Conversation with Douglas Martin

            At a Feast in Toronto this past summer I had the opportunity to have a conversation with retired Universal House of Justice member Douglas Martin.  I asked him about his writing, and he said he wrote because the House of Justice continually exhorted him to write, and what he wrote poured down from heaven, and so he never put his own name upon any of it.  Bahá’ís have read many seminal documents that have flowed through his pen and were undersigned by the House of Justice or announced that it was written at its behest. 

            He says he is not writing anymore and looked genuinely surprised when I asked him if it didn’t concern him that this inactivity would cause his gifts to atrophy.  He replied that it did indeed concern him, and that no one had ever asked him that before.

            He had been asked to write his memoirs, but decided it was too daunting a task at this stage; however, Westwind pictures has filmed several hours of his spoken reminiscences which will be edited and released when the House of Justice sees fit.  He laughed and added with unfeigned sincerity that they’ll be careful to delete anything outrageous he might happen to say.

Martyrdom in Real Time

            The Martydom of the Báb is commemorated around the world at noon on July 9 or 10 (the solar calendar in use by the Bahá’í community no longer corresponds with fixed Gregorian calendar dates), as supposedly, as that was the hour at which He and Anis (a follower) were executed together by firing squad in the barracks square of Tabriz, northwest Iran, in 1850.

            But at what time did it really happen?  It is not really important, and what I am trying to do is simply visualize the whole scene in “real time.”  This historical records provide the essential details of the drama without mentioning the time it took to carry out the acts.  So let’s walk our way through it.

            Let’s begin by assuming that the initial scenario was all in place by noon.  The Báb and Anis were suspended by rope from a cross-beam, Anis wishing to be a human shield.  Seven hundred and fifty soldiers were lined up in three rows with muskets (?) at the ready for the order to shoot.  Up to ten thousand fascinated spectators trembled in trees and on rooftops.  The order was given, and the shooting began.  Was it all at once, or row by row?  A great cloud of dust was raised, and when it cleared, ordinary reality was what remained suspended and the surreal took over.

            There stood Anis on the ground, unhurt, for the rope he’d been hanging from had been shot away, but The Báb was nowhere to be seen.  What was everyone to think?  What would you think?  In all probability, immediate reaction ran the gamut from a miracle to divine intervention, to chicanery and subterfuge – the general citizenry were afraid of the  Bábis, whose acts of bravery and ferocity had already become the stuff of legend.  One way or another, there was some chaos.  What form it took is not known.  Was it hushed silence?  Were people running in all directions?  Screaming and yelling?  Imprecations and accusations?  What we do know is that after a brief (2-15 minutes?) search, The Báb was found back in the jail cell in which He had spent the previous night, dictating something to His secretary.  (He had said earlier that until He had finished dictating, there was nothing they could do to Him, which His jailers had ignored as nonsense.)  So He was taken out to the square once more to get the job done right this time.

            Easier said than done.  The captain of the regiment assigned to execute Him was Sam Khan, an Armenian, and the soldiers were Christians.  Sam Khan had been aware of the Báb’s claims, as he had been Chief of Police in Mashhad in Eastern Persia a few years earlier where two of the closest followers of the Báb had had a school.  So that very morning Sam Khan approached The Báb and asked Him to somehow get him out of this duty to execute Him, for if He really was who He said He was, it was tantamount to saying to a Christian that He was the Return of Jesus Christ, and he wouldn’t want that blood on his hands.  The Báb’s answer is oft-repeated:  “Follow your instructions, and if you are sincere, God is surely able to relieve you of your perplexity.”

            So now Sam Khan took this as a sign from Above, and he not only refused to repeat the execution attempt even should he himself be executed for insubordination, he was taking his regiment with him.  How long did this take?  Let’s assume that the regiment remained standing in place all this time, awaiting further orders, which is not at all certain.  So Sam Khan ordered them out of there – to where?  Back to their barracks, I suppose.  There must have been some confusion amongst them, but let’s say they followed orders promptly and in an orderly fashion. 

            What were the authorities to do?  They couldn’t let The Báb get away again – this wasn’t the first time – after they had come this far.  Mirable dictu, there happened to be another regiment in town, a Muslim one, and the order was given for them to come at once.  How long did this take?  Were they all just sitting, waiting for the call, playing cards or probably having lunch at this hour?  Unless they were on call or alert, wouldn’t many of them have been at the spectacle, watching the great event like others?  Were their barracks close by?  Were they dressed and ready?  Even if they were, mobilizing another seven hundred fifty soldiers has got to take time, at least half an hour, probably much more.

            But they came, and completed the mission.  My guess is that the final shots were fired around two p.m., if not later.

           (Photo of barracks square.  It is now a shopping area.)

         The miracles didn’t end there.  There was an earthquake and a darkening of the sky shortly thereafter.  The remains of The Báb and Anis were taken by His followers and hid in one secret place after another, until more than half a century later, they were interred on Mount Carmel by orders of Bahá’u’lláh Himself, where they still lay.  The soldiers in the regiment who shot them, however, all met their fate within five years of the execution, some by having a wall fall on them, the rest being shot themselves for mutiny.

Confession #3: "I'm like"

One of the principles of the Bahá’í Faith is the elimination of prejudice.  And that means prejudice of all kinds.  I’m not racist, never have been, not even on my radar.  Though I love knowledge, I don’t see the superiority of the educated over the un.

So am I free of prejudice?  Can I start dancing the samba in celebration of my pristine prejudicelessness?  Hardly.  If I know a person’s name before I meet them, I’m predisposed to like them or not.  Moses or Mandrake makes me prick my ears up.  Mortimer or Ahmedinijad, not so much.  Say Helen, I’m in heaven.  Say Hepzibah or Henryk, I turn the other cheek.

Don’t get me started.  Oops, you already have.  I am prejudiced against the wearing of baseball hats backward, bad spelling, gum chewing, cigarette smoking, saying “I’m like,” loudmouths, cellphone/videogame addiction, talking down to children, berating other drivers, ugly shoes, bad service, restaurants with tvs blaring, businesses with their unwashed urchins running around in front of their customers. Now there’s no stopping.  In fact, don’t come near me, I’m the biggest bigot and hypocrite around.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.

The Seven Words You Can't Say

            In His Will and Testament, Bahá’u’lláh wrote:  “The tongue is for mentioning what is good.  Defile it not with unseemly talk.”  A few weeks ago, my sister and brother-in-law came back from a golfing trip complaining about the foulmouthed boors, both male and female, out on the links.  Being no strangers to colourful descriptive adjectives themselves, I tried listening to what their actual beef was.  They set out the perameters of when and how much was appropriate for one to swear.  One of my brother-in-law’s arguments was that one is entitled to use purple prose when angry or outraged for emphasis, but in casual conversation it is just bad manners. A delicate distinction to be sure.  It reminded me of the late comedian George Carlin’s query:  “Why is everyone who drives faster than me a maniac, and everyone who drives slower an idiot?”

            (I once listened to George Carlin deliver the exact same routine on cable television that I had once heard him do on network.  Exactly the same, that is, except that the cable one was spiced and seasoned with an absurd amount of superfluous obscenity, which didn’t make it one whit the funnier.)

            But I have a reason to be indulgent with salty parlance.  In the summer of 1976 I was working a summer job at the pulp and paper mill where my father worked for a quarter of a century.  We went together early, before sunrise, but since his shift started half an hour before mine, I would go a corner of the lunch room with my copy of Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, turn on the light, and read.  There were grumblings from grizzled overalls hunched over their coffees, and one morning one ursine growl wasn’t taking it any more, rose up and rumbled my way.  Suddenly out of nowhere Paddy Smith, at once the most gregarious, glossolarily challenged and unimaginative of men, swept in and grabbed the Kodiak by the arm, and shouted (and I quote) “Sit your effing a** down!  That’s effing education, man!  He’s not going to effing be an effing bum like us!  He’s going to effing do something with his effing life!”  Not only was his heart in the right place, his courageous speech is engraved in my memory much more clearly than any but the opening lines of Richard III and five out of the six soliloquies of Hamlet.

Confession #2: Allah’u-‘Abhá

            For fifteen years I was a disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, and studied Vedanta for some years before that.  In early morning and late-night meditations I had used the incantation “Om,” which transported me immediately into the realm of communion with the Infinite Divine.  It automatically shut out the busy world and enfolded me in the Sublime Serenity.  Upon accepting the Bahá’í Faith, “Om” (which is only a sound symbol after all, however dripping with spiritual purport) was naturally to be replaced by “Alláh’u-Abhá,” an Arabic phrase roughly meaning “God, the All-Glorious,” but more importantly the Name of God, the Most Great Name, hidden from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim devotees, as well as all other previous seekers of His hidden name.  

            Naturally, I say, but it didn’t take.  Seventeen years later, after at least ninety-five fervent daily repetitions, it doesn’t reverberate in my inner chambers with anything like devotion or conviction, to no small sense of frustration and even a tincture of guilt.  This phenomenon has engendered its own soul-searching:  is there a cause for this recalcitrance that must needs be expunged or exorcised, or is it merely a papadum to be assigned no importance whatever in the face of what matters?  Is it rooted in any prejudice against or resistance to Arabic culture or language?  Do I cling to any residual notion of the superiority of the Hindu rishis or avatars?  I am inclined to dismiss it, except that I want to love it as much and more as I did, and do, Om.

            It is used as a greeting by Bahá’ís, about which I can’t complain as it was mandated thus by a Manifestation of God, even though my personal preference would have been to reserve it to accompany more exalted utterance.   But where I do inwardly cringe is when it is used casually, as a common coin, from off-handedly tossing it about to singing it to trivial melodies to the accompaniment of indifferent strumming and whacking, especially amid a general babble. “Approach Me not with lifeless hearts,” Bahá’u’lláh has admonished us.

            For some reason, another form of The Most Great Name, “Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá,” (O Thou the Glory of the All-Glorious) which doesn’t look or sound categorically different from “Alláh’u-Abhá,” thrills my soul like nineteen times nineteen “Hallelujas” cannot.  Go figure.  Perhaps in it lies my potential salvation.