Compilation of quotations referred to in talk
As the Universal House of Justice has written, “particular difficulty” has been “experienced” by some in understanding the implications of the statement by the beloved Guardian which begins, “Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh would be mutilated…” (Letter of 9 March 1965 to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Netherlands, “Election and infallibility of the Universal House of Justice”) It is the purpose of this paper to show that the Guardian’s statement (hereafter, “the divorced” phrase)has nothing whatever to do with the absence of a living Guardian today. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate, solely based on various passages in the Guardian’s writings, that what he meant by this phrase is that the institution of the Guardianship—though it was not expressly mentioned by Bahá’u’lláh—was no less authored by Him as by Abdu’l-Bahá, and that to divorce the Guardianship from Bahá’u’lláh would be a mutilation of the truth and of His plan of world order.
The “divorced” phrase has been quoted by several Bahá’í authors, some for the proposition that the Cause has not been mutilated by the death of Shoghi Effendi without a successor Guardian, and some for the proposition that it does refer to the absence of a living Guardian. It is discussed by Ali Nakhjavani in his 2009 paper “Some Thoughts on the Ministry of the Universal House of Justice” (Lights of Irfan, Book 10, pp. 341–343) and more fully in his talk, “The Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice under the Provisions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will and Testament,” (published in “Towards World Order, Acuto 2004,” 2nd edition 2007, p. 42). He explains that just as the Guardian wrote that “divorced” from the Guardianship the World Order would be “mutilated,” he likewise stated that if the Cause were “severed” from the Universal House of Justice it would be “paralyzed in its action,” and that the development of the Faith shows that neither mutilation nor paralysis has occurred. Likewise, the divorced phrase is discussed by Adib Taherzadeh for the same proposition in The Child of The Covenant (p. 359) and in The Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh (pp. 385-388); and also by Hooper Dunbar (Forces of our Time: The Dynamics of Light and Darkness, p. 38) where he also discusses the term “mutilated.”
In his writings the Guardian explains that the “creative energies unleashed” by Bahá’u’lláh gave birth to the Master’s Will; and that correctly understood, the Will can “no more be divorced” from Bahá’u’lláh than from Abdu’l-Bahá; he even refers to it as “their Will.” This bears on a correct understanding of the Guardian’s “divorced” phrase under study. Shoghi Effendi also explains that the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are “inseparable parts of one complete unit” and that “the institutions which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá ordains in His Will,” even though not outwardly specified in Bahá’u’lláh’s “general scheme of Bahá’í Dispensation” in the Aqdas cannot be “divorced” from it. This likewise bears on the subject, and this is the point that the House of Justice makes when it explains the “divorced” phrase should be seen by the believers in the light of “the principle of inseparability.” This paper asserts that not only does the principle of inseparability apply to the twin institutions of the Universal House of Justice and the Guardianship; it also means that the institutions called for in the Will which were not mentioned in the Aqdas are inseparable from Bahá’u’lláh. Shoghi Effendi repeatedly says that seeing the Guardianship and the other institutions in the Will separate from Bahá’u’lláh would be a “mutilation.” The intentional “gap” the Guardian refers to in the following passage includes Bahá’u’lláh’s outward silence regarding the institution of Guardianship, which the Master delineated in His Will, and that to see this otherwise would be a “divorce”:
“By leaving certain matters unspecified and unregulated in His Book of Laws, Bahá’u’lláh seems to have deliberately left a gap in the general scheme of Bahá’í Dispensation, which the unequivocal provisions of the Master’s Will have filled. To attempt to divorce the one from the other, to insinuate that the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh have not been upheld, in their entirety and with absolute integrity, by what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has revealed in His Will, is an unpardonable affront to the unswerving fidelity that has characterized the life and labors of our beloved Master.” (WOB 4)
In the same World Order letter, Shoghi Effendi explains that“the system of Bahá’í administration” which in his later “Dispensation” letter he refers to as“the System of the Will of Abdu’l-Baha,”(WOB 148) derives its authority both from Bahá’u’lláh and Abdu’l-Bahá, that it must not be“dissociated”from the other elements in the Faith, and that to do so would be“a mutilation of the body of the Cause”:
It should be remembered by every follower of the Cause that the system of Bahá’í administration is not an innovation imposed arbitrarily upon the Bahá’ís of the world since the Master’s passing, but derives its authority from the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, is specifically prescribed in unnumbered Tablets, and rests in some of its essential features upon the explicit provisions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. It thus unifies and correlates the principles separately laid down by Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá, and is indissolubly bound with the essential verities of the Faith. To dissociate the administrative principles of the Cause from the purely spiritual and humanitarian teachings would be tantamount to a mutilation of the body of the Cause, a separation that can only result in the disintegration of its component parts, and the extinction of the Faith itself.(WOB 5)
In these two passages, Shoghi Effendi emphasizes the essential harmony of the elements of the Bahá’í Faith as “inseparable parts of one complete unit” and characterizes their “divorce” or “dissociation” from each other as a grievous misunderstanding—as a “mutilation of the body of the Cause.”
This paper posits that “divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh would be mutilated…” is another way of saying that to divorce the Guardianship from Bahá’u’lláh’s Authorship, from His plan of world order, would be to mutilate the truth.
Brent Poirier is an independent researcher. His research interests include the study of Bahá’u’lláh’s fulfilment of Bible prophecy; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in North America; the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice; and the Covenant of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He is the author of several blogs including on the Bahá’í Covenant and Bahá’í storytelling, listed here: https://bahai-insights.blogspot.com/ . His article “The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Covenant” is published in the ABS-UK Bahá’í Studies Review https://www.abs.bahai.org.uk/bahai-studies-review. A former Catholic seminarian while attending St. Mary’s College, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology with a minor in Biology from Loyola-Marymount University and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of the Pacific, with postgraduate studies in International Law at Salzburg University. He taught undergraduate international business and business law as visiting faculty at New Mexico State University. He was admitted to the California and New Mexico Bar Associations. He served on the staff at two of the national Bahá’í schools in the United States, including as Coordinator for Bookstore, Library and Archives at Green Acre Bahá’í School in Maine. He resides in Maine with his wife Vickie, a noted Bahá’í textile artist.
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