Views on Esperanto in the Bahá’í faith: A revised subchapter in Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era

Abstract

The question about a universal language and particularly about Esperanto is treated in a subchapter in the book Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, which is an officially sanctioned presentation about Bahá’í religion. In the original edition of 1923 the support for Esperanto was clearly expressed, because the leader of the religion, ’Abdu’l-Bahá, supported the idea about Esperanto as a Universal Language, and several times urged Bahá’ís to learn it. The author of the book, J. E. Esslemont, learned it and even practiced Esperanto on his deathbed. Quotations, however, show that there was a discussion also about other planned languages among Bahá’ís. In the editions of 1937, 1950 and 1970, the final part of the presentation about Esperanto was modified. The author shows that the reason of the change is that Esperanto in Bahá’í is associated with millenarian expectations of the “Most High Peace” and the “Coming of the Kingdom of God” in 1957. After this year Bahá’í religion rapidly grew in Latin America, Subsaharan Africa, and Nonislamic Asia, where Esperanto was not well-known, and stagnated in Europe and North America, where Esperanto was better known. The millenniarism in the religion weakened and the work for the “Lesser Peace” was strengthened. This is supposed to be the result, not of a divine intervention, but of cooperation between states.