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To all administrative regulations which the civil authorities have issued from time to time, or will issue in the future in that land, as in all other countries, the Baha'i community, faithful to its sacred obligations towards its government, and conscious of its civic duties, has yielded, and will continue to yield implicit obedience. Its immediate closing of its schools in Persia is a proof of this. To such orders, however, as are tantamount to a recantation of their faith by its members, or constitute an act of disloyalty to its spiritual, its basic and God- given principles and precepts, it will stubbornly refuse to bow, preferring imprisonment, deportation and all manner of persecution, including death-- as already suffered by the twenty thousand martyrs that have laid down their lives in the path of its Founders-- rather than follow the dictates of a temporal authority requiring it to renounce its allegiance to its cause.
(372:1)
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