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 Baha'i 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.
Divine retributive justice is strikingly demonstrated through a series of
sudden, rapid, devastating blows sweeping over leaders and henchmen of
breakers of Baha'u'llah'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.
The triumphant, resistlessly expanding Baha'i 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 Bab.
The number of languages into which Baha'i literature is translated or in
process of translation is over eighty.
The number of incorporated Assemblies, local and national, is one hundred
and ten.
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.
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.
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 Baha'u'llah's prophetic mission.
The prelude to the historic African campaign, the foremost objective of
the two year plan of the Baha'i 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.
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 Bab's Sepulcher raising
to sixteen hundred tons total tonnage ordered from Italy.
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.
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 Baha'u'llah.
A notable step in the progress of Baha'i women of the Middle East is taken
through the extension of the right of membership in local Assemblies to
women believers in Egypt.
The third European Teaching Conference and Summer School was held in
Copenhagen and attended by one hundred seventy-seven persons representing
twenty-two countries.
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.
Baha'i 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.
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 Baha'i custody, the recognition of Baha'i Holy
Days by the Ministry of Education and Culture, following exemption granted
to Baha'i international endowments, and recognition accorded Baha'i
marriage certificate.
Baha'u'llah's residence in Akka, 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.
A significant step was taken by the City Governorate of Cairo presaging
the eventual recognition by state authorities of the Baha'i laws of
personal status, already codified and submitted to the central government
by the Egyptian National Assembly.
Bonds binding the Baha'i world community to United Nations strengthened by
Baha'i participation in regional conference of Non-Governmental
Organizations in Geneva and Istanbul.
Preliminary steps taken in preparation of final design for the
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar on Mount Carmel by President of the International
Baha'i Council, specifically appointed by 'Abdu'l-Baha to be its
architect.
Process of the unfoldment of the ever-advancing Administrative Order
accelerated by the formation of the International Baha'i Council designed
to assist in the erection of the superstructure of the Bab's Sepulcher,
cement ties uniting the budding World Administrative Center with the
recently established state, and pave the way for the formation of the
Baha'i Court, essential prelude to the institution of the Universal House
of Justice.
I hail particularly the brilliant victory won by the American Baha'i
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 Bab's Sepulcher in the Holy Land.
I am thrilled by the multiple evidences of the simultaneous prosecution of
Baha'i 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 Baha'i 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 Baha'u'llah.
--Shoghi
[Cablegram, April 25, 1951]