The Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh by E.S. Yazdani, Fifth Baha'i Guardian
THE COVENANT OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
“Religion is the greatest instrument for the order of the world and the tranquility of all existent beings. The weakness of the pillars of religion [caused by erring human beings] has encouraged the ignorant and rendered them audacious and arrogant. Truly, I say, whatever lowers the lofty station of religion will increase heedlessness in the wicked, and finally result in anarchy. Hear, O ye possessors of perception! Then be admonished, O ye endowed with sight!”
— The Words of Paradise, Bahá’u’lláh
When the words of God are challenged, the truth is interfered with and the natural harmony is impeded by man; man positions himself into a dangerous situation where anything could happen to harm him, whether it is in the material or the spiritual world, as if a vehicle is diverted from its paved path to an off road direction.
This fact becomes more evident when a founder of a religion has left the material world to the world above where access to him is closed forever and His advice or His Written words are challenged, denied, altered, tampered with, and the authority of His appointed one is not respected by the self-centered people of influence surrounding the appointed authority. In the absence of the appointed authority, man commits error; willingly or unintentionally, that would cause events to benefit one at the expense of the others. In other words, the natural harmony and the natural process are hindered, and the notion of truth will disappear. Analogous to this is the Federation Internationale de Football Association, FIFA, having written and accepted rules and regulations for football, made it necessary that a referee is on the field to supervise and interpret the rules of the game while the game is in progress. In the absence of the referee on the field, anything could go wrong. The technical errors would be denied by parties and a rise of different opinions among the players and among the spectators around the field and around the world would occur; all the result of the absence of the referee to prevent disorder on the playing field. A similar situation would result in a court of law if the judge were not present to carry out his vital function during the court process.
When the Manifestation of God proclaims His Mission and His spiritual momentum is let loose to the world of man in this contingent world; man is subjected to and is influenced by the Words of God; he is then compelled to accept or reject His call, making himself either to adhere to the Manifestation of God and obey His Commandments or oppose His Will, becoming God’s Great Covenant-Breaker; forming enemies of the Messenger of God.
To counterbalance the forces of darkness, to prevent harm to His fundamental
principles of His established true Faith, to regulate and channel the flow of divine momentum, to provide the means and apparatus given to His adherents for the protection of His Cause from His enemies, the Manifestation of God for this age, Baha’u’llah established His Lesser Covenant with His believers. There are two types of Covenants that God has made with mankind; the Greater Covenant and the Lesser Covenant. The Greater Covenant, the ancient Covenant is that Covenant that God has made with all mankind. This Covenant fulfilled with Baha’u’llah’s announcement in the Garden of Ridvan in 1863. In His tablet He states:
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“In the name who shines forth from the Horizon of Might! Verily the Tongue of the Ancient gives glad tidings to those who are in the world concerning the appearance of the Greatest Name, and who takes His Covenant among the nations. Verily, He is Myself: the Shining-Place of My Identity; the East of My Cause; the Heaven of My Bounty; the Sea of My Will; the Lamp of My Guidance; the Path of My Justice; the Standard of My Love. The one who hath turned to Him [Bahá’u’lláh] hath turned to My face and is illuminated through the light of My Beauty; hath acknowledged my Oneness and confessed My Singleness. The one who hath denied Him hath been deprived of the Salsibil [the heavenly fountain] of My Love, of the Kawther of My Grace, the cup of My Mercy and the Wine of which the sincere ones have been attracted and the monotheists have taken flight in the air of My Compassion, which no one hath known except him whom I have taught the matter revealed in My Hidden Tablet.” Bahá’u’lláh. [The Covenant and Administration, Baha'i Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois]. Further discussions on the Greater Covenant are not the subject of this chapter. The reader’s attention is drawn to other works of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for further information. The subject of this chapter is the Lesser Covenant. Bahá’u’lláh in the Hidden Words says:
“O My Friend
Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, [Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh] which is planted in the all-glorious paradise? Awestruck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings. Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth of My utterance should be made evident unto all of you.”
In the past, while a Founder of a religion was alive, the unity and adherence of the believers was secured. This unity was disrupted after the Founder had left the material world and the religion of God, which “…is a brilliant light and a mighty stronghold for protection and comfort of the people of the world…” branched into sects which “are ways and offshoots issued from the main religions as a result of political motivations or differences on innovative exegesis. The base and foundations of sectarianism is not a claim for a new revelation and new signs from God, but it is on finding answers to obscure matters relying on opinions and independent judgments of clerical classes.” The influential, self-given authority of the clerical classes abuse the revealed Words to benefit their agenda and turning the religion of God into sects. For instance, consider the statement made by His Holiness Christ; “and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,” in regard to Peter or the statement by His Holiness Mohammad; “I inform you that whomever I am his Mawla, [friend and guardian] this Ali is his Mawla.”
In short, in the past religion of God there has not been a strong Covenant or provision on the subject of succession to provide the believers the means to defend the Faith against its enemies. Even during the Báb’i dispensation, “Can He [The Báb] be said to have produced instruments for the safeguarding of His Faith…” after His martyrdom in 1850?
Contrary to past dispensations, Bahá’u’lláh has provided the instrument, laws and regulations and a system of administration to safeguard His Cause from deviation from His divinely established course, from sectarianism, from division among His adherents, from
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misinterpretation of His divinely revealed Words, from current determined oppositions arising from within and the old enemies from without, to achieve unification of the people of the world and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth foretold of its rise by the past Manifestations of God. This mighty Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, is the subject of this chapter added to the original text of “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” formulated by its author, J.E. Esslemont in the first quarter of the twentieth century.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader the documents and the Writings related to the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and to show the importance of the institutions provided by Bahá’u’lláh in His system of administration known as “The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.” The Order, the advent of which The Báb heralded: “Well is it with him,” the Báb announces, “Who fixeth upon the Order of Bahá’u’lláh, and rendereth thanks unto his Lord.” Bahá’u’lláh established its foundation in The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, His Most Holy Book, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá printed its blue print in His Will and Testament, the charter of the worlds future civilization.
The Book and the Center of the Covenant
The divinely originated process sent through the Báb to mankind on May 23, 1844 initiated a series of events that caused a revolutionary state in the entire land of Persia where the Government, together with the religious hierarchies, tried to oppose the Bábi movement. The irresistible movement possessed momentum to change the entire life of man on the planet, when the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh took place initially in the Siyah-Chal of Tehran, and subsequently and publicly in the Garden of Ridvan in Baghdad in 1863, resulted in the revelation of numerous books and tablets which flowed from the realm of the unseen, informed the kings and the rulers of the world of the advent of “Him Who will be made manifest,” laid the foundation of the “World Order of Bahá’u’lláh” revealed to mankind the Most Holy Book of the revelation, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, manifested the Book of the Covenant that established the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh; “So firm and mighty is this Covenant,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states, “that from the beginning of time until the present day no religious Dispensation hath produced its like.” In the same document, the Book of the Covenant, He, the Founder of this Mighty Revelation, appointed His eldest son, the Greatest Branch; “The Will of the divine Testator is this: It is incumbent upon the Aghsán, the Afnán and My Kindred to turn, one and all, their faces towards the Most Mighty Branch.” This was His confirmation of His announcement formerly made in the Most Holy Book; “When the ocean of My presence hath ebbed and the Book of My Revelation is ended,” proclaims the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, “turn your faces towards Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this Ancient Root.” And repeated, “When the Mystic Dove will have winged its flight from its Sanctuary of Praise and sought its far-off goal, its hidden habitation, refer ye whatsoever ye understand not in the Book to Him Who hath branched from this mighty Stock.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, (which means ‘Servant of Glory’) a title He chose for Himself, has a unique station in the Bahá’i Dispensation and in particular in the Apostolic Age of the Bahá’i movement. He is not a Manifestation of God and He does not share the station of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states: “My firm, my unshakable conviction, the essence of my unconcealed and explicit belief – a conviction and belief which the denizens of the Abhá Kingdom fully share: The Blessed Beauty [Bahá’u’lláh] is the Sun of Truth, and His light the light of truth.
The Báb is likewise the Sun of Truth, and His light the light of truth…My station is the station of servitude – a servitude which is complete, pure and real, firmly established, enduring,
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obvious, explicitly revealed and subject to no interpretation whatever…I am the Interpreter of the Word of God; such is my interpretation.”
In the Tablet of the Branch Bahá’u’lláh announces: “There hath branched from the Sadratu’l-Munahá this sacred and glorious Being, this Branch of Holiness; well is it with him that hath sought His shelter and abideth beneath His shadow. Verily the Limb of the Law of God hath sprung forth from this Root which God hath firmly implanted in the Ground of His Will, and Whose Branch hath been so uplifted as to encompass the whole of creation. Magnified be He, therefore, for this sublime, this blessed, this mighty this exalted Handiwork!...A Word hath, as a token of Our grace, gone forth from the Most Great Tablet – a Word which God hath adorned with the ornament of His own Self, and made it sovereign over the earth and all that is therein, and a sign of His greatness and power among its people…Render thanks unto God, O people, for His appearance; for verily He is the most great Favor unto you, the most perfect bounty upon you; and through Him every mouldering bone is quickened. Whoso turneth towards Him hath turned towards God, and whoso turneth away from Him hath turned away from My beauty, hath repudiated My Proof, and transgressed against Me. He is the Trust of God amongst you, His charge within you, His manifestation unto you and His appearance among His favored servants… We have sent him down in the form of a human temple. Blest and sanctified be God Who createth whatsoever He willeth through His violable, His infallible decree. They who deprive themselves of the shadow of the Branch, [‘Abu’l-Bahá] are lost in the wilderness of error, are consumed by the heat of worldly desires, and are of those who will assuredly perish.” In another tablet written in His own hand, Bahá’u’lláh addresses ‘Abdu’l-Bahá; “O Thou Who art the apple of Mine eye…My glory, the ocean of My loving-kindness, the sun of My bounty, the heaven of My mercy rest upon Thee. We pray God to illumine the world through Thy knowledge and wisdom, to ordain for Thee that which will gladden Thine heart and impart consolation to Thine eyes.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá is the Center of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh.
The full text of the Book of the Covenant is shown in Appendix A. In the same appendix the reader will find explanatory notes written by the first Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, on the Covenant and the Center of the Covenant. The reader’s attention is further drawn to “The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh” Shoghi Effendi on the station of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the Apostolic Age of the Bahá’i dispensation.
The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was penned by the Center of the Covenant, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, during a period of great suspense in His life while He was a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire from his early childhood to the late years of his life. The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is not only a document, in which He has appointed Shoghi Effendi as His successor to succeed Him after His ascension from this world, the Will is complementary to the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. The Will is the permanent link between the Heroic Age and the Formative Age of the Bahá’i Dispensation. The Will is the charter of the future world civilization necessary to secure the activities of the future, most complex world. The Will is designed for the unification of the people of the world and the spiritual triumph of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. The
Will cannot be divorced from the Founder of the Faith, Bahá’u’lláh. “The creative energies released by the Law of Bahá’u’lláh. “The creative energies released by the Law of Bahá’u’lláh,” Shoghi Effendi states: “Permeating and evolving within the mind of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, have, by their
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very impact and close interaction, given birth to an Instrument which may be viewed as the Charter of the New World Order which is at once the glory and the promise of this most great Dispensation. The Will may thus be acclaimed as the inevitable offspring resulting from that mystic intercourse between Him Who communicated the generating influence of His divine Purpose and the One Who was its vehicle and chosen recipient. Being the Child of the Covenant – the Heir of both the Originator and the Interpreter of the Law of God – the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá can no more be divorced from Him Who supplied the original and motivating impulse than from the One Who ultimately conceived it. Bahá’u’lláh’s inscrutable purpose, we must ever bear in mind, has been so thoroughly infused into the conduct of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and their motives have been so closely weed together, that the mere attempt to dissociate the teachings of the former from any system which the ideal Exemplar of those same teachings has established would amount to a repudiation of one of the most sacred and basic truths of the Faith.” “The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,” Shoghi Effendi, the first Guardian of the Faith further states: “Extolls the virtues of the indestructible Covenant established by Bahá’u’lláh…summons the Afnan (the Báb’s kindred), the Hands of the Cause and the entire community of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh to arise unitedly to propagate His Faith, to disperse far and wide, to labor tirelessly and to follow the heroic example of the Apostles of Jesus Christ; warns them against the dangers of associated with the Covenant-Breakers, and bids them shield the Cause from the assaults of the insincere and hypocrite; and counsels them to demonstrate by their conduct the universality of the Faith they have espoused, and vindicate its high principles…” — Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, page 328. For the full text of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, see Appendix B.
Shoghi Effendi, the first Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith
Based on the text of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the firm and clear clauses found in that document; Shoghi Effendi ascended to the office of the first Guardian of the Bahá’i Faith without any challenges as regard to the matter of succession in the Cause of God. The ministry of Shoghi Effendi, as the administration and the spiritual head of the Bahá’i Faith community. Lasted for thirty six years from the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1921 to his own death on the fourth of November, 1957 at the age of nearly sixty years.
In the period of his ministry Shoghi Effendi expanded the Bahá’i community to the far corners of the world, elements of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh were established one after another, historical documents were translated for the people of the west, numerous sections of the Holy Writings, needed at the time, were translated, the pillars upon which the Universal House of Justice had to come into existence were formed, interpretive works such as “The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh” were written and published during his ministry (Section Four on the administration of this article is shown in Appendix C), along with various books written by the guardian, such as God Passes By, The World Order of Baha’u’llah, The Promised Day is Come, and Bahá’i Administration, among others, were published.
As part of his duties, Shoghi Effendi had to appoint his successor in his own life-time as highlighted in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá where the document states: “It is incumbent upon the Guardian of the Cause of God to appoint in his own life-time him that shall
become his successor that differences may not arise after his passing. He that is appointed must manifest in himself detachment from all worldly things, must be the essence of purity, must show n himself the fear of God, knowledge, wisdom and learning. Thus, should the first-born of the
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Guardian of the Cause of God not manifest in himself the truth of the words:---“The child is the secret essence of its sire,” that is, should he not inherit of the spiritual within him (the Guardian of the Cause of God) and his glorious lineage not be matched with a goodly character, then must he, (the Guardian of the Cause of God) choose another branch to succeed him.”
In accordance with the Writings, all the believers in Bahá’u’lláh are branches grown from the Tree of Holiness. Bahá’u’lláh, in one of His tablets, writes:
“Since the believers are the branches and leaves of this Tree of Holiness then whatever befalls to the Tree of course [the same] will befall to the twigs, branches and leaves…” In another passage Bahá’u’lláh, in one of His tablets, writes:
“The Manifestation is symbolized as Tree [of Holiness] and then whatever manifested from that Manifestation are all leaves, branches, twigs and fruits of the Manifestation. For instance the Báb…was the Tree of Manifestation of God and the believers in His Cause are collectively considered as leaves, branches, twigs and fruits.”
—Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Badi, Printed in Germany, 2008, page 38.
It becomes very clear that Shoghi Effendi could have appointed any believer, faithful in Bahá’u’lláh and His Covenant, as his successor. Shoghi Effendi was forty years old when he married Miss Mary Maxwell, titled Rúhiyyih Khánum, on the 24th of March, 1937. Shoghi Effendi and Rúhiyyih Khánum did not have any children, the Branches, Bahá’u’lláh’s sons, Mirza Muhammad-Ali, Mirza Badi’u’llah and Ziya’u’llah all became Covenant-breakers and were deceased. The absence of Bahá’u’lláh’s male descendant and lack of physical sons or children by Shoghi Effendi did not make him unable to appoint his successor.
On the ninth of January, 1951, Shoghi Effendi sent the following cablegram to the Bahá’í World community. The cable reads:
“Proclaim National Assemblies of East and West weighty epoch-making decision of formation of first International Bahá’í Council, forerunner of supreme administrative institution destined to emerge in fullness of time within precincts beneath shadow of World Spiritual Center of Faith already established in twin cities of ‘Akka and Haifa. Fulfillment of prophecies uttered by Founder of Faith and Center of His Covenant culminating in establishment of Jewish State, signalizing birth after lapse of two thousand years of an independent nation in the Holy Land, the swift unfoldment of historic undertaking associated with construction of superstructure of the Báb’s sepulcher on Mount Carmel, the present adequate maturity of nine vigorously functioning national administrative institutions throughout Bahá’í World, combine to induce me to arrive at this historic decision marking most significant milestone in evolution of Administrative Order of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in course of last thirty years. Nascent Institution now created is invested with threefold function: first, to forge link with authorities of newly emerged State; second, to assist me to discharge responsibilities involved in erection of mighty superstructure of the Báb’s
Holy Shrine; third, to conduct negotiations related to matters of personal status with Civil
authorities. To these will be added further functions in course of evolution of this first embryonic International Institution, marking its development into officially recognized Bahá’í Court, its transformation into duly elected body, its efflorescence into Universal House of Justice, and its
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final fruition through erection of manifold auxiliary institutions constitute the World Administrative Center destined to arise the function and remain permanently established in close neighborhood of Twin Holy Shrines. Hail with thankful, joyous heart, at long last, the constitution of International Council which history will acclaim as the greatest event shedding luster upon second epoch of Formative Age of Bahá’í Dispensation potentially unsurpassed by any enterprise undertaken since inception of Administrative Order of Faith, on morrow of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Ascension, ranking second only to glorious immortal events associated with Ministries of the three Central Figures of Faith in course of First Age of most glorious Dispensation of the five thousand century Bahá’í Cycle. Advise publicize announcement through Public Relations Committee.” - SHOGHI
In this cable Shoghi Effendi confirms that:
*The first International Bahá’i Council is the forerunner/embryo of the Universal House of Justice.
*The adequate maturity of nine spiritual assemblies of the east and the west, prompted the guardian to arrive at the decision to form such august an institution.
*The first embryonic International Institution is to be developed into an officially recognized Bahá’i Court, then its transformation into a duly elected body then into the Universal House of Justice.
*The formation of the International Council ranking second only to the Apostolic age of the Baha'i dispensation of the five thousand century Bahá’i Cycle.
Shoghi Effendi, in another cablegram dated March 2, 1951, appointed C.M. Remey as the head of the first International Bahá’i Council stated: “The enlargement of the International Bahá’í Council. Present membership now comprises: Amatu’l-Baha R’uhiyyih, chosen liaison between me and the Council, Hands of the Cause; Mason Remey, Amelia Collins, Ugo Giachery, Leroy Ioas, President, Vice-President, member at large, Secretary-General, respectively. Jesse Revell, Ethel Revell [and] Lotfullah Hakim [are] Treasurer, Western and Eastern assistance Secretaries.”
In this cablegram Shoghi Effendi confirms that:
*Mason Remey is the president of the embryo of the Universal House of Justice and potentially his successor. “The embryo possesses” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states, “from the first all perfections, in one word all powers…but they are not visible, and become so only by degree.”
Rúhiyyih Khánum was the link between the Guardian and the Council. Shoghi Effendi directed the Council through Rúhiyyih Khánum and Mason Remey never independently activated the Council while the first Guardian of the Faith was alive. Although Mason Remey received requests or encouragement from the other members of the Council to activate the Council, Mason Remey always refused to do so, saying the Council is the domain of the Guardian and no one is to interfere with his authority. (See Mason Remey’s Daily Observation). In fact, the Council was
not activated during the remaining life of the first Guardian of the Faith and the Guardian provided individual members with various tasks to be carried out by them.
Mason Remey, the Second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith
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O My Friend
Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life [Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh], which is planted in the all-glorious paradise? Awestruck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings. Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth of My utterance should be made evident unto all of you.
—Bahá’u’lláh, Hidden Words
“And there were lightning and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake and great hail,” meaning that after the appearance of the Book of the Testament there will be a great storm, and the lightnings of the anger and the wrath of God will flash, the noise of the thunder of volation of the Covenant will resound, the earthquake of doubts will take place, the hail of torments will beat upon the violators of the Covenant, and even those who profess belief will fall into trials and temptation.
—‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions
“How dare the Hands of the Faith presume to violate the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? Do away with the Administration that is the Guardianship?
The answer to this is that the spirit of violation enters quietly, but when once in possession of the body, it dares do anything to gain its end while the body, more and more controlled by the violation, is helpless.”
— Charles Mason Remey, A Last Appeal to the Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land
On the fourth of November, 1957, Shoghi Effendi died suddenly in London. His unexpected death caused a disturbance in the Bahá’i communities regarding the question of succession. The manner in which Shoghi Effendi appointed his successor, in his own lifetime, and in accordance with the Will and Testament, put in motion a series of events that, on the one hand, fulfilled past prophecies highlighted in the Writings and, on the other, paved the way for the Hands of the Faith in particular, and, the believers in general, to manifest their hidden agenda after the death of the first Guardian. “Attempts that protrude their ugly face from time to time, seen for a while able to create a breach in the ranks of the faithful, recede finally into the obscurity of oblivion, and are thought of no more,” —Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
Mysteriously, Shoghi Effendi set the scene by engineering a method that established the embryo of the Universal House of Justice and simultaneously appointed Mason Remey its head. In his cablegrams, in fact, Shoghi Effendi announced his successor. [Ref. Cables dated January 9, and March 2, 1951 to the Bahá’i World.] His method of appointment of his successor was not according to the expectation of the Hands of the Faith and other believers. They erroneously
expected that either Shoghi Effendi’s first born, a male descendant of Bahá’u’lláh’s, or by some other conventional method, such as by a way of a will to be opened after his death, Shoghi
Effendi would appoint his successor. Neither of these expected methods took place. In fact, Shoghi Effendi did not have any children and Bahá’u’lláh’s male descendants were dead or being declared unfaithful to the Cause. Shoghi Effendi appointed his successor in conformity to the requirements of the Will and Testament. The believers, and particularly the Hands of the Faith,
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were expected to investigate and discover Shoghi Effendi’s successor and obey his command. The Hands of the Faith chose the to ignore the Will and Testament and by their erroneous action caused Shoghi Effendi’s prediction: “…their present enemies, as well as those whom Providence will, through His mysterious dispensations raise up from within or from without…”come to light and “seem for a while able to create a breach in the ranks of the faithful…” to manifest itself.
Initially, the appointment of the Hands of the Faith, by the first Guardian of the Faith took place after formation of the embryo of the Universal House of Justice, as promised as early as November 27, 1929: “appointment of the Hands of the Faith…all are pending on formation of the Universal House of Justice…” The Hands of the Faith failed to discover the mysteries of the International Bahá’i Council and to assent to the choice of the Guardian for succession as required by the Will and Testament. Following the death of Shoghi Effendi, the Hands of the Faith challenged the Will and Testament and claimed, erroneously, the line of the Guardianship in the Bahá’i dispensation ended forever. In her early cable to the Bahá’i communities of the world, Rúhiyyih Khánum, one of the Hands of the Faith and widow of Shoghi Effendi, put forward; “How [was this body of the Hands of the Faith] to assume the reins of authority with no documents to support us?” The Institution of the Hands of the Faith which, according to the terms and conditions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, are provided no administrative role, took over the management of the affairs of the Cause, led by Rúhiyyih Khánum, with no documents to support them.
Following the death of the first Guardian of the Faith, the Hands of the Faith, without any administrative authority, committed the following perpetrations:
* By-passed the authority of Mason Remey as the head of the embryo of the Universal House of Justice, invested in him by the first Guardian of the Faith.
* Failed to activate the embryo of the Universal House of Justice after Shoghi Effendi left this world.
*Rúhiyyih Khánum, in her first cable, directed the Bahá’í World communities to follow the Hands of the Faith and “cling” to them which is outside of their authority, according to the Bahá’i Writings and Administrative documents.
*Collectively claimed to be “The supreme body of the Bahá’í World Community”, then formed an illegal body of “Custodians of the Bahá’í World Faith” compromised of nine members, elected from the body of the Hands of the Faith.
*Proclaimed, “The Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, His Eminence the late Shoghi Effendi, passed away in London (England) on the 4th of November 1957, without having appointed a successor,” in their proclamation of November 25, 1957. Further, in the same document, they quoted a clause in the Will and Testatment of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to confuse the believer, namely “The Hands of the Cause of God must elect from their own number nine persons that shall at all times be occupied in the important service in the work of the Guardian of the Cause of God.” The Hands attempted to equalize the illegally formed “Custodians of the Bahá’í World Faith,” a function required, in the Will and Testament, to serve the living Guardian of the Faith, not Shoghi Effendi after he was no longer in this material world.
*The Hands of the Faith directed the National Assemblies to include:“We pledge our full support, faith and allegiance to the body of the Custodians of the Bahá’í World Faith elected by the Hands of the Cause,” in letters submitting to the erroneous body formed outside of any Bahá’í Administrative documents.
*Without the natural development of the embryo of the Universal House of Justice, “its development into officially recognized Bahá'i Court, its transformation into duly elected body, its efflorescence into Universal House (of) Justice, (and) its final fruition through (the) erection
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(of) manifold auxiliary institutions constituting (the) World Administrative Center,” the Hands of the Faith destroyed the embryo of the Universal House of Justice and elected nine of their members instead. Finally, the Hands arranged an election of the so called Universal House of Justice during Ridvan, 1963, without its “Distinguished member” and “Sacred head” the Guardian of the Faith, disregarding Shoghi Effendi’s statement where he articulates, as early as the summer of 1925, “Any institution that is not established in accordance with the Divine Order, not in conformity with the principles and the conditions recorded in the Holy Writings, as it is required for this august institution, consequently such an institution is void of credential deprived of spiritual station, and forbidden to have any right to legislate and enact laws and ordinances which are not explicitly recorded in the Holy Writings. It also lacks the essential qualities and the Divine confirmation.” [From his letter to the Eastern believers dated summer of 1925]
Finally, they assigned to this false body the appellation of “infallibility.”
Initially, Mason Remey sat with the Hands of the Faith and constantly reminded his fellow Hands of the Faith that ending the line of the Institution of the Guardianship in the Bahá’í dispensation is a clear violation of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh. Mason Remey, on the violation of the Guardianship of the Administrative order of the Faith, after the ascension of the first Guardian of the Cause states:
“At the first Bahjí Conclave, [November 25, 1957] the Hands of the Faith took over the management of the affairs of the Bahá’í Faith. This was followed by their repudiation of the Administration - Guardianship of the Bahá’í Faith. This violation of the Guardianship, that is the heart of the Administration of the Bahá’í Faith, is condemned by the second Guardian of the Faith and all who follow this violation of the Bahá’i Faith are pronounced by him to be violators of the Faith for thus by this action have they severed themselves from the Bahá’i Religious Faith.
“One of the first actions of these violating Hands of the Cause in this first conclave was to decree that no recorded or written records be taken of things transpiring in their conclaves. At the same time, by a universally passed resolution, all were held in secrecy everything that transpired in those conclaves.
“The second Guardian of the Faith, then in occultation , in the capacity of a Hand of the Cause and President of the Bahá’í International Council, sat with the Hands in this conclave. He knew at that time that this violation of the Guardianship was being perpetrated, but hoping to rectify this condition through friendly argument and pacific method he agreed with the others, to keep in strict secret with them from the Bahá’í world, all things that passed between the Hands of the Faith in their conclaves and conferences. For he hoped, to be able to show them their errors and thus save them from their violation of the Faith.
“Two and a half years or thereabouts of time passed, the while he was telling the Hands
of their violation and begging them to reconsider their stand against the Guardianship – but all to fail in the end in this endeavor.
“Through his forbearance, the Second Guardian of the Faith kept this pact of secrecy with the Hands of the Cause as long as possible to keep it, hoping that they would have a change of heart, cast aside their violation of the Faith and welcome the advent of the Second Guardian of the Faith. But when the second Guardian of the Faith, found that the violations of the Hands were at the point of causing irreparable damage to the Bahá’i Faith – then he had to break with the Hands of the Faith. It was then necessary for him to make his advent as Guardian of the
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Faith in order to save the Faith.
“Therefore when he announced to the Bahá’í World, Ridvan 117 B.E., that The Beloved First Guardian of the Faith had, during his lifetime, appointed him, Mason Remey, the Second Guardian of the Faith, he – for the preservation of the Faith – broke all connections with the violating Hands of the Faith and now for the safety of the Faith, he is telling and explaining to the Bahá’í World the things that the Hands of the Faith have been perpetrating against the Faith; namely their attempt to do away with the Administrative-Guardianship of the Faith, the foundation of which was given to the First Guardian of the Faith, and to the Bahá’í World in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, upon which foundation Shoghi Effendi inaugurated the Administration that the Hands of the Cause are violating.”
Upon the failure of the Hands of the Faith to reconsider their stand against the principles of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh and their negative response to the call of the second Guardian of the Faith, who first announced his station privately to the Hands of the Faith, [see Appendix D for his last appeal to the Hands of the Faith] he, Mason Remey, then publicly proclaimed his position as the second Guardian of the Faith to the Bahá’í World with his Proclamation through the Annual National Convention of the Bahá’ís of the United States of America assembled at Wilmette, Illinois, Ridvan 117 of Bahá’í Era:
Proclamation of Mason Remey to the Bahá’í World
“BELOVED FRIENDS:
Believers have questioned me as to my status as President of the Bahá'í International Council, appointed by The Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi, the First Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith. I take the means of this proclamation, to the coming annual national convention to tell all Bahá'ís exactly what my position and status is in the Faith.
The Bahá'í people the world around know that The Beloved Guardian singled me, Mason Remey, out from amongst all of the Believers upon earth to occupy the position of President of the Bahá'í International Council. This is the only position suggestive of authority that Shoghi Effendi ever bestowed upon anyone, the only special and specific appointment of authority to any man ever made by him.
The Beloved Guardian declared the Bahá'í International Council to be the forerunner of and the first step toward the establishment of The Universal House of Justice, and furthermore,
that the Baha'í International Council was the embryo of The Universal House of Justice which embryo would eventually develop into The Universal House of Justice.
Although all Bahá'ís know that I, Mason Remey, am the President of the Bahá'í International Council by the appointment of The Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi, yet many of you may not know me personally. I have been living at Haifa much of the time during these past ten years. My visits to America being in the summers when I have done but little travelling among the Baha'í communities so personally I may be a stranger to the many recently registered in the Faith. Therefore, I will tell you something about myself.
My forebearers were early American Colonials of New England in the north and
Virginia in the south. I was brought up in the Christian Faith as taught by the Episcopal Church.
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The members of this church, as you know, although always orthodox may be anything from Catholic upon one hand to Protestant on the other. While this church is usually classed as Protestant, its Prayer Book proclaims it to be “The Holy Catholic Apostolic Church.” My inheritance was from the Catholic interpretation of Christianity rather than from the Protestant attitude.
To the average American, The Catholic Church usually means Roman Catholic, but there are other Catholic communions. In The Holy Land, that is now my home and has been for these past ten years, the Ministry of Religions of Israel lists eleven different Catholic communions in that country – Roman, Anglican, Russian, Armenian, Greek, Greek Orthodox, Coptic, etc. The Anglican Catholic Persuasion corresponding to the so called High Episcopal Church in America.
With this Catholic background it was the most logical and natural thing in the world for me to accept the Bahá'í message without question as I did when I heard it in 1899-1900 from May Ellis Bolles (later Mrs. Sutherland Maxwell), because the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church teaches the Second Coming of Christ – The Christ to come manifesting as the Lord of Creation – the Prince of Peace – coming to establish “His Kingdom upon Earth as it is in Heaven.”
From New England on the north and Virginia on the south, my forebears came into the middlewest where I was born in 1874 at a town on the Mississippi River, two hundred and ten miles from Chicago, not far distant from the geographic center of the United States, this land that our Beloved Guardian has called “The Cradle of the Administration of the Bahá'í Faith.” Thus do I introduce myself to those of you who may know me but by name only.
As I travel about through the Bahá'í world, the friends ask me many questions about the life of the believers in Israel, and in particular about the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land? The Bahá'í people are just curious to know about things transpiring there and of how the problems of the Faith are being handled?
There is some general information that I can give them that is in no way confidential but I am not mentioning anything of a confidential nature to any Bahá'í because as is well known in Bahá'í circles from the first of the conclave of the Hands the majority of the Hands of the Faith were united in the opinion that absolutely nothing said or done in these conclaves be divulged, disclosed or revealed to any of the Bahá'ís outside of the body of the twenty seven Hands.
However, each Hand of the Faith is not only allowed but urged to express herself or himself with perfect freedom within the four walls of the chamber in which the Hands are gathered. It is the duty enjoined upon each of the Hands to express her or his own convictions to the Hands when seated in conclave.*
I, as the President of the International Council was one of those things that every Bahá'í knows but that just never happened to be talked about nor even mentioned in any of the conclaves or in the conferences of the Hands of the Faith; therefore, as this subject was never mentioned, I, having promised the Hands never to divulge any of their discussions, proceedings or decisions, am not breaking faith with International Council a subject that was never even mentioned nor brought up for discussion by the Hands of the Faith in any conference that I ever attended or know anything about.
Before going into the subject of my Presidency of the International Council and the stand that I take in the cause and explain in this letter, I would preface my statement by giving in a few
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words a picture of the set up of things in Haifa under the regime of The Beloved Guardian when all the members of the International Council including the resident Hands lived there and served the Guardian daily. Each of us council members were given instructions by Shoghi Effendi of what he wanted us to do and we reported to him as these various services were underway and completed. The sole authority of all these operations rested in the instructions given to each direct from the Guardian himself, thus as a council, a functioning body, we never undertook any services of any nature whatsoever.
*A Conclave, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “Any meeting for secret consultation.”
After the appointment of the International Council, many times one of the members would come to me saying, “Mason, you are the President of the Council, get yourself busy, call a meeting, you are the President of the Council, you should take the initiative to organize this body and do something.” To which my response was always, “The Guardian of the Faith appointed the Bahá'í International Council and He will tell me what I should do and when I should call the Council into action.”
The First Guardian of the Faith left this world without giving me any orders or instructions whatsoever regarding the International Council. The Beloved Guardian gave me no authority to do anything about the Universal Council during his lifetime for while He was living He was the Guardian of the Faith and as infallibility then was vested in him only, my position was then only that of I myself holding a potential responsibility. But with the death of Shoghi Effendi, He no longer being the center upon earth of infallibility, I became the acting President of the International Council in my own right as President of this body, thus I came into active command of the council. Therefore I am now assuming the powers that came to me automatically upon the death of Shoghi Effendi and that have been mine exclusively of all others upon earth since the death of the First Guardian of the Faith.
This is the authority I am now exercising when I refuse to recognize any
interference from anyone in the affairs of the International Council. This means from any one at all, person or persons.
The Hands of the Faith can only function as protectors of the Faith when they are serving under the direction following the commands of the infallible Guardian of the Faith. They have no authority vested in themselves as Hands of the Faith to act in their own capacity nor in any other capacity, save under the directions of the living Guardian of the Faith.
The Beloved Guardian chose me to be the President of the Bahá'í International Council that is according to his explanation the President of the Embryonic Universal House of Justice. Therefore I am the President of the Embryonic Universal House of Justice. When this August body becomes the Universal House of Justice, if such being during my lifetime, I will then be the President of the First Universal House of Justice of the Bahá'í Dispensation.
Therefore, inasmuch as The Beloved Guardian in His Infallibility has thus placed me in command of the Faith to protect and to guard the Faith, I can do nothing but assume my place that he has given me with all of the responsibilities, the perquisites and emoluments that go with this position, therefore by his infallible orders I now alone after him command the cause and
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guard its integrity.
The delay until now of my calling the attention of the believers to the provisions for the protection and the guarding of the cause, made some years ago by our Beloved Guardian when He appointed me to be the President of the Bahá'í International Council, has given the Hands of the Faith and the believers of the Faith ample time to discover for themselves, had that been possible for them to have discovered my unique position in the Faith. But until now no one, other than I, has discovered that such authority was vested in me by Our Beloved Guardian. To the moment of my sending out into the Bahá'í world of this proclamation, I have taken no one into this confidence – I have stood single and alone in all the world guarding the Faith.
That I was to occupy this August position in The Bahá'í Faith that the Beloved Guardian has chosen me to occupy, I have definitely known for the past twelve years more or less, without ever mentioning it to anyone until very recently when privately and in secret, I made this declaration to the Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land. In this proclamation statement to you I am now declaring my position of command in the cause to the Believers here in America, “The Cradle of the Administration of The Bahá’í Faith,”and through this convention to all the Bahá’í World.
In this time of confusion of thought and purpose that so threatens the Bahá’í world, now is the propitious moment for me to make the announcement that I do in this writ. I cannot delay any longer. All these plans of the Hands of the Faith for 1963 that are so absorbing and confusing to the people of the Faith must be dropped and stopped immediately. I am the only one who can command this situation so I have arisen to do so for I alone in all this world have been given the authority and the power to accomplish this.
Be it understood. I of myself make no claims for myself. I am but telling and reminding the Hands of the Faith and the Bahá’ís of all the world of the responsibilities that The Beloved Guardian placed upon me as President of the Bahá’í International Council.
It is well known throughout the Bahá’í world and accepted by all Bahá'is that the
protection of the Faith and the propagation of the Faith are special and particular functions of the Hands of the Faith, they working and serving under the direction of the Guardian of the Faith. It is from and through the Guardianship that infallibility is vested and that the Hands of the Faith receive their orders.
The Program for 1960 as announced by the Hands of the Faith in their message to the Bahá’í world of November 4, 1959 signed by twenty two of the Hands, as well as the same program announced in their former messages, so flagrantly violate and puts to naught the Will and Testament, the Guardianship, and the Administration of the Faith that the Beloved Guardian so laboriously and painstakingly built up during his long ministry, that I can no longer condone such actions upon the part of the Hands of the Faith. I have remained silent now for over two years hoping that they would give up this destructive propagandizing but all to no effect so now it is necessary that I call a halt upon their activities.
I now command the Hands of the Faith to stop all of their preparations for 1963 and furthermore I command all believers both as individual Bahá’ís and as assemblies of Bahá’ís to immediately cease cooperating with and giving support to this fallacious program for 1963.
I have delayed as long as I dare delay before issuing this command to the Bahá’ís world –
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I, hoping that the Hands of the Faith would see for themselves that the will and testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was being violated and that they would of themselves abandon their stand. I, standing single and alone against the entire Bahá’í world but confirmed and steadfast in my assurance of ultimately saving the cause from this calamity. My assurance is based upon the authority that The Beloved Guardian gave me as President of the Council, the authority enabling me to act and assume command of the Bahá’ís that came to me at His death.
It is meet right and timely that I should make this announcement in this convention of Bahá’ís of America which land the Beloved Guardian called the “Cradle of the Administration.” I make this call here and now standing single and alone before you but fully confident of your support and cooperation in all Bahá’í matters for you understand the Administration of the Faith and that I guard it from all violation and harm.
Because the Beloved Guardian called America the Cradle of the Bahá’í Administration, the American Bahá’ís have a very special and particular responsibility to which I am calling them now at this particular time.
I expect the friends in this convention to consider with prayer and with thought this declaration to the entire Bahá’í world. I expect them to accept me without question as their Commander-in-Chief in all Bahá’í matters and to follow me so long as I live for I am the Guardian of the Faith – the Infallible Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith.
The line of the Guardianship of the Bahá’í Faith is unbroken for I have been the Guardian of the Faith since the death of the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi.
At their earliest convenience the National Assembly of the United States should communicate with me so that I can arrange to receive them. Since they are the first amongst the National Assemblies to be called into spiritual action by me their responsibilities are very great for I am calling this American National Assembly first from all other National Assemblies of the world to support me in my command of the Bahá’í Cause.
Dearly Beloved Friends, seated in convention in the land of the Cradle of the Administration of the Faith, this is all that I have to tell you now at this time.
With much love to you.
Faithfully In El Abha,
MASON R., GUARDIAN
OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH”
For further notes given by Mason Remey, the second Guardian of the Faith, the reader’s attention is directed to his last appeal to the Hands of the Faith shown in Appendix D of this introductory text.
Mason Remey protected the Cause and continued his ministry as the second Guardian of the Faith until his death in February 1974 at nearly one hundred years of age. His resting place is in Florence, Italy.
Prior to his death, Mason Remey appointed Donald A. Harvey as his successor and third Guardian of the Faith on 23 May, 1967. “I, the second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith hereby appoint Donald Harvey at my death to be my successor, the third Guardian of the Faith.
Signed Mason Remey, May 23, 1967.
“P.S. May the spirit of El Abha ever protect this line of spiritual descent from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
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Center of the Covenant of El Abha. C.M.R.”
Donald A. Harvey, Third Guardian of the Faith
Upon the death of the Second Guardian of the Faith, D.A. Harvey ascended to the position of third Guardian of the Faith. During his ministry he protected the Cause until his death on October 19, 1991 in Paris, France. Donald Harvey wrote numerous letters to individuals and some of the leaders of the world announcing the advent of Bahá’u’lláh as the latest Manifestation of God to be accepted and followed by every person living on this planet. He writes in one of his letters to an individual, “The human being never created himself, he is not self-created and could never be. He must certainly have ben created by an infinitely superior Being. All-Supreme over all things, the Designer and Maker of the vast universe, limitless in time and space. This Author and Supreme Creator, we human beings search for Him and unfailingly finding Him in any of His Messengers. God, the All-Powerful, is certainly able in each epoch, to create a Man chosen among all His contemporaries, raising Him up, to invest Him with infinite qualities and perfection, equip Him with proofs and evidence of His mission, and thus make Him a Perfect Educator for all men and women of each era. Such is the Messenger of God on Earth.”
“It is finally the sole way, the only way for human civilization to advance.” In the same passage he continues to write, “Mankind is in great danger upon this Planet Earth,…just like stranded sailors upon a raft or lifeboat just about to sink, we supplicate God; ‘Save Our Soul.’ “Nevertheless,” Donald Harvey writes, “The Almighty God will soon establish with all good-willed persons, His Kingdom on Earth, to reflect His Kingdom in the next world, the world next to this contingent world.” There are a few volumes of his collected letters yet to be published.
Prior to his death, and in accordance with the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in November, 1984, the Third Guardian appointed his successor. He announced:
“By this writ in my own handwriting I, Donald Alphonse Harvey, presently residing at 5, rue Lavasier, 75008 Paris, France, and presently being the Third Guardian of the Universal Faith and Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh until my soul is called from this earth, do appoint and designate Mr. Jacques SOGHOMONIAN, presently residing at 27, place Sebastopol, 13004 Marseille, France, as his successor as Fourth Guardian of the Universal Faith and Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. This writ is thus being made by virtue of the Explicit Text of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’, in compliance with all prescription found in it.
Rougemont, near Montbard, Côte d’Or, in France, this day of Saturday, November 17, year 1984 AD,
Signed Donald A. Harvey
Third Guardian”
Jacques Soghomonian, Fourth Guardian of the Faith
Jacques Soghomonian became the Fourth Guardian when his predecessor, Third Guardian, Donald Harvey’s soul separated from his body and ascended to the next world, upon his death. Like his predecessor, Jacques Soghomonian carried out his duties as the Guardian of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh from October 19, 1991 to his own death on September 6, 2013, when he left this contingent world. Jacques Soghomonian wrote a series of letters, to nearly all the national assemblies under the direction of the “Haifa Group” in the Holy Land. Publication of the
Ridvan Magazine commenced during his Guardianship in 2006 and continued after his death in
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September, 2013.
In accordance with the requirement of the Will and Testament, He, Jacques Soghomonian appointed his successor in his open letter of February 10, 2005. He writes in his open letter:
“To all the believers, faithful to the Will and the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá On this day, February the tenth 2005, after thinking a lot for the good Cause of the Bahá’i Faith, I have taken the following decisions:
According to the powers, I was confirmed on as the Fourth Guardian and faithful to the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, on account of my health problem, I had nominated Kamran Taimouri as my successor as far as the carrying on of the Guardianship was concerned. That was done on November 25th 2003. Today February 10th 2005, I definitely nominate Kamran Taimouri as the Hand of the Cause of God to comfort the structure of the Faith in the USA. I do hope that Kamran Taimouri will accept my decision. Concerning the USA, I nominate Brent Reed, Amy Krueger and Brent Mathieu as the Hands of the Cause of God.
Mrs. Jean Miller, [is appointed] as the coordinator for carrying on [the progress] and growth of the Faith [in the USA].
In faithfulness to the Covenant in its spirit and its letters, do not forget the obedience to the Covenant and the truth that goes with it. This obedience is the main rule for all the Faithful and it will give you Bahá’u’lláh’s assistance.
Last, but not least, with my intense prayer, here is my supreme and final will: I indisputably name as my successor Mr. Enayatollah Sarvestani YAZDANI [living at] 2c Hampden Road Pennant Hill, NSW, Australia. He will be the 5th Guardian after my death. As the number of the believers is increasing all over the world, we must set up the Guardianship Funds in accordance with the Covenant. More information will be given in the following letters.
With all my affection and my prayers to all of you,
Faithfully in Al-Abha,
Sincerely yours
Signed
Jacques Soghomonian”
E.S. Yazdani, Fifth and Present Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith
Currently E.S. Yazdani occupies the position of the fifth Guardian of the Faith in accordance with the authority given to him by his predecessor, Jacques Soghomonian, in his letter of February 10, 2005 asserted above.
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APPENDIX A
KITÁB-I-‘AHD, The Book of the Covenant
By
Bahá’u’lláh
KITÁB-I-‘AHD
THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT
Although the Most High Horizon is devoid of trivial possessions of the earth, we have nevertheless bequeathed unto our heirs a noble and peerless heritage within the treasure-house of trust and resignation.
We have left no treasure nor have we added to man’s pains.
By the Life of God! In earthly riches fear is hidden and peril is concealed. Consider, then take warning by what the God of Mercy hath revealed in the Qur’án: -
“Woe unto those who malign and speak evil of their fellows; who hoard earthly goods and count their riches.”
Earthly possessions are unstable; wherefore whatsoever passeth or suffereth vicissitudes is unworthy of regard except to a limited measure.
In bearing hardships and tribulations and in revealing verses and expounding proofs, it has been the purpose of this oppressed One to extinguish the fire of hate and animosity, that, haply, the horizons of the hearts of mankind be illumined with the light of concord and attain real tranquility.
The light of the following utterance shineth from the horizon of the Divine Tablet,
which should be observed by all: Oh people of the world! I counsel you to act in a manner which shall tend to elevate your stations. Cling to divine virtue and obey the
divine law. Truly I say, the tongue is for mentioning that which is good; do not defile it by evil speech. “God hath forgiven your past ways.” You must henceforth speak that which is worthy. Shun reviling, maligning, and whatsoever will offend your fellowmen.
Man’s station is great. Ere this, the following exalted words have flowed forth from the Pen of Abhá:
This is a Day great and blessed. Whatsoever was hidden in man is today being revealed. The station of man is great, were he to cling to truth and righteousness and be firm and steadfast in the Cause. Before the God of Mercy, a true man appears like unto heaven. The sun and the moon of that heaven are his sight and hearing and its stars are his shining attributes. His station is the highest and his signs are the educator of the world.
In this Day, every believer who discovered the fragrance of the garment and turned with a pure heart unto the most high horizon is indeed recorded in the Crimson Tablet as of the people of Bahá.
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Hold the chalice of My grace in My name. Then drain it in My mention, the mighty, the wonderful!
Oh people of the world! The religion of God is to create love and unity; do not make it the cause of enmity and discord. All that is regarded by men of insight and the people of the most lofty outlook as the means for safeguarding and effecting the peace and tranquility of man, has flowed from the Supreme Pen. But the ignorant ones who are the victim of self and desire, are heedless of the consummate wisdom of the truly wise One, and their words and deeds are prompted by fancy and superstition.
Oh ye chosen of God and His trusted ones! Kings are the manifestors of God’s power and the source of His majesty and affluence. Pray ye in their behalf. The government of the earth has been vouchsafed unto them. But the hearts of men He decreed unto Himself. He forbade conflict and strife – a rigid prohibition the Book. This is the Decree of God in this most great Manifestation; and God hath preserved it from annulment and clothed it with the broidered garment of confirmation. Verily, He is the all-knowing, the all-wise!
It is incumbent upon all to support those rulers and chiefs of state who are adorned with the raiment of justice and equity. Blessed are the rulers and the learned in el-Bahá! They verily are My trustees amongst My servants, and the sources of My Decrees amongst My people. Upon them rest My Bahá, My mercy and My grace which hath encircled the world!
Anent this matter, we have revealed in the Book of Aqdas the following words which radiate the light of divine mercy:
Oh my Branches! A mighty power and supreme potency is hidden and concealed in the world of being. Focus your gaze upon it and upon the direction of its unity, not upon the differences which are apparent therein.
God’s Will and Testament enjoins upon the branches, the twigs, and the kinsfolk, one and all, to gaze unto the most great Branch. Consider what we have revealed in my
Book of Aqdas, to wit:
“When the sea of My Presence is exhausted and the Book of Origin hath reached its end, turn you unto him (‘Abdu’l-Bahá) who is desired by God – he who is issued from this ancient Root.”
The purpose of this sacred verse is the most great Branch. Thus have we declared the matter as a favor on our part, and we are the gracious, the beneficent!
God hath, verily, decreed the station of the great Branch next to that of the most great Branch. Verily He is the wise ordainer. We have chosen el-Akbar after the el‘A’sam, as a command on the part of God, the all-knowing, the omniscient.
All must regard the other Branches with affection, but God hath not decreed unto them any right to the people’s property.
Oh my branches, my twigs, and my kinsfolk! I counsel you to manifest divine virtue, and to act in accord with the Law, and with whatsoever is befitting and will elevate you stations.
Truly I say, virtue is the greatest commander which leads the Cause of God to victory, and the legions which deserve this commander are pure, sanctified and praiseworthy deeds and attributes.
Say: Oh servants! Do not make the cause of order a cause for disorder, nor the means of unity a means for disunity. It is hoped that the people of Bahá will observe the sacred verse: “Say, all are created by God.” This lofty utterance is like unto water for quenching the fire of hate and hostility which is hidden and stored in men’s hearts and minds. This single utterance will cause
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the various sects and creeds to attain the light of true unity. Verily He speaketh truth and guideth to the right path; and He is the mighty, the glorious, the omnipotent.
For the honor of the Cause and the promotion of the Word – it is necessary that all shall respect and have regard for the Branches. This command has been recorded once and again in the divine Book. Blessed is he who obeys whatsoever hath been ordained on the part of God, the ancient ruler. All shall also have respect for the women-members of Our household and for the afnán and kinsfolk. We likewise counsel you to serve mankind and bring peace to the world.
All that leads to the quickening of the people and the salvation of the world hath been revealed from the kingdom of utterance by the Lord of mankind. Hearken to the exhortations of the Supreme Pen with ideal ears. These are preferable unto you above all that is on the earth. Whereunto beareth witness my Book, the blessed, the glorious!
The Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh
An Explanation by Shoghi Effendi
A
dynamic process, divinely propelled, possessed of undreamt-of potentialities,
world-embracing in scope, world-transforming in its ultimate consequences, had
been set in motion on that memorable night when the Báb communicated the
purpose of His mission to Mullá Husayn in an obscure corner of Shíráz. It
acquired a tremendous momentum with the first intimations of Bahá'u'lláh's
dawning Revelation amidst the darkness of the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán. It was
further accelerated by the Declaration of His mission on the eve of His banishment
from Baghdád. It moved to a climax with the proclamation of that same mission
during the tempestuous years of His exile in Adrianople. Its full significance
was disclosed when the Author of that Mission issued His historic summonses,
appeals and warnings to the kings of the earth and the world's ecclesiastical
leaders. It was finally consummated by the laws and ordinances which He
formulated, by the principles which He enunciated and by the institutions which
He ordained during the concluding years of His ministry in the prison-city of Akká.
To direct and canalize these
forces let loose by this Heaven-sent process, and to insure their harmonious
and continuous operation after His ascension, an instrument divinely ordained,
invested with indisputable authority, organically linked with the Author of the
Revelation Himself, was clearly indispensable. That instrument Bahá'u'lláh had
expressly provided through the institution of the Covenant, an institution
which He had firmly established prior to His ascension. This same Covenant He
had anticipated in His Kitáb-i-Aqdas, had alluded to it as He bade His last
farewell to the members of His family, who had been summoned to His bed-side,
in the days immediately preceding His ascension, and had incorporated it in a
special document which He designated as "the Book of My Covenant,"
and which He entrusted, during His last illness, to His eldest son
`Abdu'l-Bahá.
Written entirely in His own
hand; unsealed, on the ninth day after His ascension in the presence of nine
witnesses chosen from amongst His companions and members of His Family; read
subsequently, on the afternoon of that same day, before a large company
assembled in His Most Holy Tomb, including His sons, some of the Báb's kinsmen,
pilgrims and resident believers, this unique and epoch-making Document,
designated by Bahá'u'lláh as His "Most Great Tablet," and alluded to
by Him as the "Crimson Book" in His "Epistle to the Son of the
Wolf," can find no parallel in the Scriptures of any previous
Dispensation, not excluding that of the Báb Himself. For
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nowhere in the books pertaining to
any of the world's religious systems, not even among the writings of the Author
of the Bábí Revelation, do we find any single document establishing a Covenant
endowed with an authority comparable to the Covenant which Bahá'u'lláh had
Himself instituted.
"So firm and mighty is
this Covenant," He Who is its appointed Center has affirmed, "that
from the beginning of time until the present day no religious Dispensation hath
produced its like." "It is indubitably clear," He, furthermore,
has stated, "that the pivot of the oneness of mankind is nothing else but
the power of the Covenant." "Know thou," He has written,
"that the `Sure Handle' mentioned from the foundation of the world in the
Books, the Tablets and the Scriptures of old is naught else but the Covenant
and the Testament." And again: "The lamp of the Covenant is the light
of the world, and the words traced by the Pen of the Most High a limitless
ocean." "The Lord, the All-Glorified," He has moreover declared,
"hath, beneath the shade of the Tree of Anísá (Tree of Life), made a new
Covenant and established a great Testament... Hath such a Covenant been
established in any previous Dispensation, age, period or century? Hath such a
Testament, set down by the Pen of the Most High, ever been witnessed? No, by
God!" And finally: "The power of the Covenant is as the heat of the
sun which quickeneth and promoteth the development of all created things on
earth. The light of the Covenant, in like manner, is the educator of the minds,
the spirits, the hearts and souls of men." To this same Covenant He has in
His writings referred as the "Conclusive Testimony," the
"Universal Balance," the "Magnet of God's grace," the
"Upraised Standard," the "Irrefutable Testament," "the
all-mighty Covenant, the like of which the sacred Dispensations of the past
have never witnessed" and "one of the distinctive features of this
most mighty cycle."
Extolled by the writer of the Apocalypse as
"the Ark of His (God) Testament"; associated with the gathering
beneath the "Tree of Anísá" (Tree of Life) mentioned by Bahá'u'lláh
in the Hidden Words; glorified by Him, in other passages of His writings, as the
"Ark of Salvation" and as "the Cord stretched betwixt the earth
and the Abhá Kingdom," this Covenant has been bequeathed to posterity in a
Will and Testament which, together with the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and several Tablets,
in which the rank and station of `Abdu'l-Bahá are unequivocally disclosed,
constitute the chief buttresses
designed by the Lord of the Covenant Himself to shield and support, after His
ascension, the appointed Center of His Faith and the Delineator of its future
institutions.
In this weighty and incomparable Document
its Author discloses the character of that "excellent and priceless
heritage" bequeathed by Him to His "heirs"; proclaims afresh the
fundamental purpose of His Revelation; enjoins the "peoples of the
world" to hold fast to that which will "elevate" their
"station"; announces to them that "God hath forgiven what is
past"; stresses the sublimity of man's station; discloses the primary aim
of the Faith of God; directs the faithful to pray for the welfare of the kings
of the earth, "the manifestations of the power, and the daysprings of the
might and riches, of God"; invests them with the rulership of the earth;
singles out as His special domain the hearts of men; forbids categorically
strife and contention; commands His followers to aid those rulers who are
"adorned with the ornament of equity and justice"; and directs, in
particular, the Aghsán (His sons) to ponder the "mighty force and the
consummate power that lieth concealed in the world of being." He bids
them, moreover, together with the Afnán (the Báb's kindred) and His own
relatives, to "turn, one and all, unto the Most Great Branch
(`Abdu'l-Bahá)"; identifies Him with "the One Whom God hath
purposed," "Who hath branched from this pre-existent Root,"
referred to in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas; ordains the station of the "Greater
Branch" (Mírzá Muhammad-`Alí) to be beneath that of the "Most Great
Branch" (`Abdu'l-Bahá); exhorts the believers to treat the Aghsán with
consideration and affection;
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counsels them to respect His family and relatives, as well as the kindred of the Báb; denies His sons "any right to the property of others"; enjoins on them, on His kindred and on that of the Báb to "fear God, to do that which is meet and seemly" and to follow the things that will "exalt" their station; warns all men not to allow "the means of order to be made the cause of confusion, and the instrument of union an occasion for discord"; and concludes with an exhortation calling upon the faithful to "serve all nations," and to strive for the "betterment of the world."
That such a unique and sublime
station should have been conferred upon `Abdu'l-Bahá did not, and indeed could
not, surprise those exiled companions who had for so long been privileged to
observe His life and conduct, nor the pilgrims who had been brought, however
fleetingly, into personal contact with Him, nor indeed the vast concourse of
the faithful who, in distant lands, had grown to revere His name and to
appreciate His labors, nor even the wide circle of His friends and
acquaintances who, in the Holy Land and the adjoining countries, were already
well familiar with the position He had occupied during the lifetime of His
Father.
He it was Whose auspicious
birth occurred on that never-to-be-forgotten night when the Báb laid bare the
transcendental character of His Mission to His first disciple Mullá Husayn. He
it was Who, as a mere child, seated on the lap of Táhirih, had registered the
thrilling significance of the stirring challenge which that indomitable heroine
had addressed to her fellow-disciple, the erudite and far-famed Vahíd. He it
was Whose tender soul had been seared with the ineffaceable vision of a Father,
haggard, dishevelled, freighted with chains, on the occasion of a visit, as a
boy of nine, to the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán. Against Him, in His early childhood,
whilst His Father lay a prisoner in that dungeon, had been directed the malice
of a mob of street urchins who pelted Him with stones, vilified Him and
overwhelmed Him with ridicule. His had been the lot to share with His Father,
soon after His release from imprisonment, the rigors and miseries of a cruel
banishment from His native land, and the trials which culminated in His
enforced withdrawal to the mountains of Kurdistán. He it was Who, in His
inconsolable grief at His separation from an adored Father, had confided to
Nabíl, as attested by him in his narrative, that He felt Himself to have grown
old though still but a child of tender years. His had been the unique distinction
of recognizing, while still in His childhood, the full glory of His Father's as
yet unrevealed station, a
recognition which had impelled Him
to throw Himself at His feet and to spontaneously implore the privilege of
laying down His life for His sake. From His pen, while still in His adolescence
in Baghdád, had issued that superb commentary on a well-known Muhammadan
tradition, written at the suggestion of Bahá'u'lláh, in answer to a request
made by `Alí-Shawkat Páshá, which was so illuminating as to excite the
unbounded admiration of its recipient. It was His discussions and discourses
with the learned doctors with whom He came in contact in Baghdád that first
aroused that general admiration for Him and for His knowledge which was
steadily to increase as the circle of His acquaintances was widened, at a later
date, first in Adrianople and then in Akká. It was to Him that the highly
accomplished Khurshíd Páshá, the governor of Adrianople, had been moved to pay
a public and glowing tribute when, in the presence of a number of distinguished
divines of that city, his youthful Guest had, briefly and amazingly, resolved
the intricacies of a problem that had baffled the minds of the assembled
company-- an achievement that affected so deeply the Páshá that from that time
onwards he could hardly reconcile himself to that Youth's absence from such gatherings.
On Him Bahá'u'lláh, as the scope and
influence of His Mission extended, had been led to place an ever greater degree
of reliance, by appointing Him, on numerous occasions, as His deputy, by
enabling Him to plead His Cause before the public, by assigning Him the task of
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transcribing His Tablets, by
allowing Him to assume the responsibility of shielding Him from His enemies,
and by investing Him with the function of watching over and promoting the
interests of His fellow-exiles and companions. He it was Who had been
commissioned to undertake, as soon as circumstances might permit, the delicate
and all-important task of purchasing the site that was to serve as the
permanent resting-place of the Báb, of insuring the safe transfer of His
remains to the Holy Land, and of erecting for Him a befitting sepulcher on Mt.
Carmel. He it was Who had been chiefly instrumental in providing the necessary
means for Bahá'u'lláh's release from His nine-year confinement within the city
walls of Akká, and in enabling Him to enjoy, in the evening of His life, a
measure of that peace and security from which He had so long been debarred. It
was through His unremitting efforts that the illustrious Badí had been granted
his memorable interviews with Bahá'u'lláh, that the hostility evinced by
several governors of Akká towards the exiled community had been transmuted into
esteem and admiration, that the purchase of properties adjoining the Sea of
Galilee and the River Jordan had been effected, and that the ablest and most
valuable presentation of the early history of the Faith and of its tenets had
been transmitted to posterity. It was through the extraordinarily warm reception
accorded Him during His visit to Beirut, through His contact with Midhát Páshá,
a former Grand Vizir of Turkey, through His friendship with Azíz Páshá, whom He
had previously known in Adrianople, and who had subsequently been promoted to
the rank of Valí, and through His constant association with officials, notables
and leading ecclesiastics who, in increasing number had besought His presence,
during the final years of His Father's ministry, that He had succeeded in
raising the prestige of the Cause He had championed to a level it had never
previously attained.
He alone had been accorded
the privilege of being called "the Master," an honor from which His
Father had strictly excluded all His other sons. Upon Him that loving and
unerring Father had chosen to confer the unique title of "Sirru'lláh"
(the Mystery of God), a designation so appropriate to One Who, though
essentially human and holding a station radically and fundamentally different
from that occupied by Bahá'u'lláh and
His Forerunner, could still claim to be the perfect Exemplar of His Faith, to
be endowed with super-human knowledge, and to be regarded as the stainless
mirror reflecting His light. To Him, whilst in Adrianople, that same Father
had, in the Súriy-i-Ghusn (Tablet of the Branch), referred as "this sacred
and glorious Being, this Branch of Holiness," as "the Limb of the Law
of God," as His "most great favor" unto
men, as His "most perfect bounty" conferred upon them, as One through Whom "every mouldering bone is quickened," declaring that "whoso turneth towards Him hath turned towards God," and that "they who deprive themselves of the shadow of the Branch are lost in the wilderness of error." To Him He, whilst still in that city, had alluded (in a Tablet addressed to Hájí Muhammad Ibráhím-i-Khalíl) as the one amongst His sons "from Whose tongue God will cause the signs of His power to stream forth," and as the one Whom "God hath specially chosen for His Cause." On Him, at a later period, the Author of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, in a celebrated passage, subsequently elucidated in the "Book of My Covenant," had bestowed the function of interpreting His Holy Writ, proclaiming Him, at the same time, to be the One "Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this Ancient Root." To Him in a Tablet, revealed during that same period and addressed to Mírzá Muhammad Qulíy-i-Sabzívarí, He had referred as "the Gulf that hath branched out of this Ocean that hath encompassed all created things," and bidden His followers to turn their faces towards it. To Him, on the occasion of His visit to Beirut, His Father had, furthermore, in a communication which He dictated to His amanuensis, paid a glowing tribute, glorifying Him as the One "round Whom all names revolve," as "the Most Mighty Branch of God," and as "His ancient and immutable Mystery." He it was Who, in several Tablets which Bahá'u'lláh Himself had penned, had been personally addressed as "the Apple of Mine eye," and
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been referred to as "a shield
unto all who are in heaven and on earth," as "a shelter for all
mankind" and "a stronghold for whosoever hath believed in God."
It was on His behalf that His Father, in a prayer revealed in His honor, had
supplicated God to "render Him victorious," and to "ordain ...
for Him, as well as for them that love Him," the things destined by the
Almighty for His "Messengers" and the "Trustees" of His
Revelation. And finally in yet another Tablet these weighty words had been
recorded: "The glory of God rest upon Thee, and upon whosoever serveth
Thee and circleth around Thee. Woe, great woe, betide him that opposeth and
injureth Thee. Well is it with him that sweareth fealty to Thee; the fire of
hell torment him who is Thy enemy."
And now to crown the
inestimable honors, privileges and benefits showered upon Him, in ever
increasing abundance, throughout the forty years of His Father's ministry in
Baghdád, in Adrianople and in Akká, He had been elevated to the high office of
Center of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant, and been made the successor of the
Manifestation of God Himself--a position that was to empower Him to impart an
extraordinary impetus to the international expansion of His Father's Faith, to
amplify its doctrine, to beat down every barrier that would obstruct its march,
and to call into being, and delineate the features of, its Administrative
Order, the Child of the Covenant, and the Harbinger of that World Order whose
establishment must needs signalize the advent of the Golden Age of the Bahá'í
Dispensation.
APPENDIX B
The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Part One
Herein Follow the Tablets and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
ALL-PRAISE TO HIM Who, by the Shield of His Covenant, hath guarded the Temple of His Cause from the darts of doubtfulness, Who by the Hosts of His Testament
hath preserved the Sanctuary of His most Beneficent Law and protected His Straight and Luminous Path, staying thereby the onslaught of the company of Covenant-breakers, that
have threatened to subvert His Divine Edifice; Who hath watched over His Mighty Stronghold and All-Glorious Faith, through the aid of men whom the slander of the slanderer affect not, whom no earthly calling, glory and power can tum aside from the Covenant of God and His Testament, established firmly by His clear and manifest words, writ and revealed by His All-Glorious Pen and recorded in the Preserved Tablet.
Salutation and praise, blessing and glory rest upon that primal branch of the Divine and Sacred Lote-Tree, grown out, blest, tender, verdant and flourishing from the Twin Holy Trees; the most wondrous, unique and priceless pearl that doth gleam from out the Twin surging seas; upon the offshoots of the Tree of Holiness, the twigs of the Celestial Tree, they that in the Day of the Great Dividing have stood fast and firm in the Covenant; upon the Hands (pillars) of the Cause of God that have diffused widely the Divine Fragrances, declared His Proofs, proclaimed His Faith, published abroad His Law, detached themselves from all things but Him, stood for righteousness in this world, and kindled the Fire of the Love of God in the very hearts and souls of His servants; upon them that have believed, rested assured, stood steadfast in His Covenant and followed the Light that after my passing shineth from the Dayspring of Divine Guidance -- for behold! he is
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the blest and sacred bough that hath branched out from the Twin Holy Trees. Well is it with him that seeketh the shelter of his shade that shadoweth all mankind.
O ye beloved of the Lord! The greatest of all things is the protection of the True Faith of God, the preservation of His Law, the safeguarding of His Cause and service unto His Word. Ten thousand souls have shed streams of their sacred blood in this path, their precious lives they offered in sacrifice unto Him, hastened wrapt in holy ecstasy unto the glorious field of martyrdom, upraised the Standard of God's Faith and writ with their life-blood upon the Tablet of the world the verses of His Divine Unity. The sacred breast of His Holiness, the Exalted One (may my life be a sacrifice unto Him), was made a target to many a dart of woe, and in Mazindaran, the blessed feet of the Abhá Beauty (may my life be offered up for His loved ones) were so grievously scourged as to bleed and be sore wounded. His neck also was put into captive chains and His feet made fast in the stocks. In every hour, for a period of fifty years, a new trial and calamity befell Him and fresh afflictions and cares beset Him. One of them: after having suffered intense vicissitudes, He was made homeless and a wanderer and fell a victim to still new vexations and troubles. In 'Iraq, the Day-Star of the world was so exposed to the wiles of the people of malice as to be eclipsed in splendor. Later on He was sent an exile to the Great City (Constantinople) and thence to the Land of Mystery (Adrianople), whence, grievously wronged, He was eventually transferred to the Most Great Prison (Akka). He Whom the world hath wronged (may my life be offered up for His loved ones) was four times banished from city to city, till at last, condemned to perpetual confinement, He was incarcerated in this prison, the prison of highway robbers, of brigands and of man-slayers. All this is but one of the trials that have afflicted the Blessed Beauty, the rest being even as grievous as this.
And still another of His trials was the hostility, the flagrant injustice, the iniquity and rebellion of Mírzá Yahyá. Although that Wronged One, that Prisoner, had through His loving-kindness nurtured him in His own bosom ever since his early years, had showered at every moment His tender care upon him, exalted his name, shielded him from every misfortune, endeared him to them of this world and the next, and despite the firm exhortations and counsels of His Holiness, the Exalted One (the Báb) and His clear and conclusive warning; -- "Beware, beware, lest the Nineteen Letters of the Living and that which hath been revealed in the Bayán veil thee!" yet notwithstanding this, Mírzá Yahyá denied Him, dealt falsely with Him, believed Him not, sowed the seeds of doubt, closed his eyes to His manifest verses and turned aside therefrom. Would that he had been content therewith! Nay, he even attempted to shed the sacred
blood (of Bahá'u'lláh) and then raised a great clamor and tumult around him, attributing unto Bahá'u'lláh malevolence and cruelty towards himself. What sedition he stirred up and what a storm of mischief he raised whilst in the Land of Mystery (Adrianople)! At last, he wrought that which caused the Day-Star of the world to be sent an exile to this, the Most Great Prison, and sorely wronged, and in the West of this Great Prison He did set.
O ye that stand fast and firm in the Covenant! The Center of Sedition, the Prime Mover of mischief, Mírzá Muhammad 'Alí, hath passed out from under the shadow of the Cause, hath broken the Covenant, hath falsified the Holy Text, hath inflicted a grievous loss upon the true Faith of God, hath scattered His people, hath with bitter rancor endeavored to hurt 'Abdu'lBahá and hath assailed with the utmost enmity this servant of the Sacred Threshold. Every dart he seized and hurled to pierce the breast of this wronged servant, no wound did he neglect to grievously inflict upon me, no venom did he spare but he poisoned therewith the life of this hapless one. I swear by the most holy Abhá Beauty and by the Light shining from His Holiness, the Exalted One (may my soul be a sacrifice for Their lowly servants), that because of this iniquity the dwellers in the Pavilion of the Abhá Kingdom have bewailed, the Celestial Concourse is lamenting, the Immortal Maids of Heaven in the All-Highest Paradise have raised
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their plaintive cries and the angelic company sighed and uttered their moanings. So grievous the deeds of this iniquitous person became that he struck with his axe at the root of the Blessed Tree, dealt a heavy blow at the Temple of the Cause of God, deluged with tears of blood the eyes of the loved ones of the Blessed Beauty, cheered and encouraged the enemies of the One True God, by his repudiation of the Covenant turned many a seeker after Truth aside from the Cause of God, revived the blighted hopes of Yahyá's following, made himself detested, caused the enemies of the Greatest Name to become audacious and arrogant, put aside the firm and conclusive verses and sowed the seeds of doubt. Had not the promised aid of the Ancient Beauty been graciously vouchsafed at every moment to this one, unworthy though he be, he surely would have destroyed, nay exterminated the Cause of God and utterly subverted the Divine Edifice. But, praised be the Lord, the triumphant assistance of the Abhá Kingdom was received, the hosts of the Realm above hastened to bestow victory. The Cause of God was promoted far and wide, the call of the True One was noised abroad, ears in all regions were inclined to the Word of God, His standard was unfurled, the ensigns of Holiness gloriously waved aloft and the verses celebrating His Divine Unity were chanted. Now, that the true Faith of God may be shielded and protected, His Law guarded and preserved and His Cause remain safe and secure, it is incumbent upon everyone to hold fast unto the Text of the clear and firmly established blessed verse, revealed about him. None other transgression greater than his can be ever imagined. He (Bahá'u'lláh) sayeth, glorious and holy is His Word:-"My foolish loved ones have regarded him even as my partner, have kindled sedition in the land and they verily are of the mischief-makers." Consider, how foolish are the people! They that have been in His (Bahá'u'lláh's) Presence and beheld His Countenance, have nevertheless noised abroad such idle talk, until, exalted be His explicit words, He said:-"Should he for a moment pass out from under the shadow of the Cause, he surely shall be brought to naught." Reflect! What stress He layeth upon one moment's deviation: that is, were he to incline a hair's breadth to the right or to the left, his deviation would be clearly established and his utter nothingness made manifest. And now ye are witnessing how the wrath of God hath from all sides afflicted him and how day by day he is speeding towards destruction. Ere long will ye behold him and his associates, outwardly and inwardly, condemned to utter ruin.
What deviation can be greater than breaking the Covenant of God! What deviation can be greater than interpolating and falsifying the words and verses of the Sacred Text, even as testified and declared by Mírzá Badí'u'lláh! What deviation can be greater than calumniating the Center of the Covenant himself! What deviation can be more glaring than spreading broadcast
false and foolish reports touching the Temple of God's Testament! What deviation can be more grievous than decreeing the death of the Center of the Covenant, supported by the holy verse:-"He that layeth a claim ere the passing of a thousand years ... ," whilst he (Muhammad 'Alí) without shame in the days of the Blessed Beauty had advanced such a claim as this and been confuted by Him in the aforementioned manner, the text of his claim being still extant in his own handwriting and bearing his own seal. What deviation can be more complete than falsely accusing the loved ones of God! What deviation can be more evil than causing their imprisonment and incarceration! What deviation can be more severe than delivering into the hands of the government the Holy Writings and Epistles, that haply they (the government) might arise intent upon the death of this wronged one! What deviation can be more violent than threatening the ruin of the Cause of God, forging and slanderously falsifying letters and documents so that this might perturb and alarm the government and lead to the shedding of the blood of this wronged one, -such letters and documents being now in the possession of the government! What deviation can be more odious than his iniquity and rebellion! What deviation can be more shameful than dispersing the gathering of the people of salvation! What deviation
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can be more infamous than the vain and feeble interpretations of the people of doubt! What deviation can be more wicked than joining hands with strangers and with the enemies of God!
A few months ago, in concert with others, he that hath broken the Covenant, hath prepared a document teeming with calumny and slander wherein, the Lord forbid, among many similar slanderous charges, 'Abdu'l-Bahá is deemed a deadly enemy, the ill-wisher of the Crown. They so perturbed the minds of the members of the Imperial Government that at last a Committee of Investigation was sent from the seat of His Majesty's Government which, violating every rule of justice and equity that befit His Imperial Majesty, nay, with the most glaring injustice, proceeded with its investigations. The ill-wishers of the One True God surrounded them on every side and explained and excessively enlarged upon the text of the document whilst they (the members of the Committee) in their turn blindly acquiesced. One of their many calumnies was that this servant had raised aloft a banner in this city, had summoned the people together under it, had established a new sovereignty for himself, had erected upon Mount Carmel a mighty stronghold, had rallied around him all the peoples of the land and made them obedient to him, had caused disruption in the Faith of Islám, had covenanted with the following of Christ and, God forbid, had purposed to cause the gravest breach in the mighty power of the Crown. May the Lord protect us from such atrocious falsehoods!
According to the direct and sacred command of God we are forbidden to utter slander, are commanded to show forth peace and amity, are exhorted to rectitude of conduct, straightforwardness and harmony with all the kindreds and peoples of the world. We must obey and be the well-wishers of the governments of the land, regard disloyalty unto a just king as disloyalty to God Himself and wishing evil to the government a transgression of the Cause of God. With these final and decisive words, how can it be that these imprisoned ones should indulge in such vain fancies; incarcerated, how could they show forth such disloyalty!
But alas! The Committee of Investigation hath approved and confirmed these calumnies of my brother and ill-wishers and submitted them to the presence of His Majesty the Sovereign. Now at this moment a fierce storm is raging around this prisoner who awaiteth, be it favorable or unfavorable, the gracious will of His Majesty, may the Lord aid him by His grace to be just. In whatsoever condition he may be, with absolute calm and quietness, 'Abdu'l-Bahá is ready for self-sacrifice and is wholly resigned and submitted to His Will. What transgression can be more abominable, more odious, more wicked than this!
In like manner, the focal Center of Hate, hath purposed to put 'Abdu'l-Bahá to death and this is supported by the testimony written by Mírzá Shu'á'u'lláh himself and is here enclosed. It is evident and indisputable that they are privily and with the utmost subtlety engaged in conspiring
against me. The following are his very words written by him in this letter: -"I curse at every moment him that hath kindled this discord, imprecate in these words 'Lord! have no mercy upon him' and I hope ere long God will make manifest the one that shall have no pity on him, who now weareth another garb and about whom I cannot any more explain." Reference he doth make by these words to the sacred verse that beginneth as follows:--"He that layeth a claim ere the passing of a thousand years ..." Reflect! How intent they are upon the death of 'Abdu'l-Bahá! Ponder in your hearts upon the phrase "I cannot any more explain" and realize what schemes they are devising for this purpose. They fear lest, too fully explained, the letter might fall into alien hands and their schemes be foiled and frustrated. The phrase is only foretelling good tidings to come, namely that regarding this all requisite arrangements have been made.
O God, my God! Thou seest this wronged servant of Thine, held fast in the talons of ferocious lions, of ravening wolves, of bloodthirsty beasts. Graciously assist me, through my love for Thee, that I may drink deep of the chalice that brimmeth over with faithfulness to Thee and is filled with Thy bountiful Grace; so that, fallen upon the dust, I may sink prostrate and senseless whilst my vesture is dyed crimson with my blood. This is my wish, my heart's desire,
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my hope, my pride, my glory. Grant, O Lord my God, and my Refuge, that in my last hour, my end may even as musk shed its fragrance of glory! Is there a bounty greater than this? Nay, by Thy Glory! I call Thee to witness that no day passeth but that I quaff my fill from this cup, so grievous are the misdeeds wrought by them that have broken the Covenant, kindled discord, showed their malice, stirred sedition in the land and dishonored Thee amidst Thy servants. Lord! Shield Thou from these Covenant-breakers the mighty Stronghold of Thy Faith and protect Thy secret Sanctuary from the onslaught of the ungodly. Thou art in truth the Mighty, the Powerful, the Gracious, the Strong.
In short, O ye beloved of the Lord! The Center of Sedition, Mírzá Muhammad 'Alí, in accordance with the decisive words of God and by reason of his boundless transgression, hath grievously fallen and been cut off from the Holy Tree. Verily, we wronged them not, but they have wronged themselves!
O God, my God! Shield Thy trusted servants from the evils of self and passion, protect them with the watchful eye of Thy loving kindness from all rancor, hate and envy, shelter them in the impregnable stronghold of Thy care and, safe from the darts of doubtfulness, make them the manifestations ·of Thy glorious Signs, illumine their faces with the effulgent rays shed from the Dayspring of Thy Divine Unity, gladden their hearts with the verses revealed from Thy Holy Kingdom, strengthen their loins by Thy all-swaying power that cometh from Thy Realm of Glory. Thou art the All-Bountiful, the Protector, the Almighty, the Gracious!
O ye that stand fast in the Covenant! When the hour cometh that this wronged and brokenwinged bird will have taken its flight into the Celestial Concourse, when it will have hastened to the Realm of the Unseen and its mortal frame will have been either lost or hidden neath the dust, it is incumbent upon the Afnán, that are steadfast in the Covenant of God and have branched from the Tree of Holiness; the Hands, (pillars) of the Cause of God (the glory of the Lord rest upon them), and all the friends and loved ones, one and all to bestir themselves and arise with heart and soul and in one accord, to diffuse the sweet savors of God, to teach His Cause and to promote His Faith. It behooveth them not to rest for a moment, neither to seek repose. They must disperse themselves in every land, pass by every clime, and travel throughout all regions. Bestirred, without rest, and steadfast to the end, they must raise in every land the triumphal cry "Yá Bahá'u'l-Abhá!"
(O Thou the Glory of Glories), must achieve renown in the world wherever they go, must burn brightly even as a candle in every meeting and must kindle the flame of Divine love in every
assembly; that the light of truth may rise resplendent in the midmost heart of the world, that throughout the East and throughout the West a vast concourse may gather under the shadow of the Word of God, that the sweet savors of holiness may be diffused, that faces may shine radiantly, hearts be filled with the Divine spirit and souls be made heavenly.
In these days, the most important of all things is the guidance of the nations and peoples of the world. Teaching the Cause is of utmost importance for it is the head corner-stone of the foundation itself. This wronged servant has spent his days and nights in promoting the Cause and urging the peoples to service. He rested not a moment, till the fame of the Cause of God was noised abroad in the world and the celestial strains from the Abhá Kingdom roused the East and the West. The beloved of God must also follow the same example. This is the secret of faithfulness, this is the requirement of servitude to the Threshold of Bahá!
The disciples of Christ forgot themselves and all earthly things, forsook all their cares and belongings, purged themselves of self and passion, and with absolute detachment scattered far and wide and engaged in calling the peoples of the world to the divine guidance; till at last they made the world another world, illumined the surface of the earth, and even to their last hour
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proved self-sacrificing in the pathway of that beloved One of God. Finally in various lands they suffered glorious martyrdom. Let them that are men of action follow in their footsteps!
O my loving friends! After the passing away of this wronged one, it is incumbent upon the Aghsan (Branches), the Afnán (Twigs) of the Sacred Lote-Tree, the Hands (pillars) of the Cause of God and the loved ones of the Abhá Beauty to tum unto Shoghi Effendi -the youthful branch branched from the two hallowed and sacred Lote-Trees and the fruit grown from the union of the two offshoots of the Tree of Holiness, -as he is the sign of God, the chosen branch, the Guardian of the Cause of God, he unto whom all the Aghsan, the Afnán, the Hands of the Cause of God and His loved ones must tum. He is the Interpreter of the Word of God and after him will succeed the first-born of his lineal descendants.
The sacred and youthful branch, the Guardian of the Cause of God, as well as the Universal House of Justice to be universally elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the Abhá Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of the Exalted One (may my life be offered up for them both). Whatsoever they decide is of God. Whoso obeyeth him not, neither obeyeth them, hath not obeyed God; whoso rebelleth against him and against them hath rebelled against God; whoso opposeth him hath opposed God; whoso contendeth with them hath contended with God; whoso disputeth with him hath disputed with God;
whoso denieth him hath denied God; whoso- disbelieveth in: him hath disbelieved in God; whoso deviateth, separateth himself and turneth aside from him hath in truth deviated, separated himself and turned aside from God. May the wrath, the fierce indignation, the vengeance of God rest upon him! The mighty stronghold shall remain impregnable and safe through obedience to him who is the Guardian of the Cause of God. It is incumbent upon the members of the House of Justice, upon all the Aghsan, the Afnán, the Hands of the Cause of God to show their obedience, submissiveness and subordination unto the Guardian of the Cause of God, to tum unto him and be lowly before him. He that opposeth him hath opposed the True One, will make a breach in the Cause of God, will subvert His Word and will become a manifestation of the Center of Sedition. Beware, beware, lest the days after the ascension (of Bahá’u’lláh) be repeated when the Center of Sedition waxed haughty and rebellious and with Divine Unity for his excuse deprived himself and perturbed and poisoned others. No doubt every vainglorious one that purposeth dissension and discord will not openly declare his evil purposes, nay rather, even as impure gold, will he seize upon divers measures and various pretexts that he may separate the gathering of the people of Bahá. My object is to show that the Hands of the Cause of God must be ever watchful and so soon as they find anyone beginning to oppose and protest against the Guardian of the Cause of God, cast him out from the congregation of the people of Bahá and in no wise accept any excuse
from him. How often hath grievous error been disguised in the garb of truth, that it might sow the seeds of doubt in the hearts of men!
O ye beloved of the Lord! It is incumbent upon the Guardian of the Cause of God to appoint in his own life-time him that shall become his successor, that differences may not arise after his passing. He that is appointed must manifest in himself detachment from all worldly things, must be the essence of purity, must show in himself the fear of God, knowledge, wisdom, and learning. Thus, should the first-born of the Guardian of the Cause of God not manifest in himself the truth of the words: -“The child is the secret essence of its sire,” that is, should he not inherit of the spiritual within him (the Guardian of the Cause of God) and his glorious lineage not be matched with goodly character, then must he, (the Guardian of the Cause of God) choose another branch to succeed him.
The Hands of the Cause of God must elect from their own number nine persons that shall at all times be occupied in the important services in the work of the Guardian of the Cause of God. The election of these nine must be carried either unanimously or by majority from the company
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of the Hands of the Cause of God and these, whether unanimously or by a majority vote, must give their assent to the choice of the one whom the Guardian of the Cause of God hath chosen as his successor. This assent must be given in such wise as the assenting and dissenting voices may not be distinguished (i.e., secret ballot).
O friends! The Hands of the Cause of God must be nominated and appointed by the Guardian of the Cause of God. All must be under his shadow and obey his command. Should any, within or without the company of the Hands of the Cause of God disobey and seek division, the wrath of God and His vengeance will be upon him, for he will have caused a breach in the true Faith of God.
The obligations of the Hands of the Cause of God are to diffuse the Divine Fragrances, to edify the souls of men, to promote learning, to improve the character of all men and to be, at all times and under all conditions, sanctified and detached from earthly things. They must manifest the fear of God by their conduct, their manners, their deeds and their words.
This body of the Hands of the Cause of God is under the direction of the Guardian of the Cause of God. He must continually urge them to strive and endeavor to the utmost of their ability to diffuse the sweet savors of God, and to guide all the peoples of the world, for it is the light of Divine Guidance that causeth all the universe to be illumined. To disregard, though it be for a moment, this absolute command which is binding upon everyone, is in no wise permitted, that the existent world may become even as the Ábhá Paradise, that the surface of the earth may become heavenly, that contention and conflict amidst peoples, kindreds, nations and governments may disappear, that all the dwellers on earth may become one people and one race, that the world may become even as one home. Should differences arise, they shall be amicably and conclusively settled by the Supreme Tribunal, that shall include members from all the governments and peoples of the world.
O ye beloved of the Lord! In this sacred Dispensation, conflict and contention are in no wise permitted. Every aggressor deprives himself of God’s grace. It is incumbent upon everyone to show the utmost love, rectitude of conduct, straightforwardness and sincere kindliness unto all peoples and kindreds of the world, be they friends or strangers. So intense must be the spirit of love and loving kindness, that the stranger may find himself a friend, the enemy a true brother, no difference whatsoever existing between them. For universality is of God and all limitations earthly. Thus man must strive that his reality may manifest virtues and perfections, the light whereof may shine upon everyone. The light of the sun shineth upon all the world and the merciful showers of Divine Providence fall upon all peoples. The vivifying breeze reviveth every
living creature and all beings endued with life obtain their share and portion at His heavenly board. In like manner, the affections and loving kindness of the servants of the One True God must be bountifully and universally extended to all mankind. Regarding this, restrictions and limitations are in no wise permitted.
Wherefore, O my loving friends! Consort with all the peoples, kindreds, and religions of the world with the utmost truthfulness, uprightness, faithfulness, kindliness, good-will and friendliness, that all the world of being may be filled with the holy ecstasy of the grace of Bahá, that ignorance, enmity, hate and rancor may vanish from the world and the darkness of estrangement amidst the peoples and kindreds of the world may give way to the Light of Unity. Should other peoples and nations be unfaithful to you show your fidelity unto them, should they be unjust toward you show justice towards them, should they keep aloof from you attract them to yourselves, should they show their enmity be friendly towards them, should they poison your lives, sweeten their souls, should they inflict a wound upon you, be a salve to their sores. Such are the attributes of the sincere! Such are the attributes of the truthful.
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And now, concerning the House of Justice which God hath ordained as the source of all good and freed from all error, it must be elected by universal suffrage, that is, by all the believers. Its members must be manifestations of the fear of God and daysprings of knowledge and understanding, must be steadfast in God’s faith and well-wishers of all mankind. By this House is meant the Universal House of Justice, that is, in all countries a secondary House of Justice must be instituted, and these secondary Houses of Justice must elect the members of the Universal one. Unto this body all things must be referred. It enacteth all ordinances and regulations that are not to be found in the explicit Holy Text. By this body all the difficult problems are to be resolved and the Guardian of the Cause of God is its sacred head and the distinguished member for life of that body. Should he not attend in person its deliberations, he must appoint one to represent him. Should any of the members commit a sin, injurious to the common weal, the Guardian of the Cause of God hath at his own discretion the right to expel him, whereupon the people must elect another one in his stead. This House of Justice enacteth the laws and the government enforceth them. The legislative body must reinforce the executive, the executive must aid and assist the legislative body so that through the close union and harmony of these two forces, the foundation of fairness and justice may become firm and strong, that all the regions of the world may become even as Paradise itself.
O Lord, my God! Assist Thy loved ones to be firm in Thy Faith, to walk in Thy
ways, to be steadfast in Thy Cause. Give them Thy grace to withstand the onslaught of self and passion, to follow the light of Divine Guidance. Thou art the Powerful, the Gracious, the Self-Subsisting, the Bestower, the Compassionate, the Almighty, the All-Bountiful.
O friends of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá! The Lord, as a sign of His infinite bounties, hath graciously favored His servants by providing for a fixed money offering (Huqúq), to be dutifully presented unto Him, though He, the True One and His servants have been at all times independent of all created things, and God verily is the All-Possessing, exalted above the need of any gift from His creatures. This fixed money offering, however, causeth the people to become firm and steadfast and draweth Divine increase upon them. It is to be offered through the Guardian of the Cause of God, that it may be expended for the diffusion of the Fragrances of God and the exaltation of His Word, for benevolent pursuits and for the common weal.
O ye beloved of the Lord! It is incumbent upon you to be submissive to all monarchs that are just and to show your fidelity to every righteous king. Serve ye the sovereigns of the world with utmost truthfulness and loyalty. Show obedience unto them and be their well-wishers. Without their leave and permission do not meddle with political affairs, for disloyalty to the sovereign is disloyalty to God Himself.
This is my counsel and the commandment of God unto you. Well is it with them that act accordingly.
Note: (This written paper hath for a long time been preserved underground, damp having affected it. When brought forth to the light it was observed that certain parts of it were injured by the damp, and the Holy Land being sorely agitated it was left untouched.)
Part Two
He is God
O MY LORD, my heart’s Desire, Thou Whom I ever invoke, Thou Who art my Aider and my Shelter, my Helper and my Refuge! Thou seest me submerged in an ocean of calamities that overwhelm the soul, of afflictions that oppress the heart, of woes that disperse Thy gathering of
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ills and pains that scatter Thy flock. Sore trials have compassed me round and perils have from all sides beset me. Thou seest me immersed in a sea of unsurpassed tribulations, sunk into a fathomless abyss, afflicted by mine enemies and consumed with the flame of their hate, enkindled by my kinsmen with whom Thou didst make Thy strong Covenant and Thy firm Testament, wherein Thou biddest them turn their hearts to this wronged one, to keep away from me the foolish, the unjust, and refer unto this lonely one all that about which they differ in Thy Holy Book, so that the Truth may be revealed unto them, their doubts may be dispelled and Thy manifest Signs be spread abroad.
Yet now Thou seest them, O Lord, my God! With Thine eye that sleepeth not, how they have broken Thy Covenant and turned their backs thereon, how with hate and rebelliousness they have erred from Thy Testament and have arisen intent upon malice.
Adversities have waxed still more severe as they rose with unbearable cruelty to
overpower and crush me, as they scattered far and wide their scrolls of doubt and in utter falsehood hurled the calumnies upon me. Not content with this, their chief, O my God, hath dared to interpolate Thy Book, to fraudulently alter Thy decisive Holy Text and falsify that which hath been revealed by Thy All-Glorious Pen. He did also maliciously insert that which Thou didst reveal for the one that hath wrought the most glaring cruelty upon Thee, disbelieved in Thee and denied Thy wondrous Signs, into what Thou didst reveal for this servant of Thine that hath been wronged in this world. All this he did that he might beguile the souls of men and breathe his evil whisperings into the hearts of Thy devoted ones. Thereunto did their second chief testify, confessing it in his own handwriting, setting thereupon his seal and spreading it throughout all regions. O my God! Could there be a more grievous injustice than this? And still they rested not, but further strove with stubbornness, falsehood and slander, with scorn and calumny to stir up sedition in the midst of the government of this land and elsewhere, causing them to deem me a sower of sedition and filling the minds with things that the ear abhorreth to hear. The government was thus alarmed, fear fell upon the sovereign, and the suspicion of the nobility was aroused. Minds were troubled, affairs were upset, souls were perturbed, the fire of anguish and sorrow was kindled within the breasts, the Holy Leaves (of the Household) were convulsed and shaken, their eyes rained with tears, their sighs and lamentations were raised and their hearts burned within them as they bewailed this wronged servant of Thine, fallen a victim into the hands of these, his kindred, nay his very enemies!
Lord! Thou seest all things weeping over me and my kindred rejoicing in My woes. By Thy Glory, O my God! Even amongst mine enemies, some have lamented my troubles and my distress, and of the envious ones a number have shed tears because of my cares, my exile and distress, and of the envious ones a number have shed tears because of my cares, my exile and
afflictions. They did this because they found naught in me but affection and care and witnessed naught but kindliness and mercy. As they saw me swept into the flood of tribulation and adversity and exposed even as a target to the arrows of fate, their hearts were moved with compassion, tears came to their eyes and they testified declaring – “The Lord is our witness; naught have we seen from him but faithfulness, generosity and extreme compassion.” The Covenant-breakers, foreboders of evil, however, waxed fiercer in their rancor, rejoiced as I fell a victim to the most grievous ordeal, bestirred themselves against me and made merry over the heartrending happenings around me.
I call upon Thee, O Lord my God! With my tongue and with all my heart, not to requite them for their cruelty and their wrongdoings, their craft and their mischief, for they are foolish and ignoble and know not what they do. They discern not good from evil, neither do they distinguish right from wrong, nor justice from injustice. They follow their own desires and walk in the footsteps of the most imperfect and foolish amongst them. O my Lord! Have mercy upon
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them, shield them from all afflictions in these troubled times and grant that all trials and hardships may be the lot of the Thy servant that hath fallen into this darksome pit. Single me out for every woe and make me a sacrifice for all Thy loved ones. O Lord, Most High! May my soul, my life, my being, my spirit, my all be offered up for them. O God, my God! Lowly, suppliant and fallen
upon my face, I beseech Thee with all the ardor of my invocation to pardon whosoever hath hurt me, forgive him that hath conspired against me and offended me, and wash away their misdeeds of them that have wrought injustice upon me. Vouchsafe unto them Thy goodly gifts, give them joy, relieve them from sorrow, grant them peace and prosperity, give them Thy bliss and pour upon them Thy bounty.
Thou art the Powerful, the Gracious, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting!
O dearly beloved friends! I am now in very great danger and the hope of even an hour’s life is lost to me. I am thus constrained to write these lines for the protection of the Cause of God, the preservation of His Law, the safeguarding of His Word and the safety of His Teachings. By the Ancient Beauty! This wronged one hath in no wise borne nor doth he bear a grudge against any one; towards none doth he entertain any ill-feeling and uttereth no word save for the good of the world. My supreme obligation, however, of necessity, prompteth me to guard and preserve the Cause of God. Thus, with the greatest regret, I counsel you saying: Guard ye and preserve the Cause of God, protect His law and have the utmost fear of discord. This is the foundation of the belief of the people of Bahá (may my life be offered up for them): “His Holiness, the Exalted One (the Báb), is the Manifestation of the Unity and Oneness of God and the Forerunner of the Ancient Beauty. His Holiness the Abhá Beauty (may my life be a sacrifice for His steadfast friends) is the Supreme Manifestation of God and the Dayspring of His Most Divine Essence. All others are servants unto Him and do His bidding.” Unto the Most Holy Book every one must turn, and all that is not expressly recorded therein must be referred to the Universal House of Justice. That which this body, whether unanimously or by a majority doth carry, that is verily the truth and the purpose of God Himself. Whoso doth deviate therefrom is verily of them that love discord, hath shown forth malice, and turned away from the Lord of the Covenant. By this House is meant that Universal House of Justice which is to be elected from all countries, that is from those parts in the East and West where the loved ones are to be found, after the manner of the customary elections in Western countries such as those of England.
It is incumbent upon these members (of the Universal House of Justice) to gather in a certain place and deliberate upon all problems which have caused difference, questions that are obscure and matters that are not expressly recorded in the Book. Whatsoever they decide has the same effect as the Text itself. And inasmuch as the House of Justice hath power to enact laws that are not expressly recorded in the Book and bear upon daily transactions, so also it hath power to repeal the same. Thus for example, the House of Justice enacteth today a certain law and
enforceth it, and a hundred years hence, circumstances having profoundly changed and the conditions having altered, another House of Justice will then have power, according to the exigencies of the time, to alter that law. This it can do because that law formeth no part of the Divine Explicit Text. The House of Justice is both the initiator and the abrogator of its own laws.
And now, one of the greatest and most fundamental principles of the Cause of God is to shun and avoid entirely the Covenant-breakers, for they will utterly destroy the Cause of God, exterminate His Law and render of no account all efforts exerted in the past. O friends! It behooveth you to call to mind with tenderness the trials of is Holiness, the Exalted One, and show your fidelity to the Ever-Blest Beauty. The utmost endeavor must be exerted lest all these woes, trials and afflictions, all this pure and sacred blood that hath been shed so profusely in the Path of God, may prove to be in vain. Ye know well what the hands of the Center of Sedition, Mírzá Muhammad ‘Alí, and his associates have wrought. Among his doings, one of them is the
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corruption of the Sacred Text whereof ye are all aware, the Lord be praised, and know that it is evident, proven and confirmed by the testimony of his brother, Mírzá Badí’u’lláh, whose confession is written in his own handwriting, beareth his seal, is printed and spread abroad. This is but one of his misdeeds. Can a transgression be imagined more glaring than this, the interpolation of the Holy Text? Nay, by the righteousness of the Lord! His transgressions are writ and recorded in a leaflet by itself. Please God, ye will peruse it.
In short, according to the explicit Divine Text the least transgression shall make of this man a fallen creature, and what transgression is more grievous than attempting to destroy the Divine Edifice, breaking the Covenant, erring from the Testament, falsifying the Holy Text, sowing the seeds of doubt, calumniating ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, advancing claims for which God hath sent down no warrant, kindling mischief and striving to shed the very blood of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and many other things whereof ye are all aware! It is thus evident that should this man succeed in bringing disruption into the Cause of God, he will utterly destroy and exterminate it. Beware lest ye approach this man, for to approach him is worse than approaching fire!
Gracious God! After Mírzá Badí’u’llah had declared in his own handwriting that this man (Muhammad ‘Alí) had broken the Covenant and had proclaimed his falsification of the Holy Text, he realized that to return to the True Faith and pay allegiance to the Covenant and Testament would in no wise promote his selfish desires. He thus repented and regretted the thing he had done and attempted privily to gather in his printed confessions, plotted darkly with the Center of Sedition against me and informed him daily of all the happenings within my household. He has even taken a leading part in the mischievous deeds that have of late been committed. Praise be to God affairs recovered their former stability and the loved ones obtained partial peace. But ever since the day he entered again into our midst, he began afresh to sow the seeds of sore sedition. Some of his machinations and intrigues will be recorded in a separate leaflet.
My purpose is, however, to show that it is incumbent upon the friends that are fast and firm in the Covenant and Testament to be ever wakeful lest after this wronged one is gone this alert and active worker of mischief may cause disruption, privily sow the seeds of doubt and sedition and utterly root out the Cause of God. A thousand times shun his company. Take heed and be on your guard. Watch and examine; should anyone, openly or privily, have the least connection with him, cast him out from your midst, for he will surely cause disruption and mischief.
O ye beloved of the Lord! Strive with all your heart to shield the Cause of God from the onslaught of the insincere, for the souls such as these cause the straight to become crooked and all benevolent efforts to produce contrary results.
O God, my God! I call Thee, Thy Prophets and Thy Messengers, Thy Saints and Thy Holy Ones, to witness that I have declared conclusively Thy Proofs unto Thy loved ones and set
forth clearly all things unto them, that they may watch over Thy Faith, guard Thy Straight Path and protect Thy Resplendent Law. Thou art, verily, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise!
Part Three
He Is the Witness, the All-Sufficing
O MY GOD! my Beloved, my heart’s Desire! Thou knowest, Thou seest that which hath befallen this servant of Thine, that hath humbled himself at Thy Door, and Thou knowest the sins committed against him by the people of malice, they that have broken Thy Covenant and turned their backs on The Testament. In the day-time they afflicted me with the arrows of hate
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and in the night-season they privily conspired to hurt me. At dawn they committed that which the Celestial Concourse did lament and at eventide they unsheathed against me the sword of tyranny and hurled in the presence of the ungodly their darts of calumny upon me. Notwithstanding their misdeeds, this lowly servant of Thine was patient and did endure every affliction and trial at their hands, though by Thy power and might he could have destroyed their words, quenched their fire and stayed the flame of their rebelliousness.
Thou seest, O my God! how my long-suffering, my forbearance and silence have increased their cruelty, their arrogance and their pride. By Thy Glory, O Beloved One! They have misbelieved in Thee and rebelled against Thee in such wise that they left me not a moment of rest and quiet, that I might arise as it is meet and seemly, to exalt Thy Word amidst mankind, and might serve at Thy Threshold of Holiness with a heart that overfloweth with the joy of the dwellers of the Abhá Kingdom.
Lord! My cup of woe runneth over, and from all sides blows are fiercely raging upon me. The darts of affliction have compassed me round and the arrows of distress have rained upon me. Thus tribulation overwhelmed me and my strength, because of the onslaught of the foemen, became weakness with me, while I stood alone and forsaken in the midst of my woes. Lord! Have mercy upon me, lift me up unto Thyself and make me to drink from the Chalice of Martyrdom, for the wide world with all its vastness can no longer contain me.
Thou art, verily, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Gracious, the All-Bountiful!
O ye the true, the sincere, the faithful friends of this wronged one! Everyone knoweth and believeth what calamities and afflictions have befallen this wronged one, this prisoner, at the hands of those who have broken the Covenant at the time when, after the setting of the Day-Star of the world, his heart was consumed with the flame of His bereavement.
When, in all parts of the earth, the enemies of God profiting by the passing away of the Sun of Truth, suddenly and with all their might launched their attack; at such a time and in the midst of so great a calamity, the Covenant-breakers arose with the utmost cruelty, intent upon harm and the stirring up of the spirit of enmity. At every moment a misdeed they did commit and bestirred themselves to sow the seeds of grievous sedition,
and to ruin the edifice of the Covenant. But this wronged one, this prisoner, did his utmost to hide and veil their doings, that haply they might regret and repent. His long-suffering and forbearance of these evil deeds, however, made the rebellious ones still more arrogant and daring; until, through leaflets written with their own hands, they sowed the seeds of doubt, printing these leaflets and scattering them broadcast throughout the world, believing that such foolish doings would bring to naught the Covenant and the Testament.
Thereupon the loved ones of the Lord arose, inspired with the greatest confidence and constancy and aided by the power of the Kingdom, by Divine Strength, by heavenly Grace, by the
unfailing help and Celestial Bounty, they withstood the enemies of the Covenant in well-nigh three score and ten treatises and supported by conclusive proofs, unmistakable evidences and clear texts from the Holy Writ, they refuted their scrolls of doubt and mischief-kindling leaflets. The Center of Sedition was thus confounded in his craftiness, afflicted by the wrath of God, sunk into a degradation and infamy that shall be lasting until the Day of Doom. Base and wretched is the plight of the people of evil deeds, they that are in grievous loss!
And as they lost their cause, grew hopeless in their efforts against the loved ones of God, saw the Standard of His Testament waving throughout all regions and witnessed the power of the Covenant of the Merciful One, the flame of envy so blazed within them as to be beyond recounting. With the utmost vigor, exertion, rancor and enmity, they followed another path, walked in another way, devised another plan: that of kindling the flame of sedition in the heart of the very government itself, and thus cause this wronged one, this prisoner to appear as a mover of
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strife, inimical to the government and a hater and opponent of the Crown. Perchance ‘Abdu’l-Bahá may be put to death and his name be made to perish whereby an arena may be opened unto the enemies of the Covenant wherein they may advance and spur on their charger, inflict a grievous loss upon everyone and subvert the very foundations of the edifice of the Cause of God. For so grievous is the conduct and behavior of this false people that they are become even as an axe striking at the very root of the Blessed Tree. Should they be suffered to continue they would, in but a few days’ time, exterminate the Cause of God, His Word, and themselves.
Hence, the beloved of the Lord must entirely shun them, avoid them, foil their machinations and evil whisperings, guard the Law of God and His religion, engage one and all in diffusing widely the sweet savors of God and to the best of their endeavor proclaim His Teachings.
Whosoever and whatsoever meeting becometh a hindrance to the diffusion of the Light of Faith, let the loved ones give them counsel and say: “Of all the gifts of God the greatest is the gift of Teaching. It draweth unto us the Grace of God and is our first obligation. Of such a gift how can we deprive ourselves? Nay, our lives, our goods, our comforts, our rest, we offer them all as a sacrifice for the Abhá Beauty and teach the Cause of God.” Caution and prudence, however, must be observed even as recorded in the Book. The veil must in no wise be suddenly rent asunder. The Glory of Glories rest upon you.
O ye the faithful loved one of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá! It is incumbent upon you to take the
greatest care of Shoghi Effendi, the twig that hath branched from the fruit given forth by the two hallowed and Divine Lote-Trees, that no dust of despondency and sorrow may stain his radiant nature, that day by day he may wax greater in happiness, in joy and spirituality, and may grow to become even as a fruitful tree.
For he is, after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Guardian of the Cause of God, the Afnán, the Hands (pillars) of the Cause and the beloved of the Lord must obey him and turn unto him. He that obeyeth him not, hath not obeyed God; he that turneth away from him, hath turned away from God and he that denieth him, hath denied the True One. Beware lest anyone falsely interpret these words, and like unto them that have broken the Covenant after the Day of Ascension (of Bahá’u’lláh) advance a pretext, raise the standard of revolt, wax stubborn and open wide the door of false interpretation. To none is given the right to put forth his own opinion or express his particular conviction. All must seek guidance and turn unto the Center of the Cause and the House of Justice. And he that turneth unto whatsoever else is indeed in grievous error.
The Glory of Glories rest upon you!
APPENDIX C
The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh
By Shoghi Effendi
Part 4
On Administration
The Administrative Order From The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh By Shoghi Effendi
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Dearly-beloved brethren in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá! With the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh the Day-Star of Divine guidance which, as foretold by Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kázim, had risen in Shiráz, and, while pursuing its westward course, had mounted its zenith in Adrianople, had finally sunk below the horizon of ‘Akká, never to rise again ere the complete revolution of one thousand years. The setting of so effulgent an Orb brought to a definite termination the period of Divine Revelation – the initial and most vitalizing stage in the Bahá’i era. Inaugurated by the Báb, culminating in Bahá’u’lláh, anticipated and extolled by the entire company of the Prophets of this great prophetic cycle, this period has, except for the short interval between the Báb’s martyrdom and Bahá’u’lláh’s shaking experiences in the Siyáh-Chál of Tihrán, been characterized by almost fifty years of continuous and progressive Revelation – a period which by its duration and fecundity must be regarded as unparalleled in the entire field of the world’s spiritual history.
The passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, on the other hand, marks the closing of the Heroic and Apostolic Age of this same Dispensation – that primitive period of our Faith the splendors of which can never be rivaled, much less be eclipsed, by the magnificence that must needs distinguish the future victories of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation. For neither the achievements of the champion-builders of the present- day institutions of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, nor the tumultuous triumphs which the heroes of is Golden Age will in the coming days succeed in winning, can measure with, or be included within the same category as, the wondrous works associated with the names of those who have generated its very life and laid its pristine foundations. That first and creative age of the Bahá’i era must, by its very nature, stand above and apart from the formative period into which we have entered and the golden age destined to succeed it.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who incarnates an institution for which we can find no parallel whatsoever in any of the world’s recognized religious systems, may have said to have closed the Age to which He Himself belonged and opened the one in which we are now laboring. His Will and Testament should thus be regarded as the perpetual, the indissoluble link which the mind of Him Who is the Mystery of God has conceived in order to insure the continuity of the three ages that constitute the component parts of the Bahá’i Dispensation. The period in which the seed of the Faith had been slowly germinating is thus intertwined both with the one which must witness its efflorescence and the subsequent age in which that seed will have finally yielded its golden fruit.
The creative energies released by the Law of Bahá’u’lláh, permeating and evolving within the mind of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, have by their very impact and close interaction, given birth to an Instrument which may be viewed as the Charter of the New World Order which is at once the glory and the promise of this most great Dispensation. The Will may thus be acclaimed as the inevitable offspring resulting from that mystic intercourse between Him Who communicated the generating influence of His divine Purpose and the One Who was its vehicle and chosen recipient.
Being the Child of the Covenant – the Heir of both the Originator and the Interpreter of the Law of God – the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá can no more be divorced from Him who supplied the original and motivating impulse than from the One who ultimately conceived it. Bahá’u’lláh’s inscrutable purpose, we must ever bear in mind has been so thoroughly infused into the conduct of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and their motives have been so closely wedded together, that the mere attempt to dissociate the teachings of the former from any system which the ideal Exemplar of those same teachings has established would amount to a repudiation of one of the most sacred and basic truths of the Faith.
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The Administrative Order, which ever since ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ascension has evolved and is taking shape under our very eyes in no fewer than forty countries of the world, may be considered as the framework of the Will itself, the inviolable stronghold wherein this new-born child is being nurtured and developed. This Administrative Order, as it expands and consolidates itself, will no doubt manifest the potentialities and reveal the full implications of this momentous Document – this most remarkable expression of the Will of One of the most remarkable Figures of the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh. It will, as its component parts, its organic institutions, begin to function with efficiency and vigor, 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.
It should be noted in this connection that this Administrative Order is fundamentally different from anything that any Prophet has previously established, inasmuch as Bahá’u’lláh has Himself revealed its principles, established its institutions, appointed the person to interpret His Word and conferred the necessary authority on the body designed to supplement and apply His legislative ordinances. Therein lies the secret of its strength, its fundamental distinction, and the guarantee against disintegration and schism. Nowhere in the sacred scriptures of any of the world’s religious systems, nor even in the writings of the Inaugurator of the Bábí Dispensation, do we find any provisions establishing a covenant or providing for an administrative order that can compare in scope and authority with those that lie at the very basis of the Bahá’í Dispensation. Has either Christianity or Islám, to take as an instance two of the most widely diffused and outstanding among the world’s recognized religions, anything to offer that can measure with, or be regarded as equivalent to, either the Book of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant or to the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? Does the text of either the Gospel or the Qur’án confer sufficient authority upon those leaders and councils that have claimed the right and assumed the function of interpreting the provisions of their sacred scriptures and of administering the affairs of their respective communities? Could Peter, the admitted chief of the Apostles, or the Imám ‘Ali, the cousin and legitimate successor of the Prophet, produce in support of the primacy with which both had been invested written and explicit affirmations from Christ and Muhammad that could have silenced those who either among their contemporaries or in a later age have repudiated their authority and, by their action, precipitated the schisms that persist until the present day? Where, we may confidently ask, in the recorded sayings of Jesus Christ,, whether in the matter of succession or in the provision of a set of specific laws and clearly defined administrative ordinances, as distinguished from purely spiritual principles, can we find anything approaching the detailed injunctions, laws and warnings that abound in the authenticated utterances of both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? Can any passage of the Qur’án, which in respect to its legal code, its administrative and devotional ordinances marks already a notable advance over previous and more corrupted Revelations, be construed as placing upon an unassailable basis the undoubted authority with which Muhammad had, verbally and on several occasions, invested His successor? Can the Author of the Bábi Dispensation however much He may have succeeded through the provisions the Persian Bayán in averting a schism as permanent and catastrophic as those that afflicted Christianity and Islám – can He be said to have produced instruments for the safeguarding of His Faith as definite and efficacious as those which must for all time preserve the unity of the organized followers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh?
Alone of all the Revelations gone before it this Faith has, through the explicit directions, the repeated warnings, the authenticated safeguards incorporated and elaborated in its teachings, succeeded in raising a structure which the bewildered followers of bankrupt and broken creeds
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might well approach and critically examine, and seek, ere it is too late, the invulnerable security of its world-embracing shelter.
No wonder that He Who through the operation of His Will has inaugurated so vast and unique an Order and Who is the Center of so mighty a Covenant should have written these words: “So firm and mighty is this Covenant that from the beginning of time until the present day no religious Dispensation hath produced its like.” “Whatsoever is latent in the innermost of this holy cycle,” He wrote during the darkest and most dangerous days of His ministry, “shall gradually appear and be made manifest, for now is but the beginning of its growth and the dayspring of the revelation of its signs.” “Fear not,” are His reassuring words foreshadowing the rise of the Administrative Order established by His Will, “fear not if this Branch be severed from this material world and cast aside its leaves; nay, the leaves thereof shall flourish, for this Branch will grow after it is cut off from this world below, it shall reach the loftiest pinnacles of glory, and it shall bear such fruits as will perfume the world with their fragrance.”
To what else if not to the power and majesty which this Administrative Order-the rudiments of the future all-enfolding Bahá’í Commonwealth-is destined to manifest, can these utterances of Bahá’u’lláh allude: “The world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System-the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.”
The Báb Himself, in the course of His references to “Him Whom God will make manifest” anticipates the System and glorifies the World Order which the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is destine to unfold. “Well is it with him,” is His remarkable statement in the third chapter of the Persian Bayán, “who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Bahá’u’lláh and rendereth thanks unto his Lord! For He will assuredly be made manifest. God hath indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayán.”
In the Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh where the institutions of the International and Local Houses of Justice are specifically designated and formally established; in the institution of the Hands of the Cause of God which first Bahá’u’lláh and then ‘Abdu’l- Bahá brought into being; in the institution of both local and national Assemblies which in their embryonic stage were already functioning in the days preceding ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ascension; in the authority with which the Author of our Faith and the Center of His Covenant have in Tablets chosen to confer upon them; in the institution of the Local Fund which operated according to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s specific injunctions addressed to certain Assemblies in Persia; in the verses of the Kitáb-i- Aqdas the implications of which clearly anticipate the institution of the Guardianship; in the explanation which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in one of His Tablets, has given to, and the emphasis He has placed upon, the hereditary principle and the law of primogeniture as having been upheld by the Prophets of the past-in these we can discern the faint glimmerings and discover the earliest intimation of the nature and working of the Administrative Order which the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was at a later time destined to proclaim and formally establish.
An attempt, I feel should at the present juncture be made to explain the character and functions of the twin pillars that support this mighty Administrative Structure-the institutions of the Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice. To describe in their entirety the diverse
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elements that function in conjunction with these institutions is beyond the scope and purpose of this general exposition of the fundamental verities of the Faith. To define with accuracy and minuteness the features, and to analyze exhaustively the nature of the relationships which, on the one hand, bind together these two fundamental organs of the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and connect, on the other, each of them to the Author of the Faith and the Center of His Covenant is a task which future generations will no doubt adequately fulfill. My present intention is to elaborate certain salient features of this scheme which, however close we may stand to its colossal structure, are already so clearly defined that we find in inexcusable to either misconceive or ignore.
It should be stated, at the very outset, in clear and unambiguous language, that these twin institutions of the Administrative Order of Bahá’u’lláh should be regarded as divine in origin, essential in their functions and complementary in their aim and purpose. Their common, their fundamental object is to insure the continuity of that divinely-appointed authority which flows from the Source of our Faith, to safeguard the unity of its followers and to maintain the integrity and flexibility of its teachings. Acting in conjunction with each other these two inseparable institutions administer its affairs, coordinate its activities, promote its interests, execute its laws and defend its subsidiary institutions. Severally, each operates within a clearly defined sphere of jurisdiction; each is equipped with its own attendant institutions-instruments designed for the effective discharge of its particular responsibilities and duties. Each exercises, within the limitations imposed upon it, its powers, its authority, its rights and prerogatives. These are neither contradictory, nor detract in the slightest degree from the position which each of these institutions occupies. Far from being incompatible or mutually destructive, they supplement each other’s authority and functions, and are permanently and fundamentally united in their aims.
Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary principle which, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written, has been invariably upheld by the Law of God. “In all the Divine Dispensations,” He states, in a Tablet addressed to a follower of the Faith in Persia, “the eldest son hath been given extraordinary distinctions. Even the station of prophethood hath been his birthright.” Without such an institution the integrity of the Faith would be imperiled, and the stability of the entire fabric would be gravely endangered. Its prestige would suffer, the means required to enable it to take a long, an uninterrupted view over a series of generations would be completely lacking, and the necessary guidance to define the sphere of the legislative action of its elected representatives would be totally withdrawn.
Severed from the no less essential institution of the Universal House of Justice this same System of the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would be paralyzed in its action and would be powerless to fill in those gaps which the Author of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas has deliberately left in the body of His legislative and administrative ordinances.
“He is the Interpreter of the Word of God,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, referring to the functions of the Guardian of the Faith, asserts, using in His Will the very term which He Himself had chosen when refuting the argument of the Covenant-breakers who had challenged His right to interpret the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh. “After him,” He adds, “will succeed the first-born of his lineal descendants.” “The mighty stronghold,” He further explains, “shall remain impregnable and safe through obedience to him who is the Guardian of the Cause of God.” “It is incumbent upon the members of the House of Justice, upon all the Aghsán, the Afnán, the Hands of the Cause of God,
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to show their obedience, submissiveness and subordination unto the Guardian of the Cause of God.”
“It is incumbent upon the members of the House of Justice,” Bahá’u’lláh, on the other hand, declares in the Eighth Leaf of the Exalted Paradise, “to take counsel together regarding those things which have not outwardly been revealed in the Book, and to enforce that which is agreeable to them. God will verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth, and He verily is the Provider, the Omniscient.” “Unto the Most Holy Book” (the Kitáb-i-Aqdas), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states in His Will, “every one must turn, and all that is not expressly recorded therein must be referred to the Universal House of Justice. That which this body, whether unanimously or by a majority doth carry, that is verily the truth and the purpose of God Himself. Whoso doth deviate therefrom is verily of them that love discord, hath shown forth malice, and turned away from the Lord of the Covenant.”
Not only does ‘Abdu’l-Bahá confirm in His Will Bahá’u’lláh’s above-quoted statement, but invests this body with the additional right and power to abrogate, according to the exigencies of time, its own enactments, as well as those of a preceding House of Justice. “Inasmuch as the House of Justice,” is His explicit statement in His Will, “hath power of enact laws that are not expressly recorded in the Book and bear upon daily transactions, so also it hath power to repeal the same...This it can do because these laws form no part of the divine explicit text.”
Referring to both the Guardian and the Universal House of Justice we read these emphatic words: “The sacred and youthful Branch, the Guardian of the Cause of God, as well as the Universal House of Justice to be universally elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the Abhá Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of the Exalted One (the Báb) (may my life be offered up for them both). Whatsoever they decide is of God.”
From these statements it is made indubitably clear and evident that the Guardian of the Faith has been made the interpreter of the Word and that the Universal House of Justice has been invested with the function of legislating on matters not expressly revealed in the teachings. The interpretation of the Guardian, functioning within his own sphere, is as authoritative and binding as the enactments of the International House of Justice, whose exclusive right and prerogative is to pronounce upon and deliver the final judgment on such laws and ordinances as Bahá’u’lláh has not expressly revealed. Neither can, nor will ever, infringe upon the sacred and prescribed domain of the other. Neither will seek to curtail the specific and undoubted authority with which both have been divinely invested.
Though the Guardian of the Faith has been made the permanent head of so august a body he can never, even temporarily, assume the right of exclusive legislation. He cannot override the decision of the majority of his fellow-members, but is bound to insist upon a reconsideration by them of any enactment he conscientiously believes to conflict with the meaning and to depart from the spirit of Bahá’u’lláh’s revealed utterances. He interprets what has been specifically revealed, and cannot legislate except in his capacity as member of the Universal House of Justice. He is debarred from laying down independently the constitution that must govern the organized activities of his fellow-members, and from exercising his influence in a manner that would encroach upon the liberty of those whose sacred right is to elect the body of his collaborators.
It should be borne in mind that the institution of the Guardianship has been anticipated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in an allusion He made in a Tablet addressed, long before His own ascension, to
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three of His friends in Persia. To their question as to whether there would be any person to whom all the Bahá’is would be called upon to turn after His ascension He made the following reply: “As to the question ye have asked me, know verily that this is a well-guarded secret. It is even as a gem concealed within its shell. That it will be revealed is predestined. The time will come when its light will appear, when its evidences will be made manifest, and its secrets unraveled.”
Dearly-beloved friends! Exalted as is the position and vital as is the function of the institution of the Guardianship in the Administrative Order of Bahá’u’lláh, and staggering as must be the weight of responsibility which it carries, its importance must, whatever be the language of the Will, be in no wise over-emphasized. The Guardian of the Faith must not under any circumstances, and whatever his merits or his achievements, be exalted to the rank that will make him a co-sharer with ‘Abdu’l- Bahá in the unique position which the Center of the Covenant occupies-much less to the station exclusively ordained for the Manifestation of God. So grave a departure from the established tenets of our Faith is nothing short of open blasphemy. As I have already stated, in the course of my references to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s station, however great the gulf that separates Him from the Author of a Divine Revelation it can never measure with the distance that stands between Him Who is the Center of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant and the Guardians who are its chosen ministers. There is a far, far greater distance separating the Guardian from the Center of the Covenant than there is between the Center of the Covenant and its Author.
No Guardian of the Faith, I feel it my solemn duty to place on record, can ever claim to be the perfect exemplar of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh or the stainless mirror that reflects His light. Though overshadowed by the unfailing, the unerring protection of Bahá’u’lláh and of the Báb, and however much he may share with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the right and obligation to interpret the Bahá’i teachings, he remains essentially human and cannot, if he wishes to remain faithful to his trust, arrogate to himself, under any pretense whatsoever, the rights, the privileges and prerogatives which Bahá’u’lláh has chosen to confer upon His Son. In the light of this truth to pray to the Guardian of the Faith, to address him as a lord and master, to designate him as his holiness, to seek his benediction, to celebrate his birthday, or to commemorate any event associated with his life would be tantamount to a departure from those established truths that are enshrined within our beloved Faith. The fact that the Guardian has been specifically endowed with such power as he may need to reveal the purport and disclose the implications of the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá does not necessarily confer upon him a station co- equal with those Whose words he is called upon to interpret. He can exercise that right and discharge this obligation and yet remain infinitely inferior to both of them in rank and different in nature.
To the integrity of this cardinal principle of our Faith the words, the deeds of its present and future Guardians must abundantly testify. By their conduct and example they must needs establish its truth upon an unassailable foundation and transmit to future generations unimpeachable evidences of its reality. For my own part to hesitate in recognizing so vital a truth or to vacillate in proclaiming so firm a conviction must constitute a shameless betrayal of the confidence reposed in me by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and an unpardonable usurpation of the authority with which He Himself has been invested.
A word should now be said regarding the theory on which this Administrative Order is based and the principle that must govern the operation of its chief institutions. It would be utterly misleading
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to attempt a comparison between this unique, this divinely-conceived Order and any of the diverse systems which the minds of men, at various periods of their history, have contrived for the government of human institutions. Such an attempt would in itself betray a lack of complete appreciation of the excellence of the handiwork of its great Author. How could it be otherwise when we remember that this Order constitutes the very pattern of that divine civilization which the almighty Law of Bahá’u’lláh is designed to establish upon earth? The divers and ever-shifting systems of human polity, whether past or present, whether originating in the East or in the West, offer no adequate criterion wherewith to estimate the potency of its hidden virtues or to appraise the solidity of its foundations.
The Bahá’i Commonwealth of the future, of which this vast Administrative Order is the sole framework, is, both in theory and practice, not only unique in the entire history of political institutions, but can find no parallel in the annals of any of the world’s recognized religious systems. No form of democratic government; no system of autocracy or of dictatorship, whether monarchical or republican; no intermediary scheme of a purely aristocratic order; the Hebrew Commonwealth, or the various Christian ecclesiastical organizations, or the Imamate or the Caliphate in Islám-none of these can be identified or be said to conform with the Administrative Order which the master-hand of its perfect Architect has fashioned.
This new-born Administrative Order incorporates within its structure certain elements which are to be found in each of the three recognized forms of secular government, without being in any sense a mere replica of any one of them, and without introducing within its machinery any of the objectionable features which they inherently possess. It blends and harmonizes, as no government fashioned by mortal hands has as yet accomplished, the salutary truths which each of these systems undoubtedly contains without vitiating the integrity of those God- given verities on which it is ultimately founded.
The Administrative Order of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh must in no wise be regarded as purely democratic in character inasmuch as the basic assumption which requires all democracies to depend fundamentally upon getting their mandate from the people is altogether lacking in this Dispensation. In the conduct of the administrative affairs of the Faith, in the enactment of the legislation necessary to supplement the laws of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the members of the Universal House of Justice, it should be borne in mind, are not, as Bahá’u’lláh’s utterances clearly imply, responsible to those whom they represent, nor are they allowed to be governed by the feelings, the general opinion, and even the convictions of the mass of the faithful, or of those who directly elect them. They are to follow, in a prayerful attitude, the dictates and promptings of their conscience. They may, indeed they must, acquaint themselves with the conditions prevailing among the community, must weigh dispassionately in their minds the merits of any case presented for their consideration, but must reserve for themselves the right of an unfettered decision. “God will verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth,” is Bahá’u’lláh’s incontrovertible assurance. They, and not the body of those who either directly or indirectly elect them, have thus been made the recipients of the divine guidance which is at once the life-blood and ultimate safeguard of this Revelation. Moreover, he who symbolizes the hereditary principle in this Dispensation has been made the interpreter of the words of its Author, and ceases consequently, by virtue of the actual authority vested in him, to be the figurehead invariably associated with the prevailing systems of constitutional monarchies.
Nor can the Bahá’i Administrative Order be dismissed as a hard and rigid system of unmitigated
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autocracy or as an idle imitation of any form of absolutistic ecclesiastical government, whether it be the Papacy, the Imamate or any other similar institution, for the obvious reason that upon the international elected representatives of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh has been conferred the exclusive right of legislating on matters not expressly revealed in the Bahá’í writings. Neither the Guardian of the Faith nor any institution apart from the International House of Justice can ever usurp this vital and essential power or encroach upon that sacred right. The abolition of professional priesthood with its accompanying sacraments of baptism, of communion and of confession of sins, the laws requiring the election by universal suffrage of all local, national, and international Houses of Justice, the total absence of episcopal authority with its attendant privileges, corruptions and bureaucratic tendencies, are further evidences of the non-autocratic character of the Bahá’í Administrative Order and of its inclination to democratic methods in the administration of its affairs.
Nor is this Order identified with the name of Bahá’u’lláh to be confused with any system of purely aristocratic government in view of the fact that it upholds, on the one hand, the hereditary principle and entrusts the Guardian of the Faith with the obligation of interpreting its teachings, and provides, on the other, for the free and direct election from among the mass of the faithful of the body that constitutes its highest legislative organ.
Whereas this Administrative Order cannot be said to have been modeled after any of these recognized systems of government, it nevertheless embodies, reconciles and assimilates within its framework such wholesome elements as are to be found in each one of them. The hereditary authority which the Guardian is called upon to exercise, the vital and essential functions which the Universal House of Justice discharges, the specific provisions requiring its democratic election by the representatives of the faithful-these combine to demonstrate the truth that this divinely revealed Order, which can never be identified with any of the standard types of government referred to by Aristotle in his works, embodies and blends with the spiritual verities on which it is based the beneficent elements which are to be found in each one of them. The admitted evils inherent in each of these systems being rigidly and permanently excluded, this unique Order, however long it may endure and however extensive its ramifications, cannot ever degenerate into any form of despotism, of oligarchy, or of demagogy which must sooner or later corrupt the machinery of all man-made and essentially defective political institutions.
Dearly-beloved friends! Significant as are the origins of this mighty administrative structure, and however unique its features, the happenings that may be said to have heralded its birth and signalized the initial stage of its evolution seem no less remarkable.
How striking, how edifying the contrast between the process of slow and steady consolidation that characterizes the growth of its infant strength and the devastating onrush of the forces of disintegration that are assailing the outworn institutions, both religious and secular, of present-day society!
The vitality which the organic institutions of this great, this ever-expanding Order so strongly exhibit; the obstacles which the high courage, the undaunted resolution of its administrators have already surmounted; the fire of an unquenchable enthusiasm that glows with undiminished fervor in the hearts of its itinerant teachers; the heights of self-sacrifice which its champion-builders are now attaining; the breadth of vision, the confident hope, the creative joy, the inward peace, the uncompromising integrity, the exemplary discipline, the unyielding unity
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and solidarity which its stalwart defenders manifest; the degree to which its moving Spirit has shown itself capable of assimilating the diversified elements within its pale, of cleansing them of all forms of prejudice and of fusing them with its own structure-these are evidences of a power which a disillusioned and sadly shaken society can ill afford to ignore.
Compare these splendid manifestations of the spirit animating this vibrant body of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh with the cries and agony, the follies and vanities, the bitterness and prejudices, the wickedness and divisions of an ailing and chaotic world. Witness the fear that torments its leaders and paralyzes the action of its blind and bewildered statesmen. How fierce the hatreds, how false the ambitions, how petty the pursuits, how deep-rooted the suspicions of its peoples! How disquieting the lawlessness, the corruption, the unbelief that are eating into the vitals of a tottering civilization!
Might not this process of steady deterioration which is insidiously invading so many departments of human activity and thought be regarded as a necessary accompaniment to the rise of this almighty Arm of Bahá’u’lláh? Might we not look upon the momentous happenings which, in the course of the past twenty years, have so deeply agitated every continent of the earth, as ominous signs simultaneously proclaiming the agonies of a disintegrating civilization and the birthpangs of that World Order-that Ark of human salvation- that must needs arise upon its ruins?
The catastrophic fall of mighty monarchies and empires in the European continent, allusions to some of which may be found in the prophecies of Bahá’u’lláh; the decline that has set in, and is still continuing, in the fortunes of the Shi’ih hierarchy in His own native land; the fall of the Qájár dynasty, the traditional enemy of His Faith; the overthrow of the Sultanate and the Caliphate, the sustaining pillars of Sunni Islám, to which the destruction of Jerusalem in the latter part of the first century of the Christian era offers a striking parallel; the wave of secularization which is invading the Muhammadan ecclesiastical institutions in Egypt and sapping the loyalty of its staunchest supporters; the humiliating blows that have afflicted some of the most powerful Churches of Christendom in Russian, in Western Europe and Central America; the dissemination of those subversive doctrines that are undermining the foundations and overthrowing the structure of seemingly impregnable strongholds in the political and social spheres of human activity; the signs of an impending catastrophe, strangely reminiscent of the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, which threatens to engulf the whole structure of present-day civilization- all witness to the tumult which the birth of this mighty Organ of the Religion of Báha’u’lláh has cast into the world – a tumult which will grow in scope and in intensity as the implications of this constantly evolving Scheme are more fully understood and its ramifications more widely extended over the surface of the globe.
A word more in conclusion. The rise and establishment of this Administrative Order – the shell that shields and enshrines so precious a gem- constitutes the hall-mark of this second and formative age of the Bahá’í era. It will come to be regarded, as it recedes farther and farther from our eyes, as the chief agency empowered to usher in the concluding phase, the consummation of this glorious Dispensation.
Let no one, while this System is still in its infancy, misconceive its character, belittle its significance or misrepresent its purpose. The bedrock on which this Administrative Order is founded is God’s immutable Purpose for mankind in this day. The Source from which it derives its inspiration is no one less than Bahá’u’lláh Himself. Its shield and defender are the embattled hosts of the Abhá Kingdom. Its seed is the blood of no less than twenty thousand martyrs who
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have offered up their lives that it may be born and flourish. The axis round which its institutions revolve are the authentic provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Its guiding principles are the truths which He Who is the unerring Interpreter of the teachings of our Faith has so clearly enunciated in His public addresses throughout the West. The laws that govern its operation and limit its functions are those which have been expressly ordained in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. The seat round which its spiritual, its humanitarian and administrative activities will cluster are the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár and its Dependencies. The pillars that sustain its authority and buttress its structure are the twin institutions of the Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice. The central, the underlying aim which animates it is the establishment of the New World Order as adumbrated by Bahá’u’lláh. The methods it employs, the standard it inculcates, incline it to neither East nor West, neither Jew nor Gentile, neither rich nor poor, neither white nor colored. Its watchword is the unification of the human race; its standard the “Most Great Peace”; its consummation the advent of that golden millennium- the Day when the kingdoms of this world shall have become the Kingdom of God Himself, the Kingdom of Bahá’u’lláh.
Haifa, Palestine, February 8, 1934.
APPENDIX D
A LAST APPEAL TO THE HANDS OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH
A PRIVATE AND SECRET
DOCUMENT
TO BE READ ONLY
BY
THE HANDS OF THE FAITH
BY
MASON REMEY
HAND OF THE FAITH AND
PRESIDENT OF THE BAHÁ’Í INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
APPOINTED BY THE BELOVED GUARDIAN OF THE FAITH
1960
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A LAST APPEAL
TO THE HANDS OF THE FAITH
EXHORTING THEM
TO ABANDON THEIR PROGRAM FOR 1963
AND THAT THEY SEEK TO FIND
THE SECOND GUARDIAN
OF THE BAHÁ'Í FAITH
AND THAT THEY UPHOLD
THE WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF
THE MASTER ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ
AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE FAITH
AS ESTABLISHED BY
THE BELOVED GUARDIAN SHOGHI EFFENDI
THAT AT PRESENT IS
UNDER A CLOUD OF VIOLATION
THAT THREATENS THE FULFILLMENT
OF ITS MISSION TO MANKIND
BY
MASON REMEY
HAND OF THE FAITH AND
PRESIDENT OF THE BAHÁ’Í INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
APPOINTED BY THE FIRST GUARDIAN OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH
APRIL 1960
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INTRODUCTION
The assertions that I present in this last appeal to the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith are of the same general nature and character as those of the first appeal so this last appeal may be considered as a continuation of the first appeal added to which is emphasized the importance that the Hands of the Faith should give to preparing themselves to recognize and to accept the Second Guardian of the Faith when they realize that The Beloved Guardian actually made this appointment Himself some time before his death in escrow to take effect at his death. Thus the chair of the Guardianship has never been vacant but only hidden from the world to be recognized by the believers as some may or will do now at almost any time, then He will be known to the Bahá’í World! He the successor of The Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi – He the Second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith!
MASON REMEY
President of the Bahá’í
International Council
Written in part in Room #60, Hotel Berchielli
Florence, Italy
December 1959
and in part in Apartment 2,
1310 New Hampshire Avenue N.W.
Washington 6, D.C.
U.S. of North America
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I GUARD THE FAITH
During and throughout the entire mission of The Beloved Shoghi Effendi as Guardian of the Faith, He at all times held the unique authority that only the Guardian of the Cause could hold as the sole and only commander of the cause, He never shared this with anyone. He guarded this most zealously. This was his sole prerogative.
When the Beloved Guardian appointed me President of the Bahá’í International Council He bestowed upon me a potential responsibility, the responsibility of that position.
As I have explained elsewhere in this writ, The Beloved Guardian never gave me any orders as to what I should do to put into action the International Council so I did nothing, thus were the affairs of the council up until the time of the death of Shoghi Effendi at which time my responsibilities as President of the council, that until then had been the Guardian’s sole responsibility, then became my responsibilities – these were my responsibilities coming to me when the Beloved Guardian was released by his death from all earthly responsibilities, responsibilities that had weighed so heavily upon him during the long and many years of his Guardianship.
Now since the departure from this world of Shoghi Effendi, the responsibilities of the International Council and everything connected with it are my responsibility, my unique responsibility – a responsibility such as no other Bahá’í carries nor possesses. Mine is now the sole and the exclusive right to handle the affairs of the International Council. Such is the responsibility and calling conferred upon me by Our Beloved Guardian that went into effect at his death in November 1957, the year when I inherited this particular responsibility together with other responsibilities devolving upon me by Shoghi Effendi’s death which I will speak of and explain to the believers at some later time. For the present, it is sufficient for me to explain but this my control of the Bahá’í International Council, its functioning and its other affairs. Therefore I hold that nothing be done by any one or by any ones other than I, myself, toward anything at all that concerns the Bahá’í International Council and this means the Hands of the Faith are at all times to be under the direction and command of the Guardian of the Faith, and my authority to direct the affairs of the International Council, to direct them of myself independent of and free from all authority, was conferred upon me by The Beloved Guardian thus these powers because mine automatically at the death of the First Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith.
I now and here ordain upon this Day of Naw-Ruz 117 of the Bahá’í Era (the day upon which I am penning this writ) that there shall be nothing done about the Bahá’í International Council or about any of its activities. This is to be until I, President of the Council, order otherwise.
MASON REMEY
Washington D.C., U.S.A.
21 March 1960
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REALIZE MY APPOINTMENT
In other words, in addition to what I have already here written in thus appointing me President of the International Council, The Beloved Guardian and as already stated The Beloved
Guardian has bestowed upon me, I whom he chose from among all the Bahá’ís of the World this power and authority that after Him I now have to protect the Bahá’í Faith in which capacity and for which end I now stand before the Hands of the Faith and tell them that now, after the death of the first Guardian, I inherit and take over and now exercise the right and the full power that Shoghi Effendi gave to me, and to me alone, after Him to protect the Faith from this impending violation of the Bahá’í International Council.
Do you realize what this implies and means and to what position in the Faith and Beloved Guardian has appointed me, Mason Remey?
TO THE HANDS OF THE FAITH
Dearly Beloved Hands of the Faith, please try and understand my position of command in the Faith to regulate the affairs of the International Council, when I tell you to desist in your attempts to control and to end the International Council preparatory to your program for 1963.
My position in Bahá’í affairs has been clearly given to me by The Beloved Guardian. Pray accept it and make your announcement to the world of your acceptance of the position of command thus bequeathed to me by Our Beloved Guardian, bequeathed to me in escrow only to become known to the world of the cause after His death – the departure from amongst us all of Shoghi Effendi – He who was The First Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith.
In your announcement to the Baha'i world after the last conclave of 1959, you definitely stated that you intend taking over the International Council, that you the Custodian Hands will dictate the policies of the council for two years, then put it out of existence to establish your House of Justice in 1963, which program was endorsed by twenty two of the Hands – so the entire Bahá’í world knows of your intentions!
Now I, President of the International Council, appointed by the Beloved Guardian, tell you to desist in your efforts to end the International Council as you state is your intention to do, for you to give up your project for 1963. By ordering you to stop such proceedings I am using the authority and the power given me by The Beloved Guardian to protect and to guard the affairs of the International Council. Yet! Beloved Hands of the Faith, why should one wonder at the mess of Bahá’í matters that the Hands of the Faith are making with their plans for 1963?
Hands of the Cause, you have no divine authority vested in you as Hands of the Faith. According to the commands in The Will and Testament you are to serve only under the direction of the Guardian of the Faith, the Guardian Himself being the infallible one to guide you. You should realize this for when you do realize this, your first and only step to be taken should be to find the Guardian who can guide you.
Instead of following this procedure you have strayed from the true path of the cause by wanting to eliminate forever the Guardianship. Some of you, the majority in fact, supported the “New Bahá’í Era” cult of SANS GUARDIANSHIP. Nothing could have been nor be in the present or the future more bewildering to the Baha'i world than your attitude and all that it implies.
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Arise Hands of the Faith. You should arise seeking to find your Guardian. The first step that you should have taken was to have sought for your Guardian! From your attitude of not wanting the Guardianship to be is the first indication of trouble for you and a stumbling block in your path! You have chosen to follow this violation. Awake and see that it is leading you away from truth and into error.
MY UNIQUE POSITION
I have hinted at and alluded to in an around-about-way in various of my notes and writings to the prophetic vision that I had about a year and a half before The Beloved Guardian called me to Haifa, uprooted me from Washington and planted me there in The Holy Land telling me that from that time on Israel was to be my home.
Until then I had tried to put that flash-vision out of my mind, thinking that it was but a vagary of my imagination, or worse than that some evil spirit of temptation to lead me astray possibly to incite me to have personal aspirations of position in the cause of which aspirations I wanted to have no part, for when I first read The Will and Testament of the Master, the copy of which was given to me by Shoghi Effendi Himself at the time He called me to Haifa in February 1921 – my first reaction was that to be one of the Hands of the Faith and have to live in Haifa was not only quite the last thing that I wanted but actually the one thing that I did not want to have happen to me.
I had not been in Haifa as a Hand of the Faith for very long before I began to realize that that flash-vision of things to come was beginning to work out as it had been revealed to me. I found myself not only appointed to be one of the Hands of the Faith but the President of the Bahá’í International Council. Furthermore the Guardian told me that upon formal occasions when He presided at the feasts and gatherings of the believers at the Holy Shrines that I should walk next behind him with the other believers following and that when He was seated in his automobile I was to sit at his left hand and that such should always be my position seated next to him when in the gatherings of the believers. These commands usually were given to me by Rúhiyyih Khánum who was my contact with Shoghi Effendi. I always addressed him through her save when He himself spoke directly to me which was but rarely. In speaking to him I would have addressed him in the third person but this I never did because I felt I should carry out this Bahá’í protocol exactly as instructed to do without adding anything to it of mine own thought. In speaking of the Guardian to any non-Bahá’í in Israel I always alluded to Him as “His Eminence”, I following His instruction to do so.
While I never was conscious that the Guardian had any personal affection for me as an individual, I always was conscious that he in a quiet but decided way was placing me thus in a very special way before the Bahá’ís who surrounded him. At table I always sat at his left with Rúhiyyih Khánum at his right, except when where were special Pilgrims present when they were accorded this place at his left.
In all of the Bahá’í gatherings held in the absence of the Guardian I took my seat at the head of the table and always walked ahead with the others following me and this order I always maintained in Haifa as one of the Custodian Hands there. I was as unobtrusive as I could be in my manner and this has never to my knowledge been questioned by anyone nor has anyone
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ever taken any exception to this my attitude although this is as far as I have ever gone, while living in The Holy Land. I always have preceded all other of the men believers in entering the Shrines for worship when no women are present. When Rúhiyyih Khánum and other ladies are in the groups I stand aside until they have entered, then enter myself followed by the men believers. This as I note has never been questioned to my knowledge or my observation.
Upon the only formal Israeli National occasion (the funeral of Dr. Wiemann, President of the Republic) at which the Guardian was present, I was his sole attendant, walking behind him, He heading all of the other religious leaders of Israel, I following him with my arms firmly set akimbo to so protect the Guardian from being shoved aside or passed by the Mullahs, Bishops, Arch Bishops, and other religious leaders who were pressing on behind me.
Upon various other ceremonial occasions where the Beloved Guardian wanted to be represented, these being in Jerusalem, He sent me thither to represent Him and this custom of my leading has continued to be observed – I being in the lead – in these days of interregnum during which we have no Guardian in office commanding the friends to which custom now established no one has made audible nor visible objection. It is just one of those things that everyone seems to accept without question.
But this precedent has only been followed upon formal occasions. When The Beloved Guardian wanted business to be done in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, or any where else, He usually sent Leroy Ioas to attend to it and on occasion others of the Hands of the Faith, not me, and this procedure has of course been followed in these interregnum days.
The one great and outstanding appointment of me as President of the Bahá’í International Council with the authoritative power in the Faith and over the Faith both of the Hands of the Faith and the believers that this now gives me and is given to me alone and unique above all the believers in the world was in itself the ultimate realization to me of my flash-vision. I frequently refer to this vision that was given me eleven or twelve years ago during which years the responsibility that was coming to me has weighed much upon my heart and soul and mind during these intervening years, and particularly so during these last two or three of which have been so very difficult for all of the believers the world around, Hands of the Faith and those who are looking toward the Hands of the Faith for guidance.
Now at this date the guidance of the cause is off the track, as it were. For it is not the province of the Hands of the Faith to guide the Faith. They are to serve the Guardian of the Faith and are to carry on and carry out His commands.
It is therefore upon these grounds that I, President of the Bahá’í International Council, that I command them to desist from their attempt and cease their program of tampering with the International Council and give up their program for 1963 that is a violation of the Will and Testament of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as well as a violation of the Administration that The Beloved Guardian built up in accordance with the command of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
THE FAITH IS PROTECTED
Whether or not The Beloved Guardian realized or knew of his approaching death, He left his cause fully protected when He appointed me President of the Bahá’í International Council for
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by so doing he vested in me, Mason Remey, the authority to guard the Faith against this violation of the Administration even though this violation be perpetrated by the Hands of the Faith as proposed in the Report of the Conclave at Bahje of 1959 that was signed by 22 of the 27 Hands of the Faith. Thus these friends have gone on record as upholding this violation. Therefore the only stand for me to take now is to forbid all the plans of the Hands for 1963.
AWAKE FRIENDS OF THE HANDS – AWAKE
Violation conscious or unconscious so poisons and distorts the spiritual vision of the one or ones infected that they are not able to help themselves to see the truth of the matter. Every concerted action of the Hands of the Faith since their stand was taken in the First Conclave at Bahje to put aside the Administration of the Faith by so making changes in its fabric or structure has been to violate and to confuse the believers more and more by leading them farther and farther away from the way as established by The Beloved Guardian.
They started out by assuming command of the Faith shortly followed by their actual acceptance of the Chicago Manifesto “The New Bahá’í Era” but that the decided was too strongly put to give out to the people of the Faith at that time so its publication was suppressed, but as I have shown in other parts of this writ they, the Hands, highly approved of by the letter that the Custodian Hands wrote to Horace Holley approving highly of the Manifesto, declaring, Sans Guardianship.
Now since that Manifesto has been withdrawn from circulation among the friends, the Custodian Hands have adopted a beating down process, trying to beat down any hopes that they may find bobbing up now and then among the believers here and there by discouraging all hopes that any may have of another Guardian to follow Shoghi Effendi. But as time goes on these Hands now go so far as to insist that the Bahá’ís abandon all hopes, going so far as practically to forbid any discussion at all of the possibility of the Guardian who awaits in occultation, and has waited in occultation since the death of Shoghi Effendi until the moment for Him to come forth with the clear proofs to prove His Guardianship to the Bahá’í world.
The Second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, whose presence upon earth is as yet unknown to any believers save to himself, will ere long be obliged to come forth from his concealment ere the sufferings of the firm believers to be too great for them to sustain these present conditions any longer – for they, these firm ones who cling to the Administration as established by The Beloved Guardian, must not be made to suffer too long and too much ere even their faith be put to too great a test. Christ prayed that these days be shortened for the sake of the very elect lest even they, the elect, might fall.
This moment is indeed the eleventh hour in the judgment of the Hands of the Faith. Let them beware and understand this and turn from the way they have made for themselves in their program for 1963.
HANDS OF THE FAITH: Abandon your program. Awake. Desire that the Guardianship continue and diligently seek your Guardian so when He comes forth from his present occultation He will find you desiring Him, looking for Him and ready to follow Him as
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He leads the Faith on to victory promised to the world by the Divine Manifestations, Christ and the Prophets since the creation of the world.
The Guardian of the Faith who ere long will appear is calling to you to make you ready for His coming. Awake, Hands of the Faith and make yourselves ready to meet Him, the Second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith.
VIOLATION
The present stand of the Hands of the Faith against the continuation of the
Guardianship beyond that of Shoghi Effendi is indeed a most clearly stated and defined violation of both The Will and Testament of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and also a violation of the administrative system of Bahá’í law and order that the Beloved Guardian constructed and built up upon The Will and Testament of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and also a violation of the administrative system of Baha'i law and order that the Beloved Guardian constructed and built up upon The Will and Testament and was getting into running performance in all parts of the Bahá’í world when death interrupted his mission.
The normal and logical procedure of the Hands of the Faith under such conditions should have been to take up his work of carrying on Administration according to the plan and The Will and Testament, of assuming their own responsibility of protecting the Faith by seeking the Second Guardian to continue on where the service of Shoghi Effendi was so without-any-warning brought to such a sudden end. Such procedure would have been carrying out the intent of The Will and Testament.
But No, an influential group of individuals within the body of the twenty seven Hands of the Faith consulted together in private from the others, made a covenant between themselves and then proceeded to put this over the others (and with a certain success too) – that is to say they have up until the present time been able to hold up and hold back the carrying on of the Administration of the Faith as given in The Will and Testament which administrative principle centered about the infallibility of the Guardianship perpetrated by fallaciously promising the people an infallible Universal House of Justice that they – the Hands – would form in 1963.
This is indeed a violation of The Will and Testament, a violation clear and distinct!
There is but one Bahá’í method of meeting violation and that is to cut it out completely and cast it out from the cause without any compromising what so ever!
Some of the enlightened Bahá’ís in Germany in letters and by telegram called the attention of the Hands of the Faith to the fact that the Faith according to The Revealed Word that the Hands should not abandon the Guardianship. Their missives were sent to the conclave of Hands in Bahje, but these were not read nor discussed in the conference by the Hands save that it was understood that when two German Hands returned to Frankfurt that they would explain to the friends of their National Spiritual Assembly that all of these matters would be taken up and settled by the infallible Universal House of Justice that they would establish in 1963.
As I view this situation of our Faith, I see it started to develop because the Hands did not distinguish the difference between violation and disunion or inharmony for violation and inharmony are two very different things and are not to be treated or handled in the same manner.
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A simple case of inharmony between believers is to be treated by love and by one
giving into the other any by following the opinion of the majority. But according to the teaching of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, violation is an entirely different matter from disunity and inharmony; one that has to be treated of in altogether different manner than inharmony for violation must be cut out absolutely and not palliated with at all.
I don’t know what individual experiences if any that the Hands of the Faith may have had with violation but I doubt if any of the occidental Hands of the Faith have had any experience with violation with but the exception of Mrs. True and myself. The Khirella violation and that of the Kirchners in Chicago followed by that of Fareed, of the Ispahani Family of Haifa, the Woodcock Family of Montreal and others were all so long ago in the rapidly moving history of our Faith as to be out of the present consciousness of those believers who have come into the Faith in the more recent times than these that I mention.
However, all of the Hands of the Faith know of the defection of Ahmad Sohrab because this is of so recent date as still to be an enemy movement that in its various branches in different parts of the world is actively working against the Bahá’í Faith.
Now why is it that the Hands of the Faith cannot see that the stand that they are now united upon is one of violation? The Hands of the Bahá’í Faith claim to be following the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the interpretation and application of those teachings by The Beloved Guardian but with no continuation of the Guardianship. Theirs is the same stand as that taken by Ahmad Sohrab!
Ahmad Sohrab announced in print that he accepted the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, but without the Guardianship. Why is it that the Hands of the Faith cannot see this point of my argument? When Ahmad Sohrab made his defection we had the Beloved Shoghi Effendi here with us to lead us but now the Guardian has not yet appeared to take the command of the situation before us. Only the Second Guardian of the Faith can pull the cause out of its present dilemma.
While the Hands, as well as all other members of the Faith, were in deep sorrow at the death of Shoghi Effendi there was never any expression of desire amongst the Hands of the Faith that they have another Guardian to take his place, infallibly to direct the cause. No, the majority of the Hands definitely in their attitudes do not want a Second Guardian. When confronted blankly by me with this accusation, some of them hastened to affirm by spoken words that of course they would like to have another Guardian, etc. etc. But surely their attitudes deny their words.
When The National Spiritual Assembly of Bahá’í of Germany expressed the hope of having a Second Guardian of the Faith to the Second Bahje Conclave nothing was done about these messages save to commission the two German Hands of the Faith upon their return to Frankfurt to talk with the members of their assembly and tell them that The Universal House of Justice that they would establish in 1963 with the infallibility that they attributed to it would decide about all Bahá’í procedures including whether or not the Guardianship should be continued.
I’ve never heard how this fallacious teaching was received by the German National Assembly. Several of the Hands knowing how I felt about the Guardianship came to me and talked to the effect that the Universal House of Justice in 1963, being infallible, might
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reestablish the Guardianship but as none of these friends in their attitudes and their speech appeared to me to want anything of me save for me to be quiet and cease agitating the subject of Guardianship, I saw plainly that they were trying to get my support of their violation to put over their House of Justice in 1963 and that they were baiting the hook of their violation with this fallacious possibility of Guardianship hoping that I would be satisfied with this ruse upon their part to carry their point that from that First Bahje Conclave and since then ever has been the abolition of Guardianship.
Inasmuch as some of the Hands of the Faith are going to such length to kill the cause, I feel it is high time that this matter be brought to a head and cut out from the cause before it becomes worse and more difficult to handle than it now is. Therefore I am putting into writing this document an account of these things between us as I see them in the hope that the Hands will reconsider their stand.
THE FIRST BAHJE CONCLAVE
When the first conclave of the Hands of the Faith assembled at Bahje to learn that no will nor testament of Shoghi Effendi could be found amongst his papers, prayers were chanted and read and the conclave closed to convene on the following morning.
For the most part, if not all the American Hands returned to Haifa for the night while for the most part, if not all, the ten Hands who were Persians were quartered for the night at Bahje. When the conclave went into session the following morning one of the Persian Hands arose making the statement that since Shoghi Effendi left no son to inherit the Guardianship and since no will nor testament of his could be found among his papers, that the Guardianship of the Faith must be considered to be ended with The Beloved Guardian of the Faith Shoghi Effendi, there upon all of the other Persian Hands quickly arose in support of this move, with the result that this move had the immediate support of the majority of the Hands.
Circumstantial evidence of the situation showed beyond a doubt that the Persian friends had consulted amongst themselves between these two meetings – the first on one day and the second on the following day – and that they had come to an agreement between themselves that the Guardianship be abandoned. Thus in the confusion and heat of the moment the Guardianship was definitely abandoned by the majority of the conclave thus was violated The Will and Testament of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
Since that first conclave all of the proceedings of the Hands of the Faith in Conclave and the objects and support by the Custodian Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land have been based upon the assumption that the Guardianship is now closed forever, although this has not been said definitely to the Bahá’í world.
Thus at this present time, 1959-1960, stands this matter of the violation of the Will and Testament of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá upon which as the foundation, The Beloved Guardian during the thirty six years of his ministry built the present Bahá’í Administration that now is suffering from this violation.
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CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OF VIOLATION
As I remember in this first conclave when the motion was made to end the Guardianship it was immediately supported by all of the Persian Hands. There was practically little or no discussion. They all stood together and each recited the same formula of why the Guardianship should be ended. The Guardian left no son to inherit the Guardianship and there was not found any will nor testament from him; therefore the institution was ended. It was the Will of God that there never be another Guardian – BADAH.
That this was all a preplanned move upon the part of these Persian Hands was most obvious. This circumstantial evidence could not be doubted. In court testimony it is a well recognized fact that when a body of witnesses all give exactly the same testimony word by word, that such is proof of collusion.
THE PROMISE OF THE HANDS TO ELECT A BAHÁ’Í INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
In making this promise to the Bahá’í world the Hands of the Faith have not taken into consideration that The Beloved Guardian Himself appointed the Bahá’í International Council. Do the Hands of the Faith think that they have the right to do anything further at all about this?
When the Hands of the Faith will in reality want a Guardian they will then be in line to receive and recognize the Second Guardian of the Faith when He appears. Then they will have an infallibility to direct them in all matters. In the meanwhile, I, the President of the Council, refuse to allow the Hands to do anything about the council, the council must rest inactive as it is until we have an acknowledged Guardian to inaugurate its activities.
What can I do to change their attitude? The only thing I can do about this for the moment is to do nothing at all save hope and pray that matters will so shape themselves that the opportunity will come when I assured of support will be able to jump into the arena of Bahá’í thought and make clear myself to them.
But one little glimmer of light have I thus far had. It came to me after the close of the last session of this third conclave. We were all leaving the Mansion of Bahje, it was dark as we walked out to where the cars were parked to take us back to Haifa and one of the Hands of the Faith slipped his arm through mine as we walked and whispered in my ear “There will be other Guardians”. This friend was Herrmann Grossmann Hand of the Faith.
THE GUARDIANSHIP
Without the institution of the Guardianship there can be no Administration, the two are one and co-existent. The two divine verities the Covenant and the Guardianship with the Administration form the message that the Bahá’ís had for the world in the days of the Guardianship.
In other words the message of the covenant as taught in the days of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá isolated from the Administration is now no longer the Bahá’í message for the world as it had formerly been before The Will and Testament was given to the Bahá’í for with the inauguration of the Administration, this the Administration which is the Guardianship now became together with the covenant the message that the Bahá’ís had for the world.
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During this present interregnum of the past two years and more, the teachers of the Faith, the pioneers, have had no message for the world for as things are now in the Faith, with no assurance of Guardianship, they are no longer able to teach The Will and Testament. In other words, the Faith is at a standstill, the dangers of which are so increasing daily that this is indeed a time of peril such as this cause has never before faced in its entire history.
The “Dawn Breakers” of the cause faced the dangers of physical extermination by Fire and the Sword but the danger that we now face is a far worse and more subtle menace than that which the Dawn Breakers faced. They could see the enemy and meet him face to face whereas now the people of the Faith in this year A.D. 1959 are at the mercy of a spiritually diseased state of the plague of violation of The Will and Testament, a condition that is not only unseen but not even inspected by twenty six out of the total number of the twenty seven Hands of the Faith. In other words among the Hands I alone see this disease slowly creeping over and into Conclaves of the Hands of the Faith as well as permeating the activities of the Custodian Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land who between the conclave of all of the Hands form the central body directing Bahá’í affairs throughout the world.
This condition of the affairs I have seen right along from the time that the Custodian Body of Hands in The Holy Land was formed and I have repeatedly warned them of this condition of violation that has attacked them and so blinded them in their deliberations as to cause them seek constantly to give support to those actions and things that should not be because all of their actions are confirmatory to the attitude of violation of The Will and Testament that has so far characterized everything carried on and executed by the Hands of the Faith. Noted that I write “ALL” of their actions. I write the word ALL because of their defection, everything proceeding therefrom is perforce wrong and by everything I mean everything, all because the Hands have lost confidence in the Administration that is the Guardianship.
Now in this time of confusion of thought in the cause I exhort you to cling fast to the Administration as established by The Beloved Guardian and withhold your judgment and condemnation of those such as our German friends of Frankfurt and our friends Tony Fillon Gupta of Lucknow, all of whom with many others myself included, still hope that The Second Guardian of the Faith will soon come forth speaking with the authority of The Beloved Guardian. Tony’s faith was the same as mine own that there would, that there musts be a Second Guardian to follow the First Guardian of the Faith. But you, the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land, have countenanced his having his voting rights taken from him and he thus disagreed! I am astonished at the lengths to which this violation of the Master’s Will and Testament has taken the Hands of the Faith, but such is the bewildering effects of violation of the Holy teachings! You have become so spiritually sick that you are no longer responsible.
I, as the individual Bahá’í Mason Remey, center my hope upon the presence of The Second Guardian of the Faith here amongst us. For in this world He now is. But as yet his presence is not yet revealed. I hold this belief as does Tony Fillon but Tony doesn’t know that I endorse his hopes – does not know it yet.
THIS VIOLATION MUST END
For the past year and more I’ve tried to use gentle and pacific reason and argument in
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defense of the Guardianship against the united intention of the Body of Hands that there shall never be another Guardian.
Now seeing that this violation of The Master’s Will and Testament is daily becoming stronger until it threatens to become the accepted way of life of the cause, as a last resort I am obliged single handedly to come out into the open and use my prerogatives as President of the International Bahá’í Council as appointed by our late Beloved Guardian, to force the Hands of the Faith to relinquish their united stand against the Guardianship.
I may force them to do this for this is the only way left for me to do since milder methods are powerless against this violation that so dominates the Hands.
My way of forcing this issue is simply by announcing to the Hands that in no way shall I countenance their right to do anything at all about nor with the Bahá’í International Council. The Beloved Guardian appointed me President of the Council and in this capacity I am responsible to no one save to the Guardian of the Faith. Therefore, I take the stand that there can be no functioning of the council until there be a recognized and accepted Guardian of the Faith to institute it.
The Hands of the Faith have no right to command the election of an International Council; therefore I refuse to have anything at all to do with this matter that has been and is being promised by the Hands to the Bahá’í world.
In other words, I block their actions in this and since The Beloved Guardian gave me this position as President of the Council and this is known the Bahá’í world around, the Hands can do nothing about the matter as I hold the reins and will not allow them to carry out their plan inspired by this violation. My notion for the present is merely a negative one. I will do nothing and by doing nothing I control the Hands without trying further to put any positive pressure upon nor against them.
The positive pressure that will compel them to abandon this movement of violation to control the Bahá’í Faith will come from the mass of the people of the Faith the world around. Those to whom the Hands of the Faith have been for over two years past inoculating with this fallacious propaganda of the Council in 1961 followed by the Universal House of Justice in 1963.
The only refuge and safety that there is for the Faith is the Second Guardian for the Faith under whose guidance and protection this interregnum of confusion, fallaciousness and violation in the Hands of the Faith will be of the past and forgotten in the assuredness and the strength of the Faith that will follow the restitution of the Guardianship.
THE SOLUTION OF THE PRESENT DILEMMA
Years ago before my birth my Father was a passenger upon a small vessel going up our Atlantic seaboard coast. When off Cape Hatteras the ship struck a severe hurricane with its officers drinking with the Captain in delirium tremens, the crew at the point of mutiny, the passengers in panic and the vessel in danger of going down with all on board. Something had to be done and done quickly. My father was but a passenger aboard, nevertheless he was obliged by the circumstances to take command of the ship and get her into the next port of call for there was no one else on board who could do this but him, therefore he had to take command of the ship.
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In the last Conclave of the Hands I saw very clearly that if I didn’t arise again and take a stand for the continuance of the Guardianship, that the ark of the Bahá’í covenant would surely be wrecked and the Faith lost to the world. Therefore I was obliged to take my stand as one Hand of the Faith against the united opinion and action of all the other Hands. As I said many times to the Hands I did not want at all to take the stand but the Cause of God had to be saved so I was obliged to take charge of the situation as I did and as I intend continuing to do until our Faith is again under the infallible guidance of the Second Guardian who then will be acknowledged by all.
ONLY THE GUARDIAN CAN LEAD AND DIRECT THE HANDS OF THE FAITH
The Holy Spirit in this dispensation only functions through the channel of the Guardianship. It does not function through the Body of Hands independently from the Guardianship; therefore the Body of Hands are helpless to serve the cause save under the direction of a Guardian in the flesh here to direct them.
As I have shown in other parts of this writ, the present promises being made by the Hands of the Faith of the election for the functioning of an International Bahá’í Council and the Universal House of Justice to follow are not for the Hands of the Faith to institute but for the Guardian of the Faith Himself to create and inaugurate. So the quicker that this present program of the past two years and more that the Hands have been working upon and promising to the people is abandoned the better and easier it will be for the cause for these institutions can never be accomplished in this way.
In His wisdom, The Beloved Guardian appointed me, Mason Remey, President of the Bahá’í International Council and for reason explained at length elsewhere in this writ, I will not allow this present program of the Hands to go through. Without my cooperation with them as President of the International Council, it cannot be formed and I intend to hold to this my thesis that I explain in this writ, namely that all things connected with the International Council are now frozen and at a stand still not to be reopened until the Second Guardian is invisible and acknowledged command of the Cause. Then this the functioning of the International Council as well as the formation of the Universal House of Justice will be directed by the Guardian of the Faith, if not by The Second Guardian it will be by one of his successors.
When the Hands of the Faith with time and thought consider these matters they will see that I, Mason Remey, the one of the Hands designated by The Beloved Guardian as the President of the International Bahá’í Council have the right and the power to not only call a halt in the present proceedings of the Hands of the Faith in their efforts to establish a functioning International Council, but that this power given me and to me alone among the twenty seven Hands also controls the formation of any Universal House of Justice since the Universal House of Justice commonly comes into existence following the functioning of the Bahá’í International Council.
Therefore, because I forbid the functioning of the Bahá’í International Council until the Guardianship be reestablished, automatically this precludes the establishing of any Universal House of Justice as has been planned and promised to the Bahá’ís by the Body of the Hands of the Faith.
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THE BAHÁ’Í INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
The Bahá’í world knows that The Beloved Guardian appointed the International Council, therefore the Hands of the Faith should know that no one nor ones save a Guardian of the Faith has the right to alter and add to that which the First Guardian of the Faith instituted.
I, Mason Remey, President of the council appointed by Shoghi Effendi, refuse to allow the Hands to make any change in this present status of quietude of the International Council which status was left by The Beloved Guardian as it now is inactive awaiting orders from the succeeding Guardian of the Faith.
Should the Hands of the Faith attempt to do anything with the International Council or to attempt to elect and put into office another International Council, I as President of the Council appointed to this office by our late Guardian, will be obliged to refuse to acknowledge the right of the Hands of the Faith to tamper with the affairs of the International Council.
Inasmuch as the first Guardian of the Faith appointed the Bahá’í International Council now no one but a Guardian of the Faith can command that the next step be taken in defining and in inaugurating the functioning of that council. Therefore, I as President of the council, can take no orders from the Hands of the Faith.
THE PRESENT DARKNESS
This period of interregnum darkness in the Bahá’í world so lamented in the communications sent forth to the Bahá’í world by the Hands of the Faith is the result of the violation of the Master’s Will and Testament by the Hands of the Faith, for when they repudiated the Guardianship they indeed placed themselves in darkness because the Guardianship is the only channel through which The Abha Guidance comes to the world so by their refusing to consider the continuation of the Guardianship, they are thus for the time being imposing their darkness upon the entire Bahá’í world.
The spiritual activities of the Faith now await the forthcoming of The Second Guardian of the Faith into the arena of the active Bahá’í world which activities are now suffering this period of the delay, this interregnum between the first and the second Guardians of the Faith.
Thus The Second Guardian mercifully delays His advent into the active Bahá’í world in order to give these Hands a little more time that they may awake and be prepared to accept Him when He proclaims Himself, but the time is short. The Hands of the Faith should make hast to awake lest The Second Guardian find them still slumbering. He may be forced to come out into the open Bahá’í world, disregarding the Hands in order to take over His command of the Cause.
ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY
It is to be noted that it is in democratic America where the Administration of the Faith has taken its most firm hold among the Bahá’ís whose rule is that of the Guardianship invested with infallibility. That many of the Hands of the Faith now don’t like the continuation of the Bahá’í Administration under the infallible Guardianship and now would like to see the institution of the Hands of the Faith disappear under the present suicidal-to-the-cause plan of the Body of the Hands to eliminate the Guardianship that would mean also the elimination of the Hands of the Faith because the present twenty seven Hands will within a generation die off and disappear.
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In America however, peopled by the descendants of those early settlers who fled from the old world when they were oppressed by autocratic rule and entrenched aristocracies, these people built up the American democracy that is the very antithesis of all that was in Persia and in other oriental countries, yet it is a Democratic America where the Administration under the Guardianship is strong, so strong that the Beloved Guardian called America the cradle of the Administration!
And now the Persian element in the Body of the Hands were the first to start this condition of the revolt against the Guardianship, this violation of the Administration of the Faith as given to us in The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. This was started in the opening discussions of the First Bahje Conclave as I describe in this writ.
AMERICA THE CRADLE OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE FAITH
This was spoken of many times by The Beloved Guardian who at the same time mentioned Persia as being the cradle of the Faith.
How clearly has this been demonstrated in the history of the Bahá’í Faith! The covenant of Bahá’u’lláh was announced in Bagdad and had its first support in Persia and in the establishing of this faith there, thousands of lives of the Martyrs were offered in Persia in the Way of the Covenant.
When the time came in the life of the Faith for the first steps to be taken for the organized spread of the Faith the world around, The Blessed Center of the Covenant, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, gave to the Bahá’ís in his Will and Testament the administrative plan for the propagation of the Faith after which the Bahá’í Covenant together with the Administration of the Faith then became the message that the cause had for the world, these two phases of the teaching covenant and Administration merged into one teaching program, became the Bahá’í message to mankind and in order to thoroughly drill the Bahá’ís in this message the Beloved Guardian exhorted all to study carefully The Will and Testament in which the covenant and the Administration and the Guardianship are demonstrated to be one and the same reality. The Administration is the Guardianship and the Guardianship is the Administration – inseparable one from the other and together with the covenant was the message that Shoghi Effendi taught and led us to give to the world.
But what has happened in these three conclaves of the Hands of the Faith? In the first conclave, the Administration was violated when the Hands struck a blow aimed directly at the elimination of all Guardianship to follow that of Shoghi Effendi, and since then naught but the confusion of this violation has characterized the work of the Body of the Hands of the Faith until now – 1960 – the works of this Body of Hands are at a stop point where they can no longer continue the fallacious program that they have decided themselves to build a Universal House of Justice to be preceded by an elected Bahá’í International Council that they proposed to form. This stop is because I, The President of the International Bahá’í Council appointed to that office by The Beloved Guardian refuse to countenance their interference with that council-that council which He, The Beloved Guardian Himself created naming me as its president.
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In thus opposing the conclave of the Hands of the Faith, I am not taking any other action against their unity save than by simply to refuse to acknowledge their right to thus meddle with matters that only should be handled and inaugurated by the Guardianship of the Cause. This point will be found further dilated upon by me in other parts of this writ.
Thus the Hands of the Faith, when they read this statement, will see that my appointment as President of the Council enables me to refuse to allow their interference in this matter.
Should they go ahead with their present programmes they have announced to the Bahá’í world, I’ll have plenty to say to the Hands. All that I am doing now for this moment is to refuse to recognize the right of the Hands to carry on this their present world Bahá’í plans for electing the council though at the present moment in 1961, their plans are being accepted without any audible objections that I know of in the Bahá’í world but with the exception of that voice of one believer in Lucknow, India, from that of Tony Fillon in South America, and some murmurings of discontent from some of the members of the National Spiritual Assembly of Bahá’ís scattered here and there in Germany and but a few others. There may be other murmurings too and I dare say there are many of such that the Custodian Hands in Haifa may know nothing of.
. This present condition of crisis in our Faith can but create much discontent that at any time may suddenly burst into an open rebellion of the believers. Therefore, the necessity that all this mess of matters be once and for all settled if possible in camera (in secret by conclave). After all, the Hands are but fallible, they talk and they can’t conceal in their attitudes that which is going on in their hearts and minds so it is only a matter of a little time before the doings of the Hands in conclave become known to the outside Bahá’í world.
This present intention of the majority of the Hands that there shall never be another Guardian (that I treat of in other parts of this writ as showing conclusively from attitudes of the majority of the Hands but which they do not mention now even between themselves as they did in the beginning shortly after the first Bahje conclave) will in all probability make but little stir amongst the believers of the Orient, for these friends of the Faith have never been as keen about the Administration as have been the American Bahá’ís. But not so however, among the Bahá’ís of the western world, particularly those in the Americas and those of Europe because America is the Cradle of the Administration or of the Guardianship and because the cause in Latin America and in the ten European lands of the successful crusade accomplished there by the American Pioneers who would naturally plant there the spirit of the North American Bahá’í Pioneers that was one of the intense devotion to the Administration, to the Beloved Guardian and all that He stood for. For these reasons do I feel that America will be the place where the strongest support of the Guardianship will be manifest in case that this ever becomes a controversial matter. Therefore I urge the Hands of the Faith to give particular thought and consideration to this fact that America is the Cradle of the Administration.
The cities of continental Europe are now the meeting points of the Pioneers of the Faith and I am anticipating that it is in those places that the argument for and against the Guardianship may probably break out. Already it is discussed there in the European lands opened up by Pioneers from America in Germany and in France. In all of these countries the people are by nature astute thinkers. Already in these countries there are now many Persian Pioneers who it seems openly talk about their approval of the stand against continuing the Guardianship.
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Therefore this is being talked about and is under discussion and argument by the people of Europe who, as I have explained, naturally tend to have the point of view of those Americans who planted the Faith amongst them, and now with this influx of Persian Pioneers in all these countries as opposed to the popular American viewpoint, practically all of whom do not sympathize with and are in reality against the continuation of the Guardianship – there is sure to be forthcoming in the near future clashes between those holding these two diametrically opposed points of view. So for the reasons that I give here, I caution the Hands of this condition that is surely to be forthcoming shortly in Europe and from there spread to America where the great agitation will then be centered that is bound to come and split the cause unless this be stopped. The only way to avoid this split in the Bahá’í world between the east and the west is for the Hands of the Faith to cling to the hope of the coming forth of the Second Guardian as promptly as possible before any split can occur along this plane of cleavage not yet a split between these differing viewpoints of the generality of the Persian and the American believers.
The danger of a split is more imminent in America than in Persia. Were the believers in America to know what is really being done now by the Hands of the Faith and what the real unspoken intention is of the Body of the Hands, namely that of no more Guardianship, I verily believe that there would be an overnight revolution among the believers in condemnation of the violation of The Will and Testament.
Here lies the danger in which the Hands of the Faith now find themselves. Between themselves the majority of the Hands are firm in their intention that there shall never be another Guardian, but this they have not told the Bahá’í world. In other words the majority of the Hands of the Faith are deliberately withholding from the Bahá’í public their real intentions.
One might well ask why all this secrecy? It is because there is something to hide and that which the majority of the Hands of the Faith are trying to hide from the people in that they have every intention of ending the Guardianship.
To have this all come out into the open can be avoided by the Hands by the prompt reestablishment of the hope of the believers in the Guardianship that one trusts would be received by the believers of the Orient without trouble despite their present feelings as opposed to it.
When the Second Guardian comes forth and is in command and the friends the world around with all working under Him the power of the Faith to accomplish the world crusade instituted by The First Guardian of the Faith, then the cause of Bahá’u’lláh united under the infallible guidance of the Administration established by Shoghi Effendi will then take the cause onward from victory to victory.
The longer that the chair of the Guardianship is vacant the more trouble there will be accumulating that will eventually have to be solved. Let all the Hands prepare to welcome The Second Guardian!
THIS CALL A DANGEROUS DOCUMENT
Until this present time (1960) the Hands have shown their disapproval of the action that this statement urges. This is understandable that they should take it as they do, understandable to one who understands the workings of violation because they, the Hands, have been so completely immersed in the violation that they are following as not to be able to distinguish between firmness in The Master’s Will and Testament and violation thereof. I am taking every possible precaution
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that this document be kept very secret and confidential between the Hands for this matter of the Guardianship should be settled once and for all positively between the Hands before it gets talked of abroad which there is always danger. For if the American Bahá’ís as a whole should realize that the very existence of the Faith is now at stake it would indeed create an agitation in the cause because America is the Cradle of the Administration of the Faith and the strength of the Administration is firmly rooted in the consciousness that envelops them very strongly and to which they will cling.
The Hands should consider the danger of the position in which they might find themselves were the believers in America to discover some of the things that I treat of in this writ.
The initial thought of the Persian Hands who banded themselves together in the first conclave against the continuance of the Guardianship has so enveloped and influenced the actions of the Body of Hands that they, the Hands themselves, don’t realize the difference in the way in which the Administration is received in America and on the way in which it is not received in Persia. Here one finds two diametrical forces working in opposite directions and I can see that the only solution that will save a most serious condition of conflict between the Orient and Occident in the cause of the world around will be for the Hands in the next conclave to resume the hope of the people in the Guardianship as promptly and as quickly as possible.
Such prompt action in this emergency upon the part of the Hands will stop this conflict that is now coming out into the open in Europe, signs of which are now beginning to appear as I have shown in pioneer communities where the Persian and the Occidental pioneers talk and the western Bahá’ís are learning of and beginning to realize that the attitude of these Persian Bahá’í is for no more Guardianship.
As I have written, the American people are by their nature unsuspicious. Up until the present time they have trusted in the guidance of the Hands but when they realize that the Guardianship, the administration of their Faith, is in jeopardy they indeed will be very much upset and will lose this trust.
When the Hands announce to the Bahá’í world the resuming of the Guardianship there will be no revolt among the friends in Persia for they are conditioned to obey authority, and this announcement will bring great confirmation in America because that land is the Cradle of the Administration that is the Guardianship.
The explosive element that is so dangerous in this written statement of mine is that if it should get out and away from the Hands and have circulation among the believers it would then create a revolution of division in the cause and no one wants that, the Hands least of all.
RESPONSIBILITY
When the Beloved Guardian appointed me President of the Bahá’í International Council, he placed a certain responsibility upon me and this responsibility I am taking and I don’t intend to relinquish it upon any plea pressed upon me by the Hands of the Faith that I should unmindful of this in order to in unity and inharmony with them for were I to choose to be in unity with the Hands in their violation of The Will and Testament I would indeed be violating the trust that the
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Beloved Guardian placed in me when he appointed me President of the Bahá’í International Council.
In this position as President of the Council appointed by The Beloved Guardian I am responsible to no one save to the Guardian of the Faith wherever he may be. Therefore, I am the only person in the world who has the Bahá’í authority to halt this program of the Hands to elect an International Council and without the Bahá’í International Council functioning there can be no House of Justice.
This condition of a halt in your program for 1963 cannot be hidden from the Bahá’í world in the manner that the knowledge of many of the deliberations of the Hands are kept from them; therefore, when the Hands of the Faith realize their dilemma and of how they are to keep face with the mass of the believers, I anticipate that their alternative will be to quickly solve their embarrassment by announcing their hopes for a Second Guardian of the Faith.
If I can bring this about then I shall feel that for the moment I have successfully handled this trust The Beloved Guardian gave to me.
MY PERSONAL PROBLEM IN THE CONCLAVES OF THE HANDS OF THE FAITH
In my Bahá’í Reminiscences I have noted that for the past nine, ten or perhaps eleven years it may have been that I had been mentally confirmed in a dream or vision holding the conviction that the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith would endure against all the opposition that the world might bring against it. In other words every fiber of my being was assured of this, so sure was I that the very thought of a break in the Guardianship of the Faith had never even occurred to me.
Even on the morning of the convening of the First Conclave of the Hands of the Faith at the Bahje after we had not been able to find any Will or Testament amongst the papers in the desk of The Beloved Guardian in Haifa, even after that when we entered into conclave I had faith that something would come up in the conclave that would in some way produce a Guardian for us. Thus so convinced was I that in the high emotional atmosphere of the conclave (and the attending confusion of thought of the gathering that was produced by the presentation of the opposing thought insisted upon by the Persian Hands of the Faith) that there should never be another Guardian to follow Shoghi Effendi that was so quickly and promptly supported and urged and passed by the conclave at the insistence of the ten Persian Hands, that I then found myself speechless in the face of this calamitous turn taken by the conclave.
My feelings were torn. I felt that I should arise and condemn this turn as a
violation of the years of the mission of The Beloved Guardian but then I thought of myself and that in mine own estimation of myself thinking and feeling that of all the two billion and more souls living upon the earth that I myself considered myself to be the very last person of all to speak up and demand that the Hands of the Faith reverse their evident decision of no successor for Shoghi Effendi! Thus my human thoughts of my own self dominated me and I said nothing because I had it in my consciousness that this defense of the Guardianship should and ought to come from someone other than me! But no one arose to make this point. Thus without any opposition this move to violate the established Administration of the Faith dominated the conclave. During the year following the first conclave in the conference of the Custodian
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Hands in The Holy Land I spoke many times telling these friends of our great mistake of the First Conclave, telling them that everything that we were doing and planning to do was all upon the wrong basis and foundation but nothing that I said was heeded, nothing. These friends’ attitude toward me was that of a kind and loving family indulgence and forbearing toward the babblings of an aged family member in his dotage! They were always kind to me and forbearing. When I thought of myself all this was highly amusing but when I thought of the Faith, The Bahá’í Religion, it was tragic and I was indignant at the stupidity of the friends. But then I realized that the evil effects of violation were such as I was there witnessing. This poison of violation when once started knows no moderation. It throws every firm one into reverse as it were. The brilliant become stupid, the firm become wobbly and the strong weak!
Then came the Second Conclave of the Hands in 1958. I knew that the key to the carrying on of the World Crusade could only be successful under the leadership and command of a Guardian to follow Shoghi Effendi and continue the work of Him who had been The First Guardian of our Faith. But then again personal reticence kept me spellbound, the feeling that someone other than I should arise and take the stand for the restitution of the Guardianship that had been negated and thus violated. Thus the proceedings of this conclave continued on.
It was the last day of the conclave that after a struggle my good Bahá’í sense got the upper hand of my human conventional thought and manners and I arose and spoke as one Hand of the Faith speaking against the violation of majority of our body.
While my stand shook the conclave there was no articulate response to my entreaty but the stand had been made by me in that conclave. My mind and conscience was clear and I continued to hold my stand in the meetings of the Custodians between this second and the third conclaves at which third conclave in 1959 I made it very clear to all that I intended to fight them all, fight single handedly this struggle against this violation of the Guardianship of our Faith. I took this stand in order to save the Bahá’í Faith for the world and I am confirmed in my consciousness of ultimate success. Someone had to make this stand and the only apology that I have to make to the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith for my action is that since no other one of the Hands arose to make this stand I was obliged not only to make it myself as I am explaining here, but as I am explaining in other parts of this writ I find it necessary that I now go even further and assume command myself to combat this situation and crisis in the Bahá’í Faith by calling a halt in the preparations that the Hands are making for the establishment of a Universal House of Justice in 1963 preceded by the election and brief functioning for a few months of the Bahá’í International Council as a necessary prelude to the House of Justice all of which preparations and promises to the Bahá’í world are most fallacious and a flagrant violation of the Administration of the Faith that was established by The Beloved Guardian.
By virtue of the fact that Shoghi Effendi appointed me the President of the Bahá’í International Council I am in a position to stop the Hands of the Faith in their plan to elect a new International Council and this I am now doing. When the Hands of the Faith read this writ they will see that I, the President of the Bahá’í International Council command this situation and that by standing solidly and refusing to recognize or to countenance the right of the Hands of the Faith to elect and establish a functioning Bahá’í International Council, I thus put to naught their entire plan for 1963 for the Hands have no authority to do this, nor to attempt to create a Universal
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House of Justice. These and all other Bahá’í Institutions are for the Guardian to inaugurate and are not for the Hands to inaugurate.
The Hands of the Faith are to be directed by the Guardian and are to assist Him and stand by and with Him in His command of the cause. The Hands of the Faith have but two fields where they are free to initiate and pursue their special services in the Faith under the direction of the Guardian namely to propagate and to protect the Faith.
THE THREAT OF TROUBLE IN THE FAITH
It may have to be the threat of trouble for them that will eventually awaken and force the body of Hands to abandon their present policy of no more Guardianship and to make a right about face and look for the Second Guardian of the Faith who when He appears will end this violation that is the root of all trouble and the Faith will again find itself under the protection of the infallible Guardianship.
Just how this will all be brought about one cannot foretell. Should the body of Hands see the problem clearly and with alacrity arise to reinstate the hope of the appearance of the Second Guardian, all will be accomplished with dispatch and with ease for in his own good time the Guardian will come. But if the Hands refuse to give the believers the hope of a Second Guardian of the Faith then there will indeed be much more trouble that in the end will mount up to such proportions that the Hands will eventually be forced by the condition of the mass of believers to revive the Faith in the Guardianship in order to save the Faith.
As I explained to the Hands in our last conclave the judgment of the Hands, brought about by this violation, is at hand-the judgment will be precipitated by the mass of the believers when they begin to question for then will come the danger of a split in the Faith.
This violation has gone along now for so long that many are becoming so conditioned to it that the problem is daily becoming more difficult. Nothing short of the advent of The Second Guardian will meet this emergency for then both the Hands of the Cause and the believers will have the guidance that they need and must have or the Faith dies.
At and following our last conclave a number of the Hands said that my refusing to endorse their united opinion was causing a division among the Hands that would be bad for the Faith. My reply to this was that this wasn’t a case of in-harmony that required to be passed over and forgotten but that this was a case of violation which ought to be cut out and cast out and in no way harmonized with, no capitulation, no compromise whatsoever.
This answer will be mine to whatever argument may be brought up to combat my present attitude that is but a restatement of the attitude that I have always had and ever shall have with regards to violation.
THE BAHÁ’Í INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
Some time near or about the year 1950 I found myself travelling among the Bahá’í Assemblies in Europe with the plan in mind of continuing my travels south into Africa meeting
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the Bahá’ís in different lands and from there on eastward over the Pacific back to my home in the City of Washington.
But while in Europe came a call from Shoghi Effendi for me to go to The Holy Land so thither I went expecting to make a pilgrimage but of a few days. Pleased as I was to go to The Beloved Guardian I was astonished and made more pleased yet when not long after my arrival, He told me that from then henceforth Haifa was to be my home. He had already appointed me a Hand of the Cause and this was not long afterward followed by the Guardian’s appointment of the Bahá’í International Council of which He made me the President, thus began my duties at the center of the Administration of the Bahá’í Faith.
I and the other members of the council were individually each under the daily direction of the Guardian Himself. He would tell us what he wanted done and we would
do it, each knowing little or nothing of what the others were doing and never cooperating with them nor consulting with one another since we were each on our several jobs with no two on the same detail where consultation might have been necessary. The Guardian never assembled us in a meeting nor for any gathering.
Chiefest among my duties was making for the Guardian sketches, studies and drawings for his building activities here in The Holy Land including drawings for the Temple to be built on Mount Carmel, in Persia, in Kampala, Germany and later Australia.
Shoghi Effendi had very decided ideas of exactly what he wanted in the way of the architecture of these Bahá’í temples. All he wanted of me was that I put his ideas upon paper in the form of drawings from which building could be done. In his travels in Europe and particularly in England Shoghi Effendi had acquired photographs of buildings, the decoration and the character of which he admired and wished to have incorporated in and to give the character that he wanted to these various temple structures. My job was to get his ideas from him and from such documents as he gave me and from these to put down upon paper making plans and elevations as best I could to suit him.
But as for organizing the Bahá’í International Council as a council, the Guardian never mentioned this to me nor did I ever mention it to him for I was not long in finding out that Shoghi Effendi knew very well what he wanted and my job was to find out what he wanted and then to do it for him and in his way and not to interject any thoughts of mine own.
From time to time I was taken to task by one of the other members of the International Council Mrs. Collins who urged me to get busy and organize meetings of the council. To do I don’t know what? The Guardian hadn’t given me instructions to organize anything nor to do anything at all so my decision was to await orders from him, an attitude on my part that I’ve never had reason to regret although I am still under this mentioned criticism for doing nothing.
Thus yet so stands the affairs of the Bahá’í International Council. Until the Second Guardian of the Faith orders it, the friends should do nothing about the International Council.
All save I were worried about what will the Bahá’í world think and what will they say regarding my attitude? But this was not my worry. It was a worry of others of the Hands. So that is where the matter stands so far as my stand and position are concerned.
I was surprised some days after the last conclave closed when Marion Hofman, then
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staying in Haifa, said to me that she was so glad that the Hands were going to keep me on as President of the Council for that Rúhiyyih Khánum had assured her that they had no intention of replacing me in the election of the council that they had decided upon holding. Marion evidently expected me to make some observation on being told this piece of Bahá’í news. All I could reply to her was that I didn’t know what the Custodian Hands were planning to do since I was no longer a member of that body. Because of my promise to you of holding in secret with you all proceedings of the conferences of the Hands, I could not explain anything to her.
However, here now in this writ, I would again remind the Hands of the Faith that for the moment I do not intend to do anything at all myself about the council. I do not countenance any measures taken by the Hands with regards to the International Council for I consider as I have stated before, the present program of the Hands of the Faith for 1963 to be in violation of the Administration of the Faith as given in The Will and Testament and as explained and as elucidated to by The Beloved Guardian and that so far as my attitude is concerned I await The Second Guardian of the Faith to direct as to what should be done about the council.
THERE SHALL BE NO VIOLATION OF THE BAHÁ’Í INTERNATION COUNCIL
For I, Mason Remey, am its President appointed by the Guardian of the Faith and I shall not countenance nor allow the Hands of the Faith nor any individual nor any other group of individuals of the Faith to put aside and out of office those whom the Guardian of the Faith has appointed the members of this council. No one has this power save a Guardian of the Faith and as we are now in the time of interregnum between the First and as the Second Guardian has not yet come forth from his occultation; therefore no change can be made in the personnel of the International Council until the Guardian be in office to order it.
Therefore, I, President of the Bahá’í International Council, demand that the Hands of the Faith cease propagandizing the Bahá’í world with their promises of electing an International Council in order to open the way for themselves to direct the election of a Universal House of Justice of Baha'i.
Thus has the violation of The Master’s Will and Testament led the body of Hands of the Faith on toward other violations such as usurping the unique power vested in the Guardianship to elect their own International Council and next to be followed by their House of Justice in 1963.
Therefore, let the Hands of the Faith know that the President of the Bahá’í International Council, appointed by The Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi, orders them to cease their activities to meddle in the affairs of this council.
Therefore, let the Hands of the Faith quickly turn from their path of violation and make haste to await the advent of the Second Guardian of the Faith before the Bahá’í world becomes aware of this condition of their violation.
OPPOSITION TO THE GUARDIANSHIP
In this writing I have stated how and when in the First Bahje Conclave was started the opposition to the continuation of the Guardianship, then in other parts of this writing of how this opposition gained the support of others of the Hands in addition to the Persian Hands who began
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it, then finally it received the support of all the Hands except myself. The last few to give their support were apparently misled into accepting the plan that this opposition to the Guardianship offered to form a substitute infallibility that they claimed that the House of Justice would have that they proposed establishing in 1963.
Now I as President of the International Bahá’í Council given this post by The Beloved Guardian will not allow the Hands to tamper in any way with the present quiescent existence of the International Council thus have I the authority to block their programme of 1963.
Now therefore, the Hands of the Faith are at a stalemate out from which there is but one recourse and that is for the Hands to delay and call off all action until the Second Guardian of the Faith gives to the cause the protection possible for its continuance.
Why is it thus that the resident Hands in Thy Holy Land don’t want a Second Guardian? Why is this so?
It looks to me as if they personally don’t want their easy way of life disturbed by the presence amongst them of a Guardian who would command the cause and very probably curtail their luxuries and prerequisites that they are enjoying during this interregnum that they never had in the days of the Beloved Guardian.
The Hands of the Faith have been greatly blessed and honored by having been elevated to their position by The Beloved Guardian but along with this blessing is demanded sacrifices that are not demanded of those who have so far been less favored than these appointed Hands; therefore much personal and individual sacrifices is definitely required of them. When the Hands of the Faith make the sacrifice of their will that there shall not be another Guardian and when they really want in their hearts that there should be Guardianship for the Faith, then they will gladly want to put into this vacant chair the Second Guardian of the Faith.
In the meanwhile, I as the President of the Bahá’í International Council, appointed thereto by The Beloved Guardian, have the power to halt the fallacious programs of the Hands to elect an International Council and a House of Justice.
It was the Guardian of the Faith who made me President of the International Council, therefore I am responsible for the protection of the Faith. I am not responsible to the Hands of the Faith. I await the command of the Second Guardian of the Faith to tell the Bahá’í world what his wishes are regarding the functioning of the International Council. I do not take orders from the Hands of the Faith.
AUTHORITY
Authority in the Administration of the Baha'i Faith is vested in the Guardianship, the Hands of the Faith having been elevated to their position of Handship by the Guardian are responsible to him whom they should stand next to and support in Bahá’í procedure and in obeyance to his orders. The only prerogative bestowed upon the Hands of the Faith in The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is that they propagate and that they protect the Faith.
As I have shown elsewhere in this writ, it is incumbent upon the Hands that they protect the cause under all conditions from all harm. The violation of the Guardianship and violation of the Administration are one and the same violation. This is the case now before the cause.
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It is evident and beyond all doubt that it is the especial duty of the Hands now as at all times to protect the cause from this evil.
The Beloved Guardian appointed me, Mason Remey President of the Bahá’í International Council but while under His Guardianship I had no authority to go ahead with this council, organize it and put it into functioning order, for this lay only in the province of the Guardianship to do. But my appointment as President of the Council does give me the power to halt the body of the Hands and insist that they leave this matter to the judgment and initiation of the Second Guardian of the Faith.
In other words I have the authority to hold up this matter to be acted upon by the Guardianship which Guardianship now for the moment is hidden from people and in occultation left thus by our late Beloved Guardian his reasons for which will some day be known to the Baha'i world. Therefore by my policy of doing nothing with the firm intention of continuing to stand pat and continue to do nothing. I block the entire fallacious program of the Hands to take control of the workings of the Bahá’í Faith with its International Council and Universal House of Justice which if it all went through as the Hands have announced to the Bahá’í world, the violation of The Will and Testament would indeed then be triumphant in the Bahá’í world and this would indeed spell the finish of the Bahá’í cause.
But as the power to stop all this violation was given to me by The Beloved Guardian when he appointed me President of the International Council so I am now exercising that power by not countenancing the authority of the Hands to elect an International Council. Therefore, I am blocking the Hands in their program to give a Universal House of Justice to the cause in 1963.
When the people of the Bahá’í world begin to wake up to the fact that the Hands have thus been misleading them and whom these people realize the stand that I am taking to cast out from the cause this violation that upholds this annihilation of the Guardianship, the Body of the Hands will indeed be up against a condition from which there is no escape for them whatsoever but to quickly announce to the Bahá’ís that the Second Guardian of the Faith, when He comes forth with the reins of authority in His hand, will put all things right in the Bahá’í Faith.
I know well that the Hands of the Faith have the best of intentions possible in this matter but as they don’t understand this matter of violation, they are confused and are misled and are unable to see nor comprehend the problem before them.
With Bahá’í affairs in their present state I know of no other plan nor means than this that I am thus outlining to you by which this violation can be cleaned out of the Faith and the way made for the reinstatement of the Guardianship.
I and I alone am the only one in the world who can engineer this clean up in the cause and I intend to stand and accomplish this, my authority being that The Beloved Guardian gave me this mission to accomplish and the power over all the other Hands of the Faith and other people of the cause to carry it through when he bestowed upon me the Presidency of the Bahá’í International Council. Therefore it is my bond and duty to stand up and right this matter even though my method may seem drastic when I have to force this issue as I am doing.
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NO COMPROMISE
When I made my stand in the last conclave for the continuation of the Guardianship and I refused to sign my name endorsing the fallacies of the present program of the Hands of the Faith, the Hands as a body, took the ground that I would cause a split in the cause the world around and again subsequently after the close of the conclave, several of the Hands came to me individually urging and entreating me not to continue with my refusal to sign my name to the edicts issued by the Body of the Hands telling me of the evils of disunion and in-harmony among Bahá’ís and that all should uphold and with all sincerity relinquish their own personal opinions and without question
relinquish their own ideas and support the ideas of the majority.
In each of these cases I replied to them that this present problem in our Faith which I had precipitated was not a matter of in-harmony and disunity but one of violation that had to be treated of not by coming together in union but by separating and casting out the violation and to isolate it so that it could no longer harm the cause, that as an infection in the body the source or center of the infection had to be removed, cut out and cast out from the body, that to neglect to cast it out was to increase the sickness for when the infection goes beyond a certain point it becomes gangrenous and the sick one dies.
This matter of violation none of these friends could understand. They had
become so conditioned to the thought that the Guardianship be ended that they just couldn’t see that The Will and Testament was being violated and at the same time with this violation of this covenant that the Master left, His Will and Testament, that they were also violating by putting aside the structure of the Administration of the Faith that The Beloved Guardian had built and constructed upon the foundation given by the Master.
None of the Hands but I saw this, therefore I had to arise alone and make this stand in order to save the Bahá’í Cause!
In most of the other cases of violation that have had to be met in the history of the Bahá’í Faith there has been a distinct center or nucleus of this gangrenous infection as it were a central point or figure such as Ahmad Sohrab or Ruth White in the days of The Beloved Guardian or as forced on the cause by Khierella in the days of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. In these cases, by cutting out these centers of violation with their adherents the cause was saved from this spiritual poison. As a surgeon cuts out a cancerous growth together with all of its tentacles where the growth had formed, in order that none of the infection remain, so in those mentioned cases of violation both the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and The Beloved Guardian made a clean out, root and branch and a definite separation of these erring people from those who were firm in the Faith. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi did not bring them together in unity with the firm Bahá’ís – no, he cut them off absolutely and completely.
Now our present case in question differs somewhat from these examples that I mention for as yet no definite line up has formed in the Bahá’í world for and against this violation of the Guardianship. This spiritual illness that we suffer at present is as an illness suffused and diffused throughout the body of the Hands, not yet at a point for any cutting off to be done, but at a stage
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where the violation should be cleared out from the consciousness of the Hands for whom this is accomplished and we find ourselves with the advent of The Second Guardian, again under the infallible Guidance of the Guardianship, all will then be well with the Faith collectively as it will be with us each individually.
The problem before us is a most serious spiritual sickness and needs to be healed without delays ere it reach proportions that will be more difficult to treat than at present.
If the Hands of the Faith follow my urgence and at our next conclave restore hope in the Guardianship, the Second Guardian of the Faith on emerging from his occultation will take the command held by The Beloved Guardian and then all will be well and our present dilemma will soon be of the past and forgotten. But if this action of the Hands of the Faith be delayed, then (time passing rapidly) the outside Bahá’í world when they find out that the election of the Bahá’í International Council and the Universal House of Justice in 1963 cannot be realized then there will trouble and a plenty of it. For the people will hold the Hands of the Faith responsible for this condition of having promised and planned a program that they cannot fulfill. Therefore to save the Faith I urge that the Hands of the Faith change their attitude toward the Second Guardian of the Faith and be prepared to welcome Him.
I regret very much having to be so drastic and having thus to take a hold of the direction of Bahá’í affairs, but since the present plan of action of the Hands of the Faith if continued will wreck the cause, I must take this action even though drastic as it be in order to save the Faith that is so dear to all of us.
CONCLUSION
All that I treat of in the pages of this appeal to the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith is addressed to them and to them only and all in absolute confidence so I have had no reason for leaving anything unsaid save those things that would personally wound these friends. I have attempted to word my statement without mentioning any names in such manner that in the reading of this writ, those whose actions I criticize will know and understand my object in bringing up these matters. These pages have all been written during which time I have been with great affection conscious of my great Bahá’í love for each and every one herein mentioned whether in praise or in criticism.
This stand for the Guardianship started as a plea on my part to the Hands to free themselves from the bad and evil influence of the violation of The Will and Testament of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and also from this same bad and evil spirit of the violation of all the structure of Administration that The Beloved Guardian Himself built up upon and around The Will and Testament. But Alas! You were all so thoroughly imbued with and under the influence of this violation that no one gave heed to my warning therefore I found it necessary to take command of this situation first to refuse to put my name to the Report of the Last Conclave to the Bahá’í World and now to forbid the election of the Bahá’í International Council that you propose to create. Thus I make it impossible for you to take the next step that you plan, namely the formation of the Universal House of Justice that you have promised to the Bahá’í world to be in 1963.
When you study carefully the points that I make and present in this writ, you will see that I do command this situation and that the only thing that you can do about it is to accept and
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follow the advice that I am giving you, namely at our next conclave of the Hands to rescind your program for 1963, make a stand for the Guardianship, look for the appearance of the Second Guardian of the Faith, and work to bring to a happy conclusion and victory the present Bahá’í world crusade so ardently advocated by our late Beloved Guardian.
At this present time, 1960, this rectification of the matter of the Guardianship can be accomplished by the Hands as I am here showing you without disturbing the Bahá’í
world. To be sure it will be a great surprise to the people of the cause but rather then a source of upset, hope of the inevitable appearance of the Second Guardian of the Faith will be the source of power that will be of tremendous confirmation to the cause that we all love and serve. Furthermore this continued Guardianship will be the only safe refuge for each of the Hands of the Faith to take refuge therein as their protection against any criticism that may be aimed at them by the believers of the cause in either the occident (in America) or in the Orient (in Persia) for by this action of the Hands of the Faith that I urged them to take, they will “Save Face” with the Bahá’í world around. In fact things are now approaching to such a climax in the cause that this procedure I wish the Hands to take is the only thing that they can now do to save face with the people of the cause and with the world for such action as I here wish to be taken will cause the people to forget about all this violation that has inspired the fallacious program of an Universal House of Justice for the cause in 1963 that the Hands as their last stand in favor of the violation have been promising to the people for these past two years.
THE SECOND GUARDIAN OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH
There was a reason why The Beloved Guardian appointed me the President of the Baha'i International Council that thus now gives me the power to call a halt upon the condition of violation of The Master’s Will and Testament and by blocking and putting to naught the error that is now being unitedly upheld by the body of the Hands of the Faith, all but me, and of all the Hands I being the only one with the vision to see that the Guardianship must be maintained, supported and carried on.
There may be to be sure other individual believers who see this matter as I do but I am the only one of the Hands (the nobility of the cause) who sees this and I too am the only one of the Hands to whom The Beloved Guardian has given the power to confront all of the Hands and tell them that I will not allow them to carry out their as yet (unannounced formally) intention of abolishing the Guardianship that they are so persistently pushing that if they succeed will be the end and the finish of the Bahá’í Faith in this world.
As you don’t see this it is therefore necessary that I should actually beat you all into line as I am thus forced to do in order to save the cause.
Try to consider this matter and try to see the reason why The Beloved Guardian Himself placed the reins of power in my hands over the body of Hands and thus over the believers of all the world by my appointment as President of the Bahá’í International Council for in this capacity. It is I who is now in command of the Baha'i Faith so I am now ordering and compelling the Hands of the Faith to relinquish their way of violation and make themselves ready to welcome the Second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith to take over this command.
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It is not necessary for me to suggest to the Hands who they should expect as successor to Shoghi Effendi in Guardianship? You should know this without being told by me although I know and I have known for the past eleven or twelve years who the Second Guardian was to be. There is but one of the Hands of the Faith who is prepared to fill this office of the Second Guardian of the Faith and by now you should all know who he is and knowing who he is you should obey him without his having to tell you because his appointment is clearly written in the appointment and the commands of The Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi.
THIS DOCUMENT
Inasmuch as no minutes nor other records are ever taken of the proceedings of the conclaves of the Hands of the Faith and inasmuch as in the best of consultation and arguments, that oft times border upon dispute together with the emotional strain that accompanies the presentation of thoughts and points of view that are often in opposition one to the other, and inasmuch as under such conditions of conflict of thought and minds of those participating in these conclaves are often at a loss to remember just what was said and who said what, I take this means of putting down by written word the stand for the acceptance of the Guardianship that I have taken in the Bahje Conclaves as well as the same in the conferences of the first two years of the Custodian Hands in The Holy Land. My stand is indeed opposed to the united stand of all of the other twenty six Hands of the Faith and of the believers who trust them. Thus do I, President of the Bahá’í International Council appointed by the First Guardian of the Faith, thus do I stand singly and alone amongst all Bahá’ís of the world – I, Mason Remey.
DOUBT BREEDS DOUBT – CONVICTION CREATES CONVICTION
The present condition of uncertainty in the minds of the believers the world around as to the future of the Guardianship and the Administration of the Bahá’í Faith and the fact that the message as given in the days of The Beloved Guardian (when it was believed that the continuance of the Guardianship was an assured institution of the Faith, about which no one had any doubt) can now no longer be given has created a basic state of uncertainty in the minds and in the spiritual assurance of the Bahá’ís throughout the world. In the minds of the pioneers and teachers in all places there is the question of what is going to happen to the cause without the Guardian to lead the believers to the spiritual victories promised in The Will and Testament of the Master, and as attested to by The Beloved Guardian Himself? With such spiritually disquieting questions in their minds, how can the Bahá’ís assure and confirm others and bring them to the point of certainty in believing in our faith?
Certainty and confirmation creates certainty and confirmation in the hearts of
others. We can not expect the cause to spread so long as the believers are in this present state of uncertainty as to their Faith for doubt in them can only breed doubt in others. The Bahá’í Faith can not establish belief and convert the world until the believers the world around stand united and are themselves convinced of the truth of that which they are teaching.
The only way in which this cause can ever sweep the world and accomplish its mission to mankind is for the Hands of the Faith to forsake this fallacious program on which they are
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embarked, abandon it avowedly and completely, and by this move reestablish faith in the Guardianship. This is the only move that the Hands can now make that will give the believers the world around the conviction and the unity of direction necessary to accomplish the goal of the world crusade upon which we are embarked.
Let the Custodian Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land lose no time, if necessary call an emergency conclave of all the Hands, that they can take this step now at once and then organize to study The Holy Writ hoping and praying to be lead to find the Guardian of the Faith who surely is with us but waiting to be wanted.
AT PRESENT THE BAHÁ’ÍS HAVE NO MESSAGE FOR THE WORLD
When I left Haifa in 1958 for the Intercontinental Conference of the Faith in Sidney, Australia where I represented the Hands of the Faith I was instructed by the Custodians in Haifa not to allow any discussion of the Guardianship to come up before the congregation. This instruction I carried out by avoiding and by evading the subject and in my addresses to the gathering there taking my thought back to the days of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when we only knew about the covenant and knew nothing about the Administration under a Guardian. So upon the covenant I spoke in Sidney yet in my mind I knew perfectly well that now in this day of the Administration of the Faith that such a talk as I gave was not at all the message that the Beloved Guardian taught us to give because to that message of the Covenant of the days of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had been added the message of The Will and Testament which together with that of the covenant formed the message that was then on and from now on ought to be the Bahá’í message for the world but which now the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land forbid mention or discussion of the Guardianship, therefore the believers no longer have the message to give to the world that The Beloved Guardian taught us to give. The elimination of the Guardianship eliminates the message and if the believers hold to this doctrine there is no hope they can give the world.
Such confusion of thought and of purpose places uncertainties and doubts in the minds of the Bahá’í teachers. They don’t know what to teach? Formerly they taught The Will and Testament, now that is out because of no Guardianship. It so effects their Faith that the Holy Spirit cannot flow through these believers to enlighten those whom they wish to teach with the result that they are not able to confirm new believers in The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá because they themselves are confused by the contradiction in the present program of teaching brought about by the fact that the Hands of the Faith have violated The Will and Testament. Therefore, this confusion of thought that produces a lethargic spiritual sickness in the cause is like a cancerous growth that must be removed and cut out before the body Bahá’í can again be strong and healthy.
Violation breeds violation. It can breed nothing else but its own kind. When will the Hands of the Faith awaken to this condition that is killing the cause, wounding and paralyzing the heart of the cause? How can any Bahá’í fail to see that the body of the cause cannot live unless it have the heart which is the Guardianship to give it life and force and strength to carry on and minister spiritually to the people of the world?
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THE SECOND GUARDIAN OF THE FAITH
Some of the Hands of the Faith present at the last Bahje Conclave (in 1959) may remember my urgence for the continuance of the Guardianship that was met at one point in the proceedings by the question asked of me, who did I propose to be the next Guardian? It was in reality more of a taunt than a serious question but ignoring the taunt I answered seriously by saying I had no suggestions what so ever to make to the Hands as to this question of who should be the Second Guardian but nevertheless I knew the next Guardian was a reality in the world and that in his own good time would reveal himself to the Bahá’í world.
Under the pressure of your wish that all consultation between the Hands be held in camera I gave you my word not to tell the believers about matters discussed in the conclaves and consultations of the Hands.
CONFIDENTIAL BAHÁ’Í MATTERS
It is most difficult for the Hands of the Faith to maintain in secrecy and in confidence their deliberations. In fact for the most part it seems to be quite impossible for them or for any other people to hide feelings and attitudes. Even when nothing is said by word of mouth emotional attitudes reveal that which one would never tell in so many words.
I realize that at this stage the successful outcome of my stand alone against all of the other Hands of the Faith against this violation that I am fighting demands upon my silence before the Bahá’í world but within our body of Hands of the Faith I reserve the right to say what I think of their actions for it is my sacred Bahá’í duty in as kind a way as possible to say what is in my mind and that is why I am so insistent in trying to show you how The Will and Testament of the Master has been violated and how you, under the spell of this violation, are nullifying the Administration, the fabric of which our Beloved Guardian labored so to erect upon the foundation of The Will and Testament.
So long as the Bahá’í world knows nothing of what is going on in the conferences of the Hands you may think yourselves to be safe from their censure but should through one or more of the Hands the argument that I make in this document get abroad amongst the believers in America – then the body of the Hands would indeed be in trouble with the believers at large – particularly with those in America for Shoghi Effendi told us that America is the Cradle of the Administration of the Bahá’í Faith.
The case and the sympathy with which the friends in Persia are taking the fiat of “no more Guardianship” will I assure you be met in the Americas with an opposing reaction for America is the Cradle of the Administration (that is the Guardianship nothing more nor less) and in my opinion the American Bahá’ís are just not going to take this violation of The Will and Testament that you are trying to put over on the Bahá’í world! I feel that I should tell you this.
I know that you don’t see this at all for such is the way and the manner of violation. It twists and puts everything into reverse. It causes people to do and to be just the opposite from what they should do and be. You can’t help your sick condition. I know this very well indeed;
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therefore, some force outside of yourselves is needed to get you out and away from this condition that unless stopped will kill the cause.
I see troubles ahead for the body of the Hands. Their embarrassment before the world of the Faith when the people find that there can be no active Bahá’í International Council nor no Universal House of Justice until the Guardianship be recognized by the believers the world around. When the Hands of the Faith find themselves up against this condition in the Faith, then as a last resort in order to save face and save the Faith – then as a last resort they will be obliged to seek refuge in the Guardianship.
VIOLATION PAST AND PRESENT
When Mirza Ahmad Sorhab set up his organization of Bahá’ís of “The New History Society” as he called it, his stand was that he accepted Bahá’u’lláh’s and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s teachings but he refused to accept the Guardianship of the Faith as provided for in The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. In other words he accepted everything believed and taught by the orthodox Bahá’ís with the exception of the Guardianship and in order to claim divine authority he reverted to teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and of The Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá but eliminating the Guardianship as I have already explained.
This defection of Ahmad Sohrab is clearly seen by and understood by all of the Hands of the Faith but they are blind to the fact that they themselves are defecting from The Will and Testament of the Master upon precisely the same point on which Sohrab defected, namely the Guardianship. The Hands of the Faith in their Proclamation to the Baha'i World exhorted the friends just as Ahmad did to uphold the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá but they are eliminating (as Sohrab had done before them) the Guardianship of the Faith. The difference between these two heresies being that Ahmad Sorhab came out point blank denying the Guardianship whereas the Hands of the Faith in their Proclamation have said nothing about their intention, didn’t even mention the word Guardian nor Guardianship but concocted this present organization of the Faith with the nine Custodian Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land, for which there is no authority whatsoever in Bahá’í Script nor lore, urging the people to surge forward with the propagation of the Bahá’í Faith, just as did Sohrab – minus the Guardianship, in fact going so far as to exhort the believers not to discuss the Guardianship, the heart of the Administration.
In the days of the Sohrab violation we had The Beloved Guardian with us to protect the Faith but now with this present violation working in our midst the protection that the cause has is vested in me, the President of the International Council. Therefore I arise to take command of this situation that has been precipitated upon the Bahá’í world by the last conclave message to all Bahá’ís announcing the intention of the Hands to take over the control of the International Council and plans for 1963 all of which are in open violation of The Administration of our Faith and that I, as the President of the Council appointed by The Beloved Guardian, cannot allow. Therefore I must call a halt in these proceedings which I am authorized to do by the appointment of The Beloved Guardian, in whose appointment and orders we all have perfect confidence and because of my appointment to this key position in the Faith I control this situation and I do so in order to give the Faith the only protection possible against the violation that the Hands of the Faith now attempt to put over. Therefore for the very life of the Bahá’í Faith, it is necessary for
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me to arise and take the stand against this violation and since there was no one nor ones other than I to take this stand I myself alone have had to arise to meet this situation – Alone, with all others against me, I am confirmed in the hope that now that I have made this stand others of the Hands of the Faith will see and realize this condition and seek to rectify it. Of the eventual happy outcome of all these vital questions there is no doubt whatever. I must take this stand of command of the Faith for there upon depends the ousting out of this violation and reestablishing the Administration according to The Will and Testament of the center of the covenant, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
GODS KINGDOM UPON EARTH
The Bahá’í Faith is the long promised and anticipated Kingdom of Heaven upon earth. Its rulership is vested in the Guardianship of the Faith –its nobility the Hands of the Faith elevated to that estate by appointment by the Guardian and lastly the followers, the mass of the believers throughout the world. Thus this Kingdom upon earth has these three basic elements – The Ruler, those appointed Hands who surrounded him and the great number of adherents who form the mass of the Faith.
The fallacy of the program so evidently foisted upon the Bahá’ís by the Hands of the Faith during these past two years and more is devoid of Guardianship and is now on the way within a generation to be without the institution of the Hands of the Faith for this present body of Hands will die off and be no more. With no possibility of renewal (because only the Guardian can create a Hand of the Faith), the cause ere long will be but an indiscriminate mass of people trying to rule and regulate themselves! Thus the present policy of the Hands of the Faith is to destroy the Kingdom of God on earth and put a political democracy in its place? Although until now I am the only one of the twenty seven Hands who has arisen to reason thus, surely many believers in America and also in other parts of the world, such as the friends in Germany, will see at a glance that the cause as a triumphant Kingdom cannot continue without the acceptance of the Guardianship, all hope of which and desire for which now seems to have been abandoned by the majority of the Hands of the Faith!
Since America is the Cradle of the Administration of the Faith, the American Bahá’ís will I am sure be the first to recognize the imperative necessity of the reestablishment of the Guardianship and without doubt also the first to recognize the Second Guardian Himself when He appears.
In their fallacious planning for the cause by the Hands of the Faith one finds them eliminating the Guardianship. These Hands of the Faith propose that the mass of the Bahá’ís form an International Assembly which they claim will have the infallibility necessary to guide the Faith without regard for the divinely inspired element necessary that only the Guardian can provide.
It just doesn’t make any sense at all for it is the antithesis of the philosophy and teaching of The Will and Testament, namely these Hands plan the destruction of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s plan of the Administration of the Kingdom to be replaced by a purely republican or democratic form that has none of the elements of the Kingdom of God necessary to make it a Kingdom, a King and his nobility and his people.
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To be sure the body of Hands have not so far come out frankly and told the believers that they as a majority insist the Guardianship be ended, nevertheless such seems to be their unvoiced intention though not yet definitely proclaimed. The truth of the matter is that the majority of Hands personally do not want the Guardianship to continue, but this they are not mentioning in any of their statements to the Bahá’í world. This very attitude of their silence upon this matter is indicative of their intent. I will make further mention of this in this writ.
During this time of interregnum, that is one of confusion of thought and effort under which the Faith now labors, one fallacy makes the way not only for another fallacy but then demands fallacy after fallacy to sustain and justify the fallacy that those fallacies are attempting to sustain and to maintain.
Inasmuch as the Custodian Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land, with the exception of myself, were united in agreement with the sentiment of the first conclave that the Guardianship be ended in favor of the anticipated infallibility that they expected in the Universal House of Justice to give that they planned to create in 1963. In the sending out their letters of information and instructions to various assemblies and individuals throughout the Bahá’í world as well as to individual believers, it was decided by majority that all nine of us were to sign these letters under the words “In the Service of The Beloved Guardian of the Faith”.
To me this savored of the violation of the Administration and of the Guardianship for it was one of those fallacies invented to support and reinforce the fallacy previously made, that of no more Guardianship advocating in its stead the very remote control of the affairs of the cause by Shoghi Effendi in absentia from His eternal station in the Abha Kingdom thus ending and nullifying the need for Guardianship here upon earth.
In other words, when once violation starts there is no stopping it. It is a devastating disease in the body Bahá’í. In these conferences of the Custodian Hands, the Hands were violating by thus considering themselves to be still in the Service of Shoghi Effendi by signing “In the name of the First Guardian of the Faith” (Shoghi Effendi dead and himself in the Abhá Realms of existence) where as we of the Faith in this world according to the Administration should now be signing ourselves “In the service of the Second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith” did we know our Guardian. I could only see the Guardianship and our service to the Guardian as being a function of this world and not of the future Abhá Kingdom. The dilemma of the present crisis of the Faith is that for this time being the Faith is not in contact with the living Guardian because he is unknown to the Hands of the Faith and to the people of the cause and is delaying his coming forth from his occultation in the hope that the Hands of the Cause will want to welcome him when he comes to them.
Therefore I refused to sign my name as still being in the service of Shoghi Effendi. Here I and the others of the Custodian Hands found ourselves at an impasse. Neither side would give in to the other. I explained at length my stand for the continuation of the Guardianship that they were united against with the result that now I am no longer one of these nine Custodian Hands of the Faith residing in The Holy Land.
The problem of the Custodian Hands now is to keep all these doings and happenings a
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secret from all Bahá’ís outside of this body of the Hands and we all know how difficult it is for the Bahá’ís to keep secrets. All that I myself now can do for the time being is to keep my stand, maintain my promise to the Custodian Hands that I would keep all this a secret from the outside Bahá’í world and at the same time keep faith with the Hands of the Faith by expressing to them and to them only exactly what I think about the solution of this Bahá’í problem – the Guardianship.
ON BOARD THE S.S. SATURNIA, 31 DECEMBER 1959, BOUND FROM NAPLES TO NEW YORK
Today is my sixtieth anniversary in the Bahá’í Faith. In looking back over these anniversaries I remember them to have been happy times when I have often gathered together Bahá’í friends to mark the occasion. Today I am alone on this ship with my thoughts going out to my Bahá’í friends the world around!
I awakened this morning feeling indignant – thoroughly indignant – at the attitude of the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith toward the Guardianship of the Faith, that they don’t want the Guardianship to continue and that they don’t intend that it continue and that they don’t intend that it continue beyond that of the First Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi. This indignation was one because of a principle of the Faith violated, no personal antagonism at all toward any of the Hands who are so unfortunate as to have been thus poisoned and confused by this violation – but on the contrary deep sorrow in my heart for each one of them.
As I have noted in these writings in this statement, this violation of the Administration was started in the First Bahje Conclave by the Persian Hands of the Faith and found sufficient support to carry the body of the Hands those very few who thought otherwise that the Guardianship should be supported and continued were overruled by the majority and whatever may have been their objections in order to maintain unity in supporting the action of the majority of the Hands, thus this great violation took control of the body of the Hands of the Faith and is still through this body in control of the Faith throughout the world, although even the control is fallacious since in The Holy Teachings of the Faith, of the Hands of the Faith are given no authority to control anything.
So far all that I myself have done to counteract this violation has been not to oppose the will of the body of the Hands in anything that I say to the world outside of the meetings of the Hands but to explain and to show the Hands of the Faith where they are wrong and that unless they change from their policy of violation and reinstate the Guardianship that they will kill the cause. Such is my stand in talks with the Hands of the Faith – all secret and private between us – I assuring them that keep face before the Bahá’í world united with them, in the hope that they will see their violation, abandon it and themselves accept the Guardianship before this matter of the violation of The Master’s Will and Testament gets out and be understood by the Bahá’í world for when the friends in America (the Cradle of the Administration) realize what the Hands are doing to this Administration, they are going to put such pressure upon the Hands of the Faith that their position of dignity and honor before the world will indeed be in jeopardy if not lost
Completely and this will be bad for the Hands and for the cause too.
I am telling the Custodian Hands, as I told all of the Hands in the Third Bahje Conclave,
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that I would no longer affix my signature to their decrees of violation of the Administration and the Guardianship and I intend to continue refusing to endorse such violation.
When I reach America, if any of the Bahá’ís ask me why my name does not appear in print endorsing these fiats of the Hands I shall say it was because I did not sign my name to this message and this is as far as I shall go for the present – ever hoping that the Hands will change their present policy that I assured the Hands on leaving Haifa that I would not openly oppose before the believers – this for the reason that I have given of not wanting to embarrass the Hands.
I am hoping that my refusal to endorse the plan of the Hands to put the Bahá’í International Council into operation will awaken the Hands to the fact that I as the President of the Council into operation will awaken the Hands to the fact that I as the President of the Council, appointed by The Beloved Guardian, am in command of that situation which command they, the Hands, have no right to question.
Now for the present I am trusting that this, my forbidding them to tamper with the International Council, will awaken them to the point that they will see their mistaken and fallacious propaganda of promising the Bahá’í world an elected and an active International Council and a Universal House of Justice in 1963.
I have the power to stop these works of the Hands of the Faith and thus do I intend to use this power to guard the Faith.
Should the Hands of the Faith at the next conclave of all of the Hands still persist in these violations of The Will and Testament and of the Administration and of all that The Beloved Guardian built up upon the admonitions of The Will and Testaments, I may have to tell the Hands that I can no longer keep silent about their violation and that I will be obliged to place the entire matter before the Bahá’í world in a final attempt that the people of the Faith will then bring sufficient weight (pressure) upon the Hands necessary to change their cause of supporting violation to one back again to The Will and Testament with the Guardianship.
But as I state – I trust this step will not be necessary for me to take and that rather than have these matters aired throughout the Bahá’í world that the Hands will give in and give up their present policy.
In any event, the Faith must be saved from the present manner in which the Hands of the Faith are administering it and I, as President of the Bahá’í International Council, as the only person in all this world who has the power (as the appointed President of that Council by The Beloved Guardian) to command a halt in the mischief that they (the Hands) are doing to the Faith; therefore, I am exercising this command.
Therefore, come what may I intend to stand firmly in order that the cause of Bahá’u’lláh be saved to accomplish its mission in the world and all of this pother is supported by a few of the Hands who don’t want the Guardianship to continue because it will disturb their easy life in Haifa, enjoying the good things of this world when they should be making sacrifices for the spread of the Kingdom of God on earth for which Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, followed by The Beloved Guardian devoted their lives!
God knows and I know too that I have no desire at all to stand up thus and literally beat the Hands of the Faith thus forcing them to abandon the fallacious program that they have been
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fathering for these past years and more – all of which is fallacious and is maiming and sickening and killing the Bahá’í Faith – but as I am stating to the Hands in this statement, I am the only one to do this job so I am thus taking command of the situation and telling the Hands what they should do to save the Faith, thereby assuming a command tantamount to that of a Guardian of the Faith to be obeyed by all.
AT SEA, 1 JANUARY 1960
On board the S.S. Saturnia bound for Naples to New York. I awakened early this morning with the thought question in my mind. What is to be done to save the Bahá’í Faith if the body of the Hands of the Faith continue to stand firmly upon their present ground of unity in their refusal to consider the continuation of the Guardianship?
I am hoping that when they receive my first written call or appeal to them and after they have read and studied it, they will see their danger and do something about it. If they remain firm in their violation of the Administration of the Will and Testament, I may then send out to each Hand of the Faith a copy of this my statement in which I demand that they harken to my order to them – I as President of the Bahá’í International Council – that they cease meddling with the International Council that having been established by The Beloved Guardian, being under the Guardianship, can only be put into action by a Guardian of the Faith and that as now there is no Guardian as its President, hold that it remain quiescent until the Guardianship be recognized, established and accepted.
The program (fallacious as it is) upon which the Hands are working to establish their House of Justice in 1963 depends upon their first having an elected and working International Council. The stopping of their electing a council and getting it working precludes and brings to an end their hopes for 1963.
I trust that in their dilemma that they will then be facing that they will then capitulate and decide that they want a Guardian and then the Faith will be on the way again of The Will and Testament – the Administration and all will be well. But if they refuse to obey me as President of the Council they may turn upon me – expel me from their body – then what am I to do to save the Faith?
This is the thought question that I awakened with this morning.
To be sure this entire business of the nine Custodian Hands has no Bahá’í sanction whatsoever. It was thought to be a necessity to bridge the interregnum between the First and Second Guardianships of the Bahá’í Faith – this interregnum being caused by there being no Will nor Testament of Shoghi Effendi being found – a seemingly legitimate expediency in this emergency for the Hands of the Faith to take over temporarily, until the next Guardian took over the affairs of the cause but not their province to alter and change the entire structure of the Administration as they are doing by starting out to eliminate forever the Guardianship that is the heart of the Administration of the Faith. While the Beloved Guardian appointed the twenty seven Hands of the Faith commissioning them in a general way to propagate and to protect the Faith beyond this general commission I, Mason Remey as President of the Bahá’í International Council, with Mrs. Collins as Vice President and the other members of this council, were the only ones whom The Beloved Guardian appointed to carry on any special works of the Bahá’í Faith, and in
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this one case he merely appointed us and never went beyond that, therefore the council has always been acquiescent body the duties of which have never been assigned or designated so all that there is to do about the activities of the council must await the instructions to be issued by the Second Guardian of the Faith.
I therefore, as President of the International Council, am holding the affairs of the council in status quo until we have a Guardian to openly direct these affairs.
My position therefore while it did not allow me to go ahead with the activities of the council in the days of Shoghi Effendi, now gives me the authority not to do anything with or about the council until so commanded by The Second Guardian of the Faith. Therefore, I have the right that I take now of ordering the Hands of the Faith to quit this interference and await the coming forth of the Second Guardian of the Faith for when He is accepted by the Bahá’í world then He will command all things in the Faith – then all will be well.
I must if possible avoid creating any movement in opposition to the body of Hands, but at the same time I must bring pressures upon that body in order to turn them from their present course in order to save the Faith.
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE HANDS OF THE FAITH
In the appointment of the Hands, the elevation of certain of the twenty seven believers to this station of assistants to the Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi, laid a great responsibility upon them which responsibility is particularly great right now in this interregnum when there is no acknowledged Guardian to direct the Hands.
Did the Beloved Guardian by look, word or deed ever indicate that any conditions would or could end the Guardianship with HIS Administration as Guardian of the Faith? Indeed did he ever entertain such a thought? Upon the contrary, he had in mind the site further along on the curve of the walk beyond where he placed the Archive Building recently completed where the administration buildings of the Faith were to be placed amongst which would in the future be built the residence of the Guardian. This was not for Shoghi Effendi himself. He already had his house in which he lived that formerly had been the home of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The residence upon Mount Carmel, whether or not he thought of living there himself, was planned for the future Guardians of the Faith.
But now I again ask why is it that the Hands are now so insistent that the Guardianship end with Shoghi Effendi? WHY? Let each of the Hands of the Faith who does not want the Guardianship to continue look into his or her own mind and heart to find out why he or she does not want the Guardianship to continue?
As I have cited elsewhere in this writ, during the past two and more years of interregnum the Custodian Hands in The Holy Land have settled themselves down and are very comfortably installed in Haifa. The Second Guardian of the Faith in taking command there will surely alter very fundamentally the present set up of life there and this would indeed enjoin changes and many sacrifices among these present Custodians but can any such personal considerations, that may be unpleasant from the human viewpoint to contemplate, cause a Hand of the Faith not to want the Guardianship to be? This is a time when we Hands must arise to make sacrifices for it will be thereby only that the cause will flourish.
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Let us think of this matter and consider the mass of the believers throughout the world who are looking toward the Hands for guidance. Only through the sacrifices of these Hands of the Faith at this moment can they save themselves from themselves. It is just as necessary that we Hands sacrifice ourselves in order to properly guide the mass of the believers as it is that this mass of believers stand ready to follow and to support the Hands in this emergency but the first move towards this relation between those who lead and those who are led should be that the leaders maintain the morale of this relationship. This is the meaning of “Noblesse Oblige”. The position of the Hands demands that they make the sacrifices! Thus for since the death of Shoghi Effendi the majority of the Hands have not proved themselves to be faithful to the Guardianship.
In World War II, a nephew of mine served in our Navy on the U.S.S. Yorktown. She, worsted in battle on the high seas, her Captain commanded all to stand by ready to abandon ship. My nephew, in command of a company of eighteen sailors, found that there were but eighteen life preservers in his company’s locker where there should have been nineteen. Where upon he proceeded to distribute these eighteen to his eighteen men and when the order came to abandon ship he, without a life preserver himself led off diving into the Pacific followed by his men each in his life belt. Fortunately all were rescued after being in the water for more than an hour.
By such acts of those in command is the morale of the Navy sustained and maintained. This morale is very demanding upon the officers in command of men in battle. Had a naval officer, in such an example as I have cited, taken a life belt for himself and left one of his men without this protection he would indeed have lost the confidence of his men, the confidence necessary to sustain and maintain naval morale in battle. So it is in the spiritual battle of the Bahá’í Faith!
How much more necessary is “Nobless Oblige” required of those of us in the Bahá’í Faith to whom the mass of the believers the world around are looking for guidance in our present emergency? How dare the Hands violate The Will and Testament as they are doing?
At present the people of our Faith the world around are like an army of soldiers who suddenly finding themselves without a commander may soon begin to question and wonder what is going to happen to their Kingdom, for without a commander-in-chief how can their army protect their Kingdom? Why don’t the Hands of the Faith institute a search through the world for The Second Guardian who is somewhere waiting for the Hands to want Him before He disclosed Himself?
What will the Bahá’í world think and what will they say when they realize that among the Hands of the Faith there are those who want the Guardianship abolished?
THE TWO SUPPORTS OF THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
The Guardianship on one side and the International Assembly upon the other side are the two supports of the Universal House of Justice as explained by the Beloved Guardian and accepted by all of the believers.
The Universal House of Justice can only function in its infallibility when it has these two supports – the International Assembly alone without the Guardianship cannot be the Universal House of Justice. In other words, the elected International Assembly that is the voice of the mass of the people of the Faith and is chosen by them is alone and by itself not endowed with infallibility!
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This I have explained many times in the conferences of the Custodian Hands in Haifa as well as to the body of the Hands in both the second and third conclaves but apparently all to no effect. They holding that the International Assembly chosen by the mass of the people of the Faith is in itself to be infallible without the Guardianship that they hold now to be non-existent.
How any one of normal mental capacity can reason thus is a mystery to me. At
no time when I have discussed this with any of the Hands of the Faith did this reasoning of mine make any impression upon anyone of them. They all persisted in their assertion that without a Guardian the Hands had the right to call for the election of an International Assembly in 1963 and when convened this assembly would be the Universal House of Justice the decisions of which assembly would have infallibility.
This lack of logic and reasoning not only makes no sense but is positively pernicious. Such is the result of this violation of the Administration of our Faith. It is like a disease that the body of the Hands brought upon themselves when they forsook the Guardianship at their first conclave since which their efforts have been concentrated on preaching and teaching this atrocious doctrine of their plans for 1963 to the believers in all parts of the world.
Personally I marvel that the Bahá’ís in the occident have not arisen “en masse” to rebel against such leadership that is actually spreading violation whereas the Hands of the Faith are commissioned to protect the Faith from violation!
When will the Hands of the Faith want and seek for The Second Guardian who alone can free them and the cause from this spiritual disease that is spreading the spiritual blindness the world around? When??
THE FALLACY OF A UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE IN 1963
Although I sat in the conclave at the time, I don’t remember how the idea started amongst the Hands that they were empowered to establish a Universal House of Justice. But inspired by the violation of The Will and Testament, when started this fallacy immediately took the fancy of the great majority and was passed upon to be proclaimed through the Bahá’ís as the solution of the present Bahá’í problem that perplex the Baha'i world.
To this matter my argument has been and is that the creating and organizing of the Universal House of Justice is a matter that only a Guardian of the Faith can accomplish and therefore it does not fall within the province of the Hands to undertake. There are two major supports upon which the functioning of the Universal House of Justice rests, the Guardianship representing the divine infallibility of the Faith and the International Assembly to be elected democratically by the believers.
Under the present condition of the Faith without a Guardian, the Universal House of Justice that the Hands propose inaugurating can in no manner create this infallible element of this first support of a Universal House of Justice. The formation of the second support since this has no element of infallibility and is a human democratic institution proclaiming the voice of the people this second support will be very easy to be elected by the people themselves when the Guardian of the Faith will come forth and tell them so to do but not before He commands it. Therefore the impossibility of having a Universal
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House of Justice until there first be a Guardian for without a Guardian to act as its president, there can be no Universal House of Justice.
The intensive manner in which the Custodian Hands are reiterating in their message to the Bahá’í world promising them in all fallaciousness that their House of Justice in 1963 will have the infallibility necessary to guide the Bahá’í Faith to spiritual victories is the greatest sign in the present time of the violation of the Master’s Will and Testament. Indeed so flagrant is this that I marvel that there has not yet been sporadic uprisings and demonstrations among the believers the world around against such nonsensical pap as is now being thus handed out to them. I see troubles in the offing that can only be met and avoided by a complete reversal of the entire modus operendi of the Hands of the Faith, since the convening of their first conclave at Bahje, where violation made its first appearance. The heart of the Administration, the Guardianship itself, has thus been violated.
The Hands of the Faith are working assiduously making frantic efforts to justify themselves in all these matters lest they lose face before the Bahá’í world. They are indeed in great danger of losing face. It will be better for them to have to acknowledge to themselves in secret conclave that they have been for these two years and more on the wrong track. Held within the four walls of the next conclave such recognition will be far less bitter and not so humiliating to the cause as to have all this matter come out openly to be talked over and discussed and God knows what (?) by the Bahá’ís the world around!
Therefore before matters become worse than they are now (and they are very bad now and daily becoming worse) let the Hands of the Faith in conclave convening as soon as possible unitedly save the Faith by seeking the only protection that will save it, namely The Second Guardian to pull the cause out of its present dilemma and solve all of our difficulties that all may surge ahead under the direction of a Guardian and at this late date complete the world crusade started and urged by the First Guardian of the Faith, the Beloved Guardian. To seek for The Second Guardian, is the action that the Hands should now take. Christ said seek and ye shall find.
THE PERILS OF THOSE IN HIGH ESTATE
You the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith looked up to by all the Bahá’í world have had obligations placed upon you proportionate with this blessing bestowed upon you by The Beloved Guardian. Obligations of such a nature as yours require that you make sacrifices commensurable with the divine bounty that has been your portion, for such are the requirements, to prove yourselves worthy of the blessings that have been bestowed upon you.
The beginning of our present time of peril was in the First Bahje Conclave when the stand was taken to violate The Will and Testament, eliminating the Guardianship of
the Faith and concocting the plan of the majority that is now being preached to the Bahá’ís of the world to have a guardianless government, a Kingdom of God without a King doing away with the very foundation of all the work of The Beloved Guardian that must needs end only in confusion and in other and further deviation from the basic principles of the Bahá’í Faith.
The peril to the cause is such that the only thing for the Bahá’ís to do is to seek for The Second Guardian who is waiting to be wanted by the believers before coming forth to lead the believers. But alas the Hands do not want him!
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In other words, I am protecting the Hands of the Faith by thus shielding you in your violation against your rejection by the believers of the Faith should these believers find out, know and realize your violation of the Administration. I cannot hold much longer this protection that I am thus giving you. All that I can hope for is to hold out this protection to the Hands long enough for you to change your attitude toward the Guardianship, renounce your program for 1963, and announce this to the Bahá’í world assuring them that you uphold The Master’s Will and Testament that means that you still believe in the Guardianship but that you just don’t know how it is to be continued.
When you do as I tell you to do you will then be in the position of firmness in the Bahá’í Faith in which you will be protected from making these mistakes, that now so becloud your vision and confuse your mind and bewilder and put to test the Bahá’ís the world around.
I assure you that I am doing everything I can to make it in the end as easy as possible for you.
I am the protector of the Faith and my first concern at this time is the protection of the Hands of the Cause, to guard them from the possibility of any criticism past, present or future, visited upon them by the Bahá’í world. Therefore, Hands of the Faith, follow me and do as I tell you to do!
DANGER THAT THE BAHÁ’Í WORLD LOSE CONFIDENCE IN THE HANDS OF THE FAITH
Were this hazard not uppermost in my mind I might have been included to remain silent and let this violation of The Will and Testament run along as it is going, trusting that in some way or another the Hands of the Faith would have this matter brought to a head when like a gangrenous condition in an ill human body would reach a crisis that would require a major surgical operation to remove.
I, President of the International Council, have the power to stop their formation of an elected council and I intend to stop it by refusing to recognize their right to do this in order to save the Bahá’í Faith. Without an elected International Council functioning as prelude to the House of Justice there can not be a House of Justice!
Therefore in order to avoid such an acute crisis in Bahá’í affairs that would involve the entire Baha'i world, I am adding this Second Statement to my First Statement to the Hands hoping to awaken them to the danger of allowing the present condition to run along any longer.
Therefore, now I bring to bear the power that I have to force this and to compel the Hands to give up their present fallacious program of attempting to elect an International Council and a House of Justice.
I realize the jar and shakeup that this decision of mine will precipitate in the body of Hands, but better have it within that body where you can confine it among the Hands then have it within that body than have a split in the cause the world around!
Therefore, the present necessity of keeping the contents of these “Statements” (Appeals) from me to you in absolute confidence in order that you Hands of the Faith can quickly clear this violation out from the body of Hands before it attains further credence in the world and becomes more difficult to meet. But if the Hands delay and delay to urge the believers to prayerfully look
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for and await with hope a Guardian, matters will become worse and their problems more difficult. It is to save the Hands of the Faith from the criticism of the Bahá’í world that I urge them so fervently to seek to recognize the Second Guardian as quickly as possible and to save them from further troubles.
THE WILL AND TESTAMENT MUST STAND
How dare the Hands of the Faith presume to violate The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? Do away with the Administration that is the Guardianship???
The answer to this is that the spirit of violation enters quietly but when once in possession of the body it dares do anything to gain its end-the while the body more and more controlled by the violation, is helpless.
So it is now with the body of the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith. They are controlled by this violation of The Will and Testament – the violation of the Administration of the cause and the violation of the Guardianship – therefore, they are helpless to help themselves.
Salvation of the body of Hands and that of the Bahá’í Faith must come from without the body of their present unity that supports this violation. No one save The Second Guardian can accomplish this.
The Beloved Guardian in addition to having elevated me, Mason Remey, to Handship in the Faith also made me the President of the Bahá’í International Council thus placing in my hands the power to call a halt to the program of the body of Hands to create an International Council as their first step toward instituting a House of Justice that they declare will have infallible power over the Bahá’í cause, thus they calculated to enforce their violation upon the entire Bahá’í Faith as it already controls them.
But here I step into the picture to block this violation by maintaining my position as President of the Baha'i International Council reminding them that The Beloved Guardian Himself appointed me to this position of authority over them and I am now telling them that I will maintain this authority and will not allow them to hold any election to form the International Council thus is frustrated their plan for creating a House of Justice!
In other words, I of all the believers in the Bahá’í Faith hold the key to this situation by having the power in my hands to bring the Hands of the Faith out from under their violation that controls them. I guard the Faith!
This is why I am taking this stand against the violation of the Guardianship and this is why I am trying to cast out this evil spirit that is so dominating the Body of the Hands of the Faith for it is only by my taking this stand that the Faith of El Bahá can be saved.
Now at this juncture in this time of interregnum of no Guardianship, the next step is that the Hands of the Faith is to seek the Second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith. This as I have explained in this call is not only within their province to do, but is a “Must” for them to do now at this time. They are commanded to protect the Faith and the only way in which they can accomplish this in this emergency is that they seek the protection of The Second Guardian of the Faith.
I forbid any and all Bahá’ís to give support to the program of the Hands of the Faith for 1963.
FINIS
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