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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
264 stories in the library.
Hájí Muhammad-Tahir of Yazd begged Bahá’u’lláh for martyrdom and was told he would live long to teach the Cause. He served for decades as a teacher, historian and protector of the families of Yazd’s martyrs.
Bahá’u’lláh’s son Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, fell through a skylight in the ‘Akká barracks in 1870 and offered his life so that the believers might attain his Father’s presence; in 1939 Shoghi Effendi reburied him on Mount Carmel.
Won to the Faith by Jamal Effendi, Siyyid Mustafa Rumi spent his life teaching in India and Burma. He was killed at Daidanaw during the Second World War, and in 1945 Shoghi Effendi named him a Hand of the Cause of God.
His nine-year-old son, later surnamed the ‘Most Great Branch’, destined to become the Centre of His Covenant and authorized Interpreter of His teachings, together with His seven-year-old sister …
Shoghi Effendi's tribute to Bahíyyih Khánum records the cost of the Adrianople exile to her own body — a winter of exceptional severity, a poor and unhealthy lodging, and dire financial distress that left her, as a young woman, with a permanent loss of vitality and a shadow on her face that would remain until the end of her life.
Shoghi Effendi's tribute to Bahíyyih Khánum recalls the years of crisis in Baghdád — when Mírzá Yaḥyá's faithlessness had unsettled the Bábí community and Bahá'u'lláh had retreated for two years to the mountains of Sulaymáníyyih — the tender solicitude she showed as a child in His absence, and the delicate, grave missions He entrusted to her in her teens.
Shoghi Effendi's tribute to Bahíyyih Khánum preserves a single small image from her childhood in Tihrán: when Bahá'u'lláh was thrown into the Síyáh-Chál and the family's wealth was seized within the space of a single day, Navváb — the mother — placed a handful of dry flour into the hand of her young daughter as the substitute for daily bread.
For decades Abu'l-Hasan of Ardikan carried the believers' letters and offerings to Bahá'u'lláh. Bahá'u'lláh made him Trustee of the Ḥuqúqu'lláh, and the Bahá'ís came to call him Hájí Amín.
Mírzá Mihdí, the youngest son of Bahá'u'lláh, fell through a skylight in the prison of 'Akká and, as he lay dying, asked that his life be accepted as a sacrifice so that pilgrims could reach his Father.
Munírih Khánum, wife of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, recalls losing five children in 'Akká, the words Bahá'u'lláh wrote to her when her little son Ḥusayn died, and the wisdom she came to see in it.
As a student at Oxford, Shoghi Effendi loved tennis and excelled at it. His partner J. C. Hill remembered him switching his racket from hand to hand with lightning speed, laughing most of the time.
A biography of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, from His childhood in Tehran and long years of exile and imprisonment to His ministry as Center of the Covenant, His journeys to the West, His writings and His passing in Haifa in 1921.
Born in Charleston to formerly enslaved parents, Louis G. Gregory became a Bahá'í in 1909, was seated by 'Abdu'l-Bahá at His right in Washington, gave decades to teaching and race unity, and was posthumously named a Hand of the Cause.
Mírzá Asadu’lláh Fáḍil of Mázindarán, a scholar who became a Bahá’í in Tihrán, carried out a dangerous mission for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Najaf, taught across America, India and Persia, and wrote a nine-volume history of the Faith.
Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání completed the first volume of his chronicle of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s 1912 journey in America at the end of 1913; at his sudden death the Guardian cabled that his outstanding services would shine evermore.
A nephew of Vahid Darabi found certitude after long years of study, visited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in ‘Akká, taught the Faith in America and Persia, and served the Cause until his passing in 1959.
O my spiritual sister! Thou didst go away to Haifa, supposedly for only three or four days. Now it becometh apparent that the spiritual power of the Shrine hath brought thee joy and radiance, and even as a magnet is holding thee fast.
O my sister in the spirit, and the companion of my heart! God willing, the climate of Haifa hath proved favourable.
O thou Greatest and Most Merciful Holy Leaf!
It was through the arrival of these pilgrims, and these alone, that the gloom which had enveloped the disconsolate members of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s family was finally dispelled.
During the Great War, Haifa was crowded with the destitute, the orphaned, and the sick. From the household at the foot of Mount Carmel, the Greatest Holy Leaf — already in advanced age — distributed daily food, money, clothing, and remedies she had herself prepared.
Shoghi Effendi told how a coachman at Ramleh demanded an exorbitant fare from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and pulled Him roughly by His sash. The Master stayed calm, refused to give in, and paid exactly what He owed, without the tip.
In 1920, while Shoghi Effendi was resting in Paris on his way to England, the pilgrim Núru’d-Dín Mumtází met him at a gathering, and Shoghi Effendi later visited his party and chanted a prayer for their pilgrimage.
On March 25, 1912, with His daughter Rúhá Khánum seriously ill, 'Abdu'l-Bahá bade farewell to the grieving friends at Alexandria and sailed on the S. S. Cedric with six companions, among them Shoghi Effendi.
When the infant Shoghi Effendi woke crying one night, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had him brought so that He could comfort him, and told the Greatest Holy Leaf, “See, already he has dreams!”
When the young Shoghi Effendi took up 'Abdu'l-Bahá's pen and tried to write, the Master drew him close and told him it was time to play, for he would write a lot in the future.
As a child of five or six on a visit to Beirut, Shoghi Effendi watched Dr. Baghdadi dissect a wildcat and afterwards repeated the main points of the lesson word for word.
Shoghi Effendi's boyhood in the household of his grandfather 'Abdu'l-Bahá: his name, morning prayers and breakfast with the Master, the Tablet telling him to memorize and chant prayers, and the surname Rabbani.
When Shoghi Effendi, aged five, begged the Master to write something for him, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told him to memorize and chant the prayers of Bahá'u'lláh. The boy chanted them so loudly the whole neighbourhood heard.
In Egypt a carriage driver demanded an unfair fare and shook ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by His sash, but the Master paid only what He owed and told him honesty would have earned a handsome tip.
In 'Akká in 1897 Dr Yúnis Khán asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá whether the one who would follow Him had already been born. 'Abdu'l-Bahá said it was true, and Yúnis Khán kept the answer to himself for many years.
In 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá meant to take His grandson Shoghi Effendi, then fifteen, with Him to America. At Naples, doctors ordered the boy off the ship, and the Master asked him to obey, saying there was a wisdom in it.
'Abdu'l-Bahá wished to open a path from the Shrine of the Báb down to the German Avenue, but a settler's house and landowners holding out for a fortune blocked it for years. The Greatest Holy Leaf tells how the way was opened.
Sailing for America in March 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá called the table set for morning tea a divine table, spoke of gratitude, and asked for His first good bath in several months.
When a car given to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reached port as a weekend began, Shoghi Effendi went to officials' homes for their signatures and had it at the Master's door though it was not a business day.
In Shoghi Effendi’s childhood the family rose at dawn to pray and take breakfast with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His room. The children sat quietly and chanted when asked, and Shoghi Effendi learned to be always the first up and on time.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalls that the Guardian as a small boy was the high-spirited ringleader of the children, and that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once wrote a short sentence about how much he ran about.
Louis Gregory, a Black lawyer from Charleston whose parents had been enslaved, became a Bahá'í in 1909. 'Abdu'l-Bahá seated him in the place of honor at a Washington luncheon, and he spent his life working for unity between the races.
Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání kept a record of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's journey through America in 1912, copied it out by hand for 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and was later sent to India to publish it.
Muḥammad Labíb started a savings company for schoolchildren that 'Abdu'l-Bahá blessed. Later he travelled across Persia with Effie Baker as she photographed the places of early Bahá'í history.
At noisy family lunches in the Master's house, the children watched for the mouthful of food the Greatest Holy Leaf would give to one of them. Shoghi Effendi usually got it.
At Oxford, the young Shoghi Effendi worked day and night to perfect his English so that he could translate the holy writings, until the news of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing called him home.
Shoghi Effendi, the grandson of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, was often unhappy at school in Beirut, but he studied hard so that one day he could serve his grandfather and translate His letters into English.
In 'Akká a small boy, Shoghi, walked up to his grandfather 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who greeted him with a quiet nod; the boy kissed the hem of His robe and ran off to play.
As a small boy, Shoghi Effendi learned from his grandfather, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to be on time, and became the first to get up for the family’s early prayers and breakfast in the Master’s room.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and Testament, written entirely in His own hand in three parts, was read aloud in January 1922. It named Shoghi Effendi the Guardian of the Cause of God and provided for the Universal House of Justice.
In 1920 Shoghi Effendi entered Balliol College, Oxford, to perfect his English so that he could better translate the Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The Master's passing in November 1921 cut his studies short.
A doctor at a Bournemouth sanatorium first met the Bahá'í teachings in December 1914 and set out to write a book about them. 'Abdu'l-Bahá corrected part of the manuscript, and Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era appeared in 1923.
A Scottish doctor who learned of the Bahá'í teachings in 1914 wrote a book about them and brought it to 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Haifa. The Master discussed it with him and later corrected part of it. It became Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era.
As financial secretary of Bahai Temple Unity, Corinne True of Chicago gathered gifts from across America and the East for the House of Worship at Wilmette. She lived to see it dedicated in 1953 and was known as the Mother of the Temple.
Returning to Paris from her 1898–99 pilgrimage to 'Akká, May Bolles established, at 'Abdu'l-Bahá's instruction, the first Bahá'í centre on the European continent, where Thomas Breakwell, Hippolyte Dreyfus and Laura Barney came to the Faith.
Bahíyyih Khánum, daughter of Bahá'u'lláh, knew poverty and exile from early childhood. Shoghi Effendi recalls her kindness in 'Akká, her care for the hungry who came to 'Abdu'l-Bahá's house during the First World War, and the support she gave him after 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing.
When young Shoghi Effendi and his cousin came before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Master held up Shoghi Effendi’s happy, pleasant expression as the example to follow.
Shoghi Effendi once described to Rúḥíyyih Khánum the noisy family lunches of his childhood, when the grandchildren watched for the mouthful of food the Greatest Holy Leaf would give to one of them. It usually went to him.
In 1920 Shoghi Effendi went to Balliol College, Oxford, to perfect his English so that he could translate the sacred writings. His studies ended in November 1921 with the news of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing.
Unhappy at school in Haifa and Beirut, the young Shoghi Effendi was moved by 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the Syrian Protestant College, where he aimed all his studies at serving the Master and translating His letters into English.
In 'Akká in 1899 the American pilgrim Ella Goodall Cooper watched the small Shoghi Effendi walk up to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who greeted him with a silent nod; the boy kissed the hem of His robe and ran off to play.
In an essay written as a student in Beirut in 1914–15, the young Shoghi Effendi argues that well-conducted sports and athletics refresh the body, enlighten the mind and develop moral character.
In the years after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing, Shoghi Effendi often withdrew to Switzerland to recover his health and strength, walking for many hours and climbing in the Bernese Alps.
In The Advent of Divine Justice, Shoghi Effendi called racial prejudice the most vital and challenging issue before the American Bahá'ís, asked both races for a supreme effort, and gave minorities priority when votes or qualifications were equal.
Leroy Ioas recalls that until Shoghi Effendi passed away in England he was sending cables about work to finish before his return, which suggests he did not expect to die.
Leroy Ioas recalls the Guardian's humility: Shoghi Effendi never spoke of "the days of the Guardian", and he stopped Ioas from ever mentioning his name in the same breath as the Master's.
Troubled by cables from America, Shoghi Effendi asked Leroy Ioas about a National Assembly meeting, then described the meeting and the spirit behind it himself, explaining that God gave him a feeling in his heart.
Leroy Ioas recalls how Shoghi Effendi praised even the gardeners, looked at people's good deeds rather than their shortcomings, and bore with great forgiveness the suffering caused by relatives who had turned away from the Cause.
In May 1940 the Guardian, Rúḥíyyih Khánum and her father tried to reach England from Italy. A British Consul who remembered ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stamped their passport, and after anxious days at St Malo they sailed for Southampton.
Mary Maxwell of Montreal married Shoghi Effendi on 25 March 1937 in a simple, private wedding; as Rúḥíyyih Khánum she later served as a Hand of the Cause and travelled to 185 countries and territories.
Early in his Guardianship, Shoghi Effendi used the gift of an Iraqi Bahá’í, Haji Mahmud Qassabchi, to add three rooms to the Shrine of the Báb, and named a door of the Shrine after him.
Muḥammad Labíb survived the 1903 persecution in Yazd, founded a children's savings company that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá blessed, helped Effie Baker photograph the Faith's historic sites in Iran, and later pioneered to Japan and Rhodes.
Led to the Faith by childhood dreams of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the broadcaster William Sears gave up his career to pioneer to South Africa, met the Guardian on pilgrimage in 1954 and was appointed a Hand of the Cause in 1957.
The Montreal architect William Sutherland Maxwell, husband of May Maxwell, spent his last years serving Shoghi Effendi in Haifa and designed the superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb.
This servant, after that grievous event and great calamity, the ascension of His Holiness ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to the Abhá Kingdom …
Your touching words in connection with the sudden removal of the Greatest Holy Leaf from their midst have greatly alleviated the burden of sorrow that weighs so heavily upon their hearts and have demonstrated that in their great and …
The letter dated 5 August 1932, from that spiritual friend has been received by the Guardian of the Cause of God, may our lives be sacrificed for him …
Your valued message brought strength and solace to my aching heart.
I deeply appreciate your sympathy. My loss is tremendous and my sorrow so profound.
What you had written concerning the memorial gatherings of men and women believers to mourn the Most Exalted Leaf, who was the peerless fruit of the Holy Tree …
86 ...He is eagerly awaiting to see the friends as ever burning with the desire to serve a Cause for the sake of which our departed Holy Leaf gave up her entire…
I greatly value your sympathy in my cruel, my irreparable loss.
His loss is too immense to be adequately expressed in words.
Your sweet and touching message imparted strength and solace to my heart.
My great love for the Greatest Holy Leaf and my attachment to each one of you prompt me to add these few words in person and to express to you my gratitude for the expression of your valued sympathy.
The profound sorrow occasioned by the sudden passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf, as well as the unnumbered messages of sympathy received from friends and believers in East and West, all of which the Guardian acknowledged in person …
The Guardian of the Cause of God has received your letter of 21 July 1932, telling of your and the other friends’ profound distress on receiving word of this calamity, this dire ordeal, that is, the ascension of the Most Exalted Leaf, that brightest fruit of the Eternal Tree.
The many evidences of your increasing zeal and activities in the service of our beloved Cause, have to a great measure, relieved my sorrow-laden heart.
The Guardian’s anguish, because of this tragic occurrence, is such that it can neither be plumbed nor described in words.
Your highly impressive and touching message brought much relief to my weary soul.
Indeed, the Greatest Holy Leaf, the Trust of Bahá’u’lláh amongst us, was the emblem of His boundless grace, a luminary shining in the heaven of tender mercy and gracious providence …
The passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf has filled my heart with unutterable sorrow.
O well-loved friend, The emotions that have possessed my grieving heart are such that they cannot be put into words, and tongue and pen are helpless to describe them.
The Guardian trusts that the explanation he has given by wire regarding the suspension for a period of nine months of Bahá’í religious festivity has been made clear.
I wish to add a few words in person as a token of my deepfelt appreciation of your loving message of sympathy in the great loss the family of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and myself have sustained.
The loss of the Greatest Holy Leaf will be bitterly felt by all those friends who had the pleasure and privilege to meet her.
And in this fervent plea, my voice is once more reinforced by the passionate, and perhaps, the last, entreaty, of the Greatest Holy Leaf, whose spirit, now hovering on the edge of the Great Beyond …
The passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf, so cruel in the feelings of unalterable grief that it has evoked, is, indeed, a tremendous loss to us all and particularly to our Guardian.
Even though during these last years she was weak and most of the time confined to her room, yet she was a source of constant joy and inspiration to those that met her.
I am moved to add a few words with my own pen, to what has been written on my behalf, renewing my plea to you and through you, to each member of your beloved community, to prosecute, with undiminished vigour the enterprise which you have so splendidly inaugurated.
The passing away of the Greatest Holy Leaf was a loss every Bahá’í will feel deeply if only he stops to think about it.
The passing of the beloved Khánum has plunged me in unspeakable sorrow.
Even though the Greatest Holy Leaf has left us in body she is with us in spirit, inspiring us in our work and beseeching for us God’s loving mercy and fatherly care.
I greatly value the expression of your loving sympathy and am greatly relieved by the sentiments your message conveyed.
I wish to express to your distinguished assembly my gratitude for the action they have taken in reproducing in facsimile my humble tribute to the Greatest Holy Leaf.
Shoghi Effendi wishes me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated August 25th 1932 and to extend his deep appreciation for your kind words of sympathy.
O ye who share my anguish and are my comforters in my distress and bereavement!
You should be very happy to have had the privilege of meeting her upon this physical plane of existence …
Moved by an unalterable devotion to the memory of the Greatest Holy Leaf, I feel prompted to share with you, and through you with the concourse of her steadfast lovers throughout the West …
Surely there is nothing that will console the Guardian more than the happy news that the Cause for which the Greatest Holy Leaf lived and suffered is gradually spreading and embracing the whole of the people of the world.
These nine months during which the Guardian has asked the friends to discard feast days, are meant to be months of mourning for the passing away of the Greatest Holy Leaf.
We thank you most sincerely for your kind letters of sympathy, and we appreciate your loving Messages, which are as comforting balm to our wounded hearts.
Surely no matter what we say about her still we have not done justice to the abounding love she had and the services she rendered to Bahá’u’lláh and the Master.
In this day, those holy souls are divinely confirmed who stand firm in the most sacred Cause of the Abhá Beauty, those who are steadfast, and loyal to the Covenant and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
Indeed it would have been for you such a joy to meet the Greatest Holy Leaf during her earthly life, but the Guardian does not wish you to feel depressed about it …
The Fund associated with the beloved name of the Greatest Holy Leaf has been launched.
BLESSED REMAINS PUREST BRANCH AND MASTER’S MOTHER SAFELY TRANSFERRED HALLOWED PRECINCTS SHRINES MOUNT CARMEL.
He fully appreciates the deep sorrow that you, as well as the other friends, feel for the passing away of the Greatest Holy Leaf.
It is not unknown to those who stand firm in the Covenant and Testament of God that the centre of violation and his associates, from the day of the ascension of the Ancient Beauty, may His Great Name be ever exalted …
GREATEST HOLY LEAF’S IMMORTAL SPIRIT WINGED ITS FLIGHT GREAT BEYOND.
The ascension of the Greatest Holy Leaf is, indeed, an irreparable loss to us all and will continue to be deeply felt for many, many long years.
O loved ones of God, These two precious and most exalted treasures, these two keepsakes of the sacred Beauty of Abhá, have now been joined to the third trust from Him, that is, to the daughter of Bahá and His remnant, the token of the Master’s Remembrance.
This dire calamity, this great affliction, the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our lives be sacrificed for His meekness, has shaken us to the very depths.
Although that supreme calamity, that great ordeal, the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, put the torch to the harvest of our hearts, and brought down both our outer and inner beings, wedding us to grief and ceaseless pain, yet praised be God …
He deeply appreciates your sincere, well-expressed reference, to the tribute he has written to the dearly beloved Greatest Holy Leaf.
70 ...as a further testimony to the majestic unfoldment and progressive consolidation of the stupendous undertaking launched by Bahá’u’lláh on that holy mountain, may be mentioned the selection of a portion of the school property…
106 ...He was deeply touched by the strong attachment of the friends to one who, besides being the beloved daughter of Bahá’u’lláh, exemplified perhaps more than anyone the true spirit that animates His teachings. His sincere hope is…
O faithful servant of the Best-Beloved, the Most Glorious! O steadfast friend, flourishing in the garden of His luminous Beauty!
O God, my God! Thou seest me immersed in the depths of grief, drowned in my sorrow, my heart on fire with the agony of parting, my inmost self aflame with longing.
The raising of this Edifice will in turn herald the construction, in the course of successive epochs of the Formative Age of the Faith, of several other structures...
The steps of her holy resting-place represent Local Spiritual Assemblies, not individual believers.
That supreme affliction, the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was the direst of ordeals; it was an anguish of mourning.
The good news that the Word of God is being raised up, and His Cause glorified, and that His friends, on fire with love for Him, are arising to spread His sweet savours abroad—is coming in steadily from every quarter of the globe.
GREATEST HOLY LEAF ASCENDED ABHÁ KINGDOM. OUR GRIEF IMMENSE, OUR LOSS IRREPARABLE. INFORM LOCAL ASSEMBLIES COMMEMORATE BEFITTINGLY SACRED EXPERIENCES SO RICH, SO SUBLIME, SO EVENTFUL A LIFE.
His grief is too immense and his loss too heavy to be adequately expressed in words.
It is clear how that most dire of calamities, that most great disaster which was the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our souls be sacrificed for His meekness, has set our hearts on fire and dissolved our very limbs and members in grief.
The good news has come that the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, may our lives be sacrificed for His meekness, has been read at the meetings of the friends …
In this noblest of all ages the Sun of grace and loving-kindness has shone out from the divine day-spring with such resplendent glory and is casting His beams so bright and far …
The purport of your letter is highly indicative of your steadfastness in His Cause, of your unswerving constancy in the Covenant, of having set your face toward Shoghi Effendi, the authorized Point to whom all must turn …
At this hour while yet the heart burns with the anguish of sorrow, and the gloom of bereavement still hangs low, my thoughts turn in loving remembrance to my sincere beloved sisters and brothers in the Cause.
O ye who burn in the flames of bereavement! By the Day-star of the World, my bereaved and longing heart is afire with a grief that is beyond my description.
The irreparable loss which the Faith has suffered through the passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf is too immense to be adequately expressed in words, and we cannot fully realize its significance at the present stage of the evolution of the Cause.
A physician treats every illness with a certain remedy and to every painful sore he applies a specially prepared compound.
We were delighted to receive your excellent letter ... and read it with joy.
The letter that you wrote in your burning grief, on the passing of the world’s Beloved, the Orb of the Covenant—wrote with weeping eyes and a heart afire, has come.
Although the ascension of the beloved Centre of the Covenant was the ultimate calamity, the severest of ordeals, and the fire of that bereavement consumed our hearts and souls …
You have offered up thanks to the Lord for appointing the Centre of His Cause and the Guardian of His Covenant, and have voiced your gratitude and expressed your spiritual sentiments, for this favour and grace.
Brethren and fellow-mourners in the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh! A sorrow, reminiscent in its poignancy, of the devastating grief caused by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s sudden removal from our midst, has stirred the Bahá’í world to its foundations.
In these days, when we are all mourning the loss of our beloved Greatest Holy Leaf, Shoghi Effendi’s sole comfort is to see the friends as ever devoted and active and striving day and night to promote the teachings of the Cause.
It has been demonstrated time and time again that whatever comes to pass only enhances the glory of God’s Faith, and further proclaims His Word.
ENTREAT SORROW STRICKEN AMERICAN BELIEVERS NEVER ALLOW CONSCIOUSNESS THEIR AGONIZING LOSS PARALYZE DETERMINATION PROSECUTE AN ENTERPRISE ON WHICH ADORED OBJECT OUR MOURNING CENTRED HER BRIGHTEST HOPES.
Your message of condolence and sympathy, dated July 22nd, 1932 which so fully conveyed your profound grief at the loss occasioned by the unexpected passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf was received and read with great interest.
Your letter of 12th October 1922 is just received and refreshed in our memory the many beautiful days that you spent here when the Beloved Lord, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was still on this earth.
All praise to the beloved Abhá Beauty, that those nightingales of the gardens of knowledge, those doves of the fragrant bowers of certitude, are singing the holy verses on the boughs of grace and bounty …
It was sometime ago that I received your kind and encouraging letter through your honourable secretary.
You quite well realize, I presume, that Shoghi Effendi has always cherished the fondest hopes for your services to the Cause of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and I am sure that your achievements will be great, shining brilliantly as a star.
The Pen of the divine Ordainer has so decreed that this house of sorrows should be encompassed by unending calamity and pain.
‘O God, My God! Thou hast lighted the lamp of Thy Cause with the oil of wisdom; protect it from contrary winds.
The tongue of this lowly and grief-stricken maidservant is powerless to praise those loved ones of God, and the words uttered by her are wholly inadequate to pay a worthy tribute to the staunch firmness and constancy …
82 ...The news of the Memorial Service you had held for the Greatest Holy Leaf gave him the assurance that the friends are faithfully sharing his grief and are demonstrating in a befitting manner their profound devotion to one whose…
The question of Avárih has surely come to your attention.
It is a very long time since we have had any news from you and we are quite longing to have one of your interesting and beautiful letters, that brings us always comfort because of your sincerity, your love for the Cause and your constant energy in the work for the Cause.
Your short and loving note of June 25th has been received.
Your charming letter of June 20th has arrived and with it the spiritual waves of your love and devotion to the welfare of the Cause of God and to the prosperity of the dear friends throughout America.
Your numerous letters written to the beloved Guardian and myself have all arrived and brought with them the sweet perfume of your devotion, sincerity, strong faith and active and beautiful services you are inexhaustibly rendering to the Cause of God.
In this Day nothing is so important as service. Did not ‘Abdu’l-Bahá voluntarily call Himself the ‘Servant’ of Bahá, manifesting also in His life the perfections of servitude to God and man?
It always cheers my heart to hear from the dear friends whose hearts are so full of love and devotion, and desire to serve this Blessed Cause which has been proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh to all the world, so that all national, racial …
PRAY ASSURE AMERICAN BELIEVERS BEHALF HOLY FAMILY MYSELF ABIDING APPRECIATION NUMEROUS EVIDENCES THEIR VALUED SYMPATHY.
The letter from that spiritual friend has reached the beloved Guardian, and he is aware of your bitter grieving over the calamitous news that a most glorious fruit of the Holy Tree, the Most Exalted Leaf, the Remnant of Bahá, has passed away.
Under the inspired guidance of Shoghi Effendi the Bahá’í Cause grew steadily in size and in the establishment of its Administrative Order, so that by 1951 there were eleven functioning National Spiritual Assemblies.
During His own lifetime Bahá’u’lláh appointed a few tried and trusted friends to assist in directing and promoting the work of the Movement, and gave them the title of Ayadiyi-Amru’lláh (lit.
Before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá completed His earthly mission, He had laid a basis for the development of the administrative order established in Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings.
It has been the general characteristic of religion that organization marks the interruption of the true spiritual influence and serves to prevent the original impulse from being carried into the world.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá appointed His eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi, to the responsible position of “Guardian of the Cause” (Valiyy-i-Amru’lláh).
In 1955 John and Audrey Robarts gave Shoghi Effendi a springbok-skin kaross from Bechuanaland. After the Guardian's passing, Rúhíyyih Khánum showed John Robarts that it had been his prayer mat.
On his 1941 pilgrimage, ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan knelt to take off the Guardian's boots when Shoghi Effendi's wrist was bandaged, and found one boot had a hole in it and the other had been repaired.
On her first pilgrimage in 1923, the twelve-year-old Mary Maxwell stood guard at the door of her sleeping mother, May Maxwell, only to learn that the visitor she had challenged was Shoghi Effendi.
In February 1941, in the middle of the Second World War, ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan and his family travelled from Iran to Haifa. He recalls how Shoghi Effendi welcomed them, encouraged the persecuted Iranian believers and spoke about the station of Islam.
As a small Mohawk boy in Ontario, Jim Loft was waved to by 'Abdu'l-Bahá from a passing train. Years later, as a Bahá'í, he returned to his reserve at the Guardian's request to teach the Faith.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes how, in 1922–24, Shoghi Effendi wrestled with doubts about his own worthiness to succeed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, as his letters from those years reveal.
Longing to answer the Guardian’s call for pioneers to South America, the convalescent Grace Ober fell and ended up in a wheelchair, where she met guests from Chile, Argentina, Peru and Brazil and gave them the Message.
In 1948 Shoghi Effendi personally directed the cutting away of rock behind the Shrine of the Báb, on his feet from early morning until dark for months, so that the work would be done quickly and economically.
Each summer Milly Collins gave Shoghi Effendi a sum of money and begged him to spend it on himself. The Guardian, who travelled third class and lived by strict economy, used a small part of it as she wished and spent the rest on the gardens, the Holy Places and the Archives.
During the Second World War the Guardian wrote God Passes By, his review of the first Bahá'í century, racing to finish it in time for the Centenary. Rúhíyyih Khánum, who proofread it with him late into the night, recorded what the work cost him.
In 1922, while Shoghi Effendi was away from Haifa, the Greatest Holy Leaf headed the affairs of the Faith. Her reply to one friend's letter asked for complete unity and looked for his return.
In December 1939 Shoghi Effendi moved the remains of the Purest Branch and of his mother, Navváb, from their graves in 'Akká to Mount Carmel, near the resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf.
When war broke out, Shoghi Effendi advised Marion Jack, a pioneer in Sofia, to return to Canada. She begged to stay at her post, and he changed his instructions and wired: "Advise remain Sofia love."
Shoghi Effendi sent Keith Ransom-Kehler to Persia to appeal for the entry of Bahá'í literature. The Shah refused to receive her, and she wrote of her failed mission and of a forget-me-not she had picked in Bárfurúsh before she died in Isfáhán.
In December 1939 Shoghi Effendi moved the remains of the Purest Branch and his mother, Navvab, from their graves in 'Akka to Mount Carmel, placing the remains in new coffins with his own hands and carrying them on his shoulder.
In 1952 Shoghi Effendi directed the levelling of land around the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, changed his design after viewing it from a ruined building's roof, and then moved his meetings to the edge of the new garden out of respect for the Shrine.
In 1903 the Bahá'ís of Chicago asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá's permission to build a House of Worship in America. Shoghi Effendi traces the forty years, through economic crisis and war, until its eighteen outer steps were set in place in December 1942.
The Guardian fixed the site of the International Archives on Mount Carmel with strings on the ground, planted its gardens first, and had the builders raise it from the rear with five metres to work in. It was completed in 1957.
On a summer rest-cure, and again in London in the last days of his life, Shoghi Effendi worked for hours on his own maps of the Ten Year Crusade, filling in their details by hand.
In July 1947 the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine asked Shoghi Effendi whether the Bahá'ís wished to submit a statement. His reply explained the Faith's ties to the Holy Land and declined to take any political side.
In 1955 a wave of persecution swept the Bahá'ís of Persia. Working alone in Switzerland, Shoghi Effendi took their case to the United Nations, opened a fund for their relief and called for a Mother Temple in Africa.
In Egypt a coachman seized 'Abdu'l-Bahá by His sash to force an unjust fare while the boy Shoghi Effendi watched. As Guardian, Shoghi Effendi added up every bill he paid and pointed out undercharges as well as overcharges.
In 1930 Queen Marie of Rumania sailed for Haifa, and the Greatest Holy Leaf waited hour after hour in the Master's house to receive her. The Queen was met at the boat and taken out of Palestine.
In November 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student at Oxford, learned in London that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed away. In January 1922 the Master's Will was read, naming him Guardian of the Cause of God.
How the Nineteen Day Feast, held on the first day of each Bahá'í month, came to combine prayer and reading from the Holy Writings, consultation with the Spiritual Assembly, and fellowship.
Leroy Ioas recalls how Shoghi Effendi embraced and kissed Charles Dunning, the plainly dressed Knight of Bahá'u'lláh for the Orkney Islands, and seated him beside himself at dinner.
Ugo Giachery describes being overwhelmed on first entering the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, and Shoghi Effendi explaining that evening the spiritual influence of the earthly remains of the Messengers of God.
Leroy Ioas praised the way Shoghi Effendi had built the Administrative Order. The Guardian answered that he had no blueprint: God guided him one step at a time, and the Bahá’ís must share his confidence in that guidance.
Leroy Ioas describes Shoghi Effendi’s day in Haifa: prayer from 5:30 in the morning, his vast mail, the pilgrims from East and West and the International Bahá’í Council, until late at night, every day of the week.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum found almost no mention of the Second World War in her diaries, though it threatened the World Centre and the Guardian himself. She saw that silence as a measure of the pressures he carried in those years.
In 1923 Shoghi Effendi withdrew to the mountains of Switzerland in complete solitude to find strength for his high office, returning in November before the second anniversary of the Master's ascension.
In the years after the Master’s passing, Shoghi Effendi would set out from Interlaken before dawn to walk and climb in the mountains, usually alone and often for ten to sixteen hours, as he later told Rúḥíyyih Khánum.
Mary Maxwell, who grew up in Montreal, married Shoghi Effendi in Haifa in 1937 with no celebration and no elaborate ceremony. Known afterwards as Rúḥíyyih Khánum, she served the Faith for the rest of her life.
Early in his ministry the Guardian added three rooms to the Shrine of the Báb, paid for by Haji Mahmud Qassabchi of Iraq. One of the Shrine's doors is named after him.
Shoghi Effendi was a student in England when 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away. He hurried home to Haifa, and his grandfather's Will named him Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.
Shoghi Effendi drew a great curving line on Mount Carmel where, one day, the buildings of the Bahá'í World Centre would stand. He lived to see only the first of them.
In 1937 Mary Maxwell of Montreal married Shoghi Effendi in Haifa. Almost no one knew beforehand, and there was no celebration, no wedding dress and no reception.
To design the dome and arcade of the Shrine of the Báb, Shoghi Effendi turned to a Canadian architect who was also his father-in-law, William Sutherland Maxwell.
In London in 1957, Shoghi Effendi fell ill with the flu, kept working until he had finished his last map, and passed away peacefully in his sleep.
Letters poured in to Shoghi Effendi from all over the world. He decided to keep writing back to individual believers, and he wrote and typed his own books himself.
While studying in England, Shoghi Effendi learned that his grandfather 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed away; back home in Haifa, he learned from the Master's Will that he had been chosen as Guardian.
Soon after he became Guardian, Shoghi Effendi went away for a time to gather his strength, walking for long hours, usually alone, in the mountains of Switzerland, while the Greatest Holy Leaf looked after the Faith.
Shoghi Effendi planned a ten-year Crusade to carry the Faith to 131 new countries and territories, and in its very first year Bahá'ís settled in one hundred of them.
In 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student in England, walked into an office in London and read a cable on the desk telling of the passing of his grandfather, 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's gardener said grass would not grow in that land, but Shoghi Effendi kept sending for seed until his lawns grew.
Shoghi Effendi worked for eight months to translate Nabíl's Persian history of the Báb and His followers into English, and in 1932 it was published as The Dawn-Breakers.
Shoghi Effendi translated The Hidden Words of Bahá'u'lláh into English, and worked hard all his life to make his English as good as it could be.
May Maxwell died only weeks after arriving in South America as a pioneer. The Guardian wrote that she laid down her life in a spirit that merited the crown of martyrdom.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalls how her mother, May Maxwell, was broken by grief after the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and how a pilgrimage to Haifa in 1923 to meet Shoghi Effendi restored her.
Shoghi Effendi sent the American believer Keith Ransom-Kehler to Persia to plead for the freedom of the persecuted Bahá'ís there. The Sháh never received her, but she stirred the Persian community, and when she died in Iṣfáhán in 1933 the Guardian called her the first American martyr.
After 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing, Shoghi Effendi, stricken with grief, left the Holy Land for a time and placed the affairs of the Faith under the headship of the Greatest Holy Leaf, Bahíyyih Khánum, who administered them in consultation with the Holy Family.
In His Will 'Abdu'l-Bahá named His grandson Shoghi Effendi "the sign of God, the chosen branch, the Guardian of the Cause of God." Shoghi Effendi asked the believers to call him only by the name his Grandfather had used.
In 1920 Hyde Dunn, then in his sixties, and his wife Clara answered 'Abdu'l-Bahá's call and settled in Australia. Working as a travelling salesman, he carried the Bahá'í message to hundreds of towns, and the couple became known as "Father" and "Mother" Dunn.
Between 1948 and 1953 Shoghi Effendi raised an arcade, drum and golden dome around the plain stone Shrine 'Abdu'l-Bahá had built for the Báb on Mount Carmel. When it was finished he called it the "Queen of Carmel."
Shoghi Effendi went to Oxford to perfect his English for translating the sacred Writings. In 1935 he published Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, a selection of passages he had translated, which Professor Norman Bentwich and Queen Marie of Romania, among others, praised.
Shoghi Effendi went to Oxford to perfect his English so that he could translate the Bahá'í writings. Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes his notebooks, his reading and the care with which he chose every word.
George Townshend, a Canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, became a Bahá'í in 1921 and served Shoghi Effendi as literary adviser. At seventy he renounced his orders in the Anglican Church, and in 1951 he was named a Hand of the Cause.
Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, shared the sufferings of Bahá'u'lláh's family from early childhood until her passing in 1932. Shoghi Effendi's tributes describe the calm and trust in God with which she bore them.
From 1919 until her death in Honolulu in 1939, Martha Root travelled four times around the world teaching the Bahá'í Faith, from South American cities to the palace of Queen Marie of Romania. Shoghi Effendi called her the foremost Hand of the first Bahá'í century.
In The Promised Day Is Come, Shoghi Effendi traces the loss of power of the religious hierarchies of Islám and Christendom, which he sees as paralleling the fall of the kings whom Bahá'u'lláh had also addressed.
In The Promised Day Is Come, Shoghi Effendi surveys the fall of the great monarchies of Europe and the Middle East between 1870 and 1925, reading the collapses in the light of the warnings Bahá'u'lláh had sent to those same sovereigns from Adrianople and 'Akká.
In The Promised Day Is Come, written in 1941 during the Second World War, Shoghi Effendi described the upheaval of his time as a judgment of God, at once a punishment and a cleansing, and as the birth pangs of a new Order.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes how Shoghi Effendi drew an arc on Mount Carmel above the graves of the Greatest Holy Leaf, her mother and her brother, as the site for the Faith's future administrative buildings.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalls her marriage to Shoghi Effendi on 25 March 1937: a visit to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, a simple ceremony in the room of the Greatest Holy Leaf, and no celebration at all.
Toward the end of 1942 Shoghi Effendi asked his father-in-law, the Canadian architect William Sutherland Maxwell, to design the superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb. Built with stone cut in Italy, it was completed in 1953.
While in London in the autumn of 1957, Shoghi Effendi fell ill with Asiatic influenza, kept working on his last map, and died in his sleep early on 4 November. He was buried near London on 9 November.
Faced with a flood of letters from all over the world, Shoghi Effendi chose to keep answering individual believers. He kept copies of his cables to the end and typed his own manuscripts with two fingers.
In November 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student at Oxford, learned from a cable in a London office that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed away; back in Haifa, the Master's Will told him he had been appointed Guardian.
Overwhelmed by grief and by his appointment as Guardian, Shoghi Effendi left Haifa in April 1922 with the Greatest Holy Leaf in charge, and in the early years of his ministry sought healing in long, solitary walks in the Swiss mountains.
Shoghi Effendi made public the Ten Year Crusade at the start of the Holy Year in 1952 and launched it at four Intercontinental Teaching Conferences in 1953; in its first year one hundred new territories were opened to the Faith.
On 29 November 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student at Oxford, learned of the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá by reading the cable that lay open on a desk in Wellesley Tudor Pole's London office.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's gardener said lawns would not grow in Palestine. Shoghi Effendi cabled friends and relatives and finally wrote to seed firms himself, and in time had lawns that satisfied him.
Shoghi Effendi spent eight months translating the first part of Nabíl's narrative and almost two years preparing The Dawn-Breakers, published in 1932, which deeply stirred the Bahá'ís of the West.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum records that early in his ministry Shoghi Effendi sent the American believers his revised translation of The Hidden Words, and describes the long study of English behind his translations.
Leroy Ioas recalled that Shoghi Effendi lived only for the Cause of God, rejoicing at news of the believers' victories and grieving at their sufferings, his heart like a mirror reflecting all parts of the world.
Rúhíyyih Khánum describes Shoghi Effendi as a small, sensitive and mischievous child who grew into a man of iron constitution and will, and recalls his hazel eyes and wonderfully expressive face.
Leroy Ioas recalled Shoghi Effendi telling how, unwilling to become Guardian after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing, he went to the mountains of Switzerland and fought with himself until he conquered himself, and that every Bahá’í must do the same.
Walking home with Shoghi Effendi in Haifa, Leroy Ioas heard the Guardian describe the burdens weighing on him and offered to take on his papers. With tears in his eyes, the Guardian answered that only God could give him relief.
In 1925, the year the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada took the place of the Bahá'í Temple Unity, the annual Convention met at Green Acre in Maine.
Back from Haifa in the spring of 1922, Mountfort Mills told the American Bahá'ís at their convention about meeting Shoghi Effendi, the young Guardian appointed in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Will.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum recalls her marriage to Shoghi Effendi on 25 March 1937: a quiet visit to the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, a ring, and no celebration, flowers or wedding dress.
When cables brought news of May Maxwell's death in Argentina, Shoghi Effendi broke it to her daughter, Rúḥíyyih Khánum, with great tenderness, and comforted her until she was laughing through her tears.
Leroy Ioas recalls the evening Shoghi Effendi shared news that a discouraged pioneer on a Pacific island, whom he had urged again and again to stay, now had two spiritual assemblies.
Rúhíyyih Khánum recalls how the Guardian, weighed down by burdens, tore from The Times only the articles he wanted, threw the rest away, and handed her long streamers of clippings to read.
Leroy Ioas recalls how Shoghi Effendi gave the aged Corinne True a purse once used by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, with a gold coin inside bearing the year of her first visit to the Master.
A Canadian pilgrim asked whether translators could replace the nightingale and the rose for readers in the Arctic; Shoghi Effendi said the sacred texts must be translated exactly, then gave her attar of rose for the friends in Canada and for the Inuit.
In Haifa in 1948 thieves stole the Guardian’s newly arrived Buick. Shoghi Effendi stayed calm, and a chance conversation in a Herzl Street shop led the police to the car, which was recovered.
Hand of the Cause Leroy Ioas recalls the contrast between Shoghi Effendi's slight, refined frame and the power with which he spoke, and how closely the Guardian resembled 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
When Sutherland Maxwell lay near death in the winter of 1949–50, Shoghi Effendi insisted he should not die and had him taken to Switzerland, where he recovered so completely that the Guardian called it miraculous.
As the Shrine of the Báb neared completion, Shoghi Effendi placed plaster from the Báb's prison cell at Máh-Kú beneath a tile of the dome; when Leroy Ioas offered to test the scaffolding first, the Guardian reminded him he was a mountaineer.
As he began writing The Advent of Divine Justice, Shoghi Effendi made a remark about America that Rúḥíyyih Khánum found hard to accept; he told her to swallow it, and over the years she came to see the truth in it.
Keith Ransom-Kehler, sent by Shoghi Effendi to Persia, pleaded the cause of its persecuted Bahá'ís before the authorities and died in Iṣfáhán in 1933. The Guardian called her the American believers' first and distinguished martyr.
In a 1929 letter later published in The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, Shoghi Effendi answered doubts about the Bahá'í institutions, calling the administration an instrument and not a substitute for the Faith, and warning against separating it from the spiritual teachings.
Hand of the Cause Leroy Ioas recalls how Shoghi Effendi went straight to the heart of every question, grew weary of long, roundabout letters, and wanted every task to bring an immediate result.