Ridván 2007: To the Bahá’ís of the World

Dearly loved Friends,

The first year of the Five Year Plan bears eloquent testimony to the spirit of devotion with which Bahá’u’lláh’s followers have embraced the framework for action presented in our message of 27 December 2005 and their commitment to advancing the process of entry by troops. Where this framework has been applied coherently in all its dimensions in a cluster, steady progress is being achieved, both in terms of the participation of the believers and their friends in community life and in terms of numerical growth, with some clusters reporting enrolments in the hundreds every few months and others in scores. Vital to this development has been a heightened awareness of the spiritual nature of the enterprise, together with an increased understanding of those decision-making instruments that are defined by the principal features of the Plan.

Prior to our launching the current series of global Plans focused on the single aim of advancing the process of entry by troops, the Bahá’í community had passed through a stage of rapid, large-scale expansion in many parts of the world—an expansion which ultimately was impossible to sustain. The challenge, then, lay not so much in swelling the ranks of the Cause with new adherents, at least from populations of proven receptivity, but in incorporating them into the life of the community and raising up from among them adequate numbers dedicated to its further expansion. So crucial was it for the Bahá’í world to address this challenge that we made it a central feature of the Four Year Plan and called upon National Spiritual Assemblies to spend the greater part of their energies creating institutional capacity, in the form of the training institute, to develop human resources. Ever-increasing contingents of believers, we indicated, would need to benefit from a formal programme of training designed to endow them with the knowledge and spiritual insights, with the skills and abilities, required to carry out the acts of service that would sustain large-scale expansion and consolidation.

25 March 2007: To the Bahá’ís of the World

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

One of the signs of the breakdown of society in all parts of the world is the erosion of trust and collaboration between the individual and the institutions of governance. In many nations the electoral process has become discredited because of endemic corruption. Contributing to the widening distrust of so vital a process are the influence on the outcome from vested interests having access to lavish funds, the restrictions on freedom of choice inherent in the party system, and the distortion in public perception of the candidates by the bias expressed in the media. Apathy, alienation, and disillusionment are a consequence, too, as is a growing sense of despair of the unlikelihood that the most capable citizens will emerge to deal with the manifold problems of a defective social order. Evident everywhere is a yearning for institutions which will dispense justice, dispel oppression, and foster an enduring unity between the disparate elements of society.

The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh is the divinely ordained system for which nations and peoples so desperately search. Hailed by the Báb in the Persian Bayan, its foundational features prescribed by Bahá’u’lláh Himself, this Order is without precedent in human history for its standard of justice and its commitment to the practical realization of the oneness of mankind, as well as for its capacity to promote change and the advancement of world civilization. It provides the means by which the Divine Will illumines the path of human progress and guides the eventual establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Throughout the entire planet the devoted followers of Bahá’u’lláh are labouring to develop further the Bahá’í Administrative Order described by the Guardian “not only as the nucleus but the very pattern of the New World Order”, thus setting the foundation for a world civilization destined to yield its dazzling splendour in the centuries to come. They do so notwithstanding the conditions of turmoil and disorder alluded to by Bahá’u’lláh in affirming that “the world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.”

21 December 2006: To the Bahá’ís of Egypt

Dearly loved Friends,

We have received the distressing news that on 16 December, the Supreme Administrative Court in Cairo ruled against the decision of a lower court that permitted Bahá’ís to obtain officially issued identification cards. We wholly sympathize in your disappointment that justice was not served by a ruling that robs the members of your community of so critical a right of Egyptian citizens owing only to your beliefs. But you must stand firm and persevere in your effort to win affirmation of this right. To do less would be to deprive the authorities in Egypt of the opportunity to correct a wrong which has implications for many others, no less than for yourselves. Moreover, to relent would be to disregard the moral courage of those organizations, media, and persons of goodwill who have joined their voices to yours in the quest for a just solution to a serious inequity.

In explaining the court’s decision to the press, the presiding judge stated that the Egyptian constitution recognizes only three religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. This argument misses the essence, obscures the issue. Surely you are not asking here for the Bahá’í Faith to be recognized. Like other Egyptian citizens, you simply wish to be free to carry out the requirement of the civil law that you must obtain identification cards without making a false statement about your religious beliefs. Possessing such a card is a common right to which every native-born Egyptian is entitled. But how strange it is that the custodians of the law would themselves oblige you to violate a government policy that all citizens without exception are expected to observe! It is, of course, worthy of praise that the judges so publicly upheld the validity of three of the divine religions. As a community that believes that all God’s chosen Messengers are “seated upon the same throne, uttering the same speech, and proclaiming the same Faith”, the Bahá’ís of Egypt have no difficulty embracing the truths of the three religions mentioned. But to what purpose were their names invoked? Was it to justify the exclusion of certain citizens from exercising their civil rights? Would this not amount to a misuse of the authority of these Faiths to perpetrate an injustice that offends the high standard of justice to which they hold their adherents? But your interest is not in a theological tug-of-war with the Egyptian judiciary, despite its gross misrepresentation of the Bahá’í Faith: it is in the application of the principles of equity, fairness, and honesty that are so vital to those of all faiths and no faith. The ruling was unreasonable not only because it is contrary to prescriptions set forth in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a signatory, but more especially because the sacred scriptures of Islam extol tolerance as a precept of social stability.