4/3/12

April 1853: Baha’u’llah arrives in Baghdad

On January 12, 1853, “Bahá'u'lláh, together with some of the members of His family, and escorted by an officer of the Imperial body-guard and an official representing the Russian Legation, set out on His three months' journey to Baghdad. Among those who shared His exile was His wife, the saintly Navvab, entitled by Him the "Most Exalted Leaf," who, during almost forty years, continued to evince a fortitude, a piety, a devotion and a nobility of soul which earned her from the pen of her Lord the posthumous and unrivalled tribute of having been made His "perpetual consort in all the worlds of God." His nine-year-old son, later surnamed the "Most Great Branch," destined to become the Center of His Covenant and authorized Interpreter of His teachings, together with His seven-year-old sister, known in later years by the same title as that of her illustrious mother, and whose services until the ripe old age of four score years and six, no less than her exalted parentage, entitle her to the distinction of ranking as the outstanding heroine of the Bahá'í Dispensation, were also included among the exiles who were now bidding their last farewell to their native country. Of the two brothers who accompanied Him on that journey the first was Mirza Musa, commonly called Aqay-i-Kalim, His staunch and valued supporter, the ablest and most distinguished among His brothers and sisters, and one of the "only two persons who," according to Bahá'u'lláh's testimony, "were adequately informed of the origins" of His Faith. The other was Mirza Muhammad-Quli, a half-brother, who, in spite of the defection of some of his relatives, remained to the end loyal to the Cause he had espoused.

4/2/12

April 1848: On the orders of the Persian Grand Vizir the Báb is transferred from the fortress of Mah-Ku to the fortress of Chihriq

The Báb is transferred “to the fortress of Chihriq (about April 10, 1848), surnamed by Him the Jabal-i-Shadid (the Grievous Mountain). There He was consigned to the keeping of Yahya Khan, a brother-in-law of Muhammad Shah. Though at the outset he acted with the utmost severity, he was eventually compelled to yield to the fascination of his Prisoner. Nor were the kurds, who lived in the village of Chihriq, and whose hatred of the Shí'ahs exceeded even that of the inhabitants of Mah-Ku, able to resist the pervasive power of the Prisoner's influence. They too were to be seen every morning, ere they started for their daily work, to approach the fortress and prostrate themselves in adoration before its holy Inmate. "So great was the confluence of the people," is the testimony of a European eye-witness, writing in his memoirs of the Báb, "that the courtyard, not being large enough to contain His hearers, the majority remained in the street and listened with rapt attention to the verses of the new Qur'án." (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 19)

4/1/12

April 1911: Louis Gregory makes a six-day pilgrimage to visit ‘Abdu’l-Baha in Ramleh, Egypt

Louis Gregory, the future Hand of the Cause of God, made a six-day pilgrimage to visit 'Abdu'l-Baha at Ramleh, at the direct invitation of the Master, from the 10th to the 16th of April. As soon as possible after his arrival, Gregory went to a store run by Mirza Hasan Khurasani (Khorassani), where he met several of the local Baha'is. He had a letter of introduction from Edward Getsinger, that had been translated into Persian, which he gave to Muhammad Yazdi. Yazdi asked: ‘"You want to see our Lord?" . . . Upon giving my assent, he agreed to act as guide . . . I reasoned that . . . I had no wish to take him away from his business. But he put my objections aside, saying, “This is spiritual business!”’ Louis Gregory was taken to 'Abdu'l-Baha's meeting where he met several others including Louisa Mathew, an English woman who would figure prominently in his future. Like many others, he wrote a pen-portrait of 'Abdu'l-Baha: