Abdul-Baha's 1912 Authentic Covenant
Reform Bahai Faith
http://www.reformbahai.org/Covenant.html
Abdul-Baha's 1912 Authentic Covenant - Comments
http://www.reformbahai.org/Covenant_comments.html
Abdul-Baha's Interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Teachings is a broad, open, tolerant Covenant of God
with humanity, and it is articulated in simple language, in his 1912 Address Upon the Covenant. It
is universal, moderate, predicated on pluralistic spiritual democracy, based on a separation of
church and state, not tyranny, and emphasizes the universality, the non-exclusivism of religious truth.
Abdul-Baha delivered his Address Upon the Covenant, on June 19, 1912. It was clearly perceived to be
important enough at the time to be almost immediately, and repeatedly, published, unlike the
majority of Abdul-Baha's addresses that year, yet it was quietly suppressed, just after Abdul-Baha's
passing, when the editing of the 1922 text of The Promulation of Universal Peace took place and in
subsequent editions. Evidently, it contradicted too much the new theocratic interpretation. In it
Abdul-Baha briefly highlights the various covenants of God with humanity, with each Manifestation
alluding to His successor. Abdul-Baha makes no mention of a guardian or His "appointing" anyone,
least of all Shoghi Effendi.
It was "approved" and published in this pamphlet on November 12, 1912* for the celebration of the
Birth of Baha'u'llah, and thereafter at least three times in the Star of the West, one of which was
a special issue devoted to this Covenant, Abdul-Baha's authentic Covenant.
Paradoxically, contrasted with His other statements that the Bahai Movement could not be
"organized," Abdul-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 Abdul-Baha
and courageously fought to preserve the actual, authentic Covenant, as taught by Abdul-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).
Abdul-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. Abdul-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 caliph. Abdul-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
Abdul-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 Abdul-Baha's authentic Covenant, which, again, 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 Abdul-Baha in three sections
between 1901 and 1908, when Shoghi Effendi was a young child, yet to prove himself worthy, despite
subsequent attempts to cast him as a prodigy, Abdul-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
Abdul-Baha's, had not and never did name Shoghi Effendi. One should also recall Abdul-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 an approximately 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
since at least 1929. It is evident in Ruth White's documents deposited with the Library of Congress
that Shoghi Effendi and/or others persuaded or bribed, with "baksheesh," the Palestine officials to
put the matter aside, common practice especially in the Middle East of the time. Revealing his
calculating guilt, Shoghi Effendi instructed the nsa to do nothing to antagonize Ruth White and to
avoid the issue, as she relates in her books and documents in the papers she deposited with the
Library of Congress. Ruth White perceptively made a crucial observation a long time ago: The chief
beneficiary of a fraudulent, unprobated, and unverified 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, namely, 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 in Abdul-Baha's 1912 Address upon Covenant and won't
go away, decade after decade.
Unfortunately, the family of Shoghi Effendi, when they forged the will and testament of Abdul-Baha,
followed their cultural biases from Iran, instead of the Teachings of Baha'u'llah and the
Interpretation of Abdul-Baha. Essentially, they reverted to the Shiite imamate, creating the mirror
image of Iranian obedience to the authority of the imam, the imam of the age, which they called a
"guardian," believing, in effect, that he's infallible and must be obeyed in all things. Attempts to
create a Bahai imamate are contrary to Abdul-Baha's teaching of a properly elected Universal House
of Justice, an institution of Bahai spiritual authority, not worldly.
This Address by Abdul-Baha is the evidence that Reform Bahais today can not forget, now come again
to light, preserving Abdul-Baha's vision of a universal, moderate, spiritual democracy, and the
separation of church and state.
It was also published in Star of the West, November 23, 1912, 9-10, Star of the West, November 23,
1913, p. 234-9, and in Star of the West November 23, 1921. The entire 1912 to 1913 and 1920 to 1921
volumes of Star of the West may be download directly from Google Books.
See Ruth White, Appendix to Abdul-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.
For a sample of the universality that Abdul-Baha's Covenant inspired, see Janabe Fazel Mazandarani,
Star of the West, May 17, 1921, "The Temple of Universal Religion�The Fundamental Oneness of All
Existing Faiths." (See other talks on universal religion by Janabe Fazel) For a sample of the method
used to subvert the universality of Abdul-Baha's Covenant, see Charles Mason Remey, Star of the
West, Aug 20, 1921, "Bahai Organization."
Comparing these two articles, it is easy to see that, along with the 1912 Covenant, the universality
of Abdul-Baha's Teaching was already being put aside, before Abdul-Baha had even died, by Charles
Mason Remey, Horace Holley, and others intent on creating an organization that concentrated power
and control in their and Shoghi Effendi's hands. Directly repudiating Abdul-Baha's repeated
statement that the Bahai Movement could not be organized, rejecting his Covenant, expunging the
universality he publicly taught his entire life and throughout the West, witnessed by all the early
Bahais, attested to by Ruth White and Ahmad Sohrab in their books, Charles Mason Remey assured
Bahais in 1921 that they were "a little confused" and that he and others, implicitly Horace Holley
and Shoghi Effendi, as would soon become apparent, knew better what Abdul-Baha intended. That their
claims were based on a fraudulent will and testament, written by three different hands, not a one of
which was Abdul-Baha's, nor bearing his signature, as he repeatedly emphasized was essential to
safeguard his Interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Teaching, meant nothing to those who soon succeeded in
undermining the universal faith of God, subjecting it to decades of corruption and ineffectuality,
disrupting or destroying the lives of countless Bahais over the years, depriving humankind of
Baha'u'llah's saving vision of spiritual oneness and universal peace. Before the decade was out, the
subverters of Abdul-Baha's Interpretation of Baha'u'llah's Faith would be fighting amongst
themselves, deceiving the authorities at the time in Palestine and the U. S. Copyright Office in
1928, slandering and eventually suing Bahais of other denominations who dared to realize and speak
out against the crimes committed against the Bahai Cause (details under Early Reform Bahais).
Compare the repeatedly published and emphasized 1912 Covenant and the cited article above regarding
universality with these three crucial statements by Abdul-Baha in Star of the West November 23,
1920, p 243:
"In New York City, July, 1912, Abul-Baha said to several believers: 'Any one quoting me must have
authority written either with my own hand, or Tablets signed with my seal. Otherwise these
statements do not belong to me. Every instruction, every teaching that I desire to spread I will
write with my own hand. You must know this generally. Never accept any statement without my writing
which is signed and sealed--any statement."
"In Egypt, in August, 1913, Abdul-Baha stated (Mirza Ahmad Sohrab interpreting): 'When in America I
repeatedly said that no one must believe one word said by another regarding any commands, teachings
or statements made by me unless they can produce the same in writing over my signature."
"That which has come forth from the Center of the Covenant you must take fast hold of. That which
issues from my lips and that which is written with my pen is the Reality. With this you can irrigate
the vineyard of God. With this you can make the tree of the Cause of God become verdant. Through
this Name of the Kingdom of God will be spread all over the world. Through this the Sun of Reality
will shine. Through this the clouds of Mercy will pour down. Whosever utters a word you must ask:
'Where is the authority of the Center of the Covenant? Show it.' Without this you must not listen to
him. If an angel comes down from heaven and has no authority from the Center of the Covenant, you
must require his authority. Otherwise the vineyard will become withered and dry. This is the reality."
Download Facsimile of Abdul-Baha's 1912 Covenant in PDF
2 megs. (or print)
Compare: Dr. C. (Charles) Ainsworth Mitchell - Certified Copy from the Library of Congress,
corroborating that the purported will and testament of Abdul-Baha was a fraudulent document, neither
in his own handwriting, but that of three different people: Report on the Writing Shown on the
Photographs of the Alleged Will of Abdul-Baha. 1930.
Reform Bahai Faith
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Chicago Tribune. Baha'i rift. Baha'is upset with Orthodox Baha'i Faith May 18, 2009
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/may/18/local/chi-bahai-18-may18
Comments posted to The Chicago Tribune Forum on one page:
http://www.fglaysher.com/bahaicensorship/Chicago_Tribune.html
Yahoo Group - ReformBahai
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