The amazing station of a “just king”

And again: “A just king enjoyeth nearer access unto God than anyone. Unto this testifieth He Who speaketh in His Most Great Prison.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

Bahá’u’lláh quotes a passage from the Bible concerning kingship

And again: “In the Epistle to the Romans Saint Paul hath written: ‘Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.’ And further: ‘For he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.’ He saith that the appearance of the kings, and their majesty and power, are of God.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

Bahá’u’lláh “indicates the true source of kingship”

I can do no better than quote some of Bahá’u’lláh’s Own testimonies, leaving the reader to shape his own judgment as to the falsity of such a deduction. In His “Epistle to the Son of the Wolf” He indicates the true source of kingship: “Regard for the rank of sovereigns is divinely ordained, as is clearly attested by the words of the Prophets of God and His chosen ones. He Who is the Spirit [Jesus]—may peace be upon Him—was asked: ‘O Spirit of God! Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?’ And He made reply: ‘Yea, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ He forbade it not. These two sayings are, in the estimation of men of insight, one and the same, for if that which belonged to Caesar had not come from God He would have forbidden it. And likewise in the sacred verse: ‘Obey God and obey the Apostle, and those among you invested with authority.’ By ‘those invested with authority’ is meant primarily and more specially the Imáms—the blessings of God rest upon them. They verily are the manifestations of the power of God and the sources of His authority, and the repositories of His knowledge, and the daysprings of His commandments. Secondarily these words refer unto the kings and rulers—those through the brightness of whose justice the horizons of the world are resplendent and luminous.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

The “principle of kingship is eulogized” by Bahá’u’lláh and “the rank and conduct of just and fair-minded kings is extolled”

Let none, however, mistake or unwittingly misrepresent the purpose of Bahá’u’lláh. Severe as has been His condemnation pronounced against those sovereigns who persecuted Him, and however strict the censure expressed collectively against those who failed signally in their clear duty to investigate the truth of His Faith and to restrain the hand of the wrongdoer, His teachings embody no principle that can, in any way, be construed as a repudiation, or even a disparagement, however veiled, of the institution of kingship. The catastrophic fall, and the extinction of the dynasties and empires of those monarchs whose disastrous end He particularly prophesied, and the declining fortunes of the sovereigns of His Own generation, whom He generally reproved—both constituting a passing phase of the evolution of the Faith—should, in no wise, be confounded with the future position of that institution. Indeed if we delve into the writings of the Author of the Bahá’í Faith, we cannot fail to discover unnumbered passages in which, in terms that none can misrepresent, the principle of kingship is eulogized, the rank and conduct of just and fair-minded kings is extolled, the rise of monarchs, ruling with justice and even professing His Faith, is envisaged, and the solemn duty to arise and ensure the triumph of Bahá’í sovereigns is inculcated. To conclude from the above quoted words, addressed by Bahá’u’lláh to the monarchs of the earth, to infer from the recital of the woeful disasters that have overtaken so many of them, that His followers either advocate or anticipate the definite extinction of the institution of kingship, would indeed be tantamount to a distortion of His teaching. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

“One of the signs of the maturity of the world is that no one will accept to bear the weight of kingship.”

Indeed, He even goes further, and states in His Tablet addressed to Shaykh Salmán: “One of the signs of the maturity of the world is that no one will accept to bear the weight of kingship. Kingship will remain with none willing to bear alone its weight. That day will be the day whereon wisdom will be manifested among mankind. Only in order to proclaim the Cause of God and spread abroad His Faith will anyone be willing to bear this grievous weight. Well is it with him who, for love of God and His Cause, and for the sake of God and for the purpose of proclaiming His Faith, will expose himself unto this great danger, and will accept this toil and trouble.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

God “seized” “power” from “kings and ecclesiastics”

No wonder that Bahá’u’lláh, in view of the treatment meted out to Him by the sovereigns of the earth, should, as already quoted, have written these words: “From two ranks amongst men power hath been seized: kings and ecclesiastics.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

Bahá’u’lláh’s warning in “the opening passages of the Súriy-i-Mulúk” [Tablet to the Kings] and the plight of royalty

And as we survey in other fields the decline in the fortunes of royalty, whether in the years immediately preceding the Great War or after, and contemplate the fate that has overtaken the Chinese Empire, the Portuguese and Spanish Monarchies, and more recently the vicissitudes that have afflicted, and are still afflicting, the sovereigns of Norway, of Denmark and of Holland, and observe the impotence of their fellow-sovereigns, and note the fear and trembling that has seized their thrones, may we not associate their plight with the opening passages of the Súriy-i-Mulúk, which, in view of their momentous significance, I feel impelled to quote a second time: “Fear God, O concourse of kings, and suffer not yourselves to be deprived of this most sublime grace.... Set your hearts towards the face of God, and abandon that which your desires have bidden you to follow, and be not of those who perish.... Ye examined not His [the Báb’s] Cause, when so to do had been better for you than all that the sun shineth upon, could ye but perceive it.... Beware that ye be not careless henceforth, as ye have been careless aforetime.... My face hath come forth from the veils, and shed its radiance upon all that is in heaven and on earth, and yet ye turned not towards Him.... Arise then ... and make ye amends for that which hath escaped you.... If ye pay no heed unto the counsels which, in peerless and unequivocal language, We have revealed in this Tablet, Divine chastisement shall assail you from every direction, and the sentence of His justice shall be pronounced against you.... Twenty years have passed, O kings, during which We have, each day, tasted the agony of a fresh tribulation.... Though aware of most of Our afflictions, ye, nevertheless, have failed to stay the hand of the aggressor. For is it not your clear duty to restrain the tyranny of the oppressor, and to deal equitably with your subjects, that your high sense of justice may be fully demonstrated to all mankind?” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

“grandsons of both Násiri’d-Dín Sháh and of Sultán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz… turned to the World Center of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh” for assistance

Already grandsons of both Násiri’d-Dín Sháh and of Sultán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz have, in their powerlessness and destitution, turned to the World Center of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and sought respectively political aid and pecuniary assistance. In the case of the former, the request was promptly and firmly refused, whilst in the case of the latter it was unhesitatingly offered. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

The fall of various dynasties: “the ill-fated scions of the House of Uthmán, and of the rulers of the Romanov, the Hohenzollern, the Hapsburg, and the Napoleonic”

Their myriad progeny, a veritable “beehive of princelings,” a “race of royal drones,” were both a disgrace and a menace to their countrymen. Now, however, these luckless descendants of a fallen house, shorn of all power, and some of them reduced even to beggary, proclaim, in their distress, the consequences of the abominations which their progenitors have perpetrated. Swelling the ranks of the ill-fated scions of the House of Uthmán, and of the rulers of the Romanov, the Hohenzollern, the Hapsburg, and the Napoleonic dynasties, they roam the face of the earth, scarcely aware of the character of those forces which have operated such tragic revolutions in their lives, and so powerfully contributed to their present plight. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

The end of the Qájár dynasty: “had occupied the throne of Persia for a hundred and thirty years”; “with only one exception, were either assassinated, deposed, or struck down by mortal disease”

The days of the Qájár dynasty were now numbered. The torpor of the national consciousness had vanished. The reign of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh’s successor, Muzaffari’d-Dín Sháh, a weak and timid creature, extravagant and lavish to his courtiers, led the country down the broad road to ruin. The movement in favor of a constitution, limiting the sovereign’s prerogatives, gathered force, and culminated in the signature of the constitution by the dying Sháh, who expired a few days later. Muḥammad-‘Alí Sháh, a despot of the worst type, unprincipled and avaricious, succeeded to the throne. Hostile to the constitution, he, by his summary action, involving the bombardment of the Baháristán, where the Assembly met, precipitated a revolution which led to his deposition by the nationalists. Accepting, after much bargaining, a large pension, he ignominiously withdrew to Russia. The boy-king, Aḥmad Sháh, who succeeded him, was a mere cipher and careless of his duties. The crying needs of his country continued to be ignored. Increasing anarchy, the impotence of the central government, the state of the national finances, the progressive deterioration of the general condition of the country, practically abandoned by a sovereign who preferred the gaieties and frivolities of society life in the European capitals to the discharge of the stern and urgent responsibilities which the plight of his nation demanded, sounded the death knell of a dynasty which, it was generally felt, had forfeited the crown. Whilst abroad, on one of his periodic visits, Parliament deposed him, and proclaimed the extinction of his dynasty, which had occupied the throne of Persia for a hundred and thirty years, whose rulers proudly claimed no less a descent than from Japhet, son of Noah, and whose successive monarchs, with only one exception, were either assassinated, deposed, or struck down by mortal disease. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

Násiri’d-Dín Sháh’s “reign will remain forever associated with the most heinous crime in history”

Thus fell the one whose reign will remain forever associated with the most heinous crime in history—the martyrdom of that One Whom the Supreme Manifestation of God proclaimed to be the “Point round Whom the realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolve.” In a Tablet in which the pen of Bahá’u’lláh condemns him, we read: “Among them [kings of the earth] is the King of Persia, who suspended Him Who is the Temple of the Cause [the Báb] in the air, and put Him to death with such cruelty that all created things, and the inmates of Paradise, and the Concourse on high wept for Him. He slew, moreover, some of Our kindred, and plundered Our property, and made Our family captives in the hands of the oppressors. Once and again he imprisoned Me. By God, the True One! None can reckon the things which befell Me in prison, save God, the Reckoner, the Omniscient, the Almighty. Subsequently he banished Me and My family from My country, whereupon We arrived in ‘Iráq in evident sorrow. We tarried there until the time when the King of Rúm [Sulṭán of Turkey] arose against Us, and summoned Us unto the seat of his sovereignty. When We reached it there flowed over Us that whereat the King of Persia rejoiced. Later We entered this Prison, wherein the hands of Our loved ones were torn from the hem of Our robe. In such a manner hath he dealt with Us!” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

What had been planned for Násiri’d-Dín Sháh’s jubilee celebrations throughout Persia

“It was whispered,” writes an eyewitness of both the ceremony and the assassination, “that the day of the Sháh’s celebration was to be the greatest in the history of Persia.... Prisoners were to be released without condition, and a general amnesty was to be proclaimed; peasants were promised exemption from taxes for at least two years. ...the poor were to be fed for months. Ministers and officials were already intriguing for honors and pension from the Sháh. Shrines and sacred places were to open their gates to all wayfarers and pilgrims, and the siyyids and mullás were taking cough medicine to clear their throats to sing and chant the praises of the Sháh in all the pulpits. The mosques were swept and prepared for general meetings and public prayers in behalf of the Sovereign.... Sacred fountains were enlarged to hold more holy water, and the rightful authorities had foreseen that many miracles might take place on the day of the jubilee, with the aid of these fountains.... The Sháh had declared ... that he would renounce his prerogatives as despot, and proclaim himself ‘The Majestic Father of all the Persians.’ The city authority was to relax its vigilant watch. No record was to be kept of the strangers who flocked to the caravanserais, and the population was to be left free to wander the streets during the whole night.” Even the great mujtahids had, according to what had been reported to that same eyewitness, “decided, for the time being, to discontinue persecuting the Bábís and other infidels.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

The resulting effects of Násiri’d-Dín Sháh’s assassination

His [Násiri’d-Dín Sháh’s] own assassination was the first portent of the revolution which was to restrict the prerogatives of his son and successor, depose the last two monarchs of the House of Qájár, and extinguish their dynasty. On the eve of his jubilee, which was to inaugurate a new era, and the celebration of which had been elaborately prepared, he fell, in the shrine of Sháh ‘Abdu’l-‘Aẓím, a victim to an assassin’s pistol, his dead body driven back to his capitol, propped up in the royal carriage in front of his Grand Vizir, in order to defer the news of his murder. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

The Qájár dynasty: “Násiri’d-Dín Sháh, a selfish, capricious, imperious monarch”

Násiri’d-Dín Sháh, a selfish, capricious, imperious monarch, succeeded to the throne, and, for half a century, was destined to remain the sole arbiter of the fortunes of his hapless country. A disastrous obscurantism, a chaotic administration in the provinces, the disorganization of the finances of the realm, the intrigues, the vindictiveness, and profligacy of the pampered and greedy courtiers, who buzzed and swarmed round his throne, his own despotism which, but for the restraining fear of European public opinion and the desire to be thought well of in the capitals of the West, would have been more cruel and savage, were the distinguishing features of the bloody reign of one who styled himself “Footpath of Heaven,” and “Asylum of the Universe.” A triple darkness of chaos, bankruptcy and oppression enveloped the country. His own assassination was the first portent of the revolution which was to restrict the prerogatives of his son and successor, depose the last two monarchs of the House of Qájár, and extinguish their dynasty. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

The Qájár dynasty: “the bigoted Muhammad Sháh” – “refused to interview the Báb and imprisoned Him in Ádhirbayján”

As to his successor, the bigoted Muhammad Sháh, one of his earliest acts, definitely condemned by the pen of Bahá’u’lláh, was the order to strangle his first minister, the illustrious Qá’im-Maqám, immortalized by that same pen as the “Prince of the City of Statesmanship and Literary Accomplishment,” and to have him replaced by that lowbred, consummate scoundrel, Hájí Mírzá Aqásí, who brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy and revolution. It was this same Sháh who refused to interview the Báb and imprisoned Him in Ádhirbayján, and who, at the age of forty, was afflicted by a complication of maladies to which he succumbed, hastening the doom forecast in these words of the Qayyúm-i-Asmá: “I swear by God, O Sháh! If thou showest enmity unto Him Who is His Remembrance, God will, on the Day of Resurrection, condemn thee, before the kings, unto hellfire, and thou shalt not, in very truth, find on that day any helper except God, the Exalted.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

The Qájár dynasty: “the uxorious, philoprogenetive Fath-‘Alí Sháh” – “a vain, an arrogant, and unscrupulous miser, notorious for the enormous number of his wives and concubines”

The successor of Áqá Muhammad Khán, the uxorious, philoprogenetive Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh, the so-called “Darius of the Age,” was a vain, an arrogant, and unscrupulous miser, notorious for the enormous number of his wives and concubines, numbering above a thousand, his incalculable progeny, and the disasters which his rule brought upon his country. He it was who commanded that his vizir, to whom he owed his throne, be cast into a caldron of boiling oil. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

The Qájár dynasty: Áqá Muhammad Khán, the eunuch Sháh and founder of the dynasty – “an atrocious, avaricious, bloodthirsty tyrant”

The Qájárs, members of the alien Turkoman tribe, had, indeed, usurped the Persian throne. Áqá Muhammad Khán, the eunuch Sháh and founder of the dynasty, was such an atrocious, avaricious, bloodthirsty tyrant that the memory of no Persian is so detested and universally execrated as his memory. The record of his reign and that of his immediate successors is one of vandalism, of internal warfare, of recalcitrant and rebellious chieftains, of brigandage, and medieval oppression, whilst the annals of the reigns of the later Qájárs are marked by the stagnation of the nation, the illiteracy of the people, the corruption and incompetence of the government, the scandalous intrigues of the court, the decadence of the princes, the irresponsibility and extravagance of the sovereign, and his abject subservience to a notoriously degraded clerical order. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

Divine retribution on the Qájár dynasty

This hope, however, was to remain unfulfilled. It was indeed shattered by a reign which had been inaugurated by the execution of the Báb, and the imprisonment of Bahá’u’lláh in the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán, by a sovereign who had repeatedly instigated Bahá’u’lláh’s successive banishments, and by a dynasty that had been sullied by the slaughter of no less than twenty thousand of His followers. The Sháh’s dramatic assassination, the ignoble rule of the last sovereigns of the House of Qájár, and the extinction of that dynasty, were signal instances of the Divine retribution which these horrid atrocities had provoked. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’) 

Bahá’u’lláh counselles Násiri’d-Dín Sháh

To this despotic sovereign Bahá’u’lláh, Who denounced him as the “Prince of Oppressors,” and as one who would soon be made “an object-lesson for the world,” had written: “Look upon this Youth, O king, with the eyes of justice; judge thou, then, with truth concerning what hath befallen Him. Of a verity, God hath made thee His shadow amongst men, and the sign of His power unto all that dwell on earth.” And again: “O king! Wert thou to incline thine ears unto the shrill of the Pen of Glory and the cooing of the Dove of Eternity ... thou wouldst attain unto a station from which thou wouldst behold in the world of being naught save the effulgence of the Adored One, and wouldst regard thy sovereignty as the most contemptible of thy possessions, abandoning it to whosoever might desire it, and setting thy face toward the horizon aglow with the light of His countenance.” And again: “We fain would hope, however, that His Majesty the Sháh will himself examine these matters, and bring hope to the hearts. That which We have submitted to thee is indeed for thine highest good.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)