30. One-World Religion

World Peace

The 1980 bestseller, The Aquarian Conspiracy, Marilyn Ferguson, referring to the Club of Rome network—which in addition to environmental groups also includes peace groups, human rights groups, and groups fighting hunger—quotes the Club’s founder Aurelio Peccei as saying that they represent “the yeast of change… scattered, myriad spontaneous groupings of people springing up here and there like antibodies in a sick organism.”[1] At the same time as the Club of Rome published the report Limits to Growth, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment took place in the summer of 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden. Club of Rome member Maurice Strong, secretary-general of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (the “Earth Summit”) and senior advisor to Kofi Annan on UN reform, was a key organizer of the Millennium Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, held in New York City between August 28–31, 2000. In his remarks Strong cited the 1992 Earth Summit and the 1972 UN Conference of the Human Environment as precursors to the Millennium World Peace Summit, opining that the world’s political leaders were not yet ready for such a gathering of religious and spiritual leaders in those days.[2]

Maurice Strong has served as director of the World Future Society, led by World Bank President Robert McNamara, and which included ex-US Ambassador Sol Linowitz, Arthur C. Clarke and Alvin Toffler.[3] He was a founding member the Planetary Citizens founded by Donald Keys, a disciple of Alice Bailey.[4] Strong was a longtime Foundation Director of the World Economic Forum (WEF), a senior advisor to the president of the World Bank, a member of the International Advisory of Toyota Motor Corporation, the Advisory Council for the Center for International Development at Harvard University, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Resources for the Future and the Eisenhower Fellowships.

Maurice Strong was also the leader of the Bahai movement in North America.[5] As the Bahais teach that all religions come from one God, they often at the forefront of local inter-faith activities and efforts, through the Bahai International Community, participating at a global level in inter-religious dialogue both through and outside of the United Nations,[6] and pushing an environmentalist agenda advanced by proponents of the New Age to help bring about a One-World Religion. In 1985, the Universal House of Justice released a statement called The Promise of World Peace, addressed to the peoples of the world, which referred to “the planetization of mankind,” from The Future of Man by Teilhard de Chardin, whom it referred to as a “great thinker.”[7] Shoghi Effendi, the grandson and successor of Abdul Baha, and the Guardian of the Bahai Faith, wrote the purported spiritual process of evolution, an idea advanced by de Chardin:

 

 …beginnings in the birth of family life, its subsequent development in the achievement of tribal solidarity, leading in turn to the constitution of the city-state, and expanding later into the institution of independent and sovereign nations.

The principle of the Oneness of Mankind, as proclaimed by Baha’u’llah, carries with it no more and no less than a solemn assertion that attainment to this final stage in this stupendous evolution is not only necessary but inevitable, that its realization is fast approaching, and that nothing short of a power that is born of God can succeed in establishing it.[8]

 

In 1970, Bahai International Community (BIC) was granted Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Formal associations with other UN agencies followed: the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 1974; the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1976; and the (former) UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Over the years, the BIC has worked closely with the Offices of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).[9] The BIC has offices at the United Nations in New York and Geneva and representations to United Nations regional commissions and other offices in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Nairobi, Rome, Santiago, and Vienna. There also exists an Office of Public Information which is based at the Bahai World Centre in Haifa, Israel.

 

Earth Summit

One of the key results of the historical meeting of United Nations Conference on the Human Environment took place in the summer of 1972 in Stockholm and led by Maurice Strong was the adoption by participants of a declaration of principles and action plan to fight pollution. In 1984, the United Nations Assembly gave Gro Harlem Brundtland, then Prime Minister of Norway, the mandate to form and preside over the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), to draw up a profile of environmental issues and develop an action plan defining the objectives of the international community in matters pertaining to development and environmental protection. Strong also had a colleague appointed as Executive Director, Warren “Chip” Lindner, who later went to work for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).[10] The Commission’s work led to the release in 1987 of the report Our Common Future, also called the Brundtland Report, which popularized the term “sustainable development” and its definition. In line with the report published by the Club of Rome in 1972, Limits to Growth, the report identifies the world-scale problems compromising the health and security of humanity and the ecological equilibrium on which life depends.

The WCED laid the foundations for the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held at the June 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio Brazil, whose Secretary-General was Maurice Strong. Among the many recommendations in Our Common Future was a call for the creation of a “Universal Declaration on Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development” in the form of a “new charter” with principles to guide nations in the transition to sustainable development. Building on this recommendation, Strong, had proposed in 1990 that the Summit draft and adopt an Earth Charter. The Rio Declaration, which was issued by the 1992 Summit, contained a set of principles, but it was regarded to have fallen short of the inclusive ethical vision that many people behind it had hoped to find in the Earth Charter.[11]

The Bahai International Community was the first NGO to officially make a statement on the Earth Charter, at the 2nd Preparatory Committee meeting of the Summit in early 1991 in Geneva, and it became one of the most widely circulated Bahai statements during the run-up to the Earth Summit. The idea of an Earth Charter originated in 1987, by Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev as members of the Club of Rome, when the WCED called for a new charter to guide the transition to sustainable development. One of the principal creators of the Earth Charter was Steven Clark Rockefeller, who is professor emeritus of Religion at Middlebury College and an advisory trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. A famous product of the Earth Summit was Agenda 21, a non-binding action plan of the United Nations with regard to sustainable development. The “21” in Agenda 21 refers to the 21st century. President George H.W. Bush was one of the 178 heads of government around the world who signed the final text of the agreement, and in the same year, Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Eliot Engel and William Broomfield spoke in support of United States House of Representatives Concurrent Resolution 353, supporting implementation of Agenda 21 in the United States.[12]

The Bahai office was the site of many long meetings on the content of an Earth Charter. Peter Adriance, working as NGO Liaison for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of the United States, was a participant in various deliberations on the Earth Charter, and met with some 160 NGO representatives to discuss how they might cooperate to have an influence on the Summit. They formed the Citizens Network, of which Adriance was the secretary and co-chair of the Working Group on Ethics, Environment and Development, whose charge was to organize American NGO contributions for the Earth Charter. Robert White’s Spiritual Foundations for an Ecologically Sustainable Society, a broad macroevolutionary approach to our changing relationship to Nature in light of the teachings of the Bahai Faith, was material widely circulated among the Earth Charter participants. After lengthy deliberations, the Working Group finally produced a draft charter for circulation among governments and NGOs, in which many Bahai principles were reflected.[13]

Gorbachev himself endorsed the “Roerich idea,” which he had wished to use to revitalize a Soviet ideology. Gorbachev and his wife Raisa, who grew up in the Altai region, enjoyed a warm relationship with Roerich’s younger son, the artist Svetoslav Roerich (1904 – 1993). Svetoslav married Devika Rani, the great-granddaughter of Saudamini Devi Gangopadhyay, the sister of Rabindranath Tagore. Nicholas Roerich’s prestige was raised to unprecedented levels in 1987 when at a meeting with Svetoslav, Gorbachev began speaking with approval about the “Roerich idea,” praising the Roerich family as “cultural pillars” and “outstanding representatives of our country.”[14] In 1989, Gorbachev, supported by Svetoslav and the academician Dmitrii Likhachev, the government’s chief adviser on cultural affairs, allocated funds for the creation of a Soviet Roerich Foundation to locate and gather Roerich’s art, manuscripts, and belongings, and a Center-Museum to stimulate Roerich studies.[15]

In 1994, Strong, as chairman of the Earth Council, joined with Mikhail Gorbachev, president of Green Cross International, to launch a new Earth Charter initiative. It was Jim McNeill, secretary general of the WCED, and Queen Beatrix—daughter of Prince Bernhard and honorary member of the Club of Rome—and Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers of The Netherlands who brought Strong and Gorbachev together. The Dutch government provided financial support.[16] In 1995, they cosponsored a meeting at the Hague where 70 international NGOs from 30 countries, including a representative of the Bahai International Community, met to discuss the elements of an Earth Charter and to initiate the next stage in the drafting process. As part of the ongoing effort, in October 1996, the Bahai International Community wrote to Steven Rockefeller, chair of the drafting committee to reinforce three principles already put forth by Bahais in the process: the oneness of humanity should be the single most important point of ethical reference; material progress must reflect spiritual principles and priorities; and Sustainable Development requires just and equitable communities.[17]

The final text of the Earth Charter was approved at a meeting of the Earth Charter Commission at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in March 2000. The official launch was on June 29, 2000 in a ceremony at The Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, which also houses the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), The Hague Academy of International Law and the Peace Palace Library. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, supporter of the Earth Charter, attended the ceremony.

 

Global Ethic 

The one-world-religion agenda has been pushed with the re-establishment of the Parliament of World Religions Conference, the United Religions Initiative (URI) and United Religions Charter. The URI, which was founded in 1995 by Episcopalian bishop William Swing and dedicated to promoting inter-faith cooperation, also holds consultative status with ECOSOC.[18] The URI, which aspires to have the stature of the United Nations, was described as brining “together faiths as diverse as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Wicca in an effort to end religiously motivated violence.”[19] The Parliament of the World’s Religions of 1883, which prominently featured Theosophists and Bahais, was reconvened again in the city of Chicago in 1993. Like its predecessor, which featured the participation of Philip Schaff, who attributed the origin of the movement to create a Christian union to the crypto-Sabbatean Count Zinzendorf, the Parliament of 1993 featured numerous members of the World Council of Churches. As well, as Donald Frew, a Wiccan Neopagan member of the URI Global Council, said, “In 1893, America met the Hindus and Buddhists. In 1993, they met us. We were now officially part of the American religious scene; we wouldn’t be written off anymore as just a bunch of weirdos in California. After that, anytime a global interfaith event happened, we would be invited.”[20]

A president of the Parliament was Dr. Wilma Ellis Administrator-General, Baha’i International Community, and wife of Firuz Kazemzadeh, who in 1960 wrote a preface for a new edition of The Promised Day Is Come by Shoghi Effendi.[21] The keynote address was given by another president, the Dalai Lama, on the closing day of the assembly. A document, “Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration,” mainly drafted by Hans Küng, set the tone for the subsequent ten days of discussion.[22] The first address was delivered by Robert Muller, titled “Inter-faith Understanding,” who said:

 

There is one sign after the other, wherever you look, that we are on the eve of a New Age which will be a spiritual age… We are entering an age of universalism. Wherever you turn, one speaks about global education, global information, global communications—every profession on Earth now is acquiring a global dimension. The whole humanity is becoming interdependent, is becoming one… this Parliament and what is happening now in the world… is a renaissance, a turning point in human history. So even the astrologers begin to tell us that there will be a fundamental change.[23]

 

The coming together of Küng and leaders of the international Parliament of the World’s Religions led to the document known as the global ethic, or officially, Towards a Global Ethic (An Initial Declaration). Küng had stated at what was the best-attended nonplenary address during the Parliament, that there can be no new global order without a new global ethic.[24] Küng insisted the global ethic should not duplicate but rather support the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, by anchoring the ethic in two foundational principles common to all religions: the Golden Rule and the mandate to treat all human beings humanely.[25] The document was said to have “marked the first time in history that leaders of all the world’s major religions endorsed a common statement of ethics.”[26] Among the hundreds of signatories were the Dalai Lama, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, and the Rev. Wesley Ariarajah, deputy general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC).[27]

Before the Parliament, in 1988, a group of academics and religious leaders in the USA established a Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions, for the purpose of organizing the centennial celebration of the Parliament. Among the founders was Dr. Irfan Ahmad Khan, an Indian Muslim graduate from Aligarh Muslim University—founded by Syed Ahmad Khan—who had settled in Chicago. Irfan was Chairman of the Interfaith Committee, and UN representative of the Muslim World League of Saudi Arabia. Irfan Ahmad Khan is also a member of the “Interfaith Call,” an initiative of the Dalai Lama.[28] Among the twenty-five presidents of the 1993 Parliament were four Muslims: Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, International American Muslim Spokesman, and son of son of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam; Sayed Shabuddin, member of parliament and editor of Muslim India; Asad Husain, President, American Islamic College in Chicago; Shaykh Kamel al-Sharif, former Minister of Education, Jordan.[29]

The Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), was one of the co-sponsors of the Parliament, along with the Muslim World League.[30] The IMMA was founded in 1978 by Dr. Syed Zainul Abedin, the mother of Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Abdullah Omar Naseef, then president of the Muslim World League and president of King Abdulaziz University, provided backing to Abedin for the institute’s formation.[31] Ali Asani, is an Ismaili Muslim who directs the Islamic Studies program at Harvard University and also serves on the journal’s editorial board.[32] A specialist on Ismaili and Sufi traditions in South Asia, Asani is also on the Board of Governors of the Institute for Ismaili Studies.[33] IMMA has also featured Georgetown professor John Esposito.[34] Prince Muhammad al-Faisal bin Turki of the Safari Club was one of its speakers.[35] One of the Presidents of the Parliament, Asad Husain, resident of the American Islamic College, was reported to have said: “I’m very much in favour of a United Nations of Religions. We are going to give a lead ... for a religious renaissance that will give real hope and happiness to the people of the world.”[36]

 

World Congress of Imams and Rabbis

Sayyid Syeed, Secretary General of Secretary General, served on the board of trustees of the Parliament.[37] As President of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) of USA and Canada, Syeed oversaw its transformation into ISNA, and is its current Secretary General. Syeed joined the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), as its director of academic outreach, and concurrently served as Secretary General of the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations (IIFSO) between 1988 and 1990. Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the largest Muslim advocacy group in the US, developed from the American branch of the Muslim Students Associations (MSA), both affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood and the CIA’s Munich Islamic Center.[38] The Muslim Brotherhood trio of Totonji, Barzinji and Altallib—after collaborating with Youssef Nada and Yusuf al-Qaradawi, had left for the US in the 1960’s, settling in Indianapolis. They used Saudi money to build a national headquarters in Plainfield, Indiana. There they created several Muslim Brotherhood fronts: the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT); the Muslim Student Association (MSA); International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT); and ISNA.[39]

In 1980, they also branched into the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), America’s largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization, created in 1994. In the 2007, Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing case, the United States Department of Justice named ISNA, along with CAIR and NAIT, as an unindicted co-conspirator and one of a number of “entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.”[40] As reported by Larry Elder:

 

Dr. Michael Waller—an expert on foreign propaganda—in his October 2003 Senate testimony, called the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) a powerful Saudi-supported Islamic educational organization. It certifies Wahhabi-trained chaplains to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. The ISNA seeks to impose Wahhabi religious conformity on American Islam.[41]

 

While at IIIT, he also served as General Secretary of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS). Syeed is also a member of the Board of Advisory Editors for the Middle East Affairs Journal, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).[42] Syeed has been invited to speak on national TV channels, NBC, CBS, CBN, ABC, MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, the Today Show, CNN’s Crossfire, and on the national television networks of Turkey, Malaysia, Sudan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. He was listed by Ms. Magazine in 1982 as one of the “40 male heroes of the past decade, men who took chances and made a difference.”[43]

In 2000, Syeed was invited to a dialogue in the Vatican by the late Pope John Paul II, and in 2008, he led the American Muslim leadership delegation to meet with Pope Benedict in Washington, DC. In 2007, he cosponsored the first National Summit of Imams and Rabbis, and also played a role in inviting the President of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Eric Yoffie to address the annual convention of ISNA and coordinating a delegation from ISNA, led by Ingrid Mattson, to address the annual convention of URJ.[44] Other initiatives included bringing together 100 Muslim organizations and 100 Jewish organizations to hold annual joint events condemning Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Syeed also led an interfaith delegation to Israel and Palestine and was part of the first group of Muslim leaders to visit the Holocaust sites in Auschwitz and Dachau. He also addressed the First World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in Brussels in 2005 and the First National Summit of Imams and Rabbis in 2007 in New York City.[45]

 

Global Consciousness 

In 1986, WWF International invited five major faiths—Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism—to Assisi in Italy to explore how they could collaborate on environmental issues. The encounter in Assisi was so successful that in 1995 Prince Philip, who was then president of WWF, launched a new international nonprofit organization, the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC). By 2000, six more faiths had joined the Alliance: Bahaism, Daoism, Jainism, Shintoism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism, bringing the total to eleven, with ARC working in just under sixty countries. Its role is to help major faith bodies develop environmental programs and projects, in association with WWF, the BBC, and the World Bank As part of the Alliance, each of the faiths was asked to compile its own statement summarizing its relationship with and beliefs about the environment. For Islam, the statement was written by Hyder Ihsan Mahasneh, who was appointed by the Muslim World League. The statement for Judaism was written by the World Jewish Congress, then headed by Edgar Bronfman Sr, who preceded Ronald Lauder. For Christianity it was the Franciscan Orders. The Bahais, through the Bahai International Community, and the Daoists, Jains, and Sikhs had created their own statements.[46] As for both Buddhism and Hinduism there was no governing body of the faithful, the ARC worked with the Dalai Lama on Buddhism and with leading scholars such as Dr. Karan Singh, former minister of the environment in the Indian government and a leading Hindu thinker, for Hinduism. Singh was a member of the Club of Rome and the Club of Budapest, the International Chairman at the Temple of Understanding at the United Nations, and served as President of the Indian National Congress.[47]

In 1998, Ewert Cousins, President of the new American Teilhard Association, with Robert Muller, founded the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality, whose board members included Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Erwin Laszlo, the Dalai Lama, Jane Goodall, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Robert Thurman, Cornel West, Desmond Tutu, Dr. Karan Singh. Sigmund Sternberg is member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and President of the Reform Jewish community, sole Patron of the International Council of Christians and Jews, vice-president of the World Congress of Faiths, coordinator of the religious component of the WEF, and co-founder of the Three Faiths Forum, founded with Revd. Dr Marcus Braybrooke and Mohamed Aboulkhair Zaki Badawi, Director, Islamic Cultural Centre and Chief Imam of London Central Mosque.[48]

According to his obituary in The Guardian, “Sir Sigmund Sternberg, who has died aged 95, was one of Anglo-Jewry’s most active members, present at seemingly any important communal occasion—a banquet addressed by the chief rabbi, a meeting called in honour of an Israeli prime minister, or, most likely of all, representing Britain’s Jews at an interfaith occasion.”[49] In 1976, Sternberg was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and in 1985 he was made a Papal Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (KCSG) by Pope John Paul II. Sternberg was partly responsible for the Vatican’s recognition of the state of Israel in 1993. He had also helped to organize the first visit by a pope to a synagogue, in 1986 by John Paul II.[50]

In 1998, Sternberg was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion for his interfaith work worldwide. The donor was Sir John Templeton, founder of Templeton Growth Fund mutual fund, and one of the Presidents of the Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions.[51] The Templeton Prize is an annual award granted to a living person, in the estimation of the judges, “whose exemplary achievements advance Sir John Templeton’s philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it.”[52] Referring to the development of the idea for the prize, Templeton said, “It was during those formative years, particularly when talking with friends in the World Council of Churches, that we decided also that it would be a prize for progress in religion of all types, so no child of God would feel excluded.”[53] The prize has been referred to by The Washington Post as the most prestigious award in religion.[54] It was typically presented by Prince Philip, during his lifetime, in ceremonies held at Buckingham Palace.[55] Its first recipient was Mother Theresa. Past recipients include Billy Graham, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu—one-time staff member of the World Council of Churches (WCC)—Jonathan Sacks, Abdullah II of Jordan, and Jane Goodall. Two members of The Fellowship, the American Christian Right movement also known as The Family, were also recipients: Charles Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship, Watergate conspirator and friend to CIA “plumber” E. Howard Hunt, and Bill Bright, a long-time friend of Billy Graham and founder of the Campus Crusade for Christ.[56] Colson was a principal signer of the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) ecumenical document signed by leading Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholic leaders in the United States, and later by para-church organizations such as Moral Majority founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell.[57]

Bawa Jain of the Interfaith Center of New York, a veteran of the interfaith movement, served as the secretary-general at the Millennium Peace Summit in 2000, which he organized with Maurice Strong. Businessman and staunch UN supporter Ted Turner served as honorary chair and provided much of the financing through his UN Foundation and Better World Fund. The Summit was sponsored by and received support from various organizations, including Harvard Divinity School, Ford Foundation, the Turner Foundation as well as other NGOs. Strong, Jain and other UN staff convened 2,000 delegates, including 800–1,000 religious leaders representing Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Native American religions, and other traditions from several continents. Speakers included Jane Goodall, Dr. Konrad Raiser of the World Council of Churches, Francis Cardinal Arinze of the Vatican, Yisrael Meir Lau, Chief Rabbi of Israel, and Dr. Abdullah bin Saleh Al Obeid of the Muslim World League. The Bahai International Community was represented by its Secretary-General, Albert Lincoln.[58]

In 2008, many of the locations at the Bahai World Centre, including the terraces and the Shrine of the Báb which constitute the north slope of Mount Carmel, were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee considers the sites to be “of outstanding universal value [and]...inscribed for the testimony they provide to the Bahais strong tradition of pilgrimage and for their profound meaning for the faith.”[59]  While the vast majority of Bahais were found in Iran, converts from outside Iran were mostly found in India and the Western world.[60] The Lotus Temple is a Bahai House of Worship located in New Delhi, India, completed in 1986, and which has won numerous architectural awards, is open to all, regardless of religion, and has a capacity of 1,300 people. Notable for its lotus-like shape, it has become a prominent attraction in the city. Estimates for the number of visitors annually range from 2.5 million to 5 million.[61]

 

Abrahamic Dialogue

Ahmad Kuftaro (1915 – 2004), Grand Mufti of Syria, of the Naqshbandi branch in Syria, was on good terms with Shaykh Nazim Haqqani, and in particular his deputy Kabbani, who sent some of his key students to him.[62] In 1991, Nazim made the first of four nationwide tours of the US, in a number of venues, including churches, temples, universities, mosques and New Age centers. Reportedly, during these speeches and Dhikr gatherings thousands of individuals entered the fold of Islam through his efforts. Regrettably, these are not converts to Islam, but are attracted to a hippie-dippy version that is more about Sufism’s vague promises of “spirituality.” The key to Nazim’s success is his openness to Muslims as well as non-Muslims, and his flexibility towards Islamic law. According to Haqqani, “One is not entitled to refute or object to any of the matters of his sheikh even if he contradicts the pure rules of Islam.”[63] Nazim’s liberalism was exemplified in his visit in 1999 to Glastonbury in England, where Joseph of Arimathea was to have concealed the Holy Grail, and which is now a center of alternative spirituality. Nazim called on the people to aim for eternity without regard of their religion, and acknowledged the local legend that Jesus had visited the site. A Haqqani community subsequently established itself in the town, engaging in Dhikr meetings, which include musical performances, Whirling Dervishes and “Sufi meditation” workshops. Nazim believes in the coming of the Mahdi is immanent, and gives his followers the impression that he is in spiritual contact with him.[64]

According to Sheikh Nazim, “One is not entitled to refute or object to any of the matters of his sheikh even if he contradicts the pure rules of Islam.”[65] In very a strange video posted to YouTube, a doting Sheikh Nazim claims that someone appeared to him from Mars, Saturn or Jupiter, and told him that it is permitted for him to use foul swear words as many as 40 times a day, since he is from Utaqa (“high sainthood”), and therefore, no longer accountable for sins. The “pen” has stopped writing anything about him, meaning that the angels are no longer recording his actions, so apparently he’s completely free to do as he likes.[66]

Kuftaro has been long engaged in interfaith dialogue, and upholds the belief that the three monotheistic religions stem from a common source, and are all different traditions of the one universal religion. He also participated in the Assisi interfaith service for peace led by pope John Paul II in 1986, a month after the WWF conference in the same city. He has gone as far as praying the Hail Mary with the Cardinal of Baltimore, Cardinal Keeler, who was the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.[67] One of the groups who advocate the Abrahamic Dialogue is called the Muslim-Christian Research Group. In 1989, it hoped to create the International Abrahamic Youth Forum, as a forum between Islam, Judaism and Christianity. They mentioned that an Abrahamic Dialogue has been advocated by many leading Muslims, including, in addition to Kuftaro, Khurshid Ahmad of Maududi’s Jamaat-e-Islami, and Mahfoud Nahnah, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, the Movement of Society for Peace in Algeria. Christian representatives included Archbishop George Carey of Canterbury, and Dr. Hans Küng, and Judaism was represented by British Chief Rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Sacks, and the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Dr. David Rosen.[68]

Kuftaro has been involved in an “Abrahamic dialogue,” advocated by many other leading, Christians and Jews. He was one of the editorial advisors from all kinds of religions of World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts, that “gathers passages from the scriptures of the various religious traditions around certain topics.”[69] Also on the editorial board was a friend of Seyyed Hossein Nasr and member of Fritjof Schuon’s Maryamiyya, Huston Smith, a professor of Philosophy and Religion at Syracuse University, who introduced the Dalai Lama to the West.[70] Three other Muslims were with Kuftaro: Dr. Inamullah Khan, the founder and secretary-general of the Modern World Muslim Congress and Vice President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association; Dr. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, President of the Islamic Centre of New Delhi; and Dr. Yasur Nuri Ozturk, a university professor of Islamic philosophy, former member of Turkish parliament and Religious Commentator for the secular Turkish Hurriyet newspaper from Istanbul.[71] Wahiduddin Khan was the founder of the Centre for Peace and Spirituality to promote interfaith dialogue.

In 1988, when Inamullah Khan was awarded Templeton Prize, it was opposed by the ADL who accused him of anti-Semitism, citing his involvement in conferences of the World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD).[72] The WLFD was founded in 1952 as the CIA front, the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), under the initiative of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China, and retired General Charles A. Willoughby.[73] The WACL, under neo-Nazi Roger Pearson of the Heritage Foundation, generated controversy when it supported Nicaraguan guerrillas in the Iran-Contra affair.[74] The WACL held annual conferences at various locations throughout the world. Numerous groups participated, including the Unification Church, known informally as the Moonies, of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The Unification Church became owners of the Washington Times, edited by Michael Ledeen’s collaborator at CSIS, Arnaud de Borchgrave. It was Moon who first conceived the idea for World Scripture and commissioned its preparation, address to the first Assembly of the World’s Religions in 1985.[75]

Sponsored by the International Religious Foundation (IRF), which belongs to the Unification Church, the conference was the first in a series of three inter-religious and cross-cultural conferences commemorating the centennial of the Parliament of the World’s Religions 1893.[76] Huston Smith, a long-time supporter of the IRF, as well as another organization of the Unification Church, the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences (ICUS).[77] Andrew Wilson, editor of World Scripture, celebrated that calls for a “world theology” have been sounded by many scholars, and includes John Hick, and Raimundo Panikkar, and Wilfred Cantwell Smith, who had invited Ismail al-Faruqi to join Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University.[78] Wilson was the Director of Scriptural Research and Professor of Scriptural Studies of the Unification Theological Seminary (UTS), the main seminary of the international Unification Church. Born a Jew, Wilson supports the Unification Church’s peace initiative in the Middle East, with a focus on Christian–Jewish reconciliation. According to Wilson, “The supreme tikkun olam in Jerusalem is about bringing peace to the Holy City. This necessarily takes the form of reconciling the family of Abraham—the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”[79]

 


[1] The Futurist (December, 1978); cited in Marilyn Ferguson. The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981) p. 410.

[2] “Religion and Public Policy at the UN.” Religion Counts Report (Religion Counts, 2002), p. 43.

[3] “World Future Society Membership: Frequently Asked Questions.” World Future Society. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20060128101413/http://www.wfs.org/faq.htm

[4] Richard Kyle. The New Age Movement in American Culture (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995), p. 67.

[5] “It’s your call, Feb. 18, 2014.” News-PressNow. Retrieved from https://www.newspressnow.com/opinion/its_your_call/its-your-call-feb-18-2014/article_1aec56ba-680a-5a46-a6ae-982a94212b4b.html; Dr. Eric T. Karlstrom. “Perspectives on Maurice Strong.” Natural Climate Change (October, 2016). Retrieved from https://naturalclimatechange.org/perspectives-on-maurice-strong/; “About the Author.” Green Agenda. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20100201092426/http://www.green-agenda.com/gaians.html

[6] Catharine Cookson (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religious Freedom (Taylor & Francis, 2003), p. 9.

[7] Shoghi Effendi. The World Order of Baha’u’llah, p. 43; cited in David Langness. “Understanding the Baha’i Peace Plan.” Bahai Teachings (May 6, 2018). Retrieved from https://bahaiteachings.org/understanding-bahai-peace-plan/

[8] Shoghi Effendi. The World Order of Baha’u’llah, p. 43; cited in David Langness. “Understanding the Baha’i Peace Plan.” Bahai Teachings (May 6, 2018). Retrieved from https://bahaiteachings.org/understanding-bahai-peace-plan/

[9] “United Nations Offices.” BIC. Retrieved from https://www.bic.org/offices/united-nations

[10] Henry Lamb. “Maurice Strong: The new guy in your future!.” West (January, 1991).

[11] “The Earth Charter: Introduction” MauriceStrong.net. Retrieved from https://www.mauricestrong.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=174&Itemid=93

[12] “Nancy Pelosi Pushes Agenda 21, dispite fact that HAARP is culprit for global warming.” Retrieved from https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4362236/nancy-pelosi-pushes-agenda-21-dispite-fact-haarp-culprit-global-warming

[13] Peter Adriance. “The Earth Charter: Personal Reflections on the Baha'i Role in its Development.” International Environment Forum (February 7, 2011). Retrieved from https://iefworld.org/dadri98c.htm

[14] John McCannon. “Competing Legacies, Competing Visions of Russia: The Roerich Movement(s) in Post-Soviet Russia,” in Birgit Menzel, Michael Hagemeister & Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal (eds.), The New Age of Russia: Occult and Esoteric Dimensions, p. 351.

[15] Ibid.

[16] “The Earth Charter: Introduction” MauriceStrong.net. Retrieved from https://www.mauricestrong.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=174&Itemid=93

[17] Peter Adriance. “The Earth Charter: Personal Reflections on the Baha'i Role in its Development.” International Environment Forum (February 7, 2011). Retrieved from https://iefworld.org/dadri98c.htm

[18]  “URI and the UN.” URI. Retrieved from https://www.uri.org/what-we-do/global-program/uri-and-un

[19] Science and the Outer Streams, “About the show,” http://www.inecom.com/outer/default.asp; printed 10/8/02; cited in Penn. False Dawn,  p. 48.

[20] Anneli Rufus. “Every Witch Way.” East Bay Express (October 6–12, 2000); cited in Penn. False Dawn,  p. 41.

[21] 1993 Parliament Program Catalogue. 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions. Retrieved from https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/DC%20Metadata%20Files/Gandhi-Luthuli%20Documentation%20Centre/DOC%202319/19/DOC%202319/19.pdf

[22] “Global Ethic: About the Global Ethic.” Parliament of the World’s Religions. Retrieved from https://parliamentofreligions.org/parliament/global-ethic/about-global-ethic

[23] Carl Teichrib, “Global Citizenship 2000: Educating for the New Age,” Hope For The World Update, 1997, p. 10.

[24] Elliot Miller. “The 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions (Parts 1 & 2).” Christian Research Institute (June 10, 2009). Retrieved from https://www.equip.org/articles/the-1993-parliament-of-the-worlds-religions-part-one/

[25] Myriam Renaud. “The Global Ethic: Hans Küng’s Lasting Gift to the World.” Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs (May 3, 2021). Retrieved from https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/the-global-ethic-hans-kung-s-lasting-gift-to-the-world

[26] Miller. “The 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions (Parts 1 & 2).”

[27] Ibid.

[28] Vadillo. The Esoteric Deviation in Islam,  p. 43, n. 32.

[29] Ibid., p. 44.

[30] Ibid., p. 44.

[31] William D. Cohan. “Is Huma Abedin Hillary Clinton’s Secret Weapon or Her Next Big Problem?” Vanity Fair (January 6, 2016). Retrieved from http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/huma-abedin-hillary-clinton-adviser

[32] Robert Mackey. “Don’t Expect Donald Trump to Stop Lying About Huma Abedin.” The Intercept (August 30, 2016). Retrieved from https://theintercept.com/2016/08/30/dont-expect-donald-trump-stop-lying-huma-abedin

[33] “Professor Ali Asani.” Institue for Ismaili Studies. Retrieved from https://www.iis.ac.uk/our-people/board-of-governors/ali-asani/

[34] “FEATURED: US Muslim Brotherhood Launches Latest Front Organization; New “Strategic Communications Center” To Fight Islamophobia.” Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch (January 14, 2015). Retrieved from https://www.globalmbwatch.com/2015/01/14/stand-prophet/

[35] World Tibet Network News (August 23, 1993); cited in Vadillo. The Esoteric Deviation in Islam,  p. 44.

[36] “Interfaith Gathering Begins.” San Diego Union Tribune (August 28, 1993), B-9; cited in Vadillo. The Esoteric Deviation in Islam,  p. 44.

[37] “Board.” Center for Interfaith Action. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110530083958/http://www.centerforinterfaithaction.org/board/

[38] Johnson. A Mosque in Munich, p. 196.

[39] Ibid., chap 14.

[40] Lorenzo G. Vidino. The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West  (Columbia University Press, Aug 25, 2010), pp. 167-186.

[41] Larry Elder. Stupid Black men: how to play the race card—and lose, 1st ed.). (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008). p. 295.

[42] M.M. Ali. “Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Syeed.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (April 1998). Retrieved from https://www.wrmea.org/1998-april/personality-dr.-sayyid-muhammad-syeed.html

[43] “Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed.” Chautauqua Institution. Retrieved from https://ci.digitellinc.com/b/sp/sayyid-syeed-3385

[44] Ibid; “Jewish-Muslim Dialogue.” Union of Reform Judaism. Retrieved from https://urj.org/what-we-believe/resolutions/jewish-muslim-dialogue

[45] “Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed.” Chautauqua Institution. Retrieved from https://ci.digitellinc.com/b/sp/sayyid-syeed-3385

[46] Martin Palmer & Victoria Finlay. Faith in Conservation: New Approaches to Religions and the Environment (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2003), p. 67.

[47] “Karan Singh on Accession of Kashmir to India.” Outlook India (July 19, 2017). Retrieved 19 June 2017. http://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/karan-singh-on-accession-of-kashmir-to-india/735445

[48] Sigmund Sternberg. International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation & Political Violence. Retrieved from http://www.icsr.info/info/conference/participants/Sigmund%20Sternberg; cited in “Sigmund Sternberg.” SourceWatch. Retrieved from https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sigmund_Sternberg

[49] “Sir Sigmund Sternberg obituary.” The Guardian.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Vadillo. The Esoteric Deviation in Islam, p. 887, n. 38.

[52] “Areas of Focus.” Templeton Religion Trust. Retrieved from https://templetonreligiontrust.org/areas-of-focus/

[53] Robert L. Herrmann. Sir John Templeton (Templeton Foundation Press, 1998), p. 148.

[54] “Dalai Lama wins Templeton Prize for work on science, religion.” The Washington Post (March 29, 2012). Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/dalai-lama-wins-templeton-prize-for-work-on-science-religion/2012/03/29/gIQALwT1iS_story.html

[55] Nathan Schneider. “God, Science and Philanthropy.” The Nation (June 3, 2010). Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/god-science-and-philanthropy/

[56] Sharlet. The Family, p. 227.

[57] Max Blumenthal. Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (Bold Type Books, 2010), pp. 24–27.

[58] “Tag ‘Albert Lincoln’.” Baha’i Library Online. Retrieved from https://www.bahai-library.org/tags/Albert_Lincoln&more

[59] UNESCO World Heritage Centre. “Baháʼí Holy Places in Haifa and the Western Galilee.” (July 8, 2008). Retrieved from https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1220/

[60] Peter Smith & Moojan Momen. “The Baha’i Faith 1957–1988: A Survey of Contemporary Developments.” Religion, 19:1 (1989), pp. 70–71.

[61] William Garlington. “Indian Baha’i tradition.” In Sushil Mittal & Gene R. Thursby, (eds.). Religions of South Asia (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 247–260.

[62] Vadillo. The Esoteric Deviation in Islam, p. 632.

[63] Shaykh Samir Kadi. The Irrefutable Proof that Nazim al-Qubrusi Negates Islam, p. 4

[64] Itzchak Weismann. The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tradition (London: Routledge, 2007) p. 170.

[65] Kadi. The Irrefutable Proof that Nazim al-Qubrusi Negates Islam, p. 4

[66] SunniPureIslam. “Nazim Haqqani Al Naqshbandi no longer accountable to Allah, the pen is lifted the Sufi says.” YouTube (September 4, 2011). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJWGZAoymzA

[67] Pacific Church News Vol. 153 no. 3, June/July 1997.

[68] Vadillo. The Esoteric Deviation in Islam, p. 848.

[69] Andrew Wilson (ed.) “Introduction.” World Scripture, A Comparative Anthology Of Sacred Texts. Retrieved from https://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Books/World-S/WS-Intro.htm; Vadillo. The Esoteric Deviation in Islam, p. 45.

[70] Wahid Azal. “Sufism in the Service of Empire: the Case of the Maryamiyyah” CounterPunch (November 2, 2016). Retrieved from http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/02/sufism-in-the-service-of-empire-the-case-of-the-maryamiyyah/

[71] Vadillo. The Esoteric Deviation in Islam, p. 634.

[72] “Anti-Semitism Charges Lead To Delay on Religion Prize.” New York Times (April 19, 1988). https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/19/us/anti-semitism-charges-lead-to-delay-on-religion-prize.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

[73] Scott Anderson & Jon Lee. Inside The League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986).

[74] Pete Yost. “McCain linked to group in Iran-Contra affair.” San Francisco Chronicle (October 7, 2008). Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20081208061208/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fn%2Fa%2F2008%2F10%2F06%2Fpolitics%2Fp212035D66.DTL

[75] Andrew Wilson (ed.) “Introduction.” World Scripture, A Comparative Anthology Of Sacred Texts. Retrieved from https://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Books/World-S/WS-Intro.htm

[76] Laura Reinig. “The Assembly of World's Religions.” The Words of the Reinig Family (November 15-21, 1985). Retrieved from https://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks1/Reinig/Reinig-851121.htm

[77] Sufism in the Service of Empire: the Case of the Maryamiyyah

[78] Wilson (ed.) “Introduction.” World Scripture, A Comparative Anthology Of Sacred Texts.

[79] Andrew Wilson. “‘Tikkun Olam’ in Jerusalem.”  The Words of the Wilson Family. Retrieved from https://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Wilson/Wilson-070112.htm

Divide & Conquer