Hermann Roemer, a protestant clergyman and prolocutor, was born in Stuttgart Germany on July, 1880. Roemer was studying at theology and philosophy colleges of Tubingen and Hall universities during 1898 to 1902 and was profited by well-known masters and professor such as Haring, Hegler, Koller, Reichle, Schlatter, Sebold. After finishing his education, he became a master of theology there. He was active in protestant seminars about religion recognition in Stuttgart. Suggested by the Theology College of Tubingen, he became the chairman of the specialized and research seminars of the Bible.
In the book’s first appendix, the author examines the semantic similarity between sects and religions, emphasizing mainly on the closeness between the Bektashi sect and the Babism and the Baha’ism. Roemer seeks this semantic similarity in topics such as allegorical allusions to religions, the emergence of God in time points, and the question of Holoul or immanence. The second appendix of the book is dedicated to similar currents in the Islamic world and India, and in this regard, the author examines the origin and goals of the sect, the roots of Sufism, the examining of the Ahmadiyya sect and its comparison with the Babism and Baha’ism.
A glance at the book’s content
In his work, Roemer refers to the quasi-mystical and Sufi tendencies of the Baha’ism and believes that the Baha’ism is a marine plant that has grown in the swamp of the Sufi world. He believes that the Baha’is have made another idol of Abdu’l-Baha with their Sufi inclinations, which is reflected in modern clothing. He believes that Baha’ism is a dervish-like faith and it is only thanks to the symmetry with the modernist cultural movements in the Middle East that it has worn a modern dress and tries to hide its connections with other circles of Sufism. Roemer considers the quasi-mystical tendencies of the Baha’ism to be very profound and broad, and believes that the Baha’u’llah’s view in the tablet of wisdom of the philosophers is superficial. Moreover, the term he has used for philosophers (theosophists or mystics) shows that he considered philosophy to be the same with mysticism and did not have a correct understanding of their differences.
Roemer considers Babism and Baha’ism as Gnosis, dualism, and having sectarian and anti-rational structure which has been influenced by the mystical and interpretive sciences of Ismaeeli, Horoufi, Kabbala and Becktashi dervishes. He believes that Baha’i teachings toward recognition of God, manifestation, the levels of bounty band blessing have been influenced by a kind of Neo-Plato and gnosis beliefs.
In examining Abdu’l-Baha’s propaganda trip to the United States, Romer identifies Baha’ism in the United States as apocalyptic Sufism, to whom Hussein Ali Nouri is manifested as the returned Christ or even God himself. He believes that the Baha’is in France have Jewish origins, so that the Jewish Dreyfus played a very important role in Abdu’l-Baha’s visit to Paris, and that the global organization of “Alliance-Israelite” turned into a bridge for the Baha’i infiltration in France through its comprehensive assistance to the Jews in the East. Moreover, Roemer stressed that Iranian Jews inside Iran, in order to challenge Islam, found the Baha’i sect as their ally and considered their confederate.
From Roemer’s viewpoint, during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, the Baha’ism betrayed the national interests of Iranians with his unrealistic and idealistic slogan. In this regard, Roemer points out that Abbas Effendi hatched a plot against the democratic movement of Iranians, and compromised with Russians and British diplomats in a way that he had intensely recommended the Baha’is in the cities of Tehran and Tabriz to back Mohammad Ali Shah. Furthermore, he barred them from participating in the Iranian Constitutional Movement. Roemer also emphasizes that with the victory of the Constitutional Revolution, the falsity of the claim of Abbas Effendi, who had predicted a long and pleasant government for Mohammad Ali Shah, became clear to everyone. Recalling Russian and British pressure on Iran and the unification of the two powers in dividing its territory into two areas of influence in 1907, Roemer states that Abdu’l-Baha’s relations with foreign armies in Acre and their agents in Iran were nothing more than a great betrayal of the country of Iran.
Authored by Lotfollah Lotfi
