In the Holy Land, the center and pivot round which the divinely appointed,
fast multiplying institutions of a world-encircling, resistlessly marching
Faith revolve, the double process, so noticeable in recent years,
involving a rapid decline in the fortunes of the breakers of Baha'u'llah's
Covenant and proclaiming the rise of the institutions of its World
Administrative Center, in the shadow of His Shrine, has been accelerated
on the one hand, through the death, in miserable circumstances, of the
treacherous and malignant Majdi'd-Din, the last survivor of the principal
instigators of the rebellion against the Will of the Founder of our Faith,
and, on the other, through the laying of the foundation, and the erection
of some of the pillars, of the facade and of the northern side of the
International Baha'i Archives--the first of the major edifices destined to
constitute the seat of the World Baha'i Administrative Center to be
established on Mt. Carmel. No less than thirty of the fifty-two pillars,
each over seven meters high, of this imposing and strikingly beautiful
edifice have already been raised, whilst half of the nine hundred tons of
stone ordered in Italy for its construction have already been safely
delivered at the Port of Haifa. A contract, moreover, for over fifteen
thousand dollars has been placed with a tile factory in Utrecht for the
manufacture of over seven thousand green tiles designed to cover the five
hundred square meters of the roof of the building.
Coincident with these building operations an extensive plot, adjoining the
resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf has, after protracted and
difficult negotiations, been purchased for the sum of one hundred thousand
dollars, for the purpose of extending and safeguarding, on the one hand,
the area of the international Baha'i endowments on Mt. Carmel, and of
providing, on the other, the much needed space for the extension and
completion of the far-flung arc around which the edifices of the World
Baha'i Administrative Order are to be built. The recently acquired area
surrounding the holiest Shrine in the Baha'i World and its appointed
Qiblih in the plain of Akka has been further extended through the purchase
from the Development Authority of the State of Israel of a dilapidated
house, situated south of the Mansion and blessed by the presence of
'Abdu'l-Baha and in which He was wont to receive His friends, amongst them
the first party of western Baha'i pilgrims to arrive in the Holy Land
after the passing of Baha'u'llah. To these latest acquisitions must be
added the purchase of another plot situated in the neighborhood of the
Bab's Sepulcher and adjoining the area surrounding the future seat of the
World Baha'i Administrative Order, raising thereby the total area of the
international Baha'i endowments in the Holy Land to over four hundred
thousand square meters. Furthermore, the necessary formalities have been
completed in connection with the purchase of the site of the future
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar on Mt. Carmel, while the transfer of the title deeds
of recently acquired plots to the name of the Israel branches of the
United States, the British, the Persian, the Canadian and Australian
Baha'i National Spiritual Assemblies is being expeditiously carried out.