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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."
By Rúhíyyih Khánum · 1969 · Bahá'í Publishing Trust
Modern era (1957–present) · in copyright
Biography of Shoghi Effendi by his wife.
About Rúhíyyih Khánum
Born Mary Sutherland Maxwell. Wife of Shoghi Effendi from 1937 until his passing in 1957; later appointed Hand of the Cause. Her *The Priceless Pearl* is the definitive biography of the Guardian.
1910–2000 · Hand of the Cause; wife of Shoghi Effendi
Stories by era covered
Featured figures
“hammering away with a few fingers, sometimes ten hours on end.”
“I have no time, no time. For twenty years I have had no time!”
“a nerve-racking experience for him in every way.”
“his hands the last to caress it.”
“whom 'Abdu'l-Bahá called 'General Jack'.”
From Advise Remain Sofia
Stories of Bahá'u'lláh
Secondary RetellingAli-Akbar Furutan · 1986
Stories Told by 'Abdu'l-Bahá
Primary SourceVarious Compilers · 2000
Mahmúd's Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání
Primary SourceMírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání · 1998
bahaistories.com archive
Secondary RetellingVarious · 2024
The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh (4 volumes)
Secondary RetellingAdib Taherzadeh · 1974
The Summons of the Lord of Hosts
Primary SourceBahá'u'lláh · 2002
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 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 '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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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