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The sudden passing of Abdu'l- Baha, marking the close of the Primitive Age of the Faith, had, as had been the case with the ascension of His Father, submerged in sorrow and consternation His faithful disciples, imparted fresh hopes to the dwindling followers of both Mirza Yahya and Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali, and stirred to feverish activity political as well as ecclesiastical adversaries, all of whom anticipated the impending dismemberment of the communities which the Center of the Covenant had so greatly inspired and ably led. The promulgation of His Will and Testament, inaugurating the Formative Age of the Baha'i era, the Charter delineating the features of an Order which the Bab had announced, which Baha'u'llah had envisioned, and whose laws and principles He had enunciated, had galvanized these communities in Europe, Asia, Africa and America into concerted action, enabling them to erect and consolidate the framework of this Order, by establishing its local and national Assemblies, by framing the constitutions of these Assemblies, by securing the recognition on the part of the civil authorities in various countries of these institutions, by founding administrative headquarters, by raising the superstructure of the first House of Worship in the West, by establishing and extending the scope of the endowments of the Faith and by obtaining the full recognition by the civil authorities of the religious character of these endowments at its world center as well as in the North American continent. (406:1) A severe, a historic censure pronounced by a Muslim ecclesiastical court in Egypt had, whilst this mighty process-- the laying of the structural basis of the Baha'i world Administrative Order-- was being initiated, officially expelled all adherents of the Faith of Muslim extraction from Islam, had condemned them as heretics and brought the members of a proscribed community face to face with tests and perils of a character they had never known before. The unjust decision of a civil court in Baghdad, instigated by Shi'ah enemies, in Iraq, and the decree issued by a still more redoubtable adversary in Russia had, moreover, robbed the Faith, on the one hand, of one of its holiest centers of pilgrimage, and denied it, on the other, the use of its first House of Worship, initiated by Abdu'l- Baha and erected in the course of His ministry. And finally, inspired by this unexpected declaration made by an age- long enemy-- marking the first step in the march of their Faith towards total emancipation-- and undaunted by this double blow struck at its institutions, the followers of Baha'u'llah, already united and fully equipped through the agencies of a firmly established Administrative Order, had arisen to crown the immortal records of the first Baha'i century by vindicating the independent character of their Faith, by enforcing the fundamental laws ordained in their Most Holy Book, by demanding and in some cases obtaining, the recognition by the ruling authorities of their right to be classified as followers of an independent religion, by securing from the world's highest Tribunal its condemnation of the injustice they had suffered at the hands of their persecutors, by establishing their residence in no less than thirty- four additional countries, as well as in thirteen dependencies, by disseminating their literature in twenty- nine additional languages, by enrolling a Queen in the ranks of the supporters of their Cause, and lastly by launching an enterprise which, as that century approached its end, enabled them to complete the exterior ornamentation of their second House of Worship, and to bring to a successful conclusion the first stage of the Plan which Abdu'l- Baha had conceived for the world- wide and systematic propagation of their Faith.
(406:2)
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