Shoghi Effendi:
The Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith
After the passing of `Abdu'l-Bahá in 1921, the
leadership of the Bahá'í community entered a new phase, evolving from that of a
single individual to an administrative order founded on the "twin pillars" of
the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice.
This administrative order was originally envisaged by Bahá'u'lláh in his Book
of Laws and was given further shape by `Abdu'l-Bahá, particularly in His Will
and Testament. In that document He appointed His eldest grandson, Shoghi
Effendi, as Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith and also referred to the future
election of the Universal House of Justice, a legislative body of which the
Guardian would be the "sacred head and the distinguished member for life."
The Universal House of Justice was not established in `Abdu'l-Bahá's
lifetime; it fell to the Guardian to lay the base for its foundation throughout
the thirty-six years of his tenure as head of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh.
Throughout those years, Shoghi Effendi educated the Bahá'í community about
the administrative order of the Faith and prepared it for the eventual
establishment of that order's other central institution by writing consistently
about the interconnection of the Guardianship and the Universal House of
Justice, both of which he described as "divine in origin, essential in their
functions and complementary in their aim and purpose."
He continued on to state that their common purpose 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. "The institution of
the Guardianship is Bahá'u'lláh's means for providing for the continuation of
the unerring interpretation of His word. The function of the Universal House of
Justice, on the other hand, is to legislate upon matters "not expressly revealed
in the Sacred Texts." As Shoghi Effendi said,
"Acting in conjunction with each other these two inseparable institutions
administer [the Bahá'í Faith's] affairs, coordinate its activities, promote its
interests, execute its laws and defend its subsidiary institutions."
The interconnection of the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice is
further evidenced by the Guardian's ceaseless labor to foster the expansion of
the Bahá'í community around the world in order to establish and develop the
national legislative bodies of the administrative order; the goal of this work
was the election of the Universal House of Justice and the full development in
all aspects of the order ordained by Bahá'u'lláh.
While the Guardianship was outlined as a hereditary institution and `Abdu'l-Bahá
Will and Testament provided for the possibility of a line of succession to His
appointee as Guardian, Shoghi Effendi died without any heirs and without being
able to appoint a successor, as no other members of his family met the
stipulations that had been outlined by `Abdu'l-Bahá. The vitality of the
Guardianship continues, however, through the voluminous writings, the extensive
guidance, and other legacies left to the Bahá'í community from Shoghi Effendi's
ministry between 1921 and 1957. To appreciate fully the scope of these legacies,
it is helpful for us to take a more detailed look at the many facets of the
Guardian's work to develop the Bahá'í community.
The Work of Shoghi Effendi
In His Will and Testament `Abdu'l-Bahá wrote in these touching words of the
one who would succeed Him after His death:
O ye the faithful loved ones of `Abdu'l-Bahá! It is incumbent upon you
to take the greatest care of Shoghi Effendi....
For he is, after `Abdu'l-Bahá, the guardian of the Cause of God.... 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....
Thus, `Abdu'l-Bahá's choice of a successor to the leadership of the Bahá'í
community after His passing was explicitly stated. The Guardianship protected
the unity of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh by continuing the line of authority, which
had passed from Bahá'u'lláh to `Abdu'l-Bahá, and now rested on the shoulders of
Shoghi Effendi, who was also called by `Abdu'l-Bahá in His Will and Testament
'the Sign of God'.
When he was appointed Guardian, Shoghi Effendi was in his early twenties,
studying at Balliol College, Oxford. The grief he felt upon the death of his
dearly-loved Grandfather, added to the weight of the responsibility he had been
given in `Abdu'l-Bahá's will, was initially crushing, since he had had no
intimation that he was to be appointed to any such position.
To deal with his grief and to prepare himself to assume the burden of
authority placed upon his shoulders, he left the Holy Land and entered a
several-month period of seclusion. During this time, he left the affairs of the
Faith under the leadership of his great aunt, Bahíyyih Khánum -- Bahá'u'lláh's
daughter and `Abdu'l-Bahá's sister. Shoghi Effendi and his great aunt were very
close; she, of all the members of his family, understood his crushing grief at
the loss of his beloved Grandfather, and she was a wise and loyal support to him
during the early years of the Guardianship until her passing in 1932. The depth
of his regard for her is evident in the tender tribute he penned immediately
following her death, a small portion of which is excerpted here:
Dearly-beloved Greatest Holy Leaf! ...The memory of the ineffable beauty of
thy smile shall ever continue to cheer and hearten me in the thorny path I am
destined to pursue. The remembrance of the touch of thine hand shall spur me
on to follow steadfastly in thy way. The sweet magic of thy voice shall remind
me, when the hour of adversity is at its darkest, to hold fast to the rope
thou didst seize so firmly all the days of thy life.
The "thorny path" to which the Guardian alludes
in this passage perhaps refers to one of the crucial and difficult tasks he was
called upon to perform: the protection of the young Faith from enemies from both
outside and within its ranks. He also served as the sole authoritative
interpreter and expounder of its teachings; he erected the administrative order
of the Faith; he prosecuted global plans for the worldwide expansion of the
Bahá'í Faith, as outlined in the writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá; he translated volumes
of the Faith's sacred writings from their original Persian and Arabic into
English, which subsequently served as the standard for further translations into
other languages; he wrote a history of the first century of the Faith; and he
developed and beautified the properties at the Bahá'í World Centre in Haifa and
Acre. Those are the major tangible legacies of the Guardianship, but perhaps as
important as any of these was the way Shoghi Effendi inspired ordinary people to
arise and do extraordinary things. In much the same way that a general marshals
his troops to battle, he wrote numerous letters to the Bahá'í communities, large
and small, all over the world and called them to greater service to their Faith
and to humanity. For example, in a letter to the American Bahá'ís in 1948, he
referred to them as "the champion builders of Bahá'u'lláh's rising World Order"
and urged them to "scale nobler heights of heroism as humanity plunges into
greater depths of despair, degradation, dissension and distress."
He safeguarded the unity of the Faith by acting, as `Abdu'l-Bahá before him
had acted, as the authoritative interpreter and expounder of the Bahá'í sacred
writings. All questions regarding interpretation were to be directed to him.
Although he did not have the authority to alter in any way what Bahá'u'lláh or
`Abdu'l-Bahá had revealed, he performed the crucial tasks of clarifying points
which may not have been clearly understood and of elaborating upon previously
revealed teachings. To this end, he wrote thousands of letters to individual
believers and to Bahá'í communities around the world. Through such guidance, the
Bahá'ís remained unified in their clear understanding of the Faith's sacred
writings.
Shoghi Effendi translated the Bahá'í writings from the language in which they
were revealed -- either Persian or Arabic -- into a majestic style of English.
In 1921, relatively few of Bahá'u'lláh's extensive writings were available in
English. The Guardian translated Bahá'u'lláh's central works and compiled them
so the Bahá'ís would have access to authoritative translations, and he
published, under the title of The Dawn-Breakers, his annotated and
edited translation of the main historical account of the early years of the
Bahá'í Faith by Nabíl-i-A`zam so the English-speaking Bahá'ís would be able to
gain inspiration from the examples of their spiritual forebears and to read
eyewitness accounts of those who met the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh. Shoghi Effendi
also penned his own historical account of the first century of the Bahá'í Faith
called God Passes By.
As builder of the administrative order, Shoghi Effendi took the writings of
Bahá'u'lláh and `Abdu'l-Bahá concerning the establishment of Bahá'í institutions
that would administer the affairs of the community, and he developed a plan to
bring them into being. Taking as his guide Bahá'u'lláh's and `Abdu'l-Bahá's
statements about the administrative order of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi developed
the fledgling communities around the world to the point where they could support
the institutions envisioned by Bahá'u'lláh. When he was first appointed
Guardian, there were no national administrative bodies in the Bahá'í Faith; at
the time of his passing, there were 26; at the time of the completion of the Ten
Year Plan he had initiated for the global expansion and consolidation of the
Faith between 1953 and 1963, there were 56.
Shoghi Effendi carried on an extensive correspondence with Bahá'í communities
all over the world concerning the development of the Bahá'í administrative
order. As early as March 1923, for example, he wrote a letter to the Bahá'ís in
America, Great Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, and
Australasia, in which he outlined the conditions necessary for establishment of
Local and National Spiritual Assemblies, guidelines for Assembly elections, and
the parameters of Assembly functioning. He also offered the Bahá'ís the long
view of such elections: "With these Assemblies, local as well as national,
harmoniously, vigorously, and efficiently functioning throughout the Bahá'í
world, the only means for the establishment of the Supreme House of Justice will
have been secured."
The development of the administrative order was obviously not brought about
in isolation. Coordinated with this was a series of plans designed to effect the
systematic expansion of the Bahá'í community around the globe. Volunteers known
as "pioneers" dispersed to remote areas to teach their Faith and found Bahá'í
communities. In the Ten Year Plan which ran from 1953 to 1963, hundreds of
pioneers settled in countries and territories throughout the world, establishing
44 new National and Regional Assemblies to add to the existing twelve, and the
Bahá'í population swelled.
As well as coordinating the dispersal of Bahá'í pioneers to all parts of the
globe, Shoghi Effendi greatly advanced the development of the Bahá'í World
Centre in Haifa. He arranged for the construction of a superstructure over the
tomb `Abdu'l-Bahá had erected where the remains of the Báb had been laid to
rest; he beautified and expanded the gardens surrounding the Shrine of
Bahá'u'lláh outside Acre; he constructed the International Bahá'í Archives
building on the slopes of Mount Carmel, where the tablets and relics of the Báb
and Bahá'u'lláh were to be appropriately housed and displayed for Bahá'í
pilgrims; he had the remains of Navváb, the wife of Bahá'u'lláh who had
accompanied Him through all His exiles, and His son Mírzá Mihdí, who had died in
the prison in Acre, transferred to their final resting places in the shadow of
the Shrine of the Báb and near the grave of the Greatest Holy Leaf. All of this
work was undertaken to create an atmosphere appropriate to the spiritual and
administrative center of a world religion. As head of this religion, the
Guardian also conducted activities related to the external affairs of the Faith
and its World Centre.
Addressing even one of the various facets of the work undertaken by the
Guardian was a herculean task; that the Guardian accomplished the vast number of
objectives he set in so many different areas over a thirty-six year period is
astounding, in retrospect. For this reason, and particularly for his
accomplishment in bringing into tangible existence the new social order given by
God to the world through the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, he has been extolled by
one writer as "the one human being in all history, past, present or future, to
exercise the greatest influence on the ultimate shape and modus operandi
of the social order of the world." His widow,
Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum, expressed it this
way:
"The Guardian had fused in the alembic of his creative mind all the elements
of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh into one great indivisible whole; he had created
an organized community of His followers which was the receptacle of His
teachings, His laws and His Administrative Order; the teachings of the twin
Manifestations of God and the Perfect Exemplar had been woven into a shining
cloak that would clothe and protect man for a thousand years, a cloak on which
the fingers of Shoghi Effendi had picked out the patterns, knitted the seams,
fashioned the brilliant protective clasps of his interpretations of the Sacred
Texts, never to be sundered, never to be torn away until that day when a new
Law-giver comes to the world and once again wraps His creature man in yet
another divine garment."
راه پرزحمتى را که در اين توقيع حضرت ولىّ امراللّه بدان اشاره ميفرمايد راهى است
که براى حفظ امر جوان بـهائى از دشمنان داخل و خارج قرار بود پيموده شود. حضرت ولىّ
امرالله يگانه مبيّن آثار و مروّج تعاليم حضرت بـهاءالله بود. نظم امر بـهائى را
بنا فرمود. باجراء نقشه هائى برای انتشار امر بـهائى طبق دستور حضرت عبـدالبـهاء
قيام نمود. بترجمه آثار مقدّسه از فارسى و عربى بزبان انگليسى پرداخت که خود ميزانى
براى ترجمه آثار بزبانهاى ديگر جهان شد. کتاب تاريخى درباره قرن اوّل بـهائى مرقوم
داشت و املاک بـهائى را در حيفا و عکّا تعمير و بحدائق زيبائى مزيّن فرمود. اينها
سرلوحه اقدامات و خدمات مشهود حضرت ولىّ امرالله بود امّا بهمان اندازه اهمّيت دارد
که اشاره کنيم که حضرت ولىّ امرالله دارای قدرتى بود که ميتوانست افراد عادّى را
برانگيزد تا بتوانند بخدماتى فوق العاده قيام کنند. چون سردارى بوده که لشگريان
خويش را هنگام جنگ در فتح و پيروزى نـهائى قيادت ميکند. نامه هاى بيشمارى، کوتاه يا
دراز، به جامعه هاى بـهائى در سراسر عالم مرقوم داشت و بـهائيان را دعوت کرد که
قيام نمايند و بخدمت دين خويش و خدمت خلق پردازند. مثلاً در نامه اى به بـهائيان
امريکا در سال ۱۹۴۸ آنانرا "بانيان دلير نظم جهان آراى حضرت بـهاءالله" مخاطب ساخت
و از ايشان خواست که "هر قدر عالم انسانى در غمرات يأس و انحطاط و نفاق و استيصال
بيشتر فرو رود" آنان "بايد بيشتر در مدارج عاليه شجاعت و علّو همت صعود نمايند."