Century of Light | Page 6

followers and by
'Abdu'l-Bahá's assumption of the leadership this Covenant invested
uniquely in Him.

Throughout these years Persian political life was in almost constant
turmoil. While Násiri'd-Dín Sháh's immediate successor,
Muzaffari'd-Dín Sháh, was induced to approve a constitution in 1906,
his successor, Muhammad-'Alí Sháh, recklessly dissolved the first two
parliaments--in one case attacking with cannon fire the building where
the legislature was meeting. The so-called "Constitutional Movement"
that overthrew him and compelled the last of the Qájár kings, Ahmad
Sháh, to summon a third parliament was itself riven by competing
factions and shamelessly manipulated by the Shí'ih clergy. Efforts by
Bahá'ís to play a constructive role in this process of modernization
were repeatedly frustrated by royalist and popular factions alike, both
of which were inspired by the prevailing religious prejudice and saw in
the Bahá'í community merely a convenient scapegoat. Here again, only
a more politically mature age than our own will be able to appreciate
the way in which the Master--setting an example for future challenges
that the Bahá'í community must inevitably encounter--guided the
beleaguered community in doing all it could to encourage political
reform, and then in being willing to step aside when these efforts were
cynically rebuffed.
It was not only through His Tablets that 'Abdu'l-Bahá exercised this
influence on the rapidly developing Bahá'í community in the cradle of
the Faith. Unlike Westerners, Persian believers were not distinguished
from other peoples of the Near East by dress and appearance, and so
travellers from the cradle of the Faith did not arouse the suspicion of
the Ottoman authorities. Consequently, a steady stream of Persian
pilgrims provided 'Abdu'l-Bahá with another powerful means of
inspiring the friends, guiding their activities, and drawing them ever
more deeply into an understanding of Bahá'u'lláh's purpose. Some of
the greatest names in Persian Bahá'í history were among those who
journeyed to 'Akká and returned to their homes prepared to give their
lives if necessary for the achievement of the Master's vision. The
immortal Varqá and his son Rúhu'lláh were among this privileged
number, as were Hájí Mírzá Haydar 'Alí, Mírzá Abu'l Fadl, Mírzá
Muhammad-Taqí Afnán and four distinguished Hands of the Cause,
Ibn-i-Abhar, Hájí Mullá Alí Akbar, Adíbu'l-Ulamá and Ibn-i-Asdaq.
The spirit that today sustains Persian pioneers in every part of the world

and that plays so creative a role in the building of Bahá'í community
life runs like a straight line through family after family back to those
heroic days. In retrospect, it is apparent that the phenomenon we today
know as the twin processes of expansion and consolidation itself had its
origin in those marvellous years.
Inspired by the Master's words and the accounts brought back from the
Holy Land, Persian believers arose to undertake travel-teaching
activities in the Far East. During the latter years of Bahá'u'lláh's
Ministry, communities had been established in India and Burma, and
the Faith carried as far as China; and this work was now reinforced. A
demonstration of the new powers released in the Cause was the erection
in the Russian province of Turkestan, where a vigorous Bahá'í
community life had also developed, of the first Bahá'í House of
Worship in the world,(12) a project inspired by the Master and guided,
from its inception, by His advice.
It was this broad range of activities, carried out by an increasingly
confident body of believers and stretching from the Mediterranean to
the China Sea, that built the base of support from which 'Abdu'l-Bahá
was able to pursue the promising opportunities which, as the new
century opened, had already begun to unfold in the West. Not the least
important feature of this base was its embrace of representatives of the
Orient's great diversity of racial, religious and national backgrounds.
This achievement provided 'Abdu'l-Bahá with the examples on which
He would repeatedly draw in His proclamation to Western audiences of
the integrating forces that had been released through Bahá'u'lláh's
advent.
The greatest victory of these early years was the Master's success in
constructing on Mount Carmel, on the spot designated for it by
Bahá'u'lláh and through immense effort, a mausoleum for the remains
of the Báb, which had been brought at great risk and difficulty to the
Holy Land. Shoghi Effendi has explained that whereas in past ages the
blood of martyrs was the seed of personal faith, in this day it has
constituted the seed of the administrative institutions of the Cause.(13)
Such an insight lends special meaning to the way in which the

Administrative Centre of Bahá'u'lláh's World Order would take shape
under the shadow of the Shrine of the Faith's Martyr-Prophet. Shoghi
Effendi sets the Master's achievement in global and historical
perspective:
For, just as in the realm of the spirit, the reality of the Báb has been
hailed by the Author of the Bahá'í Revelation as "the Point round
Whom