At this point there were separate Spiritual Assemblies for the Jewish and Zoroastrian Bahá'ís in Hamadán and Tihrán. [BBRSM:151; CB371; CT33]
• See BW2:275–9 for a letter from the `Israelitish' Bahá'í Assembly of Tihrán of November 1904.

The Chicago `Bahai Assembly' filed an affidavit of incorporation, the first Bahá'í community to acquire legal status. [BFA2:278]
• The incorporation is in the name of the community rather than the governing body. [BFA2:278–9]

MacNutt arrived in Chicago on August 8th. At ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s instructions, a feast was held on August 10, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Lesch, where the entire Chicago Bahá'í community was invited to be the guests of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. MacNutt delivered to the community ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s message of unity and love. The election was held the following day the 11th of August.

On Sunday evening, the 1rth of August, the Chicago Assembly selected a "Spiritual Meeling'' of nine, composed of men and women. whose service-according to the wish of Abdul-Ilahá -is, first, to propagate the teachings of the Revelation, and, second, to attend to other matters necessary lo the welfare of the assembly. [SoW Vol 3 No 9 20 August 1912 p16]

In a message to the Bahá'ís in America, Great Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Japan and in Australia, Shoghi Effendi instructed that local assemblies must be established in localities where the number of believers, aged twenty-one and over, was nine or more and he delineated the responsibilities of those assemblies. [BA37-39]
• In the same message he directed that, in countries where conditions are favourable and the number of believers merited it, that "secondary Houses of Justice" be established. He fixed the number of electors; in America-95, the Pacific Islands-95, Germany-95 and in Great Britain-19 and specified that they be elected annually. [BA39-41]
• Local and National Funds were to be established because "the progress and execution of spiritual activities is dependent and conditioned upon material means". [BA41]

The first Local Spiritual Assembly of Tokyo, consisting of journalists and other professional people, was formed.
• Owing to the situation in Japan, it was disbanded two years later. [In memoriam Barbara Sims by Universal House of Justice, Sheridan Sims, and Sandra S. Fotos]

The first Spiritual Assembly of Addis Ababa was formed. [BW6:70]
• The community was established by Sabri Elias, and Fahima Elias, pioneers from Egypt who thus earned the title Knights of Bahá'u'lláh. Later Elias was asked to return home with other foreigners. [BW6:71]
• Ethiopia was the only independent Kingdom in Africa at this date. [BW6:70]
• Wikipedia says that the Assembly was formed in "late 1934".

The persecution against the Bahá'ís in Iran continued. [BW18p389]
• Meetings in the Bahá'í Centre in Tihrán were banned.
• A number of Bahá'ís in Bandar Sháh were arrested and imprisoned.
• The secretary of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Arák was arrested.
• Bahá'ís in Qazvín were arrested and harassed.
• A Bahá'í in Záhidán was arrested.

Shoghi Effendi disbanded the Haifa Spiritual Assembly which had been in operation since 1922, and sent the local community away. The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine made local conditions dangerous with the Arab nationalist contending with the threat of the apparent open-ended Jewish immigration and land purchases and the stated goal of establishing a "Jewish National Home". Perhaps another factor in his decision was the impending war in Europe. [PP348]
• The disbanding of the spiritual assembly apparently did not mean the end to the publication of the "Haifa News Letter" in which news from the World Centre had been forwarded to all the Bahá'í centres in the East in Persian with an English translation of the publication distributed in the West. The last known mention of the Haifa News Letter was in letter dated the 6th of March, 1946 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to Britain. UD182 refers. [PP50, 282,348]

Bahá'ís in the Soviet Union were persecuted by the authorities. [BBR473, BW8p87-90, 179-81, BW14p479-481, SETPE1p155; YS6]
• Five hundred Bahá'í men were imprisoned in Turkistán. [Bw8p89]
• Many Persian Bahá'ís living in various cities of the Soviet Union were arrested, some are sent to Siberia, others to Pavladar in northern Kazakhstan and yet others to Iran. [BW8p87, 179, 184]
• Six hundred Bahá'í refugees-women, girls, children and a few old men, went to Iran, most to Mashhad. [BW8p89]
• The Bahá'í Temple in Ishqábád (now Ashgabat, Turkmenistan) was confiscated and turned into an art gallery. [BDD122, BW8p89]
• The Bahá'í schools were ordered closed. [BW8p89]
• Spiritual Assemblies and all other administrative institutions in the Caucasus were ordered dissolved. [BW8p89]
• Shoghi Effendi included all these territories in his Ten Year Plan, unveiled in 1953, as follows:
  • The National Spiritual Assembly of Germany and Austria was made responsible for opening Albania, Estonia, Finno—Karelia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia (Moldova), Romania and White Russia (Belarus) and for consolidating Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (S.F.S.R.), and Yugoslavia.
  • The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of lran was made responsible for opening Kirgizia (later named Kyrgyzstan), Mongolia, Tajikistan (Tadzhikistan) and Uzbekistan, and for consolidating Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and Turkmenistan.
  • The National Spiritual Assembly of the United States was responsible for opening Kazakhstan, Sakhalin, and the Ukraine. [BW20p196-197]

The first Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Budapest was elected. There were about 14 believers in the community, mostly of Jewish ancestry. This caused difficulty for the community in the Nazi persecutions that followed. [Rebirth: Memoirs of Renée Szanto-Felbermann p108]

      According to the description of Renée Szántó-Felbermann, they could not even meet in Budapest: „It was at their (the Sugárs) house in Alag (today part of Budakeszi) that we elected the first Spiritual Assembly in the history of Hungary, Ridvan 1939. When we boarded the train for Alag, in order to avoid suspicion, we Bahá'ís did not remain together, but went by twos and threes. The same procedure was repeated on our arrival to Alag. It was a memorable, unforgettable evening, that Feast of Ridván in the small house at Alag fragrant with spring flowers. We were all deeply moved. And our dear Bertha Matthiesen was radiant. … Jenő Sugár was elected chairman, Mária Kleinberger became treasurer and I continued as secretary." [www.bahai.hu]

• See www.bahai.hu for a list of community members.
• Ms Bertha Matthiesen spent a lot of time in Hungary between 1937 and 1939 when most declarations took place and the first spiritual assembly was formed. [www.bahai.hu]
• Mr Emeric Sala (Imre Szalavetz) a Canadian Bahá'í who was born in Hungary visited Budapest in 1933 and in 1937. [www.bahai.hu]
• Canadian travel teacher Ms Lorol Schopflocher visited Budapest in March-April 1937. [www.bahai.hu]

The Local Spiritual Assembly of Bogotá, Colombia, was disbanded.
• It was not reformed until April 1946.

The first local spiritual assembly in the Dominican Republic was established in Santo Domingo.
• There were nine indigenous believers in the city.

The 20 Bahá'ís in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, were a sufficient number for the local spiritual assembly to gain legal recognition for the Bahá'í Faith as a religion.
• It was registered as a cultural, religious and social organization on 5 August 1946.

The Havana Bahá'ís incorporated as an 'assembly', meaning 'group'.
• It was incorporated as a local spiritual assembly in 1949.

The formation of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Amsterdam, the first in the Netherlands. [BQYM204; BW11p654]
• See BQYM205 for a picture of the Assembly members.

The first All-Native Bahá'í Assembly was established on the Omaha Reservation in Macy, Nebraska. [BW13:837; CF72]
• See BW11:536 for a picture.
• For the role of Amelia Collins in establishing this Assembly see PSBW88.

The first local spiritual assembly in Sweden was established in Stockholm. [BW11:689]
• For picture see BW11p689.

The first Bahá'í institution in Italy, the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Rome was elected.
• See picture.

The first local spiritual assembly of Denmark was established in Copenhagen.
• During the years 1948 to 1951 thirty-eight people became Bahá'ís. [SBBR14p243]

Bahá'í women in Egypt were extended the right of membership on local spiritual assemblies. [MBW12]
• Shoghi Effendi called this 'a notable step in the progress of Bahá'í women of the Middle East'. [MBW12]

The first local spiritual assembly of Uganda was established in Kampala.
• Enoch Olinga was a member.

Bahá'í women in Iran were accorded full rights to participate in membership of both national and local Bahá'í assemblies. [MBW65]
• This removed the 'last remaining obstacle to the enjoyment of complete equality of rights in the conduct of the administrative affairs of the Persian Bahá'í Community'. [MBW65]

The first local spiritual assembly in the Bahamas was formed in Nassau.
• For a phono see Worldwide Community of Bahá'u'lláh.

The first local spiritual assembly of Nepal was formed in Kathmandu.
• Prof. Anil Sarwal says it was 1960-1961
• The first Local Spiritual Assembly was established in the capital city Kathmandu in 1961. [Yellow Place]

The first local spiritual assembly in Papua New Guinea was formed in Madina Village, in New Ireland.
• This was the first all-indigenous local spiritual assembly in the South Pacific.

The first local spiritual assembly in the Cocos Islands was formed on West Island.
• For picture see BW13:1052.

The Bahá'í Faith was legally recognized in Lebanon when the Local Spiritual Assembly of Beirut was incorporated. [BW15:173]
• This was the first time any Arab government has granted the Faith recognition. [BW15:173]

The first local spiritual assembly in Bonaire was formed.
• It never functioned and was dissolved in 1989.
• See also West, Letters From Bonaire.

The highest legal authority in Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court, overturned the decisions of a number of lower courts that had refused to register the by-laws of a Local Spiritual Assembly on the grounds that the authority granted to the National Spiritual Assembly in the document violated the legal principle requiring the autonomy of all legally incorporated associations.
• The case was first brought before the District Court of Tübingen when the legal administrator refused to register the Local Assembly on the 8th of December, 1983. The decision was appealed on the 5th of May 1985 to the High State Court in Sturrgart and rejected on the 27th of January 1986. News of the decision caused other jurisdictions to demand that local assemblies amend their By-Laws or face cancellation of their existing incorporation. The National Spiritual Assembly was in danger of the same fate. An appeal was submitted in March of 1986.
• The ruling affirmed Bahá'í community, by its right as a recognized religion, recognized by public knowledge and by the testimony of scholars of comparative religion, had the right to a legal identity. [AWH87]
• See Ridván Message 1991.
• For complete details of the case see Mess86-01p206-235.

The Local Spiritual Assembly of Zanzibar Island was formed. [BINS267:6]
• This is the first administrative body on the island since the revolution of 12 January 1964. [BINS267:6]

They said that this process had been approved and adopted over the two previous years. [Paragraph 32]

Shoghi Effendi wrote that "in every locality where the number of adult declared believers exceeds nine" Assemblies should be elected. [BA37]
• From this time forward the term "Assembly" meant a duly-elected local spiritual assembly and not a group. [BA20]