So glorious a record of accomplishments in the service of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah, whether local, national or international, in both the
teaching and administrative spheres of Baha'i activity, can be regarded in
no other light than as a prelude to a period of prodigious expansion and
consolidation to be inaugurated by the launching of a global spiritual
crusade, on the threshold of which the Baha'i world now stands. This
crusade extending through ten years will involve the simultaneous
prosecution of twelve national plans, will necessitate the active and
sustained participation of each of the twelve existing national spiritual
assemblies representing no less than thirty-six nations and will demand
the utmost exertion, consecration and heroism. It aims at the broadening
and the reinforcement of the foundations of the Faith in each of the
twelve areas that are to serve as operational bases for the prosecution of
these twelve national plans; the opening of one hundred and thirty-one
territories to the Faith; the consolidation of one hundred and eighteen
territories; the translation and printing of literature in ninety-one
languages; the construction of two Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kars; the acquisition
of sites for the future construction of eleven Temples; the formation of
forty-eight national spiritual assemblies; the founding of forty-seven
national Haziratu'l-Quds; the incorporation of fifty national spiritual
assemblies; the framing of Baha'i national constitutions and the
establishment of Baha'i national endowments by each of these national
assemblies; the adoption of preliminary measures for the construction of
Baha'u'llah's Sepulcher; the erection of the first dependency of the first
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the western world; the development of the
institution of the Hands of the Cause; the transformation of the
International Baha'i Council into an international Baha'i court; the
codification of the laws and ordinances of the Kitab-i-Aqdas; the
establishment of six national Baha'i Courts in the chief cities of the
Islamic East; the extension of international Baha'i endowments in the
Plain of Akka and on the slopes of Mt. Carmel; the construction of the
International Baha'i Archives in the neighborhood of the Bab's Sepulcher;
the construction of the tomb of the Bab's wife in _Sh_iraz; the
identification of the resting-places of Baha'u'llah's father, of the Bab's
mother and of His cousin and their reburial in the neighborhood of the
Most Great House; the acquisition of the Garden of Ridvan in Ba_gh_dad,
and of the sites of the Siyah-_Ch_al in Tihran, of the Bab's martyrdom in
Tabriz and of His incarceration in _Ch_ihriq; the establishment of six
Baha'i national publishing trusts; the formation of seven Israel branches
of Baha'i national spiritual assemblies; the participation of women in the
membership of Baha'i local and national spiritual assemblies in Persia;
the establishment of a Baha'i national printing-press in Tihran; the
reinforcement of the ties binding the Baha'i World Community with the
United Nations; the opening to the Faith, circumstances permitting, of
eleven republics comprised in the Soviet Union, as well as two
Soviet-controlled European states--all, please God, culminating in the
convocation of a World Baha'i Congress, in the vicinity of the Garden of
Ridvan, in the third holiest city of the Baha'i world, on the occasion of
the world-wide celebrations commemorating the centenary of the formal
assumption by Baha'u'llah of His prophetic office.