Baha'ism

Hands of the Cause

Having expelled all male descendants of Baha’ Allah and died without a designated heir, Shoghi Effendi had bequeathed the Baha’is a grave crisis. Baha’ Allah had designated a pattern of succession which appointed his son Muhammad ‘Ali to follow ‘Abd al-Baha’ however the latter had excommunicated his brother which meant that Baha’ Allah’s original pattern of succession was abandoned. Instead ‘Abd al-Baha’ had designated a succession of male descendants as a line of Guardians to lead the Baha’i religion, however as Shoghi Effendi had excommunicated all possible claimants, the succession patterned by ‘Abd al-Baha’ was also abandoned. This left the Baha’is in a difficult bind, one from which they never fully recovered. Shoghi Effendi had written:

Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary principle which, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written, has been invariably upheld by the Law of God. … Without such an institution the integrity of the Faith would be imperiled, and the stability of the entire fabric would be gravely endangered. Its prestige would suffer, the means required to enable it to take a long, an uninterrupted view over a series of generations would be completely lacking, and the necessary guidance to define the sphere of the legislative action of its elected representatives would be totally withdrawn.59

With no appointed heir and successor, it seemed that Shoghi Effendi’s warning had turned into a prophecy fulfilled. A group of prominent believers known as the “Hands of the Cause of God”60 took over the reigns of the faith, pondering what to do after the devastating blow that was the Guardian’s death. They did this on the basis that in his last general letter to the Baha’is, Shoghi Effendi had designated the Hands as “Chief Stewards”61 of the faith and so they elected a body of nine to serve as custodians in Haifa.62

In 1950, Shoghi Effendi had set up the International Baha’i Council which contained men and women, Persians and non-Persians, Hands of the Cause and other esteemed Baha’is. He had announced it as a forerunner to a future institution called the Universal House of Justice, and appointed a Hand of the Cause, Charles Mason Remey (1874-1974), as its president. In 1960 Remey announced he was the second Guardian based on his position as head of the IBC, contradicting his previous agreement with the rest of the Hands that Shoghi Effendi had left no nominated heir. He gathered a number of followers (including the French national administrative body) however the rest of the Hands rejected his claim and expelled him from the faith for having broken the Covenant. A number of Baha’i sects split off from amongst Remey’s followers including the Orthodox Baha’i Faith63 and Baha’is under the Provision of the Covenant.64

Having firmly rejected Remey’s claim, the Hands of the Cause worked for the quick election of the Universal House of Justice, a body first outlined in al-Kitab al-Aqdas as bayt al-‘adl and elaborated upon by ‘Abd al-Baha’ and Shoghi Effendi who had envisioned the elected Universal House of Justice having an interdependent relationship with the appointed Guardian who would act as the permanent head of the UHJ.

… the Guardian of the Faith has been made the Interpreter of the Word and … the Universal House of Justice has been invested with the function of legislating on matters not expressly revealed in the teachings. … Neither can, nor will ever, infringe upon the sacred and prescribed domain of the other. Neither will seek to curtail the specific and undoubted authority with which both have been divinely invested.65

The Hands barred themselves from being elected to the UHJ, and women were also prohibited from being UHJ members; an issue which continues to generate controversy for a religion preaching the equality of men and women. Thus when the first UHJ was elected in 1963 it lacked a Guardian as its head, and consisted of nine men: five of whom had previously sat on the IBC, the other four being prominent members of national bodies.66

The Hands continued to act in the capacity as protectors and promoters of the Baha’i religion, creating the institutions of the Continental Board of Counsellors and International Teaching Centre to continue their legacy. With no new Hands being appointed, the institution is almost extinct. At the time of writing, only two living Hands of the Cause remain.67

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References

59Effendi, Shoghi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: Selected Letters of Shoghi Effendi, rev. ed., (Wilmette, Illinois: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1974) 148.

60Baha’ Allah had appointed four eminent followers as “Hands of the Cause of God”. ‘Abd al-Baha’ named a further four Baha’is as Hands posthumously and specified in his will that future Guardians had the power to appoint more. Shoghi Effendi appointed a total of thirty-two Baha’is to the position including some posthumously.

61Effendi, Shoghi, Messages to the Bahá’í World: 1950-1957, (Wilmette, Illinois: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1971) 127.

62Smith, “Hands of the Cause of God”, A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bahá’í Faith 175-177.

63See <http://www.rt66.com/~obfusa/council.htm> and <http://www.bahai-guardian.com/>.

64Their website is at: <http://www.montana.com/bupc/>.

65Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh 149-150.

66Smith, “Universal House of Justice”, A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bahá’í Faith 346-350.

67‘Ali-Akbar Furutan (b.1905) and ‘Ali-Muhammad Varqa (b.1911).

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