(Transcript of a talk as part of
six talks given during a week-long course in February of 2004 on the “World
Order of Baha'u'llah”. The event was sponsored by the NSA of Italy. The notes
also include questions raised by the participants and Mr. Nakhjavani’s answers.
This text, excluding the quotations section, was published in 2005 under the
title "Towards World Order". A chapter on “The Covenant” was added in
the 2007 edition.)
On October 18th 1927, referring to the Declaration of Trust and By-Laws of the
National Spiritual Assembly, Shoghi Effendi wrote the following addressing that
National Assembly: "You can but faintly imagine how comforting a stimulant
and how helpful a guide its publication and circulation will be to those
patient and toiling workers in Eastern lands... You can hardly realise how
substantially it would contribute to pave the way for the elaboration of the
beginnings of the constitution of the worldwide Bahá'í Community that will form
the permanent basis upon which the blest and sanctified edifice of the first
International House of Justice will securely rest and flourish."- (BA
p.143). In a letter referring to the same subject, addressed to the Bahá'ís in
Iran, Shoghi Effendi referred to the need for the Persian National Assembly to
have its own constitution, and pointed out that the constitution of National
Assemblies is the Greater Law of God's Holy Faith, while the constitution of
the Universal House of Justice is its Most Great Law. In 1934, when he wrote
his "Dispensation", Shoghi Effendi once again referred to the future
constitution of the Supreme Body of the Faith.
