Wahid Azal
2007-04-21 13:19:41 UTC
Review of August J Strensand’s The Complete Call to the Heaven of the
Bayan
Edited by Muhammad Abdullah al-Ahari, Magribine Press (Chicago: 2006)
ISBN 1-56316-953-3, 200 pages + Table of Contents and Bibliography.
[For] far too long has the clarion-call of the Bayan…[remained]…
unvoiced…
And so begins the spirited forward of Daltaban Peyrevi to this, one
should say, epochal publication by Magribine Press of the
correspondences of one of the lesser known, but undoubtedly pivotal,
Western figures of Bayani (as well as Baha’i) history, August J.
Strensand. Muhammad Abdullah Al-Ahari of the Orthodox Moorish Science
Temple is to be thanked profusely – nay, lauded to the heavens! – for
this important undertaking of editing the still available published
correspondences of August Strensand with the American Baha’i
leadership of the early Twentieth century. For this accomplishment,
which no doubt will unravel many a historical conundrum vis-à-vis the
trajectory of American Bahaism, he and the American Moors have earned
the gratitude of the People of the Bayan everywhere. It is the case
indeed that for far too long the financially well endowed Baha’i
propaganda machine has monopolized all discourse regarding the Babi
movement, demonizing the numerically smaller Bayani community (until
the Islamic Revolution exclusively located in Iran and Cyprus, that
is), and largely obfuscating history with whitewash and re-Imagined
(and usually spurious and quite tendentious) narratives that have
little to no validity under closer scrutiny. In Appendix B of my own
Liber Decatriarchia Mystica I quite graphically illustrated this
point; in the notes section much of it with many of the same English
language sources available to Strensand. Other than Cambridge
Orientalist E.G. Browne, Strensand was one of only a few Westerners -
besides the French diplomat, independent scholar and Bayani A-L-M
Nicolas - to have challenged such whitwashed narratives - and the
deliberate myth-making and dishonesty that animated it - by the
Baha’is head-on. Interestingly enough, the sources utilized by
Strensand are those very same studies of Browne that have remained a
sore thumb to the Baha’i intellectual establishment ever since, and
which Moojan Momen quite unsuccessfully attempted to dismiss to his
discredit in the 1980s; and these are the translations and sources
provided by the Cambridge professor in the second volume of his
critical edition of Abbas Effendi’s A Travellers Narrative Written to
Illustrate the Episode of the Bab. Strensand was a careful and
meticulous reader of Browne’s scholarly source criticism and
translations in that volume and used them, justifiably, to call the
Baha’i establishment on the floor regarding the very legitimacy of the
Baha’i movement and the claims of its founder tout court. However, it
appears that Strensand faced a very similar sort of challenge in
meeting face to face a close-minded assembly of brick walls with
little interest in the real truth as others would face in similar
situations after him later. But the light (nur) of Strensand’s resolve
in these dialogues had its deep resonance and impact, all the same,
and for this reason the second Baha’i patriarch, Shoghi Effendi
Rabbani, libelled Strensand internationally, and to the American
Baha’i community especially, as an “enemy of the Faith” as well as a
“Covenant Breaker,” whereby the rank-and-file of Baha’is were then
bound to shun Strensand ever afterwards, as Catholics would those who
have been excommunicated by the Vatican, orthodox Muslims of an
ideological heretic (kafir/zindiq) and others similar. Withal, this
story, and the fact that Strensand has now long last been vindicated
for future posterity, is a manifestation of the dictum that “the light
(nur) ever shineth through the darkness even though the darkness
comprehendeth not.”
My only point of criticism with the present edition is the choice
selection by the editor of the opening talisman (i.e. da’ira/circular
mandala with a haykal/pentagram in its center), which is not actually
a Bayani talisman at all but a Baha’i one. The incorporation of the
Baha’i greatest name symbol (designed by Baha’i patriarch Abbas
Effendi and calligraphed by Mishkin-Qalam) in the talisman’s third
circular rung clearly identifies it as such. As a point of fact, this
very same talisman was first publicized by Australian Muslim activist
(and former Baha’i) Maryam Rachel Woodlock on the H-Net list H-Bahai
in 2000, which was apparently given to her by an Iranian Baha’i then
living in Australia. While it is striking – as all such magickal
devices are – it is nonetheless one exclusive to the Baha’is, not the
People of the Bayan. In any future edition, the editor should instead
consider incorporating any number of genuine Bayani talismans (several
in the hand of the Point of the Bayan Himself or Subh-i-Azal) which
can currently be located in several digitally published works online
at www.bayanic.com (or H-Bahai).
Withal, this is a momentous publication and one which will clearly pry
open the salons of discussion, whether in the Academy or elsewhere,
regarding the Bayani gnostic faith, its figures, its impact beyond its
region of birth, not to mention the total untenability of Baha’i
historiography regarding early Baha’ism and its claims. Again, much
gratitude goes to the editor of Magribine press and the American Moors
for this valuable effort at real ‘Independent Investigation of the
Truth’ (ta’ri-i-haqiqat).
یهدی الله لِنوره مَن یشاﺀ
Wahid Azal
N.U.R.
Fatimiya Sufi Order
Ecclesia Gnostica Bayani Universalis
4th of the Month of the Living (al-hayy), Day of the Mighty
(al-‘azim), Year 2.
April 21st 2007
Bayan
Edited by Muhammad Abdullah al-Ahari, Magribine Press (Chicago: 2006)
ISBN 1-56316-953-3, 200 pages + Table of Contents and Bibliography.
[For] far too long has the clarion-call of the Bayan…[remained]…
unvoiced…
And so begins the spirited forward of Daltaban Peyrevi to this, one
should say, epochal publication by Magribine Press of the
correspondences of one of the lesser known, but undoubtedly pivotal,
Western figures of Bayani (as well as Baha’i) history, August J.
Strensand. Muhammad Abdullah Al-Ahari of the Orthodox Moorish Science
Temple is to be thanked profusely – nay, lauded to the heavens! – for
this important undertaking of editing the still available published
correspondences of August Strensand with the American Baha’i
leadership of the early Twentieth century. For this accomplishment,
which no doubt will unravel many a historical conundrum vis-à-vis the
trajectory of American Bahaism, he and the American Moors have earned
the gratitude of the People of the Bayan everywhere. It is the case
indeed that for far too long the financially well endowed Baha’i
propaganda machine has monopolized all discourse regarding the Babi
movement, demonizing the numerically smaller Bayani community (until
the Islamic Revolution exclusively located in Iran and Cyprus, that
is), and largely obfuscating history with whitewash and re-Imagined
(and usually spurious and quite tendentious) narratives that have
little to no validity under closer scrutiny. In Appendix B of my own
Liber Decatriarchia Mystica I quite graphically illustrated this
point; in the notes section much of it with many of the same English
language sources available to Strensand. Other than Cambridge
Orientalist E.G. Browne, Strensand was one of only a few Westerners -
besides the French diplomat, independent scholar and Bayani A-L-M
Nicolas - to have challenged such whitwashed narratives - and the
deliberate myth-making and dishonesty that animated it - by the
Baha’is head-on. Interestingly enough, the sources utilized by
Strensand are those very same studies of Browne that have remained a
sore thumb to the Baha’i intellectual establishment ever since, and
which Moojan Momen quite unsuccessfully attempted to dismiss to his
discredit in the 1980s; and these are the translations and sources
provided by the Cambridge professor in the second volume of his
critical edition of Abbas Effendi’s A Travellers Narrative Written to
Illustrate the Episode of the Bab. Strensand was a careful and
meticulous reader of Browne’s scholarly source criticism and
translations in that volume and used them, justifiably, to call the
Baha’i establishment on the floor regarding the very legitimacy of the
Baha’i movement and the claims of its founder tout court. However, it
appears that Strensand faced a very similar sort of challenge in
meeting face to face a close-minded assembly of brick walls with
little interest in the real truth as others would face in similar
situations after him later. But the light (nur) of Strensand’s resolve
in these dialogues had its deep resonance and impact, all the same,
and for this reason the second Baha’i patriarch, Shoghi Effendi
Rabbani, libelled Strensand internationally, and to the American
Baha’i community especially, as an “enemy of the Faith” as well as a
“Covenant Breaker,” whereby the rank-and-file of Baha’is were then
bound to shun Strensand ever afterwards, as Catholics would those who
have been excommunicated by the Vatican, orthodox Muslims of an
ideological heretic (kafir/zindiq) and others similar. Withal, this
story, and the fact that Strensand has now long last been vindicated
for future posterity, is a manifestation of the dictum that “the light
(nur) ever shineth through the darkness even though the darkness
comprehendeth not.”
My only point of criticism with the present edition is the choice
selection by the editor of the opening talisman (i.e. da’ira/circular
mandala with a haykal/pentagram in its center), which is not actually
a Bayani talisman at all but a Baha’i one. The incorporation of the
Baha’i greatest name symbol (designed by Baha’i patriarch Abbas
Effendi and calligraphed by Mishkin-Qalam) in the talisman’s third
circular rung clearly identifies it as such. As a point of fact, this
very same talisman was first publicized by Australian Muslim activist
(and former Baha’i) Maryam Rachel Woodlock on the H-Net list H-Bahai
in 2000, which was apparently given to her by an Iranian Baha’i then
living in Australia. While it is striking – as all such magickal
devices are – it is nonetheless one exclusive to the Baha’is, not the
People of the Bayan. In any future edition, the editor should instead
consider incorporating any number of genuine Bayani talismans (several
in the hand of the Point of the Bayan Himself or Subh-i-Azal) which
can currently be located in several digitally published works online
at www.bayanic.com (or H-Bahai).
Withal, this is a momentous publication and one which will clearly pry
open the salons of discussion, whether in the Academy or elsewhere,
regarding the Bayani gnostic faith, its figures, its impact beyond its
region of birth, not to mention the total untenability of Baha’i
historiography regarding early Baha’ism and its claims. Again, much
gratitude goes to the editor of Magribine press and the American Moors
for this valuable effort at real ‘Independent Investigation of the
Truth’ (ta’ri-i-haqiqat).
یهدی الله لِنوره مَن یشاﺀ
Wahid Azal
N.U.R.
Fatimiya Sufi Order
Ecclesia Gnostica Bayani Universalis
4th of the Month of the Living (al-hayy), Day of the Mighty
(al-‘azim), Year 2.
April 21st 2007