I am reminded, moreover, of the initial spread of the light of this Revelation, in consequence of the banishment of Baha’u’llah, to the adjoining territories of Iraq, and, as far as the western fringes of that continent, to Turkey and the neighbouring territories of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and, at a later stage, to the Indian sub-continent and China, situated on the southern and eastern extremities of that continent as well as to the Caucasus and Russian Turkistan.
Nor can I fail to remember the series of alternating crises and victories—each constituting a landmark in the evolution of the Faith—which it has experienced in some of these territories, associated with the distressful withdrawal of its Author to the mountains of Sulaymaniyyih; with the glorious Declaration of His Mission in Baghdad; with His second and third banishments to Constantinople and Adrianople; with the grievous rebellion of His half-brother; with the proclamation of His own Mission; with His fourth banishment to the desolate and far-off penal colony of Akka in Syria; with the revelation of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, His Most Holy Book; with His ascension in the Holy Land; with the establishment of His Covenant and the inauguration of the Ministry of Abdu’l-Baha, His son and the Exemplar and authorized interpreter of His teachings.
These opening stages in the evolution of His Faith in the Asiatic continent were followed, while the first and Apostolic Age of His Dispensation was drawing to a close, by the opening of the Islands situated in the Pacific Ocean, Japan in the north, and the Australian continent in the South. To these memorable chapters of Asian Baha’i history another was soon added, on the morrow of the ascension of the Centre of Baha’u’llah’s Covenant, and during the initial epoch of the Formative Age of the Faith, distinguished by the rise of the Administrative Order and the erection of its pillars in the cradle of that Faith, in Iraq, in India, Pakistan and Burma and in the Antipodes. This memorable episode in its development in that vast continent was succeeded by the initiation, during the second Epoch of that same Age, of a series of Plans in those same territories in support of Abdu’l-Baha’s Divine Plan and as a prelude to the opening of the recently launched world-embracing Spiritual Crusade.