 We will open this morning's session with a talk by Dr. Soli Shahfar from the University of Haifa. He will speak to us on the topic of opening and closing the door, the state and the Baha'i schools in Iran. This will prove to be a very, very interesting topic and I for one am very much looking forward to hearing about it. Let me tell you just very briefly about Dr. Shahfar. You can read more about him in your program. Dr. Shahfar teaches in the Department of History and the Middle East, and is the Director of the Israel Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel. He holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London and he's the author of The Forgotten Schools, the Baha'is and Modern Education in Iran. I welcome Dr. Shahfar. We very much look forward to your presentation. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here. I wish to thank Association of Baha'i Studies North America for inviting me here, especially Mrs. Khorsandi, Mr. Kiai, Mr. Moke, Mrs. Rohani and Mr. Jamshid Amini who helped me, invited me and became friends, I believe, at least at my part. Every time that I speak or deliver a lecture on Baha'is, on Baha'is of Iran I usually do, it's usually people automatically think I'm a Baha'i, so just for the record I'm not. Once or twice I spoke, gave a lecture on Zoroastrians in Iran and at the end of the lecture people would come and say, are you Zoroastrian? I said no. So then I decided that it is better to refrain from delivering talks on Iranian women. So I have a lot of slides and most of them are actually photos which I want to share with you because I think they are unique. So I will run with the text as fast as possible in order to be in the framework of the 50 minutes time allocated to me. So what we are talking about Baha'i schools, what are these Baha'i schools? These schools owned, established and run by Baha'is. What are the characteristics of Baha'i schools? They had raw religious studies in the curriculum. They had, but this was on Fridays when the school was in recess, either in the school or in the local mahal, not with the non-Baha'i students. So they separated the religious studies from the regular curriculum. They followed the curriculum of the Iranian Ministry of Education. They followed the local practices as to separation of the sexes, outdoor appearance, wearing chador and whatever is needed, or taking off the chador during the Ereza Shah period, etc. They kept relatively high standards in teaching, teaching staff, teaching accessories, enrichment classes, etc. Which made them, of course, of a more higher standard in relation to many other schools. They were attended by many non-Baha'is, some of whom from the local aristocracy, including the aristocracy of Tehran. Sorry. I'm asking actually two fundamental questions. How come in a state, in a Shiite state, which under the regime of the Qajars, there were so much persecuted these Baha'is from the, when they were Babis and later most of them became Baha'is, from the mid-19th century onwards, killing thousands of Baha'is, persecuting them. And they're very harsh circumstances. How come this is the regime that affords the Baha'is to open schools? It's a privilege, yes, to open schools. So how come? It didn't make sense to me. So then I started to think about it, how it could happen. And the other question is that how come a ruler like Reza Shah Pahlavi, secular, modernizing, reformist, which his views very much corresponding to some of the main principles of the Baha'is, he's the one that actually closes the Baha'i schools. So two fundamental questions that I try to give at least potential answers. Well, regarding the first question, the possible reasons for the opening of the, at least, first-run Baha'i schools by Mozaffar-e-Din Shah, which were afterwards followed by other schools. In my humble opinion, the main reason for opening those schools was connected to the process of reform in Iran. And in order to understand this, we have to look from different dimensions. Well, when I say reform, the field of reform is in general, but education in particular, I would refer to the both. State's role, what interest the state had in this? From the beginning of 19th century, Iran, we can say that the clash with the West was in the military field, as it happened with the Ottoman Empire. And as it happened with the Ottoman Empire, it was mainly with Russia. Two wars against the Russians at the beginning of the 19th century, losses of territory, losses of people, Muslims, to a heretic Christian Empire. The Iranians, like the Ottomans before them, they started to ask what can be done in order to bridge this gap, in order to bring us closer to this power of the West, in order to be able to stand before them. So the idea was reform, because the first clash or first, shall we say, encounter was in the field of the military, then the reform was naturally in the field of military reforms. But as Iran lost in other wars, after those with the Russians, against either local armies that underwent reform, or they were supported by European powers, or later in the clash or in the war against the British in 1856-57, they continued to lose. So the idea was then, if reform is needed, then it shouldn't be only limited to the military field. In other words, the secret of the power of the West is not only in the military, it must be in different things. So ideas started to shape in the mid-19th century regarding the education, the need for doing a new educational system. But this understanding wasn't an understanding that was shared by the then king Nasir Dinsha for the entire of the population. He opened the Dar al-Fonun in 1851 for the Iranian aristocracy. Most of the majority of the Iranians didn't have any access to this modern education. It was very limited to a number of very selected people. So we cannot talk about modern education for the entire people. Few schools, more schools in 1858, in the 70s and then in the 90s and in 1900, they were continued to open. But again, these were for the specific needs of the state, whether for cadres in military or in the bureaucracy, but it wasn't for the entire population. Section of the Iranian populations, even from the lower classes, had already enjoyed modern education from the 1830s. These were the Christians with the missionary waves of American Presbyterian and the French Catholics and the British Anglican churches moving into Iran and opening schools throughout the Christian areas of Iran. So the majority Shi'i population remained uneducated or at least uneducated in terms of modern education. By the end of the 19th century, the global circumstances, the fall of the technological transfer, or the technological modernization, mainly in the field of communications like the telegraph, yes, later the wireless radio, took Iran out of its occlusion and brought it more in immediate contact with the world. Ideas of the French Revolution that happened some hundred years before began to infiltrate gradually from mid-19th century but more so towards the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century. And all these things stimulated a process of reform. The bureaucracy needed to be reformed in order to become more efficient. In every field, not only education and military, in the field of, for example, municipal affairs, in the field of, well, the concessions actually were the concession given to foreign companies that were actually given in order to develop certain fields, whether it is in terms of communication, railways, telegraphs and so on or in terms of irrigation from the classical form of irrigation moving into new form of irrigation and so on and so forth. So the state had immediate interest in opening more modern schools. We don't know why yet Bahá'í schools, yes, but... And the role of the non-Bahá'í Iranian intellectuals and activists from more or less beginning of the 19th century, students were sent abroad to study. At first there were two students, then five, then 30, and the numbers grew. And the gaps between each delegation of students sent abroad was a long one, but still students were sent abroad. Those were exposed to ideas of the West, and some of them became intellectuals, yes, in the Iranian context, and they start talking about the need for modernization. One of those, for example, one of the more known ones is Mirzam al-Komchan, an Armenian that his father became a Muslim, and he studied in France, came back, and he started to talk about these ideas of need for education and modern education. Another one was Akhundov or Akhundzadeh, and there were many other intellectuals that were talking about this. So we see that actually the atmosphere becomes more and more pro-reform in education. Role of non-Bahá'í religious minorities, I mentioned the Christian missionaries that acted. So the Christians, the Jews also began, actually in the 1870s, they received the first permission, but the first Bahá'í Jewish modern Jewish school began only in 1898. The Alliance Israelite Universal, or Kiyach in Hebrew. And the Zoroastrians, Hatteria was one of the leading Zoroastrians, businessmen from India, from Mumbai, or Mumbai today. And he received donations from the Zoroastrian community, moved to Iran, and began to open also one of the things he had done, to open schools. But the Bahá'ís, of course, were the last. Role of the Babi Bahá'í reformist thought and practice, yes. The Bahá'ís for themselves, of course, is a central theme of education and universal education. In the Bahá'í faith, so they had their own reason of wishing to open schools. So the idea of reform and the need for schools, there was existent in Iran in different levels. Gradually, pressure started to come from the people, the Shiite people, the Shiite population. Not only the aristocracy, but from the below, from the grassroots level. Because more and more, on the one hand, the state needed qualified cadres for different sections. And more and more, with the processes that I described before, people understood that in order to get out of this dire situation that they have, their kid, usually their son, needs to go and study in a modern school, then have a profession, and then you can take them out of this dire position. So more and more, we see gradually more pressure coming from below on the government to supply new schools, modern schools. So with this kind of pressure, I assume that, and with the inability of the state to provide those, to meet those pressure or meet those demands, the state decided to give the Jews, and finally also the Bahá'ís. Although I mentioned later that the Bahá'ís weren't given, as the other religious minorities, the permission to open schools as a community. But it was done by individual Bahá'ís, and not under there being a Bahá'í, but in Iranian, yes. Another reason is Mozaffarredin Shahís character. He was a weak monarch, sick also, but he had some liberal tendencies, he knew French, he was reading also French books. I donít want to say literature, I mean the French language in terms of such a level that he can read poetry, but he read French books. He travelled to Europe, he was kind of more liberal than his father, and it might be that he had less anti-Baháí feelings, then therefore he didnít care so much that the Bahá'ís will open schools as long as they meet those demands of no Baháí mention in the plague, name of the school, or the Baháí community being given the right. Whoever knows or familiar with the Qajar in particular, but Iranian setting, bribery is one of the main things to move things on. It happens today as well, it happened during the Shah, it happened during the Qajar as well. But could bribery be a possibility? After all, all these concessions given to foreign companies were part of it, they had actually a clause giving to the monarch some amount, considerable amount of money. But it is in my view unlikely that the Baháíís paid money as a bribery because of this is against their principle and Abdul Bahá actually speaks about that very clearly. So it is the most unlikely. Another possible reason could be the influence the Baháí could have through Baháí connections with western countries, mainly Britain, Russia and the United States. Britain and Russia were very influential in Iran during the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In 1907, you probably know most of you that they divided the country between themselves into spheres of influence and they were actual rulers. We know of good relations that existed between the British and the Baháí leadership. The Russians, according to research we have been conducting in the Russian archives and found many documents that indicating that the Russians actually had a policy based on the Baháíís. In short, I would say that they regarded the Baháíís as a tool to pressurize the Qajar regime in order to get some concessions whether these are against the British or for themselves. But there was a school of, I wouldn't say taught, but the school in the foreign policy or more the imperial Russian strategist, part of them in the foreign ministry, part of them in the army that actually thought that the Baháíís could be used as a tool to pressurize the Qajar government given the fears that the Qajars had because of the Babi movement and the development of the Baháí faith and the growing community of Baháíís in Iran. Another circumstantial explanation could be a more lenient and relaxed atmosphere towards the Baháíís since the last years of Nasser Dinshah. Actually, Bahá'u'lláh himself admits that in the last years of Nasser Dinshah, things are relaxing, the persecution against them, at least from the point of view of the state. The state is not so active or even not active at all in persecuting the Baháíís. There is a persecution, is a olama and the clerics are leading it. It was such an atmosphere that even Bahá'u'lláh, there is a quote in my book that actually prohibits criticism against the regime. Another explanation is differentiating the Qajar state between the disobedient and subversive Babis versus the obedient and loyal Baháíís. The literature on 19th century Iran, you can see that there is a big confusion between Babis and Baháíís and in many instances you say Babis and they meant Baháíís. Yes, because most of the community, as I said, as you perfectly know, they became Baháíís. But by the end of the 19th century, there seems to be an indication that there was an ability to differentiate between the two. Therefore, okay, let the Baháíís have the obedient, yes, Baháíís have their schools and we, of course, continue to persecute the Babis. Well, as I mentioned before, and another reason which was more, I would say, to try to diminish the opposition towards the opening of Baháíís schools because the fact that Baháíís schools werenít registered under the names of the Baháí community but under the names of individual Iranians without the mention of their faith. What interest had the Baháíís in opening the schools? Well, first of all, the importance of education in Baháíís faith, yes. One of the pillars of the faith is the education. So therefore, there was a natural for the Baháíís willing to have schools. And given the circumstances as I described, it was understood by mainly Abdul Baháí that it was a right time to propel the Baháí community in Iran from obscurity into the open. And also, through that education and through that schools to secure the future growth of the Baháí community. Because in those schools, as you well know, not only Baháíís studied but also many non-Baháís which some of them converted. And so without such a framework, the growth of the Baháí community would have been much slower or even diminishing. This is more or less some of the explanation that I reached at or found as far as the opening of the schools. After Tarbiate Banín or Tarbiate Pesarane in 1898-1999 and afterwards other schools. Now I move to the other question is what happened that the Reza Shah, the reformist, the modernized, the secular, the anti-clerical Reza Shah is the one that actually closes those schools in December 1934. Well, the official reason is that the Baháíís did not observe the state guidelines. Namely, closing some schools on a date that was not an official state declared holiday. That was the official, but in my view you have to dig and there must be other reasons or other supporting reasons that brought the Shah to decide. So what possible reasons, other possible reasons for closing the Baháí schools? Well, it seems from the documents that I found that there has been a previous warning against the Baháíís a year before on the same 28 Shaaban, but this time in 1933 that the Baháíís closed those schools because it wasn't the first time that those schools were closed which enraged Reza Shah, enraged Reza Shah and it wasn't in his eyes the Baháíís who were not recognized as a religious minority they were considered as other Iranians. Therefore as other Iranians they have to obey the regulations then if the official or the public schools are open then they should be open. So that was a disregard of the regulations. In that case what made the Shoghi Effendi decide then leader of the Baháí community to, in spite of the warning to close those schools also a year later in 28 Shaaban of 1934 and there is a correspondence between the leadership of the Baháí community in Tehran and the head of the Tarbiad school with Shoghi Effendi are you sure that we have to close again because there was a threat, there was a warning it could be had a major repercussion, negative repercussions then I believe that Shoghi Effendi had a strategy what was his strategy he wanted to seek public recognition of the independent nature of the Baháí face in Iran and he found the time ripe to demand full religious freedom in matters strictly in his views related to their belief as other religions in other words the time in his view was ripe to say okay that's enough you played with us you disregarded our rights we are a distinct religion, we have rights and we want to keep those rights we will remain the obedient citizens of the state but in matters between us and our God we don't want our freedom so that was a major decision and this could of course have a negative reaction by Reza Shah who was a very fearful character my father was serving as a soldier in the headquarters of the military during his military service in Tehran and he always told me that whenever Reza Shah would come in the office everybody looked down and Reza Shah was a tall man so if you want to look at him you have to look up and people didn't dare to look at his eyes he was a very fearful character his career, military officer grown up in the service of the Russian Cossack Brigade and he learned what is Russian discipline he was a man with strong hand and he didn't in my view he regarded that decision by Shoghi Effendi as something very contrary to his policy another development which I think helped or assisted Reza Shah in reaching this decision of closing the schools is in the election of the First National Spiritual Assembly which happened on the 26th of April 1934 the Spiritual Assembly in Iran this was a major stage in the institutional development of the Baha'is of Iran as far as the Baha'is were communities in local places in distant places that's something but when they are organized with body and leadership outside the country and the elections and the national structure that was something else another explanation is the existence of anti-Baha'i elements within the Pahlavi state most notably Mohammad Ali Furughi Dr. Shahpura Sikh and Abdul Hamid Eshra Qawari believe also that Ali Asghar Hekmat then Minister of Education was also one of those anti-Baha'is they tried to convince the Shah that the Baha'i schools are a weapon to convert non-Baha'is to the Baha'i faith then make them bigger in number with the institutional development that they had they might become a threat to the regime so in the very suspicious character of Reza Shah this constant expression of fear or expression of anti-Baha'i expressions they probably played some part there is also Iranian political and activist and author Hassan Tabari in his memoir he writes that these guys Furughi, Hekmat and others like Sirus Ghani they were part of a mystic group of people who studied Irfan and regarded the Baha'is in a very rival competing way so they had their own interest to try to harm them something that I indicated earlier but another reason is growing suspicion of Reza Shah regarding the Baha'is especially Baha'i universalism versus Pahlavi nationalism the type of state that Reza Shah was trying to create was more than anything else a nation state a nation state that has wishes to break the sub-national loyalties and supra national loyalties sub-national loyalties whether it is to the tribal leader or to the village headmaster or some other level, sub-level sub-national level or to supra national level which is something to the religion to Islam, to Baha'ism, to Judaism he wanted to break and to create a loyalty of the Iranians to the state and through the state to the Pahlavi regime so he found this development of the Baha'is with the leadership outside and with the obedience of his Iranian Baha'i subject of Shoghi Effendi rather than Reza Shah in the example of closing the schools in spite of the regulation as somebody that he wasn't ready to agree therefore he started to identify the Baha'is as disloyal and disloyalty in terms of somebody like Reza Shah a military man with a strong hand this was, it had to be harsh reaction and this is a man actually that Ghatri agreed of his most trusted advisor Teimur Tash throwing him to jail and then executed him another explanation could be the Baha'i religious application versus Reza Shah's secular application of education yes, the Baha'is, you know it better than me of course the main application of education in religious terms and Reza Shah being a very secular might have seen that as something that is not in line with his own policies Baha'i contacts and good relations with Sforian elements if this played some 30 something years earlier for the opening, for the benefit of the Baha'is to open schools at the time of Reza Shah it was a disadvantage because again as a nationalistic person who tried to get rid not only of domestic strife but also of foreign presence in Iran and we can see this through different acts that he done for example the cancellation of all the concessions of foreign concessions in Iran gradually he cancelled everything there was only one that he renewed there was the oil concession given to the British that he cancelled in 1932 but then his government actually renewed this under different terms in 1933 but he cancelled the concession he created a very strong army at least for domestic purposes and he established the Air Force Navy which became in my view he had the intention of gradually kicking the British out of the south of Iran and gradually out of Persian Gulf something that his son managed to do in more or less in 1971 but it was of course after the British decision in 1968 to withdraw from the Gulf in this respect of course the British had a very negative image in Iranian society and they still have as you Iranians know here that everything that happens in Iran at least the older generation were always attributed to the British another issue is the size of the Baha'i community along with the geographical and social spread of the Baha'is versus other religious minorities other religious minorities were a small in number secluded in one place or in a ghetto in one section of the one geographical section in the country very distinct the Baha'is were in all social strata from top from the Khajar princes down to the grass root level and in everywhere in Iran so this might be this combined with what I described earlier institutionalization and all this supranational and versus the national could have of course helped towards that decision of Reza Shah and in line on to the same thing the large attendance of Muslim students at the Baha'i schools might have alarmed him that there is a potential growth of this community another explanation which is very which is indicated to by the studies done by Elisa Nassaryan and Hushangi Shahabi is that the Baha'is as the Iranians among you probably know it best they were a tool that could be sacrificed scapegoat in Iranian in the domestic Iranian power politics when for example the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 one of the first victims were the communists there were a large presence of Iranian students who were studying in Germany at the time some of them led by Taghiyarani they were communists and they were quite active so once the Nazis went up to the and seized the power in Germany they fled where they go back they go back to Iran and they renewed or stimulated the communist or dormant communist activity in Iran and in order to fight against the growth of this communist influence it could be possible that the Raza Shah wanted the support of the clerics because communism being atheists of course so a religious leadership could be a good partner for combating these atheists, these heretics so in that respect he might have wanted to sacrifice the Baha'is in order to win their support but in other instances we can see that for example in order to introduce social reform the Baha'is for example in the question of women the appearance in public for example the clothes the Baha'is were the first to be ordered to appear outside of their homes in western clothes without Shador and there are certain instances that I mentioned that the Shah actually protected the Baha'is in order to irritate the clerics so the Baha'is were kind of a scapegoat in the policies of Raza Shah another possible explanation is the Turkish model we know that many of the reforms introduced into Iran during the Raza Shah period was an imitation of the model after the attempts done in Turkey by his co-military colleague Mustafa Kemal at Atul in Turkey they done nationalizing public, religious, private and foreign schools with Baha'is schools being sacrificed first so it could be that this also played or influenced the Shah to do the same there was also a negative attitude of Turkish authorities toward the Baha'is which might have also influenced the Raza Shah I would now move, I suggest if there is questions because I'm now moving towards showing you a number of photos so we can start with the questions and then I can complete with the follow-up of the photos or you want me to show and then as you wish for me it's very important that they see the photos so I will go through them one by one this is the Ta'id boy school in 1908 it's written there, Madrasayam Obarake Ta'id in this sign I don't know if you see it clear, yes we have a number of Ta'id school photos as a graduation of intermediate students at the Ta'id boy school there's no date on that photo it's Mr. Etihadiye in the middle, seated the Ta'id boy school again you can see the sign of Madrasayam Obarake Ta'id there at the top graduation of intermediate students at the Ta'id boy school Hamadan founded in 1908 and the picture is from 1925-26 again Ta'id boy school again Ta'id boy school it's a picture of a larger group of Ta'id students in 1908 the foundation year again here now this photo I couldn't put my finger what is it exactly of course all the photos from the archives of the Baha'i War Centre they are copyrighted to them but this one is written there Madrasayam as you can see there is a sign on the right which is in Russian and it's written Ibrahim Yusufov so I'm not sure whether it is a sign of a street or it is a sign of the school so it could be if it's the sign of the school that it is somewhere in Russian territory which probably is either Ashkhabad Baku or some other place that there are Iranian communities in Tsarist Russia but again this is a school this is management community of the Tehran-Tarbiad schools in Baha'i Iran in 1938-1932 a group of pupils at the Tehran-Tarbiad Girls' School probably mid-1920s at the centre in Dark Dress Prince Ashraf Bahlabi Shia and Mohammad Reza Shah or Mohammad Reza they attended the Tarbiad Boys' and Girls' School respectively when a group of Zoroastrians saw this picture they said, why are you talking about this is not Baha'i this is Zoroastrian, the white clothes Zoroastrian thing the Tarbiad Boys' School Tehran seated at the centre Dr. Susan I. Mudi who was one of the main figures in the development of modern education modern Baha'i education in Iran student of Darse Akhlaq for girls Tehran 1939 of course after the closure of the schools English class, it's written actually on the board yes, Tarbiad Boys' School Tehran 1910 a group of Baha'i women and children attending the women's emancipation celebration Salve branch of the Ministry of Education probably meet 1930s because of the western clothes that the women and children wear Baha'i Girls' School probably 1930s because of Reza Shah and the clothes of course ceremony for granting certificates of excellence to the students of the Bashar Boys' School Kaushan 1930-31 you see the Pahlavi Kaq which is very typical of that period student and staff of the Baha'i Boys' School Kaushan 1909 which is because of their appearance of course also supports that date before Pahlavi period student and teachers of the second grade class Tarbiad Boys' School, no date here we have a number of those students of the Tarbiad Boys' School in Tehran during sport examination you can see that there are even officials of the state of the Ministry of Education among the present VIPs ceremony at Tarbiad Boys' School Tehran this is the cover of my book I chose it mainly because of the there could be no Ezraasian coming and telling us this is Ezraasian that's the Tabakol Girls' School Qazvin 1928 and again the Tabakol Boys' School Qazvin 1922 Tarbiad Boys' School student of the sport class Tarbiad Boys' School Tehran and then the sixth grade Tarbiad Boys' School number of fourth grade fifth grade, first grade of intermediary level again that's the Darse Akhlaq class that's the order of closure of the Tarbiad schools for boys and girls issued by Ali Asghar Hikmat to the manager of the Tarbiad Boys' School and now here there are some samples of Karnameh of certificates in Persian on one side and English on the other side you can see here the name of the pupil is Mirza Nureddin no the name of the father is Esmeh Vali on the left side is Mirza Shahab and Esmeh Shagaird which is the name of the student is Nurullah and of course we can see we can get an impression of what they studied we studied Quran, Sharia, Persian, Arabic, Arabic history of Iran, the history of the nation history of the Prophets the knowledge and the language which is important in our language mathematics, math, geography geography geometry geography physics, chemistry history natural biology math, calligraphy black which is also very classical profession in Iran Rasm and Nagashi which is drawing gymnastics, yes, new elements it's the same guy but with the English translation that's another guy Agha Fazlullah and his father is Jenaab Agha Muhammad the same, he has I think better grades he is from the eighth grade so he's the what we said is already high school that's the growth of the tarbiyat into the high school level not only intermediate elementary and this guy is Agha Sayed Ali and his father is Marhum Hazrati something, I don't know, just not clear that's another one Saadate Mele Boy School Najafabad 1934 just before closure Saadate Mele Girl School Najafabad 1934 Saadate Mele Girl School Najafabad of course again the Yabba Haul Abha in the middle, yes so in conclusion what we have here the establishment of Baha'i schools in Iran served not only the Iranian states need in modern schools and education but also the Baha'i principle of modern universal education and the need to secure the continued growth of the Baha'i community the Baha'i schools form the environment in which non-Baha'i students and their families interacted with Baha'is and Baha'i principles and of course we get to know those and with some of course converting to the new religion non-Baha'is who attended Baha'i schools did it for a variety of reasons but mainly because in remote places they often were they I mean the Baha'i schools were often the only schools providing modern education while in the urban centers it was usually the superior standard of education and the Baha'i schools created an atmosphere of inter-communality the like of which had not existed in Iran at grassroots level thank you very much thank you very very much Dr. Shahfar for such an interesting presentation you've raised a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas and I know I for one have been very edified the most interesting question to me was the first one why the Qajars would even have allowed the Baha'is to open such schools in the confluence of all these strains was a fascinating and persuasive as far as I was concerned the need to reform Iran the pressure from people who wanted to better their economic conditions the whole concept of modern technology and the creation of the wireless and so on exposing the people of Iran to the new possibilities and then of course the liberal mindedness of the Muslim and the cleverness in allowing individual Baha'is to open schools and not the community so the confluence of all these things very interesting I think we may have time for one question so let's see who's going to shoot their hand up first okay the lady there let me quickly repeat the question for those who didn't hear in the back a couple of questions rolled into one the first is were the Baha'is schools actually closed first or were the Christian especially the Presbyterian schools close initially and were the Baha'is schools collateral damage and the second was the question about the view within the Russian foreign policy groups and where those documents came from thank you regarding the first question well there is an indication that already in the late 1920s there is a shot started to a trend of bringing foreign schools or non-state schools private schools under the supervision of the government for example in certain stage prohibiting the teaching of French language in the French schools to Muslim students so it's a gradual thing but regarding the closure as far as my research goes the Baha'is schools were the first after that of course there is even a document by the Americans diplomats over there saying what repercussions would be on the Christian schools so on the Christian presence in Iran and that's an indication that they have been closed later regarding the second question sources vis-à-vis the Russian connection those were found in Russian archives about five Russian archives different ones those who are dealing with specifically with what I said regarding Russians are from St. Petersburg from the Baron Rosen collection which we managed to get access to and actually get the whole all the documents relating to the Baha'is regarding the accessibility it is to be decided by myself and my colleagues in the academic committee of the Esri Center what we are going to do with these documents of course those documents will be published some of them will be published in two volume work titled the Baha'is of Iran, Transcaspian and the Caucasus which will be I believe published either 2010 or the beginning of 2011 so you could have access through that whether whoever has enough knowledge of Russian and enough knowledge of how to decipher 19th century old Russian that's something else we can talk about academic cooperation in the context of academic cooperation we can afford the chance to view them shall we go for more or is up to you one more question yes sorry this lady over here that's a big difference it's a nice try well my guess is like yours but I would say with the impact with the role that the Baha'i played in the number of fields whether it is education whether it is women emancipation whether it is in the health sector whether it is in business and trade and the various of subject socioeconomic subject I would say that probably the standard of education in Iran would have been much better today than it was and it was in relation to the environment Middle Eastern environment it is still high but I would assume that it would have been much much better and of course this would have reflected in many other things because education is a source of many many other things so it could have been Iran could have been more democratic today more respect of human rights and yes we can dream on what Iran could be but unfortunately Paya Makhavan knows it very well you folks can make a choice you can either have a ten minute break or you can continue asking questions they can perhaps those of you we could do it this way those of you who would wish to take a ten minute break you can quietly perhaps proceed out and why don't we have another five minutes of questions and answers since Dr Shaffar has come such a long way to be with us all right so next question yes this gentleman here yes in the white the Bioschools the Ta'id was in Hamadan the Ta'id Hamadan and I think I mentioned each school where it was yes the influence was of great importance because for example if throughout of course private papers of a certain Baha'i person that I found in United States National Baha'i archives there is a talk about those American figures that were involved in the Tarbiat or in other schools they are asking from their friends in either New Zealand or the United States to send these or the other accessories that they didn't exist in Iran which means that they were very much attentive to the and very much thoughtful of the need to have that standard as much as possible to bring maps for example or to bring certain books that didn't exist in order to read the story for example books in English so it there were certain Baha'i schools that had labs libraries that never heard of in other schools so it was very I would say positive impact and they were also very strict in the matters of discipline and in certain instances it's not only disciplining the students it's also disciplining the Iranian management committee of those schools there is actually you can read it in the book attention from time to time between the American staff and the Iranian Baha'i leadership because in their view the Iranians are not even though they are Baha'is they have in certain matters and there is kind of for example for the American female or American woman to be in this committee or to decide certain things yes there is also attention like that but I would say that definitely the impact is very positive I've been told we need to repeat the questions through the mic for the recording so the question that preceded this answer was there an influence what was the influence of bringing teachers and we gave the gentleman here that would be your voice because you are the were there I guess significant or any numbers of Zoroastrians, Christians and Jewish children who attended these Baha'i schools well Christians because they had their own schools and there were modernized schools they less tended to either convert or to attend the Baha'i schools but Jews and Zoroastrians yes there were growing numbers especially in the towns and cities that they were heavily populated by Jews for example Hamadano-Kashan or by Zoroastrian Yazd so in those areas of course they were heavily attended by those minorities yes please okay so this lady was wondering what Dr. Schaffar's motivation was in pursuing this line of research and what he's hoping to contribute in sharing this information with the world at large thank you I explained this quite in detail in the lecture that was yesterday so in order not to bore those who have already heard this I will just make it short the reason is that as a scholar specializing in Iran wherever I read a book or an article the question pops up Baha'is are the biggest religious minority how come they are not mentioned here how come they are not mentioned here and they are throughout the society I will say they are not a secluded minority in one place one geographical place they weren't involved in the government from top to top there were officials as I said before they were in the royal family they were from top to bottom officials here and there diplomats yes the representative of Iran in the United States the consul was a Baha'i and many others so they were everywhere so how come they are not there must be a reason in London in 2002 the theme of education then I started to ask this question regarding the schools and from the schools I started to look at the other things and the reason I'm doing this is I think as being truthful to your profession as a scholar you want to get to the truth I mean what's the idea of combining a pile of lies in order to satisfy this or another you want to get to the truth what were the reason you're asking why this thing happened so why this thing happened you have to crisscross a number of sources and try to create a balanced picture if you in other words only trust Iranian sources or sources that coming out of Iran then I probably wouldn't stand here before you wouldn't have invited me and my lecture would be how negative the Baha'is are but if you put it in a larger context you use as I did the Russian archival material British archival material the material in Haifa in the Baha'i World Centre in Vilmet and as primary sources memoirs of Baha'is, non-Baha'is you create you get a different picture and why I'm doing this I mean it's simple I mean of course somebody asked me yesterday this question are you not afraid of the repercussions that it might if you read the beginning of the book I actually I'm very critical of the Iranian historiography or the historiography on modern Iran because there is no mention of the Baha'is unless the scholar is a Baha'i as I mentioned here and there about some role that they played but you have to I don't want to say give me a medal or being a bold guy about that I take my chances at least you will invite me I hope not