An Earthly Paradise: Bahá'í Houses of Worship Around the World Author: Julie Badiee Publisher: George Ronald, Oxford, 1992, 144 pages Reviewer: Jackson Armstrong-Ingram       Even though the title would lead one to expect this book to be a fairly comprehensive account of Bahá'í houses of worship, only the first chapter gives a brief account of such structures around the world. The second chapter discusses the "language of symbolism," and the remaining chapters are "meditations" that posit "universal forms" and seek to relate Bahá'í Houses of Worship to them. This short book includes a large number of illustrations, so there is not that much actual text. Therefore it would be unfair to expect the author to be particularly detailed in her discussion. Equally, brevity is not always conducive to strict accuracy. Yet, the major problem with the book is that it fails to do what it proposes. Time after time, an unobjectionable presentation of some aspect of world religious structures and symbolism raises issues that are simply not explored in relation to the Bahá'í case. It is hard not to get the impression that the author is avoiding the implications of the data presented in favour of the repetition of stereotypes. Even when the line of reasoning cries out for it, she presents no challenge to the accepted understanding of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár as a concept or as particular buildings. To take just a few examples at more or less random: Included in a discussion of the relation of mountain sites to pilgrimage are remarks on several of the houses of worship. Yet, pilgrimages are exceptional events in the life course-often literally a once in a lifetime occurrence - so what are the implications of building a structure that is intended for regular community worship in a symbolic context and/or physical location that suggests infrequent access? There is a discussion of the use of fountains and flowing water in religious structures and the relationship between these and concepts of purity and ablution. Yet when discussing the Bahá'í case there is only concern with water as an element in landscaping and no mention that there are Bahá'í concepts of ablutions. The symbolism of the circle is discussed, but the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár is not circular. There is no general discussion of polygonal structures, with the exception of a short paragraph mentioning polygonal Islamic tombs as symbolic paradises. This is a good example of the lost opportunities in this book. There is much more mileage to be got out of a discussion of polygonal tombs, baptistries, and shrines in relation to the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár than in the superficial allusions to most of the world's religious architecture made here. The book also discusses and illustrates the Taj Mahal. Yet there is no mention that this was one of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's favourite buildings and that he often suggested it as an aesthetic model for a Mashriqu'l-Adhkár.(1) Apart from this continuous fracturing of the discussion by avoiding where it might lead, the book is flawed in its approach to Bahá'í houses of worship as aesthetic expressions of the Bahá'í Faith in two basic ways: Buildings are discussed as if they were identical to architects' designs. Buildings designed by Bahá'ís and by architects who were not Bahá'ís are discussed as if they represent "Bahá'í" religious symbolic expression equally. On the more technical aspects of the discussion of the buildings, there is no consideration of the development of individual designs or of the relationship between designs. They are discussed as if each building was related to "universals" and there were not significant derivational relationships between the buildings themselves. There is a consistent conflation of design/designer and built structure without any consideration of the processes that lead from design to building. This is seen particularly in the assumption of intentionality in whatever seems symbolically significant to the author. For example, in a rather strained attempt to build a connected series of "progressive revelation" symbols on the pylons of the Wilmette house of worship, the author states that an arched form "appears" to be a symbol of a "small door" and thus may represent the Báb. Actually, in the original design, where all the decoration of the pylons was intended to be pierced, and there was to be a spiral staircase going up the pylon, this was a window. It is now an infilled form because of the development of the design to accommodate both budget and the technical capacity of the Earley Studio which did the castings. A more egregious example of trying to find symbolic significance in the accidental and attribute this to the intention of the architect is when the number of castings required to complete the dome and the ribs is revealed to be a multiple of nine. Of course it is: The dome has nine sides and there are nine ribs, however many pieces one uses for each the total is bound to be a multiple of nine. And we might note that the architect was dead before these castings were arranged for or made. The reader is informed in the notes that Bourgeois died before any of the decoration was done. However, this note is to a section quoting Bourgeois on the symbolism of circles which is illustrated by a photograph of the interior of the dome of the Wilmette building. Again, the reader who goes to the note will find that this interior was actually developed by Alfred Shaw (but will not find the information that Shaw was not a Bahá'í). It is suggested in the note that Shaw "translated" the Bourgeois design into something more "viable" that represented a "simplification" of it while being "much changed." In actuality, the Shaw design has virtually nothing of Bourgeois in it except, ironically, for the dome which is a reworking of Bourgeois' design for the ceiling of Foundation Hall not his design for the interior being discussed.(2) Another example of where the notes provide better information than the main discussion is that it is correctly stated in a note that a Mashriqu'l-Adhkár is not required to have a dome nor is it required to have nine doors. This issue of nine doors neatly encapsulates the problem of not looking at the connections between the buildings. They are presented as if each is derived from/connected with "universal" forms, when the reason that extant buildings have nine entrances is because the Bourgeois design has, and the accident of it being built, compounded by the Ishqabad temple becoming lost as a model structure, led to a popular Bahá'í expectation of nine doors that was particularly carried out by the non-Bahá'í architects who were designing Mashriqu'l-Adhkár on a motific basis from information supplied by their clients. Historically, most Mashriqu'l-Adhkár designs have not had nine doors.(3) It is a major flaw in a discussion of the aesthetic/symbolic aspects of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár to ignore the porched polygonal form used in the majority of historical designs which is as legitimate as the more generally familiar regular polygonal form. The notes as a whole suggest the author did do considerable research and is familiar with much of the relevant source material; it is unfortunate that this level of information was not integrated into the book's argument. As the longest note refers to my book on the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár - which indicates the author had access to information that made the factual errors about the Wilmette building unnecessary--it seems that I should acknowledge that comment. The author claims that in my book I suggest that Bourgeois plagiarised his design, and that this represents a misunderstanding of the creative process, as "any art or architectural historian knows, designers, artists and architects often use themes and forms of those who have gone before them; they also adapt and incorporate the language of their contemporaries." Although this author is not the first to suggest it, I never stated that Bourgeois was a plagiarist. What I did was document (using, among other sources, Bourgeois' own words) how the design that was chosen at the 1920 Bahai Temple Unity convention was begun in 1917 immediately after Bougeois saw various designs by Remey exhibited alongside the design he had submitted in 1909 and which he had been unsuccessfully trying to revise for eight years; and that a comparison of forms and motifs between the designs shows a high degree of derivation from the Remey designs in the one by Bourgeois.(4) Of course, the 1909 submission had derived from the 1906 Peace Palace design by Bourgeois and Paul Blumenstein (and this itself has a number of features in common with a much publicised 1902 building in Turin). I suggested that the Bourgeois design (as chosen in 1920, and as revised by 1928) derived elements from a number of sources which seems to be exactly the aspect of the creative process outlined above, and the aspect of the creative process missing from the discussion in the main text of this book. Finally two production points: As the book is so heavily illustrated, it is unfortunate that a number of these are reproduced from older photographs with significant colour deterioration when there seems no reason why a more recent photograph of good colour quality could not have been used. It is also to be regretted that in a book where the term appears so frequently and refers to a major theme of the discussion that "curvilinear" is misspelt throughout.

A Short History of the Bahá'í Faith Author: Peter Smith Publisher: Oneworld, Oxford, 1996, 168 pages A Short Introduction to the Bahá'í Faith Author: Moojan Momen Publisher: Oneworld, Oxford, 1997, 150 pages Reviewer: Christopher Buck       If the academic study of religion could be thought of as a graph, the x-axis   might represent the history of religions, while the y-axis would represent the phenomenology of religion. The former is diachronic (historical), the latter synchronic (systemic, structural). This is one way of appreciating how usefully the two volumes by Peter Smith and Moojan Momen complement each other. Peter Smith's A Short History of the Bahá'í Faith is really a history of two religions, the Bábí movement and the Bahá'í religion itself. The structure of Smith's historical epitome is evident in its eleven chapters, conclusion and appendices, to wit: 1. The Islamic and Iranian Background; 2. The Emergence of the Bábí Movement; 3. The Development of a New Religion; 4. Conflict and Collapse, 1848-53; 5. Bahá'u'lláh; 6. The Writings and Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh; 7. 'Abdu'l-Bahá; 8. Bahá'í Communities, 1866-1921; 9. Shoghi Effendi; 10. The Universal House of Justice; 11. Bahá'í Communities, 1922 to Present; Conclusion; Chronology of Important Dates; Further Reading; Bibliography; Index. According to Smith, the Bahá'í Faith is "a small-scale world religion" (10). This is honest and accurate. The author is careful not only to nuance the relationship of the Bahá'í Faith to its historical grandparent, Islam, but to distinguish the Bahá'í religion from its mother religion, the Bábí movement. The author frames this thought-provoking paradox: "Although the Bahá'í Faith grew out of the Bábí movement, and its followers regard the Báb as one of the founders of the Bahá'í Faith, the two religions are very different. Rooted in mid-nineteenth-century Iranian Islam, Bábism may seem alien to many modern Western readers" (9). This is due to the fact that the Báb wrote within a Shí'í context, addressing Shí'í concerns, which are not easily universalized. Given the often arcane nature of the Báb's writings, which are highly idiosyncratic even from a grammatical and stylistic vantage, and at times esoteric, qabbalistic, and rhapsodic in the extreme, as well as susceptible to a range of interpretations, Bahá'u'lláh has "stabilised" Bábí doctrine "by making unambiguous sense of the Bábí revelation," as the researches of Todd Lawson skilfully demonstrate.(5) After treating the Shí'í and Shaykhí background of the Bábí movement, Smith distinguishes the paradigm-shift that took place in the latter part of the Báb's ministry: "Although still employing Shí'í and particularly Shaykhi terminology and concepts, these later writings indicate that, as well as superseding Islamic law, the Báb was also now presenting a new religious framework distinct from that of Islam. There was a clear contrast with his earlier writings, which were written within an Islamic paradigm" (37). This succinct statement has profound implications for a nuanced understanding of the transitions that took place within the Báb's thought, which unfolded in such a way as can be mapped out in developmental stages, coincident with the Báb's sequenced self-proclamation that began as an eschatological "door" (báb) or portal eventually leading into a full-blown religious universe that was, for all its Islamic features, clearly distinct from Islam and having an utterly new revelatory locus in the form of a post-Islamic hierophant. Even so, this still required an interpretation of the Báb on the part of Bahá'u'lláh. Early in his meteoric and compressed prophetic career, the Báb had focussed so intensively on Shí'í imamology that his super-Islamic focus stood in tension with Bahá'u'lláh's emphasis on universalism, which was clearly supra-Islamic. Even so, it would seem that the majority of Bahá'u'lláh's legislation in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas did in fact have Bábí roots, and that Bahá'u'lláh extended the Báb's originality by divesting the latter's prophetology of its parochial imamology. While Smith does not dwell much on these vexed questions, he clearly distinguishes between the two religions, nuancing the continuities as well as the disjunctures. In this regard, Smith is not given to what Denis MacEoin has termed a "conflation" of the Bábí and Bahá'í religions. What, then, represents the paradigm-shift from Bábism to the Bahá'í Faith? Smith writes: "The Bahá'í concept of the future millennium has also become linked with a specific programme of social reform and transformation. This does not have any real precedent in the Bábí movement" (156). Readers familiar with Smith's groundbreaking sociological study, The Babi and Bahá'í Religions: From Messianic Shi'ism to a World Religion(6) will appreciate Smith's succinct motif analysis of the Bábí and Bahá'í religions given in the conclusion (154-57). The conclusion does not so much recapitulate what was stated previously in A Short History, but rather what was presented in The Babi and Bahá'í Religions. This is vintage Smith, and is the payoff for admirers of Smith's earlier work. As an "engaged" scholar, Smith demonstrates that Bahá'ís are unafraid of their history but are still coming to terms with it, because the Báb of faith, and the Bahá'í popular view of the Bábí religion, have yet to be integrated and reconciled with historical and sociological considerations. A minor correction in Smith's book: The birth of the Báb is erroneously given as 1817 (17) rather than 1819, as is correctly given on page 19. From a production standpoint, the kerning of diacritical subdots in Smith's book is a typographical monstrosity, and the absence of diacriticals would have been preferable. The utter absence of curly quotes and double quotes in favour of single straight quotes is jarring, as is the Friz Quadrata-like typeface (a display font rather than a text font) in which the book is typeset. Turning now to A Short Introduction to the Bahá'í Faith, author Moojan Momen presents the book as follows: Introduction; 1. The Individual; 2. The Family; 3. Society; 4. Global Concerns; 5. The Bahá'í Community; 6. Bahá'í Laws; 7. Theological Teachings; 8. History of the Bahá'í Faith; 9. The Bahá'í World Today; Notes; Bibliography; Further Reading; Further Information; Index. The sequencing of these chapters seems to have a practical teaching focus, engaging the curious reader first at the personal level, and then global, reserving the history of the Bahá'í Faith for later. In this respect, the Bahá'í teachings contextualize history rather than the other way around. Without anachronism, retrojection, or romanticization, Momen's approach is the inverse of Smith's and this is another aspect of their complementarity. Steering clear of any historicism or similar reductionism, the author also distances Bahá'í teachings from any alleged eclecticism or syncretism. Allowing that "all religions, including the Bahá'í Faith, will, to some extent, contain echoes of each other," Momen states his intent: "I hope to show that the Bahá'í Faith also has its own teachings that are new and innovative" (3). Does the author deliver on this promise? Momen's elaboration of Bahá'í teachings is systematic, clear, and, in all major respects, comprehensive. However, precisely which of the teachings are, in fact, new is, for the most part, left for the reader to decide. Momen does speak of "a new work ethic" (51), in which Bahá'u'lláh exalts work performed in the spirit of service to the rank of worship (although we may trace such an idea to the great Islamic mystic, Ibn al-'Arabí). The author finally does identify the distinctiveness of the Bahá'í paradigm towards the end of the book: "The key difference between the Bahá'í Faith and the main established religions of the world is the fact that its vision was created within the last hundred years, and so has an immediacy and relevance that visions that had their origins a thousand years ago or more lack. ...The Bahá'í Faith presents a unique integrated vision of the present state of the world and its future direction. This vision embraces politics, economics, environmental considerations, social issues, social administration, community development, ethical issues and spirituality" (139). I would estimate that close to half of Momen's book is comprised of selections from Bahá'í scriptures and recorded oral discourses. Numerous sidebars draw attention to Bahá'í teachings, not only in their pure, authenticated form, but also in their less rigorously attested form. Thus, the number of selections from such sources as Paris Talks and The Promulgation of Universal Peace as well as pilgrims' notes and other unauthorized sources, like Portals to Freedom, The Chosen Highway, and so on, may give a false impression that all of these sources are considered authoritative and scriptural, which is not the case. The uninitiated reader is, however, unlikely to be aware of such technicalities, and the advantage of citing selections from such apocryphal sources is that these tend to be more anecdotal, serving to elucidate Bahá'í principles more effectively, even if less reliably on a textual level. The editing of Momen's volume is of a reasonably high quality, with only occasional oversights, such as "close-mindedness" (98) and the odd "Mírzá Yahya Azal" (121) where the informed reader would expect to encounter Mírzá Yayá Subh-i Azal. The main body of the text appears to be typeset in Times Roman, a great improvement over the Smith volume. But the numerous sidebars strike me as very "dark" in typographic "colour", the sans-serif font that is used almost looks smeared. These are production considerations over which Momen presumably had no control. Comparing the two books is instructive. Of the two authors, Momen has a deeper background in Islamic studies. (Yale University Press, for example, has reprinted Momen's textbook on Shí'ism.) Yet it is Smith's book that treats the Islamic structures that inform both Bábí and Bahá'í doctrine, while Momen is careful to present the Bahá'í Faith in its own right and on its own terms. Momen himself rightly classes Smith's A Short History of the Bahá'í Faith as "the best brief general history of the Bahá'í Faith" (147, giving 1995 as the publication date); Momen's A Short Introduction to the Bahá'í Faith has a similar status. While the two books certainly complement one another, they do not require each other, especially since Momen, as indicated above, has a chapter on Bahá'í origins and history. Smith deftly combines a history of religions-grounded and unobtrusively sociological approach, while Momen is more "personal" in its orientation and appeal. Smith is artfully disciplined without calling attention to the disciplines that inform his approach. While Smith and Momen are both richly informational, Momen adopts a mildly didactic tone that occasionally borders on the sermonic, especially in his use of those universal, rhetorical questions a truth-seeker might ask. Thus, the two volumes not only have different literary personalities, they also have distinct, albeit overlapping, objectives. If a revised edition were contemplated for each, I would respectfully suggest that Smith further develop his discussion of what is Islamic and what is not in Bahá'í teaching, thereby crystallizing, from genesis to fruition, the paradigm-shift in the direction of what is genuinely "new" and distinctive in the Bahá'í paradigm itself (as well as that of Bábism). I think that Smith has already advanced such an analysis well beyond most of the other literature, thereby rendering previous reductions more problematic. A similar wish for a revised edition of Momen's work: Having given such a comprehensive overview of Bahá'í teachings, an effort to further highlight the distinctiveness of Bahá'í teachings (as already asserted on page 139) would serve to advance Bahá'í self-understanding on a synchronic level, just as Smith has done in a diachronic mode. One distinctive dynamic evident in the Bahá'í paradigm has not received sufficient attention: that Bahá'u'lláh made peace, equality and unity sacred. In incorporating theretofore secular concerns, from disarmament to gender equality, Bahá'u'lláh generated a process that may be characterized as "sacralizing the secular." Peter Smith's A Short History of the Bahá'í Faith and Moojan Momen's A Short Introduction of the Bahá'í Faith provide complementary diachronic and synchronic approaches, translating the essence of what Smith refers to as "the latest research on the two [Bábí and Bahá'í] religions" (9), and making this information both available and accessible to the non-specialist. To the credit of these two academics, the drawbridge of the ivory tower has been lowered across the moat of disciplinary obfuscation above the murky and forbidding currents of academic discourse, over which the scholar must walk in order to speak to an audience for whom matters of the head are also matters of the heart.

Mirror of the Divine: Art in the Bahá'í World Community Author: Ludwig Tuman Publisher: George Ronald, Oxford, 1993, 326 pages Reviewer: Constance M. Chen       In Ludwig Tuman's Mirror of the Divine, art in the Bahá'í world community may be encapsulated in one word: service. Perhaps it is overly reductionist to try to capture in one word the complexities of Tuman's conception of what art from a Bahá'í perspective may signify, but the idea of service crops up again and again as the author unveils his thoughts on the manner in which art can be a manifestation of spirituality in the physical realm. Tuman's outlook makes sense considering that it is situated in his own identity as a professional artist and a Bahá'í, and as such he conceives of art as a form of work which, when performed in the spirit of service, is equivalent to the worship of God. From the outset, Tuman states that he is attempting to begin a conversation on the place of the arts in the Bahá'í community. Carefully defining his terms - indeed, often formulating new language altogether - he forces the reader to think carefully about boundaries: where the Bahá'í Faith ends and the Bahá'í community begins, how art can be categorized by form and function, the purpose of the Bahá'í artist. A "Bahá'í artist" is any person who is both a Bahá'í and an artist, whether professional or amateur, whether the art produced reflects overtly "Bahá'í" themes or not. "Bahá'í art" does not exist; it will be the result of the future world civilization that emerges in the golden age of the Bahá'í dispensation. "Bahá'í-engendered art" does exist; it is art inspired by the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh that is produced by an enrolled Bahá'í. For reasons that form the very basis of his conception of art from a Bahá'í perspective, he is dissatisfied with the language that exists in current talk about art, such as "fine arts" or "beaux arts" or "practical arts," and so invents wholly new terms. The purpose of "seraffic" art is primarily to foster spiritual ennoblement, "donnic" art primarily enhances the well-being of humankind in the physical world, and "seraffo-donnic" art addresses needs that are both sacred and mundane.(7) Thus choosing his threads, which the reader may accept or not, Tuman proceeds to weave an exposition of what art in the Bahá'í world community may mean. Tuman's dissatisfaction with mainstream terminology stems back to the very roots of what art means in the secular world. In a humanist world that has no eyes for the transcendent, it is commonly understood that the idea of art serving a purpose outside the expression of self is tantamount to blasphemy. "True" art is true precisely because it is true to the artist. Conformity to ideology taints art and causes it to become a political tool. Delineating four ways in which contemporary artists function, Tuman asserts that none of these roles mandates a spiritual responsibility. In response, Tuman takes the same premises and emerges with a new conclusion. In his view, true art still radiates from the artist, but the true purpose of the artist is the cultivation of a higher self that is oriented toward service. By identifying the self with service to God, humanity, and specific Bahá'í institutions (page 85), his interpretation of the role of art from a Bahá'í perspective redefines the issue of self-expression to avoid both total censorship and total self-expression devoid of moral responsibility. At first glance, Tuman's ideas about the purpose of art may be reminiscent of late 19th century art theorist John Ruskin, who believed that "true" art was necessarily linked specifically to God and religion, yet Ruskin directed art outside the self and toward God, while Tuman inextricably intertwines the self itself with God and religion, so that there is no contradiction between expression of the true self and true art. The beauty of Tuman's elaboration is that it extols service before God and Bahá'u'lláh while avoiding triumphalism. His sense of service is all-inclusive; to serve God and humanity, in forms recognizable to all peoples, including those who are not enrolled Bahá'ís. To help the reader understand how he believes an artist may serve, he tells the story of a bellmaker in China and a poet in Germany, each of whom prepares himself with meditation and time spent in nature to create spiritually beautiful art. This is art in the truest sense of the word, he believes, because the creations arise from a desire to serve and mirror forth the divine. In an opening vignette, he describes three futuristic children who will be singing together at the 200th anniversary of the Bahá'í Temple in New Delhi, India. All Bahá'ís, they are, ostensibly, products of the golden age of the Bahá'í Faith. Yet they are there for all peoples, all religions, all backgrounds. Bahá'í art, it seems, will avoid ideology, even while the artist is distinctly Bahá'í. Incidentally, the Chinese bellmaker and the German poet represent two different creatures in the paradigm that Tuman hopes to leave behind. The bellmaker is a craftsman, while the poet is a practitioner of the fine arts. In past ages, Tuman claims, the line of demarcation was that of pleasure on the one side and practicality on the other. Tuman substitutes spirituality for pleasure in creating his new terms, "seraffic" and "donnic" arts, so that the new divider is that of the spiritual versus the functional. If both forms of art are intended to be spiritually uplifting, they may both contain seraffic elements. Spirituality, then, becomes the great equalizer in the art world. Himself a composer and a pianist, and thus involved in what traditionally would be called the fine arts, Tuman speaks from the vantage point of an artist, and is self-conscious in his humility about the arts. He cites passages of Bahá'u'lláh to validate giving artists, craftsmen, and artisans the same status, placing them all on the same plane. Since Tuman accepts that true art is a creation of the artist, he takes great pains to make amends for artists of the past. He refuses to condone the histrionic personality disorder that society often expects and sanctions in artists. He disputes Romantic era notions of artists as seers with special channels to a higher world. He warns against prayer and mysticism being confused with spiritism and superstition. Essentially taking his fellow artists to task, he suggests that art in the Bahá'í world community is about creating new artists, for it is the people who create the culture in any environment. Therefore, without a new kind of human being, it is impossible to have a new kind of art. Bahá'í or Bahá'í-engendered art, then, can only be produced by those who have been transformed by the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh. The light of God must illuminate the person so that eagerness to sacrifice leads the way to the path of service. Membership in the Bahá'í world community demonstrates this commitment to sacrifice and service as well as a willingness to submit to Bahá'í law. A non-Bahá'í who composes an oratorio about Bahá'u'lláh would not be considered a Bahá'í artist nor would such a person have produced Bahá'í art or Bahá'í-engendered art, then, because the work produced would be devoid of the spirit of allegiance to Bahá'u'lláh. At times, Tuman's enthusiasm can leave him to describe the Bahá'í community or the Bahá'í artist as if each was an archetype, a heavenly ideal, instead of the clay reality that struggles along in daily life. For example, he writes, "One of the most important differences between the Bahá'í artist and his non-Bahá'í associate is that the former's identity as a human being is not bounded by the frontiers of his regional or national culture, but extends to embrace the entire world" (132). Certainly, it is a fundamental principle of the Bahá'í Faith that every believer in the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh strives toward transcending manmade political barriers, but declarations of faith are only the first step in wiping away deeply rooted cultural prejudices. A Bahá'í is only a Bahá'í to the extent that the love of Bahá'u'lláh fills his or her soul and leads to eager sacrifice in the path of service. A Bahá'í is not a Bahá'í because he or she has internalized certain social principles, which at times may be more effectively displayed by those who are not Bahá'ís. Who is to say that a Bahá'í artist is necessarily less culture-bound than his or her non-Bahá'í compatriot, whose only sin is never having had the good fortune to have heard the name of Bahá'u'lláh? The reverberations of the Bahá'í Revelation have touched all on earth, whether or not they are aware of its life-giving source. The only other criticism of Tuman's work is that he at times falls into an unattractive us-them dichotomy, the "us" being the good Bahá'ís and the "them" being the not-as-good non-Bahá'ís. At present, this is a device that crops up all too commonly in the Bahá'í community to prove "good" Bahá'í-ness. Us-them categorization is symptomatic of an adolescent stage of development; maturity requires integrating all peoples and seeing them as one. Perhaps the Bahá'í community in its time of identity-forming requires this "othering" of the non-Bahá'í world, but it is dangerous if it leads to the demonization of the other. With a focal point of service, Tuman manages to touch on so many issues surrounding art in the Bahá'í world community that it is impossible to discuss adequately them all in one short review. For example, he spends much time dwelling on the potential of the Bahá'í houses of worship to employ and contribute to the development of Bahá'í art. He talks about alienation and isolation in the artistic community, and the role of the Bahá'í administrative order in bringing about integration. He addresses fears about cultural erosion and conformity in creating a unified planetary culture. Each of his points could spur hours and hours of late-night discussion. What will art of the future look like? Bahá'í culture? Does it exist? Where is it coming from and where is it going? How do we know that it will really be different from the art of the past? Tuman asks the hard questions, and he knows which ones to ask. What results is a deftly-produced monograph. Whether or not his terms catch on, they should not be left hanging within a one-book conversation. All thinking Bahá'ís should flip through these pages, for the author has managed to produce an excellent, thought-provoking piece of writing.

The Origins of the Bahá'í Community of Canada, 1898-1948. Author: Will C. van den Hoonaard Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, 1996, 356 pages Reviewer: Graham Hassall       Canadians first encountered the Bahá'í teachings in Chicago in 1893, while attending the World Parliament of Religions at which the Reverend Jessup delivered his now well-known reference to the founder of the Faith, Bahá'u'lláh. Between 1925 and 1947 Canada formed part of the national assembly of the United States and Canada. An independent national assembly was established in 1948 and incorporated in 1949. It was one of twelve national assemblies that participated in the ten year world crusade. By the 1990s the Canadian Bahá'í community numbered more than 15,000. Will C. van den Hoonaard, a professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick, has written a detailed account of the Canadian Bahá'í community, from its first stages at the end of the last century, until the formation of its national spiritual assembly in 1948. van den Hoonaard has organised his material around four themes: "Early Dependence on Liberal Protestantism", "Formation of Community Identity, 1913-37", "Organization and Community Boundaries", and "Relationship to Canadian Society". The text is accompanied by five appendices, ranging from summaries of press reports, to statistical overviews, community profiles, a chronology of "Important Canadian Bahá'í dates", and a note on sources. Although The Origins of the Bahá'í Community of Canada is in one sense a narration of the history of the community, it could be described more fully as historical religious sociology. As history, the study redresses earlier mis-remembrances of important events, and establishes the story of the first believers and the small communities of which they were a part. As sociology, it explores the means by which a non-Christian and new religious tradition presented itself in Canadian society, and how this essentially conservative society chose to respond. In each of its principal objectives the book is undoubtedly successful. van den Hoonaard has placed his investigation in the context of existing studies of new religious movements in Canada and, having reviewed them, notes the lack of reference to Canadian Bahá'í history in both the new religious movement literature, and in Bahá'í literature in general. The methodological soundness of the book gives The Origins of the Bahá'í Community of Canada an added dimension. In introductory notes van den Hoonaard explains how his manuscript was read by a cross section of individuals whose stories appear in it, in addition to a cross section of other readers, to ensure that the completed work benefited from the insights of differing genders and generations. (This reviewer can think of several Bahá'í biographies of recent years that would have benefited greatly from wider manuscript review prior to publication.) In van den Hoonaard's submission, the unconscious processes by which any community accumulates an awareness and understanding of its past, have, in the Canadian instance, created several wrong impressions. For example, there was always considerable Bahá'í activity outside the major centres of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, which this book restores to memory; there were interesting individuals in the community apart from the famed May Maxwell, whom the book gives deserved and balanced recollection. The most intriguing correction, however, is placed in footnote 2 to chapter 4, which concerns the visit of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to Montreal: The official Bahá'í organ, Star of the West, did not carry any news of the celebrated visit of Abdu'l-Bahá to Montreal in 1912 until an incidental reference to the event 4½ years later (Star of the West, 7[17][19 January 1917]:171-72). Yet, this visit received the most extensive publicity ever during his nine-month tour throughout North America. The news of the publicity in Canada, incidentally, did not find its way into Star of the West until 1923, more than ten years later (Star of the West, 13[13][February 1923]:291-93).(8) Footnote 3 continues in this restorative vein, noting that official and other accounts of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's visit to Canada place his stay at between 8 and 12 days.(9) This attention to detail, and checking of source materials, is but one of the book's appealing features. However, it is only the "restorative" part of van den Hoonaard's project, and lays the framework for his analytic intent. Thus, for instance, the enumeration of press coverage of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's tour provides the source material for a content analysis of that coverage, in terms of subject matter, and assessment of the differing of treatment in the English and French press. Later chapters assess the strategies for expansion implemented by the first Bahá'í communities, and assess the results of these strategies, in terms of ethnic composition and the former religious affiliations of the steadily expanding Canadian Bahá'í community. van den Hoonaard has identified, for instance, the religious background, gender, and ethnicity of many of the 254 members as at 1947: 75% Protestant, 12% Catholic, 7% Jewish, 4% Theosophical or Rosicrucian, and 2% other; 68% were female and 78% Anglo-Saxon, with smaller numbers of Jewish, German/Swiss, West Indian/African Canadian, and Scandinavian members. The life-stories of many early Bahá'ís are included, in addition to this cumulative data. Part three of the book expands on the effectiveness of the activities undertaken by the Canadian Bahá'ís prior to 1937, through individual and small-group initiatives, and during the first systematic teaching plan. The community faced the competing tasks of consolidating and expanding the number of assemblies, while at the same time pioneering to new cities and towns. In 1938-39, the second year of the plan, for instance, Canadian pioneers opened seven new localities, and established the foundations for the Halifax, Calgary, Winnipeg and Regina assemblies. The fruit of van den Hoonaard's combined qualitative/quantitative approach emerges not only in his textual analysis, but in extensive tables. Appendix C, for instance, "Bahá'í Community Profiles, 21 April 1937-20 April 1947", sorts 15 localities into four categories: high growth, medium growth, slow growth, or no growth. The three "high growth" localities, Winnipeg, Hamilton and Toronto, had the highest ratios of pioneers to new Bahá'ís, the largest communities as of 1947, and among the highest numbers of new members who subsequently pioneered. Van den Hoonaard has chosen to limit his survey to the years preceding the formation of Canada's national administrative system. Description of the relationship between the Bahá'ís of Canada and the United States is also very limited. Although chapter 10 "Changing Styles of Organisation and Boundary Maintenance" explains that the Executive Board of the Bahá'í Temple Unity--the precursor to the North American national spiritual assembly - appointed a "Regional Teaching Committee for Canada" as early as 1920, The Origins of the Bahá'í Community of Canada does not explore the functioning of this committee in any detail, nor the deliberations of the national assembly, if any, that specifically regarded Canadian issues. Although Canada sent delegates to the national convention from its earliest years, the book does not list them (A footnote [fn. 1, p. 276] notes that there were eleven Canadian delegates to national convention by 1947), nor does it discuss in detail possible issues relating to representation and the operation of the Bahá'í electoral system. Finally, the work does not appear to highlight the relationship between Shoghi Effendi and individual Canadian Bahá'ís and institutions. In the Australian context, to make a comparative note, the communication that individuals, communities, and fledgling Bahá'í institutions had with Shoghi Effendi often had considerable impact on their subsequent attitudes and behaviour, and it would be hard to write a history of the Australian Bahá'í community without constant reference to this interaction. The Origins of the Bahá'í Community of Canada does not highlight such communications in the Canadian context, leaving the reader curious, given that an earlier publication, Messages to Canada (Toronto: 1965), does not include any of Shoghi Effendi's pre-1948 correspondence except for his first message of 1923. A map would have helped non-Canadian readers to keep track of discussion of smaller towns and distant provinces. But these matters aside, The Origins of the Bahá'í Community of Canada must be regarded in overall terms as a model for analysis of emergent Bahá'í communities everywhere.

Law and International Order: Proceedings of the First European Bahá'í Conference on Law and International Order Publisher: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, London, 1996, 212 pages Reviewer: Joshua Lincoln       Attempting to review the published proceedings of any conference is usually   a significant challenge because of the breadth of topics treated. Law and International Order is no exception in this regard. Although the conference's organizers are to be commended for disseminating these essays to a larger audience, the absence of an editorial hand makes the volume less accessible to the reader. The collection also presents a degree of methodological variety: from the biographical or expository to the analytical, and from the professional to the academic. The papers by Kiser Barnes (on the law), Udo Schaefer, Christopher Sprung, and Wendi Momen will be of particular interest to the more academically inclined reader. Overall, the book is a welcome addition to the slowly-growing literature in this area. Three main themes emerge from the collection: (1) Bahá'í lawyers and the notion of service, (2) the nature and purpose of Bahá'í law, and (3) institutions and governance. Kiser Barnes, in the first Aziz Navidi Memorial Lecture, offers an examination of the life and service of Dr Navidi, a Knight of Bahá'u'lláh, a staunch legal defender of the persecuted Bahá'í community of Iran, and a legal representative at large for both the Custodians (1957-1963) and the Universal House of Justice during the early years of the Faith in Africa. This biographical sketch should be of interest to the student of community history, as well as those young people considering a pursuit of the law. The themes of law and service are further taken up by Colleen Dawes, who focuses on the legal profession and its prospects. When combined, the two essays offer a useful conceptual re-calibration vis-à-vis a profession currently so maligned. In his essay "The Nature of Bahá'í Law," Barnes examines some special features of Bahá'í law, and its relation to the scope and purpose of the Bahá'í revelation, while Udo Schaefer's "Crime and Punishment" flushes out the penal implications of Bahá'u'lláh's revelation and outlines certain considerations for the future of criminal law. At a time of stadium-gatherings of "atonement," of extended and highly controversial celebrity trials, and of fierce debates everywhere over the theory and means of punishment, this essay is a valuable primer on justice, criminality, and punishment. The article is particularly helpful in moving beyond the paralysis that sometimes follows an initial reading of the Most Holy Book (Kitáb-i-Aqdas) on these questions. In particular, Schaefer clarifies the non-deterministic focus on free will that must underpin Bahá'í conceptions of punishment. There is a suggestive parallel lurking here pertaining to the dual role of the collective "ordeals" humanity faces on its evolutionary path. In a transition from law to institutions, Pieter van Dijk's essay on human rights categorizes the rights of the Universal Declaration but emphasises tolerance as the key value for application between individuals and groups. His exploration of the tension between universality and relativity concludes with the need for a margin of difference in the implementation of human rights standards. In "Bahá'í Institutions and Human Governance," Christopher Sprung delineates the concept of Bahá'í theonomy - a system based on divine law - through an appraisal of human governance in relation to the state of the future Bahá'í world commonwealth. Finally, in an essay on the lesser peace, Wendi Momen outlines the different interpretations one can give to the march of current history, charts progress towards the establishment of the lesser peace through indicators found in the literature of the Faith, and reviews briefly the features of the world commonwealth of nations. This well-researched essay offers a balanced and therefore valuable survey as millennium anticipation waxes. Momen's article offers a useful starting point for suggesting a future direction for scholarly activity. Scholarship in this area so far has consisted primarily of textually-based discussions of anticipation or description of "distant" principled orders or "distant" civilizational stages. Yet such discussions are most valuable because they set the stage for a different kind of exercise, for a shift from restatement of the visionary passages in our holy texts to correlation of those passages with both human thoughts and theories, and the realities of the world we live in. Might it not be time to use the clues embedded in those texts to tease out, in a preliminary and more dialectic fashion, what the tumultuous and unstable present can tell us about the future? Discussion in this area has occurred mainly in a kind of closed circuit, in which the writings are applied but the reality of a messy, transitional, fermenting world is largely held at bay. Does not the Guardian's notion of correlation (one of the cornerstones of Bahá'í scholarship) seem to imply a more substantive dialectic between the sacred word and the world, one in which each element reinforces understanding and insight of the other? Does not such a vision requires us to be more outward-looking, to burrow further into events, systemic shifts, and current thinking? For example, informed by the writings, what lessons can we draw from the global in vitro experiment that is our planet in the late 20th century? In this sense, what lessons can we glean from a decade of unprecedented international peacekeeping as regards the discharge of international order in the future? What have the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice, the courts at Nuremberg, Tokyo, Kigali, and the Hague taught us about the process and substance of criminal justice at the international level? How does the recent proposal (now being examined at the United Nations) for a permanent international criminal court measure up to both previous experiments and those hints that appear in the Bahá'í writings? What details about the structure of an eventual world parliament can be directly and explicitly taken from our texts, and what principles or current theories apply to those other questions for which there are no specific references? If we truly subscribe to the notions of process, integration, disintegration, and fermentation, then it is in these processes that can be found preliminary hints about the direction we are heading. The challenge (and the fun) consists not in describing the distant future, nor in establishing an estimated time of arrival for it, but rather in drawing lessons about getting from here to there. In the process, a deeper appreciation is gained for the worth and collective learning inherent in this, our collective path. It is to be hoped that future conferences and edited collections will take up this task.

The Law of Love Enshrined: Selected Essays Authors: John Hatcher and William Hatcher Publisher: George Ronald, Oxford, 1996, 285 pages Reviewer: Susan Stiles Maneck       The title of this collection of essays by John and William Hatcher suggests n   that this book is about love, especially as expressed by Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. In fact, if there is a common theme to these essays it is that they all seem to revolve around the epistemological question: how do we "know," spiritually speaking? Nearly all of these articles have been published elsewhere, and in the case of some of William Hatcher's essays they have appeared in slightly revised forms numerous times. The difference in approach taken by the two brothers offers an interesting contrast. While William Hatcher utilizes the rational tools of a logician to establish some of the central doctrines of faith, John Hatcher uses the more holistic approach of one trained in the humanities. Given these two very different approaches, I will first examine the essays by William Hatcher and then those by John Hatcher. William Hatcher begins his first essay entitled, "Prologue on Proving God," by contrasting the "religious believers'" refusal to consider the relevance of logical and scientific methods to understanding God to "scientistic materialism's" rejection of all evidence for God's existence. Both sides, he suggests, assume that belief in God can only be based on faith alone which Hatcher defines as "emotional conviction" (footnote 2). Both the materialistic and the religious approach are contrasted with what Hatcher considers the "Bahá'í approach," which calls upon us to utilize rational proofs to establish the existence of God. In order to properly apply reason to the search for God, one must "purify one's heart" so that such proofs can "prevail over strongly-held emotions" (footnote 3). It is by this method, he argues, that we can best prepare for the direct perception and experience of God. In the next two essays, entitled, "Causality, Composition, and the Origin of Existence" and "A Scientific Proof for the Existence of God," William Hatcher outlines specific proofs for the existence of God, providing a "hierarchy of proofs" based first on existence itself which necessitates Aristotle's famous "uncaused cause" and superimposing Avicenna's proofs for the universality and uniqueness of such a cause. After this, Hatcher makes the argument from design drawing specifically on 'Abdu'l-Bahá's discussion of evolution. Hatcher claims only to offer a logical definition of God in the sense of distinguishing God from all other entities rather than a comprehensive one which he admits is beyond human capacity to provide. Finally, Hatcher argues, since God is the creator of man, and humanity potentially possesses intelligence, will and feelings in unlimited degrees, God must Himself be all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful. This reviewer lacks the training in formal logic, and therefore cannot offer an in-depth critique of the validity of William Hatcher's arguments about proofs, but I would like to comment on the assumptions made in relation to the manner in which religious truth can be established. In regard to the first essay, this writer could not help but wonder what "religious believers" Hatcher had in mind when he described them as "refusing to admit the relevance of logical and scientific methods to an understanding of God"? In fact scientific creationists and other evangelical Christians, as well as many Muslims, commonly utilize "logical proofs" in much the same manner as Hatcher (excluding 'Abdu'l-Bahá's argument from evolution, of course). Those of more liberal religious persuasions are often the ones who make a distinction between the kinds of knowledge accessible through science and those which can be grasped by revelation alone. They often insist that one kind of knowledge describes the "what" of creation. The other describes the "why and wherefore."(10) Nor would these people describe their faith as a matter of "emotional conviction" but would more likely consider it as either the "courage to act" (as Hatcher himself does in a later essay [footnote 223]) or the "direct perception and experience of God" (footnote 6) which Hatcher sees as only following rational arguments. I also found unpersuasive Hatcher's understanding of "purity of heart" as primarily detachment from subjective feelings. Certainly Bahá'u'lláh does speak of cleansing the heart of both "love and hatred" but, in the same passage, he also urges the seeker to purify the heart of all "acquired knowledge."(11) Would this not include the knowledge of formal logic as well? Might the purified heart discover, in Pascal's words, that "the heart has reasons which reason knows not of"? Or as an hadith cited by Bahá'u'lláh states, "Knowledge is a light which God casteth in the heart of whomsoever He willeth."(12) While the Bahá'í writings certainly do speak of "proofs and evidences" for establishing the validity of the Bahá'í revelation, one of the strongest arguments offered is the suffering endured by both founders and their followers. One can't help but wonder what a formal logician would make of such a "proof!" The fourth essay by William Hatcher is entitled "The Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Causality Principle in the World of Being." Herein he argues that Bahá'u'lláh regards the religious laws in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas designed to bring about world unity not as "social conventions nor as divinely imposed rules of behaviour" but as "exact expressions of fundamental objective relationships inherent in the very structure of reality" (footnote 113) and are therefore scientific in nature. In defence, Hatcher examines issues related to material and spiritual reality in light of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's talks given in the west. Material reality is said to be composite and therefore transitory and dynamic, but governed by natural laws which are an expression of the will of God. Humanity has been given the capacity to understand these laws in order to determine, control and predict events in the natural world. Spiritual reality consists of entities which exist as undivided wholes such as souls rather than composites. While the capacities of souls can be developed (which is the goal of our existence), they cannot be diminished or increased. Knowledge of the spiritual world is not as easily accessible as the material world since it is not directly observable through the use of our senses. This necessitates revelation, which for Hatcher provides a shortcut to understanding the laws and principles governing spiritual reality. Hatcher insists, however, that knowledge gained from this source is not intrinsically different from knowledge derived from scientific method, for both truths are objective and subject to verification by experimentation and application. It is doubtful this thesis could be maintained were Hatcher aware that different terminology is used in the writings to differentiate material knowledge (usually 'ilm or shinas) from spiritual knowledge (normally irfan). Unfortunately, Hatcher relies heavily on translations of oral talks for which the original Persian is unavailable and we cannot therefore be certain of the nuances that might have been present. After providing this framework, William Hatcher acquaints us with the chief features of the laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, arguing for their consummate rationality. Within this context, Hatcher discusses the features of the Bahá'í covenant and administrative order as well as laws concerning prayer, fasting, and marriage laws. Here, on occasion, some mistakes are made. For instance, Hatcher says "Bahá'u'lláh states that sons and daughters must be educated equally . . . but that whenever choices must be made in the education of children, preference should be given to daughters..." (footnote 144). This latter stipulation comes from 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and not from anything in Bahá'u'lláh's Kitáb-i-Aqdas. In discussing the laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, emphasis is placed on those laws which can easily be seen as rational (although the issue of women's exclusion from the House of Justice, which is based on the diction used by Bahá'u'lláh within the text is addressed). One has to wonder if Hatcher truly believes that restrictions regarding say, the length of men's hair is based on "the very law of causality" (footnote 157) and if the fact Bahá'ís are told to fast nineteen days rather than thirty or ten can really be "inherent in the very structure of reality." The suggestive power of Bahá'u'lláh's phrase, "think not that We have revealed unto thee a mere code of laws. Nay, rather, We have unsealed the choice Wine with the fingers of might and power" somehow loses its intoxicating effect when seen in terms of Hatcher's conception of an "exact expression of fundamental objective relationships." The biggest problem with this essay is that it never establishes its thesis that "the worldview of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is fundamentally scientific" (footnote 114) except in the most general sense of arguing that Bahá'í laws are basically good ones. Indeed, the texts which are used to establish a "scientific worldview" are all drawn from general talks by 'Abdu'l-Bahá rather than anything Bahá'u'lláh had to say about the Most Holy Book itself. Far from viewing his laws as subject to experimentation (and by implication subject to being discarded if they prove not to work) as Hatcher suggests, Bahá'u'lláh insists, "Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring balance established among men."(13) Ultimately we are called upon to obey His laws "for love of My beauty"(14) rather than for their utility, be it material or spiritual. William Hatcher's last essay is entitled "The Concept of Spirituality." Hatcher defines spirituality as the development of the capacities of the soul, which he defines as knowledge, love and will. The goal of developing our knowing capacity is to attain the truth--the knowledge of God which enables self-knowledge. Hatcher sees the loving capacity as providing the energy needed to attach ourselves to God while the development of the capacity of willpower results in service. Hatcher holds that the development of spiritual capacities occurs as a result of the tension between the physical and spiritual needs of an individual. Physical needs must be disciplined in order to contribute to spiritual progress. Furthermore, since people have direct access only to material reality and only indirect access to spiritual reality, acceptance of the Manifestation of God is necessary to inform us of spiritual matters. I found this particular essay to be the most intriguing of those by William Hatcher. His discussion of this self-knowledge, in the context of recognizing our dependency on God, provides some profound insights into the most basic foundation of spirituality. Somewhat detracting from this otherwise excellent discussion is Hatcher's repeated habit of introducing a quotation with words like "Bahá'u'lláh affirms" or "Bahá'u'lláh associates" only to find that the quotation in question is actually from 'Abdu'l-Bahá or Shoghi Effendi. Aside from the preface, four essays in this collection are by John Hatcher. The first is entitled "The Doctrine of the 'Most Great Infallibility' in Relation to the 'Station of Distinction'." In it, John Hatcher argues, on the basis of passages from the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the dual nature of the Manifestation of God. The first is the station in which the Manifestation represents divinity by expressing all of the names and attributes of God, and in which all Manifestations are essentially the same. The other is the station of distinction wherein their differences and limitations can be seen. Hatcher's thesis is that, since infallibility is an essential attribute of the Prophet's soul, the station of distinction does not refer to the human condition of the Manifestation but rather to the limitations of the particular historical circumstances of the time in which the Manifestation appears. As in Christian docetism(15) the "human persona" of the Manifestation only retains "the veil of a human persona" (98-99). In discussing the "station of distinction" Hatcher argues that we should attempt to understand the historical circumstances surrounding the Manifestations only in order to examine how their message has been shaped to fit the condition of society at that time and to recognize the dynamic process of progressive revelation. What Hatcher appears to disallow is any suggestion that these conditions might have shaped the thinking of the Manifestations themselves. Using the quotation written by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in defence of features of Bahá'u'lláh's Book of the Covenant, "Either Bahá'u'lláh was wise, omniscient and aware of what would ensue, or was ignorant or in error" (96), Hatcher understands that no human agency could have been involved in the shaping of revelation whatsoever. Therefore any historian who might attempt to trace influences upon the Manifestation can only do so by ignoring the Prophet's explicit claims. Such an approach, he insists, is unscholarly. In the course of his arguments regarding the proper "Bahá'í" approach to history, Hatcher provides a number of quotations from Shoghi Effendi regarding the necessity for Bahá'ís to acquire a thorough knowledge of Islam. Hatcher follows this discussion with the following statement: "At least one important implication in these exhortations of the Guardian is that the Bahá'í scholar is privy to the divine logic and unforseen forces shaping history and is further privileged to know how these forces work" (footnote 4). I found this statement surprising, for I did not see it in the passages he cited. At most, Shoghi Effendi appeared to be saying that a Bahá'í could study Islam free from the prejudices of what is today called "Orientalism," rather than because Bahá'ís have a clearer understanding of divine will. The most fundamental question that needs to be raised in connection with John Hatcher's "docetic" understanding of Bahá'u'lláh is, does it adequately account for what we know about him historically speaking? Furthermore does it enable us to appreciate his life more fully? I would argue that there are problems on both counts. How, for instance, does one understand Bahá'u'lláh's statement that he has received conflicting reports about his sister and is unclear as to what she is saying or doing,(16) in light of Hatcher's categoric understanding of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's statement that, "Either Bahá'u'lláh was wise, omniscient and aware. . . or was ignorant and in error." Conceiving of the Manifestation as at once divine and fully human could well account for this discrepancy. But Hatcher's docetism does not. At one point in order to prove the nature of Bahá'u'lláh's infallibility Hatcher makes this statement: "Unlike human artists who must labour over their work, often taking a manuscript through many drafts and revisions, Bahá'u'lláh made no revisions and dictated without hesitation or pause" (footnote 77). While it is true that Bahá'u'lláh revealed verses with incredible rapidity and without hesitation or pause, it is simply not the case that he never revised them. Many of Bahá'u'lláh's manuscripts were subsequently revised by him, often years later.(17) Finally, does denying Bahá'u'lláh's humanity help us gain a full appreciation for his life, sacrifices and accomplishments? If his humanity was only a "veil," in what sense can we fully appropriate such verses as this in the Tablet of Amad: "Forget not My bounties while I am absent. Remember My days during thy days, and My distress and banishment in this remote prison"? If Bahá'u'lláh did not have a fully human nature what could his suffering and distress possibly mean to us and how could recalling it help us to endure our own? John Hatcher's next essay, "Unsealing the Choice Wine at the Family Reunion," provides a most suggestive discussion of the metaphorical use of the imagery of "wine" in the Bahá'í writings, especially in the Kitáb-i-Íqán and in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. He associates this "wine" with Qur'anic references to the reward of paradise given to the believers following the Resurrection, "Their thirst will be slaked with Pure Wine Sealed: The Seal thereof will be Musk." The Kitáb-i-Aqdas in enunciating the twin duties of "recognition of Him who is the Dayspring of His Revelation" and the observance of "every ordinance of Him Who is the Desire of the world" brings together all the dualities of human existence. For Hatcher these include, our knowing and loving capacities, our physical and spiritual realities, and the sacred and secular aspects of human society. John Hatcher's third essay is entitled "Some Thoughts on Gender Distinction in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Bahá'í Principle of Complementarity." Hatcher gives only passing mention to matters such as laws regarding dowry, inheritance and membership of the House of Justice and fails to discuss the details of any of these laws or other references to gender found in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Instead almost full attention is given to statements of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the Universal House of Justice which suggest that, while women are equal in status, they are not necessarily the same in function. John Hatcher's final essay, entitled "The Model of Penology Implied in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas" does a much better job of keeping to the actual contents of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, citing specific laws and suggesting their ramifications, although he sees Bahá'u'lláh's purpose here not to establish rules, but rather to set forth models. While Hatcher makes a distinction between personal and social laws as found in the Aqdas, the former not being subject to legal or administrative sanctions, he insists there is not the distinction between secular and sacred law as understood in the west. Hence punishment is ordained for acts like "fornification," but the payment of the huqúqu'lláh, which Hatcher suggests may be the primary means of taxation in a future Bahá'í commonwealth, is left as a matter between the individual and God. There is little evidence, however, that huqúqu'lláh was designed to be the primary means of taxation. In an address given in Montreal, Canada, in 1912 entitled "Economic Happiness," 'Abdu'l-Bahá insisted that a graduated income tax should be imposed which could reach as high as fifty per cent.(18) Generally speaking I would suggest that there are four major drawbacks common to nearly all of these essays, whether by William or John Hatcher. First, the essays had only the most precarious relationship with the actual contents of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, which was supposedly their inspiration. Second, both brothers tended to misrepresent quotations as though they came from Bahá'u'lláh when, as often as not, they were from another source. Third, there was a disturbing tendency for both authors to refer to the "Bahá'í approach" or the "Bahá'í teachings" in an essentialistic manner which they identified all too closely with their own opinions. Finally, given the variety of Persian and Arabic words which are often translated indiscriminately into English as "knowledge," the Hatchers' attempt to construct a Bahá'í epistemological framework on the basis of English translations of texts without reference to the original appears highly problematic. It seems premature to take a broad sweep of issues of this type without a solid philological study of the texts in question.

The Psychology of Spirituality Author: Hossain B. Danesh Publisher: Nine Pines, Ottawa, 1994, 270 pages Reviewer: Stephen Miller       This is a short book (270 pages including index and appendices) which, as the   author states in the preface, aims to "...provide us with an integrated and comprehensive framework for understanding our behaviour....[considering] the biological, psychosocial, and spiritual dimensions of human reality....[showing] that life can truly be good, happy, and fruitful..." This is an ambitious undertaking which, for me at least, was unsuccessful. That is not to say that there is not some value in this book. Danesh has been a practising psychiatrist working in the field of life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer, helping patients facing difficult issues such as their own deaths and bereavement. In that we have something in common. In places, his book is thoughtful and he begins by identifying some common and distressing problems which many patients face at these, and other, times in their lives. He goes on to offer a conceptualisation of these problems in terms of a lack of spiritual growth and development in the lives of these patients, and attempts to illustrate his approach to alleviating such distress with short case histories. There follows a description of his concept of an "integrated psychospiritual developmental model" of human beings, both individually and collectively. This chapter is entitled "Fundamentals" and is perhaps the best in the book, in that it offers a concise explanation of Danesh's concepts well-illustrated with a simple matrix. These concepts are as valid as others presented by the many other authors in the field of psychology. Using these fundamentals he broadens his scope to offer an understanding of how all psychological problems can be seen as disorders of spirit and treated accordingly, and then how each individual can reach maturity as a spiritual being and become an integrated person. One difficulty is the intended readership. The preface states that it "is written for those who ask difficult questions... [For example] What is the purpose of human life? What is love? What is the secret of happiness?...." Clearly this could apply to everyone, but is this book useful for those extensively read in the field of psychology? Or is it more useful to those who have little or no knowledge of the field? If you belong to the former group you will find little here that has not been said elsewhere, albeit using different terminology. I.D. Yalom, in particular, offers a clear explanation of the existential view point, J. Bowlby and E. Erikson offer detailed developmental perspectives. This reader would have preferred the author's ideas discussed in the context of those and other widely known theoretical models. Danesh frequently presents his viewpoints as if they were facts which are in opposition to current medical and psychological thinking. This is not an accurate portrayal of the field, as I am sure he knows, and many authors share some of his views. To have referred to them would have made for a more scholarly work. By the time I reached the final two chapters of the book, I had become weary of the author's dogmatic style. If this book is to be your introduction to this field, Danesh does provide an adequate starting point. He is, of course, right that spirituality is an essential dimension of human existence and his integrated explanations of psychospiritual development will prove useful to many readers. Whether or not this book answers the questions it poses will depend on the individual reader. At around £10, I guess it will not cost too much to find out.

The Eco Principle Author: Arthur Lyon Dahl Publisher: George Ronald, Oxford & Zed Books, London, 1996, 170 pages Reviewer: Stephen Vickers       The author's intention, as explained by his preface, is to place "ecology and   economics in symbiosis." The book's intended audience is the general reader, although Dahl makes no secret of the Bahá'í inspiration behind his ideas and his work: As a life-long Bahá'í, I have always been interested in what leads to harmony and unity in systems, including social systems and value systems, and their relationships to the other kinds of systems operating on this planet. This had inevitably coloured my whole approach to science and to the synthesis of many fields in this volume. (Preface, xi) Dahl's preface acquaints the reader with his experience. He is a marine biologist with two decades of work on the fragile and complex environments of the South Pacific. While working in that region he laid the foundations for the South Pacific regional environmental programme, and then moved into the UN system, within which he has held a number of posts.(19) The preface gives three valuable insights into understanding this book. First, most of Dahl's practical experience has been in the South Pacific. This region provides an almost faultless model of an environmental system encompassing a number of semi-autonomous sub-systems. A coral atoll is an immensely complex and sensitive system, partly self-contained, but with the sea and the air providing access for the interchange of materials, both organic and inorganic, between the atolls. Such a model provides an ideal inspiration for Dahl's concept of "Ecos" (see below). Secondly, the South Pacific region encompasses a large number of state jurisdictions, in which context Dahl clearly grew to appreciate the need for theory and practice encompassing both the scientific and the governmental. Thirdly, Dahl fairly candidly admits to a lack of familiarity both with economics, and with the literature of the interface between economics and environmental science: It was only when the first version of the manuscript was circulated to some publishers and friends for review that my attention was drawn to the extensive and stimulating work by others on many of the issues raised, with which my own thoughts had independently or unconsciously converged. (Preface, x) The conflict between ecology and economics These insights are valuable to understanding Arthur Dahl's approach. His starting point is that ecology and economics are two paradigms (après Kuhn) in conflict, and in his first three chapters he looks at world problems from the perspectives of these two paradigms. No need to ask which side Dahl is on - economics is not only a dismal science, it is a science incapable of reflection: Most economics practitioners are not prepared to stand back and question the frameworks, assumptions and beliefs on which their careers and whole lives have been built. (p. 2) For Dahl, economics fails in part because it measures only monetarised production and consumption. It is hard not to sympathise with his view. With gross national product measured in this way, subsistence agriculture does not figure in national income at all while the cost of repairing vandalism, and similar activities which have no beneficial effect, nevertheless make a positive contribution to gross national product. The inability of economics to allocate values to environmental goods like clean air and water or thriving wildlife, its concentration upon short-time goals, its inability to favour necessities over luxuries and armaments, and its obsession with growth, have together thrown the world into crisis. Population is soaring, creating a deficit in both education and food. Non-renewable resources, including energy, are being depleted, while genetic diversity is declining. There is hope, in that the technology is available both to improve public transport, and to shift the emphasis to renewable resources. What is lacking are the will, the ethos and the conceptual tools to understand our global predicament. The concept of the eco While many economists would claim that some of the theory, and even a little of the practice, of their discipline has already woken up to social and environmental cost accounting, few can doubt Dahl's assessment of the current global situation. His fourth and fifth chapters introduce his concept of ecos. Drawing upon systems theory, he proposes the term "eco" for any natural or man-made functional system with internal integrity and distinct features and behaviour enclosed within clear boundaries. The term can "apply equally to an organism, an ecosystem, a machine, a town, a nation, the Earth, or a star... (or) many human institutions" (47). Any eco possesses boundaries in three dimensions, and a resource base, an energy source (internal or external), material flux (i.e. movement of resources across the boundaries), dynamics, information and communication with the external. It is the information element which goes beyond traditional systems theory, and provides an excellent method by which economics and environmental science may be integrated. Dahl says, This information on the organisation and integration of the eco is the critical factor determining its value or "wealth"...with the eco as a unifying concept, we can also redefine ecology as the study or knowledge of ecos and economics as the management of ecos. Both then take on a larger sense than in their traditional usage, and their complementarity becomes evident. (48-49) Dahl's concept of the eco is impressively developed. The information content of an eco organises the energy and resources which flow through it. As an eco becomes too large it has either to split or to create smaller ecos "nested" within it. (An example of this latter situation is a city government within a state; while each is an eco in its own right, one is "nested" within the other.) The concept clearly makes it possible to utilise the same frameworks and vocabulary for both "human" and "natural" ecos, and to address both economics and the environment. Those characteristics of ecos which can be measured, and which are equally relevant to human and natural ecos, include inter alia transport, circulation, the balance in the materials account, the energy pathway, efficiency; information storage, signalling or control; and productivity. Nor does the concept serve merely to describe functional systems. Dahl's prime motivation, as both an environmentalist and a Bahá'í, is to create a conceptual structure that improves or maintains the social and natural environment, and which maximises meaningful human consumption while minimising environmental degradation. Armed with the concept of the eco, he does this quite successfully. Central to the concept is: ...the emphasis on information storage and flow as the key factor in understanding system functioning, and the evolutionary drive to use energy flow in the system to increase information content, structure and efficiency. It is this information dimension that helps to bridge our understanding of natural and human social ecos, as well as to incorporate the more abstract cultural, moral and spiritual dimensions of human systems into the theoretical framework. (56) Moreover, the temporal dimension (change over time) is of central relevance. Taken together, these aspects in theory give a scale for assessing what is and what is not good for the eco. Dahl clearly intends the eco to be a normative concept. In this vein, Dahl shows in chapter 6 that widespread adoption of the "eco" concept would avoid the grossest examples of environmentally-inappropriate economics. Using biological examples, Dahl demonstrates the ultimate unsustainability of economic models that centre around rapid and continuous growth, argues for the value of unique cultures, and demonstrates that current models of national accounting fail to take account of resource bases or environmental degradation. Moreover, developing his argument that the information content of an eco is its greatest resource, he criticises increasing privatisation of information, particularly the vesting in developed world companies the right to patents over plant and animal varieties. He suggests a compromise, whereby such patents can be held by a wider variety of individuals and groups than at present, including indigenous peoples and Third World farmers, but whereby access to and use of such information is freely available in exchange for a royalty. Problems with the concept In practice, however, the authoritative allocation of values does not easily flow from the theory, however impressive it may be. The theory encompasses social, moral and cultural values in addition to economics. On a macro level, the eco theory yields clear prescriptions. To Dahl, "the value of an eco is best measured by its information content and connections; anything that degrades the information content reduces its value accordingly" (54). Therefore, for example, permitting cultural imperialism, on the back of economic power, to destroy a minority language is clearly not acceptable. The problem lies where tradeoffs are required, where there are marginal and apparently one-off decisions. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" certainly, but what about trading away 1% of his soul for 1% of the world? Which does a village need more, the turtle nesting area or the imputed income from the proposed hotel? On a global scale, the answer is obvious. Most species of turtles are endangered, and their nesting areas should be protected. Isolate the village as an eco, look at this eco in isolation, and, if the hotel also brings the technology to link into complex networks of information, perhaps by phone, modem or TV, measuring the relative diversity of information content with or without turtle nesting may yield the wrong answer. Furthermore, some environmental ecos are so complex that it is hard to comprehend the precise policy priorities that flow from detailed knowledge of them. Dahl, drawing upon his expertise of the South Pacific, gives the example of a coral reef which he says could be characterised as an eco with 104 more ecos nested within it. Almost any intervention in the area would cause a crisis in the reef. In such an immensely complex situation the "eco", while a helpful descriptive concept, does little to help order relative policy priorities in an imperfect world. Towards a more organic economics In his final chapters, 6 to 9, Dahl moves towards arguing for "a more organic economics," one in which the world economic system is completely integrated and where human and environmental needs are paramount. This is something which forms an article of faith to every Bahá'í, and the reader warms to its prose. The current writer, however, could not really discern precisely how this glorious vision derives from the concept of ecos. Unless--and this does not appear to be clearly stated--Dahl's early analysis of a coral reef as a plethora of nested ecos with constant recycling of energy, resources and information between them, and praise for its efficiency, provides a model for improving the flows of energy, resources and information around the earth. If so, the new world cries out for authoritative values of the type suggested by the Bahá'í administrative system. Without such authority, and in the context of a newly-resurgent capitalism, merely to discover what is best for the world looks like an expression of pious hope. Dahl fully appreciates this fact: ...this will also require fundamental changes in other human institutions and values of the type discussed elsewhere in this book...To adopt only free trade in the present context...would simply allow the strong to dominate and exploit the weak and increase injustice rather than efficiency. (88) Nor is Dahl blind to some of the unpleasant facts of power inequality between classes or groups. Granted, "a system of free trade without customs or tariff barriers" may well "allow each nation or other geographic entity to specialise in those aspects of production that best suit its natural resource endowments, geographic position and human potential,.... (but) global free trade will also require harmonised levels of environmental protection and social welfare" (89-90). Thailand or China's comparative advantage in the making of plastic toys relies on their endowment of abundant cheap labour, certainly, but this endowment is strengthened by the lack of rigorously-enforced health and safety legislation. Dahl seems, like other Bahá'ís, to place great faith in the role of education and international debate in creating the conscious changes required to make these shifts. (See the review by Bryan Graham in this volume, page 15.) While at first sight the idea of an eco may have seemed to be so generalised to be of little practical value, many of the most valuable insights which Dahl gives come when he addresses individual human beings and human institutions as nested ecos. He looks at education as a major means of increasing the information content of an eco, and examines effectively cases where the "human capital" of an eco (in these cases polities) has been positively or negatively affected by education. Towards the end of the book the concept of ecos fades somewhat into the background, while Dahl presents an effective Bahá'í economic and social analysis of global problems. All in all, this book gives the reader a lot to think about, effectively presents a Bahá'í analysis of global problems, and introduces a concept which is an effective tool for looking at a variety of economic and environmental situations, but which is not so useful as a tool either for comparison or looking on a wider or global scale. The book is a useful contribution to the interface between economics and environment, although it is hoped that the next edition will give wider consideration to more recent developments in economic thinking, such as environmental cost accounting.

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End Notes (Use [BACK] to return to article.) This is mentioned in many sources from the time of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and discussed in the correspondence between Shoghi Effendi and Charles Mason concerning about the design of a Mashriqu'l-Adhkár for Mount Carmel. R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, Music, Devotions, and Mashriqu'l-Adhkár (Studies in Bábí and Bahá'í History, volume 4) (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1987) 212-214. The majority of the designs submitted to the Bahai Temple Unity Board in 1909 and 1920 had one side of the building developed into a prominent entrance. Such a porch feature would actually be more practical in climates that require a transition between outdoors and the worship space to allow for the removal of coats, etc. Remey's designs accepted by Shoghi Effendi for Mount Carmel and Tehran featured such porch entrances. Armstrong-Ingram, Music 179-215. According to Lawson, the Báb is "one of the truly remarkable minds in the history of ideas" (personal communication). Lawson's publications on the Báb have, in my view, received insufficient attention and are a foundation for future scholarship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. "Seraffic" is derived from the Arabic "sarofa" and the Hebrew "serafim." One of the meanings of the Arabic "serofa" is to ennoble, or to elevate; related to it is "saraf," which means elevated place, nobility, eminence, dignity, honour. The Hebrew "serafim" refers to the highest-ranking angels guarding God's throne, the angels of knowledge and wisdom. Thus, seraffic arts ennoble the soul by attracting it towards God through a manifestation of beauty that is founded upon knowledge and spiritual understanding. "Donnic" is derived from the Arabic "dunya," which means world, and may also refer to life in this world (as opposed to the afterlife), earthly things or concerns. Thus donnic arts primarily enhance humanity's material, intellectual or social well-being on a worldly plane (see pages 261-262 and 271-272 in the book under review). Van den Hoonard, Origins 63. Ibid. While I associate this distinction between the two types of knowledge with liberals in modern times, I should note that this distinction has been known since antiquity and usually referred to by different terms. In Latin the former was referred to as scientia while the latter was called sapientintia. The Bahá'í writings make even finer distinctions in the terminology used to refer to the different types of knowledge. Unfortunately, most of these distinctions tend to be lost in translation and both of the Hatchers appear to be unaware of them. Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1974) 192. Bahá'u'lláh, The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1991) 54. One is also reminded of the story from the Four Valleys:       The story is told of a mystic knower (ma'arif), who went on a journey with a learned grammarian as his companion. They came to the shore of the Sea of Grandeur. The knower straightway flung himself into the waves, but the grammarian stood lost in his reasonings, which were as words that are written on water. The knower called out to him, "Why dost thou not follow?" The grammarian answered, "O Brother, I dare not advance. I must needs go back again." Then the knower cried, "Forget what thou didst read in the books of Sibavayh and Qawlavayh, of Ibn-i-Hajib and Ibn-i-Malik, and cross the water."       The death of self is needed here, not rhetoric: "Be nothing then, and walk upon the waves" (51-52). Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Haifa: Universal House of Justice, 1992) 56. Ibid. 20. Docetism is an early Christian heresy which totally rejected the humanity of Christ, insisting that the Divine Christ had only seemed (Greek dokein) to take on flesh. Bahá'u'lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1971) 171. The best example of this is the Kitáb-i-Íqán which was revised by Bahá'u'lláh years after the original manuscript was written. Christopher Buck discusses this in detail in Symbol and Secret: Qur'an Commentary in Bahá'u'lláh's Kitáb-i-Íqán (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1995) 27-36. Star of the West 13.9 (December 1922) 228-29. The choice of testimonials for the back cover looks at first well-balanced. There is a fulsome precis by Carl Djerassi, professor of chemistry at Stanford, which proclaims, "The really important books are those which provide ideas for a fundamental recasting of our thinking and institutions. This is such a book", and an equally approving comment from Elizabeth Dowdeswell, executive director of UNEP. The two other testimonials are from Lawrence Arturo, Director of the Bahá'í International Community's office of environment and Dorothy Marcic, a Bahá'í who was a Fulbright Scholar at the Czech management centre. My immediate impression, of a work admired by scholars both within and without the Bahá'í Faith, was marginally dented by the knowledge that Arthur Dahl was educated at Stanford and now serves as Deputy Director of United Nations Environment Programme, which might imply that Carl Djerassi and Elizabeth Dowdeswell, while genuinely enthusiastic about the book, may not have been the most appropriate people to use as referees.

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