Make Like A Messiah

Bahá'u'lláh is said by Bahá'ís to have cast curses on various rulers of the world. Shoghi Effendi's recollections of how these curses fell upon various rulers and other powerful figures raise several important questions about the impartiality of his analysis.

• Bahá'u'lláh's curse on the powerful is usually depicted as unique to this "New Era", and it certainly sounds new to any Non-Muslim, but the fact is that Bahá'u'lláh, for placing a claim on Prophethood, was required by Islamic tradition to address the kings. This, after all, was what Muhammad did. Muhammad and his heirs, of course, conquered much of the known world in the following years. Bahá'u'lláh would have to do something similar to pass for a Islamic Prophet.

• Bahá'u'lláh gives himself credit for the general downfall of kings and ecclesiastics, but this downfall began long before Bahá'u'lláh's time: the English Civil War, the Protestant Reformation, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution, among other such movements, had concluded before Bahá'u'lláh was born. There were kings remaining throughout the world, but the trend toward constitutional government was clear and strong. A simple observation of history would depict Bahá'u'lláh as an Iranian religious leader who was influenced by events throughout the world that had transpired before he was born.

• It should not surprise anyone that many rulers fell in the time that Bahá'u'lláh lived. Power is historically fragile, no matter what the era. Power is usually corrupt, no matter what the era. The Industrial Revolution, a natural outcome of the Enlightenment, had made warfare more vicious and far-reaching. Power was going to change hands, and that doesn't happen bloodlessly when the power is absolute.

• Shoghi Effendi in some cases found fulmillment in Bahá'u'lláh's curses in the demise of indivduals, and in other cases found fulmillment in the demise of dynasties. In the case of Násir'ud-Dín Sháh, who outlived Bahá'u'lláh, a ruler who was eventually assaninated after 50 lunar years of rule, a ruler who modernized Írán and encouraged education, and a ruler who certainly had his faults (far from unique in this respect), was painted by Shoghi Effendi has a horrible tyrant who died miserably. How did Násir'ud-Dín Sháh differ from other Sháhs?

• How are we to distinguish the rulers whom Bahá'u'lláh threatened from those he merely warned about answering to God? How are we to distinguish the good from the evil? How are we to distinguish those the enemies from the friends and the disinterested?

• If Bahá'u'lláh was addressing the rulers of the world, why was he so Eurocentric in his appeals? China, though in decline, was still a great nation in Bahá'u'lláh's time, and Japan was expanding. Bahá'u'lláh only gave passing mention of the Americas, which were almost entirely independent nations. The United States had just ended slavery and would soon put and end to the Spanish empire.

• What is the divine sense in the downfall of rulers who are succeeded by rulers even more ruthless? What does the death of Kaiser Wilhelm mean if Adolf Hitler is around the bend? What does the death of Czar Alexander II mean if he is followed by a less enlightened Czar, and then Joseph Stalin? There was no extended pattern of divine retribution; only the ancient cycle of the rise and fall of powers. True, democritization was a force in the years following Bahá'u'lláh's death, but Communism and Fascism were stronger forces that outlasted Shoghi Effendi's history of the downfall of rulers, which preceded World War II.

• Queen Victoria was given a high place in Shoghi's history because she was rumored to have given a polite response to Bahá'u'lláh's letter (how typically English of her). Nevermind, though, for it was the Prime Minister and Parliament of the United Kingdom who held the reins of power. The British monarchy had been constitutionally powerless since 1832. After the death of Prince Albert in 1861, Victoria went into seclusion for 25 years. That is the less-than-influential condition that Bahá'u'lláh's correspondence would have found her -- if it ever did reach her.

• Amidst all these admonishments and threats, Bahá'u'lláh appeared to predict that his motherland Írán would become a stable democracy soon:

  Erelong will the state of affairs within thee [Tehran] be changed, and the reins of power fall into the hands of the people. Verily, thy Lord is the All-Knowing. His authority embraceth all things. Rest thou assured in the gracious favour of thy Lord. The eye of His loving-kindness shall everlastingly be directed towards thee.

  The day is approaching when thy agitation will have been transmuted into peace and quiet calm. Thus hath it been decreed in the wondrous Book.

  Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶93

  How much longer shall the people of Tehran wait? Are we working with Geologic time here?