This appendix is a list of articles cited in some of the major indices of humanities journals. It is not an exhaustive list of articles published on the Bahá'í Faith, for it is limited to: (1) articles published within the past two and a half decades; (2) articles found in those journals or magazines commonly available in public and college libraries; (3) articles referenced under the keywords Bahai, Bahaism, Bahá'u'lláh, Bábí, and Bábísm. It does, however, list all articles (some short book reviews have been excluded) cited in these sources. It is for the first two of these reasons that the researcher might find it helpful--that is, the articles contained herein are precisely those most easily accessible.
More complete bibliographies can be found by consulting the Index Islamicus and William Collins' Bibliography of English-Language Works on the Bábí and Bahá'í Faiths 1844-1985, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, and the Social Sciences Citation Index. The Bahá'í Studies Bulletin, 6.2-3 (Feb. 1992) includes an appendix listing citations from AHCI and other academic indices, and many of the later issues of the Bulletin list addenda to Collins' Bibliography. Further, Seena Fazel has demonstrated in "Some Observations Regarding Bibliographic Citations in Non-Bahá'í Periodicals and the Academic Study of the Bahá'í Faith," in Bahá'í Studies Bulletin, 6.2-3 (Feb. 1992), and "The Bahá'í Faith and Academic Journals," in Bahá'í Studies Review, 3.2 (1994), that humanities indices, including AHCI and SSCI, are not always wholly accurate or consistent about citing Bahá'í materials.
The following indices and dates are included:Essay and General Literature Index, 1970-June 1988;
Humanities Index, April 1974-June 1996;
Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, March 1970-June 4 1996;
Social Sciences Index, April 1974-June 1996.The following keywords were searched:
"Bahai," "Bahaism," "Bahá'u'lláh," "Bábí," "Bábísm."
Note: to repeat, the above listing only includes common non-academic articles. More complete listings can be found by consulting the Index Islamicus, William Collins' Bibliography of English-Language Works on the Bábí and Bahá'í Faiths 1844-1985, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).
Here are listed the most common introductory textbooks and dictionaries on the world's religions, as well as some major encyclopedias, organized by the degree to which they include a useful presentation of the Bahá'í Faith. Since the focus of this bibliography is books more than authors, they are alphabetized by title. Parenthetical notes follow most entries.
Encyclopaedia Iranica. Ed. Ehsan Yarshater. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985-. (Without doubt the encyclopedia containing the most complete and most numerous entries on the Faith, its history, and its major personages. Articles by a veritable who's who of Bahá'í academics on a good variety of subjects, from Azalís to Cosmology, Bahá'í.)
Encyclopedia of Islam. Ed. H. Gibb et al. London: Luzac & Co., 1960. (Accurate articles but short.)
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Ed. James Hastings. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. (Though of course outdated, the entries contained are by Browne and are classics.)
A Handbook of Living Religions. Ed. John R. Hinnells. London: Penguin Books, 1985. (The article contained here is lengthy [23 pages] and accurate . . .)
Religions of the World. Lewis M. Hopfe. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987. (This discussion of the Faith is relatively complete and well- written, though at ten pages it is a little too abbreviated.)
World Faiths. S. A. Nigosian. New York: St. Martins Press, 1994. (Probably the most complete treatment of the Bahá'í Faith in any introductory textbook. Save for a few minor inaccuracies the presentation is quite reliable.)
America's Alternative Religions. Ed. Timothy Miller. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995. (Article on the Faith, "The American Bahá'í Community in the Nineties," is good but too specific to use as a general introductory text.)
Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1979. (Good but insufficient entries for an encyclopedia of this size.)
Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987. (The entries, by Alessandro Bausani, are good but noticeably short for this, the definitive encylopedia of religion.)
Living Religions. Mary Pat Fisher. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994. (Though only two pages long, this section is well-written and sympathetic.)
The Religious Experience of Mankind. Ninian Smart. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984. (Well-written and accurate but only two pages long.)
A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions. Ed. Joel Beversluis. New York: CoNexus Press, 1995. Also published as Sourcebook for the Community of Religions, A. Ed. Joel Beversluis. Chicago: The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, 1993. (This book consists of a series of brief overviews, and the section on the Faith provides a good explnation of basic Bahá'í history and teachings. However, it and the other summaries are too short to use as effective introductions.)
World Religions. Warren Matthews. St. Paul: West Publishing, 1991. (Matthews' discussion of the Faith, though not very long, contains a good amount of detail on the Faith's history and is fairly presented.)
World Religions: Western Traditions. Ed. Willard G. Oxtoby. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. (The section on the Bahá'í Faith, pp. 500-503, is well-written and useful, suffering only from brevity.)
The World's Religions. Ed. Peter Clarke. London: Reader's Digest, 1993. (Small introduction on p.205, under the "Islamic" section.)
The World's Religions. Ninian Smart. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1989. (Like Smart's The Religious Experience of Mankind, presentation is accurate and fair but only two pages long.)
The Encyclopedia Americana. Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Incorporated, 1992. (Articles are out of date and contain the consequent inaccuracies, but are otherwise complete summaries.)
History of the World's Religions. David S. and John B. Noss. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990. (An otherwise very respectable textbook, its discussion of the Faith is brief and often misleading.)
Larouse Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions. (Though suffering from a bad writing style and minor errors, these entries are sufficiently long and detailed to include in this section.)
Academic American Encyclopedia. Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Incorporated,1995. (Entries are mostly accurate but too short to be of use.
Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. (Contains numerous errors.)
The Dictionary of Bible and Religion. Gen. Ed. William H. Gentz. Nashville: Parthenon Press, 1986. (Sympathetic but brief and not well-written.)
The Harper Collins Dictionary of Religion. Jonathon Z. Smith, ed. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995. (Relatively complete entries, but containing serious and even humorous errors.)
Many People, Many Faiths. Robert S. Ellwood. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992. (Brief mention of the Faith as a new religious movement, on p.387.)
A New Dictionary of Religions. John R. Hinnells, ed. Oxford: Penguin Books Ltd. 1995. (Fairly accurate but short.)
Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion. William E. Paden. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988. (Accurate but minimal entry.)
Ways to the Center: An Introduction to World Religions. Denise and John T. Carmody. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1993. (Contains only one small paragraph on the Faith, but includes a large picture of the Shrine of the Báb.)
World Religions: An Introduction. Charles R. Monroe. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1995. (Minimal entry.)
The World's Religions. Huston Smith. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. (Though otherwise one of the very best introductory texts on world religions, this book makes only one mention of the Faith.)
After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions. Ed. P.M. Cooey. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1992.
Exploring Religious Meaning. Ed. Robert C. Monk et al. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994.
Historical Atlas of the Religions of the World. Ed. I. Faruqi. New York: MacMillan, 1974.
The Illustrated World's Religions. Huston Smith. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994.
The Major Religions: An Introduction with Texts. T. Patrick Burke. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
Man's Religious Quest - A Reader. Ed. W. Foy. London: Open University Press, 1978.
Mysticism in the World's Religions. Geoffrey Parrinder. London: Sheldon Press, 1976.
Our Religions. Arvind Sharma, ed. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993.
Pluralism: Challenge to World Religions. H. Coward. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1985.
Problems of Suffering in the Religions of the World. J. Bowker. London: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Religions of the World. Niels C. Nielsen, Jr., et al. New York: St. Martins, 1988.
Religious Traditions of the World. H. Byron Earhart, ed. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993.
The Great Religions of the Modern World. Ed. E.J. Jurgi. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946.
The World's Religions. Ed. S. Sutherland. London: Routledge, 1988.
This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature and the Environment. Ed. RS Gottlieb. NY: Routledge, 1996.
The Varieties of Religious Experience. William James. (First appeared in 1902 and since republished numerous times. No mention of Faith, but listed because it is a classic and a standard.)
World Religions - Our Quest for Meaning. Raush, D.A. and C. Voss. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989.
World Religions and Human Liberation. D. Cohn-Sherbok. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1992.
World Religions and World Community.R.L. Slater. NY: Colombia UP, 1963.
World Religions in War and Peace. H.O. Thompson. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1988.
A World Religions Reader. Ed. Ian S. Markham. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.