“ ‘The most joyful tiding is this, . . . that the holy, the luminous body of the Báb . . . after having for sixty years been transferred from place to place, by reason of the ascendancy of the enemy, and from fear of the malevolent, and having known neither rest nor tranquillity has, through the mercy of the Abhá Beauty, been ceremoniously deposited, on the day of Naw-Rúz, within the sacred casket, in the exalted Shrine on Mt. Carmel.’ ”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, quoted by Shoghi Effendi in God Passes By (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 2004), p. 276.

“I cannot at this juncture overemphasize the sacredness of that holy dust embosomed in the heart of the Vineyard of God, or overrate the unimaginable potencies of this mighty institution founded sixty years ago, through the operation of the Will of, and the definite selection made by, the Founder of our Faith, on the occasion of His historic visit to that holy mountain, nor can I lay too much stress on the role which this institution, to which the construction of the superstructure of this edifice is bound to lend an unprecedented impetus, is destined to play in the unfoldment of the World Administrative Centre of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh and in the efflorescence of its highest institutions constituting the embryo of its future World Order.” Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith: Messages to America, 1947–1957 (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1999), p. 95.