Shoghí Effendi (; Persian: شوقی افندی; 1896 or 1897 – 4 November 1957) was Guardian of the Baháʼí Faith from 1922 until his death in 1957. As the grandson and successor of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, he was charged with guiding the development of the Baháʼí Faith, including the creation of its global administrative structure and the prosecution of Baháʼí teaching plans that oversaw the expansion of the religion to several new countries. As the authorized interpreter of the Baháʼí literature, he translated the primary written works of the Faith's central figures, providing unity of understanding of its essential teachings and safeguarding its followers from division. Upon his death in 1957, leadership passed to the Hands of the Cause, and in 1963 the Baháʼís of the world elected the Universal House of Justice, an institution which had been described and planned by Baháʼu’llah.
Shoghi Effendi, an Afnán, was born Shoghí Rabbání in Acre in the Ottoman Empire, where he spent his early life, but later went on to study in Haifa and Beirut, gaining an arts degree from the Syrian Protestant College in 1918 and then serving as ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's secretary and translator. In 1920, he attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied political science and economics. Before completing his studies, news of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death reached him, requiring him to return to Haifa. Shortly after his return at the end of December 1921, he learned that the Will and Testament of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá named him Guardian of the Baháʼí Faith. Two crucial aspects of his leadership focused on building the administration and spreading the faith worldwide.
During his 36 years as Guardian, Shoghi Effendi translated and expounded on many of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, established plans that enabled the faith to spread globally and sent more than 17,500 letters. He kept in touch with progress in all existing Bahá’i communities as well as monitoring and responding to the situation in the Middle East, where the believers were still suffering persecution. He also began work to establish Haifa, Israel, as the Bahá’i World Center. He created an International Bahá’i Council to aid him in his work, several members of which were newly appointed Hands of the Cause. He also presided over the community's expansion from 1,034 localities in 1935 to 2,700 in 1953, and further to 14,437 in 1963. From the beginning to the end of his leadership, the total population of Baháʼís around the world grew from 100,000 to 400,000.
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.
Born in Acre in the Acre Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire in 1896 or 1897, Shoghi Effendi was related to the Báb through his father, Mírzá Hádí Shírází, and to Baháʼu'lláh through his mother, Ḍíyáʼíyyih Khánum, the eldest daughter of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, who provided much of his initial training, greatly influenced Shoghi Effendi from the early years of his life. Shoghi Effendi learned prayers from his grandfather, who encouraged him to chant. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá also insisted that people address the child as "Shoghi Effendi" rather than simply as "Shoghi" as a mark of respect towards him.
As a child, Shoghi Effendi was aware of the difficulties endured by the Baháʼís in Acre, which included attacks by Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí against ʻAbdu’l-Bahá. Mirza Muhammad-‘Ali, who was ʻAbdu’l-Bahá's younger half-brother and aggrieved by ʻAbdu’l-Bahá's designation as Baháʼu’llah's successor, began plotting to discredit him by falsely claiming that he was the cause of the uprising in Ottoman Syria. The problems which this caused in the Baháʼí community were felt as far away as Iran and beyond. As a young boy, he was aware of the desire of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (reigned 1876–1909) to banish ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to the deserts of North Africa, where he was expected to perish.
Being ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's eldest grandson, the first son of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's eldest daughter Ḍíyáʼíyyih Khánum, Shoghi Effendi had a special relationship with his grandfather. Zia Baghdadi, a contemporary Baháʼí, relates that when Shoghi Effendi was only five years of age, he pestered his grandfather to write a tablet for him, which ʻAbdu'l-Bahá obliged:
He is God! O My Shoghi, I have no time to talk, leave me alone! You said write, I have written. What else should be done? Now is not the time for you to read and write. It is the time for jumping about and chanting O My God! Therefore, memorize the prayers of the Blessed Beauty and chant them that I may hear them. Because there is no time for anything else.
Shoghi Effendi then set out to memorize several prayers and chanted them as loud as he could. This caused family members to ask ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to quiet him, a request he apparently refused.
Shoghi Effendi's early education took place at home with other children from the household. It was provided by private tutors, who taught him Arabic, Persian, French, English, and literature. From 1907 to 1909, he attended the College des Frères, a Jesuit institution in Haifa, where he studied Arabic, Turkish, French and English. In 1910, when ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was residing in Egypt before his journeys to the West, Shoghi Effendi was briefly enrolled in the College des Frères in Ramleh.
Plans for him to accompany his grandfather on his travels fell through when the port authorities in Naples prevented him from continuing, ostensibly due to health issues. Upon his return to Egypt sometime after March 1912, he was sent to a Jesuit boarding school in Beirut, transferring in October to the preparatory school attached to the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut, graduating in 1913. Later that year, Shoghi Effendi returned to the Syrian Protestant College as an undergraduate and earned a BA in 1917. Despite enrolling there as a graduate student, he returned to Haifa without completing his degree.
During his time at the Syrian Protestant College, he spent his visits home to Haifa assisting ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in translation, becoming his full-time secretary and translator from the end of 1918.
By the spring of 1919, the intensity of Shoghi Effendi's secretarial work had taken its toll on his health, resulting in recurring occurrences of malaria. By the spring of 1920, he was so unwell that ʻAbdu'l-Bahá arranged for him to convalesce at a sanatorium in Paris. Following his recovery, he enrolled in the Non-Collegiate Delegacy at Balliol College, Oxford to improve his English translation skills.
While Shoghi Effendi was studying in England, he learned of the passing of ʻAbdu’l-Bahá in the early hours of 28 November 1921, news that came as a grievous shock, as he had been unaware that his grandfather was ill. Following his return to Haifa on 29 December 1921, the prerequisites of the Will and Testament of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá were announced, unequivocally stating that Shoghi Effendi was to be appointed as ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's successor and Guardian of the Baháʼí Faith. The institution of the Guardianship had been conceived by Baháʼu’llah, with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá outlining its specific functions and jurisdiction in the Will and Testament, two particularly important functions being the interpretation of the Baháʼí teachings and guiding the Baháʼí community.
Shoghi Effendi's personal life was subordinate to his work as Guardian , and it was not until 1950 that he secured the secretarial support he required to handle the mounting correspondence. By then, he had established a timetable of continuous hard work while in Haifa, with summer breaks during which he spent time in Europe, initially in the Swiss Alps, and in 1929 and 1940 traversed Africa from south to north.
On March 24, 1937, Shoghi Effendi married Mary Maxwell, entitled Rúhíyyih Khánum, a Canadian. She was the only child of May Maxwell, a disciple of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, and William Sutherland Maxwell, a Canadian architect. Shoghi Effendi had first met Mary as a girl when she came on pilgrimage with her mother in 1923. She made another pilgrimage as a teenager with two of her mother's close friends. With Shoghi Effendi's encouragement, Mary became an active Baháʼí teacher and a letter written to him described her as "a beautiful and most refreshing girl to know".