On occasion of celebration of Naw-Ruz Festival announce to followers of
Faith of Baha'u'llah East and West, through National Assemblies,
completion of excavation for foundations for eight piers designed to
support the mighty dome of the Bab's Sepulcher, as well as momentous
decision to place hundred thirty thousand dollar contract for the stone
work of both cylinder and dome.
Approaching Centenary of the birth of the prophetic Mission of the Founder
of the Faith, the virtual consummation of the fifty year project
culminating in the termination of the interior ornamentation of the Mother
Temple of the West, the risks involved in any delay owing to the
threatening international situation, the necessity to insure increasing
support to reinforce the newly-forged ties with the civil authorities of
the recently emerged State in the Holy Land through the formation of the
International Baha'i Council, the considerable saving effected through
signature to the contract for the entire stone work required to erect the
superstructure of the edifice, impel me to take the major step in the
development of the swiftly progressing, irresistibly advancing enterprise
transcending in sacredness any collective undertaking launched in the
course of the history of the hundred year old Faith.
I am moved to renew my fervent plea addressed to all national and local
Assemblies and believers in all continents of the globe to arise and
determinedly gird up their loins to contribute, through curtailment of
budgets, adequate appropriations from national and local funds, as well as
direct sustained individual donations, to insure uninterrupted financial
support, however great the sacrifice involved, however heavy the burdens,
however distracting the successive crises of the present critical hour.
Austerity period previously affecting the fortunes of the American Baha'i
community unavoidably prolonged and now extended to embrace the entire
Baha'i world in recognition of the pressing needs and paramount importance
of this glorious international task.
Urge followers of the Most Great Name to demonstrate a still nobler spirit
of self-abnegation in the course of the swiftly diminishing interval
separating us from the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Mission
of the Author of the Revelation, commemorating the Centenary of the blood
bath constituting the most tragic episode in Baha'i history associated
with the martyrdom of the immortal Tahirih, the subjection of Baha'u'llah
to the rigors of the Siyah-_Ch_al in Tihran and the barbarous execution of
unnumbered heroes and saints of the Apostolic Age of the Baha'i
Dispensation.
--Shoghi
[Cablegram, March 21, 1951]