Birth of the Báb Quiz

Easy

1. In which city was the Báb born?

2. What was the Báb’s given name?

3. Who raised the Báb from a young age?

4. In what year was the Báb born?

5. What is the present-day name of the country in which the Báb was born?

6. On what month and day was the Báb born?

7. Where is the Shrine of the Báb?

8. Who was born first, the Báb or Bahá’u’lláh?

9. What were the followers of the Báb called?


Medium

10. What religious teacher in Karbilá told his students to find the Báb?

11. How many times did the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh meet in person?

12. The Báb was a descendant of what other Manifestation of God?

13. Why is the Birth of the Báb celebrated over two consecutive Gregorian calendar dates?

14. What did the Báb name the calendar He created?

15. Who wrote the chronicle of the early believers in the Báb?

16. Who was the only woman among the first eighteen followers of the Báb?


Difficult

17. Who was the Persian king at the time of the birth of the Báb?

18. Who were the Báb’s parents?

19. In the future, why will be birthdays of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh be celebrated on the same day?

Answers:

1. Shiráz, Persia
2. ‘Alí-Muhammad
3. His maternal uncle, Hájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí
4. 1819
5. Irán
6. October 20
7. Haifa, Palestine/Israel
8. Bahá’u’lláh (November 12, 1817)
9. Bábís
10. Siyyid Kázim-i-Rashti
11. None
12. The Prophet Muhammad
13. The Bahá’í day is reckoned from sunset to sunset.
14. Badí Calendar
15. Nabíl-i-‘Azám
16. Tahirih
17. Fatih-‘Ali Shah
18. Fatimih Begum and Mírzá Muhammad-Ridá
19. On the Muslim calendar, the two dates fall on consecutive days.

Sai Satya Baba

India is at once the most religious country on earth and the most open and tolerant. All spiritual pursuits find fertile ground to put down roots in India, and it absorbs with grace and patience even the most fanatical of sects. Sai Satya Baba (pictured above) and his millions of followers in both India and abroad are no exception to this attitude, to the extent that Sai International's bimonthly newsletter, Volume 6, #3, is dedicated in all but the last page entirely to the Bahá'í Faith, with several articles and photos from Bahá'í and non-Bahá'í sources. What a laudable act! And surprisingly accurate for the most part. The errors are so few that pointing most of them would be mere quibbling, so only a few that could actually have been misleading have been selected for correction, and only that Baba's followers may not develop any basic misconceptions.

Naturally, in these pages the teachings found in the Bahá'í writings are compared with those of Sai Baba, and the various authors gleefully round up the similarities, which, given the enlightenment of their holy man, are indeed many. But Ambasht on pg. 4 lets his enthusiasm get the better of him when he proclaims, “Baba is also considered a 'Manifestation of God.'” This designation is reserved by the Bahá'í Faith for those individuals with a direct revelation of the Word of God, constituting scripture, including Krishna, Buddha, Abraham, Christ, and so on. Notwithstanding, learned and holy ones are highly reverenced in the Faith.

Sangeeta Sharma asserts on pg. 4: “The Bahá'ís declare that 15 years of age is the best to get married.” There is no such declaration. 15 is the minimum age. She further (this time correctly) observes, “This book [The Kitáb-i-Aqdas] allows a man to marry two wives under the condition that they are treated equally.” Bahá'ís understand that this is an impossible condition, and therefore only one wife is permitted, and by mutatis mutandi only one husband.

As to the marriage of Bahá'u'lláh Himself, until the revelation of The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (His Book of Laws for this age), He subjected Himself to previous (Islamic) law, and He had, in fact, three wives and a total of fourteen children. When Progya Shankar on pg. 5 states, “Bahá'u'lláh was married to Asiyih Khanum, they had three children, two sons and a daughter,” the reference is to the the surviving children from His first wife, who were the most distinguished and faithful among His offspring.

On pg. 6 Ved B. Kochar, in discussing Shoghi Effendi, writes, “He appointed 27 individuals as 'hands of the promotion of God' with the tasks of promotion and protection of the Bahá'í Faith.” In English the official title is “Hands of the Cause of God,” and the Guardian actually appointed 42 of them, some posthumously.

In referring to current Bahá'í activity, Kochar writes, “Bahá'í classes for children, which are open to all, focus on normal development in the context of the Bahá'í teachings of the oneness of humankind and the unity of the world's religions.” Surely the word “normal” is a typographical error and was meant to be “moral.”

May millions and billions be as liberal and open-minded as the followers of Satya Sai Baba in their pursuit of truth.

World Ends Wednesday

On September 10th, the European Nuclear Research Centre will activate the Large Hadron Collider, the 17-mile circumference, $8,000,000,000 particle collider 300 feet underground near Geneva, Switzerland. Why? To unlock the mystery of Creation, simulating the first moments immediately after the Big Bang. The LHC will circulate atomic particles around its 17-mile circumference at more than 11,000 times per second before then smashing those atoms into each other in the ultimate carnival bumper-car ride. The machine has been designed to help scientists discover new forms of particles, most notably the elusive Higgs Boson (the vaunted “God Particle”), along with more insights into dark matter and the matter/antimatter dichotomy. No word yet on dilithium crystals.

But not everyone’s in the party spirit. The hue and cry is that there is the danger of creating a black hole that will swallow up the planet Earth. The London Telegraph reports that American Nobel prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek has received death threats with regard to Wednesday’s launch.

Predictably, the scientific community claims the doomsday gloomcasters are overreacting out of ignorance and superstition, or watching too many sci-fi thrillers. Every care and precaution has been taken, every test done and redone, every eventuality has been considered, re-considered, and considered again to ensure that nothing can possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong . . . (Surely you saw that one coming.) James Gillies, the head of communication and spokesman for CERN says, “What we are doing is enriching humanity, not putting it at risk.” Well, that puts everyone’s mind at ease right away. (Beam me to any co-ordinates on the planet Vulcan, Scotty, pronto.)

Being a Bahá’í means that I bring my best intelligence to bear on all matters, but also that I turn to the Scriptures to see if they shed any light on the questions at hand. As far as the Big Bang is concerned, I was very struck by reading in Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time words to the effect that the mathematics of the Big Bang Theory have been mapped out and work perfectly, with the seemingly absurd proviso that they apply only if the Big Bang did not actually take place! Huh? And yet for me, this paradox echoes the words of Bahá’u’lláh:

Know assuredly that God's creation hath existed from eternity, and will continue to exist forever. Its beginning hath had no beginning, and its end knoweth no end. His name, the Creator, presupposeth a creation . . . (Gleanings, pg. 150)

The one true God hath everlastingly existed, and will everlastingly continue to exist. His creation, likewise, hath had no beginning, and will have no end. All that is created, however, is preceded by a cause. (Gleanings, pg. 162)

Yet another Bahá’í principle applies here, that of the Harmony of Science and Religion. The two must work together, so that we don’t have defensive scientists claiming exclusivity and should be left alone to pursue knowledge that will benefit the human race, nor should superstition and ignorance rule the day. Human knowledge must progress, and religion must supply the moral framework, but it must be knowledge that will advance the best interests mankind and it must be true religion, not pietistic flummery. Then we shall be rid of this mutual suspicion and have more joyous examples like the ones where we have seen rockets setting out towards the unknown, and the astronauts gaping with wonder at the beauty and majesty of God’s universe.

From the light tone of this article, you can no doubt discern that I personally am not much more worried about the prospects of this planet than during other weeks. I am reminded of the cartoon in which a robed and besandled character carries a sign announcing, “The world ends Wednesday!” and the cop on the beat tells him, “Just don’t let me catch you here Thursday!”

Beijing Trifecta

***************************************************
********** The book of the Bahá’í presence at the Beijing Olympics consisted of three chapters. The first was the song “Beijing Olympics Hao Yuing (Good Luck),” written by Bahá’ís Phil Morrison and Keith Williams, of Brunswick, Georgia, USA (not the other Georgia that was making news at the same time). The song was one of 30 selected by Olympic organizers from 3,000 submissions to communicate to visitors the spirit of the 2008 Games, and the only one to have been penned by American-born musicians. Its lyrics include such Bahá’í ideas as, “Just one human family,” “The earth will celebrate -- For World Unity,” “Promoting peace and friendship for all -- The world will come together -- we'll open up the gate.” It can be heard at http://www.philmorrisontrio.com/.

Chapter Two, just days before the Games began, was provided by a British teacher resident in China, Wilma O’Sullivan, 52, who was chosen to carry the torch as a nationally acclaimed contributor to education in China. Perhaps a little-known fact is that torch bearers get to keep their torch after they pass the flame along to the next leg of the journey, so whereas it’s not an Olympic medal, it’s an impressive souvenir. Bahá’ís routinely leave their homelands to provide sacrificial service to humanity in other countries.

But the third chapter was a great climax and a shining moment, as Portugal’s Nelson Evora leapt for gold in the Triple Jump event. While not a marquee event, the Triple Jump is nevertheless a hotly-contested major track and field competition. Evora finished 40th in the same event in 2004 in Athens, but brought his A game this time around, clearing 17.67 metres to capture the gold. In true Bahá’í World Citizen fashion, Evora was born in Cotê d’Ivoire of Cape Verdean parents, and for whom he competed until 2002, when he acquired Portuguese citizenship.

Omid, Oh My!

While watching Omid Djalili's 2005 HBO One Night Stand special, I noted that he did not mention that he was a Bahá’í -- I'm supposing the fact that he is Iranian AND British was confusing enough for his audiences, so he played it as though he was Muslim, just as he had done on Whoopi Goldberg’s sitcom. Anyone who has seen his YouTube videos knows it is not out of shyness. In fact, in an introduction to a compilation on humour in the Bahá’í Writings (co-written with Annabel Knight), he did not hesitate to poke at his own religious community in making this astonishingly bold critical assertion: “Amongst religious communities, including in Bahá'í society, the place for humour is invariably segregated from spiritual life. It is confined to a carefully placed joke in a talk by a keynote speaker, or in the form of an evening programme where ‘the youth,’ as they are affectionately called, can run amok with a mish-mash of ‘challenging’ sketches. There is a time for spirituality, and there is a time for humour. The two do not mix.”

However, he did sing "We are drops of one ocean," a song of Pacific Ocean origin (most likely Hawaiian), which is sung by Baháí children the world over, which he bizzarely associated with the “insanity” of Donald Rumsfeld. This again walks perilously close to the edge of the limit of this Bahá’í principle: “Speak thou no word of politics; thy task concerneth the life of the soul, for this verily leadeth to man's joy in the world of God. Except to speak well of them, make thou no mention of the earth's kings, and the worldly governments thereof.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, pg. 92)

The first verse of this call-and-response ditty runs thus:

We are drops of one ocean
We are waves of one sea
Come and join us
In our quest for unity
It’s a way of life for you and me.

My view of comedians is that they are almost alone in present-day society in being allowed to tell the truth, a role abnegated somewhere along the line by poets and musicians. Furthermore, that is one of the chief reasons we tune in to them and pay to see them debunk nonsense ranging from our human relationships to political issues to our private behaviour, religious malparactices and human condition. This being a precious commodity in our time, I am inclined to grant them as wide a latitude as possible in making us squirm in our seats while laughing involuntarily.

Am I Bibulous?

The Year of Living Biblically is the journal of a “controlled experiment” by A. J. Jacobs, a New Yorker, nominally Jewish, erstwhile Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant, and self-absorbed, obsessive/compulsive writer for Esquire magazine. This experiment was to live for [only] one year following literally everything in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, especially its 600+ laws and ordinances.

Most people he knew found the whole conceit silly. However, he didn’t “perform” this alone, but assembled a whole host of spiritual advisors of every Jewish and Christian stripe, personal and online, and a library of about 100 books. (One he read rather sparingly during the year, however, was the actual Bible.) I say “perform,” since this was done much less out a need for spiritual growth than as an exhibitionistic performance-art piece to be perpetuated for a few more years by its published documentation. For this he had role models: “The prophets didn’t just utter their prophecies. They staged what are known as ‘prophetic acts’ – wild, attention-grabbing, God-inspired pieces of performance art.” (88) So he grew his hair and bought a Biblical robe at a Hallowe’en costume store and tassels from Tassels Without Hassles. He took his Biblical 10-string harp out for walks (169), but unlike the prophets, he often ran away from people because he couldn’t explain or justify his bizarre behaviour. (On eating locusts: “It’ll be Fear Factor, Old Testament style.”) (174)

What was his spiritual state before starting out?: “I’ve rarely said the word 'Lord,' unless it’s followed by 'of the Rings.' I don’t often say 'God' without preceding it with 'Oh my.'” (21) His relationship with God had several other hurdles to jump: “Deuteronomy 5:9 the Bible says ‘I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.’ . . . Why should God punish my grandson for my sins? It seemed outrageously un-American.” (145)

People beside his skeptical wife noticed changes immediately: “I’ve even started to get the occasional positive comment about my looks. The Italian woman who works at the corner deli said she feels more sacred in my presence and is afraid to curse or gossip. And my co-worker Tom, whom I hadn’t seen in months, said he was all ready to greet me with a one-liner about Mel Gibson’s facial hair, then decided he couldn’t make a joke because he felt almost reverential. Reverential, that’s the word he used. I was on a high for two days afterward.” (180)

There is admittedly a good deal of information about Judeo-Christian groups across America, their practices and interpretations, beliefs and evasions. They range from the banal (Jerry Falwell was “disappointing”) to the bizarre (a visit to a Creationist museum with dinosaurs). We also read about Samaritans, red heifers, the origin of the mezzuzah, attaching the Ten Commandments between your eyes, and serpent-handlers. (Here’s where Bahá’ís can be grateful that we have no warring sects and conflicting ideologies and can all turn toward recognized authority for guidance.)

His spiritual odyssey included a trip to Jerusalem. “Walking around Jerusalem in my biblical persona is at once freeing and vaguely disappointing. In New York . . . I’m still unusual enough to stand out. But in Israel I’m just one of the messianic crowd.” (220) “I’m resting here on the stone steps [Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem], which . . . have a bumpy surface that makes them look like a Rice Krispies Treat.” (219)

Did he achieve any spiritual progress? “I get bored easily . . . Maybe spirituality attracts me for its novelty factor.” (193) “I have managed to slash my total production of white lies by one-third.” (195) “If you try to literally follow Leviticus 19:18 – ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ – well, you can’t.” (323) “I’ve taken a step backward again, spiritually speaking. My faith is fragile. Little things jolt me back to pure agnosticism.” (193) “The truth is, I’ve begun to get really rigorous with my rituals. I hate missing my daily routine . . . Why? Perhaps because these rituals dovetail beautifully with my obsessive-compulsive disorder.” (148) He found a checkbook on a plane and mailed it to its owner, who replied with a thank-you-card and a gift card to Starbuck’s: “The checkbook triumph gives me such a moral high, I use the card to pay for the latte of the guy behind me at Starbuck’s. I got the idea from a religious website devoted to kindness.” (179)

His plethora of advisers gave a lot of mixed signals that would confuse anybody. For instance, following Deuteronomy 22:6: “[Mr. Berkowitz] has set up two pigeon nests on his third-floor windowsill . . . Whenever there’s a newly-laid egg, he allows a faithful seeker to come over, pay one hundred dollars to charity, shoo the mother pigeon away, pick up the egg, hold it aloft, say a prayer, place it back in the nest . . and thereby check off this commandment as officially ‘fulfilled.’”

And when his experiment was all over: “I’m not just shaving my beard, I’m amputating a large part of my identity. In a couple of hours, I won’t be Jacob anymore. I’ll be back to being a regular old, unremarkable New Yorker, one of millions.” (330) “I’m still agnostic [but] I’m now a reverent agnostic.” (329) I suspect his real religion is “America,” or even more specifically, “New York.”

Perhaps the best value of this book is that of laughter. In fact, I found the book not in the religion section, but the humour section, and it is marketed as such. Jacobs has a gift for funny characterizations, such as Guru Gil, his uncle in Israel. Here’s two samples of hilarious scenes:
On hundreds of Hassidic men dancing at Simchas Torah: “. . . an ocean of undulating black hats. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them in a hall the size of a large gymnasium. It’s as loud as any concert I’ve been to. But instead of drums and guitar, it’s a village of men singing Ay yi yi yi . . . Everyone’s bumping, smacking, thumping into one another . . . sort of a Holy Roller Derby.” (86)
On a circumcision support group: “They called themselves RECAP, short for Recover a Penis . . . ‘I don’t feel whole,’ said one. ‘I want to feel whole again.’ Another asked, ‘Can you imagine what it’s like to have sex with a foreskin? It must be like watching colour TV.’”

So shouldn’t I just lighten up and laugh along? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. But I balance that with Bahá’u’lláh’s admonition: “This is not a Cause which may be made a plaything for your idle fancies, nor is it a field for the foolish and faint of heart.” (The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, par. 78)
Anyway, it is Jacobs who is laughing all the way to the bank, for even if my complaints are valid, the fact remains that I still bought and read his frivolous book. You’ve been amply warned.

Quiz Answers

1. Tabríz
2. Muhammad-‘Alí-i-Zunuzí (“Anis”)
3. Mount Carmel, Haifa.
4. Chihríq
5. Assassination attempt on Nasir’id-Din Sháh.
6. Táhirih
7. He was under house arrest, as some Bábís in Mashhad had killed some guards that were parading his servant around the city with a rope through his nose.
8. A cholera epidemic struck suddenly. The Governor fled, and the Báb healed the son of the Chief of Police, who interceded on His behalf.
9. 1500 (2 x 750)
10. Hájí Mírzá Siyyid-‘Alí, His maternal uncle.
11. Táhirih
12. Sam Khán
13. Zachary Taylor
14. 40 days
15. Siyyid Husayn
16. 84
17. King of Martyrs and Beloved of Martyrs
18. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (She was Múnirih Khánum)
19. They all housed the remains of the Báb for a time.