One Planet, One People

Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey (Anthony Brewer)

2011-06-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey

(Anthony Brewer)

Kavian S. Milani

Introduction

Marxism is undoubtedly one of the most influential modern schools of thought with implications in philosophy, economy and history. Marxism, the school of thought associated with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and further developed by countless other theoretical economists and historians has engendered passionate debates by friend and foe alike. It has also generated bloody revolutions, as well as numerous coups and counter-coups to promote and to halt it. Many historically important movements such as Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy were essentially reactions to the spread of Marxism. Marxism is in short, the stuff of history. As a school of thought Marxism engages in theory, whether in philosophy, economics or ethics. A significant portion of Marxist thought concerns history, a history that unfolds in a “dialectical” and determined fashion. Marxism sees the unfolding of history as a result of a tension generated by class struggle. Each ruling class (thesis) generates its own opposite class (anti-thesis) and the tension and clash of classes generates a new class structure (synthesis) in a dialectical process outlined by Hegel and adopted by Marx.[1] The following is an example of his history of progressive epochs:

At a certain stage in their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production…From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. At that point an era of social revolution begins…In broad outline, the Asian, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois [capitalist] modes of production may be designated as progressive epochs of the socio-economic order. (qtd, Brewer, Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey p.13)

In Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey (henceforth Imperialism) Anthony Brewer outlines the major contributions of Marxist theorists and their respective analysis of the all-important issue of “Imperialism.” The scope of the book is immense, beginning with Marx himself and it does cover the spectrum of the thinkers writing in Marxist tradition. There is in fact a remarkable abundance of material for analysis in this book, to which I cannot do justice in this short critique. I will therefore limit myself to a few issues, hoping to comment on them in more detail. My critique is for the most part based on the premises of the “scientific method” as advanced by Karl Popper, himself a harsh critic of Marx. I do feel however that I must justify this methodology before engaging the “scientific method.”

The “Scientific Method” and its Application to Historical Theory

The scientific method is the best touchstone created to critically appraise and evaluate any specific theory. In short, a theory is as good (or useful) as its explanatory powers are and its predictability capacities. For example, let us consider the very successful theory of Newtonian Mechanics. It is a highly successful theory, as it explains a variety of phenomena in physics (such as the fall of an apple or the planetary organization of the Solar System) and it predicts with high degree of success future events such as trajectories of planets, free fall, etc. A third critical feature of a solid and useful “theory” is that it lends itself to falsification by making such predictions that are readily verifiable. Newtonian Mechanics for instance predicts the rate of acceleration of an object in the gravitational field around the planet Earth with sufficient accuracy. This feature (falsification) of a theory is most useful in assessing its validity when examined critically.[2] A good theory (whether in physics or history) must be able to go out on a limb and make predictions.[3] The following adage by Popper while intending scientific endeavors specifically, is equally applicable to the social sciences, which should be required to (and it does attempt to) demonstrate the principle of falsification when possible:

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality. (Popper Selections p. 91, ed. David Miller)

It is my thesis that Marx did actually go out on the limb and make predictive “statements about reality” which are “falsifiable.” It is my conclusion that Marx did not see (or foresee) the development of Imperialism and that his theory of class struggle with the accompanying predictions of the imminent victory of proletariat and the fall of capitalism were completely mistaken and never materialized.

Marx’s Theory of Imperialism

The mid 1800’s were the summit of colonial conquests by the colonial powers and it was also the time period when Marx was advancing his theories of capitalism and economic process’. In short, Marx saw the development of capitalism as a positive development in itself, compared to the socio-economic stages before it. Capitalism was in his view more advanced and progressive compared to, say, feudalism. Here Marx is said to “concentrate on the progressive role of capitalism in developing the forces of production.” (Brewer, Imperialism p.16) Once established capitalism is sustained and propagated by competition and innovation.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society….The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. (qtd, Brewer, Imperialism p.42)

Admittedly his analysis of the development of capitalism from pre-capitalist societies and feudal Europe is engaging and interesting with some explanatory power. As a pluralist I see much value in a variety (and complementary or competing) of theoretical approaches in history, including that of Marx. However two of Marx’s predictions in this regard deserve further attention. First, Marx had predicted an increasing misery of the proletariat leading to a class struggle with the bourgeoisie, bringing about a communist revolution. According to him the most fertile ground for such a revolution was England itself. This plainly never occurred. His second prediction is the subject of this analysis, indicating the collapse of capitalism. Not only did he miss the mark on this one, he also completely miscalculated the rise of imperialism. It is worth mentioning that imperialism was already in practice when Marx was writing, at least in an early form. However, as Brewer admits, Marx did not utilize the nomenclature of “imperialism,” nor was he able to foresee its emergence in his corpus of writings. See the following by Brewer:

Marx did not use the word ‘imperialism’, nor is there anything in his work that corresponds at all exactly to the concepts of imperialism advanced by later Marxist writers. (Brewer, Imperialism 25)

This is not to deny that Marx did see the potential (and actual) benefit of colonial influence (to the colonial power) in the periphery. Brewer devotes some space to an analysis of Marx’s study of India. He did not see colonialism as essential to capitalist development (as opposed to Lenin for instance). However Brewer states that: “once history had taken that turn, there was no going back.” (Brewer, Imperialism 51) The illustrative case is that of the trade surplus with India:

England had a trade surplus with India (as a result of cotton exports), which India financed from its surplus with China (the opium trade), while China in turn exported tea and other products both to England and to Australia and the USA, which had surpluses in trade with England, closing the circle. (Brewer, Imperialism 51)

Never-the-less Marx did not see the development of imperialism, or at least Brewer does not produce any evidence that he was able to foresee the emergence of imperialism. Capitalism, according to Marx, was not to develop further into imperialism, rather it was supposed to undergo “internal contradiction” and collapse. It was to this “fall” that Marx, Engels and their contemporary followers were pointing. The dynamics of this fall, and the end of capitalism is captured by Thomas Sowell in Marxism: Philosophy and Economics:

The capitalists themselves unwittingly facilitate the ultimate destruction of capitalism. Each capitalist seeks to increase his profits by lowering production costs through more efficient production. This in turn leads to an increasing scale of production, as the minimum size necessary for achieving the level of efficiency required to survive in competition increases over time. The means of production are increasingly centralized in a few businesses, and the ownership of these businesses increasingly concentrated in a few capitalists. ‘One capitalist kills many,’ in Marx’s words. Eventually there are so few capitalists that it is politically easy to achieve their “expropriation” by the ‘mass of the people.’ (Sowell, Marxism p.81)

Clearly, such “expropriation” never materialized. It is interesting to find Brewer actually criticize Marx on another instance where his predictions seem to have failed. This is offered as the second reason “regarded as an embarrassing lapse” on Marx’s part:

Second, Marx’s predictions seemed to fail. India did not, under British rule, develop into a major industrial country. The assessment here must depend on what time scale Marx expected for the developments he predicted; there is no clear indication in his articles. Other passages make it very clear that the village organization remained and was very resistant to change. The factors listed as Britain’s bequest to a future independent India (unity, the native army, the free press, an educated middle class) are surely exactly the factors that have given the modern India its distinctive character. (Brewer, Imperialism p.55-56)

Here Brewer manages to see a prophetic “prediction” in what amounts to an otherwise very embarrassing analysis by Marx. First, India clearly did not develop into an industrial power. Second, of the “Britain’s bequest” numbers one and four have clearly not materialized, to date, neither can number three (free press) be said to have been fully established. Perhaps number two (a native army) is the only one of the four that has been realized. Regardless, it is worth noting that Brewer sees in Marx’s failed prophecies a fulfillment. Equally interesting is Brewer’s omission of Marx’s failure to accurately predict the emergence of imperialism.

Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism

Lenin’s emergence on the scene around the beginning of the First World War initiated a new epoch in the development of Marxism. At this time Marxism was undergoing an internal crisis of sorts, with the development of competing factions. The principle difficulty was that the history of the World had unfolded very different than what Marx had predicted. The situation is captured well by Sowell:

Lenin’s theory of imperialism rescued Marxian economics from two of its most embarrassing predictions—the increasing misery of the proletariat and the ever more severe economic crises that were supposed to destroy capitalism. It was possible for Marx and Engels to keep looking, throughout their lives, for evidence that such trends existed and were approaching their culmination. But by the time Lenin rose to prominence, the failure of these key Marxian predictions was too obvious to deny. (Sowell, Marxism p.213)

Lenin’s approach to the dilemma of Marxian predictions was rather simple, that capitalism itself has been “transformed into imperialism.” This is also implied by the title of his major theoretical work, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” Brewer sees this development as Lenin’s response to “Kautsky’s theory of ‘ultra-imperialism” (Imperialism p.116). Given that the underlying difficulty for Marxists of the time was to reconcile the historical developments with Marx’s prophecies, I tend to agree with Popper’s analysis. Popper writes that: “Experience shows that Marx’s prophecies were false. But experience can always be explained away.” Furthermore he elaborates the development of an auxiliary hypothesis designed to explain away such failures, beginning with Engels:

Forced to admit that in Britain the prevailing tendency was not towards an increase in misery but rather towards a considerable improvement, he hints this may be due to the fact that Britain ‘is exploiting the whole world’; and he scornfully assails ‘the British working class’ which, instead of suffering instead as he expected them to do, ‘is actually becoming more and more bourgeois’. (Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies vol.2, p.186)

According to Popper imperialism was a development in Marxism, coined as an auxiliary hypothesis to explain away the improving state of the “proletariat” in England. According to Lenin the economic pressure was being transferred to the “periphery” through colonial exploitation. This development is secondary to the fact that in some “core” countries capitalism becomes “over-ripe” and a profitable investment becomes more difficult to find. This leads to a capital export from developed core to under-developed periphery. The main points of his argument as explored by Brewer is found in the following extract:

The possibility of exporting capital is created by the fact that a number of backward countries have already been drawn into world capitalist intercourse; main railways have either been or are being built there, the elementary conditions for industrial development have been created etc. The necessity of exporting capitalism arises from the fact that in a few countries capitalism has become ‘over-ripe’ and (owing to the backward stage of agriculture and the impoverished state of the masses) capital cannot find a field for ‘profitable’ investment. (Imperialism p. 118)

One has to agree with Brewer’s assessment of this text (Imperialism p.118). The second part of the passage is counter-intuitive. Why would capital find its way to a place “where capital cannot find a field for ‘profitable’ investment”? Even Brewer agrees that there is significant ambiguity and lack of explanatory power in Lenin’s theory of capital export:

To summarize, Lenin did not provide a full analysis of the key links in his argument. The connections between monopoly, capital export and the division of the world remain obscure. He did, however, write a powerful descriptive account of a world divided between great rival empires. (Imperialism p.123)

It appears that in the last line Brewer is referring to the meticulous calculations and data analysis by Lenin outlining this capital export. The question is the following: Does capital export cause imperialism or does it cause misery or a poor condition for the recipient? In short, is there any causality attributable to Lenin’s analysis? Brewer seems to think that even though the deductive link is loose, the point has merit. Here is a counter point by Sowell examining the same data:

Statistical data on a country-by-country basis show very nearly the opposite of what Lenin claimed. Industrial nations tend to send their foreign investments to other industrial nations, rather than to industrially undeveloped nations. The United States, for example, has more invested in Canada than in Asia and Africa put together—and it has more invested in Europe than in Canada. In Marxian jargon it was “no accident” that Lenin chose such loose categories. Even his own table in Imperialism showed that France and Germany each had more than twice as much invested in “Europe” as in all of “Asia, Africa and Australia” put together. (Marxism p.215)

Conclusion

In summary I enjoyed Brewer’s Imperialism very much. I thought it was a great book to read and it introduced me to some interesting intellectual (and influential) thinkers such as Luxemburg and (the old) Frank. Brewer’s outline was excellent and his criticism of the Marxist writers was accurate, even though overly generous at times. In this critique I have attempted to examine (in an admittedly narrow focus) the comparative theories of Marx and Lenin. Needless to say that both authors are highly influential and argue with force and passion, and their influence has contributed significantly to the current geopolitical state of the world. My analysis shows that Marx simply made some wrong predictions about the fall of capitalism, completely missing the imminent development of imperialism. Lenin on the other hand, was reacting to the disillusionment prevailing in the Marxist ranks and advanced the theory of imperialism based on “capital export.” It is unclear to this author whether his data justify his conclusions.

Additional Outside Sources

Miller, David. Popper Selections. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey.

1985.

Popper, Karl. The Open Society and its Enemies, volume 2. Princeton University Press.

Princeton, New Jersey. 1971.

Sowell, Thomas. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Quill William Morrow, New

York, New York. 1985.

[1] It would appear that Marx based his class struggle theory mainly on the model of the Western and specifically European history. This has left Marx open to the charge of “Euro-centrism” as advanced by Frank (ReOrient pp.12-20) and even confirmed and maintained by those sympathetic to him such as Brewer (cf. Marxist Theories of Imperialism p. 89, 114).

[2] For instance if one made a prediction that there are little green men in outer space in a very far galaxy who have amazing healing powers such a theory would make for an interesting (tabloid) read, but it would useless in so far as it is not verifiable.

[3] It is in this sense that I found both Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350 and Frank’s ReOrient highly valuable and important books. Both authors line up their data well and bring appropriate “explanatory” power to the table. However the incredible feature of both books is that they go out on a limb and make predictions based on their respective theories of an emerging global world-system (cf. Hegemony pp.369-372 and ReOrient pp. 322-359).

Petition to the Iranian Government for Immediate Release of the staff and faculty of the Bahá'í Institute of Higher Education

2011-06-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

Petition to the Iranian Government for Immediate Release of the staff and faculty of the Bahá'í Institute of Higher Education

We, the concerned citizens of the Republic of India, wish to place on record our strongest remonstration for the brutal and senseless persecution of the Bahá'ís in general and the academic staff and administrators of the Bahá'í Institute of Higher Education (BIHE) in particular, in Iran. The recent atrocities heaped upon this persecuted community, resulting in centrally orchestrated raids on 30 homes in different parts of the country and the arrest of 16 on 21^st May, deserves the strongest condemnation from every upholder of human dignity and honour in India and the world.

We further wish to accentuate that the Bahá'í Institute of Higher Education came into existence in 1987 as a non-violent, informal and constructive response of the Iranian Bahá'í community to address the educational needs of its youth beyond high school. Since 1979 Iranian Bahá'í youth have been systematically barred by your government from pursuing higher education as part of your ongoing policy to keep your largest non-Muslim religious minority on the margins of society. The consequences of this policy of disallowing the Baha’i youth to have access to higher education will be detrimental not only for the Baha’is community of Iran, but also for the nation as a whole. Denying people access to education is a denial of their right to exist as free and productive human beings.

Iran is a country known for its contribution of the first charter of human rights. It has ratified both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Article 18 of ICCPR states, "everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” and Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes "the right of everyone to education," and that, "higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity.” Persecuting people based on their religion, ideology and belief is not only a clear violation of human rights, but also tantamount to flagrantly abusing international law.

We therefore appeal to the Iranian Government to release immediately and unconditionally all those individuals affiliated with the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education who are in prison since 21^st May, to desist such attacks on this Institute and to ensure that all Iranian students have access to higher education.

May 2011

Judiciary

Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India
Justice Shivraj V. Patil, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India
Justice Rajinder Sachar, Former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court – Former President, People’s Union for Civil Liberties
Dr. B.V. Acharya, Former Advocate General, State of Karnataka & Member, Law Commission of India
Justice G. Patri Basavana Goud, Former Judge, High Court of Karnataka, Former, Upalokayukta, State of Karnataka
Justice R. Gururanjan, Former Judge, High Court of Karnataka, Bangalore
Vrinda Grover, Human Rights Lawyer & Supreme Court Advocate
Advocate K. V. Patil, Ex Principal, I.M. Law College & Legal Advisor Rayat Shikhshan Sanstha, Satara
Advocate Arvind Kada, Ex District Government, Pleader & Public Prosecutor - Lecturer Law College, Satara
Ashok Agarwal, Advocate – Member, Social Jurist

Legislative and executive branches of government

Mr.Udayain Raje Bhonsle, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
Shambhuraj S. Desai, Ex MLA, Maharashtra
Mr. V N Garg, Officer of the Indian Administrative Service, Infrastructure and Industrial Development Commissioner, Uttar Pradesh

4. Nishant D. Patil, Member of Municipal Council, Ex Mayor, Satara

Jayendra Chavan, Member of Municipal Council - Ex Vice President Municipal Council, Satara
Shankar Malvade, Ex Vice President, Municipal Council, Satara
Dr. Subhash Yadav, member of Municipal Board, Bhiwadi, Distt. Alwar, Rajasthan

Academics

Dr. H. Maheshappa, Honourable Vice Chancellor, Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, Karnataka
Prof. Balraj Singh Chauhan, Vice Chancellor, Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow

3. Prof. R. B. Singh, Distinguished Professor IFFCO Foundation, Ex Assistant Director General of FAO

4. Prof. Amitabh Kundu, Centre for the Study of Regional Development, JNU – Former Member, National Statistical Commission

Prof. (Dr.) Tahir Mahmood, Chairman, Amity University Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Former Chairman, National Minorities Commission & former Member, Law Commission of India
Dr. Patil Suhas Shivalal, Member, Board of Studies, Shivaji University, Member, General Body, Symbiosis University, Pune
Prof. Madhu Purnima Kishwar, Founder Editor, Manushi – Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
Mrs. Anagha Vaidya Soocheta, Textile Technology Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Mauritius, Reduit
Prof. Mohd. Muzammil, Professor of Economics, Lucknow University, Lucknow
Prof. Vikas Gite, University of North Maharashtra
Lt. Col. (Dr.) P.P. Venugopalan, Dean, Kannur Medical College, Kannur, Kerala.
Prof. Satish Jain, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, Delhi
Mr. A.R. Garde, Former Director, Ahmedabad Textile Industries Research Association, Gujarat
Prof. Babu Mathew - Visiting Professor, National Law University, Delhi
Dr. Gayatri Bari, Lecturer & Human Rights Activist, Nasik
Dr. Smita Bharadwaj, Naturopath, Motiwala Hospital and Medical College, Nasik
Dr. Gharte Mita, B.H.M.S P.G.D.P.S,CCH.CGO, Nasik
Dr. K. P. Bagmar, Educator, Human Rights Activist, Nasik
Dr. Swanad Shukla, RYK College, Nasik
Dr. Varsha Dharane, lecturer, Motiwala Hospital and Medical College, Nasik
Prof. DR. Vimla. K. Patil , ex head of Marathi department of Shivaji college ,Satara
Gopalakrishna, Librarian, B M S Institute of Technology, Bangalore
S. M. Sonawane, Principal, New College of Education, Nasik
Sanjay S. Shinde, Principal Samarth College of Education, Satpur, Nasik
V. N. Suryawanshi, Principal HPT Arts & RYK Science College Sharanpur Road, Nasik
M. A. Kulkarni, Prog. Co-ordinator, Dr. Moonje Institute, B.M.College, Nasik
Mamta S. Lal, Lecturer. MVPS College, Nasik
Sayyed Mursalin Sikander, RTC, “RAHNUMA” Urdu Primary School, Nasik
Swapnil B. Nirmal, Principal, Motiwala College of Education Science, Nasik
Raj Kishore Mishra, Secretary, Institute of Orissa Culture, Bhubaneswar
P. C. Mohapatra, Former President, Board of Secondary Education, Orissa
B. R. Dev, Principal, Jupiter Science College, Bhubaneswar
K. Bharat Chandra, Vice-principal, Jupiter Science College, Bhubaneswar
Jaydeep Mohanty, HOD, Botany, Jupiter Science College, Bhubaneswar

Religious Leadership

Rev. Dr. Dominic Emmanuel, Spokesman of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, Catholic Bishop Church of India
Fr. Philip Kuruvilla, Coordinator, ESHA Project, NCCI – Secretary, India Interfaith Coalition on HIV
Rabbi Ezekiel Issac Malekar, Chief Priest & Honorary Secretary Judah Hyam Synagogue
Prof. Dr. MD Thomas, National Director, Commission for Religious Harmony, CBCI, New Delhi
Fr. Jacob Thundyil, President, PREM, Orissa
B. K. Durgesh Nandini, Sister in-charge, Brahmakumari, Bhubaneswar, Orissa

NGOs and Human Rights groups

Dr. V. Mohini Giri, Chairperson, Guild for Service, former Chairperson, National Commission for Women

2. Miloon Kothari, Coordinator, Housing and Land Rights Network – Former UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing

Maja Daruwala, Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
Mathew Cherian, Chief Executive, Help Age India,& Core Group Member, National Human Rights Commission of India
Madhu Mehra, Director, Partners for Law in Development
Neera Misra, Chairperson, Draupadi Trust
Mira Shiva, Coordinator, Initiative for Health & Equity in Society - Member, Diverse Women for Diversity
Asghar Ali Engineer, Founder, Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Islamic Scholar and activist
Ravi Narayan, Secretary General, Indian Committee of Youth Organisations
Jayant Kumar, Head of Programme, Church's Auxiliary for social action (CASA)
Anju Talukdar, Executive Director, Multiple Action Research Group
N. Paul Divakar - General Secretary, Dalit Arthik Adhikar
Rohit Gandhi, International Correspondent
Captain U.R. Nikam ,editor Fauji Varta, President, Maharashtra ex service men and Pensioners Association

Corporate Sector

Paresh Tewary, Director, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry- Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence, Delhi
C. Bose, President Textile Association (India) Mumbai Unit and Ex Vice President of Reliance, Silvassa
Ashish Jain, Ex India Glycol, Vice President, Colourtex, Surat
Dr. John Sequeira, Manager - Textile Application & QC Lab & Management Representative, CHT India Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai
Ullhas Nimkar, Ex CEO, Texan Laboratory, Mumbai
Dr. Ashok Sable, R&D, Manager, Sarex, Mumbai
Mrs. Vaishali Rane, Q&A, Manager Supertex, Kishangarh, Ajmer
D. S. Bhogle, V. P. Operations, Wilhelm Textiles India Co Pvt. Ltd., Gurgaon
Nilkanth Desai, Managing Director of Neelwhite Chemicals, Mumbai
Murthy Sanjiva, CEO of New Star Marketing , Mumbai
Elham Naimi, Senior Software Engineer, LG Soft, Bangalore
Vivek Naik, Chartered Accountant, Vivek Associates, Mumbai
Charan Singh
Sameer Dua, Deputy General Manager ( Sales and Marketing), Precision Rubber Industries Pvt Ltd, New Delhi
Dr. G. P. Nair, Technical Adviser (Textiles),P I Director, Mudra Lifestyles Ltd., Mumbai

Is the right to education, the right of every Iranian citizen today?

2011-06-14T01:12:00.000-07:00

Is the right to education, the right of every Iranian citizen today?

The right to education, proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and guaranteed by the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights – which has been signed and ratified by Iran – stresses equitable access to higher education, with the only legitimate admissions criterion being meeting academic entrance standards.

Since 1979, the government of Iran has systematically sought to deprive young members of its largest non-Muslim religious minority – the 300,000 strong Bahá’í community – from higher education. Thousands of other students have also been barred from universities for being active in student unions, campus publications, or social and political issues including women’s rights, academic freedom, human rights and the rights of prisoners.

The government has also sought to close down Bahá’í efforts to establish their own educational initiatives, including the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education.

Such efforts on the part of the Iranian government are, without doubt, part of a coordinated effort to eradicate the Bahá’í community as a viable group within Iranian society.

The “Bahá’í Question”

During the first years of the Islamic Republic more than 200 Bahá’ís – many of them occupying positions of leadership – disappeared or were publicly executed. Bahá’í centres and cemeteries were destroyed, and arson, looting, mob attacks, and forced recantations were reported by Bahá’ís in more than 50 cities and towns across Iran. Large numbers of Bahá’í youth were expelled from universities.

The targeting of Bahá’ís by the new regime drew widespread international exposure which likely contributed to a revised approach by the government.

In December 1990, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directed President Rafsanjani to address “the Bahá’í Question,” and the issue was referred to the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution (SCCR). According to the text of the memorandum, Ayatollah Khamenei wanted policy proposals “devised in such a way that everyone will understand what should or should not be done” with respect to the Bahá’ís. In response to Ayatollah Khamenei’s request, Dr. Golpaygani, Secretary of the SCCR, prepared a confidential memo to outline policy guidelines in light of the constitution and religious and civil laws of the country.

Signed by some of the most powerful members of the government, the memorandum clarifies what had become a de facto state policy: the Bahá’ís must be treated in such a way that “their progress and development will be blocked.” The memorandum states that Bahá’ís may earn a “modest livelihood”, but “they must be expelled from universities,” and the state must “deny them employment if they identify themselves as Bahá’ís,” and “deny them any position of influence, such as in the educational sector, etc.” Children, the memorandum says, “should be enrolled in schools which have a strong and imposing religious ideology.”

After this secret memorandum was leaked in 1993, Human Rights Watch concluded that it provided concrete evidence of “an official policy of persecution.”

Access to higher education

Bahá’í students have been formally denied access to higher education since 1981. The Iranian government’s efforts in this respect perhaps most clearly demonstrate the lengths to which it is willing to go in its campaign of quiet strangulation of the Bahá’í community.

Initially, a very simple mechanism was used to exclude Bahá’ís from higher education: it required that everyone who took the national university entrance examination declare their religion. Applicants who indicated other than one of the four officially recognized religions in Iran – Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism – were excluded.

In the late 1980s, Bahá’ís sought to mitigate the effects of the ban, making informal arrangements to provide for the education of their young people, using the volunteer services of Bahá’í professors who had been fired from their jobs immediately following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This undertaking evolved and began being referred to as Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). It offered correspondence courses and classes in private homes throughout the country.

Since then, the Iranian government has made repeated attempts to bring to a halt this quiet, peaceful, and vital initiative. In 1998 agents of the government staged a series of raids, arresting at least 36 members of the BIHE’s faculty and staff and confiscating much of its equipment and records.

The raids on the Institute, however, drew considerable international attention to the government’s oppressive policies. Human rights organs at the UN called for an end to religious discrimination against Bahá’í students, and various governments have pressed Iran to allow Bahá’ís back into university.

In an apparent response to this pressure, the government officially announced in late 2003 that it would drop the declaration of religious affiliation on the application for the national university entrance examination.

81 universities instructed to expel Bahá’ís

A leaked confidential communication in 2006 from the director general of the Central Security Office of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology – which oversees all state-run universities – instructed 81 Iranian universities to expel any Bahá’í students.

"[I]f the identity of Bahá’í individuals becomes known at the time of enrolment or during the course of their studies, they must be expelled from university," stated the letter.

The directive flatly contradicted public and private statements of Iranian government officials over the previous several years, who had sought to portray their educational system as open to Bahá’ís and free of discriminatory practices.

In early March 2007, for example, the Reuters news agency reported that some 70 Bahá’í students had been expelled that academic year from universities in Iran. In that report, an anonymous spokesperson for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations was quoted as saying in reply: “No one in Iran because of their religion has been expelled from studying.”

Deceitful statements by Iranian officials came to light when Clare Short, a member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, received a communication from Hamid Reza Arefi, the chargé d'affaires of the Iranian Embassy in London, who wrote, “In Iran, no individual is excluded from higher education solely because of his/her ideology.”

Further plots

A variety of means have since been devised to obstruct Baha'is entering higher education.

In June 2007, around 1000 Bahá’í students wrote their entrance exams, but more than 700 were informed afterwards that their files were ‘incomplete’ and their exams could not be graded. Of more than 200 admitted, 128 were later identified as Bahá’ís and consequently expelled.

In 2008, Bahá’í students attempting to access their university entrance examination results were directed to a webpage that said “Error-incomplete file.”

Since then, of those Bahá’í students who have managed to secure places in universities, a number have been expelled once it is known they are Bahá’ís, oftentimes just before they sit for their final examinations.

Recent attacks and arrests:

On 21 May 2011, agents of the Ministry of Intelligence, acting simultaneously in several cities across the country raided the homes of individuals who are closely involved in assisting with the operations of the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education. At least thirty households were subjected to extensive searches and sixteen Bahá’ís were arrested.

There can be no doubt that the attacks on the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education are being carried out under a centrally orchestrated campaign aimed at demoralizing Bahá'í youth and eroding the formal educational level of the community so as to hasten its impoverishment. Not content with excluding the Bahá’ís from the nation's universities, the government is callously revitalizing its efforts to thwart the informal educational arrangements that the Bahá'í community has undertaken to enable its youth to expand their knowledge beyond the high school level. There is no doubt that arrests are part of the official campaign to block development of Iranian Bahá'ís.

For further information contact: dea@ibnc.in and visit website www.news.bahai.org

2011-06-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

The Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá as a Founding Document

Kavian S. Milani
April 2001

Introduction

Generally speaking, constitutional systems of government are grounded on “founding documents.” These documents create a people, a government and establish its form, or outline the rights of the citizens. The American Republic is founded on written documents including a national compact (Declaration of Independence) and a constitution (including a Bill of Rights ). The English Government has no written “constitution,” yet it has a written “Bill of Rights.” The development of written compacts, constitutions and bills of rights have been important steps in the transition from despotic and tyrannical rule to a democratic rule by the “people.”

The Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá is the most significant Bahá’í founding document. This document has been formative in the development of the Bahá’í Administrative Order. The Will and Testament consists of three separate parts, each part forming a distinct Tablet. `Abdu’l-Bahá wrote the first of these Tablets around 1906, with the latter Tablets added later. It was written by and bears the seal of `Abdu’l-Bahá. Considering its volume, diversity of content, and the historical circumstances under which it was written it is a very remarkable document.

The Will and Testament is in many respects a unique founding document. It incorporates four functions rarely seen in one such document. The Will and Testament establishes a covenant, acts as a charter, outlines a constitution and provides commentary and analysis legitimizing the institutions it enumerates. The student of history finds that it provides for a compact amongst the (covenanted) Bahá’í republic, as it establishes both a covenanted Bahá’í Community (the governed) and creates the Bahá’í Administrative Order (governing bodies). This document also acts as a charter for the future Bahá’í Commonwealth. Furthermore, it sets out the outline for its constitution, and contains significant commentary and clarification on some of its salient features. For example, the constituting components of the Bahá’í commonwealth are established, as well as principles of its representative democracy and the manners of election. The Universal Houses of Justice and Guardianship are also instituted, and their corresponding functions are expounded. The Will also sets in motion constitutional systems of separation of powers, checks and balances and mandates an extended republic generating the future Bahá’í World Commonwealth through universal suffrage.

This article will examine the Will and Testament as a founding document. While it is not the only such Bahá’í document, it is nevertheless a central one and is formative to other founding Bahá’í documents. This study will also present to the modern reader an outline of the political philosophy of `Abdu’l-Bahá’, where political authority is vested in the people, and granted by the Bahá’í Writings. Of particular interest are safeguards and balances established by `Abdu’l-Bahá in order to prevent majority tyranny and usurpation of minority rights. While there have been some examinations of the Will and Testament especially with regards to Bahá’í theology and history, there has been no study of the Will and Testament as a founding document, on par with critical American founding documents such as the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. It is this vacuum such a study aims to fill.

The Centrality of the Will and Testament: Charter and Constitution

The Will and Testament is central to normative Bahá’í discourse. Its central position as expounded by Shoghi Effendi is noted in the following passage. Here Shoghi Effendi comments on the authority vested in the Will and Testament:

The creative energies released by the Law of Bahá’u’lláh, permeating and evolving within the mind of `Abdu’l-Bahá, have by their very impact and close interaction, given birth to an Instrument which may be viewed as the Charter of the New World Order which is at once the glory and the promise of this most great Dispensation. The Will may thus be acclaimed as the inevitable offspring resulting from that mystic intercourse between Him Who communicated the generating influence of His divine purpose and the One Who was its vehicle and chosen recipient. Being the Child of the Covenant—the Heir of both the Originator and the Interpreter of the Law of God—the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá can no more be divorced from Him Who supplied the original and motivating impulse than from the One Who ultimately conceived it (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh 144).

The argument presented in the above passage is formative to Bahá’í thought. Shoghi Effendi, designated in the Will and Testament as the “expounder” of the Word of God, presents a specific interpretation. His analysis indicates that the Will and Testament was an instrument (i.e. founding document) that acts as the charter for the future Bahá’í Commonwealth, as well as its progenitor, the Bahá’í Administrative Order. Elsewhere he elaborates that the “Charter which called into being, outlined the features and set in motion the processes of, this Administrative Order is none other than the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá” (God Passes By 325). The passage also argues that the Will and Testament derives its authority from both Bahá’u’lláh and `Abdu’l-Bahá. This vested authority in the Will and Testament is accordingly unique among the writings of `Abdu’l-Bahá. Here is another commentary from Shoghi Effendi regarding the Will and Testament:

The Document establishing that Order, the Charter of a future world civilization,
which may be regarded in some of its features as supplementary to no less
weighty a Book than the Kitáb-i-Aqdas; signed and sealed by `Abdu’l-Bahá; entirely written with His own hand; (God Passes By 328).

The passage emphasizes that the Will and Testament is in some features complementary to the Kitáb-i-Aqdas itself. Considering the pivotal place that the Aqdas occupies as the “Mother Book” of the Bahá’í Revelation, significant weight and further attention must be given to a study of the Will and Testament. The implication of the above analysis (by Shoghi Effendi) is that Bahá’u’lláh had left deliberate voids in the structure of the future Bahá’í Commonwealth. These voids were to be filled by the Will. The Will and Testament has accordingly been the subject of important studies.

The Will and Testament has become the framework for Bahá’í founding documents. Examples include significant Bahá’í literature such as the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh and the Constitution of the Universal House of Justice, both of which rely heavily on the Will and Testament. Therein lies another particular contribution of the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá, that it has inspired all later Bahá’í founding documents. Many of the principles outlined by `Abdu’l-Bahá such as universal suffrage, checks and balances, or the separation of powers are all naturally integrated and further elaborated in these later documents, and invested in the Institutions of the Faith.

The centrality associated with the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá presents a challenge commonly encountered when examining all other major founding documents. The tension lies between a strictly “founding” reading of the document on the one hand and an organic approach on the other. Examining the Will with a strict foundational approach means that one understands the document to be a strict framework that must be adhered to no matter what the prevalent conditions of the world. Such an approach finds it parallel in the legal doctrine of “original intent” adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court (under current Chief Justice Rehnquist) in its interpretation of the United States Constitution. Alternatively, one may examine the Will and Testament as an organic document, one that gradually unfolds institutions and processes it enshrines. In this approach one may view the Will as a seed planted in the soil of the Bahá’í republic that will grow under the care of the gardener. What of the underlying tension between these two interpretative approaches?

The Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá has been understood (and interpreted) throughout Bahá’í history in a manner that has incorporated both approaches. There has been little tension between the two views. In practice one finds that with respect to fundamental constitutional principles the Will has been adopted (and treated) as a founding document; hence one finds that the Bahá’í Administrative Order incorporates critical elements called for by `Abdu’l-Bahá such as universal suffrage. However, the interpretations of Shoghi Effendi clearly envision the future unfolding of the potentialities latent in the Will and Testament. The following passage is an example of an organic view:

We stand indeed too close to so monumental a document to claim for ourselves a complete understanding of all its implications, or to presume to have grasped the manifold mysteries it undoubtedly contains. Only future generations can comprehend the value and the significance attached to this Divine Masterpiece, which the hand of the Master-builder of the world has designed for the unification and the triumph of the world-wide Faith of Bahá’u’lláh…To them alone will be revealed the suitability of the institutions initiated by `Abdu’l-Bahá to the character of the future society which is to emerge out of the chaos and confusion of the present age (World Order of Bahá’u’lláh 8).

The two approaches are incorporated best when one examines the Will and Testament as both a charter and as constitution. The two views are therefore complementary. When one examines the Will as charter one is taking an organic view (such as the above passage indicates) where the potential institutions are gradually unfolded and realized. On the other hand when interpreting the Will and Testament as constitution one notes that it creates a Bahá’í republic (people) and system of governance, and sets in motion definite processes. Such organic and intensionist approaches are complementary and not mutually exclusive. The complementary nature of this relationship is also evidenced by the following analysis by Shoghi Effendi:

The Administrative Order, which ever since `Abdu’l-Bahá’s ascension has evolved and is taking shape under our very eyes in no fewer than forty countries of the world, may be considered as the framework of the Will itself, the inviolable stronghold wherein this new-born child is being nurtured and developed. This Administrative Order, as it expands and consolidates itself, will no doubt manifest the potentialities and reveal the full implications of this momentous Document—this most remarkable expression of the Will of one of the most remarkable Figures of the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh (World Order of Bahá’u’lláh 144).

Therein lies the complementarity. On the one hand the Will is the charter for the Bahá’í Administrative Order, and on the other hand, the Administrative Order itself acts as the framework of the Will and Testament, revealing more of the potentialities latent in the that Document. These are gradually implemented through the guidance and legislation of the Universal House of Justice, reflecting the collective will of the Bahá’í Commonwealth as mandated by the Will and Testament itself. The study will now turn its attention to a specific analysis of the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá as compact, charter and constitution.

The Will and Testament as Compact

A compact occurs when parties come together and agree to create a people or to establish a new government. Restated, a compact is an agreement between parties to come together. A compact may be oral or written. Before a compact is created individuals are either in a state of nature or in another compact. According to John Locke, for instance, people who are in a state of nature may enters into a social compact with other individuals and create a civil government. However, a society may be under a different compact, and not in a “state of nature.” A people can then also dissolve old compacts and create new ones. An example from American history is the Declaration of Independence, where a new national compact is generated, old ties with the British Monarchy and Parliament are severed, and a new people and a new government is created. If a compact mentions God as a party central to the compact or implicates God in the agreement, then the compact becomes a covenant. The Declaration of Independence, for instance, invokes God as the “Supreme Judge of the Universe” and implicates God in the compact. Therefore it can be considered a covenant as well. There are many other examples of such covenants in history.

The United States of America is a Federation of States whose constituent members (States) have given up partial sovereignty to a Federal government. The term federal comes from the Latin word foedus meaning covenant. The entire structure of the United States Government is pivoted on a compact between the States to share power with a Federal entity. The individual citizens of the United States of America are also covenanted through a compact. The particular document that serves as a national compact is the Declaration of Independence. As a compact the Declaration severs all existing ties with the mother country. A new compact is established instead, and a “people” is created. This compact is central to the “founding” of the American nation. If this (voluntary) compact did not exist the American Republic would simply not exist. The same analysis holds when one examines the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá. It is the voluntary covenant of the individual with Bahá’u’lláh that binds the person to the Bahá’í Commonwealth. The Will and Testament is accordingly the Document that creates the Bahá’í Commonwealth and binds the individuals to it.

In the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá one does find an implied agreement, which in Bahá’í nomenclature is also called Covenant. The compact (covenant) in this case is not between Bahá’ís, rather between Bahá’ís and Bahá’u’lláh as the Manifestation of God. It is a covenant according to the definition presented earlier. Bahá’u’lláh speaks in the Book of My Covenant (Kitáb-i-`Ahdí) as the “Divine Testator”, and creates a (theologically covenanted) people:

The Will of the divine Testator is this: It is incumbent upon the Aghsán, the Afnán and My kindred to turn, one and all, their faces towards the Most Mighty Branch (Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh 221).

It is in the larger context of this Covenant that the Will and Testament must be examined. The Will as a (political) compact occurs within the framework of this (theological) Covenant. For example, one finds many prayers revealed by `Abdu’l-Bahá in the Will and Testament. This further reinforces the centrality of the Divine and the covenantal nature of this document. See the following example where God is invoked as witness and believers compacted into specific duties and responsibilities:

O God, my God! I call Thee, Thy Prophets and Thy Holy Ones, to witness that I have declared conclusively Thy proofs unto Thy loved ones and set forth clearly all things unto them, that they may watch over Thy Faith, guard Thy straight Path and protect Thy Resplendent Law. Thou art, verily, the All-knowing, the All-Wise! (Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá 22)

One notes that the Will and Testament creates a people (covenanted Bahá’í republic). Not only is a people created but a common vision and shared principles is also set out. The creation of a people is an element common to both compacts and constitutions. A Bahá’í republic is established in a number of passages in the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá. It is often reiterated throughout the Document by invocations such as “O ye that stand fast and firm in the Covenant,” or “O ye beloved of the Lord.” Twice in the Will `Abdu’l-Bahá enumerates the constituents of the Bahá’í Republic:

Salutation and praise, blessing and glory rest upon that primal branch of the Divine and Sacred Lote-tree, grown out, blest, tender, verdant, and flourishing from the Twin Holy Trees…upon the offshoots of the Tree of Holiness, the twigs of the Celestial Tree, they that in the Day of the Great Dividing have stood fast and firm in the Covenant; upon the Hands (pillars) of the Cause of God that have diffused widely the Divine Fragrances, declared His Proofs, proclaimed His Faith, published abroad His Law, detached themselves from all things but Him, stood for righteousness in this world, and kindled the Fire of the Love of God in the very hearts and souls of His servants; upon them that have believed, rested assured, stood steadfast in His Covenant and followed the Light that after my passing shineth from the Dayspring of Divine Guidance—for behold! He is the blest and sacred bough that hath branched out from the Twin Holy Trees (3).

In the above passage the four components of the Bahá’í Commonwealth are delineated as follows: The Guardian of the Cause, the Aghsán , the Hands of the Cause and the steadfast believers. In the third section of the Will and Testament `Abdu’l-Bahá again outlines the Bahá’í Community, but there He gives a slightly different order:

For he is, after `Abdu’l-Bahá, the guardian of the Cause of God, the Afnán, the Hands (pillars) of the Cause and the beloved of the Lord must obey him and turn unto him (25).

The centrality of the compact between the constituent elements of the Bahá’í Commonwealth in the form of the Lesser Covenant is essential to an understanding and appreciation of the Will and Testament as a founding Document. In fact if this compact did not exist the Will and Testament would be rendered completely inert as a compact, and also in terms of its function as a charter and constitution. It has continued to be an effective and central document because it binds the Bahá’í republic in a voluntary covenant with Bahá’u’lláh, and with the Bahá’í Administrative Order.

The Will and Testament as Charter

The Will and Testament has often been referred to as a charter. It is said to be the “Charter of the New World Order.” Shoghi Effendi has elsewhere referred to the Will and Testament as the “Charter which called into being, outlined the features and set in motion the processes of, this Administrative Order…” . A charter is yet another type of “founding” document. Strictly speaking, a charter creates a government, whereas a compact creates a people. In the North American Colonies charters had been “issued” by the Monarch. Charters typically grant certain rights or incorporate a form of government. A charter identifies or implies a grantor, and a grantee. These are granted by an authority (such as a Sovereign). Charters do not explicitly address the form of a government, this being addressed by constitutions.

A charter creates and establishes a government and accordingly legitimizes and authorizes a government. Hence one can say that the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá is the “Charter” for the Bahá’í Administrative Order. If the Will and Testament did not exist there would be no “Charter” for the Bahá’í Commonwealth. While sporadic and non-systematic references to organs of the Bahá’í Commonwealth, such as the Local and Universal Houses of Justice, or the Learned and Rulers of Bahá exist in the Corpus of Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings (including the Kitáb-i-Aqdas) nevertheless these references did not amount to a charter in any way. It was through this Instrument (Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá) that the Bahá’í Administrative Order was formally presented to the Bahá’í World. The grantor in this case is `Abdu’l-Bahá through authority vested by Bahá’u’lláh.

A charter provides an answer to the following questions: Who (or what body) is the authorized government over a particular commonwealth? With whom does sovereignty rest? When one examines the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá as a charter, it becomes evident that it responds to these questions. One notes that for example a Supreme Legislature is established and placed at the head of the Bahá’í Commonwealth:

And now, concerning the House of Justice which God hath ordained as the source of all good and freed from error, it must be elected by universal suffrage, that is, by the believers…By this House is meant the Universal House of Justice…Unto this body all things must be referred. It enacteth all ordinances and regulations that are not to be found in the explicit Holy Text…This House of Justice enacteth the laws and the government enforceth them. The legislative body must reinforce the executive, the executive must aid and assist the legislative body so that through the close union and harmony of these two forces, the foundation of fairness and justice may become firm and strong, that all the regions of the world may become even as Paradise itself (Will and Testament 14-15).

Unto the Most Holy Book every one must turn and all that is not expressly recorded therein must be referred to the Universal House of Justice. That which this body, whether unanimously or by a majority doth carry, that is verily the Truth and the Purpose of God Himself. Whoso doth deviate therefrom is verily of them that love discord, hath shown forth malice and turned away from the Lord of the Covenant. By this House of Justice is meant that Universal House of Justice which is to be elected from all countries, that is from those parts in the East and West where the loved ones are to be found, after the manner of the customary elections in Western countries such as those of England (Will and Testament 19-20).

The above passages establish a body (the Universal House of Justice) as the Legislature, and calls into being a Bahá’í Commonwealth. Authority is vested in the people through “universal suffrage”. While both passages address some constitutional issues (as examined later), it is clear that the Will and Testament also acts as a charter. Earlier in the Will and Testament (11) `Abdu’l-Bahá had called for the establishment of both the Institutions of Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice:

The sacred and youthful branch, the guardian of the Cause of God as well as the Universal House of Justice, to be universally elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the Abhá Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of His Holiness, the Exalted One (may my life be offered up for the both of them).

Often times a charter has to sever old ties and forge new ones. Again, the case of the Declaration of Independence provides some interesting parallels. In the case of the American Colonies, there were ties (political and social) to Great Britain. When independence from the British Crown was sought, and a new people and a new government were being created, a charter was needed. While the Declaration of Independence acted as a national compact, it nevertheless severed old ties to the motherland, hence acting as a charter. In order to justify the dissolution of ties with Britain, the Declaration of Independence outlines in great detail grievances of American revolutionaries against the British Government, and King George III in particular. Only after the “history of repeated injuries and usurpations” of George III is “submitted to a candid world” is independence declared, “and all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain” was “totally dissolved.”

The Will and Testament likewise severs all ties with Muhammad `Alí. In fact `Abdu’l-Bahá devotes significant attention to this matter. The severance of all ties with Mírzá Muhammad `Alí was particularly important when one interrogates the Will and Testament as the Charter for the future Bahá’í Commonwealth (and its progenitor the Administrative Order). It would have been impossible to designate a Guardian and establish the Universal House of Justice, without dealing with the issue of Muhammad `Alí. After all the appointment of `Abdu’l-Bahá as Bahá’u’lláh’s successor in the Kitáb-i-`Ahdí was followed by an implied confirmation of Muhammad `Alí as `Abdu’l-Bahá’s successor. His line of reasoning in the Will and Testament was simple enough. It was premised on Bahá’u’lláh’s statement (regarding Muhammad `Alí) indicating that should he “for a moment pass out from under the shadow of the Cause,” he “would surely be brought to naught.” That the slightest “deviation” would make of him a “fallen creature” is the centerpiece of the argument in the Will and Testament. Then `Abdu’l-Bahá proceeds to enumerate (a long list of) grievances and produces examples of Muhammad `Alí’s plots to harm the Faith and the person of `Abdu’l-Bahá. The deduction is simple enough after `Abdu’l-Bahá devotes large portions of the Will in enumerating his deviations and usurpations:

In short, O ye beloved of the Lord! The Center of Sedition, Mírzá Muhammad `Alí, in accordance with the decisive words of God and by reason of his boundless transgression, hath grievously fallen and been cut off from the Holy Tree. Verily, we wronged them not, but they have wronged themselves! (Will and Testament 9)

In short, according to the explicit Divine Text the least transgression shall make of this man a fallen creature, and what transgression is more grievous than attempting to destroy the Divine Edifice, breaking the Covenant, erring from the Testament, falsifying the Holy Text, sowing the seeds of doubt, calumniating `Abdu’l-Bahá, advancing claims for which God hath sent down no warrant, kindling mischief and striving to shed the very blood of `Abdu’l-Bahá, and many other things whereof ye are all aware! It is thus evident that should this man succeed in bringing disruption into the Cause of God, he will utterly destroy and exterminate it. Beware lest ye approach this man, for to approach this man is worse than approaching fire! (Will and Testament 21)

Accordingly the Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá severs all political ties with Muhammad `Alí. As a charter it also establishes the Institutions of Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice as the “interpretive” and “legislative” authorities of the Bahá’í Commonwealth respectively.

The Will and Testament as Constitution

A “constitution” is a document in which the form of government is outlined. It can be conceived as a document in which “parties agree to come together and to frame a government.” Alternatively, a constitution can be defined as a compact or charter plus a framework of government. The early (pre-revolutionary) American definition was fundamentally different from the post-revolutionary American sense. The former was highly influenced by the English understanding of constitution as “constituted—that is, existing—arrangement of governmental institutions, laws, and customs together with the principles and goals that animated them.” With this definition in mind, The Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá can be considered a “constitution.” It outlines the “constituted” elements of the Bahá’í Administrative Order, such as the Universal House of Justice, Hands of the Cause and the Secondary Houses of Justice, among others. The Will and Testament is also a “constitution” in the modern American sense as it outlines the “form” of government in the Bahá’í Commonwealth. While The Will and Testament meets both definitions of constitution, nevertheless it better approximates the modern “written” constitution definition than the “existing—arrangement” one. The text of the Will and Testament provides ample evidence for this as examined later.

A constitution (in the modern sense) addresses a number of items. Constitutional scholarship has established the following elements as parts of a constitution; creation of people, creation of a government, the principles of association, framework of governmental institutions, representation and consent, arrangement of offices, powers of government, and relations with other governments. All these elements are present in the Will and Testament. The principles of association (typically set out in the preamble in constitutions) is set out early in the Will:

“O ye beloved of the Lord! The greatest of all things is the protection of the True Faith of God, the preservation of His Law, the safeguarding of His Cause and service unto His Word (4).

It is on grounds of this principle of association that `Abdul-Bahá premises the Will and Testament as constitution. Restated, the Bahá’í Administrative Order is founded to safeguard and preserve the Faith.

In a constitution a framework of government and modes of representation and consent are set out as well. The Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá outlines the “framework” of the Bahá’í Administrative Order. This structure is outlined mostly in general principles, with some specifics. The structural constitutional specifics are enumerated in detail. For example, `Abdu’l-Bahá writes that the Universal House of Justice “must be elected by universal suffrage, that is, by the believers” (Will and Testament 14). However, while He proposes “universal suffrage” as a principle of Bahá’í Administration there is little in terms of the (minute) details one expects to find in a modern constitution, such as the minimum age of the voters. With regards to representation and consent `Abdu’l-Bahá advocates for elections “after the manner of the customary elections in Western countries such as those of England” yet the exact structure of the representative democracy (such as the exact number of delegates from each district) is not outlined.

One may accordingly conclude that the Will and Testament is a relatively simple founding document in terms of the actual “framework” of government it presents. The Bahá’í Commonwealth has as its Supreme Legislative Organ the Universal House of Justice. The members of the Universal House of Justice are elected by the “secondary” Houses of Justice, governing bodies “instituted” in every country. The members of these secondary Houses of Justice are themselves elected by universal suffrage from among the Bahá’í electorate. Despite this apparent simplicity the Will and Testament presents a complex constitution in terms of its organizing principles. By organizing principles I mean philosophical approaches in the framing of a government enabling it to grow in an “organic” way. For purposes of illustrating these organizing elements comparisons will be made between the United States Constitution and the Will and Testament. The U.S. Constitution likewise presents a (relatively simple) framework of government and a theoretical blueprint. Scholars of the United States Constitution have recognized four “organizing principles” which taken together “form a coherent theory of politics.” Three of these organizing principles are also located in the Will and Testament; First, Extended Republic, second, Separation of Powers and third, Checks and Balances. The overarching practice that renders these principles effective is representation. The overall effect of these organizing elements is that the Bahá’í Commonwealth is shielded from majority tyranny and that an organic element of “pluralism” is incorporated into the constitution. The organizing principles present in this document are as follows:

1.Extended Republic

One of the basic challenges in (democratic) governance is to avoid majority tyranny. It is easy to see how in any (democratic) government a majority (or supermajority) may come about. Majority rule, which is the expression of the view of the people, may slip into majority tyranny if unchecked. Majority rule is achieved and preserved in the United States Constitution through the creation of an “extended Republic.” An extended republic allows for the creation of a “republic so extended, so large, with such a diverse population, that the existence of a natural majority was rendered highly unlikely, if not impossible.” While the formation of a majority, and majority rule are not inherently problematic, constitutions have to design systems through which majority tyranny is prevented. By incorporating mechanisms for later addition of States into the American Republic such a safeguard was generated and propagated into the future. One notes that in the early days of the American Republic the “diverse” views of States such Massachusetts, Virginia, New York and Georgia were all incorporated into one national structure. In an extended republic the formation of a majority view would be very limited, and majorities would exist for particular issues, and not for other issues. The diversification of rule in a large republic facilitates majority rule, and discourages majority (or national) tyranny. As such an “energetic” and stable Federal Government may exist without “majority tyranny.” The challenge faced by the American Founding Fathers is enunciated well in the following paragraph from The Business of May Next: James Madison and the Founding:

How did one respond to the ancient and almost unanimous belief, with the prestige of Montesquieu behind it, that a republic could exist only in a small society? That is by nature a social order in which “the majority were the guardians both of the public good and of private rights”—to borrow the phrase from Madison himself—had to be small? Partly on the basis of his reading, Madison worked out in these same months a famous answer to that question. He also developed theories of humankind and of group relations that would undergird and justify that answer. He was developing the idea of the “extended” or “compound” republic, and of balancing of factions—or “pluralism” as we have come to call it—that he would present in Philadelphia and then in the most memorable form in The Federalist(40).

The Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Bahá calls for representation from the entire Bahá’í Commonwealth setting in motion a de facto constitutional provision of an “extended” republic. An extended republic is created in the Will and Testament with `Abdu’l-Bahá’s command to teach and spread the Bahá’í Faith to the East and the West. The Bahá’í Republic must be spread to “every clime” and “all regions.” With representatives from all “nations and peoples of the world” a true extended republic is created. The existence of a diverse and widespread Bahá’í Commonwealth is of such critical importance to the formation of the Bahá’í Administrative Order that `Abdu’l-Bahá writes of it: “Teaching the Cause is of utmost importance for it is the head corner-stone of the foundation itself” (Will 10).

While the development of a constitutionally pluralistic form of governance in the United States Constitution makes historical sense, its presence in the Will and Testament was not necessary. In the American experience, separate and independently functioning “States” already existed, and given the principles of federalism the creation of an “extended republic” was a historical necessity. In the Will and Testament however `Abdu’l-Bahá was not confronted with such a “historical necessity.” No National (Secondary) Houses of Justice existed before the Will and Testament. One may ask: Why did `Abdu’l-Bahá introduce a national level of organization? Arguably the creation of the “secondary” Houses of Justice was a deliberate attempt by `Abdu’l-Bahá to form an “extended republic” and preserve minority rights as demonstrated below.

The Bahá’í Administrative Order is premised on “representative democracy.” The Bahá’í Republic speaks and its voice in reflected in its elected governing bodies and ultimately in its Supreme Legislative Organ, the Universal House of Justice. In order to facilitate diversification of views and encourage “minority rights” the Bahá’í Commonwealth has as its “pillar” of governance the Secondary Houses of Justice, currently functioning as National Spiritual Assemblies.

And now, concerning the House of Justice which God hath ordained as the source of all good and freed from all error, it must be elected by universal suffrage, that is, by the believers…By this House is meant the Universal House of Justice, that is, in all countries a secondary House of Justice must be instituted, and these secondary Houses of Justice must elect the members of the Universal One (Will and Testament 14).

What are the practical consequences of this arrangement? The pillars of the Universal House of Justice are the (numerous and diverse) National Houses of Justice. One observes that the “extended republic” created by the Will and Testament gives equal representation to smaller (and perhaps weaker) National Communities compared with more established and larger (and stronger) Bahá’í National Communities. The Will and Testament when functioning as a constitution (of the Bahá’í Administrative Order) accords a relatively stronger voice to the minority concerns. The practical consequence is that discourse (and voting) is distributed evenly at forums such as the International Bahá’í Convention, where members of the National Spiritual Assemblies gather to consult and elect the Universal House of Justice. The creation of a diverse, pluralistic and geographically widespread Bahá’í Commonwealth is a guarantee that majority rule will not degenerate into majority tyranny.

2. Separation of Functions with Equal Powers

Another one of the constitutional principles present in the Will and Testament is a “separation of powers.” In the United States Constitution this intends a “separation of powers” between the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary arms of the government. In the Will and Testament this principle is best thought of as a “separation of functions.” The “functions” of Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice are “separated” by `Abdu’l-Bahá. The Guardianship is vested with powers of interpretation: “He is the expounder of the words of God…” (Will and Testament 11). The Universal House of Justice is the Supreme Legislative Body in the Bahá’í Commonwealth. `Abdu’l-Bahá writes of the sphere of authority of this Organ:

Unto this body all things must be referred. It enacteth all ordinances and regulations that are not to be found in the explicit Holy Text…This House of Justice enacteth the laws and the government enforceth them (Will and Testament 14-15).

As evidenced from the above a complementarity and separation of functions is maintained. In terms of vested authority one also finds a constituted “sharing of power.” Often in the Will and Testament the two are mentioned together and their co-equal complementary arrangement in power sharing emphasized as gleaned from passages such as: “All must seek guidance and turn unto the Center of the Cause and the House of Justice” (Will and Testament 26). It would be accurate to characterize the relationship as “separation of powers with complementary functions.” The following passage provides another interesting example of the mutual complementarity and authority in the Administrative Order:

The sacred and youthful branch, the guardian of the Cause of God as well as the
Universal House of Justice, to be universally elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the Abhá Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of His Holiness, the Exalted One (may my life be offered up for them both). Whatever they decide is of God (Will and Testament 11).

In short, the Bahá’í Administrative Order has a separation of functions with co-equal powers as one of its constitutional safeguards. The legislative and interpretive powers are delegated to the Universal House of Justice and the Guardian, the twin pillars of the Bahá’í Commonwealth, respectively.

In the United States Constitution the term separation of powers indicates a “functional complementarity” between the Judiciary, Executive and Legislative branches of Government. The Will and Testament likewise holds a “separation” of powers between the branches of the government, while it is less emphasized. For example `Abdu’l-Bahá writes:

This House of Justice enacteth the laws and the government enforceth them. The legislative body must reinforce the executive, the executive must aid and assist the legislative body so that through the close union and harmony of these two forces, the foundation of fairness and justice may become firm and strong, that all the regions of the world may become even as Paradise itself (14-15).

The Economic Strangulation of the Bahá'í Community of Iran

2009-03-01T17:56:00.000-08:00

The Economic Strangulation of the Bahá'í Community of Iran

Moojan Momen

The persecution suffered by the Bahá'í community of Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 has been well documented. The attack on Bahá'í communal life has included destruction of their holy places, confiscation and often destruction of their communal buildings, including cemeteries, and the dissolution by government decree of their administrative structures. As well as these attacks against community property and institutions, there have been many gross abuses of the human rights of individual Bahá'ís. These have included expulsions from universities and schools, the failure of authorities to pursue and punish those committing crimes against them, and in many cases, imprisonment, show trials and executions.

What has not been so obvious to the public eye however is the economic campaign that has been waged against the Bahá'í community. This started in a fairly haphazard manner with attacks on obvious communal targets but has in the last few years become much more oppressive, targeting individual Bahá'ís systematically and in a carefully organised and ominous manner. This economic strangulation of the Bahá'í community of Iran can be best considered as having occurred in a number of stages, although it should be appreciated that these stages are not exact and there is a considerable overlap between them. While the stages outlined below depict the principal features of the economic persecution that was taking place at a given time, it should be realised that all of these elements were occurring at other times to a lesser degree. Evidence for the statements made here is provided in the Appendices to this article. The documents presented are not Bahá'í accounts but rather official government documents and newspaper publications. It should be appreciated that numerous examples of each episode and type of economic sanction exist and only sample documents have been provided as evidence. Each of the documents in the Appendices could be multiplied many times over.

Stage 1: Attack on Bahá'í communal financial institutions

The Islamic Revolution came to a climax in the late months of 1978 and can be said to have been completed in early 1979 when the shah left Iran and Khomeini returned. Throughout 1978, there were episodes of attacks on the Bahá'ís of Iran, partly by Islamic militants and partly by a government, headed by the shah, trying to demonstrate its Islamic credentials. Once the Islamic revolutionary government had disposed of its democratic rivals and assumed full power, the pace of the attacks on the Bahá'í community increased, starting with a full assault on the institutions of the Bahá'í Faith.

The Bahá'í community has certain communal funds that are held at the local, national and international levels. Among them is the Huqúqu'lláh (the Right of God), which is considered an individual obligation, although payment of it is voluntary and there is no pressure on individuals to provide it. Huqúqu'lláh is paid to the international leadership of the Bahá'í community to provide for the needs of the Bahá'í community and for social welfare. Bahá'í activities at national and local level are paid for by Bahá'í funds to which Bahá'ís – and only Bahá'ís – contribute voluntarily. In a large community such as that of the Iranian Bahá'ís, the total of all of the individual local funds and the national fund as well as any sums being held in the country for the international fund and Huqúqu'lláh would add up to a large amount of money. All these communal funds were frozen and subsequently confiscated by the Iranian government in the immediate aftermath of the Islamic revolution.

By 1979 the Bahá'í community of Iran held some 1,000 or more communal properties. These comprised buildings used for meetings and worship, cemeteries, holy places associated with the founders of the Bahá'í Faith and a large hospital in Tehran, where people of all religions were treated and the poor were treated for free. For legal purposes, these communal properties were in the name of a holding company called the Trustees Company (Shirkat-i `Umaná). Within a few months of the revolution, this company was seized by the new government, its offices raided, its documents and property deeds removed and all of its properties, including the hospital and cemeteries, identified and placed under the control of the government,.

The Shirkat-i Nawnahálán, the Children's Savings Company, began as a savings vehicle for Bahá'í children in 1917. As successive generation of Bahá'í children grew up, they kept their savings with the company, and local and national Bahá'í institutions also placed their deposit funds with it. The offices of this company were raided and taken over in early June 1979 and all of its assets, estimated at $5 million, frozen.

Three smaller companies owned by the Bahá'í community, the Vahháj, Matla` and Huqúq companies, were vehicles for holding various types of funds and properties. The assets of these three and those of the Trustees Company and the Children's Savings Company were all formally confiscated by the Islamic Republic in verdicts handed down by the Central Islamic Revolutionary Court, Branch 1, on 7 November 1979 (see Appendix 1). This was not just a blow to the Bahá'í institutions but also to an estimated 15,000 individual Bahá'ís who had their savings (in many cases their entire life savings) in the Children's Savings Company,.

Over the next few months the assets of local Bahá'í communities around the country, including local meeting halls, administrative offices and Bahá'í cemeteries, were seized. This type of activity by the government decreased as the number of communally-owned Bahá'í properties it could seize diminished. Since the Bahá'í community has been forced to acquire land around the country to use as cemeteries (there are no civic cemeteries; all burials are on land belonging to a particular religious community), however, the seizure of Bahá'í properties has continued at a low level up to the present day -- from time to time, the local authorities will seize and destroy a Bahá'í cemetery, forcing the community to buy another one.

All Bahá'í administrative and community institutions were banned by the government in a decree issued by the Attorney-General dated 29 August 1983. In accordance with the Bahá'í principle of obedience to government, the national and the more than 400 local administrative bodies of the Bahá'í community were disbanded. Since the functions of these Bahá'í institutions included that of supporting the poor and incapacitated, this removed a major support for those Bahá'ís who were increasingly being affected financially by government measures.

Stage 2: Expulsion of Bahá'ís from Public Employment

Having removed all of the communally-owned money and assets of the Bahá'í community, the Islamic Republic's government then put pressure on individual Bahá'ís, insisting that they recant and placing them under financial stress by expelling them from employment. It started with the sector over which it had most control, the public sector.

In 1979 a large number of Bahá'ís in Iran were in public employment. Since the Bahá'í Faith emphasizes the importance of education, a sizeable proportion of the Bahá'í community was in professions requiring a high level of education. Furthermore, certain areas of public service such as health and education are favoured by Bahá'ís in view of what the Bahá'í scriptures say about these professions. At first Bahá'í public employees were put under pressure to recant their religion. Since almost none of them did, they were expelled from their positions of employment. This practice began in 1980 when government officials in all parts of Iran, acting on their own initiative, began sporadic expulsions of Bahá'ís employed in the public sector, no doubt hoping to gain favour with the Islamic government. And so for example, the newspaper Etelá'át of 18 February 1980 reported 50 Bahá'í teachers expelled in just one province, Eastern Azerbeijan (Appendix 2); the newspaper Jumhúr-i Islámí of 30 June 1980 reported the expulsion of 44 teachers in Fars province (Appendix 3); and Kayhán of 9 August 1980 reported the expulsion of 23 Bahá'í teachers in the south coast province for 'having beliefs contrary to Islam'. Similarly Bahá'ís were expelled from universities, government hospitals, government offices, museums, etc. In the above-mentioned announcement of expulsions of teachers in East Azerbaijan and, in some cases, in the documents given to individuals declaring their expulsion, there is the provision that they can be re-employed if they recant their belief (Appendix 4).

By a government decree issued on 7 December 1981 and published in the semi-official newspaper Kayhán on 8 December 1981, however, the expulsion of all Bahá'ís from all government employment became official government policy (Appendix 5). From this time onwards, the expulsion of Bahá'ís from both national and local government employment was systematically applied and enforced. By July 1982, the Bahá'í community was reporting that effectively all doctors, nurses, teachers and other government employees had had their employment terminated and even the pensions of former Bahá'í civil servants had been stopped. It is impossible to know exactly how many Bahá'ís were dismissed from their employment in this way but the Bahá'í International Community (the agency through which the world Bahá'í community is represented at the United Nations) estimates that the number of Bahá'ís expelled from their employment during the 1980s was of the order of 10,000. Since all health and education provision was effectively nationalized in the course of the Revolution, there was little prospect of dismissed individuals in these fields finding alternative employment.

Announcing the expulsion of Bahá'ís from government employment, Ayatollah Sadúqí threatened criminal proceedings against any official continuing to employ a Bahá'í. Also affected by government action were Bahá'í peasant farmers who were denied access to the government-sponsored farmers' co-operatives which were their only source of credit, seed, pesticide and fertilizer.

In a bizarre turn in 1984, the Islamic clergy and courts also decreed that an Islamic government should not have paid any salaries to Bahá'í employees and therefore that all salaries and pensions paid to such former employees had been illegal and should be repaid by them, even if it involved decades of earnings amounting to large sums of money that no ordinary citizen was likely to have (Appendix 6). The Attorney General then attempted to enforce this decree by issuing summonses against former Bahá'í civil servants. Since most Bahá'ís were unable to repay such large sums, this led to a large increase in the number of Bahá'ís in prison in the 1980s.

Stage 3: Expulsion of Bahá'ís from employment in the private sphere

The third stage in the economic campaign against Bahá'ís began in the 1980s but became much more pronounced in the 1990s. As the government and its reactionary clerical backers gained control over ever larger parts of the country's economy, they began to use their power to exert pressure on private businesses to expel their Bahá'í employees. Sometimes this pressure was exerted through local government officials who threatened private businesses with official action if they did not comply and sometimes it was through the attachment of clerics to factories and other businesses, placed there to ensure conformity to the government's vision of Islamic norms. Such clerics would then stir up the Muslim workers against their Bahá'ís co-workers.

Initially the actions taken against the Bahá'ís were types of harassment only, such as occurred when the Muslim workers in the Elyáf factory were instigated to demand in January 1982 that the Bahá'í employees work in a segregated area and be compelled to bring their own plates to the works' cafeteria so that they would not contaminate the food of the Muslim workers (Appendix 7). However even as early as 1982, pressure was being exerted on some Bahá'ís working in factories in towns such as in Kirmánsháh either to recant their beliefs or face expulsion from work (Appendix 8).

It appears that the initial directive ordering all private companies to expel their Bahá'í employees was issued in December 1981 but at that time the government did not pursue this systematically. Once the government had achieved its primary aim of expelling Bahá'ís from public service in the 1980s, it focussed its attention on private firms. Over the subsequent period, there were increasing reports of businesses and companies being interrogated by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance about their workforce and then being compelled to dismiss their Bahá'í workers (see for example Appendix 9, which relates to a travel agency in 1994).

There is evidence that all of these measures taken against the Bahá'ís during Rafsanjani's presidency, 1989-1997, were not just the random actions of over-zealous officials but part of a planned government campaign. This evidence is in the form of a government decision dated 25 February 1991, drawn up at a joint meeting of `Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then President of Iran, and the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council, and forwarded to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, who has appended his signed approval at the bottom of the document. The document states that `The Government's treatment of them [the Bahá'ís] shall be such that their progress and development shall be blocked' and that `Employment shall be refused to persons identifying themselves as Bahá'ís', thus making it clear that the aim was to try to strangle the Bahá'í community culturally and economically (Appendix 10). This document was uncovered by Reynaldo Pohl, the United Nations' special representative on human rights in Iran, and published by him in his report of 1993.

Stage 4: The Closing Down of Bahá'í Businesses

The decade of the 2000s began promisingly for the Bahá'í community in Iran. Muhammad Khatami, although previously a hard-line cleric, had been elected president in 1997 on a platform of liberalization. It is difficult to assess Khatami's personal sincerity but the push for change by those around him that accompanied his election certainly gave hope to the Bahá'í community. Within a few years, however, it became clear that nothing much had changed under the surface. The hard-line clerics around the Supreme Leader Khamene'i were not going to let control slip from their fingers regardless of the democratic wishes of the Iranian people, nor was Khatami himself going to push for radical change. The tide of reform was quickly pushed back and the Bahá'í community was soon facing hardship again (see for example the confirmation in 1999 by a government Board of Investigation of the earlier termination of the employment of a teacher, Appendix 11).

Then in 2005, Ahmadinezhad swept to power backed by hard-line clergy of the Hujjatiyyih faction who had always been determined and deadly enemies of the Bahá'í Faith. The persecution has returned to a level not seen since the early years of the Islamic Revolution. This time, however, the evidence is that it is much more systematic and thorough, catching any of the few Bahá'ís who may have escaped notice in government or private employment and now focusing on self-employed Bahá'ís with small businesses.

In the early days of the Islamic Revolution, Islamic revolutionary cadres broke into the National Bahá'í offices in Tehran and took away the membership lists that were held there. There is evidence that using these, or by other means, since 2005 an intense effort has been made by the authorities to locate every individual Bahá'í, to determine the source of that Bahá'í's income and to try to cut it off. That these measures are centrally planned is evidenced by a government letter dated 29 October 2005 obtained by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ms. Asma Jahangir, in March 2006, which, she said, caused her to become 'highly concerned' about the situation of the Bahá'í community in Iran. This letter, marked 'Highly Confidential', is signed by the Chairman of Command Headquarters of the Iranian Armed Forces and addressed in the first place to the head of the Armed Forces of Iran but copied to the Police, the Intelligence Services and the Revolutionary Guard. It states that, in accordance with the instructions of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamane'i, 'all of the activities' of the Bahá'í community 'including political, economic, social and cultural' activities should be monitored and a 'comprehensive and complete report' should be compiled 'for the purpose of identifying all of the individuals' of the community (Appendix 12). The authenticity of this letter is confirmed by evidence that, from this time on, instructions have been given to provincial governors to monitor and manage the social and economic activities of all Bahá'ís (see the letter from the Ministry of the Interior, dated 19 August 2006 to offices of the governors of all provinces, Appendix 13). There is also evidence of the government and its agencies compiling lists of Bahá'ís locally; see for example the letter dated 2 May 2006 from the Trades, Production, and Technical Services Society of Kirmánsháh to the Union of Battery Manufacturers, which requests `a list of the names of those who belong to the Bahá'í sect and are under the jurisdiction of your union' (Appendix 14).

Bahá'í-owned businesses have always been under threat and most of the large ones were taken over and their assets confiscated early in the Revolution. The owners of these larger Bahá'í businesses were forced to flee the country as their lives were threatened. Over the years, many Bahá'í businesses faced various levels of persecution, from boycotts organised by religious leaders, to damage and looting, and forced closure and confiscation. There is evidence however that during the course of 2007, the government began a deliberate and systematic campaign to close down Bahá'í-owned businesses. Thus, for example, a letter from the Headquarters of the Intelligence and National Security Force dated 9 April 2007 (Appendix 15) has come to light. Addressed to all police forces throughout Iran, it instructs them to identify all Bahá'í-owned businesses in their area and to close down certain ones:

1. All businesses in the categories of culture, advertising and commerce. Eleven examples of these are given: newspapers and periodicals, jewellery and watchmaking, coffee shops, gravures, the tourist industry, car rentals, publishing and bookselling, hostel and hotel management, tailoring training institutes, photography and film recording, Internet gaming, computing and Internet cafés.

2. All businesses connected with food where the Bahá'ís might contaminate the food of Muslims (Bahá'ís are regarded as ritually impure such that even touching food renders it impure for Muslims). Examples given under this category are: catering at reception halls, buffets and restaurants, grocery shops, kebab shops, cafés, butchers, supermarkets, ice cream parlours, fruit juice and soft drinks shops, pastry shops, coffee shops.

3. All businesses where the Bahá'í owner is successful and the business is highly profitable.

As a result of these and probably other orders that have not come to light, during the course of 2007 the pressure on smaller Bahá'í businesses intensified and a large number of Bahá'í businesses in all parts of the country (Abadan, Abadeh, Gorgan, Hamadan, Isfahan, Kashan, Kerman, Khorramshahr, Khorramabad, Mashhad, Sanandaj, Semnan, Shiraz, Tehran, Boroujerd, Aligudarz, Arak, Marvdasht, Shahre Kord, Ardebil, Jolfa, etc.) were forced to close either by refusal of licenses, withholding of supplies, boycotts or eviction from premises (Appendix 16). Where Bahá'ís were in business in partnership with Muslims, the business has been put under pressure until the Bahá'í has been forced out of the company.

As well as urban businesses, Bahá'í farmers have had their farms and orchards forcibly occupied, their crops seized and their property confiscated. They cannot get supplies for their farms and cannot sell their produce. Many Bahá'í peasant farmers in small villages have been forced to leave their villages and their livelihood behind and move to the cities. This has even occurred in villages where Bahá'ís were the majority of the population. Entire villages have been cleared of Bahá'ís in acts of 'ethnic cleansing' reminiscent of what occurred in Bosnia. The Bahá'í villagers are then forced to move to cities where they exist as refugees, dependent on the charity of other Bahá'ís. Previously this had occurred only in villages where there were known to be a large number of Bahá'ís, but since 2005 it has become much more systematic, affecting villages with either large or small Bahá'í populations (Appendix17).

In many other ways that are difficult to document, government authorities and agencies are harassing Bahá'í businesses: creating innumerable unnecessary obstacles for Bahá'ís in business, such as sending them from one office to another (or to offices that do not exist) to obtain or submit business related documentation; repeatedly 'losing' the files of Bahá'í business owners; dealing harshly with Bahá'ís; entering Bahá'í owned business premises and confiscating equipment; requiring Bahá'ís to fill in forms that request detailed personal information about themselves and other family members; placing pressure on Muslims to annul contracts they have with Bahá'í owned businesses; and sealing business premises, sometimes for weeks. Banks, under orders from the Intelligence Ministry, refuse to issue loans to Bahá'ís and Bahá'í businesses even though they fulfil all the eligibility criteria. In what may be a deliberate policy to create distrust and disunity among the Bahá'ís, government authorities are inconsistent in their policies towards them, sometimes giving one Bahá'í a license or permission for an activity and refusing the same to another. Where Bahá'ís, having no other means of earning money, have rented out their properties, tenants have been told that the rent should not be paid to their Bahá'í landlords but to government agencies. The regime in Iran seems determined to cut off every avenue for the Bahá'ís to earn a livelihood, thereby hoping no doubt either to force the Bahá'ís to convert to Islam or to leave the country.

The Economic Disruption and Dislocation of Individual Bahá'ís

In addition to the above staged economic campaign against the Bahá'í community, persecution of the Bahá'ís in various forms has continued throughout the whole of this period from 1979 to the present day, although the persecution has become much more intense and systematic since the election of Ahmadinezhad as President in 2005. The steady stream of petty harassment, attacks on homes and property, fines, periods of imprisonment and denial of justice in the courts disrupt a person's life, making it impossible for one to earn a living, have financial security or make any progress in one's profession, trade or business. In recent years, these episodes have become more ominous, with threats painted on the walls of the homes and businesses of Bahá'ís proclaiming that if they do not close their business or move out of the town, they will be killed. Sometimes these threats have been followed by arson attacks (see Appendix 18). Although it is not possible to link these activities directly to the government, it is nevertheless the case that the government does nothing to protect the Bahá'ís or track down those responsible for such actions.

Attacks on the homes and businesses of Bahá'ís were a frequent occurrence in the first year after the Revolution but at that time it was mainly a case of criminal elements realising that they could attack Bahá'í homes and loot them without any fear of criminal proceedings against them. Indeed, if the Bahá'ís complained to the police or the courts, they very often were themselves arrested. For example, one or more attacks of this sort occurred in Shahabad, Miyandu'ab, Qasr Shirin, Shishvan, Kita, Abadih, Susangird, Dizaj, Shahmirzad, Rida'iyyih, Tehran, Bihnamir (Mazandaran), Kishih (near Natanz), and Tabriz in just one month, January 1979, and this level of such attacks continued for much of that year. After that, the number of such attacks decreased until 2005 when, following the election of Ahmadinezhad, they have started to rise again.

Bahá'ís have frequently been fined merely for being Bahá'ís or being members of an elected local Bahá'í institution. In Shiraz, for example, a Bahá'í was fined 100,000 tumans for membership of the local elected council of Bahá'ís in the city in July 1982 (Appendix 19). This and the financial exactions described above forcing people to repay salaries has been a large drain on the finances of Bahá'ís.

From 1979 onwards, thousands of Bahá'ís have faced periods of time in prison ranging from a few days to ten or more years. Many have faced repeated periods of imprisonment. In the mid-1980s, there were some 750 Bahá'ís in prison at any one time with many being kept for a period, released and then rearrested. Such disruption of personal lives meant that many were unable to hold onto their jobs or maintain their businesses. There was a short period of time in the 1990s and early 2000s when the number of Bahá'ís in prison fell to a very small number but since 2005 and the beginning of the presidency of Ahmadinezhad, the number of Bahá'ís being arrested has started to climb again. Obviously a Bahá'í who is in prison cannot earn money or maintain his business. Also greatly contributing to the barriers put up against Bahá'ís building a career or pursuing a profession is the denial of access to universities and higher education (Appendix 20). These measures affect not just the individual against whom they are targeted but his or her whole family. It may be argued that by dragging a large section of the population into poverty, the whole of society is affected because Bahá'ís are consumers too and the whole economy is affected if one section of it is deliberately weakened and impoverished in this manner.

During the Iran-Iraq War many items were rationed. Since then, owing to the deteriorating economic situation, rationing of some items has continued and access to them is through ration books that are distributed by the government, and often only through mosques. Bahá'ís have been denied access to these rationed items (Appendix 21).

A major problem for Bahá'ís is that they have no hope of obtaining justice in the courts. Any Muslim can carry out any crime against a Bahá'í including theft, robbery and extortion and then if arrested can plead that the Bahá'í has no status in law and therefore no crime can be committed against him. Even murderers have made use of this plea and been freed (Appendix 22). The courts have repeatedly prevented Bahá'ís from receiving property and other entitlements that pass to them by inheritance. The courts have even prevented a Bahá'í whose son died serving his country fighting in the war against Iraq from being legally recognised as his heir (Appendix 23). Similarly a war veteran who suffered considerable disability as a result of the defence of his country in the Iran-Iraq War was denied, on account of being a Bahá'í, the disabled war pension that was his right (Appendix 24).

Indeed, denial of inheritance rights of Bahá'ís compounds the problems of the arbitrary confiscation of Bahá'í properties that has been going on since 1979. In a report released on 29 June 2006, Mr Miloon Kothari, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, reported receiving documented evidence that at least 640 Bahá'í properties have been seized since 1980, but states that `there were numerous additional undocumented cases, especially in distant provinces where information cannot be easily collected'. The report states that: `The properties listed included houses and agricultural land . . . The affected owners have allegedly not been given an opportunity to participate or receive prior information related to ongoing confiscation procedures.' In rural areas, the report states, `property confiscation . . . was often accompanied by threats and physical violence before and during related forced evictions.' Mr. Kothari said he was `concerned at the clear evidence of discriminatory conduct with respect to Bahá'í property, including housing'. Pointing out another method by which expropriation is achieved, Mr Kothari said, at a news conference launching the report: `In the last two years, there has been an increase in the number of Bahá'í leaders or prominent people who have been arrested without any charge and then released with very high bail. And, the only way in which they can post this bail is to put their property as a guarantee. This seems to be another method of expropriation.'

Summary and Conclusion

The evidence presented in this article demonstrates that since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, the Bahá'í community there has been the victim of a sustained and now systematic campaign of economic strangulation. Evidence has been given of the expropriation of all of the communal assets of the community early in the course of the Revolution. Once that was completed, attention was turned successively to expelling Bahá'ís first from government employment and then from private sector employment. Since 2005, the focus has turned to self-employed Bahá'ís and Bahá'í-owned businesses, the only avenue for earning an income now left to Bahá'ís. These businesses are being boycotted, their licenses to operate are not being renewed and the supplies they need in order to continue to operate are being cut off.

Evidence has been presented that this persecution is not the random action of over-zealous officials but rather a centrally-planned and systematic campaign directed from the very highest levels of the government. The aim appears to be to cut off every avenue for the Bahá'ís to earn their livelihood in Iran. In addition, other measures such as imposing fines, destruction and looting of Bahá'í homes and businesses, arbitrary expropriation of property, denial of access to education and repeated periods of imprisonment drain the little remaining money that individual Bahá'ís possess, prevent Bahá'ís from developing the knowledge and skills necessary for paid employment and disrupt their ability to build a career or pursue a profession.

This systematic campaign is clearly `a crime against humanity' as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Part 2, Article 7, 1.h): `Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender . . . or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court.' It could even be considered an act of genocide under the same Statute (Article 6.c): `Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.' Those participating in these actions against the Bahá'ís of Iran and especially those in charge of such actions could be prosecuted under this statue. It is surprising that the international community has paid little attention to the situation of the Bahá'ís in Iran, despite the existence of such bodies as the International Criminal Court which have been specifically set up to prevent governments committing such abuses against their own people.

Notes

. The Huqúq Company was created for property, valuables and money given by Bahá'ís in relation to the above-mentioned Huqúqu'lláh. The Matla` and Vahháj Companies held some of the Bahá'í properties.
. Memorandum of Bahá'í International Community `Updating of Minority Rights Group Report "The Bahá'ís of Iran"<, dated 23 February 1985.
. Memorandum `Current Situation of the Bahá'ís in Iran, August 1994' issued by the Bahá'í International Community, New York, for the 49th session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 1994.
. Roger Cooper, The Baha'is of Iran, Minority Rights Report, no. 51, 1982, p. 13.
. The text of Reynaldo Pohl's report can be downloaded from: http://bic.org/assets/Pohl%20Iran%20report%20E.CN4.1993.41.pdf.
The passage related to the instructions issued after a joint meeting of `Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, President of Iran, and the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council is on p. 55, paragraph 310.
. United Nations Economic and Social Council, Document E/CN.4/2006/41/Add.2 (English version), dated 21 March 2006, see pp. 12, 19, at http://daccess ods.un.org/TMP/2195816.html.
. http://news.bahai.org/story/459.
. http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/romefra.htm.
. http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/romefra.htm.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE MINISTRY OF THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

2009-02-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE MINISTRY OF
THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

by
‘Alí Nakhjávání

*********************************

PREAMBLE

When the beloved Guardian passed away on November 4, 1957, the news of his passing convulsed the entire Bahá’í World. A second distress soon followed when the announcement was made by the Hands of the Cause that Shoghi Ef-fendi had left no Will and Testament, had appointed no successor as Guardian of the Faith, and that the Aghsán one and all had broken the Covenant. The “first effect” of this realization, as indicated in the message of the Hands of the Cause to the Bahá’í world, “was to plunge” them “into the very abyss of despair” (MC 36). A similar sense of dismay seized the entire Bahá’í World.

Soon after the Universal House of Justice was established it sent a message (dated 6 October 1963) to the Bahá’í World. This message states that the House of Justice “finds that there is no way to appoint or to legislate to make it possible to appoint a second Guardian to succeed Shoghi Effendi” (MUHJ 14). Reflecting on this message, the friends everywhere soon realized that they had not properly understood the contents of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

Shoghi Effendi had already stated that the World Order as delineated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will “undoubtedly” contained “manifold mysteries” (BA 8), and that we “must trust to time, and the guidance of God's Universal House of Justice, to obtain a clearer and fuller understanding of its provisions and implica-tions” (BA 62).

The obligation of the friends was now well-defined. They had to wait for the “guidance” of the Universal House of Justice, to elucidate what certainly ap-peared to be “obscure questions” (WT 20). The expectations of the believers were fulfilled when, in response to questions asked, the Universal House of Jus-tice wrote on 9 March 1965, on 27 May 1966, and on 7 December 1969, three let-ters (See MUHJ items # 23, 35 & 75 respectively) and explained for the friends the basic truths underlying the evolution of the Administrative Order of our Faith, and left them free to conclude that the passing of the beloved Guardian, without having appointed a Successor as Guardian and Authorized Interpreter, was a clear possibility and an understandable event.

When the English translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas was published in 1992, the Universal House of Justice had yet another opportunity to explain the implica-tions of Paragraph 42 of the Most Holy Book. In relation to the Law of Succes-sion in the Faith, this paragraph stands out as a most significant and decisive statement. In this paragraph, Bahá’u’lláh clearly envisages a time when there would be no institution to embody the functions incumbent upon the Appointed and Authorized Aghsán (that is to say, a Guardianship). Further, the Universal House of Justice would not exist at that time and it would not be propitious to elect that Body. These points are fully covered in Notes 66 and 67, (pages 196 and 197) of the English text of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas.

1963

Regarding the timing of the election of the Universal House of Justice we see in its letter mentioned above, dated 9 March 1965, the manner in which Shoghi Ef-fendi foreshadowed the election of the Universal House of Justice: “The Guard-ian had given the Bahá’í World explicit and detailed plans covering the period until Ridván 1963, the end of the Ten Year Crusade. From that point onward, unless the Faith were to be endangered, further divine guidance was essential”. The rightness of the time was further confirmed by references in Shoghi Effendi’s letters to the Ten Year Crusade being followed by other plans under the direction of the Universal House of Justice. One such reference is the following passage from a letter addressed to the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles on 25th February 1951, concerning its Two Year Plan which immediately preceded the Ten Year Crusade:

“On the success of this enterprise, unprecedented in its scope, unique in its character and immense in its spiritual potentialities, must depend the initiation, at a later period in the Formative Age of the Faith of undertak-ings embracing within their range all National Assemblies functioning through-out the Bahá’í World…. undertakings constituting in themselves a prelude to the launching of worldwide enterprises destined to be em-barked upon, in future epochs of that same Age, by the Universal House of Justice, that will symbolize the unity and co-ordinate and unify the ac-tivities of these National Assemblies.” (UD 261)

There can be no doubt that the “undertakings embracing within their range all National Assemblies functioning throughout the Bahá’í World” mentioned in the above passage of the Guardian, certainly refer to the plans that Shoghi Effendi gave to each of the twelve National Assemblies which he described as the Gener-als of the Ten Year Plan.

With the stipulation made in Paragraph 42 of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, as well as with such statements, as quoted above, it would be, in my opinion, totally untenable to maintain that Shoghi Effendi was not aware that his passing would occur some time during the Ten Year Crusade. If, therefore he did not appoint a sec-ond Guardian as his Successor, and if he did not write a Will and Testament in the traditional way, would it not be entirely logical to conclude that lack of action in these matters was a conscious act on his part?

In his personal conversations with pilgrims Shoghi Effendi was reported to have repeatedly said that his ‘Dispensation’ was like his Will and Testament. The clos-est statement made by him in writing, however, hinting at such a conclusion, is a letter, written on his behalf, dated 10 January 1935 to Dr. Mühlschlegel, in which he states that his ‘Dispensation’ constitutes “an invaluable supplement” to the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, as well as to the Book of the Covenant, which is Bahá’u’lláh's Will and Testament. (LDG Vol. 1, 65)

Regarding the prophecy of Daniel as it relates to 1963, we read the following in one of the Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:

“Now concerning the verse in Daniel, the interpretation whereof thou didst ask, namely “Blessed is he who cometh unto the thousand three hundred and thirty five days. ...according to this calculation a century will have elapsed from the dawn of the Sun of Truth, then will the teachings of God be firmly established upon the earth, and the Divine Light shall flood the world from the East even unto the West. Then, on this day, will the faithful rejoice.” (PA 49-50)

Indeed it was in 1963 that the Bahá’í World Community, under the galvanizing and sustaining motivation of Shoghi Effendi’s Ten Year Crusade, was enabled to diffuse the Light of the Faith world-wide, and celebrate not only this victory, but also the emergence of the Universal House of Justice at the Bahá’í World Con-gress in London.

Furthermore, the following two paragraphs might well bear upon this very theme. They contain an early hint by Shoghi Effendi on the importance of this very date of 1963, which he says would witness the “final erection” of the “Edi-fice” of God’s Holy Cause:

“Ours, dearly-beloved co-workers, is the paramount duty to continue, with undimmed vision and unabated zeal, to assist in the final erection of that Edifice the foundations of which Bahá’u’lláh has laid in our hearts, to derive added hope and strength from the general trend of recent events, however dark their immediate effects, and to pray with unremitting fer-vor that He may hasten the approach of the realization of that Wondrous Vision which constitutes the brightest emanation of His Mind and the fairest fruit of the fairest civilization the world has yet seen.
Might not the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh mark the inauguration of so vast an era in human history?” (WOB 48)

COMPATIBILITY OF TEXTS

From the above summary three points clearly emerge:

1. It had been contemplated in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas that there would be no co-existence between the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice.
2. The date for the election of the Universal House of Justice had to be in 1963, at the end of the Ten Year Plan.
3. It would certainly be reasonable to assume that Shoghi Effendi was conscious of his impending passing.

It would be helpful at this point to consider the method adopted by Bahá’u’lláh in His Kitáb-i-‘Ahd regarding the line of succession. In it He stipulates that Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí is to succeed 'Abdu’l-Bahá. Now, compare that with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s method in the first part of His Will and Testament. In it He stipulates that Shoghi Effendi is to be succeeded, generation after generation, by Appointed Aghsán serving as Guardians. To me there is a similarity of method here, one that provided a sense of continuity and concealed for a time the tests that were inevitably to fall on the friends as future events unfolded. Shoghi Effendi's men-tion of "future Guardians" in his writings could well be, in my opinion, equally understood as a further application of this same method. All would be tested in due course as to their faithful adherence to the Covenant.

Does this similarity of method not remind us of the golden key that Shoghi Ef-fendi placed in our hands with which to unlock one of the mysteries of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá'is Will and Testament? He pointed out to us that a study of the authenti-cated texts of the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh and those of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá “will reveal the close relationship that exists between them, as well as the identity of purpose and method which they inculcate” (WOB 4).

Is this not also a reminder of the warning given by Bahá’u’lláh in the Kitáb-i-Íqán: “from time immemorial even unto eternity the Almighty hath tried, and will continue to try, His servants, so that light may be distinguished from dark-ness” (KI 8) and furthermore we read in the same Book: “the divine Purpose hath decreed that the true should be known from the false....He hath, therefore, in every season sent down upon mankind the showers of tests from His realm of glory” (KI 53).

WHO LIMITS THE SPHERES OF JURISDICTION?

In the ‘Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh’ Shoghi Effendi points out that one of his du-ties was to provide “the necessary guidance to define the sphere of the legislative action of its [the Faith's] elected representatives” (WOB 148). It is obvious that the reference here is to the elected members of Local Spiritual Assemblies, National Conventions, National Spiritual Assemblies, as well as of the Universal House of Justice.

This function of the Guardianship was partly discharged when, under his guid-ance and direction, the Constitutions of Local and National Spiritual Assemblies were formulated and put into effect during his own ministry. What remained was to determine the boundaries of the work of the Universal House of Justice. The terms of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were superlative. He wrote: “Whatsoever they [the Guardian and the Universal House of Justice] decide is of God” (WT 11). He further added: “That which this body, [the elected members of the Universal House of Justice (WT 20)] whether unanimously or by a major-ity, doth carry, that is verily the Truth and the Purpose of God Himself” (WT 19).

To complete his duty as Interpreter of these words in relation to the work of the Universal House of Justice, Shoghi Effendi wrote in his ‘Dispensation’ the follow-ing:

“The interpretation of the Guardian, functioning within his own sphere, is as authoritative and binding as the enactments of the International House of Justice, whose exclusive right and prerogative is to pronounce upon and deliver the final judgment on such laws and ordinances as Bahá’u’lláh has not expressly revealed. Neither can, nor will ever, infringe upon the sacred and prescribed domain of the other. Neither will seek to curtail the specific and undoubted authority with which both have been invested”. (WOB 150)

It is highly significant that Shoghi Effendi, while defining his duty as Guardian to interpret what had been revealed, goes on to give the assurance to the Com-munity, as well as to the world, that the Universal House of Justice, when elected, will never “infringe upon the sacred and prescribed domain” of interpre-tation, which is the exclusive right of the Guardianship. This assurance was fully realized and permanently set in place when the Universal House of Justice, in its Constitution wrote:

“The provenance, the authority, the duties, the sphere of action of the Universal House of Justice all derive from the Revealed Word of Baha'u'l-lah which, together with the interpretations and expositions of the Centre of the Covenant and the Guardian of the Cause… who, after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is the sole authority in the interpretation of Bahá’í Scrip-ture…constitute the binding terms of reference of the Universal House of Justice and are its bedrock foundation”. (CUHJ 4)

It must be remembered that apart from its vital function as the Supreme Bahá’í Legislative Body, the Universal House of Justice is named by Bahá’u’lláh Himself in Paragraph 42 of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas as the Central Institution to which the Bahá’í Community must turn after the termination of the line of the Aghsán. This is confirmed by the statement made by the Guardian that the two institutions of the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice are the “chosen Successors” of Baha'u’llah and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (WOB 20). On the basis of these texts, the Universal House of Justice in its Constitution describes its own “fundamental ob-ject” as the responsibility “to ensure the continuity of that divinely-appointed au-thority which flows from the Source of the Faith” (CUHJ 4), and then adds the following statement: “There being no successor to Shoghi Effendi as Guardian of the Cause of God, the Universal House of Justice is the Head of the Faith and its supreme institution, to which all must turn” (CUHJ 4). The position of the Uni-versal House of Justice as Head of the Faith will be maintained, “until such time” in the words of this Constitution, “as Almighty God shall reveal His new Mani-festation to Whom will belong all authority and power" (CUHJ 4).

In light of the above quotations, it becomes clear that in addition to its legislative authority, the Universal House of Justice, while it is assured of divine guidance in not infringing upon the domain of interpretation, is invested with responsibili-ties which do and must include such powers and duties that are incumbent upon the Head of the Faith. Furthermore it is obvious that the two broad areas of re-sponsibility of the Universal House of Justice - namely legislation and headship of the Faith, are as inseparable and indispensable as were, in the case of Shoghi Effendi, his responsibilities as Interpreter and Head of the Faith. Thus, if anyone may venture to state that the sphere of jurisdiction of the Universal House of Jus-tice is confined to legislation, such an assumption would clearly be baseless and entirely unwarranted and unjustified.

It follows therefore that no institution or individual can correctly determine whether the Guardian or the Universal House of Justice are, at any given time, within or without their own respective limits of jurisdiction. This point is con-firmed by the Guardian in one of his letters where this truth is clearly set forth:

“...It is not for the individual believers to limit the sphere of the Guard-ian's authority, or to judge when they have to obey the Guardian and when they are free to reject his judgment. Such an attitude would evi-dently lead to confusion and to schism. The Guardian being appointed in-terpreter of the Teachings, it is his responsibility to state what matters which, affecting the interests of the Faith, demand on the part of the be-lievers complete and unqualified obedience to his instructions.” (LG 312)

The principle clearly outlined above by the Guardian applies equally to the Uni-versal House of Justice, inasmuch as matters affecting the interests of the Faith on a world-scale are best judged and determined by the House itself. As indicated above, Shoghi Effendi’s formal and confident assurance in his ‘Dispensation’ to the Bahá’í s everywhere and to the world at large, to the effect that the Universal House of Justice will never transgress its own limits of jurisdiction, should pro-vide the ultimate safeguard and guarantee, to one and all, that the foundations on which the structure of the Administrative Order is resting are firmly set and stable.
IS THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE THE HEAD OF A COMPLETE AND UNMUTILATED WORLD ORDER?

Let us now consider the contents and implications of a crucial paragraph in ‘The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh’:

“Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that heredi-tary principle which, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written, has been invariably up-held by the Law of God. ‘In all the Divine Dispensations,’ He states, in a Tablet addressed to a follower of the Faith in Persia, ‘the eldest son hath been given extraordinary distinctions. Even the station of prophet-hood hath been his birthright’. Without such an institution the integrity of the Faith would be imperiled, and the stability of the entire fabric would be gravely endangered. Its prestige would suffer, the means required to en-able it to take a long, and uninterrupted view over a series of generations would be completely lacking, and the necessary guidance to define the sphere of the legislative action of its elected representatives would be to-tally withdrawn.” (WOB 148)

So the question is, did the ending of the Guardianship in November 1957 have the negative effects described above, or did the Cause survive this event com-plete and undamaged?

Shoghi Effendi definitely knew that the line of the Aghsán would at some time come to an end. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas openly contemplates this eventuality in the very paragraph (42) that anticipates the Institution of the Guardianship. Further, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes no provision in His Will and Testament for the continuation into the future of the Guardianship in the event that the line of the Aghsán is ex-tinguished. So it is very clear that this passage in ‘Dispensation’ cannot be saying that the Cause will be wounded or damaged unless there is an unbroken line of living Guardians during the entirety of the Dispensation. So, how are we to un-derstand the paragraph?

When one looks at the paragraph that immediately follows it, that is, the one that refers to the paralysis that would ensue if the World Order were ‘severed’ from the House of Justice, it is clear that Shoghi Effendi is simply describing, in dra-matic language, the centrality and vital importance of these two institutions. Each, in turn, is anticipated to perform indispensable and essential functions.

We therefore need to consider and analyze the various points Shoghi Effendi has made and relate them to the period of his ministry, considering what his absence would have entailed. We set forth the points in brief, followed by comments:

1. Without the Guardianship, the World Order would be deprived of the heredi-tary principle.

COMMENT: The 36 years of the Guardianship certainly endowed the World Order with this eminent grace.

2. Without the Guardianship, the World Order would have been beset by peril and danger.

COMMENT: If ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will and Testament had not installed the Of-fice of the Guardianship as His immediate Successor, Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí would have played havoc with the community, using the Book of the Covenant to advance his case.

3. Without the Guardianship the prestige of the World Order would have suf-fered.

COMMENT: By making the Guardian the “sacred head” (WT 14) of the House of Justice, and because of the provision that the Guardian “cannot override the decisions” of the Universal House of Justice (WOB 150), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá enhanced the prestige of the Supreme Body (WOB 8).

4. Without the Guardianship the World Order would not have benefited from Shoghi Effendi’s breadth of vision.

COMMENT: The Guardian’s book ‘God Passes By’ provides an historical pano-rama covering the first one hundred years of Bahá’í history. Shoghi Effendi gives us an invaluable interpretation of this history and correlates it with the major events of the century. Thanks also to the Guardian's World Order letters, his en-trancing vision of the future, and the steps which would lead to its realization, have been fully laid out for us.

5. Without the Guardianship the elected institutions of the Faith, locally, nation-ally and internationally, would have been deprived of the Guardian's guidance.

COMMENT: As already indicated above, Shoghi Effendi gave his guidance for the formulation of National and Local Bahá’í Constitutions. As to the Constitu-tion of the Universal House of Justice, in view of the provision that he “is de-barred from laying down independently the constitution that must govern the organized activities of his fellow-members” (WOB 150), Shoghi Effendi made it clear in his ‘Dispensation’ that the two areas of authorized interpretation and binding legislation had been exclusively reserved to each of the two successive Successors of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, namely the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice respectively.

HOW CAN THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE DETERMINE THAT ITS ENACTMENTS DO NOT DEPART FROM THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACH-INGS?

The statement in the ‘Dispensation’ which gives rise to this issue is the following:

“the Guardian...cannot override the decision of the majority of his fellow-members, but is bound to insist upon a reconsideration by them [members of the Universal House of Justice] of any enactment he conscientiously be-lieves to conflict with the meaning or to depart from the spirit of Bahá’u’lláh 's revealed utterances.” (WOB 150)

To understand adequately the implications of this statement, we must first con-sider the meaning or meanings of the word “enactment” or the word of which it is a derivative, namely “enact”. According to the Webster dictionary the verb “enact” is used when a “legal and authoritative act” is performed. It also implies the act of passing a “bill” or a legal draft into a law. It is obvious that in the sen-tence from the “Dispensation” quoted above, the first meaning is meant, because of the categorical statement, also in the same sentence, clearly affirming that when a final decision is taken, the Guardian “cannot override” or veto such a de-cision. Thus the issue of reconsideration is a step to be taken in the process of ar-riving at the final decision.

This issue has been dealt with in the Constitution of the Universal House of Jus-tice. In the absence of the Guardian, the Universal House of Justice has formally stated that among its “binding terms of reference” and the elements which con-stitute “its bedrock foundation”, are the “interpretations and expositions” of the Guardian. (CUHJ 4)

Furthermore in a letter dated 27 May 1966 the Universal House of Justice assures us that “a careful study of the Writings and interpretations on any subject on which the House of Justice proposes to legislate always precedes its act of legisla-tion.” In the same letter the Universal House of Justice makes this further clear affirmation: “the Universal House of Justice, itself assured of divine guidance, is well aware of the absence of the Guardian and will approach all matters of legis-lation only when certain of its sphere of jurisdiction, a sphere which the Guard-ian confidently described as ‘clearly defined’”. (MUHJ 85)
In the light of the above quotations, in my view, it should not be difficult to ar-rive at the conclusion that Shoghi Effendi’s statement in the ‘Dispensation’ could well be understood as a reminder of, and indeed an emphasis on, the imperative obligation to refer to his interpretations and expositions prior to any act of legis-lation. This assurance has been explicitly given to the Bahá’í World in the state-ments quoted above from the writings of the Universal House of Justice.

WIDE RANGE OF RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE OFFICE OF HEADSHIP, AS INVESTED IN THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

Based on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's and Shoghi Effendi’s writings these responsibilities in-clude the following duties and powers:
1. to safeguard the unity of the community (WOB 148);
2. to resolve all problems which have caused differences (WT 20);
3. to maintain the integrity of the Bahá’í teachings (WOB 148);
4. to elucidate questions that are obscure (WT 20);
5. to maintain the flexibility of the teachings of the Faith (WOB 148);
6. to promulgate and apply its laws (WOB 20 & 145);
7. to protect its institutions (WOB 20);
8. to adapt it loyally and intelligently to the requirements of progressive society (WOB 20);
9. to conduct all Bahá’í administrative affairs (WOB 153);
10. to resolve difficult problems and all important and fundamental ques-tions (WT 14 & BA 47);
11. to create new institutions (CC Vol. 1, 329);
12. to make deductions from the sacred and authorized writings (CC Vol. 1, 323);
13. to launch and direct teaching plans (CC Vol. 1, 340);
14. to be the last refuge of a tottering civilization (WOB 89);
15. to consummate the incorruptible inheritance which the Founders of the Faith have bequeathed to the world (WOB 20).
As the Universal House of Justice is, after the Guardian, the Central Authority in the Cause, the body unto which “all things must be referred” (WT 14), it was able to create institutions to ensure the “discharge of the functions of protection and propagation” and to provide “for the receipt and disbursement of the Hu-qúqu'lláh” (CUHJ 4).
The Constitution of the Universal House of Justice outlines in five paragraphs what it considers to be “among the powers and duties with which the Universal House of Justice has been invested” (CUHJ 5). The contents of these paragraphs, without any exception, are based on, and have their roots in, Tablets revealed by Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, as well as letters of Shoghi Effendi. They deal with the responsibilities of the Supreme Institution in such matters as preserving the sacred Texts, defending and protecting the Cause, proclaiming and propagating its Message, advancing its interests, promoting universal peace, ushering in the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, safeguarding the personal rights, freedom and ini-tiative of individuals, and promoting the advancement and betterment of the world. The last three paragraphs also enumerate the legislative, executive and judicial powers vested in the institution of the House of Justice.

WHAT DOES UNCONDITIONAL OBEDIENCE IMPLY?

Bahá’u’lláh in the thirteenth Glad-Tidings (Bishárát) wrote:

“The men of God's House of Justice have been charged with the affairs of the people....Inasmuch as for each day there is a new problem and for every problem an expedient solution, such affairs should be referred to the Ministers of the House of Justice that they may act according to the needs and requirements of the time. They that, for the sake of God, arise to serve His Cause, are the recipients of divine inspiration from the un-seen Kingdom. It is incumbent upon all to be obedient unto them.” (TAB 26-27) (This self-same passage is repeated in the Eighth Ishráq.)

Furthermore in the Eighth Leaf of Paradise we read: “It is incumbent upon the Trustees of the House of Justice to take counsel together….God will verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth, and He, verily is the Provider, the Omnis-cient.” (TAB 68)

We note in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá 's Will and Testament His insistent call to the friends to turn to the Universal House of Justice, and obey its directives. We read the fol-lowing: “the Universal House of Justice, to be universally elected and estab-lished, [is] under the care and protection of the Abhá Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of His Holiness, the Exalted One [the Báb]….Whoso re-belleth ...against them hath rebelled against God…., whoso contendeth with them hath contended with God” (WT 11). “That which this body….doth carry, that is verily the Truth and the Purpose of God Himself. Whoso doth deviate therefrom is verily of them that love discord, hath shown forth malice and turned away from the Lord of the Covenant.” (WT 19-20)

In one of His Tablets ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has furthermore written the following:

“The Supreme House of Justice will take decisions and establish laws through the inspiration and confirmation of the Holy Spirit, because it is in the safekeeping and under the shelter and protection of the Ancient Beauty, and obedience to its decisions is a bounden and essential duty and an absolute obligation, and there is no escape for anyone.” (MUHJ 85)

To confirm the sense of the above passages we read in Shoghi Effendi’s ‘Dispen-sation’, the following affirmation which corroborates Bahá’u’lláh's and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's statements on the inspiration and divine guidance which surround and overshadow the decisions of the Universal House of Justice. He writes: “the members of the Universal House of Justice, …and not the body of those who ei-ther directly or indirectly elect them, have thus been made the recipients of the divine guidance which is at once the life-blood and ultimate safeguard of this Revelation.” (WOB 153)

From these explicit and authoritative statements we should know of a certainty that when divine inspiration is well-assured, obedience becomes a spiritual obli-gation. This theme is fully discussed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His ‘Some Answered Questions’:

“Know that infallibility is of two kinds: essential infallibility and acquired infallibility…. Essential infallibility is peculiar to the supreme Manifesta-tion, for it is His essential requirement…. But acquired infallibility is not a natural necessity; on the contrary, it is a ray of the bounty of infallibility which shines from the Sun of Reality….Thus many of the holy be-ings….were the mediators of grace between God and men. If God did not protect them from error, their error would cause believing souls to fall into error, and thus the foundations of the Religion of God would be over-turned, which would not be fitting nor worthy of God….

“…. For instance, the Universal House of Justice …. will be under the pro-tection and the unerring guidance of God….Now the members of the House of Justice have not, individually, essential infallibility, but the body of the House of Justice is under the protection and unerring guidance of God; this is called conferred infallibility.” (SAQ 173)

This statement made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explicitly and certainly gives us the assur-ance that when an individual or institution, authorized in revealed sacred texts as freed from error, renders a decision or issues a directive requiring the friends to obey, the community of the faithful should be confident that such a decision or directive has been prompted and motivated by divine inspiration. Should this be otherwise, it would not only be unbecoming and unbefitting of a just God, but the result would certainly be the subversion of the very foundations of God’s Holy Faith.

The friends of course realize that the objectives specified in the plans and mes-sages of the Universal House of Justice are designed to help us in our direct teaching work. To the extent that we adhere to the wishes of the Supreme Body will we be the recipients of added confirmations and blessings.

****************************

REFERENCES

BA Bahá’í Administration
CC Vol. 1 Compilation of Compilations Vol. 1
CUHJ Constitution of the Universal House of Justice
LDG Vol. 1 Light of Divine Guidance, Vol. 1
LG Lights of Guidance
KI Kitáb-i-Íqán
MC Ministry of the Custodians
MUHJ Messages from the Universal House of Justice-1963-1986
PA The Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Baha
SAQ Some Answered Questions
TAB Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas
UD Unfolding Destiny
WOB World Order of Bahá'u'lláh
WT Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

بررسی ادعاهای میسن ریمی

2009-02-03T21:28:00.000-08:00

بررسی ادعاهای میسن ریمی

کاویان صادق زاده میلانی

مقدمه
ریمی یکی از ایادیان امر بود که توسط شوقی افندی ولی امر دین بهائی به عنوان ایادی منصوب شد. بنابر دستور حضرت عبدالبهاء در الواح وصایا ولی امر لازم بود در زمان حیات خود از میان یکی از اغصان (فرزندان مذکر نسل حضرت بهاءالله) را برای رهبری جامعه بهائی نامزد و پیشنهاد کند. این غصن (عربی: شاخه) عضو دائم بیت عدل و درعین حال تفسیر کنندۀ آیات الهی بشمارمی آید. تقدیر چنان رقم خورد که نسل اغصان، یعنی فرزندان ذکور بهاءالله، که مومن به میثاق او مانده باشند در دورۀ ولایت شوقی افندی به پایان رسید و طبق پیشبینی حضرت بهاءالله در کتاب اقدس نسل اغصان به پایان رسید و مطابق دستور پیامبر بهائی بیت عدل تشکیل و مسئولیت تشریع و قانونگزاری و هدایت جامعه را به عهده گرفت. در این میان میسن ریمی که به دلیل کهولت سن و شاید غم و افسردگی ناشی از مرگ زود هنگام شوقی افندی پس از گذشت چند سال و پذیرفتن اولیه ختم سلسلۀ ولایت، به فکر این افتاد که خودش را ولی امرالله دوم معرفی کند. این مقاله کوتاه بررسی تاریخی و تحلیلی جریان نقض میسن ریمی و نقد برخی زاویه های آن است.

پیشینه تاریخی و مقدمۀ نقض ریمی

حضرت ولی امرالله شوقی افندی که جایگزین واجد شرایطی نداشتند که صلاحیت مربوط به ولایت و خصوصیت روحانی الولد سرّ ابیه (فرزندی که جانشین با کفایت پدر باشد) و خصائل اخلاقی ممتاز او را نیز دارا باشد از اعلام جانشین خودداری کرد. خودداری شوقی افندی از نگاشتن وصیت و عدم انتصاب و معرفی عمومی ولی امر دیگری که جایگزین او شود بیانگر این است که اراده او بر آن تعلق گرفته بود که ولی امر دیگری نداشته باشیم. پایان گرفتن سلسلۀ اغصان تعجبی نمی بایست داشته باشد چون در کتاب اقدس نیز این مهم آورده شده بود.

در جلسۀ اول ایادیان به تاریخ 25 نوامبر 1957 ایادیان حاضر(26 از 27 ایادی ) در ارض اقدس در دستخط خود به تمام بهائیان عالم، در شرق و غرب، اعلان داشتند که از حضرت ولی امرالله وصیتی در دست نیست و نسل اغصان خاتمه یافته و ریمی نیز یکی از آن ایادیان و از امضا کنندگان آن دستخط بود. گرچه ریمی در چند سال بعد و به اغوای جوئل مارانجلا (که هم او میسن را در آینده کوتاهی از ولایت عزل و خود را منصوب ساخت) این امضا و این متن را تکذیب و توجیه کرد ولی به هر حال میسن در آن زمان از امضا کنندگان آن بود.
پس از آن ایادیان بنابردستور حضرت عبدالبهاء در الواح وصایا از میان خود نه نفر را انتخاب کردند تا امور جامعۀ بهائی را اداره کند. این شورای عالی دستور داشت که:
«به عنوان جانشینان حضرت شوقی افندی تمام اختیارات، حقوق و قدرت اجرایی ولی امر را در دست داشته باشند، تا زمانی که بیت عدل اعظم الهی انتخاب شود.» تمام ایادیان حاضر این رسالت را بالنیابه از ولی امر به هئیات ایادیان سپردند و خود میسن نیز یکی از این نه عضو ساکن ارض اقدس بود. میسن بعدها ادعا کرده است که در آن زمان فکر می کرد که "شاید یک جوری من ولی امر بشوم" ولی میگوید "از چگونگی آن ناآگاه بودم." پس ریمی به منشوری و تاسیس هئیاتی رای داده بود و امضا و مهر کرده بود و عضویت در آنرا پذیرفته که در اساسنامه اش بنیان ادعای های آیندۀ ریمی را نسخ می کند. باز در همان منشور آمد ه است که "شوقی افندی هیچ جانشینی را برای خود نمی توانست برگزیند" بیانی که اساس ادعا های آیندۀ ریمی را خراب می کند.

شرایط ذهنی میسن ریمی در سالهای نقض و تعیین دو جانشین

هم زمان با ادعای ولایت امری قوای عقلانی ریمی افول می کرد. ریمی باور عجیبی به وقوع یک فاجعه در آیندۀ نزدیک داشت. در 16 ژوئیۀ 1961 به هوادارانش اعلام کرد که دفترشان را به سانتا فِی در نیومکزیکو منتقل خواهد کرد و مقر اروپایی را نیز به بِرن در سوئیس انتقال داد. دلیل این انتقال این بود که باور داشت که عنقریب فاجعۀ بزرگی (مثل طوفان نوح) خواهد رسید و چون این مناطق کوهستانی و بالاتر از سطح دریا بودند در فاجعه از بین نخواهند رفت. همانسال لوازم و بایگانیهای شخصی را نیز به سانتا فِی منتقل کرد چون شهری بود که 7000 پا بالای سطح دریا بود. ریمی پس از گذشتن وعدۀ فاجعه جهانی در سال 1963، تحقق آنرا در آینده و در ماه مِی سال 1995 میلادی پیشبینی کرد.

علاوه بر ادعای ولایت امر و سر در گمی میسن ریمی در رابطۀ با فاجعۀ بزرگ جهانی شواهد بسیار دیگری نیز در دست است که از افت عقلانی او در آن سالها خبر می داد. مثلا بسال 1961 میسن مارنجلا، اغوا کننده و محرّک اصلی خود را به جانشینی و مقام "ولایت عهد سوم" منصوب کرد و سند این جانشینی را در صندوقی امن در سوئیس به امانت گذاشت. در 1964 نیز مارانجلا را به ریاست شورای بین المللی بهائی منصوب کرد و مقدمۀ انتصاب بعدی وی را فراهم کرد. ولی از آنجاییکه به علّت ضعف حافظه و افول نیروی فکر فراموشی شدیدی پیدا کرده بود در ماۀ می 1967 و آستانۀ 93 سالگی دانولد هاروی را نیز در ابلاغی عمومی به هوادارانش به مقام "ولایت عهد سوم" منصوب ساخت و لذا خودش عزل و هواداران اندکش برای همیشه به گروههای کوچکتر تقسیم شدند. وضعیت فکری و ذهنی و قدرت تعقّل میسن ریمی در سالهای پیرامون نقض چنین بود.

عدم درک واژه اغصان و کاربرد آن

توجیه میسن برای مدعای خود یک استدلال بر مبنای ترکیبی از انتصاب با اشاره و ایما و حاوی نوعی بِدا (تغییر نقشه خداوند و قضا و قدر الهی) بود و در آینده به آن خواهم رسید ولی توجیه او برای مساله اغصان یکی از عجیبترین جنبه های مساله است. غُصن در عربی به معنی شاخه است و البته در گفتار بهائی واژه خاصی است و به نحو ویژه ای تعبیر شده است.، یعنی فرزندان ذکور و نسل پسر حضرت بهاءالله و چون میسن از اغصان نبود برای این مساله چاره ای تراشید. مطالعه آثار بهائی این مساله را روشن می کند. در پیش آوردم که حضرت ولی امرالله شوقی افندی از آنجا که جایگزین واجد شرایطی نداشتند که صلاحیت مربوط به ولایت و خصوصیت روحانی الولد سرّ ابیه (فرزندی که جانشین با کفایت پدر باشد) و خصائل اخلاقی ممتاز او را نیز دارا باشد از اعلام جانشین خودداری کرد. خودداری شوقی افندی از نگاشتن وصیت و عدم انتصاب و معرفی عمومی ولی امر دیگری که جایگزین او شود بیانگر این است که اراده او بر آن تعلق گرفته بود که ولی امر دیگری نداشته باشیم. پایان گرفتن سلسلۀ اغصان تعجبی نمی بایست داشته باشد چون در کتاب اقدس نیز این مهم آورده شده بود.

در این آیات حضرت بهاالله خاتمه سلسله ولایت اغصان و احتمال تشکیل بیت عدل بدون حضور اغصان را مطرح می کنند و می فرمایند که اگر بین سلسله اغصان و تشکیل بیت عدل فاصله بود آنگاه اوقاف بهائی به دست اهل بهاء، یعنی هیئت ایادیان امر الله سپرده خواهد شد تا تشکیل بیت عدل الهی. با وفات شوقی افندی دقیقاَ همین وضعیت پیش آمد و در فاصلۀ بین فوت شوقی افندی و تاسیس بیت عدل اعظم، هئیات ایادیان امرالله آئین فراگیر بهائی را هدایت کرده و به کشتی نجاتی که بیت عدل باشد رساندند. ولی در آغاز بحث رسیدن به تعریف واژۀ «غصن» یا «اغصان» کلید حل معماست.

واژۀ غصن به عنوان اسم خاص برای فرزندان پسر حضرت بهاءالله و نسل ذکور ایشان در آثار حضرت بهاءالله و حضرت عبدالبهاء به کار می رود. مثلا می فرماید که:«غصن اکبر چندی قبل به جهت اجرا توجه نموده» در زمان حضرت بهاءالله مشخصاَ اشاره به فرزند بهاءالله میرزا محمد علی دارد و چنین فهمیده می شد. نمونۀ دیگر خود کتاب عهدی است که وصیتنامۀ حضرت بهاءالله است. باز هم کاربرد واژه ها همان است. واژۀ غصن به عنوان اسم خاص برای فرزندان پسر حضرت بهاءالله و نسل ذکور ایشان در آثار حضرت بهاءالله و حضرت عبدالبهاء به کار می رود. مثلا می فرماید که:«غصن اکبر چندی قبل به جهت اجرا توجه نموده» در زمان حضرت بهاءالله مشخصاَ اشاره به فرزند بهاءالله میرزا محمد علی دارد و چنین فهمیده می شد. نمونۀ دیگر خود کتاب عهدی است که وصیتنامۀ حضرت بهاءالله است. باز هم کاربرد واژه ها همان است:
«وصیت الله آنکه باید اغصان و افنان و منتسبین طرّاَ به غصن اعظم ناظر باشند.»
«محبّت اغصان بر کلّ لازم و لکن ما قدّر الله لهم حقاًَ فی اموال ناس.»
در یکی از آثار حضرت بهاءالله آمده است که «همه بار یک دارید و برگ یک شاخسار.» او از ترجمه انگلیسی کلمه استنباط کرد که او نیز بنابر تعریف بهاءالله یک شاخه و لذا یک غصن است و واجد شرایط نسل ذکور بودن از جمال قدم. ناقضین از این زاویه است که عموما به اشکال می خورند، عدم آشنایی با متون بهائی و عدم آشنایی با زبان وحی. سالها بعد در نامه اول خود به روحیه خانم مارانجلا همان نوع استدلال را دنبال می کند. مثلا می آورد که چون در کتاب ایقان امام صادق از سلالۀ حضرت محمد معرفی شده است، غصن بودن ربطی به فرزند و از نسل بودن ندارد و بنابراین هم ریمی و خود او می توانند از اغصان باشند. البته او از تفاوت مختصری عجولانه گذشته است و آن اینکه حضرت امام صادق از نسل حضرت محمد بودند ولی ریمی از خاندان حضرت بهاءالله نبود. بیان کتاب ایقان از این قرار است: «و در ینبوع از صادق بنّ محمد وارد شده که فرمود...». آشکار است که آشنا با زبان وحی و انشاء عربی چنین برداشتی نمی کند.

ناقضین ناچار تعریف دیگری از "اغصان" را بر گزیده اند. ادعای اینان بر این است که اغصان شامل تمام مومنین است.

موروثی بودن ولایت امر

در مقدمۀ بحث توجه همراهان را به تبیین حضرت ولی امرالله از آیات مربوط کتاب اقدس (بند 42) ارائه می دهم. بنابر فرمودۀ کتاب اقدس و الواح وصایا و تبیین شوقی افندی ولایت امر منحصر در دودمان بهاءالله و در سلسلۀ اغصان است. از این روست که داریم:
« در آیات کتاب مستطاب اقدس که در آن تلویحاً به اساس ولایت امر اِخبار گشته، دربارۀ اصل توارث و تقدّم ولد ارشد که در جمیع شرایط گذشته معمول بوده است و حضرت عبدالبهاء در یکی از الواح خود آنرا تائید میفرمایند: در جمیع این موارد آثار و علائم اولیّۀ این نظم اداری و جریان آن مشهود است که حضرت عبدالبهاء آنرا بعداً در الواح وصایای خویش اعلام و برقرار فرمودند.» (دور بهائی 77)
پس در گفتمانی درون دینی و بر مبنای مآخذ مقبول و کتابهای منصوص مرجع سه نکتۀ بیان فوق باید مدّ نظر باشد:
الف) آیات کتاب اقدس اشاره به ولایت امر و اصل موروثی بودن ولایت دارد. یعنی اغصان به معنی افراد مومن و جامعه بهائی نیست.
ب) ولایت امر منوط به ارثی بودن مقام ولایت امر و تقدّم فرزند ارشد دارد.
پ) آنچه در کتاب اقدس بهاءالله و متمم آن الواح وصایای عبدالبهاء آمده تفکیک پذیر نیستند.

در الواح وصایای مبارکه که متمم و لابنفصل از اقدس است می فرماید:

«ای یاران مهربان بعد از مفقودی این مظلوم باید اغصان و افنان سدرۀ مبارکه و ایادی امرالله و احباّی جمال ابهی توجه به فرع دو سدره که از دو شجرۀ مقدسه انبات شده و از اقتران دو فرع دوحۀ رحمانیه بوجود آمده یعنی شوقی افندی نمایند. زیرا آیت الله و غصن ممتاز و ولیّ امرالله و مرجع جمیع اغصان و افنان و ایادی امرالله و احباءالله است و مبیّن ایات الله و من بعده بکراًَ بعد بکر یعنی در سلالۀ او و فرع مقدس و ولی امرالله و بیت عدل عمومی که بانتخاب عموم تاسیس و تشکیل شود در تحت حفظ و صیانت جمال ابهی و حراست و عصمت فائض از حضرت اعلی روحی لهماالفداست. »
یعنی پس از فوت ولی امر لازم بود که جمهور بهائیان (شامل اغصان و افنان و ایادیان و احباء) یعنی تمامی آنها می بایست از حضرت شوقی افندی اطاعت کنند. پس واضح است که جامعه بهائی مرکب از چهار گروه تعریف شده و اغصان با احباء به تعبیر کلی تفاوت دارند و گرنه تفکیک لازم نبود. باری به هر جهت این مهم را دوباره گوشزد و تکرار می کنند که اغصان (دودمان بهاءالله) و افنان (دودمان ربّ اعلی) و ایادیان و مومنین باید به غصن ممتاز (غصن چون از نسل بهاءالله هستند) توجه و رجوع کنند و اگر مومنین به زعم اشتباه شما همان اغصان بود دوبار تکرار و تاکید و تفکیک لازم نبود." اغصان" در برابر "افنان" فقط یک معنی دارد—مگر بر کسی که خفاش وار در تاریکی به نفی حقیقت و بازی ناآگاهانه و بیربط با الفاظ بپردازد—و آن فرزندان ذکور از دودمان حضرت بهاءالله هستند و افنان اشاره به خاندان ربّ اعلی دارد.
اشاره کنم که گاه و ناگاه جریان بحث دیده ام که یکی از ناقضین آیه ِ کتاب اقدس را بی ارتباط با موضوع ولایت و سلسلۀ اغصان دانسته و جالب است که در نهایت ناقضین برای اثبات حرف خود ناچارند آیات کتاب اقدس و تبیین شفاف حضرت ولی امرالله را زیر پا گذارند. بر خلاف نوشتۀ اینان آیات کتاب اقدس موضوعیت کامل دارد و حضرت ولی امر الله آنرا چنان مطرح کرده اند. البته خود مسالۀ اوقاف موضوعیت ندارد چون تکلیفش با بیت عدل است ولی آنچه موضوعیت تام دارد مسالۀ اغصان و هدایت روحانی جامعه است که تعبیر شوقی افندی از این آیات است. در کتاب اقدس داریم:
«قد رجعت الاوقاف المختصَّه للخیرات الی الله مظهر الآیات. لیس َ لاحد ان یتصرّف فیها الا بعد اذن مطلع الوحی و من بعده ِ برجع الحکم الی الاغصان و من بعدهم الی بیت العدل ان تحقّق امره ِ فی البلاد لیصرفوها فی البقاع المرتفعه فی هذا الامر و فیما امروا به من لدن مقتدر قدیر* و الّا ترجع الی اهل البهاء الذین لایتکلمون الّا بعد اذنهِ و لایحکمون الّا بما حکم الله فی هذا اللوح. اولئک اولیاء النصر بین السموات و الارضین* لیصرفوها فیما حدّد فی الکتاب من لدن عزیز کریم*ّ (بند 42)

نکات مهم این ردیف آیات چنین است:
1. اوقاف در زمان زندگی مظهر امر متعلق به اوست.
2. در دورۀ پس از حیات جسمانی او به اغصان می رسد. تعبیر اشتباه ناپذیر حضرت ولی امرالله را دیدیم که این آیات مربوط به سلسلۀ اغصان و پیشگویی و اِخبار از موسسۀ ولایت دارد.(دور بهائی ص 77)
3. و من بعدهم، یعنی پس از ختم سلسلۀ اغصان__فرزندان ذکور و دودمان بهاءالله—به بیت عدل می رسد.

حضرت ولی امرالله می فرمایند: «هرگاه ولایت امر از نظم بدیع بهاءالله منتزع شود اساس این امر متزلزل و الی الابد محروم از اصل توارثی می گردد که به فرمودۀ حضرت عبدالبهاء در جمیع شرایع الهی نیز برقرار بوده است.»(ص 79) پس مسالۀ مهم حضور ولی امر است ولی ولایت امری که بنا بر فرمودۀ عبدالبهاء و تبیین شوقی افندی باید از اغصان و از دودمان بهاءالله باشد. «و من بعده بکراً بعد بکر یعنی در سلالۀ او» (ص 81). از آیات کتاب اقدس واضح است که سلسلۀ اغصان به پایان می رسد و همراه با آن ولی امر حاضر. البته «ولایت امر» و «موسسۀ ولایت امر» کاملاً زنده و حاضر است و الی الابد راهگشای جامعۀ بهائی خواهد بود. این دو کامل کننده و تمام کننده یکدیگرند ولی لازماً همزمان و معاصر نیستند. کما اینکه بنابر فرمودۀ شوقی افندی: «و چنانچه بیت عادل اعظم که اهمیتش از آن کمتر نیست از آن منتزع گردد نظم بدیع حضرت بهاءالله از جریان بازمانده و دیگر نمی تواند حدود و احکام غیرمنصوصه تشریعی و اداری امرالله را...تکمیل نماید.» (ص 80)
گرچه شاید بر میسن ریمی نباید چندان سخت گرفت چون در سن بالایی بود و از فقدان مولای خود رنج می برد و دست مارانجلا تحریک و اغوایش می کرد. دستی که چند سال بعد میسن را از جامعه صد نفری خودشان طرد و منزوی کرد.
نکتۀ کوچکی ممکن است موجب برداشت اشتباه شود. این ایراد از سوی ناقضین گرفته شده است که "هرگاه ولایت امر از نظم بدیع بهاءالله منتزع شود اساس این امر متزلزل و الی الابد محروم از اصل توارثی می گردد" و بنا بر آن حضور ولی امر را لازم و واجب دانسته اند. ولی نباید جریان تاریخی این بیانات را فراموش کنیم. برای نمونه و در ادامۀ بیان بالا حضرت شوقی افندی می فرمایند که «چنانچه بیت عادل اعظم که اهمیتش از آن کمتر نیست از آن منتزع گردد نظم بدیع حضرت بهاءالله از جریان بازمانده.» پس فقدان بیت عدل نظم بدیع را از جریان می اندازد ولی در طول مدت ولایت نظم اداری مراحل جنینی خود را به سرعت و زیبایی طی کرد و زیربنای تشکیل بیت عدل اعظم الهی آماده شد. پس دو مشروع و موسسۀ ولایت و بیت عدل مکمل هستند ولی لازم و ضروری نیست که هر دو در آنِِ واحد در عالم ناسوت حاضر باشند. در هیچ جای نصوص و آثار نیامده است که بیت عدل برای دریافت هدایت و الهام و تشریع نیازمند یک ولی امر حاضر در جلسه است. اتفاقاً شاهد عکس آن درست است. ولی امر می تواند به جای حضور در جلسه نائب تعیین کند و این نائب مسلماً مبیّن کلام الهی نیست. از سوی دیگر تاسیس اساسنامۀ بیت عدل از عهدۀ صلاحیت و اختیارات ولی امر بیرون شمرده شده است. در کتاب دور بهائی ص 83 می فرمایند که:«ولی امر...به تنهایی ممنوع از تدوین اساسنامه ایست که برای ادارۀ امور و ایفای وظائف بیت عدل لازم است.»

در ضمن ارزش مفهوم کلیدی در این است که در هیچ موضعی در نصوص و در الواح مبارک وصایا مصون بودن بیت عدل و توان تشریع و رهبری جامعه آن هئیت مرتبط و متصل به حضور یک ولی امر نبوده و نیست. بیت عدل به خودی خود هدایت می شود و البته تصمیماتش از دید بهائیان بدون خطا و اشتباه است.

مسالۀ شورای بین المللی بهائی

ادعای ریمی در ولایت امر بدون پشتوانه و نصّ است. ریاست موقت، و نه مادام العمر، شورای بین المللی بهائی کمترین اشاره ای به ولایت یا حتی به یک توصیه یا وصایت و انتصاب برای میسن ریمی نیست. شورای بین المللی بهائی تشکیلی است که هیچگاه فعال نشد و حضرت ولی امرالله آنرا غیرفعال نگاه داشتند و در عوض به تقویت و انتصاب ایادیان پرداختند و در کنفرانسهای بین قارات ایادیان حاضر بودند و نام و نشانی از شورای بین المللی نبود. اگر انتخاب ریمی به عنوان یک انتصاب برای ولایت بود آنوقت لازم بود که حضرت ولی امر بنابر نصّ الواح وصایا انتصاب را اعلان و ریمی را به عنوان جانشین به بهائیان و هئیت ایادیان معرفی کنند تا مورد تصدیق ایادیان قرار گیرد. اگر قصد حضرت ولی امرالله پیشنهاد و معرفی ریمی بود خیلی راحت و بدون تعارف چنین می کردند و گزینۀ خود را مطابق نصّ الواح وصایا معرفی می کردند. هیچکدام از اینها نشد و ادعای ریمی بنای ریگی ِ بی بنیان و بدون اساسی است که الواح وصایا را زیر پا می گذارد و تبیینات محکم شوقی افندی در کتاب «دور بهائی» را زیر پا می گذارد و از متن کتاب اقدس بی اعتنا می گذرد.

اضافه کنم که بنابر نصّ الواح وصایا اگر ولی امر نتواند در جمع بیت عدل حاضر باشد باید یک جایگزین (نائب و وکیلی) معرفی کند تا به جای او حضور یابد. انتخاب حضرت در این مورد حضرت روحیه خانم بودند و نه میسن ریمی. حال فرض کنیم که این شورا با حضور ولی امر تشکیل می شد. آنوقت جایگاه ریمی چه بود؟ هیچ. حضور روحیه خانم به عنوان نماینده ولی امر همین نتیجه را داشت و این حقیقت روشن را در بر دارد که منظور شوقی افندی از انتصاب روحیه خانم چیزی جز آشکار کردن توازن قدرت در شورا نبوده و عملاً خلع ریمی از هر گونه ادعایی است

در مورد تعداد پیروان بهائیان پیرو ریمی از هر زیر گروه خود چون یک بمب خوشه های به دهها گروه کوچک و بزرگ تقسیم شده اند که نشانگر عدم هدایت و سلب تائید از آنان است. برخی از این گروهها بیشتر مسیحی هستند و شبیه یک کلیسای کوچک محلّی تا جامعۀ مستقل بهائی و هویت بهائی آنان تقریباَ صفر است. برخی از این گروهها، و بخصوص دو گروه رقیب طرفداران مارانجلا و هاروی هنوز هویت بهائی دارند ولی این هویت کمرنگتر شده است. این هم بخاطر عدم تائید است. شاخه های ریز جدا شده از آئین الهی مانند ازلی ها و پیروان محمدعلی هنوز هم یکی دوتایی در دنیا هستند ولی بدون تائید و نفثات روح القدس ساقط مانده اند و هویت دینی ندارند و در جامعه شیعه یا عرب بُر خورده اند. انشعابات پیروان ریمی نیز در همین وضعیت هستند و در نهایت امیدشان به گمراه کردن و اغوای یک یا دو بهائی کم اطلاع و بی ثبات در میثاق و بی مایه در مطالعه الواح وصایا است. تعداد اعضای این گروهها که مورد تحقیق شمارشگران بی طرف و متخصصان آمار قرار گرفته است کمتر از آنی است که من ارائه کردم. هسته فعال این گروهها نیز به مراتب کوچکتر است و در طول زمان کمتر شده است.

مشروطیت اساسی انتخاب فرزند یکم یا فرزندی دیگر (غصن دیگر)

در این رابطه لازم است اشاره ای به الواح وصایا به عنوان یک قانون اساسی نیز داشته باشیم. الواح وصایا از لحاظ حقوقی یک منشور حقوق بشر و آزادیهای فردی و روش رهبری جامعه نیز هست. در این منشور بزرگ به رابطۀ متقابلی بین ایادیان انتخاب شده از سوی غصن منتخب و نامزدی فرزند اول یا فرزند دیگری بر می خوریم:
«ای احبای الهی باید ولی امرالله در زمان حیات خویش من هو بعده را تعیین نماید تا بعد از صعودش اختلاف حاصل نگردد و شخص معین باید مظهر تقدیش و تنزیه و و تقدای الهی و علم و فضل و کمال باشد لهذا اگر ولد بکر ولی امرالله مظهر الولد سر ابیه نباشد یعنی از عنصر روحانی او نه و شرف اعراق باحسن اخلاق مجتمع نیست باید غصن دیگر را انتخاب نماید و ایادی امرالله از نفس جمعیت خویش نه نفر انتخاب نماید و همیشه به خدمات مهمه ولی امرالله مشغول باشند و انتخاب این نه نفر یا باتفاق مجمع ایادی و یا باکثریت آراء تحقق یابد و این نه نفر یا بالاتفاق یا باکثریت آراء باید غصن منتخب را که ولیّ امرالله تعیین بعداز خود نماید تصدیق نمایند و این تصدیق باید به نوعی واقع گردد که مصدّق و غیر مصدّق معلوم نشود»
پس یعنی:
1. ولی امر ایادیان را انتخاب می کند.
2. ایادیان نُه نفر از بین خود را انتخاب می کنند تا در خدمت ولی امر باشد.
3. ولی امر باید در زمان حیات خود (از بین اغصان) فرزندی را انتخاب و معرفی کند (اگر معرفی نکند اختلاف می شود و هدف عدم اختلاف است).
4. ولی امر باید گزینۀ خود را به هئأت ایادیان معرفی کند و اینان باید تصدیق کنند.
5. رای گیری باید مخفی باشد تا رایها از هم شناخته نشوند.

چون سلسلۀ اغصان و کسانی که شایستگی انتصاب داشتند به پایان رسیده بود حضرت ولی امر الله چنین کسی را نامزد و معرفی نکردند. اگر قرار بر معرفی و نامزدی شخصی (مثلا ریمی) بود آنوقت بنابر نص صریح الواح وصایا باید از هیأت ایادیان دعوت می شد که تشکیل اجلاس دهند و این گرینه به آنان ابلاغ میشد و آنان رای گیری و تثبیت می کردند. حضرت ولی امرالله هرگز چنین نکردند. پس حضرت ولی امرالله هرگز منظورشان معرفی و نامزدی ریمی برای جانشینی خود نبود.
البته از حضرت ولی امر دستخطی از طرف منشی داریم که در بهائی نیوز سال 1955 چاپ شده است. در آنجا آمده است که این بیان به معنی این نیست که ایادیان حق مخالفت با ولی امر را داشته باشند. ولی تعبیر دستخط از سوی منشی مسالۀ نیاز ایادیان به تجمع و تثبیت گزینۀ ولی امر بعدی را نفی نمی کند. به هر حال اگر حضرت ولی امرالله انتصاب میسن ریمی را مد نظر داشتند باید چنان می کردند و آشکارا چنین نکردند و این مساله به خودی خود اساس ادعای ریمی را در هم می ریزد.
واژۀ «غصن دیگر» نیز کاربردی آشکار و شفاف دارد. بیان مبارک از الواح وصایا:
«...لهذا اگر ولد بکر ولی امرالله مظهر الولد سرّ ابیه بناشد یعنی از عنصر روحانی او نه و شرف اعراق باحسن اخلاق مجتمع نیست باید غصن دیگر را انتخاب نماید.» معنی بیان واضح است. اگر در ولد بکر (فرزند یکم) خصایل روحانی نبود و نسل فیزیکی یعنی پسر ارشد از صفات روحانی پدر دور و عاری بود آنوقت ولیّ امر باید «غصن» دیگری را انتخاب و تعیین نماید. و این انتخاب باید مورد تایید نه نفر مجمع ایادی قرار گیرد: « و این نه نفر یا بالاتفاق یا باکثریت آراء باید غصن منتخب را که ولیّ امرالله تعیین بعداز خود نماید تصدیق نمایند و این تصدیق باید به نوعی واقع گردد که مصدّق و غیر مصدّق معلوم نشود.» پس غصن دیگر به منزلۀ ادعای دلبخواه مردم نیست. از آنجا که غصن به معنی فرزندی از نسل بهاءالله است حضرت ولیّ امرالله ولایت امر اغصان را با سلطنت پادشاهان مشروطه مقایسه کرده اند. به تکرار اصل توارث توجه کنید: « بعلاوه نفسی که در این ظهور اعظم بر حسب اصل توارث بر کرسی ولایت جالس است...». «غصن دیگر» شرایطی چون انتخاب خود ولی امر الله را نیز شامل می شود که گرچه فرزند ارشد عبدالبهاء نبودند ولی از «اغصان» بودند. به هر حال ختم و پایان سلسلۀ اغصان در کتاب اقدس با شفافیت و آشکاری تام آمده است و مشخص است که پس از ختم رشتۀ اغصان بیت عدل تاسیس و اموردر ید آن تاسیس بزرگ خواهد بود. منظور از غصن در ادبیات حضرت بهاءالله و حضرت عبدالبهاء و حضرت ولی امرالله کاملاَ واضح است و واژۀ «غصن» همیشه در چارچوب ولایت به یک معنی به کار برده شده است و آنهم فرزند پسری از نسل حضرت بهاءالله است و لا غیر. حال می پرسم آیا ریمی و مارانجلا و سوقومیان و هاروی از فرزندان پسر از نسل بهاءالله هستند یا خیر؟ در دور بهائی (ص 79) حضرت ولی امرالله می فرمایند: «هرگاه ولایت امر از نظم بدیع بهاءالله منتزع شود اساس این امر متزلزل و الی الابد محروم از اصل توارثی می گردد که به فرمودۀ حضرت عبدالبهاء در جمیع شرایع الهی نیز برقرار بوده است.» پس ولایت امر از دین بهائی قابل تفکیک نیست و لی نه هر مدعی ولایت، ولیّ امری که از اصل توارثی برخوردار باشد. و البته این تبیین در قبال مدعیان ریمی و مارانجلا و هاروی (منصوب ریمی) و سوقومیان و دیگر مدعیان و رقیبان صدق نمی کند. و در ردّ بیان ناقضین می فرماید که: «و من بعده بکراً بعد بکر یعنی در سلالۀ او» (ص 81). یعنی نسل فرزندان از سلالۀ ولی امر و اغصان که هیچ ربط و نسبی به مدعیان دروغین ندارد. کاربرد واژۀ بکر در اینجا یک نوع تضمین معنی از سوی حضرت عبدالبهاء است که جای شکّ و شبهه ای برای کسی نمی گذارد، گرچه معنی خود اغصان بیانگر این مهم است و نیازی به محکم کاری نبود ولی سستی ناقضین چنین محکم کاری را ایجاب می کرد. و اصل توارثی قابل تاویل و تفسیر نیست و بیان محکم عبدالبهاء و شوقی افندی است: منظور در این کاربرد نسل فیزیکی و پدر به فرزند است و لاغیر.

نتیجۀ سخن

هر دورۀ انتقالی در دین بهائی دوره ای از امتحان است. میسن ریمی و تنی چند از پیروانش، شوربختانه، از این امتحان سر بلند بیرون نیامدند.

Book Review: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

2009-01-11T06:35:00.000-08:00

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
By: Thomas Kuhn

One of the most intriguing and thought provoking text books of methodology is Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. While the book was written to address developments in science and within the scientific community, the book and its author’s thesis has found a more lasting niche in the social sciences and especially in history. The reasons for its adoption in history, as well as its utility will be examined in this paper. There are also a number of issues related to methodology that need to be further examined and critiqued in this paper.
The interface between science and scientific theory on one hand, and history and historiography on the other, has been minimal in the modern times. In fact that a book in theory of science should find a niche in historical methodology is somewhat counterintuitive. Science afterall aims to (with certain limitations) to speak to natural phenomena and explain them in a predictable way, whereas history deals with a recreation and reconstruction of the past. Science produces knowledge from generally reproducible experiments whereas history is almost never reproducible. The gulf separating the two may have even widened further especially after the development and adoption of postmodernism by some modern historians. The underlying principle in scientific inquiry is the presence of systemic coherence and verifiable “Truth,” whereas postmodernism may speak of truth in a subject-determined manner. Hence Thomas Kuhn’s achievement is even more impressive than it appears at first glance.
Kuhn makes a number of very important points in Structure, however, some of the issues he advances need to be outlined briefly. His major contribution is the concept of “paradigm.” All major scientific theories have a community of learned members who discourse (primarily with each other) in a specialized field. The community of discourse agrees on nomenclature, common experience and “modes of scientific activity.” He outlines some features of such a shared paradigm:
The study of paradigms, including many that are far more specialized than those named illustratively above, is what mainly prepares the student for membership in the particular scientific community with which he will later practice. Because he there joins men who learned the bases of their field from the same concrete models, his subsequent practice will seldom evoke overt disagreements over fundamentals. Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice. That commitment and the apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal science, i.e., for the genesis and contribution of a particular research tradition (Structure 10-11).

The paradigm is then subjected to increasing strain as more and more experiments are done with results that challenge the theory behind the paradigm. Eventually the community of discourse becomes aware of the acute insufficiency of the paradigm:
Because it demands large-scale paradigm destruction and major shifts in the problems and techniques of normal science, the emergence of new theories is generally preceded by a period of pronounced professional insecurity. As one might expect, that insecurity is generated by the persistent failure of the puzzles of normal science to come out as they should. Failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones (Structure 67-68).

The evoked “crisis” then causes a new theory with new explanatory powers that then finds a new following and becomes the dominant paradigm. This in short is the structure of a scientific revolution.
Science as Myth
Faced with the assault of postmodernism Kuhn has to deal with “science” as myth. There is no doubt that what was at one point “true” and scientific is now considered to have been a myth. This plays well in the hands of relativists and postmodernists who would want to dismiss all forms of “Truth” including science. Hence Kuhn has to set the foundation early on and acknowledge the problem:
If these out-of-date beliefs are to be called myths, then myths can be produced by the same sorts of methods and held for the same sorts of reasons that now lead to scientific knowledge. If, on the other hand, they are t be called science, then science has included bodies of belief quite incompatible with the ones we hold today. Given these alternatives, the historian must choose the latter (Structure 2-3).

The distinction is not a mere cerebral point. Is science a “myth” or does it approximate “truth”? This is partially addressed later in the text by Kuhn by rendering it mostly irrelevant. His answer is the “paradigm” motif. Other authors have correctly pointed out the insufficiency of the “Kuhnian Trojan Horse” and its vulnerability to “relativism.” He does not give a direct and satisfactory response to the “myth” problem posed above, even though he rejects it.
Consensus as “Truth”
Another challenging aspect of Kuhn’s theory is that his construction of paradigm is premised on a community of discourse and a shared experience. What if a community of discourse accepts evident falsities such as 2 x 2 = 5? Does this render it acceptable? Is that a “paradigm” of sorts? While the example is simplistic it should pose the question: “what (if any) are the criteria for truth”? Kuhn’s paradigm construct is premised on a community acceptance. This renders truth very subjective. Now Kuhn argues, and most scientists accept, the subjective (meaning observer dependant) nature of human perceptions. But setting aside such “cognitive relativism” based on inter-observer differences Kuhn adds another level of “relativism” by granting a theory with consensus the status of a “paradigm.” Kuhn may argue back by stating that self-evident falsities such as 2 x 2= 5 have no explanatory power and would not be adopted as paradigms. But what of the self-evident falsity with some explanatory power: “All dropped objects will fall.” It is true that an object will fall in the presence of the Earth gravitational field but no fall will occur in the orbit where weightlessness prevails. There is a fundamental problem here that Kuhn does not address.
In addition to pointing to the “puzzle-solving” attributes of paradigms Kuhn has a problem with the very concept of “truth.” While truth is somewhat ontological and metaphysical, hence avoiding an easy discussion in either science or history, a term like “real” or “really there” should pose little challenge to either the scientist or the historian. However Kuhn has fundamental misgivings about both terms:
There is, I think, no theory independent way to reconstruct phrases like “really there”; the notion of a match between the ontology of theory and its “real” counterpart in nature now seems to me illusive in principle. Besides, as a historian, I am impressed with the implausibility of the view (Structure 206).

Even though he admits that applying the term “relativistic” to his theory is “understandable” he nevertheless think it “wrong.” But then he writes, “if the position be relativism, I cannot see that the relativist loses anything needed to account for the nature and development of sciences” (207).
Karl Popper, who Kuhn takes to task in Structure, provides an alternative understanding of truth which Kuhn could have readily adopted and would have solved some of his philosophical dilemmas. Popper opines:
Thus we accept the idea that the task of science is the search for truth, that is, for true theories…Yet we also stress that truth is not the only aim of science. We want more than mere truth; what we look for is interesting truth—truth which is hard to come by. And in the natural sciences (as distinct from mathematics) what we look for is truth which has a high degree of explanatory power, in the sense that it is logically improbable truth (Popper, Selections 190)

Popper’s definition of truth leads into the most interesting and far-reaching of Kuhn’s proposals: Science as puzzle-solving activity.
Throughout the text Kuhn argues for science as a “puzzle-solving” in the sense that the scientist looks for a theory-experiment “fit.” There is no need to reintroduce his thought as it is extremely well presented. It remains the major contribution of Kuhn to introduce the scientist as a “puzzle-solver.” However there is an important implication here in the sense that it allows for history, like science, to adopt a “scientific method.” The suggestion is important allowing for different schools of historiography to engage in discourse as co-exiting and somewhat complementary entities. It is therefore not surprising that Thomas Kuhn is required reading in courses on historical methodology but not in the natural sciences.

Works Cited
Appleby, Joyce etal. Telling the Truth About History. New York; W.W. Norton &
Company 1995.
Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago; The University of
Chicago Press, 1996.
Popper, Karl. Popper Selections ed. David Miller. Princeton; Princeton University
Press, 1985.

Review of Social Death and Resurrection: Slavery and Emancipation in South Africa

2008-12-21T03:23:00.000-08:00

Review of Social Death and Resurrection:
Slavery and Emancipation in South Africa

Kavian Milani

There is little doubt that slavery as practiced in the modern era, in the form of chattel slavery, and its many other faces is one of the most malevolent institutions experienced by humanity. Slavery, while an ancient phenomenon, and a constant presence in the annals of human history, nevertheless developed in its most violent and dehumanizing form in the New World simultaneous with the rise of capitalist society and the advent of modernity. In the book under consideration John Edwin Mason engages in an attempt to “impose order” over the (undoubtedly) discordant and diverse slave narratives preserved by the South African legal records. In reconstructing the narratives he presents the reader with a glimpse of the violence perpetrated against generations of the slave population. His analysis is very important on at least two grounds: That it presents a picture based on primary evidence and that he applies a novel and innovative model advanced by Orlando Patterson, the Harvard sociologist.
The theoretical thrust of Mason’s analysis is Patterson’s ground-breaking framework of “social death.” The analysis as originally advanced by Patterson suggest that the violence inherent in slavery (potential and actual) accompanied by “alienation” and “degradation” caused the social death of the individual in bondage, as well as the social death of the slave community. While the “social death” model was primarily advanced to explain developments in the New World, and especially with respect to Chattel slavery prevalent in America, the model is nevertheless suitable for application to other historical and social settings. The model is particularly powerful in that a study of the Hebrew Scripture and the Christian Scripture indicates that in the Biblical sense “sin” is that which causes alienation and dehumanization. It is here that Patterson’s model finds it’s most useful application. Individual sin, one may argue causes dehumanization and “death,” whereas an evil institution like slavery dehumanizes entire races or classes for generations. Mason, following Patterson has an interest in finding Biblical references and metaphors. Much is made of the “Jesus’ washes his disciples’ feet” much as the slaves were to wash their master’s feet. The “ritual of humiliation” interests Mason who at all times is eagerly seeking a Biblical metaphor. Another Biblical metaphor of interest to Mason is the metaphor of “old wines, new bottles” which is traceable to the text of the Christian Scripture where Jesus turns the water into wine, and the wine is to be placed in “new bottles.”
Another Biblical metaphor that figures prominently in Mason’s work is that of “resurrection.” Here again Mason acknowledges his intellectual debt to Patterson. Resurrection is appropriately juxtaposed against “social death.” For Patterson, and Mason, the slaves struggled for resurrection, and to become “legitimate members of society, to be socially born again.” To this reader it appears that the juxtaposition of “social death” and “resurrection,” closely follows another useful analytical model, that of hegemony and counter-hegemonic discourse. In Mason’s model the struggle between death and resurrection is a historical “process” rather than an instantaneous event. Hegemony has been defined as a “set of nested, continuous processes through which power and meaning are contested, legitimized, and redefined at all levels of society.” The master-slave relationship is one locus where the hegemonic process was taking place in Colonial South Africa. Throughout Social Death and Resurrection Mason goes to great length to prove that the slaves had historical agency and that they were to a large degree involved in resistance from below. In so doing he strives to locate the slave voice in the Colonial archives and records. He succeeds in finding the “counter-hegemonic” slave voice to a large degree. Mason’s narrative with its emphasis on “story telling” is accordingly very powerful. Here Mason is at his best “imposing order” on the turbulent slave world while simultaneously “linking the theoretical to the empirical” data.
One should remember however that Mason finds his counter-hegemonic voice (or better yet resurrection) in the records maintained by the hegemonic (and Colonial) power. In fact in no case do we find a single narrative or slave story preserved in slave traditions or oral traditions in the indigent population. Given Mason’s interest in preserving the “story” of the slaves and in finding their voice it is both sad and ironic that the slaves voice and narrative can be located only in the colonial record. Hence we are inevitably looking at the slave narrative through the colonial lens. Perhaps other readers will forgive Mason this methodological sin given the obvious limitations of the historical record, however to this reader it would have been fairer to have Mason acknowledge this limitation.
One particular critique of most progressive studies of slavery was presented by Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman in Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (1974). In this highly controversial (and economically based) analysis the authors attempt to undermine popular misconceptions of the social, economic, nutrition, medical, and humane aspects of slavery and slave life. They suggest that the slave life was comparable in many major parameters to the life of “white slave owners.” The analysis presented in Time on the Cross concerns the situation in American Chattel slavery, and not colonial South Africa, yet it would have been instructive for Mason to address Fogel and Engerman’s reconstruction and recasting of slavery. Did the South African slaves “really” have it as bad as we believe? Could the general picture painted be more of a myth than real?
Fogel and Engelman’s (far fetched and selectively biased) reconstruction and rehabilitation of slavery aside Mason remains open to criticisms of the kind presented in Time on the Cross. Especially important is that Mason seems to favor an anecdotal approach in collecting and presenting his evidence. Mason introduces the reader to perhaps a few hundred slaves and their narratives in Social Death and Resurrection. One is also told that the total slave population “liberated” in 1838 exceeded 36,000. Accordingly less than 1 percent of slave’s lives have been in any way captured in Mason’s evidence and narrative. Is this a representative sample? What is the incidence and prevalence of the events described and captured by Mason? Can the reader generalize the data to the entire body of slaves in South Africa? I am not sure that Mason addresses this particular issue and it perhaps may not stand to closer interrogation and scrutiny.
In short, I found Mason’s book an interesting and provocative read. It was particularly valuable in creating (while acknowledging the methodological debt) a fresh model to investigate slavery in South Africa and its historical transition to 1838 and the “liberation” of slaves in 1838. Especially noteworthy is that Mason convincingly makes the point that the slaves had significant historical agency and actively sought to liberate themselves from the dehumanizing and alienating oppression of slavery.

Present professor, present

2008-12-18T19:32:00.000-08:00

This is a piece by a Baha'i Student expelled from an Iranian University based on religious belief. She is a Baha'i.

Present professor, present!

Setylite – 19 – Iran

Back there, where my dream lives, my name is still read out loud by a voice searching for me to come back one day and say: Present professor, present!

An expectation that is never going to be met; although it's been a long time since heroes in America sacrificed their lives in search of freedom, my country is still far from the twenty first century. It is still the Middle Ages here. Communication with that better outside world has made us aware of the hell we're living in, but yet communication alone doesn't end this unwanted community control.

Back there where I will always call home, back there where my young spirit will always remain due to the sudden deprivation it has gone through, back there where all the things I ever wanted are gathered, the walls are still reflecting my shadow. I am still half there, half here. The windows even don't believe my sudden disappearance. The rulers believe it though. They feel no guilt about what they've done to me while I wonder how they manage to go to sleep at nights, having the face of the nineteen year old girl, whom they kept at the gate of her very own university, haunting them.

All the ceramics of the floor mirror my darkened image.

Doors that went locked to me! I will consider this failure as a leap forward and I will reach heaven with it! I am seeking greatness and I'll find it. If not in a major of English Literature in Tehran University, then in a silent dusty page of an English poetry book. If not in a city where I breathe in, then in a town far off. If not in the time I am living in, then in a time so long from now that its vision even is not clear. If I have to follow your religion to be able to live with you, then dying free and Godless is better than a hundred years of slavery.

In real life I have to be realistic. But here, it's another world. I can have as many strange and foolish dreams as I want in the presence of Langston Hugheses and Shelleys. They will not mock or tease me. They will take my hand and guide me ahead. Sometimes only things that lead me through in these dark years are the faces of my dead poets. I sleep with them and I wake up in the morning all vigorous and fresh.

Who cares if that man with his beard and his fellow prejudiced colleagues wanted me to fall down and die? I will live victoriously and prove them all wrong.

If they could not see my happiness, it doesn't mean that I should be sad. I can live alone on my own with my own thoughts and be a hundred times more satisfied than to live under their control and lower my understanding so as to meet their small mind capacity.

I have always proudly claimed that I have an international religion, and that is, to live freely. I reserve everybody the right to live poetically, meaning they be able to make their idealist wishes come true; everybody including the people in my widely oppressed homeland.

I was called one day in September 2008 and told that if I wanted to continue my studies at college, I had to become a Muslim. I was just about to start my third semester and was excessively excited about it. I loved everything about my major and my college, which was the best one in my country and to which I had been accepted because of my being ranked 53 among the hundreds of thousands participants at the entrance test. A little bit on and off, and then at the end of October 2008, I was prevented entrance into the campus. I was a top student there and had found a good opportunity to get my English poems published in the United States with the help of a very dear professor of mine. Other top students at my college are now benefitting from the privilege they have to study two majors simultaneously. Me? I can't even attend my classes. I walk past the gates of the university and… nothing for me except for the memory of being kicked out.

I remember being taken to the administrative head of the faculty and hearing him say, "You should declare publicly that you are no more related to the deviant community of Baha'is in order to be able to come back to college, otherwise you'll no more have the right to study in Iran's universities."

There was one most awful week; a week that fed me with the feeling that I was a criminal. I was regularly called on in the middle of my classes to the officials or sometimes the guardians of the faculty (those men who sit at the gates of the universities in Iran and keep asking girls to cover themselves in their hejabs and will not let them enter if they have make-up or tight and short mantoes.) and interviewed by them in the most unfair ways as if I were a terrorist. One day when I wanted to enter the faculty at 2pm, they called my name and said that I could not go there anymore and that I had to see the academic officials to solve my problem. The next day I went to talk with those officials and they said I had no academic issues. Later that day I went back inside the college and nobody stopped me. But then again the morrow, at 8:30am, they asked me to go back to the people I had gone to the previous day because now there was a new problem. I went there and the academic officials said that my problem was not related to them, but to Hirasat, the office of controlling students' moralities, the office with the highest power and the only one that can expel students for reasons other than their academic failures. This office could expel me solely for being Baha'i or even for shaking hands with fellow student boys, an act which is forbidden by Islam rules.

I can still clearly recall the last class I attended there. It was an early morning class and certainly the best class I've ever attended in my whole life. It was a class of pure literature, the most liberal and open-minded subject on earth. Barely thirty minutes had passed when the guardians came to the door and asked the professor to let me go out because I had some problems regarding my status as a legal student in the university. I knew it was the last minute of my presence there, but I didn't get the time to look back at the building and respire. They were escorting me to the door; only cuffs were missing from that scene. I took a taxi and went to the main campus and talked to the administrative head and then to Hirasat and never went back to my classes again.

And still here I sit, waiting for a change that I alone cannot bring, with a shocking story to tell my grandchildren about a girl who lulled herself to sleep by fantasizing her past life, when I am old and they hopefully are free and experience nothing like their grandmother. Or if I be lucky enough, I might go back to college one day soon, and answer to my professor calling my name: Present professor, present I'll always be!

The Baha’i Presence in Israel: The Myth and the Construction of Memory

2008-12-18T10:32:00.000-08:00

The Baha’i Presence in Israel: The Myth and the Construction of Memory

Kavian S. Milani

Seldom has the presence of a religion in a part of the World created more misunderstandings or generate more harm to the body of believers than the historical presence of the Baha’is in Israel. This is especially true given the actual and threatened harm Iranian Baha’is face because of this historical accident.

Three other Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are present in Israel, and all three were present before the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. There seems to be no persecution of the Christian community, say, in Iran, on grounds of an affiliation between the birth of Jesus Christ having been in Bethlehem or that most of the events of his life took place in lands currently located in modern day Israel. Clearly these lands have spiritual relevance for Christians and for most Churches, but Christians are not persecuted as agents for the State of Israel, or Zionism in Iran or elsewhere. Likewise Muslims, whose Holy Book prophesied the return and establishment of Jews in Israel, and whose original point of direction in prayer (Qiblih) was located in Jerusalem have never faced persecution on grounds of their continuous attention to this land. Neither have they been victimized given the primacy of Israel as the route by which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to the heavens on the Night Journey (Mi’raj) from Hijaz.

The case of the Baha’is, however, has proven different. The Baha’i Community in Iran is officially persecuted in Iran on grounds of an unproven link to Israel, and pro-zionism activities. This myth which has now become part of the official memory given the decades of anti-Baha’i propaganda suggests that the Baha’is and the State of Israel are linked, given that the Baha’i World Centre is located in the Haifa, Israel. Unfortunately, the consequence has been that this myth—like most myths unchallenged by facts and data—has found a place in the historical memory of the nation. No one seems to remember that Baha’u’llah was exiled by two most powerful Monarchs of the Islamic World to a remote corner of the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and that Baha’u’llah arrived there in 1868, some eighty years before the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948. The presence of the Baha’is was already a fact before the migration of the Jews begun in the 1900s and led to the eventual foundation of the Jewish State.

As such the historical accident of the exile of Baha’u’llah and a nucleus of his followers to this remote corner of the Ottoman Empire has become an excuse for the persecution of the youngest of World Religions.

The Baha’i Presence in Israel: The Fake Web Log Syndrome

2008-12-18T10:31:00.000-08:00

The Baha’i Presence in Israel: The Fake Web Log Syndrome

The other day I came across a web log that is supposedly being run by self-professed “hardliner Jews.” I have to admit that anything written by a self-professed hard-liner Jew is a must read for me, because there is yet a Jewish person to be seen that uses “hard-liner” as an adjective for oneself. Jews may be Orthodox or Reformed or secular or perhaps conservative but “hardliner” is not an appropriate internal designation. It is one of those give-away signs that subliminally say: “I am making this up” or “I am a fake website!” We see examples of this in Iran when a self-professed supposed Baha’i is quoted government propaganda in Iran saying “I am a member of Baha’ism!” Then one knows the propaganda machine is at work. Such is the case with the web log: http://jewbahais.blogspot.com/

I don't know how it is in the gamma-quadrant, but here on Earth where truth and objectivity matter the façade of a hardliner Jew asking for increased Baha’i activity is ridiculous enough, but the web log shows some overt ignorance of basic Baha’i nomenclature. Clusters A, B, C and D are for example introduced, and an A – Cluster is defined as one is one in which “1000 converts” a year are seen. This is further evidence that this web log was generated by someone not familiar with basic Baha’i language.

It also slips-up where it states that a meeting for Baha'is of Jewish background will be held in November in New York City, but pictures are produced from British Baha'is taken at a meeting in London! No such meeting is planned! When this was kindly pointed out, instead of apologizing the author took the fake photo down and replaced it with another picture supposedly from New York City, but this one from is actually from Newcastle!!

Here is one example I find exceedingly funny. The author of the web log writes in an appeal to the Heads of the State of Israel ‘Let our Infalliable ‘House of Justice’ issue special Messages to the Baha’is “How to Teach Jew Youths.”’ Of course infallible is misspelled. Are there no spell checks available in Iran? Furthermore, one has to ask what special message is being talked about. Is this the follow-up message to “How to Teach American Youths” or “How to Teach Muslim Youths”! There is no “How to” series on teaching anyone, Israeli Jewish Youth included. What is next on the fabrication list? “Teaching Marxists Made Ridiculously Simple” or “Everyman’s Guide to Teaching Martians” are probably coming attractions!

It speaks to the sorry state of affairs in Iran, and to the failure of normative discourses that anti-Baha’i forces and their propaganda machine have decided to move into the creation of bogus websites.