The institutions signalizing the rise and establishment of the
Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah did not (as the history
of their unfoldment abundantly demonstrates) remain immune against the
assaults and persecutions to which the Faith itself, the progenitor of
that Order, had, for over seventy years, been subjected, and from which it
is still suffering. The emergence of a firmly knit community, advancing
the claims of a world religion, with ramifications spread over five
continents representing a great variety of races, languages, classes and
religious traditions; provided with a literature scattered over the
surface of the earth, and expounding in several languages its doctrine;
clear-visioned, unafraid, alert and determined to achieve at whatever
sacrifice its goal; organically united through the machinery of a divinely
appointed Administrative Order; non-sectarian, non-political, faithful to
its civil obligations yet supranational in character; tenacious in its
adherence to the laws and ordinances regulating its community life--the
emergence of such a community, in a world steeped in prejudice,
worshipping false gods, torn by intestine divisions, and blindly clinging
to obsolescent doctrines and defective standards, could not but
precipitate, sooner or later, crises no less grave, though less
spectacular, than the persecutions which, in an earlier age, had raged
around the Founders of that community and their early disciples. Assailed
by enemies within, who have either rebelled against its God-given
authority or wholly renounced their faith, or by adversaries from without,
whether political or ecclesiastical, the infant Order identified with this
community has, since its inception, and throughout every stage in its
evolution, felt severely the impact of the forces which have sought in
vain to strangle its budding life or to obscure its purpose.
To these attacks, destined to grow in scope and severity, and to arouse a
tumult that will reverberate throughout the world, 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself
had already, at the time the outlines of that Divine order were being
delineated by Him in His Will, significantly alluded: "Erelong shall the
clamor of the multitude throughout Africa, throughout America, the cry of
the European and of the Turk, the groaning of India and China, be heard
from far and near. One and all, they shall arise with all their power to
resist His Cause. Then shall the knights of the Lord ... reinforced by the
legions of the Covenant, arise and manifest the truth of the verse:
'Behold the confusion that hath befallen the tribes of the defeated!'"
Already in more than one country the trustees and elected representatives
of this indestructible world-embracing Order have been summoned by civil
authorities or ecclesiastical courts, ignorant of its claims, or hostile
to its principles or fearful of its rising strength, to defend its cause,
or to renounce their allegiance to it, or to curtail the range of its
operation. Already an aggressive hand, unmindful of God's avenging wrath,
has been stretched out against its sanctuaries and edifices. Already its
defenders and champions have, in some countries, been declared heretics,
or stigmatized as subverters of law and order, or branded as visionaries,
unpatriotic and careless of their civic duties and responsibilities, or
peremptorily ordered to suspend their activities and dissolve their
institutions.
In the Holy Land, the world seat of this System, where its heart pulsates,
where the dust of its Founders reposes, where the processes disclosing its
purposes, energizing its life and shaping its destiny all originate, there
fell, at the very hour of its inception, the first blow which served to
proclaim to high and low alike the solidity of the foundations on which it
has been established. The Covenant-breakers, now dwindled to a mere
handful, instigated by Mirza Muhammad-'Ali, the Arch-rebel, whose dormant
hopes had been awakened by 'Abdu'l-Baha's sudden ascension, and headed by
the arrogant Mirza Badi'u'llah, seized forcibly the keys of the Tomb of
Baha'u'llah, expelled its keeper, the brave-souled
Abu'l-Qasim-i-_Kh_urasani, and demanded that their chief be recognized by
the authorities as the legal custodian of that Shrine. Unadmonished by
their abject failure, as witnessed by the firm action of the Palestine
authorities, who, after prolonged investigations, instructed the British
officer in Akka to deliver the keys into the hands of that same keeper,
they resorted to other methods in the hope of creating a cleavage in the
ranks of the bereaved yet resolute disciples of 'Abdu'l-Baha and of
ultimately undermining the foundations of the institutions His followers
were laboring to erect. Through their mischievous misrepresentations of
the ideals animating the builders of the Baha'i Administrative Order;
through the maintenance, though not on its original scale, of a subversive
correspondence with individuals whose loyalty they hoped they could sap;
through deliberate distortions of the truth in their contact with
officials and notables whom they could approach; through attempts, made
through bribery and intimidation, to purchase a part of the Mansion of
Baha'u'llah; through efforts directed at preventing the acquisition by the
Baha'i community of certain properties situated in the vicinity of the
Tomb of the Bab, and at frustrating the design to consolidate the
foundation of some of these properties by transferring their title-deeds
to incorporated Baha'i assemblies, they continued to labor intermittently
for several years until the extinction of the life of the Arch-breaker of
the Covenant himself virtually sealed their doom.
The evacuation of the Mansion of Baha'u'llah by these Covenant-breakers,
after their unchallenged occupancy of it since His ascension, a Mansion
which, through their gross neglect, had fallen into a sad state of
disrepair; its subsequent complete restoration, fulfilling a long
cherished desire of 'Abdu'l-Baha; its illumination through an electric
plant installed by an American believer for that purpose; the refurnishing
of all its rooms after it had been completely denuded by its former
occupants of all the precious relics it contained, with the exception of a
single candlestick in the room where Baha'u'llah had ascended; the
collection within its walls of Baha'i historic documents, of relics and of
over five thousand volumes of Baha'i literature, in no less than forty
languages; the extension to it of the exemption from government taxes,
already granted to other Baha'i institutions and properties in Akka and on
Mt. Carmel; and finally, its conversion from a private residence to a
center of pilgrimage visited by Baha'is and non-Baha'is alike--these served
to further dash the hopes of those who were still desperately striving to
extinguish the light of the Covenant of Baha'u'llah. Furthermore, the
success later achieved in purchasing and safeguarding the area forming the
precincts of the resting-place of the Bab on Mt. Carmel, and the transfer
of the title-deeds of some of these properties to the legally constituted
Palestine Branch of the American Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly, no
less than the circumstances attending the death of the one who had been
the prime mover of mischief throughout 'Abdu'l-Baha's ministry,
demonstrated to these enemies the futility of their efforts and the
hopelessness of their cause.
Of a more serious nature, and productive of still greater repercussions,
was the unlawful seizure by the _Sh_i'ahs of 'Iraq, at about the same time
that the keys of the Tomb of Baha'u'llah were wrested by the
Covenant-breakers from its keeper, of yet another Baha'i Shrine, the House
occupied by Baha'u'llah for well nigh the whole period of His exile in
'Iraq, which had been acquired by Him, and later had been ordained as a
center of pilgrimage, and had continued in the unbroken and undisputed
possession of His followers ever since His departure from Ba_gh_dad. This
crisis, originating about a year prior to 'Abdu'l-Baha's ascension, and
precipitated by the measures which, after the change of regime in 'Iraq,
had, according to His instructions, been taken for the reconstruction of
that House, acquired as it developed a steadily widening measure of
publicity. It became the object of the consideration of successive
tribunals, first of the local _Sh_i'ah Ja'fariyyih court in Ba_gh_dad,
second of the Peace court, then the court of First Instance, then of the
court of Appeal in 'Iraq, and finally of the League of Nations, the
greatest international body yet come into existence, and empowered to
exercise supervision and control over all Mandated Territories. Though as
yet unresolved through a combination of causes, religious as well as
political, it has already remarkably fulfilled Baha'u'llah's own
prediction, and will, in its own appointed time, as the means for its
solution are providentially created, fulfill the high destiny ordained for
it by Him in His Tablets. Long before its seizure by fanatical enemies,
who had no conceivable claim to it whatever, He had prophesied that "it
shall be so abased in the days to come as to cause tears to flow from
every discerning eye."
The Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Ba_gh_dad, deprived of the use of
that sacred property through an adverse decision by a majority of the
court of Appeal, which had reversed the verdict of the lower court and
awarded the property to the _Sh_i'ahs, and aroused by subsequent action of
the _Sh_i'ahs, soon after the execution of the judgment of that court, in
converting the building into waqf property (pious foundation), designating
it "Husayniyyih," with the purpose of consolidating their gain, realized
the futility of the three years of negotiations they had been conducting
with the civil authorities in Ba_gh_dad for the righting of the wrong
inflicted upon them. In their capacity as the national representatives of
the Baha'is of 'Iraq, they, therefore, on September 11, 1928, through the
High Commissioner for 'Iraq and in conformity with the provisions of Art.
22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, approached the League's
Permanent Mandates Commission, charged with the supervision of the
administration of all Mandated Territories, and presented a petition that
was accepted and approved by that body in November, 1928. A memorandum
submitted, in connection with that petition, to that same Commission, by
the Mandatory Power unequivocally stated that the _Sh_i'ahs had "no
conceivable claim whatever" to the House, that the decision of the judge
of the Ja'fariyyih court was "obviously wrong," "unjust" and "undoubtedly
actuated by religious prejudice," that the subsequent ejectment of the
Baha'is was "illegal," that the action of the authorities had been "highly
irregular," and that the verdict of the Court of Appeal was suspected of
not being "uninfluenced by political consideration."
"The Commission," states the Report submitted by it to the Council of the
League, and published in the Minutes of the 14th session of the Permanent
Mandates Commission, held in Geneva in the fall of 1928, and subsequently
translated into Arabic and published in 'Iraq, "draws the Council's
attention to the considerations and conclusions suggested to it by an
examination of the petition... It recommends that the Council should ask
the British Government to make representations to the 'Iraq Government
with a view to the immediate redress of the denial of justice from which
the petitioners have suffered."
The British accredited representative present at the sessions of the
Commission, furthermore, stated that "the Mandatory Power had recognized
that the Baha'is had suffered an injustice," whilst allusion was made, in
the course of that session, to the fact that the action of the _Sh_i'ahs
constituted a breach of the constitution and the Organic Law of 'Iraq. The
Finnish representative, moreover, in his report to the Council, declared
that this "injustice must be attributed solely to religious passion," and
asked that "the petitioner's wrongs should be redressed."
The Council of the League, on its part, having considered this report as
well as the joint observations and conclusions of the Commission,
unanimously adopted, on March 4, 1929, a resolution, subsequently
translated and published in the newspapers of Ba_gh_dad, directing the
Mandatory Power "to make representations to the Government of 'Iraq with a
view to the immediate redress of the injustice suffered by the
Petitioners." It instructed, accordingly, the Secretary General to bring
to the notice of the Mandatory Power, as well as to the petitioners
concerned, the conclusions arrived at by the Commission, an instruction
which was duly transmitted by the British Government through its High
Commissioner to the 'Iraq Government.
A letter dated January 12, 1931, written on behalf of the British Foreign
Minister, Mr. Arthur Henderson, addressed to the League Secretariat,
stated that the conclusions reached by the Council had "received the most
careful consideration by the Government of 'Iraq," who had "finally
decided to set up a special committee ... to consider the views expressed
by the Baha'i community in respect of certain houses in Ba_gh_dad, and to
formulate recommendations for an equitable settlement of this question."
That letter, moreover, pointed out that the committee had submitted its
report in August, 1930, that it had been accepted by the government, that
the Baha'i community had "accepted in principle" its recommendations, and
that the authorities in Ba_gh_dad had directed that "detailed plans and
estimates shall be prepared with a view to carrying these recommendations
into effect during the coming financial year."
No need to dwell on the subsequent history of this momentous case, on the
long-drawn out negotiations, the delays and complications that ensued; on
the consultations, "over a hundred" in number, in which the king, his
ministers and advisers took part; on the expressions of "regret," of
"surprise" and of "anxiety" placed on record at successive sessions of the
Mandates Commission held in Geneva in 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1933; on
the condemnation by its members of the "spirit of intolerance" animating
the _Sh_i'ah community, of the "partiality" of the Iraqi courts, of the
"weakness" of the civil authorities and of the "religious passion at the
bottom of this injustice"; on their testimony to the "extremely
conciliatory disposition" of the petitioners, on their "doubt" regarding
the adequacy of the proposals, and on their recognition of the "serious"
character of the situation that had been created, of the "flagrant denial
of justice" which the Baha'is had suffered, and of the "moral debt" which
the 'Iraq Government had contracted, a debt which, whatever the changes in
her status as a nation, it was her bounden duty to discharge.
Nor does it seem necessary to expatiate on the unfortunate consequences of
the untimely death of both the British High Commissioner and the Iraqi
Prime Minister; on the admission of 'Iraq as a member of the League, and
the consequent termination of the mandate held by Great Britain; on the
tragic and unexpected death of the King himself; on the difficulties
raised owing to the existence of a town planning scheme; on the written
assurance conveyed to the High Commissioner by the acting Premier in his
letter of January, 1932; on the pledge given by the King, prior to his
death, in the presence of the foreign minister, in February, 1933, that
the House would be expropriated, and the necessary sum would be
appropriated in the spring of the ensuing year; on the categorical
statement made by that same foreign minister that the Prime Minister had
given the necessary assurances that the promise already made by the acting
Premier would be redeemed; or on the positive statements made by that same
Foreign Minister and his colleague, the Minister of Finance, when
representing their country during the sessions of the League Assembly held
in Geneva, that the promise given by their late King would be fully
honored.
Suffice it to say that, despite these interminable delays, protests and
evasions, and the manifest failure of the Authorities concerned to
implement the recommendations made by both the Council of the League and
the Permanent Mandates Commission, the publicity achieved for the Faith by
this memorable litigation, and the defense of its cause--the cause of truth
and justice--by the world's highest tribunal, have been such as to excite
the wonder of its friends and to fill with consternation its enemies. Few
episodes, if any, since the birth of the Formative Age of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah, have given rise to repercussions in high places comparable to
the effect produced on governments and chancelleries by this violent and
unprovoked assault directed by its inveterate enemies against one of its
holiest sanctuaries.
"Grieve not, O House of God," Baha'u'llah Himself has significantly
written, "if the veil of thy sanctity be rent asunder by the infidels. God
hath, in the world of creation, adorned thee with the jewel of His
remembrance. Such an ornament no man can, at any time, profane. Towards
thee the eyes of thy Lord shall, under all conditions, remain directed."
"In the fullness of time," He, in another passage, referring to that same
House, has prophesied, "the Lord shall, by the power of truth, exalt it in
the eyes of all men. He shall cause it to become the Standard of His
Kingdom, the Shrine round which will circle the concourse of the
faithful."
To the bold onslaught made by the breakers of the Covenant of Baha'u'llah
in their concerted efforts to secure the custodianship of His holy Tomb,
to the arbitrary seizure of His holy House in Ba_gh_dad by the _Sh_i'ah
community of 'Iraq, was to be added, a few years later, yet another
grievous assault launched by a still more powerful adversary, directed
against the very fabric of the Administrative Order as established by two
long-flourishing Baha'i communities of the East, culminating in the
virtual disruption of these communities and the seizure of the first
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Baha'i world and of the few accessory
institutions already reared about it.
The courage, the fervor and the spiritual vitality evinced by these
communities; the highly organized state of their administrative
institutions; the facilities provided for the religious education and
training of their youth; the conversion of a number of broad-minded
Russian citizens, imbued with ideas closely related to the tenets of the
Faith; the growing realization of the implications of its principles, with
their emphasis on religion, on the sanctity of family life, on the
institution of private property, and their repudiation of all
discrimination between classes and of the doctrine of the absolute
equality of men--these combined to excite the suspicion, and later to
arouse the fierce antagonism, of the ruling authorities, and to
precipitate one of the gravest crises in the history of the first Baha'i
century.
As the crisis developed and spread to even the outlying centers of both
Turkistan and the Caucasus it resulted gradually in the imposition of
restrictions limiting the freedom of these communities, in the
interrogation and arrest of their elected representatives, in the
dissolution of their local Assemblies and their respective committees in
Moscow, in I_sh_qabad, in Baku and in other localities in the
above-mentioned provinces and in the suspension of all Baha'i youth
activities. It even led to the closing of Baha'i schools, kindergartens,
libraries and public reading-rooms, to the interception of all
communication with foreign Baha'i centers, to the confiscation of Baha'i
printing presses, books and documents, to the prohibition of all teaching
activities, to the abrogation of the Baha'i constitution, to the abolition
of all national and local funds and to the ban placed on the attendance of
non-believers at Baha'i meetings.
In the middle of 1928 the law expropriating religious edifices was applied
to the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of I_sh_qabad. The use of this edifice as a
house of worship, however, was continued, under a five-year lease, which
was renewed by the local authorities in 1933, for a similar period. In
1938 the situation in both Turkistan and the Caucasus rapidly
deteriorated, leading to the imprisonment of over five hundred
believers--many of whom died--as well as a number of women, and the
confiscation of their property, followed by the exile of several prominent
members of these communities to Siberia, the polar forests and other
places in the vicinity of the Arctic Ocean, the subsequent deportation of
most of the remnants of these communities to Persia, on account of their
Persian nationality, and lastly, the complete expropriation of the Temple
itself and its conversion into an art gallery.
In Germany, likewise, the rise and establishment of the Administrative
Order of the Faith, to whose expansion and consolidation the German
believers were distinctively and increasingly contributing, was soon
followed by repressive measures, which, though less grievous than the
afflictions suffered by the Baha'is of Turkistan and the Caucasus,
amounted to the virtual cessation, in the years immediately preceding the
present conflict, of all organized Baha'i activity throughout the length
and breadth of that land. The public teaching of the Faith, with its
unconcealed emphasis on peace and universality, and its repudiation of
racialism, was officially forbidden; Baha'i Assemblies and their
committees were dissolved; the holding of Baha'i conventions was
interdicted; the Archives of the National Spiritual Assembly were seized;
the summer school was abolished and the publication of all Baha'i
literature was suspended.
In Persia, moreover, apart from sporadic outbreaks of persecution in such
places as _Sh_iraz, Abadih, Ardibil, Isfahan, and in certain districts of
A_dh_irbayjan and _Kh_urasan--outbreaks greatly reduced in number and
violence, owing to the marked decline in the fortunes of the erstwhile
powerful _Sh_i'ah ecclesiastics--the institutions of a newly-established
and as yet unconsolidated Administrative Order were subjected by the civil
authorities, in both the capital and the provinces, to restrictions
designed to circumscribe their scope, to fetter their freedom and
undermine their foundations.
The gradual and wholly unexpected emergence from obscurity of a
firmly-welded national community, schooled in adversity and unbroken in
spirit, with centers established in every province of that country, in
spite of the successive waves of inhuman persecution which had, for three
quarters of a century, swept over and had all but engulfed it; the
determination of its members to diffuse the spirit and principles of their
Faith, broadcast its literature, enforce its laws and ordinances, penalize
those who would transgress them, maintain a steady intercourse with their
fellow-believers in foreign lands, and erect the edifices and institutions
of its Administrative Order, could not but arouse the apprehensions and
the hostility of those placed in authority, who either misunderstood the
aims of that community, or were bent upon stifling its life. The
insistence of its members, while obedient in all matters of a purely
administrative character to the civil statutes of their country, on
adhering to the fundamental spiritual principles, precepts and laws
revealed by Baha'u'llah, requiring them, among other things, to hold fast
to truthfulness, not to dissimulate their faith, observe the ordinances
prescribed for marriage and divorce, and suspend all manner of work on the
Holy Days ordained by Him, brought them, sooner or later, into conflict
with a regime which, owing to its formal recognition of Islam as the state
religion of Persia, refused to extend any recognition to those whom the
official exponents of that religion had already condemned as heretics.
The closing of all schools belonging to the Baha'i community in that
country, as a direct consequence of the refusal of the representatives of
that community to permit official Baha'i institutions, owned and entirely
controlled by them, to transgress the clearly revealed law requiring the
suspension of work on Baha'i Holy Days; the rejection of all Baha'i
marriage certificates and the refusal to register them at government
License Bureaus; the ban placed on the printing and circulation of all
Baha'i literature, as well as on its entry into the country; the seizure
in various centers of Baha'i documents, books and relics; the closing, in
some of the provinces of the Haziratu'l-Quds, and the confiscation in some
localities of their furniture; the prohibition of all Baha'i
demonstrations, conferences and conventions; the strict censorship imposed
on, and often the non-delivery of, communications between Baha'i centers
in Persia and between these centers and Baha'i communities in foreign
lands; the withholding of good-record certificates from loyal and
law-abiding citizens on the ground of their avowed adherence to the Baha'i
Faith; the dismissal of Government employees, the demotion or discharge of
army officers, the arrest, the interrogation, the imprisonment of, and the
imposition of fines and other punishments upon, a number of believers who
refused either to cast aside the moral obligation of adhering to the
spiritual principles of their Faith, or to act in any manner that would
conflict with its universal and non-political character--all these may be
regarded as the initial attempts made in the country whose soil had
already been imbued with the blood of countless Baha'i martyrs, to resist
the rise, and frustrate the struggle for the emancipation, of a nascent
Administrative Order, whose very roots have sucked their strength from
such heroic sacrifice.