entry by troops
Editorial introduction
Become the intimate companion of someone, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, guide them with proofs and with your own conduct, and before long souls will fly to the heights of guidance in successive waves. The promise that people will enter the religion of God in troops, drawn from the Qur’án, is answered everywhere in the Bahá’í writings with a demand on the present: act on even one Tablet, welcome, educate and sustain those who come, and let love be visible enough that an onlooker would want what the community has. Shoghi Effendi distinguishes a steady flow of new believers from the later entry by troops, and that from a mass conversion no one can yet picture, and warns that growth comes in surges of crisis and victory rather than at a uniform rate. Acts sets its numbers beside teaching, fellowship, prayer and provision for those in need [1], a reminder that enthusiasm becomes enduring participation only through shared life. The question is what a community must cultivate to be worth joining. From here the way leads into the growth of the Cause and into the Qur’án and Ḥadíth from which the phrase is drawn.
Each person must become the intimate companion of someone, guiding them through divine counsels, heavenly proofs, godly arguments, the way and conduct of those near to the Divine Court, spiritual qualities and pure and goodly deeds. If this is carried out, but a brief time will pass before souls will fly to the heights of guidance in successive waves.
But, by God besides Whom there is no other God, if the friends of God had acted according to what was revealed in just one of the Tablets of the Ancient Beauty, may His Most Great Mention be exalted, by now all who are on earth would have attained to the bounty of faith and the earth would have become the supreme paradise.
Then you will observe how humanity will enter, group after group, beneath the canopy of the unity of the human world.
Soon most of the people of the world will become enkindled, for there has not been and is not any escape for anyone.
The cries of supplication and invocation will be raised to the Highest Kingdom therefrom and, verily, the people will enter into the religion of God by troops with great enthusiasm and attraction.
Grieve thou not, for soon there shall descend from the clouds of grace that which shall cause people to enter into the religion of God in troops.
But for this mighty Cause and momentous matter, despite storms and tempests, hurricanes and thunderbolts of tests and trials, people are entering into it in troops throughout all regions - east and west, south and north.
As for others, a group will gradually enter under the shelter of the Kingdom but only later. But the glory is in souls turning toward [the Faith] today.
Its lustre, radiance and effulgence shall appear in future centuries when the signs of God will be spread abroad and the Word of God will encompass the hearts of all the peoples of the earth.
Eleven persons in the time of Christ became believers and were assured - now see what is happening: millions of bells ring out "O Christ! O Christ!" After a short time you will hear that from all regions the cry of "Ya Baha'u'l-Abha" is raised.
Know this- that the Revelation of Baha'u'llah is the Word of God. There will not be a home which does not contain a believer. Look not at the present. Turn your vision upon the future. All the books written concerning the History of this Revelation number about fifty volumes.
Soon the reality of "thou shalt see men enter into the religion of God in troops" will be fulfilled in Iran.
The truth of the blessed verse "And thou didst see men entering the religion of God in troops" must become clear and evident.
Convey greetings to each and every one of the friends of God on behalf of 'Abdu'l-Baha and say: O friends of God! Strive that the day when "people shall enter into the religion of God in troops" may be manifested in our time. Otherwise it will be regret upon regret that others after us will succeed in rendering this service while we remain deprived.
Soon you will observe that the blessed verse "and they will enter the religion of God in troops" has been fulfilled.
Today, praise be to God, "And thou seest men entering the religion of God in troops" has been fulfilled.
Praise be to God, the sun of joy has risen and the lamp of gladness shines and the morn of truth has dawned and "they enter the religion of God in troops."
This heavenly gathering will grow day by day, the intoxicated friends will increase in rapture and ecstasy, will break into songs and harmonies, and will raise such a melody as will reach the Supreme Concourse and rejoice and exhilarate the Holy Ones.
Praise be to God that the sun of reality of religion hath dawned. From all parts of the world, host after host are coming under its radiance and ere long it will become world-spread.
Ere long the victory of the Kingdom will appear beyond all expectation, and "thou shalt see men enter the religion of God in troops" will be fulfilled.
It hath pitched its tents in the valley of existence with its forces and legions, and soon shall its spiritual armies seize the pillars of the world. Be thou numbered among this mighty host and charge forth with the power of meanings and wisdom upon the horizons of the nations.
O thou cup overflowing with the Wine of the Love of God! Know thou that the doors of the Kingdom are being opened to both East and West. Verily, the people have remained heedless of the remembrance of their Lord after waiting for centuries and ages! However, those whose consciences are pure and whose hearts are sanctified hasten towards it and enter therein through every door with radiant faces and with hearts and spirits rejoicing.
Further quotations · supplied wording and references
Too great emphasis cannot be laid on the importance of the unity of the friends, for only by manifesting the greatness of their love for and patience with each other can they hope to attract large numbers to their ranks.
He longs to see a greater degree of unity and love among the believers, for these are the spirit which must animate their Community life. Until the people of the world see a shining example set by us they will not embrace the Cause in masses, because they require to see the teachings demonstrated in a pattern of action.
Until the public sees in the Baha'i Community a true pattern, in action, of something better than it already has, it will not respond to the Faith in large numbers.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. ... have a great ability for kindling in the hearts the love of God. It is for this wholesome, warming, spiritualizing love that the world is thirsting today. The Baha'is will never succeed in attracting large numbers to the Faith until they see in our individual and community life acts, and the atmosphere, that bespeak the love of God.
There are two things which will contribute greatly to bringing more people into the Cause more swiftly: one is the maturity of the Baha'is within their Communities, functioning according to Baha'i laws and in the proper spirit of unity, and the other is the disintegration of society and the suffering it will bring in its wake. When the old forms are seen to be hopelessly useless, the people will stir from their materialism and spiritual lethargy, and embrace the Faith.
This flow, moreover, will presage and hasten the advent of the day which, as prophesied by 'Abdu'l-Baha, will witness the entry by troops of peoples of divers nations and races into the Baha'i world -- a day which, viewed in its proper perspective, will be the prelude to that long-awaited hour when a mass conversion on the part of these same nations and races, and as a direct result of a chain of events, momentous and possibly catastrophic in nature, and which cannot as yet be even dimly visualized, will suddenly revolutionize the fortunes of the Faith, derange the equilibrium of the world, and reinforce a thousandfold the numerical strength as well as the material power and the spiritual authority of the Faith of Baha'u'llah.
The Faith advances, not at a uniform rate of growth, but in vast surges, precipitated by the alternation of crisis and victory. In a passage written on 18 Jul. 1953, in the early months of the Ten Year Crusade, Shoghi Effendi, referring to the vital need to ensure through the teaching work a "steady flow" of "fresh recruits to the slowly yet steadily advancing army of the Lord of Hosts", stated that this flow would "presage and hasten the advent of the day which, as prophesied by 'Abdu'l-Baha, will witness the entry by troops of peoples of divers nations and races into the Baha'i world".... This is the time for which we must now prepare ourselves; this is the hour whose coming it is our task to hasten.
When the masses of mankind are awakened and enter the Faith of God, a new process is set in motion and the growth of a new civilization begins. Witness the emergence of Christianity and of Islam. These masses are the rank and file, steeped in traditions of their own, but receptive to the new Word of God, by which, when they truly respond to it, they become so influenced as to transform those who come in contact with them.
...entry by troops is not merely a stage of the progress of the Cause destined to occur in its own good time, dependent on the receptivity of the population as a whole -- it is a phenomenon which the Baha'i communities, by their own activities, can prepare for and help to bring about. It is also a process which, once started, can be sustained.
The more important consequences of your activities are the spirit that is diffused into the life of the community, and the extent to which the teachings we proclaim become part of the consciousness and belief of the people that hear them. For it is only when the spirit has thoroughly permeated the world that the people will begin to enter the Faith in large numbers.
For thought and discussion