# The Greenland Promise

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Harry Liedtke, The Greenland Promise, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> The Greenland Promise
> 
> Harry Liedtke
> After moving to Canada in October of 1951, I was told by Canadian
> Baha’is that ‘Abdu’l-Baha had promised that Greenland would one
> day become green again. It was a startling prophecy. The topic of a
> future greening of Greenland was never mentioned by my Danish
> friends whose country then administered Greenland before home
> rule was established in 1979.
> 
> One reason for this was that the promise may have been gleaned
> from ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s Tablet to the Baha’is of Canada and Greenland,
> a text few European Baha’is had studied. The prophecy was
> repeated often. Outside observers saw it as an example where
> religious belief did not appear to correspond with science, while
> some Baha’is saw it as a promise that an all-powerful God can and
> will improve the earthly conditions of a more spiritual humanity.
> 
> The statement that “Greenland will become green again” did not
> just promise a green future, but it also implied that Greenland was
> green in the past to become green “again”. If this was true, a future
> prospect of an ice free land would be credible. There is no reason
> why any place on earth cannot return to a former condition. Arable
> land has turned into desert and deserts sometimes became arable
> again.
> 
> The problem with Greenland is that it never was ice free ever since
> man has walked on earth and a meltdown of Greenland’s ice sheet
> would scarcely be a blessing, but would, certainly in the short term,
> bring more harm than good to human society. The good news, as
> we shall see, is that ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s promise in His Tablet of the
> Divine Plan does not at all disagree with science, because He never
> claimed that Greenland was once an ice free paradise and He did
> not promise that it would become one in a geological sense.
> 
> In the English language library of Baha’i texts a search under the
> category of authoritative scripture shows 20 mentions of
> “Greenland” in 70 different documents. The first and most
> important mention to which several others refer later is this one by
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha:
> 
> TABLET TO THE BAHÁ'ÍS OF CANADA AND GREENLAND Written
> on April 5, 1916, in the garden adjacent to the Shrine of
> Bahá'u'lláh, and addressed to the Bahá'ís of Canada --
> Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
> Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Alberta, British
> Columbia, Yukon, Mackenzie, Keewatin, Ungava, Franklin Islands
> and Greenland.
> “He is God! O ye daughters and sons of the Kingdom: ALTHOUGH in
> most of the states and cities of the United States, praise be to God,
> His fragrances are diffused, and souls unnumbered are turning their
> faces and advancing toward the Kingdom of God, yet in some of the
> states the Standard of Unity is not yet upraised as it should be, nor
> are the mysteries of the Holy Books, such as the Bible, the Gospel,
> and the Qur'án, unravelled. Through the concerted efforts of all the
> friends the Standard of Unity must needs be unfurled in those states,
> and the divine teachings promoted, so that these states may also
> receive their portion of the heavenly bestowals and a share of the
> Most Great Guidance. Likewise in the provinces of Canada, such as
> Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
> Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British
> Columbia, Ungava, Keewatin, Mackenzie, Yukon, and the Franklin
> Islands in the Arctic Circle -- the believers of God must become self-
> sacrificing and like unto the candles of guidance become ignited in
> the provinces of Canada. Should they show forth such a
> magnanimity, it is assured that they will obtain universal divine
> confirmations, the heavenly cohorts will reinforce them
> uninterruptedly, and a most great victory will be obtained. God
> willing, the call of the Kingdom may reach the ears of the Eskimos,
> the inhabitants of the Islands of Franklin in the north of Canada, as
> well as Greenland. Should the fire of the love of God be kindled in
> Greenland, all the ice of that country will be melted, and its cold
> weather become temperate -- that is, if the hearts be touched with the
> heat of the love of God, that territory will become a divine rose garden
> and a heavenly paradise, and the souls, even as fruitful trees, will
> acquire the utmost freshness and beauty. Effort, the utmost effort, is
> required. Should you display an effort, so that the fragrances of God
> may be diffused among the Eskimos, its effect will be very great and
> far-reaching. God says in the great Qur'án: A day will come wherein
> the lights of unity will enlighten all the world. "The earth will be
> irradiated with the light of its Lord." [Qur'án 39:69.] In other words,
> the earth will become illumined with the light of God. That light is the
> light of unity. "There is no God but God." The continent and the
> islands of Eskimos are also parts of this earth. They must similarly
> receive a portion of the bestowals of the Most Great Guidance. Upon
> you be greeting and praise! (Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of the Divine Plan,
> p. 25)
> 
> Since all but one of these references to Greenland are linked
> directly to Canada’s importance in the unfolding world order of
> Baha’u’llah, it does not surprise that in other countries little if any
> mention was made of a promise that dealt with Greenland’s future.
> There is, however, one additional reference to Greenland dating
> back to 1996 when the Universal House of Justice made mention of
> it in its message at Ridvan 153 B.E : “Our thoughts turn often to
> the Bahá'í community of Greenland, whose staunchness of faith
> and dogged perseverance have won our admiration and praise, and
> have resulted in the Faith's becoming firmly established in that
> distant land. Inspired by the promise set out in the Tablets of the
> Divine Plan that "if the hearts be touched with the heat of the love
> of God, that territory will become a divine rose-garden and a
> heavenly paradise, and the souls, even as fruitful trees, will acquire
> the utmost freshness and beauty," let them now go forth to claim
> new victories on the home front and to transform their nation
> through the power of the Divine Teaching.”
> Here the House of Justice is quoting ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s amplification of
> His message. This amplification seems important. It shifts emphasis
> from a dramatic earthly vision of a land freed from its icy burden
> and explains the deeper meaning of the Master’s promise to
> Greenlanders. In the middle of the Tablet of the Divine Plan
> addressed to Canada and the northern regions of the western
> hemisphere, ‘Abdu’lBaha first writes, “Should the fire of the love of
> God be kindled in Greenland, all the ice of that country will be
> melted, and its cold weather become temperate –-” It should be noted
> that the sentence does not end here with a full stop which would
> have made this statement quite unequivocal indeed. Instead, the
> sentence continues after two dashes and a comma with a “that is”
> and gives this amplification, or explanation, “ — that is, if the hearts
> be touched with the heat of the love of God, that territory will become
> a divine rose-garden and a heavenly paradise, and the souls, even
> as fruitful trees, will acquire the utmost freshness and beauty." It is
> this latter portion of the sentence that the House of Justice chose to
> quote. Here ‘Abdu’l-Baha places His emphasis on the heat of the
> love of God, rather than on a more benign earthly climate, and on
> “souls, even as fruitful trees,” rather than on lush earthly vegetation.
> 
> It may well benefit the promotion of the Cause of God to meditate
> on this message instead of letting fervor repeat exaggerated and
> unfounded claims which could be exploited by ill-wishers to
> discredit the validity of the Teachings as a whole. In this regard this
> further explanation by ‘Abdu’lBaha should be instructive:
> [Someone] asked why the teachings of all religions are expressed
> largely by parables and metaphors and not in the plain language of
> the people. 'Abdu'l-Bahá replied: "Divine things are too deep to be
> expressed by common words. The heavenly teachings are expressed
> in parable in order to be understood and preserved for ages to come.
> When the spiritually minded dive deeply into the ocean of their
> meaning they bring to the surface the pearls of their inner
> significance. There is no greater pleasure than to study God's Word
> with a spiritual mind." - Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 79. And
> elsewhere He has said, “Consider how the parable makes attainment
> dependent upon capacity.” - Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 149
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s linkage between human response to God’s
> Commandments and the earthly environment is mentioned in other
> religions. Buddhist texts also link nature’s equilibrium to human
> behaviour. “When people are happy and satisfied...when good deeds
> are promoted and virtues are increased...then everyone
> prospers...the weather and temperature become normal, sun, moon
> and stars shine naturally; rains and winds come timely; and all
> natural calamities disappear. - The Teaching of Buddha, p.233,
> Bukko Dendo Kyokai
> 
> A valid question then is why is glacier-covered Greenland known as
> green land when it has been anything but green. Norse legends
> from the 12th century tell of Eric the Red exploring the southeast
> and southwest coasts of Greenland from 983 to 986 A.D. Towards
> the West, islands were teeming with birds and the sea ran plentiful
> with fish. Everywhere the coastlines had many fjords that afforded
> safe moorage. At the head of these fjords stretched enormous grassy
> meadows and there grew willows, juniper, birch, and wild berries.
> After arduous voyage in an open Viking ship, arriving from an
> austere region in Northern Europe, this greenery must have made
> an overwhelming impression to fully justify Greenland’s name.
> Moreover, only a few years earlier in 976 A.D. Iceland, the British
> Isles and Northern Europe had experienced a catastrophic famine
> and people there were starved for food and always on the lookout
> for new arable land. They would have been more inclined to settle in
> a green land than at some other inhospitable place.
> 
> Suzanne Schuurmann, a Canadian Baha’i, who with her husband
> Hubert and their three children lived in Greenland for a year, has
> added here her own observations: “What no one ever writes about,
> maybe because they have not actually been in Greenland, is that
> the southern tip, where the first Norsemen most likely landed, is in
> fact very green with rolling meadows. When we were there sheep
> were raised and some very decent gardens were grown with veg and
> flowers. There are no trees, mind you, save for some that looked like
> scrawny versions of lilacs, but were I think poplars. Even a day’s
> sailing north on the western shore sheep raising is practiced to this
> day using the old Norse stone walls to delineate the fields. After
> Iceland where the Norsemen had a foothold, the southern part of
> Greenland may have looked green and inviting, especially since at
> that time they were experiencing a warming (for a time).”
> 
> Core drillings of Greenland’s ice have confirmed that in the 10th
> century Greenland underwent a warm spell. However, the bulk of
> this newly discovered “mini continent‟, in fact 80% of it, lay buried
> under a vast sheet of ice which on average was 2,000 meters, and
> in some places 3,000 meters thick. This enormous thickness can
> perhaps be best appreciated by comparing it with Capetown’s Table
> Mountain that rises a mere 1,100 meters, or Vancouver’s Grouse
> Mountain that towers just 1,200 meters above the shoreline below.
> Core drillings and other tests indicate that Greenland’s vast ice
> sheet formed over two million years ago. It covers 1,800,000 square
> kilometers at an average thickness of 2,135 meters.
> 
> Some scientists believe that global warming may be about to push
> the ice sheet over a threshold where it could melt within a few
> hundred years. If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometers of ancient
> ice were to melt it would raise the world’s oceans by over seven
> meters. This would inundate many coastal cities and low lying
> regions on all continents and drown several island nations such as
> Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Maldives which have elevations of less than
> seven meters above sea level.
> 
> The Greenland Ice Sheet is sometimes referred to as inland ice, or
> its Danish equivalent indlandsis. The currently existing ice is
> estimated to be only some 110,000 years old because of a regular
> “calving” of icebergs into the ocean and a new precipitation of snow.
> However, it is generally accepted by science that the ice sheet
> formed fairly rapidly in the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene period
> when ice caps and glaciers coalesced. The massive weight of the ice
> has depressed Greenland’s center deep into earth’s soft magma. As
> a result, the surface of Greenland’s bedrock is believed to lie near
> sea level. Greenland’s periphery is ringed by mountain ranges.
> Some of us who have travelled on transatlantic flights may have
> observed the jagged peaks protruding from the ice. These
> mountains confine the ice sheet along its margins. If this ice were to
> disappear altogether, Greenland would initially look like a semi-
> circular mountainous archipelago with a vast lagoon of ocean water
> at its center.
> 
> This somewhat unattractive prospect could change over extremely
> long periods when a “post-glacial rebound” may cause Greenland’s
> tectonic base to rise up from the magma and to form a contiguous
> continent. Many thousands of years later, following the dictates of
> life, this newly formed continent may even become covered with
> forests and lush vegetation. Northern Europe serves as an example.
> After it was liberated from the enormous weight of the ice shield at
> the end of the last Ice Age, parts of northern Europe began to rise
> from Earth‟s interior mantle. While this movement has slowed
> considerably, it actually continues to push up the whole region by
> roughly one centimeter per annum. Geologists expect this slow
> movement to continue over the next 10,000 years at which time
> some regions of northern Europe may be 100 meters higher above
> sea level than they are today. One can therefore speculate that
> Greenland could experience a similar change, but initially there
> would be many imponderable consequences for our planet’s climate
> and for human existence.
> 
> The melt of Greenland’s three million cubic kilometers of ice would
> change the salinity of earth’s oceans which in turn would influence
> marine life and ocean currents. It could also impact Antarctica’s ice
> sheet of 30 million cubic kilometers which represents no less than
> 60 per cent of our planet‟s entire fresh water supply. Should
> Antarctica get “infected” by a Greenland meltdown, the world’s
> oceans would rise by an estimated further seventy meters. It is
> impossible in this brief article to describe the calamitous
> ramifications this would have. Many coastlines would be left barely
> recognizable. Much of Northern Europe, Russia, North and South
> America, Northern India and Bangladesh would all be under water.
> Vast food growing regions would simply disappear. Our world as we
> know it would be gone. On your computer search for ‘Google Maps
> Find Altitude’ and discover the precariously low elevations of many
> of the world’s cities and regions.
> 
> As is, land-born life has been a miraculous exception right from the
> beginning. The earth is essentially a water planet. Its oceans cover
> two-thirds of its surface and they are on average two miles (3,200
> meters or 10,000 feet) deep. This is five times the average elevation
> of the continents which cover only one third of earth’s surface.
> These lopsided ratios tell us that earth’s water volume is ten times
> greater than the “volume” of our planet’s protruding dry land. In
> many regions land rises only a few meters above sea level. The only
> thing that gave our race the advantage of a land-borne existence
> which allows us to see the Sun and the stars and to become aware
> of God’s great universe, was the unusual formation of huge hollows
> and canyons within earth’s crust that became the vast ocean
> basins. Had it not been for their fortuitous formation, the entire
> globe would have been covered with oceans thousands of meters
> deep, leaving no possibility for land-borne life.
> 
> Now that we have developed into an inter-connected world
> community, immature and flawed as it still may be, we have
> multiplied and settled wherever land offered itself for human
> habitation. A drastic meltdown of Greenland and other arctic and
> ant-arctic regions would not at all help to make our planet a
> happier home, but it would make our task of building an ordered
> and peaceful world that much more difficult. A literal fulfillment of
> any perceived golden promise would in the end stop the march of
> civilization dead in its tracks.
> 
> __________
> 
> These observations carry no authority whatsoever. They are meant
> to stimulate thought and not debate. “He who thinks about his faith
> and comes to the wrong conclusion deserves a reward. He who
> thinks about his faith and arrives at the truth deserves a double
> reward.” - Ascribed to Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) Islamic theologian,
> jurist, philosopher, cosmologist, psychologist and mystic
> 
> Harry Liedtke, Kelowna, B.C., July 2012
>
> — *The Greenland Promise (Used by permission of the curator)*