Historical "tidbits":

Re: Leonid shower of 1866 referred to by Baha'u'llah:

arthra said:
From the Baha'i Writings:

"They say: ‘Have the stars fallen?’ Say: ‘Yea, when He Who is the Self-Subsisting dwelt in the Land of Mystery."

- from Tablets of Baha'u'llah Revealed After the Kitab-i-Aqdas, Pages 101-134: 118 (Ishraqat)

Source:

Bahá'í Reference Library - Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Pages 101-134

The Land of Mystery was Adrianople....
Click to expand...

Ah, but you don't say WHY it was the Land of Mystery!

And the answer is that this has to do with the Persian cultural "game" known as Abjad, wherein, because all Persian letters are also numbers (like Greek, and similiar to the way some letters are Roman numerals in the Latin usage), it became a cultural game to equate various words becaues they had the same numerical value.

For example, one reason nine is known as the "number of Baha" is because in the abjad, the letters of "baha" (glory) are 2 + 1 + 5 + 1, or 9.

And as it happens, the Persian word for Adrianople and the Persian word for "mystery" both have the same abjad value, so Baha'u'llah thus referred to Adrianople as "the Land of Mystery."

See? Now you can impress your friends at parties! :)

Best,

Bruce
 
The Day of the Covenant November 26th

The Day of the Covenant (November 26) is a Holy Day for Baha'is but work is not suspended on it. It was established by Abdul-Baha and you'll note that His humility was such that He named not after Himself but as the "Day of the Covenant"..

'Abdu'l-Bahá was born on May 23, 1844, the very day that the Báb declared His mission to Mullá Husayn. Although a number of Bahá'ís wished to celebrate the Master's birthday, He wouldn't permit it. That day, He insisted, belonged to the Báb, not to Him. In the face of repeated requests, however, He established the Day of the Covenant as a day Bahá'ís could celebrate in His honor if they wished.

Yet it was not for Himself that He sought any honor or glory. He was first, last and always His Father's servant. That, indeed, is what "'Abdu'l-Bahá" means: :the Servant of Bahá".

- excerpted from Planet Baha'i at Delphi Forums

Covenant is an important term in Baha'i Faith and implies among other things that we make a Covenant with God that we recognize His Manifestation and strive to follow His laws and that there are lesser Covenants which we make through recognizing the Will and Testament of Abdul-Baha:

"Consider ye what doors His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh has opened before you, and what a high and exalted station He has destined for you, and what bounties He has prepared for you! Should we become intoxicated with this cup, the sovereignty of this globe of earth will become lower in our estimation than the children’s plays. Should they place in the arena the crown of the government of the whole world, and invite each one of us to accept it, undoubtedly we shall not condescend, and shall refuse to accept it.
To attain to this supreme station is, however, dependent on the realization of certain conditions.

The first condition is firmness in the Covenant of God. For the power of the Covenant will protect the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh from the doubts of the people of error.

It is the fortified fortress of the Cause of God and the firm pillar of the religion of God. Today no power can conserve the oneness of the Bahá’í world save the Covenant of God; otherwise differences like unto a most great tempest will encompass the Bahá’í world.

It is evident that the axis of the oneness of the world of humanity is the power of the Covenant and nothing else.

Had the Covenant not come to pass, had it not been revealed from the Supreme Pen and had not the Book of the Covenant, like unto the ray of the Sun of Reality, illuminated the world, the forces of the Cause of God would have been utterly scattered and certain souls who were the prisoners of their own passions and lusts would have taken into their hands an axe, cutting the root of this Blessed Tree. Every person would have pushed forward his own desire and every individual aired his own opinion!

Notwithstanding this great Covenant, a few negligent souls galloped with their chargers into the battlefield, thinking perchance they might be able to weaken the foundation of the Cause of God: but praise be to God, all of them were afflicted with regret and loss, and ere long they shall see themselves in poignant despair.

Therefore, in the beginning one must make his steps firm in the Covenant—so that the confirmations of Bahá’u’lláh may encircle from all sides, the cohorts of the Supreme Concourse may become the supporters and the helpers, and the exhortations and advices of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, like unto the pictures engraved on stone, may remain permanent and ineffaceable in the tablets of the hearts...."

- Abdul-Baha in "Baha'i World Faith" p. 426
 
Ascension of Abdul-Baha November 28th

The ascension of Abdul Baha (Abbas Effendi) is commemorated annually on November 28, the day he died in 1921 at the age of seventy-seven.

Baha'is will observe this commemoration at 1:00 AM which was the time of His passing.

The following is from a letter from the National Baha'i Archives in Wilmette, Illinois:

Letter from Haifa in the Time of Mourning, 1922
from Emogene Hoagg to Nelly French
by Emogene Hoagg

1922-01-02

a letter from the National Bahá'í Archives in Wilmette, Illinois

published in World Order 6:2 (Winter 1971-72), pp. 34-37



Introduction

THE ASCENSION OF 'ABDU'L-BAHA, on November 28, 1921, marked for Bahá'ís the end of the Heroic, the Apostolic Age of their Faith. From 1892, when He was appointed by Bahá'u'lláh as the Center of His Covenant, the sole Interpreter of His Writings, and the Perfect Exemplar of His Cause, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had guided the growing Bahá'í community with his loving counsels and letters and examples. His sudden removal did, to many, make the world seem as if it had "lost its axis." But it also galvanized the dedicated souls who had learned well the firmness in the Covenant which 'Abdu'l-Bahá had striven so earnestly to instill in the Bahá'ís. 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself had departed this world, but His Writings remained and His Will and Testament provided continuing divine guidance in the Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi, whom He appointed as His successor.


Baha'is recite the Tablet of Visitation:


(This prayer, revealed by `Abdu'l-Bahá, is read at His Shrine. It is also used in private prayer.)
2
Whoso recitheth this prayer with lowliness and fervor will bring gladness and joy to the heart of this Servant; it will be even as meeting Him face to face.
3 He is the All-Glorious!

4 O God, my God! Lowly and tearful, I raise my suppliant hands to Thee and cover my face in the dust of that Threshold of Thine, exalted above the knowledge of the learned, and the praise of all that glorify Thee. Graciously look upon Thy servant, humble and lowly at Thy door, with the glances of the eye of Thy mercy, and immerse him in the Ocean of Thine eternal grace.

5 Lord! He is a poor and lowly servant of Thine, enthralled and imploring Thee, captive in Thy hand, praying fervently to Thee, trusting in Thee, in tears before Thy face, calling to Thee and beseeching Thee, saying:

6 O Lord, my God! Give me Thy grace to serve Thy loved ones, strenghten me in my servitude to Thee, illumine my brow with the light of adoration in Thy court of holiness, and of prayer to Thy kingdom of grandeur. Help me to be selfless at the heavenly entrance of Thy gate, and aid me to be detached from all things within Thy holy precincts. Lord! Give me to drink from the chalice of selflessness; with its robe clothe me, and in its ocean immerse me. Make me as dust in the pathway of Thy loved ones, and grant that I may offer up my soul for the earth ennobled by the footsteps of Thy chosen ones in Thy path, O Lord of Glory in the Highest.

7 With this prayer doth Thy servant call Thee, at dawntide and in the night-season. Fulfill his heart's desire, O Lord! Illumine his heart, gladden his bosom, kindle his light, that he may serve Thy Cause and Thy servants.

8 Thou art the Bestower, the Pitiful, the Most Bountiful, the Gracious, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

- `Abdu'l-Bahá
 
Abdul-Baha on His imprisonment in Akka

During our imprisonment at 'Akká means of comfort
were lacking, troubles and persecutions of all kinds surrounded
us, yet notwithstanding such distressful conditions
we were able to endure these trials for forty years.
What was the reason?

The Spirit was strengthening and
resuscitating the body constantly. We lived through this
long, difficult period in the utmost love and servitude.
The spirit must assist the body under certain conditions
which surround us, because the body of itself cannot
endure the extreme of such hardships.

In proportion as the human body is weak the spirit of
man is strong. It is a supernatural power which transcends
all contingent beings. It has immortal life which nothing
can destroy or pervert. . . How powerful is the spirit of
man, while his body is so weak ... Therefore it is divinely
intended that the spiritual susceptibilities of man should
gain precedence and overrule his physical forces."

"Portals to Freedom" pp. 136-137
 
Baha'i Faith mentioned in US Congress in 1867:

I had began this thread a year or so and decided to revive it here with some more "tid bits"..

One of the things I was told when I first became a Baha'i many years ago and in a galaxy far far away was that

the first mention of Baha'u'
llah in America was in 1893 at the Parliament of World Religions at the Chicago World's Fair.

Well as it turns out there was an earlier mention of the Faith in America and it appears to have been in the US Congress in 1867! Over twenty years earlier than I had been told before!

"Petition of Baha'is of Shushtar, Iran, March, 1867, to U.S. Government".


U.S. State Department translation and cover letter by J. Augustus Johnson, Consul General, Beirut


"An extraordinary document reached Beirut April 3d, addressed to the United States consul, from fifty-three Persians in Bagdad [actually from Shushtar, Iran, via Baghdad], petitioning the United States Congress for the release of their leader, Beha Allah, the Babite Persian reformer, who appeared in 1843,* and was followed by thousands, 30,000 of whom were killed by the Shah of Persia. He was arrested in Bagdad by the Turkish government, and is now (1867) in prison in Adrianople, European Turkey. His particular doctrine is 'the universal brotherhood of man.' The petitioners claim that they number 40,000. A German traveller writes from Bagdad enclosing the petition and speaks admiringly of the reformer, and asks for his release on the grounds of religious liberty which is now granted by the Sultan to all his subjects. One of the documents appended to the petition is signed with a Free Masonic Seal.**"
--Rev. Henry Harris Jessup, Fifty-three Years in Syria. New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1910, Volume I, p. 329.
<H5>The petition was sent along with another cover letter and documents concerning financial and legal problems of an American millennialist sect in Jaffa, Palestine which Johnson had throughly investigated. There has yet to be found any reaction to the Baha'i petition in U.S. Government records.

Source:

"Petition of Baha'is of Shushtar, Iran, March, 1867, to U.S. Government"
</H5>
 
From an essay by Stephen Lambden on Armageddon:

Armageddon as world war


On a number of occasions 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke of Armageddon in connection with the "Great War"' of 1914-1918. In an address delivered at Stanford University in October 1912 he is reported to have stated,

We are on the eve of the battle of Armageddon, referred to in the 16th chapter of Revelation. The time is two years hence, when only a spark will set aflame the whole of Europe. The social unrest in all countries, the growing religious skepticism antecedent to the millennium are already here. Only a spark will set aflame the whole of Europe as is prophesied in the verses of Daniel and in the Book [Rev.] of John....[33]

The first world war initiated something of a concrete "Armageddon." In a sense, the "Armageddon" of the first world war helped topple the Ottoman Turkish powers which had imprisoned Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá (whom it planned to assassinate) and inhibited the spread of the religion they championed.

Interestingly, a military manoeuvre associated with the plain of Armageddon on 19 September 1918 ensured the safety of the then head of the Bahá'í religion ('Abdu'l-Bahá) who himself often visited the "Mount of Megiddo" (Mt. Carmel).

In 1920 General Allenby (who came to be entitled Viscount Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe) and his wife were taken by 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí (near 'Akká, not far from Mt. Carmel).[34] In his God Passes By, Shoghi Effendi, summed up the effects the of "outcome" of world war I as "that tremendous struggle" in Palestine, yeilded the complete liberation of "the Heart and Centre of the [Bahá'í] Faith" from Turkish yoke.[35]

For Bahá'ís, theories associating "Armageddon" and Mt. Carmel are of great theological interest since the Bahá'í world centre and certain sacred shrines are situated on this mountain. It could be argued from the Bahá'í writings that the "battle of Armageddon' has several senses; a semi-literalistic significance and a spiritual or transcendentalised meaning. The literal sense is related in Bahá'í sources to concrete 20th century warfare. A non-literal "Armageddon" is also expressed in the varieties of anti-Bahá'í persecutions; in concrete and "theological" attacks upon or controversies within this religion.

Since Megiddo is not far distant from the foot of Mt. Carmel, it could also be taken to be indicative of the Mt. Carmel-centered Bahá'í religion, "the Heart and Centre of the Faith"[36] which is engaged in a spiritual battle of Armageddon ("Mt. Carmel") against the forces of irreligion.

Observing a regiment of soldiers from his hotel window whilst in Stuggart Germany in early April 1913, 'Abdu'l-Bahá is reported to have said,

The Bahá'í Grand Army consist of the invisible angels of the Supreme Concourse [al-malá' al-a'lá]. Our swords are the words of love and life. Our armaments are the invisible armaments of Heaven. We are fighting against the forces of darkness. O my soldiers, my beloved soldiers!

Foward! Foward! Have no fear of defeat; do not have failing hearts. Our supreme commander is Bahá'u'lláh. From the heights of glory he is directing the dramatic engagement. He commands us! Rush foward! Rush foward! Show the strength of your arms. Ye shall scatter the forces of ignorance. Your war confers life; their war brings death. Your war is the cause of the illumination of all mankind. Your war means victory upon victory. Their war is defeat upon defeat...[37]

The diffusion of the Bahá'í teachings is not infrequently spoken about in "militaristic" terms; in terms of an Armageddon-type conflict of "light" and "darkness." Before the first world war, Abdu'l-Bahá foresaw the victory of the power of truth; "For at the end the illumination of the Kingdom will overwhelm the darkness of the world..."[38]

Source:

Catastrophe, Armageddon and Millennium: some aspects of the Bábí-Baha'i exegesis of apocalyptic symbolism
 
mapmegx.jpg



http://www.maplandia.com/israel/megiddo/
 
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