Just as Amatu'l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum had ended the Association's annual conference, so she opened the three days of its International Bahá'í Conference on Marriage and the Family, speaking first about the problem of divorce, endemic among the Bahá'ís as it is in the world at large, and a source of great concern at the World Centre. Although marriage, she said, is not in itself a commandment, it is essential that Bahá'ís obey and take seriously the Bahá'í laws on marriage.

One of the speakers at the International Bahá'í Conference on Marriage and the Family, sponsored by the Association for Bahá'í Studies was Mrs Yoshiko Nomura, a housewife from Tokyo, Japan, who was the founder and executive director of the Center for Lifelong Integrated Education.

Other speakers included Kerry Mothersill, A.M. Ghadirian, Khalil A. Khavari, Michael Bruwer, Jane Faily, Frank Haendel, Hossain Danesh, Eric Frost, Sandra Roberts, N. Peseschkian, Ruth Eyford, and Anne McGillivray. [BN Issue 607 October 1981 p7]

This year, with the approval of the Universal House of Justice, the name of the Association was changed from the Canadian Association for Studies on the Bahá'í Faith to the Association for Bahá'í Studies in recognition of its increasingly international character. Also, the Association recently purchased a modest house on the campus of the University of Ottawa to serve as a Center for Bahá'í Studies and as an administrative headquarters for the organization.

The presentations included: "The Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Personal Growth," by Hossain Danesh, a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada who is a practicing psychiatrist; a discussion of the use of computers in indexing the Bahá'í Writings, presented by Edward Fox, a doctoral candidate in computer science at Cornell University; "John the Baptist—The Forgotten Manifestation," by Jack McLean, a doctoral candidate in religious studies at the University of Ottawa; and a presentation on the life and works of Mishkín-Qalam, the famous Bahá'í calligrapher, by Gol Aidun of Brandon, Manitoba.

Also included in the conference was the second annual Ḥasan Balyúzi Lectureship—given this year by Douglas Martin, secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada, who spoke on the persecutions of the Bahá'ís in Iran under the Pahlavi regime, and by Glenford E. Mitchell, secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States, who discussed the reaction of people in the West to the current wave of persecutions in Iran.

The last presentation of the conference was that of Amatu'l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum who had recently arrived in North America after several months in Central America. Although not entirely recovered from an illness acquired during her travels, she spoke vigorously—although, uncharacteristically, while seated. Her principal theme was the corrosive effects of the prejudice of the educated toward the illiterate, though she stressed the importance of the contribution of the educated in the Faith and in society.

She also urged the Bahá'ís to redouble their efforts, citing a passage pointed out to her by the beloved Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, in which Bahá'u'lláh, while still in Baghdád, had said that if the Bahá'ís had busied themselves with what He had commanded them to do, "now the entire world would be clothed in faith." [BN Issue 607 October 1981 p7; BCVol 3 No 5 July/August 1981 p5]

This cooperative partnership between the Bahá'í Community and the Department of Immigration became a model for some 25 other countries.

Note: This brief was presented to The Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects of Canada by the Canadian Bahá'í Community through its National Spiritual Assembly in Saskatoon November 21-22, 1983.