February 20. On this date in 1990, Jalal Khazeh (spelled Jalál Kháḍih in the Bahá’í orthography), a Hand of the Cause of God who had seved as a Custodian, died.

February 20. On this date in 1990, Jalal Khazeh (spelled Jalál Kháḍih in the Bahá’í orthography), a Hand of the Cause of God who had seved as a Custodian, died.

Jalal was born into a Bahá’í family in Tehran in 1897. He achieved the rank of Colonel in the Iranian army. He was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of Iran in 1944 and served as treasurer, but he resigned in 1951 so he could travel across the country to teach the Faith. In 1952 he went on pilgrimage to the Haifa . He was named a Hand of the Cause by Shoghi Effendi on December 7, 1953, and represented the Guardian at the formation of the National Spiritual Assembly for North-East Asia in 1957. He was elected a Custodian in 1957, and served in that position until the formation of the Universal House of Justice in 1963. After the Universal House of Justice was established he moved to Brazil.

He lived in Brazil until he moved back to Iran in 1969, where he lived until 1984. He spent his later years in Canada and is buried in Toronto.

His career is typical for individuals in the Bahá’í hierarchy, whether in an elected office or in an appointed offce from which the higher elected officials invariably come from.

At all levels, including the LSAs, Bahá’í leaders are generally as authoritarian, if not more, than clergy from other religious faiths, which as Dale Husband points out, is one of the Four Ways to Create a Religion of Hypocrites:

1. State that religion no longer needs clergy……and replace them with leaders that are as authoritarian as the clergy ever was.
2. Claim that men and women should be equal……but then deny women membership in the all-powerful leadership council of the religion.
3. Condemn as heretics those who believe in your religion but dare to challenge the claims of your religion’s current leadership, while at the same time claiming to welcome as friends the followers of other religions.
4. Claim there is harmony between science and religion, but also claim that anything your leaders say is absolutely true, even if on topics science is expected to address. Any one of these makes a religion not worth following, but what do you do if you find a religion that has all four such contradictions.