Bahaism and Its Claims: A Study of the Religion Promulgated by Baha Ullah and Abdul BahaWilson, Samuel Graham
Religion
Bahaism and Its Claims: A Study of the Religion Promulgated by Baha Ullah and Abdul Baha
Wilson, Samuel Graham
Bahai Faith -- Controversial literature
There is observable a wide-spread and influential movement among Moslems
for the amelioration of the condition of woman. This movement does not
have its source and inspiration in, nor is it peculiar to nor confined
to Bahaism. On the contrary, an oriental writer in a review of this
remarkable tendency says: "Its birth in Moslem lands undoubtedly is due
to the impact of the Occident upon the Orient, the missionary influence
playing a large part in it."[365] The new Moslems of India, under the
leadership of Justice Sayid Ali, as well as the Young Turks, Egyptians
and others, advocate freedom and education for women and have gone much
beyond the Bahais in practice. The Turkish women in Constantinople, who
aided in the establishment of the constitution and are aspiring to
enlarged liberty under its ægis, know Bahaism, if at all, simply as a
Persian heretical sect. The Persian women, described so graphically by
Mr. Shuster in "The Strangling of Persia,"[366] who formed clubs and
took such an active and heroic part in the constitutional agitation,
were not Bahai women. The Bahai women, as well as the men, were
forbidden by Abdul Baha to take part in the struggle for constitutional
liberty.[367] Professor Browne laments the lack of patriotism shown in
their conduct. Still the Bahais deserve some credit for the movement for
the uplift of Persian womanhood. They might have done much more,
notwithstanding the limitations to their liberty of action, had they
followed out the first ideals of the Bab. These were exemplified in the
celebrated Kurrat-ul-Ayn. This beautiful woman of genius--poet, scholar
and theologian, was a pupil at Kerbela, of Haji Kazim, the chief of the
Sheikhis. On his death she accepted the Bab, so that though a product of
the Sheikhi sect, her fame accrues to the honour of the Babis. At
Kerbela, she gave lectures on theology to the people from behind a
curtain, and at times, borne away by her enthusiasm and eloquence, would
allow her veil to slip off in the presence of men. Her preaching and
freedom of conduct was objected to even by Babis, but the Bab answered
them, commending her and giving her the title of Janab-i-Tahira, "Her
Excellency the Pure," and made her one of his nineteen "Letters of the
Living," or apostles. She is said to have claimed to be a
remanifestation of Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed. The Turkish
government at Bagdad began prosecution against her. She returned to
Persia and taught Babism even from the pulpit, at Kasvin, and also by
means of poetry. What were the social results of her breaking through
the restrictions of Islam? Her husband was Mullah Mohammed of Kasvin,
who was opposed to the Bab. On account of this she refused to live with
him. "In reply to all proposals of reconciliation, she answered: 'He, in
that he rejects God's religion is unclean, while I am 'Pure'; between us
there can be nothing in common.' So she refused to be reconciled to her
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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