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POSTED ON BEHALF OF THE GUARDIAN OF THE BAHA'I FAITH
SHOGHI EFFENDI TO MASON: ³ARE YOU READY TO BECOME A JUDGE?²
It was on the auspicious evening of the 30th of November 1952 when my wife
and I, as the only pilgrims present, were inestimably privileged to sit down
at table in the Western Pilgrim House in Haifa, for an evening meal with
Shoghi Effendi, together with members of the International Baha'i Council
all of whom had been appointed by him to specific positions on the Council
and permanently resided in Haifa. These members included his wife and Hand
of the Cause, Ruhiyyih Khanum,"chosen liaison" between himself and the
Council, Hands of the Cause, Mason Remey, its President and Leroy Ioas, its
Secretary-General, Jessie Revell, Ethel Revell and Lotfullah Hakim,
Treasurer, Western, and Eastern assistant Secretaries respectively while
Sylvia Ioas would later be appointed a member. (only Hands of the Cause,
Amelia Collins and Ugo Giachery were absent).
Shoghi Effendi had some two years earlier on 9 January 1951 made the
historic decision to establish "at long last" the International Baha'i
Council, "this first embryonic International Institution" whose formation he
had then significantly hailed in the one and only Proclamation he had issued
during his ministry as: "the most significant milestone in the evolution of
the Administrative Order."
Shoghi Effendi elected on this evening to discuss his establishment of the
Council and to specifically emphasize the second stage of the fourfold
stages in the development of this International Council that he had outlined
in his Proclamation when it would become in this stage the International
Baha'i Court. My Haifa Notes record the following words of Shoghi Effendi:
"The [International] Baha'i Court to be established in Haifa will operate
initially only for the Eastern World where religious law is recognized. The
present President of the International Baha'i Council will then become the
Judge (the Guardian in an aside to Mason and with a smile asked: 'Mason, are
you ready to become a Judge?' ") [obviously, as the former President of the
Council, none other then than its Chief Judge]
It seems incredulous now that none of us seated at the table that evening,
including even Mason Remey himself, perceived the tremendous implications
that were involved in the question that Shoghi Effendi posed to Mason Remey
that evening.
It would be some eight years later before Mason Remey, himself, would fully
perceive the implications involved in his appointment by Shoghi Effendi to
the Presidency of the International Baha'i Council and he would then fully
explain the further obvious significance of this appointment in his
Proclamation to the Baha'i World during Ridvan 1960, as the basis for his
rightful accession to the Guardianship.
Let us now, in retrospect, consider the following momentous implications in
the question posed by Shoghi Effendi to Mason Remey that evening at the
dinner table that would have been perceived by us had we been more
perceptive and which now appear glaringly obvious and undeniable:
· The fact that Shoghi Effendi had asked Mason Remey if he were ready to
be the Chief Judge of the International Council provided clear evidence that
his appointment initially as the President of the International Council
would be carried forward to the second stage of its development as the
International Court, at which time He would them automatically become the
Chief Judge, and therefore Shoghi Effendi had meant it to be a permanent
appointment of Mason Remey to this embryonic institution, (complete at its
very inception with both a head and body) that was destined, as Shoghi
Effendi had clearly outlined in his Proclamation, to ultimately achieve
efflorescence in the final stage of its evolution as the Universal House of
Justice. As the "sacred head" of the Universal House of Justice can be none
other than the Guardian of the Faith, this was indisputable proof that
Shoghi Effendi had in this indirect way appointed Mason Remey as his
successor. Also, at the same time, he had indirectly alluded, had we
perceived it, to his early passing, for Mason Remey, could only preside as
the permanent Head of an actively functioning Council and inherit the
Guardianship, despite his already advanced age, if he were to outlive him.
Had we, moreover, perceived, at the same time, what would have been the
further highly distressing and tragic implication that was to be found in
this appointment, we would have then realized the obvious reason why Shoghi
Effendi had not instructed Mason Remey, as he has stated in his memoirs, to
activate the Council as a functioning body under his Presidency during the
remaining years of his ministry.
It was not until Ridvan 1960 that Mason Remey issued his Proclamation to the
Baha'i World and revealed in lucid, valid and undeniable arguments the
manner in which he, as the appointed Head of the embryonic Universal House
of Justice, had, upon the passing of Shoghi Effendi, automatically inherited
the authority to activate the International Baha'i Council under his
Presidency and had thereby automatically and rightfully succeeded to the
Guardianship.
Tragically for the future of the Faith, Ruhiyyih Khanum, the widow of Shoghi
Effendi, who had previously consistently emphasized in her writings the
absolute essentiality of the Guardianship to the World Order of Baha'u'llah
inexplicably expressed now, upon his passing, according to the memoirs of
Mason Remey, an adamant and vehement opposition to the any continuation of
the Guardianship, and unquestionably exerted a strong influence on the other
Hands to reach their inordinately hasty and untenable decision to forever
terminate the Guardianship and as a consequence to reject and repudiate, out
of hand, Mason Remey¹s rightful accession to the Guardianship.
Had these Hands, on the other hand, taken the time to reexamine the several
messages of historic import issued by Shoghi Effendi, as he developed the
international institutions of the Faith during the remaining seven years of
his ministry, they would have only had to note the following message, issued
on 30 June 1952, to undeniably prove to them that he had, in fact,
established the Universal House of Justice in its embryonic form, and in
consequence had, perforce, been required to retain this Institution as an
inactively functioning body, under the Presidency of the
second-Guardian-to-be, Mason Remey, during these remaining years:
"At the World Center of the Faith, where at long last the machinery of its
highest institutions has been erected, and around whose most holy shrines
the supreme organs of it unfolding Order, are, in their embryonic form,
unfolding . . . " These "highest institutions" of the Baha'i
Administrative Order, in addition to the Guardianship, are the Universal
House of Justice (established in his Proclamation of 9 January 1951) and the
Hands of the Cause (the first contingent of twelve Hands, whose appointment
was identified by Shoghi Effendi in a message to the Baha¹i World under date
of 24 December 1951.)
If there be those who may erroneously contend that an embryonic body is an
incomplete body and therefore that the International Baha'i Council,
described by Shoghi Effendi in his Proclamation, as "this first embryonic
International Institution" was not the Universal House of Justice over which
the Guardian presides, under the terms of the Will ands Testament of
'Abdu'l-Baha, they need only refer to the following Words of 'Abdu'l-Baha:
(p. 313, BWF)
" . . .The embryo possesses from the first all perfections, such as the
spirit, the mind . . . in one word, all the power--but they are not visible,
and become so only by degrees."
Joel Bray Marangella
Guardian of the Baha'i Faith
October 2009
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