Century of Light Part 5

In appreciating this undertaking, it is helpful for Baha'is to understand not only the role that planning plays in the life of the Cause, but the unique nature of this instrumentality in its Baha'i expression. The systematic identification of objectives to be achieved and decisions as to how to achieve them does not mean that the Baha'i community has a.s.sumed the responsibility of "designing" a future for itself, as the concept of planning customarily implies. What Baha'i inst.i.tutions do, rather, is to strive to align the work of the Cause with the Divinely impelled process they see steadily unfolding in the world, a process that will ultimately realize its purpose, regardless of historical circ.u.mstances or events. The challenge to the Administrative Order is to ensure that, as Providence allows, Baha'i efforts are in harmony with this Greater Plan of G.o.d, because it is in doing so that the potentialities implanted in the Cause by Baha'u'llah bear their fruit. That the provisions of the Kitab-i-Aqdas and the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha ensure the success of the efforts of the Baha'is is dramatically demonstrated in the unbroken series of triumphs that fulfilled the plans created by Shoghi Effendi.

By August 1944, Shoghi Effendi was able to celebrate the completion of the first Seven Year Plan. The Guardian marked the moment with a gift to the Baha'is of the world that represents one of the greatest achievements of his life. The publication, in 1944, of _G.o.d Pa.s.ses By_, his comprehensive and reflective history of the first hundred years of the Cause, threw open for believers a window on the spiritual process by which Baha'u'llah's purpose for humankind is being realized.

History is a powerful instrument. At its best, it provides a perspective on the past and casts a light on the future. It populates human consciousness with heroes, saints and martyrs whose example awakens in everyone touched by it capacities they had not imagined they possessed. It helps make sense of the world-and of human experience. It inspires, consoles and enlightens. It enriches life. In the great body of literature and legend that it has left to humanity, history's hand can be seen at work shaping much of the course of civilization-in the legends that have inspired the ideals of every people since the dawn of recorded time, as well as in the epics of the _Ramayana_, in the exploits celebrated in the _Odyssey_ and the _Aeneid_, in the Nordic sagas, in the _Shahnameh_, and in much of the Bible and the Qur'an.

_G.o.d Pa.s.ses By_ elevates this great work of the mind to a level ardently striven after but never attained in any of ages past. Those who open themselves to its vision discover in it an avenue of approach to understanding the Purpose of G.o.d, an avenue that converges with the vast expanse spread out in the Guardian's matchless translations of the Revealed Texts. Its appearance on the centenary of the birth of the Cause-just as the Baha'i world was celebrating the success of the first collective effort it had ever been able to undertake-summoned up for believers everywhere the full majesty and meaning of a hundred years of ceaseless sacrifice.

At a relatively early point in the second world war, the Guardian set that conflict in a perspective for Baha'is that was very different from the one generally prevailing. The war should be regarded, he said, "as the direct continuation" of the conflagration ignited in 1914. It would come to be seen as the "essential pre-requisite to world unification". The entry into the war by the United States, whose president had initiated the project of a system of international order, but which had itself rejected this visionary initiative, would lead that nation, Shoghi Effendi predicted, to "a.s.sume through adversity its preponderating share of responsibility to lay down, once for all, broad, worldwide, una.s.sailable foundations of that discredited yet immortal System."(88)

These statements proved prophetic. With the end of hostilities, it gradually became apparent that a fundamental s.h.i.+ft in consciousness was under way throughout the world and that inherited a.s.sumptions, inst.i.tutions and priorities that had been progressively undermined by forces at work during the first half of the century were now crumbling. If the change could not yet be described as an emerging conviction about the oneness of humankind, no objective observer could mistake the fact that barriers blocking such a realization, which had survived all the a.s.saults against them earlier in the century, were at last giving way. One's mind turns to the prophetic words of the Qur'an: "And you see the mountains and think them solid, but they shall pa.s.s away as the pa.s.sing away of the clouds." (27:88) The effect was to inspire in progressive minds a sense of confidence that it would be possible to construct a new kind of society that would not only preserve the long-term peace of the world, but enrich the lives of all of its inhabitants.

Primarily, this new birth of hope had resulted, as Shoghi Effendi had foreseen, from the "fiery ordeal" that had at last succeeded in "implanting that sense of responsibility" which leaders earlier in the century had sought to avoid.(89) To this new awareness had been added the effects of the fear induced by the invention and use of atomic weapons, a reaction calling to mind for Baha'is the Master's prescient statements in North America that ultimately peace would come because the nations would be driven to accept it. The _Montreal Daily Star_ had quoted Him as saying: "It [peace] will be universal in the twentieth century. All nations will be forced into it."(90) The years immediately following 1945 witnessed advances in framing a new social order that went far beyond the brightest hopes of earlier decades.

Most important of all was the willingness of national governments to create a new system of international order, and to endow it with the peacekeeping authority so tragically denied to the defunct League. Meeting in San Francisco in April 1945-in the state where 'Abdu'l-Baha had prophetically declared, "May the first flag of international peace be upraised in this state"-delegates of fifty nations adopted the Charter of the United Nations Organization, the name proposed for it by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.(91) Ratification by the required number of member nations followed that October, and the first General a.s.sembly of the new organization convened on 10 January 1946, in London. In October 1949, the cornerstone of the United Nations' permanent seat was laid in New York City, hailed by 'Abdu'l-Baha thirty-seven years earlier as the "City of the Covenant". During His visit there He had predicted: "There is no doubt that ... the banner of international agreement will be unfurled here to spread onward and outward among all the nations of the world."(92)

Significantly, it was also on the initiative of a political leader of one of the Western hemisphere nations which had been addressed by Baha'u'llah, that His summons to collective security-first reflected in the nominal sanctions voted by the League of Nations against Fascist aggression in Ethiopia-was at long last given practical effect. In November 1956, Lester Bowles Pearson, then External Affairs Minister and later Prime Minister of Canada, secured the creation by the United Nations of its first international peacekeeping force, an achievement which won its author the n.o.bel Prize for Peace.(93) The full nature of the authority contained in such a mandate would steadily emerge as a major feature of international relations during the second half of the century. Beginning with the policing of agreements worked out between hostile states, the principle of collective action in defence of peace gradually took on the form of military interventions such as that of the Gulf War, in which compliance with Security Council resolutions was imposed by force on aggressor factions and states.

Along with the establishment of the new United Nations' system and steps to enforce its sanctions, a second major breakthrough occurred. Even before hostilities had ended, public audiences throughout the world were stunned by film coverage of the liberation of n.a.z.i death camps, which exposed for all to see the horrific consequences of racism. What can adequately be described only as a profound sense of shame at the depths of evil that humanity had shown itself capable of committing shook the conscience of humankind. Through the window of opportunity thus briefly opened, a group of dedicated and far-sighted men and women, under the inspired leaders.h.i.+p of figures like Eleanor Roosevelt, secured the United Nations' adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The moral commitment it represented was inst.i.tutionalized in the subsequent establishment of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. In due course, the Baha'i community itself would have good cause to appreciate, at firsthand, the system's importance as a s.h.i.+eld protecting minorities from the abuses of the past.

Highlighting the significance of both advances was the decision of the nations that had triumphed in the recent conflict to put on trial leading figures of the n.a.z.i regime. For the first time in history, the leaders of a sovereign nation-men who sought to argue the const.i.tutionality of the political positions they had occupied-were brought before a public court, their crimes unsparingly reviewed and doc.u.mented, were duly convicted, and those who did not escape through suicide were then either hanged or sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. No serious protest had been raised against this procedure which, theoretically, const.i.tuted a fundamental departure from existing norms of international law. Although the integrity of the proceedings was gravely marred by the partic.i.p.ation of judges appointed by a Soviet dictators.h.i.+p whose own crimes matched or exceeded those of the defendants' regime, the act set an historic precedent. It demonstrated, for the first time, that the fetish of "national sovereignty" has recognizable and enforceable limits.

Beginning in these same years, the fulfilment of a long-delayed ideal unfolded in the dissolution of the great empires that had not merely survived 1918, but had managed even to extend their reach through acquiring "mandates", "protectorates" and colonies seized from the defeated powers. Now, these antiquated systems of political oppression were submerged by a rising tide of movements of national liberation far beyond their weakened abilities to resist. With astonis.h.i.+ng swiftness, all of them either willingly abandoned their claims or were forced by colonial rebellions to bow to the same fate that had overtaken their Ottoman and Hapsburg predecessors earlier in the century.

Suddenly, the peoples of the world found themselves with a place to stand in dignity, a forum in which to express the concerns that most deeply affected them, and the faint beginnings of a role in deciding their own future and that of humanity in general. A corner had been turned that left behind six or more millennia of history. Beyond all the continuing educational disadvantages, the economic inequities, and the obstructions created by political and diplomatic manuvring-beyond all these practical but historically transient limitations-a new authority was at work in human affairs to which all might reasonably hope somehow to appeal.

Representatives of once subject peoples, whose exotically clad warriors had brought up the rear of the Diamond Jubilee procession in London only five decades earlier, now began to appear as delegates to the Security Council and occupants of senior posts in the United Nations and non-governmental organizations of every kind. The magnitude of the change is perhaps best symbolized by the fact that the Secretary-General of the United Nations is today a Ghanaian, his two immediate predecessors having been, respectively, from Egypt and Peru.(94)

Nor was this change merely one of formal and administrative character. As time pa.s.sed, growing numbers of outstanding figures in every walk of life would escape the familiar limits of racial, cultural or religious ident.i.ty. In every continent of the globe, names like Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., Paolo Freire, Ravi Shankar, Gabriel Garcia Marques, Kiri Te Kanawa, Andrei Sakharov, Mother Teresa and Zhang Yimou became sources of inspiration and encouragement to great numbers of their fellow citizens.(95) In every department of life, heroism, professional excellence or moral distinction would increasingly be able to speak for themselves and be embraced by the generality of humankind. The world-wide outpouring of affection and rejoicing that was to greet the release from prison of Nelson Mandela and his subsequent election as president of his country would reflect a sense among peoples of every race and nation that these historic events represented victories of the human family itself.

It became apparent, too, that pre-war conceptions regarding the use and distribution of wealth would have to be overhauled. Apart from principles of social justice, which doubtless motivated a significant number of those committed to this task, the economic dislocations produced by the events of the previous three decades had made it clear that existing arrangements were outdated and ineffective. Experiments to address such problems at the national level had been undertaken in several countries in response to the Depression during the 1930s. Now an interlocking system of inst.i.tutions oriented to recognition that national economies const.i.tute elements of a global whole was successively devised and put in place. The International Monetary Fund, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades, the World Bank, and various subsidiary agencies began belatedly to grapple with the implications of an integrating world, and with issues related to the distribution of wealth inherent in this development. Thinkers in developing countries were not slow to point out that such initiatives served primarily the needs of the Western world. Nevertheless, their emergence marked a fundamental change of direction that would increasingly open partic.i.p.ation to a wide range of states and inst.i.tutions.

A humanitarian initiative of a kind never previously conceived opened still another dimension of the global integration occurring. Beginning with the "Marshall Plan" devised by the government of the United States to rehabilitate war-torn European nations, those nations that were able to do so turned to serious consideration of programmes that might foster the social and economic development of rising nations. Widespread publicity awakened a sense of solidarity with the rest of the world on the part of peoples in lands that enjoyed reasonable levels of education, health care and the application of technology. In time, this ambitious initiative came under attack for the mixed motives attributed to it. Nor can anyone deny that the long-term results of development projects have been heartbreakingly disappointing in their failure to close the yawning gap between the rich and the poor. Neither circ.u.mstance can obscure, however, a sense of common humanity in its objectives that spoke perhaps most eloquently in the response it evoked from an army of idealistic youth of many lands.

Paradoxically, in the Far East particularly, even war had a certain liberating effect on consciousness. As early as 1904, the Russo-j.a.panese conflict had been seen in parts of the Orient as encouraging evidence that non-Western peoples could resist the apparently invincible might of the West. The effect had been heightened by the events of the first world war, and greatly advanced by the success of j.a.panese arms in withstanding for so long the ma.s.sive Western effort devoted to defeating them during the period 1941-1945. The second half of the century saw this new technological expertise give birth to modern economies in half a dozen nations of the region, whose innovative products and industrial energy, particularly in the areas of transportation and information technology, were able to hold their own with the best that the rest of the world had to offer.

By 1946, the end of hostilities had opened the way for the launching by Shoghi Effendi of a second Seven Year Plan, which benefited from the new receptivity to the message of the Faith produced by the s.h.i.+ft of consciousness that was by then already apparent. Once again, the North American Baha'i community was summoned to a.s.sume a demanding responsibility, one that essentially built upon and developed the achievements of the earlier Plan. The great difference, however, was that several other Baha'i communities were now in a position to partic.i.p.ate.

Already in 1938, the Baha'is of India, Pakistan and Burma had set out on a plan of their own. As international hostilities gradually came to an end, the National Spiritual a.s.semblies of Persia, of the British Isles, of Australia and New Zealand, of Germany and Austria, of Egypt and the Sudan, and of Iraq-freed from the limitations imposed on them by the war-embarked on projects of various durations to expand the base of the Administrative Order, settle pioneers in goals both at home and abroad, and multiply the available Baha'i literature.

By 1953 all of these undertakings had been fully completed. Three new National Spiritual a.s.semblies had been established and had also undertaken supplementary teaching plans, an array of new Local Spiritual a.s.semblies had been formed in Europe, initiatives by five different national communities acting under the coordination of the National Spiritual a.s.sembly of the British Isles had led to the settling of pioneers in East and West Africa, and the great project set in motion by the Master's laying of the corner stone of the Mother Temple of the West was at last finished.(96)

Before the believers could celebrate these achievements, a new challenge of staggering proportions was unveiled by Shoghi Effendi. Impelled by historic forces that only he was in a position to appreciate, the Guardian announced the launching at the forthcoming Rid.van of a decade-long, world-embracing Plan, which he designated a "Spiritual Crusade". Engaging the energies of all the twelve National Spiritual a.s.semblies then in existence-the twelfth being that of the Italo-Swiss community-it called for the establishment of the Faith in one hundred and thirty-one additional countries and territories, together with the formation of forty-four new National Spiritual a.s.semblies, the incorporation of thirty-three of these, a vast increase in Baha'i literature, the erection of Houses of Wors.h.i.+p in Iran and Germany (the former being replaced by Temples in both Africa and Australia when the Tehran project was blocked), and the expansion of the number of Local Spiritual a.s.semblies around the world to a total of five thousand, of which three hundred and fifty must be incorporated. Nothing in their collective experience had prepared the Baha'is of the world for so colossal an undertaking. The magnitude of the challenge was set out by Shoghi Effendi in a cablegram of 8 October 1952:

Feel hour propitious to proclaim to the entire Baha'i world the projected launching ... the fate-laden, soul-stirring, decade-long, world-embracing Spiritual Crusade involving ... the concerted partic.i.p.ation of all National Spiritual a.s.semblies of the Baha'i world aiming at the immediate extension of Baha'u'llah's spiritual dominion ... in all remaining Sovereign States, Princ.i.p.al Dependencies comprising Princ.i.p.alities, Sultanates, Emirates, Shaykhdoms, Protectorates, Trust Territories, and Crown Colonies scattered over the surface of the entire planet. The entire body of the avowed supporters of Baha'u'llah's all-conquering Faith are now summoned to achieve in a single decade feats eclipsing in totality the achievements which in the course of the eleven preceding decades illuminated the annals of Baha'i pioneering.(97)

Victory in so ambitious an enterprise would mean that the embrace of the Faith would span the globe, that the inst.i.tutional foundations of its Administrative Order would expand at least five-fold, and that its community life would be enriched through the partic.i.p.ation of believers from a vast number of as yet untapped cultures, nations and tribes.

In effect, the Plan called for the Cause to make a giant leap forward over what might otherwise have been several stages in its evolution. What Shoghi Effendi saw clearly-and what only the powers of foresight inherent in the Guardians.h.i.+p made it possible to see-was that an historical conjunction of circ.u.mstances presented the Baha'i community with an opportunity that would not come again and on which the success of future stages in the prosecution of the Divine Plan would entirely depend. What he did not hesitate to call the "summons of the Lord of Hosts" was embodied in a message that seized the imagination of Baha'is in every part of the world:

No matter how long the period that separates them from ultimate victory; however arduous the task; however formidable the exertions demanded of them; however dark the days which mankind, perplexed and sorely-tried, must, in its hour of travail, traverse; however severe the tests with which they who are to redeem its fortunes will be confronted.... I adjure them, by the precious blood that flowed in such great profusion, by the lives of the unnumbered saints and heroes who were immolated, by the supreme, the glorious sacrifice of the Prophet-Herald of our Faith, by the tribulations which its Founder, Himself, willingly underwent, so that His Cause might live, His Order might redeem a shattered world and its glory might suffuse the entire planet-I adjure them, as this solemn hour draws nigh, to resolve never to flinch, never to hesitate, never to relax, until each and every objective in the Plans to be proclaimed, at a later date, has been fully consummated.(98)

The response was immediate. Within a few months messages from the World Centre began sharing the news of a succession of victories in country after country. Those pioneers who succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng the Faith's first foothold in a country or territory were designated "Knights of Baha'u'llah", and their names inscribed on a Roll of Honour destined, in time, to be deposited, as called for by the Guardian, under the threshold of the entrance to the Shrine of Baha'u'llah. Nothing testified quite so dramatically to the foresight embodied in Shoghi Effendi's successive Plans than the fact that, within each of the new nation-states born after the second world war, Baha'i communities and Spiritual a.s.semblies were already a part of the fabric of national life.

A brilliant succession of achievements followed these initial ones. By October 1957, by which time the Faith had been established in over two hundred and fifty countries and territories, Shoghi Effendi was able to announce the purchase of property for ten new temple sites, and the commencement of work on the Houses of Wors.h.i.+p in Kampala, Sydney and Frankfurt; the acquisition of properties for forty-six of the required national ?a?iratu'l-Quds; a vast increase in the production of Baha'i literature; additional a.s.sembly incorporations that had raised the total number to one hundred and ninety-five; growing recognition of Baha'i marriage and Baha'i Holy Days; and the advancing work on the International Baha'i Archives, the first building to be constructed on the broad arc that the Guardian had traced on the slope of Mount Carmel. No one who reviews the events of those days can fail to be deeply moved by the parental care with which Shoghi Effendi ensured the achievement of these magnificent results, as reflected in his painstaking listing by name, in the last general message he wrote on the Crusade, in April 1957, of each one of sixty-three regional teaching conferences and inst.i.tutes held that year around the Baha'i world.

Such a review would be incomplete without an understanding of parallel developments of the Administrative Order at the international level that the Guardian undertook during these years. These steps proved crucial not merely to winning the Crusade but to consolidating and protecting the future of the Cause. Alongside the decision-making authority devolved on the elective inst.i.tutions of the Faith, a parallel function of the Administrative Order is to exert a spiritual, moral and intellectual influence on both these inst.i.tutions and the lives of the individual members of the community. Conceived by Baha'u'llah Himself, this responsibility "to diffuse the Divine Fragrances, to edify the souls of men, to promote learning, to improve the character of all men..." is vested by the Master's Will and Testament particularly in the Hands of the Cause of G.o.d.(99)

During the ministries of both Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha those believers given this high station had played crucial roles in advancing the teaching work in the Orient. As the conception of the Ten Year Crusade took shape in his mind, Shoghi Effendi moved to mobilize the spiritual support this inst.i.tution could bring to achieving the tasks of the Plan. In a cablegram of 24 December 1951, he announced the appointment of the first contingent of twelve Hands of the Cause of G.o.d, allocated equally to the work in the Holy Land, in Asia, the Americas and Europe. These distinguished servants of the Cause were called upon to focus directly on the challenge of mobilizing the energies of the friends and providing the elected bodies with encouragement and counsel. Shortly thereafter the number of Hands of the Cause was raised from twelve to nineteen.

The resources available for the discharge of this responsibility were greatly increased by the Guardian's decision in October 1952, calling on the Hands of the Cause to create five auxiliary boards, one for each continent: those in the Americas, Europe and Africa consisting of nine members each, while those in Asia and Australasia having seven and two respectively. Subsequently, separate auxiliary boards were created to a.s.sist with the protection of the Faith, the other of the two chief functions of the Hands of the Cause.

A message of 3 June 1957 celebrated the action of the Israeli government in executing the final decision of the court of appeals of that country, by which the surviving band of Covenant-breakers were at last evicted from the ?aram-i-Aqdas surrounding the focal Centre of the Baha'i world at Bahji.(100) Only a day later, however, a second cablegram warned ominously of the urgent need of the Faith's senior inst.i.tutions to act in concert to protect it from new dangers that the Guardian perceived to be gathering on the horizon. This was followed in October by a message announcing that the number of Hands of the Cause of G.o.d had been raised from nineteen to twenty-seven, designating these senior officers "Chief Stewards of Baha'u'llah's embryonic World Commonwealth", and charging them with responsibility to consult with National Spiritual a.s.semblies on urgently needed measures to protect the Faith.

Less than a month thereafter, the Baha'i world was devastated by the news of Shoghi Effendi's death on 4 November 1957 from complications following an attack of Asiatic influenza contracted during the course of a visit to London. The Centre of the Cause who, for thirty-six years, had day by day guided its evolution, whose vision encompa.s.sed both the flow of events and the actions the Baha'i community must take, and whose messages of encouragement had been the spiritual lifeline of countless Baha'is around the planet, was suddenly gone, leaving the great Crusade half finished and the future of the Administrative Order in crisis.

The grief and overwhelming sense of desolation produced by the loss of the Guardian lends all the greater significance to the triumph of the Plan he had conceived and inspired. On 21 April 1963, the ballots of delegates from fifty-six National Spiritual a.s.semblies, including the forty-four new bodies called for and successfully formed during the Ten Year Crusade, brought into existence the Universal House of Justice, the governing body of the Cause conceived by Baha'u'llah and a.s.sured by Him unequivocally of Divine guidance in the exercise of its functions:

It is inc.u.mbent upon the Trustees of the House of Justice to take counsel together regarding those things which have not outwardly been revealed in the Book, and to enforce that which is agreeable to them. G.o.d will verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth, and He, verily, is the Provider, the Omniscient.(101)

It seemed especially fitting that the election-carried out by the a.s.sembled delegates and those voting by mail-should take place in the home of the Master, whose Will and Testament had described nearly sixty years earlier the intent and scope of the authority bestowed by Baha'u'llah's words:

Unto the Most Holy Book every one must turn and all that is not expressly recorded therein must be referred to the Universal House of Justice. That which this body, whether unanimously or by a majority doth carry, that is verily the Truth and the Purpose of G.o.d Himself. Whoso doth deviate therefrom is verily of them that love discord, hath shown forth malice and turned away from the Lord of the Covenant.(102)

An important preliminary step for the election had been taken by Shoghi Effendi in 1951, in his appointment of the members.h.i.+p of the International Council to a.s.sist him with his work. In 1961, as he had explained would be the case, the second step in the process had been taken when this inst.i.tution evolved into a nine-member Council, elected by the members of the National Spiritual a.s.semblies. Consequently, when the Ten Year Crusade came to its victorious end in 1963, the Baha'i world had gained important experience in the challenging act it was then called on to perform.

Historians will unhesitatingly accord credit for mobilizing the effort that had made this moment possible to the Hands of the Cause, who provided the coordination of which the loss of the Guardian's leaders.h.i.+p had deprived the Baha'i world. Tirelessly coursing the earth in promotion of Shoghi Effendi's Plan, coming together in annual conclaves to provide encouragement and information, inspiring the endeavours of their newly created deputies, and fending off the efforts of a new band of Covenant-breakers to undermine the unity of the Faith, this small company of grief-stricken men and women succeeded in ensuring that the Crusade's ambitious objectives were attained in the time required and that the necessary foundation was in place for the erection of the Administrative Order's crowning unit. In asking that their own members be left free from election to the Universal House of Justice, so as to perform the services a.s.signed them by the Guardian, the Hands also endowed the Baha'i world, as a second great legacy, with a spiritual distinction that is without precedent in human history. Never before had persons into whose hands the supreme power in a great religion had fallen and who enjoyed a level of regard unmatched by any others in their community, requested not to be considered for partic.i.p.ation in the exercise of supreme authority, placing themselves entirely at the service of the Body chosen by the community of their fellow believers for this role.(103)

VII

However great is the distance between the Guardians.h.i.+p and the unique station of the Centre of the Covenant, the role played by Shoghi Effendi after the Master's pa.s.sing stands alone in the history of the Cause. It will continue to occupy this focal place in the life of the Faith throughout the coming centuries. In important respects Shoghi Effendi may be said to have extended by an additional, critical, thirty-six years the influence of the guiding hand of the Master in the building of the Administrative Order and the expansion and consolidation of the Faith of Baha'u'llah. One has only to make the fearful effort of imagining the fate of the infant Cause of G.o.d had it not been held firmly, during the period of its greatest vulnerability, in the grip of one who had been prepared for this purpose by 'Abdu'l-Baha and who accepted to serve-in the fullest sense of the word-as its Guardian.

Although emphasizing to the body of his fellow believers that the Master's twin Successors were "inseparable" and "complementary" in the functions they were individually designed to carry out, it is clear that Shoghi Effendi early accepted the implications of the fact that the Universal House of Justice could not come into existence until a lengthy process of administrative development had created the supporting structure of National and Local Spiritual a.s.semblies it required. He was entirely candid with the Baha'i community about the implications of the fact that he was called on to exercise his supreme responsibility alone. In his own words:

Severed from the no less essential inst.i.tution of the Universal House of Justice this same System of the Will of 'Abdu'l-Baha would be paralyzed in its action and would be powerless to fill in those gaps which the Author of the Kitab-i-Aqdas has deliberately left in the body of His legislative and administrative ordinances.(104)

Aware of this truth, Shoghi Effendi proceeded with scrupulous regard for the constraints placed on him by circ.u.mstance, a faithfulness that will be the pride of Baha'u'llah's followers throughout the ages to come. The record of his thirty-six years of service to the Faith-a record which, like that of his Grandfather, is open for posterity to review and a.s.sess- contains, as he a.s.sured the Baha'i community would be the case, no action on his part that would in any degree "infringe upon the sacred and prescribed domain" of the Universal House of Justice. It is not only that Shoghi Effendi refrained from legislation; he was able to fulfil his mandate by introducing no more than provisional ordinances, leaving decisions in such matters entirely to the Universal House of Justice.

Nowhere is this self-restraint more striking than in the central issue of a successor to the Guardians.h.i.+p. Shoghi Effendi had no heirs of his own, and the other branches of the Holy family had violated the Covenant. The Baha'i Writings contain no guidance in such an eventuality, but the Will and Testament of the Master is explicit as to how all matters that are unclear are to be resolved:

It is inc.u.mbent upon these members (of the Universal House of Justice) to gather in a certain place and deliberate upon all problems which have caused difference, questions that are obscure and matters that are not expressly recorded in the Book. Whatsoever they decide has the same effect as the Text itself.(105)