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The Ministry of Shoghi Effendi

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The Ministry of Shoghi Effendi Will and Testament of `Abdu’l-Baha • He delineated the • `Abdu’l-Bahá revealed a authority of “twin Will and Testament in successor” institutions three parts, 1902 to 1910, • He further defined where He designated responsibilities of the Shoghi Effendi as His Hands of the Cause successor and elaborated on the election of the • `Abdu’l-Bahá almost Universal House of Justice never mentioned to anyone that Shoghi • We’ll look at some Effendi would succeed passages later Him; it was a well kept secret Shoghi Effendi Rabbani • Born March 1, 1897; eldest of 13 grandchildren of `Abdu’l-Bahá • Mother was `Abdu’l-Bahá’s oldest daughter (of 4) • `Abdu’l-Bahá insisted everyone address him with the term Effendi (Turkish for sir) • Education in home school in Akka (in the House of Abbud) first by a Persian man, then by an Italian governess Education • Then went to the College • He was devastated and des Freres in Haifa, a lost weight Jesuit private school • He very strongly disliked • Then went to a Jesuit the French high school, boarding school in Beirut though he learned fluent • Invited to go to America French there with `Abdu’l-Bahá, but he • Started his senior year at was turned back in Syrian Protestant College Naples on the claim his Preparatory School, Oct. eyes were diseased with 1912, when 15 years old trachoma • Graduated in early summer 1913 (age 16) Higher Education • Summer 1913: In Egypt • Bachelor of Arts degree with `Abdu’l-Bahá when he was 20 (the • Syrian Protestant graduating class had college, 1913-17 10!) • The college did relief • Graduate student at work and provided free SPC, fall 1917-summer medical care to Turkish 1918 soldiers, so it was • Sept. 1918: General relatively safe during Allenby takes Haifa; the war `Abdu’l-Bahá is safe `Abdu’l-Baha’s Secretary • Flood of correspondence from the west; Shoghi Effendi becomes `Abdu’l- Bahá’s English language secretary, fall 1918-spring 1920 • Met many pilgrims • Worked so hard, caught malaria, spring 1919; health seriously impaired Paris and England • Went to Paris to • Arrived in mid-July 1920 recuperate, April-June and visited people in 1920 London to secure • Rested in the mornings, recommendations walked in the afternoons • Then went to Balliol • From Paris, in June College and arranged applied to Oxford as a interviews to be admitted “non-collegiate student” • He was accepted in for two years August and immediately began to study, even though the semester didn’t begin until October Oxford Days • His was a provisional • “Rabbani was irrepressibly acceptance because the cheerful, always on the college was full until point of laughter, and January, when he was fully bouncing around . matriculated Wherever he was, spirits • He completed three were high. We all knew him “trimesters” and started on destined for spiritual a fourth in the fall of 1921 leadership: and believe me, • He was there to improve his in no sense of irreverence English so that he could or discourtesy, he was become a better translator affectionately know as ‘God.’” • He read Gibbon while walking around; he loved it Last Days in England • `Abdu’l-Bahá passed on November 28, 1921 • Sir Wellesley Tudor-Pole received a cable to that effect the next morning • He telephoned Shoghi Effendi and asked him to come to London immediately, which he did • Shoghi Effendi was so overcome with grief he had to be put to bed for several days Transition • Shoghi Effendi loved • He returned to Haifa `Abdu’l-Bahá more than the evening of 29 his own life and his grief December 1921 was profound and long • On Jan. 3, 1922 the Will lasting and Testament was read • It took a month before aloud in public for the passport issues could first time be resolved for him to • Shoghi Effendi return to Palestine discovered he was Guardian of the Cause of God Crises • Many thought he was too • They arrived and left at young to lead and that different times and he’d call for the election weren’t all there at the of the Universal House of same time Justice immediately • He sent the visiting • Provisions of Will made Bahá’ís home to stimulate this impossible, however formation of National (see next slide) Spiritual Assemblies • He called prominent • Covenant breakers seize Bahá’ís to Haifa from the keys to the Shrine of US, England, Germany, Bahá’u’lláh Persia, India, and Burma • Shoghi Effendi goes to Switzerland, March-Dec. 1922 Ministry of Shoghi Effendi • He built his ministry on three Charters of the • The Tablets of the Faith: the Tablet of Divine Plan give the Carmel, the Tablets of North American Bahá’ís the Divine Plan, and the responsibility to spread Will and Testament of the Faith to the entire `Abdu’l-Bahá world • Tablet of Carmel is the • But without a structure, spiritual “blueprint” for Shoghi Effendi the administrative and somewhat delayed their spiritual center of the implementation, until Faith in Haifa 1937 Mandates in the Will and Testament • The Will and Testament • They also provided the gave Shoghi Effendi a foundation for electing blueprint for creating the Universal House of local and national Justice and appointing Spiritual Assemblies Hands of the Cause • They provided the • The Will gave Shoghi structure necessary for Effendi infallible systematic teaching and authority to translate implementing the the authoritative texts Tablets of the Divine and interpret their Plan through a series of meaning Plans 1. Spread of organization • Three LSAs elected in • Bahai Temple Unity England, 1922 and 1923 renames itself “National • National Spiritual Spiritual Assembly” Assembly elected, 1923, right away, but voting by mail; all English procedures were Bahá’ís voted irregular • Germany and Austria; • Shoghi Effendi Indian and Burma form recognized it as an NSAs in 1923 as well National Spiritual Assembly in 1925 • US had maybe 8 LSAs in • No national membership 1921 list in Iran because of • By late 1920s it was 30 or persecution 40 • Central Spiritual Assembly • Number of US Bahá’ís: was elected by Tehran 1899 (1,500), 1906 Bahá’ís for the entire (1,280), 1920 (1,234), country 1922 (1,368) and 1926 • Iran divided into 20 (1,247); 1936 (2,584), administrative districts, 1 1945 (5,174). LSA in each, plus LSAs in • Community was a cities revolving door without • Shoghi Effendi recognized organization National Spiritual Assembly of Persia, 1934 Organization elsewhere • Ishqabad temple • Egypt and Sudan, 1924 confiscated, 1928, then • Iraq, 1931 leased back • Australia and New • Some Bahá’ís exiled to Zealand, 1934 Siberia; others forced to return to Iran • Turkmenistan, by 1925 • 1938: Systematic • Caucasus: by 1925 persecution in USSR, • 10 NSAs by 1934 communities are • Persecution limits growth destroyed in Soviet Union • House of Worship confiscated, damaged by earthquake in 1948, demolished in 1963 Troubles • German Bahá’í community is banned • India and Burmese by Nazis, 1937 communities and small, relatively poor • Jewish Bahá’ís like Lidia Zamenhof go to • North America and concentration camps; Persia had the most others are drafted and resources and people, die though Iranians were persecuted, too • Iraqi, Egyptian communities have some persecution, too 2. New Interpretations • Shoghi Effendi was a • “The World Order of prolific writer; 34,000 Bahá'u'lláh: Further documents, over 5 million Considerations” (March words attributed to him 1930) exist in the archives • “The Goal of a New World • Bahá’í Administration, Order” (November 1931) letters, 1922-32 • “The Golden Age of the • “The World Order of Cause of Bahá'u'lláh” Bahá'u'lláh” (February (March 1932) 1929) • “America and the Most Great Peace” (April 1933) • “The Dispensation of • The Promised Day in Bahá'u'lláh” (February Come (March 1941) 1934) • God Passes By (1944) • “The Unfoldment of • Numerous World Civilization” compilations of his (March 1936) letters to specific • Compiled as The World countries Order of Bahá'u'lláh, in • After World War II, the 1938 Bahá’í community got • The Advent of Divine so large and kept him so Justice (December busy, he had less time 1938) to write and translate 3. Translations • He had been translating as • Epistle to the Son of the `Abdu’l-Bahá’s secretary Wolf (1941) and made it a central • The Dawn-breakers: Nabíl’s priority as Guardian Narrative of the Early Days • He clarified the meaning of of the Bahá'í Revelation the original through (1932) translation into English • Encouraged publication and • Will and Testament, 1922 translation of Bahá’u’lláh • Kitáb-i-Íqán (1931) and the New Era into scores Hidden Words of languages (by 1969, over • (1932) 100) • Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh (1935) • Some chapters read and approved by `Abdu’l-Bahá; • Prayers and Meditations it served as a manual of (1938) Bahá’í teachings Marriage • Mary Maxwell was born of May Maxwell and William Sutherland Maxwell in 1910 after `Abdu’l- Bahá prayed they’d have a child • She first met `Abdu’l-Bahá in 1912 when He visited their house in Montreal • She arrived on pilgrimage with her mother, January 12, 1937 • Shoghi Effendi proposed to her by February 26, when May cabled her husband to come immediately to Haifa and Mary cabled asking for permission • They were married March 24, 1937 Wars • The Bahá’í World Centre • The British mandate was imperiled by the ended in terrorism and Nazis in 1941-42 war, 1947-48 • Rommel almost reached • Shoghi Effendi was strictly Alexandria; the Nazis neutral and his neutrality conquered Crete was recognized and respected by all parties • The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was an enemy • Akka was supposed to be of the Faith; there were in Arab Palestine, Haifa in others, too Jewish Palestine! • British and free French • The Israeli War of forces captured Vichy- independence raged controlled Lebanon around the shrines, but miraculously, nothing was damaged Pictures of Shoghi Effendi 4.
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