Mirrored from www.bahai-library.org
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AN APPRECIATION OF THE PLACE of the Guardianship in Bahá'í history must begin
with an objective consideration of the circumstances in which Shoghi Effendi's
mission had to be carried out. Particularly important is the fact that the
first half of this ministry unfolded between wars, a period marked by deepening
uncertainty and anxiety about all aspects of human affairs. On the one hand,
significant advances had been made in overcoming barriers between nations and
classes; on the other, political impotence and a resulting economic paralysis
greatly handicapped efforts to take advantage of these openings. There was
everywhere a sense that some fundamental redefinition of the nature of society
and the role its institutions should play was urgently needed — a redefinition,
indeed, of the purpose of human life itself.
In important respects, humanity found itself at the end of the first world war
able to explore possibilities never before imagined. Throughout Europe and the
Near East the absolutist systems that had been among the most powerful barriers
to unity had been swept away. To a great extent, too, fossilized religious
dogmas that had lent moral endorsement to the forces of conflict and alienation
were everywhere in question. Former subject peoples were free to consider plans
for their collective
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futures and to assume responsibility for their relationships with one another
through the instrumentality of the new nation-states created by the Versailles
settlement. The same ingenuity that had gone into producing weapons of
destruction was being turned to the challenging, but rewarding, tasks of
economic expansion. Out of the darkest days of the war had come poignant
stories, such as the impulse that had briefly moved British and German soldiers
to leave the slaughterhouse of the trenches to commemorate together the birth
of Christ, providing a flickering glimpse of the oneness of the human race
which the Master had tirelessly proclaimed in His journeys across that same
continent. Most important of all, an extraordinary effort of imagination had
brought the unification of humanity one immense step forward. The world's
leaders, however reluctantly, had created an international consultative system
which, though crippled by vested interests, gave the ideal of international
order its first suggestion of shape and structure.
The post-war awakening expressed itself world-wide. Under the leadership of Sun
Yat-sen, the Chinese people had already thrown off the decadent imperial regime
that had compromised the country's well-being, and were seeking to lay
foundations of a rebirth of that country's greatness. Throughout Latin America,
despite terrible and repeated set-backs, popular movements were likewise
struggling to gain control over their countries' destinies and the use of their
continent's immense natural resources. In India, one of the century's most
remarkable figures, Mohandas Gandhi, embarked on an enterprise that would not
only revolutionize the fortunes of his country, but also demonstrate
conclusively to the world what spiritual force can achieve. Africa was still
awaiting its moment of destiny, as were the inhabitants of other colonial
lands, but for anyone with eyes to see, a process of change had been set in
motion that could ultimately not be suppressed, because it represented the
universal yearnings of humankind.
These advances, however encouraging, could not conceal the historic tragedy
that had occurred. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the
proclamation of the Day of God addressed by Bahá'u'lláh to the rulers of His
day, in whose hands lay the destiny of humankind, had been either rejected or
ignored by its recipients in both East and
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45]
West. Reflection on so great a breach of faith throws into sobering perspective
the subsequent response that had met the mission of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the West.
However much one may rejoice in the praise poured on the Master from every
quarter, the immediate results of His efforts represented yet another immense
moral failure on the part of a considerable portion of humankind and of its
leadership. The message that had been suppressed in the East was essentially
ignored by a Western world which had proceeded down the path of ruin long
prepared for it by overweening self-satisfaction, leading finally to the
betrayal of the ideal embodied in the League of Nations.
In consequence, the two decades immediately after Shoghi Effendi assumed his
responsibility for the vindication of the Cause of God were a period of
deepening gloom throughout the Western world, which seemed to reflect a massive
setback in the process of integration and enlightenment so confidently
proclaimed by the Master. It was as if political, social and economic life had
fallen into a kind of limbo. Grave doubts developed about the capacity of the
liberal democratic tradition to cope with the problems of the times; indeed, in
a number of European countries, governments inspired by such principles were
replaced by authoritarian regimes. Soon, the economic crash of 1929 led to a
world-wide reduction in material well- being, with all the further moral and
psychological insecurities that resulted.
An appreciation of these circumstances helps us to understand the magnitude of
the challenge facing Shoghi Effendi at the outset of his ministry. So far as
the objective condition of humankind, as he encountered it, was concerned,
there was nothing that would have inspired confidence that the vision of a new
world bequeathed him by the Founders of the Bahá'í Cause could be significantly
advanced during whatever span of years might be allowed him.
Nor did the instrument available to him appear to possess the strength, the
resilience or the sophistication his task required. In 1923, when Shoghi
Effendi was eventually able to assume full direction of the Cause, the core of
Bahá'u'lláh's followers consisted of the body of believers in Iran, of whose
number not even a reliable estimate could have then been produced. Denied most
of the means necessary to their promotion of the Cause, and
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46]
severely limited in the material resources at their disposal, the Iranian
community was hedged about by constant harassment. In North America, charged with
the daunting responsibilities of the Divine Plan, small communities of
believers found themselves struggling with the simple challenges of making a
livelihood for themselves and their families as the economic crisis steadily
deepened. In Europe, Australasia and the Far East, even smaller Bahá'í groups
kept the flame of the Faith alive, as did isolated groups, families and
individuals scattered throughout the rest of the world. Literature, even in
English, was inadequate, and the task of translating the Writings into other
major languages and of finding the funds to publish them represented an almost
impossible burden.
Though the vision communicated by the Master burned as brightly as ever, the
means at their disposal must have appeared to Bahá'ís as pitifully inadequate
in the face of the conditions prevailing everywhere. The hulking black
foundation of the future Mother Temple of the West, rising over the lake front
north of Chicago, seemed to mock the brilliant conception that had dazzled the
architectural world only a few years before. In Baghdad, the "Most Holy
House", designated by Bahá'u'lláh as the focal centre of Bahá'í
pilgrimage, had been seized by opponents of the Faith. In the Holy Land itself,
the Mansion of Bahá'u'lláh was falling into ruin as a result of neglect by the
Covenant-breakers who occupied it, and the Shrine housing the precious remains
of both the Báb and 'Abdu'l-Bahá had progressed no further than the simple
stone structure raised by the Master.
A series of exploratory consultations with leading Bahá'ís made it clear to the
Guardian that even a formal discussion with qualified believers about the
creation of an international secretariat would be not only useless, but
probably counterproductive. It was alone, therefore, that Shoghi Effendi set
out on the task of propelling forward the vast enterprise entrusted to his
hands. How completely alone he was is almost impossible for the present
generation of Bahá'ís to grasp; to the extent one does grasp it, the
realization is acutely painful.
Initially, the Guardian assumed that the members of the Master's extended
family, whose distinguished lineage brought them immense respect from Bahá'ís
everywhere, would welcome the opportunity to assist him in realizing the
purpose that the Master's Will had set out in
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language so imperative and moving. Accordingly, he invited his brothers, his
cousins and one of his sisters, whose education made them qualified for the
purpose, to provide the administrative support that the demanding work of the
Guardianship required. Tragically, as time passed, one after another of these
persons proved dissatisfied with the supporting role thus assigned and careless
in the discharge of its functions. Far more seriously, Shoghi Effendi found
himself facing a situation in which the authority conferred on him, although
expressed in uncompromising terms in the Will and Testament, was seen by those
related to him as relatively nominal in character. These individuals preferred
to regard the leadership of the Faith as essentially a family affair in which
great weight should be placed on the views of senior figures among them, who
were supposedly qualified to assume such a prerogative. Beginning with
demonstrations of sullen resistance, the situation steadily deteriorated to a
point where the children and grandchildren of 'Abdu'l-Bahá felt free to
disagree with His appointed successor and to disobey his instructions.
Rúhíyyih Khánum, who saw this process of deterioration in its later stages and
herself suffered greatly in witnessing its effects on both the work of the
Cause and the Guardian personally, has written:
...one must understand the old story of Cain and Abel, the story of family jealousies which, like a sombre thread in the fabric of history, runs through all its epochs and can be traced in all its events.... The weakness of the human heart, which so often attaches itself to an unworthy object, the weakness of the human mind, prone to conceit and self-assurance in personal opinions, involve people in a welter of emotions that blind their judgment and lead them far astray.... Even though this phenomenon of Covenant-breaking seems to be an inherent aspect of religion this does not mean it produces no damaging effect on the Cause.... Above all it does not mean that a devastating effect is not produced on the Centre of the Covenant himself. Shoghi Effendi's whole life was darkened by the vicious personal attacks made upon him.[55]
This sombre background casts in an all the more brilliant light the
achievements of the Greatest Holy Leaf, sister of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and last
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survivor of the Faith's Heroic Age. Bahíyyih Khánum played a vital role in
guarding the interests of the Cause after the Master's death and became Shoghi
Effendi's sole effective support. Her fidelity evoked from his pen perhaps the
most deeply moving passages he was ever to write. The apostrophe he addressed
to her after her passing in 1932 was set in a letter to the Bahá'ís
"throughout the West", which itself read in part:
Only future generations and pens abler than mine can, and will, pay a worthy tribute to the towering grandeur of her spiritual life, to the unique part she played throughout the tumultuous stages of Bahá'í history, to the expressions of unqualified praise that have streamed from the pen of both Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Center of His covenant, though unrecorded, and in the main unsuspected by the mass of her passionate admirers in East and West, the share she has had in influencing the course of some of the chief events in the annals of the Faith, the sufferings she bore, the sacrifices she made, the rare gifts of unfailing sympathy she so strikingly displayed — these, and many others stand so inextricably interwoven with the fabric of the Cause itself that no future historian of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh can afford to ignore or minimize.... Which of the blessings am I to recount, which in her unfailing solicitude she showered upon me, in the most critical and agitated hours of my life? To me, standing in so dire a need of the vitalizing grace of God, she was the living symbol of many an attribute I had learned to admire in 'Abdu'l-Bahá.[56]
For long years, the Guardian felt that the protection of the Cause required him
to maintain silence about the deteriorating situation in the Holy Family. Only
as opposition finally burst into acts of open defiance, eventually involving
the family in shameful collaboration and even marriages with members of the
very band of Covenant-breakers against whose treachery the Will and Testament
of the Master had warned in vehement language, as well as with a local family
deeply hostile to the Cause, did Shoghi Effendi eventually feel compelled to
expose to the Bahá'í world the nature of the delinquencies with which he was
having to deal.[57]
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49]
This sad history is of importance to an understanding of the Cause in the
twentieth century not only because of what the Guardian called the
"havoc" it wreaked in the Holy Family, but because of the light it
casts on the challenges the Bahá'í community will increasingly face in the
years ahead, challenges predicted in explicit language by both the Master and
the Guardian. Apart from the insincerity that marked all too many of them, the
relatives of Shoghi Effendi demonstrated little or no awareness of the
spiritual nature of the role conferred on him in the Will and Testament. That
the Revelation of God to the age of humanity's maturity should have brought
with it, as a central feature of its mission, an authority essential for the
restructuring of social order represented a spiritual challenge they seemed
unable, or perhaps never sought, to understand. Their abandonment of the
Guardian is a lesson that will remain with posterity down through the centuries
of the Bahá'í Dispensation. The fate of this most privileged but unworthy
company of human beings underlines for all who read their story both the
significance that the Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh holds for the unification of
humankind and the uncompromising demands it makes on those who seek its
shelter.
In considering the events of the ministry of Shoghi Effendi, Bahá'ís need to
make the effort of imagination to see, through his eyes, the nature of the
mission laid on him. Our guide is the body of writings he has left.
'Abdu'l-Bahá had proclaimed in countless Tablets and talks the pivotal
principle of Bahá'u'lláh's message: "In this wondrous Revelation, this
glorious century, the foundation of the Faith of God and the distinguishing
feature of His Law is the consciousness of the Oneness of Mankind."[58] 'Abdu'l-Bahá had been
equally emphatic in asserting, as already noted, that the revolutionary changes
taking place in every field of human endeavour now made the unification of
humanity a realistic objective. It was this vision that, for the thirty-six
years of his Guardianship, provided the organizing force of Shoghi Effendi's
work. Its implications were the theme of some of the most important messages he
wrote.
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Addressing in 1931 the friends in the West, he opened for them a brilliant
vista:
The principle of the Oneness of Mankind — the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh revolve — is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the fostering of harmonious cooperation among individual peoples and nations. Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the Prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family.... It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not experienced.... It calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world — a world organically unified in all the essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its federated units.[59]
A concept that showed itself strongly in the Guardian's writings was the
organic metaphor in which Bahá'u'lláh, and subsequently 'Abdu'l-Bahá, had captured
the millennia-long process that has carried humanity to this culminating point
in its collective history. That image was the analogy that can be drawn
between, on the one hand, the stages by which human society has been gradually
organized and integrated, and, on the other, the process by which each human
being slowly develops out of the limitations of infantile existence into the
powers of maturity. It appears prominently in several of Shoghi Effendi's
writings on the transformation taking place in our time:
The long ages of infancy and childhood, through which the human race had to pass, have receded into the background. Humanity is now experiencing the commotions invariably associated with the
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most turbulent stage of its evolution, the stage of adolescence, when the
impetuosity of youth and its vehemence reach their climax, and must gradually
be superseded by the calmness, the wisdom, and the maturity that characterize
the stage of manhood.[60]
Deliberation on this vast conception was to lead Shoghi Effendi to provide the
Bahá'í world with a coherent description of the future that has since permitted
three generations of believers to articulate for governments, media and the
general public in every part of the world the perspective in which the Bahá'í
Faith pursues its work:
The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá'u'lláh, implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded. This commonwealth must, as far as we can visualize it, consist of a world legislature, whose members will, as the trustees of the whole of mankind, ultimately control the entire resources of all the component nations, and will enact such laws as shall be required to regulate the life, satisfy the needs and adjust the relationships of all races and peoples. A world executive, backed by an international Force, will carry out the decisions arrived at, and apply the laws enacted by, this world legislature, and will safeguard the organic unity of the whole commonwealth. A world tribunal will adjudicate and deliver its compulsory and final verdict in all and any disputes that may arise between the various elements constituting this universal system.... The economic resources of the world will be organized, its sources of raw materials will be tapped and fully utilized, its markets will be coordinated and developed, and the distribution of its products will be equitably regulated.[61]
Writing a definitive interpretation of the Administrative Order in "The
Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh", Shoghi Effendi made particular reference to
the role that the institution he himself represented would play in enabling the
Cause "to take a long, an uninterrupted view over a series of
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52]
generations...." This unique endowment expressed itself with particular
clarity in his description of the dual nature of the historical process that he
saw unfolding in the twentieth century. The landscape of international affairs
would, he said, be increasingly reshaped by twin forces of "integration"
and "disintegration", both of them ultimately beyond human control.
In the light of what meets our eyes today, his previsioning of the operation of
this dual process is breathtaking: the creation of "a mechanism of world
inter-communication .... functioning with marvellous swiftness and perfect
regularity";[62] the undermining of the
nation-state as the chief arbiter of human destiny; the devastating effects
that advancing moral breakdown throughout the world would have on social
cohesion; the widespread public disillusionment produced by political
corruption; and — unimaginable to others of his generation — the rise of global
agencies dedicated to promoting human welfare, coordinating economic activity,
defining international standards, and encouraging a sense of solidarity among
diverse races and cultures. These and other developments, the Guardian
explained, would fundamentally alter the conditions in which the Bahá'í Cause
would pursue its mission in the decades lying ahead.
One of the striking developments of this kind that Shoghi Effendi discerned in
the Writings he was called on to interpret concerned the future role of the
United States as a nation, and, to a lesser extent, its sister nations in the
Western hemisphere. His foresight is all the more remarkable when one remembers
that he was writing during a period of history when the United States was
determinedly isolationist in both its foreign policy and the convictions of the
majority of its citizens. Shoghi Effendi, however, envisioned the country
assuming an "active and decisive part ... in the organization and the
peaceful settlement of the affairs of mankind". He reminded Bahá'ís of
'Abdu'l-Bahá's anticipation that, because of the unique nature of its social
composition and political development — as opposed to any "inherent
excellence or special merit" of its people — the United States had
developed capacities that could empower it to be "the first nation to
establish the foundation of international agreement". Indeed, he foresaw
the governments and peoples of the entire hemisphere becoming increasingly
oriented in this direction.[63]
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The role that the Bahá'í community must play in helping bring about this
consummation of the historical process had been prefigured in the summons
addressed to His followers by the Báb, at the very birth of the Cause:
O My beloved friends! You are the bearers of the name of God in this Day.... You are the lowly, of whom God has thus spoken in His Book: "And We desire to show favour to those who were brought low in the land, and to make them spiritual leaders among men, and to make them Our heirs." You have been called to this station; you will attain to it, only if you arise to trample beneath your feet every earthly desire, and endeavour to become those "honoured servants of His who speak not till He hath spoken, and who do His bidding".... Heed not your weaknesses and frailty; fix your gaze upon the invincible power of the Lord, your God, the Almighty.... Arise in His name, put your trust wholly in Him, and be assured of ultimate victory.[64]
As early as 1923, Shoghi Effendi was moved to open his heart on this subject to
the friends in North America:
Let us pray to God that in these days of world-encircling gloom, when the dark forces of nature, of hate, rebellion, anarchy and reaction are threatening the very stability of human society, when the most precious fruits of civilization are undergoing severe and unparalleled tests, we may all realize, more profoundly than ever, that though but a mere handful amidst the seething masses of the world, we are in this day the chosen instruments of God's grace, that our mission is most urgent and vital to the fate of humanity, and, fortified by these sentiments, arise to achieve God's holy purpose for mankind.[65]
Fully aware of the condition into which society had fallen, the consequences of
his betrayal at the hands of family members on whose assistance he should have
been able to rely, and the relative weakness of
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the resources available to him in the Bahá'í community itself, Shoghi Effendi
arose to forge the means needed to realize the mission bequeathed to him.
To one degree or another, most Bahá'ís no doubt appreciated that the Assemblies
they were being called on to form had a significance far beyond the mere
management of practical affairs with which they were charged. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who
had guided this development, had spoken of them as:
...shining lamps and heavenly gardens, from which the fragrances of holiness are diffused over all regions, and the lights of knowledge are shed abroad over all created things. From them the spirit of life streameth in every direction. They, indeed, are the potent sources of the progress of man, at all times and under all conditions.[66]
It fell to Shoghi Effendi, however, to assist the community to understand the
place and role of these national and local consultative bodies in the framework
of the Administrative Order created by Bahá'u'lláh and elaborated in the
provisions of the Master's Will and Testament. An obstacle faced by a
significant number of believers in this respect was the unexamined assumption
of many that the Cause was essentially a "spiritual" association in
which organization, while not necessarily antithetical, did not constitute an
inherent feature of the Divine purpose. Emphasizing that the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and
the Will and Testament "are not only complementary, but ... mutually
confirm one another, and are inseparable parts of one complete unit",[67] the Guardian invited the
believers to reflect deeply on a central truth of the Cause they had embraced:
Few will fail to recognize that the Spirit breathed by Bahá'u'lláh upon the world, and which is manifesting itself with varying degrees of intensity through the efforts consciously displayed by His avowed supporters and indirectly through certain humanitarian organizations, can never permeate and exercise an abiding influence upon mankind unless and until it incarnates itself in a visible Order, which would bear His name, wholly identify itself with His principles, and function in conformity with His laws.[68]
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He went on to urge the Faith's followers to realize the essential difference
between the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh, whose Revealed Texts contain detailed
provisions for such an authoritative Order, and those preparatory Revelations
whose Scriptures had been largely silent on the administration of affairs and
on the interpretation of their Founders' intent. In the words of Bahá'u'lláh:
"The Prophetic Cycle hath, verily, ended. The Eternal Truth is now come.
He hath lifted up the Ensign of Power...."[69] Unlike
the Dispensations of the past, the Revelation of God to this age has given
birth, Shoghi Effendi said, to "a living organism", whose laws and
institutions constitute "the essentials of a Divine Economy", "a
pattern for future society", and "the one agency for the unification
of the world, and the proclamation of the reign of righteousness and justice
upon the earth".[70]
The friends should strive to appreciate, therefore, the Guardian urged, that
the Spiritual Assemblies they were painstakingly establishing throughout the
world were the forerunners of the local and national "Houses of
Justice" envisioned by Bahá'u'lláh. As such, they were integral parts of
an Administrative Order that will, in time, "assert its claim and
demonstrate its capacity to be regarded not only as the nucleus but the very
pattern of the New World Order destined to embrace in the fullness of time the
whole of mankind".[71]
For a few in the young communities of the West, such a departure from
traditional conceptions of the nature and role of religion proved too great a
test, and Bahá'í communities suffered the distress of seeing valued co-workers
drift away in search of spiritual pursuits more congenial to their
inclinations. For the vast majority of believers, however, great messages from
the Guardian's pen, such as "The Goal of a New World Order" and
"The Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh", threw brilliant light on precisely
the issue that most concerned them, the relationship between spiritual truth
and social development, inspiring in them a determination to play their part in
laying the foundations of humanity's future.
The Guardian provided, as well, the organizing image for this mighty work. The
"Heroic Age" of Bahá'u'lláh's Dispensation, he declared, had ended
with the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The Bahá'í community now embarked on the
"Iron Age", the "Formative Age", in which the
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Administrative Order would be erected throughout the planet, its institutions
established and the "society building" powers inherent in it fully
revealed. Far ahead lay what Shoghi Effendi called the "Golden Age"
of the Dispensation, leading eventually to the emergence of the Bahá'í World
Commonwealth that will constitute the establishment on earth of the Kingdom of
God and the creation of a world civilization.[72] The
impulse that had been initially communicated to human consciousness through the
revelation of the Creative Word itself, whose revolutionary social implications
had been proclaimed by the Master, was now being translated by their appointed
interpreter into the vocabulary of political and economic transformation in
which the public discourse of the century was everywhere taking place. Lending
the process irresistible force, illuminating ever new dimensions of Bahá'í
experience, and serving as the mainspring of the unification of humankind it
proclaimed was the Covenant that Bahá'u'lláh had established between Himself
and those who turn to Him.
Although not initially designated "Spiritual Assemblies", the
councils that local Bahá'í communities in Persia had been encouraged by
'Abdu'l-Bahá to create had assumed responsibility for the administration of
their affairs. In the light of what was to follow, no one with a sense of
history can fail to be struck by the fact that the Faith's first Spiritual
Assembly, that of Tehran, was founded in 1897, the year of Shoghi Effendi's own
birth. Under the Master's guidance, intermittent meetings held by the four
Hands of the Cause in Persia had gradually evolved into this institution that
served simultaneously as Persia's "Central Spiritual Assembly" and as
the governing body of the local community in the capital. By the time of
'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing, there were more than thirty Local Spiritual Assemblies
established in Persia. In 1922 Shoghi Effendi called for the formal establishment
of Persia's National Spiritual Assembly, an achievement delayed until 1934 by
the demands related to the taking of a reliable census of the community as a
basis for the election of delegates.
Outside Persia, the believers in 'Ishqábád, in Russian Turkestan, elected their
first Local Spiritual Assembly, a body that assumed an important role in the
project for the construction of the first Bahá'í Mashriqu'l-Adhkár in
'Ishqábád. In North America a variety of consultative arrangements —
"Boards of Council", "Council Boards", "Boards of
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57]
Consultation" and "Working Committees" — performed analogous
functions, evolving gradually into elected bodies that constituted the
forerunners of Spiritual Assemblies. By the time of the Master's passing, there
were perhaps forty such councils functioning in North America. These
developments prepared the way for the eventual emergence of the first National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada, which
evolved from the "Temple Unity Board", a body created in 1909 to
coordinate construction of the future House of Worship. It was formed in 1923,
although the administrative requirements set by the Guardian for this step were
met only in 1925. Before this latter date arrived, National Assemblies had been
established in the British Isles, in Germany and Austria, in India and Burma,
and in Egypt and the Sudan.[73]
As the formation of National and Local Spiritual Assemblies was taking place,
the Guardian began to lay emphasis on the importance of their securing
recognition as "corporate persons" under civil law. By securing such
formal incorporation, in whatever fashion proved practicable, Bahá'í
administrative institutions would be enabled to hold property, enter into
contracts, and gradually assume a range of legal rights vital to the interests
of the Cause. The importance Shoghi Effendi attached to this new stage of
administrative evolution becomes clear in the photocopies of such civil
instruments that began to become a major feature of the photographic coverage
of the expansion of the Faith in successive volumes of The Bahá'í World.
Indeed, once the Mansion at Bahjí had been repossessed and fully restored to
its original condition, and appropriately furnished, Shoghi Effendi put
together a collection of this much valued documentation for display there as an
encouragement and education for the growing stream of pilgrims to the World
Centre.
The processes of civil incorporation began with the adoption in 1927 of a
Declaration of Trust and By-Laws for the National Spiritual Assembly of the
United States and Canada, which gained civil recognition as a voluntary trust
two years later. On 17 February 1932 the first local Bahá'í Assembly, that of
Chicago, adopted papers of incorporation which, together with those adopted by
that of New York City on 31 March of that year, were to become a pattern for
such instruments throughout the world. By 1949, the National Spiritual Assembly
of the Bahá'ís of
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Canada — formed when the two North American Bahá'í communities had separated
the previous year — was able to secure formal recognition of its status under
civil law through a special Act of Parliament, a victory which Shoghi Effendi
hailed as "an act wholly unprecedented in the annals of the Faith in any
country, in either East or West".[74]
These pressing administrative demands did not distract Shoghi Effendi from
other tasks that were vital to shaping the spiritual life of a global
community. The most important of these was the arduous work that he alone could
perform in providing the growing body of the believers who were not of Persian
background with direct and reliable access to the Writings of the Faith's
Founders. The Hidden Words, The Kitáb-i-Íqan, the priceless treasury brought
together with so much love and insight under the title Gleanings from the
Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, Prayers and Meditations of Bahá'u'lláh and Epistle
to the Son of the Wolf provided the spiritual nourishment the work of the Cause
urgently required, as did Shoghi Effendi's translation and editing of Nabíl's
"Narrative" under the title The Dawn-Breakers.
Bahá'í pilgrims found spiritual enrichment of yet another kind in the Holy
Places and historic sites that the Guardian acquired — often at the cost of
protracted and wrenching negotiations — and lovingly restored. Shoghi Effendi
was equally responsive to unexpected opportunities that offered themselves to
his historical perspective. In 1925, a Sunni Muslim religious court in Egypt
denied civil recognition to marriages contracted between Muslim women and
Bahá'í men, insisting that "The Bahá'í Faith is a new religion, entirely
independent" and that "no Bahá'í, therefore, can be regarded a
Muslim" (and therefore qualified to enter into marriage with someone who
was).[75] Seizing on the larger
implications of this apparent defeat, the Guardian made wide use of the court's
definitive judgement to reinforce the claim of the Cause in international
circles to be an independent Faith, separate and distinct from its Islamic
roots.
As the Bahá'í community was constructing administrative foundations which would
permit it to play an effective role in human affairs, the
[page
59]
accelerating process of disintegration that Shoghi Effendi had discerned was
undermining the fabric of social order. Its origins, however determinedly
ignored by many social and political theorists, are beginning, after the lapse
of several decades, to gain recognition at international conferences devoted to
peace and development. In our own time, it is no longer unusual to encounter in
such circles candid references to the essential role that "spiritual"
and "moral" forces must play in achieving solutions to urgent
problems. For a Bahá'í reader, such belated recognition awakens echoes of
warning addressed over a century earlier by Bahá'u'lláh to the rulers of human
affairs: "The vitality of men's belief in God is dying out in every
land.... The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human
society...."[76]
The responsibility for this greatest of tragedies, the Guardian emphasized,
rests primarily on the shoulders of the world's religious leaders.
Bahá'u'lláh's severest condemnation is reserved for those who, presuming to
speak in God's name, have imposed on credulous masses a welter of dogmas and
prejudices that have constituted the greatest single obstacle against which the
advancement of civilization has been forced to struggle. While acknowledging
the humanitarian services of countless individual clerics, He points out the
consequences of the way in which self-appointed religious elites, throughout
history, have interposed themselves between humanity and all voices of
progress, not excluding the Messengers of God Themselves. "What
'oppression' is more grievous," He asks, "than that a soul seeking
the truth, and wishing to attain unto the knowledge of God, should know not
where to go for it...?"[77] In an
age of scientific advancement and widespread popular education, the cumulative
effects of the resulting disillusionment were to make religious faith appear
irrelevant. Impotent themselves to deal with the spiritual crisis, most of
those clerics of various Faiths who became aware of Bahá'u'lláh's message
either ignored the moral influence it was demonstrating or actively opposed it.[78]
Recognition of this feature of history does not diminish the harm done by those
who have sought to take advantage of the spiritual vacuum thus left. The
yearning for belief is inextinguishable, an inherent part of what makes one
human. When it is blocked or betrayed, the rational soul
[page 60]
is driven to seek some new compass point, however inadequate or unworthy,
around which it can organize experience and dare again to assume the risks that
are an inescapable aspect of life. It was in this perspective that Shoghi
Effendi warned the members of the Faith, in unusually strong language, that
they must try to understand the spiritual calamity engulfing a large part of
humankind during the decades between the two world wars:
God Himself has indeed been dethroned from the hearts of men, and an idolatrous world passionately and clamorously hails and worships the false gods which its own idle fancies have fatuously created, and its misguided hands so impiously exalted.... Their high priests are the politicians and the worldly-wise, the so-called sages of the age; their sacrifice, the flesh and blood of the slaughtered multitudes; their incantations, outworn shibboleths and insidious and irreverent formulas; their incense, the smoke of anguish that ascends from the lacerated hearts of the bereaved, the maimed, and the homeless.[79]
Like opportunistic infections, aggressive ideologies took advantage of the
situation created by the decline of religious vitality. Although
indistinguishable from one another in the corruption of faith they represented,
the three belief systems that played a dominant role in human affairs during
the twentieth century differed sharply in their secondary and more conspicuous
characteristics to which the Guardian drew attention. In denouncing "the
dark, the false, and crooked doctrines" that would bring devastation on
"any man or people who believes in them", Shoghi Effendi warned
particularly against "the triple gods of Nationalism, Racialism and
Communism".[80]
Of Fascism's founding regime, created by the so-called "March on
Rome" in 1922, little need be said. Long before it and its leader had been
swept into oblivion during the concluding months of the second world war,
Fascism had become an object of ridicule among the majority of even those who
had originally supported it. Its significance lies, rather, in the host of
imitators it spawned and which were to proliferate throughout the world like
some malignant series of mutations, in the decades since then. Fuelled by a
manic nationalism, this aberration
[page
61]
of the human spirit deified the state, discovered everywhere imaginary threats
to the national survival of whatever unhappy people it had fastened upon, and
preached to all who would listen the notion that war has an
"ennobling" influence on the human soul. The comic opera parade of
uniforms, jackboots, banners and trumpets usually associated with it should not
conceal from a contemporary observer the virulent legacy it has left in our own
age, enshrining in political vocabulary such anguished terms as desaparecidos
("the disappeared").
While sharing Fascism's idolatry of the state, its sister ideology Naziism made
itself the voice of a far more ancient and insidious perversion. At its dark
heart was an obsession with what its proponents called "race purity".
The single-minded determination with which it pursued its murderous ends was in
no way weakened by the demonstrably false postulates upon which it was based.
The Nazi system was unique in the sheer bestiality of the act most commonly
associated with its name, the programme of genocide systematically carried out
against populations considered either valueless or harmful to humanity's
future, a programme that included a deliberate attempt literally to exterminate
the entire Jewish people. Ultimately, it was Naziism's determination that a
"master race" of its own conception must rule over the entire planet
which was principally responsible for fulfilling 'Abdu'l-Bahá's prophetic
warning of twenty years earlier that another war, far more terrible than the
first, would ravage the world. Like Fascism, Naziism has left a detritus in our
own time. In its case, this takes the form of a language and symbols through
which fringe elements in present-day society, demoralized by the economic and
social decay around them and made desperate by the absence of solutions, vent
their impotent rage on minorities whom they blame for their disappointments.
The false god that the Master was moved to identify explicitly, and the one
denounced by name by Shoghi Effendi, had demonstrated its character at its
outset by brutally destroying, during the latter part of World War I, the first
democratic government ever established in Russia. For long years, the Soviet
system created by Vladimir Lenin succeeded in representing itself to many as a
benefactor of humankind and the champion of social justice. In the light of
historical events, such
[page 62]
pretensions were grotesque. The documentation now available provides
irrefutable evidence of crimes so enormous and follies so abysmal as to have no
parallel in the six thousand years of recorded history. To a degree never
before imagined, let alone attempted, the Leninist conspiracy against human
nature also sought systematically to extinguish faith in God. Whatever view of
the situation political theorists may currently hold, no one can be surprised
that such deliberate violence to the roots of human motivation led inexorably
to the economic and political ruin of those societies luckless enough to fall
under Soviet sway. Its longer-term spiritual effect, tragically, was to pervert
to the service of its own amoral agenda the legitimate yearnings for freedom
and justice of subject peoples throughout the world.
From a Bahá'í point of view, humanity's worship of idols of its own invention
is of importance not because of the historical events associated with these
forces, however horrifying, but because of the lesson it taught. Looking back
on the twilight world in which such diabolical forces loomed over humanity's
future, one must ask what was the weakness in human nature that rendered it
vulnerable to such influences. To have seen in someone like Benito Mussolini
the figure of a "Man of Destiny", to have felt obliged to understand
the racial theories of Adolf Hitler as anything other than the self-evident
products of a diseased mind, to have seriously entertained the reinterpretation
of human experience through dogmas that had given birth to the Soviet Union of
Josef Stalin — so wilful an abandonment of reason on the part of a considerable
segment of the intellectual leadership of society demands an accounting to
posterity. If undertaken dispassionately, such an evaluation must, sooner or
later, focus attention on a truth that runs like a central strand through the
Scriptures of all of humanity's religions. In the words of Bahá'u'lláh:
Upon the reality of man ... He hath focused the radiance of all of His names and attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self.... These energies ... lie, however, latent within him, even as the flame is hidden within the candle and the rays of light are potentially present in the lamp.... Neither the candle nor the lamp can be lighted through
[page 63]
their own unaided efforts, nor can it ever be possible for the mirror to free
itself from its dross.[81]
The consequence of humanity's infatuation with the ideologies its own mind had
conceived was to produce a terrifying acceleration of the process of
disintegration that was dissolving the fabric of social life and cultivating
the basest impulses of human nature. The brutalization that the first world war
had engendered now became an omnipresent feature of social life throughout much
of the planet. "Thus have We gathered together the workers of
iniquity", Bahá'u'lláh warned over a century earlier. "We see them
rushing on towards their idol.... They hasten forward to Hell Fire, and mistake
it for light."[82]
NOTES
[55]
Rúhíyyih Rabbání, The Priceless Pearl (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
1969), pp. 121, 123.
[56]
Shoghi Effendi, Bahá'í Administration, op. cit., pp. 187-188, 194.
[57] In
case after case, the open misbehaviour of Shoghi Effendi's brothers, sisters
and cousins left him finally with no alternative but to advise the Bahá'í world
that these individuals had violated the Covenant.
[58]
Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, op. cit., p. 36.
[59] ibid.,
pp. 42-43.
[60] ibid.,
p. 202.
[61] ibid.,
pp. 203-204.
[62]
Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, op. cit., p. 203.
[63] Shoghi
Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, op. cit., pp. 90, 19, 85.
[64]
Nabíl-i-A'zam, The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl's Narrative of the Early Days of the
Bahá'í Revelation (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1999), pp. 92-94.
[65]
Shoghi Effendi, Bahá'í Administration, op. cit., p. 52.
[66] Selections
from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, op. cit., pp. 85-86, (section 38.5).
[67]
Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, op. cit., p. 4.
[68] ibid.,
p. 19.
[69] Gleanings
from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, op. cit., p. 60, (section XXV).
[70]
Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, op. cit., p. 19.
[71] ibid.,
p. 144.
[72]
Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, op. cit., p. 26.
[73] The
Bahá'í World, vol. X (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Committee, 1949), pp.
142-149, provides a detailed survey of the expansion of the Cause up to the
conclusion of the first Seven Year Plan.
[74]
Shoghi Effendi, Messages to Canada, 2nd ed. (Thornhill: Bahá'í Canada
Publications, 1999), p. 114.
[75]
Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, op. cit., p. 365.
[76] Gleanings
from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, op. cit., p. 200, (section XCIX).
[77]
Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqan (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1983),
p. 31.
[78]
"In Europe at the start of the twentieth century, most people accepted the
authority of morality.... [Then] reflective Europeans were also able to believe
in moral progress, and to see human viciousness and barbarism as in retreat. At
the end of the century, it is hard to be confident either about the moral law
or about moral progress": Jonathon Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of
the Twentieth Century (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999), p. 1. Glover's study
concentrates particularly on the rise and influence of twentieth century
ideologies.
[79]
Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, op. cit., pp. 185-186.
[80] ibid.
[81] Gleanings
from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, op. cit., pp. 65-66, (section XXVII).
[82] ibid.,
pp. 41-42, (section XVII).