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It was in consequence of this final, this clearly- worded and authoritative sentence by the highest exponent of Islamic Law in Egypt, and after prolonged negotiations, resulting at first in the allocation to the Cairo Baha'i community of a cemetery plot forming a part of that set aside for free thinkers, residing in that city, that the Egyptian government consented to grant to that community, as well as to the Baha'is of Isma'iliyyih, two tracts of land to serve as burial grounds for their dead-- an act of historic significance which was greatly welcomed by the members of sore- pressed and long- suffering communities, and which has served to demonstrate still further the independent character of their Faith and enlarge the sphere of the jurisdiction of its representative institutions. (368:2) It was to the first of these two officially designated Baha'i cemeteries, following the decision of the Egyptian Baha'i National Assembly aided by its sister- Assembly in Persia, that the remains of the illustrious Mirza Abu'l- Fadl were transferred and accorded a sepulture worthy of his high position, thereby inaugurating, in a befitting manner, the first official Baha'i institution of its kind established in the East. This achievement was, soon after, enhanced by the exhumation from a Christian cemetery in Cairo of the body of that far- famed mother teacher of the West, Mrs. E. Getsinger, and its interment, through the assistance extended by the American Baha'i National Assembly and the Department of State in Washington, in a spot in the heart of that cemetery and adjoining the resting- place of that distinguished author and champion of the Faith.
(368:3)
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