al-Bahaiyya Ihda Mataya al-Isti'mar wa al-Sahyuniya
- Author died
- 1440 AH
- Editions
- The Islamic University of Madinah
al-Bahaiyya Ihda Mataya al-Isti'mar wa al-Sahyuniya (The Bahai Faith: One of the Mounts of Colonialism and Zionism) is a polemical treatise by the Islamic scholar and university instructor Abd al-Qadir Shayba al-Hamd (d. 1440 AH / 2019 CE) examining the historical origins and political entanglements of the Bahai movement .
Background and Purpose
The work was originally presented as an academic lecture and published as an article in the 26th issue of the journal of the Islamic University of Madinah, where the author served as an instructor in the Faculty of Sharia and a researcher . The treatise sets out to demonstrate that the Bahai movement was neither an authentic religious reform nor an Islamic sect, but rather an ideological conspiracy orchestrated and sustained by foreign powers—namely Tsarist Russian espionage, clandestine Freemasonry, Western colonialism, and global Zionism—to alter and dismantle Islamic tenets and facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine .
Content and Historical Arguments
The treatise traces the lineage of the Bahai movement from its roots in the Shi'i Shaykhi circle of Kazim al-Rashti to the emergence of Babism under Ali Muhammad al-Shirazi (born 1235 AH / 1819 CE), who proclaimed himself the "Bab" on 5 Jumada al-Ula 1260 AH under the influence of associates such as Husayn al-Bushru'i and Qurrat al-Ayn .
To support the thesis of foreign intelligence involvement, the author draws extensively upon the memoirs of the Russian embassy interpreter and spy Knyaz Dolgorukov (published in the Soviet journal al-Sharq in 1924–1925), detailing how Dolgorukov disguised himself as a religious figure named "Shaykh Isa al-Lankarani" in Karbala, encouraged al-Shirazi's messianic claims, and recruited Husayn Ali al-Mazandarani (later known as Baha'ullah, born 1233 AH) and his half-brother Yahya (Subh-i Azal) while providing them with covert financial allowances .
The text covers key milestones in the movement's early history:
- The Conference of Badasht (1264 AH): Where Bahai leaders gathered and Qurrat al-Ayn declared the complete abrogation of the Islamic Sharia, asserting that prayer, fasting, and religious obligations were nullified .
- The Bab's Trial and Execution: Following the uproar after the Badasht assembly, al-Shirazi was brought before religious scholars and crown prince Nasir al-Din in Tabriz, failed to substantiate his claims of completing deficiencies in Islam, and was executed for apostasy .
- Zionist Collaboration and Prophecies: The author analyzes the later phase under Abbas Effendi (Abdul-Baha), citing his work Mufawadat Abdul-Baha (p. 59), in which Abdul-Baha predicted the global gathering of the Jewish people in the Holy Land and their acquisition of lands until Palestine became their homeland . The treatise also cites Farid Wajdi's twentieth-century encyclopedia regarding Bahai interpretations of biblical passages (such as Deuteronomy 33:2) used to justify Jewish settlement in Palestine .
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