II

On this landscape of false confidence and deep despair, of scientific

enlightenment and spiritual gloom, there appeared, as the twentieth

century opened, the luminous figure of 'Abdu'l-Baha. The journey that had

brought Him to this pivotal moment in the history of humankind had led

through more than fifty years of exile, imprisonment and privation, hardly

a month having passed in anything that resembled tranquillity and ease. He

came to it resolved to proclaim to responsive and heedless alike the

establishment on earth of that promised reign of universal peace and

justice that had sustained human hope throughout the centuries. Its

foundation, He declared, would be the unification, in this "century of

light", of the world's people:

In this day ... means of communication have multiplied, and the five

continents of the earth have virtually merged into one.... In like manner

all the members of the human family, whether peoples or governments,

cities or villages, have become increasingly interdependent.... Hence the

unity of all mankind can in this day be achieved. Verily this is none

other but one of the wonders of this wondrous age, this glorious

century.(6)

During the long years of imprisonment and banishment that followed

Baha'u'llah's refusal to serve the political agenda of the Ottoman

authorities, 'Abdu'l-Baha was entrusted with the management of the Faith's

affairs and with the responsibility of acting as His Father's spokesman. A

significant aspect of this work entailed interaction with local and

provincial officials who sought His advice on the problems confronting

them. Not dissimilar needs presented themselves in the Master's homeland.

As early as 1875, responding to Baha'u'llah's instructions, 'Abdu'l-Baha

addressed to the rulers and people of Persia a treatise entitled _The

Secret of Divine Civilization_, setting out the spiritual principles that

must guide the shaping of their society in the age of humanity's maturity.

Its opening passage called upon the Iranian people to reflect on the

lesson taught by history about the key to social progress:

Consider carefully: all these highly varied phenomena, these concepts,

this knowledge, these technical procedures and philosophical systems,

these sciences, arts, industries and inventions--all are emanations of the

human mind. Whatever people has ventured deeper into this shoreless sea,

has come to excel the rest. The happiness and pride of a nation consist in

this, that it should shine out like the sun in the high heaven of

knowledge. "Shall they who have knowledge and they who have it not, be

treated alike?"(7)

_The Secret of Divine Civilization_ presaged the guidance that would flow

from the pen of 'Abdu'l-Baha in subsequent decades. After the devastating

loss that followed the ascension of Baha'u'llah, the Persian believers

were revived and heartened by a flood of Tablets from the Master, which

provided not only the spiritual sustenance they needed, but leadership in

finding their way through the turmoil that was undermining the established

order of things in their land. These communications, reaching even the

smallest villages across the country, responded to the appeals and

questions of countless individual believers, bringing guidance,

encouragement and assurance. We read, for example, a Tablet addressing

believers in the village of Ki_sh_ih, mentioning by name nearly one

hundred and sixty of them. Of the age now dawning, the Master says: "this

is the century of light," explaining that the meaning of this image is

acceptance of the principle of oneness and its implications:

My meaning is that the beloved of the Lord must regard every ill-wisher as

a well-wisher.... That is, they must associate with a foe as befitteth a

friend, and deal with an oppressor as beseemeth a kind companion. They

should not gaze upon the faults and transgressions of their foes, nor pay

heed to their enmity, inequity or oppression.(8)

Extraordinarily, the small company of persecuted believers, living in this

remote corner of a land which still remained largely unaffected by the

developments taking place elsewhere in social and intellectual life, are

summoned by this Tablet to raise their eyes above the level of local

concerns and to see the implications of unity on a global scale:

Rather, should they view people in the light of the Blessed Beauty's call

that the entire human race are servants of the Lord of might and glory, as

He hath brought the whole creation under the purview of His gracious

utterance, and hath enjoined upon us to show forth love and affection,

wisdom and compassion, faithfulness and unity towards all, without any

discrimination.(9)

Here, the call of the Master is not only to a new level of understanding,

but implies the need for commitment and action. In the urgency and

confidence of the language it employs can be felt the power that would

produce the great achievements of the Persian believers in the decades

since then--both in the world-wide promotion of the Cause and in the

acquisition of capacities that advance civilization:

O ye beloved of the Lord! With the utmost joy and gladness, serve ye the

human world, and love ye the human race. Turn your eyes away from

limitations, and free yourselves from restrictions, for ... freedom

therefrom brings about divine blessings and bestowals.

Wherefore, rest ye not, be it for an instant; seek ye not a minute's

respite nor a moment's repose. Surge ye even as the billows of a mighty

sea, and roar like unto the leviathan of the ocean of eternity.

Therefore, so long as there be a trace of life in one's veins, one must

strive and labour, and seek to lay a foundation that the passing of

centuries and cycles may not undermine, and rear an edifice which the

rolling of ages and aeons cannot overthrow--an edifice that shall prove

eternal and everlasting, so that the sovereignty of heart and soul may be

established and secure in both worlds.(10)

Social historians of the future, with a perspective far more dispassionate

and universal than is presently possible, and benefiting from unimpeded

access to all of the primary documentation, will study minutely the

transformation that the Master achieved in these early years. Day after

day, month after month, from a distant exile where He was endlessly

harried by the host of enemies surrounding Him, 'Abdu'l-Baha was able not

only to stimulate the expansion of the Persian Baha'i community, but to

shape its consciousness and collective life. The result was the emergence

of a culture, however localized, that was unlike anything humanity had

ever known. Our century, with all its upheavals and its grandiloquent

claims to create a new order, has no comparable example of the systematic

application of the powers of a single Mind to the building of a

distinctive and successful community that saw its ultimate sphere of work

as the globe itself.

Although suffering intermittent atrocities at the hands of the Muslim

clergy and their supporters--without protection from a succession of

indolent Qajar monarchs--the Persian Baha'i community found a new lease on

life. The number of believers multiplied in all regions of the country,

persons prominent in the life of society were enrolled, including several

influential members of the clergy, and the forerunners of administrative

institutions emerged in the form of rudimentary consultative bodies. The

importance of the latter development alone would be impossible to

exaggerate. In a land and among a people accustomed for centuries to a

patriarchal system that concentrated all decision-making authority in the

hands of an absolute monarch or _Sh_i'ih mujtahids, a community

representing a cross section of that society had broken with the past,

taking into its own hands the responsibility for deciding its collective

affairs through consultative action.

In the society and culture the Master was developing, spiritual energies

expressed themselves in the practical affairs of day-to-day life. The

emphasis in the teachings on education provided the impulse for the

establishment of Baha'i schools--including the Tarbiyat school for

girls,(11) which gained national renown--in the capital, as well as in

provincial centres. With the assistance of American and European Baha'i

helpers, clinics and other medical facilities followed. As early as 1925,

communities in a number of cities had instituted classes in Esperanto, in

response to their awareness of the Baha'i teaching that some form of

auxiliary international language must be adopted. A network of couriers,

reaching across the land, provided the struggling Baha'i community with

the rudiments of the postal service that the rest of the country so

conspicuously lacked. The changes under way touched the homeliest

circumstances of day-to-day life. In obedience to the laws of the

Kitab-i-Aqdas, for example, Persian Baha'is abandoned the use of the

filthy public baths, prolific in their spread of infection and disease,

and began to rely on showers that used fresh water.

All of these advances, whether social, organizational or practical, owed

their driving force to the moral transformation taking place among the

believers, a transformation that was steadily distinguishing Baha'is--even

in the eyes of those hostile to the Faith--as candidates for positions of

trust. That such far-reaching changes could so quickly set one segment of

the Persian population apart from the largely antagonistic majority around

it was a demonstration of the powers released by Baha'u'llah's Covenant

with His followers and by 'Abdu'l-Baha's assumption of the leadership this

Covenant invested uniquely in Him.

Throughout these years Persian political life was in almost constant

turmoil. While Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah's immediate successor, Muzaffari'd-Din

_Sh_ah, was induced to approve a constitution in 1906, his successor,

Muhammad-'Ali _Sh_ah, recklessly dissolved the first two parliaments--in

one case attacking with cannon fire the building where the legislature was

meeting. The so-called "Constitutional Movement" that overthrew him and

compelled the last of the Qajar kings, Ahmad _Sh_ah, to summon a third

parliament was itself riven by competing factions and shamelessly

manipulated by the _Sh_i'ih clergy. Efforts by Baha'is to play a

constructive role in this process of modernization were repeatedly

frustrated by royalist and popular factions alike, both of which were

inspired by the prevailing religious prejudice and saw in the Baha'i

community merely a convenient scapegoat. Here again, only a more

politically mature age than our own will be able to appreciate the way in

which the Master--setting an example for future challenges that the Baha'i

community must inevitably encounter--guided the beleaguered community in

doing all it could to encourage political reform, and then in being

willing to step aside when these efforts were cynically rebuffed.

It was not only through His Tablets that 'Abdu'l-Baha exercised this

influence on the rapidly developing Baha'i community in the cradle of the

Faith. Unlike Westerners, Persian believers were not distinguished from

other peoples of the Near East by dress and appearance, and so travellers

from the cradle of the Faith did not arouse the suspicion of the Ottoman

authorities. Consequently, a steady stream of Persian pilgrims provided

'Abdu'l-Baha with another powerful means of inspiring the friends, guiding

their activities, and drawing them ever more deeply into an understanding

of Baha'u'llah's purpose. Some of the greatest names in Persian Baha'i

history were among those who journeyed to 'Akka and returned to their

homes prepared to give their lives if necessary for the achievement of the

Master's vision. The immortal Varqa and his son Ruhu'llah were among this

privileged number, as were Haji Mirza Haydar 'Ali, Mirza Abu'l Fadl, Mirza

Muhammad-Taqi Afnan and four distinguished Hands of the Cause,

Ibn-i-Abhar, Haji Mulla Ali Akbar, Adibu'l-Ulama and Ibn-i-Asdaq. The

spirit that today sustains Persian pioneers in every part of the world and

that plays so creative a role in the building of Baha'i community life

runs like a straight line through family after family back to those heroic

days. In retrospect, it is apparent that the phenomenon we today know as

the twin processes of expansion and consolidation itself had its origin in

those marvellous years.

Inspired by the Master's words and the accounts brought back from the Holy

Land, Persian believers arose to undertake travel-teaching activities in

the Far East. During the latter years of Baha'u'llah's Ministry,

communities had been established in India and Burma, and the Faith carried

as far as China; and this work was now reinforced. A demonstration of the

new powers released in the Cause was the erection in the Russian province

of Turkestan, where a vigorous Baha'i community life had also developed,

of the first Baha'i House of Worship in the world,(12) a project inspired

by the Master and guided, from its inception, by His advice.

It was this broad range of activities, carried out by an increasingly

confident body of believers and stretching from the Mediterranean to the

China Sea, that built the base of support from which 'Abdu'l-Baha was able

to pursue the promising opportunities which, as the new century opened,

had already begun to unfold in the West. Not the least important feature

of this base was its embrace of representatives of the Orient's great

diversity of racial, religious and national backgrounds. This achievement

provided 'Abdu'l-Baha with the examples on which He would repeatedly draw

in His proclamation to Western audiences of the integrating forces that

had been released through Baha'u'llah's advent.

The greatest victory of these early years was the Master's success in

constructing on Mount Carmel, on the spot designated for it by Baha'u'llah

and through immense effort, a mausoleum for the remains of the Bab, which

had been brought at great risk and difficulty to the Holy Land. Shoghi

Effendi has explained that whereas in past ages the blood of martyrs was

the seed of personal faith, in this day it has constituted the seed of the

administrative institutions of the Cause.(13) Such an insight lends

special meaning to the way in which the Administrative Centre of

Baha'u'llah's World Order would take shape under the shadow of the Shrine

of the Faith's Martyr-Prophet. Shoghi Effendi sets the Master's

achievement in global and historical perspective:

For, just as in the realm of the spirit, the reality of the Bab has been

hailed by the Author of the Baha'i Revelation as "the Point round Whom the

realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolve," so, on this visible

plane, His sacred remains constitute the heart and center of what may be

regarded as nine concentric circles,(14) paralleling thereby, and adding

further emphasis to the central position accorded by the Founder of our

Faith to One "from Whom God hath caused to proceed the knowledge of all

that was and shall be," "the Primal Point from which have been generated

all created things."(15)

The significance in 'Abdu'l-Baha's own eyes of the mission He had

accomplished at such cost is movingly depicted by Shoghi Effendi:

When all was finished, and the earthly remains of the Martyr-Prophet of

_Sh_iraz were, at long last, safely deposited for their everlasting rest

in the bosom of God's holy mountain, 'Abdu'l-Baha, Who had cast aside His

turban, removed His shoes and thrown off His cloak, bent low over the

still open sarcophagus, His silver hair waving about His head and His face

transfigured and luminous, rested His forehead on the border of the wooden

casket, and, sobbing aloud, wept with such a weeping that all those who

were present wept with Him. That night He could not sleep, so overwhelmed

was He with emotion.(16)

By 1908, the so-called "Young Turk Revolution" had freed not only most of

the Ottoman empire's political prisoners, but 'Abdu'l-Baha as well.

Suddenly, the restraints that had kept Him confined to the prison-city of

'Akka and its immediate surroundings had fallen away, and the Master was

in a position to proceed with an enterprise that Shoghi Effendi was later

to describe as one of the three principal achievements of His ministry:

His public proclamation of the Cause of God in the great population

centres of the Western world.

* * * * *

Because of the dramatic character of the events that occurred in North

America and Europe, accounts of the Master's historic journeys sometimes

tend to overlook the important opening year spent in Egypt. 'Abdu'l-Baha

arrived there in September 1910, intending to go on directly to Europe,

but was compelled by illness to remain in residence at Ramleh, a suburb of

Alexandria, until August of the following year. As it turned out, the

months that followed were a period of great productivity whose full

effects on the fortunes of the Cause, in the African continent especially,

will be felt for many years to come. To some extent the way had no doubt

been paved by warm admiration for the Master on the part of _Sh_ay_kh_

Muhammad 'Abduh, who had met Him on several occasions in Beirut and who

subsequently became Mufti of Egypt and a leading figure at Al-Azhar

University.

An aspect of the Egyptian sojourn that deserves special attention was the

opportunity it provided for the first public proclamation of the Faith's

message. The relatively cosmopolitan and liberal atmosphere prevailing in

Cairo and Alexandria at the time opened a way for frank and searching

discussions between the Master and prominent figures in the intellectual

world of Sunni Islam. These included clerics, parliamentarians,

administrators and aristocrats. Further, editors and journalists from

influential Arabic-language newspapers, whose information about the Cause

had been coloured by prejudiced reports emanating from Persia and

Constantinople, now had an opportunity to learn the facts of the situation

for themselves. Publications that had been openly hostile changed their

tone. The editors of one such newspaper opened an article on the Master's

arrival by referring to "His Eminence Mirza 'Abbas Effendi, the learned

and erudite Head of the Baha'is in 'Akka and the Centre of authority for

Baha'is throughout the world" and expressing appreciation of His visit to

Alexandria.(17) This and other articles paid particular tribute to

'Abdu'l-Baha's understanding of Islam and to the principles of unity and

religious tolerance that lay at the heart of His teachings.

Despite the Master's ill health that had caused it, the Egyptian interlude

proved to be a great blessing. Western diplomats and officials were able

to observe at first-hand the extraordinary success of 'Abdu'l-Baha's

interaction with leading figures in a region of the Near East that was of

lively interest in European circles. Accordingly, by the time the Master

embarked for Marseilles on 11 August 1911, His fame had preceded Him.