Photograph of Baha'u'llah

August 1. On this date in 1967, the Universal House of Justice wrote an individual believer "Concerning the question of display of the photograph of Bahá'u'lláh, the Guardian's instructions were that this should be done only with the utmost reverence, and then only on special occasions. While the Guardian did not require believers to send such photographs to the Holy Land, he said that it was better to do so. However, if you have made any photographic copies or negatives of the photograph or the portrait, these should be forwarded to the Holy Land in a safe way."

http://bahai-library.com/uhj_photographs_bahaullah_miller

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The House of Justice does not issue an accounting of the current expenditure of these funds.

You have asked as to where and how the House of Justice reports on its uses of the funds received through payment of Huqúqu’lláh. The House of Justice does not issue an accounting of the current expenditure of these funds.

http://bahai-library.com/compilation_huququllah_right_god#s4

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Training Institutes has the capacity to sustain the process of entry by troops.

We are greatly heartened by the news reaching us of the enthusiastic response of the friends to the Four Year Plan. Particularly encouraging are the efforts of National Spiritual Assemblies everywhere to establish training institutes and to systematically address the development of human resources. The number of national and regional institutes is rapidly increasing, and indications are that there may be more than one hundred operating in the world by the close of the first year of the Plan. We cherish the hope that from each of these centers of learning will issue forth ever-growing contingents of believers capable of carrying out a wide array of services to the Cause, creating thus in every country the capacity to sustain the process of entry by troops.

http://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-universal-house-of-justice/messages/19960806_001/19960806_001.pdf

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Supreme Court : "the plaintiffs have no right to a monopoly of the name of a religion."

August 7. On this date in 1928, the "Bahá'í" trademark (Trade-Mark 245,271) was registered with the United States Patent Office.

On March 31, 1941, the New York Supreme Court dismissed a court case brought by National Spiritual Assembly and Trustees of the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada against Mirza Ahmad Sohrab for the use of the word "Bahá'í." The judge granted a motion to dismiss, stating that "the plaintiffs have no right to a monopoly of the name of a religion. The defendants, who purport to be members of the same religion, have an equal right to use the name of the religion..."

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Baha'u'llah identifies himself with these prophets

"As to the list of the prophets with whom Bahá'u'lláh identified Himself in the passage found on pages 26 and 27 of 'The Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh', their names are as follows: Abraham, Moses, Joseph, John the Baptist, Jesus, Imam Husayn, on whom Bahá'u'lláh has conferred an exceptionally exalted station, (and) the Bab."

(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, August 7, 1936)

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Qur'an: 1 day = 1,000 years. Babi: 1 day = 1 year. Bahá'í: 30 days = ?

"Concerning the passage in the 'Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh' in which the Guardian quotes Abdu'l-Bahá's interpretation of the prophecy referring to the times when the sun would stand still in the heavens, he wishes me to explain that the days referred to in this prophecy have to be reckoned differently. In the Sacred Scripture of various religions there are to be found frequent references to days, but these have been considered as indicating different periods of time, as for instance in the Qur'an a day is reckoned as one thousand years. The first ten days in the above-mentioned prophecy represent each a century, making thus a total of one thousand lunar years. As to the twenty days referring to the Babi Dispensation, each of them represents only one lunar year, the total of twenty years marking the duration of the Revelation of the Bab. The thirty days in the last Dispensation should not be reckoned numerically, but should be considered as symbolizing the incomparable greatness of the Bahá'í Revelation which, though not final, is nonetheless thus far the fullest revelation of God to man. From a physical point of view, the thirty days represent the maximum time taken by the sun to pass through a sign of the zodiac. They thus represent a culminating point in the evolution of this star. So also from a spiritual standpoint these thirty days should be viewed as indicating the highest, though not the final, stage in the spiritual evolution of mankind."

(From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, August 7, 1934: Bahá'í News, No. 87, September 1934, p. 1)

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...then took them to the Baha'i Center for a meal.

August 7. On this date in 1908, Mildred Mottahedeh was born in Seabright, New Jersey.

On June 15, 1997, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel featured an article about Mildred Root Mottahedeh who was a member of the International Bahá'í Council and the first representative of the Bahá'í International Community to the United Nations. She made a substantial fortune from her luxury porcelain business.

The article notes...

For the last five years, she has served as a consultant to Mottahedeh & Co., having sold it to fellow Baha'is Grant and Wendy Kvalheim.

Now, she's retiring in order to focus full-time on the Mottahedeh Foundation, which has founded and sponsored projects in Uganda, Zaire, India and Micronesia.

Founded in 1958, the foundation is an extension of philanthropic work that she and her husband started in 1929, when they began their 49-year marriage. Living in an apartment in Greenwich Village, they were better off than many, she said.

"We felt so sorry for all the poor kids, all the starving people. We felt a sense of obligation."

Once a month, they rented a double-decker bus, filled it with children, drove to clothing and candy wholesalers,dressed and treated the kids, then took them to the Baha'i Center for a meal.

Baha'i was founded in the mid-19th century in Iran. Its main tenets are the unity of all religions and the unity of humankind.

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Who is Mary Maxwell AKA Ruhiyyih Khanum AKA Amatul Baha

August 8. On this date in 1910, Mary Maxwell Sutherland was born in New York City. In 1937 she married Shoghi Effendi who would appoint her to the International Bahá'í Council in 1951 and in 1952 named her a Hand of the Cause of God. She was titled Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum.

Mary Sutherland Maxwell was born in New York City on August 8, 1910 to William Sutherland Maxwell and May Maxwell, early prominent Bahá'ís. William Sutherland Maxwell was the architect who would design the Shrine of the Bab. In 1912, during his tour of North America, 'Abdu'l-Bahá stayed in the Maxwells' home in Montreal where he would give his famous talk discussing his views on native cultures, Africans, indigenous North Americans and pre-Columbian America.

During her youth she twice traveled to Palestine for pilgrimage, the first time with her mother at age twelve and the second time with her mother's friends at age sixteen. It was during these pilgrimages that she first met Shoghi Effendi.

As a young woman, Mary had expressed a great desire to learn Spanish. However, her plans to travel to Republican Spain were thwarted with the Spanish Civil War. Instead, Mary chose to live with her cousin in Nazi Germany in 1935, a move which was endorsed by Shoghi Effendi. In Germany, Shoghi Effendi encouraged Mary to strengthen the fledgling Bahá’í community. The young Mary assimilated herself in German culture, wearing a dirndl and learning to speak German fluently. Whilst in Germany, Mary received an invitation from Shoghi Effendi to make a pilgrimage with her mother. Mother and daughter accepted the invitation.

Arriving in Haifa in January 1937 with her mother, she and Shoghi Effendi began a brief courtship. In February the couple were engaged, and Mary cabled her father to come as soon as he could to Haifa. On March 24 at the age of 26, Mary married Shoghi Effendi. The newlyweds made a trip to Switzerland and Shoghi Effendi introduced his young bride to his favorite sights in the country to which he would often travel. It was only a year after his wedding that Shoghi Effendi in 1938 praised Germany's Anschluss of Austria.

In 1951 Shoghi Effendi appointed her to the International Bahá'í Council and in 1952 a Hand of the Cause of God, as a replacement for her father who had died shortly before her appointment. She accompanied Shoghi Effendi during his various visits with the leadership of the newly-established State of Israel.

After Shoghi Effendi's death, for the remainder of her life, she traveled extensively and gave numerous talks. From 1969 through 1973, she undertook a Great African Safari. Around 1981, she spoke to the Persian Bahá'í community in Los Angeles "upbraiding them for settling in a such a decadent urban center, implying they should never have left Iran, and that if they had insisted on doing so should at least have had the decency to settle as missionaries in some remote village of the global South...When someone from the audience asked where they should have settled instead, she replied in Persian that it was self-evident: "Khar kih nistid" ("you are not asses")."

She died on January 19, 2000, at the age of 89 in Haifa, Israel where she is buried at the Bahá'í World Centre.

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The man has primary responsibility for the financial support of the family, and the woman is the chief and primary educator of the children.

"With regard to your question whether mothers should work outside the home, it is helpful to consider the matter from the perspective of the concept of a Bahá'í family. This concept is based on the principle that the man has primary responsibility for the financial support of the family, and the woman is the chief and primary educator of the children. This by no means implies that these functions are inflexibly fixed and cannot be changed and adjusted to suit particular family situations, nor does it mean that the place of the woman is confined to the home. Rather, while primary responsibility is assigned, it is anticipated that fathers would play a significant role in the education of the children and women could also be breadwinners. As you rightly indicated, Abdu'l-Bahá encouraged women to 'participate fully and equally in the affairs of the world'."

(From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer, August 9, 1984: Ibid.)

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Intelligent services of the Baha'is

On August 10, 1924, a report to Secretary of State Hughes about the murder of American Vice Consul Imbrie noted "to Reza Khan's credit...has freely made use in the Army and the Government of the intelligent services of the Bahá'ís, who may well be considered the only hope of Islam."

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There are three processes in teaching

There are three processes in teaching: the first is to attract the people; the second is to convert the people; and the third is to be consecrated. There must be attraction, conversion, and consecration.

- Shoghi Effendi

https://bahai-library.com/brown_memories_abdulbaha

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Shoghi Effendi : Please share Pilgrim Notes

"Please share your notes that you have taken here with the friends when you return home."

-Shoghi Effendi

https://bahai-library.com/brown_memories_abdulbaha

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Flee from the United States because America will become the storm center of the future.... Buy property in Central Africa!

The young people must disperse far away, the old ones to outlying places; they must settle goal cities. Sell your property and pioneer!...The young people of America should go out into the country on farms and work with their hands and produce food for their families.

Americans are exposed to great dangers. Today the power of America is in the hands of the masses. There is a terrific power in the press, and the people are swayed by it. The United States, on a national scale, sets the pattern for an international pattern... There will be a world civil war followed by the establishment of a world state; all the nations will be part of it and will have to conform to it. This war has already started in Korea. Mankind cannot be purified and cleansed without suffering... It is positively dangerous to live in cities. The cities are doomed. They will evaporate... The Bahá'ís must disperse from the cities...why do they not disperse? If they do not respond and disperse, they will suffer spiritually, materially, and physically...In America the destruction will be great!... They must disperse for their own protection. the cities are doomed: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles. They must flee from the United States because America will become the storm center of the future.... Buy property in Central Africa! Those with independent means must pack up and go.... Those with spirit must pack up and go.... There must be a mass response... I can warn them, but I cannot make them go.... The Cause will triumph in spite of the actions and inactivity of the believers.

https://bahai-library.com/brown_haifa_notes

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Dr Kelly gave a slide show and lecture about his experiences as a weapons inspector in Iraq to a small almost private gathering of the Baha'i faith...

August 11. On this date in 2003, The Independent carried an article about David Kelly, noting "In October 2002, Dr Kelly gave a slide show and lecture about his experiences as a weapons inspector in Iraq to a small almost private gathering of the Baha'i faith, which aims to unite the teachings of all the prophets. Dr Kelly had converted to the religion three years earlier, while in New York on attachment to the UN. When he returned to England he became treasurer of the small but influential Baha'i branch in Abingdon near his home. Roger Kingdon, a member, recalls: 'He had no doubt that [the Iraqis] had biological and chemical weapons. It was clear that David Kelly was largely happy with the material in the dossier.'"

On July 17, 2003, David Kelly was found dead from an apparent suicide, two days after appearing before a parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee. An authority on biological warfare employed by the British Ministry of Defence, and formerly a weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, David Kelly was a prime source for the false information of Iraq's purported possession of weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

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Buddhism is an old and decrepit man.

The teaching of Buddha was like a young and beautiful child, and now it has become as an old and decrepit man. Like the aged man it cannot see, it cannot hear, it cannot remember anything.

- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, UK Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982 reprint

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/ABL/abl-25.html

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