Abstract:
Account of the stewardship of the Hands of the Cause of God from 1957-63, from the passing of Shoghi Effendi to the election of the House, riding the waves of crisis to the moment of victory — the fulfillment of prophecy.
Notes:
Also available as an updated, corrected Microsoft Word document, prepared by Mike Thomas.
While Ruhiyyih Khanum is not listed as an official author, we have included her as author here because, in the Introduction below, she says the book is "based on the files of the Hands in the Holy Land and on my personal experience as one of the Custodians of the Bahá'í Faith for five and a half years." As well, the Ruhi Book 8 (unit 2 section 1) says of this book "she [Khanum] presents a collection of messages from the Hands of the Cause of God." |
(((((Change [see p.]'s SCANNED AND SPELLCHECKED BY DUANE TROXEL; NOT PROOFREAD THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED ONLINE IN THE HOPE THAT A VOLUNTEER WILL PROOFREAD IT. IF YOU CAN HELP, PLEASE CONTACT US. THANK YOU, YOUR HELP IS GREATLY NEEDED! THE MINISTRY OF THE CUSTODIANS 1957-1963 +i THE MINISTRY OF THE CUSTODIANS +ii THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY BLANK +iii
+iv Devotedly, In service to the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, Mansion of Bahá'u'lláh, Bahji, Akka, Israel, November 25, 1957. [SIGNATURES OF 26 HANDS APPEAR ON THIS PAGE] Signatures of the 26 Hands of the Faith present in Bahji who signed the Proclamation on November 25, 1957. +v [GROUP PHOTOGRAPH OF HANDS APPEARS ON THIS PAGE] The body of the Hands of the Cause taken in Bahji at their first
Conclave in 1957. (Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum and Clara Dunn
present but not shown.)
+vi [A GROUP PHOTOGRAPH OF HANDS TAKEN IN APRIL, 1963 APPEARS ON THIS PAGE] PLENARY MEETING OF THE HANDS OF THE CAUSE, APRIL 1963
On the steps of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's home: (seated) Musa Banani; first row, left to right: Leroy Ioas, Tarazu'llah Samandari, Agnes Alexander, Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum, Enoch Olinga, Jalal Khazeh; second row, left to right: Dhikru'llah Khadem, behind him Collis Featherstone, Adelbert Muhlschlegel, Shu'a'u'llah 'Ala'i, Hermann Grossmann, Rahmatu'llah Muhajir, Abu'l-Qasim Faizi, John Robarts, 'Ali-Muhammad Varqa and 'Ali-Akbar Furutan; back row: Ugo Giachery, William Sears, Paul Haney, Hasan Balyuzi and John Ferraby. +vii THE MINISTRY OF THE CUSTODIANS 1957-1963 An Account of the Stewardship of the Hands of the Cause With an Introduction by THE HAND OF THE CAUSE 'AMATU'L-BAHÁ RÚHÍYYIH KHÁNUM BAHA'I WORLD CENTRE HAIFA +viii (c) 1992 THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
ISBN 0-85398-350-X A Cataloguing-in-Publication number is available from the British Library Printed in Great Britain +xix PREFACE This book of messages of the Hands of the Cause, from the passing of the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, in November 1957, to the formation of the first Universal House of Justice in 1963, is based on the files of the Hands in the Holy Land and on my personal experience as one of the Custodians of the Bahá'í Faith for five and a half years. It does not pretend to be a history but rather a record of the remarkable and unique accomplishments of an unpretentious group of world religious officials who, with no forewarning or preparation, suddenly, under the most tragic circumstances, found themselves called upon to seize the helm of their Faith, protect it from dissolution and schism, win the goals of an ambitious, far-flung, world ten-year-teaching campaign, which had only reached its half-way point, and steer it to the victory of unitedly electing its Supreme Body in 1963! In other words, it is a view from the inside looking out, as one of the Hands in the Holy Land saw it, throughout that dangerous, challenging, but obviously divinely protected period which will, I am confident, increasingly be seen as one of the most extraordinary victories-won by a handful of high-ranking officers of the Bahá'í Faith, as Shoghi Effendi designated us-ever witnessed in the religious annals of mankind. The texts of these messages, however vital, could never
reflect our concern for the maintenance of the hard-won victories
our beloved Guardian had achieved during his thirty-six years of
unremitting labour, ending his life at 60, far too early an age for
these days.
We Hands, particularly those who were acting as
Custodians in the Holy Land, passed through perilous shoals indeed
as we guided the precious barque of our Faith on its way through
the violent flood of events that followed upon the loss of our
hereditary Guardian. The Hands were widely scattered across the
world and communication in those days was almost exclusively
confined to air mail and cables. With exception of the women Hands,
who through age or circumstances were not employed, almost all the
men were earning their living and in no position to cease doing so.
We all felt that neither our teachings-which preclude a special
class of paid religious clergy-nor our limited resources and our
tremendous financial obligations could justify the body of the
Hands' beginning to live on the Bahá'í Fund; those who were chosen
to act at the World
+xx Centre as Custodians, devoting their full time to its interests, obviously had to be supported as part of the expense of running our International Headquarters. We had a strong sense of the need for economy on the one hand, and of the stupendous sums of money we should require in order to win the goals of our Guardian's World Crusade on the other. It was not the power of our
intellect nor our personal capacities which carried us through that
period, but the love and loyalty of our hearts for Shoghi Effendi
the depth of our devotion to the Faith we believed in, and the
divine guidance, inspiration, and protection which were undoubtedly
vouchsafed to us-else how could we, all over the world, have held
the scattered and diversified community of Bahá'u'lláh together,
and victoriously won our Guardian's Crusade, crowning it with the
election of the Universal House of Justice? The leaders of neither
Christianity nor Islam had succeeded in protecting those world
religions from schism, but we protected ours from it. How? By the
power vested in us, in the texts of our Scriptures; by our selfless
devotion not only to a man who had died suddenly and left no direct
guidance or instructions behind him, but also to the great
international host of believers now left shepherdless,
widely-scattered, remote and isolated, throughout the continents,
seas, wildernesses and islands of the planet. So tightly knit was
the unity among these followers of Bahá'u'lláh that they proved
indivisible in heart, invincible in faith. Above all, we owed the
power we were able to exert during this unique crisis to the web
of tight, written texts of our teachings that, in spite of this
supreme test, could not be violated and to which we held fast,
sustaining both ourselves and the Bahá'ís down to the tiniest cell
of this great living organism, the Cause of God. The vast fabric
of our Faith was not without its own inner system of security: its
local and national Bahá'í bodies constituted a world-wide
administrative network, and was in the largest sense a legal
entity. We had incorporated bodies all over the world, we had
national and international funds of the Faith, we had fabulous real
estate holdings at our World Centre. On the other hand, we had
obligations that brooked no delay. We were like a man who is
mortally ill but whose life depends on action. However
grief-stricken and lost we were, we could not delay any action of
any kind, for a moment. There was no time to pause, to contemplate,
to savour our grief. For almost six years we ran, we met the
challenges, problems, enemies-we ran.
After the election of the
Universal House of Justice on April 21, 1963, when the Hands in the
Holy Land returned from the World Congress to Haifa, we held
constant meetings in the home of 'Abdu'l-Bahá with the
newly-elected members of that Supreme Body to hand over to them the
administrative affairs of the Faith. Files and information were
turned over to them in a steady process of transfer from our
interim, provisional
+xxi authority to their permanent established authority according to the Holy Texts. It is foolish to ask questions of history; it is even
more foolish to ask questions of the Almighty. The Guardianship had
ceased to exist as an ongoing institution. The Hands had gloriously
crowned their function of protection of the Cause of God by calling
for and supervising the election of the Universal House of Justice,
the Supreme Body of the Bahá'í world; through the aegis of the
Institution of the Counsellors, initiated and supported by that
Supreme Body, the vital functions of propagation and protection
will continue to be carried on. In 1973 the Hands of the Cause
became a part of the International Teaching Centre and in this
capacity, aside from specific meetings of their own with the
Universal House of Justice, both as individual Hands and as a body,
hold regular joint meetings with our Supreme Body. +xxii The Hands of the Cause of God APPOINTED BY BAHA'U'LLAH DURING HIS
MINISTRY,1 1863-1892 Haji Mulla 'Ali-Akbar-i-Shahmirzadi, known as Haji Akhund Haji Mirza Muhammad Taqiy-i-Abhari, known as Ibn-i-Abhar Mirza Muhammad-Hasan, entitled Adibu'l-'Ulama, known as Adib Mirza 'Alí-Muhammad, known as Ibn-i-Asdaq OUTSTANDING BELIEVERS REFERRED TO BY 'ABDU'L-BAHÁ, AS HANDS OF THE CAUSE
DURING HIS MINISTRY,1 1892-1921 Aqa Muhammad-i-Qa'ini, known as Nabil-i-Akbar Mirza 'Ali-Muhammad-i-Varqa, the martyr Shaykh Muhammad-Riday-i-Yazdi Mulla Sadiq-i-Muqaddas, entitled Ismu'llahu'l-Asdaq APPOINTED POSTHUMOUSLY BY SHOGHI EFFENDI DURING
HIS MINISTRY, 1921-1957
1 See The Bahá'í World, Vol. XIV, 1963-1968, pp. 445-446. +xxiii HANDS OF THE CAUSE APPOINTED BY SHOGHI EFFENDI FIRST CONTINGENT, ANNOUNCED 24 DECEMBER 19511
SECOND CONTINGENT, ANNOUNCED 29 FEBRUARY 19521
THIRD CONTINGENT, ANNOUNCED OCTOBER 19572
1 Cables of appointment were sent the previous day. 2 Cables of appointment were sent on 2 October 1957. +xxiv INDIVIDUAL APPOINTMENTS BY SHOGHI EFFENDI
+1 INTRODUCTION One of two things happens to great historic events, either they are lost sight of temporarily, to sometimes be re-discovered at a later date, or they form part of the great river of man's destiny, never for an instant to be forgotten or submerged. Of such is the unique period of almost six years during which the Hands of the Cause of God, appointed during his lifetime by Shoghi Effendi the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, who styled them the "Chief Stewards of Bahá'u'lláh's embryonic World Commonwealth" and its "high-ranking officers", arose and firmly seized and guided the destiny of the endangered and grievously shaken body of Bahá'u'lláh's followers the world over. When the appointed and much-loved Head of our Faith suddenly passed away on November 4, 1957 in London, we were twenty-seven in number, five women and twenty-two men, drawn from all continents of the globe, some of whom had never even met the Guardian personally, indeed, eight of us had only been appointed to the rank of Hand by Shoghi Effendi a few weeks prior to his death. Those of us of longer standing felt great compassion for this last contingent of our peers, who, in addition to the shock each one of us had experienced when we were elevated to this high position, were now faced with the additional shock of the realization that Shoghi Effendi was no longer there to guide them personally, that this door was closed forever. The eldest among us, Corinne True, one of the early group of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's disciples in America, was already 96; the youngest, Enoch Olinga, a native of Uganda, only 3 1; listing us according to our diminishing ages, covering sixty-five years of difference, we were, after Corinne True, Clara Dunn in Australia-herself 88, Amelia Collins at the World Centre, Tarazu'llah Samandari, in Persia, Mason Remey at the World Centre, Agnes Alexander in Japan, Musa Banani; in Africa, Horace Holley in America, Shu'a'u'llah 'Ala'i in Persia, Leroy Ioas at the World Centre, Ugo Giachery, in Italy, Jalal Khazeh in Persia, Adelbert Muhlschlegel, and Hermann Grossmann in Germany, John Robarts, in Africa, Dhikru'llah Khadem in Persia, 'Ali-Akbar Furutan; in Persia, Abu'l-Qasim Faizi, in Arabia, Hasan Balyuzi in England, Paul Haney in America, (Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum at the World Centre, 'Ali-Muhammad Varqa in Persia, William Sears in Africa, Collis Featherstone in Australia, John Ferraby in +2 England, Rahmatu'llah Muhajir in Indonesia and Enoch Olinga, in Africa. Among the men five held the title of "Doctor", two of these being medical men; some of the others had university degrees but we five women, as far as I know, held no university degrees. I go into these details because this is the backdrop, these the leading actors, as the perilous drama of this most recent world religion played itself out successfully from November 4, 1957 to April 21, 1963. The words of the Universal House of Justice, the Supreme Body
of the Bahá'í Faith, in its first message to the Bahá'ís of the
world, dated April 30, 1963, at the time of the World Congress in
London, are the best tribute to our role in history: "We do not
wish to dwell on the appalling dangers which faced the infant Cause
when it was suddenly deprived of our beloved Shoghi Effendi but
rather to acknowledge with all the love and gratitude of our hearts
the reality of the sacrifice, the labour, the self-discipline, the
superb stewardship of the Hands of the Cause of God. We can think
of no more fitting words to express our tribute to these dearly
loved and valiant souls than to recall the words of Bahá'u'lláh
Himself: 'Light and glory, greeting and praise be upon the Hands
of His Cause, through whom the light of long-suffering hath shone
forth, and the declaration of authority is proven of God, the
Powerful, the Mighty, the Independent; and through whom the sea of
bestowal hath moved, and the breeze of the favour of God, the Lord
of mankind, hath wafted."'
To this unique testimony should be added
the. fact that although the Hands were firmly established as the
ruling and guiding body of the entire Bahá'í world, I can bear
witness that never for a single instant were the Hands influenced
by either ambition or self-esteem. Our sole objective, the purpose
of our every effort, was to succeed in electing in 1963 the
Universal House of Justice. The Universal House of Justice itself
testified that: "The entire history of religion shows no comparable
record of such strict self-discipline, such absolute loyalty, and
such complete self-abnegation by the leaders of a religion finding
themselves suddenly deprived of their divinely inspired guide. The
debt of gratitude which mankind for generations, nay, ages to come,
owes to this handful of grief-stricken, steadfast, heroic souls is
beyond estimation."
Although Bahá'u'lláh created the Institution
of the Hands, appointing during His own lifetime four distinguished
Persian believers to fulfil this function, and His son and
successor, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, later referred to four more outstanding
Persian followers of His Father as Hands, it remained for Shoghi
Effendi-according to the explicit text of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and
Testament the Hands may only be appointed by the Guardian
himself-to add forty-two more names to this unique list of people
heading the appointive half of Bahá'u'lláh's World Order, thus
raising the total to
+3 fifty individuals who have borne this exalted title. Ten Hands were raised by him posthumously to this high rank; of these ten I was present when he nominated six of them after their death. I gathered from Shoghi Effendi that the reason he had not designated as Hands these distinguished men and women during their lifetime was because he considered that, for the most part, the Bahá'ís were still too immature to accept, without jealousy and criticism, that a fellow-believer should stand forth from the rank and file in such a high station, bathed in such a bright light of distinction. I remember how surprised I was when he said this. It was not until six years before his death that Shoghi Effendi-after thirty years of his ministry as Guardian had passed-announced in a cable to the Bahá'í world, dated December 24, 1951, that the hour was "now ripe take long inevitably deferred step conformity provisions 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Testament . . . through appointment first contingent Hands Cause God, twelve in number . . .", linking it to his November 30th; message in which he had outlined detailed plans for the holding of four Intercontinental Conferences in Africa, America, Europe, and Asia, and stating that this step marked the "inauguration beyond limits World Centre Faith intercontinental stage Bahá'í activity". Two months later he followed this by the announcement of the elevation of seven more individuals to the rank of Hand, thus raising the number to nineteen. This initiation of the active functioning of the Institution of the Hands of the Cause under the aegis of the Guardian was not only an immense step forward in the evolution of our Faith but an indication that the still small and few in number Bahá'í communities throughout the world were now mature enough to accept the guidance and leadership implicit in such a body. Between March 1952 and March 1957 Shoghi Effendi appointed five more Hands to replace five who had died, and a month before he passed away he added a final, last contingent to the Hands of the Cause through raising their number by eight more, thus bringing us to twenty-seven-three times nine. From 1951 to
1957 Shoghi Effendi constantly supervised and guided the
Institution of the Hands, that half of the institutions of the
World Order of Bahá'u'lláh which has the specialized function to
both propagate and protect it. Like a wise gardener, tending and
pruning a rare, promising and cherished fruit tree, he watched over
us as we Hands served him at the World Centre and in the five
continents of the globe. It was he who developed the second phase
of our activities through adding, in April 1954, to the powers of
our Institution by authorizing us to appoint Auxiliary Boards.
Looking back, I believe this constant care and encouragement he
gave us succeeded in creating among us not only a sense of
passionate loyalty and devotion to him, but a sense of belonging,
as a group, to the Institution of the Guardianship.
+4 I would never claim that my impressions are a reflection of Shoghi
Effendi's motives; anyone who ever pretends to really understand
the Centre of the Covenant-be it Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, or
Shoghi Effendi-immediately presumes equality, which is of course
out of the question and utterly ridiculous. However, as a close
observer, one has a right to one's opinions. I believe, in choosing
those he elevated to the rank of Hand during their lifetime, Shoghi
Effendi was primarily influenced by their already demonstrated
devotion and capacity to serve the Faith, or the indications he saw
in them of a great potential capacity to do so. In rare cases, such
as Corinne True, or "Mother" Dunn, it was, I think, a well-deserved
crown of reward placed upon their heads for a singularly long and
distinguished period of service. The Guardian was certainly not
influenced for a moment by what the opinion of the Bahá'ís might
be of his choice. He was equally uninfluenced by how we might
personally feel; three of us were appointed to our face, so to
speak: I was present when he told Fred Schopflocher at the Pilgrim
House table that he was making him a Hand; Freddie turned so white
I thought he was going to faint! He told Musa Banani; likewise on
his pilgrimage, that he was appointing him a Hand; Mr. Banani;
begged not to be! I was not present but I heard this. And he told
me, after my father died, that he was appointing me a Hand in his
place; all my tears and remonstrances and begging him not to had
no effect. Shoghi Effendi was singularly uninfluenceable.
Of the
thirty-two Hands he appointed during their lifetime the geographic
distribution was as follows: Holy Land 4, Asia 10, America 6,
Europe 6, Africa 4, Australasia 2; sometimes he associated these
appointments with a continental distribution. The final eight
Hands-whose names were announced a month before he died and who,
with the other nineteen still living Hands, were suddenly obliged
to assume the leadership of the Cause of God pending the time when
the Universal House of Justice could be elected on a firm
basis-were characterized in surprising and significant terms: he
said they had been chosen from four continents of the globe and
represented not only the black and white races but were of Afnan,1
Christian, Muslim, Jewish and pagan backgrounds. Surely this was
a most phenomenal statement, to bring up Enoch Olinga's "pagan"
background, considering that his immediate ancestors had been
Christians. It certainly emphasized the total lack of any form of
prejudice within the Bahá'í Faith; I am sure, however, that the
Guardian made Enoch's appointment, like all the other appointments
of Hands, on the sole basis of individual merit. I think, moreover,
the fact that Enoch was a black African, from a continent which in
many cases still had a pagan
1 Relative of the Bab. +5 element, was an added asset in Shoghi Effendi's eyes. It gave the Institution of the Hands a very broad, world-wide base of not only racial but religious background. As Shoghi Effendi never did anything thoughtlessly, we should ponder the implications of the terms he used. In 1957 there were-and still are-many millions of pagans in the world. Whatever the reason for Shoghi Effendi's
choice of Hands, he once said to me that these were the best he had
to choose from; I got the impression he wished he had better.
Knowing myself, and my fellow Hands, I am sure all of us lamented
in our hearts that we were not worthier, had not more capacity in
every way to serve him. Before he died Shoghi Effendi had succeeded
in making us feel we were a body to assist him, a world-wide,
developing Institution, with an integral and essential part to play
in promoting the growth and expansion of our Faith. We were wholly
his creation.
The Guardian, in a cable to the Bahá'í world dated
January 9, 1951, had proclaimed his "weighty epoch-making decision"
to form the first International Bahá'í Council, the "forerunner"
of the "supreme administrative institution"' of the Faith, which
was destined to emerge in the fullness of time, and he
characterized this "historic decision" as "Marking most significant
milestone evolution Administrative Order Faith Bahá'u'lláh course
last thirty years." Those thirty years were his own ministry since
the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1921. This first International
Bahá'í Council was not elected but selected by Shoghi Effendi
himself from individual believers of long standing and proven
dedication to the service of the Cause. Less than one year later,
on December 24, 1951, he announced the names of the first
contingent of Hands. In view of the clear distinction in the
Teachings between the elected Universal House of Justice and the
appointed Hands of the Cause, it seems to me portentous that the
first membership of the International Bahá'í Council included three
people soon to be nominated Hands, and that, at the time of the
beloved Guardian's passing, five of its officers, so designated by
him, namely, myself as liaison between it and him, Mason Remey, its
President, Amelia Collins, its Vice-President, Leroy Ioas its
Secretary General, and Ugo Giachery, its Member at Large-who lived
in Italy and functioned as a European Hand, but frequently visited
Haifa at Shoghi Effendi's request-were all Hands of the Cause. In
addition to being members of the International Bahá'í Council,
these Hands, resident and serving at the World Centre, constituted
a separate body, specified by Shoghi Effendi to act as liaison
between him and the other Hands throughout the world, conveying
their messages to him and his to them,
1 The Universal House of Justice. +6 thus giving us, during his own lifetime, a dual function as Hands directly serving under him and officers of the International Bahá'í Council. I believe that at that particularly dangerous juncture in Bahá'í history this duality was providential and greatly reinforced the authority and power of the Custodians when faced by the crisis of his sudden passing. When that terrible blow fell upon the Bahá'í world, these five Hands had been constantly serving under his personal instructions for almost six years. Historic and stirring
events moved rapidly during those last years of the Guardianship:
on June 30, 1952, Shoghi Effendi wrote of the Faith that "at long
last the machinery of its highest institutions has been erected,"
and that around its most holy Shrines "the supreme organs of its
unfolding Order, are, in their embryonic form, unfolding . . ."
Block by block he had been laying the foundations of the future
World Commonwealth of Bahá'u'lláh in what he termed the "heart and
nerve-centre" of the Faith situated in the Holy Land. By April
1954, two years and four months after his first announcement of the
appointment of Hands of the Cause, he was able, in a cable
addressed to them and to the Bahá'í world, to state how greatly he
valued the support of their members at the World Centre, citing
five particular fields of service that he considered outstanding:
the erection of the superstructure of the Bab's Shrine on Mount
Carmel; the reinforcement of the World Centre's ties with the new
State; the extension of international endowments in the Holy Land;
and, in his own words, the "initiation preliminary measures
establishment Bahá'í World Administrative Centre"; to this
grandiose picture of our support of his work he added our
participation in the four successive Intercontinental Teaching
Conferences held at the inception of his World Crusade.
In this
same message an immense step forward took place in the world-wide
function of the Hands-now nineteen in number-four in the Holy Land
and fifteen in the various continents, namely, six in Asia, one in
Africa, four in Europe, one in Australasia and three in the
Americas through the Guardian's instructions that these continental
Hands should appoint Auxiliary Boards, of nine members each, to
assist them in their continental areas. He also specified that in
addition to acting as deputies of the Hands in their respective
continents, they would "aid and advise them in the effective
prosecution of the Ten Year Plan" and that, at a later period, they
would assist "in the discharge of their dual and sacred task of
safeguarding the Faith and of promoting its teaching activities."
In October 1957 Shoghi Effendi implemented this duty to safeguard
the Faith, shortly before his passing, by creating an additional
Auxiliary Board, whose function was to be, under the direct
guidance of the Hands of the Cause, "watching over the security of
the Faith". He had already stated, only five months before he
passed away, in a general communication
+7 addressed to both the Hands and the National Spiritual Assemblies, that the divinely appointed Institution of the Hands of the Faith was entering a new phase in the unfoldment of "its sacred mission", and that to their other functions was now added the "primary obligation" to watch over and ensure the protection of the Bahá'í World Community "in close collaboration" with the National Assemblies. The temporary headship of the Bahá'í Faith by the Hands
of the Cause appointed by Shoghi Effendi commenced with his wholly
unexpected and sudden passing through a heart attack in London,
England, on November 4, 1957, after he had fully recovered from
Asiatic flu, an event which shook the Bahá'í world to its roots.
I sent a cable as follows, via Haifa (our usual practice), on that
same day, which announced, from the World Centre, his passing: SHOGHI EFFENDI BELOVED OF ALL HEARTS SACRED TRUST GIVEN BELIEVERS BY MASTER PASSED AWAY SUDDEN HEART ATTACK IN SLEEP FOLLOWING ASIATIC FLU. URGE BELIEVERS REMAIN STEADFAST CLING INSTITUTION HANDS LOVINGLY REARED RECENTLY REINFORCED EMPHASIZED BELOVED GUARDIAN. ONLY ONENESS HEART ONENESS PURPOSE CAN BEFITTINGLY TESTIFY LOYALTY ALL NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES BELIEVERS DEPARTED GUARDIAN WHO SACRIFICED SELF UTTERLY FOR SERVICE FAITH. RUHIYYIH Once this
official and tragic announcement had gone forth from the World
Centre, subsequent messages perforce were sent direct from London.
On November 5th another cable went out to all National Spiritual
Assemblies: BELOVED ALL HEARTS PRECIOUS GUARDIAN CAUSE GOD PASSED PEACEFULLY AWAY YESTERDAY AFTER ASIATIC FLU. APPEAL HANDS NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES AUXILIARY BOARDS SHELTER BELIEVERS ASSIST MEET HEARTRENDING SUPREME TEST. FUNERAL OUR BELOVED GUARDIAN SATURDAY LONDON. HANDS ASSEMBLY BOARD MEMBERS INVITED ATTEND. ANY PRESS RELEASE SHOULD STATE MEETING HANDS SHORTLY HAIFA WILL MAKE ANNOUNCEMENT TO BAHA'I WORLD REGARDING FUTURE PLANS. URGE HOLD MEMORIAL MEETINGS SATURDAY. RUHIYYIH This terrible news evoked
throughout the Bahá'í world a passionate wave of response; cables
and letters expressing the shock and sorrow of the believers and
their firm loyalty to the Hands poured in after his passing.
+8 Eighteen Hands of the Cause assembled in London to attend the
funeral of their Guardian. Those who were unable to be present were
either too old and frail to do so, or, in some cases, were
requested to remain at their posts for the protection of the Faith
at this moment of great crisis.
The following cables were sent on
two successive days after the funeral, held on November 9th in the
Great Northern London Cemetery: BELOVED GUARDIAN LAID REST LONDON ACCORDING LAWS AQDAS BEAUTIFUL BEFITTING SPOT AFTER IMPRESSIVE CEREMONY HELD PRESENCE MULTITUDE BELIEVERS REPRESENTING OVER TWENTY COUNTRIES EAST WEST STOP DOCTORS ASSURE SUDDEN PASSING INVOLVED NO SUFFERING STOP BLESSED COUNTENANCE BORE EXPRESSION INFINITE BEAUTY PEACE MAJESTY STOP EIGHTEEN HANDS ASSEMBLED FUNERAL URGE NATIONAL BODIES REQUEST ALL BELIEVERS HOLD MEMORIAL MEETINGS EIGHTEENTH NOVEMBER COMMEMORATING DAYSPRING DIVINE GUIDANCE WHO HAS LEFT US AFTER THIRTY-SIX YEARS UTTER SELF-SACRIFICE CEASELESS LABOURS CONSTANT VIGILANCE. RUHIYYIH
ASSURE FRIENDS BELOVED SACRED GUARDIAN BEFITTINGLY LAID REST SURROUNDED BY LARGE REPRESENTATIVE GATHERING BELIEVERS EAST WEST STOP LIGHT OUR LIVES DEPARTED WE MUST NOW STAND FIRM REMEMBERING PEERLESS EXAMPLE HIS DEDICATION WORK BLESSED PERFECTION GLORIOUS VICTORIES HE WON PLANS HE LONGED SEE COMPLETED STOP ONLY REDEDICATION GREATER UNITY STEADFAST SERVICE CAN BEFITTINGLY SHOW OUR GRIEF MAKE US ACCEPTABLE HOLY THRESHOLD. RUHIYYIH The labours of the Hands of the Cause at the time of this
unique crisis followed an unbroken pattern till the day the
Universal House of Justice was elected on April 21, 1963. The Hands
who had gathered in London met and, in spite of their shock and
grief, decided not an instant's time must be lost in holding a
plenary meeting of our entire body at our World Centre in the Holy
Land. This was called for November 18th. Our first act was to
choose a delegation to open the apartment of Shoghi Effendi which
had been sealed by the International Bahá'í Council right after his
passing (in addition to being locked by him when we left Haifa, as
was his usual custom) and to make an exhaustive search for any
document he might have left-a Will or otherwise. There was no such
thing to be found.
The general body of the Hands then met in the
upper hall of the
+9 Mansion of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahji near His resting-place, for the first of their six Conclaves until the election of the Universal House of Justice took place. Of all our Conclaves-the only befitting term for such august gatherings-that first one was the most epoch-making. Not only were we dazed and grieving, we were orphans, deprived of our father. The responsibility for the entire Cause of God, to which each one of us was wholly consecrated, had been placed in our hands, with neither premonition, warning nor advice. Aside from the thought that we were now the only ones to direct the Bahá'ís of the world, to protect and guide them and to win the Crusade of our beloved Guardian, we were faced with problems of inconceivable magnitude. How to assume the reins of authority, with no document to support us, other than the general theological statements about the Hands? What should we do regarding money, urgently needed for the monthly upkeep of the Shrines, Holy Places, pilgrim houses, and gardens, and to pay not only these substantial recurring bills but continue to finance innumerable vital Bahá'í undertakings throughout the world which Shoghi Effendi himself had inaugurated and supported from his funds as Head of the Faith? What was our legal status, on which hinged the delicate question that all the international financial assets of the Faith were in the name of Shoghi Effendi What would we say about the Guardianship? When one adds to the staggering total of the above
enumerated problems the fact that all this rested on the shoulders
of twenty-seven Hands, the first of whom had only been called to
their high office six years previously and the last of whom were
appointed a bare four weeks before Shoghi Effendi passed away, one
gets some idea of the state and the burden of the Hands of the
Cause of God.
As we sat in the great upstairs hall of the
Mansion-so sacred, so private-our historic Proclamation was worked
out; it was signed by all the Hands of the Cause except Corinne
True, then aged 96, who was unable to travel from the United States
to the Holy Land but quite capable of being one of the signatories
by consent of that historic document. Clara Dunn, 88, was, however,
present in Haifa and signed the document herself, but because of
age and infirmity was not able to attend our meetings. When one
remembers that of the twenty-five of us gathered in the Mansion,
most of our Persian Hands spoke little or no English at this time
and none of the Western Hands spoke any Persian except myself-and
my vocabulary in no way covered the issues facing us-and that only
two of the Persian Hands were completely bilingual and therefore
we had to translate every word, back and forth-as each Hand,
conscious of the frightening responsibilities resting upon us,
insisted on exact translation of the opinions voiced in the other
language not his own-and that this
+10 went on hour after hour, in day-long sessions, morning and afternoon, one gets a glimpse of what kind of burdens were added to our sorrow. At this first Conclave we were faced with the
inescapable obligation of voting from amongst the membership of the
Hands of the Cause for who would, if chosen by all of us, accept
to live and serve at the World Centre as one of the nine legal
Custodians. For those who were not already part of the body of the
Hands in Haifa this meant literally burning all their bridges
behind them. I can remember the words of Paul Haney, an economist
just promoted in the prominent investment firm to which he had
belonged for some years, with the assurance of financial increases
and a substantial pension on retirement, as he bowed his head and
said, "You are only called once."
We had, from our very first
Conclave, a fixed procedure: every morning we went to pray in the
Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh before our meetings started and our last act
every evening was to visit the room in which He passed away for
closing prayers. If my memory serves me, the longest Conclave
lasted twenty-two days-all the days being the same. We were not
interested in days off!
A policy was established that no notes of
individual Hands would be taken out of that hall, but would be
gathered and burned at the end of the day by one of the Hands. As
our consultations were full, free and frank, the notes-in
discussions involving more than twenty people, where each one had
to wait his turn-were obviously far too pertinent to risk
individual opinions leaving that room. Any carelessness, any gossip
or speculation at such a juncture could have divided the Hands from
each other and split the Bahá'í Faith.
After long and often
agonizing consultation and soul-searching which took place in
discussion at more than one Conclave-we finally agreed as a body
to announce to the Bahá'í world that the Institution of the Hands,
different in both nature and function from the structure
constituting the elected administrative bodies of the Faith, placed
us in a separate category and we requested the believers not to
vote for the Hands of the Cause in Bahá'í elections. We Hands
burned in the fire of this weighty decision until it became clear
to us that greater strength, diversity, and breadth lay in keeping
these two aspects of the system of Bahá'u'lláh separate and
therefore more mobile, each free to function in its own field.
When
the Guardian passed away the paramount, supremely urgent task
confronting us at our first Conclave was to ensure that everything
connected with the affairs, direction and administration of the
Faith was solidly and speedily vested in the Institution of the
Hands. We were blessed in the unity and strength we found among
ourselves-some of the
+11 Hands meeting each other for the first time-and also in having the loyal advice and assistance of Dr. Abraham Weinshall, a distinguished lawyer who had attended to all the legal affairs of the Guardian for many years, each one holding the other in high esteem, and whom we now called upon to advise and assist us. All
the legal powers at the World Centre of the Faith-which had been
vested in Shoghi Effendi as the appointed successor of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
-- were left in limbo when he passed away as he himself had made
neither a Will nor a statement of his intentions. The holdings at
the World Centre, including its sacred Shrines, its historic
buildings, hundreds of square metres of prime real estate, and
substantial local bank accounts, were therefore in great danger.
The Hands were able, however, to successfully and legally establish
the principle that the Guardian held all properties as the Head of
the Faith and not as an individual, and to have this priceless
heritage safely placed in the hands of the Custodians. A further
large deposit, invested for safekeeping in Switzerland in both his
and my name, I later turned over to the Universal House of Justice
after its election. I remember remonstrating with Shoghi Effendi
when he made this arrangement, that it was unnecessary to include
my name on this account; but when he passed away so suddenly in
London I was in a position, with grace and dignity, to draw on this
money to pay for all his funeral expenses and our hotel bills and
later to design and supervise the construction and erection of the
monument, in white Carrara marble, marking his grave, without
turning to any Bahá'í source for assistance. This was a great
consolation to me in my sorrow and surely reflected the mercy of
God in an hour of terrible trial and suffering.
Following the
historic inaugural Conclave in Bahji from November 18th to the
25th, 1957, one of the first acts of the Custodians was to fulfil
what had been a cherished plan of Shoghi Effendi himself, namely,
to tear down the long, two-storey house occupied by a remnant of
the Covenant-breakers, a building which abutted on the garden wall
of the Mansion of Bahá'u'lláh in Bahji towards the north, the legal
possession of which he had acquired, after years of effort, shortly
before his passing. We accomplished this in December 1957 not only
in a spirit of fidelity to his wishes, but, in our deep sorrow,
longing to please him by fulfilling one of his last cherished plans
for the beautification of the precincts of our Most Holy Shrine,
the Qiblih of our Faith. As the clouds of dust arose from the
demolition of this ugly building, in some strange way it assuaged
our aching hearts. It was a revelation to me, when we extended the
pattern of Shoghi Effendi's garden into the space the demolished
building had occupied, to see how, within half a metre, the large
symmetrical design of the existing gardens he had made was
completed.
+12 Indeed, in the years following his passing, in one field after
another, one plan Shoghi Effendi had made after another, whether
in connection with the Bahá'í properties in the Holy Land or
throughout the world in detailed national plans and objectives, was
fulfilled. This included the five large Intercontinental
Conferences he announced would be held during 1958-the midway point
of his decade-long global Spiritual Crusade. In spite of our
heartbreak, the fidelity of the Hands was so great we each went to
the Intercontinental Conference the Guardian had specified. He had
sown and we reaped, and still do, his harvest.
In the meetings of
the Custodians we almost never worked to an agenda and had no rigid
format. We had decided, from the time of our first Conclave that,
in order to protect the Cause of God, we would have no officers,
such as President, Chairman, Secretary, etc. lest one of the male
Hands, holding such a position, should begin to assume in the eyes
of the Bahá'ís the function of the leader, and, God forbid, begin
to be seen as a sort of second Guardian in importance. I think this
was one of our wisest decisions and a great shield for the purity
of our services. Likewise, in the Custodian's meetings we had no
"head", but took the chairmanship in rotation. We did, however,
divide our work in the sense that Persian Hands handled the
correspondence in Persian and Arabic and those of us from the West,
all correspondence in western languages.
In spite of all our
devotion and sacrifices, one of our greatest problems was to
ensure, all the year, every year, that a quorum of Hands was
present in the Holy Land for our decisions. Within the first two
years of our ministry two of the Custodians found they could not
continue to serve in a permanent capacity at the World Centre, and
in order to maintain our number at nine, it was necessary to select
two other Hands to replace them. In November of 1959 the Hands
announced that John Ferraby and Horace Holley-an immemorial figure
in the development of the Administrative Order in America, which
was the world prototype-had been chosen to serve as Custodians.
During the period of our ministry we were grieved by the death of
four of our fellow-Hands, two of whom were Custodians. Only eight
months after having been chosen as a Custodian, Horace Holley
passed away, in July 1960; William Sears was called upon to serve
as his replacement. On January 1, 1962, our dear Amelia Collins
died and Hasan Balyuzi was appointed to act as a Custodian
temporarily to fill the vacancy created by her passing.
If one is
to understand how the Institution of the Hands achieved the
preservation of the Faith between the passing of its hereditary
Head and the election of its Supreme Body, one cannot do so without
a clear picture of the stage of development at which the Faith of
Bahá'u'lláh found itself
+13 in 1957. As early as 1924 Shoghi Effendi stated that the Local and National Assemblies constituted "the bedrock upon the strength of which the Universal House of Justice is in future to be firmly established", and in 1951 he cabled: ". . . Future edifice Universal House of Justice depending for its stability on sustaining strength pillars erected diversified communities East West." In 1953, at the outset of Shoghi Effendi's World Crusade-itself a direct projection of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's "Tablets of the Divine Plan" designed to spread His Father's message throughout the world there were only twelve National Spiritual Assemblies; when 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in 1921 there were none. One of the major acts of Shoghi Effendi two years before his passing, was to call for the election, in Ridvan 1957, of thirteen National Spiritual Assemblies, two of which already existed but would change names and areas of jurisdiction, thus adding eleven in number; these eleven, plus three more which had been elected in Africa in 1956, brought the total number formed by the Guardian during his thirty-six-year ministry to twenty-six. The Hands of the Cause, during our brief custodianship of less than six years, increased this number to fifty-six.' When Shoghi Effendi succeeded his Grandfather, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, only thirty-five countries throughout the entire world had received Bahá'u'lláh's Message: two in the Bab's days, thirteen in Bahá'u'lláh's days, and twenty in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's days. Shoghi Effendi enlarged this by 219 during the thirty-six years of his ministry; the Hands of the Faith, during the ministry of the Custodians, added five more. In his Ridvan 1957 Message the Guardian informed us there were 4,200 localities throughout the world where Bahá'ís resided; at the end of his World Crusade the Hands were able to report this total had reached 11,210 -- an increase of over 7,000. It is beyond the scope of this
introduction to present all the goals of Shoghi Effendi's vast Ten
Year Teaching and Consolidation Plan; 2 only the most arduous and
costly tasks which faced the Hands will be mentioned. The Guardian,
by the time of his passing, had either inaugurated, changed, or
accomplished some of his own goals; a few, dependent on political
situations, proved unfeasible. The monetary tasks alone which faced
the Hands were formidable. Shoghi Effendi had called for the
"doubling" of Bahá'í Houses of Worship. The "Mother Temple of the
West", situated in the United States, near Chicago, whose
cornerstone 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself had laid in 1912, the Guardian
had, with the greatest difficulty, over a period of three
decades-decades which included the "Great Depression" in the United
States, which began in 1929 and
1 The 1992 number of National Spiritual Assemblies is 165. 2 See "The Bahá'í Faith 1844-1952 Information Statistical & Comparative". +14 lasted over ten years-shepherded to completion, and it had been opened to public worship at the beginning of his Crusade. However, in the original Ten Year Plan goals for this Crusade he stipulated that two more Temples should be built, one in Asia, one in Europe, the Asian one to be erected in the Cradle of the Faith, in Teheran, the European one in Frankfurt, Germany. During the five years prior
to Shoghi Effendi's passing it became evident there was no hope of
building a Mashriqu'l-Adhkar in Persia as both the official and
popular hatred of the Bahá'ís had not modified in over a century.1
The Guardian, saddened and indignant, decided to compensate the
steadfast, continuously oppressed and persecuted believers in that
country by erecting not two but three Temples. He launched, in his
own words, an "ambitious three-fold enterprise, designed to
compensate for the disabilities suffered by the sorely-tried
Community of the followers of His Faith in the land of His birth,
aiming at the erection, in localities as far apart as Frankfurt,
Sydney and Kampala, of the Mother Temples of the European, the
Australian and African continents, at a cost of approximately one
million dollars, complementing the Temples already constructed in
the Asiatic and American continents. One-third of this sum 1,
gladly and with a grateful heart, pledge at this auspicious hour,
a sum which, when added to the funds already donated for this
laudable purpose ... will constitute well-nigh half of the entire
amount required to ensure the consummation of this stupendous,
epoch-making undertaking."
The Guardian, before announcing these
decisions, had privately calculated that about one-half of the cost
he already had in hand or was assured of receiving; the remainder,
so to speak, he trusted in God to provide. He gave them first the
Mother Temple of Africa in its heart, Kampala, Uganda, and later,
to everyone's joy and surprise, he added the Mother Temple of the
Antipodes in Sydney, Australia, and finally, the last of those to
be built, the Mother Temple of Europe in Frankfurt. Fortunately for
the Hands, he had already advanced his plans for these three
Temples by approving their designs. It was a great blessing for the
Bahá'ís of the world that the Commander-in-Chief of the forces of
Bahá'u'lláh's world-conquering spiritual army had announced and set
in motion himself such momentous projects. But think of the agony
of twenty-seven heart-broken Hands faced with the duty of
fulfilling these commitments! The cornerstone of the African Temple
in Kampala was laid on January 26, 1958; that of Sydney on March
22, 1958; and that of Frankfurt on November 20, 1960. Triumphantly
the Custodians were able to see the first of these
1 It seems unbelievable that as recently as March 18, 1992, yet another Iranian follower of Bahá'u'lláh, of an old and distinguished Bahá'í family, has been executed. +15 precious Houses of Worship, chosen by our beloved Guardian himself, opened to public worship, in Kampala on January 15, 1961, and the one in Sydney on September 16, 1961. The purchase of the land and commencement of work had been more complicated in Germany and the foundation-stone for the Mother Temple of Europe was not laid until November 1960; its superstructure was completed in November 1962 during the ministry of the Hands but the Temple was not opened to public worship until July 4, 1964. It is, I think, impossible for
others to understand how hard the Hands in the Holy Land daily
worked, how much we struggled to raise the money for and to build
these three large and imposing edifices for Shoghi Effendi Many
times the diminishing number of Hands resident at the World Centre
have said to each other: "We could not again pass through even five
minutes of the suffering we went through in those years!"
One of
our most pressing worries concerned the heavy financial obligations
left us in the plans of Shoghi Effendi regarding not only the
construction of Bahá'í Temples but other properties, and the
monetary support we had to give to the new National Bahá'í
Assemblies in developing countries. The national Bahá'í bodies in
a position to provide any substantial aid at that period were those
of Iran and America.
The main income of the Hands was from the
contributions of the Persian Bahá'í community, which was the oldest
and at that time the most affluent Bahá'í community in the world.
This monetary aid we estimated at about $100,000 a year. In June
1960, as we considered our financial position, we felt obliged to
vote this entire sum for Temple construction, the expenses of the
Institution of the Hands and support to the National Assemblies,
nearly all of which at that period were not self-supporting and
received most of their annual budget from the Hands at the World
Centre.
The munificent financial contributions of our fellow-Hand
and Custodian Amelia Collins were of great assistance to the Hands;
her outstanding generosity afforded infinite comfort to our
heavily-burdened minds and hearts as we faced the ever-increasing
financial needs of the Faith. The following minute from our
Conclave meeting in 1959 conveys only one instance of her
magnanimous spirit: "Milly offered to provide one-third entire sum
to be given by Hands Holy Land to Hands in the continents."
The
Hands living at the World Centre practised rigid economy; as the
pilgrimage had been suspended for a nine-month period of mourning
throughout the Bahá'í world after the passing of Shoghi Effendi our
Eastern and Western Pilgrim Houses were available and the
newly-chosen Custodians and their wives resided in them for some
time, only moving to more suitable accommodation when the
pilgrimage was reopened.
+16 With very few exceptions, the Hands had all been, at some period,
members of various National Spiritual Assemblies; they were highly
informed and highly skilled Bahá'ís They not only had a right to
hold individual opinions but did so very strongly. Like most
consultative bodies, we got over the bumps, the exasperation at
interminable waits for one's turn to speak, the long-windedness
which our passionate sense of responsibility and the fact that most
of us were public speakers, produced. But there was one agonizing
issue we could not agree on. Year after year we could come to no
conclusion about whether the Guardianship was closed for the period
of this Faith. The death of Shoghi Effendi had really been like an
arrow shot into our hearts. Each one struggled with his bereavement
in his own way. One of us, Mason Remey, one of the oldest and most
distinguished, solved his personal dilemma by concluding that the
Bahá'í Faith could not go on without a Guardian and that
undoubtedly Shoghi Effendi's successor was himself-for various
invalid and unprovable reasons, such as that he was one of the
earliest, famous believers of the West, had been made a Hand of the
Cause by Shoghi Effendi and President of the International Bahá'í
Council. All this was true, but it still did not make him the
second Guardian. Mason Remey's activities, beginning in 1960, when
he "proclaimed" himself the second Guardian, were a profound source
of embarrassment to his fellow-Hands who, in addition to all their
other heavy, heartbreaking responsibilities, now found themselves
obliged to progressively remonstrate with, admonish, warn, expose
and finally excommunicate him. This extraordinary and sudden
display of unexpected pride and conceit passed over the Bahá'í
world, producing a brief flutter in France, a passing ripple in
Chile and sundry vibrations in the United States, Pakistan and one
or two other countries, and was soon gone forever. For those who,
like myself and Paul Haney, had known and loved him all our lives,
and Milly Collins, who had been a particularly old friend and
co-worker, it was a very bitter and tragic experience. Unfollowed
and unmourned, alone and isolated in his old age, when he died he
was buried by his young secretary who was not a Bahá'í Although
this whole episode had no effect on the Faith, it added to the
burdens of the Custodians, consumed hours of consideration better
spent on constructive matters, and saddened our hearts. Like any
branch cut off from the root, the Remey incident withered away.
Far
more distressing to the Custodians, and indeed to the entire Bahá'í
world, was the case of the fourteen Bahá'í prisoners in Morocco,
three of whom were condemned to death and five to life imprisonment
for no other reason than their religious beliefs. Comparable to the
case of the Persian Bahá'ís during the lifetime of Shoghi Effendi
in 1955, when a violent national attack on the part of the
fanatical Muslim clergy took
+17 place in Iran headed by a particularly vehement priest who accused the Bahá'ís over the national radio as well as from the pulpit, of being the enemies of Islam, 1 and produced a major crisis in the fortunes of the Bahá'í Faith, now, in another continent, a very similar storm of alarming proportions blew up. Though few in number, the Bahá'í community in Morocco was firmly established and valiant in spirit. The first signs of this alarming crisis appeared in 1961; on December 7th, an article appeared in the nationally prominent newspaper Al Alam, lamenting the decline of Islam and attacking the Bahá'í Faith. Suddenly a spotlight was focused on a
small group of Bahá'ís in the northern provincial town of Nador who
were imprisoned and accused, fundamentally, of heresy, some of them
being sentenced to death. From its onset this case became a
constant preoccupation of the Custodians; ceaseless anxiety and
effort, and in the end acute anguish, became our daily lot as the
date for the execution of three of the prisoners in that city
approached. The extraordinary amount of material and comment
covering this case-which began in April 1962 and ended in December
1963 -- cannot be presented here. The facts, the highlights, and
some of the major documents are, however, included.
The Moroccan
case involved the imprisonment of 14 Bahá'ís in three cities, 7 in
Nador, 2 in Fez, and 5 in Tetuan in the northern Province of Nador;
the arrest of the first five took place on April 10, 1962. Already,
however, throughout the Riff area religious opposition of the
Muslim community had been steadily increasing; some of the homes
of the Bahá'ís had been searched by the police and their Bahá'í
literature seized, and in January 1962 a well-known Professor of
Fine Arts at the University of Tetuan was dismissed from his post
and warned to have no association with his co-religionists. Another
Bahá'í a resident of Nador, lost his government job shortly
thereafter.
All the accused were men of good repute; with one
exception they were all young men, holding respected jobs, with
some standing in the community; among them was a teacher, a Customs
official and a police inspector. Six of them were single, eight
were married, and seven had children. The youngest was only 20
years old, the eldest 38. One of the first five arrested, under
police interrogation, was hung upside down by the feet but refused
to divulge the names of any other Bahá'ís all of them
1 This was a wholly unfounded and unsupportable standard accusation brought against the Bahá'ís particularly in view of the fact that western Bahá'ís of Christian background in the Western Hemisphere and Europe acknowledge the spiritual station of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, as a Divinely inspired Prophet of God. +18 were brutally treated; they were arrested without any charge and held in prison for four days before being brought to Court on April 15th. On October 31st; the fourteen Bahá'í men were brought to
the Regional Court of Nador to hear the charges against them and
were formally accused of: Rebellion, Disorder, Attack on Public
Security, Forming an Association of Criminals, and Attack on
Religious Faith. The difference between Bahá'í religious
laws-fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, etc.-and those of Islam, were
compared in detail by the Court.
The first intimation we received
at the World Centre of the arrest of the Bahá'ís was a newspaper
article from Morocco; on April 14th, news of these happenings burst
in the press through an article in the prestigious Le Courier du
Maroc. While the case was being widely publicized in Moroccan
newspapers and spreading to the foreign press, the Custodians were
constantly in touch with the Bahá'í National Spiritual Assemblies
in those days 44 in number-most notably that of the United States
of America, in which country is situated the seat of the United
Nations, by which we were recognized as a Non-Governmental
Organization with observer status, under the title of the Bahá'í
International Community", which officially represented at that time
Bahá'í communities in 257 countries, territories and dependencies.
All national Bahá'í bodies were likewise urged to bring as much
pressure, by every means within their power, upon the Moroccan
authorities in defence of the innocence of their fellow believers,
whilst the Bahá'ís of the entire world, with full hearts, prayed
for their protection and release.
Between the date the Moroccan
Bahá'ís had been arrested, in April, and the stage of our open,
world-wide publicity, every effort to protect the prisoners and
prove their innocence had been undertaken by the Hands in the Holy
Land. Two distinguished Moroccan lawyers had been engaged in their
defence and a famous French lawyer had come from Paris to join
them.
The Custodians felt very strongly that no attack should be
made on the central authorities but that the blame should
rest-where it in fact originated-on a small, fanatical, prejudiced
and misinformed group of local leaders, who unfortunately at that
period did not seem susceptible to any central State control from
Rabat.
Throughout the hearings it was repeatedly asserted that one
of the cardinal teachings of the Bahá'í Faith is obedience to
government, that the Bahá'í International Community is accredited
to agencies of the United Nations as a Non-Governmental
Organization, and so on, to no avail.
On December 14, 1962 the
Regional Court of Nador pronounced its verdict. Of the original 14
people involved in the case, four were acquitted, stating they were
Muslims, one was acquitted through what appears to be
+19 family connections, one was released from prison on 15 years' probation because he was a serious diabetic, five were committed to life imprisonment and three were condemned to death. The
announcement of these sentences stunned the Bahá'í world. It also
stunned the media. The new Moroccan Constitution had just been
overwhelmingly accepted by a national referendum and on December
7th, three days before the Bahá'í trial opened, Morocco had voted
in the United Nations in favour of a resolution for a draft
convention on the elimination of all forms of religious
intolerance.
On January 1st all National and Local Bahá'í Spiritual
Assemblies were requested by the Custodians to cable His Majesty
the King of Morocco appealing for justice for the Bahá'ís. This
universal demonstration of international Bahá'í solidarity would
leave no doubt in the minds of the authorities of the world-wide
existence of the Bahá'í community.
For those of us in Haifa who had
lived, under the aegis of our beloved Guardian, through the
agonizing days in 1955 when another group of Bahá'ís were being
unjustly persecuted, that time in Persia where the friends suffered
senseless acts of barbarism, murder, rape and pillage of property,
it was history repeating itself-but with no Shoghi Effendi at the
helm to guide and comfort us. We had to pray, act, endure the
heavy-footed hours that never seemed to pass as the time for the
execution of our fellow-Baha's drew nearer and nearer. The burden
of anxiety for the fate of their co-religionists was shared by the
entire Bahá'í world; the burden of responsibility and decision,
however, fell upon the Hands of the Cause, particularly the body
of the Custodians in Haifa, and was, indeed, an agonizing and
almost insupportable burden to bear.
"The Moroccan Case" ran for
some twenty months. Ultimately by decision of the Moroccan Supreme
Court all Bahá'í prisoners were set free on December 13, 1963. The
civil authorities not only released and fully exonerated them from
any culpability but paid them financial compensation for their loss
of freedom to earn their living and, in a few cases, where they
were employed by the Government, indemnified them. All National
Spiritual Assemblies, wherever possible, were asked by the
Universal House of Justice to express gratification, through the
Moroccan Embassy or Consulate in their areas, to the King for this
decision of the Supreme Court.
In Shoghi Effendi's vision for the
development of the World Administrative Centre on the great
semi-circular "arc" he laid out on Mount Carmel, he foresaw a Seat
for its supreme governorship and Centres for the study of the Holy
Texts and for the protection and teaching of the Faith, under the
supervision of the Hands of the Cause, as well as an International
Archives. Before he passed away the Guardian himself
+20 chose both the site and the Grecian style of architecture for our museum of historical material, the International Bahá'í Archives; this building was erected under his own supervision, but he passed away before the completion of the interior and was not able personally to arrange the unique and historic exhibits he had long been collecting. The accomplishment of this task was one of the labours of love of the Hands of the Cause. It was opened to Bahá'í pilgrims in the winter of 1961. One of the final and major
accomplishments of the Hands at the end of this historic
five-and-a-hAli-year period was to work out, during our last
Conclave, in Bahji -- to a great extent due to the vision of our
fellow-Hand Rahmatu'llah Muhajir -- a projected nine-year plan,
involving no less than sixty-nine national teaching plans, which
was to begin in Ridvan 1964 and end in Ridvan 1973, thus continuing
the unbroken sequence of the implementation of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's
"Divine Plan" for the spiritual conquest of the globe. This was
submitted to our Supreme Body, the Universal House of Justice,
which adapted and adopted many of our suggestions when it finalized
the details of its majestic Nine Year Plan.
The Hands of the Faith
and the members of the International Bahá'í Council were
tremendously excited by the prospect of the first election of the
Universal House of Justice, which was to take place on the
Centenary of the Declaration of Bahá'u'lláh's Mission in Baghdad
in 1863. One evening, as one of the Council members was sitting
with me in the home of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and we were discussing the
forthcoming International Bahá'í Convention and election and where
it should be held, the idea was suggested by him that it might be
possible to hold it in that house. As the electoral college of the
Universal House of Justice is composed of the nine members of all
National or Regional Spiritual Assemblies and there were at that
time fifty-six of these national bodies, we would need space to
accommodate 504 delegates, plus the Hands of the Cause and members
of the International Bahá'í Council. We measured the large main
hall and adjoining rooms and concluded that by removing all the
twelve doors on the four sides of the hall we might be able to do
this. It was 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself Who, in His Will and Testament,
had elaborated the nature and duties of both the Universal House
of Justice and the Hands of the Cause; what could be more sacred
and befitting than for the Hands to hold the election of the first
Universal House of Justice in His home?
In preparation for this
election the Hands in the Holy Land, five years after the passing
of the beloved Guardian, wrote to all National Spiritual Assemblies
on November 4, 1962, enclosing nine ballot papers with full details
of how to fill them out and who was eligible for election. In this
letter, while not prohibiting the delegates from voting for any
male Hands of the Cause, we requested them to leave the Hands free
to discharge the
+21 duties of their own institution. During the years of our ministry all such momentous decisions were made after exhaustive consultation and ardent prayers for guidance. On April 21, 1963,
the delegates, many of them in native costume, stepped forward as
the roll call was read and cast their votes; the absentee votes of
delegates unable to attend, carefully sealed in double envelopes
to ensure secrecy, were likewise deposited in the ballot box, which
was later sealed and locked and shut into a locked room of
'Abdu'l-Bahá's home while all the Hands and delegates present in
the Holy Land proceeded to the Tomb of Bahá'u'lláh in Bahji to
render praise and thanksgiving to Him for this great victory.
The
goals of the Guardian had been won by the Bahá'ís of the world,
under the leadership of the Hands of the Cause he had appointed.
The election of the Universal House of Justice at the World Centre
had been triumphantly held. Both bodies now proceeded to London to
attend the World Centennial Congress he himself had planned.
Although the ministry of the Custodians terminated with the
election of the Universal House of Justice, this date did not end
the painstaking services of our august institution; the crowning
event of our custodianship at the end of our beloved Guardian's
World Crusade was the celebration of the Most Great Jubilee, during
the period of Ridvan held from April 28 -- May 2, 1963, in London.
In Shoghi Effendi's original announcement it was hoped that this
centennial anniversary could take place in Baghdad, the scene of
the Declaration of Bahá'u'lláh's Prophetic Mission. Circumstances,
however, made this impracticable and the Hands decided to hold it
in London, a city with many precious historic associations with
both 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi who studied at Oxford
University prior to becoming the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith when
his Grandfather died in 1921.
As we cast about for a befitting
venue for this great Congress planned by Shoghi Effendi we found
that the unique and beautiful Royal Albert Hall, in the heart of
London, famous as a centre for concerts and conferences, which
accommodates about 7,000 people, could be rented for our great
occasion. Bahá'ís from all over the world, including Hands and
administrators, Knights of Bahá'u'lláh and pioneers, were present,
and the audience was addressed by members of the Institutions of
both the Hands and the Universal House of Justice. In this
wonderful fulfilment of the Guardian's own plan for the culmination
of his World Crusade my greatest joy was the words addressed to us
by various indigenous tribesmen from the continents and islands of
the globe, whether the much-loved "Uncle Fred", an illiterate
Australian Aborigine, who said, after describing his journey from
Australia as being carried across the ocean in
+22 a great new flying kangaroo" and being set down in London: "Yes, dear friends, I am glad to see the people here, like flowers of all colours ... Bahá'u'lláh has given me a good life ... I have joy in my heart", or the cheerful Bahá'í from the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia, who assured us that if we could see him minus his European suit of clothes he was tattooed from head to toe! For all of us-largely sophisticates from Asia, Europe and North America-it was a revelation to witness the aplomb, wisdom and highly appropriate sentiments expressed by these fellow Bahá'ís from areas often referred to as "the developing countries". There was an
unprecedented feeling of happiness and oneness of spirit in this
great Congress and the attendants lapped their first, newly-elected
Universal House of Justice, presented to them by the Hands of the
Cause, in a great wave of welcome and love. I am sure all the Hands
of the Cause felt that Shoghi Effendi's desires had been fulfilled.
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METADATA | (contact us to help add metadata) |
VIEWS | 456781 views since posted 2000-02-01; last edit 2012; previous at archive.org.../uhj_ministry_custodians; URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org |
OCLC | 37322775 |
PERMISSION | open copyright |
HISTORY | Scanned 1999 by Duane Troxel; Formatted 2005-02-19 by Brett Zamir; Proofread 1999-01-28 by Duane Troxel. |
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