December 1. On this date in 2005, the head of state of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, President Kessai Note, paid an official visit to the Baha'i World Centre with his wife, Mary Note. They were welcomed by Universal House of Justice member Peter Khan and his wife Janet Khan.

 

December 1. On this date in 2005, the head of state of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, President Kessai Note, paid an official visit to the Baha'i World Centre with his wife, Mary Note. They were welcomed by Universal House of Justice member Peter Khan and his wife Janet Khan.

The Khans were the first Muslim family in Australia to convert to the Bahá'í Faith, doing so in 1948. On September 10, 1986, the patriarch Fazel "Frank" Khan died. Frank Khan would serve on the NSA of Australia, as would his children Joy Vohradsky and Peter Khan, who also served on the International Teaching Centre and Universal House of Justice.

Peter Khan was a prolific speaker. Some of his notable talks include a talk delivered in 2000 to New Zealand Bahá'ís about their reaction to Alison Marshall's excommunication, partially annotated here, which received a rebuttal by Juan Cole.

He is also known for an August 13, 2006, talk titled "Education, Scholarship, and Global Civilization."

There are those who are deeply concerned that if their young people embark on education in a secular setting it will weaken their faith; for example, they should not study psychology because it rests on the material concept of human nature and that will take them away from religion. From that perspective, they should not study philosophy, or economics, or sociology, or history, or what ever because it will weaken their religious faith. There are those, perhaps (not many of them, hopefully) who feel that religion contains all the knowledge one needs; as quoted in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, knowledge is a point that the ignorant have multiplied, and by pursuing education in a secular setting one is exposing oneself to this multiplication of ignorance. There are some who have an apocalyptic view of the imminence of catastrophe, which gives rise to the question “why bother with education when the whole rotten mess is going to blow up anyhow?” This creates a pressure on young people not to make a long-term commitment of an educational nature.

Also, within the last few years, with the legitimate pressure for the core activities to be expanded and developed in the Five Year Plan, there are extremists who say that matters are so urgent at this time that we should abandon our long-term pursuits—educational or otherwise –because we have to get these 1500 intensive programs of growth. Their view is that nothing is more important than that, we should give up what ever else we are doing, just do this and maybe later (if there’s time) you can go and get your education.

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