A Tutorial on the Promised Day Is Come

The Promised Day Is Come is a major work of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith as appointed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, his Grandfather. Shoghi Effendi wrote this book when World War II had been raging in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world for about two years. It was a time when the colossal violence, bloodshed and the misery it was causing were well-known and felt by everyone. The title of the book, The Promised Day Is Come, is a statement that Bahá'u'lláh uttered in a number of His Tablets giving the glad tidings of the coming of the Lord of Hosts as promised in previous holy scriptures, and as a warning of the impending convulsion that would afflict humanity.

In his book, Shoghi Effendi offers a unique philosophy of twentieth-century human history, providing an explanation of the reasons for the occurrence of the events of that time, and their ultimate purpose beyond the usual political and economic analysis. He refers to those world afflicting ordeals as a "judgement of God" against people of the earth who failed to recognize Bahá'u'lláh. In fact, they not only missed such an opportunity, but abandoned their own religions and replaced them with ideologies based on so-called gods that were in conflict with the spirit of revealed religions, particularly the three chief idols of Nationalism, Racialism and Communism.

Shoghi Effendi also highlights in the book the social evolution of humankind towards its ultimate stage of its unification as a world commonwealth. He articulates the characteristics of the Bahá'í world commonwealth that will be established after a great world convulsion and identifies the stages through which the process will unfold.

This current book is designed to assist you in the study of The Promised Day Is Come and absorbing its contents. It is called a tutorial as it attempts to simulate, as much as possible, the tutor-tutored relationship in a self-paced personal study. All the references in the tutorial are sourced either from authoritative Bahá'í materials or obtained from other reliable sources.