Century of Light

for the whole of humanity, and it will win the support of the institutions of society to the extent that they

aid to His character and principles by even such bitter enemies as 'álí Páshá and the Persian ambassador to Constantinople, Mírzá ?usayn Khán. The former, who condemned his Prisoner to banishment in the penal colony at 'Akká, was nevertheless moved to describe Him as "a man of great distinction, exemplary conduct, great moderation, and a most dignified figure", whose teachings were, in the minister's opinion "wort

zing committee of the Lake Mohonk Peace Conference for Him to address this international gathering. He had also been generous in His encouragement of the Central Organization for a Durable Peace at The Hague. He was, however, entirely candid in the counsel He provided. Letters which the

e foundation of this matter may become secure, its establishment firm and its edifice strong.... Today nothing but the power of the Word of God which encompasses the realities of things can bring

ndividuals struggling to promote the goal of world peace and humanitarianism-reflects His awareness of the responsibility the Cause h

eau", directing her to Geneva, seat of the League of Nations. While the Bureau exercised no administrative authority, it acted, in the Guardian's words, "as intermediary between Haifa and other Bahá'í centers"

Council of the League unanimously called on the British mandate authority, in March 1929, to press the Iraqi government "with a view to the immediate redress of the injustice suffered by the Petitioners". Repeated evasions by the Iraqi government, including the violation of a solemn pledge on the part of the monarch himself, resulted in the case dragging on for years through successive sessions of the Mandates Commission,

Faith by this memorable litigation, and the defence of its cause-the cause of truth and justice-by the world's hig

iry provided an opportunity for him to forward an authoritative exposition of the history and teachings of the Cause itself. That same year, with Shoghi Effendi's encouragement, the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada submitted to the international organization a document entitled "A Bahá'í Declaration on Human Obliga

o initiatives taken by Shoghi Effendi and to the events around the world in which Bahá'í representatives were invited to participate. In the perspective of history, one is struck by the vast disparity between many of these relatively inconsequential occasions and the attention given them by a figure whose

ve generous support to struggling United Nations associations throughout the world. By 1970, the Community had secured consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This was followed in 1974 by the granting of formal association with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and in 1976 by the a

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suddenly propelled into a new stage of their development. The catalyst was the attempt by the Shí'ih clergy of Iran to exterminate th

pressures, particularly from Western governments. So it was that the outrage voiced by Russian, British and other diplomatic missions had compelled Ná?iri'd-Dín Sháh, against his will, to bring to an end the orgy of violence that took so many believers' lives in the early 1850s and threatened that of Bahá'u'lláh Himself. During the twentieth century, his Qájár successors had been si

own nominees to the highest positions in the new republic, and eventually taking over these posts directly. "Revolutionary courts" were set up, answering only to the se

ficance lies, rather, in the response made to these attacks by thousands of individual Bahá'ís-men, women and children-throughout the country. Their refusal to compromise their faith, even at the cost of their lives, inspired in their fellow believers throughout the world a heightened dedication to the Cause

ly what they deemed worth life itself is worth trying to understand. I say nothing of the mighty influence which, as I believe, the Bábí [sic] faith will exert in the future, nor of the new life it may perchance breathe into a dead people; for, whether it succeed or fail, the splendid heroism of the

propelling the emergence of the Cause from obscurity. Captured in those early words, too, was the fundamentally spiritual nature of what has always been at stake in the cradle o

and their adversaries. It was they, not revolutionary courts or revolutionary guards, who quickly set the terms of the encounter, and this extraordinary achievement affected not only the hearts but the minds of those who observed the situation from outside the Bahá'í Faith. The persecuted community neither attacked its oppressors, nor sought political advantage from the crisis

ars, the case of the Iranian Bahá'ís proceeded through the international human rights system, gathering support in successive resolutions, ensuring attention to Bahá'í grievances in the missions of rapporteurs appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Commission and consolidating these gains through decisions of the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. Every attempt by the Iranian regime to escape

in Australia, Canada, the United States and a number of European countries produced in-depth, magazine-format presentations. The abuses were denounced in often strong editorial comment. Apart from the support thus lent to the efforts to secure effective intervention at the Human Rights Commission, such publicity had the effect of introducing, usually for the first time and to

had been singled out as targets of the pogrom. In 1983, an International Bahá'í Refugee Office was established in Canada,139 where the government had been particularly responsive to the representations made by the National Spiritual Assembly of that country. O

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ssion, however slow and relatively cumbersome its operations may appear to some outside observers, succeeded in compelling the Iranian regime to bring the worst of the persecution to a halt. In this way, the "case of Iran's Bahá'ís" marked a significant victory for the Commissio

needs of some kind. No body of people on the planet understands better this issue than does the Bahá'í community. It has endured-continues to endure in some lands-mistreatment for which there is no conceivable justification, whether legal or moral; it has given its martyrs and shed its tears, while remaining faithful to its conviction that hatred and retaliation are corrosive to the soul; and it has learned, as few communities have done, how to use the United Nations' human rights system in the manner intended by that system's creators, without having recou

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dressed to the generality of humankind, was released through National Spiritual Assemblies. In it, the House of Justice asserted, in unprovocative but uncompromising terms, Bahá'í confidence in the advent of international peace as the

[of humankind].... If the Bahá'í experience can contribute in whatever measure to reinf

of civil society, the media and influential personalities, a collateral effect was to set in motion an intensive and ongoing education of the Bahá'í community itself in several important Bahá'í teaching

complex, and often stressful, discussions in international circles on major issues of social progress. This reputation has been strengthened by appreciation of the fact that the Community refrains, on principle, from taking advantage of such trust to press partisan agendas of its own. By 1968, a Bahá'í representative had been elected to membership on the Executive Committee of Non-Governmental Organizations affiliated with the Office of Public Information, subsequently holding

d Nations Office and Office of Public Information, the Community has come to be recognized by its fellow non-governmental organizations as essentially an "association" of democratically elected national "councils", representative of a cross-s

d 1996. In that period of nearly six years, the political leaders of the world came together repeatedly under the aegis of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to discuss the major challenges facing humankind as the twentieth century drew to a close. No Bahá'í can review the themes of these hi

nhagen (1995), and the particularly vibrant Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995),141 stand out as highlights of this process of global discourse on the problems afflicting the world's peoples. At the concurrent non-governmental conferences, Bahá'í delegations, made up of members from a wide range of countries, had the opportunity to place issues in a spiritual as well as social

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lenged by local authorities as being technically incompatible with the requirements of German civil law. In upholding the appeal of the Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Tübingen against this ruling, Germany's constitutional High Court concluded that the Bahá'í Administrative Order is an integral feature of the Faith and as such is inseparab

gious community is evident, in actual every day life, in cultural tradition, and in the

d a special session to pay tribute to Bahá'u'lláh on the centenary of His ascension. The Speaker read a message from the Universal House of Justice and representatives of all of the parties rose, one by one, to acknowledg

egislative levels, respectively, of two of the world's major nations-were victories of the spirit as important in their way as those won in