must inevitably encounter--guided the beleaguered community in
doing all it could to encourage political reform, and then in being
willing to step aside when these efforts were cynically rebuffed.

It was not only through His Tablets that 'Abdu'l-Baha exercised this
influence on the rapidly developing Baha'i community in the cradle of the
Faith. Unlike Westerners, Persian believers were not distinguished from
other peoples of the Near East by dress and appearance, and so travellers
from the cradle of the Faith did not arouse the suspicion of the Ottoman
authorities. Consequently, a steady stream of Persian pilgrims provided
'Abdu'l-Baha with another powerful means of inspiring the friends, guiding
their activities, and drawing them ever more deeply into an understanding
of Baha'u'llah's purpose. Some of the greatest names in Persian Baha'i
history were among those who journeyed to 'Akka and returned to their
homes prepared to give their lives if necessary for the achievement of the
Master's vision. The immortal Varqa and his son Ruhu'llah were among this
privileged number, as were Haji Mirza Haydar 'Ali, Mirza Abu'l Fadl, Mirza
Muhammad-Taqi Afnan and four distinguished Hands of the Cause,
Ibn-i-Abhar, Haji Mulla Ali Akbar, Adibu'l-Ulama and Ibn-i-Asdaq. The
spirit that today sustains Persian pioneers in every part of the world and
that plays so creative a role in the building of Baha'i community life
runs like a straight line through family after family back to those heroic
days. In retrospect, it is apparent that the phenomenon we today know as
the twin processes of expansion and consolidation itself had its origin in
those marvellous years.

Inspired by the Master's words and the accounts brought back from the Holy
Land, Persian believers arose to undertake travel-teaching activities in
the Far East. During the latter years of Baha'u'llah's Ministry,
communities had been established in India and Burma, and the Faith carried
as far as China; and this work was now reinforced. A demonstration of the
new powers released in the Cause was the erection in the Russian province
of Turkestan, where a vigorous Baha'i community life had also developed,
of the first Baha'i House of Worship in the world,(12) a project inspired
by the Master and guided, from its inception, by His advice.

It was this broad range of activities, carried out by an increasingly
confident body of believers and stretching from the Mediterranean to the