The Orthodox Baha’i Faith upholds the original writings of Baha’u’llah, the Founder, and Abdu’l-Bahá, the Exemplar and appointed interpreter of the Baha’i Faith. The Orthodox Baha’i Faith also believes that Shoghi Effendi, the appointed first guardian of the Faith, fulfilled his mission as directed by these writings. The Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Bahá provides for the continuous guidance of a living guardian and requires each guardian “to appoint in his own lifetime him that shall become his successor….” Shoghi Effendi himself indicated the vital importance of Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will when he said the Will of Abdu’l-Bahá and the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, (Baha’u’llah’s Most Holy Book), “are not only complementary but…they mutually confirm one another and are inseparable parts of one complete unit.” Thus, the Will and Testament cannot be divorced from Baha’u’llah’s laws.
Some six years prior to his passing, Shoghi Effendi issued the only proclamation of his ministry on 9 January 1951, in a cablegram addressed to the “National Assemblies of the East and West.” The cablegram established the embryonic Universal House of Justice. According to the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Bahá, only the Guardian serves as the “sacred head and the distinguished member for life” of the Universal House of Justice. Shoghi Effendi named Charles Mason Remey, a Baha’i of recognized unsurpassed service, devotion and fidelity to the Covenant of Baha’u’llah as the head or president of the embryonic body. Shoghi Effendi did not assume the presidency of this body himself, and he did not permit the appointed head to activate the embryonic institution, so that on his passing the successor-Guardian-President of the Universal House of Justice would automatically assume active leadership of the Faith. Shoghi Effendi thus filled the directive in Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will to appoint in his own lifetime a successor.
The position of the Wilmette Baha’is is that the guardianship ended with the death of Shoghi Effendi in 1957. However, in his writings, Shoghi Effendi stated, “Divorced from the Institution of the Guardianship, the World Order of Baha’u’llah would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary principle which, as Abdu’l-Bahá has written, has been invariably upheld by the Law of God.” The Wilmette Baha’is initially justified their position by saying that God changed His mind, using the Persian term “Bada” in their official written stand entitled “A New Baha’i Era.” That document was issued by the three hands of the Faith then in America, (Mrs. True, Horace Holley, and Paul Haney), in collaboration with the members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the USA. They further justified their stand by saying that only a lineal descendent of a guardian can become a successor, and they quoted the Will of Abdu’l-Bahá: “He, (the guardian), is the expounder of the words of God and after him will succeed the first-born of his lineal descendants.” However, only two paragraphs later in the Will one can find that should he not have a son who meets the spiritual requirements of a guardian, “then must he, (the Guardian of the Cause of God), choose another branch to succeed him.” The Wilmette group failed altogether to even consider the alternative provision contained in the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Bahá that not only permits, but makes it mandatory for him to “choose another branch to succeed him.” Why, one might ask, was this alternative choice given the guardians if it were not meant to apply to the very situation in which Shoghi Effendi had found himself, that is, without a son to inherit the Guardianship?
The difference between the Orthodox and the Heterodox Baha’is is over the vital issue of whether or not there is a living guardian. This is not a question that can be resolved by compromise, even for the sake of unity. The Wilmette group claims that the Orthodox Baha’is are wrong because they are causing disunity. But unity can only be established on truth and in compliance with the Will of God, which is found in the Holy Writings. It is the guardian himself who must resolve such questions as these which divide the believers, for according to the teachings of Abdu’l-Bahá, the guardian is “the interpreter of the Word of God” and “the executor of the Faith.” The necessity of the Guardianship is stated repeatedly in the Writings.
From the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Bahá, referring to the Universal House of Justice: “…the Guardian of the Cause of God is its sacred head and the distinguished member for life of that body. Should he not attend in person its deliberations, he must appoint one to represent him. Should any of the members commit a sin, injurious to the common weal, the Guardian of the Cause of God hath at his own discretion the right to expel him…”
From the Will and Testament: “The mighty stronghold shall remain impregnable and safe through obedience to him who is the Guardian of the Cause of God.”
From The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah by Shoghi Effendi, referring to the guardian’s role as head of the Universal House of Justice: “He cannot override the decision of the majority of his fellow-members, but is bound to insist upon a reconsideration by them of any enactment he conscientiously believes to conflict with the meaning and to depart from the spirit of Baha’u’llah’s revealed utterances. He interprets what has been specifically revealed and cannot legislate…”
As the books being printed or reprinted by the Wilmette group have many changes incorporated into them concerning the Guardianship and Baha’I administration, investigators need to study from books printed before 1960. The books concerning the history of the Faith or the spiritual teachings published before Shoghi Effendi’s death are reliable.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: www.orthodoxbahai.com OR www.bahai-guardian.com
Foreward to a January 2004 publication of THE DISPENSATION OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH The “Spiritual Testament” of the First Guardian by Shoghi Effendi, First Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith Haifa, Palestine, February 8, 1934
Shoghi Effendi, the first Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, concerned that there “was a danger” that the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would be “misunderstood,” addressed a letter to the believers in the West on February 8, 1934, in which he additionally stated that as the Guardian of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, it was incumbent upon him to lay “special stress… upon certain truths which lie at the basis of our Faith and the integrity of which it is our first duty to safeguard.” This letter, together with some of his other writings, or subsequently incorporated in this book titled “The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh” that was first published in 1938. The expression of this concern by Shoghi Effendi, as cited above, that induced him to write the Dispensation, is found in the widely circulated Haifa Notes of May Maxwell, beloved disciple of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who recorded these notes during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in January – March, 1937, accompanied by her daughter, Mary Maxwell, and, for this reason, they actually may be considered co-authors. Mary Maxwell, subsequently became the wife of Shoghi Effendi, who bestowed upon her the name of Rúhíyyih Khánum, which she used thereafter in correspondence she wrote on behalf of the Guardian as his secretary, as well as in her own writings. Later, Shoghi Effendi bestowed on her the fuller name of “Amatu’l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum,” and this was then the name by which she was known to the believers throughout the Bahá’í World for the remaining years of her life.
The complete statement of Shoghi Effendi containing the warning referred to above, as recorded in the Haifa Notes of May Maxwell, reads as follows:
“There was a danger that the friends might misunderstand the Master’s [‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s] Will [and Testament], and thus the ‘Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh’ was written, Shoghi Effendi’s spiritual testament in detail. He has fixed in it the relations of things to each other. We cannot go beyond what he has defined. However, the second Guardian can interpret the Dispensation itself. He has the same promise to be the inspired interpreter. The Guardian is the interpreter, expounder of the Cause and the protector of the Cause.”
There was an even greater “danger” that Shoghi Effendi had perhaps not foreseen, which lay ahead upon his passing, when the friends would more than “misunderstand” the divinely conceived and immortal provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá but, in their failure to perceive the manner in which he had appointed his successor, they would come to the tragic conclusion that, notwithstanding the fact that the major provisions of that sacred Document stressed the essentiality and indispensability of the Guardianship of the Cause of God to the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, these provisions had now become null and void on the basis of their erroneous interpretation of its terms and that they consequently would hold to the fallacious belief that Shoghi Effendi-the “Center of the Cause” had died without appointing a successor.
How much less could Shoghi Effendi have foreseen, in spite of all that he had written in this work about the divine genesis of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and in which he had pointed out that this sacred and immortal Document was nothing less than “the Heir of both the Originator and the Interpreter of the Law of God” that, following his passing, an illicit body would be formed outside of the immutable terms of that sacred Will, which would incredibly claim for itself “all such functions, rights and powers in succession to the Guardian of the Faith.” Or could Shoghi Effendi have foreseen that this body would, in so doing, completely ignore the obvious fact that he had previously established the international institutions of the Bahá’í Administrative Order in their embryonic form, in the closing years of his thirty-six year ministry, in faithful compliance with the terms of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and had hailed their final erection “at long last” with such joy in a proclamation and announcements to the Bahá’í World, or that they would in their spiritual blindness ignominiously attempt to consign to oblivion these divinely-conceived institutions whose role, functions and their relationships to each other he had outlined so clearly, conclusively and decisively in this his “spiritual testament” and, in their place, shamelessly substitute a defective man-made and flawed organization.
Joel Bray Marangella – Third Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith
It is incumbent upon the guardian of the Cause of God to appoint in his own life-time him that shall become his successor, that differences may not arise after his passing.
-Will and Testament of Abdul Baha, page 12
In the future, when the next Manifestation appears, the Guardian of the Cause at that time will tell the believers who the Manifestation is and will call on them to accept Him. What is the use of the infallibility of the Guardian if he does not do this? This is one of the very important things that he will do.
https://www.h-net.org/~bahai/diglib/MSS/P-T/S/i_sabri.htm
Should any of the members (of the UHJ) commit a sin, injurious to the common weal, the guardian of the Cause of God hath at his own discretion the right to expel him,..
-Will and Testament of Abdul Baha, page 14