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Abdul-Baha's 1912 Authentic Covenant at
http://www.reformbahai.org/Covenant.html
Abdul-Baha's 1912 Authentic Covenant - Comments
http://www.reformbahai.org/Covenant_comments.html
Abdul-Baha's Interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Teachings is a broad, open,
tolerant Covenant of God with humanity, and it is articulated in simple
language, in his 1912 Address Upon the Covenant. It is universal,
moderate, predicated on pluralistic spiritual democracy, based on a
separation of church and state, not tyranny, and emphasizes the
universality, the non-exclusivism of religious truth.
Abdul-Baha delivered his Address Upon the Covenant, on June 19, 1912. It
was clearly perceived to be important enough at the time to be almost
immediately, and repeatedly, published, unlike the majority of
Abdul-Baha's addresses that year, yet it was quietly suppressed, just
after Abdul-Baha's passing, when the editing of the 1922 text of The
Promulation of Universal Peace took place and in subsequent editions.
Evidently, it contradicted too much the new theocratic interpretation.
In it Abdul-Baha briefly highlights the various covenants of God with
humanity, with each Manifestation alluding to His successor. Abdul-Baha
makes no mention of a guardian or His "appointing" anyone, least of all
Shoghi Effendi.
It was "approved" and published in this pamphlet on November 12, 1912*
for the celebration of the Birth of Baha'u'llah, and thereafter at least
three times in the Star of the West, one of which was a special issue
devoted to this Covenant, Abdul-Baha's authentic Covenant.
Paradoxically, contrasted with His other statements that the Bahai
Movement could not be "organized," Abdul-Baha clearly indicates some
type of organization leading to a Universal House of Justice, but
nowhere did He ever suggest Bahai assemblies should become the
oppressive and tyrannical "administration" known today for destroying
innumerable marriages and families through excommunication and shunning
and intruding into virtually every aspect of the life and conscience of
the individual.
It was such statements and publications as this address that led Mirza
Ahmad Sohrab to remark on "the fact that Abdul Baha had never in speech
or writing given the slightest indication that there would be a
successor to himself. On the contrary, a number of addresses delivered
by him on various occasions had made the opposite impression.
Consequently , it took several years before a section of the Bahais
could adjust themselves to the new situation" (The Will and Testament of
Abdul Baha, An Analysis, 1944 61).
Ruth White was one of the early believers who was not about to forget
such statements by Abdul-Baha and courageously fought to preserve the
actual, authentic Covenant, as taught by Abdul-Baha, versus the
fraudulent will and testament passed off on the community by the family
of Shoghi Effendi. Neither could some thousands of other early believers
"adjust," and many left or were driven out during the next few decades
(Abdul Baha's Questioned Will and Testament, 1946 11).
Abdul-Baha's conception of the Covenant is not at all like the
fanatical, oppressive one imposed by Shoghi Effendi and propped up by
"administrators" who believed they knew better than Abdul-Baha, such as
Horace Holley and Charles Mason Remey, both of whom were quick not only
to "adjust," but zealously supported and promoted the "appointee" of the
spurious will and testament, who delegated authority in return back to
them. Abdul-Baha clearly never conceived of any successor other than
eventually an elected, democratic Universal House of Justice, one
definitely without an hereditary guardian analogous to a Shiite imam or
a Sunni caliph. Abdul-Baha knew all too well what social oppression and
upheavals those systems of organization had led to, which is one reason
he always emphasized spiritual democracy, not tyranny.
One of the typical tactics used to suppress and discredit such public,
printed statements by Abdul-Baha was and is to claim that the original
Persian transcript has not survived, it's only a "pilgrim's note,"
hearsay, and so on. Similarly, tactics of slander and shunning were
unleashed relentlessly against Ruth White, Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Julie
Chanler, and anyone able to think and reflect independently for
themselves about Abdul-Baha's authentic Covenant, which, again, contains
not the slightest suggestion of a so-called guardian:
"After Abdul-Baha—whenever the Universal House of Justice is organized
it will ward off differences."
Had the purported will and testament been written, as alleged, by
Abdul-Baha in three sections between 1901 and 1908, when Shoghi Effendi
was a young child, yet to prove himself worthy, despite subsequent
attempts to cast him as a prodigy, Abdul-Baha would have known the
contents of his own will and testament in 1912, as he delivered this
address. However, the three different hands that Dr. C. Answorth
Mitchell attested actually wrote the fraudulent document, not a one of
which was Abdul-Baha's, had not and never did name Shoghi Effendi. One
should also recall Abdul-Baha's remarks on His own brother's
unworthiness to lead the Baha'i community. It is not credible that
Abu'l-Baha would have taken such a chance on an approximately
four-year-old boy, even a family member.
Whether from a rational or spiritual view, given the overwhelming weight
of evidence against the authenticity of the purported will and
testament, the burden of proof resides with those Bahai denominations
that claim its legitimacy, as Ruth White and other Bahais have stated
for decades since at least 1929. It is evident in Ruth White's documents
deposited with the Library of Congress that Shoghi Effendi and/or others
persuaded or bribed, with "baksheesh," the Palestine officials to put
the matter aside, common practice especially in the Middle East of the
time. Revealing his calculating guilt, Shoghi Effendi instructed the nsa
to do nothing to antagonize Ruth White and to avoid the issue, as she
relates in her books and documents in the papers she deposited with the
Library of Congress. Ruth White perceptively made a crucial observation
a long time ago: The chief beneficiary of a fraudulent, unprobated, and
unverified will and testament, Shoghi Effendi,TRANSLATES it, if not
after writing it or participating in its creation, and then claims it's
"authentic."
On all counts, the will and testament is a fraudulent document, and
Shoghi Effendi knew it would never stand up to further scrutiny, as it
didn't with Dr. C. Ainsworth Mitchell, an unimpeachable authority still
highly regarded in professional forensic circles.
Reading backwards from a fraudulent document is one of the tactics
regularly used by its beneficiaries, namely, Shoghi Effendi, his family,
and now the denominations that depend on it. It is difficult for Baha'is
committed to, and raised in, the theocratic vision to recognize the
truth—but it's right there in black and white in Abdul-Baha's 1912
Address upon Covenant and won't go away, decade after decade.
Unfortunately, the family of Shoghi Effendi, when they forged the will
and testament of Abdul-Baha, followed their cultural biases from Iran,
instead of the Teachings of Baha'u'llah and the Interpretation of
Abdul-Baha. Essentially, they reverted to the Shiite imamate, creating
the mirror image of Iranian obedience to the authority of the imam, the
imam of the age, which they called a "guardian," believing, in effect,
that he's infallible and must be obeyed in all things. Attempts to
create a Bahai imamate are contrary to Abdul-Baha's teaching of a
properly elected Universal House of Justice, an institution of Bahai
spiritual authority, not worldly.
This Address by Abdul-Baha is the evidence that Reform Bahais today can
not forget, now come again to light, preserving Abdul-Baha's vision of a
universal, moderate, spiritual democracy, and the separation of church
and state.
It was also published in Star of the West, November 23, 1912, 9-10, Star
of the West, November 23, 1913, p. 234-9, and in Star of the West
November 23, 1921. The entire 1912 to 1913 and 1920 to 1921 volumes of
Star of the West may be download directly from Google Books.
See Ruth White, Appendix to Abdul-Baha and the Promised Age, 1929, and
her comments on this passage, bottom of the first page. Also, Star of
the West, Vol. VII, No. 15. p. 139: "When the Universal House of Justice
is organized...." Cf. Mahmoud's Diary and Afroukhteh's Memoires.
For a sample of the universality that Abdul-Baha's Covenant inspired,
see Janabe Fazel Mazandarani, Star of the West, May 17, 1921, "The
Temple of Universal Religion—The Fundamental Oneness of All Existing
Faiths." (See other talks on universal religion by Janabe Fazel) For a
sample of the method used to subvert the universality of Abdul-Baha's
Covenant, see Charles Mason Remey, Star of the West, Aug 20, 1921,
"Bahai Organization."
Comparing these two articles, it is easy to see that, along with the
1912 Covenant, the universality of Abdul-Baha's Teaching was already
being put aside, before Abdul-Baha had even died, by Charles Mason
Remey, Horace Holley, and others intent on creating an organization that
concentrated power and control in their and Shoghi Effendi's hands.
Directly repudiating Abdul-Baha's repeated statement that the Bahai
Movement could not be organized, rejecting his Covenant, expunging the
universality he publicly taught his entire life and throughout the West,
witnessed by all the early Bahais, attested to by Ruth White and Ahmad
Sohrab in their books, Charles Mason Remey assured Bahais in 1921 that
they were "a little confused" and that he and others, implicitly Horace
Holley and Shoghi Effendi, as would soon become apparent, knew better
what Abdul-Baha intended. That their claims were based on a fraudulent
will and testament, written by three different hands, not a one of which
was Abdul-Baha's, nor bearing his signature, as he repeatedly emphasized
was essential to safeguard his Interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Teaching,
meant nothing to those who soon succeeded in undermining the universal
faith of God, subjecting it to decades of corruption and ineffectuality,
disrupting or destroying the lives of countless Bahais over the years,
depriving humankind of Baha'u'llah's saving vision of spiritual oneness
and universal peace. Before the decade was out, the subverters of
Abdul-Baha's Interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Faith would be fighting
amongst themselves, deceiving the authorities at the time in Palestine
and the U. S. Copyright Office in 1928, slandering and eventually suing
Bahais of other denominations who dared to realize and speak out against
the crimes committed against the Bahai Cause (details under Early Reform
Bahais).
Compare the repeatedly published and emphasized 1912 Covenant and the
cited article above regarding universality with these three crucial
statements by Abdul-Baha in Star of the West November 23, 1920, p 243:
"In New York City, July, 1912, Abul-Baha said to several believers: 'Any
one quoting me must have authority written either with my own hand, or
Tablets signed with my seal. Otherwise these statements do not belong to
me. Every instruction, every teaching that I desire to spread I will
write with my own hand. You must know this generally. Never accept any
statement without my writing which is signed and sealed--any statement."
"In Egypt, in August, 1913, Abdul-Baha stated (Mirza Ahmad Sohrab
interpreting): 'When in America I repeatedly said that no one must
believe one word said by another regarding any commands, teachings or
statements made by me unless they can produce the same in writing over
my signature."
"That which has come forth from the Center of the Covenant you must take
fast hold of. That which issues from my lips and that which is written
with my pen is the Reality. With this you can irrigate the vineyard of
God. With this you can make the tree of the Cause of God become verdant.
Through this Name of the Kingdom of God will be spread all over the
world. Through this the Sun of Reality will shine. Through this the
clouds of Mercy will pour down. Whosever utters a word you must ask:
'Where is the authority of the Center of the Covenant? Show it.' Without
this you must not listen to him. If an angel comes down from heaven and
has no authority from the Center of the Covenant, you must require his
authority. Otherwise the vineyard will become withered and dry. This is
the reality."
Download Facsimile of Abdul-Baha's 1912 Covenant in PDF
2 megs. (or print)
Compare: Dr. C. (Charles) Ainsworth Mitchell - Certified Copy from the
Library of Congress, corroborating that the purported will and testament
of Abdul-Baha was a fraudulent document, neither in his own handwriting,
but that of three different people: Report on the Writing Shown on the
Photographs of the Alleged Will of Abdul-Baha. 1930.
Reform Bahai Faith
Rochester, Michigan USA
www.ReformBahai.org
Chicago Tribune. Baha'i rift. Baha'is upset with Orthodox Baha'i Faith
May 18, 2009
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/may/18/local/chi-bahai-18-may18
Comments posted to The Chicago Tribune Forum on one page:
http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/Chicago_Tribune.html
Yahoo Group - ReformBahai
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReformBahai
Baha'i Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience
http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship |
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