Letter of 14 June 1933

Shoghi 14 June 1933 Dear Dr. &Muhlschlegel:

Many thanks for your letter of June 4th 1933. I presented it together with the enclosed report on the Summer school to the Guardian who was very pleased to read them.

He kept the report but wishes me to inform you that as the &Baha'i World Volume five will not be compiled and made ready for the press except after the coming summer, you could write another and fuller report to include the one that will be held this year. There will surely be some further points of interest that could be mentioned; and it is always better to have such reports as up-to-date as possible.

The Guardian hopes that this summer a great step will be taken in developing the School and that you will play an important &role in that connection.

In case of the need of further correspondence on this or similar subjects please write directly to Shoghi Effendi, it will avoid unnecessary delay.

In closing may I express the Guardian's prayers and best wishes for the progress of your work in serving the Faith.... +P49 27 June 1933 Dear Dr. &Muhlschlegel:

Shoghi Effendi wishes me to acknowledge on his behalf the receipt of your letter dated May 11th, 1933, together with the enclosed Program of the &Baha'i meetings held in Stuttgart and Esslingen, all of which he has carefully read and deeply appreciated.

In regard to the transliteration of Oriental names and words into German he wishes me to inform you that the system of transliteration actually in use in the &Baha'i world has been adopted and approved with only slight changes by a general Orientalist Congress representative of world's greatest orientalists including some outstanding German authorities in various branches of Oriental history and literature. As you see, therefore, it is a highly recommendable system of transliteration and this is why the Guardian is so emphatic about its univeral adoption by the &Baha'is the world over. Any departure from that system, he strongly feels, may lead to incalculable difficulties and misunderstandings in the future. He would certainly urge you to adopt it yourself and then advise our German friends to do the same in all their official &Baha'i publications and particularly in the forthcoming issues of the "Sonne der Wahrheit" wherein some chapters of the "Dawn-Breakers" are going to be published.

Concerning the date of the anniversary of the &Bab's declaration the Guardian feels that it would be preferable to postpone the consideration of this problem until the Universal House of Justice is established. In the meantime he would advise you to follow the system actually in use in the &Baha'i world, i.e. (year 9.) even in Germany. According to this system the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration +P50 of the Faith should be celebrated in May of the year 101, that is when we enter the second &Baha'i century. By year 90 we should not mean that 90 years have elapsed since the declaration of the &Bab but that we are in the 9th year. But whether it is preferable to adopt this system or that suggested by you and which, you remark, is in use among Christians and Moslems, the future House of Justice has to decide.

Touching the &Baha'i funeral service the Guardian would like you to know that it is of an extreme simplicity, consisting as it does of a congregational prayer which has not yet been translated into any western language but which Shoghi Effendi is planning to have it translated and circulated among the friends. The friends and relatives of the deceased who are unwilling to attend the service should not be forced to do so.

In closing may I extend to you the loving greetings of the Guardian....

[From the Guardian:] Dear and valued co-worker:

This is to assure you how glad and gratified I feel to learn that the German believers are taking so active a part in the international activities of the Cause. Their thoroughness, ability, patience and open-mindedness highly qualify them to assume such responsibilities and undertake so great a task. I trust that the letters you will soon be sending to the British High Commissioner for Palestine will be a prelude to the brilliant services you are destined to render to the Cause of &Baha'u'llah.

Your true brother,