Few will fail to recognize that the Spirit breathed by Bahá’u’lláh upon the world, and which is manifesting itself with varying degrees of intensity through the efforts consciously displayed by His avowed supporters and indirectly through certain humanitarian organizations, can never permeate and exercise an abiding influence upon mankind unless and until it incarnates itself in a visible Order, which would bear His name, wholly identify itself with His principles, and function in conformity with His laws.[68]
He went on to urge the Faith’s followers to realize the essential difference between the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, whose Revealed Texts contain detailed provisions for such an authoritative Order, and those preparatory Revelations whose Scriptures had been largely silent on the administration of affairs and on the interpretation of their Founders’ intent. In the words of Bahá’u’lláh: “The Prophetic Cycle hath, verily, ended. The Eternal Truth is now come. He hath lifted up the Ensign of Power....”[69] Unlike the Dispensations of the past, the Revelation of God to this age has given birth, Shoghi Effendi said, to “a living organism”, whose laws and institutions constitute “the essentials of a Divine Economy”, “a pattern for future society”, and “the one agency for the unification of the world, and the proclamation of the reign of righteousness and justice upon the earth”.[70]
The friends should strive to appreciate, therefore, the Guardian urged, that the Spiritual Assemblies they were painstakingly establishing throughout the world were the forerunners of the local and national “Houses of Justice” envisioned by Bahá’u’lláh. As such, they were integral parts of an Administrative Order that will, in time, “assert its claim and demonstrate its capacity to be regarded not only as the nucleus but the very pattern of the New World Order destined to embrace in the fullness of time the whole of mankind”.[71]
For a few in the young communities of the West, such a departure from traditional conceptions of the nature and role of religion proved too great a test, and Bahá’í communities suffered the distress of seeing valued co-workers drift away in search of spiritual pursuits more congenial to their inclinations. For the vast majority of believers, however, great messages from the Guardian’s pen, such as “The Goal of a New World Order” and “The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh”, threw brilliant light on precisely the issue that most concerned them, the relationship between spiritual truth and social development, inspiring in them a determination to play their part in laying the foundations of humanity’s future.
The Guardian provided, as well, the organizing image for this mighty work. The “Heroic Age” of Bahá’u’lláh’s Dispensation, he declared, had ended with the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The Bahá’í community now embarked on the “Iron Age”, the “Formative Age”, in which the Administrative Order would be erected throughout the planet, its institutions established and the “society building” powers inherent in it fully revealed. Far ahead lay what Shoghi Effendi called the “Golden Age” of the Dispensation, leading eventually to the emergence of the Bahá’í World Commonwealth that will constitute the establishment on earth of the Kingdom of God and the creation of a world civilization.[72] The impulse that had been initially communicated to human consciousness through the revelation of the Creative Word itself, whose revolutionary social implications had been proclaimed by the Master, was now being translated by their appointed interpreter into the vocabulary of political and economic transformation in which the public discourse of the century was everywhere taking place. Lending the process irresistible force, illuminating ever new dimensions of Bahá’í experience, and serving as the mainspring of the unification of humankind it proclaimed was the Covenant that Bahá’u’lláh had established between Himself and those who turn to Him.
Although not initially designated “Spiritual Assemblies”, the councils that local Bahá’í communities in Persia had been encouraged by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to create had assumed responsibility for the administration of their affairs. In the light of what was to follow, no one with a sense of history can fail to be struck by the fact that the Faith’s first Spiritual Assembly, that of Tehran, was founded in 1897, the year of Shoghi Effendi’s own birth. Under the Master’s guidance, intermittent meetings held by the four Hands of the Cause in Persia had gradually evolved into this institution that served simultaneously as Persia’s “Central Spiritual Assembly” and as the governing body of the local community in the capital. By the time of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing, there were more than thirty Local Spiritual Assemblies established in Persia. In 1922 Shoghi Effendi called for the formal establishment of Persia’s National Spiritual Assembly, an achievement delayed until 1934 by the demands related to the taking of a reliable census of the community as a basis for the election of delegates.
Outside Persia, the believers in ‘Ishqábád, in Russian Turkestan, elected their first Local Spiritual Assembly, a body that assumed an important role in the project for the construction of the first Bahá’í Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in ‘Ishqábád. In North America a variety of consultative arrangements—“Boards of Council”, “Council Boards”, “Boards of Consultation” and “Working Committees”—performed analogous functions, evolving gradually into elected bodies that constituted the forerunners of Spiritual Assemblies. By the time of the Master’s passing, there were perhaps forty such councils functioning in North America. These developments prepared the way for the eventual emergence of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, which evolved from the “Temple Unity Board”, a body created in 1909 to coordinate construction of the future House of Worship. It was formed in 1923, although the administrative requirements set by the Guardian for this step were met only in 1925. Before this latter date arrived, National Assemblies had been established in the British Isles, in Germany and Austria, in India and Burma, and in Egypt and the Sudan.[73]
As the formation of National and Local Spiritual Assemblies was taking place, the Guardian began to lay emphasis on the importance of their securing recognition as “corporate persons” under civil law. By securing such formal incorporation, in whatever fashion proved practicable, Bahá’í administrative institutions would be enabled to hold property, enter into contracts, and gradually assume a range of legal rights vital to the interests of the Cause. The importance Shoghi Effendi attached to this new stage of administrative evolution becomes clear in the photocopies of such civil instruments that began to become a major feature of the photographic coverage of the expansion of the Faith in successive volumes of The Bahá’í World. Indeed, once the Mansion at Bahjí had been repossessed and fully restored to its original condition, and appropriately furnished, Shoghi Effendi put together a collection of this much valued documentation for display there as an encouragement and education for the growing stream of pilgrims to the World Centre.
The processes of civil incorporation began with the adoption in 1927 of a Declaration of Trust and By-Laws for the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, which gained civil recognition as a voluntary trust two years later. On 17 February 1932 the first local Bahá’í Assembly, that of Chicago, adopted papers of incorporation which, together with those adopted by that of New York City on 31 March of that year, were to become a pattern for such instruments throughout the world. By 1949, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada—formed when the two North American Bahá’í communities had separated the previous year—was able to secure formal recognition of its status under civil law through a special Act of Parliament, a victory which Shoghi Effendi hailed as “an act wholly unprecedented in the annals of the Faith in any country, in either East or West”.[74]
These pressing administrative demands did not distract Shoghi Effendi from other tasks that were vital to shaping the spiritual life of a global community. The most important of these was the arduous work that he alone could perform in providing the growing body of the believers who were not of Persian background with direct and reliable access to the Writings of the Faith’s Founders. The Hidden Words, The Kitáb-i-Íqán, the priceless treasury brought together with so much love and insight under the title Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations of Bahá’u’lláh and Epistle to the Son of the Wolf provided the spiritual nourishment the work of the Cause urgently required, as did Shoghi Effendi’s translation and editing of Nabíl’s “Narrative” under the title The Dawn-Breakers.