Bahai Library Online

Tag "Azizullah Sulaymani" details:

tag name: Azizullah Sulaymani type: People
web link: Azizullah_Sulaymani
author: Azizu'llah Sulaymani

"Azizullah Sulaymani" appears in:

1.   from the main catalog (6 results; less)

  1. Koumarth Sulaymani. Adel Shafipour, trans. Brief Biography of 'Azizu'llah Sulaymani, A (2007). Overview of the life and publications of a prominent Iranian scholar (1901-1985) who wrote on history, philosophy, and theology, and was especially known for his biographies of 99 Bahá'ís in the ten-volume series Masabih-i-Hidayat.
  2. Gloria A. Faizi. Fred Frazelle, trans, Linda Frazelle, trans. El Fuego en la Cima de la Montaña (1993). Traducción de Fire on the Mountain-Top (Faizi, 1973).
  3. Darius Shahrokh. Fadl-i-Shirazi: Guided By Dreams (1992). Life story of an early believer; content derived from the Persian book Masabih-i-Hidayat by Aziz'u'llah Sulaymani.
  4. Gloria A. Faizi. Fire on the Mountain-Top (1973/2005). A collection of stories about early members of the Bahá’í Faith, based on accounts gathered in Persia by 'Azizu'llah Sulaymani.
  5. Darius Shahrokh. Mulla Rida: The Indestructible (1992). Extracts from the Persian book Masabih-i-Hidayat, by Azizu'llah-i-Sulaymani, about a famous life-long teacher of the Faith in Iran.
  6. Azizu'llah Sulaymani. مصابیح هدایت (Masabih-i-Hidayat): "Lights of Guidance" (1948-1976). Biographies of 99 prominent Bahá'ís from the formative years of the Faith, published between 1948 and 1976.

2.   from the Chronology (2 results; less)

  1. 1897-00-00
      The passing of Hand of the Cause of God Shaykh Muhammad-Ridáy-i-Yazdí (Mullá Ridá) while incarcerated in the Síyáh-Cháh. [RoB2p84-91; Bahaipedia; Wikipedia]
    • He was born in Muhammad-Ábád in the province of Yazd into a well-known family in about 1814. He was provided a good education and he became a divine known for his piety, eloquence and courage.
    • Mullá Ridá became a follower of the Báb in the early days of the Revelation. He recognized Bahá'u'lláh as the Promised One of the Bayan some time after 1855 upon reading Qasídiy-i-Varqá'íyyih, "Ode of the Dove". (Bahá'u'lláh had composed this ode while still in Sulaymáníyyih.)
    • He was a fearless teacher who was outspoken and often suffered imprisonment and torture. "Other than seventeen-year-old Badí, no one has surpassed Mullá Ridá's unusual power of endurance. The rare combination of endurance, eloquence, courage and humour made him that unique hero who illuminated the pages of the history of the Bahá'í Faith." [Extract from a Persian book called Masabih-i-Hidayat, Volume I by Azizu'llah-i-Sulaymani]
    • In one story of his courage in teaching and his endurance in withstanding abuse, he was found to be picking his teeth while being bastinadoed and, in another, while a elderly man he withstood a brutal flogging on his bare back in the prison yard. A witness to this flogging, Ghulám-Ridá Khán, a notable of Tehran who happened to be imprisoned at the same time, became a believer upon seeing his steadfastness under the lashing. [RoB1p84-91, EB89-111, LoF21-27]
    • 'Abdu'l-Bahá referred to a few of the believers posthumously as being Hands of the Cause (see MF5 and BW14p446) Adib Taherzadeh points out that "since there are one or two others by the same name (Shaykh-Ridáy-i-Yazdí) it is not possible to identify him. However, some believe strongly that he is Mullá Muhammad-i-Ridáy-i-Muhammmad-Ábádí. [RoB4p186n]
  2. 1942-00-00
      Bahá'í Scholarship

      The publication in 1865 of the Comte de Gobineau's (1816-1882),Les Religions et Les Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale created an interest in Europe. A scholar that was inspired by Gobineau was E.G.Browne. He travelled to Iran and also visited Bahá'u'lláh in Akka in the latter days of His life. He translated two histories of the new religion and published two other books as well as a number of articles. He also made an important collection of manuscripts that he gave to Cambridge University Library. Bahá'ís have criticized Browne's work for being too sympathetic to Azal, Baha'u'llah's half-brother and implacable enemy. One of the books that Cobineau for Les Religions... was Násikhu't-Taváríkh (the 'history to abrogate all previous historiies') by Lisánu'l-Mulk. This book had been condemned by Bahá'u'lláh as a falsification of history one which even an infidel would not have had the effrontery to produce. [SUR36-37]      

      A.L.M. Nicolas (1864-1939) was a French consular official in Iran who researched and wrote a biography of the Báb as well as translating three of the Báb's major works into French.

           Just as the Báb was the centre of the scholarly interests of Gobineau, Browne and Nicolas, some Russian scholars who were more interested in Bahá'u'lláh. Baron Viktor Rosen (1849-1908), the director of the Oriental Department of the University of St. Petersburg was assisted by Aleksandr Tumanski (1861-1920). He spent a great deal of time with the Bahá'í community of Ashkhabad and with Mirza Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani. Although he did not write as much as Browne or Nicolas, what he did write was derived from a very deep and thorough investigation. [L&E43-83]

        See An Officer and an Orientalist: Alexander Grigorevich Tumanskii and His Contribution to Russian Historiography on and Policy towards the Babi-Baha'i Religion by Soli Shahvar, Bahá'í Studies Review 20 (1), 3-19

           There was much interest in scholarship in the early days of the Faith because almost all of the most important disciples of the Báb were Islamic religious scholars, as were many of the leading converts to the Bahá'í Faith in later years. The most important of these was the above mentioned Mirza Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani (1844-1914). He was learned in the Zoroastrian and Jewish scriptures and spent some time in the Christian West at the request of 'Abdu'l-Bahá prior to His visit.

           During the 1930s to 1960s, a second generation of Iranian Bahá'í scholars, such as Fadil Mazandarani (1881-1957), 'Abdul-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari (1902-1972), and 'Azizu'llah Sulaymani (1901-1985) systematized Bahá'í theology and law, developed aids for scholars such as dictionaries of Bahá'í terminology, and wrote histories and biographies. This was of course a more traditional style of scholarship than is current in the West, but it continues to be useful to all present scholars.

           The above-described initial flurry of interest in the Bábí and Bahá'í religions in the West was not sustained and from the 1920s to the 1970s, there were no Western scholars who were as deeply engaged as the above-named ones and only a handful of studies that can be said to have done much to advance knowledge. From the 1970s onward, there gradually emerged a new stream of scholars who can be said to be a fusion of the above two groups, the Western and the Bahá'í scholars. This new generation of scholars mostly began as Bahá'ís, although some have subsequently left the religion. They use Western academic methodology and most operate from within Western universities but they have access to insider information and resources. Apart from these individuals, the Bahá'í Faith has been very little studied by Western scholars of religion.

           A word must also be said about what passes for scholarship on the Bahá'í Faith in Iran and to a lesser extent in the rest of the Middle East. Bahá'ís have been persecuted in many Middle Eastern countries and rejected by Islamic leaders, and one form of this discrimination has involved the manipulation of information. For most of the last 100 years, deliberately distorted or falsified information and documents have been created mostly by some within the Islamic religious establishment and then distributed as though these were facts about the Bahá'í Faith. Since the Bahá'ís have had no ability to respond to this material in the Middle East, these distortions have gradually become accepted in the Middle East as the truth. One example is the forged memoirs of Count Dolgorukov, the Russian ambassador to Iran in the 1840s to 1850s. This and other contradictions were so clearly spurious that even some Iranian scholars debunked them when they were first published in the 1940s. But despite this, they are often regularly cited by Middle Eastern writers up to the present day as though they are a reliable source for the history of the religion.

           Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, this manufacturing of disinformation and forged material has increased greatly with programs in the media, articles, and books appearing on a frequent basis, especially in the government-run media. The result is that there is almost nothing published in the Middle East that has reliable information about the Bahá'í Faith in it. A little of this sort of scholarship has also appeared in the West; some Christian missionaries, notably Reverend William McElwee Miller(1892-1993)(Also see WOB83) have written anti-Bahá'í material and ex-Bahá'ís have published academic work that is calculated to make the Bahá'í community resemble a cult as portrayed in the anti-cult campaigns that were carried out in the Western media in the 1980s. [The above was copied from the website Patheos and has been edited for brevity. It was contributed by Dr. Natalie Mobini]

    • See as well the publication of Der Bahā'ismus, Weltreligion der Zukunft?: Geschichte, Lehre und Organisation in Kritischer Anfrage (Bahá'ísm-Religion of the Future? History, Doctrine and Organization: A Critical Inquiry) by Francesco Ficicchia under the auspices of the Central Office of the Protestant Church for Questions of Ideology in Germany.
 
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