Baha'i History and Texts

The appointment of Shoghi Effendi as Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá came as a surprise to most Bahá’ís, including Shoghi Effendi himself. The general expectation was that after the ascension of `Abdu’l-Bahá, the Universal House of Justice, which `Abdu’l-Bahá had referred to in a number of tablets and talks, would be elected to lead the community.  At the time, however, it would have been impossible to elect the Universal House of Justice in accordance with instructions given in `Abdu’l-Bahá’s will.  Consequently, both the community and Shoghi Effendi had to adapt to a period of leadership by the Guardian alone.

The early Guardianship can be seen as a transitional period in which Shoghi Effendi only gradually unveiled and utilized his full authority, which was almost immediately challenged by Covenant-breakers and tested by outside opponents of the Faith. In the early months of his ministry, Shoghi Effendi took a number of measures to assess the size and condition of Bahá’í communities around the world and to manage the affairs of the Bahá’í World Centre. He also identified the three areas of activity that would become the focus of his ministry: establishing the Bahá’í Administrative Order; developing the properties of the Bahá’í World Centre; and spreading the Faith around the world. He began or encouraged initiatives in each of these areas in the first few months of his ministry. This presentation will examine the evolution of the Guardianship until the late 1930s, by which time his guidance to and leadership of the Bahá’í community had solidified a foundation on which he could begin teaching plans that would eventually spread the Faith around the world and create the conditions for the election of the Universal House of Justice.

Contributor
Richard Hollinger

Richard Hollinger was born in California, where he became a Bahá’í in the 1970s. He holds M.A. degrees in Middle Eastern History from UCLA and in Public History/Historic Preservation from California State College at Dominguez Hills, and has recently retired from a career as an archivist. He has conducted research and published on American and Middle Eastern Bahá’í History, and wrote the chapter on Shoghi Effendi for the recently-published "World of the Bahá’í Faith."

169 Early Years Of The GuardianShip - Richard Hollinger

This webinar will closely examine Bahá’u’lláh’s proclamatory addresses to Pope Pius IX (r. 1846-1878) of the Roman Catholic Church, Emperor Franz Joseph Hapsburg (r. 1848-1916) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Kaiser Wilhelm I (r. 1871-1888) of the German Empire. It is the first in a series of three webinars offered by the Wilmette Institute as part of a course scheduled to begin on Wednesday January 18th, 2023. For more details, visit the course page: God Summons Europe (Part II).

Presenter: 

Shahrokh Monjazeb is an independent scholar of the Bahá’í history and sacred scripture. He began his scholarly endeavors in Bahá’í history around 1989 after he completed his undergraduate degree in Applied Physics and Electro-Acoustics with a minor in Religious Studies and Middle Eastern History. Two years later in 1991, he was invited to present at the annual conference of the Association for Bahá’í Studies North America on one of Bahá’u’lláh major works. Since then he has been involved with Bahá’í academic research as well as the work of translating into English the writings of the Central Figures of the Bahá’í Faith. He is a published author and lecturer whose writings and presentations focus on Bahá’í Sacred Text and their literary and historical significance in the context of the socio-spiritual condition of human society. He has authored more than a couple of dozen articles on Bahá’í history and Sacred Text as well as a monograph on Bahá’u’lláh entitled “Bahá’u’lláh: A Brief Survey of His Life & Works”

Webinar:  Baháulláhs Tablet To Pope Pius IX

This presentation starts from the Declaration of Baháu’lláh in the Garden of Ridvan. The Order issued by the Ottoman government for the banishment of Baháu’lláh from Baghdad to Constantinople, the Capital of The Ottoman Empire, was communicated to Baháu’lláh by Ali Pasha, the Prime Minister of the Ottoman Sultan. In courteous language, the letter invited Baháu’lláh to proceed to Constantinople as the guest of the Ottoman government. Thus, the time for the departure of Baháu’lláh from The Garden of Ridvan had come. The departure of Baháu’lláh from the garden of Ridvan was on May 3, 1863. The journey of Baháu’lláh from Baghdad to Constantinople started from Firayjat, three miles away on the bank of the Tigris.

The journey was idyllic, consisting of a caravan of Kajavahs (howdas) traversing through twenty two villages in the picturesque Anatolia. The journey, of the distance of one thousand miles, over one hundred and ten days, reached Samsun on the Black Sea. From Samsun Baháu’lláh and some among His retinue continued on toward Constantinople, the seat of the Caliphate and the Sultanate. The banishment of Baháu’lláh continued with His exile from Constantinople to Adrianople. After five years, the course of the banishment of Baháu’lláh continued yet further from Adrianople toward the penal colony of Akka. The course of the banishments and exile of Baháu’lláh, from Constantinople to Akka, is signified by the third glorious phase in the disclosure of His prophetic mission—The Proclamation of Baháu’lláh to the Kings and Rulers of His time.

Banishment Of Bahaullah From Baghdad To Constantinople And Beyond

Throughout His ministry, The Báb wrote many epistles addressed to theologians and seminary students. Among the writings of The Báb, there are two works known as the “Kitábu’l-‘Ulamá” or the “Epistle to the ‘Ulamá”, one which was revealed shortly after His return from the Arabian Peninsula to Iran and is the subject of this presentation.

This work, like many other epistles from the early period of The Báb’s ministry, is in the mode of divine verses and is in Arabic. We will attempt to provide brief historical background on developments in the world of Shí’ism prior to the inception of The Báb’s ministry and discuss the features of this epistle. Among the major themes of this work are the the subtlety of The Báb’s claims to a station greater than representing the hidden twelfth Imam, and the question of intertextuality between His writings and the Qur’án.

Our guest speaker is Nima Rafiei, who was born and raised in Minnesota and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. He received his B.A. in history and political science from the University of Minnesota in 2013 and obtained an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago in 2021, where he studied both classical and modern Arabic and Persian literature. His interests in Bábí and Bahá'í studies include early mystical writings of Bahá'u'lláh from the Baghdad period and The Báb's commentaries on súrahs of the Qur'án and Islamic oral traditions. He also contributes English translations of Bahá'í texts from the original Arabic and Persian.

Webinar page: https://wilmetteinstitute.org/the-babs-epistle-to-the-ulama/

The Bab's Epistle to the 'Ulama

The Ras͟hḥ-i-ʻAmá is likely the first emanation from the Supreme Pen after the Maid of Heaven vested Baha’u’llah with his revelation in the Siyah-Chal. It has taken 165 years for this text to be translated into English and published in an official English translation. In his masterwork, The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, Adib Taherzadeh suggests the 20-couplet poem might well prove untranslatable. Join Karen Webb in exploring the official translation of this absorbing short work and its complex imagery. This webinar was designed to be accessible to those with no working grasp of either Persian or Arabic, and we will examine an approach to analyzing the poem that involves no skills beyond the participants’ imagination and a fairly basic knowledge of the Bábí and Bahá’í faiths.

A PDF copy of the handout mentioned in the video can be found on the website link for the original webinar.
https://wilmetteinstitute.org/the-rashh-i-ama-in-living-color/

The Lonely Goatherd:

https://youtu.be/UmmOJx_Hxto?si=hhDjv9hj4iUEfyIo

The Rashh-i-ʻAma in Living Color | Karen Anne Webb

A conversation with Dr. Richard Thomas on his recently published book chapter “How the Bahá’í Teachings on Racial Unity Influenced My Academic Focus on Race Relations in the United States.”

The Bahá’í Faith and African American Studies: Perspectives on Racial Justice, edited by Loni Bramson and Layli Maparyan – Contributions by Layli Maparyan; Richard Hollinger; June Thomas; Richard W. Thomas; Loni Bramson; Michael McMullen and Gwen Etter-Lewis

Dr. Richard Thomas  (Speaker)
Chitra Golestani (Moderator)

https://wilmetteinstitute.org/how-bahai-teachings-on-racial-unity-influenced-my-academic-focus/


How Bahá’í Teachings on Racial Unity Influenced My Academic Focus

Baha’is in South Carolina, like Baha’is around the world, are working to make the world a better and more peaceful place in which to live. Through the publication of “Trudy and the Baha’is’ Spiritual Path in South Carolina,” Annette Reynolds hopes readers will realize that everyone can work together to build peaceful spiritual communities no matter what belief and background one comes from.  This recording covers most of the Question and Answer session from Annette's Wilmette Institute Web Talk of Sunday, 22 January, 2017.

Trudy and The Baha'is: Q and A with Annette Reynolds

Part 2 of "Todd Lawson Web Talk Series on the Báb, His Artistry, His Audience, and His Commentary on the Súrih of Joseph"

In this session:  The Islamic philosophic or mystical tradition, frequently indistinguishable from the Islamic tradition in general, has long been distinguished by the intensity with which it venerates and celebrates certain specific divine teachings from the Qur’án or the Hadith on the spiritual value of beauty. “God is beautiful and loves beauty” is just one such teaching. There are countless others. The purpose of this web talk is to link the Islamic veneration of beauty with the coming of the new revelation of the Báb and, later, Bahá’u’lláh, who is widely known and referred to by Bahá’ís as the Blessed Beauty. 

The study of “beauty” as such is, of course, impossibly broad. In the course of the web talk we will focus on two aspects, revelation and manifestation as “messengers” of divine beauty. First, there will be a summary and elucidation of the aesthetic dimension of the Qur’anic revelation. Secondly, we will present the Islamic belief that Joseph, the subject of the Báb’s proclamatory Commentary introduced in web talk #1, was a unique embodiment of both spiritual and physical divine or blessed beauty. Muhammad, prophet and divine manifestation (and founder of Islam) is seen by the Islamic tradition as a reappearance of such spiritual and moral beauty. 

As we know, the Bahá’í Faith emphasizes the quality of beauty as elements of both the revelation and person of the divine manifestations, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. The role of beauty as religious or spiritual value, then, may be seen to be inherited, enriched and universalized by the Bahá’í revelation.

See Also:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/JAUzFdDHAfs
The Báb’s Artistry in His Commentary on the Súrih of Joseph   Todd Lawson

051 Part 2: Understanding the Báb’s Audience- Blessed Beauty in Islam | Todd Lawson

Part 3 of "Todd Lawson Web Talk Series on the Báb, His Artistry, His Audience, and His Commentary on the Súrih of Joseph"

In the Kitáb-i-Íqán Mulla Husayn is referred to by Bahá’u’lláh thus: But for him, God would not have been established upon the seat of His mercy, nor ascended the throne of eternal glory. This suggests, among other things, that had Mulla Husayn not recognized the Báb’s station and accepted His claims the new era would not have begun. We know from Bahá’í history that what enabled Mulla Husayn to acknowledge the truth of the Báb’s claims was in fact the first chapter of the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá’, also known as the Commentary on the Súrih of Joseph. In this web-talk we will enumerate in detail the various features of this brief composition, features that we may assume were of such striking originality and obvious divine authority (another way to translate the Arabic word mulk) that Mulla Husayn had no choice but to become the Báb’s first follower or, as he is sometimes referred to, the gate of the Gate.

052 Part 3: The Báb’s Great Announcement to Mulla Husayn- Cpt 1 of the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá’- Todd Lawson

The song, “Youthful Báb/One Human Race” is a collaboration from individuals spanning the globe and stands as an example of the effort of love, prayer, meditation, consultation and belief in the capacity of everyone involved. It is a showing of the beautiful work that can be created when people around the world work together as one human race.

Youthful Bab/One Human Race

Womanism is a worldview that emerged from African American women’s culture-based belief systems and historical experiences spanning Africa and the global African diaspora. Within the last 40 years, womanist scholars have documented the manifold dimensions of this worldview and also articulated its social / environmental / spiritual movement implications for all humanity. Understanding this worldview has the potential to illuminate dimensions of the Black experience – inside and outside the Bahá’í community – that shape the contours of community life, teaching, interpersonal relations, and even our ability to make progress on the Most Challenging Issue. In this web talk, major contours of womanism will be outlined and brought into dialogue with Bahá’í themes and issues.

Layli Maparyan

Layli Maparyan, PhD, is the Katherine Stone Kaufmann ’67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. She is best known for her scholarship in the area of womanism and is the author of two groundbreaking texts in the field of womanist studies, The Womanist Reader (Routledge, 2006) and The Womanist Idea (Routledge, 2012); a third book is forthcoming. Maparyan has also published significantly in the areas of adolescent development, social identities, (including biracial/biethnic identity and the intersections of racial/ethnic, sexual, spiritual/religious, and gender identities), Black LGBTQ studies, Hip Hop studies, and history of psychology.

Maparyan’s scholar-activist work interweaves threads from the social sciences and the critical disciplines, incorporating basic and applied platforms around a common theme of integrating identities and communities in peaceable, ecologically sound, and self-actualizing ways.

065 African American Womanism And The Bahá’í Faith: New Approaches | Layli Maparyan |

In this webinar we will take a lightning tour of the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. We will briefly survey the state of knowledge of the primary manuscript sources in the original Arabic and Persian, take stock of the existing English translations, and present a high-level subject categorization. The goal will be to provide serious students with an orientating framework and to point the way to resources that invite deeper independent study.

The resources mentioned in this webinar:
Here is the latest version of the “Inventory” — an unofficial, academic tool for the identification of Bahá’í texts in Arabic/Persian and in English translation:
Also: Powerpoint slides from an introductory presentation on the Inventory can be found here: 

http://blog.loomofreality.org

and
http://loom.loomofreality.org

Steven Phelps received dual bachelors degrees in physics and philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University, specializing in cosmology. He served at the Bahá’í World Center in Haifa, Israel for 13 years in its Research Department, where he coordinated the indexing and collation of the Bahá’í Sacred Writings and their translation from Persian and Arabic into English. During that period he concurrently held a research position in the Physics Department at the Technion University in Haifa and published original research on the masses of nearby galaxies. He currently resides in the Portland area with his wife and three daughters.

053 Overview Of The Writings Of Bahá’u’lláh - Steven Phelps

Feeling anxious? Find out the real cause of anxiety and how to lessen its impact on the mind, body and soul.

Achieving Inner Peace

Dealing with Anxiety and Inner Turmoil (Part 1)

The Wilmette Institute was founded in 1995 to provide basic and advanced courses on the Bahá’í Faith. In 1998, the Wilmette Institute moved to a largely online study approach in order to provide educational classes to a broader student body. It now offers more than 50 unique courses on the web to an average of 30 students per course.

053 Overview Of The Writings Of Bahá’u’lláh - Steven Phelps

Wilmette Institute

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