a similar purpose approximate one-half of a million square meters, ninety thousand of which have been set aside near Santiago, Chile, for the first Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár of South America. The estimated value of the national Bahá’í administrative headquarters established in Ṭihrán, in Wilmette, Illinois, in Ba_gh_dád, in Cairo, in New Delhi, in Sydney, in Frankfurt and in Toronto, exceeds one and three-quarters of a million dollars. The Bahá’í spiritual assemblies now incorporated number one hundred and fourteen, of which nine are national and the rest local assemblies, fifty-six of which are in the United States of America, sixteen in India, eleven in South America, six in Central America, three each in Pákistán, in Burma and in Canada, two in Australia and one each in Germany, in Balú_ch_istán, in New Zealand, in the Philippine Islands and in Malaya. The Bahá’í marriage certificate has been recognized by the Israel civil authorities, as well as by twenty-one federal districts and states of the United States of America. The Bahá’í holy days have been recognized by the Ministry of Education of the State of Israel, in the British Isles, by the state of Victoria in Australia, in Anchorage, Alaska, in Washington, D.C. and in seven states of the American Union. National Bahá’í conferences have been held in recent years in Bern, Zurich, Basel, Rome; national Bahá’í women’s conventions and youth conferences have convened in Ṭihrán, whilst regional teaching conferences have been organized in Buenos Aires, in Panama City, in Scandinavia, in the Iberian Peninsula, and in the Benelux countries. European international teaching conferences have been convened successively in Geneva, in Brussels, in Copenhagen, in Scheveningen and in Luxembourg City, paving the way for the convocation of four successive Intercontinental Teaching Conferences, the first of which has recently been held in Kampala, in the heart of the African continent, the rest to be successively convened in Wilmette, Illinois, in Stockholm and in New Delhi—Conferences which, God willing, will be the forerunners of the World Bahá’í Congress, to be convened in the city of Ba_gh_dád, on the occasion of the centenary of the formal assumption by Bahá’u’lláh of His prophetic office. Recognition has been extended to the Faith by the United Nations as an international non-governmental organization enabling the Bahá’í International Community to appoint accredited representatives, who have already attended, in their capacity as observers, the Conference on Human Rights held in Geneva and the United Nations General Assembly held in Paris and participated in United Nations regional non-governmental conferences, held in localities as far apart as New York, Santiago, Manila, Istanbul, Den Passar, Paris, Managua, Geneva and Montevideo. PRELUDE TO PRODIGIOUS EXPANSION