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Messages to the Bahá'í World: 1950-1957
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Pages 146-152
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All-America Intercontinental Conference-- Second Message
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On the occasion of the launching of an epochal, global, spiritual,
decade-long crusade, constituting the high-water mark of the festivities
commemorating the centenary of the birth of the Mission of
Bahá'u'lláh, coinciding with the ninetieth anniversary of the declaration
of that same Mission in the Garden of Ridván, and synchronizing
with both the convocation of the All-American Intercontinental
Teaching Conference in Chicago, and the fiftieth anniversary of the
inception of the holiest Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the Bahá'í world and
its dedication to public worship--on such a solemn and historic occasion
I invite His followers, the world over, to contemplate with me
the glorious and manifold evidences of the onward march of His
Faith and of the steady unfoldment of its embryonic World Order
both in the Holy Land and in the five continents of the globe.
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This infinitely precious Faith, despite eleven decades of uninterrupted
persecution, on the part of governments and ecclesiastics, involving
the martyrdom of its Prophet-Herald, the four banishments
and forty-year-long exile suffered by its Founder, the forty years of
incarceration inflicted upon its Exemplar, and the sacrifice of no less
than twenty thousand of its followers, has succeeded in firmly establishing
itself in all the continents of the globe, and is irresistibly
forging ahead, with accelerating momentum, bidding fair to envelop,
at the close of the coming decade, the whole planet with the radiance
of its splendor.
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Confined within the lifetime of its Martyr-Prophet to two countries,
reaching during the period of the ministry of its Author thirteen
other lands, planting its banner in the course of the ministry of the
Center of the Covenant in twenty additional sovereign states and dependencies
in both hemispheres, this Faith has spread, since the ascension
of `Abdu'l-Bahá, to ninety-four countries, raising the total number
of the territories within its pale to one hundred twenty-nine, no
less than eighteen of which were added in a single year, while fifty-one
were opened in the course of the nine-year interval separating the
first from the second Bahá'í Jubilee. The number of eastern and western
languages into which its literature has been translated and printed,
or is in the process of translation, and which reached forty-one a
decade ago, is now ninety-one, including thirteen African and twenty-five
Indian and Burmese languages. The number of settlements in
Greenland provided with Bahá'í scriptures in the Greenlandic tongue
has been raised to forty-eight, including Thule beyond the Arctic
Circle and Etah near the 80th latitude, whilst Bahá'í literature in that
same language has been dispatched as far north as the radio station at
Brondlunsfjord, Pearyland, 82nd latitude, the northernmost outpost
of the world. Representatives of thirty-one races and of twenty-four
African tribes have been enrolled in the Bahá'í World Community.
Contact has been established with the following seventeen minority
groups and races: the Eskimos of Alaska and Greenland, the
Lapps of Scandinavia, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Sea-Dayaks
of Sarawak, the Polynesians of the Fiji Islands, the Cree Indians of
Prairie Provinces, Canada, the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina,
the Oneida Indians in Wisconsin, the Omaha Indians in Nebraska,
the Seminole Indians in Florida, the Mexican Indians in Mexico, the
Indians of the San Blas Islands, the Indians of Chichicastenango in
Guatemala, the Mayans in Yucatan, the Patagonian Indians in Argentina,
the Indians of La Paz in Bolivia and the Inca Indians in Peru.
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The national plans, formulated and vigorously and systematically
prosecuted, in the course of the concluding years of the first, and the
opening years of the second, epoch of the Formative Age of the Faith,
by the Bahá'í communities in the United States, in Persia, in the British
Isles, in Latin America, in Canada, in India, Pákistán and Burma,
in `Iráq, in Australia and New Zealand, in Germany and Austria, in
Egypt and the Súdán, have raised the number of Bahá'í centers established
in both hemispheres to two thousand five hundred maintained
by representatives of the white, the black, the yellow, the red and the
brown races of mankind, comprising ten in the Arabian Peninsula,
over thirty in Egypt and the Súdán, over forty in the recently opened
European goal countries, over fifty in the British Isles, over sixty in
Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania, over seventy in Germany and
Austria, over ninety in Canada, over ninety in India, Pákistán and
Burma, over one hundred in Central and South America, over six
hundred in Persia and over one thousand two hundred in the United
States of America. The superstructure of the Sepulcher of the
Martyr-Herald of the Faith--a three-quarters of a million dollar enterprise--
is nearing completion, on the slopes of the Mountain of
God, within the heart of the Holy Land, the nest of the Prophets, and
the divinely chosen Spiritual and Administrative Center of the Bahá'í
world. The preliminary measures, heralding the unfoldment of the
institution of Guardianship, the pivot of `Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and
Testament, have been adopted, through the appointment of the first
two contingents of the Hands of the Cause, numbering nineteen, recruited
from the five continents of the globe, representative in their
extraction of the three principal religions of mankind, and constituting
the nucleus of that august institution invested with such
weighty and sacred functions by the Center of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant.
The International Bahá'í Council, comprising eight members,
charged with assisting in the manifold activities attendant upon the
rise of the World Administrative Center of the Faith, which must
pave the way for the formation of a Bahá'í International Court and
the eventual emergence of the Universal House of Justice, the supreme
legislative body of the future Bahá'í Commonwealth, has been
established, enlarged, and the functions of its members defined. The
number of the pillars of the Universal House of Justice has been
raised to twelve through the successive formation of the Canadian,
the Central American, the South American and the Italo-Swiss National
Spiritual Assemblies. The stupendous process of the rise and
consolidation of the World Administrative Center of the Faith has
been accelerated through the acquisition, in the Plain of Akká, of a
one hundred and sixty thousand square meter area, surrounding the
Qiblih of the Bahá'í world, permitting of the extension of the Outer
Sanctuary of the Most Holy Tomb--to be designated henceforth the
Harám-i-Aqdas--through the initiation, at the inception of the Holy
Year, of the landscaping and embellishment of a tenth of the acquired
area, and through the adoption of measures for the extensive illumination
of the entire Sanctuary and the erection of stately portals constituting
a befitting tribute to the memory of the Author of the Faith,
within the sacred precincts of His Sepulcher, on the occasion of the
celebration of the greatest festival of the year commemorating the
Centenary of the birth of His Mission. The fifty-year-old enterprise,
involving the purchase of land for the construction, the exterior and
interior ornamentation, and the landscaping of the grounds of the
holiest House of Worship ever to be reared to the glory of the Most
Great Name, the Mother Temple of the West, and involving the expenditure
of over two and a half million dollars, has been consummated,
in time for its dedication to public worship during the Ridván
period of this Holy Year coinciding with both the fiftieth anniversary
of the inception of this enterprise and the one-hundredth anniversary
of the birth of Bahá'u'lláh's ministry. The design for the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár
on Mt. Carmel, conceived by the architect appointed by
`Abdu'l-Bahá, has been completed, and a model constructed, which is
soon to be unveiled at the All-America Intercontinental Teaching
Conference, in anticipation of the selection and the purchase of its
future site, and of its ultimate construction in the neighborhood of
the Báb's Sepulcher. The total area of Bahá'í international endowments,
surrounding and permanently dedicated to the Tomb of the
Báb has been raised, through recent successive purchases of extensive
plots, overlooking that hallowed spot, to almost one-quarter of a million
square meters. The estimated value of the Bahá'í international
endowments and holy places at the World Center of the Faith, in the
twin cities of Akká and Haifa, has passed the four million dollar
mark. The Bahá'í national endowments in the United States of America
now exceed three million dollars. The area of land purchased on
the slopes of the Elburz Mountains, overlooking the city of Tihrán,
in anticipation of the construction of the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of
Persia, has reached approximately four million square meters. The
area of land dedicated to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, in the vicinity of
the confines of the Holy Land, exceeds two million three hundred
thousand square meters. The area of land dedicated to the Shrine of
the Báb and registered in the name of the Israel branch of the National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States of
America, is more than one hundred thousand square meters. Over
one hundred and fifty thousand square meters of land have been dedicated
to the Faith in the Antipodes, eighty thousand square meters
in the Territory of Alaska, whilst the lands contributed in Latin
America for a similar purpose approximate one-half of a million
square meters, ninety thousand of which have been set aside near
Santiago, Chile, for the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of South America.
The estimated value of the national Bahá'í administrative headquarters
established in Tihrán, in Wilmette, Illinois, in Baghdád, in Cairo,
in New Delhi, in Sydney, in Frankfurt and in Toronto, exceeds one
and three-quarters of a million dollars. The Bahá'í spiritual assemblies
now incorporated number one hundred and fourteen, of which
nine are national and the rest local assemblies, fifty-six of which are
in the United States of America, sixteen in India, eleven in South
America, six in Central America, three each in Pákistán, in Burma
and in Canada, two in Australia and one each in Germany, in Balúchistán,
in New Zealand, in the Philippine Islands and in Malaya.
The Bahá'í marriage certificate has been recognized by the Israel civil
authorities, as well as by twenty-one federal districts and states of the
United States of America. The Bahá'í holy days have been recognized
by the Ministry of Education of the State of Israel, in the British
Isles, by the state of Victoria in Australia, in Anchorage, Alaska,
in Washington, D.C. and in seven states of the American Union. National
Bahá'í conferences have been held in recent years in Bern,
Zurich, Basel, Rome; national Bahá'í women's conventions and youth
conferences have convened in Tihrán, whilst regional teaching conferences
have been organized in Buenos Aires, in Panama City, in
Scandinavia, in the Iberian Peninsula, and in the Benelux countries.
European international teaching conferences have been convened successively
in Geneva, in Brussels, in Copenhagen, in Scheveningen and
in Luxembourg City, paving the way for the convocation of four
successive Intercontinental Teaching Conferences, the first of which
has recently been held in Kampala, in the heart of the African continent,
the rest to be successively convened in Wilmette, Illinois, in
Stockholm and in New Delhi--Conferences which, God willing, will
be the forerunners of the World Bahá'í Congress, to be convened in
the city of Baghdád, on the occasion of the centenary of the formal
assumption by Bahá'u'lláh of His prophetic office. Recognition has
been extended to the Faith by the United Nations as an international
non-governmental organization enabling the Bahá'í International
Community to appoint accredited representatives, who have already
attended, in their capacity as observers, the Conference on Human
Rights held in Geneva and the United Nations General Assembly
held in Paris and participated in United Nations regional non-governmental
conferences, held in localities as far apart as New York,
Santiago, Manila, Istanbul, Den Passar, Paris, Managua, Geneva
and Montevideo.
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So glorious a record of accomplishments in the service of the
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, whether local, national or international, in both
the teaching and administrative spheres of Bahá'í activity, can be regarded
in no other light than as a prelude to a period of prodigious
expansion and consolidation to be inaugurated by the launching of a
global spiritual crusade, on the threshold of which the Bahá'í world
now stands. This crusade extending through ten years will involve
the simultaneous prosecution of twelve national plans, will necessitate
the active and sustained participation of each of the twelve existing
national spiritual assemblies representing no less than thirty-six nations
and will demand the utmost exertion, consecration and heroism.
It aims at the broadening and the reinforcement of the foundations
of the Faith in each of the twelve areas that are to serve as operational
bases for the prosecution of these twelve national plans; the
opening of one hundred and thirty-one territories to the Faith; the
consolidation of one hundred and eighteen territories; the translation
and printing of literature in ninety-one languages; the construction
of two Mashriqu'l-Adhkárs; the acquisition of sites for the future
construction of eleven Temples; the formation of forty-eight national
spiritual assemblies; the founding of forty-seven national Hazíratu'l-Quds;
the incorporation of fifty national spiritual assemblies; the
framing of Bahá'í national constitutions and the establishment of
Bahá'í national endowments by each of these national assemblies; the
adoption of preliminary measures for the construction of Bahá'u'lláh's
Sepulcher; the erection of the first dependency of the first
Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the western world; the development of the
institution of the Hands of the Cause; the transformation of the International
Bahá'í Council into an international Bahá'í court; the codification
of the laws and ordinances of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas; the establishment
of six national Bahá'í Courts in the chief cities of the Islamic
East; the extension of international Bahá'í endowments in the Plain
of Akká and on the slopes of Mt. Carmel; the construction of the
International Bahá'í Archives in the neighborhood of the Báb's Sepulcher;
the construction of the tomb of the Báb's wife in Shíráz; the
identification of the resting-places of Bahá'u'lláh's father, of the
Báb's mother and of His cousin and their reburial in the neighborhood
of the Most Great House; the acquisition of the Garden of
Ridván in Baghdád, and of the sites of the Síyáh-Chál in Tihrán, of
the Báb's martyrdom in Tabríz and of His incarceration in Chihríq;
the establishment of six Bahá'í national publishing trusts; the formation
of seven Israel branches of Bahá'í national spiritual assemblies;
the participation of women in the membership of Bahá'í local and
national spiritual assemblies in Persia; the establishment of a Bahá'í
national printing-press in Tihrán; the reinforcement of the ties binding
the Bahá'í World Community with the United Nations; the
opening to the Faith, circumstances permitting, of eleven republics
comprised in the Soviet Union, as well as two Soviet-controlled European
states--all, please God, culminating in the convocation of a
World Bahá'í Congress, in the vicinity of the Garden of Ridván, in
the third holiest city of the Bahá'í world, on the occasion of the world-wide
celebrations commemorating the centenary of the formal assumption
by Bahá'u'lláh of His prophetic office.
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