A letter from Wahid Azal to Adib Masumian

by Wahid Azal (Zulfiqar110) on Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:07 AM PDT

Adib, listen to your mother more often and your father. Both of these people have solid heads on their shoulders, and their advice, like the one your mother gave you, should be heeded like a precious substance as if it were the alchemical Elixir itself.

It is a shame that we have to stand on the antipodes of many issues because you are a basically good kid who, as far as I am concerned, is just being seriously misled by the agendas of an entrenched power clique and for its own sinister/corporate ends. But, please, whether you are aware of it or not, your name is indeed being actively promoted and bandied about by associates of the Baha'i institutions as a notary on many such questions. Your own presence online is also vast. And you know exactly how I know this. I was utterly disappointed to see your cooperation with Moojan Momen in libelling Negar Baha'i-Anselm, and even more disappointed to see your name associated with the Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights, which you and I both know is a thoroughly hokey organization, nay a racket, and possibly an international money laundering front -- as I and several other people are beginning to establish. I also noted several of your own below the belt sectarian characterizations and attacks on yours truly (and your defense of that deranged lunatic Badi Villar) -- and this sort of behavior is neither Bijan or your mother, but it is the conspicuous behavior of that woman and arch-demoness Susan Maneck, who you would do very well to stay well away from for your own sake before her type of poison works itself all the way into you.



Now as regards Debunking the Myths, there is a large amount of material you do not deal with and which you will at some point have to begin dealing with whether you like to or not. I urge you in your future endeavours not to be like Moojan Momen who deliberately omits information, sleights of hand or otherwise feigns a wooly silence on crucial questions of history and documentation and claims it as scholarship. You would do well to keep your distance from him as well. He is dishonest as dishonest comes.

Now unfortunately due to the unprofessionally stupid and basest speculatory manner in which some Iranian Muslim authors have dealt with such questions in the past, this does not necessarily make the issues of Baha'i (not Babi, but Baha'i) linkages to European (and especially 19th and early 20th century) colonialist agendas moot and invalid. Sophia and I have uncovered quite a bit of information publicly available in the British National Archives which problematizes the issue further than anyone has so far admitted (including the Fayzieh hacks) and raises quite a few eyebrows about what both Abbas Effendi and Shoghi Effendi were up to with the powers of Westminister. All of this information would have been available to Moojan Momen in the '70s and early '80s, but he deliberately did not deal with them. Juan Cole was actually the person who first notified me about the patently disengenuous and biased nature of Momen's overall Baha'i scholarship, especially on such questions. You don't need to fall into any such ideological traps and become yet another Momen or Maneck clone/drone.



Now I am not inviting you to leave the religion of your parents, but you would do well for yourself in significantly broadening your intellectual horizons over the next four years and more by reading and contemplating outside of the narrow Baha'i box you have been pigeon-holed into over the past 18 years. So I am urging you to expand your horizons beyond where you are at now. Never fixate your attention on one particular narrative. Never become the face or spokesperson for the bigger agendas of other people, organizations or otherwise. Think only for yourself. Reach your own conclusions, and reject all hand-me-downs as a matter of principle and personal intellectual integrity. The world is a pretty complicated, bizarre place and the line between the good guys and the bad guys will often blur and become murky -- and even shift altogether right before your eyes. Also understand that the path to Truth is incredibly difficult and full of heartache, since Truth is its own reward. Do these things, and I think in you we might actually find another Fereydoun Adamiyat or Muhit Tabatabai rather than a Baha'i version of that giant twit Falsafi.



And despite my articulated positions and present online vocation, kindly convey my love to your father, Bijan, and to your mother as well.



Mo'affaq va mo'ayyad bashi, javan!

http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/mona-tahiri/accurate-summary-baha-i-teachings-can-be-found-here