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Mormons, Baha'is, Behaist, and Drew Ali:

A Comparison of the Development of Schools of Thought in Each in America

The following paper is a discussion of an as yet untouched area, namely the effects of the

American social realities on the development of schools of thought in New Religions. The groupsthat will be discussed below are Mormonism, Moorish Science, and the Bahai Faith. Even though

the Bahai Faith started in Persia, it developed many schools of thought when it came to America andan Orthodoxy was eventually imposed by leaders such as Abdul Baha and Shoghi Effendi due to thisheterodox mixture in America and elsewhere.

The Bahai Faith in America: Some background

The Baha'i Faith was started as a branch of the Shi'i Shaykhi School. It was originally named

after its first progenitor. He was a young Sayeed from Shiraz named Muhammad Ali and called the

Bab by his supporters. He propagated a new doctrine separate from Islam with new scriptures such

as the "Arabic Bayan" and "Persian Bayan". His teachings were those of a new dispensation. Adispensation that had new laws and Scripture just like those previous to it. Its roots were in Islam,

particularly in the Shayki school of Shia' Islam. He changed some rules of the Shariah regarding the

months, prayer, inheritance, marriage, and divorce to ease the life of the individual following theShariah. The Ulema were split over the claims of the Bab, many accepted them but more rejected his

claims. He was imprisoned and fatwas declaring his heresy were issued. He was to be executed by

firing squad. After his execution by firing squad in 1850, his movement split between followers ofSubh Azal (followers of the Bab only) and followers of Bahullah (half brother to Subh Azal, a new

prophet and head of a new dispensation).

The second movement became the dominant one. Today one is hard pressed to find anyfollowers of Subhi Azal alive. In America there was only one -- August Stenstrand of Chicago.

The first missionary of the Baha'i Faith to the United Staes was George Ibrahim Kheirullah.

Until the spilit with Bahullah's son, Abdul Baha, he was the most powerful missionary that this

emmergant faith had seen. Kheirullah taught that Christ had returned in Abdul Baha and thatBahullah was God Incarnate. His teachings were discharged to his students over a thirteen class

period. This lessons were later incorporated in book form in Bahullah. This work of Kheirullah

initially contained claims about Abdul Baha but after a pilgrimage to visit him Kheirullah withdrewsupport of Abdul Baha.

After leaving the Baha'is under Abdul Baha, Kheiullah setup his own organization to continue to

teach, but he took Abdul Baha's brother, Muhammad Ali, as his new spiritual guide. Kheirullah was

never able to regain his early following. The organization never gained strength and only a fewaging followers exist to this day. In America less than twenty followers still exist and most are found

in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In the Middle East only a few hundred diehards exist, most related to

Muhammad Ali and settled in Acca, Israel. Kheirullah was not able to convert many from his own

family and his own son George I. Kheirullah converted to Islam and wrote a book of Sirah -- Islamand the Arabian Prophet --and a biography of King Abdul Aziz (founder of modern Saudi Arabia).

As time passed, five distinct groups grew from Kheirullah's original mission.

The first were those that sided with `Abdul Baha and eventually were the most powerfulnumerically and in their publishing. This group was to eventually be lead by `Abdul Baha's

grandson Shoghi Effendi. Under his capable leadership many works of Bahullah and `Abdul Baha

would be translated to English, a leadership council to administer the Faith would be setup called theHands of the Faith, and the Bahai Faith would evolve into a world religion.

The second was Kheirullah's National Association of the Universal Religion and the Temple of

the Universal Manifestation which had branches in Chicago and Newark. This group seems to be at

close scrutiny the work of no more than three or four individuals. In Chicago there was Dr. J.

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Fredrick Nutt and, Mrs. Sara Herron. One work published by the leaders Joseph G. Hamilton andFredrick O. Pease was the 1926 work The New Religion (Chicago: National Association of the

Universal Religion). Another member of this group (William E. Dreyer) also published a half dozen

of Kheirullah's pamphlets on topics ranging from: The Creator and What it Takes to Win the Peace;

An Epistle of Peace; Miracles: There are None as Commonly Understood; Proof of the Existence andImmortality of the Soul; and, Reincarnation. Kheirullah's other works were: Zatiet Allah: The

Identity and Personality of God (1896) The Three Questions (1902); Facts for Behaists (1901);Baha'ullah (1900); Bab-ed-Din: The Door of True Religion (1897); and O' Christians! Why Do YouBelieve Not on Christ? (1917).

The third group was the Kenosha group. The leader of this group (at least until 1914) was

Reverend Fredrick A. Slack, a teacher appointed by Kheirullah. A large number of the followers ofthe Baha'i Faith sided with Kheirullah and supported Muhammad Ali. Sometime around 1930 they

invited his son Mirza Shuaullah to Kenosha.

While in Kenosha Shu'a'ullah edited and published seven issues of the thirty page Bahia

Quarterly between 1934 and 1936. Articles by Fredrick Slack, Leslie Pease, Bernhard Mollenhauer

and Joseph G. Hamilton appeared in the Quarterly. Each issue also contained articles on Bah'ihistory and excerpts from works on the Baha'i Faith such as Edward G. Browne's works.

Translations of Bahaullah's writings tended to be copied from the followers of `Abdul Baha

translation (such as ones done by Ali Kuli Khan). The supporters of Muhammad `Ali in Kenoshaused Kheirullah's original thirteen lessons and his pamphlets to proselytize their message.

Kheirullah had little contact with this group visiting once or twice after 1914 and only having one of

his article in their magazine. The article was published posthumously. Kheirullah does not mentionKenosha as being a group supporting his Universal Religion Organization so it can be assumed that

their efforts were separate from his.

The only other stronghold for the partisans of Muhammad `Ali is in Acca. Today they numberless than eighty individuals, are under the rule of Israel, and portray themselves as (outwardly)

Orthodox Muslims. In American less than twenty followers of Muhammad `Ali still exists, all in

Kenosha. They haven't held regular meetings since the 1950's.

August J. Stenstrand -- a German immigrant living in Chicago --was leader of the fourth group.His was perhaps a one man show. Stenstrand was voted out of the First Church of the Manifestation

of the Society of the Behaists of America in May of 1906 for his beliefs concerning the Bab as being

the seal of the Bahai Faith and thus Bahullah would be a false prophet. He wrote six pamphletswhich were all called A Call to the Heaven of the Bayan or A Call to the Attention of the Behaists or

Babists between 1907 and 1926. At least a half dozen of his articles found space in the Baha'i

alternate press quarterly Reality between the years 1924-26. Several books on the Babi and Baha'i

Faiths were donated by him to Chicago's Newberry Research Library along with his on pamphlets.A fifth group could be classed as non-denominational Behai's. These would be those who

accepted the teachings (in Principal) but refused to enter into a dispute over who the successor of

Bahullah was. These would include the reading Room Group, the new History Society, and Reality

Magazine (1919-1929 published by Harrison Gray Dyar 1866-1929) readers. This magazine wasstarted in 1919 by Eugene and Wandeyne Deuth and the editorship was assumed by Dyar in 1922.

Two works were written by Dyar on the Bahi'a Faith besides what he published in the magazine he

edited. (See Dyar, Aseyeh Allen Introductions to the Bahai Faith, 1920 and Dyar, Harrison Gray,Shorts Talks on the Practical Application of the Bahai Revelation, 1922). Besides the article by

Peter Smith on the Reality Magazine in From Iran East and West, pp. 135-155, little or no study has

been done on the Baha'i's who followed these groups after they disbanded in the thirties and forties.The pages of the magazine also allowed the words of the sole Bahai Communist -- Edward J.

Irvine -- to reach the unsympathetic ears of the Baha'i and New Age readers of the Reality Magazine.

Irvine's efforts to start a Communist fifth column in America formed by an amalgamation of the

Baha'i Faith and Communism found no supporters (even among Communists). Fully twenty one

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pages of the magazine carried his message of Red Irvinism between 1922 and 1925. Later hebecame affiliated with Swami Yogananda. Magribine Press will publish all his Reality Magazine

articles with Dyar commentary and my notes in late 1999. This is important since these efforts of

Irvine with his Red Irvinism does parallel efforts of the Communists to infiltrate American Labor and

the Nation of Islam in the early 1930's and the Japanese attempts to gain leadership of both theMoorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam in the late 1930's and early 1940's to some extent

(even if it be on a much smaller scale). (see Ernest Allen, Jr.'s works on the Nation of Islam fordetails.)Dyar also supported others who accepted the Baha'i principles but refused to allow for any

central authority. One such individual was an early Bahai missionary Ameen Fareed. He had little

support in America after being excommunicated by `Abdul Baha for refusing to follow direct orderson the proper methodology to use when propagating the Baha'i Faith. Besides Dyar, Fareed had

another American supporter in Mrs. Chevalier. Articles by Fareed and Mrs. Chevalier found space

in Dyar's magazine's pages. (Peter Smith "The American Baha'i Community, 1894-1917: A

Preliminary Survey" in Studies in Babi and Baha'i History Vol. 1, edited by Moojan Momeen (Los

Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1982), p. 188.The Reading Room incident of Chicago (1917-1919) finally centered the Baha'i Faith in

America totally on the leadership of `Abdul Baha and his message. Up to those years the Bahai Faith

in America had been infiltrated by Theophists, Free thinkers, Occultists, and Metaphysicists. Theleader of this group was a Boston Metaphysician named W.W. Harmon. He felt that receive inner

hidden meaning and deep spiritual insight into Baha'i revelation through the interpretations of

Bahullah's writings as given by Harmon. He wrote the works Divine Illuminations (Boston: TudorPress, 1915) and a series of lessons called "Study of Reality" (1915). A few individuals around the

nation followed him but Chicago held the largest number where a Bahai Reading Room was setup by

his supporters. He was excommunicated at the April 1917 convention in Boston. After this theReading Room Baha'i's called themselves the Chicago Baha'i Assembly. These members of the

Chicago Baha'i Assembly fought to use the name Baha'i for their organization. Even winning the use

of the name did not save their cause. Their numbers were never large, nor organized and they

vanished entirely by the 1930's.Another case, similar to the Reading Room incident of Chicago, was the New History Society of

New York. They were started by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab and Mrs. Julie Chanler in 1930 after Sohrab

was excommunicated by the Guardian of the Faith Shoghi Effendi. Mirza Sohrab chronicled hispropaganda and work with the Baha'i Faith in his 1942 work Broken Silence (New York: Universal

Pub. Co.), 608 pp.. One his heretical teachings is that the Bab was the Manifestation of God for the

Muslim world and Bahullah was the one for the whole world. This teaching is at variance with most

Baha'i writings on the subject.Most of these that either refused to follow the covenant and accept `Abdul Baha or who felt that

the Baha'i Faith could not be organized can be traced (in part) to an oral statement by `Abdul Baha.

"The Baha'i Movement is not an organization. You can never organize the Bahai Cause. The Bahai

Movement is the spirit of this age. It is the essence of all the highest ideals of this century. Theteachings of all the religions and societies are found here: the Christians, Jews, Buddhists,

Mohammedans, Zorastrians, Theophists, Freemasons, Spiritualists, et. al., find their highest aims in

this Cause. Even the Socialists and philosophers find their theories fully developed in thisMovement." (see Star of the West, Vol. 5 (1914-1915), p. 67.)

This statement reminds me of the one found on the Nationality Card of the Moorish Science

Temple, namely, "We honor all the Divine Prophets: Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Confucius."This universalists side of Moorish Science has never been fully explored even by Moorish American

writers. Moorish Science does not deny a hierarchy of leadership like the Baha'i Faith. The leaders

are chosen from the individuals who have advanced through the different levels and stages of the

teachings of Moorish Science. Jesus, Muhammad, and Noble Drew Ali seem to be the prophets most

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focused on in Moorish Science teachings. Noble Drew Ali is often seen as a reincarnation of Jesusand Muhammad or as a Moses for the descendants of the Moors in the Americas.

Kheirullah's autobiography (in his work O' Christians, Why Don't You Believe in Christ) would

lead us to believe he had little or no connection with Kenosha and that the efforts of Pease, Hamilton,

Dreyer, and others were not lead or particularly encouraged by him. He died on March 8, 1929 ofinjuries recieved when a boiler exploded on a ship during on the way to visit his ancestral home in

Lebanon.From Kheirullah's book O' Christians, Why Don't You Believe in Christ, we find his biographyand teachings. By the time Drew Ali moved to Newark, NJ, one of Kheirullah's temples was already

in existance there. There is no known set of Kheirullah's beliefs in creedal form but below are the

beliefs of the Baha'i Faith as given by Abdul Baha: 1) Oneness of Mankind; 2) Independentinvestigation of the truth; 3) Oneness of religion and science; 4) Racial and social equality; 5)

Universal education and language; 6) Theocratic economy, and 7) a One World Government. None

of these beliefs are specifically Islamic, nor are they mentioned specifically in Drew Ali's writings,

but they are, however, in line with the teachings of Noble Drew Ali. Of course you also have to

reconsider that Drew Ali was active in starting his missionary work when the Baha'i and Beha'istmissionaries were hard at work doing their propaganda.

Richard Hollinger gives a very compelling reason for the failure of the Muhammad Ali partisans

in American in his article "Kheiralla and the Baha'i Faith in America". He writes, "American Baha'isgenerally believed `Abdul Baha to be the return of Jesus Christ; and as such, he was the emotional

center of their faith. The position that Muhammad `Ali had taken -- that `Abdul Baha was making

excessive claims for himself -- made it impossible for him to make similar charismatic claims forhimself. He could only offer himself as a less charismatic, but more legally correct, alternative to

`Abdul Baha. This appealed to few Baha'is. Moreover, the Behaists, as a result of Muhammad

`Ali's position, spent much of their time explaining what they did not believe -- teaching what `AbdulBaha was not. As a result, they developed a largely negative message which neither appealed to the

Baha'is nor to potential converts." We see that conversions were made to Muhammad Ali's cause but

few were the teachers Kheirullah originally appointed to teach the Behaist teachings. In addition, the

number of conversions were not large enough to replace the number who left the Baha'i Faith entirelyor decided to support Abdul Baha. (Richard Hollinger "Kheiralla and the Baha'i Faith in America" in

From Iran East and West (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1984, pp. 94-133).

Background on Mormonism:

Background on Moorish Science:

Parallels between Mormonism, Moorish Science and Bahai Faith in Regards to Development of

Schools of Thought

These divisions of the Baha'i community can be paralleled with the divisions of both theMormons and Moorish Science Temple in America. The Azalis can best be paralleled with the

Mormons who tried to found a Church of Christ using only the Book of Mormon and no later Mormon

scriptures. They are almost extinct and not propagating at the moment. A similar group called theMoorish Divine and National Movement can be found in Moorish Science. They wish to follow

Noble Drew Ali but refuse to follow any leaders after Drew Ali's death.

The Reading Room and New History groups are best compared with the Moorish OrthodoxChurch. These are people who hold to the belief system of Moorish Science mixed with their own

individual beliefs and do not wish to be corralled by an imposed Orthodoxy and clergy. There exist

some people who claim to believe in the Book of Mormon as scripture but do not wish to become

Mormons who may be classified within this grouping.

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The followers of `Abdul Baha can best be seen as the Orthodox Baha'is. For Mormons thiswould be the followers of Brigham Young. For the Moors it would be the followers of C. Kirkman

Bey.

In the Shia' doctrine there exists a concept of appointment by the prophet of his successor. For

the Shia' this was, of course, Hazrat `Ali. For the Mormon the figure appointed by Joseph Smith wasJames Jesse Strang. Strang received his appointment both in a vision and in a letter. Strang later

received revelations on plates of brass which he called the Book of Laban. This brief work of aboutfifty pages contained the laws for a Mormon kingdom built on the basis of God's revealed laws.Several Baha'i believed revelation had not ended with Baha'ullah. The one he appointed was his son

Muhammad `Ali. `Abdul Baha was the usurper. The winner writes the history and from my studies

I can best believe that Baha'ullah would have accepted Abdul Baha as leader and his successor. TheMoors also had a leader who was appointed. He was John Givens El, personal chauffeur of Noble

Drew Ali. A vision was received eight days after the passing of the prophet wherein the spirit of the

spirit of the prophet entered his body. At the second National Convention in 1929 he announced he

was Noble Drew Ali Reincarnated. A sizable number of Moors accepted his claims.

As for the Kenosha group, there are both Moors and Mormons who fit that pattern also. For theMormons it was the Morrisites who were founded by a person who never met the Mormon prophet

but felt called to be a leader. In 1857 the English convert Morris (who had arrived in America and

Salt Lake City in 1853) got his calling and even had the nerve to call upon Brigham Young anddemand him to follow Morris. Over the next several years Young received dozens of epistles from

Morris. In 1863 he founded a separate city near Salt Lake City and began to teach his communal

ideas in opposition to Brigham Young's authority. A civil war ensued and the Moorisites lost theirland and many lives. A new leader George Williams claimed to be the Prophet Cainan. At least

three of Morris's closest associates opposed him. Another opponent of Brigham Young was St.

Louis's Charles B. Thompson. Morris met him in 1857 and perhaps derived his metaphysical andcosmologic doctrines from his writings. Charles B. Thompson also claimed to be a prophet and

produced The Laws and covenants of Israel Written to Ephraim from Jehovah, the Mighty God of

Jacob. Also Ephraim and Baneemy's Proclamations (1857). The last leader of the Morrisites was

George Johnson of Deer Lodge, Montana who died in 1954. The major work of Morris is entitledThe Spirit Prevails (San Francisco, 1886) The sayings of Prophet Cainan and Morris are found in

Gems of Inspiration: A Collection of Sublime Thoughts by Modern Prophets (1899).(see C. LeRoy

Anderson, Joseph Morris and the Saga of the Morrisites) For Moorish Science the closest figure wehave is Timothy Dingle El and his Resurrection: the Moorish Science Temple (1979). Dingle El

claimed authority against extreme odds and gained a sizable nationwide following before his death.

Any scholar of comparative literature and religion can find parallel from faith as divergent as

Islam and Buddhism or between the Kama Sutra and the saying of Black Elk if they really wanted to.The point of this discussion of these parallels is to show the current of thought that followed in the

East dividing Islam into sects and schisms, also followed in America.

The Native Religions of Mormonism and Moorish Science divided along many of the same lines

as Orthodox Islam did with Shi'a Islam. Questions of leadership, clergy, doctrine, cosmology, andmore began to divide the Muslims. Some felt succession should be by blood, others by appointment,

and still others by election. Mormons and the Moors had to come to grips with the same problems

after the death of their prophets and founders. The nature of revelation in Islam lead to some claimsof prophecy after the death of the Prophet Muhammad or of the arrival of the Day of Resurrection.

Moors dealt with this issue when some leaders claimed to be reincarnations of Jesus of Muhammad of

Adam and of Noble Drew Ali. The nature of the founder/prophet was also raised whether he wasdivine and whether he was immune from sin and error.

In the Moorish Science Temple grammar of the Scripture is not an issue. In Baha'ism it became

a central issue. Grammar was not to be studied and Scripture had to have grammatical errors to be

considered heaven sent. For the Mormon the revelation had to be in the language of man full of the

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grammatical errors and dialectical peculiarities of the prophet.In closing this chapter I must bring up a few brief point of the nature of the number nineteen in

Baha'ism and in Mormonism. There are nineteen months in the Baha'i month and nineteen months in

the Baha'i year. The anti-Baha'i writer Samuel G. Wilson details some of these in his article on the

Bayan of the Bab. There we read, "...by a curious coincidence, Mormonism also invented a newalphabet called the `Deseret Alphabet,' and divided Salt Lake City into nineteen Bishopics; Brigham

Young's fortune was willed to nineteen classes of his wives and children. Ann Eliza who sued fordivorce was his nineteenth wife." Whether these are real comparisons or only those dredged up fromthe depths of the mind of a deranged Christian Missionary who would go to any length to fight Islam

can not be really determined. The Baha'i did invent the Badi script and the number nineteen was

central to many of their doctrines and rituals. Also, the Moors and Baha'i both accept polygamy infaith if not in practice. The early leaders of the Moors, Mormons and Baha'i's were practitioners of

polygamy. The article by Wilson where these parallels are mentioned can be found on pp. 633-654

of the Vol. 5 (1915) issue of the Princeton Theological Review. Further evidence of an acid-laced

hatred of Islam, Mormonism, and the Baha'i Faith can be found in his Baha'ism and Its Claims (New

York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1915). This second work contains some of the only first hand accountsof the work of August Stenstrand, the sole American Azali.