May 27. On this date in 1910, the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts published an article titled "Persia and the Regeneration of Islam" by Bernard Temple stating "Not less than one-fifth of the population of Persia is estimated to have embrace Bahaism..not a religion, but a religious movement. If it were a religion its chance of diffusion would probably be small."
Not less than one-fifth of the population of Persia is estimated to have embraced Bahaism
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not a religion, but a religious movement. If it were a religion its chance of diffusion would probably be small."
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It is, in very brief, the Protestantism of Islam. It comes to inaugurate the Reformation in Asia. Its spirit is anti-papal, anti-episcopal, anti-clerical. The Bab was the John Huss of Persia; Baha Ullah was the Martin Luther.
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You have only to consider that the Muhammadan converts to Bahaism number more than two million and the non-Muhammadan converts only a few thousand to perceive the strength of the statement. The Bahai dream of a world-wide propaganda is doubtless a proper, and may even be a reasonable, object of aspiration and endeavor. My concern here is with what is actually being accomplished.
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Bahais seems to reconcile the spiritual and temporal authorities in Islam by showing that each is a necessary adjunct of the other : the Church performs the religious functions of the State; the State discharges the Civil obligations of the Church.
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I have never met two men, I have never read two books, whose accounts of Bahai teaching wholly agree. It would not be difficult for me to present to you many different concepts of Bahaism, gathered in my travel, each resting on authority.
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