ETWND Part IV

Fourth in the “Essay that Would Not Die” series


By John Taylor; 19 May, 2004



This series started off with the boring title, “Responsibility, Left, Right and Center,” then it morphed into the three essays that would not die, first to make it onto the new Badi Blog site. And here is the fourth. Without missing a step, we will start an ongoing book review of “The Seven Candles of Unity, The Story of ‘Abdu’l-Baha in Edinburgh,” by Anjam Khursheed. This is a truly exemplary book of its type, and I hope some Baha’i scholar in every city visited by the Master will be inspired to produce something just like it—indeed we ought to do it soon, before the hundredth anniversary of His voyages, less than a decade in the future.

What I like about this book is that Khursheed is not afraid to show facsimiles of original sources, photos of local landmarks of the capital of Scotland that the Master would have seen, photocopies of the publications that reported on His visit, and so forth. Unlike many academics, he does not translate the clear ideas of the Writings into stilted gobbledygook and call it Baha’i scholarship. His is a unique and refreshing visual approach to historiography that gives you a real feel not only for what locals encountered, but also for what it must have been like for the Master Himself.

For example, nobody took any pictures of the Master’s attendance at a demonstration of the new flying machine, but Khursheed supplies a picture of hayseed farmers staring upward in wonderment at one of the early Wright brothers’ contraptions lumbering overhead. Here is the caption,


“Aeroplanes were still a source of wonder and amazement in 1908, the year Bleriot flew the English Channel. ‘Abdu’l-Baha was given a special flying demonstration at Brooklands aviation grounds in 1911, which much delighted him.” (Seven Candles, 32)


What I don’t like about this book, and let it be a warning to those in other cities visited by the Master thinking of producing a publication along the same lines, is the color of the print. Call me a bigot or anti-diversifist or whatever, but I firmly believe that print in books should always be black, just as paper should always be white. Not reddish or green but black. Always. I bought this book over a year ago but have not got into it till now because I hate its sickly coloration, which unfortunately extends into the sepia photos and other illustrations. Fie upon them.

An extremely interesting incident took place right off, almost as soon as the Master had entered Edinburgh. The hosts gave Him a tour of the Outlook Tower, a fascinating construction at a strategic place devoted to research and education. This castle or tower is located on a hill in the middle of town and was devoted to museum displays and studies by one Sir Patrick Geddes, a pioneer of the much neglected science of town planning. My veteran readers will recall my notorious dream plan to turn a farmer’s silo into a library and observation post; I therefore almost fell out of my seat when I read the following,


“The visitor was next taken to the dome on the top floor where the ‘camera obscura’ (the darkroom) lies; images of the city and its surrounds which are viewed on the Prospect and Gallery balconies are projected down on to a large table top. A mirror at the top of the dome is adjusted to reflect down images in a direction chosen by the observer, the reflected light is then focussed through a large lens onto the table top. ‘Abdu’l-Baha was very impressed by the camera obscura and stated that it ‘exhibited the incorporation of science into life.’” (Candles, 73)


Lying astonished on the floor by my seat, a thousand thoughts ran through my mind. I have got to go to Edinburgh and see this tower! A camera (camera obscura were the original cameras) so large that you can walk around inside it? An image on a table of the city, like the original live webcam—how wonderful! And what did the Master mean by “incorporation of science into life”? Is that a vote for urban planning?

I think it is true that if the public had access in every city to such an impressive live display of their streets from above, well I have no doubt that they would never have allowed the sloppy street and housing designs of today, designs that allowed the automobile and trucks to become all-consuming monsters of pollution and urban blight. Having a live, easily accessible vision of what is happening around us and why, that certainly would incorporate science and reason into daily life.

I will get back to this city planning issue later. Now, back to the flying machines. My question is, could the demonstration of the Wright brothers airplane attended by the Master have influenced him in his use of the “two wings of a bird” thesis for the relationship between men and women, between science and religion? How early did he use the comparison? Is it in the Writings of Baha’u’llah and the Bab?

I have found similar comparisons of locomotion for equality and balance, using the two legs we use in walking, in writings as early as Plato. But as far as I know, the Master was among the first to favor the much more demanding analogy of flight as an example of the demands of moderation and equality. (And little wonder too, since as we have seen He was one of the first witnesses to the human triumph of the air, to practical uses of the former mystery of artificial flight) I have searched without success my supercharged version of the Ocean database for uses of the analogy of a bird and its balanced wings. Nothing in philosophy, ancient or modern, nor in poetry, or religions, ancient or modern.

The only exception that turned up was Islam, the culture that the Master in fact would have been most familiar with. The Qu’ran mentions birds and wings three times.


“And there is no animal that walks upon the earth nor a bird that flies with its two wings but (they are) genera like yourselves; We have not neglected anything in the Book, then to their Lord shall they be gathered.” (Qur’an 6:38, Shakir Ali, tr)


I’m not clear exactly what this means, but it seems to be referring to chirality, the fact that virtually all creatures, from molecules to plants to animals, have two symmetrical sides to their bodies, each a mirror image of the other. Or maybe it is saying that locomotion always operates on the same principle of two sides in balance, including “like yourselves,” meaning perhaps the principles of thought. Elsewhere the Qu’ran says,


“Do you not see that Allah is He Whom do glorify all those who are in the heavens and the earth, and the (very) birds with expanded wings? He knows the prayer of each one and its glorification, and Allah is Cognizant of what they do.” (Q24:41)


Seemingly a comparison of praise and prayer to flight, to that glorious moment when a bird no longer has to flap its wings, it just leaves them open and soars. In soaring flight air currents propel you forward, giving one of nature’s few free rides. Soaring would have been a common observation in the desert, since the Arabs pioneered the domestication of hawks and their uses in hunting.

I turned up more Islamic references and will come back to them later. Today though I do not want to lose the train of thought of the “Essays That Would Not Die,” which is concerned with the idea of a political “left wing” and “right wing,” and how it relates to the Master’s use of the metaphor of two wings of a bird.

Did the Master just watch the new airplane and think, “You know, men and women are like those wings. Science and religion are like that there flying machine.” Or did He think of the Qu’ran’s references to birds and their wings? He had read the Qu’ran, according to His own testimony. We cannot know what He thought, only that the sight delighted Him. Even today it is great to look up at the noisy things and realize how nicely humans imitate the discovery of flight that birds made (silently) so many millions of years ago.

Birds have to demonstrate a fine integrity in flight, a delicate balance in response to the very strict demands of aerodynamics. In the air, both wings must work together with unimaginable harmony, right down to the tiniest tip of a feather. Aeronautical engineers using supercomputers are challenged even today to fully understand how they nimbly stop, pick an insect out of the air and change direction completely. Even today, no manmade flying machine comes close to such abilities.

It amazes me that so few thinkers and poets outside the Islamic world noticed what the Qu’ran tweaked us to, and the Master expanded upon, that men and women, science and religion need to balance in perfect equality, like wings in flight. The Master was more discrete in political statements but clearly He saw the same need for perfect alignment in political science too. Leaders need to have the perfect discipline and synchronization of two bird wings if they are ever to attain to peace.

More on all this later.