It should be remembered by every follower of the Cause that
the system of Bahá’í administration is not an innovation imposed arbitrarily upon
the Bahá’ís of the world since the Master’s passing, but derives its authority
from the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is specifically prescribed in
unnumbered Tablets, and rests in some of its essential features upon the
explicit provisions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. It thus unifies and correlates the
principles separately laid down by Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and is
indissolubly bound with the essential verities of the Faith. To dissociate the
administrative principles of the Cause from the purely spiritual and
humanitarian teachings would be tantamount to a mutilation of the body of the
Cause, a separation that can only result in the disintegration of its component
parts, and the extinction of the Faith itself.
(Shoghi Effendi, from a letter
dated February 27, 1929; ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)
