Poetry for children based on "Blessed is the spot ..." by Baha'u'llah

The emergence of a cohesive interracial fellowship in Jim Crow-era South Carolina was unlikely and dangerous. However, members of the Baha'i Faith in the Palmetto State rejected segregation, broke away from religious orthodoxy, and defied the odds, eventually becoming the state's largest religious minority. The religion, which emphasizes the spiritual unity of all humankind, arrived in the United States from the Middle East at the end of the nineteenth century via urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest. Expatriate South Carolinians converted and when they returned home, they brought their newfound religion with them. Despite frequently being the targets of intimidation, and even violence, by neighbors, the Ku Klux Klan, law enforcement agencies, government officials, and conservative clergymen, the Baha'is remained resolute in their faith and their commitment to an interracial spiritual democracy. In the latter half of the twentieth century, their numbers continued to grow, from several hundred to over twenty thousand. In No Jim Crow Church, Louis Venters traces the history of South Carolina's Baha'i community from its early origins through the civil rights era and presents an organizational, social, and intellectual history of the movement. He relates developments within the community to changes in society at large, with particular attention to race relations and the civil rights struggle. Venters argues that the Baha'is in South Carolina represented a significant, sustained, spiritually-based challenge to the ideology and structures of white male Protestant supremacy, while exploring how the emergence of the Baha'i Faith in the Deep South played a role in the cultural and structural evolution of the religion.

The nineteenth century was a time of significant global socioeconomic change, and Persian Jews, like other Iranians, were deeply affected by its challenges. For minority faith groups living in nineteenth-century Iran, religious conversion to Islam - both voluntary and involuntary - was the primary means of social integration and assimilation. However, why was it that some Persian Jews, who had for centuries resisted the relative security of Islam, instead embraced the Baha'i Faith - which was subject to harsher persecution that Judaism? Baha'ism emerged from the messianic Babi movement in the mid-nineteenth century and attracted large numbers of mostly Muslim converts, and its ecumenical message appealed to many Iranian Jews. Many converts adopted fluid, multiple religious identities, revealing an alternative to the widely accepted notion of religious experience as an oppressive, rigidly dogmatic and consistently divisive social force. Mehrdad Amanat explores the conversion experiences of Jewish families during this time. Many converted sporadically to Islam, although not always voluntarily. The most notorious case of forced mass-conversion in modern times occurred in Mashhad in 1839 when, in response to an organized attack, the entire Jewish community converted to Shi'i Islam. A contrast is offered by a Tehran Jewish family of court physicians who nominally converted to Islam and yet continued to openly observe Jewish rituals while also remaining intellectually sympathetic to Baha'ism. Many petty merchants and pedlars, in a position to benefit from Iran's expanding market, migrated from ancient communities to thriving trade centres which proved fertile grounds for the spread of new ideas and, often, conversion to Christianity or Baha'ism. This is an important scholarly contribution which also provides a fascinating insight into the personal experiences of Jewish families living in nineteenth-century Iran.

Illumination Responses to three representative books printed in Iran attacking the Baha'i Faith Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has announced the suppression of the Baha'i community in Iran to be one of its official policies. In addition to summary executions, arbitrary arrests, confiscation of property, and denial of basic human rights to the members of the Baha'i Faith, the Islamic Republic's state apparatus has been mobilized to produce defamatory propaganda and fabrications in order to justify the persecution of the peaceful Baha'i community for the Iranian public and to an increasingly alarmed international community. Dr. Tavangar's book is a comprehensive and thoughtful work that addresses the numerous misrepresentations and baseless attacks that are continuously published and promoted by the authorities in Iran against the Baha'i community - its largest religious minority. Being a respected Islamic and Baha'i scholar, Dr. Tavangar has gone beyond mere rebuttals by laying out in this book clear historical as well as scriptural and philosophical notions that explain and expose the roots of the arguments put forth against the Baha'i Faith by the typical publications and so-called research centers in Iran.

Dawnbreakers is the most comprehensive and authoritative eyewitness account of the beginnings of the Baha'i era. A reprint of the 1932 original, and full of wonderful features, this book is a necessity for any serious scholar of Baha'i history. If you desire fullest details, then read this sourcebook on the dramatic events which inaugurated the promised dawn, foretold in all the Sacred Scriptures. Central is the Figure of the Blessed Bb, '...matchless in His meekness, imperturbable in His serenity, magnetic in His utterance...', as it documents the tragic and triumphal events, fueled by a visionary and sacrificial heroism which He alone inspired. Words and events were related first hand, Nabl-i-Azm by many eye-witnesses and participants in this Divinely inspired and short-lived period, which cleaved the clouds of entrenched tradition, and prepared nothing less than the long awaited dawning of the Ancient of Days.

Explores contemporary controversies in bioethics from a Hindu perspective. S. Cromwell Crawford breaks new ground in this provocative study of Hindu bioethics in a Western setting. He provides a new moral and philosophical perspective on fascinating and controversial bioethical issues that are routinely in the news: cloning, genetic engineering, the human genome project, reproductive technologies, the end of life, and many more. This Hindu perspective is particularly noteworthy because of India's own indigenous medical system, which is stronger than ever and drawing continued interest from the West. The Hindu bioethics presented in this book are philosophically pluralistic and ethically contextual, giving them that conceptual flexibility which is often missing in Western religions, but which is demanded by the twenty-first century's complex moral problems. Comprehensive in scope and passionate in nature, Crawford's study is an important resource for analyses of practical ethics, bioethics, and health care.

Founded by Baha'u'llah in Iran in the 19th century, the Baha'i Faith is one of the youngest of the world's major religions. Though it has over 5 million followers worldwide, it is still little understood outside of its own community. The Baha'i Faith: A Guide for the Perplexed explores the utopian vision of the Baha'i Faith including its principles for personal spiritual transformation and for the construction of spiritualized marriages, families, Baha'i communities, and, ultimately, a spiritual world civilization. Aimed at students seeking a thorough understanding of this increasingly studied religion, this book is the ideal companion to studying and understanding the Baha'i Faith, its teachings and the history of its development.