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Messages to the Bahá'í World: 1950-1957
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Pages 10-13
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Epoch-Making Events
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1 |
My heart is filled with thankfulness at contemplation of the
chain of swiftly succeeding, epoch-making events transpiring in the
course of the fifth year of the second Seven Year Plan, rendered
memorable through association with the Centenary of the Martyrdom
of the Prophet-Herald of the Bahá'í Dispensation testifying to
God's unfailing protection and the manifold blessings vouchsafed to
the Community of the Most Great Name alike in its World Center
and in all continents of the globe.
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2 |
Divine retributive justice is strikingly demonstrated through a
series of sudden, rapid, devastating blows sweeping over leaders
and henchmen of breakers of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant foiling the
schemes, levelling the hopes, and well-nigh extinguishing the remnants
of the conspiring crew which dared challenge the authority,
succeeded in inflicting untold sorrow and assiduously plotted to
disrupt the Will and Testament of its appointed Center.
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3 |
The triumphant, resistlessly expanding Bahá'í Administrative
Order now embraces one hundred and six sovereign states and dependencies
constituting an addition of no less than twenty-seven
countries since the Centenary celebration of the Declaration of the
Mission of the Holy Báb.
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4 |
The number of languages into which Bahá'í literature is translated
or in process of translation is over eighty.
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5 |
The number of incorporated Assemblies, local and national, is
one hundred and ten.
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6 |
The Centenary of the Martyrdom of the Herald of the Faith
was befittingly commemorated, synchronizing with the completion
of the Arcade and Parapet of His Sepulcher on Mount Carmel,
marking the termination of the two-year, quarter million dollar enterprise.
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7 |
The preliminaries for the erection of two additional Pillars of
the Universal House of Justice, culminating in the formation of
National Assemblies in Central America, Mexico, and the Antilles,
and in South America have been successfully concluded, following
the raising of a similar Pillar in the Dominion of Canada.
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8 |
The interior ornamentation of the Mother Temple of the West
is virtually completed, paving the way for the provision of accessories
and landscaping in preparation of its public dedication destined
to coincide with the twin celebrations of the consummation of the
fifty year old enterprise and the Birth of Bahá'u'lláh's prophetic
mission.
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9 |
The prelude to the historic African campaign, the foremost objective
of the two year plan of the Bahá'í Community of the British
Isles, linking in formal association four National Assemblies is
marked by the departure of the first pioneer to Tanganyika and
plans for settlement Gold Coast and Uganda.
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10 |
Contracts amounting to over two hundred ten thousand dollars
successively placed for stones, window frames, railing, steel, cement,
required for the erection of the Octagon, Cylinder and Dome
of the Báb's Sepulcher raising to sixteen hundred tons total tonnage
ordered from Italy.
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11 |
A quarter-century old project is terminated through the construction
of the last two terraces connecting the same edifice with
the Templar Colony at the foot of Carmel.
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12 |
The four year plan initiated by the Persian National Assembly
in the promotion of the interests of the women members of the
community is successfully concluded despite increasing disabilities
resulting from the recrudescence of religious fanaticism afflicting
the sore-pressed homeland of Bahá'u'lláh.
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13 |
A notable step in the progress of Bahá'í women of the Middle
East is taken through the extension of the right of membership in
local Assemblies to women believers in Egypt.
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14 |
The third European Teaching Conference and Summer School
was held in Copenhagen and attended by one hundred seventy-seven
persons representing twenty-two countries.
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15 |
The second All-Swiss Conference convened in Zurich, foreshadowing
the closer integration of the ten goal countries of the
European continent through the eventual formation of regional
National Assemblies in Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, Switzerland,
Italian and Iberian peninsulas.
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16 |
Bahá'í literature in Greenlandic, previously disseminated as far
as Thule, Etah, beyond the Arctic Circle, has been dispatched to
radio station in Brondlundsfjord, Peary Land, eighty-second latitude,
northernmost outpost of the globe.
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17 |
Ties, linking the World Center of the Faith with the newly-emerged,
rapidly consolidating sovereign state in the Holy Land,
have been reinforced through the delivery by the Ministry of Religious
Affairs of the Mazra'ih Mansion into Bahá'í custody, the
recognition of Bahá'í Holy Days by the Ministry of Education
and Culture, following exemption granted to Bahá'í international
endowments, and recognition accorded Bahá'í marriage certificate.
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18 |
Bahá'u'lláh's residence in Akká, the scene of severe crises in the
course of the ministries of the Founder of the Faith and the Center
of His Covenant renovated and furnished, are added to the Holy
Places already opened to the steadily swelling number of visitors
both local and foreign.
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19 |
A significant step was taken by the City Governorate of Cairo
presaging the eventual recognition by state authorities of the Bahá'í
laws of personal status, already codified and submitted to the
central government by the Egyptian National Assembly.
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20 |
Bonds binding the Bahá'í world community to United Nations
strengthened by Bahá'í participation in regional conference of
Non-Governmental Organizations in Geneva and Istanbul.
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21 |
Preliminary steps taken in preparation of final design for the
Mashriqu'l-Adhkár on Mount Carmel by President of the International
Bahá'í Council, specifically appointed by `Abdu'l-Bahá to be
its architect.
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22 |
Process of the unfoldment of the ever-advancing Administrative
Order accelerated by the formation of the International Bahá'í
Council designed to assist in the erection of the superstructure of
the Báb's Sepulcher, cement ties uniting the budding World Administrative
Center with the recently established state, and pave the
way for the formation of the Bahá'í Court, essential prelude to the
institution of the Universal House of Justice.
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23 |
I hail particularly the brilliant victory won by the American
Bahá'í Community in meeting the financial requirements for the
completion of the interior ornamentation of the Temple and eliminating
the deficit in the Victory Fund, exploits doubly meritorious
owing to the added responsibilities courageously assumed to assist
enterprise in the African field, and construction of the Báb's Sepulcher
in the Holy Land.
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24 |
I am thrilled by the multiple evidences of the simultaneous prosecution
of Bahá'í national plans, East and West, and the rise and
steady consolidation of the World Center of the Faith, constituting
the distinguishing features of the second epoch of the Formative
Age whose inception on the morrow of the Second World War
coincided with the inauguration of the second Bahá'í century, and
which bids fair to eclipse the splendors of the preceding epoch,
which posterity will associate with the birth and rise of the embryonic
World Order of Bahá'u'lláh.
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25 |
--Shoghi
[Cablegram, April 25, 1951]
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