Review of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey West: The Course of Human Solidarity, Negar Mottahedeh, editor, and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in America by Robert H. Stockman

'Abdu'l-Baha in America. By Robert H. Stockman. Bahai Publishing Trust, Wilmette, 2012; 413 pp.'Abdu'l-Baha's Journey West: The Course of Human Solidarity. Edited by Negar Mottahedeh, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2013, xiii + 196 pp.It would be no exaggeration to say that Abdu'l-Baha s travels in Europe and were a major event in the history of the Baha'i Faith. "Abdu'l-Baha's historic journeys to the West," Shoghi Effendi states, "and in particular His eight-month tour of the United States of America, may be said to have marked the culmination of His ministry, a ministry whose untold blessings and stupendous achievements only future generations can adequately estimate" (God Passes By 291). A faith born a mere half-century earlier in Persia and virtually unknown beyond its cultural confines suddenly entered the Western stage, proclaiming its message of unity of mankind, universal peace, equality of races and sexes, harmony of religion and science, universal education, and essential unity of religions.The events of those two years were recorded, however incompletely, in the Bahai magazine Star of the West and in Mirza Mahmud Zarqani's detailed chronicle, Kitab-i-Badayi'u'l-Athar, known in its English translation as Mahmud's Diary. The significance and repercussions of Abdu'lBaha s Western travels were emphasized in the relevant chapters of Shoghi Effendi's God Passes By and admirably treated in Hasan Balyuzi's biography, Abdu'l-Baha. Allan Ward's 239 Days: Abdu'l-Bahas Journey in America, provided a welcome guide to a memorable journey that found a prominent place in the memoirs of individuals too numerous to mention, who met Abdu'l-Baha and became his devoted disciples.Robert H. Stockman's Abdu'l-Baha in America is a straightforward account from the day Abdu'l-Baha received the invitation to visit the to the day He embarked on His return voyage. Stockman is no novice at writing on the history of the Faith. His biography of Thornton Chase, the first American Baha'i, is an important contribution, throwing light on the person in the wider context of his life and times. His two volumes, The Bahai Faith in America, beginning with its origins on this continent in the late nineteenth century and continuing to Abdu'l-Baha's 1912 journey, make Stockman's latest book in a sense a sequel to his earlier works.As he had previously demonstrated, Stockman is a thorough researcher who carefully analyzes his sources that include institutional documents, speeches, private correspondence, published and unpublished memoirs, and a large number of newspaper and magazine articles, many of which had not been studied before. Access to the archives of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States opened to him a treasure trove of information that is both new and valuable. Throughout his book he pays attention to details that add to the authenticity of his narrative. He corrects, for instance, a number of chronological mistakes in the otherwise reliable Zarqani's Mahmud's Diary, mistakes that may have been caused by the problem of dealing with more than one calendar when he was writing his chronicle.Stockman is constantly aware of the environment in which Abdu'l-Baha moved. The comparison he makes between the messages of Abdu'l-Baha and those of several prominent Oriental sages shows the differences both of the messages and of their effects on American society. Attention to context enriches Stockman's narrative and raises question that other historians will have to address.In Abdu'l-Baha in America Stockman gives a panoramic view of Abdu'lBaha's coast-to-coast travels and multifarious activities: a meeting with a former president of the United States and a visit to the homeless in the Bowery; dinners at embassies and wealthy homes; speeches at universities, including Stanford, Howard, and Columbia, as well as at churches and synagogues, at peace societies, at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and at private homes; in addition to uncounted conversations with individuals of all classes, ethnicities, and beliefs. …