Chapter 13

I feel it necessary, therefore, to state without any equivocation or hesitation that neither in the Kitab-i-Aqdas nor in the Book of Baha'u'llah's Covenant, nor even in the Tablet of the Branch, nor in any other Tablet, whether revealed by Baha'u'llah or 'Abdu'l-Baha, is there any authority whatever for the opinion that inclines to uphold the so-called "mystic unity" of Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha, or to establish the identity of the latter with His Father or with any preceding Manifestation. This erroneous conception may, in part, be ascribed to an altogether extravagant interpretation of certain terms and passages in the Tablet of the Branch, to the introduction into its English translation of certain words that are either non-existent, misleading, or ambiguous in their connotation. It is, no doubt, chiefly based upon an altogether unjustified inference from the opening passages of a Tablet of Baha'u'llah, extracts of which, as reproduced in the Baha'i Scriptures, immediately precede, but form no part of, the said Tablet of the Branch. It should be made clear to every one reading those extracts that by the phrase "the Tongue of the Ancient" no one else is meant but God, and that the term "the Greatest Name" is an obvious reference to Baha'u'llah, and that "the Covenant" referred to is not the specific Covenant of which Baha'u'llah is the immediate Author and 'Abdu'l-Baha the Center but that general Covenant which, as inculcated by the Baha'i teaching, God Himself invariably establishes with mankind when He inaugurates a new Dispensation. "The Tongue" that "gives," as stated in those extracts, the "glad-tidings" is none other than the Voice of God referring to Baha'u'llah, and not Baha'u'llah referring to 'Abdu'l-Baha.

Moreover, to maintain that the assertion "He is Myself," instead of denoting the mystic unity of God and His Manifestations, as explained in the Kitab-i-Iqan, establishes the identity of Baha'u'llah with 'Abdu'l-Baha, would constitute a direct violation of the oft-repeated principle of the oneness of God's Manifestations--a principle which the Author of these same extracts is seeking by implication to emphasize.

It would also amount to a reversion to those irrational and superstitious beliefs which have insensibly crept, in the first century of the Christian era, into the teachings of Jesus Christ, and by crystallizing into accepted dogmas have impaired the effectiveness and obscured the purpose of the Christian Faith.

"I affirm," is 'Abdu'l-Baha's own written comment on the Tablet of the Branch, "that the true meaning, the real significance, the innermost secret of these verses, of these very words, is my own servitude to the sacred Threshold of the Abha Beauty, my complete self-effacement, my utter nothingness before Him. This is my resplendent crown, my most precious adorning. On this I pride myself in the kingdom of earth and heaven. Therein I glory among the company of the well-favored!" "No one is permitted," He warns us in the passage which immediately follows, "to give these verses any other interpretation." "I am," He, in this same connection, affirms, "according to the explicit texts of the Kitab-i-Aqdas and the Kitab-i-'Ahd the manifest Interpreter of the Word of God... Whoso deviates from my interpretation is a victim of his own fancy."

Furthermore, the inescapable inference from the belief in the identity of the Author of our Faith with Him Who is the Center of His Covenant would be to place 'Abdu'l-Baha in a position superior to that of the Bab, the reverse of which is the fundamental, though not as yet universally recognized, principle of this Revelation. It would also justify the charge with which, all throughout 'Abdu'l-Baha's ministry, the Covenant-Breakers have striven to poison the minds and pervert the understanding of Baha'u'llah's loyal followers.

It would be more correct, and in consonance with the established principles of Baha'u'llah and the Bab, if instead of maintaining this fictitious identity with reference to 'Abdu'l-Baha, we regard the Forerunner and the Founder of our Faith as identical in reality--a truth which the text of the Suratu'l-Haykal unmistakably affirms. "Had the Primal Point (the Bab) been someone else beside Me as ye claim," is Baha'u'llah's explicit statement, "and had attained My presence, verily He would have never allowed Himself to be separated from Me, but rather We would have had mutual delights with each other in My Days." "He Who now voiceth the Word of God," Baha'u'llah again affirms, "is none other except the Primal Point Who hath once again been made manifest." "He is," He thus refers to Himself in a Tablet addressed to one of the Letters of the Living, "the same as the One Who appeared in the year sixty (1260 A.H.). This verily is one of His mighty signs." "Who," He pleads in the Suriy-i-Damm, "will arise to secure the triumph of the Primal Beauty (the Bab) revealed in the countenance of His succeeding Manifestation?" Referring to the Revelation proclaimed by the Bab He conversely characterizes it as "My own previous Manifestation."

That 'Abdu'l-Baha is not a Manifestation of God, that He gets His light, His inspiration and sustenance direct from the Fountain-head of the Baha'i Revelation; that He reflects even as a clear and perfect Mirror the rays of Baha'u'llah's glory, and does not inherently possess that indefinable yet all-pervading reality the exclusive possession of which is the hallmark of Prophethood; that His words are not equal in rank, though they possess an equal validity with the utterances of Baha'u'llah; that He is not to be acclaimed as the return of Jesus Christ, the Son Who will come "in the glory of the Father"--these truths find added justification, and are further reinforced, by the following statement of 'Abdu'l-Baha, addressed to some believers in America, with which I may well conclude this section: "You have written that there is a difference among the believers concerning the 'Second Coming of Christ.' Gracious God! Time and again this question hath arisen, and its answer hath emanated in a clear and irrefutable statement from the pen of 'Abdu'l-Baha, that what is meant in the prophecies by the 'Lord of Hosts' and the 'Promised Christ' is the Blessed Perfection (Baha'u'llah) and His holiness the Exalted One (the Bab). My name is 'Abdu'l-Baha. My qualification is 'Abdu'l-Baha. My reality is 'Abdu'l-Baha. My praise is 'Abdu'l-Baha. Thraldom to the Blessed Perfection is my glorious and refulgent diadem, and servitude to all the human race my perpetual religion... No name, no title, no mention, no commendation have I, nor will ever have, except 'Abdu'l-Baha. This is my longing. This is my greatest yearning. This is my eternal life. This is my everlasting glory."

The Administrative Order

Dearly-beloved brethren in 'Abdu'l-Baha! With the ascension of Baha'u'llah the Day-Star of Divine guidance which, as foretold by _Sh_ay_kh_ Ahmad and Siyyid Kazim, had risen in _Sh_iraz, and, while pursuing its westward course, had mounted its zenith in Adrianople, had finally sunk below the horizon of Akka, 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 Baha'i era. Inaugurated by the Bab, culminating in Baha'u'llah, 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 Bab's martyrdom and Baha'u'llah's shaking experiences in the Siyah-_Ch_al of Tihran, 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-Baha, 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 Baha'u'llah's Revelation. For neither the achievements of the champion-builders of the present-day institutions of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, nor the tumultuous triumphs which the heroes of its 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 Baha'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-Baha, Who incarnates an institution for which we can find no parallel whatsoever in any of the world's recognized religious systems, may be 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 Baha'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 Baha'u'llah, permeating and evolving within the mind of 'Abdu'l-Baha, 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-Baha can no more be divorced from Him Who supplied the original and motivating impulse than from the One Who ultimately conceived it. Baha'u'llah's inscrutable purpose, we must ever bear in mind, has been so thoroughly infused into the conduct of 'Abdu'l-Baha, 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.

The Administrative Order, which ever since 'Abdu'l-Baha'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 Baha'u'llah. 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 Baha'u'llah 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 Babi 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 Baha'i Dispensation. Has either Christianity or Islam, 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 Baha'u'llah's Covenant or to the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha? Does the text of either the Gospel or the Qur'an 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 Imam '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 Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha? Can any passage of the Qur'an, 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 Babi Dispensation however much He may have succeeded through the provisions of the Persian Bayan in averting a schism as permanent and catastrophic as those that afflicted Christianity and Islam--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 Baha'u'llah?

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 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 Baha'i Commonwealth--is destined to manifest, can these utterances of Baha'u'llah 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 Bab 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 Baha'u'llah is destined to unfold. "Well is it with him," is His remarkable statement in the third chapter of the Persian Bayan, "who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Baha'u'llah and rendereth thanks unto his Lord! For He will assuredly be made manifest. God hath indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayan."

In the Tablets of Baha'u'llah 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 Baha'u'llah and then 'Abdu'l-Baha 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-Baha's ascension; in the authority with which the Author of our Faith and the Center of His Covenant have in their Tablets chosen to confer upon them; in the institution of the Local Fund which operated according to 'Abdu'l-Baha's specific injunctions addressed to certain Assemblies in Persia; in the verses of the Kitab-i-Aqdas the implications of which clearly anticipate the institution of the Guardianship; in the explanation which 'Abdu'l-Baha, 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-Baha 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 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-Baha 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 it 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 Baha'u'llah 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, coeordinate 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 Baha'u'llah would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary principle which, as 'Abdu'l-Baha 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-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.

"He is the Interpreter of the Word of God," 'Abdu'l-Baha, 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 Baha'u'llah. "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 A_gh_san, the Afnan, the Hands of the Cause of God, 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," Baha'u'llah, 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 Kitab-i-Aqdas), 'Abdu'l-Baha 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."