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Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the 500 year old Ottoman caliphate. And before the Ottomans captured the city and made it their own, it had stood for more than 1000 years as the capital of the Christian Roman Empire. In April 1863 Bahá’u’lláh was exiled again – “summoned” to that capital. As we have seen, the departure from Baghdad was a moment when the love the people felt for Bahá’u’lláh became evident and it was the moment when Bahá’u’lláh first announced his mission. Rather than a time of grief, it is a time that is celebrated as the greatest festival of the Baha’i calendar. On arrival in Constantinople, it was expected…
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How Bahá’u’lláh Came to Be in the Holy Land
It is a curious fact of history that it was the successive banishments of Bahá’u’lláh by the Ottoman Sultan, which finally led him to the prison city of Akka, that placed Bahá’u’lláh in the Holy Land. I don’t need to explain where the Holy Land is because the reference is so well known. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all hold the land sacred, as does the Baha’i Faith. For a good proportion of the world the Holy Land is a spiritual heartland. This was the land where the Prophet Isaiah had prophesied, In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it…
