A Bahá'í named Inez Greeven went on a prilgrimage. When she returned home she asked permission for two of her friends to go to Haifa and have the bounty of meeting the Master. The friends went and returned, apparently unaffected by the experience. In 1920, during her second pilgrimage, she asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá why her friends had not become Bahá'ís. This was His answer:

"At the gate of the garden, some stand and look within, but do not care to enter. Others step inside, behold its beauty, but do not penetrate far. Still others encircle this garden, inhaling the fragrance of the flowers; and having enjoyed its full beauty, pass out again by the same gate. But there are always some who enter, and becoming intoxicated with the splendour of what they behold, remain for life to tend the garden." [Bahá'í Stories; The Garden of the Heart p14]

• Shoghi Effendi's gift to the Temple was 'the most valuable sacred possession in the Holy Land' a 'precious ornament of the Tomb of Bahá'u'lláh', an exquisite Persian carpet. [BA180–1; BW4:208–12]
• The carpet, one of the most exquisite pieces ever woven in Persia, was made in Khurásán in about 1900-1905. It had been donated to by Díyá'ulláh Asgharzádih as a gift to Àbdu'l-Bahá Who immediately placed it in the Shrine of Bahjí. [BW4p208-210]

Number of National Spiritual Assemblies: 9

Number of Local Spiritual Assemblies: 90 [from a pamphlet, The Bahá'í Faith and its World Community published by the NSA of Canada]

"Both the local and National Assembly on several occasions attempted, through oral and written communications, to bring about full and frank consultation with the leaders of the New History Society, but without success.

"Under these conditions it becomes the obvious responsibility of the National Spiritual Assembly to inform the friends that activities conducted by Ahmad Sohrab through the New History Society are to be considered as entirely independent of the Cause, as outside the jurisdiction of the local and National Assembly, and hence in no wise entitled to the cooperation of Bahá'ís."

This statement also quoted from a letter written on behalf of the Guardian by his Secretary to the National Spiritual Assembly on May 30, 1930: "To accept the Cause without the administration is like accepting the teachings without acknowledging the divine station of Bahá'u'lláh. To be a Bahá'í is to accept the Cause in its entirety...." "The administration is the social order of Bahá'u'lláh. Without it all the principles of the Cause will remain abortive. To take exception to this, therefore, is to take exception to the fabric that Bahá'u'lláh has prescribed, it is to disobey His law." [Ahmad Sohrab and the New History Society]

He, like Sutherland Maxwell and Mason Remey, had studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. These three and four others submitted designs for the Wilmette Temple for consideration. Other buildings designed by Louis Bourgeois include the Chicago Tribune Building, Evergreen Cabin in Englewood NJ where 'Abdu'l-Bahá hosted a Unity Feast, the Savoy Hotel in Chicago.

He became a Bahá'í in New York sometime during the winter of 1906. In April of 1909 the National Spiritual Assembly called for design proposals for the first Bahá'í Hours of Worship in the West and he submitted is design proposal in October. It was finally accepted at the National Convention in 1920. [DP76-100]

Further, in a letter from Haifa to the Yonkers Assembly, "The Guardian pointed out the difference between the freedom defined by Bahá'u'lláh ("To have liberty is to observe My commandments") and that advocated by Sohrab ("The other kind of freedom which is in defiance of law He (Bahá'u'lláh) considers to be animal, and far from being of any good to man"). [Ahmad Sohrab and the New History Society]

In a message from the Universal House of Justice to a department at the World Centre, Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum is quoted as saying:

…that the English dictionary to which the beloved Guardian habitually referred was "Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language", second edition, unabridged, 1934, London G. Bell and Sons Ltd., Springfield, Massachusetts, R. and C. Merriam Co. We presume that if there were two versions published, one American and one British, it will have been the British one that the Guardian used. Reference to this specific edition of this dictionary is, obviously, very important when gauging the exact meaning intended by Shoghi Effendi in the use of certain words. [Dictionary Used by the Guardian by/on behalf of Universal House of Justice 1997-12-08]

Hólmfríôur facilitated Martha's teaching efforts with her knowledge of the language and local contacts. During her stay in Iceland she gave lectures and did radio interviews. In one of her radio appearances she did a review of Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era and left copies of this book in the libraries. The first ever article on the Bahá'í Faith in the Icelandic language was published in a newspaper. An editor interviewed her for an article and wrote another explaining the basics of the Faith. As she usually did, Martha made contact with the Theosophists and the Esperanto Society and presented a lecture in Esperanto. [The Soul of Iceland-A Bahá'í Saga by Martha Root; BW6p684]

In a cablegram, in 1939, the Guardian asked American Bahá'ís, "White and Negro alike," to arise and move to foreign lands, especially to countries in the Caribbean and in Central America. Ellsworth and Ruth Blackwell volunteered to give up jobs and leave their home in Chicago and go where the need was greatest. In 1940, they were the first Bahá'í pioneers to move to Haiti, where they spent more than half of the next thirty-five years. Here are stories, many told in their own words, of the victories, as well as the challenges, they experienced in Haiti and in periods when they returned to Chicago between 1940 and 1975.

During Bahá'u'lláh's ministry, Mírzá Muhammad-`Alí was known by the title Ghusn-i-Akbar (the Greater Branch). After he broke the Covenant, believers referred to him as the Naqid-i-Akbar (the Arch-Covenant-breaker).

"The Hand of Omnipotence has removed the archbreaker of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant, his hopes shattered, his plottings frustrated, the society of his fellow-conspirators extinguished. God's triumphant Faith forges on, its unity unimpaired, its purpose unsullied, its stability unshaken. Such a death calls for neither exultation nor recrimination, but evokes overwhelming pity at so tragic a downfall unparalleled in religious history." [Cablegram December 20, 1937 MA11)

      This perfidious man, consumed by a "soul festering jealousy" toward Abdu'l-Baha, behaved in a way that "…agitated the minds and hearts of a vast proportion of the faithful throughout the East, eclipsed, for a time, the Orb of the Covenant, created an irreparable breach within the ranks of Bahá'u'lláh's own kindred, sealed ultimately the fate of the great majority of the members of His family, and gravely damaged the prestige, though it never succeeded in causing a permanent cleavage in the structure, of the Faith itself." [GPB246]

      He had changed the text of at least one tablet of Bahá'u'lláh to make it appear that Bahá'u'lláh was condemning the wicked deeds of'Abdu'l-Bahá. He plotted to murder 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He made repeated false allegations about 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the Ottoman authorities so that the Master came perilously closed to being exiled to a remote part of the Libyan desert. In addition, from 1892 to 1929, Muhammad Ali and his relatives occupied the mansion of Bahji, where Bahá'u'lláh's tomb was located, and it was not until 1952 that the property surrounding the Shrine was finally owned, without hindrance, by the Bahá'í community. [CoB153; PP231-233]

      He "was stricken with paralysis which crippled half his body; lay bedridden in pain for months before he died; and was buried according to Muslim rites, in the immediate vicinity of a local Muslim shrine, his grave remaining until the present day (1944) devoid of even a tombstone—a pitiful reminder of the hollowness of the claims he had advanced, of the depths of infamy to which he had sunk, and of the severity of the retribution his acts had so richly merited." [GPB319-320]

Mírzá Ḥusayn-i-Shírázíy-i-Khurṭúmí represented the arch-breaker of the Covenant in India.

Ḥájí Muḥammad-Ḥusayn-i-Káshání represented him in Egypt. [GPB318]

"As token my gratitude to such community entrusted beloved co-worker Mrs. Collins locks Bahá'u'lláh's most precious hair arranged preserved by loving hands Greatest Holy Leaf to rest beneath dome of Temple nobly raised by dearly beloved believers in American continent." [BN Issue 116 June 1938 p1]

"This is the Tablet read by Mrs. Thomas (Amelia) Collins in presenting at the Convention the Guardian's gift of locks of Bahá'u'lláh's Hair. The Tablet is shared with the believers with the Guardian's permission." [BN Issue 121 December 1938 p11] Though the translation had been approved by Shoghi Effendi, it was more recently (2001) sent to the Bahá'í World Center to verify its authenticity. The translation given here is an authorized translation from the BWC, approved for distribution. Translator not identified.

GRACE ROBARTS OBER was the aunt of John Robarts. She was introduced to the Cause by Lua Getzinger and Grace, at once, recognized Baha'u'llah and became a Baha'i in 1906. Grace met Harlon Ober when she was working at Lanier Camp on River Road in Eliot, Maine. He was at Green Acre.

During the time of the visit of Àbdu'l-Bahá, Grace went with Lua to prepare a place for Àbdu'l-Bahá in Chicago and then, after subletting her cottage at Green Acre she made arrangements for His visit to New York City.

It was the wish of Àbdu'l-Bahá that she marry Harlan Ober. Lua came to her to give her this news. She had only met Harlan a few times and was unprepared to contact him so Lua wrote to Harlan - and Harlan, radiant at the thought that he was obeying a suggestion of his beloved Master, took the next train to New York from Boston where he lived. He came at once to see Grace and together they went walking through Central Park where he proposed and Grace, still. dazed.and uncertain, accepted - because it was the will of Àbdu'l-Bahá.

Grace and Harlan were married by Àbdu'l-Bahá at the home He was staying in in New York City. Later that same day they were married again by the laws of New York when Howard Colby Ives performed the legal ceremony.

In 1938 Grace went on an extensive teaching trip through the Southern states. She had been very ill previous to this. The teaching trip ended in time for her to reach Wilmette and attend the Convention in the spring of 1938.

It was a very radiant Convention and the report Grace gave of her teaching trip was one of the high points of it because Grace herself was so radiant and filled with the glory of the great privilege of teaching. She stood there, before the crowded hall in the Bahá'í House of Worship, filled with the great glory that shone from her and, closing her report, she uttered a tremendous clarion call for pioneers and for teachers. Then she walked down to resume her seat amongst the delegates but on her way she paused beside Harlan, who had just been reelected to our National Spiritual Assembly. "I want to congratulate you now" she whispered, "I may not have time later", They smiled at each other with the perfect understanding that had always existed between them. Then Grace slipped into her own seat.

As she sat down her head drooped slightly and those glancing at her assumed she was lost in prayer. But when she made no movement for many moments someone touched her and realized something was wrong. Edris Rice-Wray and Katherine True both moved forward - and Grace was gone - gone through her Open Door - gone on her beautiful journey to the arms of Àbdu'l-Bahá. [Ref: Find a Grave]

See also Recommendations Concerning Translations of the Qur'án and Introductory Books on the Bahá'í Faith by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice (2002), for guidance on more recent translations of the Qur'án.

On the 30th of April, 2018 the Bahá'ís of the Washington, DC Metro Area unveiled a grave marker for Pocahontas Pope, the city's first African American Bahá'í, in National Harmony Memorial Park. Another ceremony was held on the 19th of May to honour her. A history of her life and accomplishments was read and a monologue in her voice was performed. [DC Bahá'í Community website; Bahá'ís of the US website]

Pocahontas Pope was employed by Alma Knobloch to help her as a seamstress in her dressmaking business. In 1906 she became a Bahá'í and wrote a letter of declaration to 'Abdu'l-Bahá. In His reply He wrote in part,

"Render thanks to the Lord that among that race thou art the first believer, that thou hast engaged in spreading sweet-scented breezes, and hast arisen to guide other… [T]he pupil of the eye is black, it is the source of light. Thou shalt likewise be."

The complete Tablet can be found at Bahá'í Chronicles, In Alma Sedonia Knobloch p392 by Jennifer Redson Wiebers and in Aflame with Devotion p.67-68 by Judy Hannen Moe.

From that point until at least 1918 she hosted talks in her home, and one of the people she led to the Faith was Alain Locke, "Father of the Harlem Renaissance" among many others who would go on to render service to the Cause. [ Bahá'ís of the US website]

See as well The Bahá'í Faith in America Vol 2 p 225-226 by Robert Stockman, Alma Sedonia Knobloch p27-29, 33 by Jennifer Redson Wiebers.

"riots which broke out with exceptional fury in Ismá'ílíyyih, when angry crowds surrounded the funeral cortege of Muhammad Sulaymán, a prominent Bahá'í resident of that town, creating such an uproar that the police had to intervene, and having rescued the body and brought it back to the home of the deceased, they were forced to carry it without escort, at night, to the edge of the desert and inter it in the wilderness." [GPB367-368]

      According to the description of Renée Szántó-Felbermann, they could not even meet in Budapest: „It was at their (the Sugárs) house in Alag (today part of Budakeszi) that we elected the first Spiritual Assembly in the history of Hungary, Ridvan 1939. When we boarded the train for Alag, in order to avoid suspicion, we Bahá'ís did not remain together, but went by twos and threes. The same procedure was repeated on our arrival to Alag. It was a memorable, unforgettable evening, that Feast of Ridván in the small house at Alag fragrant with spring flowers. We were all deeply moved. And our dear Bertha Matthiesen was radiant. … Jenő Sugár was elected chairman, Mária Kleinberger became treasurer and I continued as secretary." [www.bahai.hu]