Six Thousand Voices at the Albert Hall

A retelling based on Beatrice Ashton's report "The Most Great Jubilee" in The Bahá'í World, vol. XIV, and the transcript of the tape of Rúḥíyyih Khánum's closing address, with details from a message of the Universal House of Justice, The Bahá'í World, vol. XX, Adam Thorne and Harry Liedtke. Words in quotation marks are from those sources.

The first Bahá'í World Congress opened on Sunday, 28 April 1963, at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In all, more than six thousand Bahá'ís from every continent converged on the hall over its five days. Many wore native costume. They crossed Knightsbridge in such numbers that the traffic stopped, and they crowded up the steps of the hall. They had come for the Most Great Jubilee, the hundredth anniversary of Bahá'u'lláh's Declaration of His mission in the Garden of Riḍván in Baghdád. It had proved impossible to hold the celebration in Baghdád, and it was held instead in London, where Shoghi Effendi had passed away and been laid to rest five and a half years before. The nine members of the Universal House of Justice, newly elected in Haifa, were there, with twelve Hands of the Cause.

The Bahá'ís greeted one another with "Alláh-u-Abhá," God the All-Glorious, a form of the Greatest Name, adopted as a greeting during Bahá'u'lláh's exile in Adrianople. Two accounts of a policeman have come down. In Adam Thorne's essay, an officer who had been listening to the greeting repeated it and was hugged enthusiastically. Harry Liedtke, who came from Toronto for the Congress, remembered a lone bobby trying to shepherd visitors across the road to the Albert Memorial. Nobody paid him any attention until he raised both arms and shouted the greeting. The crowd froze, then ran to hug and kiss him.

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On the third day the Knights of Bahá'u'lláh, too many to present one by one, sat in rows behind the platform while the thousands in the hall applauded them in waves. Dr. 'Azíz Navidí read a message from the Bahá'ís imprisoned in Morocco, and a tape of prayers they had chanted was played. The African singers then led the congregation in singing Alláh-u-Abhá, with voices, Ashton wrote, "reverent and tear-choked," and hearts turning to those in prison and to absent family. On 7 May the Universal House of Justice listed "the spontaneous outbursts of singing" of the Name among the outstanding events of the Jubilee.

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The last session, on Thursday, 2 May, honoured the memory of Shoghi Effendi. The chairman introduced Rúḥíyyih Khánum, the Guardian's widow.

Her address was taped, and it runs to more than two hours. She told the hall how he had lived. He travelled third class on hard wooden benches and slept with his coat rolled under his head. After their marriage he took her to places more modest than any she had stayed in, and in the Swiss mountains they paid one franc a night for a room in a peasant's home. He had once had an attic room in the house of an old retired mountain guide, so low that his uncle, a tall man, banged his head on the ceiling. When he went back with her and found that the guide had died, he went to visit his grave.

He had loved the mountains to the end of his life, she said, and seemed to find a great comfort in them. It was a great source of happiness to her that in the last summer of his life he had gone back to all the places he loved most.

The transcript of the tape marks a lengthy pause there while she composed herself. She said he had taken such joy in it, in all the places dear to his heart. "He went back to that last summer," she said, and the transcript marks another lengthy pause. Ashton's report says these memories overwhelmed her and she could not continue for a few moments. "Spontaneously the African singers arose and softly and lovingly sang Alláh-u-Abhá until she was able to go on." The transcript has the chant coming from the audience. Thorne writes that the African Bahá'ís began and that six thousand sang the refrain as she composed herself. The memorial to Rudolfo Duna of Mozambique says that his "golden voice" went out across the auditorium and was quickly joined by some six thousand voices. The accounts differ on who began it and how many joined. They agree on what was sung.

When she could go on, she spoke of what she called his "absolutely iron principle." Her example concerned the Name itself. Not long after she came to Haifa, the municipality put up the name of Bahá on the little street in front of the house. The Guardian was furious. He sent word to the municipality at once that the sign must come down, because it was an insult to the Faith "to put the name of its prophet on a street." If they refused he would tear it down with his own hands, and if they wanted to put him in jail, they could. She had been very upset, she told the hall, wondering what she would do to get into jail too, and the hall laughed.

At the end of her address she said, "Friends, don't fail Shoghi Effendi." The Hand of the Cause Abú'l-Qásim Faizí gave the closing address. After selections from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and prayers in English and Persian, the first Bahá'í World Congress came to an end.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see "The Most Great Jubilee" by Beatrice Ashton in The Bahá'í World, vol. XIV.

Ashton, B.. (1974). *The Bahá'í World, Volume XIV (1963-1968)*. Bahá'í World Centre. https://bahai.works/Bah%C3%A1%E2%80%99%C3%AD_World/Volume_14/The_Most_Great_Jubilee