Monthly Reflection: Masa’il (Questions) – On Exploring the Online Space

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Hi friends!

We’ve been hollering it from the virtual rooftops so we hope you’ve noticed that our co-founder, Naysan, has launched a new sister channel to Baha’i Blog called Baha’i Inspired! It’s very exciting news!!

Baha’i Blog has been running for almost 14 years and in that time we’d like to believe that we have changed, grown, and learned a lot about how we, as an individual initiative, can contribute to the promotion of Baha’i teachings in the online space, whether that be by making our own articles, music, videos and images, or whether it’s helping other individuals or institutions to make content, or by sharing and promoting exciting new initiatives and endeavours (a most recent example would be our interview with Nava Revalk and Kian Jones of That Married Couple Podcast). The bedrock our consultations has been this incredible resource letter written by the Universal House of Justice regarding the medium of the internet and promoting the Baha’i Faith. Whenever anyone asks details about behind-the-scenes at Baha’i Blog, 99.9% of the time I refer to this letter because it is unfathomably rich and worthy of repeated study.

Baha’i Inspired differs from Baha’i Blog in that its content and its audience are more distinctively North American in flavour since Naysan is now living in the United States. Baha’i-Inspired is going to explore different ideas and concepts than Baha’i Blog has, beginning with a musical project called Hip Hop Sessions!

We’ve always described Baha’i Blog’s Studio Sessions as “an initiative where we invite Baha’is and their friends from around the world to come into a studio and share the Baha’i Writings put to music.” As a guiding principle to our project, we decided to limit Studio Sessions to songs whose words are strictly excerpts from the Baha’i Writings and letters from Shoghi Effendi and the House of Justice. This is where Hip Hop sessions is very different since its songs share personal stories and perspectives inspired by the teachings, as opposed to musical renditions of specific passages. I’m really excited to follow along as songs are rolled out! Here’s its inaugural video called “Mona” by Karim Rushdy and featuring Andrea McLean.

From the outset, Naysan decided Baha’i Inspired would only share video content. To complement the release of “Mona”, Baha’i Inspired has also released a short video where Karim explains a little bit behind the song.

I’m thrilled that Baha’i Inspired just released a second song today about the meaning of true happiness:

I can’t wait to see what else Baha’i Inspired is going to share in the future! If you haven’t already, I would mightily encourage you to subscribe to Baha’i Inspired so you’ll be notified as new videos are released!

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Sonjel Vreeland

In her innermost heart, Sonjel is a stay-at-home parent and a bookworm with a maxed out library card but professionally she is a museologist with a background in English Literature. She currently lives on Prince Edward Island, an isle in the shape of a smile on the eastern Canadian coast. Sonjel is a writer who loves to listen to jazz when she's driving at night.