Messages to the Bahá’í World: 1950–1957

On occasion of celebration of Naw-Rúz Festival announce to followers of Faith of Bahá’u’lláh East and West, through National Assemblies, completion of excavation for foundations for eight piers designed to support the mighty dome of the Báb’s Sepulcher, as well as momentous decision to place hundred thirty thousand dollar contract for the stone work of both cylinder and dome.

Approaching Centenary of the birth of the prophetic Mission of the Founder of the Faith, the virtual consummation of the fifty year project culminating in the termination of the interior ornamentation of the Mother Temple of the West, the risks involved in any delay owing to the threatening international situation, the necessity to insure increasing support to reinforce the newly-forged ties with the civil authorities of the recently emerged State in the Holy Land through the formation of the International Bahá’í Council, the considerable saving effected through signature to the contract for the entire stone work required to erect the superstructure of the edifice, impel me to take the major step in the development of the swiftly progressing, irresistibly advancing enterprise transcending in sacredness any collective undertaking launched in the course of the history of the hundred year old Faith.

I am moved to renew my fervent plea addressed to all national and local Assemblies and believers in all continents of the globe to arise and determinedly gird up their loins to contribute, through curtailment of budgets, adequate appropriations from national and local funds, as well as direct sustained individual donations, to insure uninterrupted financial support, however great the sacrifice involved, however heavy the burdens, however distracting the successive crises of the present critical hour. Austerity period previously affecting the fortunes of the American Bahá’í community unavoidably prolonged and now extended to embrace the entire Bahá’í world in recognition of the pressing needs and paramount importance of this glorious international task. 10

Urge followers of the Most Great Name to demonstrate a still nobler spirit of self-abnegation in the course of the swiftly diminishing interval separating us from the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Mission of the Author of the Revelation, commemorating the Centenary of the blood bath constituting the most tragic episode in Bahá’í history associated with the martyrdom of the immortal Táhirih, the subjection of Bahá’u’lláh to the rigors of the Síyáh-Chál in Ṭihrán and the barbarous execution of unnumbered heroes and saints of the Apostolic Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation.