At the time of the passing of Bahá’u’lláh, the Bahá’í community was contained within the borders of no more than fifteen countries, the vast majority of its members living in His native Iran. The community now [1992] embraces the entire planet.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a message dated 26 November 1992: To the Bahá’ís of the World; Messages from the Universal House of Justice 1986-2001)
TO THE FOLLOWERS OF BAHA'U'LLAH IN EVERY LAND WE BOW OUR HEADS IN INFINITE GRATITUDE TO THE BLESSED BEAUTY FOR HIS ALL-EMBRACING CONFIRMATIONS ENABLING HOUSE JUSTICE OCCUPY ITS NEWLY CONSTRUCTED PERMANENT SEAT. THIS AUSPICIOUS EVENT SIGNALIZES ANOTHER PHASE IN PROCESS FULFILMENT SAILING GOD'S ARK ON MOUNTAIN OF THE LORD AS ANTICIPATED IN TABLET CARMEL, WONDROUS CHARTER WORLD SPIRITUAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRES FAITH BAHA'U'LLAH.
THIS HIGH POINT HISTORY STRUGGLING FAITH NOW EMERGING FROM OBSCURITY, THIS CRUCIAL HOUR SUFFUSED WITH UNTOLD POTENCIES GENERATED BY SOUL-STIRRING SACRIFICES BELOVED BRETHREN IRAN, MARKED BY VISIT MEMBERS HOUSE JUSTICE TWIN HOLY SHRINES AND FIRST GATHERING COUNCIL CHAMBER TOGETHER WITH HANDS CAUSE AMATU'L-BAHA RUHIYYIH KHANUM 'ALI-AKBAR FURUTAN AND COUNSELLOR MEMBERS INTERNATIONAL TEACHING CENTRE TO OFFER PRAYERS HUMBLE THANKSGIVING. LET ALL REJOICE. LET PRAISES ANCIENT BEAUTY RESOUND. MAY UNRELENTING EFFORTS FRIENDS EVERYWHERE HASTEN ADVENT THAT DAY WHEN WONDROUS POTENTIALITIES ENSHRINED IN TABLET CARMEL WILL BE FULLY REVEALED AND WHEN FROM GOD'S HOLY MOUNTAIN, AS ENVISAGED BELOVED GUARDIAN, WILL STREAM FORTH RIVERS OF LAWS AND ORDINANCES WITH ALL-CONQUERING POWER AND MAJESTY.
UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
(‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986’)
The Czar of Russia, a contemporary chronicler has written, had even, shortly before the Báb’s martyrdom, instructed the Russian Consul in Tabríz to fully inquire into, and report the circumstances of so startling a Movement, a commission that could not be carried out in view of the Báb’s execution. In countries as remote as those of Western Europe an interest no less profound was kindled, and spread with great rapidity to literary, artistic, diplomatic and intellectual circles. “All Europe,” attests the above-mentioned French publicist, “was stirred to pity and indignation … Among the littérateurs of my generation, in the Paris of 1890, the martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first news of His death. We wrote poems about Him. Sarah Bernhardt entreated Catulle Mendès for a play on the theme of this historic tragedy.” A Russian poetess, member of the Philosophic, Oriental and Bibliological Societies of St. Petersburg, published in 1903 a drama entitled “The Báb,” which a year later was played in one of the principal theatres of that city, was subsequently given publicity in London, was translated into French in Paris, and into German by the poet Fiedler, was presented again, soon after the Russian Revolution, in the Folk Theatre in Leningrad, and succeeded in arousing the genuine sympathy and interest of the renowned Tolstoy, whose eulogy of the poem was later published in the Russian press.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
To the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of United States
HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS ACHIEVEMENT LONG AWAITED STEP
ESTABLISHMENT FIRST BAHA'I RADIO STATION NORTH AMERICA ENABLING YOU PIONEER
MODEL PROGRAMME CONSOLIDATION UPLIFTMENT BAHA'I COMMUNITY SOUTH CAROLINA.
PRAYING YOUR WISE MOBILIZATION BOUNTEOUS RESOURCES FOR MEDIA DEVELOPMENT IN
UNITED STATES BEHALF BELOVED FAITH PROVIDING FURTHER IMPETUS TEACHING SOUTHERN
STATES.
LOVING GREETINGS,
UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
(‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986’)
WITH STRICKEN HEARTS ANNOUNCE SUDDEN IRREPARABLE LOSS
THROUGH AUTO-MOBILE ACCIDENT 3 DECEMBER HIGHLY DISTINGUISHED GREATLY PRIZED
HAND CAUSE GOD STAUNCH DEFENDER COVENANT PAUL HANEY.
THIS DISTINGUISHED SERVANT BAHA'U'LLAH WAS BLESSED CHILDHOOD THROUGH ATTAINMENT PRESENCE 'ABDU'L-BAHA. HIS NATURAL GENTLENESS, GENUINE HUMILITY, UNAFFECTED UNBOUNDED LOVE, HIS UPRIGHTNESS, INTEGRITY HIS SINGLE-MINDED DEVOTION CAUSE SINCE YOUTHFUL YEARS, HIS UNFAILING RELIABILITY, METICULOUS ATTENTION DETAIL, CHARACTERIZED HIS HISTORIC SERVICES BOTH NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEVELS. SPANNING MORE THAN HALF CENTURY HIS TIRELESS LABOURS INCLUDED LONG-TIME MEMBERSHIP AMERICAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. SINCE 1954 HE CONSECRATED HIS ENERGIES AS MEMBER UNIQUE COMPANY CHIEF STEWARDS FAITH AND LATER AS MEMBER BODY HANDS CAUSE RESIDING HOLY LAND AT ONE OF MOST CRITICAL PERIODS BAHA'I HISTORY. LAST DECADE HIS EARTHLY LIFE WAS FULLY DEDICATED DEVELOPMENT NEWLY FORMED INTERNATIONAL TEACHING CENTRE. GENERATIONS YET UNBORN WILL GLORY IN HIS IMPERISHABLE ACHIEVEMENTS AND BE INSPIRED BY HIS UNIQUE FORTITUDE.
ARDENTLY SUPPLICATING HOLY THRESHOLD PROGRESS HIS NOBLE SOUL ABHA KINGDOM. ADVISE HOLD THROUGHOUT BAHA'I WORLD INCLUDING ALL MASHRIQU'L-ADHKARS MEMORIAL GATHERINGS BEFITTING HIS HIGH RANK AND HIS MERITORIOUS SERVICES.
UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
(‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986’)
The prime instigator of the Báb’s death, the implacable Amír-Niẓám, together with his brother, his chief accomplice, met their death within two years of that savage act.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
In that same year [1852] no less than two hundred and fifty of the firing squad, that had replaced Sám Khán’s regiment, met their death, together with their officers, in a terrible earthquake, while the remaining five hundred suffered, three years later, [1855] as a punishment for their mutiny, the same fate as that which their hands had inflicted upon the Báb. To insure that none of them had survived, they were riddled with a second volley, after which their bodies, pierced with spears and lances, were exposed to the gaze of the people of Tabríz.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
In Shíráz an “earthquake,” foreshadowed in no less weighty a Book than the Revelation of St. John, occurred in 1268 A.H. which threw the whole city into turmoil and wrought havoc amongst its people, a havoc that was greatly aggravated by the outbreak of cholera, by famine and other afflictions.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
The very moment the shots were fired a gale of exceptional violence arose and swept over the city. From noon till night a whirlwind of dust obscured the light of the sun, and blinded the eyes of the people.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
Sám Khán, likewise, remembering, with feelings of awe and wonder, the reassuring words addressed to him by the Báb, ordered his men to leave the barracks immediately, and swore, as he left the courtyard, never again, even at the cost of his life, to repeat that act.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
Sám Khán [the Christian colonel of the Armenian regiment] accordingly set out to discharge his duty. A spike was driven into a pillar which separated two rooms of the barracks facing the square. Two ropes were fastened to it from which the Báb and one of his disciples, the youthful and devout Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí-i-Zunúzí, surnamed Anís, who had previously flung himself at the feet of his Master and implored that under no circumstances he be sent away from Him, were separately suspended. The firing squad ranged itself in three files, each of two hundred and fifty men. Each file in turn opened fire until the whole detachment had discharged its bullets. So dense was the smoke from the seven hundred and fifty rifles that the sky was darkened. As soon as the smoke had cleared away the astounded multitude of about ten thousand souls, who had crowded onto the roof of the barracks, as well as the tops of the adjoining houses, beheld a scene which their eyes could scarcely believe.
The Báb had vanished from their sight! Only his companion remained, alive and unscathed, standing beside the wall on which they had been suspended. The ropes by which they had been hung alone were severed. “The Siyyid-i-Báb has gone from our sight!” cried out the bewildered spectators. A frenzied search immediately ensued.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
Confronted with a flat refusal by the indignant Prince to perform what he regarded as a flagitious crime, the Amír-Niẓám commissioned his own brother, Mírzá Ḥasan Khán, to execute his orders.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
The siege of Zanján was still in progress when he [Persia's Prime Minister), dispensing with an explicit order from his sovereign, and acting independently of his counsellors and fellow-ministers, dispatched his order to Prince Hamzih Mírzá, the Hishmatu’d-Dawlih, the governor of Ádhirbáyján, instructing him to execute the Báb. Fearing lest the infliction of such condign punishment in the capital of the realm would set in motion forces he might be powerless to control, he ordered that his Captive be taken to Tabríz, and there be done to death.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By)
A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated anxieties, disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now moved swiftly towards its climax. The most turbulent period of the Heroic Age of the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination. The cup of bitter woes which the Herald of that Dispensation had tasted was now full to overflowing. Indeed, He Himself had already foreshadowed His own approaching death. In the Kitáb-i-Panj-Sha‘n, one of His last works, He had alluded to the fact that the sixth Naw-Rúz after the declaration of His mission would be the last He was destined to celebrate on earth. In His interpretation of the letter Há, He had voiced His craving for martyrdom, while in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá’ He had actually prophesied the inevitability of such a consummation of His glorious career. Forty days before His final departure from Chihríq He had even collected all the documents in His possession, and placed them, together with His pen-case, His seals and His rings, in the hands of Mullá Báqir, a Letter of the Living, whom He instructed to entrust them to Mullá ‘Abdu’l-Karím-i-Qazvíní, surnamed Mírzá Aḥmad, who was to deliver them to Bahá’u’lláh in Tihrán.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
To the tide of calamity which, during the concluding years of the Báb’s ministry, was sweeping with such ominous fury the provinces of Persia, whether in the East, in the South, or in the West, the heart and center of the realm itself could not remain impervious. Four months before the Báb’s martyrdom Tihrán in its turn was to participate, to a lesser degree and under less dramatic circumstances, in the carnage that was besmirching the face of the country. A tragedy was being enacted in that city which was to prove but a prelude to the orgy of massacre which, after the Báb’s execution, convulsed its inhabitants and sowed consternation as far as the outlying provinces. It originated in the orders and was perpetrated under the very eyes of the irate and murderous Amír-Niẓám, supported by Mahmud Khán-i-Kalantar, and aided by a certain Husayn, one of the ‘ulamás of Kashán. The heroes of that tragedy were the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán, who represented the more important classes among their countrymen, and who deliberately refused to purchase life by that mere lip-denial which, under the name of taqíyyih, Shí‘ah Islám had for centuries recognized as a wholly justifiable and indeed commendable subterfuge in the hour of peril. Neither the repeated and vigorous intercessions of highly placed members of the professions to which these martyrs belonged, nor the considerable sums which, in the case of one of them—the noble and serene Hájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí, the Báb’s maternal uncle—affluent merchants of Shíráz and Tihrán were eager to offer as ransom, nor the impassioned pleas of state officials on behalf of another—the pious and highly esteemed dervish, Mírzá Qurbán-‘Alí—nor even the personal intervention of the Amír-Nizám, who endeavored to induce both of these brave men to recant, could succeed in persuading any of the seven to forego the coveted laurels of martyrdom. The defiant answers which they flung at their persecutors; the ecstatic joy which seized them as they drew near the scene of their death; the jubilant shouts they raised as they faced their executioner; the poignancy of the verses which, in their last moments, some of them recited; the appeals and challenges they addressed to the multitude of onlookers who gazed with stupefaction upon them; the eagerness with which the last three victims strove to precede one another in sealing their faith with their blood; and lastly, the atrocities which a bloodthirsty foe degraded itself by inflicting upon their dead bodies which lay unburied for three days and three nights in the Sabzih-Maydán, during which time thousands of so-called devout Shí‘ahs kicked their corpses, spat upon their faces, pelted, cursed, derided, and heaped refuse upon them—these were the chief features of the tragedy of the Seven Martyrs of Tihrán, a tragedy which stands out as one of the grimmest scenes witnessed in the course of the early unfoldment of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. Little wonder that the Báb, bowed down by the weight of His accumulated sorrows in the Fortress of Chihríq, should have acclaimed and glorified them, in the pages of a lengthy eulogy which immortalized their fidelity to His Cause, as those same “Seven Goats” who, according to Islamic tradition, should, on the Day of Judgment, “walk in front” of the promised Qá’im, and whose death was to precede the impending martyrdom of their true Shepherd.
- Shoghi Effendi ('God Passes By')
7 June 1992
To the Bahá’ís of the World
As we reflect on the events which a few days ago marked the
commemoration in the Holy Land of the Centenary of the Ascension of
Baha’u’llah, we feel impelled to express to the Bahá’í world our sense of
wonderment at the exalted character of what transpired. The nature of the
Anniversary was in itself awe-inspiring and evocative of profound emotion. But
the gathering of some 3,000 Bahá’ís, including 113 Knights of Bahá’u’lláh,
representing no less than 200 countries and dependent territories—the widest
diversity of human beings ever to have assembled on a Bahá’í occasion—filled
the eyes with the vision of a garden of humanity that overwhelmed the senses,
inducing a spirit of beauty, joy and splendor. Bahjí was never more
resplendent. And we offer prayers of thanksgiving to our beloved Lord that so
fitting an assemblage could have been realized on this special Anniversary,
indicating the amazing extent to which the pervasive power of His influence has
triumphed throughout the world.
May the evident blessings flowing from this heavenly experience infuse the dear friends everywhere with new strength and fresh encouragement, emboldening their efforts and enlarging their capacity to proclaim the Name and promote the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh during the course of the Holy Year so auspiciously begun.
The Universal House of Justice
(Messages from the Universal House of Justice 1986-2001)
We look back with feelings of humble gratitude and heightened expectations at the stupendous developments which have taken place in so brief a period.
These, added to numerous other highlights of this single year,
merge with the overall record of accomplishments thus far in the Six Year Plan,
presenting a dynamic picture of accelerated activity throughout the Bahá’í
world.
- The Universal House of Justice (Ridvan 1989 Message to the
Bahá’ís of the World; Online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World
Center)
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| Enoch
Olinga and his wife Elizabeth during a Baha'i conference in Brazil in 1977 |
To all National Spiritual Assemblies
WITH GRIEF-STRICKEN HEARTS ANNOUNCE TRAGIC NEWS BRUTAL
MURDER DEARLY LOVED GREATLY ADMIRED HAND CAUSE GOD ENOCH OLINGA BY UNKNOWN
GUNMEN COURTYARD HIS KAMPALA HOME. HIS WIFE ELIZABETH AND THREE OF HIS CHILDREN
BADI, LENNIE AND TAHIRIH HAVE ALSO FALLEN INNOCENT VICTIMS THIS CRUEL ACT. MOTIVE
ATTACK NOT YET ASCERTAINED. HIS RADIANT
SPIRIT, HIS UNWAVERING FAITH, HIS ALL-EMBRACING LOVE, HIS LEONINE AUDACITY IN
THE TEACHING FIELD, HIS TITLES KNIGHT BAHA'U'LLAH, FATHER VICTORIES CONFERRED
BELOVED GUARDIAN, ALL COMBINE DISTINGUISH HIM AS PRE-EMINENT MEMBER HIS RACE IN
ANNALS FAITH AFRICAN CONTINENT URGE FRIENDS EVERYWHERE HOLD MEMORIAL GATHERINGS
BEFITTING TRIBUTE HIS IMPERISHABLE MEMORY. FERVENTLY PRAYING HOLY SHRINES
PROGRESS HIS NOBLE SOUL AND SOULS FOUR MEMBERS HIS PRECIOUS FAMILY.
UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
(‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986’)