PRELUDE TO PRODIGIOUS EXPANSION
So glorious a record of accomplishments in the service of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, whether local, national or international, in both the teaching and administrative spheres of Bahá’í activity, can be regarded in no other light than as a prelude to a period of prodigious expansion and consolidation to be inaugurated by the launching of a global spiritual crusade, on the threshold of which the Bahá’í world now stands. This crusade extending through ten years will involve the simultaneous prosecution of twelve national plans, will necessitate the active and sustained participation of each of the twelve existing national spiritual assemblies representing no less than thirty-six nations and will demand the utmost exertion, consecration and heroism. It aims at the broadening and the reinforcement of the foundations of the Faith in each of the twelve areas that are to serve as operational bases for the prosecution of these twelve national plans; the opening of one hundred and thirty-one territories to the Faith; the consolidation of one hundred and eighteen territories; the translation and printing of literature in ninety-one languages; the construction of two Mariqu’l-Akárs; the acquisition of sites for the future construction of eleven Temples; the formation of forty-eight national spiritual assemblies; the founding of forty-seven national Hazíratu’l-Quds; the incorporation of fifty national spiritual assemblies; the framing of Bahá’í national constitutions and the establishment of Bahá’í national endowments by each of these national assemblies; the adoption of preliminary measures for the construction of Bahá’u’lláh’s Sepulcher; the erection of the first dependency of the first Mariqu’l-Akár of the western world; the development of the institution of the Hands of the Cause; the transformation of the International Bahá’í Council into an international Bahá’í court; the codification of the laws and ordinances of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas; the establishment of six national Bahá’í Courts in the chief cities of the Islamic East; the extension of international Bahá’í endowments in the Plain of Akká and on the slopes of Mt. Carmel; the construction of the International Bahá’í Archives in the neighborhood of the Báb’s Sepulcher; the construction of the tomb of the Báb’s wife in íráz; the identification of the resting-places of Bahá’u’lláh’s father, of the Báb’s mother and of His cousin and their reburial in the neighborhood of the Most Great House; the acquisition of the Garden of Ridván in Badád, and of the sites of the Síyáh-ál in Ṭihrán, of the Báb’s martyrdom in Tabríz and of His incarceration in ihríq; the establishment of six Bahá’í national publishing trusts; the formation of seven Israel branches of Bahá’í national spiritual assemblies; the participation of women in the membership of Bahá’í local and national spiritual assemblies in Persia; the establishment of a Bahá’í national printing-press in Ṭihrán; the reinforcement of the ties binding the Bahá’í World Community with the United Nations; the opening to the Faith, circumstances permitting, of eleven republics comprised in the Soviet Union, as well as two Soviet-controlled European states—all, please God, culminating in the convocation of a World Bahá’í Congress, in the vicinity of the Garden of Ridván, in the third holiest city of the Bahá’í world, on the occasion of the world-wide celebrations commemorating the centenary of the formal assumption by Bahá’u’lláh of His prophetic office.