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A Mysterious Dispensation of Providence - PERSECUTION OF THE BAHA'IS OF IRAN- A crisis in the fortunes of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, of exceptional severity, extensive in its ramifications, unpredictable in its immediate consequences, directly involving the overwhelming majority of His followers in the land of His birth, and confronting with a major challenge Baha'i communities in both hemispheres, has plunged the Baha'i world, whilst engaged in the prosecution of a world-wide spiritual crusade, into intense sorrow and profound anxiety. (133:1) More grievous than any of the intermittent crises which have more or less acutely afflicted the Faith since the inception, over thirty years ago, of the Formative Age of the Baha'i Dispensation, such as a seizure of the keys of the foremost Shrine of the Baha'i world by the covenant-breakers residing in the Holy Land; the occupation of the House of Baha'u'llah by His traditional enemies in Baghdad; the expropriation of the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkar of the Baha'i world in Turkistan and the virtual extinction of the "Ishqabad Baha'i Community; the disabilities suffered by the Egyptian Baha'i Community as a result of the verdict of the Egyptian ecclesiastical court and the historic pronouncements of the highest dignitaries of Sunni Islam in Egypt; the defection of the members of 'Abdu'l-Baha's family and the machinations and eventual deviation of various recognized yet highly ambitious leaders, teachers, as well as administrators, in Persia, Egypt, Germany and the United States - more grievous than any of these, this latest manifestation of the Implacable hatred, and relentless opposition, of the as yet firmly entrenched, politically influential avowed adversaries of God's infant Faith, threatens to become more uncontrollable with every passing day. (133:2) Indeed in many of its aspects this crisis bears a striking resemblance to the wave of persecutions which periodically swept the cradle of the Faith in the course of 'Abdu'l-Baha's ministry, and is tragically reminiscent of the tribulations experienced by the dawn-breakers of the Heroic Age of the Faith at the hour of its birth in that sorely tried, long- agitated land.
(133:3)
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