During his life, Shoqi Effendi turned over the guardianship of his properties to the next guardian like Abdul Baha[2]. However, he was abortive and when he gained power he had badly behaved with his relatives. Consequently, after his death, there was a quarrel when they wanted to devide and share his properties. These quarrel made the Baha’i community to be displayed badly.
The reason for creating such quarrel was that the transfering of Shoqi’s properties was possible just by entailing. Thus, Shoqi’a heirs, including his wife, brothers and sisters couldn’t transfere his properties because Shoqi didn’t have any offspring and his parents were dead too.
Nevertheless, the main problem was that Shoqi had banished his brothers and sisters when he was the chairman of the Baha’i cult. Because Shoqi believed that Abdul Baha’s properties belong to the faith guardian and must be spent in favour of the Baha’i organization.[3] However, his family and relatives asked for their shares.
As a result, after Shoqi’s death the Baha’i heads who were observing that Shoqi’s properties were being wasted. They had to pay a huge amount of money to his family to be satisfied to receive the entail certificate and to negotiate to revive Shoqi’s wealth.[4] However, this issue was unacceptable for the freethinking Baha’is: If Shoqi’s relatives were insalubrious people and were excommunicated by him, why would the Baha’i heads agree with them to share them with Shoqi’s properties contrary to Shoqi and Abdul Baha’s views!
As a matter of fact, how is it possible for some people to be excommunicated by Shoqi Effendi; but they play roles in the administrative stage of Baha’i community!
[1] Ismaeel Raeen, branches in Baha’ism ,Tehran, Raeen research institute, 1st edition, Bita, pp. 177-179.
[2] Abbas Effendi, will tablets, Pakistan, sterling publishing house, November, 1960, p. 16.
[3] The same.
[4] For more study refer to “The ups and downs” by Yadullah Sabet Rasekh and divisions in Baha’ism by Ismaeel Raeen.