15 Facts About Shoghi Effendi

Shoghi Effendi kept in touch with progress in all existing Baha'i communities as well as monitoring and responding to the situation in the Middle East, where the believers were still suffering persecution.

Shoghi Effendi presided over the community's enlargement from 1,034 localities in 1935 to 2,700 in 1953, and further to 14,437 localities in 1963.

Shoghi Effendi died during a visit to London in 1957, having contracted Asian flu, and is buried at New Southgate Cemetery in the city of London.

Shoghi Effendi learned prayers from his grandfather, who encouraged him to chant.

Shoghi Effendi then set out to memorize a number of prayers, and chanted them as loud as he could.

Later that year Shoghi Effendi returned to the Syrian Protestant College as an undergraduate, achieving a BA in 1917, but despite enrolling there as a graduate student, he returned to Haifa without completing his degree.

Shoghi Effendi had first met Mary in 1923 when she went on pilgrimage with her mother, and it was during a third pilgrimage in 1937 that Shoghi Effendi asked her mother for her daughter's hand in marriage.

Shoghi Effendi held Iranian nationality throughout his life and travelled on an Iranian passport, although he never visited Iran.

Shoghi Effendi expended his energy on building the Faith worldwide, laying the foundations for its world administrative center in the Holy Land, and relying on extensive correspondence rather than direct travel to communicate advice to a growing global community.

Shoghi Effendi was assisted in this work by several members of his family.

On 23 August 1955 Shoghi Effendi announced that Africa would build its first House of Worship, to be situated in Kampala, Uganda; the temple was dedicated in January 1961.

Shoghi Effendi's death came unexpectedly in London, on 4 November 1957, as he was travelling to Britain and caught the Asian Flu, during the pandemic which killed two million worldwide, and he is buried there in New Southgate Cemetery.

Shoghi Effendi beloved of all hearts sacred trust given believers by Master passed away sudden heart attack in sleep following Asiatic flu.

Shoghi Effendi learned that he had been designated as this when he was still a small child.

Shoghi Effendi explained that the successor appointed in 'Abdu'l-Baha's Will was not just the Guardianship; it was the Administrative Order, headed by the Universal House of Justice, which was first elected in 1963.