Messages posted in chronological order…

7/27/23

29 December 1982: To all National Spiritual Assemblies

Dear Baha'i friends,

As you know, the persecution of our friends in Iran continues unabated, and our oppressed brethren are bearing this ordeal with resignation and valour. The Universal House of Justice feels that the time has come to once again call for a day of prayer, and it asks that you inform the members of your community to offer special prayers on the Feast of Jamal (Beauty) on Thursday, 28 April 1983.

The House of Justice is confident that the friends will also want to pray for the believers in Iran during the Fast, particularly at dawn, and it would be useful for National Spiritual Assemblies to remind the friends of the privilege of joining universally in prayers during this period about which Baha'u'llah has written, "Thou hast endowed every hour of these days with a special virtue, inscrutable to all except Thee, ..."

In addition, your Assembly should set aside time during your National Convention for such prayers, as will be done at the International Convention.

It is hoped that these manifold supplications, reverberating from every corner of the globe, will attract in ever greater measure the blessings of the Almighty upon His lovers in the Cradle of His Faith, and will reinvigorate our determination to accelerate the tempo of our activities, in order to compensate for and indeed more than offset the setbacks being suffered by our beleaguered co-workers in Iran.

With loving Baha'i greetings,

Department of the Secretariat

(‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986’)