Mirrored from www.bahai-library.org
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WITH THE ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE of the Cause taking shape, Shoghi
Effenditurned his attention to the task he had been compelled to delay for so
long,the implementation of the Master's Divine Plan. In Persia, the
developmentwas already well advanced. Directed first by Bahá'u'lláh
andsubsequently by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, a corps of especially designatedteachers — muballighin
— stimulated the work at the locallevel throughout the country, and the
existence of a vibrant community lifeassisted in the relatively rapid
integration of new declarants.Huqúqu'lláh funds, supplemented by the practice
ofdeputization, which was already an established feature of PersianBahá'í
consciousness, provided material support for thisteaching activity.
In the West, inspiration for the promotion of the Faith had been provided bythe
response to the Master's appeals by such outstanding individuals as LuaGetsinger,
May Maxwell and Martha Root. Merely to mention these names is tohighlight a
feature of the rise of the Cause in the West to which the Masterdrew particular
attention:
In America, the women have outdone the men in this regard andhave taken the lead in this field. They strive harder in guiding the
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peoples of the world, and theirendeavours are greater. They are confirmed by
divine bestowals andblessings.[83]
In the East, social conditions of the time had virtually dictated that
theinitiative in the promotion of the Cause would be taken largely by men.
Fewsuch constraints prevailed in North America and Europe, where a galaxy
ofunforgettable women became the principal exponents of theBahá'í message on
both sides of the Atlantic. One thinks ofSarah Farmer, whose Green Acre school
provided the infantBahá'í community with a forum for the introduction of
theFaith to influential thinkers; of Sara Lady Blomfield, whose social
positionlent added force to the ardour with which she championed the teachings;
ofMarion Jack, immortalized by Shoghi Effendi as a model forBahá'í pioneers; of
Laura Dreyfus-Barney, who gave the Faiththe priceless collection of the
Master's table talks, Some AnsweredQuestions; of Agnes Parsons, co-founder
with Louis Gregory of the "RaceAmity" initiatives inspired by
'Abdu'l-Bahá; of Corinne True, KeithRansom-Kehler, Helen Goodall, Juliet
Thompson, Grace Ober, Ethel Rosenberg,Clara Dunn, Alma Knobloch and a
distinguished company of others, most ofwhom pioneered some new field of Bahá'í
service.
To the list must be added the name of Queen Marie of Romania, whom the ageswill
hail as the first crowned head to recognize the Revelation of God forthis day.
The courage shown by this lone woman in publicly declaring herfaith, through
the letters she fearlessly addressed to the editors ofseveral newspapers in
both Europe and North America, in allproBábílity introduced the name of the
Cause to an audiencenumbering millions of readers.
Despite the impressive response that the earliest of these efforts elicited,the
lack of an organized means of capitalizing on the results initiallylimited the
benefits accruing to Bahá'í communities in Westernlands. The rise of the
Administrative Order dramatically changed the lattersituation. As Local
Spiritual Assemblies came into being, goals were set,resources were made
available to support individual teaching efforts, andthose who declared their
faith found themselves participating in the manyactivities of an engrossing Bahá'í
community life. It was nowpossible to systematically translate and publish
literature, news of general
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interest was regularly shared,and the bonds that linked believers with the
World Centre of the Faith grewsteadily stronger.
The two chief instruments by which Shoghi Effendi set about cultivating
aheightened devotion to teaching in both East and West were the same as thoseon
which the Master had relied. A steady stream of letters to communitiesand
individuals alike opened up for the recipients new dimensions in thebeliefs
they had embraced. The most important of these communications,however, now
became those addressed to National and Local SpiritualAssemblies. Their effect
was intensified by the stream of returning pilgrimswho shared insights gained
by direct contact with the Centre of the Cause.Through these connections every
individual believer was encouraged to seehimself or herself as an instrument of
the power flowing through theCovenant. The invaluable compilation that
eventually appeared under thetitle Messages to America, 1932-1946
provides a review of the steps by whichShoghi Effendi drew the North American
believers ever deeper into theimplications of the Master's Divine Plan for
"the spiritual conquest of theplanet":
By the sublimity and serenity of their faith, by the steadinessand clarity of their vision, the incorruptibility of their character, therigor of their discipline, the sanctity of their morals, and the uniqueexample of their community life, they can and indeed must in a worldpolluted with its incurable corruptions, paralyzed by its haunting fears,torn by its devastating hatreds, and languishing under the weight of itsappalling miseries demonstrate the validity of their claim to be regarded asthe sole repository of that grace upon whose operation must depend thecomplete deliverance, the fundamental reorganization and the supremefelicity of all mankind.[84]
The Guardian held up before the eyes of the North AmericanBahá'í community a
vision of their spiritual destiny. Itsmembers were, he said, "the
spiritual descendants of the heroes of God'sCause", their rising
institutions were "the visible symbols of its [theFaith's] undoubted
sovereignty", the teachers and pioneers it sent out were"torch-bearers
of an as yet unborn civilization", it was their collectivechallenge to
assume "a preponderating share" in laying the foundations ofthe World
Order "which the
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Báb has heralded, which the mind ofBahá'u'lláh has envisioned, and whose
features'Abdu'l-Bahá, its Architect, has delineated...."[85]
The language of the messages is magnificent, enthralling. In acknowledgingthe
darkness that widespread godlessness, violence and creeping immoralitywas
engendering, Shoghi Effendi described the role thatBahá'ís everywhere must play
as instruments of thetransforming power of the new Revelation:
Theirs is the duty to hold, aloft and undimmed, the torch ofDivine guidance, as the shades of night descend upon, and ultimately envelopthe entire human race. Theirs is the function, amidst its tumults, perilsand agonies, to witness to the vision, and proclaim the approach, of thatre-created society, that Christ-promised Kingdom, that World Order whosegenerative impulse is the spirit of none other thanBahá'u'lláh Himself, whose dominion is the entire planet,whose watchword is unity, whose animating power is the force of Justice,whose directive purpose is the reign of righteousness and truth, and whosesupreme glory is the complete, the undisturbed and everlasting felicity ofthe whole of human kind.[86]
In 1936 the Guardian judged that the administrative structure of the Causewas
sufficiently broad and consolidated in North America that he could beginthe
first stage of the implementation of the Divine Plan itself. With theworld
sliding into another global conflagration, and the scope possible tothe efforts
of the Persian believers being severely limited, the focus wouldnecessarily
have to be on the expansion and consolidation of theBahá'í community in the
Western hemisphere in preparation forthe much larger undertakings that lay
ahead. Calling on the Plan's appointed"executors", the believers in
North America, the Guardian laid out a SevenYear Plan, scheduled to run from
1937 to 1944. Its objectives were toestablish at least one Local Spiritual
Assembly in every state of the UnitedStates and every province of Canada, and
to open to the Cause fourteenrepublics in Latin America. To these objectives
was added the task,immensely demanding of a community with still very limited
numbers andseverely straitened financial resources, of completing the
exteriorornamentation of the "Mother Temple of the West".
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Rúhíyyih Khánum has pointed out a striking parallelbetween two developments
during this period of history. On the one hand,powerful nations were launching
armies of invasion whose goal was to seizethe natural resources of neighbour
states — or simply to satisfy anappetite for conquest. During this same period,
Shoghi Effendi wasmobilizing the painfully small band of pioneers available to
him, anddispatching them to the teaching goals of the Plan he had created.
Within afew short years, the vast battalions of aggression would be shattered
beyondrecovery, their names and conquests erased from history. The little
companyof believers who had gone out with their lives in their hands to fulfil
themission entrusted to them by the Guardian would have achieved or exceededall
of their objectives, objectives that soon became the foundations offlourishing
communities.[87]
In appreciating this undertaking, it is helpful for Bahá'ís tounderstand not
only the role that planning plays in the life of the Cause,but the unique
nature of this instrumentality in its Bahá'íexpression. The systematic
identification of objectives to be achieved anddecisions as to how to achieve
them does not mean that theBahá'í community has assumed the responsibility of
"designing"a future for itself, as the concept of planning customarily
implies. WhatBahá'í institutions do, rather, is to strive to align the workof
the Cause with the Divinely impelled process they see steadily unfoldingin the
world, a process that will ultimately realize its purpose, regardlessof
historical circumstances or events. The challenge to the AdministrativeOrder is
to ensure that, as Providence allows, Bahá'í effortsare in harmony with this
Greater Plan of God, because it is in doing so thatthe potentialities implanted
in the Cause by Bahá'u'lláh beartheir fruit. That the provisions of the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas and the Willand Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá ensure the success of
the efforts ofthe Bahá'ís is dramatically demonstrated in the unbrokenseries of
triumphs that fulfilled the plans created by ShoghiEffendi.
By August 1944, Shoghi Effendi was able to celebrate the completion of thefirst
Seven Year Plan. The Guardian marked the moment with a gift to theBahá'ís of
the world that represents one of the greatestachievements of his life. The
publication, in 1944, of God Passes By,his comprehensive and reflective
history of the first hundred years of the
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70]
Cause, threw open for believersa window on the spiritual process by which
Bahá'u'lláh'spurpose for humankind is being realized.
History is a powerful instrument. At its best, it provides a perspective onthe
past and casts a light on the future. It populates human consciousnesswith
heroes, saints and martyrs whose example awakens in everyone touched byit
capacities they had not imagined they possessed. It helps make sense ofthe
world — and of human experience. It inspires, consoles andenlightens. It
enriches life. In the great body of literature and legendthat it has left to
humanity, history's hand can be seen at work shapingmuch of the course of
civilization — in the legends that have inspiredthe ideals of every people
since the dawn of recorded time, as well as inthe epics of the Ramayana,
in the exploits celebrated in theOdyssey and the Aeneid, in the
Nordic sagas, in theShahnameh, and in much of the Bible and the Qur'án.
God Passes By elevates this great work of the mind to a levelardently
striven after but never attained in any of ages past. Those whoopen themselves
to its vision discover in it an avenue of approach tounderstanding the Purpose
of God, an avenue that converges with the vastexpanse spread out in the
Guardian's matchless translations of the RevealedTexts. Its appearance on the
centenary of the birth of the Cause — justas the Bahá'í world was celebrating
the success of the firstcollective effort it had ever been able to undertake —
summoned up forbelievers everywhere the full majesty and meaning of a hundred
years ofceaseless sacrifice.
At a relatively early point in the second world war, the Guardian set thatconflict
in a perspective for Bahá'ís that was very differentfrom the one generally
prevailing. The war should be regarded, he said, "asthe direct
continuation" of the conflagration ignited in 1914. It would cometo be
seen as the "essential pre-requisite to world unification". The
entryinto the war by the United States, whose president had initiated the
projectof a system of international order, but which had itself rejected
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71]
this visionary initiative, wouldlead that nation, Shoghi Effendi predicted, to
"assume through adversity itspreponderating share of responsibility to lay
down, once for all, broad,worldwide, unassailable foundations of that
discredited yet immortalSystem."[88]
These statements proved prophetic. With the end of hostilities, it
graduallybecame apparent that a fundamental shift in consciousness was under
waythroughout the world and that inherited assumptions, institutions
andpriorities that had been progressively undermined by forces at work duringthe
first half of the century were now crumbling. If the change could notyet be
described as an emerging conviction about the oneness of humankind,no objective
observer could mistake the fact that barriers blocking such arealization, which
had survived all the assaults against them earlier in thecentury, were at last
giving way. One's mind turns to the prophetic words ofthe Qur'án: "And you
see the mountains and think them solid, but they shallpass away as the passing
away of the clouds." (27:88) The effect was toinspire in progressive minds
a sense of confidence that it would be possibleto construct a new kind of
society that would not only preserve thelong-term peace of the world, but
enrich the lives of all of itsinhabitants.
Primarily, this new birth of hope had resulted, as Shoghi Effendi hadforeseen,
from the "fiery ordeal" that had at last succeeded in
"implantingthat sense of responsibility" which leaders earlier in the
century hadsought to avoid.[89] Tothis
new awareness had been added the effects of the fear induced by theinvention
and use of atomic weapons, a reaction calling to mind forBahá'ís the Master's
prescient statements in North Americathat ultimately peace would come because
the nations would be driven toaccept it. The Montreal Daily Star had
quoted Him as saying: "It[peace] will be universal in the twentieth
century. All nations will beforced into it."[90]
Theyears immediately following 1945 witnessed advances in framing a new socialorder
that went far beyond the brightest hopes of earlier decades.
Most important of all was the willingness of national governments to createa
new system of international order, and to endow it with the
peace-keepingauthority so tragically denied to the defunct League. Meeting in
SanFrancisco in April 1945 — in the state where 'Abdu'l-Bahá had
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72]
prophetically declared, "May thefirst flag of international peace be
upraised in this state" —delegates of fifty nations adopted the Charter of
the United NationsOrganization, the name proposed for it by President Franklin
D. Roosevelt.[91] Ratification by
therequired number of member nations followed that October, and the
firstGeneral Assembly of the new organization convened on 10 January 1946,
inLondon. In October 1949, the cornerstone of the United Nations' permanentseat
was laid in New York City, hailed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá thirty-sevenyears earlier as
the "City of the Covenant". During His visit there He hadpredicted:
"There is no doubt that ... the banner of international agreementwill be
unfurled here to spread onward and outward among all the nations ofthe
world."[92]
Significantly, it was also on the initiative of a political leader of one ofthe
Western hemisphere nations which had been addressed byBahá'u'lláh, that His
summons to collective security —first reflected in the nominal sanctions voted
by the League of Nationsagainst Fascist aggression in Ethiopia — was at long
last givenpractical effect. In November 1956, Lester Bowles Pearson, then
ExternalAffairs Minister and later Prime Minister of Canada, secured the
creation bythe United Nations of its first international peacekeeping force,
anachievement which won its author the Nobel Prize for Peace.[93] The
full nature of the authoritycontained in such a mandate would steadily emerge
as a major feature ofinternational relations during the second half of the
century. Beginningwith the policing of agreements worked out between hostile
states, theprinciple of collective action in defence of peace gradually took on
theform of military interventions such as that of the Gulf War, in
whichcompliance with Security Council resolutions was imposed by force
onaggressor factions and states.
Along with the establishment of the new United Nations' system and steps
toenforce its sanctions, a second major breakthrough occurred. Even
beforehostilities had ended, public audiences throughout the world were stunned
byfilm coverage of the liberation of Nazi death camps, which exposed for allto
see the horrific consequences of racism. What can adequately be describedonly
as a profound sense of shame at the depths of evil that humanity hadshown
itself capable of committing shook the conscience of humankind.Through the
window of
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opportunity thus briefly opened, a group of dedicated andfar-sighted men and
women, under the inspired leadership of figures likeEleanor Roosevelt, secured
the United Nations' adoption of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights. The
moral commitment it represented wasinstitutionalized in the subsequent
establishment of the United NationsCommission on Human Rights. In due course,
the Bahá'ícommunity itself would have good cause to appreciate, at firsthand,
thesystem's importance as a shield protecting minorities from the abuses of
thepast.
Highlighting the significance of both advances was the decision of thenations
that had triumphed in the recent conflict to put on trial leadingfigures of the
Nazi regime. For the first time in history, the leaders of asovereign nation —
men who sought to argue the constitutionality of thepolitical positions they
had occupied — were brought before a publiccourt, their crimes unsparingly
reviewed and documented, were dulyconvicted, and those who did not escape
through suicide were then eitherhanged or sentenced to long terms of
imprisonment. No serious protest hadbeen raised against this procedure which,
theoretically, constituted afundamental departure from existing norms of international
law. Although theintegrity of the proceedings was gravely marred by the
participation ofjudges appointed by a Soviet dictatorship whose own crimes
matched orexceeded those of the defendants' regime, the act set an historic
precedent.It demonstrated, for the first time, that the fetish of
"nationalsovereignty" has recognizable and enforceable limits.
Beginning in these same years, the fulfilment of a long-delayed idealunfolded
in the dissolution of the great empires that had not merelysurvived 1918, but
had managed even to extend their reach through acquiring"mandates",
"protectorates" and colonies seized from the defeated powers.Now,
these antiquated systems of political oppression were submerged by arising tide
of movements of national liberation far beyond their weakenedabilities to
resist. With astonishing swiftness, all of them eitherwillingly abandoned their
claims or were forced by colonial rebellions tobow to the same fate that had
overtaken their Ottoman and Hapsburgpredecessors earlier in the century.
Suddenly, the peoples of the world found themselves with a place to
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stand in dignity, a forum inwhich to express the concerns that most deeply
affected them, and the faintbeginnings of a role in deciding their own future
and that of humanity ingeneral. A corner had been turned that left behind six
or more millennia ofhistory. Beyond all the continuing educational
disadvantages, the economicinequities, and the obstructions created by
political and diplomaticmanoeuvring — beyond all these practical but
historically transientlimitations — a new authority was at work in human
affairs to which allmight reasonably hope somehow to appeal. Representatives of
once subjectpeoples, whose exotically clad warriors had brought up the rear of
theDiamond Jubilee procession in London only five decades earlier, now began
toappear as delegates to the Security Council and occupants of senior posts
inthe United Nations and non-governmental organizations of every kind.
Themagnitude of the change is perhaps best symbolized by the fact that
theSecretary-General of the United Nations is today a Ghanaian, his
twoimmediate predecessors having been, respectively, from Egypt andPeru.[94]
Nor was this change merely one of formal and administrative character. Astime
passed, growing numbers of outstanding figures in every walk of lifewould
escape the familiar limits of racial, cultural or religious identity.In every
continent of the globe, names like Anne Frank, Martin Luther KingJr., Paolo
Freire, Ravi Shankar, Gabriel García Marques, Kiri TeKanawa, Andrei Sakharov,
Mother Teresa and Zhang Yimou became sources ofinspiration and encouragement to
great numbers of their fellow citizens.[95] In
every department oflife, heroism, professional excellence or moral distinction
wouldincreasingly be able to speak for themselves and be embraced by
thegenerality of humankind. The world-wide outpouring of affection andrejoicing
that was to greet the release from prison of Nelson Mandela andhis subsequent
election as president of his country would reflect a senseamong peoples of
every race and nation that these historic eventsrepresented victories of the
human family itself.
It became apparent, too, that pre-war conceptions regarding the use
anddistribution of wealth would have to be overhauled. Apart from principles
ofsocial justice, which doubtless motivated a significant number of
thosecommitted to this task, the economic dislocations
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produced by the events of the previous three decades hadmade it clear that
existing arrangements were outdated and ineffective.Experiments to address such
problems at the national level had beenundertaken in several countries in
response to the Depression during the1930s. Now an interlocking system of
institutions oriented to recognitionthat national economies constitute elements
of a global whole wassuccessively devised and put in place. The International
Monetary Fund, theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trades, the World Bank, and
varioussubsidiary agencies began belatedly to grapple with the implications of
anintegrating world, and with issues related to the distribution of
wealthinherent in this development. Thinkers in developing countries were not
slowto point out that such initiatives served primarily the needs of the
Westernworld. Nevertheless, their emergence marked a fundamental change
ofdirection that would increasingly open participation to a wide range ofstates
and institutions.
A humanitarian initiative of a kind never previously conceived opened
stillanother dimension of the global integration occurring. Beginning with
the"Marshall Plan" devised by the government of the United States
torehabilitate war-torn European nations, those nations that were able to doso
turned to serious consideration of programmes that might foster thesocial and
economic development of rising nations. Widespread publicityawakened a sense of
solidarity with the rest of the world on the part ofpeoples in lands that
enjoyed reasonable levels of education, health careand the application of
technology. In time, this ambitious initiative cameunder attack for the mixed
motives attributed to it. Nor can anyone denythat the long-term results of
development projects have beenheartbreakingly disappointing in their failure to
close the yawning gapbetween the rich and the poor. Neither circumstance can
obscure, however, asense of common humanity in its objectives that spoke
perhaps mosteloquently in the response it evoked from an army of idealistic
youth ofmany lands.
Paradoxically, in the Far East particularly, even war had a certainliberating
effect on consciousness. As early as 1904, the Russo-Japaneseconflict had been
seen in parts of the Orient as encouraging evidence thatnon-Western peoples
could resist the apparently invincible might of the
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West. The effect had beenheightened by the events of the first world war, and
greatly advanced by thesuccess of Japanese arms in withstanding for so long the
massive Westerneffort devoted to defeating them during the period 1941-1945.
The secondhalf of the century saw this new technological expertise give birth
tomodern economies in half a dozen nations of the region, whose
innovativeproducts and industrial energy, particularly in the areas of
transportationand information technology, were able to hold their own with the
best thatthe rest of the world had to offer.
By 1946, the end of hostilities had opened the way for the launching byShoghi
Effendi of a second Seven Year Plan, which benefited from the newreceptivity to
the message of the Faith produced by the shift ofconsciousness that was by then
already apparent. Once again, the NorthAmerican Bahá'í community was summoned
to assume a demandingresponsibility, one that essentially built upon and developed
theachievements of the earlier Plan. The great difference, however, was
thatseveral other Bahá'í communities were now in a position toparticipate.
Already in 1938, the Bahá'ís of India, Pakistanand Burma had set out on a plan
of their own. As international hostilitiesgradually came to an end, the
National Spiritual Assemblies of Persia, ofthe British Isles, of Australia and
New Zealand, of Germany and Austria, ofEgypt and the Sudan, and of Iraq — freed
from the limitations imposedon them by the war — embarked on projects of
various durations toexpand the base of the Administrative Order, settle
pioneers in goals bothat home and abroad, and multiply the available
Bahá'íliterature.
By 1953 all of these undertakings had been fully completed. Three newNational
Spiritual Assemblies had been established and had also undertakensupplementary
teaching plans, an array of new Local Spiritual Assemblies hadbeen formed in
Europe, initiatives by five different national communitiesacting under the
coordination of the National Spiritual Assembly of theBritish Isles had led to
the settling of pioneers in East and West Africa,and the great project set in
motion by the Master's laying of
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the corner stone of the MotherTemple of the West was at last finished.[96]
Before the believers could celebrate these achievements, a new challenge
ofstaggering proportions was unveiled by Shoghi Effendi. Impelled by
historicforces that only he was in a position to appreciate, the Guardian
announcedthe launching at the forthcoming Ridván of a
decade-long,world-embracing Plan, which he designated a "Spiritual
Crusade". Engagingthe energies of all the twelve National Spiritual
Assemblies then inexistence — the twelfth being that of the Italo-Swiss community
—it called for the establishment of the Faith in one hundred and
thirty-oneadditional countries and territories, together with the formation
offorty-four new National Spiritual Assemblies, the incorporation
ofthirty-three of these, a vast increase in Bahá'í literature,the erection of
Houses of Worship in Iran and Germany (the former beingreplaced by Temples in
both Africa and Australia when the Tehran project wasblocked), and the
expansion of the number of Local Spiritual Assembliesaround the world to a
total of five thousand, of which three hundred andfifty must be incorporated.
Nothing in their collective experience hadprepared the Bahá'ís of the world for
so colossal anundertaking. The magnitude of the challenge was set out by Shoghi
Effendi ina cablegram of 8 October 1952:
Feel hour propitious to proclaim to the entireBahá'í world the projected launching ... the fate-laden,soul-stirring, decade-long, world-embracing Spiritual Crusade involving ....the concerted participation of all National Spiritual Assemblies of theBahá'í world aiming at the immediate extension ofBahá'u'lláh's spiritual dominion ... in all remainingSovereign States, Principal Dependencies comprising Principalities,Sultanates, Emirates, Shaykhdoms, Protectorates, Trust Territories, andCrown Colonies scattered over the surface of the entire planet. The entirebody of the avowed supporters of Bahá'u'lláh's all-conqueringFaith are now summoned to achieve in a single decade feats eclipsing intotality the achievements which in the course of the eleven precedingdecades illuminated the annals of Bahá'í pioneering.[97]
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Victory in so ambitious an enterprise would mean that the embrace of theFaith
would span the globe, that the institutional foundations of itsAdministrative
Order would expand at least five-fold, and that its communitylife would be
enriched through the participation of believers from a vastnumber of as yet
untapped cultures, nations and tribes.
In effect, the Plan called for the Cause to make a giant leap forward overwhat
might otherwise have been several stages in its evolution. What ShoghiEffendi
saw clearly — and what only the powers of foresight inherent inthe Guardianship
made it possible to see — was that an historicalconjunction of circumstances
presented the Bahá'í communitywith an opportunity that would not come again and
on which the success offuture stages in the prosecution of the Divine Plan
would entirely depend.What he did not hesitate to call the "summons of the
Lord of Hosts" wasembodied in a message that seized the imagination of
Bahá'ísin every part of the world:
No matter how long the period that separates them from ultimatevictory; however arduous the task; however formidable the exertions demandedof them; however dark the days which mankind, perplexed and sorely-tried,must, in its hour of travail, traverse; however severe the tests with whichthey who are to redeem its fortunes will be confronted.... I adjure them, bythe precious blood that flowed in such great profusion, by the lives of theunnumbered saints and heroes who were immolated, by the supreme, theglorious sacrifice of the Prophet-Herald of our Faith, by the tribulationswhich its Founder, Himself, willingly underwent, so that His Cause mightlive, His Order might redeem a shattered world and its glory might suffusethe entire planet — I adjure them, as this solemn hour draws nigh, toresolve never to flinch, never to hesitate, never to relax, until each andevery objective in the Plans to be proclaimed, at a later date, has beenfully consummated.[98]
The response was immediate. Within a few months messages from the WorldCentre
began sharing the news of a succession of victories in country aftercountry.
Those pioneers who succeeded in establishing the Faith's firstfoothold in a
country or territory were designated "Knights of
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79]
Bahá'u'lláh", andtheir names inscribed on a Roll of Honour destined, in
time, to bedeposited, as called for by the Guardian, under the threshold of
theentrance to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh. Nothing testified quiteso
dramatically to the foresight embodied in Shoghi Effendi's successivePlans than
the fact that, within each of the new nation-states born afterthe second world
war, Bahá'í communities and SpiritualAssemblies were already a part of the
fabric of national life.
A brilliant succession of achievements followed these initial ones. ByOctober
1957, by which time the Faith had been established in over twohundred and fifty
countries and territories, Shoghi Effendi was able toannounce the purchase of
property for ten new temple sites, and thecommencement of work on the Houses of
Worship in Kampala, Sydney andFrankfurt; the acquisition of properties for
forty-six of the requirednational Hazíratu'l-Quds; a vast increase in the
production ofBahá'í literature; additional Assembly incorporations that
hadraised the total number to one hundred and ninety-five; growing
recognitionof Bahá'í marriage and Bahá'í Holy Days; and theadvancing work on
the International Bahá'í Archives, the firstbuilding to be constructed on the
broad arc that the Guardian had traced onthe slope of Mount Carmel. No one who
reviews the events of those days canfail to be deeply moved by the parental
care with which Shoghi Effendiensured the achievement of these magnificent
results, as reflected in hispainstaking listing by name, in the last general
message he wrote on theCrusade, in April 1957, of each one of sixty-three
regional teachingconferences and institutes held that year around the Bahá'íworld.
Such a review would be incomplete without an understanding of
paralleldevelopments of the Administrative Order at the international level
that theGuardian undertook during these years. These steps proved crucial not
merelyto winning the Crusade but to consolidating and protecting the future of
theCause. Alongside the decision-making authority devolved on the
electiveinstitutions of the Faith, a parallel function of the Administrative
Orderis to exert a spiritual, moral and intellectual influence on both
theseinstitutions and the lives of the individual members of the
community.Conceived by Bahá'u'lláh Himself, this responsibility "todiffuse
the Divine Fragrances, to edify the souls of men, to promote
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80]
learning, to improve thecharacter of all men..." is vested by the Master's
Will and Testamentparticularly in the Hands of the Cause of God.[99]
During the ministries of both Bahá'u'lláh and'Abdu'l-Bahá those believers given
this high station had playedcrucial roles in advancing the teaching work in the
Orient. As theconception of the Ten Year Crusade took shape in his mind, Shoghi
Effendimoved to mobilize the spiritual support this institution could bring
toachieving the tasks of the Plan. In a cablegram of 24 December 1951,
heannounced the appointment of the first contingent of twelve Hands of theCause
of God, allocated equally to the work in the Holy Land, in Asia, theAmericas
and Europe. These distinguished servants of the Cause were calledupon to focus
directly on the challenge of mobilizing the energies of thefriends and
providing the elected bodies with encouragement and counsel.Shortly thereafter
the number of Hands of the Cause was raised from twelveto nineteen.
The resources available for the discharge of this responsibility weregreatly
increased by the Guardian's decision in October 1952, calling on theHands of
the Cause to create five auxiliary boards, one for each continent:those in the
Americas, Europe and Africa consisting of nine members each,while those in Asia
and Australasia having seven and two respectively.Subsequently, separate
auxiliary boards were created to assist with theprotection of the Faith, the
other of the two chief functions of the Handsof the Cause.
A message of 3 June 1957 celebrated the action of the Israeli government
inexecuting the final decision of the court of appeals of that country, bywhich
the surviving band of Covenant-breakers were at last evicted from
theHaram-i-Aqdas surrounding the focal Centre of the Bahá'í worldat Bahjí.[100]Only a day later,
however, a second cablegram warned ominously of the urgentneed of the Faith's
senior institutions to act in concert to protect it fromnew dangers that the
Guardian perceived to be gathering on the horizon. Thiswas followed in October
by a message announcing that the number of Hands ofthe Cause of God had been
raised from nineteen to twenty-seven,designating these senior officers
"Chief Stewards ofBahá'u'lláh's embryonic World Commonwealth", and charging
themwith responsibility to consult with National Spiritual Assemblies
onurgently needed measures to protect the Faith.
[page
81]
Less than a month thereafter, the Bahá'í world was devastatedby the news of
Shoghi Effendi's death on 4 November 1957 from complicationsfollowing an attack
of Asiatic influenza contracted during the course of avisit to London. The
Centre of the Cause who, for thirty-six years, had dayby day guided its
evolution, whose vision encompassed both the flow ofevents and the actions the
Bahá'í community must take, andwhose messages of encouragement had been the
spiritual lifeline of countlessBahá'ís around the planet, was suddenly gone,
leaving thegreat Crusade half finished and the future of the Administrative
Order incrisis.
The grief and overwhelming sense of desolation produced by the loss of
theGuardian lends all the greater significance to the triumph of the Plan hehad
conceived and inspired. On 21 April 1963, the ballots of delegates
fromfifty-six National Spiritual Assemblies, including the forty-four new
bodiescalled for and successfully formed during the Ten Year Crusade, brought
intoexistence the Universal House of Justice, the governing body of the
Causeconceived by Bahá'u'lláh and assured by Him unequivocally ofDivine
guidance in the exercise of its functions:
It is incumbent upon the Trustees of the House of Justice totake counsel together regarding those things which have not outwardly beenrevealed in the Book, and to enforce that which is agreeable to them. Godwill verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth, and He, verily, is theProvider, the Omniscient.[101]
It seemed especially fitting that the election — carried out by theassembled
delegates and those voting by mail — should take place in thehome of the
Master, whose Will and Testament had described nearly sixtyyears earlier the
intent and scope of the authority bestowed byBahá'u'lláh's words:
Unto the Most Holy Book every one must turn and all that is notexpressly recorded therein must be referred to the Universal House of
[page 82]
Justice. That which this body,whether unanimously or by a majority doth carry,
that is verily the Truthand the Purpose of God Himself. Whoso doth deviate
therefrom is verily ofthem that love discord, hath shown forth malice and
turned away from theLord of the Covenant.[102]
An important preliminary step for the election had been taken by ShoghiEffendi
in 1951, in his appointment of the membership of the InternationalCouncil to
assist him with his work. In 1961, as he had explained would bethe case, the
second step in the process had been taken when thisinstitution evolved into a
nine-member Council, elected by the members ofthe National Spiritual
Assemblies. Consequently, when the Ten Year Crusadecame to its victorious end
in 1963, the Bahá'í world hadgained important experience in the challenging act
it was then called on toperform.
Historians will unhesitatingly accord credit for mobilizing the effort thathad
made this moment possible to the Hands of the Cause, who provided
thecoordination of which the loss of the Guardian's leadership had deprived
theBahá'í world. Tirelessly coursing the earth in promotion ofShoghi Effendi's
Plan, coming together in annual conclaves to provideencouragement and
information, inspiring the endeavours of their newlycreated deputies, and
fending off the efforts of a new band ofCovenant-breakers to undermine the
unity of the Faith, this small company ofgrief-stricken men and women succeeded
in ensuring that the Crusade'sambitious objectives were attained in the time
required and that thenecessary foundation was in place for the erection of the
AdministrativeOrder's crowning unit. In asking that their own members be left
free fromelection to the Universal House of Justice, so as to perform the
servicesassigned them by the Guardian, the Hands also endowed theBahá'í world,
as a second great legacy, with a spiritualdistinction that is without precedent
in human history. Never before hadpersons into whose hands the supreme power in
a great religion had fallenand who enjoyed a level of regard unmatched by any
others in theircommunity, requested not to be considered for participation in
the exerciseof supreme authority, placing themselves entirely at the service of
the Bodychosen by the community of their fellow believers for this role.[103]
NOTES
[83] Women:
Extracts from the Writings ofBahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi and theUniversal
House of Justice, compiled by the Research Department of theUniversal House
of Justice (Thornhill: Bahá'í CanadaPublications, 1986), p. 50.
[84]
Shoghi Effendi, Messages to America(Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
Committee, 1947), p. 28.
[85] ibid.,
pp. 9, 10, 14, 22.
[86] ibid.,
p. 28.
[87]
Rúhíyyih Rabbání,The Priceless Pearl, op. cit., p. 382.
[88]
Shoghi Effendi, Messages to America, op.cit., p. 53.
[89]
Shoghi Effendi, The World Order ofBahá'u'lláh, op. cit., p. 46.
[90] 'Abdu'l-Bahá
in Canada, op.cit., p. 51.
[91]
'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Promulgation ofUniversal Peace, op. cit., p. 377.
[92]
'Abdu'l-Bahá, Foundations of WorldUnity (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
Trust, 1979), p.21.
[93]
Lester Bowles Pearson (1897-1972) was awardedthe 1957 Nobel prize for peace for
his formulation of international policyin the period after World War II,
particularly for his plan that led to theestablishment of the first United
Nations' emergency force in the Suez Canalin 1956, a response to the crisis
created by the invasion of Egypt byBritish and French military forces, acting
in agreement with those ofIsrael, following the seizure of the Suez Canal by
Egypt. The first formalvote of international sanctions against aggression,
taken in 1936 by theLeague of Nations, when Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia, was
hailed by ShoghiEffendi as: "an event without parallel in human
history". (See ShoghiEffendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, op. cit.,
p.191.)
[94] The
three United Nations' Secretaries-General mentioned were, inchronological
order, Javier Pérez de Cuellar (1982-1991), Peru;Boutros Boutros-Ghali
(1992-96), Egypt; Kofi Annan, (1997-present), Ghana.
[95] Anne
Frank (1929-1945) — Jewish youth,victim of Nazi genocide, captured in her
family's hiding place in theNetherlands in August 1944 and sent to the
concentration camp at Belsen,where she died a year later. Her diary was
published in 1952 under the titleThe Diary of a Young Girl and
subsequently dramatized on the stageand in film. Martin Luther King Jr.
(1929-1968) — American clergymanand Nobel laureate, one of the principal
leaders of the American civilrights movement, who was assassinated on 4 April
1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.He is commemorated in the United States in a
national holiday on the thirdMonday of January. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) —
innovative Brazilianeducator, whose pioneer work in adult education won him
international fame,but led to two periods of imprisonment in his own country.
Kiri Te Kanawa(1944- ) — Born in New Zealand of Maori ancestry, and today one
of theworld's leading operatic divas. Awarded the Order of Dame
Commanderof the British Empire by H. M. Queen Elizabeth II, 1982. GabrielGarcía
Marques (1928- ) — Colombian writer and novelist, winnerof the Nobel prize for
literature in 1982, who was compelled to spend the1960s and 1970s in voluntary
exile in Mexico and Spain to escape persecutionin his native land. Ravi Shankar
(1920- ) — Indian composer andsitarist, whose impressive talents and tours of Europe
and North Americacontributed to the awakening of interest in Indian music
throughout theWest. Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov (1921-1989) — Russian
nuclearphysicist, who abandoned scientific research to become the leading
spokesmanfor civil liberties in the Soviet Union, for which he was awarded the
1975Nobel Peace Prize, while suffering internal exile in his own land.
"MotherTeresa" (Agnes Gonxha Borjaxhiu, 1910-1997) — Albanian born
RomanCatholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, whose self-sacrificingwork
on behalf of the poor, the homeless and the dying in Calcutta won herthe Nobel
Peace Prize in 1979. Zhang Yimou (1951- ) — A leadingdirector among China's
"Fifth Generation" film makers and winner of manyprofessional awards
for his sensitive and visually stunning work.
[96] The
three new National Spiritual Assemblieswere Canada, which established a
National Assembly separate from that of theUnited States in 1948, and the
Regional Assemblies of Central America andthe Antilles (1951) and South America
(1951).
[97]
Shoghi Effendi, Messages to theBahá'í World, 1950-1957 (Wilmette:
Bahá'íPublishing Trust, 1995), p. 41.
[98] ibid.,
pp. 38-39.
[99] Will
and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá,op. cit., p. 13.
[100]
Under the leadership of two of'Abdu'l-Bahá's half brothers, Muhammad 'Alí
andBadi'u'lláh, together with a cousin, Majdi'd-Dín, the group
ofCovenant-breakers who had long occupied the Mansion at Bahjí afterthe death
of Bahá'u'lláh carried on an unremitting campaign ofattacks and machinations
against both the Master and the Guardian. Under theBritish Mandate, they had
been forced to evacuate the Mansion because of theneglect into which they had
allowed it to fall, thus permitting the Guardianto restore the building and
establish its status in the eyes of the civilauthorities as a Holy Place.
Subsequently, Shoghi Effendi secured from thenewly established Israeli government
recognition that the entire propertyhad this privileged character, and an
official order was issued, requiringthe remaining Covenant-breakers to evacuate
the unsightly building that theystill occupied next to the Mansion. When their
appeal to the Supreme Courtagainst this judgement failed, the eviction order
was executed, the buildingdemolished at the Guardian's instructions, and the
last obstacle to thebeautification of the property was successfully overcome.
[101] Tablets
of Bahá'u'lláhrevealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, op. cit., p. 68.
[102] Will
and Testament of'Abdu'l-Bahá, op. cit., pp. 19-20.
[103] A
full account of the role played by theHands of the Cause during these critical
years is provided byAmatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum, Ministry of theCustodians
(Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 1997).