| An arc cut into Mount Carmel along which the international administrative buildings of the Bahá'í Faith are being built. In the Tablet of Carmel, Bahá'u'lláh, addressing Carmel, proclaimed, ‘Ere long will God sail His Ark upon Thee, and will manifest the people of Bahá who have been mentioned in the Book of Names.'25 Shoghi Effendi interpreted this not only symbolically but literally to mean that the various institutions associated with the development of the Faith would actually have a physical presence on Mount Carmel. |
| Shoghi Effendi ‘began the construction of the Administrative Centre of the Faith, to comprise five buildings in a harmonious style of architecture, standing on a far-flung Arc centering on the Monuments of the Greatest Holy Leaf, her Mother and Brother. The first of these five buildings, the International Archives, was completed in the beloved Guardian's lifetime. The second, the Seat of the Universal House of Justice, now stands at the apex of the Arc.'26 In 1987 the Universal House of Justice called for the erection of the remaining three buildings: the Seat of the International Teaching Centre, the Centre for the Study of the Sacred Texts; and the International Bahá'I Library, along with an extension to the International Archives Building and the creation of nineteen monumental terraces surrounding the nearby Shrine of the Báb. The completion of the buildings on the Arc is linked to the beginning of the Lesser Peace.† |
| [BD 20-21] |
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| † Note: Written in 1989. As of 2019 all the buildings on the Arc are completed except the International Bahá'I Library. |
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