Any Baha'is interested in an online book club?

I must read this book, and I must find a few people who are equally willing to discuss this book.

"Based on a true story, The People With No Camel weaves two journeys of freedom: a ten-year old girl escapes Iran in 1981 with her family, due to the heavy persecutions they face as Baha’is, carrying nothing but three little handbags, new identities, and faith. The novel then takes a turn. The girl has become a woman and the narrative shifts to a brief parable. Infused with Persian mythical characters, the woman’s quest to save her dying forest turns into her own spiritual journey – the search for ultimate freedom."

Happy Ayyám-i-Há

Wishing you a wonderful Ayyám-i-Há, and may you have a spiritually uplifting Fast.

"I beseech Thee, O my God, by Thy Beauty that shineth forth above the
horizon of eternity, a Beauty before which, as soon as it revealeth
itself, the kingdom of beauty boweth down in worship." - Bahá'u'lláh

anyone interested in an online book club?

I can't begin to describe my excitement when I discovered that Baharieh Rouhani Ma'ani's new book "Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees" is set to be published this month by George Ronald. While serving at the Baha'i World Centre, our book club had selected Mrs. Ma'ani's biographical essay on Asíyyih Khánum: The Most Exalted Leaf, entitled Navváb. She kindly accepted our invitation to discuss her book with us. Her passion for Baha'i history, particularly the history of women related to the Holy Family, was palpable and inspiring.

As an aside note, may someone please tell me who the book designer is for George Ronald as I'm in love with them. So minimal and lovely.

Currently reading / currently loving

Julio Savi is molto smart and talented

As previously mentioned in an earlier post, Julio Savi is my favorite Baha'i scholar (with Anne Boyles' Baha'i World essays in close second. Trust me). Savi's latest work, Towards the Summit of Reality: An Introduction to the Study of Baha'u'llah's Seven Valleys and Four Valleys, is an insightful gem. 'Abdu'l-Baha described the Seven Valleys as "a guide for human conduct." (Promulgation, 244) Savi offers a scholarly guide (or perhaps a more adept term would be a study guide) to assist a reader's understanding of Quranic references, historic Persian mystical poets, and Sufism.

Since I am nowhere near completing his latest work, I will include a few favorite sections, passages, quotes, etc.

"A number of scholars describe the Sufis of this age as following two main trends. One trend, represented by al-Junayd in Iraq, especially Baghdad and Basra, emphasized the state of 'sobriety' (sahw) evoked in the human heart by the contemplation of the tremendous majesty (jalal) of God. The other, presented by Bayazid in Khorasan in north-eastern Iran, stressed the state of 'intoxication' (sukr) induced in the human heart by the contemplation of the fascinating beauty (jamal) of God."

The tremendous majesty and fascinating beauty of God....oh my. To think this all started on page 4!

"It is very significant that the loss of faith is equated in Quranic language not with the corruption of the will but with the improper functioning of intelligence." (p. 43)

Imagine sharing that concept in a graduate seminar course? Now imagine the very few minutes it would take to be utterly told off?

". . . a primal event which does not belong to history, but to metahistory, when human souls enjoyed a mysterious existence in God before time was created. In that station before time, God put the question, 'Am I not your Lord?', and received from the souls the immediate and joyful answer: "Yes, we testify'. In that moment humankind undersigned, so to speak, an eternal Covenant with its Lord. . . the Qur'an says that man accepted, in his metahistory, an engagement to which he is now expected to be faithful in his history. Spiritual yearning is born from his remembrance of that engagement." p. 54 [Savi goes on to explain, at a much later point, how Baha'u'llah describes this encounter in Hidden Words, Persian no. 19]

Currently reading / currently loving

Currently reading / currently loving

I first came across this book when I read a review of it in "One Country." I was still serving at the BWC and promptly went to the staff bookstore to inquire if they had or would be receiving copies. Aside from the Shrines, I fell in love with the bookstore (. . . and the lending library. . . .and any staff member who read). Quite frankly, I would have lived there if it were possible.

Admitedly, I've owned this book for far too long without having taken the time to read it. Nonetheless, once my final paper is submitted on the 16th, it will become my bedtime story.

Plus, when will George Ronald be releasing the Savi book?

I cannot wait to read this book in April . . .

Julio Savi is one of my favourite Bahá'í scholars. I enjoy his work immensely. I've read (and re-read) "The Eternal Quest for God: An Introduction to the Divine Philosophy of 'Abdu'l-Bahá," and adored his article on the Four Valleys. I am undeniably excited for this upcoming study, particularly since the Seven Valleys / Four Valleys are by far my favourites of the Bahá'í writings. [As an aside note and since I can't help myself from noticing, I simply love the new book design aesthetic George Ronald has adopted in the last few years. So clean, so minimal, so pretty].

Currently reading / currently loving

Why do Bahá'ís create the worst music??

For years, I've sat through feasts, Holy Days, conferences, devotionals, ruhi courses and bit my tongue and stared into space in order not to laugh out loud over the seemingly endlessly tirelessly sugary sweet awful music.

Refrain, please, refrain.

Ok, I'm feeling much better now. (;

Currently reading / currently loving

Dalia Sofer's The Septembers of Shiraz is a fictional account on her father's imprisonment and their subsequent escape during the Iranian Revolution. What is astounding is she actually mentions the Baha'i Faith.

"Hello. I'm Ramin," the boy next to him says.
Isaac looks into the boy's wide, dark eyes, and recognizes in them his own terror, which he has been trying to suppress all afternoon. The boy's hand is cold, the fingers like bits of ice.
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
Two years younger than his son Parviz. "Your parents know you're here?"
"My father is dead. And my mother is already in jail. It's been two months."
"They won't keep you long," Isaac says. "You're just a boy."
Ramin nods, takes a deep breath. The reassurance - which Isaac offered out of fatherly instinct rather than actual belief - seems to have calmed him.
"Why do you think they're keeping us here?" the boy continues. "Are they trying to decide which prison to send us to?"
"Keep it down!" A guard's voice pierces the hush that has settled about the room, like dust. "Don't aggravate your case!"
They obey, sit in silence. Isaac imagines Ramin's story. His family could be related to the shah. Or maybe he is one of those hot-blooded communists, protesting the new Islamic regime as they had the old monarchy. Or maybe it's simpler than all that. He could be a Jew, like Isaac, or worse, of the Baha'i Faith, believing that all of humanity is one race, and that there is a single religion - that of God." p. 6-7

Years of Silence: Bahá'ís in the USSR 1938-1946

Asadu'llah Alizad's Years of Silence: Bahá'ís in the USSR 1938-1946 is a moving memoir regarding the experience of Bahá'ís in Russia after the 1917 revolution. How the world's first House of Worship was built and how the community flourished. It also shares, in devastating detail, how the community was persecuted, imprisoned, and exiled. While reading this memoir, I couldn't help but remember this striking letter addressed to a believer in Isfahan by Bahiyyih Khanum:

"Your letter has come, and I myself and the Holy Family were infinitely grieved to learn of the sufferings you have undergone, being made as you were the targets of such injustice, malevolence and aggression. Since, however, you stood firm and steadfast and unchanging, as the arrows of tyranny came against you, and since this happened for the sake of the Blessed Beauty, and in the pathway of the One Beloved, it behoves you to thank God and praise Him, for having singled you out for this great bounty. For this clamour and uproar, the blows, the abuse, the taunts, the curses, when borne for love of the All-Bounteous Lord, are but festive days and times for jubilee. God be praised, you have been given a drop out of that ocean of tribulations that swept across the Exalted One and the Beauty of the All-Glorious, you were granted a droplet out of the seas of calamity that engulfed 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The evil ones did not destroy the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, nor will they ever; it was their own house that they brought down in ruins and gave to the winds. They did not burn down the school, they put the flame to their own roots. . . . (The Greatest Holy Leaf, A Compilation. Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 1982. p. 186-187)

Back in print: Khadijih Bagum: the Wife of the Báb

Guess what is *finally* back in print??

www.grbooks.com

Forget-me-not

I seem to never tire of Jeanne Frankel de Corrales' books, partly since her writing style is incredibly witty. It's one of the few Baha'i books infused with so much humour (not counting Marzieh Gail's work).

I simply adore this biography! Not only for its impeccable presentation and research, but also for Javidukht Khadem's heartfelt story on the life of Hand of the Cause of God Zikrullah Khadem.