The Covenant of Baha'u'llah
by Adib Taherzadeh
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chapter 27 | start page | single page | chapter 29 |  |
Chapter 28
The Administrative Order in Action
In North America, the scene of the building of the pattern of the Administrative Order, the institutions of the Faith had grown and developed to such an extent after sixteen years of receiving guidance and direction from the Guardian that in 1937 he was able to launch the first Seven Year Plan of the American Bahá'à Community. This highly significant enterprise opened a fresh chapter in the history of the Formative Age. The main goals of the Plan were 'the permanent establishment of at least one centre in every state of the American Republic and in every Republic of the American Continent' as well as the resumption of work for completion of the exterior ornamentation of the Bahá'à House of Worship at Wilmette, temporarily halted for lack of funds during the recession of the 1930s. This historic Plan entrusted by Shoghi Effendi to the North American Community marks the initial phase of the first epoch[1] of the fulfilment of the Tablets of the Divine Plan of Abdu'l-Bahá. These Tablets, fourteen in all, written by the Master during the First World War and addressed to the Bahá'Ãs in various States of America and one to Canada, are the Charter for teaching the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh throughout the world and a mandate conferred by Abdu'l-Bahá upon the North American Community.[1 Not to be confused with 'epochs' of the Formative Age. See below, pp. 373-5.]
When Shoghi Effendi called upon the American believers to execute the Seven Year Plan the Bahá'à community was still in the early stages of its development. It might be compared to a child which stands on its own feet for the first time. His mother, excited and proud, holds his hand and encourages him to take a few steps, only to see him fall down. Again she lifts the child up and with much reassurance and love takes his hand and helps him to take another step, until he can at last walk by himself. This is almost what Shoghi Effendi did with the North American Bahá'à Community in the early stages of its development. He gave them a Plan, and for seven years he lovingly held their hands, supported them in their difficulties, guided every step they took and poured his encouragement upon them, until in 1944, the Centenary of the birth of the Faith in Persia, the Plan was successfully won.
In this Plan Shoghi Effendi introduced two basic strategies which have been carried out ever since throughout the Bahá'à world for teaching the Cause and building its institutions. One is the dispatch of a believer — a Bahá'à pioneer — to a territory; the pioneer engages in teaching the Cause until enough people embrace the Faith to be able to establish a Local Spiritual Assembly. The other is the systematic formation of Spiritual Assemblies in various localities, so that at the end of a Plan a specific number of Assemblies have been established. The Seven Year Plan served as a model for all the other teaching plans that followed. The two invariable elements of every Plan so far have been the planting of the banner of the Faith in localities where there are no Bahá'Ãs, and the establishment of a number of Spiritual Assemblies in a country or a region.
It took quite a long time for the Bahá'Ãs throughout the world to appreciate the significance of the American Seven Year Plan. One reason for this was the lack of an efficient system of communication, especially during the war years. By the time the goals of the Plan were triumphantly won, coinciding with the world-wide celebration on 23 May 1944 of the centenary of the birth of the Faith, the number of Local Spiritual Assemblies in the United States had almost doubled, the number of localities in which Bahá'Ãs were residing had considerably increased, the nucleus of the institutions of the Administrative Order had been established in every republic of Latin America, and the exterior ornamentation of the only House of Worship in the Western world had been completed.
The news of these victories created excitement throughout the Bahá'à world. It awakened the Bahá'Ãs of other lands to the significance of these marvellous developments in the Americas, opening their eyes to the pattern of methodical expansion and consolidation of the institutions of the Faith which had taken place as a result of this first teaching Plan devised and initiated by Shoghi Effendi and carried out by the Bahá'à community in the Cradle of the Administrative Order. Such glorious achievements by the American Bahá'Ãs, who for most of the seven-year period were bitterly handicapped through the formidable difficulties of the war years, inspired the believers in other parts of the world, and created an upsurge of enthusiasm and confidence in their hearts.
The first Bahá'à community to turn to the Guardian was the British, who sent a cable to him during their National Convention of 1944 and asked for a similar plan in the British Isles. To this Shoghi Effendi responded favourably; he gave them a Six Year Plan to end in 1950. Other national plans followed within two to three years. As each National Assembly reached a state of readiness, Shoghi Effendi gave them a plan mainly designed to increase the number and consolidate the foundation of Local Assemblies, to open up virgin territories to the Faith, and to multiply the number of localities in which Bahá'Ãs resided in that country.
Foremost among these was the second Seven Year Plan of the Bahá'Ãs of the United States and Canada, whose duration marked the second phase of the first Epoch[1] of the Divine Plan of Abdu'l-Bahá. This teaching Plan began in 1946 and incorporated some major international goals, including the establishment of Local Spiritual Assemblies in ten countries of Western Europe, the formation of three National Spiritual Assemblies in the Western Hemisphere, and the interior ornamentation of the House of Worship in Wilmette. These were successfully accomplished in 1953. Other national plans carried out at the same time were the Indian Four-and-a-Half Year Plan followed by a Nineteen Month Plan, the Persian Forty-Five Month Plan, the Australian Six Year Plan, the Iraqi Three Year Plan, the Egyptian Five Year Plan, the German Five Year Plan, and the Canadian Five Year Plan. Each of these Plans either ended in 1950, the hundredth anniversary of the Martyrdom of the Bab, or in 1953, the Holy Year, the centenary of the birth of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation in the Siyah-Chal of Tihran.
[1 See above, p. 314, and below, p. 319. ]
Prior to the launching of these national plans, the Bahá'Ãs were mostly active only in their own towns or villages. They taught the Faith to the local people, rendered their services to the Cause locally, were thinking in local terms and involved themselves in local activities. They did not have a sense of a national Bahá'à identity, and were not concerned with Bahá'à activities in other towns within their country. Although there were Bahá'à communities in many localities, there was no proper cohesion between them. The national Bahá'à community as a dynamic unit embracing the whole nation and pulsating with inter-assembly activities had not yet come into being. However, these national plans provided the means for active communication between the communities in each country, and afforded believers the opportunity to take part in Bahá'à activities outside their own local communities. Thus a sense of Bahá'à national identity was gradually created in the minds of the believers and their local outlook changed into a national one. Parallel with this, the means of communication were also improved in most countries during this period, resulting in more effective co-operation and cohesion between local communities. A similar transformation took place during the Ten Year Crusade[1] when the national Bahá'à communities found themselves integrated into one international Bahá'à community. Here again the activities which had been carried out on a national level were extended during the Crusade to include the whole world and as a result the Bahá'à international community with all its agencies came into being.
[1 See below, pp. 318-21.]
In 1950 the Guardian announced the launching of a Two Year Plan for Africa. This Plan proved to be of special significance in the development of the institutions of the Faith world-wide. The responsibility for its execution was given to the British National Spiritual Assembly with the co-operation of the National Spiritual Assemblies of the United States, Persia, and Egypt. This was the first inter-Assembly co-operation in the Bahá'à world, paving the way for the launching in 1953 of the Ten Year Crusade during which every National Spiritual Assembly in the Bahá'à world took part in a world-encircling Plan. The Two Year Africa Plan was announced to the British Community by the Guardian on the eve of their triumphant conclusion of the Six Year Plan. It was to be launched in 1951, but the British believers began its implementation almost immediately after its announcement in 1950. A year later Shoghi Effendi wrote the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles a letter of great import. We quote an excerpt here:
"The magnificent spirit of devotion and the initiative and resourcefulness demonstrated in recent months by a triumphant community, in its eagerness to launch, ahead of the appointed time, the enterprise destined to carry the fame of its members and establish its outposts as far afield as the African Continent, merit the highest praise. By their organising ability, by their zeal in enlisting the collaboration of their sister communities in the African, the American and Asiatic continents for the effective prosecution of this epoch-making enterprise; by the tenacity, sagacity and fidelity which they have displayed in the course of its opening phase; by their utter consecration and their complete reliance on the One Who watches over their destiny, they have set an example worthy of emulation by the members of Bahá'à communities in both the East and the West.
"The despatch of the first pioneer to Tanganyika, signalising the inauguration of the African campaign, following so closely upon the successful termination of the Six Year Plan, will be recognised by posterity as the initial move in an undertaking designed to supplement and enrich the record of signal collective services rendered by the members of this community within the confines and throughout the length and breadth of its homeland. On it, however great the support it will receive from its sister communities in the days to come, will devolve the chief responsibility of guiding the destinies, of supplying the motive power, and of contributing to the resources of a crusade which for the first time in Bahá'à history, involves the collaboration, and affects the fortunes, of no less than four National Assemblies, in both Hemispheres and within four continents of the globe.
"On the success of this enterprise, unprecedented in its scope, unique in its character and immense in its spiritual potentialities, must depend the initiation, at a later period in the Formative Age of the Faith, of undertakings embracing within their range all National Assemblies functioning throughout the Bahá'à World, undertakings constituting in themselves a prelude to the launching of world-wide enterprises destined to be embarked upon, in future epochs of that same Age, by the Universal House of Justice, that will symbolise the unity and coordinate and unify the activities of these National Assemblies." [28-2]
These words of Shoghi Effendi were truly prophetic, for they alluded to a time when the Guardian would not be there to launch other teaching plans after the Ten Year Crusade, and to the fact that these would be formulated by the Universal House of Justice. The Africa Plan resulted in spectacular advances for the Faith: the Cause of God was introduced for the first time into several countries of that vast continent, and large numbers of the African peoples embraced the Faith.
At a time when the Guardian was subjected to unbearable pressures due to the unfaithfulness of many of the Master's family, these unprecedented victories in Africa brought great joy to his heart, a joy that remained with him till the end of his life.
The victories won in Africa, together with the triumphant conclusion of all the national plans, endowed the Community of the Most Great Name with enormous potentiality for the expansion and consolidation of the Faith on a world-wide scale. The national communities had by then acquired the vision and the capacity to take part in the first, and greatest ever, international Plan, designated as the Ten Year Crusade, which was launched by the Guardian in 1953. He referred to this Plan as a 'spiritual venture, at once arduous, audacious, challenging, unprecedented in scope and character in the entire field of Bahá'à history'. [28-3] The concept of the spiritual conquest of the virgin territories on the planet, as well as the formation of forty-eight new National Spiritual Assemblies and many other goals[1] specified in detail by Shoghi Effendi astonished the Bahá'à world and staggered the imagination of the believers everywhere. The following excerpts from the exhilarating Message announcing the launching of the Ten Year Spiritual Crusade to the Bahá'à world by the Guardian in October 1952 demonstrates his world-embracing vision and dynamism, and the fervour with which he inspired the Bahá'Ãs of the world to arise and bring victory to the Cause of God:
[1 For information about details of the goals of the Ten Year Crusade, see Messages to the Bahá'à World.]
"Feel hour propitious to proclaim to the entire Bahá'à world the projected launching on the occasion of the convocation of the approaching Intercontinental Conferences on the four continents of the globe the fate-laden, soul-stirring, decade-long, world-embracing Spiritual Crusade involving the simultaneous initiation of twelve national Ten Year Plans and the concerted participation of all National Spiritual Assemblies of the Bahá'à world aiming at the immediate extension of Bahá'u'lláh's spiritual dominion as well as the eventual establishment of the structure of His administrative order in all remaining Sovereign States, Principal Dependencies comprising Principalities, Sultanates, Emirates, Shaykhdoms, Protectorates, Trust Territories, and Crown Colonies scattered over the surface of the entire planet. The entire body of the avowed supporters of Bahá'u'lláh's all-conquering Faith are now summoned to achieve in a single decade feats eclipsing in totality the achievements which in the course of the eleven preceding decades illuminated the annals of Bahá'à pioneering.
"The four-fold objectives of the forthcoming Crusade, marking the third and last phase of the initial epoch of the evolution of Abdu'l-Bahá's Divine Plan are destined to culminate in the world-wide festivities commemorating the fast-approaching Most Great Jubilee. First, development of the institutions at the World Centre of the Faith in the Holy Land. Second, consolidation, through carefully devised measures on the home front of the twelve territories destined to serve as administrative bases for the operations of the twelve National Plans. Third, consolidation of all territories already opened to the Faith. Fourth, the opening of the remaining chief virgin territories on the planet through specific allotments to each National Assembly functioning in the Bahá'à world.
"The projected historic, spiritual venture, at once arduous, audacious, challenging, unprecedented in scope and character in the entire field of Bahá'à history, soon to be set in motion, involves:... Adoption of preliminary measures to the construction of Bahá'u'lláh's Sepulchre in the Holy Land.
"Doubling the number of countries within the pale of the Faith through planting its banner in the remaining Sovereign States of the planet as well as the remaining virgin Territories mentioned in Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan, involving the opening of forty-one countries on the Asiatic, thirty-three on the African, thirty on the European, twenty-seven on the American continents. Over twofold increase in the number of languages into which Bahá'à literature is translated, printed or in process of translation — forty in Asia, thirty-one in Africa, ten each in Europe and America, to be allocated to the American, British, Indian and Australian Bahá'à communities, including for the most part those into which Gospels have been already translated. Doubling the number of Mashriqu'l-Adhkars, through the initiation of the construction of one on the Asiatic and the other on the European continent. The acquisition of the site of the future Mashriqu'l-Adhkar on Mount Carmel. The purchase of the land for eleven future Temples, three on the American, three on the African, two on the Asiatic, two on the European, one on the Australian continents. The erection of the first dependency of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar in Wilmette. The development of the functions of the institution of the Hands of the Cause. The establishment of a Bahá'à Court in the Holy Land, preliminary to the emergence of the Universal House of Justice... Extension of international Bahá'à endowments in the Holy Land, on the plain of Akka and the slopes of Mount Carmel. Construction of international Bahá'à Archives in the neighbourhood of the Bab's Sepulchre... More than quadruple the number of National Spiritual Assemblies — twenty-one on the American, thirteen on the European, ten on the Asiatic, three on the African and one on the Australian continents. Multiply seven-fold national Haziratu'l-Quds, their establishment in the capital cities of the chief Sovereign States and chief cities of the principal Dependencies of the planet — twenty-one in America, fifteen in Europe, nine in Asia, three in Africa, one in New Zealand. Framing national Bahá'à constitutions, and establishment of national Bahá'à endowments in same capitals and cities of same States and Dependencies.
"More than quintuple the number of incorporated National Assemblies — twenty-one in America, thirteen in Europe, twelve in Asia, three in Africa, one in Australasia. The establishment of six national Bahá'à Publishing Trusts — two in America, two in Asia, one in Africa, one in Europe.
Current Bahá'à history must henceforth, as second decade of second Bahá'à century opens, move rapidly and majestically as it has never moved before since the inception of the Faith over a century ago. Earthly symbols of Bahá'u'lláh's unearthly Sovereignty must needs, ere the decade separating the two memorable Jubilees draws to a close, be raised as far north as Franklin beyond the Arctic Circle and as far south as the Falkland Islands, marking the southern extremity of the western hemisphere, amidst the remote, lonely, inhospitable islands of the archipelagos of the South Pacific, the Indian and Atlantic oceans, the mountain fastnesses of Tibet, the jungles of Africa, the deserts of Arabia, the steppes of Russia, the Indian Reservations of North America, the wastelands of Siberia and Mongolia, amongst the Eskimos of Greenland and Alaska, the Negroes of Africa, Buddhist strongholds in the heart of Asia, amongst Lapps of Finland, the Polynesians of the South Sea Islands, Negritos of the archipelagos of the South Pacific Ocean.
"The broad outlines of the world-encircling plan were divinely revealed. Its course was chartered by Abdu'l-Bahá's infallible Pen. Its shining goals have been set. The requisite administrative machinery has been created. Signal has been given by the Author of the Plan, its Supreme Commander. The Lord of Hosts, the King of Kings has pledged unfailing aid to every crusader battling for His Cause. Invisible battalions are mustered, rank upon rank, ready to pour forth reinforcements from on high. Bahá'u'lláh's army of light is standing on the threshold of the Holy Year. Let them, as they enter it, vow with one voice, one heart, one soul, never to turn back in the entire course of the fateful decade ahead until each and every one will have contributed his share in laying on a world-wide scale an unassailable administrative foundation for Bahá'u'lláh's Christ-promised Kingdom on earth, swelling thereby the chorus of universal jubilation wherein earth and heaven will join as prophesied by Daniel, echoed by Abdu'l-Bahá: 'on that day will the faithful rejoice with exceeding gladness.'" [28-4]
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chapter 27 | start page | single page | chapter 29 | |
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