A Declaration in the Garden Tent

In 1863, before the long journey from Baghdád to Constantinople, the family of Bahá’u’lláh camped in tents in a garden outside the city. His daughter, Bahíyyih Khánum, recalled those days in an account recorded by Myron Phelps. The Blessed Perfection is Bahá’u’lláh; Abbas Effendi is her brother, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

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> Four days before the caravan was to set out, the Blessed Perfection called Abbas Effendi into His tent and told him that He Himself was the one whose coming had been promised by the Báb—the Chosen of God, the Centre of the Covenant. A little later, and before leaving the garden, He selected from among His disciples four others, to whom He made the same declaration.

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He further said to these five that for the present He enjoined upon them secrecy as to this communication, as the time had not come for a public declaration; but that there were reasons which caused Him to deem it necessary to make it at that time to a few whom He could trust.

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These reasons He did not state; but they are to my mind suggested by the subsequent events which I shall narrate farther on, and which I think He at that time anticipated, and in view of which He felt that He needed special protection.

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Of the exact circumstances of Bahá’u’lláh’s Declaration in the garden, Shoghi Effendi writes in *God Passes By*, “we, alas, are but scantily informed.”

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