magnanimity and raise a great sum for the building, that the foundation of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár may be laid by the hands of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. I want everyone left free to act as he wills. If anyone wishes to put money into other things, let him do so. Do not interfere with him in any way, but be assured that—the most important thing at this time is the building of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár . . . .”
“When the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár is completed, when the lights are emanating therefrom, the prayers are performed with supplication toward the Mysterious Kingdom (of Heaven), the voice of glorification is raised to the Lord, the Supreme;—then the believers shall rejoice, the hearts be dilated and overflow with the love of the All-living and Self-existent (God). The people shall hasten to worship in the heavenly Temple, the Fragrances of God will be elevated, the Divine Teachings will be established in the hearts like the establishment of the Spirit in mankind; the people will then stand firm in the Cause of our Lord, the Merciful. Whosoever arises for the service of this building shall be assisted with great power from His Supreme Kingdom, and upon him spiritual and heavenly blessings shall descend which shall fill his heart with wonderful consolation and enlighten his eyes by beholding the Glorious and Eternal God.”
It may be questioned whether any modern edifice has attracted such widespread interest as the Bourgeois design of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, descriptions and illustrations of which have appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the world. Even in China and Japan the press gave details of this universal religious structure, and in architectural and engineering journals the design has been acclaimed as the inauguration of a new style and period.
The symbolism of the Temple has been sympathetically interpreted by Mary Hanford Ford:
“The Temple model is a nonagon, or nine sided structure, with nine doors, nine ribs in the dome, nine openings on each side, etc. All the dimensional numbers of the temple are related to nine.
“Nine is the number of perfection, both in the ancient numerology of Pythagoras and the cabala, and in that of the present day. . . . In the older systems 9 represented the highest perfection of man, while 10 stood for God and man united, as in the Messiah. In the Bahá’í symbolism, 9 adds to its own power that of 10, because it stands for the Glory, or Bahá, which is God.
“It is actually formed by the word Bahá, the Glory, because in the Arabic language letters are numerical symbols also. B is 2; A is 1; H is 5, and A is 1 again, and the consensus of all makes 9. So the nine doors of the Temple symbolize the perfect number of paths to God, and thus unity in the Glory of Bahá, and the prevalence of 9 in the numerical structure of the temple creates heavenly unity in its vibration.
“19 is the Báb’s number for unity, and 5 is the number of the Báb himself. So these numbers reappear constantly. There are 18 steps at each of the nine entrances of the Temple, which with the completing doorway make 19—and each door (a 19) becomes a recurring symbol of the Báb himself, because as we remember, Báb is a title meaning a door between heaven and earth. There are nine openings on each of the nine sides of the Temple on the first and second stories, producing the number 81 or spiritually 9, and 3 small doors on each side of the third story, making 27—or again 9. There are 9 columns on the first story, 9 buttress ornaments on
the second, 9 ribs to the