In its broadest outline the first century of the Bahá’í Era
may be said to comprise the Heroic, the Primitive, the Apostolic Age of the
Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and also the initial stages of the Formative, the
Transitional, the Iron Age which is to witness the crystallization and shaping
of the creative energies released by His Revelation. The first eighty years of
this century may roughly be said to have covered the entire period of the first
age, while the last two decades may be regarded as having witnessed the
beginnings of the second. The former commences with the
Declaration of the Báb, includes the mission of Bahá’u’lláh, and terminates
with the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The latter is ushered in by His Will and
Testament, which defines its character and establishes its foundation.
The century … may therefore be considered as falling into
four distinct periods, of unequal duration, each of specific import and of
tremendous and indeed unappraisable significance. These four periods are
closely interrelated, and constitute successive acts of one, indivisible,
stupendous and sublime drama, whose mystery no intellect can fathom, whose
climax no eye can even dimly perceive, whose conclusion no mind can adequately foreshadow.
Each of these acts revolves around its own theme, boasts of its own heroes,
registers its own tragedies, records its own triumphs, and contributes its own
share to the execution of one common, immutable Purpose. To isolate any one of
them from the others, to dissociate the later manifestations of one universal,
all-embracing Revelation from the pristine purpose that animated it in its
earliest days, would be tantamount to a mutilation of the structure on which it
rests, and to a lamentable perversion of its truth and of its history. (Shoghi
Effendi, forward to ‘God Passes By’)
