January 4. On this date in 1994, the Universal House of Justice wrote all National Spiritual Assemblies marking the commencement of construction projects on Mount Carmel.
The Universal House of Justice
4 January 1994
To all National Spiritual Assemblies
Dear Bahá’í Friends,
As
construction work commences on the first of the monumental Edifices
which must be raised on Mount Carmel to complete the World
Administrative Center of the Bahá’í Faith, it seems appropriate to
review the significance of this vast project and to reflect on its basic
purpose.
The
projects under way on this mountain are of profound significance. They
represent much more than the erection of buildings to meet the expanding
needs of the Bahá’í World Centre. The call for contributions to the Arc
Projects Fund, far from being a diversion of resources which might
otherwise be used to help relieve the distress of mankind, offers the
followers of Bahá’u’lláh a providential opportunity to participate in an
endeavor which is central to the work of the Faith in eradicating the
causes of the appalling suffering now afflicting humanity.
The
Bahá’í community encourages and supports the manifold efforts being
made by people of goodwill to better the condition of humankind and
promote unity and harmony among the peoples and nations of the earth.
However, the believers should never, for even one moment, lose sight of
the fact that the crisis now engulfing every part of the planet is
essentially spiritual. “That which the Lord hath ordained as the
sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the
world,” Bahá’u’lláh emphatically states, “is the union of all its
peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith.” Our acute awareness
of the magnitude of the misery which so many groups and individuals are
experiencing should spur us on to ever-greater exertions, inspired and
animated by an abiding consciousness that only through the World Order
of Bahá’u’lláh can the multitudinous problems burdening humanity be
resolved.
From
the dawn of Bahá’í history, attention has been directed to the glory of
the World Order which the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is destined to
unfold. The Báb Himself declared, “Well is it with him who fixeth his
gaze upon the Order of Bahá’u’lláh and rendereth thanks unto his Lord!”
while Bahá’u’lláh affirmed, in the Mother Book of His Dispensation, that
“the world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating
influence of this most great, this new World Order.” It is abundantly
evident that the exalted aims of the Faith can be accomplished only
through the instrumentality of the World Order which Bahá’u’lláh has
established for that purpose. The spiritual transformation of humanity,
the relief of the diverse peoples of the earth from rampant suffering,
the attainment and preservation of true peace in the world, the birth of
a world civilization—all such noble objectives of the Cause of God will
remain unrealized unless they are associated with that radical change
in the structure and functioning of human society inherent in the growth
and fruition of His divinely ordained Order. The institutions of the
Bahá’í Administrative Order, now being raised in all parts of the world
through the endeavors of the believers, are the precursor, the nucleus
and the pattern of that World Order which will, in the course of time,
exert its full benevolent influence on all the peoples of the earth.
Shoghi
Effendi explained that the revelation by Bahá’u’lláh of the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas “preserves for posterity the basic laws and ordinances on
which the fabric of His future World Order must rest.” And he referred
to “the triple impulse generated through the revelation of the Tablet of
Carmel by Bahá’u’lláh and the Will and Testament as well as the Tablets
of the Divine Plan bequeathed by the Center of His Covenant—the three
Charters which have set in motion three distinct processes, the first
operating in the Holy Land for the development of the institutions of
the Faith at its World Center and the other two, throughout the rest of
the Bahá’í world, for its propagation and the establishment of its
Administrative Order.” These three processes, although distinct, are
closely interrelated. Developments at the World Center of the Faith, the
heart and nerve-center of the Administrative Order, must necessarily
exert a pronounced influence on the organic body of the worldwide Bahá’í
community, and be affected by its vitality. The Administrative Order
may best be viewed as the chief instrument for the prosecution of the
Divine Plan, while that Plan has become recognized as the most potent
agency for the development of the administrative structure of the Faith.
It follows that, for the sound and balanced growth of the Faith and the
speedy attainment of world order, due attention must be paid to all
three processes.
The
construction work now in progress on Mount Carmel should be seen as a
major historic thrust in the development of the first of these three
mighty processes—a process which was launched more than one hundred
years ago by Bahá’u’lláh Himself when He pitched His tent on this Holy
Mountain and revealed the Tablet described by the Guardian as “the
Charter of the World Spiritual and Administrative Centers of the Faith.”
The unfoldment of this process has been distinguished by the interment
of the sacred remains of the Báb in the bosom of this mountain within a
sanctuary built by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, followed subsequently by the erection
of the superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb by Shoghi Effendi. When,
in 1939, the Guardian transferred the bodily remains of the brother and
mother of the Master to their final resting-place in the immediate
vicinity of that of the Greatest Holy Leaf, he described his action as
one which “incalculably reinforces the spiritual potencies of that
consecrated Spot which, under the wings of the Báb’s overshadowing
Sepulcher,” is designated to be the “focal center of these
world-shaking, world-embracing, world-directing administrative
institutions” which the followers of Bahá’u’lláh are raising for the
salvation of humanity and the fulfillment of its glorious destiny.
Shortly
before his passing, the Guardian completed the structure of the
International Bahá’í Archives, “the first stately Edifice destined to
usher in the establishment of the World Administrative Center of the
Faith on Mount Carmel—the Ark referred to by Bahá’u’lláh in the closing
passages of His Tablet of Carmel.”
In
more recent years the contributions of the believers around the world
permitted construction of the Seat of the Universal House of Justice,
the second of the Edifices which Shoghi Effendi had envisaged as being
located on a far-flung arc, surrounding the resting-places of the
members of the Holy Family. This achievement opened the way for the
announcement in 1987 of the project for erection of the remaining
buildings of the World Administrative Center of the Faith and for the
construction of the eighteen monumental Terraces contemplated by
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, below and above the Shrine of the Báb. It signaled a major
step toward the consummation of the vision expressed by the Guardian as
“the splendor of the institutions which that triumphant Faith must
erect on the slopes of a mountain, destined to be so linked with the
city of ‘Akká that a single grand metropolis will be formed to enshrine
the spiritual as well as the administrative seats of the future Bahá’í
Commonwealth.”
The
Edifices and Terraces now under construction are a manifest expression
of the emergence from obscurity of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh and of the
determining role it is ordained to play in the affairs of humankind.
When the buildings are completed, they will stand as the visible seat of
mighty institutions whose purpose is no other than the spiritualization
of humanity and the preservation of justice and unity throughout the
world. The future significance of the Terraces is evident from their
characterization by Shoghi Effendi as “the Pathway of the Kings and
Rulers of the World.” The beauty and magnificence of the Gardens and
Terraces now under development are symbolic of the nature of the
transformation which is destined to occur both within the hearts of the
world’s peoples and in the physical environment of the planet.
The
establishment of the World Administrative Center of the Faith on Mount
Carmel at this juncture in the fortunes of mankind is essential to
hasten the accomplishment of God’s purpose for humanity through the
operation of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. The believers are called
upon to sustain this vast collective enterprise upon which the community
of the Most Great Name is now embarked, through a sacrificial
outpouring of material resources and through their dedication to the
work of the Cause at this time of unprecedented need and opportunity.
Mount
Carmel was extolled by the prophet Isaiah almost three thousand years
ago, when he announced that “it shall come to pass in the last days,
that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of
the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations
shall flow unto it.” Now, with the coming of the Lord of Hosts, His
devoted servants throughout the world have been summoned to the
momentous undertaking with which the fulfillment of this ancient promise
is associated. As they dedicate themselves to this mighty task, let
them draw inspiration from these Words of Bahá’u’lláh: “Carmel, in the
Book of God, hath been designated as the Hill of God, and His Vineyard.
It is here that, by the grace of the Lord of Revelation, the Tabernacle
of Glory hath been raised. Happy are they that attain thereunto; happy
they that set their faces towards it.”
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
[signed: The Universal House of Justice]
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