Dearly loved friends,
The successful launching of the Seven Year Plan and the
advances made in the first year of its opening phase mitigate, in some degree,
the disasters and calamities which, in the past year, have assailed the
struggling Faith of God. The newest wave of persecution unleashed against us in
the Cradle of our Faith has been compounded by Divine decree afflicting the
entire Bahá'í world community. In the full tide of their brilliant services to
the Faith of God, and within the short span of twenty weeks three Chief
Stewards of Bahá'u'lláh's embryonic World Order, the Hands of the Cause of God
Enoch Olinga, Rahmatu'llah Muhajir and Hasan Balyuzi were summoned to the Abha
Kingdom, leaving the rest of us bereft and shocked by the enormity of our loss
and the tragic brutality of the circumstances attending the murder of beloved
Enoch Olinga and members of his family.
In Iran, the confusion which has seized the whole country
opened the way for the fierce and inveterate enemies of the Faith, unrestrained
by any effective authority, to indulge their fanatical hatred. The Holy House
of the Báb has been demolished and proposals have been made to erase its very
site. The Siyah-Chal and Bahá'u'lláh's Home in Tihran have been seized,
together with all other Holy Places and properties. One member of the National
Spiritual Assembly and two of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Tihran have been
kidnapped and the whereabouts of two of them is still unknown, while the third
is still in prison. Also, a Counsellor and some friends who are associated with
the National Office or are members of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Tihran
have been imprisoned. Bahá'ís have been heavily pressed to recant their faith
and in one case a believer, who refused to do so, followed the glorious path of
the martyrs and was executed. Beyond all this a campaign of vilification and
false charges has been conducted against the friends in an effort to make them
the scapegoat of unrestrained mobs.
And yet, as ever in the Cause of God, the beneficent
operation of the dialectic of disaster and triumph is clearly apparent. The
unwavering faith of the dearly loved, severely tested, ever-steadfast Persian
Bahá'í community, guided by the heroic stand and example of its National
Spiritual Assembly, supported and inspired by the Counsellors and their
Auxiliary Board members, has effected a spiritual revitalization of the beloved
friends. They have united as one man to present a front of refulgent
spirituality and assurance and appear, as one observer reports, like a dazzling
community of eager, uplifted, radiant new believers.
Nor is the influence of their response to the sufferings
engulfing them confined to their homeland. From farthest east to farthest west,
from pole to pole, wherever the Standard of Bahá'u'lláh has been implanted, the
friends have felt the impulse of sacrifice and risen to assume that enormous
share of the work of the Faith in the fields of teaching, pioneering and
financial contribution which the Persian friends, for the time being, are no
longer able to shoulder.
The wonderful love aroused in Bahá'í hearts everywhere by
the sudden, untimely passing of the beloved Hands of the Cause has moved the
believers to dedicate themselves anew with increased ardour and self-sacrifice
to the promotion of the work to which all the Hands of the Cause of God have
dedicated their lives.
The world-wide response of the friends to these tragedies is
the more heartening in view of the clear warnings voiced by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and
the beloved Guardian of the fierce and widespread opposition which the
increasing growth of the Cause of God will arouse. There is no doubt of this.
Shoghi Effendi called attention to "the extent and character of the forces
that are destined to contest with God's holy Faith," and supported his
argument with "these prophetic and ominous words" from 'Abdu'l-Bahá:
"HOW GREAT, HOW VERY GREAT IS THE CAUSE! HOW VERY FIERCE THE ONSLAUGHT OF
ALL THE PEOPLES AND KINDREDS OF THE EARTH! ERELONG SHALL THE CLAMOUR OF THE
MULTITUDE THROUGHOUT AFRICA, THROUGHOUT AMERICA, THE CRY OF THE EUROPEAN AND OF
THE TURK, THE GROANING OF INDIA AND CHINA, BE HEARD FROM FAR AND NEAR. ONE AND
ALL THEY SHALL ARISE WITH ALL THEIR POWER TO RESIST HIS CAUSE. THEN SHALL THE
KNIGHTS OF THE LORD, ASSISTED BY HIS GRACE FROM ON HIGH, STRENGTHENED BY FAITH,
AIDED BY THE POWER OF UNDERSTANDING, AND REINFORCED BY THE LEGIONS OF THE
COVENANT ARISE AND MAKE MANIFEST THE TRUTH OF THE VERSE: 'BEHOLD THE CONFUSION
THAT HATH BEFALLEN THE TRIBES OF THE DEFEATED!'"
The beloved Guardian expatiated at length upon this theme
and its inevitable outcome: "Stupendous as is the struggle which His words
foreshadow, they also testify to the complete victory which the upholders of
the Greatest Name are destined eventually to achieve."
Now, therefore, it is our sacred duty to make the utmost use
of our freedom, wherever it exists, to promote the Cause of God while we may.
The surest way to do this and to win the good-pleasure of Bahá'u'lláh is to
pursue, with dedication and unrelenting vigour, the goals of whatever Plan is
in force, for Bahá'u'lláh has stated: "To assist Me is to teach My
Cause."
A good start has been made with the Seven Year Plan. At the
World Centre of the Faith the uninterrupted progress in raising the Seat of the
House of Justice, repairing and refurbishing the House of 'Abdu'llah Pasha,
further extension of the gardens surrounding the Haram-i-Aqdas at Bahji, and
the initiation of a general reorganization of the work of the World Centre to accommodate
its ever-growing needs and make use of the most up-to-date technological
developments, have taken place.
In the international sphere the enthusiasm with which the
friends everywhere greeted the launching of the Seven Year Plan and girded
themselves to achieve the goals of the first two-year phase, their generous and
sacrificial outpouring of funds, the confident and sustained efforts exerted to
carry forward the two sacred enterprises initiated in the Indian subcontinent
and at the heart of the vast Pacific Ocean, the constant activity of the Bahá'í
International Community in fostering its relations with the United Nations, the
great increase in the number of children's Bahá'í classes and the innumerable
victories won in the teaching field, recorded by the establishment of the
world-wide community of the Most Great Name in over 106,000 localities, all
testify to the unassailable, and indeed ever-increasing vigour of the Cause of
God.
The number of pioneers and travelling teachers who have
entered the field during the first year of the Seven Year Plan, and the
increase in the number of national communities which have sent them out are
highly encouraging. This stream of pioneers and travelling teachers must be
increased and more widely diffused, and we fervently hope that, at the very
least, all those pioneers filling the assigned goals of the first phase of the
Seven Year Plan will be at their posts by Ridvan 1981.
In the field of proclamation unprecedented publicity has
been accorded the Cause of God, chiefly as a result of the persecutions in
Iran. In addition significant gains have been made in the Bahá'í radio
operation in South America, where short wave transmission has greatly extended
the range of Radio Bahá'í in Otavalo, Ecuador, and where a new station is being
established in Puno, in Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Both these
achievements offer immeasurable new opportunities for the teaching,
proclamation and consolidation of the Cause in that area.
In 88 languages of the world the supply of Bahá'í literature
has been enriched, while three new languages have been added to bring to 660
the number of those in which Bahá'í material is available.
The National Spiritual Assembly of Transkei with its seat in
Umtata will be formed at Ridvan 1980. At Ridvan 1981 six new National Spiritual
Assemblies will be formed; two in Africa, Namibia with its seat in Windhoek,
and Bophuthatswana with its seat in Mmabatho; three in the Americas, the
Leeward Islands with its seat in St. John's, Antigua, the Windward Islands with
its seat in Kingstown, St. Vincent, and Bermuda with its seat in Hamilton; one
in Australasia, Tuvalu with its seat in Funafuti. With great joy we announce
the reformation of the National Spiritual Assembly of Uganda, to take place at
Ridvan 1981.
In the course of the coming year, the Universal House of
Justice, in consultation with the International Teaching Centre, will review
the accomplishments of the initial phase and will then announce to all National
Spiritual Assemblies the goals towards which they should strive in the next
stage of the Seven Year Plan.
During this final year of the initial phase National
Spiritual Assemblies are urged to continue their wise and dignified approaches
to people prominent in all areas of human endeavour in order to acquaint them
with the nature and spirit of the Faith and to win their esteem and friendship.
At the same time vigorous campaigns must be continually mounted to proclaim
more and more directly and to as large audiences as possible the existence and
basic principles of the Faith of God. Now is the time, as all human endeavours
to repair the old order only result in deeper and deeper confusion, to proclaim
constantly and openly the claims of the Faith and the redemptive power of
Bahá'u'lláh.
The marvellous momentum generated at the beginning of the
Plan and now propelling the Bahá'í world community forward to the achievement
of the immediate objectives of the initial phase must be maintained and indeed
accelerated, so that firm foundations in the spiritual life of the community
may be laid and its forces gathered for the winning of the specific tasks with
which it will be challenged in the major part of the Plan.
Our hearts go out in love and admiration to the friends in
Iran and in gratitude to the believers throughout the world for their
spontaneous defence of their persecuted brethren and their shouldering of the
load which must, at all costs, be borne.
With loving Bahá'í greetings,
The Universal House of Justice
(‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963 to
1986’)
