Photographed with the members of the Spiritual Assembly are
the two teachers who helped in the establishment of this Assembly.
(The Baha'i World 1944-1946)
May 22, 2017
2017 - Education is not a Crime: --> Murals in Harlem, New York, as symbols of solidarity and resilience
(Baha'i World News Service)
May 16, 2017
Date of the publication of the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh
The subject you had raised with regard to the date of the
publication of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh is interesting as it is important… The
earliest published writings of Bahá’u’lláh date from the nineties of the last
century. Over forty years ago the Aqdas, a volume of general Tablets including
Tarazát, Ishráqát, and others were published in Ishqábád (Russia) and Bombay
respectively and copies of these though rare are still procurable.
Simultaneously with these, if not earlier, some of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh
were published by the Oriental Department of the Imperial Russian University at
St. Petersburgh under the supervision of its director Baron Rosen (and more
particulars about these could be found in the books of E. G. Browne) and these
of course are not undated like some of those published in Bombay.
The main bulk of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh however are to
be found in manuscript form written by noted scribes after the fashion of
orientals. These scribes did not leave all their manuscripts undated and Jinábí
Zain, a very noted Bahá’í scribe, always dated his copies of the writings of
Bahá’u’lláh at the end of the volume in what E. G. Browne calls ‘colophenes’
and the description of some of these colophenes could be found in the works of
the Cambridge Professor.
The son of the above-mentioned scribe is still living in
Haifa and does very much the same work as his father. He claims that as early
as 1868 his father used to write copies of the Íqán for the Bahá’ís in Persia
as a source of livelihood, and that after 1885 when he went to Akká to join
Bahá’u’lláh’s party his entire work and time was devoted to copying the sacred
writings for sale among Bahá’ís. These copies are to be found all throughout
the East and are almost invariably dated.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated
9 February 1930 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer;
‘Unfolding Destiny’)
May 10, 2017
Consequences of rejecting the Message of God brought by Bahá’u’lláh: --> Násiri’d-Dín Sháh – the “Prince of Oppressors”
The vain and despotic Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, denounced by
Bahá’u’lláh as the “Prince of Oppressors”; of whom He had written that he would
soon be made “an object-lesson for the world”; whose reign was stained by the
execution of the Báb and the imprisonment of Bahá’u’lláh; who had persistently
instigated his subsequent banishments to Constantinople, Adrianople and Akká;
who, in collusion with a vicious sacerdotal order, had vowed to strangle the
Faith in its cradle, was dramatically assassinated, in the shrine of Sháh
‘Abdu’l-‘Aẓím, on the very eve of his jubilee, which, as ushering in a new era,
was to have been celebrated with the most elaborate magnificence, and was to go
down in history as the greatest day in the annals of the Persian nation. The
fortunes of his house thereafter steadily declined, and finally through the
scandalous misconduct of the dissipated and irresponsible Aḥmad Sháh, led to
the eclipse and disappearance of the Qájár dynasty.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God
Passes By’)
May 2, 2017
Five Hands of the Cause of God passed away between December 1979 and November 1980
Enoch Olinga (17
September 1979); Rahmatu'llah Muhajir (30 December 1979); Hasan M. Balyuzi (12
february 1980); Adelbert Muehlchlegel (29 July 1980); and Abu'l-Qasim Faizi (20
November 1980)
(Adapted from ‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice,
1963-1986’)