In connection with the best and most practical methods of procedure to be
adopted for the election of Baha'i Spiritual Assemblies, I feel that in
view of the fact that definite and detailed regulations defining the
manner and character of Baha'i elections have neither been expressly
revealed by Baha'u'llah nor laid down in the Will and Testament of
'Abdu'l-Baha, it devolves upon the members of the Universal House of
Justice to formulate and apply such system of laws as would be in
conformity with the essentials and requisites expressly provided by the
Author and Interpreter of the Faith for the conduct of Baha'i
administration. I have consequently refrained from establishing a settled
and uniform procedure for the election of the Assemblies of the East and
the West, leaving them free to pursue their own methods of procedure which
in most cases had been instituted and practiced during the last two
decades of the life of 'Abdu'l-Baha.
The general practice prevailing throughout the East is the one based upon
the principle of plurality rather than absolute majority, whereby those
candidates that have obtained the highest number of votes, irrespective of
the fact whether they command an absolute majority of the votes cast or
not, are automatically and definitely elected. It has been felt, with no
little justification, that this method, admittedly disadvantageous in its
disregard of the principle that requires that each elected member must
secure a majority of the votes cast, does away on the other hand with the
more serious disadvantage of restricting the freedom of the elector who,
unhampered and unconstrained by electoral necessities, is called upon to
vote for none but those whom prayer and reflection have inspired him to
uphold. Moreover, the practice of nomination, so detrimental to the
atmosphere of a silent and prayerful election, is viewed with mistrust
inasmuch as it gives the right to the majority of a body that, in itself
under the present circumstances, often constitutes a minority of all the
elected delegates, to deny that God-given right of every elector to vote
only in favor of those who he is conscientiously convinced are the most
worthy candidates. Should this simple system be provisionally adopted, it
would safeguard the spiritual principle of the unfettered freedom of the
voter, who will thus preserve intact the sanctity of the choice he first
made. It would avoid the inconvenience of securing advance nominations
from absent delegates, and the impracticality of associating them with the
assembled electors in the subsequent ballots that are often required to
meet the exigencies of majority vote.
I would recommend these observations to your earnest consideration, and
whatever decision you arrive at, all local Assemblies and individual
believers, I am certain, will uphold, for their spiritual obligation and
privilege is not only to consult freely and frequently with the National
Spiritual Assembly, but to uphold as well with confidence and cheerfulness
whatever is the considered verdict of their national representatives.
Wishing you success from all my heart,
I am, your true brother,
SHOGHI.
Haifa, Palestine,
May 27, 1927.
Letter of October 17, 1927.
To the Honored Members of the Baha'i National Spiritual Assemblies
throughout the West.
My dear fellow-workers:
With feelings of burning indignation I find myself impelled to acquaint
you with various events that have recently transpired in Persia. Though in
their immediate effect these happenings may prove gravely disquieting to
the followers of the Faith in Persia and elsewhere, yet they cannot but
eventually contribute to the strengthening and purification of the Cause
we steadfastly love and serve.
I refer to the treacherous conduct of a professed adherent of the teaching
of Baha'u'llah, by the name of 'Abdu'l-Husayn Avarih, hitherto regarded as
a respected teacher of the Cause, and not unknown by a few of its
followers in Europe. Of a nature and character whom those who have learned
to know him well have never ceased to despise, even in the brightest days
of his public career in the Cause, he has of late been driven by the force
of circumstances which his shortsightedness has gravely miscalculated to
throw off the mask which for so many years hid his hideous self.
The sudden removal of the commanding personality of our beloved
'Abdu'l-Baha; the confused consternation that seized His followers in the
years immediately succeeding His passing; the reputation which to
superficial eyes he had acquired by his travels in Europe; the success
attending his voluminous compilation of the history of the Cause--these and
other circumstances emboldened him to launch a campaign of insinuation and
fraud aiming at the eventual overthrow of the institutions expressly
provided by Baha'u'llah. He saw clearly his chance in the complete
disruption of the Cause to capture the allegiance if not of the whole
world-wide Baha'i community of at least a considerable section of its
followers in the East.
No sooner had his evil whisperings reached the ears of the loyal and
vigilant followers of Baha'u'llah, than they arose with overwhelming force
and unhesitating determination to denounce him as a dangerous enemy
seeking to undermine the faith and sap the loyalty of the adherents of the
Cause of God. Shunned by the entire body of the believers, abandoned by
his life-long and most intimate friends, deserted by his wife, separated
from his only child, refused admittance into even his own home, denied of
the profit he hoped to derive from the sale and circulation of his book,
he found to his utter amazement and remorse his best hopes irretrievably
shattered.
Forsaken and bankrupt, and in desperate rage, he now with startling
audacity sought to expose to friend and foe, the futility and hollowness
which he attributed to the Cause, thereby revealing the depths of his own
degradation and folly. He has with bitter hatred conspired with the
fanatical clergy and the orthodox members of foreign Missions in Tihran,
allied himself with every hostile element in the Capital, directed with
fiendish subtlety his appeal to the highest dignitaries of the State and
sought by every method to secure financial assistance for the furtherance
of his aim.
Not content with an infamous denunciation of the originality and efficacy
of the teachings and principles of the Cause, not satisfied with a
rejection of the authenticity of the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha,
he has dared to attack the exalted person of the Author and Founder of the
Faith, and to impute to its Forerunner and true Exemplar the vilest
motives and most incredible intentions.
He has most malignantly striven to revive the not unfamiliar accusation of
representing the true lovers of Persia as the sworn enemies of every form
of established authority in that land, the unrelenting disturbers of its
peace, the chief obstacles to its unity and the determined wreckers of the
venerated faith of Islam. By every artifice which a sordid and treacherous
mind can devise he has sought in the pages of his book to strike terror in
the heart of the confident believer, to sow the seeds of doubt in the mind
of the well-disposed and friendly, to poison the thoughts of the
indifferent and to reinforce the power of the assaulting weapon of the
adversary.
But, alas! he has labored in vain, oblivious of the fact that all the pomp
and powers of royalty, all the concerted efforts of the mightiest
potentates of Islam, all the ingenious devices to which the cruelest
torture-mongers of a cruel race have for well-nigh a century resorted,
have proved one and all impotent to stem the tide of the beloved Faith or
to extinguish its flame. Surely, if we read the history of this Cause
aright, we cannot fail to observe that the East has already witnessed not
a few of its sons, of wider experience, of a higher standing, of a greater
influence, apostatize their faith, find themselves to their utter
consternation lose whatsoever talent they possessed, recede swiftly into
the shadows of oblivion and be heard of no more.
Should ever his book secure widespread circulation in the West, should it
ever confuse the mind of the misinformed and stranger, I have no doubt
that the various Baha'i National Spiritual Assemblies, throughout the
Western world, will with the wholehearted and sustained support of local
Assemblies and individual believers arise with heart and soul for the
defence of the impregnable stronghold of the Cause of God, for the
vindication of the sacredness and sublimity of the Baha'i Teachings, and
for the condemnation, in the eyes of those who are in authority, of one
who has so basely dared to assail, not only the tenets, but the holy
person of the recognized Founder of an established and world-wide Faith.
Your true brother,
SHOGHI.
Haifa, Palestine; October 17, 1927.
Letter of October 18, 1927.
To the Members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the
United States and Canada.
Dearly-beloved co-workers:
I have already expressed indirectly my views with regard to various
secondary issues raised in your latest communications to me dated May 23,
June 10, 21, July 11, 14, 15 and 25, August 7 and September 28; and I wish
in this letter to deal more particularly with such matters of primary
importance as affect the conduct and the growth of Baha'i administration.
The perusal of these communications replete with the news of steadily
multiplying activities and newly conceived plans, all of which I as
heretofore appreciate and welcome, has made me feel however that the time
seems now opportune to utter a word of caution and warning to those who
with unceasing zest labor to give befitting embodiment to those latent
energies released by the Message of Baha'u'llah.