The first epoch [1921-1944] witnessed the birth and the
primary stages in the erection of the framework of the Administrative Order of
the Faith — the nucleus and pattern of its World Order — according to the precepts
laid down in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will and Testament, as well as the launching of the
initial phase of the world-encompassing Plan bequeathed by Him to the American
Bahá’í Community. That epoch was characterized by a twofold process aiming at
the consolidation of the administrative structure of the Faith and the
extension of the range of its institutions. It witnessed on the one hand, the
emergence and the laying of the groundwork of that embryonic World Order whose
advent was announced by the Báb in the Bayán, whose laws were revealed by
Bahá’u’lláh in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, and whose features were delineated by
‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will and Testament. It was marked on the other hand by the
launching, in the Western Hemisphere, of the first stage of a Plan whose
original impulse was communicated by the Herald of our Faith in His Qayyúmu’l-Asmá,
to whose implications the Author of the Bahá’í Revelation alluded in His
Tablets, and whose Charter was revealed by the Center of His Covenant in the
evening of His life.
(Shoghi Effendi, from a letter dated June 5, 1947; ‘Citadel of Faith’)
