Fadil-i-Mazandarani

     The Research Department has considered the question about the rank of Fadil Mazandarani raised by Dr. Peter R. Smith in his email message of 7 June 1998 to the Universal House of Justice. Specifically, Dr. Smith seeks information about whether or not Shoghi Effendi named Fadil Mazandarani a Hand of the Cause of God. We provide the following comment.

     By way of introduction we wish to note that the list of Hands of the Cause of God in "The Bahá'í World", volume XIV, contains the names of those believers whose appointment as Hands of the Cause is clearly supported by the evidence that was available at the time of the compilation of the list.¹ In the case of the Hands nominated by Shoghi Effendi, for example, the list includes only those whose appointment was accompanied by an official and public announcement to the Bahá'í world.

     Additional detailed research will be required to determine whether other individuals might be identified as Hands of the Cause. In this regard it is interesting to reflect on the following statement from a letter dated 19 April 1947 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi in response to a question about the references to the Hands of the Cause contained in "God Passes By", page 195 and pages 328-329:²

The Hands of the Cause, of Bahá'u'lláh's days, will be known to the friends by name when the history of the Cause in Persia and the Near East is written and available.

     The Research Department has undertaken a very preliminary study of some of the letters written by Shoghi Effendi to individuals in which the recipient is referred to as a Hand of the Cause. The complexity of the issue is illustrated by the following examples:

- Martha Root

In a letter dated 19 April 1925 addressed to Martha Root, Shoghi Effendi refers to her as "a mighty hand of the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh". At the time of her passing, the Guardian confirmed her rank as a Hand of the Cause.

MARTHA'S UNNUMBERED ADMIRERS THROUGHOUT BAHA'I WORLD LAMENT WITH ME EARTHLY EXTINCTION HER HEROIC LIFE. CONCOURSE ON HIGH ACCLAIM HER ELEVATION RIGHTFUL POSITION GALAXY BAHA'I IMMORTALS. POSTERITY WILL ESTABLISH HER AS FOREMOST HAND WHICH `ABDU'L-BAHA'S WILL HAS RAISED UP FIRST BAHA'I CENTURY.³

     In a letter dated 30 December 1931 to Mr. Abdu'llah Mutlaq, the Guardian refers to him as a member of the august body of the Hands of the Cause of Mr. Mutlaq passed away prior to 1951 when Shoghi Effendi began to appoint living Hands of the Cause. At the time of his passing, Shoghi Effendi did not make a public announcement concerning Mr. Mutlaq's rank. The only reference to this subject is found in the letter addressed personally to Mr. Mutlaq.

Amelia Collins was appointed as a Hand of the Cause in 1947 but the appointment was not made public until December 1951. In a letter dated 14 January 1947 written on behalf of the Guardian to Mrs. Collins, his secretary states:

He wants to make clear to you that when he said, in his recent cable,⁴ that your example might well be emulated by the nine Hands of the Cause, who will in the future be especially chosen to serve the Guardian, he meant that the very services you have been recently rendering the Cause, because of their nature and their intimate association with him, are of the kind which one of these nine might well be called upon to render. So you see you are not only worthy to be a Hand of the Cause, but have rendered a service which ordinarily would be performed by this select body of nine.

Shoghi Effendi appended the following message in his own handwriting to this letter:

With a heart overflowing with profound gratitude I am now writing you these few lines to reaffirm the sentiments, expressed lately on several occasions and in a number of telegrams, of heartfelt and unqualified admiration for your magnificent services, rendered in circumstances so exceptional and difficult as to make them doubly meritorious in the sight of God. You have acquitted yourself of the task I felt prompted to impose upon you in a manner that deserves the praise of the Concourse on High. The high rank you now occupy and which no Bahá'í since the Master's passing has ever held in his own lifetime has been conferred solely in recognition of the manifold services you have already rendered, and is, by no means, intended to be a stimulus or encouragement in the path of service. Indeed the character of this latest and highly significant service you have rendered places you in the category of the Chosen Nine who, unlike the other Hands of the Cause, are to be associated directly and intimately with the cares and responsibilities of the Guardian of the Faith. I feel truly proud of you, am drawn closer to you, and admire more deeply than ever before the spirit that animates you. May the Beloved reward you, both in this world and the next, for your truly exemplary achievements.⁵

The Archives at the Bahá'í World Centre does not have a copy of the letter dated 16 January 1932 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to Fadil Mazandarani in which he is reportedly referred to as a Hand of the Cause. However, as was his custom, the Guardian provided handwritten instructions to his Persian secretary specifying what was to be said in the letter the secretary was to draft. These handwritten notes have been examined and confirm the reference to Mr. Mazandarani as a Hand of the Cause. However, when Shoghi Effendi officially appointed the Hands of the Cause from 1951 onwards, he did not appoint Mr. Mazandarani, who was living during the entire period, and who passed away in December 1957. As in the case of Mr. Mutlaq, the only reference to the subject of Fadil Mazandarani's rank occurs in the personal letter of the Guardian to him.

1. "The Bahá'í World" (Haifa: The Universal House of Justice, 1974), vol. XIV, pp. 445-458.
2. "God Passes By" (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1987).
3. Cf. "Messages to America: Selected Letters and Cablegrams Addressed to the Bahá'ís of North America, 1932-1946" (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Committee, 1947), p. 30.
4. The text of the cable is in Ruhiyyih Rabbani's "The Priceless Pearl" (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1969), pp. 258-259.
5. Excerpts from this letter are published in "The Bahá'í World", vol. XIII (Haifa: The Universal House of Justice, 1970), pp. 838-839.