the Seat of Guardianship

The Bahai World Administrative Center. The passage “Ere long will God sail His Ark upon thee” in Bahāʾ-Allāh’s Tablet of Carmel (Lawḥ-e Kārmel) (Bahāʾ Allāh, tr. Taherzadeh et al., p. 5) was later interpreted by Sho-ghi Effendi as an allusion to the future establishment of The Universal House of Justice on Mount Carmel. Sho-ghi Effendi designated the world administrative buildings around the Arc Garden to be the Bahai International Archives, the Seat of the Hands of the Cause of God (Ayādi-e amr-Allāh, q.v.), the Seat of Guardianship, and the Seat of the Universal House of Justice (Shoghi Effendi, 1958, p. 74). Afterwards, the Seat of the Guardianship became the Center for the Study of the Texts building, and the Seat of the Hands of the Cause of God became the International Teaching Center building; the Bahai International Library, the last building of the complex referred to as the Arc buildings, has not yet been built. The Bahai World Administrative Center, according to Shoghi Effendi, symbolizes the “seat of spiritual and temporal power” and will serve as “the seat of the future Bahai commonwealth” (1958, pp. 73-75).

(Encyclopedia Iranica)

www.iranicaonline.org/articles/haifa/