Chapter 8

In effect, the Plan called for the Cause to make a giant leap forward over what might otherwise have been several stages in its evolution. What Shoghi Effendi saw clearly--and what only the powers of foresight inherent in the Guardianship made it possible to see--was that an historical conjunction of circumstances presented the Baha'i community with an opportunity that would not come again and on which the success of future stages in the prosecution of the Divine Plan would entirely depend. What he did not hesitate to call the "summons of the Lord of Hosts" was embodied in a message that seized the imagination of Baha'is in every part of the world:

No matter how long the period that separates them from ultimate victory; however arduous the task; however formidable the exertions demanded of them; however dark the days which mankind, perplexed and sorely-tried, must, in its hour of travail, traverse; however severe the tests with which they who are to redeem its fortunes will be confronted.... I adjure them, by the precious blood that flowed in such great profusion, by the lives of the unnumbered saints and heroes who were immolated, by the supreme, the glorious sacrifice of the Prophet-Herald of our Faith, by the tribulations which its Founder, Himself, willingly underwent, so that His Cause might live, His Order might redeem a shattered world and its glory might suffuse the entire planet--I adjure them, as this solemn hour draws nigh, to resolve never to flinch, never to hesitate, never to relax, until each and every objective in the Plans to be proclaimed, at a later date, has been fully consummated.(98)

The response was immediate. Within a few months messages from the World Centre began sharing the news of a succession of victories in country after country. Those pioneers who succeeded in establishing the Faith's first foothold in a country or territory were designated "Knights of Baha'u'llah", and their names inscribed on a Roll of Honour destined, in time, to be deposited, as called for by the Guardian, under the threshold of the entrance to the Shrine of Baha'u'llah. Nothing testified quite so dramatically to the foresight embodied in Shoghi Effendi's successive Plans than the fact that, within each of the new nation-states born after the second world war, Baha'i communities and Spiritual Assemblies were already a part of the fabric of national life.

A brilliant succession of achievements followed these initial ones. By October 1957, by which time the Faith had been established in over two hundred and fifty countries and territories, Shoghi Effendi was able to announce the purchase of property for ten new temple sites, and the commencement of work on the Houses of Worship in Kampala, Sydney and Frankfurt; the acquisition of properties for forty-six of the required national Haziratu'l-Quds; a vast increase in the production of Baha'i literature; additional Assembly incorporations that had raised the total number to one hundred and ninety-five; growing recognition of Baha'i marriage and Baha'i Holy Days; and the advancing work on the International Baha'i Archives, the first building to be constructed on the broad arc that the Guardian had traced on the slope of Mount Carmel. No one who reviews the events of those days can fail to be deeply moved by the parental care with which Shoghi Effendi ensured the achievement of these magnificent results, as reflected in his painstaking listing by name, in the last general message he wrote on the Crusade, in April 1957, of each one of sixty-three regional teaching conferences and institutes held that year around the Baha'i world.

Such a review would be incomplete without an understanding of parallel developments of the Administrative Order at the international level that the Guardian undertook during these years. These steps proved crucial not merely to winning the Crusade but to consolidating and protecting the future of the Cause. Alongside the decision-making authority devolved on the elective institutions of the Faith, a parallel function of the Administrative Order is to exert a spiritual, moral and intellectual influence on both these institutions and the lives of the individual members of the community. Conceived by Baha'u'llah Himself, this responsibility "to diffuse the Divine Fragrances, to edify the souls of men, to promote learning, to improve the character of all men..." is vested by the Master's Will and Testament particularly in the Hands of the Cause of God.(99)

During the ministries of both Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha those believers given this high station had played crucial roles in advancing the teaching work in the Orient. As the conception of the Ten Year Crusade took shape in his mind, Shoghi Effendi moved to mobilize the spiritual support this institution could bring to achieving the tasks of the Plan. In a cablegram of 24 December 1951, he announced the appointment of the first contingent of twelve Hands of the Cause of God, allocated equally to the work in the Holy Land, in Asia, the Americas and Europe. These distinguished servants of the Cause were called upon to focus directly on the challenge of mobilizing the energies of the friends and providing the elected bodies with encouragement and counsel. Shortly thereafter the number of Hands of the Cause was raised from twelve to nineteen.

The resources available for the discharge of this responsibility were greatly increased by the Guardian's decision in October 1952, calling on the Hands of the Cause to create five auxiliary boards, one for each continent: those in the Americas, Europe and Africa consisting of nine members each, while those in Asia and Australasia having seven and two respectively. Subsequently, separate auxiliary boards were created to assist with the protection of the Faith, the other of the two chief functions of the Hands of the Cause.

A message of 3 June 1957 celebrated the action of the Israeli government in executing the final decision of the court of appeals of that country, by which the surviving band of Covenant-breakers were at last evicted from the Haram-i-Aqdas surrounding the focal Centre of the Baha'i world at Bahji.(100) Only a day later, however, a second cablegram warned ominously of the urgent need of the Faith's senior institutions to act in concert to protect it from new dangers that the Guardian perceived to be gathering on the horizon. This was followed in October by a message announcing that the number of Hands of the Cause of God had been raised from nineteen to twenty-seven, designating these senior officers "Chief Stewards of Baha'u'llah's embryonic World Commonwealth", and charging them with responsibility to consult with National Spiritual Assemblies on urgently needed measures to protect the Faith.

Less than a month thereafter, the Baha'i world was devastated by the news of Shoghi Effendi's death on 4 November 1957 from complications following an attack of Asiatic influenza contracted during the course of a visit to London. The Centre of the Cause who, for thirty-six years, had day by day guided its evolution, whose vision encompassed both the flow of events and the actions the Baha'i community must take, and whose messages of encouragement had been the spiritual lifeline of countless Baha'is around the planet, was suddenly gone, leaving the great Crusade half finished and the future of the Administrative Order in crisis.

* * * * *

The grief and overwhelming sense of desolation produced by the loss of the Guardian lends all the greater significance to the triumph of the Plan he had conceived and inspired. On 21 April 1963, the ballots of delegates from fifty-six National Spiritual Assemblies, including the forty-four new bodies called for and successfully formed during the Ten Year Crusade, brought into existence the Universal House of Justice, the governing body of the Cause conceived by Baha'u'llah and assured by Him unequivocally of Divine guidance in the exercise of its functions:

It is incumbent upon the Trustees of the House of Justice 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.(101)

It seemed especially fitting that the election--carried out by the assembled delegates and those voting by mail--should take place in the home of the Master, whose Will and Testament had described nearly sixty years earlier the intent and scope of the authority bestowed by Baha'u'llah's words:

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.(102)

An important preliminary step for the election had been taken by Shoghi Effendi in 1951, in his appointment of the membership of the International Council to assist him with his work. In 1961, as he had explained would be the case, the second step in the process had been taken when this institution evolved into a nine-member Council, elected by the members of the National Spiritual Assemblies. Consequently, when the Ten Year Crusade came to its victorious end in 1963, the Baha'i world had gained important experience in the challenging act it was then called on to perform.

Historians will unhesitatingly accord credit for mobilizing the effort that had made this moment possible to the Hands of the Cause, who provided the coordination of which the loss of the Guardian's leadership had deprived the Baha'i world. Tirelessly coursing the earth in promotion of Shoghi Effendi's Plan, coming together in annual conclaves to provide encouragement and information, inspiring the endeavours of their newly created deputies, and fending off the efforts of a new band of Covenant-breakers to undermine the unity of the Faith, this small company of grief-stricken men and women succeeded in ensuring that the Crusade's ambitious objectives were attained in the time required and that the necessary foundation was in place for the erection of the Administrative Order's crowning unit. In asking that their own members be left free from election to the Universal House of Justice, so as to perform the services assigned them by the Guardian, the Hands also endowed the Baha'i world, as a second great legacy, with a spiritual distinction that is without precedent in human history. Never before had persons into whose hands the supreme power in a great religion had fallen and who enjoyed a level of regard unmatched by any others in their community, requested not to be considered for participation in the exercise of supreme authority, placing themselves entirely at the service of the Body chosen by the community of their fellow believers for this role.(103)

VII

However great is the distance between the Guardianship and the unique station of the Centre of the Covenant, the role played by Shoghi Effendi after the Master's passing stands alone in the history of the Cause. It will continue to occupy this focal place in the life of the Faith throughout the coming centuries. In important respects Shoghi Effendi may be said to have extended by an additional, critical, thirty-six years the influence of the guiding hand of the Master in the building of the Administrative Order and the expansion and consolidation of the Faith of Baha'u'llah. One has only to make the fearful effort of imagining the fate of the infant Cause of God had it not been held firmly, during the period of its greatest vulnerability, in the grip of one who had been prepared for this purpose by 'Abdu'l-Baha and who accepted to serve--in the fullest sense of the word--as its Guardian.

Although emphasizing to the body of his fellow believers that the Master's twin Successors were "inseparable" and "complementary" in the functions they were individually designed to carry out, it is clear that Shoghi Effendi early accepted the implications of the fact that the Universal House of Justice could not come into existence until a lengthy process of administrative development had created the supporting structure of National and Local Spiritual Assemblies it required. He was entirely candid with the Baha'i community about the implications of the fact that he was called on to exercise his supreme responsibility alone. In his own words:

Severed from the no less essential institution of the Universal House of Justice this same System of the Will of 'Abdu'l-Baha would be paralyzed in its action and would be powerless to fill in those gaps which the Author of the Kitab-i-Aqdas has deliberately left in the body of His legislative and administrative ordinances.(104)

Aware of this truth, Shoghi Effendi proceeded with scrupulous regard for the constraints placed on him by circumstance, a faithfulness that will be the pride of Baha'u'llah's followers throughout the ages to come. The record of his thirty-six years of service to the Faith--a record which, like that of his Grandfather, is open for posterity to review and assess-- contains, as he assured the Baha'i community would be the case, no action on his part that would in any degree "infringe upon the sacred and prescribed domain" of the Universal House of Justice. It is not only that Shoghi Effendi refrained from legislation; he was able to fulfil his mandate by introducing no more than provisional ordinances, leaving decisions in such matters entirely to the Universal House of Justice.

Nowhere is this self-restraint more striking than in the central issue of a successor to the Guardianship. Shoghi Effendi had no heirs of his own, and the other branches of the Holy family had violated the Covenant. The Baha'i Writings contain no guidance in such an eventuality, but the Will and Testament of the Master is explicit as to how all matters that are unclear are to be resolved:

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.(105)

In conformity with this guidance from the pen of the Centre of the Covenant, Shoghi Effendi remained silent, leaving the question of his successor or successors in the hands of the Body alone authorized to determine the matter. Five months after it came into existence, the Universal House of Justice clarified the issue in a message dated 6 October 1963 to all National Spiritual Assemblies:

After prayerful and careful study of the Holy Texts ... and after prolonged consideration ... the Universal House of Justice finds that there is no way to appoint or to legislate to make it possible to appoint a second Guardian to succeed Shoghi Effendi.(106)

In embarking on a mission for which history supplied him with no precedent, Shoghi Effendi could look nowhere but to the Writings of the Founders of the Faith and the example of the Master for the guidance his work required. No body of advisors could help him determine the meaning of the Texts he was called on to interpret for a Baha'i community that had placed its whole trust in him. Although he read widely the published works of historians, economists and political thinkers, such research could do no more than supply raw materials that his inspired vision of the Cause must then organize. The confidence and courage required in mobilizing a heterogeneous community of believers to undertake tasks that were, by any objective criteria, far beyond their capacities, could be found only in the spiritual resources of his own heart. No dispassionate observer of the twentieth century, however sceptical about the claims of religion he or she may be, can fail to acknowledge that the integrity with which a young man in his early twenties accepted so awesome a responsibility--and the magnitude of the victory he won--are evidences of an immense spiritual power inherent in the Cause he championed.

To acknowledge all this is to recognize that the capacities with which the Covenant had endowed the Guardianship were not a form of magic. Their successful exercise entailed, as Ruhiyyih _Kh_anum has movingly described, a never-ending process of testing, evaluation, and refinement. One is awed by the precision with which Shoghi Effendi analyzed political and social processes in the early stages of their development, and the mastery with which his mind encompassed a kaleidoscope of events, both current and historical, relating their implications to the unfolding Will of Providence. That this work of the intellect was carried out on a level far above the one on which the human mind customarily operates did not make the effort any the less real or stressful. Rather, given the insight into human nature and human motivation that was an inseparable feature of the institution Shoghi Effendi represented, the opposite was the case.(107)

In the perspective of the more than forty years since Shoghi Effendi's passing, the long-term significance of his work in the evolution of the Administrative Order has begun to emerge with brilliant clarity. Had circumstances been different, the Master's Will and Testament had provided for the possibility that one or more successors might have followed in the institution Shoghi Effendi embodied. We obviously cannot penetrate the mind of God. What is clear and undeniable, however, is that, through his interpretive authority, the structure of the Administrative Order, as well as the course that its future development will pursue, have been permanently fixed by Shoghi Effendi's fulfilment--in every least respect and to the fullest extent imaginable--of the mandate laid on him by the Master. Equally clear and undeniable is the fact that both structure and course represent the Will of God.

VIII

As Shoghi Effendi had prophetically warned, forces undermining inherited systems and convictions of every kind were continuing to advance in tandem with the integrating processes at work in the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that the euphoria induced by the restoration of peace in both Europe and the Orient proved to be of the briefest duration. Hardly had hostilities ended than the ideological divisions between Marxism and liberal democracy burst out into attempts to secure dominance between the respective blocs of nations they inspired. The phenomenon of "Cold War", in which the struggle for advantage stopped just short of military conflict, emerged as the prevailing political paradigm of the next several decades.

The threat posed by a new crisis in the international order was heightened by breakthroughs in nuclear technology and the success of both blocs of nations in equipping themselves with an ever-growing array of weapons of mass destruction. The horrific images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had awakened humanity to the appalling possibility that a series of relatively minor mishaps, as uncalculated as the process set in motion by the 1914 incident in Sarajevo, might this time lead to the annihilation of a considerable portion of the world's population and leave large areas of the globe uninhabitable. For Baha'is, the prospect could only bring vividly to mind the sombre warning uttered by Baha'u'llah decades earlier: "Strange and astonishing things exist in the earth but they are hidden from the minds and the understanding of men. These things are capable of changing the whole atmosphere of the earth and their contamination would prove lethal."(108)

By far the greatest tragedy resulting from this latest contest for world domination was the blight that it cast over the hopes with which formerly subject peoples had welcomed the opportunity they believed they had been given to build a new life of their own devising. The obstinate determination of some of the surviving colonial powers to suppress such hopes, though doomed to failure in the eyes of any objective observer, had left the urge for liberation in many countries with no recourse but to assume the character of revolutionary struggle. By 1960, such movements, which had already been a feature of the political landscape during the earlier decades of the century, were coming to represent the principal form of indigenous political activity in most subject nations.

Since the driving force of colonialism itself was economic exploitation, it was perhaps inevitable that most movements of liberation assumed a broadly socialistic ideological cast. Within only a few short years, these circumstances had created a fertile ground for exploitation by the world's superpowers. For the Soviet Union, the situation seemed to offer an opportunity to induce a shift in the existing alignment of nations by gaining a preponderating influence in what was by now beginning to be called the "Third World". The response of the West--wherever development aid failed to retain the loyalties of recipient populations--was to resort to the encouragement and arming of a wide variety of authoritarian regimes.

As outside forces manipulated new governments, attention was increasingly diverted from an objective consideration of developmental needs to ideological and political struggles that bore little or no relation to social or economic reality. The results were uniformly devastating. Economic bankruptcy, gross violations of human rights, the breakdown of civil administration and the rise of opportunistic elites who saw in the suffering of their countries only openings for self-enrichment--such was the heartbreaking fate that engulfed one after another of the new nations who, only short years before, had begun life with such great promise.

Inspiring these political, social and economic crises was the inexorable rise and consolidation of a disease of the human soul infinitely more destructive than any of its specific manifestations. Its triumph marked a new and ominous stage in the process of social and spiritual degeneration that Shoghi Effendi had identified. Fathered by nineteenth century European thought, acquiring enormous influence through the achievements of American capitalist culture, and endowed by Marxism with the counterfeit credibility peculiar to that system, materialism emerged full-blown in the second half of the twentieth century as a kind of universal religion claiming absolute authority in both the personal and social life of humankind. Its creed was simplicity itself. Reality--including human reality and the process by which it evolves--is essentially material in nature. The goal of human life is, or ought to be, the satisfaction of material needs and wants. Society exists to facilitate this quest, and the collective concern of humankind should be an ongoing refinement of the system, aimed at rendering it ever more efficient in carrying out its assigned task.