Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎182v] (365/879)

652 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS. M ay 27, 1910.
The paper read was—
PERSIA AND THE REGENERATION OF
ISLAM.
By Bernard Temple.
A Society which seeks, among other worthy
objects, “to increase the trade of the realm
by extending the sphere of British commerce,”
may be presumed to have practical concern
with the possibilities of economic progress in
backward countries. But it is on a higher
ground—though that is not a low ground—
that I venture to submit to this learned Society
certain of the results of my long travels in the
East. This Society is an outcome, and its
multifarious work is an expression, of an order
of civilisation hitherto attained only by ad
vanced Western nations ; and it is my present
purpose to show that some Eastern nations
have lately, under circumstances of romantic
interest, become possessed of a powerful
impulse to ascend to the same superior plane.
Not every acorn grows into an oak. This
is true of other things besides botany. It is
true of religious movements. Therefore the
world has generally been heedless of small
beginnings. Sometimes the world has had
cause to regret its inattention. Europe, at the
present time, is not showing itself regardful of
the rise of the new religious movement, called
“ Bahaism,” in Persia. Asia is by no means
unmindful of the phenomenon. Is Europe wise
in its indifference ?
Let us reflect, for a moment, upon the be
ginning of Islam. When the Prophet took to
preaching in the wilds of Arabia, to semi-
barbarous tribes of idolatrous nomads, Con
stantinople was the capital of Christendom.
Muhammad himself had to flee for his life from
his own kith and kin at Mecca. Yet in less
than a hundred years the Saracenic Empire
extended from Lisbon in Portugal to Karachi
in India; and to-day the Christian cathedral
-of St. Sophia is a Muhammadan mosque.
Europe’s unconcern regarding Bahaism in
Persia, and beyond, has not even the excuse
that the beginning is small. Already the
number of Bahais in the world is stated to
exceed two million, though the founder of the
Faith was still preaching when Mr. Gladstone
was preparing to hurl his last thunderbolts
at the House of Lords. Not less than one-
fifth of the population of Persia is estimated to
have embraced Bahaism. Nor are adherents
recruited solely from the Shiah sect of Islam.
Sunni Muhammadans in large numbers have
been and are being converted. In European
Turkey, and more notably in Asiatic Turkey,
votaries and propagandists of the new move
ments are increasing yearly. I conversed with
some of these in Baghdad, and found them
zealous and sanguine. In Egypt, it appears,
Bahais are becoming numerous. Morocco,
Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli, I am told, are not
being left unvisited. The northern provinces of
India provide a large potential harvest-field,
where there are already many sowers, and I
have met Bahais in Bombay, Karachi, Quetta,
Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Delhi and
Lucknow—all proselytes from Islam. Outside
the Moslem world Bahai missionaries, quietly
purposeful and steadfast, are carrying the
teachings of the " Kitab-ul-Aqdas ” (the Most
Holy Book) into many unsuspected regions.
Converts have been won among the Sikhs of
Amritsar and the Brahmans of Benares, in
which cities I have met a few of them in
friendly converse ; among the Buddhists of
Ceylon, Burma and Siam ; and among the
Taoists of China and the Shintoists of Japan.
Japan, indeed, is said to be proving particu
larly responsive to the call. Many Persian
Jews in Tehran have become Bahais, and I
have been privileged to attend some of their
secret or semi-secret assemblies. These Jewish
Bahais tell me that in Hamadan, in Persia, one
of the oldest Jewish settlements in the world,
where the reputed tombs of Esther and
Mordecai are shown, at least a third of the
Jewish community has openly or secretly gone
over to the new movement. No Christian mis
sionary to the Jews in any part of the world
can boast a triumph equal to this. The Par-
sees of Bombay, who have preserved their
religious and racial integrity for centuries by
dint of an impenetrable aloofness, are now, for
the first time in their history, beginning to show
signs of doubting themselves since Bahai
influences reached them, and many Parsees
have actually become Bahais, while others (I
have been told by one of their number) are
held back only by social restraints. A more
intellectual form of Bahai proselytism has
expanded into Europe, and has been fruitful in
Russia, Germany, France, and England. 1
found a large community of Bahais flourishing
in Baku. The number of Bahais in London
is appreciable : smaller circles exist in Man
chester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.
The United States of America promise to
become a great Western stronghold of
Bahaism, and many Americans have been at
the pains of mastering the Persian language

Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎182v] (365/879)

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Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎182v] (365/879)

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