There are Baha'is living in over 103,000 localities throughout the world; Baha'i literature has been translated into over 650 languages; the sixth and seventh Baha'i Temples are being built in India and Samoa; land for 123 other Temples has been acquired; there are 125 National Spiritual Assemblies and 25,500 Local Spiritual Assemblies.

Baha'is are now energetically pursuing a Seven Year Plan designed to further expand and consolidate the growth of the Faith throughout the world.
Most encouraging of all has been the response of the masses in such places as Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Latin America, where large numbers of the indigenous peoples have begun to enter the Cause, bringing about a new stage in the development of the administrative and social activities of the worldwide Baha'i community.
FOOTNOTES 1 Written shortly after the First World War.
2 There are now the incomparable translations by Shoghi Effendi from the Persian and Arabic, of the Writings of Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha.

These, together with his own considerable writings covering the history of the Faith, the statements and implications of its fundamental verities and the unfoldment of its Administrative Order, make the modern inquirer's task infinitely easier than in Dr.
Esslemont's time.
3 The "a" pronounced as in _Sh_ah.
4 One of the two great factions--_Sh_i'ih and Sunni--into which Islam fell soon after the death of Muhammad, was the first legitimate successor of the Prophet, and that only his descendants are the rightful caliphs.
5 First day of Muharram, 1235 A.H.
6 On this point a historian remarks: "The belief of many people in the East, especially the believers in the Bab (now Baha'is) was this: that the Bab received no education, but that the Mullas, in order to lower him in the eyes of the people, declared that such knowledge and wisdom as he possessed were accounted for by the education he had received.

After deep search into the truth of this matter we have found evidence to show that in childhood for a short time he used to go to the house of _Sh_ay_kh_ Muhammad (also known as Abid) where he was taught to read and write in Persian.

It was this to which the Bab referred when he wrote in the book of Bayan: 'O Muhammad, O my teacher! ...' "The remarkable thing is this, however, that this _Sh_ay_kh_, who was his teacher, became a devoted disciple of his own pupil, and the uncle of the Bab who was like a father to him, whose name was Haji Siyyid 'Ali, also became a devout believer and was martyred as a Babi.
"The understanding of these mysteries is given to seekers after truth, but we know this, that such education as the Bab received was but elementary, and that whatever signs of unusual greatness and knowledge appeared in him were innate and from God." 7 A Traveller's Narrative Written to Illustrate the Episode of the Bab with an introduction by E.G.Browne, referred to subsequently as A Traveller's Narrative (Episode of the Bab).
8 i.e.May 23, 1844 A.D.
9 The Imam of the _Sh_i'ihs is the divinely ordained successor of the Prophet whom all the faithful must obey.