1846 Isfahan: The argument that one of the invited clergy used to dissuade others from attending the meeting to face the Báb at the home of the governor

Hájí Siyyid Asadu’lláh refused the invitation and endeavoured to dissuade those who had been invited, from participating in that gathering. “I have sought to excuse myself,” he informed them, “and I would most certainly urge you to do the same. I regard it as most unwise of you to meet the Siyyid-i-Báb face to face. He will, no doubt, reassert his claim and will, in support of his argument, adduce whatever proof you may desire him to give, and, without the least hesitation, will reveal as a testimony to the truth he bears, verses of such a number as would equal half the Qur’án. In the end he will challenge you in these words: ‘Produce likewise, if ye are men of truth.’ We can in no wise successfully resist him. If we disdain to answer him, our impotence will have been exposed. If we, on the other hand, submit to his claim, we shall not only be forfeiting our own reputation, our own prerogatives and rights, but will have committed ourselves to acknowledge any further claims that he may feel inclined to make in the future.” 

- Nabil (‘The Dawn-Breakers’, translated and edited by Shoghi Effendi)

1973: Announcement of “the first reigning sovereign to enter beneath the shade of this Cause” - His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II, the Head of State of the independent nation of Western Samoa

7 May 1973

To the Bahá’ís of the World

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

It is now possible to share with you all the news of an event which crowns the victories with which Bahá’u’lláh has blessed His followers during the Nine Year Plan, an event of which the true significance will be fully understood only in the course of centuries to come: a reigning monarch has accepted the Message of Bahá’u’lláh.

Among those to whom The Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh was presented in 1967 was His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II, the Head of State of the independent nation of Western Samoa in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. His Highness, who had already heard of the Faith, showed immediately that the sacred Words had touched his heart, and the Universal House of Justice thereupon asked the Hand of the Cause Dr. Ugo Giachery, who had presented the book to him, to return to Western Samoa for further audiences with His Highness. Following this visit the Malietoa conveyed his acceptance of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh to the Universal House of Justice and became the first reigning sovereign to enter beneath the shade of this Cause.

His Highness decided, with the full agreement of the Universal House of Justice, that it was not propitious to make his declaration public at that time. He has been visited from time to time by Hands of the Cause and other believers, and continual touch with His Highness has been maintained by the House of Justice through Mr. Suhayl ‘Alá’í, a member of the Continental Board of Counselors for Australasia. Gradually the Malietoa has let it be known to those around him that he has accepted Bahá’u’lláh. Now he has judged the time ripe to share this wondrous news with his fellow-believers in all parts of the world, by addressing to the International Bahá’í Convention the gracious and inspiring message of which a copy is enclosed with this letter.…

With loving Bahá’í greetings,

The Universal House of Justice

(Online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)

2007: “a recently disclosed communication by Central Security Office of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, confidentially conveyed to the officials of eighty-one universities in Iran… called for the expulsion of any student discovered to be a Bahá’í”

The persistent position of the Iranian authorities in banning Bahá’í students from access to higher education is deeply saddening. The policy was clearly confirmed in a recently disclosed communication by the Central Security Office of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, confidentially conveyed to the officials of eighty-one universities in Iran, which called for the expulsion of any student discovered to be a Bahá’í. It has now been reaffirmed by the action taken recently by the Education Evaluation Organization, which declared as “incomplete”—and therefore invalid—the applications of some 800 Bahá’ís who took the national exam for university entrance for the coming academic year (2007–2008). These official acts are disappointing and shameful.

Only a few months ago, reports carried by newspapers about the expulsion of Bahá’í students in Iran were denied by a spokesperson for Iran’s mission to the United Nations, who said outright that no one in Iran is expelled from university because of religion. That same assurance was given by the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the United Kingdom, in a written response to the concern a British Member of Parliament had expressed about the government’s treatment of Bahá’í students. A similar avowal by the Iranian embassy in Ethiopia appeared in a newspaper in that country following the publication of a story reporting Iran’s covert plan to identify Bahá’ís and secretly monitor their activities throughout the country.

For more than two decades Bahá’í students in Iran were unable to enter university because the only way open to them would have been to misrepresent their Faith. Then, consequent to a concerted worldwide effort—involving governments, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations, and individuals—that raised questions about this situation, your government’s representatives responded by averring that the reference to religion on the forms was not to identify university applicants by belief but only to specify the religion on which they wished to be examined. 

- The Universal House of Justice  (From a message dated 09 September 2007, addressed to the Bahá’í students deprived of access to higher education in Iran; online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)

“sufferings which, for no less than seventy years, were endured by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá”

To the mounting tide of trials which laid low the Báb, to the long-drawn-out calamities which rained on Bahá’u’lláh, to the warnings sounded by both the Herald and the Author of the Bahá’í Revelation, must be added the sufferings which, for no less than seventy years, were endured by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, as well as His pleas, and entreaties, uttered in the evening of His life, in connection with the dangers that increasingly threatened the whole of mankind.

• Born in the very year that witnessed the inception of the Bábí Revelation;
• baptized with the initial fires of persecution that raged around that nascent Cause;
• an eyewitness, when a boy of eight, of the violent upheavals that rocked the Faith which His Father had espoused;
• sharing with Him, the ignominy, the perils, and rigors consequent upon the successive banishments from His native-land to countries far beyond its confines;
• arrested and forced to support, in a dark cell, the indignity of imprisonment soon after His arrival in Akká;
• the object of repeated investigations and the target of continual assaults and insults under the despotic rule of Sultán ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd, and later under the ruthless military dictatorship of the suspicious and merciless Jamál Páshá—

He, too, the Center and Pivot of Bahá’u’lláh’s peerless Covenant and the perfect Exemplar of His teachings, was made to taste, at the hands of potentates, ecclesiastics, governments and peoples, the cup of woe which the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, as well as so many of their followers, had drained. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)

1976: “Bahá'ís form a majority or even the entire population of the village”: - “many villages in India, the Philippines, Africa, Latin America, etc.”

There are, at the present time, many villages in India, the Philippines, Africa, Latin America, etc., where the Bahá'ís form a majority or even the entire population of the village. 

- The Universal House of Justice  (From a letter dated 27 July 1976 written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer; The Compilation of Compilations, Vol. III, Social and Economic Development)

2006: The “most significant developments in the process of integration… directly related to the Faith”: - “many of which were nurtured by the Guardian”

…for the followers of Bahá’u’lláh the most significant developments in the process of integration are those directly related to the Faith, many of which were nurtured by the Guardian himself and which have advanced tremendously since their modest beginnings.

• From the small nucleus of believers to whom he imparted his first teaching plans has grown a worldwide community with a presence in thousands of localities, each following a well-established pattern of activity that embodies the Faith’s principles and aspirations.
• Upon the foundation of the Administrative Order he so painstakingly laid during the early decades of his ministry has been raised a large, closely knit network of National and Local Spiritual Assemblies diligently administering the affairs of the Cause in more than one hundred and eighty countries.
• From the first contingents of Auxiliary Board members for the Protection and Propagation of the Faith brought into being by him has arisen a legion of nearly one thousand stalwart workers serving in the field under the direction of eighty-one Counsellors ably guided by the International Teaching Centre.
• The evolution of the World Administrative Center of the Faith, within the precincts of its World Spiritual Center, a process to which the Guardian consecrated so much energy, has crossed a crucial threshold with the occupation by the Universal House of Justice of its Seat on Mount Carmel and the subsequent completion of the International Teaching Centre Building and the Centre for the Study of the Texts.
• The Institution of Huqúqu’lláh has steadily progressed under the stewardship of the Hand of the Cause of God Dr. ‘Alí-Muhammad Varqá, appointed Trustee by Shoghi Effendi fifty years ago, culminating in the establishment in 2005 of an international board designed to promote the continued widespread application of this mighty law, a source of inestimable blessings for all humanity.

2004: “the great majority of National Spiritual Assemblies have chosen to adopt the course materials devised by the Ruhi Institute”

As foreseen, the training institute is proving to be an engine of growth. On assessing the opportunities and needs of their respective communities, the great majority of National Spiritual Assemblies have chosen to adopt the course materials devised by the Ruhi Institute, finding them most responsive to the Plan’s needs. This has had the collateral benefit that the same materials have been translated into many languages and, wherever Bahá’ís travel, they find other friends following the same path and familiar with the same books and methods. 

- The Universal House of Justice  (Ridván 2004 message to the Bahá’ís of the World; online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)