The immediate effect of the ascension of Baha'u'llah had been, as already
observed, to spread grief and bewilderment among his followers and
companions, and to inspire its vigilant and redoubtable adversaries with
fresh hope and renewed determination. At a time when a grievously traduced
Faith had triumphantly emerged from the two severest crises it had ever
known, one the work of enemies without, the other the work of enemies
within, when its prestige had risen to a height unequalled in any period
during its fifty-year existence, the unerring Hand which had shaped its
destiny ever since its inception was suddenly removed, leaving a gap which
friend and foe alike believed could never again be filled.
Yet, as the appointed Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant and the authorized
Interpreter of His teaching had Himself later explained, the dissolution
of the tabernacle wherein the soul of the Manifestation of God had chosen
temporarily to abide signalized its release from the restrictions which an
earthly life had, of necessity, imposed upon it. Its influence no longer
circumscribed by any physical limitations, its radiance no longer
beclouded by its human temple, that soul could henceforth energize the
whole world to a degree unapproached at any stage in the course of its
existence on this planet.
Baha'u'llah's stupendous task on this earthly plane had, moreover, at the
time of His passing, been brought to its final consummation. His mission,
far from being in any way inconclusive, had, in every respect, been
carried through to a full end. The Message with which He had been
entrusted had been disclosed to the gaze of all mankind. The summons He
had been commissioned to issue to its leaders and rulers had been
fearlessly voiced. The fundamentals of the doctrine destined to recreate
its life, heal its sicknesses and redeem it from bondage and degradation
had been impregnably established. The tide of calamity that was to purge
and fortify the sinews of His Faith had swept on with unstemmed fury. The
blood which was to fertilize the soil out of which the institutions of His
World Order were destined to spring had been profusely shed. Above all the
Covenant that was to perpetuate the influence of that Faith, insure its
integrity, safeguard it from schism, and stimulate its world-wide
expansion, had been fixed on an inviolable basis.
His Cause, precious beyond the dreams and hopes of men; enshrining within
its shell that pearl of great price to which the world, since its
foundation, had been looking forward; confronted with colossal tasks of
unimaginable complexity and urgency, was beyond a peradventure in safe
keeping. His own beloved Son, the apple of His eye, His vicegerent on
earth, the Executive of His authority, the Pivot of His Covenant, the
Shepherd of His flock, the Exemplar of His faith, the Image of His
perfections, the Mystery of His Revelation, the Interpreter of His mind,
the Architect of His World Order, the Ensign of His Most Great Peace, the
Focal Point of His unerring guidance--in a word, the occupant of an office
without peer or equal in the entire field of religious history--stood guard
over it, alert, fearless and determined to enlarge its limits, blazon
abroad its fame, champion its interests and consummate its purpose.
The stirring proclamation 'Abdu'l-Baha had penned, addressed to the rank
and file of the followers of His Father, on the morrow of His ascension,
as well as the prophecies He Himself had uttered in His Tablets, breathed
a resolve and a confidence which the fruits garnered and the triumphs
achieved in the course of a thirty-year ministry have abundantly
justified.
The cloud of despondency that had momentarily settled on the disconsolate
lovers of the Cause of Baha'u'llah was lifted. The continuity of that
unerring guidance vouchsafed to it since its birth was now assured. The
significance of the solemn affirmation that this is "the Day which shall
not be followed by night" was now clearly apprehended. An orphan community
had recognized in 'Abdu'l-Baha, in its hour of desperate need, its Solace,
its Guide, its Mainstay and Champion. The Light that had glowed with such
dazzling brightness in the heart of Asia, and had, in the lifetime of
Baha'u'llah, spread to the Near East, and illuminated the fringes of both
the European and African continents, was to travel, through the impelling
influence of the newly proclaimed Covenant, and almost immediately after
the death of its Author, as far West as the North American continent, and
from thence diffuse itself to the countries of Europe, and subsequently
shed its radiance over both the Far East and Australasia.
Before the Faith, however, could plant its banner in the midmost heart of
the North American continent, and from thence establish its outposts over
so vast a portion of the Western world, the newly born Covenant of
Baha'u'llah had, as had been the case with the Faith that had given it
birth, to be baptized with a fire which was to demonstrate its solidity
and proclaim its indestructibility to an unbelieving world. A crisis,
almost as severe as that which had assailed the Faith in its earliest
infancy in Ba_gh_dad, was to shake that Covenant to its foundations at the
very moment of its inception, and subject afresh the Cause of which it was
the noblest fruit to one of the most grievous ordeals experienced in the
course of an entire century.
This crisis, misconceived as a schism, which political as well as
ecclesiastical adversaries, no less than the fast dwindling remnant of the
followers of Mirza Yahya hailed as a signal for the immediate disruption
and final dissolution of the system established by Baha'u'llah, was
precipitated at the very heart and center of His Faith, and was provoked
by no one less than a member of His own family, a half-brother of
'Abdu'l-Baha, specifically named in the book of the Covenant, and holding
a rank second to none except Him Who had been appointed as the Center of
that Covenant. For no less than four years that emergency fiercely
agitated the minds and hearts of a vast proportion of the faithful
throughout the East, eclipsed, for a time, the Orb of the Covenant,
created an irreparable breach within the ranks of Baha'u'llah's own
kindred, sealed ultimately the fate of the great majority of the members
of His family, and gravely damaged the prestige, though it never succeeded
in causing a permanent cleavage in the structure, of the Faith itself. The
true ground of this crisis was the burning, the uncontrollable, the
soul-festering jealousy which the admitted preeminence of 'Abdu'l-Baha in
rank, power, ability, knowledge and virtue, above all the other members of
His Father's family, had aroused not only in Mirza Muhammad-'Ali, the
archbreaker of the Covenant, but in some of his closest relatives as well.
An envy as blind as that which had possessed the soul of Mirza Yahya, as
deadly as that which the superior excellence of Joseph had kindled in the
hearts of his brothers, as deep-seated as that which had blazed in the
bosom of Cain and prompted him to slay his brother Abel, had, for several
years, prior to Baha'u'llah's ascension, been smouldering in the recesses
of Mirza Muhammad-'Ali's heart and had been secretly inflamed by those
unnumbered marks of distinction, of admiration and favor accorded to
'Abdu'l-Baha not only by Baha'u'llah Himself, His companions and His
followers, but by the vast number of unbelievers who had come to recognize
that innate greatness which 'Abdu'l-Baha had manifested from childhood.
Far from being allayed by the provisions of a Will which had elevated him
to the second-highest position within the ranks of the faithful, the fire
of unquenchable animosity that glowed in the breast of Mirza Muhammad-'Ali
burned even more fiercely as soon as he came to realize the full
implications of that Document. All that 'Abdu'l-Baha could do, during a
period of four distressful years, His incessant exhortations, His earnest
pleadings, the favors and kindnesses He showered upon him, the admonitions
and warnings He uttered, even His voluntary withdrawal in the hope of
averting the threatening storm, proved to be of no avail. Gradually and
with unyielding persistence, through lies, half-truths, calumnies and
gross exaggerations, this "Prime Mover of sedition" succeeded in ranging
on his side almost the entire family of Baha'u'llah, as well as a
considerable number of those who had formed his immediate entourage.
Baha'u'llah's two surviving wives, His two sons, the vacillating Mirza
Diya'u'llah and the treacherous Mirza Badi'u'llah, with their sister and
half-sister and their husbands, one of them the infamous Siyyid 'Ali, a
kinsman of the Bab, the other the crafty Mirza Majdi'd-Din, together with
his sister and half-brothers--the children of the noble, the faithful and
now deceased Aqay-i-Kalim--all united in a determined effort to subvert the
foundations of the Covenant which the newly proclaimed Will had laid. Even
Mirza Aqa Jan, who for forty years had labored as Baha'u'llah's
amanuensis, as well as Muhammad-Javad-i-Qasvini, who ever since the days
of Adrianople, had been engaged in transcribing the innumerable Tablets
revealed by the Supreme Pen, together with his entire family, threw in
their lot with the Covenant-breakers, and allowed themselves to be
ensnared by their machinations.
Forsaken, betrayed, assaulted by almost the entire body of His relatives,
now congregated in the Mansion and the neighboring houses clustering
around the most Holy Tomb, 'Abdu'l-Baha, already bereft of both His mother
and His sons, and without any support at all save that of an unmarried
sister, His four unmarried daughters, His wife and His uncle (a
half-brother of Baha'u'llah), was left alone to bear, in the face of a
multitude of enemies arrayed against Him from within and from without, the
full brunt of the terrific responsibilities which His exalted office had
laid upon Him.
Closely-knit by one common wish and purpose; indefatigable in their
efforts; assured of the backing of the powerful and perfidious
Jamal-i-Burujirdi and his henchmen, Haji Husayn-i-Ka_sh_i,
_Kh_alil-i-_Kh_u'i and Jalil-i-Tabrizi who had espoused their cause;
linked by a vast system of correspondence with every center and individual
they could reach; seconded in their labors by emissaries whom they
dispatched to Persia, 'Iraq, India and Egypt; emboldened in their designs
by the attitude of officials whom they bribed or seduced, these
repudiators of a divinely-established Covenant arose, as one man, to
launch a campaign of abuse and vilification which compared in virulence
with the infamous accusations which Mirza Yahya and Siyyid Muhammad had
jointly levelled at Baha'u'llah. To friend and stranger, believer and
unbeliever alike, to officials both high and low, openly and by
insinuation, verbally as well as in writing, they represented 'Abdu'l-Baha
as an ambitious, a self-willed, an unprincipled and pitiless usurper, Who
had deliberately disregarded the testamentary instructions of His Father;
Who had, in language intentionally veiled and ambiguous, assumed a rank
co-equal with the Manifestation Himself; Who in His communications with
the West was beginning to claim to be the return of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, who had come "in the glory of the Father"; Who, in His letters to
the Indian believers, was proclaiming Himself as the promised _Sh_ah
Bahram, and arrogating to Himself the right to interpret the writing of
His Father, to inaugurate a new Dispensation, and to share with Him the
Most Great Infallibility, the exclusive prerogative of the holders of the
prophetic office. They, furthermore, affirmed that He had, for His private
ends, fomented discord, fostered enmity and brandished the weapon of
excommunication; that He had perverted the purpose of a Testament which
they alleged to be primarily concerned with the private interests of
Baha'u'llah's family by acclaiming it as a Covenant of world importance,
pre-existent, peerless and unique in the history of all religions; that He
had deprived His brothers and sisters of their lawful allowance, and
expended it on officials for His personal advancement; that He had
declined all the repeated invitations made to Him to discuss the issues
that had arisen and to compose the differences which prevailed; that He
had actually corrupted the Holy Text, interpolated passages written by
Himself, and perverted the purpose and meaning of some of the weightiest
Tablets revealed by the pen of His Father; and finally, that the standard
of rebellion had, as a result of such conduct, been raised by the Oriental
believers, that the community of the faithful had been rent asunder, was
rapidly declining and was doomed to extinction.
And yet it was this same Mirza Muhammad-'Ali who, regarding himself as the
exponent of fidelity, the standard-bearer of the "Unitarians," the "Finger
who points to his Master," the champion of the Holy Family, the spokesman
of the A_gh_san, the upholder of the Holy Writ, had, in the lifetime of
Baha'u'llah, so openly and shamelessly advanced in a written statement,
signed and sealed by him, the very claim now falsely imputed by him to
'Abdu'l-Baha, that his Father had, with His own hand, chastised him. He it
was who, when sent on a mission to India, had tampered with the text of
the holy writings entrusted to his care for publication. He it was who had
the impudence and temerity to tell 'Abdu'l-Baha to His face that just as
Umar had succeeded in usurping the successorship of the Prophet Muhammad,
he, too, felt himself able to do the same. He it was who, obsessed by the
fear that he might not survive 'Abdu'l-Baha, had, the moment he had been
assured by Him that all the honor he coveted would, in the course of time,
be his, swiftly rejoined that he had no guarantee that he would outlive
Him. He it was who, as testified by Mirza Badi'u'llah in his confession,
written and published on the occasion of his repentance and his
short-lived reconciliation with 'Abdu'l-Baha, had, while Baha'u'llah's
body was still awaiting interment, carried off, by a ruse, the two
satchels containing his Father's most precious documents, entrusted by
Him, prior to His ascension, to 'Abdu'l-Baha. He it was who, by an
exceedingly adroit and simple forgery of a word recurring in some of the
denunciatory passages addressed by the Supreme Pen to Mirza Yahya, and by
other devices such as mutilation and interpolation, had succeeded in
making them directly applicable to a Brother Whom he hated with such
consuming passion. And lastly, it was this same Mirza Muhammad-'Ali who,
as attested by 'Abdu'l-Baha in His Will, had, with circumspection and
guile, conspired to take His life, an intention indicated by the allusions
made in a letter written by _Sh_u'a'u'llah (Son of Mirza Muhammad-'Ali),
the original of which was enclosed in that same Document by 'Abdu'l-Baha.
The Covenant of Baha'u'llah had, by acts such as these, and others too
numerous to recount, been manifestly violated. Another blow, stunning in
its first effects, had been administered to the Faith and had caused its
structure momentarily to tremble. The storm foreshadowed by the writer of
the Apocalypse had broken. The "lightnings," the "thunders," the
"earthquake" which must needs accompany the revelation of the "Ark of His
Testament," had all come to pass.
'Abdu'l-Baha's grief over so tragic a development, following so swiftly
upon His Father's ascension, was such that, despite the triumphs witnessed
in the course of His ministry, it left its traces upon Him till the end of
His days. The intensity of the emotions which this somber episode aroused
within Him were reminiscent of the effect produced upon Baha'u'llah by the
dire happenings precipitated by the rebellion of Mirza Yahya. "I swear by
the Ancient Beauty!," He wrote in one of His Tablets, "So great is My
sorrow and regret that My pen is paralyzed between My fingers." "Thou
seest Me," He, in a prayer recorded in His Will, thus laments, "submerged
in an ocean of calamities that overwhelm the soul, of afflictions that
oppress the heart... Sore trials have compassed Me round, and perils have
from all sides beset Me. Thou seest Me immersed in a sea of unsurpassed
tribulation, sunk into a fathomless abyss, afflicted by Mine enemies and
consumed with the flame of hatred kindled by My kinsmen with whom Thou
didst make Thy strong Covenant and Thy firm Testament..." And again in
that same Will: "Lord! Thou seest all things weeping over Me, and My
kindred rejoicing in My woes. By Thy glory, O my God! Even amongst Mine
enemies some have lamented My troubles and My distress, and of the envious
ones a number have shed tears because of My cares, My exile and My
afflictions." "O Thou the Glory of Glories!," He, in one of His last
Tablets, had cried out, "I have renounced the world and its people, and am
heart-broken and sorely afflicted because of the unfaithful. In the cage
of this world I flutter even as a frightened bird, and yearn every day to
take My flight unto Thy Kingdom."
Baha'u'llah Himself had significantly revealed in one of His Tablets--a
Tablet that sheds an illuminating light on the entire episode: "By God, O
people! Mine eye weepeth, and the eye of 'Ali (the Bab) weepeth amongst
the Concourse on high, and Mine heart crieth out, and the heart of
Muhammad crieth out within the Most Glorious Tabernacle, and My soul
shouteth and the souls of the Prophets shout before them that are endued
with understanding... My sorrow is not for Myself, but for Him Who shall
come after Me, in the shadow of My Cause, with manifest and undoubted
sovereignty, inasmuch as they will not welcome His appearance, will
repudiate His signs, will dispute His sovereignty, will contend with Him,
and will betray His Cause..." "Can it be possible," He, in a no less
significant Tablet, had observed, "that after the dawning of the day-star
of Thy Testament above the horizon of Thy Most Great Tablet, the feet of
any one shall slip in Thy Straight Path? Unto this We answered: 'O My most
exalted Pen! It behoveth Thee to occupy Thyself with that whereunto Thou
hast been bidden by God, the Exalted, the Great. Ask not of that which
will consume Thine heart and the hearts of the denizens of Paradise, who
have circled round My wondrous Cause. It behoveth Thee not to be
acquainted with that which We have veiled from Thee. Thy Lord is, verily,
the Concealer, the All-Knowing!'" More specifically Baha'u'llah had,
referring to Mirza Muhammad-'Ali in clear and unequivocal language,
affirmed: "He, verily, is but one of My servants... Should he for a moment
pass out from under the shadow of the Cause, he surely shall be brought to
naught." Furthermore, in a no less emphatic language, He, again in
connection with Mirza Muhammad-'Ali had stated: "By God, the True One!
Were We, for a single instant, to withhold from him the outpourings of Our
Cause, he would wither, and would fall upon the dust." 'Abdu'l-Baha
Himself had, moreover, testified: "There is no doubt that in a thousand
passages in the sacred writings of Baha'u'llah the breakers of the
Covenant have been execrated." Some of these passages He Himself compiled,
ere His departure from this world, and incorporated them in one of His
last Tablets, as a warning and safeguard against those who, throughout His
ministry, had manifested so implacable a hatred against Him, and had come
so near to subverting the foundations of a Covenant on which not only His
own authority but the integrity of the Faith itself depended.