A New Faith Dawns

In the darksome night of despair, my eye turneth expectant and full of hope to the morn of Thy boundless favor and at the hour of dawn my drooping soul is refreshed and strengthened in remembrance of Thy beauty and perfection. –Abdu’l-Baha

The news of Baha’u’llah’s banishment swept through Baghdad like a sandstorm. The Babi community, greatly distressed at the thought of Baha’u’llah, the heart of their community leaving them, gathered around. The house of Baha’u’llah was too small for all the visitors who crowded in to see him one more time. Plus, the constant stream of visitors put an added burden on Baha’u’llah’s wife Navvab as she tried to pack and prepare for the journey. A prominent man of Baghdad offered his private garden outside of town as a place where Baha’u’llah could meet with visitors. This park, later called the Garden of Ridvan (Paradise; pronounced Rez-ván) by Baha’u’llah’s followers, would become one of the holiest and most revered places in the Baha’i world.

On April 22, 1863, Baha’u’llah left his house in Baghdad for the last time, walking toward the river that he would cross on his way to the Ridvan garden. Observers remembered an emotional and memorable scene.  People packed the streets.  Some climbed up on the rooftops to get one last look at Baha’u’llah. In the center of this whirlwind the calm figure of Baha’u’llah strode smiling through the crowds.

His followers gathered in the Garden of Ridvan, outside the gates of Baghdad, for twelve days. Although Baha’u’llah had not shared with anyone the nature of his transforming experience in the black pit of Tehran ten years earlier, many had recognized his station on their own. They recognized this in the spontaneous outpouring of his speech that seemed to come from an innate and superior wisdom, his calm dignity in the face of either praise from notables or assassination attempts by enemies. They felt something remarkable in his presence, a radiant love that inspired them towards the highest standards of morality and kindness.

The Garden of Ridvan

Now, in the garden redolent of the fragrance of roses and filled with the spring song of nightingales, Baha’u’llah announced the nature of his mission to a few followers, an announcement that caused great joy to those who had already sensed it, and a renewed sense of purpose to the exiles.

Every morning in the Ridvan Garden, the gardeners picked roses and piled them in the center of Baha’u’llah’s tent. In gestures of friendship, Baha’u’llah would give a rose to each visitor, and others to be taken to his Arab and Persian friends in Baghdad.

Nightingales sang during the evenings as they nested among the rose bushes. Baha’u’llah compared their beautiful songs and their attraction to the roses to the passionate devotion of a life lived in service to God. For love of the roses, he observed, the nightingales sing their most beautiful songs in the darkest hour. In the same way, those who love God and his creation will offer their gifts to humanity, despite whatever darkness surrounds them:

Say, by the righteousness of God! The All-Merciful is come invested with power and sovereignty. Through His power the foundations of religions have quaked and the Nightingale of Utterance hath warbled its melody upon the highest branch of true understanding. Verily, He Who was hidden in the knowledge of God and is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures hath appeared. – Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 107.

In Baha’u’llah’s beautiful, poetic, elevated language, the conscience that a new global Faith had dawned began to shine on the small band of Baha’u’llah’s enthralled followers.

Adapted from One With All The Earth, © Kalimat Press 2003, All Rights Reserved.