Serving as “True Practitioners of Peace”

Good evening friends. Good evening. It is a great joy and privilege that I have uh tonight to introduce our speaker Mr. Shar Razavi um a member of the universal house of justice. The theme Mr. Razie will address what it means to serve as true practitioners of peace is one that lies at the very heart of the work to which the Bahigh community throughout the world is being summoned. In the constitution of the universal house of justice in the section that addresses the powers and duties of the universal house of justice there's this wonderful passage that speaks of peace. It says one of the duties of the house of justice is to do its utmost for the realization of greater cordiality and comedy among the nations and for the attainment of universal peace. For more than six decades, the Universal House of Justice has been shaping the world in alignment with the revelation of Bahala through direct messages such as the 1985 message to the peoples of the world. We know it. We've studied it. this recent message to ISGP about international conflicts and humanitarian crisis through the messages that describe the way the Bahigh community is working and evolving and applying the guidance of the House of Justice. How it's sharing with us how individuals can become protagonists of spiritual and social transformation. how communities can develop patterns of life characterized by unity, justice, and service. And how institutions are being molded in this environment, how they're learning to release and channel the capacities of growing numbers of people for the betterment of the world. You've heard last night I think through this wonderful presentation that the association for bahigh studies executive committee shared with us that Mr. Razavvi has had some very direct contribution made that he has made to the to the work of the association through essays and articles through his presence at the 2015 conference of the association for Bahigh studies through um even the the chapter of the book that was referred to last night that addressed questions related to discourse but I have to even though I've promised uh him that I would not say anything about him personally During this introduction, I have to tell you that since the moment that we met, Mr. Razavi when he was serving as a counselor in 2002, he came to Canada in the presence of uh Reson Mbell came to visit the Bahigh National Center and we have a most unreasonable and excessive attachment to him. I just have to admit it and lay it just at his feet to say how this this point that Jasmine was making last night about how love holds everything together. This beautiful mysterious power that brings us together from the moment he came we started conspiring to figure out how we could import him to Canada as a counselor. And then when he was appointed to the UN to the international teaching center I'm sorry we thought okay it's not fitting to be trying to conspire to bring him to Canada when he's been called to a very high uh function but he came as a member of the international teaching center at a couple of very pivotal moments in the in the national assembly's life and we were so grateful and again this cemented our excessive unreasonable attachment to him our love for him and then of course as a member of the universal house of justice he's visited he's visited the United States and Canada both and uh and really as a member of the house of justice draws our hearts to that institution that majestic and mysterious institution that Baha has given us so what a privilege it is for us friends to welcome Mr. Razave and invite him to address us. [applause] Good evening friends. >> [clears throat] >> What an unaloyed pleasure to be here and to participate at this gathering under any circumstance but particularly in the uh conference that's marking the 50 years of endeavor in this field. It's my great great privilege to be with you friends. As will be apparent to anyone with even a passing interest in global affairs, the world is not in a peaceful state. The speed of the rolling up of the old world order is dizzying. Everywhere there is division, disunityity and in many places outright conflict. And as this deterioration in the state of the world has accelerated, the House of Justice has more frequently been encouraging Bahigh communities to help those around them find peace. In its 30 me 30th December message 2021 about the 9-year plan, the House of Justice described how the friends are building communities that are havens of peace, places where a harried and conflict scarred humanity may find shelter. In its Resvan 2024 message, the House of Justice shared its joy at seeing in every country and region true practitioners of peace who are occupied with building this haven. So in this presentation I aim to explore the character of these havens sharing my personal understanding of what it means to be a true practitioner of peace. Let us begin friends with the concept of peace itself. Peace for bahayas is not just one among the teachings. The theme of peace is central to the Bahai message. In a certain sense, peace is the Bahigh message. There are many passages in which Bah describes the very purpose of his mission as the establishment of peace and unity in the world. Consider this one. Oh ye that dwell on earth. The distinguishing feature that markth the preeminent character of this supreme revelation. Notice three superlatives being applied as the distinct character of this revelation. The distinguishing feature that markketh the preeeminent character of this supreme revelation consisteth in that we have laid down the essential prerequisites of concord of understanding of complete and enduring unity. Elsewhere he says God's purpose in sending his prophets unto men is twofold. The first is to liberate the children of men from the darkness of ignorance. The second is to ensure the peace and tranquility of mankind and provide all the means by which they can be established. And in the writings and utterances of Abdul Bahar, including during his travels to the west, the theme of peace as the central teaching of the cause is predominant. In countless tablets after his return, he wrote statements of this kind. During my stay in America, I cried out in every meeting and summoned the people to the propagation of the ideals of universal peace. Public records today demonstrate beyond any doubt that the master succeeded in establishing in the public consciousness the clear association between the faith and the cause of universal peace. A recent rigorous academic analysis of newspaper reports from the time has shown that in the course of his travels and subsequently the master was deeply associated with the theme of peace. the most dominant of all his themes that the newspapers mention. He was as we know called the herald of the religion of peace. Most commonly he was referred to as the prophet of peace and as the apostle of peace. So what I want to draw attention to is how Abdul Baha speaks of the cause of peace and of the cause of Bah not as two different things or even as two merely related things but as the same thing. Consider for example the tablets of the divine plan. These were revealed as we know during the first world war. Note how in this charter document for teaching Abdul Bahad describes the purpose of the various aspects of the teaching work. Travel ye throughout the world and call ye the people to the kingdom of God. Thus through the superhuman service to the rays through this superhuman service the rays of peace and consiliation may illumin and enlighten all the regions and the world of humanity may find peace and composure and again consequently a number of souls may arise and hasten to all parts of the world. They may travel throughout all the continents and islands of the globe. Thus in a short space of time most wonderful results will be produced. The banner of universal peace will be waving on the apex of the world and the lights of the oneness of the world of humanity may loom in the universe. Look here at the meaning of receptivity in those same tablets. Receptivity to peace is synonymous with receptivity to the faith. Abu Baha says in all the countries of the world the longing for universal peace is taking possession and the consciousness of men of the consciousness of men a most wonderful state of receptivity is being realized. This is through the consumate wisdom of God so that capacity may be created. The standard of the oneness of the world of humanity be upraised and the fundamental of universal peace and the divine principles be promoted in the east and the west. Let us consider another example. Abu Baha's tablet to the Hague addressed to the executive committee of the central organization for a durable peace which was established during the first world war and was later subsumed into the League of Nations itself the ill- fated precursor to the United Nations Organization. This tablet is a major exposition of the Bahigh teachings on peace and also on fundamental Bahigh principles including for instance the equality of men and women, the need for every child to receive education, the relinquishing of prejudices and many other principles. Abul Bahar states that these principles must be added to the matter of universal peace and combined with it so that results may acrue. He's the structure of this tablet if you recall is that he starts by saying among his teachings was the declaration of universal peace. The teachings of Bahala but not limited to the establishment of universal peace. They embraced many teachings which supplemented and supported that of universal peace. And then the structure of the tablet is that he names the principles. He says and among the teachings of Bah is this and this and this. And he lists the the the various teachings of the central teachings of the faith. And then he says this. He says, "As the teachings of Bahala are combined with universal peace, they are like a table provided with every kind of fresh and delicious food. Every soul can find at that table of infinite bounty that which he desires. If the question is restricted to universal peace alone, the remarkable results which are expected and desired will not be attained. Well, the committee sent a reply to Abu Baha that was courteous and complimentary, but it said that it could not endorse all the principles set out by Abdul Baha because the committee was focused exclusively on the promotion of universal peace and not on spiritual and religious matters. Abdul Bahadan sent a warm and affectionate response but a very very clear statement in that tablet which since its translation a few years ago is increasingly being known as the second tablet to the H. In this tablet Bah Abdul Bahar makes the most fascinating argument. He explains that from a Bahigh perspective the cause of peace is a religious matter. He states that for bahay our desire for peace is not derived merely from the intellect. It is a matter of religious belief and one of the eternal foundations of the faith of God. And then comes a most remarkable statement. He explains thus in Persia thousands of souls have offered up their lives in this path and thousands of homes have been laid waste. And then he says, you surely have heard this. So he's saying here that all those souls who've given their lives and all their other sacrifices has been for the cause of peace. in effect that the cause of God and the cause of peace are one and the same thing. This as this is is an extraordinarily important framing of what the cause of God is in this world by one who is uniquely and divinely authorized to do so as the interpreter of the cause of Bah. Abraha then explains why the establishment of peace is a spiritual matter. He notes that everyone already knows that peace is good and war is harmful but knowledge is not enough. He says he says a power of implementation is needed to establish peace throughout the world. And then he concludes his argument by in this way. He says it is our firm belief that the power of implementation in this great endeavor is the penetrating influence of the word of God and the confirmations of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the only power that can really establish peace in the world is the word of God. And so the promotion of the word of God is in itself the promotion of peace in the world. This is the idea we also find then in the tablets of the divine plan to which I referred. Let's pause here friends for a moment and explore further what we mean by the word peace itself. If we examine the writings of the faith, we find there are two different and distinct conceptions of peace that exist alongside each other. The first conception is that peace is a condition that comes about as a result of the actions of the rulers of the world, no doubt reflecting the aspirations of their peoples. And these are the words of Bahala, famous words of Bahala. The time must come, he says, when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast and all embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attended and participating in its deliberations must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's great peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the great powers should resolve for the sake of the tranquility of the peoples of the earth to be fully reconciled among themselves. Elsewhere describing the same process, Baha refers to an all-incclusive assembly. So the universal character of the pact is clear. Yet note that Bahala puts particular emphasis on the need for the great powers to be fully reconciled among themselves. The term great power is one that would have been very familiar to Bah's contemporaries. The term had been used to describe those major powers that had signed treaties together to establish peace on the continent of Europe after the end of the Napoleonic wars. The security council of the United Nations was set up in a certain sense with a similar idea that there needs to be a space for the countries with a particular kind of military strength and influence in the world to negotiate with each other and prevent future wars. That's the that's the initial conception. Sadly, however, we have yet to reach the point when they have resolved to be fully reconciled among themselves, of course. So this is a reference and a description of a political and specifically a geopolitical kind of peace. Although a convocation involving all the countries of the world is envisaged representing the peoples of the world. This is essentially a political piece in which the role of the leader is paramount and it is a piece subject to the dynamics of any political process and naturally its limitations. And what is interesting is that there are definite statements in the writings that until this reconciliation and global agreement happens there will not be peace. Yet the writings also tell us repeatedly and emphatically that no pact or agreement can bring about peace and that only the only thing that can establish peace is the agency of the word of God as revealed by his manifestation. Consider this celebrated statement. The well-being of mankind, its peace and security are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established. This unity can never be achieved so long as the councils which the pen of the most high hath revealed are suffered to pass unheeded. Or consider this statement from Abdul Baha. Peace must first be established among the among individuals until it leadth in the end to peace among nations. Wherefore, oh ye bahighs, strive ye with all your might to create through the power of the word of God genuine love, spiritual communion and durable bonds among individuals. This is your task. So how do we reconcile this apparent paradox? This brings us back to the kind of peace that Abdul Bahar wrote about in this tablet to the Hague. It is what we might call an expansive conception of peace. It's a peace brought about through the power of the word of God. And it implies much more than simply an absence of war through pacts. A first step though that stage also is it is a fundamental reorientation of the world. This is the expansive concept of peace. the coming of the most great justice. In short, a state in a condition that humanity has not only ever has never experienced, it has scarcely been imagined. So these two conceptions of peace, the one involving pacts and treaties constructed by leaders and the other organic, transformational and implemented by the peoples of the world embracing all the divine precepts correspond to the lesser peace and the most great peace described by Bahala in his tablets. Recall friends these words in the tablet to Queen Victoria. Now that ye have refused the most great peace, hold ye fast unto this the lesser peace, that happily ye may in some degree better your own condition and that of your dependence. So his vision for humanity of course is grand and complete. But the leaders having failed to accept that vision are given another chance to at least attain an end to war and make a universal peace pact. From what we can tell, the lesser peace implies the political unification of the world, an international system of collective security and an end to war among the nations. Sugarfendi tells us that the nations of the earth will themselves establish the lesser peace and despite our contribution to it, it will not come about directly as a result of the efforts by the bahayas. That of course does not mean that bahigh have no interest in the establishment of the lesser peace. Far from it. Baha himself addressed tablets to the monarchs and rulers of the world urging them to establish the list of peace. And one of the very specific responsibilities as we heard earlier given by Bahala to the house of justice an extremely explicit and clear responsibility given by Bahala to the house of justice is to promote peace. A responsibility that was encoded in its constitution in 1972. The message of the house of justice known as the promise of world peace in 1985 was intended first and foremost to be delivered to the heads of states and government in every country and it called on them to convene that all embracing assemblage described by Baha and it contains that memorable and emphatic nineword paragraph the holding of this mighty convocation is long overdue. 40 years later, when to all the immediate threats that confronted humanity then now have been added the grave environmental crisis and the threats posed by unbridled technology. The urgency of that call of course is greater still. Now a particular form that the Bahigh community's support for efforts to move towards the lesser peace takes is its contribution to prevalent discourses related to the establishment of peace and its encouraging and urging the governments of the world in their collective efforts to address the world's multiple challenges. As we know in the nine-year plan, the House of Justice described the work of participating in the discourse of society as one of the ways in which we can release the society building power of the courts. This participation is becoming visible at the grassroots of the community through the efforts of individual believers as well as local spiritual assemblies in some areas. But in the context of the lesser peace, we see the contribution much more clearly at the national and international levels where efforts at engagement in numerous discourses are being made by national offices of external affairs and the officers of the Bahigh international community. Many of these discourse themes directly address issues that are at the heart of conflict and of the conflicts that convulse relations among nations and within them. One of the most interesting of these discourses is the question of a country's national identity. Having a widely held consensus about a nation's origin story and a reckoning with it seems to be an essential prerequisite for progress as a point of unity and a moment of common truth from which an account of our aspirations for the future we wish to build can be created. In recent years, we have seen very interesting efforts and successes in this work by several national offices of external affairs. Most notably, if I may site a few, the ones in Australia, in Azarbaijan, in Brazil, in the United Arab Emirates, and most recently in the United States, in working with their society to articulate their national story at the global level, this idea, the story of humanity on a journey towards maturity and away from its adolescence is a constant theme for the Bahigh international community. By definition, friends, these are sensitive themes and the effort of the representatives of the Bahigh community is always characterized by what the House of Justice called resolute commitment to discover that precious point of unity where contrasting perspectives overlap and around which contending peoples can coalesce. Another important entity directly concerned with the Bahigh efforts to explore the application of the faith's principle to the understanding of the promotion understanding and the promotion of peace is of course the Bahigh peace chair an increasingly wellrespected academic center created some 40 years ago now almost 30 just over 30 years with a specific mandate of exploring the application of the concepts contained in the promise of world peace which specifically inspired its creation at the University of Maryland. What the chair has accomplished over these decades, far beyond merely a narrow discipline of of peace and conflict studies, has been to adopt an expansive orientation, much as we've described, to apply interdisciplinary perspectives to eliminating the barriers to peace that the House of Justice laid out in 1985. drawing on insights from both science and religion and engaging in a process of collaborative learning with academics from just in the last 10 or so years alone over 200 universities and other academic institutions. Of course, the association for bahigh studies itself in the span of its 50 years of endeavor through its output of thought and labor in various forms has made its own contribution to the application of the teachings to the cause of peace and in the process inspired countless bahigh of all ages to direct their intellectual energies towards humanity's most pressing concerns. And then there are other initiatives of a bahigh inspired character where individual bahighs, experts in their own fields have created organizations which are promoting concepts and ideas inspired by the revelation addressing such areas as international law, international relations, economics, the environment and in some instances with very significant impact. So far we've considered how Bahigh can contribute to the establishment of the lesser peace through participation in prevalent discourses concerned with addressing the obstacles that stand in the way of peace while recognizing that this is ultimately something that the nations of the world must themselves establish. All of this of course is of crucial importance. But we must acknowledge too that there are many many other people and groups in the world who are concerned about the various challenges facing humanity and in some cases they have dedicated also their lives to finding solutions. To outside observers the Bahigh community might give the appearance of being another one of those kinds of well-intentioned groups. And if our ambition was limited to the promotion of the lesser peace, then that assessment might even be true. But the mission Bahala has given his followers, of course, we know is much much loftier than this. The writings explain that the lesser peace represents the absolute outside limit of how far humanity will be able to go by itself. And while as we've seen Bahigh are eager to lend their support to this goal, ultimately they have set themselves they have set their sight on a um much much loftier much much greater goal. The establishment of that other conception of peace we mentioned earlier the much much more transformational state namely the most great peace. While we know that the lesser peace will not come about directly through the actions of the vah, the most great peace by contrast is an entirely different matter. Other references in the writings to concepts such as the world order of Bahalah, the spirit spiritual civilization that is to come, the most great justice and the spiritualization of mankind all appear to refer to essentially the same stage in the culmination of the mission of Bah. Shifiendi explains that Baha has laid down a set of laws, established definite institutions and provided for the essentials of a divine economy, meaning a divine order. These he states are destined to be a pattern for future society, a supreme instrument for the establishment of the most great peace and the one agency for the unification of the world and the proclamation of the reign of righteousness and justice upon the earth. So this means more than finding agreement on a common set of principles however vital these principles might be. It is the founding of institutions. It is the promulgation of laws. It is the establishment of an order a divinely ordained order of which the present day administrative order as we know is the nucleus and pattern. It is a societal order founded on justice. So what we're talking about here is much more than a technical piece held together by the duct tape, you might say, of expedient politics and the band-aid of pragmatic policy. This is not reform of the old order or tinkering with it at the margins. It is the fundamental reimagining of society and it rests on the spiritual and moral transformation of the individual and the redefinition of those essential relationships which are the foundations of society. It is operationalizing the principle of oneness of humanity. Human society has never been organized upon the central principle of the oneness of mankind. Never before. Consider this exposition of Shogi Fendi in 1931. The year is significant for reasons I'll explain. Let there be no mistake. The principle of the oneness of mankind, the pivot around which the teachings of Bahala revolve, is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family. It implies an organic change in the structure of present day society. A change such as the world has not yet experienced. It represents Shogi says the consumation of human evolution. Then he says so marvelous a conception. Now this is the this is the immediate relevance to us. So marvelous a conception finds its earliest manifestations in the efforts consciously exerted and the modest beginnings already achieved by the declared adherence of the faith of Baha. Friends, let's just fully appreciate what Shogi Fendi's words are saying here. This is 1931. We are 10 years into the formative age. only 10 years. The divine plan is still in obeyance. It's not been implemented. The institutions almost do not yet exist. And he is plainly stating that the evolution of the world towards the realization of the cardinal principle proclaimed by Bah the oneness of humanity is becoming manifest in the efforts of the followers of Bah. If that was true then in 1931, how much more is this true now when we are more than 100 years into the formative age? Now that the administrative order is established throughout the g globe, now that like-minded people in every nation are being attracted to that principle of oneness and now that bahigh are aiming through their actions to release nothing short of the society building power of the cause of god. So the modest beginnings that Shogi Fendi is referring to, remember the modest beginnings already achieved, the modest beginnings to which Shogi Fendi referred in 1931 have blossomed into a systematic global learning process that is unfolding in the world. A long-term process whose conception, scope, and mode of execution is unprecedented in human experience. A process that is scientific in method and in which uniquely every people of the world can have a share not merely as objects of other people's designs but as protagonists and in which every member of the human family can generate knowledge a knowledge that in that in turn is accessible to every human being too. A world organized around the principle of oneness when the circle of us has been widened to the level of the human family in its entirety will rep represent a wholly different social order to anything that our species has experienced on this planet. Such a reorganization can only be founded on a whole new set of normative principles, new standards that represent the implementation of divine justice. Recall the words of Shogi Fendi about the consummation of human evolution. In a certain sense, history can be seen as the story of ever widening circles of cooperation, of common cause, of alliances, and of unity. Many social theorists accept that it is ultimately not ideology or religion that defines the reason why human beings become locked in conflict but the desire to find protection and safety through a group identity. Which is why the circles have per force continually widened throughout humanity's history and throughout humanity's social evolution from the tribe to the city state to the nation state and to political alliances that bring groups of nation states together now in the world. At each of these stages when elements merged to form the higher order, one of the things that happened was that violence between those elements that came together dramatically fell almost to nothing and any acts of violence that remain were essentially crimes of passion. It would seem then given that the emergence of large unions among groups of nation states has been under on underway for some years that we are on an inevitable trajectory towards the ultimate unity which is at the global level. The unity of all the nations and what lies beyond it as human beings begin to reap the benefits of a permanent sessation of war and the start of the reign of peace. In the Bahigh conception, this is the coming stage of humanity's social evolution and collective moral development. For despite all the contention and conflict that we see in the world today, humanity is also simultaneously endowed with a greater capacity for unity than ever before. This changes our frame of understanding entirely and this is essential to peace building. We see in the past and in the present not evidences that we cannot achieve peace but clear evidence of a journey towards maturity. A journey of es and flows. Yes. A journey which human agency can or accelerate. One that is still underway. and one that is of course far from reaching its conclusion. This maturation is also not coercive. Just because bahigh have conviction that and faith that it will come and indeed that it must come if humanity is not to destroy itself, that conviction does not imply that such an evolution can be imposed. It must emerge through an act of collective will and cannot come about before humanity collectively has given its consent. And when that stage of unity does arrive, it will not be a magical process, that's not what we think, of instantaneous transformation. It will be the start of decades, perhaps centuries of experimentation and organic advancement. A process of nations and peoples learning lessons from one another and participating in a grand enterprise that was perhaps in a sense the very purpose of the act of creation itself and the culture of the world that will underpin that stage of development. We can perhaps call a culture of peace. a culture shaped by spiritual and ethical values that befit the stage of the maturity of humankind. What then are some of the obstacles we might ask to advancing this culture of peace? Well, one major obstacle to advancing this culture is what might be called the crisis of identity, which is the scourge of our age. Almost every society in some way or another is afflicted and deeply divided in by one form of it. The House of Justice has drawn attention to the way in which certain voices in the world like to draw lines between us and them to define them to define another and then to define those group identities in ever more narrow and uh restrained constrained circles and in contrast to one another. This way of thinking encourages individuals first and foremost to identify with a particular group that shares specific characteristics. These characteristics might be defined by ideology, ethnicity, language, nationality or political affiliation. The dividing lines become sharp over time and the divisions can create feelings of hostility between groups fostering hatred and even of course violence. This also fragments social identities into smaller and smaller groups and subgroups who assert and emphasize their differences, atomizing human relations to mere individuals and practically vaporizing any sense of community much less of society. Now friends, contrast this with what Bahala teaches us about the oneness of humanity. He has counseledled the peoples of the world to recognize their essential oneness and to abandon all prejudices. Consider the teaching not to see one another as strangers, that there is no other, that there are no good and bad trees in a theological sense. Friends, this is a revolutionary advance in our understanding of what religion has taught. Ye are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch, says Bah. A statement of extraordinary, infinite meaning and um power in reshaping the world. And his followers of course are very clear that their conception of unity necessarily includes the concept of diversity. It's a given. It is diversity that endows humankind with beauty. And it is the infinite expressions of human diversity that not only take nothing away from its essential oneness, they enable it to find its true realization. The Bahigh concept of the human spirit as the common and unifying identity that makes each soul a direct relation of every other soul. Each a noble creation endowed with rational capability. What one Bahigh writer describes as unbounded identity provides the only basis for all the peoples of the world to be connected. There is no other basis. It is an identity that contains all the other identities and all the other loyalties in their highest expression. Now friends, the daily deteriorating state of the world means that the cultivation of this culture of peace is the crucial task of the hour. Yet present day society is so far removed from this ideal that it is difficult for us to imagine what it implies and how it can be modeled. But I want to tell you now a story which gives us a glimpse of what this might mean. It is an incident that occurred in the year 1889. So something in the order of about two and a half years before the passing of Bahalah before the end of his earthly ministry and it is the account a story a incident of the murder of a believer inhabad. The believer was Muhammad Razar, a well-known prominent believer in that area whose um life story actually and the way that he was um in a certain sense chosen by God to to to vindicate this teaching in this way is quite extraordinary itself. that he's if you like the backstory and this evening our time is limited so I will confine myself to the to the account of what happened after his murder. Basically there was a conspiracy in Ishkabad where the religious clerics um ensured that um uh the this particular believer would be would be assassinated as a sign uh to the other bahigh and in fact part of an initial conspiracy believed to then include and extend to other other bahigh in the city too. You remember that Ishkabat at the instruction of Bahala and the encouragement of Bahala had emerged as a center of Bahay endeavor and the emergence of the really the first community that had emerged in a certain level of security and safety and was reflecting the light of the revelation in greater and greater measure with every passing day. So this believer was murdered in the most heinenous way. Bahala himself tells us this the the in his t one of his tablets says that the believer was stabbed no less than 32 times in broad daylight in in the public square in the bazar actually because of the feeling that the clerics had developed that the bahay can be just as all these bahigh 20,000 believers had been martyed already and so they felt that they could murder another bahigh with impunity and in a certain sense stop the development of the faith inhabad. Um but of course they uh had miscalculated profoundly. This was not Iran. It was uh the region of Turk what was called then Turkystan, what is now called Turk Menistan, but part of Tsarist Russia. And so the rule of law applied and quite unexpectedly unexpectedly by those who had cons the conspirators um the murderers were apprehended and were brought to trial. Now at this point an extraordinary effort to um ensure their aquit was set in motion. Again the story is is a most dramatic story and a and a really quite quite an astonishing uh series of events. We happen to have in this episode of history extremely detailed uh records of what happened because some time earlier Baha had sent the great scholar of the course Mir Faz to Eshkabad to help in the development and the upliftment and what today we would call to build capacity in Eshkabad among the believers. He had been there and of course with his great capacity he was able to both uh rally the believers to keep them united to uh ensure their uh sense of uh tranquility and calmness to be able to to respond appropriately but also to defend the actions of the Bahigh and the Bahai community and to vindicate the the the uh the um innocence of this believer who'd been martyed in this way. So we have very detailed accounts of what happened very quickly. Uh there were appeals to the to the zar to let these um convicted by this point the trial has taken place and again under very dramatic circumstances these uh the the murderers two murderers have been found guilty and conspirators other conspirators also have been found guilty and these two have been sentenced to death. So this is a difficult situation for the Olama. And so an appeal is made in three major cities of Iran. And ama the ama raise funds in order to first of all uh bribe the officials in Eshabad to let these people go to commute their sentences. And then when their uh efforts prove unavailing they petition the sha nasarin sha to contact the zar and appeal for a a reversal of the verdict. Nasin Sha at this point is in Europe traveling and message reaches him and he does in fact intervene with the Zsar but again the Zsar proves unavailing in terms of un unmoved by this appeals all these appeals and and says this is this is a land where the law rules so the sentences remain. Now at this point um the bahigh move into into the uh into the realm of action and and uh appropriate principled action. So what they do is they then appeal to the zar to commute the sentence of these murderers. Now imagine that here you have a community here you have the entire history of the Bahigh faith friends up until then and if I may say so up until this day these 180 years never before I certainly have know of no case where a bahigh who's been murdered their perpetrators have been put on trial never to this day certainly never until then so here for the first time because it happens outside Iranian territory the murderers are put on trial and they're found guilty. And this is the moment in which if there was any sense of vengeance, any sense of um desire to of a of an eye for an eye, this would be the moment for it. But the bahigh seek um the u commuting of the sentence. The word reaches the zar and the zar puts the matter. says now that the bahigh have intervened uh because they are the victims the matter is put in the hands the decision put in the hands of the governor of the local governor nobody knows this at this point so the local governor decides in order to ensure the rule of law and ensure public safety and that this is not repeated this this uh this incident he decides that the um pretense of the discharge of this verdict will be gone through. So he orders that the gallows be raised and that these two murderers uh that the matter proceeds to all the stages of their public execution. So you can imagine now the just the the the dramatic nature of this this scene. The entire city is now the city square is filled with people with the crowds who've come to to see what is going to happen here and the gallows have been raised and u the news some reports say that noose was even placed upon the necks of the two murderers and it is at that point that the governor comes forward and makes an announcement. Actually, it's the public um um the what we would call the what we call the public defender, the the uh the prosecutor, the public prosecutor is the one who comes forward and and reads out a statement on behalf of the governor and explicitly states at that point that because the Bahigh themselves, the local Bahai community has has petitioned the ZAR, Thesar has given the governor the the um license to commute these sentences and that the uh governor has decided to reduce the sentences from u public execution to exile and that these two individuals are going to be exiled to Siberia and the other conspirators also will be will be exiled but their sentences are also cut in half. So news of this reaches Bahalah and you know Bahalah is delighted at this response of his his followers. He is delighted in ways and in um refers it refers to it in in terms which are most extraordinary. They are quite quite sup in superlative terms. Baha says how proud he is of the community that has been raised there. He says that day and night in in one of his tablets he says in day and night I render praise to God that people have been raised and trained who were able to take their um attackers and to intercede on behalf of their murderers not only to forgive them but to intercede on their behalf. He says that uh see if I can find this passage. Yes. He says um for the victims of oppression to intercede in favor of their enemies is in the estimation of rulers a princely deed. Some must have certainly heard that this oppressed people having that city pleaded with the governor on behalf of their murderers and asked for the mitigation of their sentence. Take then good heed ye who are men of insight. Day and night this wronged one yieldth thanks and praise unto the Lord of men. For it is witnessed that the words and councils of exhaltation we uttered have proved effective and that this people have evinced such character and conduct as are acceptable in our sight. This is affirmed by virtue of the event which has truly cheered the eyes of the world and it is none other than the intercession of the friends with the high authorities in favor of their enemies. So I asked the research department whether Bah refers to this incident how many times he refers to this in he's I I knew that he'd mentioned it in some of the most well-known tablets after that date the epistle to the son of the wolf perhaps the most important load mentions it the loa times the tablet to the times he mentions this so I asked how many times did bahalo in the remaining two two and a half years of his life his ministry refers to this and the research English department replied that they have to date found 31 references. So practically every um uh significant opportunity that the blessed beauty had he referred to this incident because it is a kind of emblematic of the kind of believer that he wished to have raised and he says himself in one of the references he says that it it was 40 years of effort that it took to take the believers that we've we inherited the followers of the Bob in the state that they were in the state of of uh um of uh ill discipline that in which they they were until they became the followers that he had raised the the finest the finest souls that he had raised in this entire world and he says we succeeded. So friends we consider the standard of peace to which humanity is summoned by the word of God to be this standard. This is not sufficient you see to have a ceasefire or a sessation of hostilities a negotiated settlement. What Abdah says and we read earlier he must show forth tenderness and love to every human being. He goes on to say even to your enemies and you can imagine what sort of culture of peace will emerge in the world when this council is taken to heart. And indeed friends, might we not see the same magnanmity, the same peaceability in every bahid throughout the history of our cause and today all around us. Do we not recall for example when the most great house in 2013 was destroyed in Baghdad? the most grievous blow the House of Justice said that the people of the world have suffered, let alone the Bahighas. And then some days later, still in a state of grief and shock at what had happened to that most holy habitation of Bahalah, one of the centers of pilgrimage in this cause, the House of Justice wrote the following in describing the entire history in a letter a few days later. There was the cable first and then there was a letter in which the House of Justice made the following statement. really told the whole entire history of the most great house from the time the Baha vacated it all the way to 2013. And it said this, "In the world at large, it has become all too familiar for a blow of this severity dealt to a hallowed sight to provoke an aggressive response. The bahigh of Iraq, trained by the hand of the Abha beauty, will of course remain the embodiment of kindness and forbearance. hopeful of a just outcome. To gain insight into what the most great house truly stands for, one need only observe the response of the bahigh throughout the world to to the destruction of the house. High-mindedness, serenity, trust in God. Isn't it extraordinary friends that it wouldn't occur to a bahigh anywhere in the world? It wouldn't even occur to anyone to think of revenge even on a case of such great desecration and uh and destruction. And might we not also say that the heroic forbearance of the bahaz in Iran over the course of the last four and a half decades, not to say over the course of 180 years of its history, is yet another example of meeting the crulest oppression with fortitude and constructive resilience, but without resorting to retaliation, resisting even ranker, let alone violence. Hatred has failed then to beget hatred. Persecution has failed to uh produce its own like and has instead produced service. Crisis has brought forth new capacities and suffering has yielded resolution and determination. So the example the bahigh give to the world of how the teachings are to be lived is of critical importance because a major obstacle standing in the way of efforts to cultivate peace is the widespread belief that those efforts will not succeed and there's no point in trying in the promise of world peace. You might remember friends that this condition was referred to by the House of Justice as a paralysis of will, an unwillingness to actually take on the challenge of finding solutions on the same scale as the challenges exist for humanity on the idea that human beings are incouraably selfish and aggressive and incapable of building a peaceful society. Now in the face of the cynicism and the disillusionment which is so pervasive in the world, the Bahigh community is a living proof that unity among the peoples of the world is possible and that the system of social organization founded on service and the exercise of spiritual qualities can in fact exist. In the promise of world peace, the House of Justice writes, "If the Bahigh experience can contribute in whatever measure to reinforcing hope in the unity of the human race, we are happy to offer it as a model for study." In other words, we are not just talking about peace, we're actually developing a model of a peaceful society. In 1985, that model for study that the House of Justice was proposing was essentially modeling how diverse people can live together and constitute a global community. That was then. In 2019, the House of Justice, as you know, wrote another message about peace. This time addressed to the Bahigh of the world and went much, much further. In that message, the House of Justice stated that the worldwide Bahigh community is today not only a compelling model of vibrant unity and diversity, which it is, but it is much much more than that. It models today much much more than that. Today in the pattern of community life that bahigh and like-minded people are together constructing they're also modeling how the very roots root causes of conflict and war the barriers to peace as they were called in 1985 can be systematically and fundamentally addressed. This as is this is an enormous advance in just four decades. The communities being constructed today are increasingly endowed with a framework which is enabling them to systematically address those barriers. So it's not just a model of people getting along but it's a model where those barriers are systematically at the level of the community systematically being um removed. These communities have adopted the learning mode. A mode of operation based on action, reflection, consultation and study which draws insights from the exploration of the revelation and of scientific inquiry. what the BA community is doing today in the seedbeds of the rural villages of the world and in the green houses of the urban neighborhoods is nothing short of the cultivation and the incubation of those essential relationships among the protagonists of a new social order bearing the imprint of divine inspiration. Emerging from these seedbeds and green houses, from the interactions of these essential relationships, is a model of a new kind of reality, one that rewards close examination, even more than the model which was offered in 1985. Anyone choosing to examine it closely will see a community that is educating its children in the ways of oneness. A community that is empowering its youth to develop their intellectual and moral powers so as to conceptualize the purpose of their lives as the betterment of the world and of service to society. They will see a community that deploys consultation as a means not only to resolve conflict but as a powerful process to attain higher and higher levels of unity of shared insight and common understanding and as a way to facilitate collaboration in place of destructive competition. They will see a community in which the family unit is being revived and reimagined not as isolated households but as the connective tissue of community life. Especially visible when groups of families come together to work for social well-being and to improve their conditions through cooperation and mutual support. They will see a community that aims to elevate the social conversations around it, the public discourse by applying the principles of unity and justice. They will see a community that is committed to learning and to learning in action and to learning in action with ever widening circles of unity. And of course, Bahigh are not building a model that simply invites imitation. The Bahay community is building a model that invites participation and co- construction. We are seeing more and more instances friends of how the wider society is recognizing this and it is recognizing the practices of the Bahigh community as practices that embody peace, practices that cultivate peace and practices that are building the culture of peace. Allow me to share with you just a few examples of the current endeavors of the Bahigh community. Today, environments are being cultivated across the world where children can be raised without prejudice and schooled in the curriculum of oneness. In India, where the ancient cast system is giving way to spaces where all can participate as equals. where literally centuries of division and patterns that have taken literally centuries to build. Within a relatively short time, these old practices are being dispelled in neighborhoods and villages as people from childhood learn to come together to work for their collective interests as equals, including internalizing the equality of women and men. Again, something that has been conditioned in certain societies around the world in a certain sense in every society around the world one way or another for centuries or in Kirbas where the junior youth program is being offered in schools and where officials have noticed behavioral changes in the nation's entire youth population. In this island community, government authorities have attributed the reduction in crime and lower prison rates among the youth directly to the junior youth program. Local assemblies are assuming their role of providing guidance and serving sacrificially to resolve conflict and build unity. In numerous cases, friends, around the world, problems are taken for resolution to local assemblies by the people who live there, irrespective of whether they are bahighas or not. In Kenya, the awareness and involvement of the wider community in Bahigh efforts has advanced to such a degree that members of the local assembly serve with leaders of villages on the community council that addresses matters related to security, education, economic life, health, crime and all manner of processes of community life. And in some instances, the capacity and experience of the Bahigh institutions and their moral authority has reached the stage where they're able to bring together contending clans, tribes, and even waring parties to resolve their conflicts and cease their hostilities. Whether in South Ku in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where at a gathering of traditional leaders participants were keen to comment on how the involvement of the Bahigh had reduced conflict in the region in the entire region and created the means for finding solutions to pressing social problems. how Bahigh should be commended for the model they represent and how if it had been for gatherings of that kind before a certain war that they were referring to maybe the war itself could have been averted or whether in Yemen where tribal leaders involved in a long-standing armed conflict turned to Bahigh distinguished for their nobility of character and high-mindedness to mediate between them leading to the brokering of a deal that led to reconciliation a deal whose terms and whose text was written by the local bahigh. Indeed in every place friends all around us wherever we are in every place where bahigh live and where there is some kind of simmering hostility among the different peoples there is potentiality for or an opportunity for bahigh to engage in a learning process about how to create spaces in which opposing groups can come together and find ways to put aside their differences. Bahigh know how to create environments of unity of a devotional atmosphere and the dynamics that are conducive to consultation all founded on an educational process that teaches us oneness. So friends, I hope that it is somewhat um uh clear what I what I was referring to what I what I believe to be the meaning of the Bahigh community and the bahigh as individuals being the true practitioners of peace and what it might mean for the bahigh to be constructing that refuge for humanity at this moment. This is the statement of the house of justice, a refuge for humanity at this moment of increasing injustice and affliction and to build these havens of peace. As justice specifically states that it sees the friends building ultimate havens in every account of a heart being enkindled with the love of God, a family opening up its home to new friends. These are these are relatively simple things friends but profound things at the same time. Collaborators drawing on Bahala's teachings to address a social problem. A community strengthening a culture of mutual support. A neighborhood or village learning to initiate and sustain the actions necessary for its own spiritual and material progress. A locality being blessed with the emergence of a new spiritual assembly. Meanwhile, of course, the conditions of the world is worsening and the prospects for improvements are uncertain at best. This affection with the state of the world is widespread and it is being expressed through protests and demonstrations. with young people in many countries among the most prominent of those involved, especially in opposition to war. These protests have often been highly politicized, of course, as they attack the actions of governments and demand changes to domestic or foreign policy. In many instances, these protests have become elevated in the collective consciousness to a moral act. And of course this poses a particular challenge, a problem for the bahigh, Bahai youth in particular I would say most especially at universities um where bahigh come under great pressure from their friends about this both online and in the in the real world. In some cases, their friends even view non-participation as immoral and as complicity. Of course, they will often be aware that Bahigh care deeply about peace and so they assume the bahigh would be enthusiastic supporters of protests and demonstrations. And this places Bahigh in a difficult position. There's no doubt about that because by their nature such protests require taking a posture and adopting a position of being against someone else and becoming the other pole to a bipolar conflict. This subject was explored as you know in detail with I believe great compassion and understanding for what the youth are subject to in terms of the forces that they are confronted with. in the letter dated 26th of May 2024 that was written on behalf of the House of Justice to the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity. Many societies then find themselves having to cope with deep divisions caused not only by war but by a variety of political, social and ideological differences that contend against each other in all forms of media and in comp and in in in competing demonstrations on the streets. The Bahigh position needs to be understood well. Friends, bahigh make no judgment about those who are engaged in protests. Indeed, people are often motivated to protest precisely because they feel genuine concern for their fellow human beings and they are appalled by the suffering they see on their television screens and on social media. Bahayas share many of the same concerns, but their response is marketkedly different. In its Resvan 2024 message, the House of Justice acknowledged the sadness and concern that Bahayas of course feel at the escalating tensions in the world. But it stated clearly that those feelings of concern must prompt sustained effort and I quote sustained effort to build communities that offer hope in place of despair, unity in place of conflict. This perspective shapes the way in which the Bahigh community understands the significance of its own actions. To me, this is why the House of Justice keeps reminding us that we are the true practitioners of peace. In this light, the nine-year plan is recognized to be the systematic expression of the determination by his field to address the causes of conflict and to cultivate peace. Just as I was suggesting that the cause of Bahala is the cause of peace, the same thing, the 9-year plan is the construction of peace in the world. Ultimately, the plan represents a program for building communities that bear witness to the oneness of mankind. Communities that refuse to be paralyzed by despair which is all around us, but which alternatively do not become indifferent to suffering. Of course not. Communities that are far from oblivious to their surroundings but but which assue indeed aim to transcend partisanship. Communities learning to kindle the spirit of common cause and common endeavor releasing the deep motivation that is vested in every soul who wishes and every soul wishes to live in peace with others and to prosper. In short, communities cultivating a pattern of life which fosters peace and generates hope. And the value of hope, friends, in the world that we see around us should not be underestimated. Large sections of society are giving voice to feelings of mental anguish, anxiety, and desperation. And these are often rooted in a loss of hope, in the powerlessness that people feel to be able to find a solution to their own immediate difficulties, much less solutions to the world's problems. A recognition indeed that even leaders who mean well towards their populations are so often at the mercy of forces they can neither control nor even fully comprehend. When we consider the condition of the world, friends, we might view this as one of the saddest facts that humanity does not know where to turn to go forward. It has so much information at its fingertips of course, but so much misinformation as well, which makes it so hard for individuals to distinguish what is true and what is false. It is hard to establish even a set of facts on which to begin to examine reality. It is hard for people to discover by themselves the path that God has given to humanity that leads to individuals to individual and to universal peace. And it is hard for them to discover ultimately what God what God wants for them. In that celebrated passage in the book of certitude, you remember Bahasa asks, he asks this question so relevant and related to our times. What oppression asks Bahalah? What oppression is more grievous than that a soul seeking the truth and wishing to attain unto the knowledge of God should not know where to go for it and from whom to seek it. Social scientists and indeed any observer with acuity can see that what so many people deeply desire is to make a difference to their own lives and to the lives of their families and the lives of the people around them economically, socially, emotionally. But they do not know what they can do that ultimately will make an immediate difference to their lives and beyond that how to respond to the tyranny and oppression of the world. Yet the very moment that the soul is inspired with a vision of Bahalah in the ways that we know it in the way we have seen it from that very very moment the soul is awakened to its own spiritual reality and its own limitless powers and potentialities. That soul is able to make a profound shift in consciousness that is away from hopelessness and towards a vision of the future. That soul becomes morally and spiritually empowered from that very moment onwards. And that paralysis of will that we talked about earlier gives way to a sense of moral agency. And as it learns those processes of a new kind of community life that souls gains new life. We understand the very meaning even in a different way of a second birth. From that instant it can begin to attain inner peace and both as a cognitive and spiritual state but also from that very instant it can begin to contribute in practical ways to the peace of the world around that soul. Let me conclude then friends with a statement from the Resvan 2022 message which was released just two months after a ruinous war broke out in Europe. This is what the House just wrote. The dysfunctional state of present day society makes the need for the release of the society building power of the faith abundantly clear and pressing. We cannot expect we cannot but expect that for now convulsions and disturbances will continue to afflict the world. You will no doubt appreciate then why every earnest supplication we offer for all God's children to be relieved from bewilderment and bitter hardship is coupled with an equally heartfelt prayer for the success of the much needed service you are rendering for the cause of the prince of peace. Thank you. >> [applause] [applause]