Serving the cause of democracy and freedom?

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (manipulated image)

A quote attributed to Abdu’l-Baha has been circulating in poster format on Bahai social media lately. In recent years it has also been used often on blogs and micro-blogs. Perhaps it is popular today because the opening — “The darkness of this gloomy night shall pass away” — chimes with a need today. Consisting largely of bromides reminiscent of American self-help literature, the quote includes the words “Serve the cause of democracy and freedom.”

In full it reads:

The darkness of this gloomy night shall pass away. Again the Sun of Reality will dawn from the horizon of the hearts. Have patience — wait, but do not sit idle; work while you are waiting; smile while you are wearied with monotony; be firm while everything around you is being shaken; be joyous while the ugly face of despair grins at you; speak aloud while the malevolent forces of the nether world try to crush your mind; be valiant and courageous while men all around you are cringing with fear and cowardice. Do not yield to the overwhelming power of tyranny and despotism. Serve the cause of democracy and freedom. Continue your journey to the end. The bright day is coming. The nucleus of the new race is forming. The harbinger of the new ideals of international justice is appearing. The trees of hope will become verdant; the copper of scorn and derision will be transmuted into the gold of honour and praise; the arid desert of ignorance will be transformed into the luxuriant garden of knowledge, the threatening clouds shall be dispelled and the stars of faith and charity will again twinkle in the clear heaven of human consciousness.
(Star of the West, 9.13.141 (November 4, 1918): Phelps inventory #ABU2031)

These words attributed to Abdu’l-Baha come from a 1918 letter from Ahmad Sohrab to Alfred Lunt, who sent them to Star of the West. They were republished in Sohrab’s 1919 “Tablets, Instructions and Words of Explanation.”

In 1923, Horace Holley included them in his compilation Bahai Scriptures, a book that mixes authentic and unauthentic material without distinctions. They were published again in Sohrab’s 1947 book Story of the Divine Plan.

Lunt, in introducing these words for Star of the West, says that Sohrab said that Abdu’l-Baha had “expressed [these words] many times during the last months.” So in the 1918 letter, Sohrab was not claiming to have literally recorded the words of Abdu’l-Baha. But when he wrote Story of the Divine Plan almost 30 years later, he writes “in this letter [to Lunt], I described a quiet afternoon on Mount Carmel and finished with some informal Words of Abdu’l-Baha which I had taken down in my note-book. These words, so fortunately preserved [by Sohrab’s oh-so-humble self], are one of the jewels of the Master’s utterance and constitute an immortal page in Bahai literature.” In his dreams, he has now written an immortal page in Bahai literature.

He has also changed some parts of the text. In 1918, he wrote to Lunt “be joyous while the ugly face of despair grins at you.” In 1947 this becomes “ be hopeful while the ugly face of despair grins at you,” which is a better contrast. “The trees of hope will become verdant” is elaborated to “The trees of hope shall be clothed in verdant leaves,” which I consider too much of a good thing. “The clear heaven of human consciousness” becomes “the clear conscience of the children of men.” The punctuation and sentence breaks are changed, “will” becomes “shall” – Sohrab is busy making his words sound more like the style that American readers of the time knew as Abdu’l-Baha’s style.

Sohrab often attributed his ideas to Abdu’l-Baha: when he reports Abdu’l-Baha speaking like a modernist American of the day it is likely to be Sohrab speaking, for that is the audience he seeks to impress. “Do not yield to the overwhelming power of tyranny and despotism. Serve the cause of democracy and freedom” is an example. Does Abdu’l-Baha ever speak in such terms, in authenticated sources? I think it is very likely that Ahmad Sohrab simply made this part up. And it is quite possible he made it all up.

I have noted a number of other instances of the deceitfulness of Sohrab on this blog. Most are similar to this: attributing spoken words to Abdu’l-Baha that come from his own imagination. However in one case Sohrab was translating a tablet of Abdu’l-Baha, and inserted into it (!) “spiritual democracy and celestial freedom” and “the Golden Era of International Solidarity and World Confederation.” The Persian text of that tablet is available, and it contains nothing resembling this. “Spiritual democracy” is a characteristic Sohrab diction, reflecting his concept of a Bahai community without any authorities.

But what about freedom and democracy?

Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha were advocates of democracy, and specifically of parliamentary constitutional monarchy enlightened by global awareness. Baha’u’llah wrote to Queen Victoria:

We have also heard that thou hast entrusted the reins of counsel into the hands of the representatives of the people. Thou, indeed, hast done well, for thereby the foundations of the edifice of thine affairs will be strengthened, and the hearts of all that are beneath thy shadow, whether high or low, will be tranquillized. It behoveth them, however, to be trustworthy among His servants, and to regard themselves as the representatives of all that dwell on earth.
(The Proclamation of Baha’u’llah p. 34, also published in The Summons of the Lord of Hosts)

Abdu’l-Baha writes :

The Constitutional Government, according to the irrefutable text of the Religion of God, is the cause of the glory and prosperity of the nation and the civilization and freedom of the people. (Tablets of Abdu’l-Baha v3, p. 492)

Shoghi Effendi writes:

The establishment of a constitutional form of government, in which the ideals of republicanism and the majesty of kingship, characterized by Him as “one of the signs of God,” are combined, He [Baha’u’llah] recommends as a meritorious achievement… (God Passes By, p. 218)

What is wrong with Sohrab’s idea is that he would transform the Bahai community into a political agent resisting tyranny and serving the cause of democracy. Tyranny is subjective: the American colonies revolted against a British government not very different in form from the one that Baha’u’llah later praised. Tyranny’s opposite, freedom, is advocated by Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha with some limits and reserve. Moreover, there is a world of difference between a religion that, addressing the civil rulers, “recommends [democratic government] as a meritorious achievement…” and a religious community seeking to change the form of the civil government by mobilising its believers. Sohrab’s idea is incompatible with the principle of “Render unto Caesar that which is due to Caesar,” an eternal truth that has been reaffirmed by Baha’u’llah, Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi.

Abdu’l-Baha keeps our roles as citizens and as believers separate: on the one hand as citizens we have a duty to be involved in the affairs of the republic, on the other hand as believers who meet together and act as a community, the rule is “speak no word of politics.”

O thou servant of Baha! Thou hast asked regarding the political affairs. In the United States it is necessary that the citizens shall take part in elections. This is a necessary matter and no excuse from it is possible. My object in telling the believers that they should not interfere in the affairs of government is this: That they should not make any trouble and that they should not move against the opinion of the government, but obedience to the laws and the administration of the commonwealth is necessary. Now, as the government of America is a republican form of government, it is necessary that all the citizens shall take part in the elections of officers and take part in the affairs of the republic.
(Tablets of Abdu’l-Baha v2, p. 342-3)

O handmaid of the Lord! Speak thou no word of politics; thy task concerneth the life of the soul, for this verily leadeth to man’s joy in the world of God. Except to speak well of them, make thou no mention of the earth’s kings, and the worldly governments thereof. Rather, confine thine utterance to spreading the blissful tidings of the Kingdom of God, and demonstrating the influence of the Word of God, and the holiness of the Cause of God.
(Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 92)

Shoghi Effendi says that :

“The Faith which this order serves, safeguards and promotes is … essentially supernatural, supranational, entirely non-political, [and] non-partisan, ….” (statement to a UN committee, cited in the Preface to The Promised Day is Come, page vi)

Sohrab’s idea is both national and political, and would inevitably be partisan, for even if the Bahais were to be the only group in a particular country serving the cause of democracy and freedom, that would make them a party in themselves, they would political, and perhaps at odds with Bahais elsewhere with a different idea of what democracy and political freedom entail. The supranational fellowship would not last long with such a plan.

Not only are the words unlike Abdu’l-Baha’s teaching, they are also unlikely. Sohrab would have us believe that during the war years, living in isolation under Turkish occupation, Abdu’l-Baha was repeatedly saying to somebody in Palestine that they should resist tyranny and despotism and serve the cause of democracy and freedom. Who could he usefully be saying those words to? And what would be the Turkish reaction if they heard Abdu’l-Baha was saying that? I think that Sohrab never even imagined these words during the period of Turkish rule — they came to his mind in 1918 when communication was restored and he wanted to remind the American Bahais of his closeness to Abdul-Baha. So he made up this story set in the previous, Turkish, period, not realizing that in that period it could never have happened. When Sohrab says that he is copying words from his diary, I for one do not assume that that is true. There’s an example on this blog under You can never organize the Bahai Cause, and another under O God, refresh and gladden my spirit. In the latter case, Sohrab even gives the date on which he supposedly wrote down the words of Abdu’l-Baha (in Persian): May 9, 1914. But the World Centre’s Research Department has reported “although the Archives Office at the Baha’i World Centre holds an untranslated, handwritten diary of Mirza Ahmad Sohrab covering this time period, the Research Department has been unable to locate this entry.” In short, Sohrab sometimes makes up a supposed Persian ‘source’ retrospectively, to give his words more credibility.

~ Sen McGlinn
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