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Bahá’u’lláh is freed from the Prison City
The circumstances in which Bahá’u’lláh was freed from the prison city of Akka provide a remarkable contrast from the circumstances in which he was condemned to perpetual exile within its walls. Secular and religious opponents had brought it about. Nine years had passed since that imprisonment and over the years he had become a revered and loved figure in the prison city. Now, both secular and religious leaders assisted in bringing about Bahá’u’lláh’s release from the prison city – notwithstanding that he was still a condemned prisoner. Abdu’l Baha tells the story of how his departure from the city came about. Bahá’u’lláh loved the beauty and verdure of the country.…
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Poisonous Envy
The spiritual world which continually surrounds us, but of which we are only dimly aware, has its own natural laws, so to speak. Among these are laws governing the ways in which the human soul interacts with that world. For some souls, close proximity with the spiritual world draws out the best in them, for a few it draws out the worst. Abdu’l Baha alluded to these patterns in talks he gave over dinner to visiting western pilgrims. In short, that human beings may choose to rise to angelic heights or plunge to demonic behaviours. Consider, likewise, the differences that exist among the members of the human race. Christ was in…
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A Light in Dungeon Darkness: the Siyah-Chal and the beginning of Bahá’u’lláh’s mission
Chained, humiliated and conducted over fifteen miles in the heat of summer, Bahá’u’lláh had been cast into Tehran’s most notorious dungeon: Siyah-Chal – the Black Pit. In the city outside a pogrom was sweeping the city taking the lives of hundreds. Baha’u’llah’s own words describe what was done to him: … from Niyavaran [they] conducted Us, on foot and in chains, with bared head and bare feet, to the dungeon of Tihran. A brutal man, accompanying Us on horseback, snatched off Our hat, whilst We were being hurried along by a troop of executioners and officials.[1] In God Passes By, Shoghi Effendi records: On the way He several times was stripped of His outer garments, was overwhelmed with ridicule,…
