Robert H. Stockman - Abdul-Baha in America

ROBERT H.

STOCKMAN

Bah Publishing

415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091-2844

Copyright 2012 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahs of the United States

All rights reserved. Published 2012

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

15 14 13 12 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stockman, Robert H., 1953

Abdul-Bah in America / by Robert H. Stockman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-931847-97-1

Ebook ISBN 978-1-618510-51-8

1. Abdul-Bah, 18441921TravelNorth America. 2. Bahai FaithNorth America. I. Title.

BP393.S76 2012

297.93092dc23

2012005096

Cover design by Andrew Johnson

Book design by Patrick Falso

Photograph of Abdul-Bah reproduced with the permission of the Bah International Community

To Lua and Nabil and the next century of

American Bahs

Abdul-Bah

PREFACE

One approaches the vast subject of Abdul-Bahs eight-month sojourn in North America, even after a century of hindsight, with trepidation. This was not the visit of a sixty-seven-year-old foreign tourist bent on seeing new places or a religious teacher hoping to cement his fortune and reputation; rather, it was the effort of an almost indescribable man, whose impact on people was superhuman, and who used his newfound freedom from forty years of imprisonment and privation to share his Fathers message of the oneness of humanity and the principles of universal peace with as many North Americans as possible. His exhausting yet exhilarating 239-day trek from coast to coast took him to fifty cities and towns, where he delivered up to four talks a dayabout four hundred totalto approximately ninety-three thousand people.

On some days, one hundred fifty persons sought private meetings with him. Their accounts are full of tears of joy, intimate conversationsometimes with a minimum of words spokenprophetic utterances, and even epiphanies and apparent miracles, such as release from grief and healing from physical illness. Prominent men and women flocked to hear him, invited him into their homes, and asked him to speak at some of their most prestigious venues. His commitment to racial and ethnic equality during an era of legal discrimination and widespread prejudice was demonstrated in talks at an African American church, university, and conference; a Japanese-American church; and a Syrian relief society; and by his encouragement of the first interracial (Black/White) marriage in the American Bah community. His championing of the full equality of women and the inevitability of their acquiring the right to vote was controversial and was often featured in headlines about him. His devotion to the poor brought him to visit four hundred homeless men at the Bowery Mission in New York City and speak at six other settlement houses. His desire to give solace to the sick prompted him to travel for hours to visit ill persons far from the crowd of admirers demanding his attention. Jaundiced newspapermen withheld their cynical barbs and praised his wisdom, genuineness, sincerity, and love. Clergymen turned their pulpits over to him after introducing him to their flocks with great warmth and high praise.

Because of the continued expansion of the Bah Faith, a thorough study of Abdul-Bahs journey becomes important for those wishing to know more about this new religion. The Founder of the Faith, Bahullh (181792), was born in Iran and spent most of His life in exile in the Ottoman Empire. He passed away outside the small city of Acre, in what is today Israel. His claim to be a Messenger of God was expressed in the form of a vast array of books, prayers, and letterssome eighteen thousand worksthat described the nature of God and revelation, depicted the spiritual nature of human beings and the need for their continual spiritual and ethical refinement, proclaimed the oneness of humanity and its implications for racial and sexual equality, and outlined principles for the construction of a world civilization. Before His passing, He appointed His eldest son, Abdul-Bah (18441921) as His successor, gave Abdul-Bah the authority to interpret His texts, and made him Head of the Faith. He established a Covenant with His followers that stated that Abdul-Bah was a divinely guided figure and that the Bahs should obey him.

Abdul-Bah took up the reins of leadership immediately and was soon coordinating efforts to take the Bah Faith to the United States and Europe. Americans had first heard about Bahullh at the Worlds Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, but when Abdul-Bah arrived nineteen years later, knowledge about him was limited, and American Bahs numbered only a thousand or two. Since then, the Bah Faith has sunk its roots deep into American culture, has well over a hundred fifty thousand adherents, and is emerging from obscurity. Academic study of its development is becoming more widespread, and public interest is growinghence the need for a book such as this one.

After a century of researching Abdul-Bah, Bahs have not found all the literary sources relating to his trip, though the expanding resources of the World Wide Web present new opportunities for finding rare articles in rural newspapers and references in personal papers. The information already available is staggering: The Promulgation of Universal Peace , a collection of his discourses, has 140 talks; the diary of his companion, Mahmd-i-Zarqn, describes almost every major eventthough sometimes hes off by a day or even twoand many private scenes and frank comments by Abdul-Bah; Juliet Thompsons diary intimately records his visit to New York and Washington; Agnes Parsonss diary covers Washington and Dublin, New Hampshire; Howard Colby Ives offers a hundred perceptive pages scattered throughout his memoir; Allen Wards 239 Days provides a day-to-day summary of Abdul-Bahs trip; the Bah periodical Star of the West has contemporary news and lightly edited transcriptions of his talks; over 350 newspaper and magazine articles are available; a score of books have chapters or sections about his visit, including Hasan Balyuzis important biography, Abdul-Bah: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahullh ; the Ella Cooper Papers in the National Bah Archives in Wilmette, Illinois, have hundreds of pages of unpublished talks by and conversations with Abdul-Bah; and hundreds of pages of other unpublished telegrams, letters, diaries, and memoirs reside in the National Bah Archives. The total number of works published about Abdul-Bahs visit may exceed three thousand pages. The crucial source that remains untapped is the archive of the Bah World Centre in Haifa, Israel, where Abdul-Bahs own correspondence is located but is not yet available to researchers. At some point, once this information becomes available, it may force many revisions of our understanding of his North American sojourn.

Equally important to the problem of sources is the interpretation one brings to them. In his epochal history, God Passes By , Shoghi Effendi Rabbani (head of the Bah Faith from 1921 to 1957, its authorized interpreter, and grandson of Abdul-Bah) provides several short passages with incisive judgments about Abdul-Bahs purpose, key efforts, and effectiveness. The Bah World Center has offered additional overview in its insightful review of the twentieth century, Century of Light. But individual Bahs have rarely ventured to analyze Abdul-Bahs journey.