The Varqá Legacy

September 22, 2007 brought to a close the ministry of the Hands of the Cause of God with the passing of Dr. ‘Ali-Muhammad Varqá in Haifa, Israel. 50 known Hands were appointed by the Central Figures of the Faith to protect and propagate the Cause. They included some family relations, but none match the 3-generatioin legacy of the Varqá family of Persia.

1. Mírzá’Ali-Muhammad Varqá (c.1856-1896)had a dream as a child in which God came and threw the dolls he was playing with into a fire and told him to cast away his vain imaginings. His father was a Bábí and an eloquent speaker who was flogged, then exiled with his two sons for holding a meeting of 200 Bábís in Yazd.

His own fame was as a poet, but he was also a doctor. In Tabríz, Varqá prescribed a remedy to an employee of the Crown Prince which helped his wife to conceive a child. In gratitude Varqá was given the Prince’s daughter in marriage, which began a very complicated family life filled with dangers. He had to finally leave Tabriz with his son Rúhu’lláh, divorcing his wife after a plot on his life. Later in Zanján he remarried, but later his first wife became a Bahá’í.

"Once Varqá asked Bahá'u'lláh, 'How will the Cause of God be universally adopted by mankind?' Bahá'u'lláh said that first, the nations of the world would arm themselves with infernal engines of war, and when fully armed would attack each other like bloodthirsty beasts. As a result, there would be enormous bloodshed throughout the world. Then the wise from all nations would gather together to investigate the cause of such bloodshed. They would come to the conclusion that prejudices were the cause, a major form being religious prejudice. They would therefore try to eliminate religion so as to eliminate prejudice. Later they would realize that man cannot live without religion. Then they would study the teachings of all religions to see which of the religions conformed to the prevailing conditions of the time. It is then that the Cause of God would become universal."*

In 1896 Varqá managed to get precious Bahá’í archives out of Zanján, but he himself was arrested and taken back. 16 days of pressure failed to make him recant his Faith, so he and his son were sent to a Tihrán dungeon. Násiri’d-Din Sháh was assassinated May 1, 1896, on the eve of his jubilee celebration, and the steward of the prison took revenge on the innocent Bahá’ís. He himself stabbed Varqá in the belly and ripped his body apart. He then turned to Rúhu’lláh and offered to take him and give him an allowance, but the 12-year old boy just sobbed that he wanted to be with his father, so the boy was strangled with a rope.

2. Rúhu’lláh’s older brother Valíyu’lláh Varqá (1884-1955) learned the Faith from an uncle; in his spare time he learned English and Arabic. In 1911-12 he accompanied ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on his trips to America and Europe, as treasurer and interpreter, and was dearly loved by him. Back in Irán he worked as a translator at the Turkish Embassy in Tihrán.

In 1934 he was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of Irán, sometimes serving as Chairman, and In 1938 Shoghi Effendi appointed him Trustee of Huqúqu’lláh. Upon being appointed a Hand of the Cause in 1951, like most other Hands he traveled extensively to Bahá’í conferences and on teaching trips to Uganda, Stockholm, Chicago, New Delhi, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Germany, and South America.
In 1953 he fell ill in Einstein’s home town of Ulm, but continued to travel and serve; he finally succumbed to his illness in 1955 in a German hospital.
On his death his son ‘Ali-Muhammad was appointed both a Hand of the Cause and Trustee of Huqúqu’lláh in his place.

3. Dr. ‘Alí-Muhammad Varqá (1912-2007) was born while his father was traveling in America with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He studied economics and history in Tihrán, completed his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris and became a professor at Tehran and Tabríz universities.
On his father’s death in 1955, he was appointed to replace him both as a Hand of the Cause and as Trustee of Huqúqu’lláh. During his tenure, the Institution of Huqúqu’lláh expanded around the world, with the establishment of Boards of Trustees, deputies, and representatives.


After 1963 he represented the Universal House of Justice at inaugural elections of many NSAs, including such unusual places as Sicily, Central African Republic, the Windward Islands, and Greenland.

Because he was Francophone, he was often sent by the Universal House of Justice to French-speaking countries around the world, most notably to France in 1962 to strengthen the new NSA that replaced the one that had largely supported Mason Remey in his claim to be the next Guardian.

In the 1970s he was assigned to collect reliable accounts of the early days of the Faith around the world. He was away from Irán during the Revolution of 1979, never returned; he was accepted as a refugee in Canada.

My own last memory of Dr. Varqá was on May 27th of this year. Since one of his great joys was to have seen during his lifetime the Bahá’í Faith spread all over the world, he loved after his addresses to the pilgrims assembled in Haifa to hear prayers chanted, sung, and recited in their native languages. Among many others, even though I am Canadian, I recited a prayer in my mother tongue of Hungarian. All of us did so with added fervour to the beaming face of our beloved Dr. Varqá.

The Universal House of Justice is vigilant not to arrogate to itself powers and functions not mandated in the holy writings of the Bahá’í Faith, and they could find nothing that granted them the authority to appoint more Hands of the Cause. Since these functions nevertheless had to continue to be carried out, they instead appointed Continental Boards of Counselors that work as advisors to the elected Institutions of the Faith and circumscribed their duties in great detail in the document The Institution of the Counsellors.

Dr. ‘Ali-Muhammad Varqá is survived by three daughters.

*Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh volume 4, pg. 56