In the year 1875 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá – the son of the founder of the Bahá’i Faith, Bahá’u’lláh – wrote the powerful, profound book The Secret of Divine Civilization.

Although ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s book ostensibly focuses on the dynamic of modernization as it applied to Persian society at the time, it also provides a larger framework for social development to be used by both developed and underdeveloped countries. Today, almost 150 years after its initial publication, it still offers strikingly incisive insights into the requisites of a modern civilization.