What Is Bahai Orientalism?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is an innovative terrain and capably investigated. 

Author Response

Thank you for your report

Spell check in line with American English completed

Reviewer 2 Report

Excellent article, I look forward to your forthcoming monograph! 

Author Response

Thank you for appreciative comments.

Spelling made to accord with American English throughout; some grammar errors eliminated

Reviewer 3 Report

Interesting concept to discuss the Bahai in light of Orientalism and post-colonialism, but the paper needs substantial work.

The introduction needs rewriting with a more sophisticated approach to Said.  What is Said's theory? How will the author apply it?  I have no idea what specific ideas from Said the author cares about. Said is now old (Orientalism was written in 1979) and has been heavily critiqued and his ideas rethought by many, the author needs to discuss this as well.  Of course post-colonialism was a term coined after the publication of Orientalism. Thus engagement with more current post-colonialists is needed. (Why does the author not only mention that post-colonial theory has been applied to many religions, not just Christianity. She/he needs more citations when discussing post-colonialism and religion). Intro. needs expansion, without knowing what the author is referring to as Orientalism the section on Bahai Orientalism makes little sense. What is the relationship between Orientalism and post-colonialism?  For a paper on post-colonialism little attention is paid to the oppression of the Bahai and especially their leaders and how that may have affected their views, certainly their views of Iran and perhaps even their embrace of people like Renan. This seems like a good place to introduce the Deluzian idea of the rhizome.

What exactly is the connection between American religious movements and the Bahai? Are you discussing the Bahai's coming to America? If so the reader needs some context. When/how?  Why is this important to Orientalism? This section is blurred and confusing. How is the Bahai being in America, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran connected to Bahai orientalism? This seems like another good place to discuss the rhizome concept. 

Generally, the paper needs to be better organized.  There is a lot of rambling and misplaced information. maybe a section on history in the beginning compiling the history from the other sections would help.

Lines 316-317-Ismailis are Muslims and Bahai messianism fits with Ismaili ideas as well as Christian and also may resemble some of the ideas of the Druze? (Rhizome?) The section comparing Christianity moving away from Judaism to Bahais moving away from Iran is weak. Is this your idea?  Comparing two movements with some similar elements does not make them the same. There are countless similar movements.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

The reviewer has some interesting points to make about the rhizome and parallels between Bahai/Ismaili/Druze which could be followed up in a different place. The rhizome idea is included in the present article towards the end to give a flavour of how the limitations of Bahai historiography might be addressed. The edition for which this article was submitted concerns postcolonial literature and religion – exploration of religious systems and doctrines does not therefore fall within the scope of the article and I have tried to keep these to a minimum.

The introduction makes it clear that it is western dominance/power/knowledge that is the main element in Saidian Orientalism that transfers to postcolonialism, and that Orientalist discourse and the othering of Muslims is the main focus of the article. While I can see validity in the reviewer’s remarks made about Said and postcolonial theory this is not an argument I wanted to focus on here, it is actually dealt with more extensively in my book.

Action: I have altered the balance of the claim about Orientalism in the Abstract (ll.13-14) and emphasized the connection of Orientalism and postcolonialism being applied in the article. (ll.62-3)

Regarding the point that as well as Christianity Orientalism has been applied to ‘eastern’ religions is 

actually make in the introduction, see refs. to King and Paramore, and in reference to Indian spirituality in sect.4 

The second paragraph shows the reviewer is unclear about how Bahai moved from Iran to the Ottoman Empire and then on to America picking up a universalizing Christianizing bent on the way. The encounter with Ottoman domains and later America was an intrinsic part of the process of change from Islam to a post-Islamic movement. This began before Shoghi Effendi’s Guardianship, but it was his decision to incorporate Orientalism and Christianizing into the Bahai narrative. 

Action: I have incorporated this point at the end of sect.2. (ll. 115-120)

Reviewer 4 Report

This is an excellent and important article. Should readers from the Bahai community find it persuasive, it also has the capacity to spark a rethinking of key elements of the foundational narrative of the Bahai Faith. 

Minor revision, however, is recommended. The article, in its current form, seems to suggest that Bahais are incapable of such a creative reconstruction or reinterpretation of the works of Shoghi Effendi. If this is the case, then the hope on which the article is built–that, in an era of rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, Bahais might divest themselves of the orientalist tropes in the articulation of their tradition–is in vain. Are there resources (such as the concept of progressive revelation) of which Bahais might avail themselves to read their texts in a more revolutionary way? Some statement about these resources (or, on the contrary, about their absence, or the unlikeliness of their being accessed) is desirable.

The claim on lines 544-545 needs to be sourced: “Crucially, nothing can be written about a Bahai topic that does not pass a Bahai system of review.” This may be common knowledge in Bahai or Bahai Studies circles, but will likely be news to the general reader.

Regarding the sentence on lines 570-573:

“As the present article has strongly implied, a Bahai postcolonial scholar would have to adopt a position probably even more radical than that suggested by Said’s contrapuntal method: they would need to begin by deconstructing the Orientalist image in Shoghi Effendi’s writings and situating the religion more firmly in its colonial contexts―an unthinkable impiety.”

That this is “an unthinkable impiety” needs to be unpacked a bit. Again, could there be strategies for achieving this deconstruction that would not necessarily run afoul of the reverence in which Shoghi Effendi and his writings are viewed? Because the Bahai Faith teaches the idea of “progressive revelation,” is it theologically possible that subsequent generations of scholarship could be constructed as unpacking or unfolding deeper truths within the earlier writings that were not evident due to contextual reasons at the time that those earlier writings were composed (in this case, the colonial situation)? The implication would otherwise seem to be that Bahais lack imagination and agency in regard to the reinterpretation of their tradition. The conclusion would seem to at least suggest, however, that Bahais are capable of re-envisioning their tradition, or else the plea that the article is making that Bahais divest themselves of the orientalism of their foundational narrative is one that Bahais are incapable of responding to and acting upon affirmatively (making the article a hopeless exercise).

In short, one would like to see the article be less open to the charge of being "Bahaiophobic" by having it point to some reason for hoping that Bahais might receive its critique in a constructive spirit, and not simply as an attack.

Author Response

Reviewer 4

The reviewer’s understanding and grasp of the orientation of the article is very gratifying. I agree with her/his point that the article’s approach toward the possibility of Bahai engagement with creative reconstruction is quite negative – although in a religion that is as authoritarian and unflinching in its opposition toward free thinking and debate as Bahai, it is difficult to see how this could be changed. Nevertheless I agree this point needs to be addressed.

Action: I have referenced the statement about review and moved the two quotations the reviewer has flagged up restructuring  them and taking on board the importance the reviewer has ascribed to not being seen to be too negative. (ll.586-98; 624-6)

Reviewer 5 Report

This paper on Bahai religion and Orientalism argues the importance of Orientalist values and writing in the transformation of the religion from a Shia Muslim subgroup to a separate religion.  It notes how one of the founders, Shoghi Effendi, adopted Orientalist vocabulary and styles of discourse, changing the goals of the religion from Muslim to universalist.

The author quotes Lawson approvingly, who states that Bahais are the only recent Islamic movement to escape Islam and get a post-Islamic identity.  He really ought to include the Sufi Order of the West/ Universal Sufism, which came from a Muslim Chishtiya founder and became a universalist faith.  While its current members call themselves Sufi, most have never read the Qur’an and do not know Arabic.  Their Universal Worship includes prayers to Ahura Mazda, Buddha, Yahweh and Allah.  While its founder was Muslim, its later followers have not affiliated in this way, doing Dances of Universal Peace.

The paper seems to imply that the figure who did the most Westernization, Shoghi Effendi, was subsumed into the Orientalist discourse around him.  From the data in the paper, it seems more likely that he made use of the Orientalist discourse around him to defend his religion and separate it from its Muslim enemies.  After all, the Persians/Iranians jailed and executed the founders and practitioners of the religion, and Bahais are still persecuted in Iran.  It is not unreasonable that he wished to have a separate identity.  Rather than dominators, colonial writers could be seen as allies, creating a style of writing that helped in separating Bahai identity from Shia Islam.  Effendi never went to Iran, so there is no reason for loyalty to a group he found hostile.

Rather than having Bahai writing as a subcategory of Orientalism, using that language seems more like a strategy.  In that way, it could be compared to early Christianity, which condemned Judaism in order to be recognized as a separate religion.  That hostility was a stage for both, first creating a separation, then developing as a separate religion.  However, Bahais wished to unite East and West, while most forms of Christianity have not chosen to do so.

This paper is interesting, with many good points.  However, it does not give enough agency to the group it looks at, which appears as a reflection of Orientalism rather than a strategic user of their concepts.  It needs to at least mention the other point of view.

Author Response

Reviewer 5

I thank the reviewer for their comments and wholly respect their point that the core situation Islamic movements face in attempting to renovate in the face of opposition is very problematic. However, I think there is a misreading – I neither approve nor disapprove of Lawson’s point. My article argues that the Bahai embrace of Christianizing/Orientalizing and adoption of an overt western orientation has only created more problems – especially when it comes to their desired aim of uniting East and West. Regarding the Sufi parallels suggested, these are very interesting. However they are i) outside my area of competence ii) take the article further into a religious studies direction. The present article is concerned with religion, literature and postcolonialism, and I have endeavoured to keep discussion of doctrine to a minimum.

The suggested re-reading in the penultimate paragraph is fine but it is more a religious studies than a postcolonial one. The Judaism/Christianity, [Muslim]/Bahai bifurcation movement from old to new is one that Bahais favour theologically but it weakens the literature and Orientalism approach adopted in this article. The idea that ‘colonial writers could be allies’ is not sustainable in a postcolonial reading – they were, but their aims were colonial ones and therefore dubious!

Action: I have built the point the reviewer has made concerning Bahai response to persecution more clearly into the argument.(ll 93-6)