that set aside for
free thinkers, residing in that city, that the Egyptian government
consented to grant to that community, as well as to the Baha'is of
Isma'iliyyih, two tracts of land to serve as burial grounds for their
dead--an act of historic significance which was greatly welcomed by the
members of sore-pressed and long-suffering communities, and which has
served to demonstrate still further the independent character of their
Faith and enlarge the sphere of the jurisdiction of its representative
institutions.

It was to the first of these two officially designated Baha'i cemeteries,
following the decision of the Egyptian Baha'i National Assembly aided by
its sister-Assembly in Persia, that the remains of the illustrious Mirza
Abu'l-Fadl were transferred and accorded a sepulture worthy of his high
position, thereby inaugurating, in a befitting manner, the first official
Baha'i institution of its kind established in the East. This achievement
was, soon after, enhanced by the exhumation from a Christian cemetery in
Cairo of the body of that far-famed mother teacher of the West, Mrs. E.
Getsinger, and its interment, through the assistance extended by the
American Baha'i National Assembly and the Department of State in
Washington, in a spot in the heart of that cemetery and adjoining the
resting-place of that distinguished author and champion of the Faith.

In the Holy Land, where a Baha'i cemetery had, before these
pronouncements, been established during 'Abdu'l-Baha's ministry, the
historic decision to bury the Baha'i dead facing the Qiblih in Akka was
taken--a measure whose significance was heightened by the resolution to
cease having recourse, as had been previously the case, to any Muhammadan
court in all matters affecting marriage and divorce, and to carry out, in
their entirety and without any concealment whatever, the rites prescribed
by Baha'u'llah for the preparation and burial of the dead. This was soon
after followed by the presentation of a formal petition addressed by the
representatives of the local Baha'i community of Haifa, dated May 4, 1929,
to the Palestine Authorities, requesting them that, pending the adoption
of a uniform civil law of personal status applicable to all residents of
the country irrespective of their religious beliefs, the community be
officially recognized by them and be granted "full powers to administer
its own affairs now enjoyed by other religious communities in Palestine."

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