The Guardian's Correspondence

A retelling based on The Priceless Pearl by Rúḥíyyih Khánum.

Shoghi Effendi returned to Haifa in December 1922, after the months of withdrawal that followed the Master’s passing. Once the Bahá’ís learned from his cables that he was back, a flood of letters poured in upon him from all parts of the world. Rúḥíyyih Khánum writes that this placed him in a serious quandary, which he described in a letter to a distant cousin. To copy the Master by writing to everyone would be, he wrote, “presumptuous on my part, and in view of the rapid extension of the Movement, impracticable.” To write to some and not to others would lead to friction and discouragement. To give up individual correspondence altogether would sever all personal relationships with the friends.

In November 1923 the problem was still on his mind. He assured the British National Assembly:

No written message however unimportant, will first be opened and read by anyone save myself.

For thirty-six years the question of how to cope with his mail worried him. In the end, Rúḥíyyih Khánum records, he decided not to give up answering individual letters, particularly in the West and in countries with new believers. He had learned through painful experience that Assemblies were not always wise enough to deal with people in a way that healed their wounds and kept them active in the Faith. In those letters his secretary usually dealt with the details, and the Guardian’s own words conveyed the assurance of his prayers, his encouragement and his statement of general principles.

His cables, she writes, were often more intimate, more powerful and more revealing than his letters. Early in his ministry he kept copies of his letters, but later the pressure of work made that impossible. His cables were the exception: to the end of his life he kept copies of them, by number and year.

He wrote his books and long communications by hand on small lined pads. If a first draft had become too written-over, he sat down and patiently copied it all out again. Then he typed his own manuscripts on a very small portable typewriter by the two-finger method, making further changes as he went. When he typed the final copy of God Passes By he sometimes worked at it ten hours on end. His Persian letters he wrote out himself and gave to a secretary to copy in fine penmanship before they were sent to Ṭihrán.

A retelling based on The Priceless Pearl (Rúḥíyyih Khánum, 1969), chapters 3, 6 and 10. For the fuller account, see the original.

Khánum, R.. (1969). *The Priceless Pearl*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.