Chronology of the Bahá'í Faith

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Date 1916-0, ascending — sort newest first

date event tags firsts
1916 (in the year) Anthony Yuen Seto and his wife Mamie Lorettta O'Connor became Bahá'ís in Hawaii. Mr Seto was the first Chinese Bahá'í in the Hawaiian Islands and the first Chinese-American Bahá'í in the United States. [PH30; BW13p886-889] First Bahá'ís by country or area; Hawaii, USA The first Chinese-American Bahá'í in the United States. the first Chinese Bahá í in the Hawaiian Islands
1916 (in the year) The United States census showed 2,884 Bahá'ís. [BBRSM:105; SBBH1:117] Statistics; USA
1916 11 Feb In 1915 Ahmad Yazdání and two other Bahá'ís had written a paper on Bahá'í principles in French and submitted it to the Central Organization for a Durable Peace which had been formed in the Hague. After correspondence with Ahmad Yazdáni, the Executive of the Central Organization for a Durable Peace sent a letter to Tehran to be delivered to 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Communications were disrupted because of the war and the letter was not delivered to Him in Haifa until the 17th of December, 1919. [Bahaipedia] Central Organization for a Durable Peace; Ahmad Yazdani; Tehran, Iran; Iran; The Hague; Netherlands
1916 22 Feb In Sultánábád, Mírzá `Alí-Akbar, his wife, his sister-in-law (aged 12) and their four children (aged from 46 days to 11 years) were killed by having their throats cut. [BW18:387; GPB299]
  • See DB610 for picture.
    		•  Persecution, Iran; - Persecution, Deaths; - Persecution; Sultanabad, India; Iran
    1916 26 Mar-22 Apr `Abdu'l-Bahá revealed eight of the Tablets of the Divine Plan. [AB420; BBD219 BBRSM157; SBBH132-3; TDPX; Message 29 December 2015]
  • For the order and place of their revelation see AB420-2 and TDP.
  • For a description of their content see AB422-3.
  • Shoghi Effendi characterizes them as a `mandate' and a `supreme charter for teaching'. [GPB255; TDPVII]
  • The Tablets can be found at bahai.org/library:
  • 1st (Page 1) Tablet to the Bahá'ís of the Northeastern States. Revealed on March 26, 1916, in 'Abdu'l‑Bahá's room at the house in Bahjí, addressed to the Bahá'ís of nine Northeastern States of the United States: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.
  • 2nd (Page 2) Tablet to the Bahá'ís of the Southern States. Revealed on March 27, 1916, in the garden adjacent to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, addressed to the Bahá'ís of sixteen Southern States of the United States: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
  • 3rd (Page 3) Tablet to the Bahá'ís of the Central States. Revealed on March 29, 1916, outside the house in Bahjí, and addressed to the Bahá'ís of twelve Central States of the United States: Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
  • 4th (Page 4) Tablet to the Bahá'ís of the Western States. Revealed on April 1, 1916, in 'Abdu'l‑Bahá's room at the house in Bahjí, addressed to the Bahá'ís of eleven Western States of the United States: New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, California, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
  • 5th (Page 5) Tablet to the Bahá'ís of Canada and Greenland. Revealed on April 5, 1916, in the garden adjacent to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, and addressed to the Bahá'ís of Canada—Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Mackenzie, Keewatin, Ungava, Franklin Islands—and Greenland.
  • 6th (Page 6) Tablet to the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada. Revealed on April 8, 1916, in the garden outside the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, and addressed to the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada.
  • 7th (Page 8) Tablet to the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada. Revealed on April 11, 1916, in 'Abdu'l‑Bahá's room at the house in Bahjí, and addressed to the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada.
  • 8th (Page 11) Tablet to the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada. Revealed on April 19, 1916, in 'Abdu'l‑Bahá's room at the house in Bahjí; on April 20, in the pilgrims' quarters of the house in Bahjí; on April 22, in the garden adjacent to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, and addressed to the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada.
  • See the story of the Geography Book used for the Tablets of the Divine Plan. It was called World Geography: One Volume Edition by Ralph Stockman Tarr and Frank Morton McMurry.
    		•  * `Abdu'l-Bahá, Writings and talks of; `Abdu'l-Bahá, Life of (chronology); Tablets of the Divine Plan; - Basic timeline, Expanded; `Abdu'l-Bahá, Basic timeline; Haifa, Israel
    1916 Apr or May The first Chinese Bahá'í in China, Chen Hai An (Harold A. Chen), became a Bahá'í while studying at the University of Chicago through the efforts of Dr Zia Baghdádí. He returned to Shanghai that same year. [PH29-30; Video Early history of the Bahá'í Faith in China 6min40sec]
  • PH30 says this was 1919 but this is clearly a typographical error.
  • He returned to China in December 1916.
    		•  First Bahá'ís by country or area; Zia Bagdadi; China; Chicago, IL; USA The first Chinese Bahá'í in China
    1916 May The publication of Tablets of Abdul-Baha abbas Volume III by the Bahai Publishing Society of Chicago. Tablets of `Abdu'l-Bahá (book); Chicago, IL; Illinois, USA
    1916 2 May Louisa Aurora "Lua" Moore Getsinger, (b. 1 November, 1872 in Hume, Allegany County, New York) Disciple of `Abdu'l-Bahá, "Mother teacher of the West" died of heart failure in Cairo. [BBD87; Find a grave; Bahaipedia; GPB257]
  • 'Abdu'l-Bahá's appointmented of Lua as "Herald of the Covenant" in the June 19, 1912. [LGHC157]
  • For an her obituary see [SoW Vol 7 No 4 May 17, 1916 p29-30].
  • She was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Cairo. In 1939 a court ruling enabled the Bahá'ís to reinter her in the first Bahá'í cemetery established in Cairo, El Qahira, Egypt. Her grave was now beside that of Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl. [GPB344]
    • For a photo of the reinterment see BW9p87.
  • See Lua Getsinger: Herald of the Covenant by Amine DeMille. [USBN No489 December 1971 p1-5]
  • See also Sears and Quigley, The Flame.
  • See as well Lua Getsinger: Herald of the Covenant by Velda Piff Metelmann.
  • For a brief biography see 239Days as well as The Shining Lamp and Beyond Foreignness. iiiii
    		• Lua Getsinger; Disciples of `Abdu'l-Bahá; Cemeteries and graves; Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani; In Memoriam; Births and deaths; Cairo, Egypt; Egypt
    1916 6 May In response to the perceived threat from within the Ottoman Empire, the authorities took harsh measures against leading nationalist persons, intellectuals and activists. On this day, 21 were publicly hanged in Beirut and 10 in Damascus on the order of Jamal Pasha, the commander in chief of the Turkish forces in Greater Syria, (Present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine).

    These individuals were accused of collaborating with the British and the French and were seen as leaders of the Arab nationalist movement. The day has become to be known as "Syrian Martyrs Day". [Wikipedia; Colonialism, Nationalism and Jewish Immigration to Palestine: Abdu´l-Baha's Viewpoints Regarding the Middle East by Kamran Ekbal p21]

    		 Damascus, Syria; Syria; Beirut, Lebanon; Lebanon
    1916 16 May The Sykes–Picot Agreement, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret 1916 agreement between the United Kingdom and France, to which the Russian Empire assented. The agreement allocated to Britain control of areas roughly comprising the coastal strip between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan, Jordan, southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre, to allow access to the Mediterranean. France got control of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Russia was to get Istanbul, the Turkish Straits and Armenia. The controlling powers were left free to determine state boundaries within their areas. Further negotiation was expected to determine international administration in the "brown area" (an area including Jerusalem, similar to and smaller than Mandate Palestine), the form of which was to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other Allies, and the representatives of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca. [Wikipedia] Sykes-Picot Agreement (Asia Minor Agreement); History (general); Middle East; Haifa, Israel; Akka, Israel; Israel; Palestine
    1916 summer Mr Vasily Eroshenko, a young blind Russian, visited Thailand, the first Bahá'í to do so. First travel teachers and pioneers; Thailand First Bahá'í to visit Thailand
    1916 28 July Mullá Nasru'lláh-i-Shahmírzádí was martyred in his home in Shahmirzád, Khurásán. [BW18:387]

    		 Persecution, Iran; - Persecution, Deaths; - Persecution; Shahmirzad, Iran; Khurásan, Iran; Iran
    1916 8 Sep The first five Tablets of the Tablets of the Divine Plan were published in Star of the West. [BBD219; SoW Vol 8 No 10 8 September 1916p87-91]
  • For editorial comment see SoW Vol 8 No 10 8 September 1916p86
  • After this, communication was cut off with the Holy Land. [BBD219]
    		•  Tablets of the Divine Plan; Star of the West; * Publications; Chicago, IL; USA

    Try also a shorter date like or 1916 or 191

    try also the Chronology Canada — 1916-0 or 1916 or 191

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