A Faith Whose Founder [the
Báb] did not content Himself with the claim to be the Gate of the Hidden Imám,
Who assumed a rank that excelled even that of the Sáhibu’z-Zamán, [Lord of the
Age] Who regarded Himself as the precursor of one incomparably greater than
Himself, Who peremptorily commanded not only the subjects of the Sháh,
but the monarch himself, and even the kings and princes of the earth, to
forsake their all and follow Him, Who claimed to be the inheritor of the earth
and all that is therein—a Faith Whose religious doctrines, Whose ethical
standards, social principles and religious laws challenged the whole structure
of the society in which it was born, soon ranged, with startling unanimity, the
mass of the people behind their priests, and behind their chief magistrate,
with his ministers and his government, and welded them into an opposition sworn
to destroy, root and branch, the movement initiated by One Whom they regarded
as an impious and presumptuous pretender.
(Shoghi Effendi, ‘God Passes
By’)
