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The Resignation of Captain von Goumoens
When the Austrian Captain Alfred von Goumoens obtained a posting as a military attache to Persia, it was the kind of appointment that is the making of a career and the height of adventure. The country was thought of by Europeans as “oriental” and far away. It was a time when European military technology and know-how was in demand in other countries. It was a position of potential influence where he could serve the interests of his country. The Captain was to be Iran during some of the most momentous events of the time. He may have been in Iran when, in 1850, the Bab was executed. Captain von Goumoens…
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1848 – The Year of Two World Changing Conferences
1848 is usually remembered as the year of revolutions in Europe. Those revolutions – although sweeping across Europe – changed little. At the same time however, something of far greater moment was taken place, two small conferences. Although very few noticed at the time, a central idea of those conferences has already unfolded in unimagined transformation of human society across the planet. As Louise Dittmar, an advocate of the time, wrote in 1849: The freedom of women is the greatest revolution, not just of our own day, but of all time, since it breaks fetters which are as old as the world. And indeed in 1848, the emancipation of women…
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Tahirih – Herald of the Emancipation of Women
Two hundred years ago, virtually everywhere in the world, women lived in subjugation to men. It was a world so different to our own that it is difficult to imagine. It was a world in which women had little role in public life – little opportunity for education, little opportunity to work – other than in the home. In many countries women did not have the right to own property. It was a world where women were often subject to the legal control of male relatives and the law in the west, as much as the east, defended the right of husbands to beat and control their wives. Tahirih was…
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Martha Root — An Astonishing Life
Today I am at a Baha’i meeting, and I want to say thank you for the blessing of having such times in my life. To each and every soul who helps to make so many of those gatherings a veritable corner of paradise — thank you. This morning we are reflecting on the life of Martha Root, a woman whose life was inspired and transformed by Bahá’u’lláh. We will be reading about her life as introduced on the website bahaiteachings.org. I hope you can join us in spirit and read along. In one of his earlier works, the Hidden Words, Bahá’u’lláh observes that “words are the property of all alike” and that “guidance hath ever been given…
