p20 defense of Baha'i

Reader Response; Brilliant Proof

In response to 8 year old Thomas's question: "Who was more evil, Mirza Yahya or Mirza Muhammad Ali?" Reader “Jimbo” offers an answer and a passage from The Brilliant Proof, a work that the Master commissioned from the greatest Baha'i scholar at the time in response to an attack that took place in response to Abdu'l-Baha's initial visits to England and Paris. A quick search of the Web turned up a review in a scholarly journal of the latest edition of Brilliant Proof, which I append at the end of this mailout. It gives more details on how this book came to be than I knew of before.

 

Hi John!

I would think that persecuting the Manifestation of God would be worse, but a certain man by the name of Peter Z. Easton caused Mirza Abul Fazl Gulpaygan to write "The Brilliant Proof" in defense of 'Abdu'l-Baha whom the former had attacked verbally and publicly. I include an excerpt below including "Should one accounting himself a teacher of good morals and a spreader of the superior virtues of Christianity characterize himself with a quality which is the most specific sign and attribute of Anti-Christ? No! by the Life of God!" (bold added) and yes jealousy is mentioned as the spiritual disease.

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 The Brilliant Proof (Burhane Lame) by Mirza Abul Fazl Gulpaygan

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This etext is based on:

"The Brilliant Proof" (Burhane Lame) by Mirza Abul Fazl Gulpaygan

Written December 28, 1911, in Syria

Published at Chicago, 1912

Press of Bahá'í News Service

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 HE IS THE LIVING, THE SELF-SUBSISTENT!

 In these days which are the latter days of 1911, A.D. and the early days of 1330 A.H., I have seen a curious article which astonished me. What did I see? I find that one of the missionaries of the Protestant sect, who accounts himself among the learned men of the twentieth century, a helper of the pure religion of Christ and one of the civilized and cultured occidentals, by name, Peter Z. Easton, has been so provoked by jealousy at the universal spread of the heavenly word of His Holiness 'Abdu'l-Bahá throughout the vast expanses of Europe that he has trespassed the limit of courtesy and humanity and published an article replete with execration and calumny in the magazine "Evangelical Christendom."

 Yea, jealousy has caused many to fall from the high station and lofty summit of courtesy and thrown them headlong into the low depths of vain words and the writing of falsehood and slander. But the fire of jealousy has flamed in this person with even greater violence for he has seen how that glorious man, Archdeacon Wilberforce, as befitting the station of men of learning and of eminence, has spoken of 'Abdu'l-Bahá as "Master" before a great assemblage and introduced him with terms of glorification and commendation to a mighty gathering.

Having considered the entire contents of the above article I found the writer's sole aim to be an attempt to allay the fire of his jealousy by the mention of evil words and execration; to count himself as victorious by wielding the arms of calumny and falsehood which are usually the only sword and sole weapon in the hands of a weak and ignorant opponent. The realization of this caused even greater regret and remorse, for I had never supposed that such traits and objectionable qualities could be manifested by souls who pretended to civilization and moral culture. Are there not enough revilers, calumniators and prevaricators in the other parts of the world that such should also appear from Europe? Should one accounting himself a teacher of good morals and a spreader of the superior virtues of Christianity characterize himself with a quality which is the most specific sign and attribute of Anti-Christ? No! by the Life of God! Manifestors of such evil qualities do exist in the world even as dawning-places of glorious qualities are also visible and manifest, in order that the blessed words of the Christ, "Ye shall know the tree by its fruit," may be fulfilled, and that those who are akin to His Holiness Christ -- upon whom be glory! -- may be distinguished from those who are contrary to Him.

His Holiness 'Abdu'l-Bahá calls the people of Europe to the lofty attributes of humanity, but Peter Z. Easton teaches them libels, execration, falsehood and calumnies!

His Holiness 'Abdu'l-Bahá summons the dwellers in the world to unity and harmony, but Peter Z. Easton invites men to division and inharmony!

His Holiness 'Abdu'l-Bahá lifts his blessed hands heavenward in the assemblage of prayer and invokes blessing and mercy for the people of Europe from the Court of the Almighty, but Peter Z. Easton attempts to prove in learned magazines the remoteness of the people of the East from praiseworthy Christian qualities, and desires that torment and punishment should fall upon them!

'Abdu'l-Bahá commands: "Speak evil of no one and wish evil for no one;" but Peter Z. Easton says that no one should wish well for, or consider as worthy of grace, a people whose number he himself estimates as three millions!

I wonder therefore how we are to distinguish the good and evil fruits of the tree of existence; and how shall we comprehend and interpret the blessed words: "Ye shall know the tree by its fruits?" To my mind there is no criterion but this, and Peter Z. Easton cannot teach otherwise.

Consider the thirty-fourth verse of the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, where His Holiness the Christ says: "O ye generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak of good things?"

Yea, if it were possible for the sugar-cane to yield a bitter fruit and for the fragrant rose to exhale a foul odor, such signs as these ("ye shall know the tree by its fruits") would never have been revealed in the heavenly books and such distinction would never have been appointed as the correct criterion.

Consequently that which emanates from His Holiness 'Abdu'l-Bahá consists in calling men to the principles of faithfulness and accord, and exhorting them to good morals and lofty attributes; while that which appears from Peter Z. Easton consists of varying degrees of falsehood, calumny, libels, execration and the like. The purpose of all this is that the nature of each of the two persons may become manifest, that the fruits of the tree of existence ;may be distinguished and men may find the true standard.

(Mirza Abu'l-Fadl, The Brilliant Proof, p. 4)

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The Brilliant Proof, by Mirza Abu’l-Fadl Gulpaygani. 80 pages, appendix. Los Angeles, CA: Kalimat Press, 1998. $14.95 (Cloth) ISBN 1-890688-00-2 review available at: http://fp.arizona.edu/mesassoc/bulletin/36-1/36-1ModIslamPol.htm

Reprinted here, with a new introduction, is an article originally published in 1912 by the Baha’i News Service in Chicago in response to a Christian missionary’s polemic attack on the Baha’i faith published the year before. Rev. Peter Z. Easton, whose “Baha’ism—A Warning,” appeared in the British magazine Evangelical Christendom, had served as a missionary in Azerbaijan for many years beginning in 1873, and was angered at the warm reception afforded Abd ul-Baha, the son of the founder of the Baha’i faith, by an Anglican minister at St. John’s Church in Westminster on 17 September 1911. Easton’s piece, included in the work as an appendix (pp. 73-80), characterizes the Baha’i faith and Babism, the movement from which it sprang, as the latest manifestation of “Persian pantheism,” a tradition including, in his view, the movements of al-Muqanna’, Babak, the Qaramitah, and the Assassins, “who for 170 years, from 1090 on, inaugurated a reign of terror compared with which the French Revolution was child’s play” (p. 78) They are based, he holds, on the utter and unquestioning obedience of the devotee (murid) to the guide (murshid). Baha himself, the founder of the faith, is called a “betrayer, assassin, and blasphemer.” In short, Easton characterizes Babism and Bahaism as anathema and the adherents to the faith as violent and satanic fanatics.

In Beirut later that year, Easton’s article was presented to Mirza Abu’l-Fadl Gulpaygani (1844-1914), a Twelver Shiite jurist who had converted to the Baha’i faith and become one of its most prominent scholars. He immediately authored a Persian refutation under the title Burhan-e lami’ and had it sent to the United States, where ‘Abd ul-Baha had it published along with an English translation. The refutation addresses Easton’s attack under four rubrics: 1) accusations against Baha’ullah, 2) pantheism, 3) attitude toward despotic government, and 4) distinctive or superior features of the Baha’i faith. Gulpaygani dismisses Easton’s accusations against Baha’ullah as slanderous and berates him for listening to the evidence of Baha’ullah’s enemies alone. Baha’ism is not, he argues, pantheistic, but rather monotheistic, rooted in the Abrahamic faiths and based on their successive prophecies. Baha’ullah, rather than supporting despotic government, urged the establishment of popular consultative and representative institutions. Finally, ten features of Baha’i faith are presented as distinctive and improvements over other religious doctrines: 1) rejection of oral tradition in favor of established texts, 2) rejection of divisive interpretation of God’s word, 3) emphasis on the unity of mankind and avoidance of divisive doctrines, 4) prohibition of slavery, 5) considering work in allowable professions as a form of worship, 6) mandatory education of both sexes, 7) prohibition of cursing, insults, swearing, and blasphemy, 8) prohibition of arms except in extreme circumstances, 9) establishment of local Houses of Justice, parliaments, and constitutional governments, and 10) a new fractional inheritance system. This short work provides an interesting view of the Baha’i faith and its adherents’ struggle for acceptance in the early twentieth century.

Devin Stewart

Emory University