Reconciliation of Races and Religions — 04 – [Part I. The Jewels of the Faiths]: Seyyid Kaẓim—Islam—Parsiism—Buddhism: From “On Aḥmad's death” to “…is too complex a question to be discussed here.”

SEYYID KAẒIM--ISLAM--PARSIISM--BUDDHISM

On Aḥmad's death the unanimous choice of the members of the school fell on Seyyid (Sayyid) Kaẓim of Resht, who had been already nominated by the Sheykh.

He pursued the same course as his predecessor, and attracted many inquirers and disciples.

Among the latter was the lady Kurratu'l 'Ayn, born in a town where the Sheykhi sect was strong, and of a family accustomed to religious controversy.

He was not fifty when he died, but his career was a distinguished one.

Himself a Gate, he discerned the successor by whom he was to be overshadowed, and he was the teacher of the famous lady referred to.

To what extent 'Ali Muḥammad (the subsequent Bāb) was instructed by him is uncertain.

It was long enough no doubt to make him a Sheykhite and to justify 'Ali Muḥammad in his own eyes for raising Sheykh Aḥmad and the Seyyid Kaẓim to the dignity of Bāb. [Footnote: _AMB_, pp. 91, 95; cp.

_NH_, p. 342. ] There seems to be conclusive evidence that Seyyid Kaẓim adverted often near the close of life to the divine Manifestation which he believed to be at hand.

He was fond of saying, 'I see him as the rising sun.'

He was also wont to declare that the 'Proof' would be a youth of the race of Hashim, i. e. a kinsman of Muḥammad, untaught in the learning of men.

Of a dream which he heard from an Arab (when in Turkish Arabia), he said, 'This dream signifies that my departure from the world is near at hand'; and when his friends wept at this, he remonstrated with them, saying, 'Why are ye troubled in mind?

Desire ye not that I should depart, and that the truth [in person] should appear?'

[Footnote: _NH_, p. 31. ] I leave it an open question whether Seyyid Kaẓim had actually fixed on the person who was to be his successor, and to reflect the Supreme Wisdom far more brilliantly than himself.

But there is no reason to doubt that he regarded his own life and labours as transitional, and it is possible that by the rising sun of which he loved to speak he meant that strange youth of Shiraz who had been an irregular attendant at his lectures.

Very different, it is true, is the Muḥammadan legend.

It states that 'Ali Muḥammad was present at Karbala from the death of the Master, that he came to an understanding with members of the school, and that after starting certain miracle-stories, all of them proceeded to Mecca, to fulfil the predictions which connected the Prophet-Messiah with that Holy City, where, with bared sabre, he would summon the peoples to the true God.

This will, I hope, suffice to convince the reader that both the Ṣufi Order and the Sheykhite Sect were true forerunners of Bābism and Bahaism.

He will also readily admit that, for the Ṣufis especially, the connexion with a church of so weak a historic sense was most unfortunate.

It would be the best for all parties if Muslims both within and without the Ṣufi Order accepted a second home in a church (that of Abha) whose historical credentials are unexceptionable, retaining membership of the old home, so as to be able to reform from within, but superadding membership of the new.

Whether this is possible on a large scale, the future must determine.

It will not be possible if those who combine the old home with a new one become themselves thereby liable to persecution.

It will not even be desirable unless the new-comers bring with them doctrinal (I do not say dogmatic) contributions to the common stock of Bahai truths--contributions of those things for which alone in their hearts the immigrant Muslim brothers infinitely care.

It will be asked, What are, to a Muslim, and especially to a Shi'ite Muslim, infinitely precious things?

I will try to answer this question.

First of all, in time of trouble, the Muslim certainly values as a 'pearl of great price' the Mercifulness and Compassion of God.

Those who believingly read the Ḳur'an or recite the opening prayer, and above all, those who pass through deep waters, cannot do otherwise.

No doubt the strict justice of God, corresponding to and limited by His compassion, is also a true jewel.

We may admit that the judicial severity of Allah has received rather too much stress; still there must be occasions on which, from earthly caricatures of justice pious Muslims flee for refuge in their thoughts to the One Just Judge.

Indeed, the great final Judgment is, to a good Muslim, a much stronger incentive to holiness than the sensuous descriptions of Paradise, which indeed he will probably interpret symbolically.

The true Muslim will be charitable even to the lower animals.

[Footnote: Nicholson, _The Mystics of Islam_, p. 108. ] Neither poor-law nor Society for the Protection of Animals is required in Muslim countries.

How soon organizations arose for the care of the sick, and, in war-time, of the wounded, it would be difficult to say;

for Buddhists and Hindus were of course earlier in the field than Muslims, inheriting as they did an older moral culture.

In the Muslim world, however, the twelfth century saw the rise of the Kadirite Order, with its philanthropic procedure.

[Footnote: D. S.

Margoliouth, _Mohammedanism_, pp. 211-212. ] Into the ideal of man, as conceived by our Muslim brothers, there must therefore enter the feature of mercifulness.

We cannot help sympathizing with this, even though we think Abdul Baha's ideal richer and nobler than any as yet conceived by any Muslim saint.

There is also the idea--the realized idea--of brotherhood, a brotherhood which is simply an extension of the equality of Arabian tribesmen.

There is no caste in Islam; each believer stands in the same relation to the Divine Sovereign.

There may be poor, but it is the rich man's merit to relieve them.

There may be slaves, but slaves and masters are religiously one, and though there are exceptions to the general kindliness of masters and mistresses, it is in East Africa that these lamentable inconsistencies are mostly found.

The Muslim brothers who may join the Bahais will not find it hard to shake off their moral weaknesses, and own themselves brothers of their servants.

Are we not all (they will say) sons of Adam?

Lastly, there is the character of Muḥammad.

Perfect he was not, but Baha'ullah was hardly quite fair to Muḥammad when (if we may trust a tradition) he referred to the Arabian prophet as a camel-driver.

It is a most inadequate description.

He had a 'rare beauty and sweetness of nature' to which he joined a 'social and political genius' and 'towering manhood.'

[Footnote: Sister Nivedita, _The Web of Indian Life_, pp. 242, 243. ] These are the chief contributions which Muslim friends and lovers will be able to make; these, the beliefs which we shall hold more firmly through our brothers' faith.

Will Muslims accept as well as proffer gifts?

Speaking of a Southern Morocco Christian mission, S. L.

Bensusan admits that it does not make Christians out of Moors, but claims that it 'teaches the Moors to live finer lives within the limits of their own faith.'

[Footnote: _Morocco_ (A. & C.

Black), p. 164. ] I should like to say something here about the sweetness of Muḥammad.

It appears not only in his love for his first wife and benefactress, Khadijah, but in his affection for his daughter, Fatima.

This affection has passed over to the Muslims, who call her very beautifully 'the Salutation of all Muslims.'

The Bābis affirm that Fatima returned to life in their own great heroine.

There is yet another form of religion that I must not neglect--the Zoroastrian or Parsi faith.

Far as this faith may have travelled from its original spirituality, it still preserved in the Bāb's time some elements of truth which were bound to become a beneficial leaven.

This high and holy faith (as represented in the Gathas) was still the religion of the splendour or glory of God, still the champion of the Good Principle against the Evil.

As if to show his respectful sympathy for an ancient and persecuted religion the Bāb borrowed some minor points of detail from his Parsi neighbours.

Not on these, however, would I venture to lay any great stress, but rather on the doctrines and beliefs in which a Parsi connexion may plausibly be held.

For instance, how can we help tracing a parallel between 'Ali and the Imams on the one hand and Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd) and his council of Amshaspands (Amesha-spentas) on the other?

The founders of both religions conceived it to be implied in the doctrine of the Divine Omnipresence that God should be represented in every place by His celestial councillors, who would counteract the machinations of the Evil Ones.

For Evil Ones there are; so at least Islam holds.

Their efforts are foredoomed to failure, because their kingdom has no unity or cohesion.

But strange mystic potencies they have, as all pious Muslims think, and we must remember that 'Ali Muḥammad (the Bāb) was bred up in the faith of Islam.

Well, then, we can now proceed further and say that our Parsi friends can offer us gifts worth the having.

When they rise in the morning they know that they have a great warfare to wage, and that they are not alone, but have heavenly helpers.

This form of representation is not indeed the only one, but who shall say that we can dispense with it?

Even if evil be but the shadow of good, a _M̬aya_, an appearance, yet must we not act as if it had a real existence, and combat it with all our might?

May we also venture to include Buddhism among the religions which may directly or indirectly have prepared the way for Bahaism?

We may; the evidence is as follows.

Manes, or Mani, the founder of the widely-spread sect of the Manichaeans, who lived in the third century of our era, writes thus in the opening of one of his books,-- [Footnote: _Literary History of Persia_, i. 103. ] 'Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to mankind by the messengers of God.

So in one age they have been brought by the messenger of God called Buddha to India, in another by Zoroaster to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West.

Thereafter this revelation has come down, this prophecy in this last age, through me, Mani, the Messenger of the God of Truth to Babylonia' ('Irak).

This is valid evidence for at least the period before that of Mani.

We have also adequate proofs of the continued existence of Buddhism in Persia in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; indeed, we may even assert this for Bactria and E. Persia with reference to nearly 1000 years before the Muḥammadan conquest.

[Footnote: R.

A.

Nicholson, _The Mystics_, p. 18. Cp.

E.

G.

Browne, _Lit.

Hist.

of Persia_, ii.

440 _ff_.

] Buddhism, then, battled for leave to do the world good in its own way, though the intolerance of Islam too soon effaced its footprints.

There is still some chance, however, that Ṣufism may be a record of its activity; in fact, this great religious upgrowth may be of Indian rather than of Neoplatonic origin, so that the only question is whether Ṣufism developed out of the Vedanta or out of the religious philosophy of Buddhism.

That, however, is too complex a question to be discussed here.