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The Reconciliation of Races and Religions

T >> Thomas Kelly Cheyne >> The Reconciliation of Races and Religions




If this is correct, Baha-'ullah was more widely known in Turkish
Kurdistan than his family was aware, and debated high questions of
theology as frequently as if he were in Baghdad or at the Supreme
Shrine. Nor was it only the old physician and the poor Babi
disciple who were on the track of Baha-'ullah, but 'several
persons'--no doubt persons of weight, who were anxious for a
settlement of the points at issue in the Babi community. A further
contribution is made by the Ezeli historian, who states that
Subh-i-Ezel himself wrote a letter to his brother, inviting him to
return. [Footnote: _TN_, p. 359.] One wishes that letter could
be recovered. It would presumably throw much light on the relations
between the brothers at this critical period.

About 1862 representations were made to the Shah that the Babi
preaching at Baghdad was injurious to the true Faith in Persia. The
Turkish Government, therefore, when approached on the subject by the
Shah, consented to transfer the Babis from Baghdad to Constantinople.
An interval of two weeks was accorded, and before this grace-time was
over a great event happened--his declaration of himself to be the
expected Messiah (Him whom God should manifest). As yet it was only in
the presence of his son (now best known as Abdul Baha) and four other
specially chosen disciples that this momentous declaration was
made. There were reasons why Baha-'ullah should no longer keep his
knowledge of the will of God entirely secret, and also reasons why he
should not make the declaration absolutely public.

The caravan took four months to reach Constantinople. At this capital
of the Muhammadan world their stay was brief, as they were 'packed
off' the same year to Adrianople. Again they suffered greatly. But who
would find fault with the Great Compassion for arranging it so? And
who would deny that there are more important events at this period
which claim our interest? These are (1) the repeated attempts on the
life of Baha-'ullah (or, as the Ezelis say, of Subh-i-Ezel) by the
machinations of Subh-i-Ezel (or, as the Ezelis say, of Baha-'ullah),
and (2) the public declaration on the part of Baha-'ullah that he, and
no one else, was the Promised Manifestation of Deity.

There is some obscurity in the chronological relation of these events,
i.e. as to whether the public declaration of Baha-'ullah was in
definite opposition, not only to the claims of Subh-i-Ezel, but to
those of Zabih, related by Mirza Jani, [Footnote: See _NH_, pp. 385,
394; _TN_, p. 357. The Ezelite historian includes Dayyan (see above).]
and of others, or whether the reverse is the case. At any rate
Baha-'ullah believed that his brother was an assassin and a liar. This
is what he says,--'Neither was the belly of the glutton sated till
that he desired to eat my flesh and drink my blood.... And herein he
took counsel with one of my attendants, tempting him unto this.... But
he, when he became aware that the matter had become publicly known,
took the pen of falsehood, and wrote unto the people, and attributed
all that he had done to my peerless and wronged Beauty.' [Footnote:
_TN_, pp. 368, 369.]

These words are either a meaningless extravagance, or they are a
deliberate assertion that Subh-i-Ezel had sought to destroy his
brother, and had then circulated a written declaration that it was
Baha-'ullah who had sought to destroy Subh-i-Ezel. It is, I fear,
certain that Baha-'ullah is correct, and that Subh-i-Ezel did
attempt to poison his brother, who was desperately ill for twenty-two
days.

Another attempt on the life of the much-loved Master was prevented, it
is said, by the faithfulness of the bath-servant. 'One day while in
the bath Subh-i-Ezel remarked to the servant (who was a believer) that
the Blessed Perfection had enemies and that in the bath he was much
exposed.... Subh-i-Ezel then asked him whether, if God should lay upon
him the command to do this, he would obey it. The servant understood
this question, coming from Subh-i-Ezel, to be a suggestion of such a
command, and was so petrified by it that he rushed screaming from the
room. He first met Abbas Effendi and reported to him Subh-i-Ezel's
words.... Abbas Effendi, accordingly, accompanied him to my father,
who listened to his story and then enjoined absolute silence upon
him.' [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 38, 39.]

Such is the story as given by one who from her youthful age is likely
to have remembered with precision. She adds that the occurrence 'was
ignored by my father and brother,' and that 'our relations with
Subh-i-Ezel continued to be cordial.' How extremely fine this is!
It may remind us of 'Father, forgive them,' and seems to justify the
title given to Baha-'ullah by his followers, 'Blessed Perfection.'

The Ezelite historian, however, gives a different version of the
story. [Footnote: _TN_, pp. 359, 360.] According to him, it was
Subh-i-Ezel whose life was threatened. 'It was arranged that
Muhammad Ali the barber should cut his throat while shaving him in
the bath. On the approach of the barber, however, Subh-i-Ezel
divined his design, refused to allow him to come near, and, on leaving
the bath, instantly took another lodging in Adrianople, and separated
himself from Mirza Huseyn 'Ali and his followers.'

Evidently there was great animosity between the parties, but, in spite
of the _Eight Paradises_, it appears to me that the Ezelites were
chiefly in fault. Who can believe that Baha-'ullah spread abroad his
brother's offences? [Footnote: _Ibid_.] On the other hand,
Subh-i-Ezel and his advisers were capable of almost anything from
poisoning and assassination to the forging of spurious letters. I do
not mean to say that they were by any means the first persons in
Persian history to venture on these abnormal actions.

It is again Subh-i-Ezel who is responsible for the disturbance of
the community.

It was represented--no doubt by this bitter foe--to the Turkish
Government that Baha-'ullah and his followers were plotting against
the existing order of things, and that when their efforts had been
crowned with success, Baha-'ullah would be designated king.
[Footnote: For another form of the story, see Phelps, _Abbas Effendi_,
p. 46.] This may really have been a dream of the Ezelites (we must
substitute Subh-i-Ezel for Baha-'ullah); the Bahaites were of course
horrified at the idea. But how should the Sultan discriminate? So the
punishment fell on the innocent as well as the guilty, on the Bahaites
as well as the Ezelites.

The punishment was the removal of Baha-'ullah and his party and
Subh-i-Ezel and his handful of followers, the former to Akka
(Acre) on the coast of Syria, the latter to Famagusta in Cyprus. The
Bahaites were put on board ship at Gallipoli. A full account is given
by Abbas Effendi's sister of the preceding events. It gives one a most
touching idea of the deep devotion attracted by the magnetic
personalities of the Leader and his son.

I have used the expression 'Leader,' but in the course of his stay at
Adrianople Baha-'ullah had risen to a much higher rank than that of
'Leader.' We have seen that at an earlier period of his exile
Baha-'ullah had made known to five of his disciples that he was in
very deed the personage whom the Bab had enigmatically promised. At
that time, however, Baha-'ullah had pledged those five disciples to
secrecy. But now the reasons for concealment did not exist, and
Baha-'ullah saw (in 1863) that the time had come for a public
declaration. This is what is stated by Abbas Effendi's sister:--
[Footnote: Phelps, pp. 44-46.]

'He then wrote a tablet, longer than any he had before written,
[which] he directed to be read to every Babi, but first of all to
Subh-i-Ezel. He assigned to one of his followers the duty of
taking it to Subh-i-Ezel, reading it to him, and returning with
Subh-i-Ezel's reply. When Subh-i-Ezel had heard the tablet he
did not attempt to refute it; on the contrary he accepted it, and said
that it was true. But he went on to maintain that he himself was
co-equal with the Blessed Perfection, [Footnote: See p. 128.]
affirming that he had a vision on the previous night in which he had
received this assurance.

'When this statement of Subh-i-Ezel was reported to the Blessed
Perfection, the latter directed that every Babi should be informed
of it at the time when he heard his own tablet read. This was done,
and much uncertainty resulted among the believers. They generally
applied to the Blessed Perfection for advice, which, however, he
declined to give. At length he told them that he would seclude himself
from them for four months, and that during this time they must decide
the question for themselves. At the end of that period, all the
Babis in Adrianople, with the exception of Subh-i-Ezel and
five or six others, came to the Blessed Perfection and declared that
they accepted him as the Divine Manifestation whose coming the Bab
had foretold. The Babis of Persia, Syria, Egypt, and other
countries also in due time accepted the Blessed Perfection with
substantial unanimity.

Baha-'ullah, then, landed in Syria not merely as the leader of the
greater part of the Babis at Baghdad, but as the representative of
a wellnigh perfect humanity. He did not indeed assume the title 'The
Point,' but 'The Point' and 'Perfection' are equivalent terms. He was,
indeed, 'Fairer than the sons of men,' [Footnote: Ps. xlv. 2.] and no
sorrow was spared to him that belonged to what the Jews and Jewish
Christians called 'the pangs of the Messiah.' It is true, crucifixion
does not appear among Baha-'ullah's pains, but he was at any rate
within an ace of martyrdom. This is what Baha-'ullah wrote at the end
of his stay at Adrianople:--[Footnote: Browne, _A Year among the
Persians_, p. 518.]

'By God, my head longeth for the spears for the love of its Lord, and
I never pass by a tree but my heart addresseth it [saying], 'Oh would
that thou wert cut down in my name, and my body were _crucified_
upon thee in the way of my Lord!'

The sorrows of his later years were largely connected with the
confinement of the Bahaites at Acre (Akka). From the same source I
quote the following.

'We are about to shift from this most remote place of banishment
(Adrianople) unto the prison of Acre. And, according to what they say,
it is assuredly the most desolate of the cities of the world, the most
unsightly of them in appearance, the most detestable in climate, and
the foulest in water.'

It is true, the sanitary condition of the city improved, so that
Bahaites from all parts visited Akka as a holy city. Similar
associations belong to Haifa, so long the residence of the saintly
son of a saintly father.

If there has been any prophet in recent times, it is to Baha-'ullah
that we must go. Pretenders like Subh-i-Ezel and Muhammad are
quickly unmasked. Character is the final judge. Baha-'ullah was a man
of the highest class--that of prophets. But he was free from the last
infirmity of noble minds, and would certainly not have separated
himself from others. He would have understood the saying, 'Would God
all the Lord's people were prophets.' What he does say, however, is
just as fine, 'I do not desire lordship over others; I desire all men
to be even as I am.'

He spent his later years in delivering his message, and setting forth
the ideals and laws of the New Jerusalem. In 1892 he passed within the
veil.



PART III

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL (continued)


SUBH-I-EZEL (OR AZAL)

'He is a scion of one of the noble families of Persia. His father was
accomplished, wealthy, and much respected, and enjoyed the high
consideration of the King and nobles of Persia. His mother died when
he was a child. His father thereupon entrusted him to the keeping of
his honourable spouse, [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 374 _ff_.] saying, "Do
you take care of this child, and see that your handmaids attend to him
properly."' This 'honourable spouse' is, in the context, called 'the
concubine'--apparently a second wife is meant. At any rate her son was
no less honoured than if he had been the son of the chief or favourite
wife; he was named Huseyn 'Ali, and his young half-brother was named
Yahya.

According to Mirza Jani, the account which the history contains was
given him by Mirza Huseyn 'Ali's half-brother, who represents that
the later kindness of his own mother to the young child Yahya was
owing to a prophetic dream which she had, and in which the Apostle of
God and the King of Saintship figured as the child's protectors.
Evidently this part of the narrative is imaginative, and possibly it
is the work of Mirza Jani. But there is no reason to doubt that what
follows is based more or less on facts derived from Mirza Huseyn
'Ali. 'I busied myself,' says the latter, 'with the instruction of
[Yahya]. The signs of his natural excellence and goodness of
disposition were apparent in the mirror of his being. He ever loved
gravity of demeanour, silence, courtesy, and modesty, avoiding the
society of other children and their behaviour. I did not, however,
know that he would become the possessor of [so high] a station. He
studied Persian, but made little progress in Arabic. He wrote a good
_nasta'lik_ hand, and was very fond of the poems of the mystics.'
The facts may be decked out.

Mirza Jani himself only met Mirza Yahya once. He describes him as
'an amiable child.' [Footnote: _NH_, p. 376.] Certainly, we can
easily suppose that he retained a childlike appearance longer than
most, for he early became a mystic, and a mystic is one whose
countenance is radiant with joy. This, indeed, may be the reason why
they conferred on him the name, 'Dawn of Eternity.' He never saw the
Bab, but when his 'honoured brother' would read the Master's
writings in a circle of friends, Mirza Yahya used to listen, and
conceived a fervent love for the inspired author. At the time of the
Manifestation of the Bab he was only fourteen, but very soon after,
he, like his brother, took the momentous step of becoming a Babi,
and resolved to obey the order of the Bab for his followers to
proceed to Khurasan. So, 'having made for himself a knapsack, and got
together a few necessaries,' he set out as an evangelist, 'with
perfect trust in his Beloved,' somewhat as S. Teresa started from her
home at Avila to evangelize the Moors. 'But when his brother was
informed of this, he sent and prevented him.' [Footnote: _NH_,
p. 44.]

Compensation, however, was not denied him. Some time after, Yahya
made an expedition in company with some of his relations, making
congenial friends, and helping to strengthen the Babi cause. He
was now not far off the turning-point in his life.

Not long after occurred a lamentable set-back to the cause--the
persecution and massacre which followed the attempt on the Shah's life
by an unruly Babi in August 1852. He himself was in great danger,
but felt no call to martyrdom, and set out in the disguise of a
dervish [Footnote: _TN_, p. 374.] in the same direction as his
elder brother, reaching Baghdad somewhat later. There, among the
Babi refugees, he found new and old friends who adhered closely to
the original type of theosophic doctrine; an increasing majority,
however, were fascinated by a much more progressive teacher. The
Ezelite history known as _Hasht Bihisht_ ('Eight Paradises')
gives the names of the chief members of the former school, [Footnote:
_TN_, p. 356.] including Sayyid Muhammad of Isfahan, and
states that, perceiving Mirza Huseyn 'Ali's innovating tendencies,
they addressed to him a vigorous remonstrance.

It was, in fact, an ecclesiastical crisis, as the authors of the
_Traveller's Narrative_, as well as the Ezelite historian,
distinctly recognize. Baha-'ullah, too,--to give him his nobler
name--endorses this view when he says, 'Then, in secret, the Sayyid of
Isfahan circumvented him, and together they did that which caused a
great calamity.' It was, therefore, indeed a crisis, and the chief
blame is laid on Sayyid Muhammad. [Footnote: _TN_, p. 94. 'He
(i.e. Sayyid Muhammad) commenced a secret intrigue, and fell
to tempting Mirza Yahya, saying, "The fame of this sect hath risen
high in the world; neither dread nor danger remaineth, nor is there
any fear or need for caution before you."'] Subh-i-Ezel is still
a mere youth and easily imposed upon; the Sayyid ought to have known
better than to tempt him, for a stronger teacher was needed in this
period of disorganization than the Ezelites could produce. Mirza
Yahya was not up to the leadership, nor was he entitled to place
himself above his much older brother, especially when he was bound by
the tie of gratitude. 'Remember,' says Baha-'ullah, 'the favour of thy
master, when we brought thee up during the nights and days for the
service of the Religion. Fear God, and be of those who repent. Grant
that thine affair is dubious unto me; is it dubious unto thyself?' How
gentle is this fraternal reproof!

There is but little more to relate that has not been already told in
the sketch of Baha-'ullah. He was, at any rate, harmless in Cyprus,
and had no further opportunity for religious assassination. One
cannot help regretting that his sun went down so stormily. I return
therefore to the question of the honorific names of Mirza Yahya,
after which I shall refer to the singular point of the crystal coffin
and to the moral character of Subh-i-Ezel.

Among the names and titles which the Ezelite book called _Eight
Paradises_ declares to have been conferred by the Bab on his
young disciple are Subh-i-Ezel (or Azal), Baha-'ullah, and the
strange title _Mir'at_ (Mirror). The two former--'Dawn of
Eternity' and 'Splendour of God'--are referred to elsewhere. The third
properly belongs to a class of persons inferior to the 'Letters of the
Living,' and to this class Subh-i-Ezel, by his own admission,
belongs. The title Mir'at, therefore, involves some limitation of
Ezel's dignity, and its object apparently is to prevent
Subh-i-Ezel from claiming to be 'He whom God will make manifest.'
That is, the Bab in his last years had an intuition that the eternal
day would not be ushered into existence by this impractical nature.

How, then, came the Bab to give Mirza Yahya such a name? Purely
from cabbalistic reasons which do not concern us here. It was a
mistake which only shows that the Bab was not infallible. Mirza
Yahya had no great part to play in the ushering-in of the new
cycle. Elsewhere the Bab is at the pains to recommend the elder of
the half-brothers to attend to his junior's writing and spelling.
[Footnote: The Tablets (letters) are in the British Museum collection,
in four books of Ezel, who wrote the copies at Baha-'ullah's
dictation. The references are--I., No. 6251, p. 162; II., No. 5111,
p. 253, to which copy Rizwan Ali, son of Ezel, has appended 'The
brother of the Fruit' (Ezel); III., No. 6254, p. 236; IV., No. 6257,
p. 158.] Now it was, of course, worth while to educate Mirza Yahya,
whose feebleness in Arabic grammar was scandalous, but can we imagine
Baha-'ullah and all the other 'letters' being passed over by the Bab
in favour of such an imperfectly educated young man? The so-called
'nomination' is a bare-faced forgery.

The statement of Gobineau that Subh-i-Ezel belonged to the
'Letters of the Living' of the First Unity is untrustworthy.
[Footnote: _Fils du Loup_, p. 156 n.3.] M. Hippolyte Dreyfus has
favoured me with a reliable list of the members of the First Unity,
which I have given elsewhere, and which does not contain the name of
Mirza Yahya. At the same time, the Bab may have admitted him into
the second hierarchy of 18[19]. [Footnote: _Fils du Loup_,
p. 163 n.1. 'The eighteen Letters of Life had each a _mirror_
which represented it, and which was called upon to replace it if it
disappeared. There are, therefore, 18 Letters of Life and 18 Mirrors,
which constituted two distinct Unities.'] Considering that Mirza
Yahya was regarded as a 'return' of Kuddus, some preferment may
conceivably have found its way to him. It was no contemptible
distinction to be a member of the Second Unity, i.e. to be one
of those who reflected the excellences of the older 'Letters of the
Living.' As a member of the Second Unity and the accepted reflexion
of Kuddus, Subh-i-Ezel may have been thought of as a director of
affairs together with the obviously marked-out agent (_wali_),
Baha-'ullah. We are not told, however, that Mirza Yahya assumed
either the title of Bab (Gate) or that of Nukta (Point).
[Footnote: Others, however, give it him (_TN_, p. 353).]

I must confess that Subh-i-Ezel's account of the fortune of the
Bab's relics appears to me, as well as to M. Nicolas, [Footnote:
_AMB_, p. 380 n.] unsatisfactory and (in one point) contradictory.
How, for instance, did he get possession of the relics? And, is there
any independent evidence for the intermingling of the parts of the two
corpses? How did he procure a crystal coffin to receive the relics?
How comes it that there were Bahaites at the time of the Bab's
death, and how was Subh-i-Ezel able to conceal the crystal coffin,
etc., from his brother Baha-'ullah?

Evidently Subh-i-Ezel has changed greatly since the time when both
the brothers (half-brothers) were devoted, heart and soul, to the
service of the Bab. It is this moral transformation which vitiates
Subh-i-Ezel's assertions. Can any one doubt this? Surely the best
authorities are agreed that the sense of historical truth is very
deficient among the Persians. Now Subh-i-Ezel was in some respects
a typical Persian; that is how I would explain his deviations from
strict truth. It may be added that the detail of the crystal coffin
can be accounted for. In the Arabic Bayan, among other injunctions
concerning the dead, [Footnote: _Le Beyan Arabi_ (Nicolas),
p. 252; similarly, p. 54.] it is said: 'As for your dead, inter them
in crystal, or in cut and polished stones. It is possible that this
may become a peace for your heart.' This precept suggested to
Subh-i-Ezel his extraordinary statement.

Subh-i-Ezel had an imaginative and possibly a partly mystic
nature. As a Manifestation of God he may have thought himself entitled
to remove harmful people, even his own brother. He did not ask himself
whether he might not be in error in attaching such importance to his
own personality, and whether any vision could override plain
morality. He _was_ mistaken, and I hold that the Bab was
mistaken in appointing (if he really did so) Subh-i-Ezel as a
nominal head of the Babis when the true, although temporary
vice-gerent was Baha-'ullah. For Subh-i-Ezel was a consummate
failure; it is too plain that the Bab did not always, like Jesus and
like the Buddha, know what was in man.


SUBSEQUENT DISCOVERIES

The historical work of the Ezelite party, called _The Eight
Paradises_, makes Ezel nineteen years of age when he came forward
as an expounder of religious mysteries and wrote letters to the Bab.
On receiving the first letter, we are told that the Bab (or, as we
should rather now call him, the Point) instantly prostrated himself in
thankfulness, testifying that he was a mighty Luminary, and spoke by
the Self-shining Light, by revelation. Imprisoned as he was at Maku,
the Point of Knowledge could not take counsel with all his
fellow-workers or disciples, but he sent the writings of this
brilliant novice (if he really was so brilliant) to each of the
'Letters of the Living,' and to the chief believers, at the same time
conferring on him a number of titles, including Subh-i-Ezel ('Dawn
of Eternity') and Baha-'ullah ('Splendour of God ').

If this statement be correct, we may plausibly hold with Professor
E. G. Browne that Subh-i-Ezel (Mirza Yahya) was advanced to the
rank of a 'Letter of the Living,' and even that he was nominated by
the Point as his successor. It has also become much more credible that
the thoughts of the Point were so much centred on Subh-i-Ezel
that, as Ezelites say, twenty thousand of the words of the Bayan refer
to Ezel, and that a number of precious relics of the Point were
entrusted to his would-be successor.

But how can we venture to say that it is correct? Since Professor
Browne wrote, much work has been done on the (real or supposed)
written remains of Subh-i-Ezel, and the result has been (I think)
that the literary reputation of Subh-i-Ezel is a mere bubble. It
is true, the Bab himself was not masterly, but the confusion of
ideas and language in Ezel's literary records beggars all
comparison. A friend of mine confirms this view which I had already
derived from Mirza Ali Akbar. He tells me that he has acquired a
number of letters mostly purporting to be by Subh-i-Ezel. There is
also, however, a letter of Baha-'ullah relative to these letters,
addressed to the Muhammadan mulla, the original possessor of the
letters. In this letter Baha-'ullah repeats again and again the
warning: 'When you consider and reflect on these letters, you will
understand who is in truth the writer.'

I greatly fear that Lord Curzon's description of Persian
untruthfulness may be illustrated by the career of the Great
Pretender. The Ezelites must, of course, share the blame with their
leader, and not the least of their disgraceful misstatements is the
assertion that the Bab assigned the name Baha-'ullah to the younger
of the two half-brothers, and that Ezel had also the [non-existent]
dignity of 'Second Point.'

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