But the rapid dissolution of the Ottoman, the Napoleonic,
the German, the Austrian and the Russian empires, the demise of the Qájár
dynasty and the virtual extinction of the temporal sovereignty of the Roman
Pontiff do not exhaust the story of the catastrophes that befell the monarchies
of the world through the neglect of Bahá’u’lláh’s warnings conveyed in the opening
passages of His Súriy-i-Mulúk. The conversion of the Portuguese and Spanish
monarchies, as well as the Chinese empire, into republics; the strange fate
that has, more recently, been pursuing the sovereigns of Holland, of Norway, of
Greece, of Yugoslavia and of Albania now living in exile; the virtual
abdication of the authority exercised by the kings of Denmark, of Belgium, of
Bulgaria, of Rumania and of Italy; the apprehension with which their fellow
sovereigns must be viewing the convulsions that have seized so many thrones;
the shame and acts of violence which, in some instances, have darkened the
annals of the reigns of certain monarchs in both the East and the West, and
still more recently the sudden downfall of the Founder of the newly established
dynasty in Persia—these are yet further instances of the infliction of the
“Divine Chastisement” foreshadowed by Bahá’u’lláh in that immortal Súrih, and
show forth the divine reality of the arraignment pronounced by Him against the
rulers of the earth in His Most Holy Book.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
