Messages to the Bahá’í World: 1950–1957

Transmit the following joyful tidings National Spiritual Assemblies of the Bahá’í world. World spiritual crusade, mightiest agency yet conceived for the systematic execution of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan, has been befittingly ushered in through successive, magnificent victories won by Bahá’u’lláh’s crusaders in virgin territories in every continent of the globe.

The four months which have elapsed since its glorious inauguration amidst the climax of the Centenary of the inception of His Mission, have been immortalized by the opening of no less than twenty-eight territories and islands, nine in Europe, eight in America, six in Africa, five in Asia, constituting a dispersal unprecedented in its rapidity and scope during eleven decades of Bahá’í history.

The number of pioneers who responded to the call for settlement of open and unopened territories on the planet passed the three hundred mark: over a hundred and fifty from America, over 51 fifty from Europe, over forty from Africa, over forty from Asia. The number of prospective pioneers to virgin areas is over forty. All Western Hemisphere and African areas allocated to the United States National Assembly, as well as all European areas allocated to the various National Assemblies, have been assigned.

The Roll of Honor designed to perpetuate the memory of the exploits of the spiritual conquerors is already inscribed with the names of the following pioneers, together with their respective territories, amounting to almost a fourth of the number required for the attainment of the paramount objective of the opening phase of the ten year plan. Sohail Samandari, Italian Somaliland; Mary and Rex Collison, Dunduzu Chisizwa, Ruanda-Urundi; ‘Izzatu’lláh Zahrai, Southern Rhodesia; Ghulamal Kurlawala, Daman; Gail and Jameson Bond, Franklin; Roshan Aftabi, Feroza Yaganagi, Goa; Rose Perkal, Jack Huffman, Kodiak Island; Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Crane, Key West; Saeed Nahvi, Shyan Behrarilal, Pondicherry; Udainarayan Singh, Sikkim; Fred Schechter, French Somaliland; Virginia Orbison, Balearic Islands; Mr. and Mrs. Amín Banání, Greece; Abbás Vakil, Cyprus; Gertrude Eisenberg, Canary Islands; Dick Stanton, Keewatin; Mr. and Mrs. Jenabe Caldwell, Aleutian Islands; Edythe MacArthur, Queen Charlotte Islands; Hushmand Manuchihri, Liechtenstein; Eskil Ljungberg, Faroe Islands; Mildred Clark and Loyce Lawrence, Lofoten Islands; Salisa Kirmani, Shirin Nurani, Karikal; Zíá’u’lláh Asgarzadeh, Evelyn Baxter, Channel Islands; Kay Weston, Magdalen Islands; Julius Edwards, Northern Territories Protectorate; Doris Richardson, Grand Manan Island; Charles Dunning, Orkney Islands; Nellie French, Monaco.

Countries in which Bahá’ís reside now aggregate over one hundred fifty. Over seventy have been added in the course of the nine years separating the first and second Jubilees.

The festivities of the Holy Year, so splendidly inaugurated, attaining the high water mark on the occasion of the Ninetieth Anniversary of the declaration of the Mission of the Founder of the Faith, are approaching their end. Appeal entire body of His followers to exert a concerted, superhuman effort to celebrate, through acceleration of their dispersal, the conclusion of the world-wide rejoicings, and pay worthy tribute to His memory, through as close an approach to the two hundred mark as possible of the total number of sovereign States, Dependencies, and Islands comprised within the orbit of His irresistibly expanding Faith, achieving thereby 52 a feat paralleling, in the eyes of posterity, the triumphant completion of the superstructure of the Sepulcher of its Co-Founder at the Bahá’í World Center in the Holy Land.