‘Abdu'l-Bahá’s Vision for North America

When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited North America in 1912, he encountered two countries burgeoning with self-confidence, rapidly industrialising and urbanising, expanding with a combination of missionary zeal and modernist rationalism into the western interior, and beginning to find their way in the world of international affairs. Their combined population was just over 100 million, and vast territories were within one or two generations of treaty negotiations and the setting of formal political boundaries. Both nation-states were rushing down what seemed like an unstoppable path of progress, inspired by Europe’s century and a half of intellectual and material gain. Yet prevailing social theories and accompanying laws left well over half the population without a vote; restricted work, immigration and settlement by race and national identity; and permitted punishing working hours and cripplingly low wages. In the world outside North America and Western Europe, most people lived directly or indirectly under colonial rule and imperial exploitation, and the emerging community of nation-states was two years away from a conflict of unimaginable scale and impact.

Into this tumultuous mix of confidence and disruptive change, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá arrived with the message of Bahá’u’lláh, re-orienting the minds of all he encountered by both his words and his deeds, and grounding the young Bahá’í community in the broader implications of their faith. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s vision of human nature, his explications of material and spiritual reality, of human history and human potential, of the true nature of progress, of the role of religion in society, of the unity between east and west and of all the races and nations, of the prerequisites to peace, and of the requirements for just government addressed the burning questions of the age but challenged their assumptions. In light of the inherent connection between spirit and practice, the conference will explore both the vision of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the manner in which he conveyed it.