The Baha'i Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience

From: Juan Cole <jricole@my-deja.com>
Subject: Re: Baha'i Historian and Distorting History
Date: Sunday, July 11, 1999 1:38 AM

The Salmani memoirs were set for publication by Kalimat Press in 1982,
in both Persian and English; the House had long been apprised of this.
Just as the book went to print, Kalimat got this telegram that they had
to cease and desist from publishing the Persian, and had to take
passages out of the English.  Marzieh Gail, the translator, was
absolutely furious, and the academic Baha'i who had written the
introduction pulled it rather than be part of something dishonest.  The
deletions in the English text are marked by elipses ( . . . ) although
apparently the House was annoyed by even this little gesture of honesty
on the part of the editors.
But this is only one little incident.  The UHJ has routinely suppressed
enormous numbers of Baha'i histories and primary texts, which Baha'is
have wanted to publish.  (They have suppressed almost all the Bab's
works and the major Babi chronicles, as well).  That is on reason its
protestations that Baha'i historians don't have to be dishonest ring
hollow.  Obviously, a historian who cannot get access to the primary
sources because their publication has been forbidden is ipso facto being
less thorough than is desirable and is reflecting only one small part of
the record (the part that someone has decided can appear).
You will note that although memoirs of Baha'is from the 19th century
that have been allowed to appear in Persian are very few, as soon as
Adib Taherzadeh got elected to the UHJ suddenly his father's memoirs
were published in Germany.  But other people's fathers' memoirs can't be
published, you see.
The whole system is arbitrary from beginning to end, and its effect, if
not intent, is a lamentable lack of historical honesty and
forthrightness.  Luckily, the advent of the World Wide Web means that
the cost of publishing such material is no longer tens of thousands of
dollars, but rather a little photocopying and some ftp'ing.  So the
material will now come out.
cheers
Juan Cole
Professor
History
University of Michigan
In article <931604081.636.0.nnrp-04.c2de8324@news.demon.co.uk>,
  "macleod" <macleod@beloved.com> wrote:
>
> Juan Cole wrote in message <7m6qrb$vnv$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> >
> >
> > Even the text of a primary source
> >like Salmani's *My Memories of Baha'u'llah* was tampered with at the
> >insistence of the Universal House of Justice
>
> That has been mentioned elsewhere but I can't find details anywhere.
Have
> you any more specific information as to what was amended/deleted?
>
>
--
Juan Cole, History, U of Michigan jrcole@umich.edu
https://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/bahai.htm
Buy *Modernity & Millennium: Genesis of Baha'i*
https://www.kalimat.com/
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