THE INFLUENCE EXERTED BY THE HANDS UPON THE BAHÁ’Í WORLD

TO ABANDON THE GUARDIANSHIP FOLLOWING

THE PASSING OF SHOGHI EFFENDI

(Axis of Evil : Abu’l-Qasim Faizi,  Navidi and Barafroukhteh)

It is understood that the faithful believers throughout India are becoming increasingly aware of the insidious role that the Persian Hands of the Cause played in the abandonment of the Guardianship during the very first conclave that was held by the Hands of the Cause in ‘Akka, but a few days after the passing of Shoghi Effendi, and the subsequent baleful influence that they then exerted on both their fellow-Hands, and the believers throughout the world. This insidious role is recounted by Mason Remey in his dairy titled, “Daily Observations . . . ,” wherein he states that, following the search that had been made by a delegation of the Hands to find a will and testament left by Shoghi Effendi, a search that they should have realized would prove fruitless, had they retained knowledge of  the fact that the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá clearly requires the Guardian of the Faith to appoint and make known his successor “in his own life-time,” the ten Persian Hands of the Cause forthwith and without taking time to re-examine the acts and messages  of Shoghi Effendi during the concluding years of his ministry to learn if they had identified his successor, persuaded their fellow-Hands to approve a resolution that the Guardianship had forever ended based on the ludicrous argument that God had changed His mind about the continuation of the Guardianship.  The entire body of the Hands then issued their fateful Proclamation to the Bahá’ei world of 25 November 1957 in which they stated that Shoghi Effendi had “passed away in London, (England) on the 4^th of November 1957, without having appointed a successor.” 

It was apparent that the Persian believers, many of whom had a poor knowledge, or no knowledge at all, of the English language and had never read for themselves the spate of historic messages that Shoghi Effendi had dispatched to the Bahá’í World during the concluding years of his ministry, which he had invariably written in English, or, if they had been able to read these messages, at the time, their significance had not been fully realized or they had long since forgotten them.  It was in these highly historic and significant messages that he had, for example, acclaimed “at long last” the establishment of “the machinery of its highest institutions” at the World Center of the Faith, and had made his epoch-making Proclamation of 9 January 1951 in which he had appointed the International Bahá’í Council with Mason Remey as its President, the only Proclamation he issued during his ministry in which, little did the believers perceive, that in his establishment of the International Council in embryonic form, and the appointment of its embryonic head, Shoghi Effendi had ingeniously conceived a way, however indirectly, for reasons that will be discussed below, to provide for the continuation of the Guardianship. Had these messages been carefully re-examined by the Hands of the Cause, they would have found, if they had been able to divest themselves of pre-conceived ideas on the matter of succession, that they proved unquestionably and conclusively that Shoghi Effendi had clearly provided for the continuation of the Guardianship, in faithful compliance with the sacred and immortal provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. They would have further perceived that he had chosen to name as his successor, not a young person, or a Persian, as they had undoubtedly anticipated, but a distinguished American Hand of the Cause, Mason Remey, whose fidelity to the Covenant and exemplary character had been repeatedly extolled by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Tablets addressed to him (published in issues of the Star of the West and reproduced on my web page) and whose achievements and long and devoted service to the Faith for more than half a century, remained unparalleled.  It was not surprising therefore that, for these reasons, Shoghi Effendi had appointed him President of the International Bahá’í Council—the embryonic Universal House of Justice— which, although this appointment had implications of the greatest importance, he obviously had foreseen they would remain unperceived by the believers.  As Mason Remey was, by this time, of a very advanced age, Shoghi Effendi had to veil from the believers the tremendous implications of his appointment, as President of the International Bahá’í Council, which he had carefully retained in an inactive state during the remaining years of his ministry (assignments only being given by Shoghi Effendi to individual members to perform), for, once this Council would be brought to life as an actively functioning body, it could only be presided over by the Guardian of the Faith.  For if Shoghi Effendi had chosen to appoint his successor in a more open manner he would have  disclosed to the Bahá’í world what he had considered necessary to conceal and that was the fact that, if Mason Remey were to preside over an actively functioning International Council, as he had projected in his message of 23 November 1951, he would then have automatically inherited and acceded to the Guardianship and this could only take place coincident with his own passing (which in fact, occurred some seven years later).

The National Bahá’í Council of India, under the Guardianship, has requested that I recount my relationships with the Persian believers following my acceptance of the Guardianship of Mason Remey upon the receipt of his Proclamation during Ridvan 1960.  I had resided in France for some ten years prior to this event and my wife and I had counted among our closest friends many of the Persian believers.  I believe that the National Spiritual Assembly of France, of which I was then the President, was the only National Spiritual Assembly, outside of the NSA of the United States, to which Mason Remey sent his Proclamation directly as he had anticipated that the NSA of the United States would distribute his Proclamation to the other NSA’s throughout the world (requiring translation, in some cases, into the language of their country) which was never done, as the so-called Custodians in Haifa had cabled every NSA denouncing Mason Remey, which the NSA of France had also received and chosen to ignore.    For this reason, the members of these National Assemblies and the respective members of their communities were never given the opportunity to read his Proclamation and judge the validity of the clear arguments and explanation he presented therein that undeniably proved his rightful and indisputable accession to the Guardianship.

As for my relationship with the Persian believers following my acceptance of Mason Remey as the second Guardian of the Cause of God, it should be pointed out that Monir Derakhshan was the only Persian believer in France, at the time, who, in his acceptance of Mason Remey as the second  Guardian stood out in solitary glory for his fidelity to the Covenant of Baha’u’llah and its sacred and immortal “Child.”  Monir had been a former member of the NSA of Iran, who after moving to France, had become, a member of the NSA of France.  On the other hand, my negative experiences with the Persian believers, following my acceptance of Mason Remey as the second Guardian of the Faith, involved primarily three believers, who included Hand of the Cause, Abu’l-Qasim Faizi, then a member of the illegitimate body of the so-called “Custodians of the Baha’i Faith,” in Haifa, an auxiliary board member, Mr. Navidi, a resident of Monte Carlo, and Mr. Barafroukhteh a fellow-member of the National Spiritual Assembly of France.

Prior to relating my experience as a member of the NSA of France at the time of the receipt of the Proclamation of Mason Remey, an account of my earlier relationship with Hand of the Cause, Dr.Grossmann in the first year following the passing of Shoghi Effendi is worthy of note.  With the exception of Mason Remey who had consistently and repeatedly appealed to his fellow-Hands both verbally and in comprehensive written appeals to reconsider their decision that the Guardianship had ended, he strongly believed initially, in spite of the Proclamation that had been issued by the entire body of the Hands at the conclusion of their first conclave, that somehow a way would be found for the Guardianship to be re-established. This he believed, although he had certainly failed to perceive, as had all of the other believers in the world, including his fellow-Hands, (with the exception of Mason Remey) the manner in which Shoghi Effendi had provided for the continuance of the Guardianship and that Shoghi Effendi had, in effect, openly informed the Bahá’í world (by cablegram) of the appointment of his successor “in his own life-time” as required under the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá but as this appointment had been effected in such an unexpected and indirect way it had remained, at the time, as well as afterwards, unperceived by all, with grave consequences for the future of the Faith. It may be recalled that Shoghi Effendi had requested the Hands in March of 1954 to appoint Auxiliary Boards “whose members, acting as deputies, assistants and advisers of the Hands” would ”increasingly lend their assistance for the promotion of the interests of the Ten Year Crusade” (that had commenced a year earlier at Ridván 1953).  I had been appointed by the five Hands of the Cause in Europe as one of the nine Auxiliary Board members for propagation of the Faith in Europe and as such had been assigned as a deputy to Dr. Grossman.  Soon after the passing of Shoghi Effendi, Dr. Grossmann convened a conference of all of the Auxiliary Board members in Europe at his home in Neckargemund, Germany during which he emphasized his firm belief that somehow the Guardianship would be continued and urged all of the Auxiliary Board members to assure the believers of this fact in their future contacts with them.  Subsequently, on a visit to my home in Orleans, France, where I had moved from Paris, he asked me to visit Nice and specifically assure the believers that the Guardianship of the Faith had not come to an end.  Accordingly, soon thereafter, I made a trip to Nice in southern France to carry out his instructions, naturally assuming that his view concerning the continuation of the Guardianship, was shared by the other Hands, particularly as he had only recently returned from the conclave of the Hands in Haifa and consequently there was every reason to believe that his view about the Guardianship was the view of his fellow-Hands, as well, notwithstanding the fact that, in their Proclamation of 25 November 1957,  they had stated that “no successor to Shoghi Effendi could have been appointed by him.”

Accordingly, when I met with the members of the Bahá’í community in Nice at a specially convened meeting,  I conveyed Dr. Grossmann’s views to the assembled friends only to be immediately contradicted by Mr. Navidi (an Auxiliary Board member for protection of the Faith) who actually resided in Monte Carlo, adjoining Nice).   He stated that he had recently spoken with the Custodian Hands in Haifa  (no doubt Faizi) and had been informed that it was their conviction that the Guardianship had forever ended. This information, so completely at variance with what Dr. Grossmann had commissioned me to convey to these friends, came as a terrible shock and caused the greatest consternation in my heart and soul.  It was only sometime later, following the Intercontinental Conference held in Frankfurt, Germany in 1958, which Rúhíyyih Khánum had attended, that it became obvious that she had spoken to Dr. Grossmann on that occasion and had convinced him to abandon any hope of the continuation of the Guardianship for, following this conference, he no longer urged me to say anything further about the continuation of the Guardianship.  His fellow-Hands subsequently consigned Dr. Grossmann to South America, no doubt to insure that he would no longer have any influence over the European believers who so highly respected him.

 To return to the period following the receipt of Mason Remey’s Proclamation, by the NSA of France, my second negative experience occurred during the special meeting of the National Spiritual Assembly which had been convened upon the receipt of Mason Remey’s Proclamation to consider, consult upon, and determine the validity of Mason Remey’s accession to the Guardianship.  The complete report of this meeting, written in French by its secretary, Bernard Fillon, appears on my web page (As it has never been translated into English, my son Joel has just completed its translation into English after all of these years for the benefit of those who do not understand French and it will soon be posted to my web page).  This report will show that after the NSA members had reviewed Mason Remey’s Proclamation  on  the first day of the meeting the members were given ample time overnight to review on their own, pertinent writings such as the Will and Testament and those of Shoghi Effendi on the Administrative Order as well as his historic messages of particular import as well, before the NSA was reconvened  on the following day and the question was put before the Assembly of accepting Mason Remey as the second Guardian of the Cause of God  A resolution was introduced to accept him as the second Guardian and, in the resulting vote, eight members of the Assembly voted in favor of the resolution to accept Mason Remey as the second Guardian of the Cause of God.  Bernard Fillon’s report will show the reprehensible actions of Mr. Barafroukhteh who, without the approval of the Assembly and in defiance of its decision, telephoned the Custodian Hands in Haifa to convey to them the decision of the Assembly.  On the basis of this information, the illicit body of the Custodian Hands immediately dispatched Hand of the Cause, Abu’l-Qasim Faizi, to France with instructions to disband the National Spiritual Assembly of France, an authority which the Hands, of course, did not possess, under the terms of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will and Testament.   Upon his arrival in France he also journeyed throughout France to meet with the several Local Spiritual Assemblies to inform them of the condemnation by the Hands of the Cause of the action taken by our NSA and its dissolution by them.  He even attempted to visit my home in Orleans from which he was turned away.    These visits and the insidious influence that he exerted upon the believers in France made it impossible for the NSA to any longer continue to function effectively and the NSA had no recourse but to discontinue further functioning even if it had ignored Faizi’s actions.  Incidentally, the fact that the NSA of France became the only NSA in the world to accept the Guardianship of Mason Remey was never acknowledged in the book entitled, “The Ministry of the Custodians” that was published by that body covering their brief and illicit reign (November 1957-April 1963) outside of the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as the so-called “supreme body in the Cause.”

Joel Bray Marangella
Australia, September 2003