Announce to Hands and all National Assemblies that following the loss of
the appeal to the Supreme Court, the Government expropriation order has
been implemented, resulting in the complete evacuation of the remnant of
Covenant-breakers and the transfer of all their belongings from the
precincts of the Most Holy Shrine, and the purification, after six long
decades, of the Haram-i-Aqdas from every trace of their contamination.
Measures under way to effect transfer of title deeds of the evacuated
property to the triumphant Baha'i community.
--Shoghi
[Cablegram, September 6, 1957]
Announcement of Series of Five Intercontinental Conferences and
Appointment of Eight Additional Hands of the Cause
On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the opening of the memorable
Holy Year associated with the Centenary celebrations of the birth of the
Mission of Baha'u'llah in the Siyah-_Ch_al of Tihran--an anniversary
falling only a few months before the decade-long global Spiritual Crusade,
on which the entire company of His followers have embarked, will have
reached its midway point--I feel moved to announce the convocation of a
series of Intercontinental Conferences, five in number, to be held
successively in Kampala, Uganda, in the heart of the African continent; in
the city of Sydney, the oldest Baha'i center established in the Antipodes;
in Chicago, where the name of Baha'u'llah was publicly mentioned for the
first time in the western world; in the city of Frankfurt, in the heart of
the European continent; and in Djakarta, the capital city of the Republic
of Indonesia.
These historic gatherings, which will recall in some of their aspects the
four epoch-making Conferences which commemorated the hundredth anniversary
of the inception of the Baha'i Revelation, are to be held respectively in
the months of January, March, May, July and September, under the auspices
of the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Central and East
Africa, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Australia, the
National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States of
America, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Germany and
Austria, and the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of South-East
Asia.
They are to be convened by the chairmen of the aforementioned Regional and
National Spiritual Assemblies for the five-fold purpose of offering humble
thanksgiving to the Divine Author of our Faith, Who has graciously enabled
His followers, during a period of deepening anxiety and amidst the
confusion and uncertainties of a critical phase in the fortunes of
mankind, to prosecute uninterruptedly the Ten-Year Plan formulated for the
execution of the Grand Design conceived by 'Abdu'l-Baha; of reviewing and
celebrating the series of signal victories won so rapidly in the course of
each of the campaigns of this world-encircling Crusade; of deliberating on
ways and means that will insure its triumphant consummation; and of
lending simultaneously a powerful impetus, the world over, to the vital
process of individual conversion--the preeminent purpose underlying the
Plan in all its ramifications--and to the construction and completion of
the three Mother Temples to be built in the European, the African, and
Australian continents.