In consequence, the two decades immediately after Shoghi Effendi assumed his responsibility for the vindication of the Cause of God were a period of deepening gloom throughout the Western world, which seemed to reflect a massive setback in the process of integration and enlightenment so confidently proclaimed by the Master. It was as if political, social and economic life had fallen into a kind of limbo. Grave doubts developed about the capacity of the liberal democratic tradition to cope with the problems of the times; indeed, in a number of European countries, governments inspired by such principles were replaced by authoritarian regimes. Soon, the economic crash of 1929 led to a world-wide reduction in material well-being, with all the further moral and psychological insecurities that resulted.
An appreciation of these circumstances helps us to understand the magnitude of the challenge facing Shoghi Effendi at the outset of his ministry. So far as the objective condition of humankind, as he encountered it, was concerned, there was nothing that would have inspired confidence that the vision of a new world bequeathed him by the Founders of the Bahá’í Cause could be significantly advanced during whatever span of years might be allowed him.
Nor did the instrument available to him appear to possess the strength, the resilience or the sophistication his task required. In 1923, when Shoghi Effendi was eventually able to assume full direction of the Cause, the core of Bahá’u’lláh’s followers consisted of the body of believers in Iran, of whose number not even a reliable estimate could have then been produced. Denied most of the means necessary to their promotion of the Cause, and severely limited in the material resources at their disposal, the Iranian community was hedged about by constant harassment. In North America, charged with the daunting responsibilities of the Divine Plan, small communities of believers found themselves struggling with the simple challenges of making a livelihood for themselves and their families as the economic crisis steadily deepened. In Europe, Australasia and the Far East, even smaller Bahá’í groups kept the flame of the Faith alive, as did isolated groups, families and individuals scattered throughout the rest of the world. Literature, even in English, was inadequate, and the task of translating the Writings into other major languages and of finding the funds to publish them represented an almost impossible burden.
Though the vision communicated by the Master burned as brightly as ever, the means at their disposal must have appeared to Bahá’ís as pitifully inadequate in the face of the conditions prevailing everywhere. The hulking black foundation of the future Mother Temple of the West, rising over the lake front north of Chicago, seemed to mock the brilliant conception that had dazzled the architectural world only a few years before. In Baghdad, the “Most Holy House”, designated by Bahá’u’lláh as the focal centre of Bahá’í pilgrimage, had been seized by opponents of the Faith. In the Holy Land itself, the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh was falling into ruin as a result of neglect by the Covenant-breakers who occupied it, and the Shrine housing the precious remains of both the Báb and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had progressed no further than the simple stone structure raised by the Master.
A series of exploratory consultations with leading Bahá’ís made it clear to the Guardian that even a formal discussion with qualified believers about the creation of an international secretariat would be not only useless, but probably counterproductive. It was alone, therefore, that Shoghi Effendi set out on the task of propelling forward the vast enterprise entrusted to his hands. How completely alone he was is almost impossible for the present generation of Bahá’ís to grasp; to the extent one does grasp it, the realization is acutely painful.
Initially, the Guardian assumed that the members of the Master’s extended family, whose distinguished lineage brought them immense respect from Bahá’ís everywhere, would welcome the opportunity to assist him in realizing the purpose that the Master’s Will had set out in language so imperative and moving. Accordingly, he invited his brothers, his cousins and one of his sisters, whose education made them qualified for the purpose, to provide the administrative support that the demanding work of the Guardianship required. Tragically, as time passed, one after another of these persons proved dissatisfied with the supporting role thus assigned and careless in the discharge of its functions. Far more seriously, Shoghi Effendi found himself facing a situation in which the authority conferred on him, although expressed in uncompromising terms in the Will and Testament, was seen by those related to him as relatively nominal in character. These individuals preferred to regard the leadership of the Faith as essentially a family affair in which great weight should be placed on the views of senior figures among them, who were supposedly qualified to assume such a prerogative. Beginning with demonstrations of sullen resistance, the situation steadily deteriorated to a point where the children and grandchildren of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá felt free to disagree with His appointed successor and to disobey his instructions.
Rúḥíyyih Khánum, who saw this process of deterioration in its later stages and herself suffered greatly in witnessing its effects on both the work of the Cause and the Guardian personally, has written:
...one must understand the old story of Cain and Abel, the story of family jealousies which, like a sombre thread in the fabric of history, runs through all its epochs and can be traced in all its events.... The weakness of the human heart, which so often attaches itself to an unworthy object, the weakness of the human mind, prone to conceit and self-assurance in personal opinions, involve people in a welter of emotions that blind their judgment and lead them far astray.... Even though this phenomenon of Covenant-breaking seems to be an inherent aspect of religion this does not mean it produces no damaging effect on the Cause.... Above all it does not mean that a devastating effect is not produced on the Centre of the Covenant himself. Shoghi Effendi’s whole life was darkened by the vicious personal attacks made upon him.[55]
This sombre background casts in an all the more brilliant light the achievements of the Greatest Holy Leaf, sister of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and last survivor of the Faith’s Heroic Age. Bahíyyih Khánum played a vital role in guarding the interests of the Cause after the Master’s death and became Shoghi Effendi’s sole effective support. Her fidelity evoked from his pen perhaps the most deeply moving passages he was ever to write. The apostrophe he addressed to her after her passing in 1932 was set in a letter to the Bahá’ís “throughout the West”, which itself read in part:
Only future generations and pens abler than mine can, and will, pay a worthy tribute to the towering grandeur of her spiritual life, to the unique part she played throughout the tumultuous stages of Bahá’í history, to the expressions of unqualified praise that have streamed from the pen of both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Center of His covenant, though unrecorded, and in the main unsuspected by the mass of her passionate admirers in East and West, the share she has had in influencing the course of some of the chief events in the annals of the Faith, the sufferings she bore, the sacrifices she made, the rare gifts of unfailing sympathy she so strikingly displayed—these, and many others stand so inextricably interwoven with the fabric of the Cause itself that no future historian of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh can afford to ignore or minimize....Which of the blessings am I to recount, which in her unfailing solicitude she showered upon me, in the most critical and agitated hours of my life? To me, standing in so dire a need of the vitalizing grace of God, she was the living symbol of many an attribute I had learned to admire in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.[56]