Attacks on the Covenant of God

Could you ever imagine someone attacking the Cause of God? Who would dare to do such a thing? Who would cause harm to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá?


Well, this sort of thing has happened every time a Manifestation of God comes to us. Often, it is His own followers and even family members who seek power and control. This happened during Baha'u'llah's own lifetime with His half brother, Mirza Yahya. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had to deal with his half-brother as well as other family members. They caused great sufferings to the heart of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.


This half-brother of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá held a rank second to none. Mirza Muhammad-'Ali would have succeeded the Master if He passed away. However, that was not to be. He did outlive Abdu'l-Baha by twenty years. The Guardian in his God Passes By shares with us that Mirza Muhammad-'Ali "created an irreparable breach within the ranks of Baha'u'llah's own kindred, sealed ultimately the fate of the great majority of the members of His family, and gravely damaged the prestige, through it never succeeded in causing a permanent cleavage in the structure, of the Faith itself. The true ground of this crisis was the burning, the uncontrollable, the soul-festering jealousy which the admitted preeminence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in rank, power, ability, knowledge and virtue, above all the other members of His Father’s family, had aroused not only in Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí, the archbreaker of the Covenant, but in some of his closest relatives as well. An envy as blind as that which had possessed the soul of Mírzá Yaḥyá, as deadly as that which the superior excellence of Joseph had kindled in the hearts of his brothers, as deep-seated as that which had blazed in thebosom of Cain and prompted him to slay his brother Abel, had, for several years, prior to Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension, been smouldering in the recesses of Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí’s heart and had been secretly inflamed by those unnumbered marks of distinction, of admiration and favor accorded to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá not only by Bahá’u’lláh Himself, His companions and His followers, but by the vast number of unbelievers who had come to recognize that innate greatness which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had manifested from childhood.

The intensity of the emotions which this somber episode aroused within Him were reminiscent of the effect produced upon Bahá’u’lláh by the dire happenings precipitated by therebellion of Mírzá Yaḥyá. “I swear by the Ancient Beauty!,” He wrote in one of His Tablets, “So great is My sorrow and regret that My pen is paralyzed between My fingers.” “Thou seest Me,” He, in a prayer recorded in His Will, thus laments, “submerged in an ocean of calamities that overwhelm the soul, of afflictions that oppress the heart… Sore trials have compassed Me round, and perils have from all sides beset Me. Thou seest Me immersed in a sea of unsurpassed tribulation, sunk into a fathomless abyss, afflicted by Mine enemies and consumed with the flame of hatred kindled by My kinsmen with whom Thou didst make Thy strong Covenant and Thy firm Testament…”"


So what happened to this half-brother? "Surviving ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by almost twenty years," Shoghi Effendi writes in God Passes By, "he who had so audaciously affirmed to His face that he had no assurance he might outlive Him, lived long enough to witness the utter bankruptcy of his cause, leading meanwhile a wretched existence within the walls of a Mansion that had once housed a crowd of his supporters; was denied by the civil authorities, as a result of the crisis he had after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing foolishly precipitated, the official custody of his Father’s Tomb; was compelled, a few years later, to vacate that same Mansion, which, through his flagrant neglect, had fallen into a dilapidated condition; was stricken with paralysis which crippled half his body; lay bedridden in pain for months before he died; and was buried according to Muslim rites, in the immediate vicinity of a local Muslim shrine, his grave remaining until the present day devoid of even a tombstone—a pitiful reminder of the hollowness of the claims he had advanced, of the depths of infamy to which he had sunk, and of the severity of the retribution his acts had so richly merited."


Those who opposed the Cause of God were thrown into darkness. In this day, those who attack the Faith of God and beat at its roots, are thrown out because they are likened unto poison who can contaminate the rest of the body.  We are commanded to shun Covenant-Breakers and avoid them at all cost.  


The Faith of God goes through crisis and victory to purify its followers and to show that it is truly the Faith of God. Every time the Cause went through a crisis, it emerged stronger than ever!


So, we are ever grateful to have the beloved Master who kept the Faith of God unified and moving along its destiny.  This is the Power of the Covenant!