) Oxford: George Ronald, xxvi, 660, index, 254 x 156 mm ISBN: 978-0-85398-589-1 (hbk – now out-of-print) £24.95 / $49/95; 978-0-85398-598-3 (pbk) £19.95 / $39.95; Kindle ASIN: B01BT5RRM8 £9.99 / $13.37 http://www.grbooks.com

Human beings are conceptual in ways unique to our species, different in kind from animal rationality. Our conceptual capacity goes beyond the cognitive and shapes our emotions, our moral and spiritual capabilities and our perception of the world. That conceptual capacity is formed by culture and language where language plays a central role in how we experience the world. The role of language, especially spiritual or religious language, can inform our perception of the world in ways that represent genuine ‘spiritual perception’ of the material, social and spiritual dimensions of reality. Human beings’ conceptual capabilities are fallible, even in how we use perception as a capacity for knowing the world. Conditions in modernity have increased our vulnerability to fallibility. Consequently, collective exercise of our conceptual capacities in deliberation and coordinated assessments of reality are more necessary than ever. Science and religion are influential models of how collective deliberation, or consultation, enhances our conceptual capabilities and the ways in which perception takes in a world that is both material and spiritual.