The Guardian Withdraws to Switzerland

In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum writes openly about the months after her husband learned, through the Master’s Will, that he had been appointed Guardian. He took up the work in Haifa, but his grief, and the troubles stirred up by the enemies of the Cause, weighed on him until he felt he could not stay.

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On 5 April 1922 he left Haifa for Europe, accompanied by his eldest cousin. In a short letter in Persian he explained that he had been “so stricken with grief and pain” that he had left the affairs of the Cause for a time under the supervision of the Holy Family and the headship of the Greatest Holy Leaf, until he had gained “health, strength, self-confidence and spiritual energy.”

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The Greatest Holy Leaf, Bahíyyih Khánum, the sister of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, administered the affairs of the Faith in his absence, in consultation with the family and an Assembly of those he had appointed. On 8 April she wrote to the friends that Shoghi Effendi “has sought the necessary quiet in which to meditate upon the vast task ahead of him,” and that the family of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was assured they would all strive to advance the Cause. Her letter and his were published, with facsimiles, in *Star of the West*.

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It all looked very calm on paper, Rúḥíyyih Khánum writes, but behind it was a raging storm in his heart and mind. He went first to Germany to consult doctors, who found he had almost no reflexes. In the wilderness, however, he found for himself a partial healing.

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In the early years he returned again and again to the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland, which he later called his “second home.” In Interlaken he rented a tiny attic room under the eaves in the house of an old Swiss guide, for about a franc a night. Often long before sunrise he set out, took a train to the foot of some mountain or pass, and walked, often ten to sixteen hours, usually alone.

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He climbed some of the higher mountains roped to a guide. His longest walk, he later told her, was forty-two kilometres over two passes. She believed those exhausting marches healed, to some extent, the wounds left in his heart by the passing of the Master.

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In the autumn of 1922 the Greatest Holy Leaf sent members of the family to ask him to come back, and he returned to Haifa on 15 December. The next day he wrote to the Bahá’ís of Britain and of America, and soon afterwards to those of Germany, France and Japan. In the early summer of 1923 he left again for the mountains of Switzerland.

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Unlike later years, when he kept in constant touch with the work by cable and letter, this too was a complete break, in her words “a soul-searching, a communion with himself and his destiny in order to find the strength to go back.” He returned in November 1923, and led the Faith as Guardian until his passing in 1957.

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*A retelling based on **The Priceless Pearl** by Rúḥíyyih Khánum. For the fuller account, see the original.*

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