(to be sung to John Lennon’s “Yesterday”)

Apostasy….
Left my former faith and now I’m free
The god I loved is now a memory
Oh why don’t you just let me be?

Okay I’m no poet.  But I was quite surprised to see I rated a mention as a Baha’i apostate (or at least someone who might have made the list) in Moojan Momen’s myopic diatribe in Religion (Religion, vol. 37, no. 3, Sept. 2007, pp 187-209).

I thought he might have mentioned my blog, as I have had the odd dig at my former co-religionists on this one, but no, only bahai-religion.org gets a plug (better snaz up the site, I might get some hits).  That one he reckons is for luring bods away to the dark side, but I see it as a non-apologetic approach to the Babi and Baha’i phenomena. I can’t see how I’m advocating much of anything except providing a non-apologetic view.   Oh well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The other difference is that for me, marginality was a relatively quick phase.  Up until the point when I began studying Islam at university, I was a pretty happy go-lucky believer.  In fact I took up Arabic and Islamic studies (with permission from the appropriate Auxilary Board Member) in order to serve the faith one day.  It all co-incided: I began learning about Islam from a Muslim perspective at University. Then, began serving as an Assistant for Proselytizing and was voted onto a Local Spiritual Assembly.  Seeing the everyday mundanity of administration life, I quickly began to realise that the reality didn’t quite match up to the promise.  Thirdly, I got ‘online’ and learned about alternative perspectives and views. So I resigned. All this coalesced in about hmmm…. less than a year.

I tried to re-enlist for a while in the UK, and that lasted about nine months.  I made the mistake of being voted onto another LSA and whilst I truly tried my best, having to suffer bureaucratic bullshit whilst trying to believe it was God’s will was too much for me, and I left again.  This time, no big send-off, I just began living as a Muslim again.  For about six months or so, I was a bit anti-Baha’i administration (rather than anti-Baha’i faith… there’s a HUGE difference). Then one day I realised that I had better things to do with my time.  So I just stopped having anything to do with anything Baha’i.  As I was married to a (then active) Baha’i I did tag along to one or two things back in Australia, but after being told in no uncertain terms that I deserved to be put to death for having left the Baha’i faith by an old family friend (with the emphasis on old) I decided I really did need to leave them to their own devices (as they say haha!)

Since then, pretty much the only Baha’i thing I do is mention the religion and its adherents occasionally on this blog, and keep bahai-religion.org running (it was originally a paper I presented at a conference before turning it into a website).  Why do I keep running it? Because aside from H-Bahai there is really only apologetic drivel out there designed to promote the Baha’i religion not dissimilar to the way Amway wants to sell dishwashing liquid and nailpolish.

So I am not a peachy keen fan of the Baha’i administration, but I think of them in the same way I think of the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I’m not obsessed with proving the Jay Dubs are a cult from God but then I might take the occasional glance at interesting things that crop up that are Baha’i.  Many Baha’is are wonderful people (including my family, I like to think) and I still think some of the values of the Baha’i faith are spot on: a firm agenda against prejudice, working for the unity of humanity, gender equality, promoting education etc.  Fantastic stuff.  Not exclusive to Baha’is though.

How do I feel about the actual religion?  I think that Islam has always had reformist and Mahdist movements.  Some of them have stayed within the Islamic universe even though the majority of Muslims wouldn’t recognise them as being orthodox (eg. the Ahmadiyya) and others have taken themselves right outside the Islamic universe (eg. the Druze, the Baha’is etc.)  But originally I think Baha’u'llah et.al. saw a corruption or a degeneracy in the practice of Muslims that he wanted to reform.  It’s just that he used the language of Shi`i eschatology and eventually that moved him outside the realm of Islam.  Much of Baha’u'llah’s theology is very Islamic (apart from his messianic claims) that seem very similar to Ibn `Arabi’s works (which wouldn’t be surprising, given he studied Ibn `Arabi with Naqshbandi Sufis).

Other than that, I leave it up to Allah , subhana wa ta’ala who will judge Baha’u'llah (Mirza Husayn ‘Ali Nuri) along with the rest of us on the Day of Judgment.

More of my journey elaborated here