Transmit the following joyful tidings National Spiritual Assemblies of the
Baha'i world. World spiritual crusade, mightiest agency yet conceived for
the systematic execution of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Divine Plan, has been
befittingly ushered in through successive, magnificent victories won by
Baha'u'llah's crusaders in virgin territories in every continent of the
globe.
The four months which have elapsed since its glorious inauguration amidst
the climax of the Centenary of the inception of His Mission, have been
immortalized by the opening of no less than twenty-eight territories and
islands, nine in Europe, eight in America, six in Africa, five in Asia,
constituting a dispersal unprecedented in its rapidity and scope during
eleven decades of Baha'i history.
The number of pioneers who responded to the call for settlement of open
and unopened territories on the planet passed the three hundred mark: over
a hundred and fifty from America, over fifty from Europe, over forty from
Africa, over forty from Asia. The number of prospective pioneers to virgin
areas is over forty. All Western Hemisphere and African areas allocated to
the United States National Assembly, as well as all European areas
allocated to the various National Assemblies, have been assigned.
The Roll of Honor designed to perpetuate the memory of the exploits of the
spiritual conquerors is already inscribed with the names of the following
pioneers, together with their respective territories, amounting to almost
a fourth of the number required for the attainment of the paramount
objective of the opening phase of the ten year plan. Sohail Samandari,
Italian Somaliland; Mary and Rex Collison, Dunduzu Chisizwa,
Ruanda-Urundi; 'Izzatu'llah Zahrai, Southern Rhodesia; Ghulamal Kurlawala,
Daman; Gail and Jameson Bond, Franklin; Roshan Aftabi, Feroza Yaganagi,
Goa; Rose Perkal, Jack Huffman, Kodiak Island; Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Crane,
Key West; Saeed Nahvi, Shyan Behrarilal, Pondicherry; Udainarayan Singh,
Sikkim; Fred Schechter, French Somaliland; Virginia Orbison, Balearic
Islands; Mr. and Mrs. Amin Banani, Greece; Abbas Vakil, Cyprus; Gertrude
Eisenberg, Canary Islands; Dick Stanton, Keewatin; Mr. and Mrs. Jenabe
Caldwell, Aleutian Islands; Edythe MacArthur, Queen Charlotte Islands;
Hushmand Manuchihri, Liechtenstein; Eskil Ljungberg, Faroe Islands;
Mildred Clark and Loyce Lawrence, Lofoten Islands; Salisa Kirmani, Shirin
Nurani, Karikal; Zia'u'llah Asgarzadeh, Evelyn Baxter, Channel Islands;
Kay Weston, Magdalen Islands; Julius Edwards, Northern Territories
Protectorate; Doris Richardson, Grand Manan Island; Charles Dunning,
Orkney Islands; Nellie French, Monaco.
Countries in which Baha'is reside now aggregate over one hundred fifty.
Over seventy have been added in the course of the nine years separating
the first and second Jubilees.
The festivities of the Holy Year, so splendidly inaugurated, attaining the
high water mark on the occasion of the Ninetieth Anniversary of the
declaration of the Mission of the Founder of the Faith, are approaching
their end. Appeal entire body of His followers to exert a concerted,
superhuman effort to celebrate, through acceleration of their dispersal,
the conclusion of the world-wide rejoicings, and pay worthy tribute to His
memory, through as close an approach to the two hundred mark as possible
of the total number of sovereign States, Dependencies, and Islands
comprised within the orbit of His irresistibly expanding Faith, achieving
thereby a feat paralleling, in the eyes of posterity, the triumphant
completion of the superstructure of the Sepulcher of its Co-Founder at the
Baha'i World Center in the Holy Land.
--Shoghi
[Cablegram, September 20, 1953]