Bahá’í News/Issue 524/Text

←Previous

Bahá’í News Issue 524

Next→

Proofread onceReturn to PDF view

[Page -1]

---

No. 524

BAHA’I YEAR 131

November, 1974

---

State teaching plan launched in Illinois, page 3

Out of a Handful of Dust, by Philip Christensen, 17

The Silent Teacher, by Bruce Whitmore, page 6

[Page 0] page 3

page 3

page 17

CONTENTS

Around the World
Japan: Japan organizes for victories in teaching	1
Chile: Traveler contacts dwindling Indian band	1
United States: State teaching plan launched in Illinois	3
Hawaii: Float wins prize in annual Island parade	5
The Silent Teacher, by Bruce Whitmore	6
Out of a Handful of Dust, by Philip Christensen	17

COVER PHOTO

Foundation Hall as it appeared in the early years of construction.

PHOTO AND DRAWING CREDITS

Page 1: (top) Bahá’í News; (bottom) Robert Seigel; Page 2: Robert Seigel; Pages 3 and 4: Bahá’í News; Page 5: (top) Bahá’í News; (bottom) Public Information Office of the National Spiritual Assembly of Hawaii; Pages 6, 9, 12, 15, and 16: Bruce Whitmore; Pages 17 and 20: National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Illinois.

POSTAL INFORMATION

Bahá’í News is published for circulation among Bahá’ís only by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, as a news organ reporting current activities of the Bahá’í world community.

Material must be received by the fifteenth of the month preceding date of issue. Address: Bahá’í News Editorial Office, 112 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091, U.S.A.

Change of address should be reported directly to Membership and Records, National Bahá’í Center, 112 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091, U.S.A.

Copyright © 1974, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. World Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

[Page 1]

Around the World

Japan:

Japan organizes for victories in teaching

The first National Spiritual Assembly of Japan was elected at Riḍván, 1974. The Hand of the Cause William Sears witnessed the event as the representative of The Universal House of Justice. He arrived in Japan on April 19 and remained in the country until April 30.

In his many meetings with the friends, he emphasized that Japan, having elected its own National Assembly, would have to play an increasingly important role in the administrative work in Asia. Japan was formerly under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly of Northeast Asia.

Upon his arrival in Tokyo, Mr. Sears was met by Continental Counsellor Rúhu’lláh Mumtází. He began visiting Bahá’í communities almost immediately, answering many questions about the Bahá’í administrative system and the individual’s responsibility to support it. On April 21, Mr. Sears and his wife Marguerite celebrated the Riḍván Feast with the friends in Tokyo, and afterwards gave a talk to about 40 believers in the National Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds.

The next day, Mr. Sears met with the friends in the Kansai area. He attended the dedication of the Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds in Amagasaki, and spoke of the importance of this institution and the ancillary departments which would someday spring up around it.

On April 24, the Sears traveled south to meet with friends in Hiroshima and then to Ube to spend an evening with believers there. One youngster at the high school in Ube declared after Mr. Sears’ visit.

The National Convention was held between April 26-29. The Hand of the Cause gave several inspiring talks, stressing always the need to achieve the goals of the Five Year Plan. In one of his major presentations, he explained the differing roles of the institutions of the Continental Counsellors and the National Assemblies. He said close cooperation between them was of vital importance, and he encouraged the friends to appreciate the significance of having their own National Spiritual Assembly.

From Japan, Mr. Sears flew to Korea, arriving in Seoul on the afternoon of April 30. He met with the National Spiritual Assembly of Korea to discuss the progress of the Cause in the region, and also with the Bahá’ís in the capital city. On this Korean journey, Mr. and Mrs. Sears were accompanied by Auxiliary Board member Chul-min Suh.

The Hand of the Cause William Sears, third from the right, poses with Continental Counsellors and Auxiliary Board members for Northeast Asia during the 18th National Bahá’í Convention in Tokyo, April 29. Shown in this group are, from left to right: Auxiliary Board members Hideya Suzuki and Hiroko Washington, Continental Counsellor Rúhu’lláh Mumtází, Mr. Sears, and Auxiliary Board members Kimiko Schwerin, and Kazutomo Umegae.

Chile:

Traveler contacts dwindling Alacalufes

The Chilean National Assembly recently appointed a Bahá’í teacher from the southern province of Magallanes to introduce the Faith to the dwindling band of Alacalufe Indians living in Puerto Edén, a small village of 250 inhabitants on Wellington Island in the Patagonian Canals. The Alacalufes that remain—not more than 25—are fishermen and traders; some survive by working in Puerto Edén’s rudimentary clam cannery. The assignment to reach the Alacalufes was given by The Universal House of Justice in Chile’s Five Year Plan.

Three Alacalufe Indian women who were among the first to embrace the Bahá’í Faith during Mr. Siegel’s visit to Puerto Edén.

[Page 2] 1. Approaching Puerto Edén after the 40-hour trip by boat from Punta Arenas. 2. Homes along the shoreline of Wellington Island, located in the remote Patagonian Canal region of southwestern Chile. 3. Native crafts.

The Bahá’í teacher, Robert Siegel, of Punta Arenas, spent 15 days in Puerto Edén from June 15–30. The first Bahá’í contact with the Alacalufes was in Punta Arenas (more than 500 miles south of Puerto Edén) with the daughter of an Indian family studying in the city. The trip from Punta Arenas by boat took 40 hours: sailing south through the strait of Magellan, then north into the Patagonian Canals and to Puerto Eden.

The boat docked in the small port at six in the morning. Mr. Siegel was informed that a Mr. Achacaz—the father of the girl living in Punta Arenas—had come aboard to meet him.

“He was dressed in a jacket with yellow rubber overalls that strapped around his neck,” Mr. Siegel recalled. “I told him of speaking with his daughter and that I had a letter and medicine from her to him. He was a simple, humble man, but a contrast to passivity. That is, he was firm and forceful in his speech, and dynamic in his generosity. Yet all of these strong qualities seemed to be balanced somehow by his great respect, humility, and kindness of stature.”

Going ashore as the dawn light began to brighten the surrounding countryside, the visitor could see in the distance ranges of snow-capped mountains emerging from the gloom. In the harbor a score of small boats had pulled alongside the aging cargo ship to unload burlap sacks of crabs and other shellfish and to take on in turn quantities of potatoes and other essential consumer items. The land around the town was hilly, and about 50 houses were visible from the port. Mr. Siegel was able to rent a room at the local schoolhouse for his two-week stay.

The Achacaz family soon became the first Alacalufe Bahá’ís in Puerto Edén. Mr. Siegel described his visit to their home in this way:

“As I entered the Achacaz home, I was courteously received and sat near a hot wood-burning stove which greatly pleased me. The house was rustic, but had the signs of a home and most of all, the kindness of a family. I told them of my purpose there in a simple way.... The mother, father and daughter became the first Alacalufe Bahá’ís.

By the end of Mr. Siegel’s visit to Puerto Eden, six adults and three youth had enrolled in the Faith.

[Page 3] United States:

State teaching plan launched in Illinois

More than 500 Bahá’ís were present at the House of Worship in Wilmette, November 23, for the launching of a five-year plan for Illinois.

Illinois is one of the three states visited by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1912 that has been selected by the National Assembly for intensive teaching and consolidation programs during the remainder of the Five Year Plan. The other states are California and New York.

The plan for California was launched by the National Assembly in Santa Cruz on July 13. The plan for New York will be launched in Ithaca on January 11.

The National Spiritual Assembly, which was present in Wilmette for its regular monthly meeting, participated in the November 23 ceremony.

Among the honored guests were the Hands of the Cause of God Dhikru’lláh Khádem and William Sears, Continental Counsellors Edna True and Sarah Pereira, and Auxiliary Board members Javidukht Khádem and Thelma Jackson.

Mr. Khádem, the keynote speaker, recalled in his address the great moments in the development of the Faith in America, beginning with the declaration of the first believer Thornton Chase, whom he called “the Mullá Ḥusayn of the West.”

The Hand of the Cause urged the friends to surrender their lives to the Cause of God, saying that attachment to the things of this world could profit them in no way. Bahá’u’lláh would give them the necessary courage to win great victories for the Faith, he said.

In its plan for the state, the National Assembly put forward eleven basic tasks for Illinois Bahá’ís to accomplish, called upon every individual Bahá’í to strive earnestly to attract at least one person to the Faith each year, and assured the believers that the entire American community could be influenced through the accomplishment of the heroic deeds to which they were called.

“Such days as these will never come again,” William Sears said during his very brief presentation. “Arise courageously. Do all you can for the prosecution of your noble duty.”

Mauritania grows The Hand of the Cause Enoch Olinga poses with the first two women in Mauritania to become Bahá’ís, during his recent visit to that country. Opened to the Faith by Persian pioneers less than ten years ago, Mauritania is a vast country in the African Sahara, with a total population of under one million. Nine women and more than sixty men enrolled during Mr. Olinga’s visit. With four Local Spiritual Assemblies already formed, Mauritania needs only one more Local Spiritual Assembly to complete its goal for the Five Year Plan. The group photograph shows some of the new believers with Mr. Olinga (back row, third from right). Both photographs were taken in the village of Rosso.

In its message to the believers in Illinois the National Assembly noted that the House of Worship was an “ever-present symbol of the special blessings and potentialities of the people who have become its proud custodians.”

The message listed other distinctions Illinois has won over the years. Among them: the transcendent position of Chicago as the first place in America where the Name of Bahá’u’lláh was publicly mentioned, the repeated inclusion of that city in the itinerary which the Center of the Covenant, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, followed during His epic journey to the West, His laying of the foundation stone of the sacred structure which would become, in Shoghi Effendi’s words, the “ordained Source from which rays of spiritual guidance will radiate.”

“To these honors,” the National Assembly continued, “must now be added the selection of your state for a special endeavor in consonance with the high expectations outlined in the Master’s Divine Plan and with the particular goal to ‘develop intensive teaching and consolidation plans in at least 3 states chosen from among those visited by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, designed to attract great numbers to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh thereby initiating a process leading to the entry into the Faith by troops alluded to by the Master.’ ”

[Page 4] 1. The Hand of the Cause of God Dhikru’lláh Khádem officially represented the institution of the Hands of the Cause at the launching of the plan. 2. Mr. Sears was able to attend the launching of the plan while en route to Canada, where he and Mrs. Sears plan to reside. 3. The launching provided an opportunity for Illinois residents to meet members of the Regional Teaching Committee. On the right in this photo is Xcylur Stoakely, a Regional Teaching Committee member.

Among the specific goals of the Illinois plan are to raise the number of localities where Bahá’ís reside to 400 (currently Bahá’ís reside in 280 localities); to open to the Faith all counties where Bahá’ís do not at this time reside (approximately 50 counties are in this category); to maintain existing Local Assemblies and ensure that at least 15 adults live in each Bahá’í community; to raise the number of Spiritual Assemblies to 99 (there are 43 today); and to increase the number of incorporated Assemblies to 40 (from the current 20).

In addition, the plan requires that each community expand its teaching work among at least one of the minority groups mentioned in the Five Year Plan: American Indian, Armenian, Chinese, Greek, and Spanish-speaking.

The use of radio and television for broadcasts aimed at proclamation of the Faith to greater numbers of listeners on a regular basis was encouraged, as was an increase in the use of the press to expand the public’s knowledge of the Faith.

Other goals enumerated in the plan were: encourage and organize regular Bahá’í activities and classes for adults, youth, and children; organize regular classes to educate Bahá’í children in the teachings of the Faith; foster and encourage youth activities, including firesides, study classes, teaching institutes, local youth clubs, college clubs, circuit teaching, and pioneering; strive toward universal participation in support of the Bahá’í Funds.

All of these tasks, the National Assembly said, are merely mileposts in a journey toward the “entry into the Faith by troops” called for in the Five Year Plan of The Universal House of Justice. Its attainment, it added, “depends principally upon the response of each believer in Illinois, who must be constantly teaching, constantly studying the Holy Texts and their authentic interpretations, constantly exercising the discipline of enlightened souls whose thoughts and deeds are guided by the standards of Bahá’u’lláh.”

A new Regional Teaching Committee, organized to supervise the execution of the plan for Illinois, was introduced to the believers.

[Page 5]

Memorial for Mrs. Barney held at French summer school The Hand of the Cause Ugo Giachery and Mrs. Giachery attended the French Bahá’í Summer School, held August 24 to September 1 at Carry-le-Rouet, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Highlighting the summer session was a moving commemoration for Laura Clifford Dreyfus-Barney, who died in Paris shortly before the school opened. The National Spiritual Assembly of France met at the summer school and consulted with the assembled friends on many aspects of the Five Year Plan and the International Conference to be held in Paris in 1976. Dr. and Mrs. Giachery are shown seated in the second row, third and fourth from the left.

The National Assembly also announced the establishment of a Regional Information Committee to take charge of all dealings with the media in Chicago and to help communities throughout the state with their information problems.

Hawaii:

Float wins prize in annual Island parade

The Hawaiian Bahá’í community float entered in the Aloha Week Parade won second prize in the Schools and Churches category. The parade is held annually in mid-October and is part of the Aloha Week celebrations. This year’s parade theme was: Makahiki (the time after the harvest when the ancient Hawaiians relaxed and gave thanks for their blessings). The Bahá’í float showed a Hawaiian warrior blowing a conch shell to the mountains, announcing the call to unity and peace. In addition to having the words “Bahá’í Faith” fashioned in flowers, the float also had the Hawaiian phrase, “Kakea O Lokahi A Maluhia,” which means The Call of Unity and Peace. Members of the Hawaiian Bahá’í community designed and built the float. A project of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the Hawaiian Islands, the float was made from the many flowers of the islands and was seen on television throughout the islands. The parade was also videotaped for showing over Japanese television and other U.S. television stations. A special feature program on the building of the Bahá’í float was broadcast by a local television station. The float, shown below, was manned by Bahá’ís who represented ancient Hawaiians making flower leis, making poi (a Hawaiian food), and fishing.

[Page 6]

The Silent Teacher

by Bruce Whitmore

Application of the panels of concrete ornamentation to the gallery level of the House of Worship in Wilmette, 1938.

[Page 7] The decision had been made. They, too, would demonstrate their devotion and love for God by building a temple just as His courageous followers in ‘Ishqábád, Russia, were doing. On March 7, 1903, the eleven men of Chicago’s “House of Spirituality,” forerunner of the city’s Local Spiritual Assembly, prepared a petition asking ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to grant permission for the start of a project that, unbeknownst to them, would have great repercussions in the world.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá responded: “Now the day has arrived in which the edifice of God, the divine sanctuary, the Spiritual temple, shall be erected in America.”¹ In another tablet He added: “... Verily, the greatest affair and the most important matter today is to establish a Mashrak-el-Azkar and to found a Temple, from which the voices of praise may raise to the Kingdom of the Majestic Lord.”²

Four years of relative inactivity followed the Master’s reply. The Faith was still in its infancy, it had few adherents, and its administrative structure, still weak and undefined, was not prepared initially to direct such a monumental task. There was also confusion about the true meaning of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statements: did He refer to a spiritual concept or an actual building; was there to be only one Temple or many; and, if only one was to be built, was it to be located in Chicago or elsewhere? Many Bahá’ís felt strongly that the publication of literature should take precedence at that time, while others concentrated on the development of teaching schemes, which when initiated frequently lacked cohesion and direction. Outwardly, interest in the Temple appeared to wane in the years immediately following the Master’s granting of permission for construction, but in fact it was slowly, quietly gaining momentum. The Temple project was destined to emerge in time as an instrument for the unification of the American Bahá’í community.

Interest in construction of the Temple was revived in late 1906 when Corinne True, one of the first believers in America, sent on behalf of the Chicago Women’s Assembly of Teaching a petition to cities throughout the country, calling for the Temple construction to begin. It was signed by nearly one thousand believers. Mother True, as she was later known, pasted together the many pages of ordinary writing paper and carried this homemade scroll to ‘Akká for her meeting with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.³

She tells the story of putting the parchment behind her on the divan and first presenting the little gifts sent by the loving friends. But the Master strode across the room, reached behind her, and grasped the parchment, holding it high in the air. “This,” He exclaimed, “this is what gives me great joy. Go back,” He told her, “go back and work for the Temple; it is a great work... Devote yourself to this project—make a beginning, and all will come right.” He then proceeded to give basic instructions about its design. It was to have nine sides, nine gardens, nine fountains, nine doors, nine walks, etc. And so a vision of the first Bahá’í Temple in the Western Hemisphere was born.⁴

In many Tablets over a period of years ‘Abdu’l-Bahá made an effort to dispel the misconceptions that had developed in the community about the proposed Temple. It was a physical building, He said. There would be only one in the beginning with many to follow in the future, and it would be built in Chicago where the idea had originated.⁵ He also attempted to broaden the vision of the believers and inspire in them a realization of the great importance—greater than anyone had yet imagined—of erecting the House of Worship. He said in one Tablet:

“Verily the founding of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár will mark the inception of the Kingdom of God on earth. It is the evident standard waving in the center of that great continent of America...⁶ Its building is the most important of all things. This is the spiritual foundation; for that reason it is the most important of all foundations; from this spiritual foundation will come forth all manner of advancement and progress in the world of humanity... Today the establishment of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár is of paramount importance... It is an expression of the elevation of the Word of God... When the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár with its accessories, is established in the world, aside from its religious or spiritual influence, it will have a tremendous effect upon civilization.”⁷

Inaugurating a Worldwide Venture

Before the formation of the League of Nations—the first international attempt to establish the political machinery for the maintenance of global peace—the Bahá’í community was furiously laboring to construct an architectural symbol of unity that would help guide mankind to an acceptance of the spiritual foundations of lasting peace. That great effort received support not only from America, but also from nearly every other community in the Bahá’í world. Approximately one-sixth of all contributions during the early years came from countries other than the United States and Canada. Contributions arrived from India, Persia, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Russia, Egypt, Germany, France, England, Mexico, the

[Page 8]

“Verily the founding of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár will mark the inception of the Kingdom of God on earth. It is the evident standard waving in the center of that great continent of America...”

Hawaiian Islands, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, New Zealand, Brazil, Mauritius, and the Isle of Pines.⁸

A widow in the Orient who baked and sold bread for a living, earning barely enough to support herself, sold an earring she had worn since childhood and gave the money to the Temple Fund. “See! The good God in His bounty gives us all something we can spare,” she said. Believers in Poona, India, sold their jewelry and other valuables and contributed the money to the Temple Fund. A poor shopkeeper who owned no finery eagerly yielded the mat on which he slept so that he could have the honor of giving. A New England spinster who supported herself by knitting mittens contributed one half of all the money that she earned.⁹

In the United States, a variety of individual and collective efforts were organized to raise funds for the construction project. The first contribution was for $103.00, the proceeds of a concert given by a group of Chicago Bahá’ís on December 6, 1904.¹⁰ Other fund-raising ventures included a widow’s quilt fund, community “blessing boxes,” the private sale of Bahá’í hymnals, and “economy meals.”¹¹ A number of groups, such as the “Temple Builders Fellowship,” were established to not only raise money, but, in the terminology of the Fellowship, to help individuals internalize divine principles through social interaction.¹² Many American believers donated their precious belongings, and one woman even postponed needed dental care to be financially able to make a contribution.¹³ So interested were the members of the “Bahá’í Fellowship of San Quentin” in making some contribution to the Temple Fund that they printed prayer cards and sold them to their fellow prisoners to raise money.¹⁴ *

Genesis of Bahá’í Administration

The Temple project was “the bulwark of Bahá’í administration” during its formative period in America.¹⁵ The work of construction generated the cooperation, discipline, harmony, determination, and knowledge that supported the Guardian’s painstaking efforts to establish the Bahá’í Administrative Order.

In the early months of 1907, after Mother True’s return from ‘Akká, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá continually emphasized to visiting Western believers the importance of making a beginning on the Temple. His encouragement and solicitude rekindled the enthusiasm of the travelers, and as they returned to their communities they transmitted the Master’s sense of urgency. By summer’s end the degree of interest in America was so high that Chicago’s House of Spirituality invited Bahá’ís from across the country to assemble to discuss the matter further.¹⁶ This handful of believers, in the words of the Guardian, “... arose, despite the smallness of their numbers and their limited resources to initiate an enterprise which must rank as the greatest single contribution which the Bahá’ís of America, and indeed of the West, have yet made to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh.”¹⁷

Representatives from many communities met on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, and appointed a committee to locate a Temple site. At the conclusion of its investigation of sites the committee voted unanimously to recommend to the House of Spirituality, which had been given complete authority to supervise the project, the selection of a fourteen-lot Grosse Point property in the village of Wilmette as the site for the Temple. The Grosse Point promontory on the south shore of Lake Michigan was once the site of a village of Potawatomi Indians. It is even said that one of the first recorded interracial marriages in America took place here: that of Antoine Ouilmette, the first white settler in the region, and Archange, a Potawatomi woman.¹⁸

The House of Spirituality accepted the proposal and purchased the first two of the fourteen lots. Mother True then wrote to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá suggesting that the administrative framework for the project be broadened to include believers from throughout the United States and Canada. The Master agreed. In June, 1908, He wrote saying such an action would establish harmony within the American Bahá’í community. He pointed out that women were to be included in the administrative system, a decision that was to have a major impact on the development of the Cause in America.¹⁹

A second national convention for March 22-23, 1909, was scheduled by the House of Spirituality. Thirty-nine delegates representing thirty-six communities attended and formed a permanent national organization, the Bahá’í Temple Unity. A constitution was written and adopted, and an Executive Board consisting of three women and six men was elected. Although the authority of the Executive Board was at first somewhat limited, the first national administrative agency of the Faith, a harbinger of the future National Spiritual Assembly, had been established.²⁰ On the same day, in Haifa, after sixty years of danger and delay, the precious remains of the Báb were

______
*Of course, several of these methods of fund-raising were modified or eliminated as the Guardian explained progressively the fundamental principles of the institution of the Bahá’í Fund.

[Page 9] entombed in His Shrine on Mt. Carmel by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, completing a task that had been assigned to Him by Bahá’u’lláh Himself.²¹

Though the Executive Board was initially concerned only with matters pertaining to the construction of the House of Worship, the scope of its activities quickly broadened. As the annual conventions of the Bahá’í Temple Unity became the forum for consultations on teaching experiences, publication efforts, social activities within communities, and other concerns, the actions of the Executive Board reflected the increasing activity.

The number of sub-committees also expanded rapidly. By 1915, there were 11 committees, these among them: Publication Commission, Temple Treasury, Architecture and Designs, Ways and Means, and Teaching. There was even a committee to develop “moving pictures” to record the phases of the Temple’s construction. The influence of the Executive Board gradually encompassed even independent publishing efforts such as Star of the West, Reality, The Prompter, and the Bahá’í Publishing Society of Chicago.²² In the midst of this significant administrative development, the work of the Temple inched forward, with what must have seemed excruciating slowness, punctuated only occasionally by moments of drama and excitement.

The Executive Board was always punctual with mortgage payments because its every action had to demonstrate the uncompromising integrity of the Cause. When payment was due on one occasion, however, sufficient funds were not immediately available. The three members of the Temple Treasury committee were very troubled, and they agreed that the only appropriate action was to go personally to the Northern Trust Bank of Evanston, with which their financial affairs were transacted, and explain their embarrassing predicament. When they arrived, they learned that their meeting with an account representative had been unavoidably delayed. While they sat in the lobby waiting, they repeated the Remover of Difficulties. A cashier from the international transactions section noticed Mother True, the Board’s financial secretary, sitting in the lobby and walked over to inform her that the bank had just received a draft from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sent on behalf of a group of Persian Bahá’ís. With that money, it was possible to make the payment on time.²³

Shortly after the Ascension of the Master, the first National Spiritual Assembly was elected in the United States, in keeping with the provisions of His Will and Testament.²⁴ Its formation may not have been so quickly possible had a strong institutional foundation not been laboriously established already, through the efforts of the Bahá’í Temple Unity to make construction of the House of Worship a reality.

The interior of the Temple prior to the application of the decorative layers.

In Search of a Design

As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ideas of the general requirements for the construction of the Temple were developed and published, many Bahá’ís attempted to create an architectural design for the edifice. The newly elected Executive Board issued a general invitation in 1909 for designs to be submitted. It soon had many to consider. Public interest in the project mounted as exceptional designs were exhibited in art schools, universities, and prominent galleries. One display of nine sketches, each suggesting a different architectural style, was shown at the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.²⁵

A Bahá’í intensely involved in the effort to develop a suitable design was Louis Bourgeois, a French-Canadian who received architectural training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At the urging of Roy Wilhelm, an East Coast coffee merchant who served for many years as Treasurer of the Executive Board and later as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly itself, Louis Bourgeois became involved in this work as early as the summer of 1909. For eight consecutive years, he worked on a number of potential designs but was never satisfied with any of them.

[Page 10]

“Nothing short of direct and constant interaction between the spiritual forces emanating from this House of Worship ... and the energies consciously displayed by those who administer its affairs ... can possibly provide the necessary agency capable of removing the ills that have so long and so grievously afflicted humanity....”

Finally, in 1917, he envisioned a structure of incomparable beauty in which Grecian, Egyptian, Romanesque, Gothic, Arabic, and Byzantine styles would be harmonized in an edifice of timeless elegance. After several weeks of futile attempts to render the drawings, he realized he could not convey the striking design in this medium. He decided instead to execute his idea in plaster, an art form with which he had no experience. The next three years he spent in creating his model. His family lived close to poverty through World War I, so the only way he could get the money to purchase plaster for his model was to sell roses grown in his own backyard.

Early in 1920, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asked the friends that a selection of the Temple design be made during that year’s convention. Seven of the more beautiful designs submitted over the years were presented by the Executive Board to the convention. The response of the forty-nine delegates was unanimous: Louis Bourgeois’ “Temple of Light.”²⁶

The Bourgeois model was placed on public display in New York, where many architects and engineers came to see it. Mr. H. Van Buren Magonigle, President of the Architectural League, said Louis Bourgeois “...has conceived a Temple of Light in which structure, as usually understood, is to be concealed, visible support eliminated as far as possible, and the whole fabric to take on the airy substance of a dream....”²⁷ Newspapers and magazines throughout the world praised its beauty. The New York Times wrote, “Americans will have to pause and study it long enough to find that an artist has wrought into this building the conception of a Religious League of Nations.” The Christian Register said, “Wonderful as the architectural design of the Temple is, those most concerned in its erection see in the universal service it will render mankind its supreme importance. The Bahá’í Message is primarily a Message of Unity. It recognizes the divine elements which underlie all great world religions.” The Times and Mail, printed in Tokyo, Japan, reported, “A new creation of transcendent beauty has dawned upon the horizon of the architectural world... It is a temple of peace, whose broad portals of welcome and encouragement to devotees of any religion and all religions shall be always open... Beside its spiritual appeal the famed beauties of the Taj Mahal grow strangely pale.”²⁸

Public interest was so intense when the model was moved to the Art Institute in Chicago after several weeks in New York, that 34,000 people viewed it during its first week on display.²⁹ Years later smaller models were cast and exhibited at dozens of state and county fairs, libraries, bookstores, flower shops, and other locations, as well as at the New York and San Francisco World’s Fairs and the Toronto Exhibition.³⁰

The building of the Temple has probably attracted more public attention over a longer period of time than any other single undertaking in the history of the Faith. The presence of the Temple has also been a source of inspiration to artists of many kinds, who have then used their painting, sculpture, music, and poetry to proclaim the Bahá’í message. The Temple choir, for example, because of its blending of diverse peoples, became a visible expression of the unifying force within the Faith from the time of its formation four years before the work on Foundation Hall got under way.

The poem which follows is not only typical of the many which celebrated the construction of the Temple, but is also interesting because of the response to its author from Louis Bourgeois:

Bell of the Temple

Bell of the Temple of Love and Unity,

From realms above your clarion tones now ring;

Calling aloud to all humanity,

Awake! Arise! and with the angels sing;

Glory to God and His Eternal Plan,

Come to the Temple of the Brotherhood of man!

Bell of the Temple of Peace enduring,

Softly thy tender tones fall on the air;

Calling the hearts of men to Love’s true union,

Calling to worship in God’s Temple fair.

Glory to God and His Eternal Plan,

Come to the Temple of the Brotherhood of man!

Bell of the Temple unseen Reality,

Yet thy clear tones by inner ear is heard;

Bell of the Temple of wondrous Beauty,

Founded upon God’s Manifested WORD!

Glory to God and His Eternal Plan,

Come to the Temple of the Brotherhood of man.³¹

Louise R. Waite

Greatly pleased with the poem, Louis Bourgeois penned this revealing passage:

... Twelve years ago when I built my home wherein this Temple model and design were made I made a flower garden, and the form of this garden was a great bell. Many asked me why the garden was a bell? This bell, I told them, was the greatest musical instrument we have; it is the conveyor of sound to the greatest distance.

[Page 11] It conveys our sorrows and our joys ... and as the world was in distress I hung out this great bell. Now it has happened that this Temple coming from the realm of Bahá is in the form of a bell. It is the Great Bell, calling to America. Will they hear it?

The letter, dated September 23, 1920, closed with these observations:

... We are preparing all the work for starting (the building of Foundation Hall) early in spring. Tomorrow will be a historical day in Chicago, and in the Bahá’í world. At 11 A.M. we start the boring to reach the rock on which the pillars of the dome will be supported. Many Bahá’ís will be there, newspaper reporters, etc....³²

The Beginning

The rock shelf at Grosse Point lay one hundred twenty feet below the surface. Nine cylindrical, timber-lined caissons, each six feet in diameter, were sunk through earth, sand, quicksand, and water, until they rested on the shelf below. When firmly in place, the caissons were filled with concrete.

In the early summer of 1921, construction began on Foundation Hall. It was completed in the late fall of 1922. This tar-covered circular structure, two hundred feet in diameter, placed unceremoniously at the center of the Wilmette property, gave almost no clue of the majestic structure that would in time rise above it. After the completion of Foundation Hall, a minimal amount of landscaping was done on the property. Little more appeared to happen as months quickly accumulated into years.³³

In fact, however, severe trials afflicted the Bahá’í world during this portentous period. The faith of many believers was shattered by the Ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Others foolishly challenged the authority of the newly appointed Guardian, bringing consternation to the Bahá’í world, but particularly to America and the Holy Land. So overwhelming and heartbreaking were the events of this period that twice during the early years of his ministry the Guardian felt compelled, because of physical exhaustion and spiritual anguish, to seek solace in the forests of Switzerland.³⁴

Also during this period, a search was undertaken for the proper materials and methods for constructing the Temple. At the time the Temple design was accepted, not even the architect knew how to build his “Great Bell.” Prominent engineers of the time insisted it would be impossible to support the massive weight of the structure and still retain the large, light-suffused, unencumbered interior favored by the accepted design. Despite the difficulties, the quest for solutions was pursued relentlessly.

The “Most Precious Ornament”

The first article in the first issue of Bahá’í News (December, 1924) was about the House of Worship. For the next nine years, the only photographs published in the newsletter were those showing progress in construction.

A second enterprise, closely associated with work on the Temple, soon began to receive serious attention from the community. That enterprise was the first teaching plan ever launched in America, entitled “A Plan of Unified Action to Spread the Bahá’í Cause Throughout the United States and Canada.” Only one of its three central provisions established a tangible goal: the call for $400,000 to raise the superstructure of the edifice. The National Spiritual Assembly said:

“The culmination of the ‘Plan of Unified Action’ is the construction of the exquisite Bourgeois Temple design at Wilmette, in the heart of this continent, the supreme visible symbol and proof that a new spirit has been revealed to humanity in this age.”³⁵

When the plan ended three years later, in December, 1928, the fund-raising goal had not been reached. The friends were still wide of the mark. The situation did not improve in the months that followed, as the world slipped into the Great Depression. Then, in December, 1929, the Bahá’í News printed a letter from Shoghi Effendi:

“Moved by an impulse that I could not resist, I have felt impelled to forego what may be regarded as the most valuable and sacred possession in the Holy Land for the furthering of that noble enterprise which you have set your hearts to achieve.... this precious ornament of the Tomb of Bahá’u’lláh has been already shipped to your shores, with our fondest hope that the proceeds from its sale may at once ennoble and reinforce the unnumbered offerings of the American believers already accumulated on the altar of Bahá’í sacrifice.”³⁶

This “crowning gift,” a Persian carpet of incomparable beauty, “is of the purest silk, patterned as a rose garden and bordered with heavy twisted cord of real gold,” the Guardian wrote. Shortly after World War I, a Bahá’í had purchased it from the most celebrated weaver in Persia and then spent several weeks in wearisome travel to transport it to Haifa. The Master was so moved by the gift that, with His own hands, He placed it in the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, where it remained until the Guardian sent it to America.³⁷ The impact on the American believers must

[Page 12] Foundation Hall as it appeared in 1922-1930.

The House of Worship construction site in 1921.

have been great because in just four months the Bahá’í News published this headline: “Temple Construction Fund Completed.”³⁸ Nearly $300,000 had been contributed in that short span of time.³⁹ The friends had cause for joy, as indicated by another cablegram from Shoghi Effendi:

“America’s sustained, glorious sacrifice will assuredly endow rising edifice with such spiritual potencies as shall excite wonder, admiration all peoples. Befittingly inaugurate resumption Temple construction. Consecrated carpet need neither be sold nor returned. Dedicated as permanent ornament first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár of the West.”⁴¹

The “Evident Standard” Is Raised

The superstructure rose with incredible swiftness, requiring for completion less than seven months of labor. The workers seemed to sense the importance of the project and were inspired to execute their skills with great proficiency, enthusiasm, and dedication. Only once did tragedy seem to strike. A spectacular fire started on January 15, 1931, when gale-force winds ripped loose a section of canvas lashed to the inside of the dome framework. A heating unit used to dry freshly poured concrete was overturned, igniting the massive wood scaffolding. As section after section was engulfed in flames and collapsed, huge crates containing the glass for the dome tumbled to the floor more than one hundred feet below and shattered. The mishap caused only minimal damage to the structure, and the loss of property was recovered through insurance. But once more the Temple attracted major attention as articles and pictures of the fire appeared in papers throughout the country.⁴¹

The superstructure was officially completed on May 1, 1931. Nineteen years had elapsed since that first of May when a great circular tent had been pitched on the site and the friends had gathered to witness the dedication of the first House of Worship in the West. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had emerged from the tent, gazed about, and located a stone that had been left on the property by Nettie Tobin and two companions some months earlier. He chose that stone to be the permanent marker of the dedication ceremony. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá turned the first earth on behalf of all the peoples of the world. At the conclusion of the ceremony, He set “the stone which the builders refused” into place and declared, “The Temple is already built!”⁴²

Another twenty-two years would pass before the superstructure was fully adorned. Several types of terra cotta

[Page 13]

Regarding the House of Worship in the United States, Shoghi Effendi has written that it represents “... the crowning achievement of the Administrative Order... in the first Bahá’í century.”

and artificial stone, as well as different metals, had been considered for use in construction; but the material finally selected had not yet been developed when Foundation Hall was erected. It was a mixture of crushed quartz and white concrete, which proved to have the plasticity needed to form the intricate, lace-like designs, and a durability greater than that of stone.

The ornamentation that was produced from this material is of incomparable beauty. The symbolism of the exquisite tracery is far more subtle, far more complex than a casual look might at first suggest. The majesty of Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation, the glorification of the Báb, the fulfillment of the prophecies of past religions, the harmony underlying all religions, the joy of the dawning of the golden age, and even the expectation of future Manifestations, are all conveyed throughout the marvelous concrete tapestries woven by Louis Bourgeois.⁴³

The complicated process of creating the various sections was begun by transferring the outlines of Louis Bourgeois’ original drawings, some of which reached lengths of 109 feet, to great slabs of modeling clay. Sculptors meticulously chiseled the patterns in the hard clay. Three additional phases of design transfer were required before the final plaster molds were fashioned. Perfect alignment of the sections was insured by an elaborate system in which segments were mounted on a wooden replica of a portion of the Temple’s steel dome and measured for accuracy. The concrete and quartz mixture was then poured into the molds and, after a period of curing, final cleaning, and preparation, the completed sections were shipped by rail to Wilmette. The exterior of the dome alone required 387 sections.⁴⁴

Shoghi Effendi continually encouraged the believers to make greater efforts to complete the House of Worship construction. He longed to see the dome set in place by the opening of the Century of Progress Exhibition in 1933, so that the thousands of visitors arriving in Chicago could gaze upon its beauty. When finished, he said, it would “stand as a flaming beacon and a symbol of hope amidst the gloom of a despairing world...”⁴⁵ When the goal was not attained, the Guardian lovingly wrote:

“Appeal hard pressed American believers heed this, my last passionate entreaty, not to suffer slightest interruption in Temple construction to dim the magnificence of their epoch-making enterprise. The fair name of our beloved Faith is at stake. Its American stalwart defenders will once again vindicate its triumphant glory. I promise one year’s respite upon successful conclusion of the first stage of the ornamentation of our glorious Temple.”⁴⁶

Once again he masterfully ignited the hearts of the American believers. When the dome was finished they did not want a year’s respite and sought his permission to begin work immediately on the clerestory. He responded:

“Heartily welcome proposal. Additional sacrifices entailed in clerestory ornamentation will add further laurels to the crown already won by American believers and hasten fulfillment of long-cherished expectations.”⁴⁷

When the clerestory was completed, he cabled:

“Overjoyed epoch-making achievement. Intense gratitude. Ardently supplicating still mightier evidences of American believers’ exemplary stewardship in the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.”⁴⁸

Indeed the evidences became greater when the exterior was completed seventeen months before the Centenary of the Declaration of the Báb, the goal set by Shoghi Effendi himself.

An indication of the significance Shoghi Effendi placed on the erection of the Temple can be gleaned from a statistical report he prepared for the centenary celebration. “A World Survey-The Bahá’í Faith 1844-1944” lists forty-three historically important events which occurred in the first century of growth. Four of the forty-three events involve the Mother Temple of the West.

The great Jubilee Celebration, the observance of the 100th anniversary of the Announcement to Bahá’u’lláh of His Mission, was made the goal for completion of the building’s interior ornamentation and its dedication to public use. On May 2, 1953, Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, the golden apex of the dome glistening far above her head, radiantly proclaimed:

“On behalf of the Guardian of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, I have the great honour of dedicating this first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár of the Western World to public worship... I greet and welcome you on behalf of the Guardian of our Faith within these walls...”⁴⁹

The “Silent Teacher”

Work on the Temple had an influence upon the teaching activity in America from its earliest days, but ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said that when it was completed it would “...have a tremendous effect upon civilization.”⁵⁰ Shoghi Effendi had written, “When the structure shall be completed a new era will be inaugurated in the history of the Cause in that country.”⁵¹ Thus when the Ten Year

[Page 14]

The Times and Mail, printed in Tokyo, Japan, reported, “A new creation of transcendent beauty has dawned upon the horizon of the architectural world.... It is a temple of peace, whose broad portals of welcome and encouragement to devotees of any religion and all religions shall be always open.... Beside its spiritual appeal, the famed beauties of the Taj Mahal grow strangely pale.”

Crusade was unveiled in Chicago at the time of the Temple’s dedication, initiating an unprecedented campaign of teaching, which in time dramatically increased the strength and prestige of the Faith, not only in the United States but throughout the world. During the Crusade, National Spiritual Assemblies increased from 12 to 56; 131 new countries were opened; literature was translated into an additional 220 languages; Temples were built in Africa, Australasia, and Europe; the Shrine of the Báb was completed and the International Archives building was erected; the first dependency of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in the United States, the Bahá’í Home, was raised; and, at the conclusion of this global enterprise in 1963, the majestic, awe-inspiring institution of The Universal House of Justice was elected.⁵²

As we draw farther away from this “early stage of apprenticeship in Bahá’í living”⁵³ and make greater headway in establishing truly God-centered Bahá’í communities, the House of Worship will continue to herald the glorious achievements and spiritual influence of the Cause to greater and greater numbers of people. The real purpose of all Bahá’í Temples and their satellite institutions, however, will become clearer in the future. Their great role has been powerfully explained by Shoghi Effendi in portions of a letter, “The Spiritual Significance of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár”:

... the central edifice of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, round which in the fullness of time shall cluster such institutions of social service as shall afford relief to the suffering, sustenance to the poor, shelter to the wayfarer, solace to the bereaved, and education to the ignorant, should be regarded apart from these Dependencies, as a House solely designed and entirely dedicated to the worship of God....

But however inspiring the conception of Bahá’í worship ... it cannot be regarded as the sole, nor even the essential, factor in the part which the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, as designed by Bahá’u’lláh, is destined to play in the organic life of the Bahá’í community ... Bahá’í worship, however exalted in its conception, however passionate in fervor, can never hope to achieve beyond the meagre and often transitory results produced by the contemplations of the ascetic or the communion of the passive worshipper. It cannot afford lasting satisfaction and benefit to the worshipper himself, much less to humanity in general, unless and until translated and transfused into that dynamic and disinterested service to the cause of humanity which it is the supreme privilege of the Dependencies of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár to facilitate and promote. Nor will the exertions, no matter how disinterested and strenuous, of those who within the precincts of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár will be engaged in administering the affairs of the future Bahá’í Commonwealth, fructify and prosper unless they are brought into close and daily communion with those spiritual agencies centering in and radiating from the central Shrine of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár. Nothing short of direct and constant interaction between the spiritual forces emanating from this House of Worship centering in the heart of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, and the energies consciously displayed by those who administer its affairs in their service to humanity can possibly provide the necessary agency capable of removing the ills that have so long and so grievously afflicted humanity.... And of all the institutions that stand associated with His Holy Name, surely none save the institution of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár can most adequately provide the essentials of Bahá’í worship and service, both so vital to the regeneration of the world. Therein lies the secret of the loftiness, of the potency, of the unique position of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár as one of the outstanding institutions conceived by Bahá’u’lláh.⁵³

Regarding the House of Worship in the United States, Shoghi Effendi has written that it represents “the noblest of the exploits which have immortalized the services of the American Bahá’í community to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh”⁵⁴ and “... the crowning achievement of the Administrative Order ... in the first Bahá’í century.”⁵⁵ “Neither the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár of the Bahá’í world, reared in the city of Ishqábád, nor any House of Worship to be raised in succeeding centuries, can claim to possess the vast, the immeasurable potentialities with which this Mother Temple of the West, established in the very heart of so enviable a continent, ... has been endowed,” the Guardian said.⁵⁶

---

1. Corinne True, “Brief History of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in America to 1915,” Bahá’í Year Book, vol. I, 1925-1926 (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee), p. 64.
2. “Utterances of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Upon the Mashrak-El-Azkar,” Star of the West, vol. VI, no. 17, January 19, 1916, p. 133.
3. Garetta Busey, “The Most Holy House of Worship,” Bahá’í News, no. 432, March 1967, p. 6.
4. Charlotte Linfoot, “In Memoriam: Corinne Knight True,” The Bahá’í World, vol. XIII, 1954-1963 (Haifa: 1970), p. 847.

[Page 15]

5. True, “Brief History,” Bahá’í Year Book, pp. 65-66.
6. Ibid., p. 61.
7. Shanaz Waite, “The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in America,” The Bahá’í World, vol. III, 1928-1930 (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1930), pp. 147-149.
8. True, “Brief History,” Bahá’í Year Book, p. 58.
9. Allen B. McDaniel, The Spell of the Temple (New York: Vantage Press, 1953), pp. 11-12.
10. Receipt from Corinne True dated December 6, 1906, Shanaz Waite Papers, Private Collection of Author, Deerfield, Ill.
11. Report of Corinne True, Star of the West, vol. I, no. 4, May 17, 1910, p. 16 and Bahá’í News, no. 59, February, 1932, p. 7.
12. “Charter of Temple Builders’ Fellowship,” Shanaz Waite Papers.
13. Busey, “House of Worship,” p. 7.
14. Corinne True, “Recent Temple Work Log,” Shahnaz Waite Papers, p. 3.
15. Shoghi Effendi, as quoted in “Temple Clerestory Section Completed—End of ‘First Stage of Formative Period of Faith,’ ” Bahá’í News, no. 94, August, 1935, p. 1.
16. True, “Brief History,” Bahá’í Year Book, p. 67.
17. Linfoot, “In Memoriam: True,” The Bahá’í World, vol. XIII, p. 849.
18. McDaniel, Spell of the Temple, pp. 3-4.
19. Linfoot, “In Memoriam: True,” Bahá’í World, vol. XIII, p. 849.
20. H. M. Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh (London: George Ronald, 1971), p. 126.
21. Minutes of the Bahá’í Temple Unity Executive Board, April 25, 1915, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
22. Reality Publishing Company and the Prompter Publishing Company, New York.
23. Author’s interview with Continental Counsellor Edna True and Mrs. Arna True Perron.
24. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1944), p. 16.
25. “Building the Temple—A Historical Record,” National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
26. Ibid., p. 33 and McDaniel, Spell of the Temple, pp. 21-34.
27. Genevieve L. Coy, “The Bahá’í House of Worship: An Institution of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh,” (n.p., n.d.)
28. Louis J. Bourgeois, “The Bahá’í Temple: Press Comments, Symbolism,” (Chicago, n.p., 1921) pp. 5-16 and Waite, “The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár,” The Bahá’í World, vol. III, pp. 142-144.
29. Ibid., p. 145.
30. McDaniel, “Building the Temple,” pp. 39-42.
31. Louise Waite, “The Temple Bell,” Reality, vol. II, no. 11, November 1920, p. 30.
32. Corinne True, “Recent Temple Work Log,” pp. 5-6.
33. McDaniel, “Building the Temple,” pp. 39-42.
34. Rúḥíyyih Rabbani, The Priceless Pearl (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1969), pp. 57-72.
35. National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, “A Plan of Unified Action to Spread the Bahá’í Cause throughout the United States and Canada,” (Eliot, Maine: 1925), p. 8.
36. Shoghi Effendi, “The Spiritual Significance of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár,” Bahá’í News, no. 36, December, 1929, p. 1.

Ornamental panels were applied to the interior in 1950. When the auditorium was completed, the steps were cast on the floor and moved outside for installation.

[Page 16]

37. Nellie S. French, “A Glorious Gift—from Shrine to Shrine,” The Bahá’í World, 1930-1932, (New York: J. J. Little and Ives, Co.: 1933), pp. 208-210.
38. “Temple Construction Fund Completed,” Bahá’í News, no. 39, March, 1930, p. 1.
39. Rabbani, Priceless Pearl, p. 430.
40. Shoghi Effendi, as quoted in Bahá’í News, no. 41, May, 1930, p. 2.
41. McDaniel, “Building the Temple,” p. 74, and “Report on the Fire at Bahá’í Temple,” Bahá’í News, no. 48, February, 1931, p. 5.
42. McDaniel, Spell of the Temple, pp. 15-17 and author’s interviews with Counsellor Edna True, Sophie Loeding, and Wyatt Cooper.
43. Mary Hanford Ford, “The Bahá’í Temple,” The Bahá’í World, vol. III, p. 150.
44. McDaniel, “Building the Temple,” pp. 82-84.
45. “Temple Construction,” Bahá’í News, no. 72, April, 1933, p. 1.
46. Shoghi Effendi, as quoted in Bahá’í News, no. 79, November, 1933, p. 1.
47. “Present Status of Temple Construction,” Bahá’í News, no. 81, February, 1934, p. 1.
48. Shoghi Effendi, as quoted in “A Spiritual Achievement,” Bahá’í News, no. 82, April, 1934, p. 1.
49. Rabbani, Priceless Pearl, p. 431.
50. Linfoot, “In Memoriam: True,” Bahá’í World, vol. XIII, p. 149.
51. Shoghi Effendi, as quoted in “The Building of the Temple,” Bahá’í News, no. 53, July, 1931, p. 3.
52. The Universal House of Justice, The Bahá’í Faith: Statistical Information, 1844-1968 (Haifa: The Universal House of Justice).
53. Marzieh Gail, The Sheltering Branch, (Taunton, England: The Wessex Press: 1959), p. 12.
54. Shoghi Effendi, “Spiritual Significance of Mashriqu’l-Adhkár,” Bahá’í News, no. 36, p. 3.
55. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1944), pp. 348-349.
56. Shoghi Effendi, Messages to America: Selected Letters and Cablegrams Addressed to the Bahá’ís of North America, 1932-1946 (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1947), p. 61.

Foundation Hall as it appeared in the early years of construction.

[Page 17]

Out of a Handful of Dust

A brief history of American Bahá’í youth and their forerunners.

by Philip Christensen

Research by Sherman Waite

On Naw-Rúz 1974, The Universal House of Justice released the Five Year Plan to 115 National Spiritual Assemblies. Its challenging goals include a special mandate for Bahá’í youth throughout the world:

“The vast reservoir of spiritual energy, zeal and idealism resident in Bahá’í youth, which so effectively contributed to the success of the Nine Year Plan, must be directed and lavishly spent for the proclamation, teaching, and consolidation of the Cause. Spiritual Assemblies are urged to provide consultation and the offer of guidance to Bahá’í youth who seek to plan their lives in such a way as to be of utmost service to the Cause of God.”¹

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States responded swiftly to this goal. It immediately appointed a National Bahá’í Youth Committee for the first time in more than a decade, assigning it a budget and a permanent staff in Wilmette. Included on this Committee are the Secretaries of three of the agencies most directly involved in proclamation, teaching, and consolidation, the National Teaching Committee, the International Goals Committee, and the National Education Committee. Their appointment helps assure the participation of youth in the major work of the Faith. Next, a Two Year Youth Program was devised and announced at the historic conference held in St. Louis, Missouri. This Program assigns to American Bahá’í youth a special role in the Five Year Plan, including specific objectives which must be won by September 1, 1976.

In its introduction to the Two Year Youth Program, the National Spiritual Assembly writes:

... we turn again with high expectations to the Bahá’í youth for the particular contributions of ‘spiritual energy, zeal and idealism’ which they abundantly possess, for without such dynamic qualities the Plan cannot succeed.² (Italics added)

Why is the active participation of Bahá’í youth necessary to the success of the Five Year Plan? Why did The Universal House of Justice, for the first time in history, make this a special goal in a global teaching plan? At a time when most young people are alienated from themselves and from society, confused about the course of world events, and concerned about their own future, young Bahá’ís are expected to work in harmony with their fellow believers of all ages to fuel the ever-advancing Cause of God in its progress from strength to strength, and to lay one more part of the foundation for the Kingdom of God on earth. How can they do it?

The answer shines clearly in the history of their Faith. Here is clear evidence that the Power of God lies waiting to assist any believer, however young, who arises to serve the Lord of the Age. Here, also, is repeated proof that Bahá’í youth have, from the earliest days of this era, seized this power and attained the station of heroic sacrifice. It was to “... arouse the friends to greater self-sacrifice and a more determined way of teaching”³ that the Guardian devoted so much time early in his career to the translation of The Dawn-Breakers, and urged youth in particular to study its lessons.

The role of youth in the early history of the Cause is so significant that it can be traced back beyond the Declaration of the Báb to the very roots of His Dispensation, which lie in the days of Shaykh Aḥmad-i-Aḥsá’í. Even before the dawn of the nineteenth century, this gentle scholar began to prepare his countrymen for the advent of a new and independent Revelation. After his death, his position as leader, teacher, and reformer was assumed by his chief disciple, Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí, who was only twenty-four years old. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains in A Traveller’s Narrative that this luminary of Divine

[Page 18]

“... we turn again with high expectations to the Bahá’í youth for the particular contributions of “spiritual energy, zeal, and idealism” which they abundantly possess, for without such dynamic qualities the Plan cannot succeed.”

guidance was only twelve when he was instructed in a dream to enroll amongst the disciples of Shaykh Aḥhmad, which he did immediately.

Siyyid Káẓim also chose to confer leadership upon one of his own young disciples. This was Mullá Ḥusayn-i-Bushrú’í, who successfully undertook the mission of gaining the friendship and sympathy of one of the most formidable ecclesiastical dignitaries in Persia. Siyyid Káẓim spoke so highly of the attainments, ability, and character of this youth that a few suspected Mullá Ḥusayn himself of being the Promised One for Whom they were waiting.

After the death of his master, it was this same youth who urged his fellow disciples to immediately begin their search for the Object of their quest. Finding only unworthy fear and evasiveness in those students, Mullá Ḥusayn set out with only two companions on his momentous quest. After forty days of prayer and fasting, he began a journey which eventually led him to the gates of Shíráz. Within the walls of that glorious city, a few hours before sunset on May 22, 1844, he met a noble Youth Who invited the young seeker to His home for an evening of ecstatic conversation. Before daybreak, Mullá Ḥusayn had heard the Báb’s Declaration and had recognized Him as the Promised One.

Thus, the Báb’s first believer, the first Letter of the Living, the Bábu’l-Báb (the gate of the Gate), was a youth. His own words testify to the impact of the Báb’s Declaration:

“This Revelation, so suddenly and impetuously thrust upon me, came as a thunderbolt which, for a time, seemed to have benumbed my faculties. I was blinded by its dazzling splendor and overwhelmed by its crushing force. Excitement, joy, awe, and wonder stirred the depths of my soul. Predominant among these emotions was a sense of gladness and strength which seemed to have transfigured me.... I felt possessed of such courage and power that were the world, all its peoples and its potentates, to rise against me, I would, alone and undaunted, withstand their onslaught. The universe seemed but a handful of dust in my grasp.”⁴

According to Bahá’u’lláh’s own testimony in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, Mullá Ḥusayn was the one “but for whom God would not have been established upon the seat of His mercy, nor ascended the throne of eternal glory.”⁵

Seventeen other seekers had to recognize the Báb before He would publicly declare His Mission. The last of these Letters of the Living was Quddús. He was only twenty-two at the time, yet his wisdom had made him the most esteemed disciple of Siyyid Káẓim. Arriving in Shíráz one evening, disheveled and travel-stained, he caught a glimpse of the Báb returning to His home. Quddús instantly accepted the Messenger of God, crying to the startled Mullá Ḥusayn:

Why seek you to hide Him from me? I can recognize Him by His gait. I confidently testify that none besides Him, whether in the East or in the West, can claim to be the Truth. None other can manifest the power and majesty that radiate from His holy person.⁶

Though Quddús was the youngest Letter of the Living, Shoghi Effendi has said that he was first in rank among them.

Immediately preceding Quddús in recognizing the Primal Point was Ṭáhirih (the Pure One), who had been surnamed Qurratu’l-‘Ayn (Solace of the Eyes) by Siyyid Káẓim, her teacher. She was less than thirty years of age when, as a result of the appearance of the Báb to her in a dream, she arose in His service. Doubly persecuted for her Faith, which aroused the hatred of the fanatical and the powerful in Persia, and for her sex, which was a liability in that era, she rose to great heights of erudition and heroism. The Guardian describes her as a woman “... of distinguished birth, of bewitching charm, of captivating eloquence, indomitable in spirit, unorthodox in her views, audacious in her acts, ...”⁷ Though she never met the Báb, her exquisite poetry extolled His beauty, her powerful translations helped promulgate His message, her fearless teachings hastened the spread of His Cause, and her shining example shed imperishable luster on His Faith.

All three of these youthful leaders, each prepared by Siyyid Káẓim to recognize the Báb, joyfully accepted the station of martyrdom after rendering great services to their Lord. Mullá Ḥusayn and Quddús, the first and last Letters of the Living, offered up their lives at the Fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsi as part of a band of “three hundred and thirteen untrained, unequipped yet God-intoxicated students” whose “heinous betrayal” and wholesale slaughter at the hands of professional soldiers and a frenzied mob generated “... the very seeds which, in a later age, were to blossom into worldwide administrative institutions, and which must, in the fullness of time, yield their golden fruit in the shape of a world-redeeming, earth-encircling Order.”⁸ In the forest of Mázindarán, no less than half of the Letters of the Living were martyred. Ṭáhirih was executed in 1852, but not before she had played her leading role along with Quddús, under “the controlling and directing influence” of Bahá’u’lláh Himself, at the celebrated Conference of Badasht four years earlier.⁹ The call she raised as she

[Page 19] appeared before her bewildered companions without her veil, (“The Trumpet is sounding! The great Trump is blown! The universal Advent is now proclaimed!”),¹⁰ became “... the death-knell of the twelve hundred year old law of Islam.”¹¹

Inspired by the shining example of such heroes, other youth joined the swelling ranks of Bábís. Their spiritual energy, zeal, and idealism helped sustain the expansion of the Cause in the face of relentless persecution. Many young believers were called to join the twenty thousand stalwart souls who tasted the bittersweet joy of martyrdom. One father, rather than renounce his faith, preferred to see the throats of his two young sons slit upon his own breast. The elder of the two, a boy of fourteen who was already covered with blood, adamantly demanded his right to be the first to lay down his life. Children could be seen marching down streets lined with angry mobs, their flesh in ribbons and candles burning in the wounds, singing “Verily from God we come, and unto Him we return!” Such devotion moved even the European press to horrified admiration.

Finally, the Báb’s brief ministry was terminated by 750 bullets. It had begun with a youth, Mullá Ḥusayn-i-Bushrú’í. It ended with a youth, Mírzá Muḥammad-Alí-i-Zunúzí, surnamed Anís. The evening before His martyrdom the Báb foretold the event and asked that one of His followers end His life, rather than an enemy. The Bábís sat weeping at the thought, until Anís sprang to his feet and promised obedience to his Master’s desire. The Báb rewarded this love by sharing with the young believer the crown of martyrdom, granting his wish that they might never be separated. The next day, on the ninth of July, 1850, at the hour of noon, they were suspended together from the same spike in the barracks square in Tabríz. The first volley of shots miraculously severed only the rope, leaving Anís standing alone in the square. A hurried search located the Báb in His room, finishing the conversation with His amanuensis that had been interrupted earlier by His executioners. His full Mission concluded, the Messenger of God allowed Himself to be once more suspended with Anís. Again the rifles fired. This time the bullets shattered the bodies and blended them into a mass of mingled flesh and bone, leaving only their faces relatively unmarred. Now the dust of that young hero lies eternally with the Holy Remains of His Lord in the Shrine of Carmel.

The Báb’s last words lauded this young believer:

Had you believed in Me, O wayward generation, every one of you would have followed the example of this youth, who stood in rank above most of you, and willingly would have sacrificed himself in My path. The day will come when you will have recognized Me; that day I shall have ceased to be with you.¹²

Six years before His martyrdom the Báb had sent Mullá Ḥusayn on a special mission to several cities, including Ṭihrán, promising to “direct your steps to that city which enshrines a Mystery of such transcendent holiness as neither Ḥijáz nor Shiráz can hope to rival.”¹³ In Ṭihrán, Mullá Ḥusayn’s inquiries soon led him to a young Nobleman, twenty-eight years old, Whose exalted character immediately attracted his heart. To this Figure, Whose given name was Mírzá Ḥusayn ‘Alí Núrí, the Primal Point (the Báb) sent a special scroll. Immediately upon reading it, Mírzá Ḥusayn ‘Alí embraced the Bábí Faith, and soon after left on His first journey to promote the Revelation. Later, at the Conference of Badasht, He revealed His new name: Bahá’u’lláh, the Glory of God.

Such was the power of this new Believer that after the martyrdom of the Báb, He soon became the unofficial leader of the Bábí community. In 1853, while chained in the rank darkness of the Síyáh-Chál of Ṭihrán, the Most Great Spirit—in the form of a Maiden—revealed itself to Bahá’u’lláh. Publicly declaring His Mission as the Promised One in 1863, on the eve of His departure from Baghdád (where He had been exiled after release from four months’ imprisonment in Ṭihrán), the “One Whom God Shall Make Manifest” attracted followers in ever-increasing numbers. Many were from countries never opened to the Faith of the Báb.

The youth among these Bahá’ís continued to distinguish themselves on the field of sacrifice and martyrdom. One example was the twelve-year-old Rúḥú’lláh, son of the renowned teacher and poet, Varqá. After watching a brutal jailer thrust a dagger into his father’s belly and cut him to pieces, he was ordered to recant his faith. Because of his blunt refusal, he was strangled with a rope. An eleven-year-old boy was pitilessly thrashed, stabbed with pen knives and tortured to death, and a newly converted youth of eighteen years named Ḥusayn was denounced by his own father and torn to pieces before the eyes of his mother.

To those living in the 1970s, in a world of material comfort and religious freedom, such events can seem remote indeed. Yet many of these martyrs were actually part of modern history. For example, the youth just mentioned—Ḥusayn—was murdered in the early 1900s, at a time when, in the West, automobiles traveled the roads and powered aircraft flew the skies. During a wave of persecution in Persia in 1955, young believers were abducted, beaten,

[Page 20] Twelve-year-old Rúḥu’lláh shared imprisonment and martyrdom with his father, Varqá, a renowned poet and Bahá’í teacher, shown here on the left.

raped, and murdered. In 1962 a Moroccan court sentenced six believers to death or life imprisonment for their Faith (an edict which was eventually countermanded). Three of these prisoners were between the ages of 22 and 24.

Thus the heroism of the youthful dawn-breakers is not as far removed in time as one might at first suspect. Neither were their characters and capacities as unusual as their glorious deeds seem to suggest. For the most part they were ordinary young men and women, heir to the limitations of mortal beings, who were transformed by their love for the Manifestation of God and aided by the Power of the Almighty.

Nowhere in the chronicles of the Heroic Age is there a better illustration of this fact than in the story of Áqá Buzurg of Khurásán. His father was a devoted believer who had survived the slaughter at Fort Shaykh Ṭabarsí. Yet the young man himself had shown no interest in the Faith. Some accounts even describe him as a delinquent who was publicly denounced by his father. But this lowly soul met the historian Nabíl in the city of Níshápúr, and was converted. He decided to seek the presence of Bahá’u’lláh.

In 1869, Áqá Buzurg arrived at the prison city of ‘Akká, disguised as an Arab. He handed his written declaration of faith to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who greeted him warmly and took him to the barracks cell. There he attained the Goal of his desire. Twice he conversed privately with Bahá’u’lláh, Who gave him a new name: Badí‘ (Wonderful).

For more than two years after writing His Tablet to the Shah, the Blessed Beauty had been waiting for a devoted soul to arise and carry it to the ruler of Persia. The reborn Badí‘ ended His waiting. Hájí Sháh Muḥammad Amín, Bahá’u’lláh’s Trustee, brought the youth a small case and the Tablet, and has left this account of their meeting:

... we left the town and walked up Mount Carmel where I handed him the case. He took it into his hands, kissed it, and knelt with his forehead to the ground; he also took the sealed envelope, walked twenty to thirty paces away from me, sat down facing ‘Akká, read it, and again knelt with his forehead to the ground. The rays of ecstasy and the signs of gladness and joy appeared on his face....

I mentioned that we had better go to Haifa, in order that, as instructed, I might give him some money. He declined to go with me, but suggested that I could go alone and bring it to him.

When I returned, in spite of much searching, I could not find him. He had gone....¹⁴

The illustrious youth had already left on his mission to Ṭihrán, knowing full well the fate that awaited him. After four months of travel, alone and on foot, over dangerous terrain, he arrived in the capital where he patiently spent three days in prayer and fasting. Finally, he met the Shah proceeding on a hunting expedition. While the local populace cowered on the ground in fear of the Monarch, Badí‘ calmly and respectfully approached him, calling out, “O King! I have come to thee from Sheba with a weighty message.”¹⁵ The Sháh, dispatching the Tablet to his divines (who were never able to draft an adequate reply), ordered the arrest of this bold youth. He was brutally tortured for three successive days. His jailers branded him, beat his head to a pulp with the butt of a rifle, threw his

[Page 21]

“This Revelation, so suddenly and impetuously thrust upon me, came as a thunderbolt which, for a time, seemed to have benumbed my faculties. I was blinded by its dazzling splendor and overwhelmed by its crushing force.”

body into a pit, and heaped earth and stones upon it. So amazed were they at his endurance that they commissioned a photograph of him sitting calmly in front of the brazier containing the hot bars of iron which were used to scorch his flesh, his neck unbowed by the weight of a heavy chain. The date was July, 1870. Badí‘ was seventeen years old.

Referring to the transformation of the rebellious Áqá Buzurg into the heroic Badí‘, Bahá’u’lláh says, “We took a handful of dust, mixed it with the waters of might and power and breathed into it the spirit of assurance.”¹⁶ He explained that the station of this youth was so great that no Tablet could carry its weight nor any pen describe its glory. Single and alone, He attests, Badí‘ could have conquered all that was in heaven and on earth. For three years the Blessed Beauty wrote of this hero in such terms, characterizing those references as the “salt of My Tablets.”¹⁷

Just one month before the martyrdom of Badí‘, one of Bahá’u’lláh’s own sons also chose the path of sacrifice. This was the pious Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch. He was only twenty-two when, one evening while pacing the roof of his prison rapt in his customary devotions, he fell through a skylight onto a wooden crate below. Within twenty-four hours he had left this world. His dying supplication to a grieving Father was that his life might be accepted as a ransom for those who were prevented from attaining the presence of their Beloved.

Mírzá Mihdí’s brother was of course, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Designated by His Father the Center and Pivot of His Covenant, the Mystery of God, the perfect Exemplar of His Teachings, the unerring Interpreter of His Word, and the Most Great Branch, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was born on the very night of the Báb’s declaration. As a child He sat on the lap of Ṭáhirih and “registered the thrilling significance of the stirring challenge which that indomitable heroine had addressed to her fellow-disciple, the erudite and far-famed Vaḥíd.”¹⁸ After the terrible shock of seeing His Father brutalized by His confinement in the Síyáh-Chál, He shared such persecution and privation that He once confided to Nabíl that He felt Himself to have grown old, though still but a child of tender years. As a boy He recognized the full glory of Bahá’u’lláh’s still unannounced station, and was active in teaching the Faith to scholars and dignitaries.

Even then the Blessed Beauty, and consequently His followers, referred to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as “the Master.” While still a young man He served His Father in countless ways, representing Him in public, defending the Cause, transcribing Tablets, shielding Him from His enemies, guarding the interests of the believers, supervising the construction of the Shrine of the Báb, and preserving the early history of the Faith. As He grew older his responsibilities and sacrifices increased. After the Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh, He assumed leadership of the Bahá’í Faith under the provisions of His Father’s Will and Testament.

In 1912, a few years after being released—through the force of the “Young Turk” Revolution—from forty years’ imprisonment, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá came Himself to North America to ignite the flame of faith on that continent. His illuminating words and exemplary deeds laid the foundation for future youth work in the United States.

End Part One

---

1. The Universal House of Justice, Five Year Plan (1974-1979): Message to the Bahá’ís of the World (Issued by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, Riḍván 1974), p. 2.
2. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, Two Year Youth Program (1974-1976). Letter to the Bahá’í Youth of the United States, August 29, 1974.
3. Shoghi Effendi and The Universal House of Justice, Bahá’í Youth: A Compilation, comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1973), p. 13.
4. Nabíl-i-A’ẓam [Muḥammad-i-Zarandí], The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation, trans. and ed. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1932), p. 65.
5. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1944), p. 7.
6. Nabíl, Dawn-Breakers, pp. 69-70.
7. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 7.
8. Ibid., p. 38.
9. Nabíl, Dawn-Breakers, p. 294.
10. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Memorials of the Faithful, trans. Marzieh Gail (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1971), p. 201.
11. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 34.
12. Nabíl, Dawn-Breakers, p. 514.
13. Ibid., p. 96.
14. Adíb Táhírzádeh, “Three Momentous Years of the Heroic Age—1868-70,” Bahá’í News, no. 474, September 1970, p. 8.
15. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 199.
16. Táhírzádeh, “Three Momentous Years,” Bahá’í News, no. 474, September 1970, p. 8.
17. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 199.
18. Ibid., p. 240.

[Page 22] Don Rufino Fuentes, a Mayan Bahá’í, at the ruins of Uxmal.

Bahá’í Proclamation and Deepening Film

Step by Step

An artist, a mechanic, a field laborer, an accounting manager, a policeman, a hospital administrator — what have these people in common? They’re Bahá’ís and they appear in a new Bahá’í film, Paso a Paso, produced by Kiva Films.

The film, which is titled Step by Step in English, depicts the growth of the Bahá’í Faith among Indians, blacks, and Latins in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama. Unified by their common belief in Bahá’u’lláh and His Message, these persons comment on their faith and what it means to them.

These native teachers share their views on such widely varying topics as prophecy, the unity of mankind, world peace, universal governing institutions, and a divine civilization. Simply, clearly, and directly they discuss how the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh is unifying all mankind, step by step, through the infusion of Divine Love.

Feasts, the local Spiritual Assembly, elections, and other aspects of Bahá’í administration are explained.

In addition, the 29-minute, color-and-sound film mentions ancient Mayan prophecies concerning world peace, the Return, and a spiritual revival, and relates these to the newest Bahá’í House of Worship in Panama. It complements two earlier films, El Alba and The Dedication. Designed for television use, this new film is also suited to public meetings and other proclamation events. The film is also universally suitable for teaching and deepening.

How to Get the Film

To obtain rental information and purchase prices, write to your publishing trust or national Bahá’í distributor. If you do not know the name and address of the one serving your area, you may send your inquiry to the International Bahá’í Audio-Visual Centre, 1640 Holcomb Road, Victor, N.Y. 14564, U.S.A. for forwarding to the proper organization.

Specify Step by Step, Product Number 20672, for the English edition, or Paso a Paso, Product Number 20671, for the Spanish version.