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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
19 stories on this theme.
During 'Abdu'l-Bahá's visit to segregated Washington, D.C., He shocked white socialites by insisting that Louis Gregory, an African-American Bahá'í and lawyer, be seated next to Him at a society luncheon, and He asked the Bahá'ís to hold integrated meetings.
Persia, the birthplace of the Bahá’í Revelation, has occupied a unique place in the history of the world.
As a means of promoting religious unity Bahá’u’lláh advocates the utmost charity and tolerance, and calls on His followers to “consort with the people of all religions with joy and gladness.”
The Bahá’í doctrine of the unity of mankind strikes at the root of another cause of war, namely, racial prejudice.
In order to see clearly how the Most Great Peace may be established, let us first examine the principle causes that have led to war in the past and see how Bahá’u’lláh proposes to deal with each.
Both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá also foretold a period of great social upheaval, conflict and calamity as an inevitable result of the irreligion and prejudices, the ignorance and superstition, prevalent throughout the world.
In the last half century or so, however, a change has come over the spirit of the times, a New Light of Truth has arisen which has already made the controversies of last century seem strangely out of date.
On April 23, 1912, at a Washington luncheon given in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's honor by Ali-Kuli Khan, the Master asked for Louis Gregory, who had not been invited, and gave him the seat of honor at His right.
When Agnes Parsons made her pilgrimage in 1920, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked her to arrange a convention in Washington for amity between the white and colored races. It met in May 1921, and Mountfort Mills read a message from the Master to it.
Louis Gregory, an African American lawyer, and Louisa Mathew, an Englishwoman, met as pilgrims in 1911. 'Abdu'l-Bahá expressed the wish that they marry, and on 27 September 1912 they became the first interracial Bahá'í couple in America.
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris, November 13th All prejudices, whether of religion, race, politics or nation, must be renounced, for these prejudices have caused the world’s sickness.
At the Central Congregational Church in Brooklyn in June 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá praised a pulpit open to every belief, and said that religious discord comes from ancestral imitations, not from the one reality all religions share.
At the Town Hall in Fanwood, New Jersey, on 31 May 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá traced the weakness of religion to the hatred between sects and to blind imitation, and said that the Prophets, as true shepherds, come to unite people.
Addressing the NAACP's Fourth Annual Conference in Chicago on April 30, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá said that color is accidental, that the true measure of a person is spirit and intelligence, and that the purity of the heart is what matters.
On October 7, 1912, at the Japanese Independent Church in Oakland, California, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told the Japanese Young Men's Christian Association that all war has come from prejudice, recalling a religious war He had seen in Rumelia.
At a dinner at the Parsons home in Washington on April 22, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told how a Zoroastrian high priest lost his prejudice against Muḥammad, and compared it with the power that had brought East and West to one table.
O ye lovers of truth, ye servants of humankind! Out of the flowering of your thoughts and hopes, fragrant emanations have come my way, wherefore an inner sense of obligation compelleth me to pen these words.
O thou who art kindled as a lamp with the Fire of the Love of God!
As he began writing The Advent of Divine Justice, Shoghi Effendi made a remark about America that Rúḥíyyih Khánum found hard to accept; he told her to swallow it, and over the years she came to see the truth in it.