The Tablets of the Divine Plan

*A retelling based on **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi, which describes the revelation, unveiling and effect of the Tablets of the Divine Plan. Words in quotation marks are quoted from that book, from **Tablets of the Divine Plan**, and from **Star of the West**.*

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During the First World War 'Abdu'l-Bahá was cut off in the Holy Land. Shoghi Effendi compares the darkness of those days to "the most dangerous period of His incarceration in the prison-fortress of Akká." The Turkish Commander-in-Chief, according to British intelligence, meant to "crucify 'Abdu'l-Bahá and His family on Mt. Carmel" if his army had to leave Haifa.

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In those years 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote a series of fourteen Tablets addressed to the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada. The dates recorded with them show that eight were revealed between 26 March and 22 April 1916, and six between 2 February and 8 March 1917. Some were written in His room at the house in Bahjí or in the garden beside the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh; others in Haifa or 'Akká. Shoghi Effendi says that through them 'Abdu'l-Bahá invested the American believers "with a world mission."

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The Tablets name country after country and island after island, and call on the believers to go to them. "O ye Apostles of Bahá'u'lláh!" one begins.

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Another promises: "The moment this divine Message is carried forward by the American believers from the shores of America and is propagated through the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australasia, and as far as the islands of the Pacific, this community will find itself securely established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion." Another names, as one of the purposes of the coming of the Manifestations of God, that "The souls may come to know each other and become intimate with each other; the power of the love of God may make all of them the waves of one sea, the flowers of one rose garden, and the stars of one heaven."

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Five of the 1916 Tablets reached America and were printed in *Star of the West* on 8 September 1916. The rest were held back by the war. After it ended, the Tablets were unveiled at the annual convention held at the Hotel McAlpin in New York from 26 to 30 April 1919, which Shoghi Effendi calls "the first Convention after the war." 'Abdu'l-Bahá had cabled: "Let this be the Convention of the Covenant."

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The response began at once. Shoghi Effendi records that Martha Root was "the first to arise, in the very year the Tablets of the Divine Plan were unveiled," setting out on journeys that lasted twenty years and took her four times around the world. Hyde Dunn, at the age of sixty-two, left his home in California and, with his wife, settled in Australia, where he carried the Message to no fewer than seven hundred towns.

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi; the Tablets themselves are gathered in **Tablets of the Divine Plan** by 'Abdu'l-Bahá.*

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