Tablet to the Friends in New York

Among the most consequential Tablets in the 1909 compilation of Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbas is the early Tablet addressed to the believers of New York City. The Tablet preceded by some years the Master's own visit to the city in 1912, and named the city in language that the subsequent visit would confirm.

The New York Bahá'í community in the years preceding 1912 was already, by American standards, substantial. The community had been gathering in regular meetings since the late 1890s. It included several substantial financial supporters of the Cause, a number of professional and artistic figures, and a steadily growing body of working- class and immigrant believers from the city's varied neighbourhoods.

The Tablet opens with the characteristic salutation. The Master addresses the friends as the believers in the great city of the New World and expresses His joy at their gathering in the Cause of God.

The principal weight of the Tablet falls on its naming of the city's destiny. The Master writes, in language preserved in the 1909 English translation:

O ye believers in the great city of New York! New York is the city of the Covenant; from it the call shall go forth. From this city shall the influence of the Cause radiate to the whole of the New World. Therefore make ready, that the city may bear the destiny appointed for it.

The naming is precise. New York is not, in the Master's phrase, the city of the Bahá'í community of America. It is the city of the Covenant — the language elevating the city itself, beyond the small community gathered in it, to a particular providential standing in the history of the Faith in the Western hemisphere.

The Tablet proceeds to specific exhortation. The friends are asked to deepen their study of the Writings, to strengthen their unity in the Cause, to extend their hospitality to the visiting friends from other cities, and to make the city of New York a beacon whose light illumines the surrounding regions of the American republic.

Particular attention is given to the racial and ethnic diversity of the city. New York, the Master observes, is the gathering-place of all the races of the New World. The Bahá'í community of the city is therefore particularly charged with the demonstration of the Bahá'í teaching of the unity of the human family. The community is asked to welcome, on equal terms, believers and inquirers from every racial, ethnic, and class background — the precise demonstration of the principle in the city where the demonstration would have its widest possible hearing.

The Tablet closes with a benediction. The friends of New York, the Master writes, are under the close attention of the Centre of the Covenant. Their progress in the Cause will be matched by the corresponding flow of confirmation from the unseen world.

The Master's own visit to New York, in the spring of 1912 and again in the autumn before His departure for Europe, would in due course confirm the standing the Tablet had named.

Source: 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbas (Bahai Publishing Society, 1909). Public domain text from Project Gutenberg eBook #19312.

'Abdu'l-Bahá. (1909). *Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbas*. Bahai Publishing Society. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19312