God Passes By

by Effendi Shoghi

Scarcely less significant has been the erection of the superstructure and the completion of the exterior ornamentation of the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár of the West, the noblest of the exploits which have immortalized the services of the American Bahá’í community to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. Consummated through the agency of an efficiently functioning and newly established Administrative Order, this enterprise has itself immensely enhanced the prestige, consolidated the strength and expanded the subsidiary institutions of the community that made its building possible.

Conceived forty-one years ago; originating with the petition spontaneously addressed, in March 1903 to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by the “House of Spirituality” of the Bahá’ís of Chicago—the first Bahá’í center established in the Western world—the members of which, inspired by the example set by the builders of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár of Ishqábád, had appealed for permission to construct a similar Temple in America; blessed by His approval and high commendation in a Tablet revealed by Him in June of that same year; launched by the delegates of various American Assemblies, assembled in Chicago in November, 1907, for the purpose of choosing the site of the Temple; established on a national basis through a religious corporation known as the “Bahá’í Temple Unity,” which was incorporated shortly after the first American Bahá’í Convention held in that same city in March, 1909; honored through the dedication ceremony presided over by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself when visiting that site in May, 1912, this enterprise—the crowning achievement of the Administrative Order of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in the first Bahá’í century—had, ever since that memorable occasion, been progressing intermittently until the time when the foundations of that Order having been firmly laid in the North American continent the American Bahá’í community was in a position to utilize the instruments which it had forged for the efficient prosecution of its task.

At the 1914 American Bahá’í Convention the purchase of the Temple property was completed. The 1920 Convention, held in New York, having been previously directed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to select the design of that Temple, chose from among a number of designs competitively submitted to it that of Louis J. Bourgeois, a French-Canadian architect, a selection that was later confirmed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself. The contracts for the sinking of the nine great caissons supporting the central portion of the building, extending to rock at a depth of 120 feet below the ground level, and for the construction of the basement structure, were successively awarded in December, 1920 and August, 1921. In August, 1930, in spite of the prevailing economic crisis, and during a period of unemployment unparalleled in American history, another contract, with twenty-four additional sub-contracts, for the erection of the superstructure was placed, and the work completed by May 1, 1931, on which day the first devotional service in the new structure was celebrated, coinciding with the 19th anniversary of the dedication of the grounds by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The ornamentation of the dome was started in June, 1932 and finished in January, 1934. The ornamentation of the clerestory was completed in July, 1935, and that of the gallery unit below it in November, 1938. The mainstory ornamentation was, despite the outbreak of the present war, undertaken in April, 1940, and completed in July, 1942; whilst the eighteen circular steps were placed in position by December, 1942, seventeen months in advance of the centenary celebration of the Faith, by which time the exterior of the Temple was scheduled to be finished, and forty years after the petition of the Chicago believers had been submitted to and granted by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

This unique edifice, the first fruit of a slowly maturing Administrative Order, the noblest structure reared in the first Bahá’í century, and the symbol and precursor of a future world civilization, is situated in the heart of the North American continent, on the western shore of Lake Michigan, and is surrounded by its own grounds comprising a little less than seven acres. It has been financed, at cost of over a million dollars, by the American Bahá’í community, assisted at times by voluntary contributions of recognized believers in East and West, of Christian, of Muslim, of Jewish, of Zoroastrian, of Hindu and Buddhist extraction. It has been associated, in its initial phase, with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and in the concluding stages of its construction with the memory of the Greatest Holy Leaf, the Purest Branch, and their mother. The structure itself is a pure white nonagonal building, of original and unique design, rising from a flight of white stairs encircling its base; and surmounted by a majestic and beautifully proportioned dome, bearing nine tapering symmetrically placed ribs of decorative as well as structural significance, which soar to its apex and finally merge into a common unit pointing skyward. Its framework is constructed of structural steel enclosed in concrete, the material of its ornamentation consisting of a combination of crystalline quartz, opaque quartz and white Portland cement, producing a composition clear in texture, hard and enduring as stone, impervious to the elements, and cast into a design as delicate as lace. It soars 191 feet from the floor of its basement to the culmination of the ribs, clasping the hemispherical dome which is forty-nine feet high, with an external diameter of ninety feet, and one-third of the surface of which is perforated to admit light during the day and emit light at night. It is buttressed by pylons forty-five feet in height, and bears above its nine entrances, one of which faces Akká, nine selected quotations from the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, as well as the Greatest Name in the center of each of the arches over its doors. It is consecrated exclusively to worship, devoid of all ceremony and ritual, is provided with an auditorium which can seat 1600 people, and is to be supplemented by accessory institutions of social service to be established in its vicinity, such as an orphanage, a hospital, a dispensary for the poor, a home for the incapacitated, a hostel for travelers and a college for the study of arts and sciences. It had already, long before its construction, evoked, and is now increasingly evoking, though its interior ornamentation is as yet unbegun, such interest and comment, in the public press, in technical journals and in magazines, of both the United States and other countries, as to justify the hopes and expectations entertained for it by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Its model exhibited at Art centers, galleries, state fairs and national expositions—among which may be mentioned the Century of Progress Exhibition, held in Chicago in 1933, where no less than ten thousand people, passing through the Hall of Religions, must have viewed it every day—its replica forming a part of the permanent exhibit of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago; its doors now thronged by visitors from far and near, whose number, during the period from June, 1932 to October, 1941 has exceeded 130,000 people, representing almost every country in the world, this great “Silent Teacher” of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, it may be confidently asserted, has contributed to the diffusion of the knowledge of His Faith and teachings in a measure which no other single agency, operating within the framework of its Administrative Order, has ever remotely approached.

“When the foundation of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár is laid in America,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself has predicted, “and that Divine Edifice is completed, a most wonderful and thrilling motion will appear in the world of existence... From that point of light the spirit of teaching, spreading the Cause of God and promoting the teachings of God, will permeate to all parts of the world.” “Out of this Mashriqu’l-Adhkár,” He has affirmed in the Tablets of the Divine Plan, “without doubt, thousands of Mashriqu’l-Adhkárs will be born.” “It marks,” He, furthermore, has written, “the inception of the Kingdom of God on earth.” And again: “It is the manifest Standard waving in the center of that great continent.” “Thousands of Mashriqu’l-Adhkárs,” He, when dedicating the grounds of the Temple, declared, “...will be built in the East and in the West, but this, being the first erected in the Occident, has great importance.” “This organization of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár,” He, referring to that edifice, has moreover stated, “will be a model for the coming centuries, and will hold the station of the mother.”

“Its inception,” the architect of the Temple has himself testified, “was not from man, for, as musicians, artists, poets receive their inspiration from another realm, so the Temple’s architect, through all his years of labor, was ever conscious that Bahá’u’lláh was the creator of this building to be erected to His glory.” “Into this new design,” he, furthermore, has written, “...is woven, in symbolic form, the great Bahá’í teaching of unity—the unity of all religions and of all mankind. There are combinations of mathematical lines, symbolizing those of the universe, and in their intricate merging of circle into circle, and circle within circle, we visualize the merging of all the religions into one.” And again: “A circle of steps, eighteen in all, will surround the structure on the outside, and lead to the auditorium floor. These eighteen steps represent the eighteen first disciples of the Báb, and the door to which they lead stands for the Báb Himself.” “As the essence of the pure original teachings of the historic religions was the same ... in the Bahá’í Temple is used a composite architecture, expressing the essence in the line of each of the great architectural styles, harmonizing them into one whole.”

“It is the first new idea in architecture since the 13th century,” declared a distinguished architect, H. Van Buren Magonigle, President of the Architectural League, after gazing upon a plaster model of the Temple on exhibition in the Engineering Societies Building in New York, in June 1920. “The Architect,” he, moreover, has stated, “has conceived a Temple of Light in which structure, as usually understood, is to be concealed, visible support eliminated as far as possible, and the whole fabric to take on the airy substance of a dream. It is a lacy envelope enshrining an idea, the idea of light, a shelter of cobweb interposed between earth and sky, struck through and through with light—light which shall partly consume the forms and make of it a thing of faery.”

“In the geometric forms of the ornamentation,” a writer in the well-known publication “Architectural Record” has written, “covering the columns and surrounding windows and doors of the Temple, one deciphers all the religious symbols of the world. Here are the swastika, the circle, the cross, the triangle, the double triangle or six pointed star (Solomon’s seal)—but more than this—the noble symbol of the spiritual orb ... the five pointed star; the Greek Cross, the Roman cross, and supreme above all, the wonderful nine pointed star, figured in the structure of the Temple itself, and appearing again and again in its ornamentation as significant of the spiritual glory in the world today.”

“The greatest creation since the Gothic period,” is the testimony of George Grey Barnard, one of the most widely-known sculptors in the United States of America, “and the most beautiful I have ever seen.”

“This is a new creation,” Prof. Luigi Quaglino, ex-professor of Architecture from Turin declared, after viewing the model, “which will revolutionize architecture in the world, and it is the most beautiful I have ever seen. Without doubt it will have a lasting page in history. It is a revelation from another world.”