Withal, however, he was not fussy; when he went over the many pages of my sometimes long letters to National Assemblies, he would put in a series of “X’s” and “XX’s” and even “XXX’s” in the margins for me to add a word or thought left out. Then at the end of the secretary’s part he would start his postscript in his own writing and usually go around and around his margins, in truly oriental style, from page to page. What I am trying to say is that if there were corrected mistakes all through the text of an important English letter it did not disturb him in the least as long as the thought was there, crystal clear.

The supreme importance of Shoghi Effendi’s English translations and communications can never be sufficiently stressed because of his function as sole and authoritative interpreter of the Sacred Writings, appointed as such by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will. There are many instances when, owing to the looseness of construction in Persian sentences, there could be an ambiguity in the mind of the reader regarding the meaning. Careful and correct English, not lending itself to ambiguity in the first place, became, when coupled with Shoghi Effendi’s brilliant mind and his power as interpreter of the Holy Word, what we might well call the crystallizing vehicle of the teachings. Often by referring to Shoghi Effendi’s translation into English the original meaning of the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá becomes clear and is thus safeguarded against misinterpretation in the future. He was meticulous in translating and made absolutely sure that the words he was using in English conveyed and did not depart from the original thought or the original words. One would have to have a mastery of Persian and Arabic to correctly understand what he did. For instance in reading the original one finds that one word in Arabic was susceptible of being translated into two or more words in English; thus Shoghi Effendi, in the construction of his English sentences, might use “power”, “strength” and “might” alternatively to replace this one word, choosing the exact nuance of meaning that would fit best, do away with reiteration and lend most colour to his translation without sacrificing the true meaning, indeed, thereby enhancing the true meaning. He used to say that Arabic synonyms usually meant the same thing but that English ones always had a slight shade of difference which made it possible to be more exact in rendering the thought. He also said he believed a few of the highly mystical and poetical writings of Bahá’u’lláh could never be translated as they would become so exotic and flowery that the original beauty and meaning would be completely lost and convey a wrong impression. Once — only once, alas, in our busy, harassed life — Shoghi Effendi said to me that I now knew enough Persian to understand the original and he read a paragraph of one of Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablets and said, “How can one translate that into English?” For about two hours we tried, that is he tried and I feebly followed him. When I would suggest a sentence, which did convey the meaning, Shoghi Effendi said “Ah, but that is not translation! You cannot change and leave out words in the original and just put what you think it means in English.” He pointed out that a translator must be absolutely faithful to his original text and that in some cases this meant that what came out in another language was ugly and even meaningless. As Bahá’u’lláh is always sublimely beautiful in His words this could not be done. In the end he gave it up and said he did not think it could ever be properly translated into English, and this passage was far from being one of the more abstruse and mystical works of Bahá’u’lláh.

I only know of one instance in which Shoghi Effendi said he had slightly modified something that existed in the original and that was when he translated, immediately after the passing of the Master, His Will. The sentence in question reads, referring to the Universal House of Justice, “the guardian of the Cause of God is its sacred head and the distinguished member for life of that body.” Shoghi Effendi said the actual word, for which he substituted the milder “member for life”, was “irremovable”. Nothing could be more revealing of his profound humility than this toning down of his own relationship to the Universal House of Justice.

The Guardian was exceedingly cautious in everything that concerned the original Word and would never explain or comment on a text submitted to him in English (when it was not his own translation) until he had verified it with the original. He was very careful of the words he used in commenting on various events in the Faith, refusing, for instance, to designate a person a martyr — which is a station — just because they were slain, and sometimes designating as martyrs people who were not killed but the nature of whose death he associated with martyrdom.

Another highly important aspect of the divinely conferred position Shoghi Effendi held of interpreter of the Teachings was that he not only protected the Sacred Word from being misconstrued but that he also carefully preserved the relationship and importance of different aspects of the Teachings to each other and safeguarded the rightful station of each of the three Central Figures of the Faith. An interesting example of this is reflected in a letter of A. L. M. Nicolas, the French scholar who translated the Bayán of the Báb into French and who might correctly be described as a Babi. For many years he was under the impression that the Bahá’ís had ignored the greatness and belittled the station of the Báb. When he discovered that Shoghi Effendi in his writings exalted the Báb, perpetuated His memory through a book such as Nabíl’s Narrative, and repeatedly translated His words into English, his attitude completely changed. In a letter to one of the old believers in France he wrote: “Now I can die quietly…Glory to Shoghi Effendi who has calmed my torment and my anxiety, glory to him who recognizes the worth of Siyyid ‘Alí Muḥammad called the Báb. I am so content that I kiss your hands which traced my address on the envelope which brought me the message of Shoghi. Thank you Mademoiselle, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Shoghi Effendi was tolerant and practical in his approach to his own work. For years he sent his translations and manuscripts to George Townshend, whose command and knowledge of English he greatly admired. In one of his letters to him Shoghi Effendi wrote: “I am deeply grateful to you for the very valuable, detailed and careful suggestions you have given me…” Horace Holley titled many of Shoghi Effendi’s general letters to the West and also inserted sub-titles throughout the text, picking up phrases in the writing of the Guardian which were most descriptive of the general subject. If this facilitated the reading of his works, and made them more intelligible to the average American believer, Shoghi Effendi saw no objection. Horace was a writer himself and the titles he gave to the Guardian’s communications not only served to identify them but dramatized their message and captured the imagination.

One of the earliest acts of Shoghi Effendi’s ministry was to begin circulating his translations of the holy Writings: one year and ten days after the reading of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will we find him writing to the American National Assembly: “It is a great pleasure for me to share with you the translation of some of the prayers and Tablets of our beloved Master…” and he goes on to add that he trusts “that in the course of time I will be enabled to send you regularly correct and reliable translations…which will unfold to your eyes a new vision of His Glorious Mission…and give you an insight into the character and meaning of His Divine Teachings.” Over and over in his earliest letters to different countries he mentions the enclosed translation of something he is sending for the Bahá’ís. A month later, in another letter to America, he says: “I am also enclosing my revised translation of The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, both Arabic and Persian, and hope to send you more of His Words and Teachings in future.” On 27 April of that same year Shoghi Effendi again writes to the American National Assembly: “I am also enclosing my rendering of various passages of the Kitabu’l-Aqdas which you may feel at liberty to circulate among the friends.” In November of that same year he wrote to that same Assembly that he was forwarding “Transliterated Oriental Terms …confident that the friends will not feel their energy and patience taxed by scrupulous adherence to what is an authoritative, though arbitrary code for the spelling of Oriental terms.” There is no doubt that transliteration is irksome and often confusing, but what the average person does not realize is that through transliteration the exact word is nailed down and those who are familiar with the system know immediately what the original word was because they can reconstruct it in Arabic or Persian. For scholars and critics of the Faith this accuracy is very important. It also serves the purpose of doing away with multiple and confusing spellings of the same word.

It is interesting to note that Shoghi Effendi himself, in the above quotation, spells Kitáb-i-Aqdas more or less phonetically as he had not yet introduced the system of transliteration he later adopted. A word should be said about this Most Holy Book, for, although it is the source of the Laws of Bahá’u’lláh, it is a small volume and mostly contains other subjects. By the time he passed away Shoghi Effendi had already given to the Bahá’ís of the West, in excellent English, most of the passages it contains as well as all the laws he felt were applicable at this time to Bahá’ís living in non-Bahá’í societies. He not only translated and circulated passages from the teachings; he also ensured that the believers, through excess of zeal and lack of foresight, should not go too far in the manner in which they edited and printed Bahá’í compilations. In replying to certain proposals one of the friends had made regarding the printing of a comprehensive book of prayers, he wrote to the man who had conveyed this suggestions to him: “I agree with him provided the classification is not carried beyond what Bahá’u’lláh prescribes, otherwise we shall plunge into a hard and fast creed.”

The writing, translation and promulgation of Bahá’í books were one of the Guardian’s major interests, one he never tired of and one he actively supported. The ideal situation is for local and national communities to pay for their own activities, but in this Formative Age of our Faith and Guardian fully realized this was not always possible and from the funds at his disposal he assisted substantially throughout the years in financing the translation and publication of Bahá’í literature. In periods of emergency, when the attainment of cherished goals was at stake, Shoghi Effendi would fill the breach; thus we find that in one year alone he assisted the Indian National Assembly in its translation and publication programme with contributions of over two thousand pounds. The moment the American Intercontinental Conference, which opened the Ten Year Crusade, was over, we find Shoghi Effendi cabling the American National Assembly: “Urge immediate steps publication pamphlets languages allocated America.” Two days later he is cabling the European Teaching Committee the same thing, only mentioning “European languages”. Similar messages went to India and Britain and he assures the latter he will send one thousand pounds to assist them. He was constantly concerned with the wide diffusion of Bahá’í literature in different languages from the first days of his ministry, and alone was responsible for the majority of translations undertaken during the thirty-six years of his Guardianship. He seized every opportunity. A letter to a Pole, who was studying the teachings in Poland, is typical: Shoghi Effendi tells him he is sending him the words of Queen Marie of Rumania about the Faith and asks him if he will translate these into Polish and send them back to him! This was in 1926, but the same enthusiasm and perseverance characterized his labours in this field up to the end of his life.

In addition to this he devoted much attention, during the early years of his Guardianship, when Esperanto was rapidly spreading, particularly in Europe, to encouraging the publication of a Bahá’í Esperanto Gazette, explaining to its editor that his interest was due to “my great desire to promote in such parts of the Bahá’í world as present circumstances permit the study of an international language”.

Literature in all languages the Guardian collected in Haifa, placing books in his own library, in the two Pilgrim House libraries, in the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh in Bahjí and in the International Archives. In this connection it is interesting to note how he placed them, for I never saw it done before: he would have, say, a lot of rather dull bindings, of some inexpensive edition, in grey and a lot more in blue or some other colour. With these he would fill his bookshelves in patterns, five red, two blue, five red and so on, using the variation in colour and number to add charm to the general effect of a bookcase that otherwise would have presented a monotonous and uninteresting appearance.

In a letter to Martha Root in 1931 he tells her “I have now in my room copies of seven printed translations” (these were Dr Esslemont’s textbook) and urges her to press on with further translations, saying “I shall be only too glad to help in their eventual publication.” A year later, writing to Siyyid Mustafa Roumie in Burma, the Guardian shows clearly what a satisfaction to him these new publications were. He says he is “…enclosing the sum of 9 pounds in order to assist and hasten the completion of the translation of the book into Burmese. 16 Sixteen printed translations have been already gathered together and placed in the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh at Bahji close to His sacred shrine and the book is now being translated into sixteen 16 additional languages including the Burmese.” By 1935 he is in a position to inform this same friend that “there are thirty-one printed versions of it in circulation already throughout the Bahá’í world.”

There are innumerable cables in Shoghi Effendi’s records such as these to Asgarzadeh in London: “Kindly wire minimum cost printing Esslemont’s book in Russian”; having evidently received a reply he cables again “Mailing forty pounds. Feel five hundred sufficient. First part of Russian manuscript mailed today. Rest mailing soon. Deeply appreciate your collaboration continued services.” to Ouskouli in Shanghai he cabled: “Wire date publication Esslemont’s book. Mail fifty copies. Love”. Every now and then, in his busy, preoccupied life, Shoghi Effendi would take stock and decide some aspect of the work needed an immediate and energetic shove. An example of this is four cables written down one after the other on the same day in 1932, to Martha Root in Europe, and to America, New Zealand and Burma: “Feel strongly necessity prompt translation Esslemont’s into Czech, Hungarian, Rumanian, Greek as preliminary intensive teaching campaign Europe. Eager assist financially awaiting estimates. Love.” “Feel strongly desirability undertake promptly translation Esslemont’s into Braille. Kindly cable if feasible. Love.” “Inform B___ensure prompt translation Esslemont’s book Maori.” “Urge undertake promptly translation Esslemont’s book into Burmese. Love”. Getting impatient with the lack of results in various projects he had set afoot we find these cables later on that year: “Is French Esslemont published cable.” “Eagerly awaiting Kurdish version Esslemont’s book”.

Shoghi Effendi encouraged various Bahá’ís to write about the Faith. To an English believer, Miss Pinchon, he cabled in 1927: “Your book admirable in presentation, exquisite in style. Urge speedy publication sending nineteen pounds”; to Horace Holley he cabled in 1926: “Kindly mail hundred copies your book. Affectionately”. Shoghi Effendi not only paid to publish Bahá’í books, he often ordered them as well. He cabled America: “Kindly mail immediately for fifty dollars cheapest edition Esslemont’s book. Mailing check.”

Facts and events are more or less useless unless seen in the proper perspective, unless vision is applied to their interpretation. One of the marked aspects of Shoghi Effendi’s genius was the way he plucked the significance of an occurrence, an isolated phenomenon, from the welter of irrelevancies associated with the international development of the Cause and set it in its historical frame, focusing on it the light of his appraising mind and making us understand what was taking place and what it signified now and forever. This was not a static thing, a picture of shapes and forms, but rather a description of where a leviathan was moving in an ocean — the leviathan of the co-ordinated movements inside the Community of Bahá’u’lláh’s followers moving in the ocean of His Dispensation. An Assembly was formed, someone died, a certificate was granted by some obscure governmental body — in themselves isolated facts and events — but to Shoghi Effendi’s eyes they were part of a pattern and he made us see this pattern being woven before our eyes too. In the volumes of The Bahá’í World the Guardian did this not only for the believers but for the public at large. He dramatized the progress of the Faith and a mass of scattered facts and unrelated photographs was made to testify to the reality of the claim of that Faith to be world-wide and all-inclusive.

It is interesting to note that the actual suggestion for a volume along the lines of The Bahá’í World came to Shoghi Effendi from Horace Holley in a letter he wrote in February 1924 — though I have no doubt that it was the breadth of vision of the young Guardian and the shape he was already giving to the work of the Cause in his messages to the West that, working on Horace’s own creative mind, stimulated him to this concept. Shoghi Effendi seized on this idea and from then on Horace became Shoghi Effendi’s primary instrument, as a gifted writer, and in his capacity as Secretary of the American National Spiritual Assembly, in making of The Bahá’í World the remarkable and unique book it became. Volume One, published in 1925 and called Bahá’í Year Book — which covered the period from April 1925 to April 1926 and comprised 174 pages — received its permanent title, in Volume Two, of The Bahá’í World, A Biennial International Record, suggested by that National Assembly and approved by Shoghi Effendi. At the time of the Guardian’s passing twelve volumes had appeared, the largest running to over 1,000 pages. Although these were prepared under the supervision of the American National Assembly, published by its Publishing Committee, compiled by a staff of editors and dedicated to Shoghi Effendi, it would be more in conformity with the facts to call them Shoghi Effendi’s Book. He himself acted as Editor-in-Chief; the tremendous amount of material comprised in each volume was sent to him by the American Assembly, with all photographs, before it appeared and his was the final decision as to what should go in and what be omitted. As six of these books were published during the period I was privileged to be with him I was able to observe how he edited them. With his infinite capacity for work Shoghi Effendi would go over the vast bundles of papers and photographs forwarded to him, eliminating the poorer and more irrelevant material; the various sections, following the Table of Contents which he himself had arranged, would then be prepared and set aside until the entire manuscript was ready to be mailed back to America for publication. He always deplored the fact that the material was not of a higher standard. It is due solely to his determination and perseverance that the Bahá’í World volumes are as brilliant and impressive as they are. The editors (some of whom he had nominated himself), struggling against the forces of inertia that beset any body trying to achieve its ends through correspondence with sources thousands of miles away, and seeking to work through often inexperienced and inefficient administrative organs, would never have been successful in assembling the material required without the drive and authority of the Guardian behind their efforts. An interesting sidelight on this work is that Shoghi Effendi, after the book was published, had all the original manuscripts returned to Haifa and stored at the World Centre.

As soon as one volume was published he began himself to collect material for the next one. In addition to the repeated reminders he sent to the American National Assembly to do likewise, he sent innumerable letters and cables to different Assemblies and individuals. In one day, for instance, he cabled three National Assemblies: “National Assembly photograph for Bahá’í World essential”; he cabled such an isolated and out-of-the-way outpost as Shanghai for material he wanted. “Bahá’í World manuscript mailed. Advise speedy careful publication” was not an unusual type of message for the American Assembly to receive. It was Shoghi Effendi who arranged the order of the volume, had typed in Haifa the entire Table of Contents, had all the photographs titled, chose all the frontispieces, decided on the colour of the binding of the volume to appear, and above all gave exact instructions, in long detailed letters, to Horace Holley, whom he himself had chosen as the most gifted and informed person to write the International Survey of Current Bahá’í Activities, to which he attached great importance. “Detailed letter mailed for International Survey confident your masterly treatment collected data” he cabled him. An example of how comprehensive and painstaking Shoghi Effendi’s letters on this subject were is provided by the following excerpts from a letter to Horace, written by Shoghi Effendi’s secretary, but I have little doubt dictated by the Guardian himself: “This material Shoghi Effendi has carefully examined, altered, arranged, enriched by adding fresh material that he has collected, put them in their final form and will mail the entire manuscript to your address before the end of this month…He has devoted considerable time to its minute examination and arrangement and has found the work very exacting and arduous…He wishes to stress the importance of adhering strictly to the order he has adopted. He hopes that, unlike the previous volume, nothing will be misplaced.”

What Shoghi Effendi himself thought of The Bahá’í World he put down in writing. As early as 1927, when only one volume had been published, he wrote to a non-Bahá’í: “I would strongly advise you to procure a copy of the Bahá’í Year Book…which will give you a clear and authoritative statement of the purpose, the claim and the influence of the Faith.” In a general letter addressed, in 1928, “To the beloved of the Lord and the hand-maids of the Merciful throughout the East and West”, and entirely devoted to the subject of The Bahá’í World, Shoghi Effendi informs them: “I have ever since its inception taken a keen and sustained interest in its development, have personally participated in the collection of its material, the arrangement of its contents, and the close scrutiny of whatever data it contains. I confidently and emphatically recommend it to every thoughtful and eager follower of the Faith, whether in the East or in the West…” He wrote that its material is readable, attractive, comprehensive and authoritative; its treatment of the fundamentals of the Cause concise and persuasive, and its illustrations thoroughly representative; it is unexcelled and unapproached by any other Bahá’í publication of its kind. this book Shoghi Effendi always visualized as being — indeed he designed it to be — eminently suitable for the public, for scholars, to place in libraries and as a means, as he put it, of “removing the malicious misrepresentations and unfortunate misunderstandings that have so long and so grievously clouded the luminous Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.”

It was a book that he himself often gave as a gift to royalty, to statesmen, to professors, universities, newspaper editors and non-Bahá’ís in general, mailing it to them with his simple personal card “Shoghi Rabbani” enclosed. The reaction of one of these — an American professor — conveys very clearly the impression the gift Shoghi Effendi had sent him produced: “Two copies of Bahá’í World have reached us…I cannot tell you how much I appreciate being able to study the book, which is exceedingly interesting and inspiring in every way…I congratulate you especially for developing the literature, and keeping alive such a wholesome spirit amongst the persons of many different groups who look to you for leadership.” But perhaps the greatest tribute to the calibre of this publication, into which Shoghi Effendi poured throughout the years so much time and care, was that a proud Queen should write for it special tributes to the Faith and consent that these and her own photograph should appear as frontispieces in its various volumes. “No words”, Shoghi Effendi wrote to Martha Root in 1931, upon receiving from her one of Queen Marie’s specially written tributes, “can adequately express my pleasure at the receipt of your letter enclosing the precious appreciation which will constitute a valuable and outstanding contribution to the forthcoming issue of the Bahá’í World.”

THE NEW GUARDIANShoghi Effendi at the time he became Guardian of the Baha’íFaith in 1921, taken in the garden of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s home in HaifaTHE NEW GUARDIAN Shoghi Effendi at the time he became Guardian of the Baha’í Faith in 1921, taken in the garden of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s home in Haifa

It is difficult to realize, looking back upon Shoghi Effendi’s achievements, that he actually wrote only one book of his own, as such, and this was God Passes By published in 1944. Even The Promised Day Is Come, written in 1941, is a 136-page-long general letter to the Bahá’ís of the West. This fact alone is a profound indication of the deeply modest character of the man. He communicated with the Bahá’ís because he had something to say that was important, because he was appointed to guide them, because he was the Custodian of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh; he was impelled by forces stronger than himself over which he had no control. Aside from the stream of letters of moderate length that constantly flowed from him to the Bahá’ís of the West and their National Assemblies, there are certain general letters of a different nature, some addressed to the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, some to the Bahá’ís of the West, which have been gathered together in one volume under the title of The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh and The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh Further Considerations were written in 1929 and 1930 respectively; they were designed to clarify for the believers the true meaning and purpose of their Faith, its tenets, its implications, its destiny and future and to guide the unfolding and slowly maturing Community in North America and in the West to a better understanding of its duties, its privileges and its destiny. This was followed in 1931 by a letter known as The Goal of a New World Order, which with a new mastery and assurance in its tone, rises above the level of a letter to co-workers in a common field and begins to reflect the extraordinary power of exposition of thought that must characterize a great leader and a great writer. In a letter of the Guardian written in January 1932 his secretary, obviously referring to The Goal of a New World Order, states: “Shoghi Effendi wrote his last general letter to the Western friends because he felt that the public should be made to understand the attitude the Bahá’í Faith maintains towards prevailing economic and political problems. We should let the world know what the real aim of Bahá’u’lláh was.” Shoghi Effendi associated this letter with the tenth anniversary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing and in it dwells at length on the condition of the world and the change which must be brought about between its component parts in the light of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ AND SHOGHI EFFENDIThe Centre of the Covenant and the future Guardian taken in Haifa on the steps of the Master’s house during the last years they were together‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ AND SHOGHI EFFENDI The Centre of the Covenant and the future Guardian taken in Haifa on the steps of the Master’s house during the last years they were together

The Golden Age of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh followed in 1932 and was a masterly exposition of the Divinity of His Faith which, Shoghi Effendi wrote, feeds itself upon “hidden springs of celestial strength”. Once again he clarified the relationship of this Dispensation to those of the past and to the solution of the present problems facing the world. In 1933 he gave the North American Bahá’ís America and the Most Great Peace, which dealt largely with the role this part of the world has been destined by God to play during this period in history, recalled the self-sacrificing journeys and services of the Master in the West and recapitulated the victories already won for the Faith by this favoured Community. The weighty treatise known as The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh, written in 1934, burst upon the Bahá’ís like a blinding white light. I remember when I first read it I had the most extraordinary feeling as if the whole universe had suddenly expanded around me and I was looking out into its dazzling star-filled immensity; all the frontiers of our understanding flew outwards; the glory of this Cause and the true station of its Central Figures were revealed to us and we were never the same again. One would have thought that the stunning impact of this one communication from the Guardian would kill puniness of soul forever! However Shoghi Effendi felt in his inmost heart about his other writings, I know from his remarks that he considered he had said all he had to say, in many ways, in the Dispensation.

In 1936 he wrote The Unfoldment of World Civilization; once again, as he so often did, Shoghi Effendi links this to the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It was a further exposition of the state of the world, the rapid political, moral and spiritual decline evident in it, the weakening of both Christianity and Islam, the dangers humanity in its heedlessness was running, and the strong, divine, hopeful remedy the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh had to offer. Important and educative as these wonderful letters of the Guardian were they provided, in their wealth of apposite quotations from Bahá’u’lláh’s own words which the Guardian had translated and lavishly cited, spiritual sustenance for the believers, for we know that the Word of the Manifestation of God is the food of the soul. They also contained innumerable beautifully translated passages from the beloved Master’s Tablets. All this bounty the Guardian spread for the believers in feast after feast, nourished them and raised up a new strong generation of servants in the Faith. His words fired their imagination, challenged them to rise to new heights, drove their roots deeper in the fertile soil of the Cause.

It is really during the 1930’s that one sees a change manifest in Shoghi Effendi’s writings. With the rapier of his pen in hand he now stands forth revealed as a giant. Where before one could trace a certain diffidence, an echo of the affliction of soul he had passed through after the ascension of the Master and his assumption of his high office, the crying out of his heart in its longing for the departed beloved of his life, now the tone changes and a man speaks forth his assurance with great confidence and strength. The warrior now knows what war is. He has been surprised, beset, wounded by vicious and spiritually perverse enemies. Something of the tender and trusting youth has gone forever. This change is manifest not only in the nature and power of his directives to the Bahá’í world, the fashion in which he is shaping the administration East and West and welding into a whole the disparate and diversified communities of which it is composed, but in a beauty and assurance in his style that steadily gathers glory as the years go by.

Concurrent with the period when these first illuminating letters on such major subjects were streaming from the pen of Shoghi Effendi, he undertook the translation of two books. In a letter written on 4 July 1930 Shoghi Effendi says “I feel exceedingly tired after a strenuous year of work, particularly as I have managed to add to my labours the translation of the Íqán, which I have already sent to America.” This was the first of his major translations, Bahá’u’lláh’s great exposition on the station and role of the Manifestations of God, more particularly in the light of Islamic teachings and prophecies, known as the Kitab-i-Íqán or Book of Certitude. It was an invaluable adjunct to the western Bahá’ís in their study of the Faith they had embraced and infinitely enriched their understanding of Divine Revelation.

During that same year the Guardian began work on the second book published during this period, a work that was neither a translation of Bahá’u’lláh’s words nor one of Shoghi Effendi’s general letters, but which must be considered a literary masterpiece and one of his most priceless gifts for all time. This was the translation of the first part of the narrative compiled by a contemporary follower of both the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh known as Nabíl, which was published in 1932 under the title The Dawn-Breakers. If the critic and sceptic should be tempted to dismiss the literature of the Bahá’í Faith as typical of the better class of religious books designed for the initiate only, he could not for a moment so brush aside a volume of the quality of Nabíl’s Narrative, which deserves to be counted as a classic among epic narratives in the English tongue. Although ostensibly a translation from the original Persian Shoghi Effendi may be said to have re-created it in English, his translation being comparable to Fitzgerald’s rendering of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat which gave to the world a poem in a foreign language that in many ways far exceeded the merits of the original. The best and most descriptive comments on this masterpiece of the Guardian are to be found in the words of prominent non-Bahá’ís. The playwright Gordon Bottomley wrote: “…living with it has been one of the salient experiences of a lifetime; but beyond that it was a moving experience both in itself and through the psychological light it throws on the New Testament narrative.” The well-known scholar and humanitarian, Dr Alfred W. Martin of the Ethical Culture Society, in his letter of thanks to Shoghi Effendi for sending him Nabíl’s Narrative wrote: “Your magnificent and monumental work…will be a classic and a standard for all time to come. I marvel beyond measure at your ability to prepare such a work for the press over and above all the activities which your regular professional position devolves upon you.” One of his old professors, Bayard Dodge of the American University of Beirut, after receiving the gift of Nabíl’s Narrative from the Guardian wrote to him: “…The last book — The Dawn-Breakers — is an especially valuable contribution. I congratulate you heartily for publishing it. You must have worked very hard to produce such a splendid translation, with such very interesting notes and photographs.”

At a later date he commented at length upon this unique volume:

I have profited by the leisure of the summer to read Nabíl’s Narrative…Everyone interested in religion and also in history owes you a very great debt of gratitude for publishing such a fine piece of work. The deeper side of the work is so impressive, that it seems hardly fitting to compliment you upon some of the practical matters connected with the translation. However, I cannot refrain from telling you how much I appreciate your taking the time from a busy life to accomplish such a large task.

The quality of the English and the delightful ease of reading the translation are extraordinary, as usually a translation is difficult to read. You have been splendid in making the book so neutral and in adding the footnotes, which make the work more a matter of scientific history than anything like propaganda. The force of the book is very great, because the translation is so scientific and the original authorship so spontaneous, that the whole work must seem genuine, even to the most cynical critic.

From the point of view of history, the work is of the greatest possible value. It is also tremendously useful, as it explains the psychology which lies back of our great movements of religious revelation. Of course the chief value is the light that is thrown upon the early history of the Bahai Movement. The lives of the first converts are tremendously inspiring.

I am loaning my copy to Prof. Crawford and Prof. Seelye and hope that many of our professors and students will find time to read such an instructive and stimulating book.

Although such an understanding appreciation of what his work represented from such a source must have pleased and touched Shoghi Effendi there can be no doubt that the letter which Sir E. Denison Ross, the well-known Orientalist, wrote to him from the School of Oriental Studies of the University of London was the most highly prized tribute he received:

27th April, 1932

My dear Shoghi Effendi,

It was most kind of you to remember me and send me copies of your two latest works, which I am very proud to possess, especially as coming from such a quarter. The Dawn Breakers is really one of the most beautiful books I have seen for many years; the paper, printing, and illustrations are all exquisite, and as for your English style, it really could not be bettered, and never does it read like a translation. Allow me to convey my warmest congratulations on your most successful achievement of what you set out to do when you came to Oxford, namely, to attain a perfect command of our language.

Apart from all this, Nabíl’s Narrative will be of the utmost service to me in the lectures I deliver here every Session on the Báb and the Baha.

Trusting you are in good health,

I remain,
Yours very sincerely,
E. Denison Ross
Director

Shoghi Effendi himself, in a letter to Martha Root written on 3 March 1931, described what The Dawn-Breakers is and what its production has meant to him: “I have just completed, after eight months of continuous and hard labour, the translation of the history of the early days of the Cause and have sent the manuscript to the American National Assembly. The work comprises about 600 pages and 200 pages of additional notes that I have gleaned during the summer months from different books. I have been so absorbed in this work that I have been forced to delay my correspondence… I am now so tired and exhausted that I can hardly write…The record is an authentic one and deals chiefly with the Bab. Parts of it have been read to Bahá’u’lláh and been revised by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá… I am so overcome with fatigue caused by the long and severe strain of the work I have undertaken that I must stop and lie down.”

In anticipation of its forthcoming appearance Shoghi Effendi cabled American in October 1931: “Urge all English speaking believers concentrate study Nabil’s immortal narrative as essential preliminary to renewed intensive Teaching Campaign necessitated by completion Mashriqu’l-Adhkár. Strongly feel widespread use of its varied rich and authentic material constitutes most effective weapon to meet challenge of a critical hour. Unhesitatingly recommend it to every prospective visitor of Bahá’u’lláh’s native land.”

The volume Shoghi Effendi recommended to the study of the believers is 748 pages long and contains over 150 photographs; it has a detailed genealogy of the Báb prepared by the guardian in his own hand and reproduced in facsimile; in addition to the text, based on the original of Nabíl, but transfigured through the brilliant handling it received as it passed through the mind and vocabulary of Shoghi Effendi, the copious footnotes he appended, in English and French, collected from innumerable sources, cast an illumination on the events it records which greatly enhances its historical interest and validity. A signed and numbered édition de luxe of 300 copies was published with the general edition. It took Shoghi Effendi almost two years of research, compilation and translation to complete this remarkable volume. In the course of 1930 he sent an Australian Bahá’í photographer to Persia to painstakingly retrace the footsteps of the Báb in His native land, the scenes of His and His followers’ martyrdoms and many historic sites. Had Shoghi Effendi not done this all visual trace of many of these places in more or less their original state would have been lost forever. In addition to selecting the photographs for Nabíl’s Narrative Shoghi Effendi made very careful arrangements to send to America what he described as a “priceless trust”, no less than the original Tablets of the Báb to His nineteen disciples, and the infinitely precious one addressed to Bahá’u’lláh as “Him Who Will Be Made Manifest”; these were reproduced in full in faultless facsimiles. He chose as his frontispiece a coloured reproduction of the interior of the Shrine of the Báb. At last the Guardian had a worthy gift entirely his own to bestow upon the one he loved best:

To
The Greatest Holy Leaf
The last Survivor of a Glorious and Heroic Age
I Dedicate This Work
In Token of a
Great Debt of Gratitude and Love

The Bahá’ís of the West emerged from the experience of reading this history of the life and times of the Báb transfigured; it was as if some of the precious blood of those early martyrs had been spattered upon them. They caught a glimpse of the tradition behind them, they saw that this was a Faith for which one carried one’s life in one’s hand, they understood what Shoghi Effendi was talking about and what he expected from them when he called them the spiritual descendants of the Dawn-Breakers. The seeds this book planted in the hearts of the western followers of Bahá’u’lláh grew and matured in the Ten Year Crusade, and its harvest will continue to be garnered ever more abundantly as the Divine Plan of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá goes on unfolding in its conquest of the entire globe.

In 1935 Shoghi Effendi again present the western Bahá’ís with a magnificent gift, published under the title Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, which the Guardian himself described, in a letter to Sir Herbert Samuel, as “consisting of a selection of the most characteristic and hitherto unpublished passages from the outstanding works of the Author of the Bahá’í Revelation.” Remembering the scanty pages of the New Testament, the reputed words of Buddha and the mere handful of sayings of some other Divine luminaries, which nevertheless have transfigured for centuries the lives of millions of men, the Gleanings alone seems to provide a source of guidance and inspiration sufficient for the spiritual Dispensation of any Prophet. Professor Norman Bentwich, in thanking Shoghi Effendi for a copy of the Gleanings he had sent him, said “I prize it with the other fruits of your industrious piety” — truly a beautiful description of the nature of Shoghi Effendi’s work to bring to the Western World the words of the Manifestation of God in this day. But surely the most treasured tribute to this book was that of Queen Marie of Rumania who told Martha Root: “even doubters would find a powerful strength in it, if they would read it alone, and would give their souls time to expand.” To Shoghi Effendi himself the Queen wrote, in January 1936, after receiving from him a copy, “May I send you my most grateful thanks for the wonderful book, every word of which is precious to me, and doubly so in this time of anxiety and unrest”; to which the Guardian replied that he felt his efforts in translating it had been fully rewarded as she said she had derived benefit from reading them.

This was followed by the translation in 1936–7 of what might almost be termed a companion volume, comparable in richness and complementary in material, namely, Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh. Again we find the Guardian’s former professor, Bayard Dodge, writing to him with a shrewd appraisal of what such a work involves: “The translation of deep and poetic thoughts, such as those in the Prayers and Meditations, requires an enormous amount of hard work…I have told you before how much I marvel when I see the quality of English that you use.” “When he had received the Gleanings Professor Dodge had written to the Guardian: “You have mastered English in such a remarkable way that I am sure the sayings do not lose their meaning and charm because of translation.” And when Shoghi Effendi’s translation of The Hidden Words reached him he had written, again with singular insight into what such a work signifies “I realize how exceedingly difficult it is to translate beautiful Oriental thoughts into English and I congratulate you for the quality of the language which you have used.”

Immediately after the publication of this diamond-mine of communion with God, unsurpassed in any religious literature of the world, Shoghi Effendi set to work on a longer general letter than he had ever before written, which appeared in 1939 under the title of The Advent of Divine Justice. It was written during the year the Guardian remained in Europe owing to terrorist activities in Palestine, and was addressed to the Bahá’ís throughout the United States and Canada. In it Shoghi Effendi set forth, as never before, the role this Community was destined to play in the unfolding destiny of man on this planet. It defined the objectives of the recently opened Seven Year Plan, the first step in implementing the provisions of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan, and pointed out that upon the success of this greatest joint enterprise ever undertaken by Bahá’u’lláh’s followers must depend the fate of all future activities in the promulgation of His World Order throughout the other continents of the globe. With a kind but firm hand Shoghi Effendi held up before the face of the North American Community the mirror of the civilization by which they were surrounded and warned them, in terms that riveted the eye and chilled the heart, against its evils, pointing out to them a truth few of them had ever pondered, namely, that the very evils of that civilization were the mystic reason for their homeland having been chosen by God as the Cradle of His World Order in this day. As the warnings contained in The Advent of Divine Justice are an integral part of the vision and guidance Shoghi Effendi gave to the faithful throughout his ministry, they cannot be passed over in silence if we are to obtain any correct understanding of his own mission. In no uncertain terms he castigated the moral laxity, political corruption, racial prejudice and corrosive materialism of their society, contrasting it with the exalted standards inculcated by Bahá’u’lláh in His Teachings, and enjoined by Him upon His followers. It warned them of the war so soon to come and admonished them to stand fast, in spite of every trial that might in future afflict them and their nations, and discharge their sacred trust by prosecuting to a triumphal outcome the Plan they had so recently inaugurated throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Another general letter — this time addressed to the body of the Bahá’ís throughout the West — appeared in print in 1941. It was called The Promised Day Is Come and, together with The Advent of Divine Justice, sets forth the root-decay of the present-day world. In it, written during the second year of the war, Shoghi Effendi thunders his denunciations of the perversity and sinfulness of this generation, using as his missiles quotations from the lips of Bahá’u’lláh Himself: “The time for the destruction of the world and its people hath arrived.” “The promised day is come, the day when tormenting trials will have surged above your heads, and beneath your feet, saying: ‘Taste ye what your hands have wrought!’” “Soon shall the blasts of His chastisement beat upon you, and the dust of hell enshroud you.” “And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake.” “The day is approaching when its (civilization) flame will devour the cities, when the Tongue of Grandeur will proclaim: ‘The Kingdom is God’s, the Almighty, the All-Praised!’” “The day will soon come, whereon they will cry out for help and receive no answer.” “We have fixed a time for you, O people! If ye fail, at the appointed hour, to turn towards God, He, verily, will lay violent hold on you, and will cause grievous afflictions to assail you from every direction. How severe indeed is the chastisement with which your Lord will then chastise you!” “O ye peoples of the world! Know verily that an unforeseen calamity is following you and that grievous retribution awaiteth you. Think not the deeds ye have committed have been blotted from My sight. By My Beauty! All your doings hath My pen graven with open characters upon tablets of chrysolite.”

The Guardian paints a terrible, terrifying and majestic picture of the plight to which the human race has been reduced through its steadfast rejection of Bahá’u’lláh. The “world-afflicting ordeal that has laid its grip upon mankind” is, he wrote, “primarily a judgment of God pronounced against the peoples of the earth, who, for a century, have refused to recognize the One Whose advent had been promised to all religions”. Shoghi Effendi recapitulates the sufferings, the persecution, the calumny and cruelty to which the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were subjected and recounts the tale of Their blamelessness, Their patience and fortitude in the face of these trials and Their final weariness with this world as they gathered Their skirts about Them and repaired to the Celestial Realms of Their Creator. Shoghi Effendi enumerates the sins of mankind against these Sinless Ones and points the finger of blame at the leaders of mankind, at its kings, its highest ecclesiastical personages and rulers to whom the twin Manifestations of God had directed the full force of Their Message and because of whose neglect of their supreme duty to pay heed to the Call of God, Bahá’u’lláh Himself stated: “From two ranks amongst men power hath been seized: kings and ecclesiastics.”

So fascinating, profuse and vast in subject matter are the writings of Shoghi Effendi that when one starts to even touch upon a book like The Promised Day Is Come one finds one’s self wandering away down this great trail of thought he blazed and forgetting that the purpose of these pages is not to review his books but to attempt a review of the many facets of his life and accomplishments. Nevertheless I cannot resist quoting from a letter a very humble Bahá’í wrote to him when this book was published: “The Promised Day has Come is a peach of a book for me, I love it, now all I need is the clear understanding in my heart. Thank you, Shoghi Effendi for your kindness, you can’t know how much you did for me… What is it we ever did for you? You did everything for us…”

Between these two so-called general letters — The Advent of Divine Justice and The Promised Day Is Come — Shoghi Effendi gave the western believers his fifth and last book of translations of the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, undertaken during the winter of 1939–40, at another of the most difficult and hazardous periods of his life, and mailed to America for publication on the eve of his departure for Europe in the teeth of the European war. The Epistle to the Son of the Wolf was Bahá’u’lláh’s last major work and contains a selection from His own Writings made by Himself (surely a unique occurrence in religious history!) during the last two years of His life and has therefore a special position of its own in the literature of our Faith. In a cable shortly prior to its publication Shoghi Effendi said “Devoutly hope its study may contribute further enlightenment deeper understanding verities on which effective prosecution teaching administrative undertakings ultimately depend…”

From an entry in my own diary, dated 22 January 1944, I quote: “Today the very last corrections of Prospect and Retrospect, the last instalment of Shoghi Effendi’s book, were made and tomorrow it will be mailed to Horace. It has been almost two years — or maybe it is more! — since the Guardian started. It has meant almost continuous work for him and been a terrible burden and strain, but it is certainly worth it! It is a marvelous book.” With such small recordings are the great events of a life often noted by those who participate in them and arrive, exhausted, at the end, too tired to be anything but trite and circumstantial! Also, at this point too tired to remember that it had actually taken over two years to write what Shoghi Effendi and I referred to as “the book” — it received its beautiful title at the end.

God Passes By, the most brilliant and wondrous tale of a century that has ever been told, is truly a “Mother” of future histories, a book wherein every word counts, every sentence burgeons with thought, every thought leads the way to a field of its own. Packed with salient facts it has the range and precision of snowflake crystals, each design perfect in itself, each theme brilliant in outline, co-ordinated, balanced, self-contained, a matrix for those who follow on and study, evaluate and elaborate the Message and Order of Bahá’u’lláh. It was one of the most concentrated and stupendous achievements of Shoghi Effendi’s life, the only true book we have from his pen — because all his other communications were, no doubt due to his profound modesty and humility, in the nature of letters addressed to a specific community or section of the Bahá’í world.

The method of Shoghi Effendi in writing God Passes By was to sit down for a year and read every book of the Bahá’í Writings in Persian and English, and every book written about the Faith by Bahá’ís, whether in manuscript form or published, and everything written by non-Bahá’ís that contained significant references to it. I think, in all, this must have covered the equivalent of at least two hundred books. As he read he made notes and compiled and marshalled his facts. Anyone who has ever tackled a work of an historical nature knows how much research is involved, how often one has to decided, in the light of relevant material, between this date given in one place and that date given in another, how back-breaking the whole work is. How much more so then was such a work for the Guardian who had, at the same time, to prepare for the forthcoming Centenary of the Faith and make decisions regarding the design of the superstructure of the Báb’s Shrine. When all the ingredients of his book had been assembled Shoghi Effendi commenced weaving them into the fabric of his picture of the significance of the first century of the Bahá’í Dispensation. It was not his purpose, he said, to write a detailed history of those hundred years, but rather to review the salient features of the birth and rise of the Faith, the establishment of its administrative institutions, and the series of crises which had propelled it forward in a mysterious manner, through the release of the Divine power within it, from victory to victory. He revealed to us the panorama of events which, he wrote, “the revolution of a hundred years…has unrolled before our eyes” and lifted the curtain on the opening acts of what he asserted was one “indivisible, stupendous and sublime drama, whose mystery no intellect can fathom, whose climax no eye can even dimly perceive, whose conclusion no mind can adequately foreshadow.”

How many hundreds of hours Shoghi Effendi spent on reading his sources and compiling his notes, how many days and months in painstakingly writing out in long hand — and often rewriting — the majestic procession of his chapters, how many more wearisome days he sat at his small portable typewriter, hammering away with a few fingers, sometimes ten hours on end, as he typed the final copy of his work! And how many more hours we spent late into the night, when the daily typing was over, seated side by side at his big table in his bedroom, each with three copies of the typescript before us, proof-reading, making corrections, putting in by hand the thousands of accents on transliterated words which Shoghi Effendi would read aloud, until his eyes were bloodshot and blurred, his back and arms stiff with exhaustion, as we worked on to finish the entire chapter or part of a chapter he had typed that day. It had to be done. There was no possibility of working at a slower pace. He was racing against time to present the Bahá’ís of the West with this inimitable gift on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the inception of their Faith. In spite of the fact that he mailed off to America the corrected manuscript in instalments, conditions in the United States delayed publication and the book was not off the press until the middle of November 1944.

It is not enough to say “See what the man has done.” One must ask how and under what circumstances he did it. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote the Tablets of the Divine Plan when He was old, worn out and in great danger at the end of World War I. Shoghi Effendi, already crushed and overburdened from the weight of twenty years of Guardianship, when the tides of World War II threatened to sweep over the Holy Land and engulf him and the World Centre of the Faith in one catastrophic flow, during a period when his home was convulsed by the repercussions of Covenant-breaking now affecting his own family, set himself the task of appraising for all time the significance of the events of the first century of the Bahá’í Era. On rare occasions it was my misfortune during these years to see him weep as if his heart would break — so great was his agony, so overwhelming the pressures that bore down upon him!

Not content with the history he had just completed in English, Shoghi Effendi now turned his thoughts to the loving and loyal Community of Bahá’u’lláh’s long-suffering and persecuted followers in His native land and began the composition of another memorial to the first hundred years of the Bahá’í Faith in Persia. This was a comparable, though shorter version of the same subject, different in nature but no less splendid in both the facts it presented and the brilliancy of its language. Whereas I had sat through most of his writing of God Passes By in English there was no point in my doing so for this epistle. The difference between the style of Shoghi Effendi’s letters and discourse in Persian — liberally sprinkled with Arabic — and every-day Persian is comparable to the difference between Shakespearian English and modern journalese! My command of Persian and ignorance of Arabic were such that I could not catch more than three or four words out of ten. Nevertheless he would read to me, or rather chant to me, some of its passages and the majestic flow of his words, their perfection and power, were evident to me even though I could not fully follow their meaning. I remember how, as I approached his room, I would hear his voice chanting his composition to himself as he wrote, infinitely plaintive, infinitely beautiful. It was also fascinating: he would chant the sentence he was writing until he struck a bump, a word that would not fit in smoothly, the lovely voice, unconscious of itself, would stop, then go back to the beginning of the sentence and start off again up to the same point, if he did not get over it that time this would be repeated until he did! It was like some wonderful bird trying out its melodies to itself, lost in its own world. This epistle ran to a hundred pages in fine handwriting and is another of Shoghi Effendi’s masterpieces. These two reviews of a hundred years were the Guardian’s priceless Centenary gifts to the Bahá’ís, wrought with great cost to his strength and health, and devised during years when the world was rocked by its greatest war.

For the next thirteen years Shoghi Effendi neither translated nor wrote any more books. It is our great loss that he no longer had the time to do so. The international community of the Faith he had been at such pains to build up since 1921 had now reached such proportions that it consumed his time and strength and left little of either for the intensely creative work he was so richly endowed by nature to produce. However, he continued to pour forth his guidance to the believers and their national bodies through letters, and particularly through long cables. By 1941 Shoghi Effendi had already begun to enumerate the victories the Bahá’ís were winning throughout the world. Out of this type of message ultimately developed the thrilling Riḍván reviews of the work accomplished each year, reviews which made the believers see their labours in every country as part of a great whole.

Since the inception of his ministry Shoghi Effendi had increasingly used the medium of telegrams and cablegrams, not only because they saved time but because, as he explained to me, of their psychological effect; a cable conveys a sense of urgency and drama and is often a better way of driving home one’s point. Shoghi Effendi developed what one might call the language of cables to such a high degree that they became a literary accomplishment. Not infrequently he sent cables the length of letters. He thought in the abbreviated form when he wrote them. It was not a question of expressing a thought in the normal style of composition and then eliminating all the worlds that could be left out and still convey the meaning; from the beginning he did not think those words into his text at all and thus the style is very graphic, powerful and dramatic. It loses in style — and often in correct meaning — when someone interpolates it with all the “if’s” and “and’s” and “of’s” and “the’s” and so on he thinks should be there to make it clear. To insert such interpolations without parentheses is an unwarranted interference in the texts of our Faith, as it means some editor has inserted into Shoghi Effendi’s own sentences words that he thinks will clarify what Shoghi Effendi meant; on the other hand to insert anything at all, even in parentheses, seems to imply the reader is a fool and not able to understand for himself what the Guardian meant.

Until the end of his days Shoghi Effendi continued to inspire the Bahá’í world with his instructions and thoughts; words of great power and significance, equal in bulk to a number of volumes, flowed from his pen. But an epoch had ended with the close of the war and the increase in administrative activity all over the world. Although his driving power never left him, and the hours of work he spent on the Cause of God each day never diminished until he passed away, Shoghi Effendi was deeply tired.

The life work of Shoghi Effendi might well be divided into four major aspects: his translations of the Words of Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Nabíl’s narrative; his own writings such as the history of a century, published as God Passes By, as well as an uninterrupted stream of instructive communications from his pen which pointed out to the believers the significance, the time and the method of the building up of their administrative institutions; an unremitting programme to expand and consolidate the material assets of a world-wide Faith, which not only involved the completion, erection or beautification of the Bahá’í Holy Places at the World Centre but the construction of Houses of Worship and the acquisition of national and local headquarters and endowments in various countries throughout the East and the West; and, above all, a masterly orientation of thought towards the concepts enshrined in the teachings of the Faith and the orderly classification of those teachings into what might well be described as a vast panoramic view of the meaning, implications, destiny and purpose of the religion of Bahá’u’lláh, indeed of religious truth itself in its portrayal of man as the apogee of God’s creation, evolving towards the consummation of his development — the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Chapter 11

The Development of the International Institutions of the Faith

The development of the World Centre of the Faith under the aegis of the Guardian represents one of the major achievements of his life and can only be compared in importance to the spread and consolidation of the Cause itself throughout the entire globe. Of the unique significance of this Centre Shoghi Effendi wrote that it was: “…the Holy Land — the Qiblih of a world community, the heart from which the energizing influences of a vivifying Faith continually stream, and the seat and centre around which the diversified activities of a divinely appointed Administrative Order revolve”.

When in 1921 Shoghi Effendi assumed the responsibilities conferred upon him in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Bahá’í holdings in Haifa and Akka consisted of the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh in Bahjí, which was situated in a house belonging to the Afnan heirs of the daughter of Bahá’u’lláh, in whose home He had been interred after His ascension; the Shrine of the Báb on Mt Carmel, surrounded by a few plots of land, purchased during the lifetime of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, on one of which stood the Oriental Pilgrim House; the house of ‘Abbúd, where Bahá’u’lláh had resided for many years in Akka and in which He revealed the Kitáb-i-Aqdas; the Riḍván and adjacent gardens; and the house of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Haifa. The Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh, adjoining His Shrine, was occupied by the Arch-Covenant-breaker Muḥammad ‘Alí; and the title to almost all the Bahá’í properties was registered either in the names of various members of the family or in those of a few Bahá’ís. So insecure was the entire legal position of the Faith and its properties that the work Shoghi Effendi accomplished during his ministry in safeguarding and adding to these Holy Places, in extending the lands surrounding them, in registering these lands, in many instances in the names of locally incorporated Palestine Branches of various National Bahá’í Assemblies, and in securing exemption from municipal and national taxes for them, is little short of miraculous. When we remember that his position in 1922 was so precarious that Muḥammad ‘Alí was emboldened to seize the keys of Bahá’u’lláh’s Holy Tomb, that many Muslim and Christian elements, jealous of the universal favour ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had enjoyed at the end of His life, were only too anxious to discredit His young successor in the eyes of the authorities, and that Shoghi Effendi himself had been immediately overwhelmed by grave problems of every conceivable nature, within and without the Cause, we cannot but marvel anew at the wisdom and statesmanship that characterized his conduct of affairs at the World Centre.

The Heroic Age of the Faith had passed. What Shoghi Effendi termed the Formative Age dawned with his own ministry, and was shaped for all time by him. Fully realizing that neither his own station nor his capacities were the same as those of his beloved Master, Shoghi Effendi refused to imitate Him in any way, in dress, in habits, in manner. To do so would have been, he believed, completely lacking in both judgment and respect. A new day had come to the Cause, new methods were required. This was to be the era of emancipation of the Faith, of recognition of its independent status, of the establishment of its Order, of the up-building of its institutions. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had come to the Holy Land a prisoner and exile; although He could proclaim, during His travels in the West and through His letters, the independent character of the Cause of His Father, locally He could not, at the end of His life, break through the chrysalis of common custom that had bound Him so long to the predominantly Muslim community; to do things ungracefully and hurtfully was no part of the Bahá’í Teachings. But Shoghi Effendi, returning from his studies in England, young, western in training and habit, was now in a position to do this. However much loved and esteemed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had been, He was not viewed as the Head of an independent world religion but rather as the saintly protagonist of a great spiritual philosophy of universal brotherhood, a distinguished notable among other notables in Palestine. By sheer force of personality He had dominated those around Him. But Shoghi Effendi knew he could never do this in the circumstances surrounding him at the outset of his Guardianship, neither had he any desire to do so. His function everywhere — but particularly at the World Centre — was to win recognition of the Cause as a world religion entitled to the same status and prerogatives that other religions, such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism, enjoyed.

From the very beginning he appreciated the fact that if he was to establish the World Centre on a proper basis during the years in which the Bahá’í Faith must inevitably expand abroad, then locally his own position — which was not that of a local or national Head but the World Head of that Faith — must be put on an entirely different footing. Palestine, although it was sacred to these three great World Faiths, was not at one and the same time the spiritual and administrative heart of any one of them, and therefore no one in the country held a comparable position to his own. He, however, because he was the Head of a comparable Faith, and resided at both its spiritual and administrative heart, should enjoy the right of precedence over all other religious Heads in the country. Although Shoghi Effendi, from the outset of his ministry, understood this, he was wise enough to realize he had no hope at that time of winning others over to this view. He displayed his brilliance by not entering into the activities of the Master, and not mingling freely at various social functions, official or otherwise. He well knew that among the local pundits he could not hope to receive the right of precedence his position deserved and that should he be relegated as the Bahá’í representative to a secondary position, owing to his youth and the power the large Muslim community wielded, the situation would crystallize about this precedent and it would be almost impossible later to assume his rightful place as Head of a World Religion. Primarily because of this, for thirty-six years, with one or two exceptions, Shoghi Effendi avoided all government and municipal functions and took no part in social life whatsoever, constantly, albeit tactfully, insisting that he or whomsoever he chose to send in his stead should receive the precedence he deserved; by the end of his life he had practically won this long battle and although the Bahá’í representative was not always accorded the priority Shoghi Effendi desired, he effectively prevented that representative from being allocated a permanently minor position at official functions. On the rare occasions he himself attended state functions in Israel, he received his due as the Head of a World Faith. In view of his constant preoccupation with his work, the repeated crises that rocked him all his life and the demands pilgrims made upon his time, to give up all social life was no great deprivation for Shoghi Effendi. But it did add to his isolation and derived him effectively of any intellectual companionship and stimulation he might have derived from meeting men of calibre and significance.

During the first two decades of his ministry, however, Shoghi Effendi had more or less close personal contact with various High Commissioners and District Commissioners and through this he was able to win back the keys of Bahá’u’lláh’s Tomb and assert his undisputed right to its custody, to obtain possession of the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh, to receive permission to bury ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s closest relatives in the vicinity of the Báb’s Shrine, in the centre of a residential district on Mt Carmel, to have the Bahá’í Marriage Certificate accepted by the Government on the same footing as that of Jews, Christians and Muslims and, above all, through his persistent efforts, to succeed in impressing upon the British authorities the sacred nature of the Bahá’í holdings in Palestine and in winning from them the exemption from taxes, both municipal and national, which he sought.

Bahjí was always Shoghi Effendi’s first preoccupation and he was determined to safeguard not only the Shrine where Bahá’u’lláh lay buried but the last home He had occupied in this world and the buildings and lands that adjoined it. From the time Bahá’u’lláh passed away in 1892 until 1929 Muḥammad ‘Alí and his relatives had been in possession of this home, known as the “Qasr”, or “Palace”, of ‘Údí Khammar, a building unique in Palestine for its majestic style of architecture and which had been purchased for Bahá’u’lláh towards the end of His life. This Mansion was not falling into a serious and pitiful state of disrepair, stained, rainworn, its roof caving in, its once lovely rooms abandoned or used as store rooms. In November 1927 Shoghi Effendi wrote to one of the friends that “The Qasr is still occupied by Muhammad ‘Ali and Majdiddin [his cousin] has sent a message requesting us to repair the roof which may collapse at any time. He has been told emphatically that we shall not proceed with any repair unless and until they evacuate the entire building.” Eventually it seems the situation of the Mansion reached a point where the Covenant-breakers had no alternative and were forced to comply with Shoghi Effendi’s demand. On 27 November 1929, the day before the eighth anniversary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing, Shoghi Effendi cabled a relative: ”…Qasr evacuated. Restoration commenced”, and on 5 December he wrote to one of the friends: “…the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh, occupied for about forty years by Muhammad ‘Ali and his followers, has at last been evacuated and the enclosed photograph will indicate in what a state they have left it! Restorative work has commenced and the pilgrims are already visiting the room where Bahá’u’lláh passed away d where He passed the most peaceful and happiest days of His life.” Two years later the work was completed. Shoghi Effendi had had the building renovated and refurbished in all its original beauty. He brought one of the Bahá’ís who had often been there in his youth, and was capable and conscientious, to supervise the work. The roof, the woodwork, the frescoes on the balcony, the intricate stencilled decoration on the walls of all the rooms on the upper floor, the fine wooden-beam ceilings — all were restored to their original state. Having done this Shoghi Effendi proceeded to carpet it with valuable rugs sent by the Bahá’ís in Persia, to hang rare illuminations in the writing of the famous Bahá’í calligraphist, Mishkin Qalam, on its walls, to furnish it with bookcases filled with the translations of Bahá’í literature in many languages, to place innumerable photographs and documents of historic interest in its various rooms and then to invite the British High commissioner to come and see it, he himself accompanying him on this tour of inspection. When all had been viewed Shoghi Effendi asked His Excellency if he did not feel that such a place as this, so sacred in its associations to Bahá’ís the world over, far transcended the right to be considered any individual’s private residence and should be preserved as a place of pilgrimage and an historical museum. His Excellency, no doubt as much impressed by the advocate as by the testimony, agreed, and the Mansion remained in Shoghi Effendi’s hands. By April 1932 the pilgrims were privileged to sleep overnight in this historic and sacred spot and its doors were opened to non-Bahá’í visitors as well, who wandered through its beautiful rooms and gazed on the impressive array of testimonials to the world-wide nature of the Cause, on the innumerable photostatic copies of Bahá’í Assembly incorporations, marriage licenses and other historical material as well as photographs of the martyrs and pioneers of the Faith.

I remember how, in spite of the fact that Shoghi Effendi had possession of the Mansion, he was constantly irked, until the very end of his life, by the fact that Covenant-breakers still occupied the adjacent house. The night of the Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh, when the Guardian, at the head of the Bahá’í men, would proceed to His Shrine after visiting the room in the Mansion in which He had passed away, he was obliged to pass in front of the room where the Covenant-breakers were keeping their own vigil and often they would make audible comments on him as he passed, adding to the distress of a night that was already distressing enough in its associations. It was not until June 1957 that he was able to cable the Bahá’í world: “With feelings profound joy exultation thankfulness announce morrow sixty-fifth anniversary Ascension Bahá’u’lláh signal epoch making victory won over ignoble band breakers His Covenant which course over six decades has entrenched itself precincts Most Holy Shrine Bahá’í world”.

From the time, in January 1923, when he had written to the eldest son of Bahá’u’lláh’s daughter requesting him to make a definite pronouncement that whatever the legal rights of these Afnans might be the Shrine at Bahjí because of its nature belonged to the Bahá’í Movement, until the end of his life, Shoghi Effendi struggled to place on an unshakeable foundation the legal position of this Sacred Spot, in spite of the opposition of that tainted band of relatives who resisted his every effort for over thirty years. It was due to the mysterious workings of Providence that after the War of Independence, through the mass exodus of the Arabs, including many enemies of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi was able to at last emerge triumphant from this long struggle. In 1952 the long-coveted lands surrounding the Tomb and Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh, amounting to over 145,000 square metres, were obtained. As early as 1931 Shoghi Effendi had endeavoured to get the government to requisition part of this land — which had originally belonged to the Mansion property but had been usurped by the Muslim friends and supporters of Muḥammad ‘Alí — but it had refused to intervene and the asking price was over ten times the market value of the land. The Guardian had to wait over twenty years until the fortunes of war brought it back to its rightful owners. In addition to this both the Pilgrim House, which had been under the control of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá since the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh, and a building known as the Tea House of the Master, where He often entertained the believers — including the first group of pilgrims from the West — were acquired by the Guardian during the last years of his life. In 1952 the Government of Israel lifted from the civil court in Haifa a case brought against the Guardian by the Covenant-breakers in connection with the demolition of a house in Bahjí, and supported his contention that the issue was a religious one, thus enabling him to emerge once more triumphant in his struggle with the entrenched enemies of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who had never relinquished their jealously guarded base near Bahá’u’lláh’s Holy Shrine. Finally, in 1957, again through the co-operation of the State authorities, Shoghi Effendi was able to secure an expropriation order, on the grounds of their nearness to a sacred place of pilgrimage, for the houses occupied by what he termed the “wretched remnants” of the Covenant-breakers and thus at long last bring about what he described as the cleansing of the Ḥaram-i-Aqdas of this spiritual defilement. So hotly was this expropriation order, which involved their eviction from Bahjí, contested by the Covenant-breakers that they took it before the Supreme Court of Israel, lost their case and were obliged to leave once and for all.

It had been the expressed desire of the Guardian himself to supervise the demolition of these houses that abutted on the Mansion and were right next to the Shrine, but he never returned to the Holy Land. When, in fulfilment of his own plan, they were pulled down, a few months after his passing, it was found that the large formal garden he had made in front of them was so accurately measured out and planned that it could be continued — I am tempted to say rolled out like a carpet — with complete accuracy right over the place where they had stood and up to the very wall of the Mansion.

Ever mindful of what was to him the deepest trust of his Guardianship — to fulfil to the letter in so far as lay within his power every wish and instruction of his beloved Master — Shoghi Effendi’s second greatest concern at the World Centre was the Shrine of the Báb. The work connected with this second holiest Shrine of the Bahá’í Faith had two aspects: the completion of the building itself and the protection and preservation of its surroundings. The first involved the construction of three additional rooms as well as a superstructure — an entire building in itself — which is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful edifices on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and the second the gradual purchase, during a third of a century, of a great protective belt of land surrounding the Shrine and reaching from the top to the bottom of Mt Carmel. This area of over fifty acres is best discerned at night, as it lies a huge unlighted “V” in the heart of the city, in whose centre seems pinned a golden brooch, the flood-lit Shrine of the Báb, resting majestically on the bosom of the mountain, set off by the velvety black space of its gardens and lands. For thirty-six years Shoghi Effendi devoted himself to the development of this Sacred Spot in the midst of God’s Holy Mountain; so impressive, so unique and of such vast proportions was his work there that it seems to me some of his very essence must be incorporated in its stones and soil.

It took more than one hundred years for Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi to finally discharge the sacred trust which the Báb’s remains represented for them, a trust which lasted from the day of His martyrdom in 1850 until the final completion of His Shrine in 1953. From the moment when He was apprised of the execution of the Báb until He ascended in 1892 Bahá’u’lláh had watched over that Sacred Dust, supervising its removal from one place of concealment to another. During a visit to Mt Carmel He had pointed out to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with His own hand where the Bab’s body was to rest forever, instructing Him to purchase this piece of land and bring the hidden remains from Persia and inter them there. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Himself a prisoner, succeeded in having the small wooden box containing the remains of the Bab and His martyred companion conveyed, by caravan and boat, from Persia to Akka. When the first group of western pilgrims visited the prison-city in the winter of 1898–9, this precious casket was already concealed in the Master’s home, its presence a carefully guarded secret.

One day in 1915, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stood on the steps of His home and looked up at the Báb’s Tomb, He remarked to one of His companions: “The sublime Shrine has remained unbuilt. Ten-twenty thousand pounds are required. God willing it will be accomplished. We have carried its construction to this stage.” To a pilgrim He had said: “The Shrine of the Báb will be built in the most beautiful and majestic style”, and had even gone so far as to order a Turk in Haifa to make him a sketch of how it would appear when completed. But in spite of the clear concept He had of the nature of the Shrine He desired so much to build for the Forerunner of the Faith, the ultimate task was to fall to Shoghi Effendi.

In 1928 he had work started on the excavation of the solid rock of the mountain behind the existing building in order to make place for the three extra, massive, vaulted and high-ceilinged rooms required to complete the ground floor. By 14 February 1929 we find him cabling one of the Afnans: “Work on Maqám started” (“Maqám” was the Persian term used for the Báb’s Shrine), and in December of that same year he informs a friend: “the construction of the three additional chambers contiguous to the Shrine on Mt. Carmel will soon be completed and the plan of the Master of having nine chambers as the ground floor of the Mausoleum of the Báb’s realized.” It is interesting to note that the completion of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s original structure, in itself a major undertaking, and the costly and exacting restoration of the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh were undertaken during the same year and took about the same length of time.

In everything Shoghi Effendi did he was guided by what he knew to be the desire of the Master. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had succeeded, by 1907, in completing only six of the nine rooms which would compose a square, in the centre of which the body of the Bab would repose, and already during that year meetings were held in the ones facing the sea. In 1909, with His own hands, He had laid the remains of the Martyr-Herald of the Faith away in their final resting-place. The next year He set out on His western journeys, the war ensued and He passed away. He had, however, expressed His concept of the finished structure: it should have an arcade surrounding the original nine rooms He had planned and be surmounted by a dome. The thought of this plan of the Master never left Shoghi Effendi but its realization seemed very indefinite. Where and when would he find the architect to design such a Shrine and the money to build it?

The answer came in a most unexpected way. In 1940 my mother died in Buenos Aires and my father was left entirely alone, as I was his only child. With that kindness of his which was so incomparable Shoghi Effendi said to me one day that now my mother was dead, my father’s place was with us. He invited him to join us and in spite of the war, whose arena was rapidly spreading, my father was able to do so. For years any construction work Shoghi Effendi had undertaken on the Bahá’í properties he had carried out with the occasional help of a local architect or an engineer. In addition to the three rooms added to the Bab’s Shrine, the erection of the large and distinctive monuments over the graves of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s immediate family and the restoration of the Mansion, Shoghi Effendi had built a handsome entrance to the resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf, had demolished Dumit’s house when he succeeded in purchasing it and used the stones, doors and window frames to construct an annex to the Oriental Pilgrim House and had built a bridge over a street to carry one of the terraces in front of the Shrine. In 1937 my father had designed a few additional rooms to be added to the ones occupied by the Guardian on the roof of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s home. With the exception of such things as these, which had required professional help, Shoghi Effendi invariably worked out for himself the dimensions of stairs and minor entrances he placed in the gardens. I had had no experience myself of such things and I can remember how, when he once wanted to build a more pretentious flight of steps, flanked by two piers, leading to the Báb’s Shrine at the end of a new path, we worked for hours on the proportions and I finally made him a paper model to scale which we viewed with considerable misgivings! The finished product, however, was not only interesting but satisfactory. The point is that the Guardian was not a professional and did not wish to spend money unnecessarily on an architect for such small things, which posed a problem for him and consumed his time for nothing. One day, when he came home from the Shrine gardens, he asked me how I thought such and such dimensions for a flight of steps would look. I asked him why, when he had one of Canada’s best architects living across the street in the Western Pilgrim House, he did not ask Daddy to work it out for him. I remember he looked at me in surprise and asked if I thought he could. I assured him that for my father it was child’s play to design such a thing and he could do it at once. It was not that Shoghi Effendi lacked confidence in him as an architect; he had already sent to him in Montreal photographs of an iron gate he had ordered for the bottom terrace of the Shrine and asked him to incorporate this gate in a design for its completion; indeed, he had liked the plan of my father very much, but could not come to an agreement with the City about the conjunction of his terrace and the municipal property and so the scheme was never carried out. It was just that it never occurred to him, after years of struggle with such problems alone, that he now had someone who could do these things for him. This marked the beginning of a beautiful partnership. I have never known two people who had such a perfect sense of proportion as Shoghi Effendi and my father and of the two the Guardian’s was the finer.

It seems to me, in looking back on Shoghi Effendi’s life, that aside from the great sweep of the Faith, whose victories meant so much to him, Martha Root in one way and Sutherland Maxwell in another brought him more deep personal satisfaction than any other believers. They were very much alike in some ways, saintly and modest souls who adored Shoghi Effendi and gladly gave him the best they had in service and loyalty. Though Martha’s services were far more important for the Cause, the talents of Sutherland became a medium through which Shoghi Effendi could express at last with ease the great creative and artistic side of his own nature and this gave him both satisfaction and happiness. Until the end of his life my father designed for him stairs, walls, pillars, lights and various entrances to the gardens on Mt Carmel. In addition to being an experienced architect he drew and painted beautifully and could model and carve anything with his hands. I remember one night, after Shoghi Effendi had asked him to design for him a main entrance to the Shrine property, incorporating the ironwork already executed for the above-mentioned, uncompleted last terrace of the Shrine, I brought this design to him. He was sitting in bed and when I handed him the small coloured drawing he gazed at it fixedly in silence and then said “It’s not fair!” I was considerably taken aback by this and asked him what he meant. “Why”, he said, “no one can resist anything when it looks as beautiful as this!” He not only built the entrance but had the sketch framed and hung on the wall beside his bed.

Having tried my father on various small projects and found him far from wanting, suddenly — I think it was towards the end of 1942 — Shoghi Effendi told him he wished him to make for him a design for the superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb. The Builder had at last been given the vehicle whereby he could realize the plan of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

In looking back upon the months that followed I marvel that Shoghi Effendi, completely absorbed by his work on God Passes By — which he was so pressed for time to complete before the approaching Centenary of the Faith — should have been able to devote any attention to this other major project. At the outset, Shoghi Effendi had given Sutherland only a few brief indications of what was required; he told him that the Shrine must have a dome and an arcade, must be neither purely western nor purely eastern in style and not look like a mosque or a church; he left him free to conceive his own design. The first one he made showed a structure with an arcade and a clerestory section, surmounted by a pyramid-shaped dome, which Shoghi Effendi did not like; he discussed the dome with Sutherland and said he would like it to resemble in shape that of St Peter’s in Rome, which he considered the most beautiful dome in the world. If God had provided Shoghi Effendi with an architect He had also in His infinite mercy bestowed upon that architect not only an incalculable spiritual blessing but an opportunity rare in the life of any professional man — the chance to pour out the mature wine of his talent and life-long experience in a worthy expression of his genius. The second drawing my father made Shoghi Effendi considered too European in emphasis — though he was satisfied with its proportions — and asked my father to change it. My father was delighted by this suggestion and reverted to the style of dome he had used in his design for the American Bahá’í Temple which he had entered in the original competition for that building, and which showed a marked Indian influence in some of its details. This last design greatly pleased the Guardian with the exception of the treatment of the upper part of the clerestory which he felt needed some height at the eight corners. For weeks and weeks Sutherland submitted to him sketch after sketch until the present highly original minarets were approved by him on 25 December 1943. His suggestions had also influenced the four corners of the arcade, which he felt needed to be more pointed and which were accordingly modified. Although Shoghi Effendi liked very much the design in its final form, as shown in the coloured elevation my father had drawn, he said he wished to have a scale model made before reaching a final decision on a subject of such tremendous importance as in that way he could better visualize the structure as it would appear when built; should this meet with his approval he planned to officially unveil it on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of the Báb during the Centenary festivities that were to be held in Haifa.

It was extremely difficult in those days to find anyone capable of executing such a model and though nominally someone undertook to do the work, in practice most of it devolved on my father himself, who was extremely pressed for time to get it completed. In May the model was delivered. After carefully studying it, Shoghi Effendi came to his decision and on 22 May the press was informed that the design for the completed Shrine of the Báb had been chosen and would be built as soon as circumstances permitted. In the Oriental Bahá’í Pilgrim House, during the afternoon meeting on 23 May when the Bahá’í men were gathered in the presence of the Guardian — including many visitors from neighbouring countries — to commemorate the dawn of their Faith a hundred years earlier, Shoghi Effendi had the model brought out and placed on a table for all to see. Two days later he cabled America: “…Announce friends joyful tidings hundredth anniversary Declaration Mission Martyred Herald Faith signalized by historic decision complete structure His sepulchre erected by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá site chosen by Bahá’u’lláh. Recently designed model dome unveiled presence assembled believers. Praying early removal obstacles consummation stupendous Plan conceived by Founder Faith and hopes cherished Centre His Covenant.”

When this announcement was made the world was approaching the end of the most terrible war in history; the Bahá’ís of the Western hemisphere had strained themselves to the utmost in order to win the goals of their first Seven Year Plan; the believers were affected by the general economic depletion prevailing in most countries. It was no doubt because of this, and because the Guardian made no effort to inaugurate a Shrine fund, that this project slipped relatively noiselessly into existence and no more was heard of it until on 11 April 1946 Shoghi Effendi instructed Mr Maxwell to set plans in motion for building the first unit of the Shrine and later himself wrote to the municipal authorities:

Haifa
Dec. 7th, 1947.

Haifa Local Building and Town Planning Commission.
To the Chairman

Dear Sir:

In connection with the accompanying drawings and application for permission to build, I wish to add a word of explanation.

The Tomb of the Báb, and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, so well known to the people of Haifa as ‘Abbás Effendi, is already in existence on Mt. Carmel in an incomplete form. In its present state, in spite of the extensive gardens surrounding it, it is a homely building with a fortress-like appearance.

It is my intention to now begin the completion of this building by preserving the original structure and at the same time embellishing it with a monumental building of great beauty, thus adding to the general improvement in the appearance of the slopes of Mt. Carmel.

The purpose of this building will, when completed, remain the same as at present. In other words it will be used exclusively as a Shrine entombing the remains of the Báb.

As you will see from the accompanying drawings the completed structure will comprise an arcade of twenty four marble or other monolith columns surmounted by an ornamental balustrade, on the first floor or ground floor of the building. It is this part of the building that we wish to begin work on at once, leaving the intermediary section and the dome, which will surmount the whole edifice when completed, to be carried on in the future, if possible at an early date after the completion of the ground floor arcade.

The Architect of this monument building is Mr. W.S. Maxwell, F.R.I.B.A., F.R.A.I.C., R.C.A., the well-known Canadian architect, whose firm built the Chateau Frontenac Hotel in Quebec, the House of Parliament in Regina, the Art Gallery, Church of the Messiah, various Bank buildings, etc., in Montreal. I feel the beauty of his design for the completion of the Báb’s Tomb will add greatly to the appearance of our city and be an added attraction for visitors.

Yours truly,
Shoghi Rabbani

I have quoted this letter in full as it demonstrates the masterly, tactful and clear manner in which Shoghi Effendi dealt with the authorities and which secured for him the necessary permission to build. On 15 December Shoghi Effendi cabled America: “Happy announce completion of plans and specifications for erection of arcade surrounding the Báb’s Sepulchre constituting first step in process destined to culminate in construction of the Dome anticipated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and marking consummation of enterprise initiated by Him fifty years ago according to instructions given Him by Bahá’u’lláh.”

The first historic steps had been taken but the obstacles in the way of the realization of this plan grew to what seemed insurmountable proportions. The British Mandate was nearing its end; Palestine was rocked by civil strife and was soon to be engulfed in a local war. Inquiries showed that the quarries from which suitable stone could be procured for the Shrine locally lay so near the Lebanese frontier that the owners could give no idea of when they could start deliveries. In addition to this the tremendous amount of carved material on the building would require a corps of expert workers and such labour was practically unavailable in the country. In view of this Shoghi Effendi came to another decision which was typical of his practical and audacious mind: he would see if part of the work could be done in Italy.

It is impossible to go into all the details, so fascinating in every way, that comprise the saga of the building of the Shrine. A letter, dated 6 April 1948, which I wrote on behalf of the Guardian to Dr Ugo Giachery conveys very clearly the situation at that time: “… Mr. Maxwell…because of various difficulties…has not been able to place any contracts for the actual work to be carried out here in Palestine. However, he has been in touch with an Italian firm in Carrara about placing contracts for the granite columns which will surround the building on the first floor. he is now proceeding to Italy primarily to place the contract for these, and, if suitable stone, matching the Palestinian stone which will be used here can be found, to also place additional contracts for the capitals and certain pieces of the carved ornamentation…Mr. Benjamin Weeden… will accompany Mr. Maxwell to both take care of him and facilitate in expediting the work there…As conditions in this country are extremely disturbed and the immediate future most uncertain, the Guardian is very anxious to have the contracts placed in Italy as soon as possible and have Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Weeden return here before they might possibly be cut off from us temporarily. He would therefore greatly appreciate your giving as much time as you can to assisting them, translating for them and seeing that they are in touch with reliable Italian firms and dealt with fairly…Unfortunately, owing to the fact that practically all communication with Jerusalem is cut off…Mr. Weeden was not able to contact the Italian Consulate there and obtain his visa. He will, if you and he cannot arrange for a visa in Rome when his plane comes in, have to go on with the same plane to Geneva…and return to join Mr. Maxwell…as Mr. Maxwell is now 74, though in the best of health, we hope you will take good care of him…Things are so acute here that it is extremely important that they get through with their business and return to Palestine…”

On the 15th of that same month I wrote, on behalf of the Guardian, to Horace Holley, Secretary of the American national Assembly, informing him of this trip to Italy in detail and explaining that as funds of the Guardian were blocked in Palestine because of strict currency regulations “He therefore has in mind asking the friends, those in a position financially to do so, to raise a loan in order to place these contracts…he himself wishes to be considered the guarantor in this matter and will repay the loan at the earliest possible moment. He is very anxious to have no misunderstanding on this point. He is financing this work from the international funds of the Cause and will only consider an arrangement by which he will repay this temporary loan…As our situation here is so uncertain that any day we may find mail and even cables suspended temporarily he is hastening to get this information off to you…if suitable arrangements can be made and contracts signed Mr. Giachery will have to act as representative in this matter, receiving the sums from the States which you will send, keeping an eye on the work in Italy, and generally assuming responsibility there if we all get cut off from each other…He has urged Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Weeden to be back here in Palestine in three weeks if possible as he is afraid that we might be entirely cut off from them…It is wonderful to know that the actual work on the Shrine is now so far advanced as to see the possibility of building operations being begun some time soon. But tremendous obstacles must be overcome, and, he feels confident, will be overcome.”

In such a storm yet another step in the unbelievably troubled history of the Báb’s remains and the building of His Tomb was undertaken. It was not yet reassuring, the following day, 16 April, to see my father and Mr Weeden off in a taxi entirely covered with armour-plate, a slit half an inch wide providing the visibility for the driver. Until they cabled from Italy we had no idea of what their fate had been. Half-way to the airport they had been forced to descend from the taxi and walk some hundreds of metres, carrying their heavy suitcases, to reach another taxi, a wholly unnecessary hardship typical of what the people of the country had to pass through in those days. Theirs was one of the last planes out of Lydda Airport before it was stormed and taken and all plane services suspended for some time. During their absence the War of Independence was fought and the country lapsed into the uneasy days of an armed truce.

During 1948 Shoghi Effendi himself undertook — for the second time in twenty years — the excavation of rock behind the Shrine in order to enlarge the area sufficiently to enable the arcade to be built. This was a tremendous work, involving the removal of hundreds of square metres of stone. The ingenuity of the Guardian was continually displayed as this work proceeded: he had a second-hand set of rails and a cart purchased, laid down on the path which ran parallel with the Shrine and in front of it, and the excavated material, directed down wooden chutes, carted off to the easternmost point of the terrace and dumped as fill for the extension of the terrace itself. From early morning until dark, often more than eight hours on his feet, day after day and month after month he directed the work. It was certainly not his work to do this, but he was determined to ensure it was done not only quickly, but economically, and there was no one else with the will power and stamina it required to take his place. It was in ways such as this, with indefatigable determination and unflagging perseverance, that Shoghi Effendi made of the Holy Places at the World Centre what we see before us today.

THE GUARDIAN STUDIES HIS GARDENSShoghi Effendi views the Báb’s Shrine from the top of Mt Carmel.THE GUARDIAN STUDIES HIS GARDENS Shoghi Effendi views the Báb’s Shrine from the top of Mt Carmel.

THE GUARDIAN STUDIES HIS GARDENSHe surveys the newly developed area in BahjíTHE GUARDIAN STUDIES HIS GARDENS He surveys the newly developed area in Bahjí

I have a note in my dairy dated Tuesday, 24 February 1949 which reads: “Sunday M___ [the contractor] starts on the southeastern and western corners foundations. A week later on the placing of the threshold stones — so the work is going to really start at last.” The long months of the Guardian’s toil were at an end; the edifice could now rise! Relentlessly Shoghi Effendi built the Shrine which he said was “the consummation of Bahá’u’lláh’s irresistible Purpose of erecting a lasting and befitting memorial to His Divine Herald and Co-Founder of His Faith.” He not only built it, he dramatized it until it became a living experience for all Bahá’ís, a project to which their hearts, as well as the Guardian’s heart, were linked. He made thrilling the commonplace work of erecting a building. When he would announce the arrival of a new shipment of stones from Italy, and give the number of tons received, or report the erection of a new unit, or inform us that the dome had two hundred and fifty square metres of surface, or describe the beauty of some detail, his magic of words and the enthusiasm they reflected swept us away on tides of joy and raised us out of ourselves, making us feel we were co-sharers in something infinitely great and thrilling, so that what would have normally been a dull fact in a dull world reported to dull people fired our imaginations and identified us more deeply with our Faith. Small wonder that the believers, preoccupied with their national affairs in the post-war world, rallied round him and assisted him to complete, in five years, a three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar, truly “world-wide enterprise”.

Originally Shoghi Effendi had contemplated the possibility of erecting only the arcade of the Shrine and leaving the actual superstructure for a later date, but the remarkable response of the Bahá’ís all over the world in rallying to support this sacred edifice, the general worsening of the international situation, economic trends leading to increased costs and the fact that the same highly efficient and skilled labourers who had executed the work on the arcade so perfectly were still available at the company which had contracted for the stonework in Italy decided him to go on uninterruptedly with its construction.

Such an undertaking, lasting over so many years, was time-consuming and fraught with many heart-aches and difficulties. Negotiations with the supervising engineer and the contractor — at all of which I represented the Guardian — were frequently exceedingly difficult as no one could either mislead or cheat Shoghi Effendi; whenever an estimate quoted was too high he flatly refused it and even stated on one occasion he would stop work on the Shrine indefinitely as he had no intention of paying what he felt was an exorbitant price. He battled his way through every obstacle and I often found, to my great surprise, that I was his sword! Not only was all the stonework imported from Italy but for a time even the cement and steel had to be procured from there owing to acute local shortages, and this also was a source of endless complications and worry.

THE TOMB OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH AT BAHJÍThe two pointed roofs are His Shrine, the building in the background with arches, theMansion. Taken circa 1919, looking eastwardTHE TOMB OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH AT BAHJÍ The two pointed roofs are His Shrine, the building in the background with arches, the Mansion. Taken circa 1919, looking eastward

In addition to problems of this nature there was another that preoccupied him for a long time, and even caused him to delay the construction of the actual superstructure of the Shrine, for it must be remembered that the arcade merely embraces the original building and is not built on it. In order to build the remainder of the Shrine eight reinforced concrete piers had to be sunk through eight of its interior walls to reach bed-rock. This was a source of great concern to the Guardian because the exact dimensions of the chamber in which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s remains are interred are not known and there was a very real danger that in going down through one of the walls they might break into the tomb itself. I learned more about what reverence, dignity and sanctity really imply through the Guardian’s attitude towards this problem than in the entire rest of my life. Shoghi Effendi said if we broke into the vault the body of the Master would have to be removed. To me this seemed very simple; He would just be removed temporarily to somewhere else. How wonderfully Shoghi Effendi spoke then! I wish I could remember his exact words. He said the remains of the Master could never be treated so unceremoniously. They must be befittingly removed, with great ceremony, and laid befittingly in some other place and then with equal reverence be re-interred. Where would he find, Shoghi Effendi asked, the people to be present on such solemn and sacred occasions, with a lukewarm local community, composed mostly of servants, and all the doors to neighbouring countries closed? And above all where would he find a suitable place for the sacred remains of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to rest temporarily pending the completion of the work in the interior of His Shrine? His very voice breathed awe. I understood a great deal more about religion after that event. Finally, after my father and the engineer had exhaustively percussed the floors and walls a number of times, and old Bahá’ís present at the funeral of the Master had given their recollection of where the vault was, it seemed most unlikely that any of the piers, set as near the outer walls as possible, would break into the actual tomb, and so the work was begun.

In March 1952 Sutherland Maxwell died after two years of illness. Though his death could not impair the fulfilment of the design he had conceived for the Shrine, it deprived the dome section of the benefit of large-scale drawings made by him and hence of that blush of ultra-perfection which his own detailed treatment of his work always produced. In recognition of the services which both he and Dr Giachery had rendered the Shrine of the Báb, Shoghi Effendi called the two as yet unnamed doors of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s original building after them, and at a later date the door to the octagon after Mr Ioas, who supervised the construction of the drum and dome.

When the Shrine he had erected with so much love and care was completed, Shoghi Effendi, recognizing in it an essentially feminine quality of beauty and purity, called it the “Queen of Carmel”. He described it as “enthroned on God’s Holy Mountain, crowned with glowing gold, robed in shimmering white and girdled with emerald green, a sight enchanting every eye, whether viewed from the air, the sea, the plain or the hill.” Of the innumerable passages in which Shoghi Effendi has extolled and explained the profound spiritual significance of this Spot none is more striking and more powerful than that in which he visualizes the remains of the Martyr-Herald of the Faith as the centre of a spiritual vortex. The Báb, Whom Bahá’u’lláh Himself had described as “The Point round Whom the realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolve” in the realm of the spirit, is, Shoghi Effendi said, in the Sacred Dust of His physical form left upon earth, the heart and centre of nine concentric circles: the outermost of these circles is the planet itself; inside this lies the Most Holy Land, described by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as “the Nest of the Prophets”; inside this Nest is the Mountain of God, the Vineyard of the Lord, the Retreat of Elijah Whose Return the Bab Himself symbolized; contained on this Mountain are the sacred precincts, the international endowment-lands of the Faith; it is their gardens and terraces which constitute the Most Holy Court; within this Court, standing in all its exquisite beauty, is the Mausoleum of the Báb, the Shell; within this Shell is the Pearl of Great Price, the Holy of Holies, the original Tomb built by the Master Himself; preserved inside this Holy of Holies is the Vault or Tabernacle, the central chamber of the Shrine; within this Vault is the alabaster Sarcophagus, the Most Holy Casket “in which”, Shoghi Effendi wrote, “is deposited that inestimable Jewel, the Báb’s Holy Dust.”

The Shrine, Shoghi Effendi said, was an “institution” and too much emphasis could not be laid on the role which this institution was destined to play in the “unfoldment of the World Administrative Centre of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh and in the efflorescence of its highest institutions constituting the embryo of its future World Order.” As the superstructure rose in all its majesty Shoghi Effendi revealed more and more of the true significance of the Shrine; it was, he wrote, not only the first and most holy edifice reared at the World Centre of the Faith but was “the initial international institution heralding the establishment of the Supreme Legislative Body of the World Administrative Centre…”

Bahá’u’lláh’s Dust, the “Point of Adoration” or “Qiblih” of the faithful, was too sacred in its essence, His station too infinitely exalted, to act as the spiritual dynamo galvanizing the institutions of His World Order. The Dust of the Báb, however — Who had described His own station in relation to Bahá’u’lláh as that of “a ring upon the hand of Him Whom God shall make manifest,” Who “turneth it as He pleaseth, for whatsoever He pleaseth, and through whatsoever He pleaseth” — had been chosen by Bahá’u’lláh Himself to be the Centre around which His Administrative Institutions would cluster and under Whose shadow they would function through His act in choosing the site on Mt Carmel where the Báb’s remains were to rest and instructing ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to purchase that spot and bring the remains from Persia and inter them there. We must remember that long before the declaration by Bahá’u’lláh of His station, it was the Báb Who raised the clarion call of the “New Order”. What then more appropriate and significant than the choice of His remains for this purpose? Shoghi Effendi made this distinction clear when he referred to the twin nature of so many buildings at the World Centre, the Twin Shrines, the Twin Administrative and Spiritual Centres of the Faith.

There can be little doubt that upon reading the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Shoghi Effendi’s first thought was the speedy establishment of the Supreme Administrative Body of the Bahá’í Faith, the Universal House of Justice. One of his earliest acts, in 1922, had been to summon to Haifa old and key believers to discuss this matter with him. He repeatedly mentioned it in his communications — indeed in his first letter to Persia, written on 16 January 1922, he refers to it and states that he will announce to the friends later the preliminary arrangements for its election. There was never any question in his mind as to its function and significance; in March 1923 he had described it as “that Supreme Council that will guide, organize and unify the affairs of the Movement throughout the world”. There can be no doubt that two forces were at work in the Guardian in those first days of his ministry; one was his youthful eagerness to speedily carry out all the instructions of his beloved Master, which included the establishment of the Universal House of Justice; and the other was the Divine guidance and protection promised him in the Will; the latter modified the former. Over and over again Shoghi Effendi essayed to put in motion at least the preliminaries for electing this Supreme Body — and over and over again the Hand of Providence manipulated events in such a way that premature action became impossible. At the consultations he held in 1922 it must have suddenly become apparent to him that however highly desirable even a preliminary stage in the formation of the Universal House of Justice might be, it was dangerous to take such a step at that time. The firm administrative foundation required to elect and support it was lacking as well as a sufficient reservoir of qualified and well-informed believers to draw from.

Having discovered that the door to the formation of the Universal House of Justice was not open, Shoghi Effendi set about trying to establish at least the preliminary forms that might precede its election. When he sought, in the first years of his ministry, to draw to Haifa people who would assist him in his work he had in mind the formation of a definite body at the World Centre. This is borne out by his own words. On 30 August 1926 he wrote to one of the Bahá’ís: “I am anxiously considering ways and means for the formation of some sort of efficient, competent Secretariat in Haifa…I have thought of it a great deal and I am still exploring and searching for a competent, reliable, methodical, and trained associate who, untrammeled and unhampered, can devote…continuous months to such a delicate and responsible task. When this is achieved I cherished the brightest hopes for the strengthening of the vital bonds that bind the Centre in Haifa with all the Assemblies in the Bahá’í world.” On 7 December of that same year he informed a relative that two of the prominent Bahá’ís had joined him in Haifa and “we hope to form some sort of international Bahá’í Secretariat…” However, the true significance this Secretariat had in the mind of Shoghi Effendi is clearly stated in a letter of his, written two weeks later, in which he introduced these same two Bahá’ís to Mr Abramson, the Commissioner for the Northern District of Palestine, and, after mentioning their names, wrote that these “two representative Bahá’ís…I have asked to come here to consider with me and with other Bahá’ís from the East the formation of an International Bahá’í Secretariat as a preliminary step to the establishment of the International Bahá’í Council.”

From an Indian pilgrim’s notes in a letter to a friend, written in Haifa on 15 June 1929, we find the following: “Shoghi Effendi says…so long as the various National Assemblies do not have stabilized, well organized positions, it would be impossible to establish even an informal House of Justice. He wants us to at once draw up a constitution of the National Assembly on the lines of the American Trust and get it registered with the Government of India, if possible as a religious body, otherwise as a commercial body…Shoghi Effendi has urged in his recent letters to Eastern countries to have National Assemblies recognized as Religious Courts of Justice by local Governments…”

It is of interest to note that in a letter to Mrs Stannard, who was in charge of the International Bahá’í Bureau in Geneva — an office designed to promote in Europe the affairs of the Faith as well as to stimulate its international functions throughout the world and which was constantly encouraged and directed by the Guardian in its work — Shoghi Effendi writes, in August 1926, that he wishes the Bahá’í Bulletin it publishes to be “in the three dominant languages in Europe i.e. English, French and German…I have expressed in my cable to you my readiness to extend regular and financial assistance to you in order to ensure that the proposed circular will be published in the three recognized official languages of the western section of the Bahá’í world…Your Centre in Switzerland and the Bahá’í Esperanto Magazine published at Hamburg are both destined to shoulder some of the functions and responsibilities which will in future be undertaken by the International Bahá’í Assembly when formed.”

In many such references, particularly in the first ten years of his ministry, Shoghi Effendi reveals that he is constantly anticipating the formation of some kind of International Secretariat or Council pending the election of the Universal House of Justice itself, the functions, significance and importance of which were growing in his mind. Some time during the summer of 1929 the Guardian conceived the idea of the Bahá’ís holding an International Conference, at which the friends would informally gather to discuss ways and means of hastening the formation of oriental National Bahá’í Assemblies as well as the subject of the Administration in general as he was developing it, and thus hasten the day when the House of Justice could be elected as envisaged by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Some of the old Bahá’ís had a different concept of what should take place at this conference, wishing to see some form of interim body elected. When Shoghi Effendi became apprised of this fact he immediately cabled on 12 December 1929 to two of the men most concerned in arranging this conference and peremptorily cancelled it as he said it would be “a source of confusion, misunderstanding and even controversy”. He recoiled before the great danger he foresaw of immature people, not yet steeped in understanding of the Administrative Order he was unfolding and building, assuming a rank and power they were certainly incapable of safely holding. For over twenty years the whole idea was left in abeyance and the repeated mention of the formation of the Universal House of Justice, which is to be found in Shoghi Effendi’s earlier letters, ceased until he created an International Council, composed of members he himself nominated. There is no doubt in my mind, from things he told me at different times, that in the opening years of his Guardianship he sensed from certain prominent believers a desire to be on a body such as the House of Justice or some interim institution, and that he felt a belittling of his judgment and capacity on their part and a trend to seize the reins of the Cause of God; these were men old enough to be his father, who, whatever their thoughts about the Master’s Will, looked upon him in some ways as an inexperienced young man.

From the very beginning Shoghi Effendi concentrated on multiplying and strengthening the “various Assemblies, local and National”. As early as 1924, he stated they constituted “the bedrock upon the strength of which the Universal House is in future to be firmly established and raised.” Almost invariably, in later years, when he called for the formation of new national bodies, the Guardian used phrases such as the following in his cable to the Fourth European Teaching Conference in 1951: “…Future edifice Universal House of Justice depending for its stability on sustaining strength pillars erected diversified communities East West, destined derive added power through emergence three National Assemblies…awaits rise establishment similar institutions European mainland…” In anticipation of the election of that august Body Shoghi Effendi made statements that, added to the words of its Founder, Bahá’u’lláh, and the clear and unmistakable powers and prerogatives conferred upon it by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will and Testament, cannot but buttress the strength and facilitate the tasks of that Universal House for at least a thousand years. Shoghi Effendi said the Universal House of Justice would be the “nucleus and forerunner” of the New World Order; he said “that future House” was a House “posterity will regard as the last refuge of a tottering civilization”; it would be “the last unit crowning the structure of the embryonic World Order of Bahá’u’lláh”; it was “the highest legislative body in the administrative hierarchy of the Faith: and its “supreme elective institution”. The Guardian stated: “To the Trustees of the House of Justice” Bahá’u’lláh “assigns the duty of legislating on matters not expressly provided in His Writings, and promises that God will ‘inspire them with whatsoever He willeth,’” and wrote that “…the powers and prerogatives of the Universal House of Justice, possessing the exclusive right to legislate on matters not explicitly revealed in the Most Holy Book; the ordinance exempting its members from any responsibility to those whom they represent, and from the obligation to conform to their views, convictions or sentiments; the specific provisions requiring the free and democratic election by the mass of the faithful of the Body that constitutes the sole legislative organ in the world-wide Bahá’í Community — these are among the features which combine to set apart the Order identified with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh from any of the existing systems of human government.”

Quite suddenly, one day in Switzerland in November 1950, at the time when my father had, as Shoghi Effendi announced, “miraculously” recovered from a severe illness, the Guardian sat down and, to my great astonishment, sent cables inviting the first of that group who later became members of the International Bahá’í Council to come to Haifa. Like almost everything he did, first it began to dawn and later the sun of the finished concept rose above the horizon. After our return to the Holy Land, when Lotfullah Hakim (the first to arrive), Jessie and Ethel Revell, followed by Amelia Collins and Mason Remey were all gathered at table one day in the Western Pilgrim House, with Gladys Weeden and her husband Ben who were already living there, the Guardian announced to us his intention of constituting, out of that group, an International Council, we were all overcome by the unprecedented nature of this step he was taking and the infinite bounty it conferred upon those present as well as the entire Bahá’í world. It was not, however, until 9 January 1951 that he released this news through an historic cable: “Proclaim National Assemblies East West weighty epoch making decision formation first International Bahá’í Council forerunner supreme administrative institution destined emerge fullness time within precincts beneath shadow World Spiritual Centre Faith already established twin cities ‘Akká Haifa.”

The fulfilment of the prophecies of both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, through the establishment of an independent Jewish State after the lapse of two thousand years, the unfoldment of the portentous historic undertaking associated with the construction of the superstructure of the Báb’s Shrine, the now adequate maturity of the nine vigorously functioning National Assemblies, had all combined to induce him to make this historic decision, which was the most significant milestone in the evolution of the Administrative Order during thirty years. In that cable Shoghi Effendi went on to say that this new institution had a three-fold function: to forge links with the authorities in the newly emerged State, to assist him in building the Shrine (only the arcade of which had then been completed), and to conduct negotiations with the civil authorities as regards matters of personal status. Further functions would be added as this first “embryonic International Institution” developed into an officially recognized Bahá’í Court, was transformed into an elected body and reached its final efflorescence in the Universal House of Justice; this in turn would find its fruition in the erection of many auxiliary institutions, constituting the World Administrative Centre. This message, so thrilling in portent, burst upon the Bahá’í world like a clap of thunder. Like a skilled engineer, locking the component parts of his machine together, Shoghi Effendi had now buckled into place the frame that would eventually support the crowning unit — the Universal House of Justice.

Fourteen months later, on 8 March 1952, Shoghi Effendi, in a long cable to the Bahá’í world, announced the enlargement of the International Bahá’í Council: “Present membership now comprises Amatu’l-Bahá Ruḥíyyih chosen liaison between me and Council. Hands Cause Mason Remey, Amelia Collins, Ugo Giachery, Leroy Ioas, President, Vice-President, Member-at-Large, Secretary-General respectively. Jessie Revell, Ethel Revell, Lotfullah Hakim, Treasurer, Western and Eastern Assistant Secretaries.” The original membership had been changed through the departure of Mr and Mrs Weeden, for reasons of health, the arrival of Mr Ioas, who had offered his services to the Guardian, and the inclusion of Dr Giachery, who continued to reside in Italy and supervise the construction of the Shrine — every single stone of which was quarried, cut and carved in that country and then shipped to Haifa and the golden tiles of whose dome were ordered in Holland — and to act as the agent of Shoghi Effendi in ordering and purchasing many other things required in the Holy Land. In May 1955 the Guardian announced that he had raised the number of members of the International Bahá’í Council to nine through the appointment of Sylvia Ioas. In its functions the International Bahá’í Council acted as that Secretariat the Guardian, so many years earlier, had desired to establish; its members received their instructions from him individually, in the informal atmosphere of the dinners at the Pilgrim House table, and not formally as a body; its meetings were infrequent as all its members were kept constantly busy with the many tasks allotted to them by the Guardian himself. Skilfully Shoghi Effendi used this new institution to create in the minds of government and city officials the image of a body of an international character handling the administrative affairs at the World Centre. It was no concern of the public how much or how little that body had authority; we who were on it knew Shoghi Effendi was everything; the public, however, began to see an image which could evolve later into the Universal House of Justice.