Unprintable!

By: Muhammad Nikdel

 

Bahaismiran: is an scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is the compiler of numerous books and the translator from Arabic to English. He became a member of the Baha’i Faith in 1972. He started his academic life regarding Baha’ism studies and gained a great deal of information in this regard. Being a Baha’i caused him to be encouraged to study about languages, cultures, and history of the Middle East history ( origin of Baha’ism) and to proselytize Baha’ism in the countries containing lots of Muslims. The countries such as : Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and India. He speaks fluent Arabic, Lebanese and Egyptian Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu and reads the Ottoman form of Turkish. He resigned from the faith in 1996 after disputes with Baha’i leadership concerning the Baha’i system of administration. Cole continued publishing books in this regard years after turning against this faith. Of course, the topics of his writings became more political after September, 11.

Juan Cole believes that the Baha’i faith is implemented in the Middle East governments since the printing industry like a censorship and it imposes a process of self censorship to all Baha’is. He writes :” This obligation has led to some disputes among Baha’i authors and foundations during too many years. And although the Baha’i organization assumes this obligation as a temporary one; but it has taken for nearly a century. It seems Bait-al-Adl is going to continue this movement for a long time. According to him, censorship before publishing is one of important teachings which prevents Baha’i authors to write about disputes of Baha’ism contemporary history.

It is worthy to note that no detailed material has been written about the history of this community since nearly 1950. The Baha’ism contemporary history has been forbidden according to the present agents of Bait-al-Adl. Although it is said that this literary revision doesn’t limit the publication of investigative findings; in 1988 the members of Bait-al-Adl quelled an academic article which was supporting the possibility of women’s membership in Bait-al-Adl and the authors of that article prevented publishing that.( refer to Wikipedia for more information. )