August 20. On this date in 1956, a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer stated that "The Guardian's infallibility covers interpretation of the revealed word and its application" and that "He is assured the guidance of both Bahá'u'lláh and the Bab."

August 20. On this date in 1956, a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer stated that "The Guardian's infallibility covers interpretation of the revealed word and its application" and that "He is assured the guidance of both Bahá'u'lláh and the Bab."

1055. The Guardian is Assured the Guidance of Both Bahá'u'lláh and the Bab
"Instructions sent on behalf of the Guardian are binding, as are the words of the Guardian; although of course, they are not the Guardian's words.
"The Guardian's infallibility covers interpretation of the revealed word and its application. Likewise any instructions he may issue having to do with the protection of the Faith, or its well-being must be closely obeyed, as he is infallible in the protection of the Faith. He is assured the guidance of both Bahá'u'lláh and the Bab, as the Will and Testament of Abdu'l-Bahá clearly reveals."
(From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, August 20, 1956)

August 19. On this date in 1951, Shoghi Effendi stated "...the Faith can certainly be dramatized, but two things must be remembered: no personal presentation of the Bab, Bahá'u'lláh or the Master, only Their words can be used, but no figure must represent Them; great dignity must be the keynote."

August 19. On this date in 1951, Shoghi Effendi stated "...the Faith can certainly be dramatized, but two things must be remembered: no personal presentation of the Bab, Bahá'u'lláh or the Master, only Their words can be used, but no figure must represent Them; great dignity must be the keynote."

334. Three Central Figures Cannot Be Portrayed
"...the Faith can certainly be dramatized, but two things must be remembered: no personal presentation of the Bab, Bahá'u'lláh or the Master, only Their words can be used, but no figure must represent Them; great dignity must be the keynote."
(From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, August 19, 1951)

August 19. On this date in 1982, the Universal House of Justice addressed a letter "To the Friends gathered at the Bahá’í International Conference at Lagos."

August 19. On this date in 1982, the Universal House of Justice addressed a letter "To the Friends gathered at the Bahá’í International Conference at Lagos."

The Universal House of Justice
19 August 1982
To the Friends gathered at the Bahá’í International Conference at Lagos
Dearly loved Friends,
With hearts overflowing with love for the people of Africa, so richly endowed with the gifts of the spirit, so abundantly and repeatedly blessed since the dawn of this Revelation, and so gloriously promising in the unfoldment of their hidden potentialities, we welcome the friends gathered at this Conference held in one of the most important capitals of their emergent continent.
As we review the annals of our Faith we see that since the days of the Blessed Beauty and up to the early 1950s, the activities of the friends in Africa had produced the formation of one National Spiritual Assembly with its seat in Cairo, Egypt, the opening of 12 countries to the light of the Faith, and some 50 localities established throughout its vast lands. It was at such a time that the beloved Guardian ushered in the first African Teaching Plan, to be followed during the remaining years of his ministry and in subsequent years after his passing, by a series of challenging and bravely executed plans designed to implant the banner of the Faith throughout the length and breadth of that continent and its neighboring islands. Today, after the lapse of a little over three decades, we stand in awe as we view with admiration one of the most valiant contingents of the Army of Light, guided by its own Board of Counselors, led and administered by 37 National Spiritual Assemblies and 4990 Local Spiritual Assemblies, privileged to serve an eager and radiant community of believers drawn from 1152 [African tribes](reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/PUP/pup-101.html) residing in 29,000 localities.
How wonderful that it has been possible to convene this Conference on African soil with such a large number of African friends in attendance, in loving memory of the most distinguished heroine of the Bahá’í Dispensation, the eldest daughter of the King of Glory, who lived a long life of sacrificial service to the Cause of her Beloved Father. Her meekness, her unassuming nature, the purity of her soul, the sensitivity of her heart, the calmness of her demeanor, her patience and long-suffering in trials, and above all, her unshakable faith, her tenderness and love, and the spirit of self-renunciation which she evinced throughout her blessed life, are outstanding characteristics that we can well emulate, particularly in Africa, where these heavenly qualities play such an important part in attracting the souls and winning the hearts to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh.
We rejoice in the knowledge that some communities have already initiated in her name teaching and consolidation campaigns of far-reaching magnitude; that many Bahá’í women, inspired by her example, are accepting an ever-greater share of responsibility in running the affairs of the community; and that numerous newsletters are reflecting eulogies of the station she occupied, the sufferings she endured, and the heroism she demonstrated in her love for the glorious Cause of her Lord.
The fortunes of the Seven Year Plan in Africa are in the balance. As we draw near to the midway point in the unfoldment of the processes it has set in motion, we call upon its valiant promoters on the African mainland and its surrounding islands, to take stock of their position, to reappraise their progress, and to concentrate their resources on whatever portions of the goals are as yet unachieved. Chief among its objectives are a widespread recruitment of many more supporters of the Most Great Name, the deepening of the individual believers, for the fulfillment of all goals ultimately depends upon them, and a notable increase in the number of newly formed as well as firmly rooted Local Spiritual Assemblies, to serve as bases for the manifold activities of the community, including the Bahá’í education of children, a greater participation of women and youth in Bahá’í activities, and the formulation of ways and means to enrich the spiritual lives of the “noble” and “purehearted” believers of a “FAST-AWAKENING CONTINENT.”
May the participants in this Conference carry to the mass of their devoted fellow believers, whose personal circumstances have made it impossible for them to attend, the spirit of joy and optimism which we hope will be generated at this gathering and the flames of enthusiasm which we pray will be enkindled in their hearts.
May the memory of the Greatest Holy Leaf, who through her life of heroic self-sacrifice has left to us “a legacy that time can never dim,” inspire the friends in every country of the continent to rededicate themselves to the Cause of God, not to allow any opportunity for mentioning the Faith to slip by unutilized, and not to permit one day of their lives to pass without a noble effort to draw nearer to the good pleasure of the Blessed Beauty.
Our fervent prayers surround you as you proceed with your deliberations.
[signed: The Universal House of Justice]

August 19. On this date in 1992, the Universal House of Justice addressed a letter to an individual believer stating that "While it is customary for the Tablets of Visitation to be recited at the conclusion of the Holy Day programs held at the Bahá'í World Centre, as well as in countries of the Middle East, this practice is not binding upon Bahá'í communities elsewhere."

August 19. On this date in 1992, the Universal House of Justice addressed a letter to an individual believer stating that "While it is customary for the Tablets of Visitation to be recited at the conclusion of the Holy Day programs held at the Bahá'í World Centre, as well as in countries of the Middle East, this practice is not binding upon Bahá'í communities elsewhere."

19 August 1992
Mr _____
The Universal House of Justice has received your letter of 15 June 1992 regarding the conduct of Bahá'í Holy Day observances. We have been asked to provide the following response.
The commemoration of Holy Days, including the development of programs for these observances, is a matter left to the discretion of the appropriate National and Local Spiritual Assemblies, which are entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that such observances are conducted in a manner in keeping with the spirit of the divine teachings and ordinances. While it is customary for the Tablets of Visitation to be recited at the conclusion of the Holy Day programs held at the Bahá'í World Centre, as well as in countries of the Middle East, this practice is not binding upon Bahá'í communities elsewhere, nor has a specific time been fixed for the recitations to occur.
Nothing has been found in the Bahá'í Writings requiring the friends to stand and face the Qiblih whenever the Tablets of Visitation are recited. No issue should be made of this matter when a Holy Day observance is being held. However, when one is actually in, or within the precincts of one of the Holy Shrines, it is an act of simple reverence to stand and face that Shrine when the Tablet of Visitation is recited.
For the Department of the Secretariat

August 18. On this date in 1949, Shoghi Effendi wrote a letter titled "This Hour, Crowded With Destiny," later published in the book "Citadel of Faith" describing Latin America as "so impoverished spiritually, so paralyzed with fear, so confused in thought, so abased in their moral standard." The letter also refers to "the inseparable institutions of the Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice."

August 18. On this date in 1949, Shoghi Effendi wrote a letter titled "This Hour, Crowded With Destiny," later published in the book "Citadel of Faith" describing Latin America as "so impoverished spiritually, so paralyzed with fear, so confused in thought, so abased in their moral standard." The letter also refers to "the inseparable institutions of the Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice."

August 18, 1949
This Hour, Crowded With Destiny
The efforts exerted, and the results achieved, by the members of the American Bahá’í Community during the opening months of the two-year emergency period are such as to merit the highest commendation and praise. They will, if the effort be sustained, evoke the admiration of the entire Bahá’í world, which is now watching, with feelings of wonder and expectancy, the outcome of the tremendous labor of this community now confronted with one of the most challenging, arduous and far-reaching tasks ever undertaken in its history.
The great forward stride that has already been undertaken, during so short a period, augurs well for the ultimate victory, now within sight—a victory which will pave the way for the successful execution of a seven-year enterprise, destined, in its turn, to enable its executors to launch, at the appointed time, the third and most glorious stage in the initial unfoldment of 'Abdu’l-Bahá's unique and grand design for that privileged and conspicuously blessed community.
No less striking has been the achievement of the representatives of this community in the vast and most recent field of their historic and highly meritorious endeavors, exerted beyond the confines of their homeland, where over so vast a territory, on a continent so agitated, and amidst peoples so disillusioned, so varied in race, language and outlook, so impoverished spiritually, so paralyzed with fear, so confused in thought, so abased in their moral standards, so rent by internal schisms, victories so rich in promise, so startling in their rapidity, so magnificent in their range, have been won, and ennobled, to such a marked degree, the deathless record of American Bahá’í service to the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.
Now that so prodigious and successful an effort has been exerted on behalf of the historic and sacred Temple, whose completion constitutes so vital an objective of the Second Seven Year Plan, and so conspicuous a triumph won in the transatlantic sphere of its operation, its needs and other vital objectives, both at home and in the Latin American field, must receive, in the months immediately ahead, the particular attention of both the national elected representatives of the community who supervise the working of the Plan and the mass of believers who participate in its execution.
While the financial requirements of the Mother Temple of the West are being met with unabated heroism by rich and poor alike in the critical months that lie ahead, and the measures to ensure the undiminished support, and the uninterrupted consolidation of the European enterprise are being assiduously carried out, a parallel effort, no less strenuous and sustained should be simultaneously exerted in the North American continent and in Central and South America, for the purpose of preserving the prizes already won over the length and breadth of the Western Hemisphere, where the initial impulse of this mighty and Divine Plan has been felt and its initial victories in foreign fields registered.
The assemblies of the North American continent, constituting the base for the gigantic operations destined to warm and illuminate, under American Bahá’í auspices, the five continents of the globe, must, at no time and under no circumstances, be allowed to diminish in number or decline in strength and in influence. The movement of pioneers, whether settlers or itinerant teachers, which in fields so distant from this base, has exhibited so marvelous a vitality, must, within the limits of the homeland itself, be neither interrupted nor suffer a decline. The groups and isolated centers so painstakingly formed and established must, conjointly with this highly commendable and essential duty, be maintained, fostered and if possible multiplied.
No less attention, while this emergency period taxes, to an unprecedented degree, the combined resources of the envied trustees of 'Abdu’l-Bahá's Divine Plan, should be directed to the vast network of Bahá’í enterprises initiated throughout Latin America, where the work so nobly conceived, so diligently prosecuted, so conspicuously blessed, is rapidly nearing the first stage of its fruition. The flow of pioneers, so vital in all its aspects, and which has yielded such inestimable benefits at the early stages of this widely ramified enterprise, must, however urgent the other tasks already shouldered by an overburdened yet unfailingly protected community, be neither arrested nor slacken. The outpost of the newly born communities, established in the Straits of Magallanes in the South, must be held with undiminished vigor and determination. The major task of ensuring the breadth and solidity of the foundations laid for the establishment of two national Bahá’í assemblies, through the preservation of the present assemblies, groups and isolated centers, and the restoration of any of these vital centers, now dissolved, to their former status, must be scrupulously watched and constantly encouraged. The process of the dissemination of Bahá’í literature, of Bahá’í publication and translation, must continue unabated, however much the sacrifice involved. The newly fledged institutions of teaching and regional committees, of summer schools and of congresses, must be continually encouraged and increasingly supported by teachers as well as administrators, by pioneers, from abroad, as well as by the native believers themselves. The highly salutary and spiritually beneficent experiment of encouraging a more active participation by these newly won supporters of the Faith in Latin America, and a greater assumption of administrative responsibility on their part, in the ever expanding activities to be entrusted wholly to their care in the years to come, should be, in particular, developed, systematized and placed on a sure and unassailable foundation. Above all, the paramount duty of deepening the spiritual life of these newly fledged, these precious and highly esteemed co-workers, and of enlightening their minds regarding the essential verities enshrined in their Faith, its fundamental institutions, its history and genesis—the twin Covenants of Bahá’u’lláh and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the present Administrative Order, the future World Order, the Laws of the Most Holy Book, the inseparable institutions of the Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice, the salient events of the Heroic and Formative Ages of the Faith, and its relationship with the Dispensations that have preceded it, its attitude toward the social and political organizations by which it is surrounded—must continue to constitute the most vital aspect of the great spiritual Crusade launched by the champions of the Faith from among the peoples of their sister republics in the South.
The magnitude of the tasks these heroes and champions of the Faith are summoned, at this hour, crowded with destiny, to discharge from the borders of Greenland to the southern extremity of Chile in the Western Hemisphere, and from Scandinavia in the north, to the Iberian peninsula in the south of the European continent, is, indeed, breath-taking in its implications and back-breaking in the strain it imposes. The sacrifices they are called upon to voluntarily make for the successful performance of such herculean, such holy, such epoch-making tasks, are comparable to none but those which their spiritual forbears have willingly accepted at the hour of the birth of their Faith more than a hundred years ago. Theirs is the privilege, no less meritorious and perhaps as epoch-making, to preside, in their own homeland and its neighboring continents, over, and direct the forces generated by, the birth of an order that posterity will acclaim as both the offspring of that Faith, and the precursor of the Golden Age in which that same Faith must, in the fullness of time, find its fullest expression and most glorious consummation.
How great the opportunity which the present hour, so dark in the fortunes of mankind and yet so bright in the ever-unfolding history of their Faith, offers them. How unspeakably precious the reward which they who serve it will reap! How pitiful and urgent the need of the waiting multitudes of these continents, summoned to sustain the initial impact of the operation of a divinely impelled Plan which no force can resist and no power can rival!
For what this superbly equipped community, this irresistibly advancing army of the chosen warriors of Bahá’u’lláh, battling under His banner, operating in conformity with the explicit Mandate voiced by His beloved Son, has already achieved, over so extensive a field, in such a brief time, at such great sacrifice, for so precious a Cause, and in the course of such turbulent years, I cannot but feel the deepest sense of gratitude the like of which no achievement, single or collective, rendered in any other part of the globe, by any community associated with the Cause of the Most Great Name has evoked. For what it will and must achieve in the future I entertain feelings of warm expectation and serene confidence. For it, I will continue, from the depths of a loving and grateful heart to supplicate blessings immeasurably richer than any it has yet experienced.

August 18. On this date in 1949, Shoghi Effendi stated "The friends are sometimes surprisingly naive and superficial in their approach to the subject of Covenant-breakers. They do not seem to understand that the descendants of Azal, with their mother's milk, drank hatred of Bahá'u'lláh, just as the descendants of Muhammad-Ali and his relatives have imbibed from babyhood a false concept of the Master."

August 18. On this date in 1949, Shoghi Effendi stated "The friends are sometimes surprisingly naive and superficial in their approach to the subject of Covenant-breakers. They do not seem to understand that the descendants of Azal, with their mother's milk, drank hatred of Bahá'u'lláh, just as the descendants of Muhammad-Ali and his relatives have imbibed from babyhood a false concept of the Master."

The friends are sometimes surprisingly naive and superficial in their approach to the subject of Covenant-breakers. They do not seem to understand that the descendants of Azal, with their mother's milk, drank hatred of Bahá'u'lláh, just as the descendants of Muhammad-Ali and his relatives have imbibed from babyhood a false concept of the Master. It takes practically a miracle to overcome this lifelong habit of wrong thought. Now, however, he has told the German believers to shun her.
(From a letter dated 18 August 1949 written on behalf of the Guardian to a National Spiritual Assembly)

August 18. On this date in 1941, a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer stated that "it is obvious that Joseph Smith is not a Manifestation of God."

August 18. On this date in 1941, a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer stated that "it is obvious that Joseph Smith is not a Manifestation of God."

The Bahá’í notion of progressive revelation exlcudes many key figures who have generated significant religious movements, whether in the distant past like Confucius or in the 19th Century like Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and Joseph Smith. All religious founders are not universally accepted as prophets.

1727. Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
"Regarding your question concerning Joseph Smith and the 'Book of Mormon':
as the Bahá'í Teachings quite clearly outline the succession of Prophets from the days of Christ as being Muhammad, the Bab, and finally Bahá'u'lláh, it is obvious that Joseph Smith is not a Manifestation of God.
"The Bahá'ís should deal with the members of all religious sects, however, with the greatest tolerance and friendliness, and try to point out to them the significance of the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh to the world in this great Day. The Guardian would advise you to teach the Mormons like everyone else, the Faith, when you find them receptive. They have many good principles, and their teachings regarding chastity, not drinking or smoking, etc., are quite similar to ours, and should form a point of common interest."
(From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, August 18, 1941: Bahá'í News, No. 416, November 1965)