3. The Content must be used solely for a non-commercial purpose. Although this blanket permission to reproduce the Content is given freely such that no special permission is required, the Bahá’í International Community retains full copyright protection for all Content included at this Site under all applicable national and international laws. For permission to publish, transmit, display or otherwise use the Content for any commercial purpose, please contact us (http://reference.bahai.org/en/contact.html). CONTENTS Baha’i Terms of Use FOREWORD CENTURY OF LIGHT I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII FOREWORD The conclusion of the twentieth century provides Bahá’ís with a unique vantage point. During the past hundred years our world underwent changes far more profound than any in its preceding history, changes that are, for the most part, little understood by the present generation. These same hundred years saw the Bahá’í Cause emerge from obscurity, demonstrating on a global scale the unifying power with which its Divine origin has endowed it. As the century drew to its close, the convergence of these two historical developments became increasingly apparent. _Century of Light_, prepared under our supervision, reviews these two processes and the relationship between them, in the context of the Bahá’í Teachings. We commend it to the thoughtful study of the friends, in the confidence that the perspectives it opens up will prove both spiritually enriching and of practical help in sharing with others the challenging implications of the Revelation brought by Bahá’u’lláh. The Universal House of Justice _Naw-Rúz, 158 b.e._ CENTURY OF LIGHT The twentieth century, the most turbulent in the history of the human race, has reached its end. Dismayed by the deepening moral and social chaos that marked its course, the generality of the world’s peoples are eager to leave behind them the memories of the suffering that these decades brought with them. No matter how frail the foundations of confidence in the future may seem, no matter how great the dangers looming on the horizon, humanity appears desperate to believe that, through some fortuitous conjunction of circumstances, it will nevertheless be possible to bend the conditions of human life into conformity with prevailing human desires. In the light of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh such hopes are not merely illusory, but miss entirely the nature and meaning of the great turning point through which our world has passed in these crucial hundred years. Only as humanity comes to understand the implications of what occurred during this period of history will it be able to meet the challenges that lie ahead. The value of the contribution we as Bahá’ís can make to the process demands that we ourselves grasp the significance of the historic transformation wrought by the twentieth century. What makes this insight possible for us is the light shed by the rising Sun of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation and the influence it has come to exercise in human affairs. It is this opportunity that the following pages address. I Let us acknowledge at the outset the magnitude of the ruin that the human race has brought upon itself during the period of history under review. The loss of life alone has been beyond counting. The disintegration of basic institutions of social order, the violation—indeed, the abandonment—of standards of decency, the betrayal of the life of the mind through surrender to ideologies as squalid as they have been empty, the invention and deployment of monstrous weapons of mass annihilation, the bankrupting of entire nations and the reduction of masses of human beings to hopeless poverty, the reckless destruction of the environment of the planet—such are only the more...