An Appeal to the Esperantists of Edinburgh

On 7 January 1913, speaking at Edinburgh under the auspices of the Edinburgh Esperanto Society, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said:

“His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh fifty years ago wrote a book; that book is called ‘The Most Holy Book,’ and in that book one of the fundamental principles of the Bahá’í movement is that there must be the invention of an auxiliary language; and then He goes on to explain the benefits and profits that will accrue through such a medium. Now, let us thank the Lord because this Esperanto language has been created. Therefore we have commanded all the Bahá’ís in the Orient to study this language very carefully, and ere long it will spread all over the East. Therefore I request you also, non-Esperantists and fellow-Esperantists, to put your utmost exertion into the spread and promulgation of this language, because it will hasten that day, that millennial day, which has been prophesied by the past prophets and seers, that day in which, it is said, the wolf and lamb will drink from the same fount, the lion and the deer graze in the same meadow. The signification of this Holy Writ is that the contesting races, warring nations, inimical religions, will come to each other in the spirit of love and amity …”

Source: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, address at Edinburgh, 7 January 1913, Star of the West, vol. 11, no. 18 (1921), p. 302.

Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: esperanto).

Various. *bahaistories.com archive*. https://bahaistories.com/subject/esperanto