The Promulgation of Universal Peace
Foreword to the 1982 Edition
It is with great pleasure and a sense of the appropriateness of the time that we publish this new edition of
The Promulgation of Universal Peace, for this year, 1982, marks the seventieth anniversary of the historic visit of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, son of
Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the
Bahá’í Faith, to the American continent—an event that was to have profound impact both on the young
Faith’s evolution throughout the world and on the lives of countless individuals. In 1908 the Young Turks Revolution had overthrown the tyrannical regime of the Ottoman
Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd. One of the first actions of the new leadership released all former political and religious prisoners, one of whom was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who had shared with His father forty years of persecution and exile, as well as sixteen additional years after His father’s death.
Freed from the straitened and often dire circumstances under which He had conducted the Bahá’í Faith’s affairs throughout the early years of His ministry as His father’s appointed successor, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at once began to contemplate a sojourn to the West. Such a trip would serve to both strengthen the faith of the isolated groups of Bahá’ís throughout the European and North American continents and to garner publicity for the Faith. Thus ‘Abdu’l-Bahá first traveled from the
Holy Land to Egypt, then on to Europe in 1911, returning again to Egypt again for the winter. On 25 March 1912 He sailed from Alexandria—His destination: New York, and a journey that ultimately would take Him across the entire North American continent, with stops in many of the major cities of the United States.
For nine months, 239 days in all, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá travelled constantly, up and down the eastern seaboard from Maine to Washington, D.C., into the Chicago heartland, and back again, stopping in such cities as Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and Cleveland, finally traversing the continent via Montreal, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Denver to the west coast, after which He returned to New York, pausing for extended periods in some cities He had already
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