Courses

'Abdu'l-Baha Abbas was a Persian thinker and social reformer who had spent decades as a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire before his release in 1908. During his 1912 North American tour, Abdu'l-Baha Abbas spoke before an audience of approximately 2,000 Stanford faculty and students on the themes that defined his public mission: the abolition of war, the oneness of humanity, the dangers of unchecked technological progress, the adoption of a universal auxiliary language, the advancement of women's education and equality, and the question of racism and racial justice in America. His presence at Stanford was not incidental - it reflected a serious intellectual engagement with the modern world at a moment of profound global transformation. This course asks: what kind of modernism did 'Abdu'l-Baha Abbas's vision represent? We will examine the philosophical and historical roots of his thought, tracing how an Iranian prisoner of conscience became one of the early twentieth century's most compelling voices on global order and human advancement.