EARLY STAGES OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH’S FAITH
With a throb of wonder I call to mind the early and sudden fruition of His Dispensation in the capital city of that land, and the dramatic circumstances attending the birth of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation culminating in His precipitate banishment to ‘Iráq.
I am reminded, moreover, of the initial spread of the light of this revelation, in consequence of the banishment of Bahá’u’lláh, to the adjoining territories of ‘Iráq, and, as far as the western fringes of that continent, to Turkey and the neighboring territories of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and, at a later stage, to the Indian subcontinent and China, situated on the southern and eastern extremities of that continent as well as to the Caucasus and Russian Turkistán.
Nor can I fail to remember the series of alternating crises and victories, each constituting a landmark in the evolution of the Faith—which it has experienced in some of these territories, associated with the distressful withdrawal of its Author to the mountains of Sulamáníyyih; with the glorious declaration of His Mission in Baghdád; with His second and third banishments to Constantinople and Adrianople; with the grievous rebellion of His half-brother; with the proclamation of His own Mission; with His fourth banishment to the desolate and far-off penal colony of Akká in Syria; with the revelation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, His Most Holy Book; with His ascension in the Holy Land; with the establishment of His Covenant and the inauguration of the ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, His son and the Exemplar and authorized Interpreter of His teachings.
These opening stages in the evolution of His Faith in the Asiatic continent were followed, while the first and Apostolic Age of His Dispensation was drawing to a close, by the opening of the islands situated in the Pacific Ocean, Japan in the north, and the Australian continent in the south. To these memorable chapters of Asian Bahá’í history another was soon added, on the morrow of the ascension of the Center of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant, and during the initial epoch of the Formative Age of the Faith, distinguished by the rise of the Administrative Order and the erection of its pillars in the cradle of that Faith, in ‘Iráq, in India, Pákistán and Burma and in the Antipodes. This memorable episode in its development in that vast continent was succeeded by the initiation, during the second epoch of that same Age, of a series of plans in those same territories in support of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan and as a prelude to the opening of the recently launched world-embracing Spiritual Crusade.
ASIA’S HOUR IN THE GLOBAL CRUSADE
The hour has now struck for this continent, on whose soil, more than a century ago, so much sacred blood was shed, in whose very heart deeds of such tragic heroism were performed, and in many of whose territories such brilliant victories have been won, to contribute, in association with its sister continents, to the progress and ultimate triumph of this global Crusade, in a manner befitting its unrivaled position in the entire Bahá’í world.