° October 03, 1933. * November 15, 2018
A small token of his life.
Um pouco de sua história.
The pathway to life is the road which leads to divine knowledge and attainment”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
About his Family and Life as a Bahá'í Pioneer in Brazil
Shapoor's Biographic Summary
Picture: Shapoor and Bahereh (Khahrobaie) were both born in Iran but married in Brazil in 1959 (in São Caetano do Sul). In the early eighties, they adopted Brazilian citizenship after followers of non-Islamic minorities such as the Bahá'í Faith lost all their civil rights in Iran following the Islamic Revolution. Bahereh still lives in Maringá, Paraná, Brazil, the city they chose to move to in 1983.
Based on a paper written in 1983 (*):
I was born in Shiraz, Iran, on October 3rd, 1933 in a Bahá’í family. My mother was the daughter of Hand of the Cause of God Ibn-i-Aṣdaq and granddaughter of the Hand of the Cause of God Ismu’lláh-ul-Aṣdaq. My father was the grandson of Monajjem Bashi, who was a believer of the Babí Cause, serving and teaching the Faith in the court of the Shah.
During my early childhood, our family moved to Tehran and during the “45 Month Plan” we pioneered to the nearby town of Gholhak/Darrous. I was privileged to be educated in a home where the Faith was the purpose and end for everything and everyone and under the care and attention of a wonderful Local Spiritual Assembly whose dedication to the service and Principles of the Faith was exemplary. The youth received loving attention and enthusiastic support. Their activities for collecting contributions of funds for the construction of the Mausoleum of the Báb and the organization of very special summer classes with many known teachers among its professors, as well as their steadfastness and wisdom dealing with opposition and covenant breaking are still remembered.
At the age of 17, I moved to the city of Abadan for my university schooling and to work in the oil refinery located there. Once again, the spiritual life of the community, dedicated to service, study and the upholding of Bahá’í teachings and principles was the atmosphere the youth lived in that community. With the beloved Guardian’s announcement of the Ten Year Crusade and with the vast opposition to the Faith and the closing of administrative activities and the Bahá’í center, the community came to its high point. The teaching work was multiplied and the anxious desire to abide by the Guardian’s wishes and plans gave new life an energy to all of us. Three of the Local Assembly members, prominent in the Bahá’í and non-Bahá’í community left for pioneering goals to Ethiopia, Indonesia and Brazil. But the youth were having more difficulty. Their resources were scarce, obtaining travel visas was extremely difficult and their objectives were the most difficult goals of the Plan.
Four of us were praying, consulting and studying every day and night. We decided to support each other. Whoever could go first, even without any resources, the others would work and sustain him. In February of 1957, the possibility opened for Brazil, and I could, with the assistance of my colleagues and together with one of them, pioneer to Brazil, with myself carrying most of the precious gift received from the Hand of the Cause of God, Mr. Furutan, the last message of the Guardian to the oriental friends and communities.
In October 1957, the shocking news of the passing of the beloved Guardian reached the isolated center of Goiânia. All the past years were worth the drops of tears in his memory in the center of this country. A new vision of the Cause of God opened up before our eyes the power of Bahá’u’lláh’s covenant worked through its own channels, but we only received its life-giving loving assurance and protection. Apart from the messages from the World Centre, there were those wonderful friendly personal letters from the South American Regional Assembly in Lima. National Teaching Committee in São Paulo, National Youth Committee in Bahia, and others, all keeping the fire.
In 1959 I married Bahereh Kahrobaí and moved to the new city of Mogi-Mirim. Until 1961, the sensation of pioneering dominated our lives. There were many sympathizers but not many new believers, local assemblies and feasts. It was a period of stillness but how could we know if it was submission to the good-pleasure of God or our inability to bend to the breeze.
From 1963, new possibilities of service in the National Spiritual Assembly of Brazil opened, and the feeling of inadequacy to be part of one of the main channels of His wonderful administrative systems. In the period of 20 years that followed as a member of the National Assembly, I had the privilege of being a part of the transformations in the Brazilian Baha’í community and its embryonic bodies. In the beginning, it was the care, guidance and protection of the Hands of the Cause. Even in details. The National Spiritual Assembly of Brazil, having the privilege of being so close to one of them, dear Mr. Jalál Khazé, felt like a child with his hand in his father’s hand. Sometimes dared to run a little but never too far to lose him from sight. Then came the independence under the guidance of the Universal House of Justice the dearest supreme infallible body. Sometimes felt ourselves, the National Assembly, almost infallible!! We had those wonderful letters of approval and encouragement!! And they read our minutes and did not object to any of our decisions. Aren’t they doing justice to us and our acts?! Well, we learned later that they were patiently educating us, that in the presence of God, Justice and love melt and become the same, that their forgiveness is equivalent to our shortcomings.
In 1983, my wife Bahereh and I were planning to pioneer again and there came the second most important news and shock in my life. The Universal House of Justice called me to serve as a continental Counsellor. I was perplexed and lost in these same thoughts that are put on this paper as a short memory of my life. I have just learned a little to serve in an elected body and disappear behind the collective decision of the institution. I could never overcome my shyness and nervousness to appear in front of a large audience, had extreme difficulty to speak any language correctly, to quote from the Writings by heart, apart from all other shortcomings that only God and myself are aware of. I looked back to these memories in my mind and said to myself: this is the grace of God to my fathers and grandfathers for all their service and sufferings. This is the Justice which means Love and kindness to an incapable child, holding his hand, guiding him to serve at his best capacities.
A good (**) friend asked me a few days later if I had answered the House of Justice accepting their appointment (***). I thought, would the House appoint someone who allowed himself to say yes or no to their choice?
This has been my whole life, the privilege of being so lovingly cared, protected and guided.
Shapoor Monadjem.
(*) Written in 1983 by my father. For the last thirty-four years of his service to the Cause, from 1984 to 2018, please refer to the message of the Universal House of Justice and of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Brazil. As a summary: Shapoor Monadjem, served as Member of the Continental Board of Counsellors of The Americas until he was appointed by the Universal House of Justice as International Counsellor member of the International Teaching Centre in 1993, where he served for one term until 1998. After that, his services were in the field of consultation and vision building in a grass root Bahá’í inspired project called “Escrever o Futuro”, founded in 1999 and inspired in the document “Who is Writing the Future” where he still served until the month off his passing.
Adapted by Neissan Monadjem, November 15, 2018.
(**) His dear personal assistant Marlene Victorazzo Jardim, who worked at four of his professional roles (Shapoor was the founder of Interco, the Superintendent Director at Vigesa, CEO at Sade Vigesa S.A. and President of Unionpower S.A.) She passed away in August 2018.
(***) Appointment as a Member of the Continental Board of Counsellors for the Americas.
This beautifull short video was produced by a dear friend of Shapoor, Whashington Araújo.
From Mr. Monadjem's favorite calligraphy hanging in his home's living room: "Thy might beareth me witness! Were it not to celebrate Thy praise, my tongue would be of no use to me, and were it not for the sake of rendering service to Thee, my existence would avail me not."
Baha'u'llah
His Greatest Wishes
Shapoor Monadjem's life was dedicated to service. He was a man of simple needs and very few indulgences for himself. The high standards he committed himself to sustain, were only excelled by the immense hopes he cherished for his family's future in the path of service to humanity.
Representing the UHJ
In this picture taken in Dushanbe, capital of the Repuublic of Tajikistán, the nine members of the First National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'is of Tajikistán, the representative of the Continental Board of Counsellors of Asia and Shapoor Monadjem. He attended as member of the International Teaching Centre (BWC Haifa, Israel) designated by the Universal House of Justice to represent that august body in the historic event in 1994. It was the first Bahá'í National institution in that country since the creation of the Soviet Union and its fall in 1991 *
(*) The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the process of internal disintegration within the Soviet Union (USSR) which resulted in the end of the country's and its federal government's existence as a sovereign state, thereby resulting in its constituent republics gaining full sovereignty on 26 December 1991.