However great is the distance between the Guardianship and the unique
station of the Centre of the Covenant, the role played by Shoghi Effendi
after the Master's passing 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 God 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 Assemblies 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 institution 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 circumstance, 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 assess--
contains, as he assured 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 Guardianship. 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 incumbent 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)
In conformity with this guidance from the pen of the Centre of the
Covenant, Shoghi Effendi remained silent, leaving the question of his
successor or successors in the hands of the Body alone authorized to
determine the matter. Five months after it came into existence, the
Universal House of Justice clarified the issue in a message dated 6
October 1963 to all National Spiritual Assemblies:
After prayerful and careful study of the Holy Texts ... and after
prolonged consideration ... the Universal House of Justice finds that
there is no way to appoint or to legislate to make it possible to appoint
a second Guardian to succeed Shoghi Effendi.(106)
In embarking on a mission for which history supplied him with no
precedent, Shoghi Effendi could look nowhere but to the Writings of the
Founders of the Faith and the example of the Master for the guidance his
work required. No body of advisors could help him determine the meaning of
the Texts he was called on to interpret for a Baha'i community that had
placed its whole trust in him. Although he read widely the published works
of historians, economists and political thinkers, such research could do
no more than supply raw materials that his inspired vision of the Cause
must then organize. The confidence and courage required in mobilizing a
heterogeneous community of believers to undertake tasks that were, by any
objective criteria, far beyond their capacities, could be found only in
the spiritual resources of his own heart. No dispassionate observer of the
twentieth century, however sceptical about the claims of religion he or
she may be, can fail to acknowledge that the integrity with which a young
man in his early twenties accepted so awesome a responsibility--and the
magnitude of the victory he won--are evidences of an immense spiritual
power inherent in the Cause he championed.
To acknowledge all this is to recognize that the capacities with which the
Covenant had endowed the Guardianship were not a form of magic. Their
successful exercise entailed, as Ruhiyyih _Kh_anum has movingly described,
a never-ending process of testing, evaluation, and refinement. One is awed
by the precision with which Shoghi Effendi analyzed political and social
processes in the early stages of their development, and the mastery with
which his mind encompassed a kaleidoscope of events, both current and
historical, relating their implications to the unfolding Will of
Providence. That this work of the intellect was carried out on a level far
above the one on which the human mind customarily operates did not make
the effort any the less real or stressful. Rather, given the insight into
human nature and human motivation that was an inseparable feature of the
institution Shoghi Effendi represented, the opposite was the case.(107)
In the perspective of the more than forty years since Shoghi Effendi's
passing, the long-term significance of his work in the evolution of the
Administrative Order has begun to emerge with brilliant clarity. Had
circumstances been different, the Master's Will and Testament had provided
for the possibility that one or more successors might have followed in the
institution Shoghi Effendi embodied. We obviously cannot penetrate the
mind of God. What is clear and undeniable, however, is that, through his
interpretive authority, the structure of the Administrative Order, as well
as the course that its future development will pursue, have been
permanently fixed by Shoghi Effendi's fulfilment--in every least respect
and to the fullest extent imaginable--of the mandate laid on him by the
Master. Equally clear and undeniable is the fact that both structure and
course represent the Will of God.