Bibliography 2: #BIB00225

Key	BIB00225
Reference type	Journal Article
Title	Theological and Religious Intelligence : A General View of Missions. Second Series. VI. Persia.
Journal	Andover Review : A Religious and Theological Monthly (Boston, MA)
Author	Starbuck, Charles C.
Year	1890
Date	Jan. 1890
Issue	73
Volume	13
Abstract	p. 105: One thing that facilitates the diffusion of the Scriptures in Persia is the wide prevalence there of the sect of the Babees, one of those which bear witness to the underlying Aryan disposition of the race to emphasize the truth that a consummate revelation of God can only be given in an Incarnation of God, a personal union of God with humanity. This seems to be the import of the doctrine of the Twelve Imaums (sic), as remodeled in Persia. The Persians, indeed, like their near kinsmen the Brahmins, push the doctrine of Incarnation into such an exaggeration that it defeats itself, and becomes a mere flux of docetic Avatars, each succeeding one going near to expunge all its predecessors. The Babees (or Babis) extend the number of Incarnations from twelve to nineteen, the latest of which is believed to have taken place in Ali Mohammed of Shiraz, who, after an unsuccessful revolt against the Shah, was executed in 1849. The still numerous sect has been reduced into an outward conformity to Islam, but by no means extinguished. It is notable by its dislike to despotism, its reverence for woman, and its consequent aversion to polygamy and divorce, attributes all of which bring it nearer to the gospel. Therefore its disposition to favor the circulation of the New Testament is easily explicable. This offers itself, and will not always offer itself in vain, as the mean of reconciliation between the Semitic apprehension that God is eternally distinct from his creation, an apprehension stiffened beyond all intellectual movement in the Koran, and the Aryan apprehension that God is not only congruous with his rational creation, but capable of entering into personal union with it. The Babis, a sect originating on Aryan soil, cannot fix themselves in the centre; the Koran, arising in the depths of the Semitic desert, has no command of the circumference. p. 108: Mr. Labaree says further: "One cannot come into close relations with the Persian mind on religious subjects without being surprised to find how very extensively it is honeycombed with unbelief - The Babee secret faith is of quite recent origin. The sect numbers probably three or four hundred thousand. Persecuted by the government for its supposed political tendencies, many of its adherents have suffered martyrdom in their devotion to an absurd creed. They are on very free and friendly terms with Christian missionaries, preachers, and colporteurs."
Notes	"Babees:" pp. 105, 108.
Language	English
Keywords	MISSIONS
Pages	101–110
Legal note	11.

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