Citadel of Faith.
by Shoghi Effendi.
BELIEVERS" GENEROUS RESPONSE TO TEMPLE FUND
Thrilled by generous response of believers to Temple Fund. Deeply touched.
Hail latest striking evidence of the magnificent spirit, unshakable solidarity and unflinching resolve of American Baha"i Community. Deepest loving grat.i.tude.
[January 20, 1947]
CALL TO FULLER PARTIc.i.p.aTION
Acclaim with grateful heart evidences of steadily accelerating movement of pioneers, multiplication of conferences, consolidation of activities of national committees, progress in preliminaries of internal ornamentation of Temple, and formulation of teaching policy in southern states.
Overwhelmed by tributes paid my own humble efforts by stalwart company whose championship of Faith of Baha"u"llah during last quarter century provided greatest support and solace, enabling me to sustain the weight of cares and responsibilities of Guardianship.
Impelled to plead afresh to ponder responsibilities incurred in transatlantic field of service. Time is flying. First year of Second Seven Year Plan is drawing to a close. Shadow of war"s tragic aftermath is deepening. Initial stage of colossal task undertaken in European continent still in balance. Urge stress for entire community extreme urgency to reinforce promptly, at whatever cost, however inadequate the instruments, the number of volunteers, both settlers and itinerant teachers, whom posterity will rightly recognize as vanguard of torch-bearers of Baha"u"llah"s resistless, world-redeeming order to despairing millions of diversified races, conflicting nationalities in darkest, most severely tested, spiritually depleted continent of globe. Prayerfully awaiting response by all ranks of community to supreme call to fuller partic.i.p.ation in glorious enterprise.
[January 30, 1947]
CONSOLIDATION IN EUROPE
Overjoyed, grateful, proud of notable expansion of manifold activities in three continents. Vital significance of preeminent objective in European continent cannot be overemphasized. Intense, sustained, self-sacrificing efforts aimed at rapid consolidation of American Community"s recently initiated fate-laden transatlantic enterprise are urgent, imperative, highly meritorious. Praying for such demonstration of heroism as will outshine exploits illuminating pages of American Baha"i history in continents of Western Hemisphere.
[March 24, 1947]
PARTIc.i.p.aTION IN SECOND SEVEN YEAR PLAN [MESSAGE TO 1947 CONVENTION]
My heart is filled with delight, wonder, pride and grat.i.tude in contemplation of the peace-time exploits, in both hemispheres, of the world community of the followers of the Faith of Baha"u"llah, triumphantly emerging from the crucible of global war and moving irresistibly into the second epoch of the Formative Age of the Baha"i Dispensation.
The opening years of the second century of the Baha"i Era, synchronizing with concluding stage of the memorable quarter-century elapsed since the termination of the Heroic Age of the Faith, have been distinguished by a compelling demonstration by the entire body of believers, headed by the valorous American Baha"i Community, of solidarity, resolve and self-sacrifice as well as by a magnificent record of systematic, world-wide achievements.
The three years since the celebration of the Centenary have been characterized by a simultaneous process of internal consolidation and steady enlargement of the orbit of a fast-evolving Administrative Order.
These years witnessed, first, the astounding resurgence of a war-devastated Baha"i community of Central Europe, the rehabilitation of the communities in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and the Far East; second, the inauguration of a new Seven Year Plan by the American Baha"i Community destined to culminate with the Centenary of the Birth of Baha"u"llah"s Prophetic Mission, aiming at the formation of three national a.s.semblies in Latin America and the Dominion of Canada, at completion of the holiest House of Worship in the Baha"i world, and at the erection of the structure of the Administrative Order in ten sovereign states of the European continent; and third, the formulation by the British, the Indian and the Persian National a.s.semblies of Six Year, Four and One-Half Year, and Forty-Five Month Plans respectively, culminating with the Centenary of the Bab"s Martyrdom and pledged to establish nineteen spiritual a.s.semblies in the British Isles, double the number of a.s.semblies in the Indian subcontinent, establish ninety-five new centers of the Faith in Persia, convert the groups in Bahrein, Mecca and Kabul into a.s.semblies and plant the banner of the Faith in the Arabian territories of Yemen, Oman, Ahsa and Kuweit.
Moreover, the number of countries opened to the onsweeping Faith, and the number of languages in which its literature has been translated and printed, is now raised to eighty-three and forty-seven, respectively. Four additional countries are in process of enrollment. Translations into fifteen other languages are being undertaken. No less than seventeen thousand pounds have acc.u.mulated for the international relief of war-afflicted Baha"i communities of East and West. The Baha"i endowments on the North American continent have now pa.s.sed the two million dollar mark. The value of the endowments recently acquired at the World Center of the Faith, dedicated to the Shrines, are estimated at thirty-five thousand pounds. Baha"i literature has been disseminated as far north as Upernavik, Greenland, above the Arctic Circle. The Baha"i message has been broadcast by radio as far south as Magallanes. The area of land dedicated to the Ma_sh_riqu"l-A_dh_kar of Persia has increased by almost a quarter-million square meters. The number of localities in the Antipodes where Baha"is reside has been raised to thirty-five, spread over Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. Twenty-seven a.s.semblies are functioning in Latin America. In over a hundred localities Baha"is are resident in Central and South America, almost double the localities at opening of the first Seven Year Plan. Historic Latin American conferences have been held in Buenos Aires and Panama. Summer schools are established in Argentina and Chile. Land has been offered in Chile for site of the first Ma_sh_riqu"l-A_dh_kar of Latin America. Additional a.s.semblies have been incorporated in Paraguay and Colombia. Seven others are in process of incorporation. A notable impetus has been lent this world-redeeming Message through the concerted measures devised by the American National a.s.sembly designed to proclaim the Faith to the ma.s.ses through public conferences, press and radio.
Such remarkable multiplication of dynamic inst.i.tutions, such thrilling deployment of world-regenerating forces, North, South, East and West, endow the preeminent goal of the Second Seven Year Plan in Europe with extraordinary urgency and peculiar significance. I am impelled to appeal to all American believers possessing independent means to arise and supplement the course of the second year of the Second Seven Year Plan through personal partic.i.p.ation or appointment of deputies, the superb exertions of the heroic vanguard of the hosts destined, through successive decades, to achieve the spiritual conquest of the continent unconquered by Islam, rightly regarded as the mother of Christendom, the fountainhead of American culture, the mainspring of western civilization, and the recipient of the unique honor of two successive visits to its sh.o.r.es by the Center of Baha"u"llah"s Covenant.
[April 28, 1947]
NSA MUST CONTROL CREDENTIALS OF FOREIGNERS
Owing to arrival of disloyal so-called Baha"is your a.s.sembly"s control of credentials should be strictly exercised, otherwise corruptive influences will spread and injure the magnificent services being achieved by the American Baha"i Community.
[Circa June 1947]
THE CHALLENGING REQUIREMENTS OF THE PRESENT HOUR
The opening years of the second century of the Baha"i Era have synchronized with the termination of the first epoch of the Formative Age of the Baha"i Dispensation, a Dispensation which posterity will recognize as the most glorious and momentous in the greatest cycle in the world"s religious history.
The first seventy-seven years of the preceding century, const.i.tuting the Apostolic and Heroic Age of our Faith, fell into three distinct epochs, of nine, of thirty-nine and of twenty-nine years" duration, a.s.sociated respectively with the Babi Dispensation and the ministries of Baha"u"llah and of "Abdu"l-Baha. This Primitive Age of the Baha"i Era, unapproached in spiritual fecundity by any period a.s.sociated with the mission of the Founder of any previous Dispensation, was impregnated, from its inception to its termination, with the creative energies generated through the advent of two independent Manifestations and the establishment of a Covenant unique in the spiritual annals of mankind.
The last twenty-three years of that same century coincided with the first epoch of the second, the Iron and Formative, Age of the Dispensation of Baha"u"llah-the first of a series of epochs which must precede the inception of the last and Golden Age of that Dispensation-a Dispensation which, as the Author of the Faith has Himself categorically a.s.serted, must extend over a period of no less than one thousand years, and which will const.i.tute the first stage in a series of Dispensations, to be established by future Manifestations, all deriving their inspiration from the Author of the Baha"i Revelation, and destined to last, in their aggregate, no less than five thousand centuries.
We are now entering the second epoch of the second Age of the first of these Dispensations. The first epoch witnessed the birth and the primary stages in the erection of the framework of the Administrative Order of the Faith-the nucleus and pattern of its World Order-according to the precepts laid down in "Abdu"l-Baha"s Will and Testament, as well as the launching of the initial phase of the world-encompa.s.sing Plan bequeathed by Him to the American Baha"i Community. That epoch was characterized by a twofold process aiming at the consolidation of the administrative structure of the Faith and the extension of the range of its inst.i.tutions. It witnessed on the one hand, the emergence and the laying of the groundwork of that embryonic World Order whose advent was announced by the Bab in the Bayan, whose laws were revealed by Baha"u"llah in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, and whose features were delineated by "Abdu"l-Baha in His Will and Testament. It was marked on the other hand by the launching, in the Western Hemisphere, of the first stage of a Plan whose original impulse was communicated by the Herald of our Faith in His Qayyumu"l-Asma, to whose implications the Author of the Baha"i Revelation alluded in His Tablets, and whose Charter was revealed by the Center of His Covenant in the evening of His life.
The epoch we have now entered is destined to impart a great impetus to this historic, this twofold process. It must witness, on the one hand, the consummation of a laboriously constructed Administrative Order, and, on the other, the unfoldment of successive stages in the development of "Abdu"l-Baha"s Plan beyond the confines of the Western Hemisphere and of the continent of Europe.
CROWNING FEATURE OF ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER: THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
During this Formative Age of the Faith, and in the course of present and succeeding epochs, the last and crowning stage in the erection of the framework of the Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha"u"llah-the election of the Universal House of Justice-will have been completed, the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the Mother-Book of His Revelation, will have been codified and its laws promulgated, the Lesser Peace will have been established, the unity of mankind will have been achieved and its maturity attained, the Plan conceived by "Abdu"l-Baha will have been executed, the emanc.i.p.ation of the Faith from the fetters of religious orthodoxy will have been effected, and its independent religious status will have been universally recognized, whilst in the course of the Golden Age, destined to consummate the Dispensation itself, the banner of the Most Great Peace, promised by its Author, will have been unfurled, the World Baha"i Commonwealth will have emerged in the plenitude of its power and splendor, and the birth and efflorescence of a world civilization, the child of that Peace, will have conferred its inestimable blessings upon all mankind.
FOURFOLD OBJECTIVE TO PRESENT REQUIREMENTS