Millennialism, Millerites, and Prophecy in Bahá’í Discourse

Acknowledgements    

Foreword by Omid Ghaemmaghami

Preface           

Prologue

Introduction

1. The Bahá’í Divine Plan

2. The Millennialist Motif

3. Millerism and Its Successors

4. Historicist Exegesis of Time Prophecies

5. Miller’s Exegetical Principles and Time Prophecies

6. The Bábí Movement: Escaping the Shia End-Time Script

7. The Bahá’í Religion: A Progressive Divine Plan

8. The Bahá’í Faith Comes to the United States

9. Bahá’í Time Prophecy Interpretation before 1908

10. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Authoritative Exegesis

11. Bahá’í Time Prophecy Interpretation after 1908

12. The Bahá’í Faith as a Millennialist Movement

13. Bahá’í Expectations: Envisioning the Future vs. Date-Setting

14: To Know the Future

15. From Events to Process

Afterword: Apocalypse Unsealed

Glossary

Index

Biography

William P. Collins is retired from the Library of Congress and formerly Director of the International Bahá’í Library. He is the author of Bibliography of English-Language Works on the Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, 1844-1985 and articles on millennialism and Bahá’í history.

“Collins’s exciting examination of the role millennialism has played in Bahá’í history makes this work of interest not only to those interested in the Bahá’í Faith but to students of comparative religion generally. The author’s command of the millennialism literature, which is now large and complex, is impressive. The work is characterized by wide-ranging and scrupulous scholarship that explores rarely examined links between spirituality in Persia and the United States.”

- Michael Barkun, Syracuse University, USA

 

“Collins’s work is essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of millennial thought and Bahá’í teachings. His meticulous research and thoughtful analysis provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of how millennial expectations have shaped religious history and how these ideas have been reinterpreted within the Bahá’í Faith. By examining the parallels between the Millerite movement and the early Bahá’í community, Collins reveals the profound connections between these two seemingly disparate groups, both of which sought to understand the unfolding of divine prophecy in their time.”

- Omid Ghaemmaghami, Binghamton University – State University of New York (SUNY), USA

 

“Collins’ book is a comprehensive treatment of the complexities and variations of millennialism in the Bábí movement and the Bahá’í Faith. It also demonstrates how early Bahá’ís in America related predictions in the Millerite movement about the Second Coming of Christ in 1844 to the declaration in that year of the Báb in Persia. This book will be of interest to scholars of the Bahá’í Faith in its international scope, but also to scholars of millennialism and religions in America.”  

- Catherine Wessinger, Loyola University New Orleans, USA

 

“This is a brilliant, creative, highly suggestive study of the history, growth, and doctrinal development of the Bahá’í religion especially in North America. Its method and conclusions will interest scholars of religion in general.”

- Todd Lawson, University of Toronto, Canada

 

“Collins provides a comprehensive discussion of an overlooked and widespread part of 19^th and 20^th century religious history - millennialism.  This impressive volume recounts the history of Millerism as well as how the American Bahá’í community used and interpreted it.  Collins painstakingly outlines the many approaches to Biblical prophecy that resulted in the prediction that Christ would return in 1843 or 1844, the year that the Bahá’í Faith began.  Although focusing on American Protestant predictions, Collins also explains how Shia Islam expected prophetic fulfillment in 1260 AH (1844) and the early Bábí movement’s connection and history in the social context of 19^th-century Persia. The book demonstrates how the Bahá’í Faith fits into and expands our understanding of millennialism such that we can grasp how apocalyptic and progressive expectations are not mutually exclusive as the global Bahá’í Faith matures, premised on the oneness of the foundation of religion and humanity. We highly recommend this book to anyone with interest in the development of prophecy interpretation and millennialism.”

- Deborah K. van den Hoonaard, St. Thomas University, Canada, and Will C. van den Hoonaard, University of New Brunswick, Canada

 

“Collins has written a remarkable book with a broad, almost cosmic, vision of the term millennialism as it relates to the Bahá’í Faith. The breadth of the research is very impressive, dealing with Persian sources as well as century-old American archival material and contemporary discussion in the Bahá’í community.  The positive impact of millennialism as an inspiration supporting Bahá’í growth is considered as well as the hope it gave persecuted Bahá’í communities. The Bahá’í Faith’s consistent emphasis on progressive millennialism—longer term—is balanced by discussion of the shorter term catastrophic events that are predicted. The book makes an important contribution to millennial studies as well as to Bahá’í studies.”

- Robert Stockman, Director of Corinne True Center for Bahá’í History and adjunct professor at Indiana University South Bend, USA

 

“Many years in the making, this is a major study of millennial ideas in the developing Bahá’í community, and an important addition to the growing literature of serious study of the Bahá’í Faith. Apart from examining the various academic approaches to the study of millenarianism and providing an overview of the ideas of the influential nineteenth-century American Protestant millenarian thinker William Miller, Collins includes the first detailed account of the English-language writings of Bahá’ís on millennial themes and provides his own analysis of millenarian ideas in a Bahá’í context. Of value to historians of religion and those involved in Bahá’í studies.”

- Peter Smith, Mahidol University International College, Thailand (retired)

 

“The theme of Millennialism is one that had a great importance in the early history of the Bábí and Bahá’í Faiths as well as again rising to importance at the start of the North American Bahá’í community. Many of the early adherents of the religion were attracted by a presentation of the religion that sought to demonstrate that the founders of the new religion fulfilled the prophecies of their own religious tradition. It is surprising therefore that, up to now, there has not been a thorough study of this aspect of the Bahá’í Faith. This book thus fills an important gap in the literature and does so in a careful analysis of a wide variety of sources.

- Moojan Momen, independent Bahá’í scholar

 

“Prophets and prophecies are perhaps humanity's most powerful generators of social reality, shaping human conduct for millennia. In this ground-breaking and exhaustively researched work, Collins shows that millennial expectation is not a mere historical curiosity but a vital and living force in the present day.”

- Steven Phelps, cosmologist and translator of Bahá’í texts

 

“Collins shows how and why the Bahá’í Faith judiciously adopted and adapted the essence of adventist William Miller’s millennialist ideas as an eschatological bridge over which prospective Christians might cross in seriously considering the prophetic credentials of the ‘twin Founders’ of the Bahá’í Faith, the Báb (1819–1850) and Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892). Well researched and well-written, Millennialism, Millerites, and Prophecy in Bahá’í Discourse is a worthy contribution to the phenomenology and history of religions.”

- Christopher Buck, author of Bahá’í Faith: The Basics

“Millennialism, Millerites, and Prophecy in Bahá’í Discourse is an uncommonly rich and comprehensive study of how millennial expectation has shaped both the history of the Bahá’í Faith and the ways North American Bahá’ís have understood their place in a wider religious story. Collins has clearly spent decades thinking deeply about these questions, and this book shows it. […] For all its breadth and attention to detail, Millennialism, Millerites, and Prophecy in Bahá’í Discourse remains a remarkably coherent and engaging study, offering a perspective on Bahá’í millennialism that is historically informed while remaining theologically sensitive. Collins has drawn together sources and conversations that are rarely placed side by side in either academic or popular settings, and done so in a way that clarifies how Bahá’ís have understood prophecy, history, and their own emerging community. Even where readers may wish for further comparative or theoretical development of the ideas presented in this work, Collins has opened paths for exactly this kind of future scholarship. It is a significant contribution to Bahá’í studies and to the wider study of millennial movements, and it will remain a valuable reference point for anyone interested in how religious communities navigate the tension between expectation and unfolding historical reality.” - Caleb Gilleland in The Journal of Bahá’í Studies