Part 12 (2/2)

Before the Faith, however, could plant its banner in the midmost heart of the North American continent, and from thence establish its outposts over so vast a portion of the Western world, the newly born Covenant of Baha'u'llah had, as had been the case with the Faith that had given it birth, to be baptized with a fire which was to demonstrate its solidity and proclaim its indestructibility to an unbelieving world. A crisis, almost as severe as that which had a.s.sailed the Faith in its earliest infancy in Ba_gh_dad, was to shake that Covenant to its foundations at the very moment of its inception, and subject afresh the Cause of which it was the n.o.blest fruit to one of the most grievous ordeals experienced in the course of an entire century.

This crisis, misconceived as a schism, which political as well as ecclesiastical adversaries, no less than the fast dwindling remnant of the followers of Mirza Ya?ya hailed as a signal for the immediate disruption and final dissolution of the system established by Baha'u'llah, was precipitated at the very heart and center of His Faith, and was provoked by no one less than a member of His own family, a half-brother of 'Abdu'l-Baha, specifically named in the book of the Covenant, and holding a rank second to none except Him Who had been appointed as the Center of that Covenant. For no less than four years that emergency fiercely agitated the minds and hearts of a vast proportion of the faithful throughout the East, eclipsed, for a time, the Orb of the Covenant, created an irreparable breach within the ranks of Baha'u'llah's own kindred, sealed ultimately the fate of the great majority of the members of His family, and gravely damaged the prestige, though it never succeeded in causing a permanent cleavage in the structure, of the Faith itself. The true ground of this crisis was the burning, the uncontrollable, the soul-festering jealousy which the admitted preeminence of 'Abdu'l-Baha in rank, power, ability, knowledge and virtue, above all the other members of His Father's family, had aroused not only in Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali, the archbreaker of the Covenant, but in some of his closest relatives as well.

An envy as blind as that which had possessed the soul of Mirza Ya?ya, as deadly as that which the superior excellence of Joseph had kindled in the hearts of his brothers, as deep-seated as that which had blazed in the bosom of Cain and prompted him to slay his brother Abel, had, for several years, prior to Baha'u'llah's ascension, been smouldering in the recesses of Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali's heart and had been secretly inflamed by those unnumbered marks of distinction, of admiration and favor accorded to 'Abdu'l-Baha not only by Baha'u'llah Himself, His companions and His followers, but by the vast number of unbelievers who had come to recognize that innate greatness which 'Abdu'l-Baha had manifested from childhood.

Far from being allayed by the provisions of a Will which had elevated him to the second-highest position within the ranks of the faithful, the fire of unquenchable animosity that glowed in the breast of Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali burned even more fiercely as soon as he came to realize the full implications of that Doc.u.ment. All that 'Abdu'l-Baha could do, during a period of four distressful years, His incessant exhortations, His earnest pleadings, the favors and kindnesses He showered upon him, the admonitions and warnings He uttered, even His voluntary withdrawal in the hope of averting the threatening storm, proved to be of no avail. Gradually and with unyielding persistence, through lies, half-truths, calumnies and gross exaggerations, this ”Prime Mover of sedition” succeeded in ranging on his side almost the entire family of Baha'u'llah, as well as a considerable number of those who had formed his immediate entourage.

Baha'u'llah's two surviving wives, His two sons, the vacillating Mirza ?iya'u'llah and the treacherous Mirza Badi'u'llah, with their sister and half-sister and their husbands, one of them the infamous Siyyid 'Ali, a kinsman of the Bab, the other the crafty Mirza Majdi'd-Din, together with his sister and half-brothers-the children of the n.o.ble, the faithful and now deceased aqay-i-Kalim-all united in a determined effort to subvert the foundations of the Covenant which the newly proclaimed Will had laid. Even Mirza aqa Jan, who for forty years had labored as Baha'u'llah's amanuensis, as well as Mu?ammad-Javad-i-Qasvini, who ever since the days of Adrianople, had been engaged in transcribing the innumerable Tablets revealed by the Supreme Pen, together with his entire family, threw in their lot with the Covenant-breakers, and allowed themselves to be ensnared by their machinations.

Forsaken, betrayed, a.s.saulted by almost the entire body of His relatives, now congregated in the Mansion and the neighboring houses cl.u.s.tering around the most Holy Tomb, 'Abdu'l-Baha, already bereft of both His mother and His sons, and without any support at all save that of an unmarried sister, His four unmarried daughters, His wife and His uncle (a half-brother of Baha'u'llah), was left alone to bear, in the face of a mult.i.tude of enemies arrayed against Him from within and from without, the full brunt of the terrific responsibilities which His exalted office had laid upon Him.

Closely-knit by one common wish and purpose; indefatigable in their efforts; a.s.sured of the backing of the powerful and perfidious Jamal-i-Burujirdi and his henchmen, ?aji ?usayn-i-Ka_sh_i, _Kh_alil-i-_Kh_u'i and Jalil-i-Tabrizi who had espoused their cause; linked by a vast system of correspondence with every center and individual they could reach; seconded in their labors by emissaries whom they dispatched to Persia, 'Iraq, India and Egypt; emboldened in their designs by the att.i.tude of officials whom they bribed or seduced, these repudiators of a divinely-established Covenant arose, as one man, to launch a campaign of abuse and vilification which compared in virulence with the infamous accusations which Mirza Ya?ya and Siyyid Mu?ammad had jointly levelled at Baha'u'llah. To friend and stranger, believer and unbeliever alike, to officials both high and low, openly and by insinuation, verbally as well as in writing, they represented 'Abdu'l-Baha as an ambitious, a self-willed, an unprincipled and pitiless usurper, Who had deliberately disregarded the testamentary instructions of His Father; Who had, in language intentionally veiled and ambiguous, a.s.sumed a rank co-equal with the Manifestation Himself; Who in His communications with the West was beginning to claim to be the return of Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d, who had come ”in the glory of the Father”; Who, in His letters to the Indian believers, was proclaiming Himself as the promised _Sh_ah Bahram, and arrogating to Himself the right to interpret the writing of His Father, to inaugurate a new Dispensation, and to share with Him the Most Great Infallibility, the exclusive prerogative of the holders of the prophetic office. They, furthermore, affirmed that He had, for His private ends, fomented discord, fostered enmity and brandished the weapon of excommunication; that He had perverted the purpose of a Testament which they alleged to be primarily concerned with the private interests of Baha'u'llah's family by acclaiming it as a Covenant of world importance, pre-existent, peerless and unique in the history of all religions; that He had deprived His brothers and sisters of their lawful allowance, and expended it on officials for His personal advancement; that He had declined all the repeated invitations made to Him to discuss the issues that had arisen and to compose the differences which prevailed; that He had actually corrupted the Holy Text, interpolated pa.s.sages written by Himself, and perverted the purpose and meaning of some of the weightiest Tablets revealed by the pen of His Father; and finally, that the standard of rebellion had, as a result of such conduct, been raised by the Oriental believers, that the community of the faithful had been rent asunder, was rapidly declining and was doomed to extinction.

And yet it was this same Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali who, regarding himself as the exponent of fidelity, the standard-bearer of the ”Unitarians,” the ”Finger who points to his Master,” the champion of the Holy Family, the spokesman of the A_gh_san, the upholder of the Holy Writ, had, in the lifetime of Baha'u'llah, so openly and shamelessly advanced in a written statement, signed and sealed by him, the very claim now falsely imputed by him to 'Abdu'l-Baha, that his Father had, with His own hand, chastised him. He it was who, when sent on a mission to India, had tampered with the text of the holy writings entrusted to his care for publication. He it was who had the impudence and temerity to tell 'Abdu'l-Baha to His face that just as Umar had succeeded in usurping the successors.h.i.+p of the Prophet Mu?ammad, he, too, felt himself able to do the same. He it was who, obsessed by the fear that he might not survive 'Abdu'l-Baha, had, the moment he had been a.s.sured by Him that all the honor he coveted would, in the course of time, be his, swiftly rejoined that he had no guarantee that he would outlive Him. He it was who, as testified by Mirza Badi'u'llah in his confession, written and published on the occasion of his repentance and his short-lived reconciliation with 'Abdu'l-Baha, had, while Baha'u'llah's body was still awaiting interment, carried off, by a ruse, the two satchels containing his Father's most precious doc.u.ments, entrusted by Him, prior to His ascension, to 'Abdu'l-Baha. He it was who, by an exceedingly adroit and simple forgery of a word recurring in some of the denunciatory pa.s.sages addressed by the Supreme Pen to Mirza Ya?ya, and by other devices such as mutilation and interpolation, had succeeded in making them directly applicable to a Brother Whom he hated with such consuming pa.s.sion. And lastly, it was this same Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali who, as attested by 'Abdu'l-Baha in His Will, had, with circ.u.mspection and guile, conspired to take His life, an intention indicated by the allusions made in a letter written by _Sh_u'a'u'llah (Son of Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali), the original of which was enclosed in that same Doc.u.ment by 'Abdu'l-Baha.

The Covenant of Baha'u'llah had, by acts such as these, and others too numerous to recount, been manifestly violated. Another blow, stunning in its first effects, had been administered to the Faith and had caused its structure momentarily to tremble. The storm foreshadowed by the writer of the Apocalypse had broken. The ”lightnings,” the ”thunders,” the ”earthquake” which must needs accompany the revelation of the ”Ark of His Testament,” had all come to pa.s.s.

'Abdu'l-Baha's grief over so tragic a development, following so swiftly upon His Father's ascension, was such that, despite the triumphs witnessed in the course of His ministry, it left its traces upon Him till the end of His days. The intensity of the emotions which this somber episode aroused within Him were reminiscent of the effect produced upon Baha'u'llah by the dire happenings precipitated by the rebellion of Mirza Ya?ya. ”I swear by the Ancient Beauty!,” He wrote in one of His Tablets, ”So great is My sorrow and regret that My pen is paralyzed between My fingers.” ”Thou seest Me,” He, in a prayer recorded in His Will, thus laments, ”submerged in an ocean of calamities that overwhelm the soul, of afflictions that oppress the heart... Sore trials have compa.s.sed Me round, and perils have from all sides beset Me. Thou seest Me immersed in a sea of unsurpa.s.sed tribulation, sunk into a fathomless abyss, afflicted by Mine enemies and consumed with the flame of hatred kindled by My kinsmen with whom Thou didst make Thy strong Covenant and Thy firm Testament...” And again in that same Will: ”Lord! Thou seest all things weeping over Me, and My kindred rejoicing in My woes. By Thy glory, O my G.o.d! Even amongst Mine enemies some have lamented My troubles and My distress, and of the envious ones a number have shed tears because of My cares, My exile and My afflictions.” ”O Thou the Glory of Glories!,” He, in one of His last Tablets, had cried out, ”I have renounced the world and its people, and am heart-broken and sorely afflicted because of the unfaithful. In the cage of this world I flutter even as a frightened bird, and yearn every day to take My flight unto Thy Kingdom.”

Baha'u'llah Himself had significantly revealed in one of His Tablets-a Tablet that sheds an illuminating light on the entire episode: ”By G.o.d, O people! Mine eye weepeth, and the eye of 'Ali (the Bab) weepeth amongst the Concourse on high, and Mine heart crieth out, and the heart of Mu?ammad crieth out within the Most Glorious Tabernacle, and My soul shouteth and the souls of the Prophets shout before them that are endued with understanding... My sorrow is not for Myself, but for Him Who shall come after Me, in the shadow of My Cause, with manifest and undoubted sovereignty, inasmuch as they will not welcome His appearance, will repudiate His signs, will dispute His sovereignty, will contend with Him, and will betray His Cause...” ”Can it be possible,” He, in a no less significant Tablet, had observed, ”that after the dawning of the day-star of Thy Testament above the horizon of Thy Most Great Tablet, the feet of any one shall slip in Thy Straight Path? Unto this We answered: 'O My most exalted Pen! It behoveth Thee to occupy Thyself with that whereunto Thou hast been bidden by G.o.d, the Exalted, the Great. Ask not of that which will consume Thine heart and the hearts of the denizens of Paradise, who have circled round My wondrous Cause. It behoveth Thee not to be acquainted with that which We have veiled from Thee. Thy Lord is, verily, the Concealer, the All-Knowing!'” More specifically Baha'u'llah had, referring to Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali in clear and unequivocal language, affirmed: ”He, verily, is but one of My servants... Should he for a moment pa.s.s out from under the shadow of the Cause, he surely shall be brought to naught.” Furthermore, in a no less emphatic language, He, again in connection with Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali had stated: ”By G.o.d, the True One!

Were We, for a single instant, to withhold from him the outpourings of Our Cause, he would wither, and would fall upon the dust.” 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself had, moreover, testified: ”There is no doubt that in a thousand pa.s.sages in the sacred writings of Baha'u'llah the breakers of the Covenant have been execrated.” Some of these pa.s.sages He Himself compiled, ere His departure from this world, and incorporated them in one of His last Tablets, as a warning and safeguard against those who, throughout His ministry, had manifested so implacable a hatred against Him, and had come so near to subverting the foundations of a Covenant on which not only His own authority but the integrity of the Faith itself depended.

Chapter XVI: The Rise and Establishment of the Faith in the West

Though the rebellion of Mirza Mu?ammad-'Ali precipitated many sombre and distressing events, and though its dire consequences continued for several years to obscure the light of the Covenant, to endanger the life of its appointed Center, and to distract the thoughts and r.e.t.a.r.d the progress of the activities of its supporters in both the East and the West, yet the entire episode, viewed in its proper perspective, proved to be neither more nor less than one of those periodic crises which, since the inception of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, and throughout a whole century, have been instrumental in weeding out its harmful elements, in fortifying its foundations, in demonstrating its resilience, and in releasing a further measure of its latent powers.

Now that the provisions of a divinely appointed Covenant had been indubitably proclaimed; now that the purpose of the Covenant was clearly apprehended and its fundamentals had become immovably established in the hearts of the overwhelming majority of the adherents of the Faith; and now that the first a.s.saults launched by its would-be subverters had been successfully repulsed, the Cause for which that Covenant had been designed could forge ahead along the course traced for it by the finger of its Author. s.h.i.+ning exploits and unforgettable victories had already signalized the birth of that Cause and accompanied its rise in several countries of the Asiatic continent, and particularly in the homeland of its Founder. The mission of its newly-appointed Leader, the steward of its glory and the diffuser of its light, was, as conceived by Himself, to enrich and extend the bounds of the incorruptible patrimony entrusted to His hands by shedding the illumination of His Father's Faith upon the West, by expounding the fundamental precepts of that Faith and its cardinal principles, by consolidating the activities which had already been initiated for the promotion of its interests, and, finally, by ushering in, through the provisions of His own Will, the Formative Age in its evolution.

A year after the ascension of Baha'u'llah, 'Abdu'l-Baha had, in a verse which He had revealed, and which had evoked the derision of the Covenant-breakers, already foreshadowed an auspicious event which posterity would recognize as one of the greatest triumphs of His ministry, which in the end would confer an inestimable blessing upon the western world, and which erelong was to dispel the grief and the apprehensions that had surrounded the community of His fellow-exiles in Akka. The Great Republic of the West, above all the other countries of the Occident, was singled out to be the first recipient of G.o.d's inestimable blessing, and to become the chief agent in its transmission to so many of her sister nations throughout the five continents of the earth.

The importance of so momentous a development in the evolution of the Faith of Baha'u'llah-the establishment of His Cause in the North American continent-at a time when 'Abdu'l-Baha had just inaugurated His Mission, and was still in the throes of the most grievous crisis with which He was ever confronted, can in no wise be overestimated. As far back as the year which witnessed the birth of the Faith in _Sh_iraz the Bab had, in the Qayyumu'l-Asma, after having warned in a memorable pa.s.sage the peoples of both the Orient and the Occident, directly addressed the ”peoples of the West,” and significantly bidden them ”issue forth” from their ”cities” to aid G.o.d, and ”become as brethren” in His ”one and indivisible religion.”

”In the East,” Baha'u'llah Himself had, in antic.i.p.ation of this development, written, ”the light of His Revelation hath broken; in the West the signs of His dominion have appeared.” ”Should they attempt,” He, moreover, had predicted, ”to conceal its light on the continent, it will a.s.suredly rear its head in the midmost heart of the ocean, and, raising its voice, proclaim: 'I am the lifegiver of the world!'” ”Had this Cause been revealed in the West,” He, shortly before His ascension, is reported by Nabil in his narrative to have stated, ”had Our verses been sent from the West to Persia and other countries of the East, it would have become evident how the people of the Occident would have embraced Our Cause. The people of Persia, however, have failed to appreciate it.” ”From the beginning of time until the present day,” is 'Abdu'l-Baha's own testimony, ”the light of Divine Revelation hath risen in the East and shed its radiance upon the West. The illumination thus shed hath, however, acquired in the West an extraordinary brilliancy. Consider the Faith proclaimed by Jesus. Though it first appeared in the East, yet not until its light had been shed upon the West did the full measure of its potentialities become manifest.” ”The day is approaching,” He has affirmed, ”when ye shall witness how, through the splendor of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, the West will have replaced the East, radiating the light of Divine guidance.” And again: ”The West hath acquired illumination from the East, but, in some respects, the reflection of the light hath been greater in the Occident.”

Furthermore, ”The East hath, verily, been illumined with the light of the Kingdom. Erelong will this same light shed a still greater illumination upon the West.”

More specifically has the Author of the Baha'i Revelation Himself chosen to confer upon the rulers of the American continent the unique honor of addressing them collectively in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, His most Holy Book, significantly exhorting them to ”adorn the temple of dominion with the ornament of justice and of the fear of G.o.d, and its head with the crown of the remembrance” of their Lord, and bidding them ”bind with the hands of justice the broken,” and ”crush the oppressor” with the ”rod of the commandments” of their ”Lord, the Ordainer, the All-Wise.” ”The continent of America,” wrote 'Abdu'l-Baha, ”is, in the eyes of the one true G.o.d, the land wherein the splendors of His light shall be revealed, where the mysteries of His Faith shall be unveiled, where the righteous will abide and the free a.s.semble.” ”The American continent,” He has furthermore predicted, ”giveth signs and evidences of very great advancement. Its future is even more promising, for its influence and illumination are far reaching. It will lead all nations spiritually.”

”The American people,” 'Abdu'l-Baha, even more distinctly, singling out for His special favor the Great Republic of the West, the leading nation of the American continent, has revealed, ”are indeed worthy of being the first to build the Tabernacle of the Most Great Peace, and proclaim the oneness of mankind.” And again: ”This American nation is equipped and empowered to accomplish that which will adorn the pages of history, to become the envy of the world, and be blest in both the East and the West for the triumph of its people.” Furthermore: ”May this American democracy be the first nation to establish the foundation of international agreement. May it be the first nation to proclaim the unity of mankind.

May it be the first to unfurl the standard of the Most Great Peace.” ”May the inhabitants of this country,” He, moreover has written, ”...rise from their present material attainment to such heights that heavenly illumination may stream from this center to all the peoples of the world.”

”O ye apostles of Baha'u'llah!,” 'Abdu'l-Baha has thus addressed the believers of the North American continent, ”...consider how exalted and lofty is the station you are destined to attain... The full measure of your success is as yet unrevealed, its significance still unapprehended.”

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