6.   Allegations against Mirza Muhammad Ali

6.3  Allegations of “Murder”
“The most flagrant deviation is his [i.e. Mirza Muhammad Ali’s] Fatwa [i.e. an ecclesial sentence] for the murder of the Axis of the Covenant [i.e. Sir Abbas Effendi] on the strength of the verse ‘whoever claims Command before a thousand years.’ “
“The Focal Centre of Hate [i.e. Mirza Muhammad Ali] planned to murder [Sir Abbas Effendi] Abdul-Baha”.
(table above I, S/N 2).
This allegation is grounded on a “passage” contained in a letter stated to have been written by “Mirza Shua [ullah],” son of Mirza Muhammad Ali,” in his own handwriting, attached to the Will and Testament.”
It is not stated whether the letter is signed, sealed or not.
Facsimile of the letter does not appear in the printed copy of the Will. The passage runs as follows:
“I curse the causer of this dissension. I address myself to the lord, who relents not, and hope that very soon the appearing-place of One who will be sent will become manifest, although it is already manifest and is seen in different garb. I cannot explain more”. (table above S/N 2).
“The reference in this passage”, Sir Abbas Effendi argues, “is to the blessed verse ‘whoever claims Command before a thousand years’”, from which Sir Abbas Effendi concludes that “they are planning to murder [Sir Abbas Effendi] Abdul Baha”. (table above S/N 2).

The full text of the “blessed verse” to which Sir Abbas Effendi links the “passage” appears in Baha’s Aqdas (E.T. P. 34) which runs as follows: “Whoever claims Command before the completion of a thousand years is a false liar. We ask god to help him to return, if he repents, He is the Relenting One. If he persists in what he has said, One who will have no mercy on him will be sent against him. He is the strong in punishment”.
Sir Abbas Effendi has identified “One who will have no mercy on him will be sent against him” appearing in the text with “the appearing-place of one who will be sent” referred to in the passage.
Sir Abbas Effendi advances an allegation of “murder”, does not produce a facsimile of the letter in which the ‘passage’ appears for purpose of verification of the handwriting, jumps to a conclusion on the strength of that cryptic ‘passage’, and raises a hue and cry that there is a Fatwa out to murder him.
A mere allegation on part of Sir Abbas Effendi is not sufficient in itself to substantiate it.

It may be mentioned in passing that Mirza Shuaullah and Sir Abbas Effendi’s daughter Ruha Khanum were in love with each other. By reason of the misunderstanding between their respective parents they could not get married. Frustrated in love, Mirza Shuaullah left for the United States in about 1900, and returned home in about 1935, when Sir Abbas Effendi was already dead and gone.
The resuscitation of the allegation of ‘murder’ is obviously intended for the promotion of Sir Abbas Effendi’s private ends and personal ambitions. “What more eloquent testimony for the falseness of this allegation of murder is there”, Baha’s youngest son Mirza Badiullah questions in his marginal note penned in his own handwriting on page 9 of his copy of the printed Will and Testament, “than that Sir Abbas Effendi lived for more than thirty years after Baha’s death, and then died suddenly in the middle of a night in his own house?” “What was the need for one who was to succeed him to have him murdered?” (table above S/N 1).

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