October 17. On this date in 1927, Shoghi Effendi wrote NSAs "with feelings of burning indignation" about "the treacherous conduct of a professed adherent of the teaching of Bahá'u'lláh, by the name of 'Abdu'l-Husayn Avarih, hitherto regarded as a respected teacher of the Cause."
Abd al-Hosayn Ayati was a Bahá'í missionary, journalist, author, and teacher who spent 18 years as missionary. He was a close companion of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who conferred on him the titles of "Raʾīs-al-moballeḡīn" (Chief of Missionaries) and "Avarih" (Wanderer).
Avarih would later become a Muslim and an opponent of the Bahá'í Faith. He returned to Tehran and spent the rest of his life as a secondary school teacher. During this period he wrote many works of poetry and prose, including Kashf al-Hiyal, a three volume work refuting the Bahá'í Faith.
While he was lauded in early Bahá'í literature, his personage underwent a form of damnatio memoriae, with the numerous references made to Avarih in John Esslemont's book Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era being removed in subsequent editions published after Avarih's apostasy from the Bahá'í Faith.
To the Honored Members of the Bahá'í National Spiritual Assemblies throughout the West.
My dear fellow-workers:
With feelings of burning indignation I find myself impelled to acquaint you with various events that have recently transpired in Persia. Though in their immediate effect these happenings may prove gravely disquieting to the followers of the Faith in Persia and elsewhere, yet they cannot but eventually contribute to the strengthening and purification of the Cause we steadfastly love and serve.
I refer to the treacherous conduct of a professed adherent of the teaching of Bahá'u'lláh, by the name of 'Abdu'l-Husayn Avarih, hitherto regarded as a respected teacher of the Cause, and not unknown by a few of its followers in Europe. Of a nature and character whom those who have learned to know him well have never ceased to despise, even in the brightest days of his public career in the Cause, he has of late been driven by the force of circumstances which his shortsightedness has gravely miscalculated to throw off the mask which for so many years hid his hideous self.
The sudden removal of the commanding personality of our beloved 'Abdu'l-Bahá; the confused consternation that seized His followers in the years immediately succeeding His passing; the reputation which to superficial eyes he had acquired by his travels in Europe; the success attending his voluminous compilation of the history of the Cause--these and other circumstances emboldened him to launch a campaign of insinuation and fraud aiming at the eventual overthrow of the institutions expressly provided by Bahá'u'lláh. He saw clearly his chance in the complete disruption of the Cause to capture the allegiance if not of the whole world-wide Bahá'í community of at least a considerable section of its followers in the East.
No sooner had his evil whisperings reached the ears of the loyal and vigilant followers of Bahá'u'lláh, than they arose with overwhelming force and unhesitating determination to denounce him as a dangerous enemy seeking to undermine the faith and sap the loyalty of the adherents of the Cause of God. Shunned by the entire body of the believers, abandoned by his life-long and most intimate friends, deserted by his wife, separated from his only child, refused admittance into even his own home, denied of the profit he hoped to derive from the sale and circulation of his book, he found to his utter amazement and remorse his best hopes irretrievably shattered.
Forsaken and bankrupt, and in desperate rage, he now with startling audacity sought to expose to friend and foe, the futility and hollowness which he attributed to the Cause, thereby revealing the depths of his own degradation and folly. He has with bitter hatred conspired with the fanatical clergy and the orthodox members of foreign Missions in Tihrán, allied himself with every hostile element in the Capital, directed with fiendish subtlety his appeal to the highest dignitaries of the State and sought by every method to secure financial assistance for the furtherance of his aim.
Not content with an infamous denunciation of the originality and efficacy of the teachings and principles of the Cause, not satisfied with a rejection of the authenticity of the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, he has dared to attack the exalted person of the Author and Founder of the Faith, and to impute to its Forerunner and true Exemplar the vilest motives and most incredible intentions.
He has most malignantly striven to revive the not unfamiliar accusation of representing the true lovers of Persia as the sworn enemies of every form of established authority in that land, the unrelenting disturbers of its peace, the chief obstacles to its unity and the determined wreckers of the venerated faith of Islam. By every artifice which a sordid and treacherous mind can devise he has sought in the pages of his book to strike terror in the heart of the confident believer, to sow the seeds of doubt in the mind of the well-disposed and friendly, to poison the thoughts of the indifferent and to reinforce the power of the assaulting weapon of the adversary.
But, alas! he has labored in vain, oblivious of the fact that all the pomp and powers of royalty, all the concerted efforts of the mightiest potentates of Islam, all the ingenious devices to which the cruelest torture-mongers of a cruel race have for well-nigh a century resorted, have proved one and all impotent to stem the tide of the beloved Faith or to extinguish its flame. Surely, if we read the history of this Cause aright, we cannot fail to observe that the East has already witnessed not a few of its sons, of wider experience, of a higher standing, of a greater influence, apostatize their faith, find themselves to their utter consternation lose whatsoever talent they possessed, recede swiftly into the shadows of oblivion and be heard of no more.
Should ever his book secure widespread circulation in the West, should it ever confuse the mind of the misinformed and stranger, I have no doubt that the various Bahá'í National Spiritual Assemblies, throughout the Western world, will with the wholehearted and sustained support of local Assemblies and individual believers arise with heart and soul for the defence of the impregnable stronghold of the Cause of God, for the vindication of the sacredness and sublimity of the Bahá'í Teachings, and for the condemnation, in the eyes of those who are in authority, of one who has so basely dared to assail, not only the tenets, but the holy person of the recognized Founder of an established and world-wide Faith.
Your true brother,
SHOGHI. Haifa, Palestine; October 17, 1927.
Four years previously, on January 5, 1923, Shoghi Effendi addressed a letter to European Bahá'ís announcing the upcoming visit of Avarih. The group photo above is that of Avarih at a unity meeting at Miss Herrick's in Clapham, from this trip in 1923. Avarih is in the center of the group just behind the children.
The beloved of the Lord and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. The glory of the All-Glorious rest upon them! Beloved brethren and sisters in `Abdu'l-Bahá!
His honor, Jinab-i `Abdu'l-Husayn-i Avarih, fired with the spirit of service and teaching which the passing of our beloved Master has kindled in every heart, is proceeding to Europe and will visit every Bahá'í centre in that great continent, that he may with the aid of the many friends in those regions raise the Call of Ya-Baha'u'l-Abha and stimulate interest in the Cause of God. He is indeed qualified for such an eminent noble task and I am confident that by the Grace of God and with the whole-hearted assistance of the loved ones of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, he may be enabled to promote far and wide the universal Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh.
His wide experience and familiarity with the various aspects of the Movement, his profound and extensive knowledge of its history; his association with some of the early believers, the pioneers and martyrs of the Cause will I am sure to appeal to every one of you and will serve to acquaint you still further with the more intimate and tragic side of this remarkable Movement.
May his sojourn in your country lend a fresh impetus to the onward march of the Cause in the West and arouse widespread interest in the history as well as the principles of the Bahá'í Movement!
From the Encyclopædia Iranica article titled ĀYATĪ, ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN...
ĀYATĪ, ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN (b. 1288/1871; d. 1332 Š./1953), son of Mollā Moḥammad-Taqī Āḵūnd Taftī, Bahāʾi missionary, journalist, author, and teacher. After receiving traditional education in Yazd and in Iraq, he became the leader of the Friday prayer (emām-e Jomʿa) in Yazd until he converted to Bahaʾism. Then for eighteen years he acted as a missionary (moballeḡ) for his new faith in Turkestan, the Caucasus, the Ottoman Empire, and Egypt, during which time he met and associated with ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, and also wrote his al-Kawākeb al-dorrīya fī maʾāṯer al-bahāʾīya in two volumes (Cairo, 1914; Arabic tr. by Aḥmad Fāʾeq, Cairo, 1343/1924) on the history of Bahaʾism. This is still one of the major works on the subject. He received the title Raʾīs-al-moballeḡīn (chief of missionaries) but later turned against Bahaʾism, thereby being counted by the Bahaʾis among the nāqeżīn or apostates. (Ṣadr Hāšemī, Tārīḵ IV, pp. 310-11). He returned to Tehran in 1343/1924 and served as a teacher in secondary schools for the rest of his life. During this period he wrote Kašf al-ḥīal in three volumes (Tehran, 1307-10 Š./1928-31 with several reprints) in refutation of Bahaʾism. He also published the periodical Namakdān for six years and was a founding member of the Literary Society (Anjoman-e Adabī) of Yazd.
In his poetry he used the taḵalloṣes Āvāra, Żīāʾī, and Āyatī. In prose he tried to use only purely Persian words. He has seventeen book titles to his credit (see Mošār, Moʾallefīn III, cols. 718-20) of which a useful history of Yazd (Ātaškada-ye yazdān, Yazd, 1317 Š./1928) and Ketāb-e nabīy yā Qorʾān-e fārsī (3 vols., Yazd, 1324-26 Š./1945-47) may be noted here.
Bibliography:
M. Rastgār, “Aḥwāl o āṯār-e ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Āyatī,” Waḥīd, 1353 Š./1974, no. 242, pp. 29-34; no. 243, pp. 52-55; no. 245, pp. 17-18, 65.
M. Esḥāq, Soḵanvarān-e Īrān dar ʿaṣr-e ḥāżer, Delhi, 1352/1933.
ʿE. Nāʾīnī, Madīnat al-adab, ms., Majles Library, Tehran. S. M.-B. Borqaʿī, Soḵanvarān-e nāmī-e moʿāṣer II, 1330 Š./1951.
ʿA. Ḵalḵālī, Taḏkera-ye šoʿarā-ye moʿāṣer-e Īrān II, Tehran, 1337 Š./1958.
A. Ḵāżeʿ, Taḏkera-ye soḵanvarān-e Yazd, Bombay, 1341.
M. Hedāyat, Golzār-e jāvīdān I, Tehran, 1353 Š./1974.
S. M. Ṣadr Hāšemī, Tārīḵ-ejarāyed o majallāt-e Īrān IV, Isfahan, 1332, pp. 309-11.
A. Goḷčīn-e Maʿānī, Golzār-e maʿānī, 2nd ed., Tehran 1363 Š./1984, pp. 52-64 (specimens of Āyatī’s prose and poetry).
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