The first meeting of the reconstituted Association for Bahai Studies (ABS) in Ireland was held over the weekend of October 28th-29th, 2000 in the Bahái Centre in the Oldtown, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. Under the theme of "The Baháí Community Now: Its Principles and Practice" there were stimulating and challenging papers on such subjects as the Four Year plan, equality, the independent investigation of truth, the global economy, early Islam, electronic communications and the international auxiliary language. In all there were ten participants, including two from Northern Ireland.
Edwin Graham from Lurgan presented a paper on equality legislation in Northern Ireland, which asked some pertinent questions about social categorisation and discrimination; it suggested that we need to look more carefully at what we mean by equality in a community divided by political and religious allegiances. Edwin pointed out that equality, as explained by Abdul-Bahá in His Western addresses, applied most clearly to educational opportunity.
On Sunday morning the paper by Dr Iain Palin (Londonderry), who frequently delighted everyone with his witty comments, teased out some of the issues raised by the Internet for the Baháí community in Britain with regard to both e-mails and Bahai websites. The talk demonstrated how electronically aware the British community is compared with that in Ireland.
After consultation about the weekend and plans for the future, Dr Iarfhlaith Watson stressed the need for humility on the part of Bahái scholars and for a balance between faith and reason, and reminded everyone that the ABS is not simply for academics, but will welcome papers from believers with something interesting and insightful to contribute to the ever-expanding realm of Bahái knowledge; he hoped there would be more cross-Border co-operation from now on, as this was seen to be a very beneficial aspect of the weekend.
The Association for Bahái Studies Conference on the Covenant took place at the National Baháí Centre in Dublin on 10th and 11th February. The intensive two-day sessions were facilitated by Todd Lawson, a distinguished Canadian academic in Islamic Studies based at McGill University in Canada. Since the early 1970s, Todds initial interest in Islam has become a lifelong passion. Despite some jet lag, he showed himself to be a genial, skilful and enthusiastic facilitator during the two days of interactive study. This included a workshop in which three groups of between five and seven participants examined and then commented upon a short passage from the Quran (5:35) known as "The Light Verse."
At least half of the participants at the Conference were young people, and three had come specially from England.
With two ABS Weekends held during the Twelve Month Plan and an ABS Journal due for publication this year, the wheels of Bahai scholarship in Ireland are in motion at last.
Brian Corwin and Edwin McCloughan