CONTENTS List of Illustrations Acknowledgements The Story So Far Prelude
xi xv xx 3
FOUNDATIONS 1 A Mountain and its Queen 2 A Spiritual Project 3 Challenges 4 Lights and Gardens 5 A Gardener Arrives 6 Pilgrims Visit 7 From the Ends of the Earth 8 Star-Servant Salutes Shrine 9 The Interiors 10 The Western Pilgrim House 11 Bounty from Baghdad 12 Three New Rooms 13 Priceless Treasures
11 15 17 22 26 29 35 38 41 46 49 51 54
HALLOWED PRECINCTS 14 A Queen Approaches 15 In the Sacred Shadow 16 Reinforcing the Potencies 17 Faithful Servants 18 A Peculiar Charm 19 Protection 20 Allies 21 Button-hole of the Shrine 22 Enemies and Conflict
59 65 70 77 79 84 87 90 93
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THE DESIGN 23 A Bride 24 ‘Immortal Architect’ 25 Initial Designs 26 War 27 From an Inspired Mind 28 Centennial Celebrations: ‘What an Hour to be Alive!’ 29 The Unveiling 30 The Design in Detail 31 Appreciation of the Design 32 His Silver Pen 33 On the Move 34 Green Light 35 Aristocrat in Action 36 A New Country 37 Artisans Shape the Stone 38 Marble and the Mediterranean 39 Setting the Scene 40 The Great Arcade 41 Mantle of Snow 42 The Decision 43 Cracking Pace 44 Concentric Circles 45 Eight-pointed Star 46 The Terraces
99 103 107 110 114 119 122 127 133 135 138 143 148 153 158 162 166 173 178 184 189 195 203 207
THE DOME 47 Hercules and a Titan 48 Sutherland’s Southern Door 49 The Octagon 50 The Drum 51 Golden Tiles and Marble Brim 52 The Dome 53 Queen of Carmel 54 The Man with the Golden Touch 55 Milly 56 Green Cordon 57 International Archives
213 222 225 228 232 235 245 250 253 257 263
viii
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58 Visitors 59 The Passing 60 Chief Stewards 61 The Universal House of Justice
266 270 274 281
ANNEX Tribute to the Shrine of the Bรกb
285
Bibliography Notes and References Index About the Author
287 295 358 364
ix
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FROM THE ENDS OF THE EARTH In March 1925, three women who were to become historic figures in the Faith arrived with a group of pilgrims. They were New Zealand’s first Bahá’í, Margaret Stevenson; the first woman to join the faith in Australia, Effie (Euphemia) Baker;1 and another New Zealand Bahá’í, Sarah Blundell, with her children Ethel and Hugh.2 On the second day of their pilgrimage, Margaret and Effie went to the Shrine of the Báb in the company of a Bahá’í guide from the United States, Corinne True, a prominent American Bahá’í.3 ‘AbbásQulí chanted Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet of Visitation. On other visits they heard Shoghi Effendi chant the Tablet of Visitation when he accompanied Persian pilgrims to the Shrine of the Báb.4 They had brought with them seeds for the gardens from their homelands, and they gave them to Fujita, who was delighted.5 The world-travelling American Bahá’í teacher Martha Root,6 who was also there at the time, presented Shoghi Effendi with seeds from South Africa. Margaret and the others also enjoyed a special experience: ‘Shoghi Effendi had told us he would meet us up Mt Carmel, so . . . we went up in Abdul Baha’s carriage, Shoghi Effendi chanted for us and gave us flowers. Some of us walked home with him and he talked so beautifully.’7 Effie described a magical moment that came at the time of the departure of the pilgrim group: ‘Shoghi Effendi sent for Margaret [Stevenson] and myself to say good-bye and wish us bon-voyage. He wished us to see his apartment. His library is large and spacious, and has one of its windows facing the Holy Shrines. He opened it so that we could see the light shining above the Holy Tomb.’ In their presence, Shoghi Effendi chanted a prayer in English. Effie recalled: 35
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A couple of days before the date of my departure, Shoghi Effendi took me with him for the last visit to Bahá’u’lláh’s Holy Shrine. On the drive back he said to me, ‘You know Effie, a general always sends his good soldiers afar, he keeps the bad ones always under his eye.’ Next afternoon I was walking up the terrace (the only one at that time) to visit the Holy Shrine for the last time. Shoghi Effendi was starting to come down with some Persian pilgrims. He told them to continue and stopped to speak to me. He said ‘Effie, I’ve reconsidered my decision. I’m going to keep you here.’ I said, ‘Oh! Shoghi Effendi I am evidently one of the bad soldiers you told me about yesterday’, and we had a hearty laugh together.8
The Guardian asked her to cancel her return visit and remain in Haifa to provide administrative help, and she agreed to do so. She was to stay until 1936. Among her tasks was as hostess at the Western Pilgrim House where, as attested by Martha Root, she would serve visitors with ‘great efficiency, love and dear devotion’.9 Among her many tasks were changing the linen on the beds, making curtains, cleaning the kerosene lamps (until replaced by electric lighting) and mending. On 23 December 1925, several months into her first year in Haifa, she wrote: You will be glad to hear that work has been commenced to finish the New Pilgrims House,10 and if all goes well it should be completed early next year. Shoghi Effendi is having at present the gardens extended at the Holy Tomb, and lovely as it is now, in a little while it will be more so. They are being extended at the back of the Holy Tomb, round about the clump of ten cypress trees, where Bahá’u’lláh sat and rested and revealed a tablet. We are having very little rain, and it is needed badly. Yesterday while walking on Carmel with Munavvar Khanum (‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s youngest daughter) I found the first cyclamen flower for the season. Carmel will (they tell me) be covered with flowers in a few months’ time.11
As a professional photographer, she produced high-quality images. Many of her photographs were of the site of the Shrine of the Báb and its surrounding environment, including sweeping images from the top of the steep slope. In later years, the wife of the Guardian, Rúhíyyih 36
from the ends of the earth
Khánum, told her in a letter that Shoghi Effendi ‘considers no one has ever captured the beauty of the place as you did, and your photographs adorn his own rooms, and the archives and the Mansion, just as they did when you were with us!’12 Effie Baker’s connection with the Shrine deepened when the Guardian assigned her to travel to Persia to take photographs of important Bahá’í sites, including some associated with the concealment of the sacred remains of the Báb in the years before they were transported to the Holy Land. She successfully completed her mission in difficult conditions.13 Many of her photographs appeared in The Dawn-Breakers,14 the important history that Shoghi Effendi translated from the Persian and edited. Effie Baker also made models for the Guardian to help him with his landscaping work, and her work in design is reflected on the Shrine itself. Taking the symbol of the Faith as found on the ringstone, a design made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and rendered by the great calligrapher MishkínQalam,15 she made it into a vertical shape and placed drawings of olive branches on it, one on each side. Shoghi Effendi used this design for his letterhead and placed it in Holy Places, the image coloured by Rúhíyyih Khánum.16 The design was used for the corner of the Shrine.17 Such was the spiritual atmosphere of the Shrine, that another western Bahá’í, one who was to inspire, uplift and encourage Shoghi Effendi more than any other, was to write an evocative account of her experiences at its threshold.
37
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