# Shoghi Effendi's Question

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-22 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Emeric Sala, Shoghi Effendi's Question, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Shoghi Effendi's Question
> 
> Emeric Sala
> published in The Vision of Shoghi Effendi pp. 189-193
> 
> Ottawa: Association for Bahá'í Studies North America, 1993
> 
> 1. Audio version
> 
> Delivered as a talk at the 9th annual ABS conference in Ottawa, 1984 (?)
> 
> Download MP3 file [3 MB, 28 min.]
> 
> 2. Text version
> 
> As published in Vision of Shoghi Effendi
> 
> Between 1937 and 1938, there being no air travel, very few North
> American Bahá'ís could afford the time or cost to make the
> journey to Haifa. I had to sail to Europe on business in December 1937. Mrs.
> May Maxwell persuaded me to extend my trip, which I did, by train and bus, to
> visit the Guardian. I shall be eternally grateful to her for this privilege.
> 
> Throughout 1937, only two North Americans made the pilgrimage, Mrs. McCormick
> from Chicago and I from Montreal. In contrast, today about a hundred pilgrims
> arrive every fortnight, mostly from the Americas. This is one more measure of
> the growth and strength of the Bahá'í Faith.
> 
> The Guardian told me that the main purpose of my pilgrimage was to visit and
> pray at the shrines and holy places. In my own mind, my main purpose was to
> visit Shoghi Effendi. Actually, I never met Shoghi Effendi. However, having
> been the only Western pilgrim, I had the undivided attention of the Guardian
> for about three hours of each of the five nights. Gradually, I gained the
> feeling that Shoghi Effendi, the man, had sacrificed himself long ago for the
> Faith and the Guardianship. I have never before or since met a human being who
> had given so much of himself for the Faith, obliterating all personal desires
> and aspirations.
> 
> One evening while discussing the subject of infallibility the Guardian
> explained that the derived infallibility of 'Abdu'l-Bahá was much
> inferior to that of Bahá'u'lláh, the prophet, while his own was
> infinitely inferior to that of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He admitted that his powers
> were limited to the interpretation of the Writings, having as its purpose the
> preservation of the unity of the Faith. When I asked him how do we know when he
> speaks to us as the Guardian and when as Shoghi Effendi, Rúhiyyih
> Khánum, his young bride, who was sitting next to him, asked: "I would
> like to know too; which is which?" The Guardian did not answer my question.
> 
> I asked the Guardian many questions, most of them prompted by my immaturity,
> having been a Bahá'í only ten years. One night Shoghi Effendi
> asked me a question, which I could not answer, nor did I understand its
> 
> 189
> 
> significance at that time. Shoghi Effendi asked me: "Since after the martyrdom
> of the Báb the authority of the Faith was passed on to
> Bahá'u'lláh, and after his passing to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, to
> whom was it transferred after the ascension of 'Abdu'l-Bahá?" I
> answered, of course, to Shoghi Effendi. He said no. I then said the Guardian.
> He again shook his head. I then ventured the Universal House of Justice. He
> again said no, and I could see from his expression that he was disappointed
> with my inability to answer his question. Then he asked, are the friends not
> reading my letters? The answer, he said, is clearly stated in The
> Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh. It is divided into four parts:
> Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and the fourth
> part entitled the "World Order of Bahá'u'lláh,"* which is the
> answer to his question.
> 
> The Guardian spoke a beautiful Oxford English. I spoke English with a terrible
> Hungarian-Canadian accent, which the Guardian found difficult to follow.
> Rúhiyyih Khánum, who had known me for nine years, had to
> interpret on several occasions.
> 
> After returning to Montreal, I wrote seven pages of the usual pilgrim's notes,
> but I did not mention the above question, as I did not see any importance in
> it. As time passed, I could not forget his question, nor the sad expression on
> his face for my inability to answer. I was also puzzled as to why he had asked
> me that question.
> 
> As the years advanced, especially after his passing in 1957, I realized
> increasingly that the greatest lesson I learned was not during the many hours
> of exclusive conversations, most of which were based on my questions, but it
> was the question the Guardian asked me and which I could not answer. For the
> last forty years or so, I have asked the friends the same question on four
> continents, at untold firesides, summer and winter schools, and I received,
> with one single exception, the same wrong answers that I gave the Guardian as
> far back as January, 1938.
> 
> It is obvious that 'Abdu'l-Bahá in his Will and Testament stated
> very clearly that all Bahá'ís should turn to Shoghi Effendi, that
> "whoso obeyeth him not ... hath not obeyed God" and again, "He that opposeth
> him hath opposed the True One..."[1] It is also
> indisputable that Shoghi Effendi was the head of the Faith during his ministry
> of thirty-five years. Yet, he wanted to impress upon me at that time, that the
> authority of the Faith did not rest upon him but on the World Order of
> Bahá'u'lláh, which was based on two pillars: The Guardianship and
> the Universal House of Justice. His vision of the future went far beyond the
> Guardianship, and our failure in all these years to visualize the significance
> of his question should indeed make him feel sad.
> 
> Our Faith was centered in the Guardian as a father figure, oblivious of the
> other pillar and its implications, which was a distortion if not a mutilation
> of
> 
> 190
> 
> our vision of the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh. Shoghi Effendi
> described this condition as follows:
> 
> To dissociate the administrative principles of the Cause from the purely
> spiritual and humanitarian teachings would be tantamount to a mutilation of the
> body of the Cause, a separation that can only result in the disintegration of
> its component parts, and the extinction of the Faith itself.[2]
> 
> These are strong words. Shoghi Effendi told me in Haifa that the
> Bahá'í Faith was founded by two prophets, the Báb and
> Bahá'u'lláh, and rests on two Orders, that of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
> and the Administrative Order, which has two pillars that are absolutely
> indispensable to each other.
> 
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who was also called the Mystery of God, was, as I
> understand it, the last father figure in the Adamic cycle, which carried
> humanity through its stage of immaturity. In all dispensations for thousands of
> years, religious communities centered around a pope, a calif, an archbishop, a
> rabbi, a priest, or a minister. In many congregations even today the leader is
> not only looked upon as wiser and more learned than anyone else but also called
> "the Father," whose authority is unquestionably followed.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi wanted neither to be treated nor followed as a father figure. He
> signed many thousand letters as "your true brother Shoghi." He did not want his
> photograph circulated or his birthday observed. One possible reason for his
> refusing to meet Bahá'í communities on any of his journeys, was
> probably to deemphasize the importance of his personality in relation to the
> World Order of Bahá'u'lláh. He told us on various occasions that
> the main difference between the papacy and the Guardianship is that the Pope
> has exclusive authority to legislate and to interpret, while the Guardian's
> authority is limited to the interpretation of the sacred writings only.
> 
> Yet most Bahá'ís, conditioned by a cultural if not genetic
> inheritance of thousands of years, and the precedence of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's
> imposing figure, were irresistibly moved to extend to the Guardian almost the
> same obeisance and reverence, to the detriment of the authority of Local and
> National Spiritual Assemblies. It almost seems like divine intervention that
> the succession of the Guardianship was meant to cease, in order to strengthen
> the authority of the Administrative Order, culminating in the Universal House
> of Justice.
> 
> Guided by the vision of Shoghi Effendi and the events of history, the
> Bahá'í world community, having been personality centered, the
> characteristic of an immature society, has become assembly centered, which is a
> precondition for entering the age of maturity. Bahá'u'lláh wrote
> in his last major work:
> 
> 191
> 
> Ere long will the state of affairs within thee be changed, and the reins of
> power fall into the hands of the people.[3]
> 
> Perhaps I can explain what I mean this way. As an individual
> Bahá'í, one is centered in Bahá'u'lláh, just as a
> Christian is centered in Jesus Christ. However, as a community,
> Bahá'ís are centered in Bahá'u'lláh only through
> our elected assemblies, which are an integral part of our Administrative Order
> that in the future will be called the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh.
> Herein lies the strength and greatness of our Faith, its organic and
> indivisible unity, and its distinction from all previous religions.
> 
> The Revelation associated with the Faith of Jesus Christ focused attention
> primarily on the redemption of the individual and the molding of his conduct
> ... as the fundamental unit in human society. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find
> any reference to the unity of nations or the unification of mankind as a whole.
> When Jesus spoke to those around Him, He addressed them primarily as
> individuals rather than as component parts of one universal, indivisible
> entity.[4]
> 
> In the secular world we can already discern, since the early half of this
> century, a new trend of leadership, from king to parliament, from prime
> minister to cabinet, and from judge to jury. Large industrial organizations are
> no longer built or run by one person. Great decisions are increasingly
> entrusted to the interaction of many minds, be it a board, a commission, a
> council, or an assembly. Even our great inventions today are the result of the
> working together of many scientists.
> 
> Bahá'ís believe that 1844 marks the beginning of a new spiritual
> renaissance, which is awakening in people the social awareness necessary for
> social justice, without which world peace cannot be attained. The liberation of
> slaves, serfs, and sharecroppers; the socialist and cooperative movements;
> progress toward political and economic democracy; and many other humanitarian
> movements, all had their origin at about the same time in the nineteenth
> century. The basic principle of the Bahá'í Faith is the oneness
> of humankind, and the Faith offers a unique pattern for the development of a
> world order. Just as Christ taught individual discipline, so
> Bahá'u'lláh offers a maturing humanity the means for imposing
> social discipline on itself. The Bahá'í Faith is like the great
> religions of the past in that it upholds a belief in God and stresses ethical
> conduct in the individual, but if differs greatly in that its chief concern is
> the creation of a world government and a world civilization based on justice.
> 
> 192
> 
> Adolescents cease fighting each other when they reach adulthood.
> Likewise nations will, as they outgrow their adolescence, gather around a table
> and dispose of their differences as mature people. In a mature age, which,
> according to Bahá'u'lláh, we are now approaching, a new world
> ethic is required. Conformity to law as stressed in the Old Testament, the
> significance of love as stressed in the New Testament, find their synthesis in
> social justice, as expressed in the collective conscience of an awakened
> humanity.
> 
> One who obeys one's conscience has overcome baser instincts. A community with a
> collective conscience overcomes the desire for national supremacy, for
> monopolistic privileges, or for racial priority. The Bahá'í
> administrative system not only incorporates individual good will into a social
> mechanism but also produces a quality of the soul that can be born only out of
> a collective experience.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi writes:
> 
> The principle of the Oneness of Mankind—the pivot round which all the
> teachings of Bahá'u'lláh revolve—is no mere outburst of ignorant
> emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope.... Its message is
> applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the
> nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and
> nations as members of one human family.... It implies an organic change in the
> structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not yet
> experienced.. .. It calls for no less than the reconstruction and
> demilitarization of the whole civilized world.. ..[5]
> 
> With the passing of time as the Bahá'í Faith continues to
> gather momentum in all corners of this planet, the stature of Shoghi Effendi,
> our youthful Guardian, will increasingly stand out as the champion-builder of
> the Administrative Order, having led us with his unfailing vision through the
> transitional period from the Order of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the embryonic
> stage of the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh.
> 
> 193
> 
> Footnotes:
> 
> [1] 'Abdul-Bahá, Will and Testament of
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1968)
> 11.
> [2] Shoghi Effendi, Guidance for Today and
> Tomorrow (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1953), 99.
> [3] Bahá'u'lláh, Epistle to the
> Son of the Wolf trans. Shoghi Effendi, rev. ed. (Wilmette:
> Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1988) 149.
> [4] Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come,
> rev. ed. (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1980) 119.
> [5] Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of
> Bahá'u'lláh, 2d ed. (Wilmetre: Bahá'í
> Publishing Trust,1974) 42-43.
> [*] Note that the fourth section of Shoghi Effendi's "The Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh" is actually called "The Administrative Order" [AB - 2024].
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views16719 views since posted 1999; last edit 2025-10-03 01:14 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../sala_shoghi-effendi_question;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> Citation: ris/367
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> — *Shoghi Effendi's Question (Used by permission of the curator)*