WHAT
WILL BE YOUR EXCUSE WHEN YOU MEET SHOGHI EFFENDI IN THE NEXT WORLD?
(A POSSIBLE CREDIBLE SCENARIO)
What will
be your excuse when, upon your own passing, you should meet Shoghi
Effendi in the next world?
SHOGHI
EFFENDIS UNDOUBTED INITIAL COMMENTS:
He would certainly say to you
how greatly shocked, dismayed and saddened he had been, upon his
passing, to note that so many of the believers, like yourself, who
during his ministry had ostensibly evinced such faithful and steadfast
faith in the Covenant of Baháulláh and firm belief in the
sacredness and immutability of the divinely-conceived Will and Testament
of Abdul-Bahá, in which the Guardian of the Cause
of God is named as The Center of the Cause,
and the sacred head and distinguished member for
life of the Universal House of Justice had then readily
accepted, without question, the incredulous conclusion that had been
hastily reached and proclaimed to the Baháí World by
the Hands of the Cause, gathered in conclave at Akká but a few
weeks following his passing, that the Guardianship had come to a
premature end based on the transparently fallacious argument that
because all of the Aghsán had either died or had been declared violators
of the Covenant he had left no will and testament appointing a
successor.
YOUR
PROBABLE EXCUSE:
As you
considered the Hands who had been appointed by Shoghi Effendi to this
exalted rank were more conversant on the Teachings and the provisions of
the Will and Testament of Abdul-Bahá than you were,
they must have been right in their conclusion that the Guardianship had
come to an end.
SHOGHI
EFFENDIS UNDOUBTED FURTHER COMMENT:
He shall
certainly point out how astonished he had been that the Hands, at the
outset, had expected to find a will and testament left by him and had
actually searched for one that had, of course, not been found and thus
had exhibited an inexcusably ignorance of, or forgetfulness of, the
specific terms of the Will and Testament of
Abdul-Bahá which require the Guardian of the Faith to
appoint his successor in his own life-time and
not by testamentary document. And moreover they had revealed an equally
glaring ignorance of or duplicity in their misrepresentation of the
qualifications stipulated by Abdul-Bahá in His Will that the
Guardians successor must possess to be considered for appointment,
none of which could ever have included a requirement to be an Aghsán,
whom he had clearly identified in his writings as a term referring
solely to the sons of Baháulláh.
YOUR
PROBABLE ADDITIONAL EXCUSE:
It had
been a long time since you had read the Will and Testament of
Abdul-Bahá and you had forgotten its provisions relating to
the specifics concerning the manner in which the Guardian appoints his
successor and the qualifications that his appointee is required to
possess.
SHOGHI
EFFENDI LAMENTS THEIR FAILINGS:
Shoghi
Effendi would then certainly mention how utterly incomprehensible it had
been to him that the Hands could have thought that he would have left
this world without fulfilling the sacred Mandate prescribed in the Will
and Testament of Abdul-Bahá that makes it incumbent
upon him to appoint his successor in his own
life-time and thereby faithfully provide for the
continuation of the Guardianship and the continued vital preservation of
The Center of the Cause.
And,
moreover, he would certainly further assert how incredulous it had been
that the Hands, upon finding that he had not left a will and testament,
should then have not taken any time whatsoever to reexamine the Will and
Testament of Abdul-Bahá where they would have readily
discovered their error in expecting to find such a will, for under its
terms he obviously would have appointed his successor and definitely
revealed his identity during the course of his ministry, but
notwithstanding, they, as well as all of the believers, had obviously
inexplicably failed, at the time, to recognize this appointment of
tremendous import. He would certainly mention how distressed and shocked
he had been in noting the stand that had been so surprisingly taken by
Rúhiyyíh Khánum, who had voiced vehement opposition to any
thought of their being another Guardian of the Faith, a stand that was
so utterly contrary to her views so often expressed during his ministry
and as expressed in her well-known work titled: Twenty-five
Years of the Guardianship in which she had emphasized the
absolute essentiality of the Guardianship. He could only conclude that
she had so radically changed her stand about the Guardianship because of
her evident inability to reconcile herself to seeing another believer
take his place as the Guardian of the Faith. This unyielding and
flagrant opposition to such a possibility by one who had been so close
to him and had served as his secretary for some twenty years had
undoubtedly influenced her fellow-Hands, with a single notable
exception, in reaching their hasty and ill-considered conclusion that
the Guardianship of the Cause of God had come to a premature end with
his passing.
YOUR
POSSIBLE FURTHER OBSERVATIONS:
You,
would, of course, be able to claim your complete ignorance of the Hands
evident loss of faith (again with a single exception) in the Covenant
and in their confidence that Shoghi Effendi would have faithfully
complied with every clause of the Will and Testament of
Abdul-Bahá and particularly make the point that you
had no idea that Rúhiyyíh Khánum, of all people, had been so adamantly
opposed to the continuation of the Guardianship.
SHOGHI
EFFENDI OUTLINES HIS EXPECTATIONS:
Shoghi
Effendi would then have undoubtedly pointed out that had the Hands taken
the time to undertake even a cursory review of the
historic and epoch
making messages he had dispatched to the
Baháí World during the concluding years of his
ministry, in which, for example, he had hailed in one of his messages
the erection of the highest institutions of the Faith at the World
Center of the Faith, they would have perceived and realized, not only
the significant import of the acts he had announced but most importantly
the significance that they should have accorded to the one and only
Proclamation he had issued during his ministry on 9 January 1951 in
which he had extolled the historic decision
that he had taken at long last to form the
International Baháí Council and had eulogized this
act as the most significant milestone in the evolution of
the Administrative Order of the Faith of
Baháulláh, in whose constitution
they would have found, the key, although purposely and necessarily
obscured by him, at the time, to the identity of his successor whom they
had tragically failed to recognize. Had they, on the other hand, made
a comprehensive reexamination of these communications they should have
recognized the identity of his successor, and then have understood that,
although he had made this appointment publicly and in complete
conformity with the terms of the Will and Testament of
Abdul-Bahá, at the time, he had wisely chosen to make
this appointment in such an indirect and unexpected manner, that it had
successfully veiled his identity from the believers, as he had intended
at the time. For had the highly distinguished Hand of the Cause he had
chosen as his successor, a believer who had been eulogized in numerous
Tablets by Abdul-Bahá and whose multiple services to
the Faith during half a century had been unsurpassed by any other
believer, been recognized by the Baháí World, at the
time of his appointment, this knowledge would have caused universal
consternation amongst the Baháís and virtually
paralyzed them in their labors to achieve the goals of the Ten Year
Global Crusade soon to begin, For the one whom he had chosen as his
successor was not a young man, or even of middle age, but twenty-three
years his senior and yet despite this advanced age was destined to
succeed him. This was a clear indication that he had foreseen the
imminence of his own passing. While he had, in this manner, been
successful in obscuring the appointment of his successor, at the time,
he would certainly point out that he had expected that the identity of
his successor would inevitably be recognized and announced to the
Baháí World when the International
Baháí Councilthe embryonic Universal House of
Justicewould, for the first time, assume upon his passing, its
rightful active role as the supreme administrative body in the
Baháí World, at which time, Charles Mason Remey, who
had been appointed by him as its President and irremovable Head, would
then preside over this body as it directed the National Spiritual
Assemblies of the world in their prosecution of the goals of the Ten
Year Global Crusade in accordance with the role he had projected in his
message to the Baháí World in 1952.
YOUR
COMMENT:
You would
observe that your failure to perceive the import of his appointment of a
successor in this way had revealed the same obvious lack of perception
that had inexcusably been exhibited by Mason Remeys fellow Hands
of the Cause and all of the other believers as well.
SHOGHI
EFFENDIS FINAL OBSERVATIONS:
He had
therefore been appalled when the Hands, contrary to his plans, and
lacking any authority to do so, did not permit the International Council
to assume its rightful role and had instead shamefully relegated this
Council to a subordinate position to an illegitimate body they had
fashioned themselves comprised of nine Hands, who as so-called
Custodians of the Faith, constituted themselves in the role of a
collective Guardianship and took over direction of their now
sans-Guardian Faith for a period of some six years until their demise
and replacement at Ridván 1963 with an elected equally
illegitimate sans-Guardian so-called Universal House of Justice.
He would
certainly now point out that in their abandonment of the Guardianship it
was if he had never existed or had ever written a single word about the
Baháí Administrative Order for they had ignored, as
a case in point, the emphasis he had placed in his writings on the
sacredness and immutability of the divinely-conceived Will and Testament
of Abdul-Bahá in explaining that it was as much the Will of
Baháulláh as that of
Abdul-Bahá and that together with the Kitab-i-Aqdas
these two sacred documents were to be considered as
inseparable parts of one complete unit, thus
making it clear that, as this Will was a part of the explicit Holy Text,
the institutions delineated in that Document were destined to endure
unchanged and remain in effect as long as the sacred laws of the Aqdas
itself were observed. Moreover, he had emphasized in the
Dispensation that the bedrock on
which the Administrative Order is founded is Gods immutable
Purpose for mankind in this day.
He would
finally state how heartened he had been by the fact that there had been
a few stalwart believers who had retained their steadfast and
unshakeable faith in the indestructibility of the Covenant of
Baháulláh and in the immortality of its sacred
and divinely-conceived Childthe Will and Testament of
Abdul-Baháand had welcomed with elation the
receipt of Mason Remeys Proclamation at Ridván 1960, in which
their unwavering faith in the Covenant and in the immortality and
immutability of the sacred provisions of the Will and Testament of
Abdul-Bahá, that provide for an unbroken line of
Guardians of the Cause of God as long as the Dispensation of
Baháulláh endures, had at last been fully
vindicated. For, in this Proclamation, they had joyfully found a
completely sound and valid explanation that undeniably proved the basis
upon which he had rightfully acceded to the Guardianship. These few
believers and those who shall inevitably follow in their footsteps in
increasing numbers will assuredly preserve intact and unaltered the
institutions of the divinely-conceived Baháí
Administrative Order in all of their perfection as bequeathed to the
world through the inspired Pen of Abdul-Bahá and thus
in this way insure by their exemplary constancy, the ultimate
establishment of the World Order of Baháulláh
in all of its destined glory and perfection in accordance with
Gods immutable Purpose.
WHAT ELSE
COULD YOU SAY?
In the
light of all that Shoghi Effendi had explained it would now be obvious
that he had appointed his successor in faithful compliance with the
provisions of the Will and Testament of Abdul-Bahá
and that you, on the other hand, had not presented a valid excuse for
your own faithless abandonment of the continuing Guardianship of the
Cause of God. And you, will now have sadly realized that you, had
actually been a party, however unwittingly, to the shameful betrayal of
Shoghi Effendi in voicing no objection, at the time or had questioned
the dismantlement shamefully carried out by the erstwhile Hands of the
Cause of the highest institutions of the Administrative Order that
Shoghi Effendi had but recently erected at the World Center of the Faith
at long last during the concluding years of
his ministry and moreover had blindly and erroneously recognized, and
had accorded allegiance initially to both a body of nine Hands, created
outside the provisions of the Will and Testament of
Abdul-Bahá that had shamelessly been foisted upon the
Baháí World following his passing, and had
subsequently granted undeserved allegiance to their equally illegitimate
sans-Guardian so-called Universal House of Justice, as corrupted
substitutes for the institutions ofthe Administrative Order
which the master-hand of its perfect Architect has
fashioned.
Joel Bray
Marangella
Guardian of
the Baháí Faith
June 2008