• Tablet of the World and Baha'u'llah's Homeland - shrines haifa

    The Tablet of the World and Bahá’u’lláh’s Homeland

    The Tablet of the World was written in 1891 in Haifa. It was written at a time when two of Bahá’u’lláh’s followers lay imprisoned because of their faith. These two, Ali-Akbar, and Haji Abu’l Hassan-i-Amin, had been designated Hands of the Cause and the Tablet of the World starts by honouring them. The words used to do so are resonant: Light and glory, greeting and praise be upon the Hands of His Cause, through whom the light of fortitude hath shone forth and the truth hath been established that the authority to choose rests with God, the Powerful, the Mighty, the Unconstrained, …[1] After drawing our minds to the sacrificial lives of such individuals,…

  • crushed terracotta path bahji - do no harm

    Bahá’u’lláh’s counsel to do no harm

    In the Tablet of the World, Bahá’u’lláh counsels us that we should do no harm. Incline your hearts to the counsels given by the Most Exalted Pen and beware lest your hands or tongues cause harm unto anyone among mankind.[1] The principle to “do no harm” has ancient provenance and appears in both East and West. It is attributed to Hippocrates, as an element of the ancient Greek Hippocratic Oath, binding on the healer. It appears as “ahimsa”, a foundational principle in eastern religions such as Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.  In eastern medicine, the words of the Confucian sage Mengzi are cited as authority to “do no harm”. To be more…

  • shrine of Baha'u'llah beatitudes

    The Beatitudes of Bahá’u’lláh

    In the Lawh-i-Aqdas – Bahá’u’lláh speaks primarily to those familiar with the teachings of Jesus Christ. He concludes this message with twenty-one beatitudes. These, obviously evoke the beatitudes of Jesus and the sermon on the mount, and there are many similarities. But there is also a different resonance. When Jesus spoke two thousand years ago he prepares his followers — those who truly arose to a Christian life — for suffering — counselling his followers to see beyond the external realities of an illusory world. Although Bahá’ulláh also draws attention to persecution in his path and his call is also one to arise to a spiritual life, the primary note…

  • Shrine of the Bab - Reflections off water - message to christians

    Bahá’u’lláh’s Message to Christians

    The Lawh-i-Aqdas – the Most Holy Tablet –  is addressed to Christians. Bahá’u’lláh announces his mission to the followers of Christ. Almost at its outset, the call is made: O followers of the Son! Have ye shut out yourselves from Me by reason of My Name?[1] These words allude to passages such as the following from the Bible. The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.[Isaiah 62:2] To him who overcomes, to him I will give … a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives…

  • kashkul of Bahaullah - metaphors for bahaullah

    Metaphors for Bahá’u’lláh: the Sun of Knowledge, the Ocean of Wisdom, the Royal Falcon

    Innumerable metaphors for Bahá’u’lláh appear in his writings. They enrich our understanding of who Bahá’u’lláh is. One of the most striking such metaphors appears in the Lawh-i-Maqsud. He that hath Me not is bereft of all things. Turn ye away from all that is on earth and seek none else but Me. I am the Sun of Wisdom and the Ocean of Knowledge. I cheer the faint and revive the dead. I am the guiding Light that illumineth the way. I am the royal Falcon on the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird and start it on its flight.[1] In this context, it is quoted from an earlier work by Bahá’u’lláh – the…

  • mansion of bahji

    The Mansion of Bahji and the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh

    In a previous article we explored Bahá’u’lláh’s immediate departure from the prison city of Akka. Although absolute monarchs had ordered his perpetual imprisonment, in the end, the love those around him had for him, including government officers, opened the gates of the prison city and Bahá’u’lláh left the city. No one tried to stop him. In 1879 Bahá’u’lláh and his family moved to a large house known as the Mansion of Bahji. After a lifetime of suffering, Bahá’u’lláh’s final years were spent in this beautiful residence, though the gardens that now surround it were not there during Bahá’u’lláh’s lifetime. Nonetheless, the house was in the countryside and nature beloved by Bahá’u’lláh.…

  • lawh-i-maqsud bahji

    Lawh-i-Maqsud – Principles of the Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings

    We have already been exploring the Lawh-i-Maqsud – written in the closing years of Bahá’u’lláh’s life. In addition to the themes already discussed we find some of Baha’u’llah’s most characteristic teachings, a number of which Abdu’l Baha identifies as principles of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings. Bahá’u’lláh gives us a panoramic vista of unity among human beings illuminating dimension after dimension. The following are brief extracts from this one message. It contains much more. If any man were to meditate on that which the Scriptures, … have revealed, he would readily recognize that their purpose is that all men shall be regarded as one soul … The tabernacle of unity hath been raised;…

  • path to human unity

    If the Learned Illuminated the Path to Human Unity …

    “The cult of [national sovereignty] has become mankind’s major religion. The intensity of worship of the idol of the national state, is of course, no evidence that national sovereignty provides a satisfactory basis for the political organization of mankind … The truth is the very opposite … It seems fairly safe to forecast that, if the human race survives, it will have abandoned the ideal and practice of national sovereignty.” [Arnold Toynbee, The Reluctant Death of Sovereignty, Center for Study of Democratic Institutions, July 1970] These are the words of a leading historian of the twentieth century. While there are other visionaries like him, there are few who so clearly illuminate…

  • Bahiyyih Khanum

    Bahiyyih Khanum

    Bahiyyih Khanum was Bahá’u’lláh’s daughter, the younger sister of Abdu’l Baha. She was only 6 when her family’s home in Tehran was ransacked and the family were sent across the snowbound mountains to Baghdad. It was the beginning of a life of in exile and imprisonment with Baha’u’llah and her fellow family members. We have already met her in her accounts of Baha’u’llah’s return from Kurdistan and the family’s entry into the prison of Akka. She was herself a great figure of the Baha’i Faith, at times acting as regent of the religion – when her brother Abdu’l Baha travelled through Europe and America and when her great-nephew Shoghi Effendi…