The Indian Ocean, whose furthermost waves lap the shores of the Cradle of our Faith, upon whose waters the Divine Báb traveled in the course of His pilgrimage to Mecca, the heart of Islam, where He openly announced His Mission; whose mighty subcontinent from which it derives its name was the home and assigned province of the ninth Letter of the Living; whose major islands were severally mentioned by ‘Abdu’l Bahá in the seventh of His Tablets of the Divine Plan, lay, for most of a century, fallow to the Word of God, a challenge to the promotion of His Faith. This challenge was answered by half a hundred Knights of Bahá’u’lláh, who, in response to the beloved Guardian’s call left their homes and wholeheartedly gave themselves to the establishment of the Cause in those parts. They implanted the banner of Bahá’u’lláh upon its atolls, its great islands and bordering territories. Now, in the midmost heart of that huge expanse of sea, Mauritius, an island whose name was enshrined in Bahá’í history during the Heroic Age of our Faith as the source, two years before ‘Abdu’l Bahá’s arrival in America, of a contribution to the purchase of the site of the Mother Temple of the West, has been chosen as the venue of this oceanic Conference.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a message dated August 1970, addressed to the Continental Conference in La Paz, Bolivia, and the Oceanic Conference in Rose-Hill, Mauritius; Online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)
