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Chronology of the Bahá'í Faith

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Date 1943, descending sort earliest first

date event tags firsts
1943 22 Dec
194-
The passing of Disciple of Àbdu'l-Bahá Alma Knobloch (b. 1864 Bautzen; Germany d. 23 December 1943 Cabin John MD). She was interred in the family plot in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Washington, DC.
  • Her association with the Faith began in 1903. She first heard about it from her sister Pauline who taught both Alma and Pocahontas Pope, her seamstress, who became the first African American believer in the Washington area. [AWD24, 67]
  • At the request of 'Abdu'l-Bahá she went to Germany too help Dr Fisher departing in July of 1907 and settled in Stuttgart. Assemblies were formed in Stuttgart, Esslingen, Zuffenhausen, Leipzig, and Gera. She stayed in Germany for 13 years.
  • During this time, in 1908, Alma and Fanny went on a pilgrimage to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá and they developed a lasting friendship with the women of the Holy Family.
  • She elected to remain in Germany when the war broke out in 1914 and gave up her American citizenship so that she would be free to travel around the country in the service of the Faith.
  • She returned to the United States after the tragic death of her brother-in-law, Joseph Hannen. [Find a grave; BW9p641-643] (Note: The picture in Bahá'í World is not Alma but rather that of her sister, Fanny.)
  • See her biography Alma Sedonia Knobloch by Jennifer Redson Wiebers.
  • - In Memoriam; Alma Knobloch; Washington, DC, USA
    1943 4 Sep
    194-
    The first local spiritual assembly in Alaska was established at Anchorage. Local Spiritual Assembly; Anchorage, AK; Alaska, USA; United States (USA) first Local Spiritual Assembly in Alaska
    1943 16 Aug
    194-
    The passing of Sydney Sprague (b. Oshkosh WI in 1875) in Los Angeles. He was buried in Inglewood Cemetery. His grave is beside that of Tom Collins, husband of Amelia Collins, and lies just across the road from the grave of Thornton Chase, "First Bahá'í of America." [BW9p633-635]
  • During a pilgrimage in late 1904 'Abdu'l-Bahá suggested he visit the Bahá'ís of the East. He toured India and Burma from December 1904 until the summer of 1905 becoming the first Western Bahá'í of go to the far Orient fulfilling Bahá'u'lláh's prophecy the "The East and West shall embrace as lovers". [YBIB6] iiiii
  • See YBIB55-60 For the story of Kai Khosroe, the Zoroastrian Bahá'í from Bombay who gave his life while nursing Sprague in Lahore when he was deathly ill with typhoid fever.
  • In 1908 he became a resident of Tehran, first teaching in the Bahá'í school and, when he returned the following year, he became principal.
  • He married a niece of 'Abdul'-Bahá and became a brother-in-law of Ameen Fareed. When Fareed was expelled from the Faith in 1914 Sprague and his wife as well as his father-in-law followed. Fareed's father was Mírzá Asadu'lláh-i-Isfahání, the emissary who had taken the remains of the Báb from Iran to the Holy Land [Efforts to preserve the remains of the Bab]. Sprague applied to be reinstated in 1931 (or 1937) and was finally accepted in 1941, two years before his passing. [BW9p633-635]
    • He married Farahangiz Khanum on the 20th of July, 1910, a day selected by 'Abdu'l-Bahá so that Stanwood Cobb could attend. The Bahá'í wedding was performed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the legal ceremony was conducted by a mullá four days later. [BN Vol 1 No 12 October 1910 p 7]
  • He made a teaching trip to South America and died soon after his return to the United States. [AB409]
  • He was the author of The Story of the Bahai Movement published in London in 1907 and A Year with the Bahá'ís of India and Burma in May of 1908. [YBIBxi] iiiii
  • Sydney Sprague; Covenant-breaking; Ameen Fareed (Amin Farid); Mírzá Asadullah-i-Isfahani; Kai Khosroe; Travel Teaching; - In Memoriam; Los Angeles, CA; United States (USA); India; Myanmar; Lahore, India; Pakistan first Western Bahá'í to visit the Bahá'í communities on the Indian sub-continent. first Occidental Bahá'í for whom an Oriental Bahá'í had sacrificed his life.
    1943 18 Jun
    194-
    The passing of Mabel Rice-Wray Ives (Rizwanea) (b. in St. Louis, MO in 1878) in Oklahoma, OK. She was buried in Memorial Park Cemetery. [BW9p616; Find a grave]

    She first heard of the Faith at the age of 21 in 1899 under miraculous circumstances. [Mable Ives & The Mysterious Trolley Car Ride]

    In 1903 she married Theron Canfield Rice-Wray and had three children. They lived in California from 1909 to 1914 where her marriage ended and she returned to the East.

    In 1919 she met Howard Colby Ives and they married in 1920 and she became known to many who loved her as "Rizwanea". For nearly twenty years they traveled and taught the Faith often teaming with Grace and Harlan Ober as well as Doris and Willard McKay in both business and the teaching work. It was their entire life. They traveled through the New England states, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, New York and many many more in Canada as well-always teaching, always leaving an established Assembly behind them." For example they came to Toronto in November of 1938 and stayed for about 10 months. During that time Mabel gave more than 150 lectures in Toronto and about 70 in Hamilton, Toronto's expansion goal. Howard, who was had had heart problems and who was rapidly losing for sight and hearing at the time, complemented her abilities by doing personal deepening with receptive souls. [TMLF62-67, SEBW139-154]

    See the story of how Mabel resolved the situation when she could no longer tolerate the itinerate lifestyle in the story When Mable Ives Could Endure No More, She Prayed .

    See the tribute paid to her in the Canadian Bahá'í News No 202 November 1966 p4.

    Mabel Rice-Wray Ives; - In Memoriam; St. Louis, MO; Oklahoma, USA
    1943 30 May
    194-
    The dedication of the Memorial to May Ellis Maxwell, Quilmes Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina. [Bahá'í News July 1943 No 169 page 3, 564/1186] May Maxwell (Bolles); Cemeteries and graves; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Argentina
    1943 23 May
    194-
    Melba M. King (née Call) became a Bahá'í in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the first full-blooded Eskimo, a Yup'ik, to accept the Faith. [BW18:687–8] Melba M King; Albuquerque, NM; New Mexico, USA first full-blooded Eskimo Bahá'í
    1943 2 May
    194-
    The passing of Narayanrao Rangnath (Shethji) Vakil (b. Navsari, 1866) in Poona. He was the first person from the Hindu community to identify himself with the Bahá'í activities in India and the first chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of India and Burma. He learned of the Faith through Mírzá Mahram Isfáhání in about 1908. [BW9p637-641]
  • For the story of his life see PH17–25.
  • - In Memoriam; Narayanrao Rangnath Vakil; Mahram Isfahani; Mumbai, India; Pune, India; India first Hindu Bahá'í;
    1943 5 Apr
    194-
    Sir Ronald Storrs visited the House of the Báb in Shiraz. [BW 11:461] Ronald Storrs; Báb, House of (Shiraz); Shíráz, Iran; Iran
    1943 8 Jan
    194-
    The exterior ornamentation of the Wilmette Temple was completed. [BW10:181; UD155–6]
  • The cost of the building was $1.3 million. [UD165]
  • Mashriqu'l-Adhkár, Wilmette; * Mashriqu'l-Adhkár (House of Worship); Wilmette, IL; United States (USA)
    1943 (In the year)
    194-
    In 1943 Raphael Lemkin published ​Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (Foundations of the Laws of War) in which he first used the term "genocide,"by combining "genos" (race, people) and "cide" (to kill). He defined genocide as follows: ​
      "Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups."

    This study was an elaboration of ideas he first proposed in 1933 in his address to the Fifth International Conference for the Unification of Penal Law (1933), which argued that attacks on racial, religious and ethnic groups should be considered international crimes. Important for the prosecution of the Nazis, it helped to establish the framework for all subsequent efforts to punish crimes against humanity.

    When Lemkin proposed a treaty against genocide to the United Nations in 1945, he defined it as follows:

      "The crime of genocide should be recognized therein as a conspiracy to exterminate national, religious or racial groups. The overt acts of such a conspiracy may consist of attacks against life, liberty or property of members of such groups merely because of their affiliation with such groups. The formulation of the crime may be as follows: "Whoever, while participating in a conspiracy to destroy a national, racial or religious group, undertakes an attack against life, liberty or property of members of such groups is guilty of the crime of genocide."
    Genocide; United Nations
    1943 (In the year)
    194-
    The publication of Bahá'í World Faith: Selected Writings of Bahá'u'lláh and Abdu'l-Bahá by the Bahá'í Publishing Committee in Wilmette and edited by Horace Holley. [BN No 347 Jan 1960 p1] It was intended to replace the earlier compilation Bahá'í Scriptures with newer translations. Neither is considered authoritative because they were not prepared by the Bahá'í World Centre.
  • A list of translations that have been superseded can be found at this Bahá'í9 Wiki page.
  • A special centennial edition with a red leather cover inscribed with 1844-1944 in gold lettering was published as a souvenir of the Centennial celebration held in Chicago. It had a run of only 500 copies.
  • Subsequent editions were published by the Bahá'í Publishing Trust in 1956, 1966, 1969, 1971, 1976. [Collinsp21; 4.75-477]
  • The use of the phrase "Bahá'í World Faith" has been replaced by the more fitting "Bahá'í Faith". See the letter from the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the British Isles dated 5 February 1967. [LG109#374]
  • Bahá'í World Faith (book); * Publications
    1943 (In the year)
    194-
    Margot Vandenbroeck-Levy (Galler) became a Bahá'í in Chicago, the first native Luxembourger to accept the Faith.
  • She returned to Luxembourg in 1948.
  • Margot Vandenbroeck-Levy; Chicago, IL; Luxembourg First Bahá'í of Luxembourg
    1943 - 1944
    194-
    Fereidoon Adamiyyat, one of the most influential and widely acknowledged Iranian historians of the 20th century, argued in his Book, Amir Kabir and Iran, considered perhaps the most influential scholarly work of history published prior to the Islamic Revolution, that British intelligence officers were behind a plot which led to the creation of the Bábí Faith. He falsely claimed that Arthur Conolly, a British intelligence officer who was executed in Bukhara in 1842, had in his Journey to the North of India through Russia, Persia and Afghanistan admitted that Mulla Husayn Bushrui, the first follower of the Báb, was an agent working for him. Adamiyyat further concluded that without the aid of foreign powers such a religious sect could not have survived for so long, thus giving further credence to the conspiracy theories of his time and culture. Although He subsequently came to accept that Conolley had never made such a claim and removed the allegations in later editions of his book, the influence of his initial claim proved to be lasting among Iranians.

    Note:Amir Kabir was the 19th century Iranian Qajar minister who ordered the execution of many members of the early Bahá'í movement. [Iran Press Watch 1407]

    Conspiracy theories; Criticism and apologetics; Arthur Conolly; Fereidoon Adamiyyat; Iran; United Kingdom
    1943 (In the year)
    194-
    The publication of A Commentary on the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá written by David Hofman by a new publisher, George Ronald. They went on to publish books on business ethics, comparative religion, studies of sacred texts, Islam, poetry, music, novels, biography and philosophy as well as a number of other subjects. George Ronald is primarily a publisher of books related to the history, teachings, doctrines and personalities of the Bahá'í Faith. See the reference for a list of Bahá'í books published up to 2013. [George Ronald A Bibliographic History by Jan Jasion]
  • A current catalogue can be found at their website.
  • see George Ronald: Publishing Authentic, Accurate & Inspiring Baha'i Books Since 1943 by Sonjel Vreeland.
  • Will and Testament of `Abdu'l-Bahá; George Ronald; Firsts, other; - Publishing; - Publishing Trusts; * Publications; David Hofman; United Kingdom first book published by George Ronald.
    1943 (In the year)
    194-
    The first Local Spiritual Assembly was formed in Jamaica. [BWNS233] Local Spiritual Assembly; Bahá'í World News Service (BWNS); Jamaica first Local Spiritual Assembly in Jamaica
    1943 (In the year)
    194-
    The first Bahá'í group was formed in Bogotá, Colombia, with the celebration of a Unity Feast. Unity Feast; Bogota, Colombia; Colombia first Bahá’í group in Bogotá, Colombia
    1943 (In the Year)
    194-
    The founding of the publishing house George Ronald by David Hofman using his stage name. Its first title was The Renewal of Civilization, a book he wrote as an introduction to the Baháʼí Faith. Later publications were Bahá'u'lláh, the Prince of Peace: A Portrait, Commentary on the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and George Townshend, A Life.

    They published intermittently until 1947 when consultations began with Shoghi Effendi and the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles when it became a full-time business. They published on a variety of subjects until about the mid 1960's when they concentrated on Bahá'í themes. [Bahaipedia]

  • A list of publications can be found on Bahaipedia. Please note that the list covers two pages.
  • - Publishing; Oxford, England; United Kingdom
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