The Roses of Riḍván

*A retelling based on Nabíl's account of the Riḍván garden as quoted by Shoghi Effendi in **God Passes By** (Chapter IX).*

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On the afternoon of 22 April 1863, Bahá'u'lláh left His house in Baghdád, crossed the river and entered the Najíbíyyih Garden, which His followers afterwards named the Garden of Riḍván. He was about to be sent into a further exile, to Constantinople. He stayed in the garden twelve days, and there He declared to His companions that He was the One whose coming the Báb had foretold.

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Shoghi Effendi writes that little is known of the exact circumstances of that Declaration. One of the few records of those days is the account left by the chronicler Nabíl. Every day before dawn, he says, the gardeners picked the roses that lined the four avenues of the garden and piled them in the centre of the floor of Bahá'u'lláh's tent.

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The heap was so great that when the companions gathered to drink their morning tea in His presence, they could not see one another across it. Bahá'u'lláh, with His own hands, gave these roses to those He dismissed from His presence each morning, to be delivered on His behalf to His Arab and Persian friends in the city.

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One night, the ninth night of the waxing moon, Nabíl was among those keeping watch beside the tent. Near midnight he saw Bahá'u'lláh come out and walk up and down the moonlit avenues of the garden. The nightingales were singing so loudly on every side that only those near Him could hear His voice. Pausing in one of the avenues, He said:

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> Consider these nightingales. So great is their love for these roses, that > sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their melodies and commune with > burning passion with the object of their adoration. How then can those who > claim to be afire with the rose-like beauty of the Beloved choose to sleep?

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For three nights Nabíl watched and circled round the tent, and every time he passed he found Bahá'u'lláh awake. Every day, from morning until evening, he saw Him talking with the stream of visitors who kept arriving from Baghdád.

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Shoghi Effendi calls the festival that commemorates these days "the holiest and most significant of all Bahá'í festivals."

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*A retelling based on **God Passes By** (Chapter IX), which quotes Nabíl's account. For the fuller account, see the original.*

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