With a throb of wonder I call to mind the early and sudden fruition of His
Dispensation in the capital city of that land, and the dramatic
circumstances attending the birth of Baha'u'llah's Revelation culminating
in His precipitate banishment to 'Iraq.
I am reminded, moreover, of the initial spread of the light of this
revelation, in consequence of the banishment of Baha'u'llah, to the
adjoining territories of 'Iraq, and, as far as the western fringes of that
continent, to Turkey and the neighboring territories of Lebanon, Jordan
and Syria, and, at a later stage, to the Indian subcontinent and China,
situated on the southern and eastern extremities of that continent as well
as to the Caucasus and Russian Turkistan.
Nor can I fail to remember the series of alternating crises and victories,
each constituting a landmark in the evolution of the Faith--which it has
experienced in some of these territories, associated with the distressful
withdrawal of its Author to the mountains of Sulamaniyyih; with the
glorious declaration of His Mission in Ba_gh_dad; with His second and
third banishments to Constantinople and Adrianople; with the grievous
rebellion of His half-brother; with the proclamation of His own Mission;
with His fourth banishment to the desolate and far-off penal colony of
Akka in Syria; with the revelation of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, His Most Holy
Book; with His ascension in the Holy Land; with the establishment of His
Covenant and the inauguration of the ministry of 'Abdu'l-Baha, His son and
the Exemplar and authorized Interpreter of His teachings.
These opening stages in the evolution of His Faith in the Asiatic
continent were followed, while the first and Apostolic Age of His
Dispensation was drawing to a close, by the opening of the islands
situated in the Pacific Ocean, Japan in the north, and the Australian
continent in the south. To these memorable chapters of Asian Baha'i
history another was soon added, on the morrow of the ascension of the
Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant, and during the initial epoch of the
Formative Age of the Faith, distinguished by the rise of the
Administrative Order and the erection of its pillars in the cradle of that
Faith, in 'Iraq, in India, Pakistan and Burma and in the Antipodes. This
memorable episode in its development in that vast continent was succeeded
by the initiation, during the second epoch of that same Age, of a series
of plans in those same territories in support of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Divine
Plan and as a prelude to the opening of the recently launched
world-embracing Spiritual Crusade.