The Continental Board of Counsellors sponsored the first West African Bahá'í Youth Conference in conjunction with the National Spiritual Assembly of Upper West Africa. The Conference was held in The Gambia on the campus of Yundum College some fifteen miles from the capital city of Bathurst. Youth representing nine countries in this zone attended: Nigeria, Upper Volta, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania, plus pioneers originating from the United States, Mauritius, Malaysia, Iran, and friiq. A young Bahá'í from Sweden was able to greet the friends during a brief stop on a boat cruise. Counsellors Mr. H. R. Ardikani and Dr. William Maxwell Jr., were present as well as six of their Auxiliary Board members, Mr. Amos Agwu, Mr. Muhammad Al-Salihi, Mrs. H. Vera Edwards, Mr. Friday Ekpe, Mr. Shidan Kouchekzadeh and Dr. B. Sadiqzadeh. A total of fifty-six persons attended. [Bahá'í News 504]

The conference was seen as an historic one in that it was the first to which participants had come to order to discuss the whole area of the European Arctic and sub-Arctic stretching from Finland in the west in Greenland in the east, from Svalbard in the extreme north to the Scottish islands in the south.

Iceland is the only country in Europe that has planned and systematically carried out, year by year, a program of proclamation (now in its fourth year) that has taken the Faith throughout the entire country, north, south, east and west. (Betty Reed, Continental Board of Counsellors for Europe) [BN No 525 8 December 1974 p10-11]

At this time there was a large concentration of believers in South Kivu, there were Bahá'ís in Western Kasai, in Kinshasa and in Lubumbashi. The election took place in the home of Belgian pioneers Jean-Pierre and Anne-Marie Laperches. Hand of the Cause Mr Faizi was in attendance to represent the Universal House of Justice. [A Remarkable Response Film 26:55

• For picture see BW15:144.

Photo or first National Assembly from Bahaimedia.

For a picture of this first Local Spiritual Assembly see the for the National Community.

     Countries opened to the Faith:
          Independent countries                134
          Significant territories and islands  179
                                  Total        373

     Number of localities where Bahá'ís reside   43,341

     Number of local spiritual assemblies        10,318

See as well the referenced document Reviewing: Practice and Functions of Literature Review by Shoghi Effendi and Universal House of Justice compiled by Research Department of the Universal House of Justice.

Egyptian security services have exploited the decree to orchestrate six major crackdowns on the Bahá'í community , in 1965, 1967, 1970, 1972,1985 and 2001. The authorities arrested a total of 236 Egyptian Bahá'ís in these crackdowns, on grounds that they had violated the decree or on charges of "contempt of religion" On the few occasions on which arrests were followed by prosecutions, none of the defendants were ever found guilty of violating Law 263/1960 or any other law." [BW16:137; Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom p31 footnote 54]

It is also published under the title "Fountain of Wisdom: A Collection of Writings from Baháʼu'lláh".

Sixteen Tablets revealed by Bahá'u'lláh during the later years of His life, including the Tablet of Carmel, the Book of the Covenant, and the Tablet of Wisdom, as well as excerpts from other Writings. Six of the tablets in this volume were translated into English and published in 1917. The translations were improved upon by Shoghi Effendi, and those not translated by him were filled in with the publication in 1978 under the supervision of the Universal House of Justice. [wikipedia]

It was first published in 1924 in Farsi when the Persian transcripts that had been corrected by 'Abdu'l‑Bahá were compiled into a single volume.