THE DIVINE ONENESS
Baha’i community celebrates bicentennial, shares its inclusive message
When it comes to her journey to faith, Melanie Mouzoon feels like she was singled out.
A Houston native, she tried to leave home for college but the only application that somehow made it through the mail was for Rice. Mouzoon, now a pediatrician in Houston, wonders whether it was fate or her father’s meddling, since her parents wanted her to stay close to home. Either way, going to Rice changed her life.
One of the first people Mouzoon met at the university at age 19 was a young woman who followed the Baha’i faith. Noting Mouzoon’s spirit of service to others, this new friend decided Mouzoon was a Baha’i already. She kept inviting Mouzoon to Baha’i gatherings, and finally she said yes.
Mouzoon was “floored,” she said, “by how open-minded, thoughtful and world-affirming everyone was.”
This year more than others, Mouzoon and her fellow Baha’is are inviting friends and community to learn about their faith. It is the bicentenary of the birth of Baha’u’llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha’i faith.
Baha’u’llah, whose name comes from Arabic for “glory of God,” was born Mírzá Husayn Alí in Tehran, Iran in 1817 to a prominent wealthy family. Although he was groomed for government leadership, Ali and his wife, Asiyih Khanum, spent their time and fortune feeding the poor and hungry.
In 1844, Ali received a letter from a religious leader known as the Bab, Arabic for “the gate.”
The Bab was born Siyyid ‘Alí-
Muhammad in 1819 in Shiraz, Iran. In his religious studies, he proved to be a child prodigy, able to recite and teach the Quran.
In 1843, a dream convinced him that God wanted him to bring a message to the world and to prepare the way for the Promised One to come. As he taught his revelation and raised up disciples, he angered Persian authorities. In 1850, the Bab was executed by firing squad in Tabriz, Persia.
Before he died, the Bab communicated his message of new revelation to Ali, who joined the Bab’s followers after reading the Bab’s words. Ali, now Baha’u’llah, began to preach a new message that would seek to unite humanity across countries, languages and faith traditions, under the rule of one God.
“The earth is but one country,” Baha’u’llah wrote, “and mankind its citizens.”
Baha’is believe that previous religious messengers advanced human civilizations from tribes to city-states to nations. As the next messenger of God’s word, Baha’u’llah envisioned a “unified global civilization,” according to bahaiteachings.org.
“God is civilizing mankind,” Mouzoon said. “When mankind falls behind, God sends another educator.”
Like religious reformers before him, Baha’u’llah angered the political establishment of the day. Although Persian authorities did not execute him like the Bab, they persecuted him for the last 40 years of his life. He spent those decades in prison and exile throughout the Ottoman Empire, until his death in 1892 in Acco, on the northern coast of present-day Israel. A shrine marking his final resting place stands to this day. The international Baha’i headquarters are in nearby Haifa, Israel.
There are nearly 7 million Baha’is around the world in almost every country, including about 2,000 in the greater Houston area. To mark the bicentennial, Baha’i centers throughout the city hosted more than a half dozen events last month.
The Baha’i Center of Houston held a gathering at Levy Park Oct. 22. Despite a morning downpour, more than 100 people turned out to celebrate and learn about Baha’u’llah.
Bryan Blakeny, a local Baha’i, introduced the ceremony and reminded everyone that Baha’is believe their prophet is not the last prophet, but simply the next great messenger of God to humanity. Although Baha’u’llah wrote 100 books during his 40 years of prison and exile, he considered his writings not a new testament but the next chapter of God’s ongoing revelation to the world.
Blakeny welcomed people of all faiths to the celebration, quoting Baha’u’llah’s words: “Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship.”
Baha’u’llah taught his followers to find wisdom in the holy books of all religions, not to replace those writings with his own. As if to manifest that teaching, a verse on peace from the prophet’s writings was recited in English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, French, Portuguese and Urdu. There was a traditional Chinese dance performance and an African drum circle.
Another local Baha’i, Abbas Mahvash, read aloud a proclamation by the mayor’s office declaring Oct. 22, 2017 “Bicentenary of the Birth of Baha’u’llah Day” in Houston. Mayor Sylvester Turner’s message commended the Baha’i community of Houston for contributing to the civic life and diversity of the city since their first arrival in 1937.
Mahvash said the bicentennial is very special to him as an occasion to reflect on teachings from 200 years ago that are as relevant today as they were during Baha’u’llah’s lifetime.
The prophet called his followers to eliminate all kinds of prejudice, Mahvash said, including ethnic, religious, racial and national. “Whether it’s taking a knee or worrying about immigration,” Mahvash added, “these issues are at the core of some of our public policy questions today.”
Mahvash noted that Baha’i was the first of the major world religions to pronounce that men and women are absolutely equal in the sight of God, so that equality in practice is something we need to achieve.
“It’s like two wings of a bird,” Mahvash said, citing Baha’u’llah’s writings. “Without both wings equally strong, the bird can’t fly.”
Harmony between science and religion is yet another core principle of Baha’u’llah that Mahvash saw as deeply timely. The prophet valued science as the “most noble” human pursuit and an “emanation from God toward man” that allows us to investigate and understand the universe. In partnership with faith, science allows human civilization to progress toward greater prosperity and unity.
“An excess of religion is harmful,” Mahvash said. “If it’s not grounded in science, it’s superstition. And an excess of materialism can lead to other kinds of extremes. We need this balance.”
Baha’is espouse and embody diversity, and Mahvash’s own family is a striking example. His ancestors were Jews in Iran for many generations. A few generations ago, a relative who was a rabbi converted to Baha’i and some of the family followed him. Others remained Jewish or reverted to Judaism after marriage, and they emigrated from Iran to Israel in the 1950s.
Mahvash did a year of volunteer service in Israel, as many Baha’is choose to do somewhere in the world. Mahvash visits his Jewish family in Israel regularly, and despite their different faith traditions, he said, “They treat me like a member of the family.”
For Sharon Davis, a member of the North West Harris County Baha’is, becoming Baha’i was a family affair. Davis grew up in the 1950s in Adrian, Mich., which had less than 20,000 residents at the time.
Her parents were active in a local church — her mom was the secretary — and when her father became Baha’i, the rest of the family was “alarmed.” They hadn’t even heard of Islam or Muhammad, she said, and they couldn’t pronounce “Baha’i” or “Baha’u’llah.”
After a few years of learning, Davis’ mother joined her father as a Baha’i and began educating their children in the faith. “That’s a requirement in the Baha’i faith,” Davis explained. “Parents have an obligation to teach their children about all the manifestations of God. I grew up knowing Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha, Muhammad, Christ.”
In a polarized society, it can be hard to process such an expansive, inclusive faith. We tend to think of religions as closed systems with heavily fortified boundaries. You’re either in or out, a believer or an infidel, a trusted follower or a suspicious outsider.
Baha’is dissolve that binary with their welcoming embrace of every faith tradition as a source of wisdom and every follower as a part of the divine oneness.
“In our writings, Baha’u’llah says that to speak against another prophet of God is to speak against God himself,” Davis explained. “We have no argument, no contention with any other religion in the world. They come from the same source.”
The fundamental commonalities of all religions inspired Arindam Ghosh’s path to the Baha’i faith. Ghosh came from India to the University of Houston in 1989 as a graduate student.
A few years into his life in Houston, Ghosh said, he started paying attention to religions and wondering why Christianity and Islam are always fighting. Having been raised in a Hindu setting, he started studying the Bible and the Quran. To him, they seemed to share a similar message, so he wondered, “Why fight about religion when both holy books say the same thing?”
His search for a unifying message brought him to the Baha’i faith, and now he is a member of the North West Harris County Baha’i community. “If we keep on thinking ‘my nation is better than yours,’” he said, “we won’t progress to the next stage. We have to start thinking in terms of one humanity, one world, one God.”
Baha’is feel that the bicentenary of their prophet comes at a time when the world needs Baha’u’llah’s message. Much has been said after Brexit and the 2016 U.S. election about the disruption and backlash caused by globalization and its discontents.
Ghosh acknowledged, however, that some people feel the Baha’i vision is utopia, good in theory but not in practice. To respond to those critics, he said, “We point to the Baha’i community in person — the prophet who was persecuted but created a community with every ethnic group, every country, every language.”
“If we can achieve it,” Ghosh added, “so can the world.”