Shoghi Effendi’s Introduction to Dawn-Breakers, its Footnotes, and Genealogy of the Báb

Outstanding as an example of his historical perspective is the Introduction to the Dawn-Breakers. It contains a concise and brilliant history of Islam, to inform the reader concerning the forms and elements which concurred to set the stage on which the deeply moving drama of the Báb's Revelation was played. Many a time, during his table conversation, to illustrate some points, he would accurately quote from that particular book, or from God Passes By, or some other of his writings, often showing surprise or perplexity at the limited information, or lack of it, of some of his listeners. The footnotes of The Dawn-Breakers, some of which are in French, are another example of his talent in the field of historical research. To appreciate the tremendous background of knowledge he possessed at the time of his translation of that book, it suffices to glance at the titles and authors of the fifty-five books he consulted, as listed in the Appendix. In addition, one finds in his own handwriting the genealogy of the Báb, showing connection with Bahá'u'lláh's descendants, and presented on a fivefold sheet of paper twenty-six inches long.  The genealogy is prepared with scrupulous care, and shows the ramifications of the families, including names known to every Bahá'í as well as names unknown to the average believer, but which Shoghi Effendi brought to mind with great facility. Always amazing was his inexhaustible memory and the ease with which he recalled episodes, placing personages in their proper positions, with all their particulars of names, backgrounds and degrees of relationship. It was like reliving the spellbound days of my childhood when my aged and learned tutor would narrate the legendary feats of Greek mythology, with gods and people brought alive by his fascinating word pictures. 

- Hand of the Cause Ugo Giachery  ('Shoghi Effendi – Recollections’)

Nothing is too great to suffer for him

"Nothing is too great to suffer for him, no daily discipline, no effort or sacrifice, no surrender of all that is upon this earth...." 

- May Maxwell  (Quoted in ‘The Baha’i World 1938-1940)

A pilgrim witnessed the spiritual bond between ‘Abdu’l-Baha and His grandchild, Shoghi Effendi

One day...I had joined the ladies of the Family in the room of the Greatest Holy Leaf for early morning tea, the beloved Master was sitting in His favorite corner of the divan where, through the window on His right, He could look over the ramparts and see the blue Mediterranean beyond. He was busy writing Tablets, and the quiet peace of the room was broken only by the bubble of the samovar, where one of the young maidservants, sitting on the floor before it, was brewing the tea.

Presently the Master looked up from His writing with a smile, and requested Ziyyih Khanum to chant a prayer. As she finished, a small figure appeared in the open doorway, directly opposite 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Having dropped off his shoes he stepped into the room, with his eyes focused on the Master's face. 'Abdu'l-Bahá returned his gaze with such a look of loving welcome it seemed to beckon the small one to approach Him. Shoghi, that beautiful little boy, with his cameo face and his soulful appealing, dark eyes, walked slowly toward the divan, the Master drawing him as by an invisible thread, until he stood quite close in front of Him. As he paused there a moment 'Abdu'l-Bahá did not offer to embrace him but sat perfectly still, only nodding His head two or three times, slowly and impressively, as it to say - "You see? This tie connecting us is not just that of a physical grandfather but something far deeper and more significant." While we breathlessly watched to see what he would do, the little boy reached down and picking up the hem of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's robe he touched it reverently to his forehead, and kissed it, then gently replaced it, while never taking his eyes from the adored Master's face. The next moment he turned away, and scampered off to play, like any normal child...At that time he was 'Abdu'l-Bahá's only grandchild... and, naturally, he was of immense interest to the pilgrims.
(Memoir of Ella Goodall Cooper quoted by Ruhiyyih Khanum, The Priceless Pearl)

He would shun receiving personal praise or thanks

Although he loves appreciation expressed in regard to the beauty of the Gardens and the Shrines and their planning, the Guardian seemed to shun personal praise or being thanked for anything... 

(Recorded by a pilgrim in 1956; quoted by Ruhiyyih Khanum in ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

How his radiant nature would become clouded over

…we were trying desperately to fix his beloved countenance for all time in our memories, and not to lose one single shading of his expression, always impersonal, sudden and varied and surprising...Alas, Shoghi Effendi's 'radiant nature' has all too often been clouded over and saddened by the unwisdom of the friends, or their flagrant disobedience, or disregard of his instructions. Frantically one wonders who has not failed him in one way or another!" 

(Recorded by a pilgrim in 1956; quoted by Ruhiyyih Khanum in ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

His luminosity and beauty

...impossible to describe or convey in the least the luminosity and beauty of the Guardian. If he smiles at you - or looks with that swift penetrating gaze - it is a thrilling and soul-stirring feeling... always his discourse is about the Cause, and it stays with the theme of getting the Ten Year Crusade accomplished. He shows elation when there is good news, and goes into a deep depression when there is bad or evil news... 

(Recorded by a pilgrim in 1956; quoted by Ruhiyyih Khanum in ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

A perfect instrument

He gives one the sense of being a perfect instrument - very impersonal, but hypersensitive to every thought, or atmosphere. He cannot be swayed in his thought. He is not influenced in the least by friendship, preference, money, hurting or not hurting feelings. He is absolutely above all that... 

(Recorded by a pilgrim in 1956; quoted by Ruhiyyih Khanum in ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

He must follow the track which is his divine Guidance

I felt as if he were like a great powerful locomotive, pulling behind him a long, long string of cars, laden - not with dead-weight exactly - but sometimes pretty dead! This weight is the believers who have to be pushed, or pulled, or cajoled, or praised at every moment to get them into action. The beloved Guardian sees far in advance the needs, the lack of time, the obstacles and problems. He is actually hauling us all along behind his guiding and powerful light. Like a locomotive too - he can go straight ahead, fast or slow down, but he CANNOT deviate his course, he MUST follow the track which is his divine Guidance. 

(Recorded by a pilgrim in 1956; quoted by Ruhiyyih Khanum in ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

He does not demand any deference, but one feels absolutely weak and lowly in his presence

He is completely simple and direct. He himself does not demand all this deference, but just to be in his presence makes one fell absolutely 'weak and lowly'. The Guardian is ever courteous and does not lose patience with questions of the immature. However, he is not reticent about letting people know which questions are important, and which are not, and which will be answered later by the International House of Justice... 

(Recorded by a pilgrim in 1956; quoted by Ruhiyyih Khanum in ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

His smile is a precious bounty

His face is beautiful, as it is so pure in expression and so impersonal, yet at the same time tender and majestic...I saw large grey-blue eyes...His nose is a combination of what it was in the pictures of him as a little boy - he still looks much like that! - and the sort of ridged nose of the Master. His years seem no more than forty-eight instead of sixty. He had a small, greying moustached, tightly clipped. His mouth is firm and pure, his teeth white and beautiful. His smile is a precious bounty... 

(Recorded by a pilgrim in 1956; quoted by Ruhiyyih Khanum in ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

Shoghi Effendi’s “intense objectiveness”

[1939]: "I sometimes feel that this intense objectiveness of Shoghi Effendi is one of the factors God has endowed him with. He is an absolutely unselfconscious instrument. His impulses are violent and no one (I mean no disinterested observer) could doubt the tremendous achievements of his for the Cause, all carried out on these unhesitating impulses. That is all his decisions -- but of course he revolves things for weeks, sometimes years in his mind before acting. All the thought in the world is there but when he feels the urge he never waits five seconds!" 

- Ruhiyyih Khanum  (Entry from her diary, ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

Extent of his suffering

[1939]: "The Master gave us a Trust. That Trust is the Guardian. He said 'that no dust of despondency may stain his radiant nature.' Dust of despondency! He has been so abused and tortured by those who should have sustained and encouraged him that his radiant nature is as rare as rare can be now. Sometimes I see it like a sun in his dear face shining through -- he suffers so much that many times he has to go to bed because of it, literally prostrated!" 

- Ruhiyyih Khanum  (Entry from her diary, ‘The Priceless Pearl’)

The prayer that the Guardian requested all believers to offer on his behalf

I cherish the hope that, from now on the Beloved may bestow upon me all the strength and vigour that will enable me to pursue over a long and unbroken period of strenuous labour the supreme task of achieving, in collaboration with the friends in every land, the speedy triumph of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. This is the prayer I earnestly request all my fellow brethren and sisters in the Faith to offer on my behalf. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a message dated December 2, 1923; ‘Messages to Australia and New Zealand’)

Things the Guardian suffered from

The news of dear Martha Root's death was not unexpected as the Guardian had been sent the doctor's reports which were pretty hopeless. These are not the things which burden him. He knew she could not live forever! Like the Master, a breath of violation or the thought that anyone may be even a potential violator is, one might say, death to him! I often think it profoundly organic, the sense that the Center of the Cause has for this most venomous disease. Hence the importance he attaches to your vigilance in protecting the Faith and being on the look out - the duty indeed of every Baha'i. Disobedience, an incorrect attitude towards the fundamentals of the Cause, failure to push on the teaching and temple work, these are the things he suffers from and not all the things the friends think he suffers from. He does not suffer over the deaths of others the way the Master did. He is here to judge and not to pity. You remember the Master said one bad apple would decay a whole barrel of good ones? The protection of the Faith is what burns into him!

Everyone from the center outwards to the furthest point, has failed befittingly to heed ‘Abdu’l-Baha's injunction ‘that no dust of despondency may stain his radiant nature . . .’. I sometimes feel desperate. I feel if I could only bring to him the living sense of the love of the friends - why don't they pour their love on him? Don't they realize how alone he is! How isolated, how heavily burdened?  

- Ruhiyyih Khanum  (From a letter to her parents, dated mid-October 1939, ‘The Maxwells of Montreal, vol. 2’) 

The only real Baha’i in the world

From the earliest days of his ministry Shoghi Effendi set about creating order in what was then a very small Bahá'í world, barely existing in some of the thirty-five countries which had received at least a ray of illumination from the Light of Bahá'u'lláh. The great, guiding lines were clear in his mind and as he grew older, and the community of believers grew and increased in experience, these lines became clearer and details were added. 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself in His Will and Testament had foreshadowed this unfoldment when He said of the Guardian, "that day by day he may wax greater in happiness, in joy and spirituality, and may grow to become even as a fruitful tree." Time and space do not permit of a chronological recapitulation of this evolution. We must try to catch the great vision he gave us and see how the details were gradually filled in. So often, as I listened to and observed Shoghi Effendi, I felt he was the only real Bahá'í in the world. Everyone else, claiming to be a Bahá'í, had a portion of the Faith, an angle on it, a concept, however large, tinctured by his own limitations, but the Guardian saw it as a whole, in all its greatness and perfect balance. He had not only the capacity to see but to analyse and express with brilliant clarity what he saw. 

- Ruhiyyih Khanum  (‘The Priceless Pearl’)

He was a humble, gentle person and generally spoke in a soft voice, but when he explained the Administration, he spoke with a firm tone and great authority

Each evening at dinner Shoghi Effendi wore a light tan camel's hair overcoat, a white shirt, and a black tie. His complexion was a soft tan and his large brown eyes expressed his every emotion. From under his black fez, on each side, a few white hairs were mingled with the black. He was not a large man, but his presence filled the room. When the Guardian spoke of the accomplishments of the Bahá'ís the world over, he never included himself. He was a humble, gentle person and generally spoke in a soft voice; but when he explained the Administration, he spoke with a firm tone and great authority. When he was not speaking in a serious vein, he often made us laugh as he related some funny incident or experience that he or someone else had had, and then his eyes twinkled as he laughed. Nothing made Shoghi Effendi happier than news of the unity among the believers. During dinner he often spoke of what was occurring in many parts of the world. some evenings he would stay after dinner was over and tell us of good news he had received or explain some special Teaching. 

- Ramona Brown  (Notes from pilgrimage in 1954; ‘Memories of ‘Abdu’l-Baha: Recollections of the Early Days of the Baha’is of California’)

The warmth of his greeting and his gentle courtesy

Soon it was the dinner hour at the Western Pilgrim House, and my dream of being in the presence of our beloved Guardian was coming true. Shoghi Effendi and Rúhíyyih Khánum had already entered the dining room. I stood with the group of friends outside the dining room waiting for others to go in. They said to me, "Go on in. Go in!" But I hesitated. Then I was gently pushed by Milly Collins into the room. There I saw him —"The sign of God," the "priceless pearl!" My heart stood still. I could not speak or move until he came toward me smiling and took my hand, saying, "Welcome, Mrs. Brown. We are very happy to see you and have you with us. Please sit here"; he indicated a chair opposite him at the dinner table. The warmth of his greeting and his gentle courtesy made me feel comfortable and happy. I sensed his quiet, deep, spiritual strength. Shoghi Effendi asked me about my daughter. He looked a long time at the pictures of my family, and I gave him the message each one had sent him his greetings and a special message, which I relayed to him. He said, "Tell your son that I hope his wishes to serve and help will be gratified." Looking again at the photographs, the Guardian said that he would pray in the Holy Shrines for my family. Then in a gentle and loving manner he inquired about the believers in California and spoke of some of the early Bahá'ís whom I had known — Helen Goodall, Ella Cooper, Phoebe Hearst, and Lua Getsinger. Often as we sat with Shoghi Effendi he seemed to know what was in our hearts, for he answered questions that were in my own heart but which I had not asked. 

- Ramona Brown  (Notes from pilgrimage in 1954; ‘Memories of ‘Abdu’l-Baha: Recollections of the Early Days of the Baha’is of California’)

Describing Shoghi Effendi as he appeared to the outer eye of a pilgrim

I will try to describe him [Shoghi Effendi] for you as he appears to the outer eye. Now I know why there have been no adequate descriptions of him by the Pilgrims. It is completely unimportant. It is describing a mirror when you can't behold the sun that shines in it. It is describing a symphony by saying it has four movements, when you can't express the exhilaration and joy that its music stirs in you. This is more true of the Guardian. His is a music unique to the planet. It is a spiritual language which transcends even a musical language. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá said there was a spiritual language as different from our language as ours is from the cries of animals. This is the language of the presence of the guardian. It cannot be expressed, it must be experienced; what is written here is but the shadow of the reality. Only a pilgrimage of your own will clothe it in flesh. If you have seen him, you will understand this.

Shoghi Effendi was a little taller than Baha’u’llah but shorter than ‘Abdu’l-Baha – a pilgrim’s first impression

I was aware that each pilgrim, on their first evening in Haifa, would enter the dining room first - and alone - to be greeted by the Guardian. I was well prepared for this but, when the time came, felt a ‘rush' of anxiety and trepidation – unsure, I guess, of how I would feel, being alone with the one person whom all Bahá'ís longed to meet. As I entered the dining room and saw, for the first time, the short but stocky figure of the Guardian, standing beside the dining table, dressed in a camel-coloured overcoat (it was mid-winter and he has just come in from the cold), with the Turkish fez which he habitually wore at an angle on his head. But it was the smile and the eyes that entranced me – and as he embraced me, Persian style, which I was still unaccustomed to, I found I had to reach down to respond to his embrace and I realized how short in stature the Guardian was. I knew from my reading at that time that Bahá'u'lláh was small in stature – and all pilgrims became aware of that when viewing the couches He slept on in the various rooms He occupied in 'Akká and Bahji, but had not been aware that the Guardian was also so short. I learned later that ‘Abdu'l-Bahá was the tallest of the three, that Bahá'u'lláh was very short in stature, and the Guardian was only a little taller – between the two in height. Initially it was quite a shock but, after that first moment, the Guardian always seemed so tall, whether standing or sitting (which was how the Western pilgrims usually saw him) – the impact of his person was such that physical height did not matter, did not even register, as one was overwhelmed by his spiritual stature which seemed to tower above all else. 

- Bill Washington  (‘Recollections of Pilgrimage: Nine Days with the Guardian in 1957’)

An example of Baha’u’llah guiding the Guardian

One evening during their [Mr. and Mrs. Featherstone’s] pilgrimage, the Guardian had sent a message to the pilgrims to begin dinner and he would join them a little later. They did so and during the meal, the Guardian came in, sat down and, before commencing to eat, as though he could not hold back the news any longer, burst out with an announcement of a series of changes he was planning to make to the administration of the Faith, including an extension of the institution of the Hands of the Cause who would have ‘deputies' (the Auxiliary Board members) and other developments. Suddenly the Guardian paused, and Rúhíyyih Khánum said, "But, Shoghi Effendi, you didn't say anything about this before." Perhaps realising the impact these sudden and far-reaching announcements were having on the pilgrims and the others at the dinner table, the Guardian bowed his head and replied, very softly: "I did not know before this evening – I am under the guidance of Bahá'u'lláh." All these new developments had come into his mind as a ready-made plan, through the guidance he was promised by the Master. This seems to be the way the Guardian operated. 

(Related by Hand of the Cause Collis Featherstone about his pilgrimage in 1953, quoted by Bill Washington concerning his own pilgrimage in 1957: ‘Recollections of Pilgrimage: Nine Days with the Guardian in 1957’)

Shoghi Effendi's exposition of the Word of God ‑- an astonishment and a new breath of life

Such was the nature of Shoghi Effendi's exposition of the Word of God ‑ an astonishment and a new breath of life to all who had thought religion to be limited to 'the spirit of brotherhood and goodwill', to idealism and the expression of vague and pious hopes, to personal salvation, requiring the believers to have patience and firmness in faith that the Promised One would bring about the Kingdom of God on earth in His Own good time. It was Shoghi Effendi who said, in effect, Oh no; you must study and toil and sweat and sacrifice and God of His bounty will reward your efforts. He uncovered for us all that marvellous guidance and direction of which we knew nothing, led us into his dynamic programme for building that Kingdom of God on earth ‑ long anticipated, Christ‑promised, and now to be ushered in through our services to the King of Glory. 
- David Hofman  (The late member of the Universal House of Justice, from an essay: ‘Shoghi Effendi, Expounder of the Word of God’; included in ‘Studying the Writings of Shoghi Effendi’, published by George Ronald)

The tremendous pain and suffering he endured due to severe machinations by the Covenant-breakers

During one of my longer stays in Haifa, from the end of March to July 1952, the 'old' and 'new' Covenant-breakers, emboldened by the end of British administration in Palestine, devised a plan to wrest from the hands of the Guardian all the possessions of the Faith in the Holy Land, by challenging the authority conferred upon him in the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Their machinations were intended mainly to harass Shoghi Effendi in the hope of bringing him to Court, where they could inflict on him publicly all kinds of humiliations through the use of legal cavils and the like. The affair lasted about three months, and of course ended with full victory for him, but what he suffered it is impossible to describe. The sacredness of the Institution of the Guardianship was not only challenged but was attacked for the purpose of creating confusion and turmoil in the rank and file of the believers. His great suffering was for the sacrilege being committed against this Institution of the Faith. It was so abhorrent to him that he felt physically ill, as if 'a thousand scorpions had bitten him'.

During the most crucial days of this sorrowful experience, one night after dinner he spoke to me alone for several hours. His indignation was immense. He reviewed the tragic history of all that had happened since the days of the Bábí Dispensation, the sufferings inflicted on Bahá'u'lláh by Subh-i-Azal (Mirza Yahya), the perfidy of Muhammad-Ali against the Master, the situation that arose in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's immediate family in the years which followed His passing, and all the acts of treachery and disobedience perpetrated by infamous followers in whom both the Master and himself had aforetime placed their trust. Often visibly grieved and filled with anxiety, he would say to me: 'You must know these things'; 'I want you to know these things'.

Nothing is too great to suffer for him

In this last visit to Haifa I came to understand as never before something of the agony our Guardian has endured. He spoke of it very simply one night and his uplifted gaze, the white purity and beauty of his face are forever graven on my heart. Nothing is too great to suffer for him, no daily discipline, effort or sacrifice, no surrender of all that is upon this earth can even touch the hem of his sacred suffering, the depths of the cup from which he has drunk. With all my heart and soul I thank the Beloved that He gave us such a daughter for him, who is, in the words of the Master, "The apple of His eye and the jewel of His heart." 

- May Maxwell  (From a letter to Katherine Baldwin, Honolulu. February 1939)

His heart was like a mirror… it seemed to reflect all parts of the world

Shoghi Effendi completely dedicated his whole life to the Cause of God. He had no other thought. He ate, he slept, he was awake, he worked, every minute, day and night, was for the Cause of God. He thought of nothing else. Nothing else was of any interest to him. He didn’t talk about anything else. He talked about the conditions of the Plan. He talked about the services of the friends. And he was like a barometer. When any word came from any part of the world about successes of the believers in the teaching work they did, he was joyous and he was happy. But when word came of difficulties within the Faith, of persecutions of the some of the Baha’is, of difficulties that the pioneers were meeting with, the suffering of the believers, he became very sad. His heart was like a mirror, and it seemed reflect all parts of the world. And wherever he turned his heart, he saw what was there. He saw pictured before him the exact conditions of the believers themselves. So that if any of you, especially the pioneers, especially those of you who came into new areas to teach, and those of you who have been carrying on the teaching work in the new areas, have any idea that you are alone, that God is not with you, that the power of the Holy Spirit is not with you, dispel that from your mind, because the Power of God and the power of the Holy Spirit is with you all the time, every minute day and night. And the Guardian himself, even in his physical form, pledged to those things in the Holy Land, and he talked to us about them day after day and night after night. 

- Hand of the Cause of God Leroy Ioas  (He was one of the Guardian’s secretaries, from a talk in Johannesburg, South Africa, 1958, ‘In the Days of the Guardian’)

A unique figure in history who has had an impact on the entire planet over a third of a century

Shoghi Effendi's divine and indefeasible right to assume the helm of the Cause of God had been fully vindicated through thirty-six years of unremitting, heartbreaking toil. It would be hard indeed to find a comparable figure in history who, in a little over a third of a century, set so many different operations in motion, who found the time to devote his attention to minute details on one hand and on the other to cover the range of an entire planet with his plans, his instructions, his guidance and his leadership. He had laid the foundations of that future society Bahá'u'lláh had fathered upon the mind of the Master, and which He in turn had gestated to a point of perfection, passing it upon His death into the safe hands of His successor.  

- Ruhiyyih Khanum  (‘The Guardian of the Baha'i Faith’) 

He brought forth a vast array of emotions

William and I had the privilege of visiting the Guardian for the first time in 1953. We came away with the realization that Shoghi Effendi brought forth a vast array of emotions, and that whoever met him came away with stronger feelings than could be aroused by anyone else on the face of the earth. 

- Marguerite Sears  (From Introduction to ‘About Shoghi Effendi, Our Beloved Guardian by Lowell Johnson’, by Lowell Johnson)

Never have I seen anyone work as hard as Shoghi Effendi

Never have I seen anyone work as hard as Shoghi Effendi, and it must be very trying to him with his universal creative energy, his world horizon, his soaring ideals, to say nothing of the unfathomable depths of knowledge and wisdom which flow like undulated waves through his sacred entity at all times, it must be a cruel restraint that he has not a greater vehicle or channel through which to pour all this power throughout the world... 

- May Maxwell  (From a letter to Katherine Baldwin, Honolulu. February 1939)

His great faith

Of all the characteristics that Shoghi Effendi possessed, the one that I believe was at the very core of his personality and was deeply rooted in his soul was the immense faith he had, his complete reliance on the efficacy of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation. He clung to His Teachings with a tenacity that cannot be likened to anything. His whole being was permeated with the power of the Revelation, and this is the reason that all who came near him or in contact with him felt so safe, so assured, so regenerated. 

(Hand of the Cause Ugo Giachery, ‘Shoghi Effendi – Recollections’)