Internal & External Enemies

Then there are Covenant-breakers, who are internal enemies of the Faith. These Covenant-breakers are identified by the Head of the Faith, which then asks us not to have association with them. Nobody has the authority to call someone a Covenantbreaker except the Head of the Faith. When the Head of the Faith has come to the conclusion that an individual should be regarded as a Covenant-breaker, it informs directly the National Assemblies or the Boards of Counsellors. We are asked in the Writings to pray for them, so that they may realize their mistakes and come back to the Faith. However, we should not associate with them because they will eventually poison our hearts. This is the clear instruction that we have in the Writings. Every effort would have been made to help them, before they were declared Covenant-breakers.

If you know somebody who is antagonistic and inimical towards the Faith, we should leave them alone and not associate with them. Unfortunately, it has happened in the past that external enemies of the Faith have used spies. They would send in young people, whom they would pay, to come and mix with the Baha'is, to pretend that they wanted to become Baha'is, and then to join the community. Subsequently, they would take all the information about where the meetings were held and go back to their own society to feed the information for fresh attacks. This has happened and will continue to happen. This is why Shoghi Effendi warns the National and Local Assemblies to be very careful. He could see that opposition would come, wave after wave. As the Faith becomes stronger, these waves of persecution will become higher and mightier, but the Faith will be strong enough to withstand these onslaughts, and eventually these waves will die out, while the ship of the Cause will continue to sail.

(SHOGHI EFFENDI: THE RANGE AND POWER OF HIS PEN by ‘Ali Nakhjavani, 2006)