Chapter 8

Seven virgin territories have been opened to the Faith since the announcement on the morrow of the Ridvan Festival, raising the total number of the Sovereign States and Dependencies enlisted under the banner of the Cause of God to two hundred and thirty-five. The number of the unopened territories outside of the Soviet Orbit has now shrunk to eight, namely: Spitzbergen, Anticosti Island, St. Thomas Island, Nicobar Islands, Cocos Island, Socotra Island, Loyalty Islands, and the Chagos Archipelago. The following pioneers have been inscribed on the Roll of Honor since my last sixth periodic announcement: Elizabeth Stamp, St. Helena; Mr. and Mrs. Harold Fitzner, Portuguese Timor; Elise Schreiber, Spanish Guinea; Violet Hoehnke, Admiralty Islands; Shahpoor Rowhani and Ardeshir Faroodi, Bhutan; Mehraben Sohaili, Comoro Islands; Marcia Atwater, Marshall Islands.

The number of Baha'i centers scattered over the continents and islands of the globe has now passed the three thousand mark. A contract has been signed for the purchase of a three-acre plot as the site of the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of Europe, situated on a plateau near the Taunus Hills in the vicinity of the City of Frankfurt. A thirty thousand square meter property located on the banks of the Tigris has been acquired as the site of the future Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Holy City of Ba_gh_dad. A plot lying in the outskirts of New Delhi has been secured at the price of a hundred thousand rupees as the site of the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Indian sub-continent. A twelve thousand dollar plot has been bought in Johannesburg as the site of the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of South Africa. A five-year Plan has been initiated in Baha'u'llah's native land designed to raise twelve million tumans for the projected construction of the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar in the cradle of the Faith. A six thousand dollar plot has been purchased in the vicinity of the resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf and registered in the name of the newly established Israel Branch of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the British Isles. A property has been acquired opposite the Mother Temple of the West to serve as a possible site for the first Dependency of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of Wilmette. A contract has been signed, pending registration of a house valued at ten thousand dollars and situated in the immediate neighborhood of the Bab's Sepulcher, in the name of the recently established Israel Branch of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Canada. Preliminary steps have been taken for the acquisition of two plots, the one situated on the ridge of Mt. Carmel, the other to the west of the Bab's resting-place and for their subsequent registration in the name of the Israel Branches of the National Spiritual Assemblies of the Baha'is of Persia and of Australia and New Zealand, respectively. A national Haziratu'l-Quds has been purchased in Kabul and one in Johannesburg. Arrangements will soon be completed for the purchase of a building costing over eighteen thousand dollars for a national Haziratu'l-Quds in Tunis. Funds totalling over one hundred thousand dollars have been initiated for the purchase of similar institutions in Anchorage, Asuncion, Auckland, Bahrayn, Beirut, Bern, Bogota, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Ciudad Trujillo, Colombo, Copenhagen, Guatemala, Havana, Helsingfors, Istanbul, Jakarta, Johannesburg, La Paz, Lima, Lisbon, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Managua, Mexico City, Montevideo, Oslo, Panama City, Port-au-Prince, Quito, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, San Jose, Santiago, San Salvador, Stockholm, Suva, Tegucigalpa, The Hague, Tokyo, and Vienna, as well as for the acquisition of the Garden of Ridvan in Ba_gh_dad, the transfer of the remains of the wife of the Bab in _Sh_iraz and for the purchase of the sites associated with Baha'u'llah's exile in Istanbul and in Adrianople. The initiation of these Funds has been made possible to a notable extent as a result of the successive contributions made by the Hand of the Cause, Amelia Collins, outstanding benefactress of the Faith, for the furtherance of some of the most vital objectives of the Ten-Year Plan. Negotiations are now afoot aiming at the acquisition of the fortress of _Ch_ihriq including its precincts involving the expenditure of a sum of over two hundred thousand tumans. Preliminary documents have been signed in connection with the purchase from the Development Authority of the State of Israel of five houses, situated at the foot of Mt. Carmel and adjoining the last terrace of the Bab's Shrine, for a sum of approximately sixty thousand dollars.

The phenomenal progress of the African Campaign, alike in the teaching and administrative spheres of Baha'i activity, has been maintained, most conspicuously in the heart of that continent, as evidenced by the ever-swelling number of African converts, now numbering over seven hundred, three hundred and eighty of which have been added in the course of a single year. The number of Baha'i centers now spread over the face of this continent is a hundred and ninety-five. The number of African tribes represented in the Faith in this same continent has reached eighty-five. The African languages into which Baha'i literature has been translated now number thirty-four, whilst the number of African local spiritual assemblies has swelled to fifty.

I feel the hour is now ripe for the adoption of preliminary measures designed to pave the way for the simultaneous erection during Ridvan of 1956 of three pillars of the future Universal House of Justice in the North, the South and the very heart of this long dormant continent. The first of these pillars will be designated the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Central and East Africa; the second the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of South and West Africa; and the third the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of North-West Africa. Responsibility for the convocation of the three epoch-making conventions, to be held in Kampala, Johannesburg and Tunis, preparatory to the emergence of these three central administrative institutions of the fast-evolving Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah in the African continent will devolve upon the British, the United States and the Egyptian Spiritual Assemblies, respectively.

The jurisdiction of the first Assembly will embrace Uganda, Tanganyika, Kenya, the Belgian Congo, Ruanda-Urundi, French Equatorial Africa, Zanzibar, the Comoro Islands and the Seychelles. That of the second will extend over the Union of South Africa, South-West Africa, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Swaziland, Nyasaland, Zululand, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion Island and St. Helena. That of the third will include Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco (Int. Zone), Spanish Morocco, French Morocco, Spanish Sahara, Rio de Oro, Spanish Guinea, Ashanti Protectorate, French Cameroons, British Cameroons, Northern Territories Protectorate, French Togoland, British Togoland, Gambia, Portuguese Guinea, French West Africa, the Gold Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Madeira, the Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, and St. Thomas Island.

Abyssinia, Libya, Eritrea, British, French and Italian Somaliland and Socotra Island will, as of Ridvan of that same year, fall within the administrative jurisdiction of the Egyptian National Spiritual Assembly which will from then on be designated as the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of North-East Africa. All African territories originally allocated to the United States, the Persian, the Egyptian, the Indian, and the British National Spiritual Assemblies will continue, in the course of the Ten-Year Plan, to benefit from the advantages of sustained assistance by these Assemblies--an assistance that will enable them to assume an ever-increasing share in the steadily expanding activities of the nascent National Spiritual Assemblies.

Only local spiritual assemblies duly constituted during Ridvan 1955 will be qualified to elect delegates to these four historic conventions to be convened during the succeeding year.

I call upon the Hand of the Cause, Musa Banani, to act as my representative at each of the three Conventions destined to culminate in the emergence of these three momentous institutions. I moreover invite the Chairman of the United States, the British and the Egyptian National Spiritual Assemblies to convene the aforementioned Conventions falling within the respective jurisdiction of these Assemblies and urge as many members of the African Auxiliary Board as possible to attend the sessions, and lend their support to the deliberations, of these gatherings. I feel, moreover, moved at this juncture to stress the urgent necessity for all groups established throughout the African continent as well as in the islands situated in its neighborhood--already four score in number--to seize their present golden opportunity during the fast-fleeting months separating them from next Ridvan, and exert every effort to attain assembly status which will enable them to participate in the election of, and contribute to the broadening of the foundations of the projected National Spiritual Assemblies.

I earnestly appeal to all Baha'i communities, and in particular to their national elected representatives in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia to brace themselves and vie with one another in emulating the example of their African sister communities ranking among the youngest in the Baha'i world. I entreat them, through a greater dispersal and an intensification of teaching activity, to lend an unprecedented impetus to the multiplication of local spiritual assemblies in their respective areas, accelerating thereby the dynamic process of the formation of National Spiritual Assemblies--a process destined to usher in the third and most brilliant phase, and constituting unquestionably the noblest objective, of the most stupendous crusade ever launched in the course of eleven decades of Baha'i history.

Share this message with the Hands of the Cause and the National Spiritual Assemblies throughout the Baha'i World.

--Shoghi

[October 1, 1954]

ADMINISTRATIVE SEATS OF DIVINELY-APPOINTED INSTITUTIONS

I hail, with feelings of thankfulness and relief, the signature, on the eve of 'Abdu'l-Baha's ascension, of a contract for the immediate expropriation, by the Israeli Finance Minister, on the recommendation of the Mayor of the City of Haifa, of a thirteen-hundred meter plot, owned by the sister of Fareed, notorious enemy of the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant. This historic act paves the way for the early transfer of the title deed of this plot by the State of Israel to the Baha'i Community, now engaged in establishing and consolidating its World Administrative Center in the Holy Land.

The truculence, greed and obstinacy, of this breaker of the Covenant of Baha'u'llah, demonstrated by her persistent refusal to sell and by the exorbitant price subsequently demanded, raised, during more than thirty years, an almost insurmountable obstacle to the acquisition of an area which, however circumscribed, occupies a central position amidst the extensive Baha'i domains in the heart of God's Holy Mountain, is situated in the vicinity of the Bab's Sepulcher, overlooks the Tomb of the Greatest Holy Leaf, and adjoins the resting-places of the Brother and the Mother of 'Abdu'l-Baha, and which, through deliberate neglect, has been allowed to become an eyesore to all those who throng the embellished precincts of a Mausoleum rightly regarded as the second holiest Shrine in the Baha'i world.

The ownership of this plot will now enable us to locate the site, excavate the foundations, and erect the structure, of the International Baha'i Archives, designed by the Hand of the Cause, Mason Remey, President of the International Baha'i Council, which will serve as the permanent and befitting repository for the priceless and numerous relics associated with the Twin Founders of the Faith, with the Perfect Exemplar of its teachings and with its heroes, saints and martyrs, and the building of which constitutes one of the foremost objectives of the Ten-Year Plan.

The raising of this Edifice will in turn herald the construction, in the course of successive epochs of the Formative Age of the Faith, of several other structures, which will serve as the administrative seats of such divinely appointed institutions as the Guardianship, the Hands of the Cause, and the Universal House of Justice. These Edifices will, in the shape of a far-flung arc, and following a harmonizing style of architecture, surround the resting-places of the Greatest Holy Leaf, ranking as foremost among the members of her sex in the Baha'i Dispensation, of her Brother, offered up as a ransom by Baha'u'llah for the quickening of the world and its unification, and of their Mother, proclaimed by Him to be His chosen "consort in all the worlds of God." The ultimate completion of this stupendous undertaking will mark the culmination of the development of a world-wide divinely-appointed Administrative Order whose beginnings may be traced as far back as the concluding years of the Heroic Age of the Faith.

This vast and irresistible process, unexampled in the spiritual history of mankind, and which will synchronize with two no less significant developments--the establishment of the Lesser Peace and the evolution of Baha'i national and local institutions--the one outside and the other within the Baha'i world--will attain its final consummation, in the Golden Age of the Faith, through the raising of the standard of the Most Great Peace, and the emergence, in the plenitude of its power and glory, of the focal Center of the agencies constituting the World Order of Baha'u'llah. The final establishment of this seat of the future Baha'i World Commonwealth will signalize at once the proclamation of the sovereignty of the Founder of our Faith and the advent of the Kingdom of the Father repeatedly lauded and promised by Jesus Christ.

This World Order will, in turn, in the course of successive Dispensations of the Baha'i Cycle, yield its fairest fruit through the birth and flowering of a civilization, divinely inspired, unique in its features, world-embracing in its scope, and fundamentally spiritual in its character--a civilization destined as it unfolds to derive its initial impulse from the spirit animating the very institutions which, in their embryonic state, are now stirring in the womb of the present Formative Age of the Faith.

Advise share this message with the Hands of the Cause and the members of the National Spiritual Assemblies throughout the Baha'i world.

--Shoghi

[November 27, 1954]

INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES BUILDING AND DESIGN FOR TEMPLE IN PERSIA

On the occasion of the Naw-Ruz Festival marking the opening of the auspicious year being celebrated by the followers of the Faith in approximately sixteen hundred centers in the Western Hemisphere, above eight hundred in Asia, well nigh three hundred in Africa, more than two hundred in Europe and over one hundred in the Antipodes, I joyfully announce the commencement of the excavation for the foundations of the International Archives heralding the rise of the first edifice destined to inaugurate the establishment of the seat of the World Baha'i Administrative order in the Holy Land.

I announce moreover the selection of the design submitted by the Hand of the Cause, Mason Remey, for the projected Mother Temple in Baha'u'llah's native land, paving the way for the construction of the third Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Baha'i world.

Urge followers of the Faith in Eastern and Western Hemispheres to arise and lend support to the erection of these twin mighty institutions of the embryonic World Order of Baha'u'llah at the World Center of the Faith and within the cradle of His Revelation.

Share twin glad tidings with all National Assemblies.

--Shoghi

[Cablegram, March 20, 1955]

ACHIEVEMENTS OF SECOND YEAR OF TEN YEAR PLAN

On the occasion of the triumphant conclusion of the second year of the Ten Year Plan, marking the termination of the first half of the second phase of a decade-long Baha'i World Spiritual Crusade, I invite the delegates assembled at the twelve Annual Conventions, convened simultaneously throughout the Baha'i world during the Ridvan Festival, to survey with me the multiple evidences of the progressive unfoldment of the incalculable potentialities with which this world-enveloping, steadily consolidating enterprise has been endowed by the Author of the Tablets of the Divine Plan at the very hour of its inception.

In every continent of the globe, throughout the widely scattered islands of the Mediterranean and the North Sea, of the Atlantic, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, this mighty Plan, devised for the systematic execution of the Design conceived by the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant for the propagation of His Father's Faith, is forging ahead, gaining momentum with every passing day, tearing down barriers in all climes and amidst divers peoples and races, widening irresistibly the scope of its beneficent operations, and revealing ever more compelling signs of its inherent strength as it marches towards the spiritual conquest of the entire planet.

TWO HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX TERRITORIES NOW OPENED TO THE FAITH

The number of the virgin territories of the globe opened to the Faith has, since the inauguration, and in direct consequence of the vigorous prosecution, of this stupendous undertaking, been raised to one hundred and eight, swelling the number of the sovereign states and chief dependencies included within the pale of the Faith of Baha'u'llah to two hundred and thirty-six, above two hundred of which have been enlisted under His banner since the ascension of the Center of His Covenant.

All the territories within the confines of the American, the European, the Asiatic and the African continents, assigned to ten Baha'i National Assemblies, have, with the exception of Soviet-controlled territories, been opened. Of the seventy-two islands allocated to eleven Baha'i National Assemblies no less than sixty-four have opened their doors to the vanguard of Baha'i Crusaders, leaving Spitzbergen and Anticosti Island, situated respectively in the North Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, Nicobar Islands, Cocos Island and Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and Loyalty Islands, Sakhalin Island and Hainan Island in the Pacific Ocean--one of which is a native reserve, two of which are within the Soviet orbit, while four others are either privately owned or controlled by private companies--as yet unopened by the heroic band battling for the Faith of Baha'u'llah.

The northern limits of the Faith in Europe have been pushed beyond the Arctic Circle as far as 70 degrees latitude, through the settlement of a Baha'i pioneer in Reals Kolen, Batsfjord, Finnmark, only three degrees below Arctic Bay, Franklin, the northernmost Baha'i Center established, in the course of the opening year of the Ten-Year Plan, in the North American Continent. Valiant pioneers have, moreover, volunteered and are busily engaged in devising plans, or have actually embarked on the necessary preparations, to cross the mountain frontiers of Tibet, to enter the Ukraine, beyond the Iron Curtain, to gain admission to the few remaining, hitherto inaccessible islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and to penetrate deep into the Arctic Ocean as far as the icebound island of Spitzbergen.

NUMBER OF RACES, LANGUAGES, INCORPORATED ASSEMBLIES AUGMENTED

No less than forty races are now represented in the world-wide Baha'i Community, which has been recently enriched through the enrollment of representatives of the Greek, the Berber, the Pigmy, the Somali and Guanche races. The number of localities where Baha'is now reside is well over thirty-two hundred, of which fourteen hundred are located in the Great Republic of the West, over six hundred in the Cradle of the Faith, more than three hundred in the African Continent, and over one hundred each in the Dominion of Canada, in Australasia, Latin America and in the Indian Sub-Continent. In the African Continent alone the number of members of the Negro race has, within the space of four years, increased to over thirteen hundred; the number of territories opened to the Faith has reached fifty-eight, the number of local Spiritual Assemblies already established and functioning is now fifty, the number of tribes represented within the swiftly expanding Baha'i Community is now over ninety, whilst the number of African languages into which Baha'i literature has been and is being translated exceeds fifty.

The total number of the European, the African, the Asiatic and American-Indian languages into which Baha'i literature has been and is being translated is one hundred and sixty-seven, of which fifty-five are among those included in the provisions of the Ten-Year Plan, and twenty-four are supplementary languages into which the translation of Baha'i literature has been spontaneously undertaken by the indefatigable band of pioneers and new converts in Africa, in South East Asia, in the South Pacific Islands and in the Antipodes.

The number of incorporated Baha'i national and local Spiritual Assemblies has now reached one hundred and forty, seventy-five of which are located in the United States of America, the latest additions to this steadily mounting list in other continents being the Assemblies of London and Manchester in the British Isles; of Ciudad Trujillo in the Dominican Republic; of Kuching in Sarawak; of Jakarta in Indonesia; of Helsinki in Finland and of San Juan in Puerto Rico.

ACTIVITIES AT THE WORLD CENTER

In the Holy Land, the Center and Pivot around which the institutions of a world-encompassing Administrative Order revolve, steps have been taken for the preparation of a Synopsis, and for the Codification of the Laws, of the Most Holy Book, the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the Mother-Book of the Baha'i Revelation, as an essential prelude to the eventual translation and publication of its entire text.

A Fund has been inaugurated in anticipation of the adoption of preliminary measures for the ultimate construction of Baha'u'llah's Sepulcher in the heart of the Haram-i-Aqdas recently established in the plain of Akka.

The international Baha'i endowments on Mt. Carmel have been greatly enhanced by the signature of a contract with the Israeli Authorities for the acquisition of an area of thirty-six thousand square meters, situated on the promontory of Mt. Carmel, overlooking the Cave of Elijah, as well as the spot sanctified by the footsteps of Baha'u'llah and associated with the revelation of the Tablet of Carmel, for the price of one hundred and eight thousand dollars, to serve as the site for the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Holy Land, the entire sum having been donated by Amelia Collins, Hand of the Cause and outstanding benefactress of the Faith.