Abdu'l-Baha's Covenant
Long suppressed by Bahais of other
denominations,
Reform Bahais have returned to and renewed Abdu'l-Baha's Covenant.
"After Abdul-Baha--whenever the
Universal House of Justice is organized
it will ward off differences."
www.reformbahai.org/Covenant.htm
In 1922 this Address Upon the Covenant, delivered by Abdu'l-Baha on June 19, 1912, was suppressed from appearing in The Promulgation of Universal Peace, though it was "approved" and published in this pamphlet on November 12, 1912* for the celebration of the Birth of Baha'u'llah. It was clearly felt to be important enough at the time to be almost immediately published, unlike the majority of Abdu'l-Baha's addresses that year, yet it was quietly put aside, just after Abdu'l-Baha's passing, when editing the text of The Promulation of Universal Peace. Evidently, it contradicted too much the new theocratic interpretation. In it Abdu'l-Baha briefly highlights the various covenants of God with humanity, with each Manifestation alluding to His successor. Abdu'l-Baha makes no mention of a guardian or His "appointing" anyone, least of all Shoghi Effendi.
Paradoxically, contrasted with His other statements that the Bahai Movement could not be "organized," Abdu'l-Baha clearly indicates some type of organization leading to a Universal House of Justice, but nowhere did He ever suggest Bahai assemblies should become the oppressive and tyrannical "administration" known today for destroying innumerable marriages and families through excommunication and shunning and intruding into virtually every aspect of the life and conscience of the individual.
It was such statements and publications as this address that led Mirza Ahmad Sohrab to remark on "the fact that Abdul Baha had never in speech or writing given the slightest indication that there would be a successor to himself. On the contrary, a number of addresses delivered by him on various occasions had made the opposite impression. Consequently , it took several years before a section of the Bahais could adjust themselves to the new situation" (The Will and Testament of Abdul Baha, An Analysis, 1944 61).
Ruth White was one of the early believers who was not about to forget such statements by Abdu'l-Baha and courageously fought to preserve the actual Covenant, as taught by Abdu'l-Baha, versus the fraudulent will and testament passed off on the community by the family of Shoghi Effendi. Neither could some thousands of other early believers "adjust," and many left or were driven out during the next few decades (Abdul Baha's Questioned Will and Testament, 1946 11).
Abdu'l-Baha's conception of the Covenant is not at all like the fanatical, oppressive one imposed by Shoghi Effendi and propped up by "administrators" who believed they knew better than Abdul-Baha, such as Horace Holley and Charles Mason Remey, both of whom were quick not only to "adjust," but zealously supported and promoted the "appointee" of the spurious will and testament, who delegated authority in return back to them. Abdu'l-Baha clearly never conceived of any successor other than eventually an elected, democratic Universal House of Justice, one definitely without an hereditary guardian analogous to a Shiite imam or a Sunni caliphate. Abdu'l-Baha knew all too well what social oppression and upheavals those systems of organization had led to, which is one reason He always emphasized spiritual democracy, not tyranny.
One of the typical tactics used to suppress and discredit such public, printed statements by Abdu'l-Baha was and is to claim that the original Persian transcript has not survived, it's only a "pilgrim's note," hearsay, and so on. Similarly, tactics of slander and shunning were unleashed relentlessly against Ruth White, Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Julie Chanler, and anyone able to think and reflect independently for themselves about Abdu'l-Baha's actual Covenant, which contains not the slightest suggestion of a so-called guardian:
"After Abdul-Baha--whenever the Universal House
of Justice is organized
it will ward off differences."
Had the purported will and testament been written, as alleged, by Abdu'l-Baha in three sections between 1901 and 1908, when Shoghi Effendi was between four and eight years old, yet to prove himself worthy, despite subsequent attempts to cast him as a prodigy, Abdu'l-Baha would have known the contents of his own will and testament in 1912, as he delivered this address. However, the three different hands that Dr. C. Answorth Mitchell attested actually wrote the fraudulent document, not a one of which was Abdu'l-Baha's, had not yet named Shoghi Effendi. One should also recall Abdu'l-Baha's remarks on His own brother's unworthiness to lead the Baha'i community. It is not credible that Abu'l-Baha would have taken such a chance on a four-year-old boy, even a family member.
Whether from a rational or spiritual view,
given the overwhelming weight of evidence against the authenticity of the
purported will and testament, the burden of proof resides with those Bahai
denominations that claim its legitimacy, as Ruth White and other Bahais have
stated for decades. It is evident in
Ruth White's
documents deposited with the Library of Congress that Shoghi Effendi and /
or others persuaded or bribed the Palestine officials to put the matter aside,
common practice especially in the third world of the time. Similarly, Shoghi
Effendi instructed the nsa to do nothing to antagonize Ruth White and to avoid
the issue, as she relates in her books. Ruth White perceptively made a crucial
observation a long time ago: The chief beneficiary of a fraudulent, unprobated
or independently verified will and testament, Shoghi Effendi,TRANSLATES
it, if not after writing it or participating in its creation, and then claims
it's authentic.
On all counts, the will and testament is a fraudulent document, and Shoghi
Effendi knew it would never stand up to further scrutiny, as it didn't with Dr.
C. Ainsworth Mitchell, an unimpeachable authority still highly regarded in
professional forensic circles.
Reading backwards from a fraudulent document is one of the tactics regularly
used by its beneficiaries, e.g., Shoghi Effendi, his family, and now the
denominations that depend on it. It is difficult for Baha'is committed to, and
raised in, the theocratic vision to recognize the truth--but it's right there in
black and white and won't go away, decade after decade.
If anything, this Address by Abdu'l-Baha is one of the "smoking-guns" that Ruth
White and other early Bahais were not about to forget, now come again to light,
preserving Abdu'l-Baha's vision of a universal, moderate, spiritual
democracy, one based on a separation of church and state, instead of tyranny.
* Also published in Star of the West, November 23, 1913, p. 238. See Ruth White, Appendix to Abdu'l-Baha and the Promised Age, 1929, and her comments on this passage, bottom of the first page. Also, Star of the West, Vol. VII, No. 15. p. 139: "When the Universal House of Justice is organized...." Cf. Mahmoud's Diary and Afroukhteh's Memoires.
Download Facsimile of Abdu'l-Baha's Covenant in PDF 2 megs. 1912. (or print)
Text Copy Below
Address upon the Covenant by Abdu’l-Baha
New York City, June 19th, 1912.
Translated by Dr. Ameen U. Fareed.
Parentheses supplied.
Tomorrow I wish to go to Montclair [New Jersey]. Today is the last day in which
we gather together with you to say farewell to you. Therefore, I wish to expound
for you an important question, and that question concerns The Covenant.
In former cycles no distinct Covenant had been made in writing by the Supreme
Pen; no distinct personage had been appointed to be the Standard differentiating
falsehood from truth, so that whatsoever he was to say was to stand as truth and
that which he repudiated was to be known as falsehood. At most, His Holiness
Jesus Christ gave only an intimation, a symbol, and that was but an indication
of the solidity of Peter’s faith. When he mentioned his faith, His Holiness
said, “Thou art Peter”- which means rock-“and upon this rock will I build my
church.” This was a sanction of Peter’s faith; it was not indicative of his
(Peter) being the expounder of the Book, but was a confirmation of Peter’s
faith.
But in this dispensation of the Blessed Beauty, (Baha’u’llah) among its distinctions is that He did not leave people in perplexity. He entered into a covenant and testament with the people. He appointed a Center of the Covenant. He wrote with His own pen and revealed it in the Kitab-el-Akdas, the Book of Laws, the Book of the Covenant, appointing him (Abdu’l-Baha) the Expounder of the Book. You must ask him Abdu’l-Baha) regarding the meanings of the texts of the verses. Whatsoever he says is correct. Outside of this, in numerous tablets He (Baha’u’llah) has explicitly recorded it, with clear, sufficient, valid and forceful statements. In the tablet of The Branch He explicitly states, “Whatsoever The Branch says is right, or correct; and every person must obey The Branch with his life, with his heart, with his tongue. Without his will not a word shall anyone utter.” This is an explicit text of the Blessed Beauty. So there is no rescue left for anybody. No soul shall, of himself, speak anything. Whatsoever his (Abdu’l-Baha’s) tongue utters, whatsoever his pen records, that is correct; according to the explicit text of Baha’u’llah in the tablet of The Branch.
His Holiness Abraham covenanted with regard to Moses. His Holiness Moses was the Promised One of Abraham, and He, Moses, covenanted with regard to His Holiness Christ, saying that Christ was the Promised One. His Holiness Christ covenanted with regard to His Holiness “The Paraclete,” which means His Holiness Mohammed. His Holiness Mohammed covenanted as regards The Bab, whom He called, “My Promised One,” His Holiness The Bab, in all His books, in all His epistles, explicitly covenanted with regard to the Blessed Beauty, Baha’u’llah—-that Baha’u’llah was the Promised One of His Holiness The Bab. His Holiness Baha’u’llah covenanted, not that I (Abdu’l-Baha) am the Promised One, but that Abdu’l-Baha is the Expounder of the Book and The Center of His Covenant, and that the Promised One of Baha’u’llah will appear after one thousand or thousands of years. This is the Covenant which Baha’u’llah made. If a person shall deviate, he is not acceptable at the Threshold of Baha’u’llah. In case of difference—Abdu’l-Baha must be consulted. They must revolve around his good pleasure. After Abdu’l-Baha—whenever the Universal House of Justice is organized it will ward off differences.
Now I pray for you that GOD may aid you, may confirm you, may appoint you for His service; that He may suffer you to be as radiant candles; that He may accept you in His Kingdom; that He may make you the cause of the spread of the light of Baha’u’llah in these countries, and that the teachings of Baha’u’llah may be spread broadcast.
I pray for you, and I am pleased with all of you, each one, one by one; and I pray that GOD may aid and confirm you. From Montclair I will come back to you. New York is favored, I go away and I come back to it. The friends in New York must appreciate this. At present, farewell to you!
Published November the Twelfth,
nineteen hundred and twelve.
The ninety-fifth anniversary of the birth
of Baha’u’llah.
The Bahai Assembly of Washington, D.C.
Download Facsimile of Abdu'l-Baha's Covenant in PDF 2 megs. 1912. (or print)
Compare: Dr. C. (Charles) Ainsworth Mitchell - Certified Copy from the
Library of Congress
Report on the Writing Shown on the Photographs
of the Alleged Will of Abdu'l-Baha. 1930.
Ruth White and Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on the fraudulent will and testament of Abdu'l-Baha.
Julie Chanler, From Gaslight to Dawn: An Autobiography. The New History Foundation, 1956.