Bahá’u’lláh provides for the possibility that the line of
A
ghsán would terminate prior to the establishment of the
Universal House of Justice. He designated that in such a
situation “endowments shall revert to the people of Bahá”. The
term “people of Bahá” is used with a number of different
meanings in the Bahá’í Writings. In this instance, they are
described as those “who speak not except by His leave and judge
not save in accordance with what God hath decreed in this
Tablet”. Following the passing of Shoghi Effendi in 1957,
the Hands of the Cause of God directed the affairs of the
Cause until the election of the Universal House of Justice in
1963 (see note 183).