With feelings of profound joy, exultation and thankfulness, announce on
morrow of sixty-fifth Anniversary of Ascension of Baha'u'llah, signal,
epoch-making victory won over the ignoble band of breakers of His Covenant
which, in the course of over six decades, has entrenched itself in the
precincts of the Most Holy Shrine of the Baha'i world, provoking through
acts of overt hostility and ingenious machinations, in alliance with
external enemies under three successive regimes, the wrath of the Lord of
the Covenant Himself, incurring the malediction of the Concourse on high,
and filling with inexpressible anguish the heart of 'Abdu'l-Baha.
The expropriation order issued by the Israeli government, mentioned in the
recent Convention Message, related to the entire property owned by
Covenant-breakers within the Haram-i-Aqdas, recently contested by these
same enemies through appeal to Israel's Supreme Court, now confirmed
through adverse decision just announced by same Court, enabling the civil
authorities to enforce the original decision and proceed with the eviction
of the wretched remnants of the once redoubtable adversaries who, both
within the Holy Land and beyond its confines, labored so long and so
assiduously to disrupt the foundations of the Faith, sap their loyalty and
cause a permanent cleavage in the ranks of its supporters.
This final, shattering and most humiliating blow may well be regarded as
the culmination in the long series of reverses suffered by these same
relentless foes, marked by the repudiation of their preposterous claims
following the Passing of Baha'u'llah, by the overwhelming majority of His
followers, east and west; by the abject failure of 'Abdu'l-Hamid, as well
as the notorious Commission of Inquiry, to banish 'Abdu'l-Baha to Fezzan;
by the ignominious defeat of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief, the cruel,
boastful Jamal Pa_sh_a, following his threat to crucify the Center of the
Covenant outside the main gate of the fortress City of Akka; by
acquisition of the site for the construction of the Bab's Sepulcher; by
the restitution of the keys to the Most Holy Tomb and the recognition by
the British authorities of the right of the Baha'i world community to the
custodianship of the Baha'i Shrines; by the establishment of the
international Baha'i endowments on Mt. Carmel; by the formation of the
Palestine branches of the Baha'i National Assemblies; by exhumation of the
Brother and Mother of 'Abdu'l-Baha and reburial in the neighborhood of the
Bab's resting place; by the evacuation by these same adversaries of the
Mansion of Bahji, after forty years' occupancy; by the demise, in
distressing circumstances, of the archbreaker of the Covenant himself; by
the ignominious flight of his henchmen on the eve of the disturbances
which rocked the Holy Land in recent years; by the deaths with dramatic
swiftness of this same lieutenant, his kindred and closest associates; by
the intervention of the Israeli government in denying the competence of
the civil courts to adjudicate the case brought by the remnant of these
same Covenant-breakers and the subsequent authorization issued by the
Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs to demolish the ruined
building close to the vicinity of Baha'u'llah's Tomb; finally, by the
extinction of the life of the prime mover in the diabolical plans directed
during the course of three decades against 'Abdu'l-Baha.
The implementation of this order will, at long last, cleanse the Outer
Sanctuary of the Qiblih of the Baha'i world of the pollution staining the
fair name of the Faith and pave the way for the adoption and execution of
preliminary measures designed to herald the construction in future decades
of the stately, befitting Mausoleum designed to enshrine the holiest dust
the earth ever received into its bosom.
Share announcement Hands of the Cause and all National Assemblies.
--Shoghi
[Cablegram, June 3, 1957]