“one of the most intriguing and mysterious episodes of contemporary history”

That for a period of almost three score years and ten, while still in the plenitude of its unquestioned authority, while reinforced by the endless machinations of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of a neighboring nation, and assured of the support of those of Bahá’u’lláh’s kindred who had rebelled against, and seceded from, His Cause, this despotism [the Sultán of Turkey] should have failed in the end to extirpate a mere handful of its condemned subjects must, to every unbelieving observer, remain one of the most intriguing and mysterious episodes of contemporary history. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“a record which can hardly find a parallel in the history of any revealed religion”

• The orders which these foes issued,
• the banishments they decreed,
• the indignities they inflicted, the plans they devised,
• the investigations they conducted,
• the threats they pronounced,
• the atrocities they were prepared to commit,
• the intrigues and baseness to which they, their ministers, their governors, and military chieftains had stooped,

constitute a record which can hardly find a parallel in the history of any revealed religion. The mere recital of the most salient features of that sinister theme would suffice to fill a volume. They knew full well that the spiritual and administrative Center of the Cause they had striven to eradicate had now shifted to their dominion, that its leaders were Turkish citizens, and that whatever resources these could command were at their mercy. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

The shocking extent of Bahá’u’lláh’s suffering suffering: “Were I to recount to thee the tale of the things that have befallen Me, the souls and minds of men would be incapable of sustaining its weight.”

To these afflictive trials Bahá’u’lláh has repeatedly testified: “By the righteousness of the Almighty! Were I to recount to thee the tale of the things that have befallen Me, the souls and minds of men would be incapable of sustaining its weight. God Himself beareth Me witness.” “Twenty years have passed,” He, addressing the kings of Christendom, has written, “during which We have, each day, tasted the agony of a fresh tribulation. No one of them that were before Us hath endured the things We have endured. Would that ye could perceive it! They that rose up against us have put us to death, have shed our blood, have plundered our property, and violated our honor.” “Recall to mind My sorrows,” He, in another connection, has revealed, “My cares and anxieties, My woes and trials, the state of My captivity, the tears that I have shed, the bitterness of Mine anguish, and now Mine imprisonment in this far-off land… Couldst thou be told what hath befallen the Ancient Beauty, thou wouldst flee into the wilderness, and weep with a great weeping… Every morning I arose from my bed, I discovered the hosts of countless afflictions massed behind My door; and every night when I lay down, lo, My heart was torn with agony at what it had suffered from the fiendish cruelty of its foes.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (Quoting Bahá’u’lláh in ‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“The overthrow of the Sultanate and the Caliphate, the twin pillars of Sunní Islám”: - “the inevitable consequence of the fierce, the sustained and deliberate persecution” that had been launched against Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Though Bahá’u’lláh had been banished from His native land, the tide of calamity which had swept with such fury over Him and over the followers of the Báb, was by no means receding. Under the jurisdiction of the Sultán of Turkey, the arch-enemy of His Cause, a new chapter in the history of His ever-recurring trials had opened. The overthrow of the Sultanate and the Caliphate, the twin pillars of Sunní Islám, can be regarded in no other light except as the inevitable consequence of the fierce, the sustained and deliberate persecution which the monarchs of the tottering House of Uthmán, the recognized successors of the Prophet Muhammad, had launched against it. From the city of Constantinople, the traditional seat of both the Sultanate and the Caliphate, the rulers of Turkey had, for a period covering almost three quarters of a century, striven, with unabated zeal, to stem the tide of a Faith they feared and abhorred. From the time Bahá’u’lláh set foot on Turkish soil and was made a virtual prisoner of the most powerful potentate of Islám to the year of the Holy Land’s liberation from Turkish yoke, successive Caliphs, and in particular the Sultáns ‘Abdu’l-’Aziz and ‘Abdu’l-Hamíd, had, in the full exercise of the spiritual and temporal authority which their exalted office had conferred upon them, afflicted both the Founder of our Faith and the Center of His Covenant with such pain and tribulation as no mind can fathom nor pen or tongue describe. They alone could have measured or borne them. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“the blackest acts for which posterity will hold this blood-stained dynasty responsible” - “The downfall of the Qájár Dynasty”

The downfall of the Qájár Dynasty, the avowed defender and the willing instrument of a decaying clergy, almost synchronized with the humiliation which the Shí‘ih ecclesiastical leaders had suffered. From Muhammad Sháh down to the last and feeble monarch of that dynasty, the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh was denied the impartial consideration, the disinterested and fair treatment which its cause had rightly demanded. It had, on the contrary, been atrociously harassed, consistently betrayed and prosecuted.

• The martyrdom of the Báb;
• the banishment of Bahá’u’lláh;
• the confiscation of His earthly possessions;
• His incarceration in Mázindarán;
• the reign of terror that confined Him in the most pestilential of dungeons;
• the intrigues, the protests, and calumnies which thrice renewed His exile and led to His ultimate imprisonment in the most desolate of cities;
• the shameful sentences passed, with the connivance of the judicial and ecclesiastical authorities, against the person, the property, and the honor of His innocent followers—

these stand out as among the blackest acts for which posterity will hold this blood-stained dynasty responsible. One more barrier that had sought to obstruct the forward march of the Faith was now removed. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

Bahá’u’lláh comments about the gradual decline of the followers of Shí‘ih Islám

“Behold,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, commenting on the decline of a fallen people, “how the sayings and doings of Shí‘ih Islám have dulled the joy and fervor of its early days, and tarnished the pristine brilliancy of its light. In its primitive days, whilst they still adhered to the precepts associated with the name of their Prophet, the Lord of mankind, their career was marked by an unbroken chain of victories and triumphs. As they gradually strayed from the path of their Ideal Leader and Master, as they turned away from the light of God and corrupted the principle of His Divine unity, and as they increasingly centered their attention upon them who were only the revealers of the potency of His Word, their power was turned into weakness, their glory into shame, their courage into fear. Thou dost witness to what a pass they have come.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Quoting Bahá’u’lláh in ‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“The collapse of the power of the Shí‘ih hierarchy”

The collapse of the power of the Shí‘ih hierarchy, in a land which had for centuries been one of the impregnable strongholds of Muslim fanaticism, was the inevitable consequence of that wave of secularization which, at a later time, was to invade some of the most powerful and conservative ecclesiastical institutions in both the European and American continents. Though not the direct outcome of the last war, this sudden trembling which had seized this hitherto immovable pillar of Islamic orthodoxy accentuated the problems and deepened the restlessness with which a war-weary world was being afflicted. Shí‘ih Islám had lost once for all, in Bahá’u’lláh’s native land and as the direct consequence of its implacable hostility to His Faith, its combative power, had forfeited its rights and privileges, had been degraded and demoralized, and was being condemned to hopeless obscurity and ultimate extinction. No less than twenty thousand martyrs, however, had to sacrifice their lives ere the Cause for which they had stood and died could register this initial victory over those who were the first to repudiate its claims and mow down its gallant warriors. “Vileness and poverty were stamped upon them, and they returned with wrath from God.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

Bahá’u’lláh’s warning to King Wilhelm I of Prussia

To the Conqueror of Napoleon III, the Author of our Faith had, on the morrow of the King’s victory, addressed, in His Most Holy Book, this clear and ominous warning: “O King of Berlin! …Take heed lest pride debar thee from recognizing the Day-Spring of Divine Revelation, lest earthly desires shut thee out, as by a veil, from the Lord of the Throne above and of the earth below. Thus counseleth thee the Pen of the Most High. He, verily, is the Most Gracious, the All-Bountiful. Do thou remember the one whose power transcended thy power (Napoleon III), and whose station excelled thy station. Where is he? Whither are gone the things he possessed? Take warning, and be not of them that are fast asleep. He it was who cast the Tablet of God behind him, when We made known unto him what the hosts of tyranny had caused Us to suffer. Wherefore, disgrace assailed him from all sides, and he went down to dust in great loss. Think deeply, O King, concerning him, and concerning them who, like unto thee, have conquered cities and ruled over men. The All-Merciful brought them down from their palaces to their graves. Be warned, be of them who reflect.” 

“O banks of the Rhine!” Bahá’u’lláh, in another passage of that same Book, prophesies, “We have seen you covered with gore, inasmuch as the swords of retribution were drawn against you; and so you shall have another turn. And We hear the lamentations of Berlin, though she be today in conspicuous glory.”

- Shoghi Effendi (Quoting Bahá’u’lláh in ‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“the opening of the Age of Frustration”: - “into the outer fringes of whose darkest phase we are now beginning to enter”

To the catastrophic fall of mighty kingdoms and empires, on the eve of ‘Abdu’l Bahá’s departure, Whose passing may be said to have ushered in the opening phase of the Age of Transition in which we now live, I have, in a previous communication, briefly alluded. The dissolution of the German Empire, the humiliating defeat inflicted upon its ruler, the successor and lineal descendant of the Prussian King and Emperor to whom Bahá’u’lláh had addressed His solemn and historic warning, together with the extinction of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the remnant of the once-great Holy Roman Empire, were both precipitated by a war whose outbreak signalized the opening of the Age of Frustration destined to precede the establishment of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. Both of these momentous events may be viewed as the earliest occurrences of that turbulent Age, into the outer fringes of whose darkest phase we are now beginning to enter. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“this Age of Transition… [and its] tribulations”

It is not my purpose to call to mind, much less to attempt a detailed analysis of, the spiritual struggles that have ensued, or to note the victories that have redounded to the glory of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh since the day of its foundation. My chief concern is not with the happenings that have distinguished the First, the Apostolic Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation, but rather with the outstanding events that are transpiring in, and the tendencies which characterize, the formative period of its development, this Age of Transition, whose tribulations are the precursors of that Era of blissful felicity which is to incarnate God’s ultimate purpose for all mankind. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

The interactions between the “Spirit that has incarnated itself in the institutions of a rising Faith” and the world at large

The Spirit that has incarnated itself in the institutions of a rising Faith has, in the course of its onward march for the redemption of the world, encountered and is now battling with such forces as are, in most instances, the very negation of that Spirit, and whose continued existence must inevitably hinder it from achieving its purpose. The hollow and outworn institutions, the obsolescent doctrines and beliefs, the effete and discredited traditions which these forces represent, it should be observed, have, in certain instances, been undermined by virtue of their senility, the loss of their cohesive power, and their own inherent corruption. A few have been swept away by the onrushing forces which the Bahá’í Faith has, at the hour of its birth, so mysteriously released. Others, as a direct result of a vain and feeble resistance to its rise in the initial stages of its development, have died out and been utterly discredited. Still others, fearful of the pervasive influence of the institutions in which that same Spirit had, at a later stage, been embodied, had mobilized their forces and launched their attack, destined to sustain, in their turn, after a brief and illusory success, an ignominious defeat. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“A titanic, a spiritual struggle, unparalleled in its magnitude… is being waged”

A titanic, a spiritual struggle, unparalleled in its magnitude yet unspeakably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is being waged as a result of these opposing tendencies, in this age of transition through which the organized community of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh and mankind as a whole are passing. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“A twofold process” bringing to “a climax the forces that are transforming the face of our planet”: – “an integrating” and a “fundamentally disruptive”

A twofold process, however, can be distinguished, each tending, in its own way and with an accelerated momentum, to bring to a climax the forces that are transforming the face of our planet. The first is essentially an integrating process, while the second is fundamentally disruptive. The former, as it steadily evolves, unfolds a System which may well serve as a pattern for that world polity towards which a strangely-disordered world is continually advancing; while the latter, as its disintegrating influence deepens, tends to tear down, with increasing violence, the antiquated barriers that seek to block humanity’s progress towards its destined goal. The constructive process stands associated with the nascent Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and is the harbinger of the New World Order that Faith must erelong establish. The destructive forces that characterize the other should be identified with a civilization that has refused to answer to the expectation of a new age, and is consequently falling into chaos and decline. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“universal fermentation”: - “purging and reshaping humanity”

As we view the world around us, we are compelled to observe the manifold evidences of that universal fermentation which, in every continent of the globe and in every department of human life, be it religious, social, economic or political, is purging and reshaping humanity in anticipation of the Day when the wholeness of the human race will have been recognized and its unity established. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

The effects of the “Call of God” on “the whole creation”

“The Call of God,” ‘Abdu’l Bahá has written, “when raised, breathed a new life into the body of mankind, and infused a new spirit into the whole creation. It is for this reason that the world hath been moved to its depths, and the hearts and consciences of men been quickened. Erelong the evidences of this regeneration will be revealed, and the fast asleep will be awakened.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (Quoting ‘Abdu’l-Baha in ‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

The awesome effects of the “onrushing winds of the grace of God” that Bahá’u’llah’s Revelation has brought to the world

“The onrushing winds of the grace of God,” He, in the Súratu’l-Haykal, proclaims, “have passed over all things. Every creature hath been endowed with all the potentialities it can carry. And yet the peoples of the world have denied this grace! Every tree hath been endowed with the choicest fruits, every ocean enriched with the most luminous gems. Man, himself, hath been invested with the gifts of understanding and knowledge. The whole creation hath been made the recipient of the revelation of the All-Merciful, and the earth the repository of things inscrutable to all except God, the Truth, the Knower of things unseen. The time is approaching when every created thing will have cast its burden. Glorified be God Who hath vouchsafed this grace that encompasseth all things, whether seen or unseen!” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Quoting Bahá’u’lláh in ‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“The whole earth is now in a state of pregnancy.”

“The whole earth,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “is now in a state of pregnancy. The day is approaching when it will have yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly blessings. Immeasurably exalted is the breeze that wafteth from the garment of thy Lord, the Glorified! For lo, it hath breathed its fragrance and made all things new! Well is it with them that comprehend.” 

- Shoghi Effendi  (Quoting Bahá’u’lláh in ‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“this New World Order may be said to have been conceived…in the womb of a travailing age”

Through the generating influence of the Faith announced by Bahá’u’lláh this New World Order may be said to have been conceived. We can, at the present moment, experience its stirrings in the womb of a travailing age—an age waiting for the appointed hour at which it can cast its burden and yield its fairest fruit. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

“the afflictive ordeals which that world is to suffer are still in preparation”

Deep as is the gloom that already encircles the world, the afflictive ordeals which that world is to suffer are still in preparation, nor can their blackness be as yet imagined. We stand on the threshold of an age whose convulsions proclaim alike the death-pangs of the old order and the birth-pangs of the new. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)