‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Secret of Divine Civilization

necessary to provide some more details about the intellectual currents in the second half of 19

century Iran. The position of the conservative ‘ulama was hardly clearly articulated. They

remained in their traditional discourse and their rejection of modernity and modern institutions

were usually expressed in the form of denouncement of religious heresy and equating any

modernist idea with the Bábí movement, which was automatically condemned by them. Even at

the time of Constitutional Revolution in the early years of 20

century, when the rank of ‘ulama

was divided on the question of constitutionalism, the conservative ‘ulama continued to denounce

constitutionalism because they identified it with Bábí and Bahá’í doctrines.

However, the secular intellectuals were much more articulate in the second half of the 19

century.

During the 1850s and 60s the first group of the reform-oriented secular writings appears in Iran.

Akhundzadih and Malkum Khan (1833-1908) are the most active of their generation. They call for

reform of law and administration, reform of Persian alphabet and script, defend the policy of

granting concessions to Europeans, and found a secret modernist group called Faramush Khanih.

The most important development of the 70s, however, was the assumption of political power by

the reformist group. Husayn Khan gave political positions to some of the reform-oriented secular

politicians including Malkum Khan and Yusif Khan and was specially influenced by Malkum. The

decisive defeat of the reform camp at the end of the 70s, turned 1880s to a decade of political

pessimism and disillusion. During the 80s Jamalu’d-Din Asadabadi (Al-Afghani) (1838-1896), an

Iranian who pretended to be Afghani, wrote political works using Islamic symbols to defend his

modernist and anti-colonialist ideas. Finally, it is in the last decade of the 19

century that bitter

opposition to the reign of Nasiri’d-Din Shah is expressed by Malkum Khan from London, and

Jamalu’d-Din and Aqa Khan-i-Kermani (1853-1896) from Istanbul.

The decade of 1890s paves the way for constitutional revolution in Iran in the next decade. Two

particular events mark 1890s. The first is the boycott of tobacco by the religious leaders as a protest

against tobacco concession to a British company. From now on many of the ‘ulama participate in

Constitutional Movement. However, their ambivalence concerning the relation of modernity and

Islam reappears in devastating forms in drafting and implementing the new constitution, which

eventually led to the failure of parliamentarian forces. The second event was the assassination of

Nasiri’d-Din Shah by a follower of Jamalu’d-Din in 1896. Both Jamalu’d-Din and Aqa Khan-i-

Kermani died in the same year.

Looking at

The Secret

we can see the unique position of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in this significant debate.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s position in

The Secret

has a hidden and a manifest aspect. The hidden aspect is

not explicated because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is writing His text anonymously and cannot make any

reference to the Bahá’í Faith. Of course, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá withheld His identity as a Bahá’í leader

because otherwise His book would be automatically condemned by religious leaders and would

not have a chance to speak to people. However, this implicit message is explicated in ‘Abdu’l-

Bahá’s other writings.

To begin with the manifest content, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá rejects both positions in the debate. He argues

that in fact Islam has been the cause of the emergence of a most wonderful and progressive

civilization, and He agrees that the solution to the backwardness of Iran is to go back to the spirit

of Islam. However, He does not agree with conservative ‘ulama concerning the relation between

Islam and modernity. The spirit of Islam, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá affirms, is not opposed to either the culture

of modernity or to learning positive cultural, scientific, and institutional lessons fromWestern non-