Focus on
“lineal” and “lineage”, not “Aghsán”
On October 15, 1960,
the Hands of the Cause sent a long letter to the National Spiritual Assemblies
throughout the world because -- they said – they wanted “to place
before the believers certain facts and passages from the Sacred Writings of our
Faith in refutation of these spurious and highly misleading statements [of
Mason Remey].”
The
Hands’ first “fact” related to Mason Remey’s claim that
he became the Guardian of the Faith based upon his presidency of the
International Bahá’í Council. They said that such a “contention
requires a careful study of the Words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the
Will and Testament, because this sacred document sets forth the conditions
requisite for Guardianship in no uncertain terms. We must never forget for a
moment,” they said, “that it was the Master Who established the
Station of the Guardianship; and in fact appointed the successor of Shoghi
Effendi, as between Shoghi Effendi’s first born, or another branch
(Ghosn).’
They then cited the
passage in the Will and Testament, which, as they attest, “clearly
states”:
“He
is the expounder of the Words of God and after him will succeed the
first-born of his lineal descendants….” [Emphasis supplied by the Hands]
They
then continued with the following quotation from the Will:
“It is incumbent upon the Guardian
of the Cause of God to appoint in his own life-time him that shall become his successor, that differences may not arise after his
passing. He that is appointed must manifest
in himself detachment from all worldly things, must be the essence of purity,
must show in himself the fear of God, knowledge, wisdom and learning. Thus, should the first-born of the
Guardian of the Cause of God not manifest in himself the truth of the words:
‘The child is the secret essence of its sire’, that is, should he
not inherit of the spiritual within him (the Guardian of the Cause of God) and
his glorious lineage not be matched with a goodly character, then must he (the
Guardian of the Cause of God), choose another branch to succeed him.”
The Hands followed
that quotation by saying: “It
has become clear during the past months that lack of knowledge of the meaning
of the word “branch” as used in the Master’s Will and
Testament has led to great confusion in certain quarters in the West.
“The word
‘Ghosn’ (plural ‘Aghsán’) is an Arabic
word, meaning ‘branch’.
“Bahá’u’lláh used this word specifically
to designate his own male descendants.
It does not apply to any other category of people…” They subsequently continued by
focusing on uses of the word “Branch”, eventually stating:
“Because of ignorance of the Arabic and Persian languages and the use of
these two terms in our Sacred Texts, spurious arguments have been put forth by
those making the false claim that Shoghi Effendi could have appointed a
successor other than a blood descendant of
Bahá’u’lláh.”
The Hands also said
that “It should likewise be pointed out that neither in Persian nor
Arabic are there ever any capital letters, so that it is impossible to deduce
any arguments from a capitalization or lack of capitalization in the English
texts.”
In their reference to
the above passages of the Will, the Hands focused entirely on the meaning that
they attributed to the word “branch,” apparently thinking that by
so doing they dealt with “the
conditions requisite for Guardianship” – conditions that they felt
‘Abdu’l-Bahá had set forth “in no uncertain
terms.” However, what the
Hands -- and their followers – focused on were the wrong terms!
Those who read the
quotations from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will,
cited by the Hands above, would be well-advised to study carefully two other
words in those passages: the words “lineal” and
“lineage.” Note that
the first passage refers to the succession going to the first of the
Guardian’s “lineal descendants.” And in the follow-up passage the
reference is to the “glorious lineage” of the Guardian.
The words
“lineal” and "lineage" take the matter completely out of
any argument related to the Aghsán or Afnán. If the reader should check the
dictionary meaning of the terms “lineal” and “lineage”,
he or she will find that a “lineal descendant” is one who is
“in the direct line of descent”, that is, the line tracks directly
from the predecessor to the individual—the predecessor’s
“lineage.” In His Will
'Abdu'l-Bahá says that if the Guardian's
lineage does not have the spiritual requisite, then it is essential that the
Guardian go outside the lineage to choose his successor. Since Shoghi
Effendi had no children, it's clear that the successor he would choose would
not be a blood relative to him.
Orthodox Bahá'ís believe that when Shoghi Effendi named
Mason Remey as the head of the embryonic Universal House of Justice, he chose
his successor in a way that was in keeping with that provision of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will and Testament. Frank
Schlatter