The burst of enrolments brought with it, however, equally great problems.
At the immediate level, the resources of Baha"i communities engaged in the work were soon overwhelmed by the task of providing the sustained deepening the ma.s.ses of new believers needed and the consolidation of the resulting communities and Spiritual a.s.semblies. Beyond that, cultural challenges like those encountered by the early Persian believers who had first sought to introduce the Faith in Western lands now replicated themselves throughout the world. Theological and administrative principles that might be of consuming interest to pioneers and teachers were seldom those that were central to the concern of new declarants from very different social and cultural backgrounds. Often, differences of view about even such elementary matters as the use of time or simple social conventions created gaps of understanding that made communication extremely difficult.
Initially, such problems proved stimulating as both Baha"i inst.i.tutions and individual believers struggled to find new ways of looking at situations-new ways, indeed, of understanding important pa.s.sages in the Baha"i Writings themselves. Determined efforts were made to respond to the guidance of the World Centre that expansion and consolidation are twin processes that must go hand in hand. Where hoped for results did not readily materialize, however, a measure of discouragement frequently set in. The initial rapid rise in enrolment rates slowed markedly in many countries, tempting some Baha"i inst.i.tutions and communities to turn back to more familiar activities and more accessible publics.
The princ.i.p.al effect of the setbacks, however, was that they brought home to communities that the high expectations of the early years were in some respects quite unrealistic. Although the easy successes of the initial teaching activities were encouraging, they did not, by themselves, build a Baha"i community life that could meet the needs of its new members and be self-generating. Rather, pioneers and new believers alike faced questions for which Baha"i experience in Western lands-or even Iran-offered few answers. How were Local Spiritual a.s.semblies to be established-and once established, how were they to function-in areas where large numbers of new believers had joined the Cause overnight, simply on the strength of their spiritual apprehension of its truth? How, in societies dominated by men since the dawn of time, were women to be accorded an equal voice? How was the education of large numbers of children to be systematically addressed in cultural situations where poverty and illiteracy prevailed? What priorities should guide Baha"i moral teaching, and how could these objectives best be related to prevailing indigenous conventions? How could a vibrant community life be cultivated that would stimulate the spiritual growth of its members? What priorities, too, should be set with respect to the production of Baha"i literature, particularly given the sudden explosion that had taken place in the number of languages represented in the community? How could the integrity of the Baha"i inst.i.tution of the Nineteen Day Feast be maintained, while opening this vital activity to the enriching influence of diverse cultures? And, in all areas of concern, how were the necessary resources to be recruited, funded, and coordinated?
The pressure of these urgent and interlocking challenges launched the Baha"i world on a learning process that has proved to be as important as the expansion itself. It is safe to say that during these years there was virtually no type of teaching activity, no combination of expansion, consolidation and proclamation, no administrative option, no effort at cultural adaptation that was not being energetically tried in some part of the Baha"i world. The net result of the experience was an intensive education of a great part of the Baha"i community in the implications of the ma.s.s teaching work, an education that could have occurred in no other way. By its very nature, the process was largely local and regional in focus, qualitative rather than quant.i.tative in its gains, and incremental rather than large-scale in the progress achieved. Had it not been for the painstaking, always difficult and often frustrating consolidation work pursued during these years, however, the subsequent strategy of systematizing the promotion of entry by troops would have had very little with which to work.
The fact that the Baha"i message was now penetrating the lives not merely of small groups of individuals but of whole communities also had the effect of reviving a vital feature of an earlier stage in the advancement of the Cause. For the first time in decades, the Faith found itself once more in a situation where teaching and consolidation were inseparably bound up with social and economic development. In the early years of the century, under the guidance of the Master and the Guardian, the Iranian believers-denied the opportunity to partic.i.p.ate equally in whatever limited benefits the society of the day offered-had arisen to painstakingly construct a comprehensive community life of a kind beyond either the need or the reach of the relatively isolated Baha"i groups across North America and Western Europe. In Iran, spiritual and moral advancement, teaching activities, the creation of schools and clinics, the building of administrative inst.i.tutions, and the encouragement of initiatives aimed at economic self-sufficiency and prosperity-all had been from an early stage inseparable features of one organically unified process of development. Now-in Africa, in Latin America, and parts of Asia -the same challenges and opportunities had re-emerged.
While social and economic development activities had long been under way, particularly in Latin America and Asia, these had been isolated projects carried out by groups of believers under the guidance of individual National a.s.semblies, and unrelated to any plan. In October 1983, however, Baha"i communities throughout the world were called on to begin incorporating such efforts into their regular programmes of work. An Office of Social and Economic Development was created at the World Centre to coordinate learning and help seek financial support.
The decade that followed saw wide experimentation in a field of work for which most Baha"i inst.i.tutions had little preparation. While striving to benefit from the models being tried by the many development agencies operating around the world, Baha"i communities faced the challenge of relating what they found in various areas of concern-education, health, literacy, agriculture and communications technology-to their understanding of Baha"i principles. The temptation was great, given the magnitude of the resources being invested by governments and foundations, and the confidence with which this effort was pursued, merely to borrow methods current at the moment or to adapt Baha"i efforts to prevailing theories.
As the work evolved, however, Baha"i inst.i.tutions began turning their attention to the goal of devising development paradigms that could a.s.similate what they were observing in the larger society to the Faith"s unique conception of human potentialities.
Nowhere was the strategy of the successive Plans so impressively vindicated as was the case in India. The community there has today become a giant of the Cause, numbering well over a million souls. Its work stretches across the expanse of a vast sub-continent, home to an immense diversity of cultures, languages, ethnic groups and religious traditions.
In many respects, the experience of this greatly blessed body of believers encapsulates the Baha"i world"s struggles, experiments, setbacks and victories throughout these critical three decades. The dramatic rise in enrolments had brought with it all of the problems being encountered elsewhere in the world, but on a ma.s.sive scale. The long road leading the Indian Baha"i community to its present-day eminence was beset with the most painful difficulties, some of which threatened at times to overwhelm the administrative resources available. The victories won, however, provide a foretaste of the confirmations that will in time bless the efforts of Baha"i communities struggling with the same challenges on other continents. By 1985, the growth of the Faith in India had reached the point where the needs and opportunities of so many diverse regions called for more sharply focused attention than the National Spiritual a.s.sembly alone could provide. Thus was born the new inst.i.tution of the Regional Baha"i Council, setting in motion the process of administrative decentralization that has since proven so effective in many other lands.
In 1986, the expansion and consolidation taking place in India were befittingly crowned with the inauguration of the beautiful "Lotus Temple".
Although the project had raised optimistic expectations as to the impact its completion would have on public recognition of the Faith, the reality has infinitely surpa.s.sed the brightest of such hopes. Today, India"s House of Worship has become the foremost visitors" attraction on the subcontinent, welcoming an average of over ten thousand visitors every day, and featuring prominently in publications, films and television productions. The interest aroused in a Faith that could inspire and embody itself in so magnificent a creation has given new meaning to the description by "Abdu"l-Baha of Baha"i Temples as "silent teachers" of the Faith.
The progress of the Indian Baha"i community, both in its internal development and its relationship with the larger society, was ill.u.s.trated by a pioneering initiative undertaken in November 2000 in the field of social and economic development. Taking advantage of the reputation it had deservedly won among progressive circles in the country, the National Spiritual a.s.sembly hosted, in collaboration with the Baha"i International Community"s newly created Inst.i.tute for Studies in Global Prosperity,(123) a symposium on the subject of "Science, Religion and Development". The project engaged the partic.i.p.ation of over one hundred of the most influential development organizations in the country and inspired national media coverage. Marking out a distinctive Baha"i contribution to the promotion of social advancement, the event set the stage for symposia of the same kind in Africa, Latin America and other regions, where creative Baha"i communities can help shape what may well become one of the Faith"s major success stories.
During these same years, the Asian continent also saw the sudden emergence of the Malaysian Baha"i community as an engine of the expansion work, winning its own goals with stunning speed and dispatching pioneers and travelling teachers to neighbouring lands. A development that made this dramatic advance possible was the bonds of spiritual partnership that had been woven between believers of Chinese and Indian backgrounds. Visitors to Malaysia spoke, with something approaching awe, of the way in which the Malaysian community, although working under many constraints and disabilities, seemed to be the very embodiment of the military metaphors with which Shoghi Effendi"s writings seek to capture the spirit of Baha"i teaching efforts.
Neither the world-wide growth of the Baha"i community nor the process of learning it was experiencing, however, tell the whole story of these tumultuous and creative decades. When the history of the period is eventually written, one of its most brilliant chapters will recount the spiritual victories won by Baha"i communities, in Africa particularly, who survived war, terror, political oppression and extreme privations, and who emerged from these tests with their faith intact, determined to resume the interrupted work of building a viable Baha"i collective life. The community in Ethiopia, homeland of one of the world"s oldest and richest cultural traditions, succeeded in maintaining both the morale of its members and the coherence of its administrative structures under relentless pressure from a brutal dictatorship. Of the friends in other countries on the continent, it may be truly said that their path of faithfulness to the Cause led through a h.e.l.l of suffering seldom equalled in modern history. The annals of the Faith possess few more moving testimonies to the sheer power of the spirit than the stories of courage and purity of heart emerging from the inferno that engulfed the friends in what was then Zaire, stories that will inspire generations to come and represent priceless contributions to the creation of a global Baha"i culture. Such countries as Uganda and Rwanda added unforgettable achievements of their own to this record of heroic struggle.
Inspiring, too, was the demonstration of the capacity for renewal that is inherent in the Cause and which emerged in Cambodian refugee camps along the Thailand border. Through the heroic efforts of a handful of teachers, Local Spiritual a.s.semblies were established among people who had survived a campaign of genocide almost beyond the capacity of the human heart to contemplate, who had lost countless loved ones as well as everything they possessed in the way of material security, but in whom still burned the longing of the human soul for spiritual truth. An extraordinary achievement of a related kind was that of the Liberian Baha"i community.
Driven from their homes into exile in neighbouring lands, many of these intrepid believers transported with them their whole community life, setting up Local Spiritual a.s.semblies, carrying on teaching work, continuing the education of their children, using their time to learn new skills, and finding in music, dance and drama powers of the spirit that helped keep hope alive until they could return to their country.
As the process of education in methods of ma.s.s teaching was taking place, the Faith"s membership was being transformed. In 1992, the Baha"i world celebrated its second Holy Year, this one marking the centenary of the ascension of Baha"u"llah and the promulgation of His Covenant. More eloquently than words could have done, the ethnic, cultural and national diversity of the 27,000 believers who gathered at the Javits Convention Center in New York City-together with the thousands present at nine auxiliary conferences in Bucharest, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi, Panama City, Singapore, Sydney and Western Samoa-provided compelling evidence of the success of Baha"i teaching work around the world. An affecting moment occurred when the network of satellite broadcasts linked the gathering in Moscow with the one taking place in New York City, and Baha"is everywhere thrilled to greetings in Russian-the common language of some 280 million people from at least fifteen countries-that proclaimed a new phase in humanity"s response to Baha"u"llah.
In the Moscow and Bucharest conferences could be glimpsed the rebirth of Baha"i communities that had been nearly extinguished under the oppression of the Soviet regime and its collaborators. One of the last three surviving Hands of the Cause, "Ali-Akbar Furutan, who had lived in Russia, had the great joy of returning to Moscow, at the age of eighty-six, for the inaugural election of the National a.s.sembly of that country. Local Spiritual a.s.semblies sprang up in all of the newly opened lands, and six new National Spiritual a.s.semblies were elected. In a brief s.p.a.ce of time, pioneering and teaching activities in countries along the southern rim of the former Soviet empire-where the Faith had been similarly proscribed-soon brought into existence still more Local a.s.semblies and eight additional National Spiritual a.s.semblies. Baha"i literature was translated into a range of new languages, energetic steps were taken to secure civil recognition of Baha"i inst.i.tutions, and representatives from Eastern Europe and the countries of the now vanished Soviet bloc began partic.i.p.ating with their fellow believers in the external affairs work of the Faith at the international level.
Gradually, too, the message of the Faith began to find a welcome in many parts of China and among Chinese populations abroad. Baha"i literature was translated into Mandarin, university audiences in many Chinese cities extended invitations to Baha"i scholars, a Centre for Baha"i Studies was established at the prestigious Inst.i.tute of World Religions in Beijing,(124) which operates within the Academy of Social Sciences, and many Chinese dignitaries have been generous in their appreciation of the principles they discover in the Writings. In light of the high praise of the Master for Chinese civilization and its role in humanity"s future, one begins to antic.i.p.ate the creative contribution that believers from this background will make to the intellectual and moral life of the Cause in the years ahead.(125)
The significance of these three decades of struggle, learning and sacrifice became apparent when the moment arrived to devise a global Plan that would capitalize on the insights gained and the resources that had been developed. The Baha"i community that set out on the Four Year Plan in 1996 was a very different one from the eager, but new and still inexperienced body of believers who, in 1964, had ventured out on the first of such undertakings that were no longer sustained by the guiding hand of Shoghi Effendi. By 1996, it had become possible to see all of the distinct strands of the enterprise as integral parts of one coherent whole.
With this education had also come a much needed perspective on what had been accomplished. The expansion of the Cause over the preceding three decades had represented the response of several million human beings who had been affected by their encounter with the message of Baha"u"llah to the point that they were moved to identify themselves in varying degrees with the Cause of G.o.d. They were aware that a new Messenger of the Divine had appeared, had caught something of the spirit of faith, and had been strongly affected by the Baha"i teaching of the oneness of humankind. A small minority among them were able to go beyond this point. For the most part, however, these friends were essentially recipients of teaching programmes conducted by teachers and pioneers from outside. One of the great strengths of the ma.s.ses of humankind from among whom the newly enrolled believers came lies in an openness of heart that has the potentiality to generate lasting social transformation. The greatest handicap of these same populations has so far been a pa.s.sivity learned through generations of exposure to outside influences which, no matter how great their material advantages, have pursued agendas that were often related only tangentially-if at all-to the realities of the needs and daily lives of indigenous peoples.
The Four Year Plan, which was a major advance on those that immediately preceded it, was designed to take advantage of the opportunities and insights thus offered. The goal of advancing the process of entry by troops became the single-minded aim of the enterprise. The lessons that had been learned during earlier Plans now placed the emphasis on developing the capacities of believers-wherever they might be-so that all could arise as confident protagonists of the Faith"s mission. The instrument to accomplish this objective had been undergoing steady refinement during the earlier Plans and had demonstrated its efficacy.
As with most of the other methods and activities by which the Faith was advancing, this instrument had likewise been conceived decades earlier by the Master, who calls in the Tablets of the Divine Plan for deepened believers to "gather together the youths of the love of G.o.d in schools of instruction and teach them all the divine proofs and irrefragable arguments, explain and elucidate the history of the Cause, and interpret also the prophecies and proofs which are recorded and are extant in the divine books and epistles regarding the manifestation of the Promised One...."(126) Pioneering work and organized training of this nature had already been done in Iran, during the early years of the century, by the much-loved ?adru"?-?udur.(127) As the years pa.s.sed, winter and summer schools had multiplied, and successive Plans also encouraged experimentation in the development of Baha"i inst.i.tutes.
By far the most significant advance in this latter respect occurred over a period of more than two decades, beginning in the 1970s in Colombia, where a systematic and sustained programme of education in the Writings was devised and soon adopted in neighbouring countries. Influenced by the Colombian community"s parallel efforts in the field of social and economic development, the breakthrough was all the more impressive in the fact that it was achieved against a background of violence and lawlessness that was deranging the life of the surrounding society.
The Colombian achievement proved a source of great inspiration and example to Baha"i communities elsewhere in the world. By the time the Four Year Plan ended, over one hundred thousand believers were involved world-wide in the programmes of the more than three hundred permanent training inst.i.tutes. In accomplishing this goal, a majority of regional inst.i.tutes had carried the process a stage further by creating networks of "study circles" which utilize the talents of believers to replicate the work of the inst.i.tute at a local level. It is already apparent that the success of the inst.i.tute work has significantly reinforced the long-term process by which a universal system of Baha"i education will take shape.(128)
Although the struggles of these decades were relatively modest-at least when set against the standard of the Heroic Age-they provide the present generation of Baha"is with a window on what Shoghi Effendi describes as the cyclical nature of the Faith"s history: "a series of internal and external crises, of varying severity, devastating in their immediate effects, but each mysteriously releasing a corresponding measure of divine power, lending thereby a fresh impulse to its unfoldment."(129) These words put into perspective the succession of efforts, experiments, heartbreaks and victories that characterized the beginning of large-scale teaching, and prepared the Baha"i community for the much greater challenges ahead.
Throughout history, the ma.s.ses of humanity have been, at best, spectators at the advance of civilization. Their role has been to serve the designs of whatever elite had temporarily a.s.sumed control of the process. Even the successive Revelations of the Divine, whose objective was the liberation of the human spirit, were, in time, taken captive by "the insistent self", were frozen into man-made dogma, ritual, clerical privilege and sectarian quarrels, and reached their end with their ultimate purpose frustrated.
Baha"u"llah has come to free humanity from this long bondage, and the closing decades of the twentieth century were devoted by the community of His followers to creative experimentation with the means by which His objective can be realized. The prosecution of the Divine Plan entails no less than the involvement of the entire body of humankind in the work of its own spiritual, social and intellectual development. The trials encountered by the Baha"i community in the decades since 1963 are those necessary ones that refine endeavour and purify motivation so as to render those who would take part worthy of so great a trust. Such tests are the surest evidences of that process of maturation which "Abdu"l-Baha so confidently described:
Some movements appear, manifest a brief period of activity, then discontinue. Others show forth a greater measure of growth and strength, but before attaining mature development, weaken, disintegrate and are lost in oblivion.... There is still another kind of movement or cause which from a very small, inconspicuous beginning goes forward with sure and steady progress, gradually broadening and widening until it has a.s.sumed universal dimensions. The Baha"i Movement is of this nature.(130)
X
Baha"u"llah"s mission is not limited to the building of the Baha"i community. The Revelation of G.o.d has come for the whole of humanity, and it will win the support of the inst.i.tutions of society to the extent that they find in its example encouragement and inspiration for their efforts to lay the foundations of a just society. To appreciate the importance of this parallel concern, one has only to recall the time and care that Baha"u"llah Himself devoted to cultivating relationships with government officials, leaders of thought, prominent figures in various minority groups, and the diplomatic representatives of foreign governments a.s.signed to service in the Ottoman empire. The spiritual effect of this effort is apparent in the tributes paid to His character and principles by even such bitter enemies as "ali Pa_sh_a and the Persian amba.s.sador to Constantinople, Mirza ?usayn _Kh_an. The former, who condemned his Prisoner to banishment in the penal colony at "Akka, was nevertheless moved to describe Him as "a man of great distinction, exemplary conduct, great moderation, and a most dignified figure", whose teachings were, in the minister"s opinion "worthy of high esteem".(131) The latter, whose machinations had been princ.i.p.ally responsible for poisoning the minds of "ali Pa_sh_a and his colleagues, frankly admitted, in later years, the great contrast between the moral and intellectual stature of his Enemy and the harm done to Persian-Turkish relations by the reputation for greed and dishonesty that characterized most of his other countrymen resident in Constantinople.
From the beginning, "Abdu"l-Baha took keen interest in efforts to bring into existence a new international order. It is significant, for example, that His early public references in North America to the purpose of His visit there placed particular emphasis on the invitation of the organizing committee of the Lake Mohonk Peace Conference for Him to address this international gathering. He had also been generous in His encouragement of the Central Organization for a Durable Peace at The Hague. He was, however, entirely candid in the counsel He provided. Letters which the Executive Committee of The Hague organization had written to Him during the course of the war provided the opportunity for a response that drew the organizers" attention to Baha"u"llah"s enunciation of spiritual truths which alone can provide a foundation for the realization of their aims:
O ye esteemed ones who are pioneers among the well-wishers of the world of humanity!... At present Universal Peace is a matter of great importance, but unity of conscience is essential, so that the foundation of this matter may become secure, its establishment firm and its edifice strong.... Today nothing but the power of the Word of G.o.d which encompa.s.ses the realities of things can bring the thoughts, the minds, the hearts and the spirits under the shade of one Tree. He is the potent in all things, the vivifier of souls, the preserver and the controller of the world of mankind.(132)
Beyond this, the list of influential persons with whom the Master spent patient hours in both North America and Europe-particularly individuals struggling to promote the goal of world peace and humanitarianism-reflects His awareness of the responsibility the Cause has to humanity at large. As the extraordinary response evoked by His pa.s.sing testifies, He pursued this course to the end of His life.
Shoghi Effendi took up this legacy almost immediately upon beginning his ministry. As early as 1925, he encouraged the interest of an American believer, Jean Stannard, to establish an "International Baha"i Bureau", directing her to Geneva, seat of the League of Nations. While the Bureau exercised no administrative authority, it acted, in the Guardian"s words, "as intermediary between Haifa and other Baha"i centers" and served as an information "distributing center" in the heart of Europe, its role being formally recognized when the League"s publishing house solicited and published an account of the Bureau"s activities.(133)
As has so often been the case in the history of the Cause, an unexpected crisis served to greatly advance Baha"i involvement with the larger society at the international level. In 1928, Shoghi Effendi encouraged the Spiritual a.s.sembly of Baghdad to appeal to the League"s Permanent Mandates Commission against the seizure, by _Sh_i"ih opponents, of Baha"u"llah"s House in that city. Recognizing the wrong that had been done, the Council of the League unanimously called on the British mandate authority, in March 1929, to press the Iraqi government "with a view to the immediate redress of the injustice suffered by the Pet.i.tioners". Repeated evasions by the Iraqi government, including the violation of a solemn pledge on the part of the monarch himself, resulted in the case dragging on for years through successive sessions of the Mandates Commission, leaving the House in the hands of those who had seized it, a situation that remains to this day uncorrected.(134) Undeterred by this failure, Shoghi Effendi focused the attention of the Baha"i community on the historic benefit that the campaign had won for the Cause. As had earlier been the case with the Sunni Muslim court"s rejection of the appeal of an Egyptian Baha"i community regarding marriage, the Guardian pointed out:
Suffice it to say that, despite these interminable delays, protests and evasions ... the publicity achieved for the Faith by this memorable litigation, and the defence of its cause-the cause of truth and justice-by the world"s highest tribunal, have been such as to excite the wonder of its friends and to fill with consternation its enemies.(135)
The birth of the United Nations opened to the Faith a far broader and more effective forum for its efforts toward exerting a spiritual influence on the life of society. As early as 1947, a special "Palestine Committee" of the United Nations solicited the views of the Guardian on the future of that mandated territory. His response to the inquiry provided an opportunity for him to forward an authoritative exposition of the history and teachings of the Cause itself. That same year, with Shoghi Effendi"s encouragement, the National Spiritual a.s.sembly of the United States and Canada submitted to the international organization a doc.u.ment ent.i.tled "A Baha"i Declaration on Human Obligations and Rights", which was to inspire the work of Baha"i writers and spokespersons over the decades that followed.(136) A year later the eight National Spiritual a.s.semblies then in existence secured from the responsible United Nations body accreditation for "The Baha"i International Community" as an international non-governmental organization.
It was not only the Faith"s slowly emerging relationship with the new international order that elicited support of this kind from the Guardian.
The pages of _G.o.d Pa.s.ses By_ and Amatu"l-Baha"s memoirs of the Guardian are filled with references to responses that influential individuals and organizations made to initiatives taken by Shoghi Effendi and to the events around the world in which Baha"i representatives were invited to partic.i.p.ate. In the perspective of history, one is struck by the vast disparity between many of these relatively inconsequential occasions and the attention given them by a figure whose work was not only of enormous importance to humanity"s future, but who understood fully the relative significance of events unfolding around him. What the Baha"i community has been given in this careful record is a guide to the way that it must take up the growing opportunities born out of modest beginnings.
From the moment of its accreditation, the Baha"i International Community began to play an energetic role in United Nations" affairs. An activity that won it much appreciation was a programme carried out, through the expanding network of Baha"i a.s.semblies, to provide the public with information about the United Nations itself, and which gave generous support to struggling United Nations a.s.sociations throughout the world. By 1970, the Community had secured consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This was followed in 1974 by the granting of formal a.s.sociation with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and in 1976 by the acquisition of consultative status with the United Nations Children"s Fund (UNICEF). The influence and expertise developed during these years showed their capacity, in 1955 and 1962, when the Community was successful in securing United Nations"
intervention on behalf of the believers suffering persecution in Iran and Morocco, respectively.
In 1980, the patient external affairs activities of the National Spiritual a.s.semblies and the Community"s United Nations Office were suddenly propelled into a new stage of their development. The catalyst was the attempt by the _Sh_i"ih clergy of Iran to exterminate the Cause in the land of its birth. The consequences were as little antic.i.p.ated by the Faith"s persecutors as they were by its defenders.
Throughout the long decades in which the believers in the cradle of the Faith suffered intermittent persecution for their beliefs, the mullas, who instigated and led these attacks, acted in concert with the country"s succession of monarchs. The latter, ostensibly absolute in their authority, were in fact constrained by political calculations that rendered them vulnerable to outside pressures, particularly from Western governments. So it was that the outrage voiced by Russian, British and other diplomatic missions had compelled Na?iri"d-Din _Sh_ah, against his will, to bring to an end the orgy of violence that took so many believers"
lives in the early 1850s and threatened that of Baha"u"llah Himself.
During the twentieth century, his Qajar successors had been similarly concerned to placate the opinion of foreign governments. The pattern was repeated in 1955 when the second of the Pahlavi shahs, who had been induced by the mullas to approve a wave of anti-Baha"i violence, was forced by United Nations" protest and by objections on the part of the American government to abruptly halt the campaign-both interventions harbingers of things to come.
Such checks on the clergy"s behaviour seemed to have been swept away by the Islamic revolution of 1979. Suddenly, the mullas were themselves in power, appointing their own nominees to the highest positions in the new republic, and eventually taking over these posts directly. "Revolutionary courts" were set up, answering only to the senior clergy. An army of "revolutionary guards", far more effective than the shah"s secret police, and quite as brutal, took over control of every aspect of public life.
While the attention of the new ruling caste was focused chiefly on what it believed were threats from foreign governments, influential elements within it saw an opportunity at last to destroy the Iranian Baha"i community.(137) The harrowing details of the campaign that followed need no review here. Their significance lies, rather, in the response made to these attacks by thousands of individual Baha"is-men, women and children-throughout the country. Their refusal to compromise their faith, even at the cost of their lives, inspired in their fellow believers throughout the world a heightened dedication to the Cause for which these sacrifices were being made. It was not, however, only the members of the Faith who were affected by these events. Decades earlier, in 1889, a distinguished Western commentator on the heroism of the dawn-breakers of the Faith had prophetically written of the sufferings of the early believers:
It is the lives and deaths of these, their hope which knows no despair, their love which knows no cooling, their steadfastness which knows no wavering, which stamp this wonderful movement with a character entirely its own.... It is not a small or easy thing to endure what these have endured, and surely what they deemed worth life itself is worth trying to understand. I say nothing of the mighty influence which, as I believe, the Babi [sic] faith will exert in the future, nor of the new life it may perchance breathe into a dead people; for, whether it succeed or fail, the splendid heroism of the Babi martyrs is a thing eternal and indestructible.... But what I cannot hope to have conveyed to you is the terrible earnestness of these men, and the indescribable influence which this earnestness, combined with other qualities, exerts on any one who has actually been brought in contact with them.(138)