Lesson 3: The Evolution Of The Faith
This lesson will describe what has happened to the Faith since Baha'u'llah's death. It will go through the stages of the Faith, as well as some of the important people who have contributed to it's growth.
For additional study of the subject matter discussed in this lesson, please pick up The Bahai Faith: The Emerging Global Religion and turn to the section entitled "Teachings".
Shoghi Effendi
Shoghi Effendi, the oldest grandson of Abd'u'lBaha is now known as the Guardian of the Faith. In Abd'u'lBaha's will and testament, he appointed Shoghi Effendi to safeguard the Faith so that it would not become disunified.
Shoghi Effendi was living in England and attending school at Balliol College, Oxford. He heard of his grandfather’s death in 1921, when he was in his early 20s, and soon after was given the responsibility of becoming the Guardian. His immediate reaction to deal with this new responsibility and the grief was to leave Israel and live in seclusion for several months. While here, he left the leadership to his great aunt, Bahiyyah Khanum, also known as the Greatest Holy Leaf. When he returned, he began his mission to serve the Faith.
His task was not far from Abd'u'lBahas. He safeguarded the faith from becoming disunited. He did this by acting as the autoritatve interpreter of the Bahai writings. This did not include changing what Baha'ullah and Abd'u'lBaha had written, but rather, he would clarify the points in which they were making in their writings. He also translated the Persian and Arabic writings into English. Among other writings and translations, he also wrote the first volume of Bahai history, known as "God Passes By." Another one of his sole responsibilites was to lay out plans for the Bahais, as well as write individual letters, so that the Bahais could keep working towards Baha'u'llah's vision and stay unified. Among his plans for the Bahai community were developments for assemblies and communities of Bahais. He established the beginnings of the administrative order, including how it would function and what roles it would play. He set the guidelines for what should be included in the process of establishing this assemblies in the different regions. Some of the guidelines for establishing the communities were the conditions needed for establishing assemblies, the guidelins for elections, and the ideals for Assembly functioning. This was established with several different plans in order to bring about assemblies. These plans consisted of expanding the Bahai community into a global community. Early Bahais, known as pioneers, would travel throughout the world, through Shoghi Effendi's instructions, in order to found Bahai communities. Among all of this, he built, established and safeguarded the shrines and gardens in Haifa and Akka Israel. All of these things were done in a thirty six-year period. It ended with Shoghi Effendi's passing in 1957.
"The Guardian had fused in the alembic of his creative mind all the elements of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh into one great indivisible whole; he had created an organized community of His followers which was the receptacle of His teachings, His laws and His Administrative Order; the teachings of the twin Manifestations of God and the Perfect Exemplar had been woven into a shining cloak that would clothe and protect man for a thousand years, a cloak on which the fingers of Shoghi Effendi had picked out the patterns, knitted the seams, fashioned the brilliant protective clasps of his interpretations of the Sacred Texts, never to be sundered, never to be torn away until that day when a new Law-giver comes to the world and once again wraps His creature man in yet another divine garment." (Amatul-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum - Shoghi Effendi's wife).
