Let no one, while this System is still in its infancy,
misconceive its character, belittle its significance or misrepresent its
purpose. The bedrock on which this Administrative Order is founded is God’s
immutable Purpose for mankind in this day. The Source from which it derives its
inspiration is no one less than Bahá’u’lláh Himself. Its shield and defender
are the embattled hosts of the Abhá Kingdom. Its seed is the blood of no less
than twenty thousand martyrs who have offered up their lives that it may be
born and flourish. The axis round which its institutions revolve are the
authentic provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Its guiding principles
are the truths which He Who is the unerring Interpreter of the teachings of our
Faith has so clearly enunciated in His public addresses throughout the West.
The laws that govern its operation and limit its functions are those which have
been expressly ordained in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. The seat round which its
spiritual, its humanitarian and administrative activities will cluster are the
Mashriqu’l-Adhkár and its Dependencies. The pillars that sustain its authority
and buttress its structure are the twin institutions of the Guardianship and of
the Universal House of Justice. The central, the underlying aim which animates
it is the establishment of the New World Order as adumbrated by Bahá’u’lláh.
The methods it employs, the standard it inculcates, incline it to neither East
nor West, neither Jew nor Gentile, neither rich nor poor, neither white nor
colored. Its watchword is the unification of the human race; its standard the
“Most Great Peace”; its consummation the advent of that golden millennium—the
Day when the kingdoms of this world shall have become the Kingdom of God
Himself, the Kingdom of Bahá’u’lláh.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated
February 8, 1934, published in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)
