Shoghi Effendi, Covenant Breaker

In a blog entry from over a decade ago, I directly assaulted the credibility of the Guardianship of Shoghi Effendi, who led the Baha’i Faith from 1921 until his death in 1957. To this day, I consider The Fatal Flaw of Baha’i Authority to be my one of my greatest works and the ultimate refutation of the Baha’i Faith as led by the leadership based in Haifa, Israel.

I have also debunked the credibility of Abdu’l-Baha’s Will and Testament, the very document that Shoghi Effendi based his authority on.

https://bahai-writings-criticism.blogspot.com/2018/04/a-critical-analysis-of-will-and.html

It is shocking enough that the so-called Guardian did not uphold the Covenant at the time of his death. But what if I told you that he also broke it while he was alive?

When he was Guardian, Shoghi Effendi would often expel dissident Baha’is from the community, including nearly ALL his closest relatives. But a reading of the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha reveals that he should NOT have had that power and he was abusing his position as Guardian!

After declaring the absolute authority of the Guardian, Abdu’l-Baha says this:

My object is to show that the Hands of the Cause of God must be ever watchful and so soon as they find anyone beginning to oppose and protest against the Guardian of the Cause of God, cast him out from the congregation of the people of Bahá and in no wise accept any excuse from him.

So the Hands of the Cause of God are expected to expel those disloyal to the Guardian, not the Guardian himself. Meanwhile….

Should any of the members [of the Universal House of Justice] commit a sin, injurious to the common weal, the Guardian of the Cause of God hath at his own discretion the right to expel him, whereupon the people must elect another one in his stead.

So the only expulsion the Guardian is empowered to do is to remove members of the UHJ from that body, and not necessarily from the Baha’i community completely. So how did Shoghi Effendi gain the same power to expel Baha’is completely as the Hands of the Cause of God? By merely asserting he had that power already! But if he did, then the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha really should have read:

My object is to show that the Guardian of the Cause of God must be ever watchful and so soon as he finds anyone beginning to oppose and protest against him, cast the Covenant breaker out from the congregation of the people of Bahá and in no wise accept any excuse from him.

The Constitution of the United States of America grants Congress, not the President, the power to declare war, but it also grants the President the rank of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. But the last time Congress did declare war was in December 1941, right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet the USA has fought wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq without a Congressional declaration of war, because of the President taking advantage of his position of Commander-in-Chief. This is straight up TYRANNY the American people should NEVER have tolerated!

Likewise, Baha’is the world over blindly assumed that Shoghi Effendi had the right to expel people from the Baha’i community. He didn’t even start to appoint living Hands of the Cause of God until 1951, thirty years after he began his Guardianship and he NEVER served as a member of the UHJ! Why not? Was his megalomania so problematic that he was never willing to share power with anyone in his early days as Guardian?

Then he never should have been Guardian to begin with.

One thought on “Shoghi Effendi, Covenant Breaker

  1. Even if you allow for the possibility that some of Shoghi Effendi’s own relatives were disloyal to him, how would that justify this?

    {{{Faithless brother Hussein, already abased through dishonorable conduct over period of years followed by association with Covenant-breakers in Holy Land and efforts to undermine Guardian’s position, recently further demeaned himself through marriage under obscure circumstances with lowborn Christian girl in Europe. This disgraceful alliance, following four successive marriages by sisters and cousins with three sons of Covenant-breaker denounced repeatedly by Abdu’l-Baha as His enemy, and daughter of notorious political agitator, brands them with infamy greater than any associated with marriages contracted by old Covenant-breakers whether belonging to family of Muhammad-Al or Badi’u’llah.}}}

    This incredible arrogance is shocking, to say the least. He doesn’t even bother to mention his new sister-in-law by name, and dismisses her as “lowborn” in addition to her not being a Baha’i [and there were no Baha’i laws against Baha’is marrying non-Baha’is]. If this does not prove that the “Guardian” was a damned hypocrite who did not deserve to lead the Baha’i Faith, what would? He abused his power by kicking out of the Baha’i community and condemning in writing relatives for marrying others he personally disapproved of, even if those marriages had been done according to Baha’i law! Note that he did not mention if his parents, or those of the girl in question, opposed the marriage. If they had, then the condemnation would have been justified.

    And remember that Baha’u’llah stated in the Kitab-i-Aqdas:

    {{{Ye have been forbidden to commit murder or adultery, or to engage in backbiting or calumny; shun ye, then, what hath been prohibited in the holy Books and Tablets.}}}

    Isn’t backbiting EXACTLY what the “Guardian” did to his own brother?

    Incidentally, the “three sons of Covenant-breaker denounced repeatedly by Abdu’l-Baha as His enemy” were not necessarily themselves Covenant-breakers and the “daughter of notorious political agitator” may not herself been one. In the Torah, it is written:

    {{{The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. – Deuteronomy 24:16}}}

    But the simple fact that the sons and daughter of people Shoghi Effendi despised married his relatives was enough to expel those relatives, instead of him doing the opposite and reaching out to his new relatives by marriage to confirm if they themselves were hostile to the Faith.

    That is why his Guardianship failed.

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