After the Islamic Revolution, the Mostazafan Foundation – in English, the Foundation for the Oppressed – confiscated properties belonging to members of the Bahá'í community. The Misaghieh Hospital was among these properties. After its confiscation, the hospital's name was changed to Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital. [Iran Wire]

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized freedom of religion as a central value of the post-World War II international legal order. The right was cemented in Article 18 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Every year on 9 December, the United Nations marks the adoption of the Genocide Convention, which is also the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime. [Ratification of the Genocide Convention]

The crime of genocide has three elements: 1. Acts of genocide committed with, 2. intent to destroy, in whole or in part, 3. a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. For more detailed information see Genocide Watch. On that site Dr Gregory Stanton lists the ten states of genocide: Classification, Symolization, Discrimination, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Persecution, Extermination and Denial. [Ten Stages]. iiiii

The notion of a Jewish state evolved during the nineteenth century and in the aftermath of the French Revolution, which generated the idea of nation states and nationhood in the modern sense. The first plans came from non-Jewish sources. Napoleon Bonaparte suggested the settlement of European Jews in the Suez region to safeguard a canal project he had envisaged. Lord Palmerstone, British Foreign Secretary from 1830-1841, seeking to halt French advances in the East, planned the establishment of a British-backed Jewish client-state in Palestine to stop their advance and block Muhammad Ali´s progress. Plans of this kind set up by the Powers for safeguarding their own interests were quite numerous. When the Germans were constructing the Berlin-Baghdad Railway in the years before its completion in 1940, plans were made to settle Jews in Asia Minor alongside the rails or bestow an Ottoman Pashaliq (Territorial administrative division) upon the territory occupied by them.

After the French Revolution the Jews of Central and Western Europe now felt that they were citizens of their respective countries. Orthodox Jews refused the idea of a Jewish state believing that only when the Messiah came that such a state could be founded.

But then anti-Semitism was on the rise in Europe from the early and mid 1800s with such beliefs as Social Darwinism, Eugenics, Scientific Racism, Racial Hierarchy: the Nazi Racial Theories and the lingering concepts of colonialism and imperialism. The horrors of the Holocaust played a significant role in discrediting and rejecting these racial and biological ideologies that were not based on sound scientific findings.

Jews had started to immigrate into Palestine after the first anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia in 1881 and more especially after the establishment of the World Zionist Organization in 1897, it was of a different, a political nature. The Jewish immigrants came now with the explicit aim to establish a state of their own and to the exclusion of the Arab inhabitants of the land.

"The Jewish Colonial Projects in Palestine" refer to the efforts by Jewish individuals and organizations to establish settlements and communities in the region of Palestine, primarily during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These efforts were part of the broader Zionist movement which aimed to establish a Jewish homeland in what was then part of the Ottoman Empire and later became the British Mandate of Palestine. These projects played a significant role in the eventual establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

First Aliyah (1882-1903): The First Aliyah was a wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine that began in the early 1880s. During this period, many Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia settled in agricultural communities, known as "moshavot," in various parts of Palestine. They aimed to establish self-sustaining agricultural settlements and escape persecution in their home countries.

Baron Edmond de Rothschild's Support: Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a wealthy European financier, provided financial support to many Jewish settlers in Palestine. His contributions were crucial for the development of Jewish agricultural communities and wineries in the region.

Second Aliyah (1904-1914): The Second Aliyah brought another wave of Jewish immigrants to Palestine. Many of these immigrants were inspired by socialist and labour-oriented ideologies. They established kibbutzim and collective communities, which emphasized communal living and shared resources.

Jewish National Fund (JNF): The JNF, founded in 1901, played a pivotal role in acquiring and developing land in Palestine for Jewish settlement. It purchased and reclaimed land, planted forests, and financed infrastructure projects.

Balfour Declaration (1917): During World War I, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, expressing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. This declaration laid the foundation for future Zionist aspirations.

British Mandate Period (1920-1948): After World War I, the League of Nations granted Britain the mandate to govern Palestine. During this period, Jewish immigration and settlement continued, despite tensions with the Arab population. The Arab-Jewish conflict over land and political control intensified.

Haganah and Israel Defense Forces: Jewish settlers organized defense forces, such as the Haganah, in the 1920s to protect their communities. They provided defence for Jewish communities and countered Arab attacks, facilitated the illegal immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine, coordinated the various Jewish paramilitary groups and were involved in the acquiring and stockpiling of weapons and military equipment. These groups later evolved into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

1948 Arab–Israeli War (1947-1949)

With the British Mandate coming to an end, the United Nations approved the partition plan for Palestine, leading to the declaration of the State of Israel on the 14th of May 1948. The following day a military coalition of Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, invaded Israel to prevent its establishment. They took control of the areas designated for Arabs and attacked the Jewish forces and settlements. As a result of the war Israel got all the lands mandated to them by the UN and 60% of the territory meant for the Arabs as well as the area that had been meant for an "international zone". Israel had retained its independence and had expanded its territory.

This period is known as "Nakba" ("catastrophe" in Arabic). Some historians estimate that around 720,000 out of the 900,000 Palestinian Arabs that had lived in the land that was to become Israel were expelled. Another estimate says the 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. [The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe; Colonialism, Nationalism and Jewish Immigration to Palestine: Abdu´l-Bahá's Viewpoints Regarding the Middle East by Kamran Ekbal p24; Palestinian Expulsion and Flight]

Further details on the conflicts, Causes, Key Events of the War, as well as Outcomes and Consequences can be found here.

The UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) is a UN agency established in 1949 that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. It's mandate encompasses Palestinians displaced by the 1948 Palestine War and subsequent conflicts, as well as their descendants, including legally adopted children. As of 2023, more than 5.9 million Palestinians are registered with UNRWA as refugees. [UNRWA]

Some objectives were;
  - To incorporate the National Spiritual Assembly
  - To establish national endowments
  - To increase to thirty the number of Local Spiritual Assemblies
  - To increase to one hundred the number of localities where Bahá'ís reside
  - To form a group in Newfoundland
  - To form a group in Greenland
  - To enroll (Eskimos) Inuit and (Native Indians) First Nations in the Faith

Some goals were:
  - To double the number of Local Spiritual Assemblies from fourteen to twenty-eight, increasing the Bahá'í membership in each community
  - To raise the number of localities in Germany and Austria where Bahá'ís reside
  - To deepen the understanding of the friends in the operation of the Administrative Order
  - To encourage deeper study of the teachings
  - To construct the National Hazíratu'l-Quds in Frankfurt
  - To enrich Bahá'í literature with two publications by March 1949, fifteen by March 1950, six by March 1951 and nine by 1952

Some goals were:
  - To raise to nine the number of Local Spiritual Assemblies
  - To raise to thirty-three the number of localities where Bahá'ís reside
  - To send pioneers to Tunisia, Algeria and Libya
  - To acquire property for a Bahá'í school
  - To issue a Bahá'í magazine
  - To consolidate the community in Ethiopia

One of his daughters, Dame Robin White, is a New Zealand painter and printmaker, recognized as a key figure in the regionalist movement of 20th-century New Zealand art. Her art is the subject of a book called Robin White: Something is Happening Here by Dr Sarah Farrar, Dr Nina Tonga and Jill Trevelyan.

The goals were:
   -To increase the number of Bahá'í centres
   -To complete the construction of the National Hazíratu'l-Quds
   -To raise contributions to support the National Fund
   -To establish ten new Local Assemblies
   -To encourage Bahá'í communities in the south of the country

The homefront goals were:
  - To establish two new Spiritual Assemblies in Australia
  - To establish nineteen groups in Australasia

1. Consolidation of all local Bahá'í communities.

2. Reestablishment of 62 dissolved Assemblies. (93 LSAs formed)

3. Formation of 22 groups. (37 established)

4. Creation of 13 new centres. (24 localities established)

5. Development of Assemblies from groups in three adjoining countries, namely in Kabul, Afghanistan, Mecca, Arabia and Bahrein Island, Persian Gulf.

6. The formation of groups in four localities on the Arabian Peninsula.

7. The sending pioneers to India and 'Iráq to assist in the formation of new groups.

The Bahá'ís of Tehran were called upon to send out 50 families into the pioneer field. (160 arose) Every individual Bahá'í was included in the operation of the Plan-as a volunteer, by deputizing a pioneer, by contributing funds, by circuit teaching or by providing hospitality to students whose parents had become pioneers. [BW4p34-35; BW11p34-36]

...the Bahá'ís should continue to apply, under all circumstances, for exemption from any military duty that necessitates the taking of life. There is no justification for any change of attitude on our part at the present time.

The Universal House of Justice amplified this later statement:

There is no objection in a Bahá'í enlisting voluntarily in the armed forces of a country in order to obtain a training in some trade or profession, provided that he can do so without making himself liable to undertake combatant service. [BW17:384–5]

The inability, under restrictions imposed by the war, to hold Convention sessions this year challenged the National Spiritual Assembly to maintain the important functions of the annual meeting through other means. Steps were therefore taken to provide for Voting by mail, with a committee of tellers to serve in the customary way, to conduct a public meeting or Bahá'í Congress in Foundation Hall during the Riḍván Period, and to provide the delegates with subjects for written suggestions and views. [BN No 174 April-May 145 p2]

Those elected to serve the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada were: George O. Latimer (Chairman), Allen B. McDaniel (Vice), Horace Holley (Secretary), Louis G. Gregory (Recording Secretary), Roy C. Wilhelm (Treasurer), Dorothy Baker. Amelia E. Collins, Philip G. Sprague, Leroy Ioas. The Assembly appointed Siegfried Schopflocher to serve as the Treasurer of the Canadian Bahá'í Fund. [BN No 169 July 1944 p2; BN No285 Nov 1954 p3-4]

The Tablet of Naw-Rúz 101 has been named Lawh-i-Qarn (Tablet of the Centennial). It was unveiled in a solemn pilgrimage ceremony at the House of the Báb in the presence of the 91 delegates exactly one hundred years after the visit of Mullá Husayn.

A partial English translation of this Persian document can be found in Tablet of the Centennial by Shoghi Effendi translated by Khazeh Fananapazir. This paper also makes reference to the article below.

Dr 'Alí Muhammad Varqa's article, Le Style persan du Gardien, was presented at the Association for Bahá'í Studies 9th Annual Conference in Ottawa in 1984 and can be found in the book of the proceedings of that conference, The Vision of Shoghi Effendi p209. In his paper he quotes from a number of Tablets to describe the style of Shoghi Effendi's writing in Persian, one of them is the Tablet of the Centennial.

On 28 November 2023 the Universal House of Justice, in a message to the Bahá'ís of the world, provided a review of the previous 100 years of the Formative Age.

• During a pilgrimage in late 1904 'Abdu'l-Bahá suggested he visit the Bahá'ís of the East. He toured India and Burma from December 1904 until the summer of 1905 becoming the first Western Bahá'í of go to the far Orient fulfilling Bahá'u'lláh's prophecy the "The East and West shall embrace as lovers". [YBIB6] iiiii
• See YBIB55-60 For the story of Kai Khosroe, the Zoroastrian Bahá'í from Bombay who gave his life while nursing Sprague in Lahore when he was deathly ill with typhoid fever.
• In 1908 he became a resident of Tehran, first teaching in the Bahá'í school and, when he returned the following year, he became principal.
• He married a niece of 'Abdul'-Bahá and became a brother-in-law of Ameen Fareed. When Fareed was expelled from the Faith in 1914 Sprague and his wife as well as his father-in-law followed. Fareed's father was Mírzá Asadu'lláh-i-Isfahání, the emissary who had taken the remains of the Báb from Iran to the Holy Land [Efforts to preserve the remains of the Bab]. Sprague applied to be reinstated in 1931 (or 1937) and was finally accepted in 1941, two years before his passing. [BW9p633-635]
  • He married Farahangiz Khanum on the 20th of July, 1910, a day selected by 'Abdu'l-Bahá so that Stanwood Cobb could attend. The Bahá'í wedding was performed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the legal ceremony was conducted by a mullá four days later. [BN Vol 1 No 12 October 1910 p 7]
• He made a teaching trip to South America and died soon after his return to the United States. [AB409]
• He was the author of The Story of the Bahai Movement published in London in 1907 and A Year with the Bahá'ís of India and Burma in May of 1908. [YBIBxi] iiiii

She first heard of the Faith at the age of 21 in 1899 under miraculous circumstances. [Mable Ives & The Mysterious Trolley Car Ride]

In 1903 she married Theron Canfield Rice-Wray and had three children. They lived in California from 1909 to 1914 where her marriage ended and she returned to the East.

In 1919 she met Howard Colby Ives and they married in 1920 and she became known to many who loved her as "Rizwanea". For nearly twenty years they traveled and taught the Faith often teaming with Grace and Harlan Ober as well as Doris and Willard McKay in both business and the teaching work. It was their entire life. They traveled through the New England states, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, New York and many many more in Canada as well-always teaching, always leaving an established Assembly behind them." For example they came to Toronto in November of 1938 and stayed for about 10 months. During that time Mabel gave more than 150 lectures in Toronto and about 70 in Hamilton, Toronto's expansion goal. Howard, who was had had heart problems and who was rapidly losing for sight and hearing at the time, complemented her abilities by doing personal deepening with receptive souls. [TMLF62-67, SEBW139-154]

• See Fires in Many Hearts - Memoirs of an early American believer by Doris McKay.

See the story of how Mabel resolved the situation when she could no longer tolerate the itinerate lifestyle in the story When Mable Ives Could Endure No More, She Prayed .

See the tribute paid to her in the Canadian Bahá'í News No 202 November 1966 p4.

"Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups."

This study was an elaboration of ideas he first proposed in 1933 in his address to the Fifth International Conference for the Unification of Penal Law (1933), which argued that attacks on racial, religious and ethnic groups should be considered international crimes. Important for the prosecution of the Nazis, it helped to establish the framework for all subsequent efforts to punish crimes against humanity.

When Lemkin proposed a treaty against genocide to the United Nations in 1945, he defined it as follows:

"The crime of genocide should be recognized therein as a conspiracy to exterminate national, religious or racial groups. The overt acts of such a conspiracy may consist of attacks against life, liberty or property of members of such groups merely because of their affiliation with such groups. The formulation of the crime may be as follows: "Whoever, while participating in a conspiracy to destroy a national, racial or religious group, undertakes an attack against life, liberty or property of members of such groups is guilty of the crime of genocide."

Note:Amir Kabir was the 19th century Iranian Qajar minister who ordered the execution of many members of the early Bahá'í movement. [Iran Press Watch 1407]

After Abdu'l-Fadl passed away in early 1914 the American believers, in gratitude for the contribution he had made to the American Bahá'í community, collected a sum of money for the construction of a suitable monument for his grave. The work was interrupted with the Ascension of the Master and the money collected was reverted the National Fund. That money was now sent to the National Spiritual Assembly of Egypt. [BW9p89]