The Covenant.
Bahá'u'lláh named his successor in writing; that successor named his; and when Shoghi Effendi died in 1957 with no heir, the Universal House of Justice was elected in 1963 as the writings provided. Each transition produced a rival claimant, each was declared a Covenant-breaker and shunned, and none acquired a following. A religion of eight million people has essentially no denominations, which is close to unique.
The Covenant is the faith's mechanism against schism and it is documentary rather than charismatic. Bahá'u'lláh named 'Abdu'l-Bahá as his successor and sole interpreter in a written instrument, the Kitáb-i-'Ahd, opened after his death in 1892. 'Abdu'l-Bahá named Shoghi Effendi in his Will and Testament. Shoghi Effendi died in 1957 without issue and without appointing a successor — no eligible descendant remained who had not been declared a Covenant-breaker — and the Hands of the Cause administered the faith until the Universal House of Justice, provided for in the writings, was elected in 1963. Each transition produced a challenger: Mírzá Yahyá against Bahá'u'lláh, Mírzá Muhammad 'Alí against 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and Charles Mason Remey, who claimed the Guardianship in 1960. All were rejected and shunned, and none built a movement of any size — Remey's claim produced small groups numbering in the hundreds at most. A worldwide religion of roughly eight million with no significant denominational division is, among religions of comparable age and spread, close to unparalleled.
The same ground, other faiths
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