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The Iranians of AUB and Middle Class Formation in the Early Twentieth-Century Middle East

2016; Routledge; Volume: 43; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13530194.2015.1124754

1469-3542

Farzin Vejdani,

Socioeconomic Development in MENA

AbstractIranian graduates of the American University of Beirut (AUB) constitute a neglected cross-section of an emerging middle class in the Middle East. Although the majority of students attending AUB were Arabs from the Ottoman Empire and later post-Ottoman Arab states, there was a notable non-Arab population including Iranians. Many felt an elective affinity with AUB because of the institution’s moral educational vision, its proximity to Baha’i leaders in Palestine, and its non-sectarian and practical orientation. Through club activities, published writing and studies, students articulated an understanding of the world that was at once modern and rooted in their religion and culture. By the same token, their career trajectories elucidate the unstable relationship between higher education and employment opportunities. Although they possessed specialized knowledge required for modern professions in government, education, medicine and law, other factors, such as religious discrimination and the lack of strong markets for certain areas of specialization, may have vitiated against the process of professionalization. More broadly, graduates had to navigate the volatile landscape of the post-Ottoman and post-Qajar Middle East in pursuit of their aspirations. AcknowledgementThe author would like to thank the following individuals for their feedback on various aspects of this project: Abbas Amanat, Assef Ashraf, Dominic Brookshaw, Aomar Boum, Cecil Hourani, Selim Deringel, the late Kamran Ekbal, Farshid Kazemi, Lior Sternfeld, and Will McCants. H. E. Chehabi made valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Vahid Behmardi generously shared rare primary sources with me and his wealth of knowledge on the topic. I am grateful to Samar Mikati Kaissi for providing me with a reference on short notice. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the “Anjuman-i Adab va Hunar” annual conference in Tambach, Germany in 2006 at the invitation of Fereydun Vahman, and at the “AUB: A Century and a Half” conference in Beirut, Lebanon in 2013 at the invitation of Bilal Orfali and Nadia Cheikh. I would like to thank the conference organizers and participants for their questions and suggestions.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1 ‘The College Curriculum’, Al-Kulliyah, 12(6) (April 1926), pp. 158–162.2 For recent studies of the middle class in the Middle East, see Cyrus Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable, Is Strong: Science, Class, and the Formation of Modern Iranian Society, 1900–1950 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); Keith Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006); Yoav Di Capua, Gatekeepers of the Arab Past: Historians and History Writing in Twentieth-Century Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). A standard work dealing with class in Iran is Ervand Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982). For a study of the Iranian middle class more specifically, see Azadeh Kian-Thiebaut, Secularization of Iran: A Doomed Failure? The New Middle Class and the Making of Modern Iran (Paris: Peeters, 1998).3 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992); A. Reza Arasteh, Education and Social Awakening in Iran (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1962); Monica Ringer, Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2001). For studies of Iranian Baha’i students at AUB, see Richard Hollinger, ‘An Iranian Enclave in Beirut: Baha'i Students at the American University of Beirut, 1906–1948’, in H.E. Chehabi (ed.), Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), pp. 96–119; Reed Breneman, ‘The Baha'i Students and AUB in the Early 20th Century’ (MA thesis, American University of Beirut, 2008); Vahid Behmardi, ‘Djemal Pasha and the Syrian Protestant College during World War I’, Al-Abhath, 50–51 (2002–2003), pp. 135–159.4 H.E. Chehabi, ‘“The Paris of the Middle East”: Iranians in Cosmopolitan Beirut’, in H.E. Chehabi, Peyman Jafari and Maral Jefroudi (eds), Iran in the Middle East: Social History and Transnational Encounters (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), pp. 120–134.5 Betty Anderson, The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011).6 The Ottoman state’s barriers to Iranians seeking Ottoman citizenship were rooted in demographic anxieties about intermarriage between Shi‘i Iranian men and Sunni Ottoman women. Karen M. Kern, Imperial Citizen: Marriage and Citizenship in the Ottoman Frontier Provinces of Iraq (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011).7 A number of these graduates were expelled on the grounds that they disobeyed the Baha’i leadership while others became agnostic or nominal Muslims.8 For a scholarly treatment of the modern dimensions of Baha’i thought, see Juan Ricardo Cole, Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha’i Faith in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).9 For a discussion of how the lack of a seminary system in the Baha’i Faith impacted Baha’i education and especially print culture, see Farzin Vejdani, ‘Transnational Baha’i Print Culture: Community Formation and Religious Authority, 1890–1921’, Journal of Religious History, 36(4) (2011), pp. 499–515. Baha’is were pioneers in opening up ‘national’ secular schools in Iran in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that were open to students of all backgrounds. See Soli Shahvar, The Forgotten Schools: The Baha’is and Modern Education in Iran, 1899–1934 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009).10 Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Abdul Baha in Egypt (New York: New History Foundation, 1929), p. 272.11 ‘Abdu’l-Baha praised the university. Ahmad Sohrab, Abdul Baha in Egypt, pp. 371–372, 384.12 For instance, ‘Abdu’l-Baha paid for the education of Husayn Afnan and his brother Nayyir Afnan at SPC/AUB. Habib Muayyad, Khatirat-i Habib (Tehran: Mu’assasah-i Milli-i Matbu‘at-i Amri, 1962), vol I, p. 206.13 Hollinger, ‘An Iranian Enclave in Beirut’, p. 107. ‘Abdu’l-Baha suggested that Yunis Afrukhtah study medicine in Beirut. Yunis Afrukhtah, Khatirat-i Nuh Salih (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1983), p. 435.14 The main member of the Afnan family who lived in Beirut and who sent many of his children to AUB was Sayyid ‘Ali Afnan. For the notice on his death, see Al-Kulliyah, 17(3) (1 February 1931), p. 76. See also Hollinger, ‘An Iranian Enclave in Beirut’, p. 105.15 For the role of Afnan merchants in expanding the Baha’i religion into Central Asia, see Soli Shahvar, Boris Morozov and Gad Gilbar (eds), Baha’is of Iran, Transcaspia and the Caucasus: Letters of Russian Officers and Officials (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), vol. I, p. 35.16 According to Soheil Afnan, a member of the Afnan family had attended AUB since 1903. Al-Kulliyah, 19(1) (November 1932), p. 34.17 Ali Yazdi, Blessings beyond Measure: Recollections of ʻAbduʼl-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, IL: Baháʼí Pub. Trust, 1988), pp. 9–24, 37.18 Moojan Momen, ‘Hasan Balyuzi’, in Moojan Momen (ed.), Studies in Honor of the Late Hasan M. Balyuzi (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1988), p. xi.19 Zeine Zeine, The Baha’i World, vol. III (1928–1930), pp. 56–57.20 ‘Talks by Abdul-Baha in the Holy Land—Continued’, Star of the West, 9(3) (28 April 1918), p. 38.21 ‘Talks by Abdul-Baha in the Holy Land—Continued’, p. 38.22 Zabih Ghorban, ‘The American University of Beirut’, Star of the West (The Baha’i Magazine), 19(2) (May 1928), p. 57.23 Hasan Balyuzi, Abdu’l-Baha: The Center of the Covenant of Baha’u’llah (Oxford: George Ronald Press, 1973), p. 405. See also Ahmad Sohrab, diary entry dated 15 February 1914, quoted in Star of the West, 9(9) (August 1918), p. 98; Star of the West, 9(3) (May 1918), pp. 29–30.24 Zeine Zeine, The Baha’i World, vol. III, pp. 56–57.25 Qasim Ghani, Yaddashtha-yi Duktur Qasim Ghani (London: Ithaca Press, 1980), vol. I, pp. 116–117.26 For a full treatment of this episode, see Behmardi, ‘Djemal Pasah and the Syrian Protestant College’.27 ‘Letter from Shogi Effendi’, Star of the West, 9(17) (19 January 1919), p. 195; see also Ruhiyyih Rabbani, The Guardian of the Baha’i Faith (London: Bahá'í Pub. Trust, 1988), 9.28 For a brief biography of Ghani, see Abbas Milani, ‘Ḡanī, Qāsem’, in Encyclopedia Iranica. For a more comprehensive study of Ghani’s Beirut connection, see H.E. Chehabi, ‘An Iranian in First World War Beirut’, in Chehabi (ed.), Distant Relations, pp. 120–136.29 Ghani, Yaddashtha, vol. I, pp. 111–115, 118.30 Aaron Tylor Brand, ‘“That They May Have Life”: Contextualizing Relief Efforts of the Syrian Protestant College during World War I’ (unpublished paper).31 Aflatun Mirza, ‘A Trip to Constantinople’, The Student Union Gazette (1915–1916), pp. 249–251.32 The Program for the Society of the Baha’i Students of Beirut (n.p., n.d.), p. 2.33 The Program for the Society of the Baha’i Students of Beirut, p. 2.34 The Program for the Society of the Baha’i Students of Beirut, p. 3.35 The Program for the Society of the Baha’i Students of Beirut, p. 3.36 The Program for the Society of the Baha’i Students of Beirut, pp. 7–21.37 Badi‘ Bushru’i established the Baha’i club shortly after he entered the university in 1906. ‘Mirza Badi Bushrui’, Baha’i World, 9 (1945), p. 545, cited in Hollinger, ‘An Iranian Enclave in Beirut’, p. 102. The earliest references to a ‘Persian Literary Society’ or ‘Persian Society’ in the student paper Al-Kulliyah date back to 1929, although there are earlier references to Iranian student cultural activities.38 Al-Kulliyah, 9(8) (June 1923), pp. 141–142.39 Al-Kulliyah, 14(8) (June 1928), p. 213.40 Al-Kulliyah, 15(7) (May 1929), pp. 180–181. In the fall semester of the same year, ‘Ali Muhammad Amiri was hired as a Persian instructor. Al-Kulliyah, 16(1) (November 1929), p. 10.41 Al-Kulliyah, 15(7) (May 1929), p. 181.42 Al-Kulliyah, 15(7) (May 1929), p. 181.43 Al-Kulliyah, 16(3) (January 1930), p. 62.44 Al-Kulliyah, 16(8) (June 1930), pp. 193–194.45 ‘The Shah of Persia Visits the University’, Al-Kulliyah, 10(2) (December 1923), pp. 21–22. Muhammad Hasan Mirza, the brother of the recently deposed Ahmad Shah, had tea at President Dodge’s home some three years later. Al-Kulliyah, 2(6) (April 1926), p. 166.46 Al-Kulliyah, 16(2) (December 1929), p. 47.47 Al-Kulliyah, 19(2) (15 December 1932), p. 54.48 Al-Kulliyah, 19(3) (1 February 1933), p. 88.49 Al-Kulliyah, 18(5) (15 May 1933), p. 154.50 ‘Iranian Students Hail Crown Prince’, Al-Kulliyah Review, 6(9) (11 March 1939), pp. 1, 7.51 Hussein Afnan, ‘Towards International Peace’, Student Union Gazette (January and February 1913), pp. 15–17.52 Abdul-Hossain Isfahaney, ‘Is Reputation an Index of True Greatness?’, Student Union Gazette (January and February 1913), pp. 34–37.53 Abd-ul-Husein Ispahany, ‘Philosophy in the Hands of the Moslems’, Student Union Gazette (1914–1915), pp. 49–52.54 Abd-ul-Husein Ispahany, ‘The Orient and its Natives’, Student Union Gazette (1914–1915), pp. 163–168.55 Shawki Rabbani, ‘Rules of Parliamentary Discipline’, Student Union Gazette (November 1915), pp. 192–195.56 Shawki Rabbani, ‘The Function of Sport in Life’, Student Union Gazette (1914–1915), pp. 231–233.57 Aflatun Mirza, ‘Eugenics’, Student Union Gazette (1914–1915), pp. 131–139.58 Azizullah Khan S. Bahadur, ‘Social Evils of Hindrances to Persia’s Progress’ (MA thesis, Syrian Protestant College, 1917); Abdul Husayn Bakir, ‘Persia in Transformation’ (MA thesis, Syrian Protestant College, 1918).59 Abdu'l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization (Wilmette, IL: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1970).60 K. Bakiroff, ‘Contribution to a Soil Survey of Syria’ (MA thesis, Syrian Protestant College, 1919).61 Hasan Balyuzi, ‘Ghandi [sic]—the Prophet of Satyagraha’, Students Union Gazette (10 February 1931), pp. 87–91.62 Hasan Balyuzi, ‘Rabindranath Tagore the Prophet of Miniature’, The AUB Students Union Gazette (May 1931), pp. 21–26.63 Hasan Balyuzi, ‘The Persian Woman’, The AUB Students Union Gazette (May 1931), pp. 106–112.64 Hasan Balyuzi, ‘British Foreign Policy in Persia 1906–1921 as Related to the General Policy in Persian Gulf’ (MA thesis, American University of Beirut, 1932), p. 2.65 ‘British Foreign Policy in Persia’, p. 184.66 Hussein H. Rabbani, ‘The Social and Political Philosophy of Georges Sorel (1847–1922)’ (MA thesis, American University of Beirut, 1933), p. 13. He seems to have drawn inspiration from Henry Bergson and William James, both of whom Rabbani considered to be pragmatists who sought to reconcile reason with experience. Bergson’s emphasis on process bears a striking resemblance to the Baha’i idea of progressive revelation, the idea that God’s revelation progresses according to the time and place in which it is revealed. For this concept in Baha’i thought, see Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u’llah (Wilmette, IL: Baháʼí Pub. Trust, 1955), p. 115.67 Rabbani, ‘The Social and Political Philosophy of Georges Sorel’, pp. 53–54. ‘Abdu’l-Baha argued for the harmony of reason and faith in a 1911 talk delivered in Paris. ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks (London: Bahá'´i Publishing Trust, 1995), p. 141.68 Hasan Balyuzi, ‘Is Occidental Civilization Doomed?’, The Baha’i Magazine, 22(5) (August 1931), pp. 144–146; Ruhi Afnan, ‘Religion and Our Modern Social Problems’, Star of the West, 15(11) (February 1925), pp. 318–321; Ruhi Afnan, ‘What Is New in the Baha’i Teachings’, Star of the West, 17(1) (April 1926), pp. 10–15.69 Zeine Nour-ud-dine Zeine, ‘Baha’u’llah—The Super-man’, Star of the West, 20(9) (December 1929), pp. 262–267.70 Hussein Rabbani, ‘The Social Emphasis in the Baha’i Religion, Part 1’, The Baha’i Magazine, 23(7) (October 1932), pp. 206–209; Hussein Rabbani, ‘The Social Emphasis in the Baha’i Religion, Part II’, The Baha’i Magazine, 23(8) (November 1932), pp. 234–237.71 Hussein Rabbani, ‘The Baha’i View of Authority and Organization, Pt.1’, Star of the West, 23(10) (January 1933), pp. 298–301; Hussein Rabbani, ‘The Baha’i View of Authority and Organization, Pt.2’, Star of the West, 23(11) (February 1933), pp. 330–332.72 Hussein Rabbani, ‘Church and State in the Baha’i Social Order, Pt.1’, Star of the West, 24(4) (July 1933), pp. 108–111; Hussein Rabbani, ‘Church and State in the Baha’i Social Order, Pt.2’, Star of the West, 24(5) (August 1933), pp. 141–144. See also Hussein Rabbani, ‘The Baha’i Faith and the Forms of Government’, Star of the West, 24(2) (May 1933), pp. 38–42.73 For a full-length treatment of Effendi’s time at Oxford, see Riaz Khadem, Shoghi Effendi in Oxford and Earlier (Oxford: George Ronald Press, 1999); Soheil Afnan, ‘America’s Influence in the Near East’, Star of the West, 19(12) (March 1929), p. 362. Soheil later obtained a PhD from Cambridge.74 For Husayn Afnan, see Gertrude Bell, letter dated 10 October 1920 Gertrude Bell Archive, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=427. For Ruhi Afnan, see The Baha’i World, vol. II (1926–1928), p. 26; A.E. Suthers, ‘A Baha'i Pontiff in the Making’, Moslem World, 25 (1935), p. 33.75 Who’s Who: The American University of Beirut Alumni Association, 1870–1923 (Beirut: AUB Alumni Association, 1924), p. 46.76 Momen, ‘Hasan Balyuzi’, p. xii.77 Yazdi, Blessings beyond Measure, pp. 41–43; Who’s Who, p. 143.78 Seena B. Fazel and Minou Foadi, ‘Baha’i Health Initiatives in Iran: A Preliminary Survey’, in Dominic Brookshaw and Seena B. Fazel (eds), The Baha'is of Iran: Socio-historical Studies (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 139.79 Milani, ‘Ḡanī, Qāsem’.80 Al-Kulliyah, 15(9) (July 1929), p. 261.81 Al-Kulliyah, 7(4) (February 1921), p. 64.82 Al-Kulliyah, 18(5) (15 May 1932), p. 124.83 Al-Kulliyah, 21(1) (1 November 1934), p. 29.84 Al-Kulliyah, 20(1) (1 November 1933), p. 24.85 Al-Kulliyah, 20(5) (15 May 1934), p. 166.86 Al-Kulliyah, 10(1) (November 1923), p. 17. For further details on Afnan’s marriage, see Cecil Hourani, An Unfinished Odyssey: Lebanon and Beyond (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984), pp. 5, 57, 81, 196.87 For a biography of Sati‘ al-Husri, see William Cleveland, The Making of an Arab Nationalist: Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life and Thought of Satiʻ al-Husri (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971).88 Camron Amin, The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Gender, State Policy, and Popular Culture, 1865–1946 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), pp. 121–123.89 Adib Taherzadeh, The Covenant of Baháʼuʼlláh (Oxford: George Ronald Press, 1992), p. 362; Moojan Momen, ‘Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: Chapter 31 of Some Answered Questions’, Lights of Irfan, 10 (2009), p. 290.90 Momen, ‘Hasan Balyuzi’, p. xii.91 Al-Kulliyah, 10(1) (November 1923), p. 17.92 Al-Kulliyah, 13(2) (December 1926), p. 63.93 Al-Kulliyah, 20(1) (1 November 1933), p. 22.94 Al-Kulliyah, 20(1) (1 November 1933), p. 23.95 Ahang Rabbani, ‘'Abdu'l-Baha in Abu-Sinan: September 1914–May 1915’, Bahá'í Studies Review, 13 (2005), pp. 75–103.96 Muayyad, Khatirat-i Habib, vol. I, pp. 191, 194–195, 198; Badi Bushrui, ‘A New Experience!’, Student Union Gazette (1915–1916), pp. 246–248.97 Al-Kulliyah, 40(6) (April 1925), p. 110.98 Who’s Who, p. 48.99 Zabih Qurban, Medical Education in Shiraz (n.p., n.d.), p. 4, cited in H.E. Chehabi, ‘The Banning of the Veil and Its Consequences’, in Stephanie Cronin (ed.), The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921–1941 (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 207–208; Chehabi, ‘“The Paris of the Middle East”’, p. 125.100 Al-Kulliyah Review, 3(13) (9 May 1936), p. 3.101 Al-Kulliyah, 20(5) (15 May 934), p. 166.102 Hollinger, ‘An Iranian Enclave in Beirut’, p. 114.103 Al-Kulliyah, 20(1) (1 November 1933), p. 24.104 Al-Kulliyah, 10(1) (November 1923), p. 17.105 Al-Kulliyah, 15(2) (December 1928), p. 61.106 Al-Kulliyah, 3(13) (9 May 1936), p. 3.107 Al-Kulliyah, 7(5) (March 1921), p. 79.108 Abbas Milani, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2000), pp. 41–44.109 ‘An Afternoon with the Persians’, Al-Kulliyah, 15(7) (May 1929), pp. 180–181; Al-Kulliyah, 11(7) (May 1925), p. 128; Al-Kulliyah, 14(9) (July 1928), p. 237.110 Florence Evelyn Schopflocher, ‘Flying in Material and Spiritual Atmospheres’, Star of the West, 18(5) (August 1927), p. 154. These Baha’is may have formed an independent Democrat Party in early-1920s Abadah. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, p. 122.111 Milani, ‘Ḡanī, Qāsem’.112 Al-Kulliyah, 9(2) (December 1922), p. 35.113 Al-Kulliyah Review, 7(7) (June 1940), p. 17.114 Al-Kulliyah, 8(1) (November 1921), p. 15; Al-Kulliyah, 13(2) (December 1926), p. 64; Al-Kulliyah, 15(9) (July 1929), p. 261.115 Al-Kulliyah, 17(3) (1 February 1931), p. 76; Al-Kulliyah, 18(2) (15 December 1931), p. 46.116 Al-Kulliyah, 5(2) (December 1913), p. 58.117 Gertrude Bell, letter dated 10 October 1920, Gertrude Bell Archive, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=427.118 Tamara Chalabi, Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family (New York: Harper, 2011), p. 106.119 ’Ali al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtima‘iyyah min tarikh al-‘Iraq al-Hadith (Baghdad: Intisharat al-Sharif al-Radi, 1969), vol. 5, pt. 2, pp. 22–23; Abbas Kadhim, Reclaiming Iraq: The 1920 Revolution and the Founding of the Modern State (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012), p. 100.120 Al-Kulliyah, 7(7) (May 1921), p. 120. He was also described as the ‘secretary to the Cabinet’ and the Secretary of Ministers. Al-Kulliyah, 9(2) (December 1922), p. 34; Al-Kulliyah, 10(1) (November 1923), p. 17.121 Gertrude Bell, letter dated 28 August 1921, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=501.122 Gertrude Bell, letter dated 12 October 1922, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=587.123 He was appointed as part of the Iraq legation in London in 1929. Al-Kulliyah, 16(6) (1930), p. 156. He was transferred to Ankara, Turkey in 1932. Al-Kulliyah, 19(2) (15 December 1932), p. 66. The next year he took up the post of Secretary of Western Affairs in Baghdad. Al-Kulliyah, 19(4) (15 March 1933), p. 129. In 1934, he took up a post in the Iraqi Railway Department. Al-Kulliyah, 20(5) (15 May 1934), p. 167.124 Gertrude Bell, letter dated 9 January 1924, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=674.125 Gertrude Bell, letter dated 26 February 1922, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=541.126 Gertrude Bell, letter dated 13 February 1924, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=684.127 For a collection of primary documents, see ‘The House of Bahá’u’lláh, Baghdád ‘Iráq Compilation’, Documents on the Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Movements, 8(1) (May 2004; updated 2013), http://www.h-net.org/~bahai/docs/vol8/House.htm.128 Moojan Momen, ‘The Covenant’, Articles for the Baha'i Encyclopedia, http://www.momen.org/relstud/covenant.htm129 He graduated from SPC in 1918. Al-Kulliyah Review, 4(7) (23 January 1937), p. 3.130 For more on the Dihqan brothers’ industrial activities in Shiraz, see Willem Floor, Industrialization in Iran 1900–1941 (Durham, UK: University of Durham, Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 1984), p. 25.131 Gertrude Bell, letter dated 1 June 1920, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=393; Gertrude Bell, letter dated 16 July 1924, http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php?letter_id=740.132 Al-Kulliyah, 12(4) (February 1926), p. 107.133 Al-Kulliyah, 16(1) (November 1929), p. 26.134 Al-Kulliyah Review, 7(4) (February 1940), p. 21.135 Khadem, Shoghi Effendi in Oxford and Earlier, pp. 16–67.136 Al-Kulliyah, 6(11) (1 July 1920), 91 ‘Ali Nakhjavani, Shoghi Effendi: The Range and Power of His Pen (Rome: Casa Editrice Bahá'í, 2006), p. 224.137 Adib Taherzadeh, The Child of the Covenant (Oxford: George Ronald Press, 2000), p. 305; Nakhjavani, Shoghi Effendi, pp. 224, 240–242.138 For a brief biography of Farrukhzad, see Khanbaba Mushar, Fihrist-i Kitabha-yi Chapi-yi Farsi (Tihran: Bungah-i Tarjumah va Nashr-i Kitab, 1352 Sh./1973), vol. IV, pp. 685–686. His connection to AUB is elaborated on in Al-Kulliyah, 18(5) (15 May 1932), p. 124; Al-Kulliyah, 20(3) (1 February 1934), p. 98; Al-Kulliyah Review, 3(6) (11 January 1936), p. 4.139 J.E. Knörzer, ‘Dashti, ‘Ali’, Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. VII, pp. 108–111.140 Al-Kulliyah, 14(4) (February 1928), p. 111.141 His work there was short-lived. He left for India after a visit to Beirut in 1930. Al-Kulliyah, 16(8) (June 1930), p. 217.142 Zeine Zeine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism; with a Background Study of Arab-Turkish Relations in the Near East (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1973); Zeine Zeine, The Struggle for Arab Independence: Western Diplomacy & the Rise and Fall of Faisal’s Kingdom in Syria (Beirut: Khayat’s, 1960); Zeine Zeine, Arab-Turkish Relations and the Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Beirut: Khayat’s, 1958).143 Anatole France, Ta’is, translated by Qasim Ghani (Tihran: 1308 Sh./1929); Anatole France, Dastan-i Isyan-i Firishtigan, translated by Qasim Ghani (Mashhad: Baradaran-i Baqirzadah,1309 Sh./1930); Anatole France, Biryanpazi-i Malakah-i Saba, translated by Qasim Ghani (Tihran: Bank-i Milli-yi Iran, 1944).144 Qasim Ghani, Ma’rifat al-Nafs (Tihran: Muʼassasah-i Vaʻẓ va Khitaābih, 1315–1317 Sh./1936–1938); Qasim Ghani, Ibn Sina (Tihran: Farhangistan, 1315 Sh./1936).145 Hafiz, Divan-i Khwajah Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafiz Shirazi, edited by Muhammad Qazvini and Qasim Ghani (Tihran: Majlis, 1941); Qasim Ghani and Muhammad Qazvini, Bahs dar Asar va Afkar va Ahval-i Hafiz (Tihran: Bank-i Milli-yi Iran, 1321 Sh./1942 or 1943). Ghani also co-edited a critical edition of Umar Khayyam’s poems. ‘Umar Khayyam, Ruba‘iyat-i Hakim Khayyam-i Nishapuri, edited by Qasim Ghani and Muhammad ‘Ali Furughi (Tihran: Shirkat-i Sami-yi Chap-i Rangin, 1321 Sh./1942).146 Qasim Ghani, Tarikh-i Tasavvuf dar Islam (Tihran: Kitabfarushi-i Ibn Sina, 1330 Sh./1952).147 Abu al-Fazl Bayhaqi, Tarikh-i Bayhaqi: Matn-i Musahah va Kamil ba Havashi va Ta’liqat va Fihristha, edited by Qasim Ghani and ‘Ali Akbar Fayyaz (Tihran: Bank-i Milli-yi Iran, 1324 Sh./1945).148 Soheil Afnan, Philosophical Terminology in Arabic and Persian (Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1964).149 Soheil Afnan, Persian Studies Concerning Dari Persian (Beirut: Imprimerie catholique, 1973).150 Aristotle, Namah-i Aristutalis: Dar barah-i hunar-i shi’r, translated by Soheil Afnan (London: Luzac & Co., 1948). According to one of his short stories, Afnan translated the work into Persian at the same time as a Jewish translator of the work into Hebrew. He was a friend of this man, who apparently shared a more reliable edition of the original Greek work with him. Soheil Afnan, Dar Pay-i Khushi (Bayrut: Dar al-Mashriq, 1971), p. 97. Aeschylus, Iranian: Namayishnamah-i Aiskhilus Sha‘ir-i Yunan-i Bastan, translated by Soheil Afnan (Paris: Librairie d’Amerique et D’Orient, 1952).151 Soheil Afnan, Avicenna: His Life and Works (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1958).152 Afnan, Avicenna, p. 289.153 Afnan, Avicenna, p. 290.154 Afnan, Dar Pay-i Khushi.155 The book was titled Baha’i Religion. The Baha’i World, vol. II (1926–1928), p. 203.156 Ruhi Afnan, Mysticism and the Bahá'í Revelation: A Contrast (New York: Bahá'í Pub. Committee, 1934).157 Ruhi Afnan, Zoroaster’s Influence on Greek Thought (New York: Philosophical Library, 1965); Ruhi Afnan, Zoroaster’s Influence on Anaxagoras, the Greek Tragedians, and Socrates (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969). He also wrote about the Judeo-Christian prophets and Zoroaster. See Ruhi Afnan, The Great Prophets: Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus (New York: Philosophical Library, 1960).158 Ruhi Afnan, The Revelation of Baha’u’llah and the Bab: Book I, Descartes’ Theory of Knowledge (New York: Philosophical Library, 1970); Ruhi Afnan, Baha’u’llah and the Bab Confront Modern Thinkers: Book II, Spinoza: Concerning God (New York: Philosophical Library, 1977).159 Hasan Balyuzi, The Bab: The Herald of Days (Oxford: George Ronald Press, 1973); Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Baha; Hasan Balyuzi, Baha’u’llah: The King of Glory (Oxford: George Ronald Press, 1980). He produced other Baha’i studies including Hasan Balyuzi, Edward Granville Browne and the Baha’i Faith (London: George Ronald Press, 1970).160 Hasan Balyuzi, Muḥammad and the Course of Islám (Oxford: George Ronald Press, 1976).161 ‘Abbas ‘Ali Binish Haqqju, Badi‘ al-Ma‘ani: Hizar Ruba‘i-yi Binish-i Haqqju (Bayrut: Matba‘ah al-Ijtihad, 1929).162 Ghulam Husayn Narraqi Farrukhzad, Mardan-i Nami-yi Sharq dar du Qarn-i Akhir (Bayrut: Matba‘ah al-Ijtihad, 1929).163 Muhammad Dashti, Mabadi-yi ‘Ilm-i Tarbiyat (Tihran: Khavar, 1307 Sh./1928); Al-Kulliyah, 15(7) (May 1929), p. 199.